Chain of Gold

The door of the training room was open. It was a large room, which had been made larger a few years ago when they had joined it up with the rest of the attic. The floor was polished wood covered in tatami mats, and flexible ropes dangled from the raftered beams overhead, knotted at various lengths to make for easier climbing. Witchlight torches lit the room, and cloudy sunlight poured in through the windows high above.

Cordelia stood at the north end of the room in front of a large silvered mirror, Cortana gleaming gold in her hand. She wore training clothes she must have borrowed from Lucie: they were tight and short on her, her ankles visible beneath the hems of the trousers.

She turned, moving with the sword as if they danced together. Her light brown skin gleamed in the witchlight, sheened with sweat at her collarbones, her throat. Her hair had come free from its pins. It tumbled down her back like a waterfall of autumn leaves. Together she and Cortana were a poem written in fire and blood.

He must have made a noise, for she turned to look at him, eyes wide, her chest rising and falling with quick breaths. A jolt went through him. Something like a memory—Cordelia lying beside him, her hair soft against the side of his neck, the warmth of her hip against his—

He tried to shake the thought from his head; nothing like that had ever happened in his life. A fragment of his dream the night before, perhaps?

He drew the letter from his pocket and held it out to her. “Daisy,” he said. “I have something for you.”

* * *

Many years of practice had acquainted Cordelia well with solo training. Her father had always said that a living partner was necessary to learn certain aspects of sword art—how could you learn to turn a blade at close quarters, for instance, if you had no opposing sword to press yours against? Alastair had retorted that Shadowhunter training was somewhat unique: you were rarely fighting another opponent with a sword, after all, and far more often a peculiarly shaped monster.

Cordelia had giggled, and Elias had rolled his eyes and relented. After all, they moved around so often for Elias’s health that neither Cordelia nor Alastair had regular training partners except each other, and they did not match in height or weight. So when Lucie had gone off to procure herself a cup of tea, Cordelia had fallen into the old patterns of practicing her footwork—lunging with Cortana in hand, practicing sequences of actions over and over until they were as natural to her as walking downstairs. She raised Cortana, turned, spun, and lunged—only to nearly lose her balance in surprise as James walked through the open door of the training room.

She stared at him for a moment, caught off guard. Something about him seemed different. His clothes were ordinary—morning coat, gray trousers—and his hair was the usual dark tangle. There were slight shadows under his eyes, which was unsurprising for someone who had been out late.

She slid Cortana into the sheath at her back as James drew a letter from his pocket and offered it to her with a smile; she could see Lucie’s name scrawled across the front.

“How did you know this was for me?” she asked. Her hands were shaking as she took the letter from him and began to open it.

“Matthew told me,” he said. “I believe he is distracting Lucie in the dining room, though who knows how long that will last.”

“It’s all right, you know—I trust Lucie,” Cordelia said. “If I hadn’t been prepared for her to read the letter I wouldn’t have had it sent here.”

“I know,” said James. “But it is your letter. Why shouldn’t you read it first? In fact, if you’d like me to leave, I can.”

“No,” Cordelia said, dropping her gaze to scan Charlotte’s scrawled lines. “No—do please stay.”

Dear Lucie,

I hope this letter finds you well, and dear Cordelia also. I am afraid that I only have a little bit of news, as the situation with Elias Carstairs has been put on hold while the current emergency is dealt with. We did indeed attempt to try Elias by the Mortal Sword, but unfortunately doing so did not shed any light on the situation, as Elias has no memory of the events of the night of the battle. It is a very complicated matter. Please give Cordelia my best wishes. I look forward to returning to London and seeing you soon.

Love,

Charlotte

Cordelia sat down hard on the windowsill. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Why wouldn’t he remember?”

James crinkled his eyebrows. “What do you mean? What’s happened?”

“You know my father is soon to be on trial,” she said slowly. “In Idris.”

“Yes,” he said. “I have not wanted to pry. I have not even asked Lucie for details, though I was curious.” He sat down beside her on the windowsill. “I will not lie,” he said. “I have heard whispers. But I put little stock in whispers. There have been enough about me and my family, and enough of them untrue, for me to prefer my own judgment to that of others.” He laid his hand over hers. “If you want to share the truth with me, I would be glad to hear it, but it is your choice, Daisy.”

