Chain of Gold

He was too late—the door had been flung wide, and Matthew stood on the threshold. Beside him was Cordelia, pretty in a kingfisher-blue gown and matching jacket, looking from James to Grace with wide, surprised eyes.

* * *

“I should go,” Grace said. Her cheeks were flushed, but otherwise she looked perfectly composed. Cordelia couldn’t help staring at her—she knew Lucie had encountered her on the grounds of Chiswick House, and that Lucie would not say more than that Grace had been eager for Thomas and Lucie to be gone.

Cordelia had not seen Grace together with James since the fight at Battersea Bridge. She had not thought it would hurt like this.

She had prepared carefully for this long-awaited visit. She had picked out one of her favorite new dresses in bright blue; she had worn her nicest gold earbobs, and she had brought with her a translated copy of Layla and Majnun. It was not as beautiful in English as it was in the original Persian, but it would be perfect for reading with James.

Now, as she stared at James and Grace, she was glad the book was hidden inside her jacket.

“Miss Blackthorn,” Cordelia said, inclining her head politely. Beside her, Matthew stood stiffly. He said nothing as Grace murmured a goodbye and left the room, a cloud of tuberose scent trailing in her wake.

Cordelia told herself not to be foolish. Everyone else had apparently paid James a visit to see how he was, why not Grace?

“James,” Matthew said, the moment Grace was gone. “Are you all right?”

James seemed a little stunned to see them. He was in shirtsleeves and a pair of pin-striped trousers; Cordelia could see the marks of fading bruises on his face and arms. A healing cut ran along his collarbone. His hair, a wild dark mess as always, tumbled into his eyes, and as always Cordelia fought the urge to push it back.

“I’m fine. Better even than fine,” James said, rolling his sleeves down and fastening the cuffs. Cordelia caught a glimpse of silver gleaming on his wrist.

Grace’s bracelet. Cordelia felt as if she were burning inside.

Matthew stared. “Has Grace ended things with my brother?”

“No.” James’s quick smile faded. “They are still marrying.”

“Then perhaps she is planning to kill Charles?” said Matthew.

“Matthew, cease sounding hopeful at the prospect of homicide.” Throwing open his wardrobe, James took out a gear jacket and flung it on. “She is not marrying Charles because she loves him. She is marrying him to free herself from her mother. She believes Charles’s influence and power will protect her.”

“But surely you could protect her,” Cordelia said, in a low voice, unable to help herself.

If the remark made an impression on James, she could not tell. The Mask seemed back in full force. She could not read his face. “Tatiana wants Grace to make a powerful alliance,” said James. “She may not be entirely pleased, but if Grace were to marry me, it would be war. Grace will not brook that.” He did up the buttons on the jacket. “She has made me understand that everything she has done, she has done because she loves me. Now I must do something for her.”

In the back of her head, Cordelia heard Alastair’s voice. Everything he does is so he and I can be together.

Since they had returned home from Highgate, Alastair hadn’t mentioned Charles or anything connected to him. He had spent most of his time at home, often in Cordelia’s room as her leg healed, reading out loud to her from the day’s newspapers. He did not go out at night. She and Alastair were certainly a pair, weren’t they, Cordelia thought. Miserable in love.

“James,” Matthew said tensely, “after what she did to you—you owe her nothing.”

“It is not a debt,” James said. “It is because I love her.”

It was as if someone had taken a small, sharp knife to Cordelia’s heart and sliced it into pieces that formed the shape of James’s name. She could barely breathe; she heard his voice in her head, low and sweet:

Daisy, my angel.

Shaking his head, James stalked out of the room. After exchanging a single glance, Cordelia and Matthew followed. They hurried down the corridor after James, through the Institute, occasionally weaving to avoid colliding with furniture.

“What’s going on?” Matthew demanded, avoiding a decorative suit of armor. “What did she ask you to do?”

“There is an object in Blackthorn Manor that must be destroyed,” said James, and quickly told them the tale of Tatiana’s madness, the clockwork automaton and the warlock spell that waited to animate it. That he must destroy it, while Grace did all she could to stay her mother’s hand.

There was something different, not just in James’s expression, but in the way he spoke. He had not said Grace’s name with that intonation since she had become engaged to Charles. Cordelia’s nails bit into her palm. She wanted to be sick; she wanted to scream. She knew she would do none of those things. She did not yell out—no! she would have scorned to do it.

