Chain of Iron

“Seems so,” said James. “Oddly, not a power of his that was mentioned in the Monarchia Daemonium.”

He’d told her what had happened in the shadow realm as Cordelia had gotten bandages and water, and somehow found her stele. She set the stele to his skin now, carefully etching iratzes onto the skin below the cut. James flinched and said, “And the bloody gun’s gone. I lost it there. What a mess.”

“It’s not important,” Cordelia said firmly. “You’ve other weapons, just as good.”

He looked at her quietly for a moment. “How did you—come to me where I was?”

“I’m not sure,” Cordelia said. “I heard you call out for me. It was as if I was pulled toward you—but all I could see was shadows, and then I knew you in the dark. That you were there. I lifted up Cortana so I could see, and I heard Belial’s voice.” Give yourself to me, be mine. I will let you sleep.

He glanced up at her; she was standing over him as he sat on the arm of one of the upholstered chairs. They had abandoned the study for the drawing room, where the furniture was still upright. Witchlight glowed from sconces above the mantel, softly illuminating the room.

“I was afraid,” Cordelia said, “after Magnus came back without you, that you would be trapped there.” “Afraid” seemed a pale word for it. She had been terrified. “Did you open a door to return? Like a Portal?”

His golden eyes searched her face. She moved the stele up his arm, to make a third Mark: the graze was already healing, closing into a scar. Dirt and blood stained his undershirt, and his cheekbone was scraped, his hair a wild explosion. She wondered if it was odd that in some ways she preferred this James—mess and blood and sweat and all—to the perfectly behaved gentleman with the Mask at the ready. “Perhaps Belial didn’t want me there,” he said, which was not quite an answer to the question. “He did say he never sent me any visions of the murders—never intended me to see them at all.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes,” said James, after a pause. “I know he’s a liar, but he usually wants me to think he’s all-powerful. I don’t see the advantage of lying to me in a way that makes it seem as if he made a mistake.”

“Then what does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” James said, though Cordelia suspected he had some guesses. “But I believe I do understand why he is so fearful of Cortana and of you. When we were in the shadow realm, Magnus said to him, ‘You have one. You only need three.’”

“One what?”

“One wound, I think,” said James. “From Cortana. It still hasn’t healed. It’s like the wound of the Fisher King; it bleeds and bleeds. I guessed that two more blows from the sword—mortal wounds, not scratches—could finish him. And when I mentioned that, Belial seemed terrified.”

Cordelia stepped back to examine her handiwork. James’s arm and shoulder were still bruised, but the cut was a thin white line now. She dropped the small towel she’d been holding into the copper bowl of pinkish water on the table and said, “But I don’t understand. They say nothing can kill a Prince of Hell, so how could Cortana do it? No matter the number of blows?”

James’s golden eyes shone. “I cannot say, not yet. But I believe all the stories are true, even the ones that contradict each other. Perhaps especially those.” He reached out to take the stele from her hand; surprised, she let him do it. “You asked me before if I opened a door to return here. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Magnus was right—it’s not something I ever practiced with Jem, or even considered that I could do: opening paths between worlds with my mind.”

“Magnus seemed so sure—”

“Well, I tried. I thought of this house, the study, tried to picture every piece of it. Nothing worked. I might as well have been trapped in quicksand.” He set the stele down. “Until I thought of you.”

“Of me?” Cordelia said, a little blankly, as James rose to his feet. Now she was looking up at him, at his serious eyes, his thick lashes, the grim turn to the corners of his mouth.

“I thought of you,” he said again, “and it was as if you were there, with me. I saw your face. Your hair …” He wound a finger through a dangling curl beside her face. She could feel the warmth from his hand against her cheek. “And I was no longer afraid. I knew I would be able to come home, because of you. That you would lead me back. You are my constant star, Daisy.”

She wondered for a moment if he were light-headed—though she had given him a blood-replacement rune. “James, I—”

His fingers stroked down her cheek, slid under her chin. He lifted her face gently. “I only want to know one thing,” he said. “Did you mean it, what you said?”

“Mean what?”

“What you said in the shadow realm,” he murmured. “That I was yours.”

Her stomach lurched; she’d fancied he hadn’t heard her. She remembered shouting the words into the shadows; she had not been able to see Belial, but she had sensed him, all around, sensed his claws in James.

But clearly he had. His golden eyes were fixed on her, lovely as sunrise, fierce as a hawk’s gaze. She said, “It doesn’t matter what I said. I wanted him to leave you alone—”

“I don’t believe you,” he said. She could feel the slight tremors running through his body—tremors of stress, which meant he was forcing himself to otherwise hold very still. “You don’t say things you don’t mean, Daisy—”

“Fine.” She jerked her chin up, away from his hand, her mouth trembling as she said, “I meant it, then—you belong to me and not to him—you will never belong to him, James—”

The breath went out of her in a gasp as his arms circled her and he lifted her off her feet. Cordelia knew she was no delicate little doll like Lucie, but James swept her up as if she weighed no more than a parasol. Her hands came down on his shoulders just as he clamped his mouth over hers, stopping her words, her breath, with one explosive kiss.

Blood sang in her ears. His mouth was hot and open over hers; she parted her lips as his tongue swept inside, stroking, caressing. She pressed against him, fingers digging into his skin, wanting more, running her own tongue over his lips, the soft inside of his mouth. He tasted like honey.

They sank to the floor, James still holding her; he let her down gently onto the carpet, arching over her, his expression drunk and dizzy. “Daisy,” he whispered. “Daisy, my Daisy.”

Cordelia knew that if she told him to stop, he would, immediately and without question. But it was the last thing she wanted. His body stretched the length of hers, pressing her into the yielding carpet; he was stripped to his undershirt, and she let her hands go free—sliding them up his biceps, feeling the swell of muscles there and in his back as he rose over her on his elbows.

“That’s right,” he whispered against her mouth. “Touch me—do what you want—anything—”

She reached down, tugging at his shirt, pushing her hands up under the fabric. She wanted to lay her hands on the place where his heart beat. She shimmied her palms up his bare chest, feeling the flutter in his belly as she skimmed its flat planes. Up over his rib cage, the smooth muscles of his chest—his skin was like silk, raveled here and there with the marks of old scars.