His fingers were warm and calloused, rough with scars. James seemed different, Cordelia thought again. More—present. As if he were here in the moment, not holding the world at arm’s length.

The whole story came pouring out of her: her father’s illness over the past years, necessitating their many moves from place to place, his agreeing to help with the expedition, the disaster that had followed, his arrest, their journey to London, the upcoming trial, Cordelia’s attempts to find a way to save her family. “Matthew was kind enough to arrange for me to get this letter, but it is another dead end. I don’t know how to help my father.”

James looked thoughtful. “Daisy, I’m so sorry. This is something that your friends should be helping you with, and I am one of them.”

“There is nothing anyone can do,” Cordelia said. For the first time, she felt hopeless about her father.

“Not necessarily,” said James. “Considering who my parabatai’s mother is, I hear more about the legal processes of the Clave than I might prefer. I can tell you that if this is going to be a trial with no Mortal Sword, it will have to rely on testimony and character witnesses.”

“Character witnesses? But my father knows so few people,” Cordelia said. “We have always been moving—never even at Cirenworth for long stretches of time—”

“I’ve heard many stories about your father,” James went on. “Mostly from Jem. After Jem’s parents were killed by the demon Yanluo, it was Elias who tracked the demon down with Ke Yiwen and slew it, saving countless lives. Your father may have been weary and sick these last few years, but before that he was a hero, and the Clave needs to be reminded of that.”

Hope began to return to Cordelia’s heart. “My father rarely talks about his life before our family. Do you think you could help me find out the names of some of these witnesses? Though,” she added hastily, “I understand if you can’t. I know Grace will need you now, with her mother ill.”

James hesitated. “I no longer have an understanding with Grace.”

“What?”

He had drawn his hands back; they were trembling. She realized with a slight shock that the metal cuff was no longer on his wrist. Grace must have taken it back. “You are the first person I’ve told, aside from Matthew. Last night—”

Christopher exploded into the room like a small cyclone. He was hatless and wore a frock coat that looked as if it had probably belonged to his father, made of herringbone with several holes burned into the cuffs. “Here you are,” he said, as if they had betrayed him by not being in a more easily discovered location. “I have come with news.”

James rose to his feet. “What is it, Kit?”

“Those wooden shards you sent me,” said Christopher. “Thomas and I were able to analyze them using the laboratory in the tavern.”

“The wooden shards? The ones we thought might be weapons?” said Cordelia.

Christopher nodded. “The peculiar thing is that the acid that had burned the wood was the blood of some sort of demon, and there was demonic residue on the wood, but only on one side of each shard.”

James’s eyes widened. “Say that again.”

“Only on one side of each shard,” said Christopher obediently. “As if it had been placed there deliberately.”

“No.” James reached into his pocket and drew out a folded paper. Cordelia recognized it as the sketch he and Matthew had found at Gast’s. He held it out to Cordelia. “I meant to ask you before,” he said, urgency underlining his tone. “I thought when I first glanced at this that they were runes—I don’t know what on earth was in my head. Some of these are alchemical symbols, but the others are clearly Old Persian writing, probably from the Achaemenid era.”

Cordelia took the paper from James. She had not been able to look at the paper closely before, but James was right—below the odd symbols was a name in Old Persian. The cuneiform writing did look a bit like runes, but she recognized it immediately; her mother had insisted she and Alastair know at least a little of the language of Darius the Great. “Merthykhuwar,” she said slowly. “It is a name for a kind of demon that existed in Persia long ago. Shadowhunters call it the Mandikhor.”

“Even mundanes have a word for it,” James said. “ ‘Manticore.’  ” He glanced over at Christopher. “I know what the shards are now,” he said. “How could I not have seen it before? They’re the remains of a Pyxis box.”

“A Pyxis?” Cordelia was startled. Long ago, Shadowhunters had developed wooden containers called Pyxis boxes to trap the essence of demons they hunted; after the Clockwork War, when Axel Mortmain had used a Pyxis box to transfer demon souls into clockwork monsters, they had been abandoned as a tool by the Nephilim. No one had used them for years.

“I’ve seen a Pyxis before, at the Academy,” James said. “If a demon had been trapped in a Pyxis and burst out, that would explain why there was demon residue only on one side of the wood—the inside. And the markings on the shards resemble the alchemical symbols that were carved on Pyxis boxes—”