“I am sure I am not the only one who fails to be astonished that Tatiana Blackthorn has been dabbling in necromancy,” said Matthew. “But we must tell the Clave.”

James, taking the stairs two at a time, shook his head. “Not yet. I must do this first. I will explain more later, but we cannot destroy Grace’s life.”

They had reached the top of a set of stone steps, leading downward into deep shadow. Cordelia was half-relieved to see the same expression on Matthew’s face that she was sure was on hers. Surprise and distress.

“So you’re going to go to Idris?” Cordelia said. “How?”

“There’s a Portal in the crypt,” Matthew said tightly as the stairs ended with an entrance into an enormous stone room. It was not as dark as Cordelia had imagined: dim brass lamps gleamed on the walls, illuminating smooth stone walls and floors. “My father used to tinker with his experiments down here when he and my mother ran the Institute. Most of his work was moved to the laboratory in our home, but—”

He gestured toward a glowing square the size of a pier glass that adorned the far wall. Its surface rippled like water, alight with strange gleams.

“The Portal is still here,” said James. “It was locked down during the quarantine, but no longer.”

“It’s still forbidden to Portal to Idris without permission from the Clave,” said Matthew.

“And you’ve become fascinated with the Laws suddenly?” James smiled. “I’ll be the one breaking the rules, anyway. It is a simple thing for me to do: go through, destroy the object, and return.”

“You must be mad if you think that we’re not coming with you,” said Matthew.

James shook his head. “I need you to remain here to open the Portal for me so that I can return. Give me twenty minutes. I know my way around the house, and I know exactly where the thing is. Then open the Portal and I will come back through.”

“I don’t know if this is a wise idea,” Cordelia said. “We’ve already stood and watched you disappear through one Portal, and look how that turned out—”

“We survived,” James said. “We killed the Mandikhor and wounded Belial. Many would say it turned out very well.” He moved to stand before the Portal. For a moment he was only a silhouette, a black shadow against the silvery surface behind him. “Wait for me,” he said, and for the second time in a week, Cordelia watched as James Herondale vanished through a Portal in front of her eyes.

She glanced at Matthew. He gleamed like one of the brass fixtures on the wall in a bronze velvet jacket and trousers. He looked as if he was ready to return to the Hell Ruelle, not to stand watch in a crypt.

“You didn’t try to stop him,” she said.

Matthew shook his head. “Not this time,” he said. “There seemed no point.” He glanced at her. “I truly thought it was over. Even when Grace came by today, I thought he would send her away. That perhaps you had cured him of that particular disease.”

The words landed like arrows. I thought you had cured him. She had thought the same thing, somehow—had let herself believe it, let herself hope that James offering to read a book with her was something more than an offer of friendship. She had read his eyes, his expressions, all wrong—how could she have been so mistaken? How could she have believed he felt anything like she felt when she knew better?

“Because of the Whispering Room? That truly was just pretense.” The words sounded brittle to her own ears. It was not the truth—not for her, at least—but she would not be considered pitiable, not by Matthew or anyone else. “It was nothing else.”

“I find that I am glad to hear that,” Matthew said. His eyes were very dark, the green just a rim around the pupil as he looked at her. “Glad that you are not hurt. And glad—”

“I am not hurt. It’s just that I don’t understand,” Cordelia said. Her voice seemed to echo off the walls. “James seems an entirely different person.”

Matthew’s mouth twisted in a bitter half smile. “He has been like this for years. Sometimes he is the James of my heart, the friend I have always loved. Sometimes he is behind a wall of glass and I cannot reach him no matter how I pound my fists against it.”

The Mask, Cordelia thought. So Matthew saw it too.

“You must find me ridiculous,” Matthew said. “Parabatai ought to be close, and in truth, I would not want to live in this world without James. Yet he tells me nothing of what he feels.”

“I do not find you ridiculous, and I wish you would not say such things,” Cordelia said. “Matthew, you may speak however badly of yourself as you like, but it does not make it true. You decide the truth about yourself. No one else. And the choice about what kind of person you will be is yours alone.”

Matthew stared at her—for once, it seemed, speechless.

Cordelia stalked over to the Portal. “Do you know what Blackthorn Manor looks like?”

Matthew seemed to snap back to reality. “Of course,” he said. “But it has been only ten minutes.”