Chain of Gold

“Miss Carstairs,” she said finally. She did not invite Cordelia in, or ask her why she was there. Having acknowledged Cordelia’s presence, she seemed content to remain as they were.

Cordelia cleared her throat. “Miss Blackthorn,” she said. Was this a distraction? Somewhere Lucie was creeping about, seeking a ghost. Cordelia had rather thought Tatiana would come to the door too, but she would have to make do with Grace. “I came to see if you were all right after today’s events,” said Cordelia. “As a fellow newcomer to London, I know it can be difficult—”

“I am quite all right,” Grace said. Cordelia had the unnerving feeling that behind Grace’s blank expression, she was sizing Cordelia up.

“We are not so dissimilar, you and I,” Cordelia said. “Both of us traveled a long way to get here—”

“Actually, there’s a Portal in the greenhouse at Blackthorn Manor,” said Grace coldly. “It leads to the garden here. So it was a short journey.”

“Ah. Well, that is different, but neither of us know the Enclave well, or the young people in this city aside from Lucie and James. We are simply trying to make our lives here as best they can be—”

The torchlight cast strange shadows on Grace’s countenance. “We are not alike,” she said, without any anger. “I have obligations you cannot understand.”

“Obligations?” The word startled Cordelia. “You cannot mean—” James. You cannot mean James. An understanding with a man might be considered an obligation, but only if the relationship was unwanted. Since Grace had entered into hers with James secretly, without her mother’s knowledge, surely it must be what she desired?

Grace gave a tight smile. “Did you come because you find the situation amusing?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

With a sigh, Grace began to turn away. Cordelia reached out to catch at her sleeve. Grace gave a low cry of pain and snatched her arm away.

“I don’t—” Cordelia stared; she had touched Grace only lightly. “Are you hurt? Can I help?”

Grace shook her head violently as a dark shadow loomed up behind her. It was Tatiana Blackthorn.

Tatiana was the same age as Cecily Lightwood but looked years older, the lines of hatred and anger cut into her face like knife marks. She wore a stained fuchsia dress, her gray-brown hair loose and cascading. She looked at Cordelia with loathing.

“Just like your cousin,” she sneered. “No sense of propriety at all.” She took hold of the door. “Get off my property,” she finished, and slammed it loudly in Cordelia’s face.

* * *

Cordelia was making her way back toward the gates when she heard the noise.

She had supposed there was nothing to do but wait for Lucie in the carriage—Tatiana had ordered her off the property, after all. Really, she was most peculiar. There had been a glittering hatred in her eyes when she’d mentioned Jem that unnerved Cordelia. How could you hate people for so long? Especially when you were blaming them for something that, while terrible, had not been their fault? Benedict Lightwood had become a monster by the time Will, Jem, and the others had slain him. Many choices were not easy—they were near impossible, and there was no point hating people who were forced to make them.

The noise interrupted her thoughts: it was like the hissing of angry voices. It seemed to be coming from the greenhouse in the front gardens: a wood-and-glass structure with a cupola on the roof. Its windows were dark, no doubt as filthy as the rest of the house was. But why would there be anyone in there? It was night, and no one lived at the manor save Grace and Tatiana.

Cordelia hesitated, then unwrapped the bandages on her hands. To her relief, the salve had mostly healed her burns. She wiggled her unbound fingers and drew Cortana from its sheath before creeping to the door of the greenhouse.

To her surprise, the door swung open without the creak of rusty hinges. It seemed that alone among the artifacts of the gardens—the overgrown follies, the sunken pit of thorns and brush that had once been a small amphitheater—the greenhouse was still in use.

She moved inside, into a world of deep shadows and the heavy smell of rotting greenery. It was quite dark, only the little moonlight shimmering through the dirty glass illuminating the space.

She slipped her witchlight out of her pocket with her free hand. It had been given to her on her thirteenth birthday by Alastair—a cool, round piece of adamas carved by the Iron Sisters, alive with the promise of light inside it.

She closed her hand around the stone, and it flared into life. She kept the light under control, not wanting the greenhouse to glow like a torch, betraying her presence. The light was a dim yellow, illuminating a path that led between rows of what had once been potted orange trees.

The roof rose high above, disappearing into shadow. Shapes flitted back and forth in the heights—bats, Cordelia suspected. She didn’t mind bats. There were plenty in the countryside.

She was less enthusiastic about spiders. Thick silvery webs wound between the trees. She made a face as she moved down the path, which was at least well-trod. Someone had been here recently. She could see the prints of heeled shoes in the packed dirt.

The webs were empty, though. They hung shimmering like the lace of an abandoned wedding dress, vacant of spiders or even the bodies of trapped bugs. Strange, Cordelia thought, glancing about. It was easy to imagine how this place had once been beautiful, the woodwork painted white, the glass letting in glimpses of blue sky. There were few flowers left now, though she spied the purplish petals and darkly budded berries of nightshade plants scattered beneath the shadow of a single great tree that still rose, stark and leafless, against a far wall.

Naughty, Cordelia thought. It was frowned on for Shadowhunters to grow plants like nightshade, which provided key ingredients in dark magic spells. There were plants she didn’t recognize as well—something like a fleshy white tulip, and something else a bit like a red Venus flytrap. None looked as if they had been cultivated recently: weeds grew up and around everything. A gardener’s nightmare.

The heavy scent in the air had intensified—like foliage that had been left to rot, a dying garden. Cordelia peered ahead of her, and saw thickening darkness and a twitch of movement—

She ducked just as a dark talon whipped by over her head. Demon! screamed a silent voice inside her head. The stink in the air, half-covered by the smell of rotting leaves—the lack of birds or even spiders inside the greenhouse—of course.

There was movement in the darkness—Cordelia caught sight of a great misshapen face looming over hers, bleached and fanged and bony, before the demon hissed and reared back from the light.

Cordelia turned to run but a curling tentacle whipped around her ankle, tightening like a noose. She was jerked off her feet, hitting the ground hard. Her witchlight went flying. Cordelia screamed as she was dragged into the shadows.

* * *

Lucie drew herself up to her full height—which was not very impressive; in all her family, she was the shortest. “I think it should be clear,” she said. “I am creeping about, spying.”

Jesse’s eyes flashed. “Oh, for—” He stepped back. “Come inside, quickly.”

Lucie did as he asked and found herself standing inside a vast room. Jesse stood in front of her, in the same clothes he had worn at the ball and before that, in the forest. One rarely saw a gentleman without a jacket, and certainly not in his shirtsleeves unless he was your brother or some other family member. She would not have noticed his state of undress when she was so young, but she was very conscious of it now. A metal disc—a locket perhaps—winked in the hollow of his throat, its surface etched with a circlet of thorns.

“You’re mad to come here,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

Lucie looked around. The size of the room, the roof vaulting overhead, only served to make it feel more deserted. Moonlight shone in through a broken window. The walls had once been dark blue but were nearly black now, with a fine grime of dirt. Massive tangles of shimmering fabric, now occluded with dust, hung from the ceiling, swaying in the breeze from the broken windows. She moved toward the center of the room, where a huge crystal chandelier hung. It looked as if it had once been fashioned into the shape of a glittering spider, but the years had taken its crystals and scattered them on the floor like hardened teardrops.

She bent down to pick one up—a false diamond, but still beautiful, all glimmer and dust. “This was the ballroom,” she said in a soft voice.

“It still is,” said Jesse, and she whirled to face him. He was standing in an entirely different place than he had been before, though she hadn’t heard him move. He was all black and white—the only color on him was the silver Blackthorn ring on his scarred right hand and his green eyes.

“Oh, it is rotted away now. It gives my mother pleasure to let time take this place, to let the years wither and destroy the pride of the Lightwoods.”

“Will she ever stop hating them?”

“It isn’t just the Lightwoods she hates,” said Jesse. “She hates everyone she holds responsible for the death of my father. Her brothers, your father and mother, Jem Carstairs. And beyond even that, the Clave. She holds them responsible for what happened to me.”

“What did happen to you?” Lucie asked, slipping the broken crystal into the pocket of her cloak.

Jesse was prowling about the room: he looked like a black cat in the dimness, long and lithe, with shaggy dark hair. Lucie turned to watch him as he faded in and out of the shadows. The chandelier swung, its remaining crystals sending glittering bolts of light through the room, scattering sparks in the darkness. For a moment, Lucie thought she saw a young man in the shadows—a young man with pale blond hair and a hard twist to his unforgiving mouth. There was something familiar about him.…

“How long have you been able to see the dead?” Jesse asked.

Lucie blinked and the blond boy vanished. “Most Herondales can see ghosts,” she said. “I’ve always been able to see Jessamine. So can James. I hadn’t thought of it as anything special.”