Chain of Iron

“You think because you have scratched me, it will make a difference?” he snarled. He wiped the back of his injured hand across his face. It left behind a scarlet streak of blood. But he was smiling now. “You think so little of your grandfather, James?”

Cordelia froze, Cortana still upraised; she had not even realized James was beside her on the path, a seraph blade in his hand. She should be attacking, she thought, should be lunging at Belial—but there was something in his expression that held her back. Something in the way he smiled and said, “Did you not guess that I was delaying until my brother was ready?”

Cordelia felt James, beside her, stiffen.

My brother.

Belial laughed and raised his left hand. The air between the plane trees seemed to go white, and suddenly it was as if they were looking through an enormous window.

Through it, Cordelia saw a scene of chaos. It was the courtyard of the Institute, but barely recognizable. The flagstones had been smashed into heaps of rubble, around which gray-green water surged. Lightning crackled above, the air heavy and black.

Through the shadows, figures darted, illuminated by witchlight. There was Ariadne, standing over a crumpled body, holding off something Cordelia couldn’t quite see—something that looked like a massive rubbery limb clustered with vicious suction cups. It was a tentacle, she realized, the waving appendage of something huge, and hidden.

And in among the tentacles were their family and friends: Anna, high atop a broken section of wall, intercepted a tentacle headed for Christopher with her whip. Henry, his chair backed up against a slab of rock, laid about him with a sanjiegun. Alastair clambered onto a pile of rubble, spear in hand, turning to help Thomas up after him. The windows of the Institute, full of faces—

Belial dropped his hand. The window blinked out of existence. Cordelia could hear her own panicked breathing.

Alastair.

Beside her, James was very still. She knew what he was thinking, his mind darting from name to name: Will, Tessa, Gideon, Gabriel, Sophie, Cecily. Cordelia hadn’t seen Lucie, but she was almost certainly there as well, probably inside the Institute. Nearly everyone James loved in his life was there, facing obliteration.

“Your brother,” said James, his voice barely recognizable. “Leviathan, the sea demon. You have called him up out of Hell.”

“He owed me a favor,” said Belial, his old insouciance returning. “And he enjoys this sort of thing. So you see, James, you really have no choice at all, regardless of Cortana.”

“You are telling me that if I do not give up my body willingly, let you possess me, then you will have Leviathan kill them,” said James. “All of them.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll make sure they all die,” said Belial. “It’s your choice.”

“James,” said Cordelia. “No. He’s a liar—the prince of liars—no matter what you do, he’ll never save them—”

The smile vanished from Belial’s face. “I don’t think you understand,” he said. “If you do not consent to what I want, your family and friends will die.”

“Cordelia is right,” said James. “You will kill them anyway. I cannot save them. You are only offering me that illusion to compel my agreement. Well, you cannot have it.”

Belial huffed out a sound that was almost like a laugh. “Spoken like the grandson of a Prince of Hell,” he said. “How practical, James. How logical. Do you know it was logic and rationality that resulted in our casting out from Heaven? For goodness is not logical, is it? Nor compassion, nor love. But perhaps you need to be able to see the situation more clearly.”

James glanced quickly at Cordelia. She knew what he was thinking, hoping—let Belial not realize that Charles is still alive, that the sigil is not complete—but feared her expression would give away her thoughts. She glanced down at the blade in her hand, smeared with Belial’s blood.

“You mortals fear such small things,” Belial went on. “Death, for instance. Merely the passage from one place to another. Yet you do all you can to avoid it. Now, torment—that is quite different. There is no reason for my brother to kill these acquaintances of yours, you know—not when more refined tortures are available and … infinite.”

James looked at Belial, his gaze level—and desperate. Perhaps only Cordelia, who knew him as she knew the map of her own heart, could see it. But it was there: desperation, and worse than that, despair.

James, no. Don’t do it. Don’t agree.

“Only if you swear,” James said, “that no harm or hurt will come to them—”

“James, no,” Cordelia burst out. “He is lying—”

“And what of your brother, Carstairs girl?” Belial demanded, his green gaze fixed on her. “Leviathan could cut him down as I cut down your father—I could blight every root of your family tree—”

With a scream, Cordelia raised her sword. James moved toward her, flinging out his hand—just as a noise cut through the still gardens. A sound like a fire, crackling and hissing. Shadows whirled and sliced through the air like dark birds. Belial’s borrowed eyes followed them, his expression wary.

“What mischief is this?” he demanded. “Enough! Show yourself!”

The shadows coalesced into a shape. Cordelia stared in utter astonishment as a figure took form, growing dark and solid against the sky.

It was Lilian Highsmith. Dead Lilian, in an old-fashioned blue dress. Sapphires sparkled at her ears. The same stones she had worn at the Wentworths’ party.

“You disappoint me,” she said, her voice low and even. “You found the Ridgeway Road, the forge and the fire. You call yourself paladin yet you cannot slay one measly Prince of Hell?”

“Measly?” echoed James, incredulous. “Ghost or not, how dare you speak to her like that?”

“Oh,” said Lilian. “I am no ghost.” She smiled—a smile not unlike Belial’s. Cordelia’s blood ran cold as Lilian broke apart into shadows again, then re-formed: she was gone and in her place was another familiar figure, the faerie woman with iridescent hair who Cordelia had spoken to at the Hell Ruelle, the one who’d first told her about Wayland the Smith.

“Is this better?” she breathed, her long fingers toying with her blue necklace. “Or perhaps you would prefer this?”

The faerie woman vanished, and in her place was Magnus Bane, dressed as he had been at the Market. Peacock-blue trousers and a matching embroidered waistcoat, with a watch on a glittering chain tucked into one pocket. Silver cuff links glittered at his wrists, and he wore a silver ring set with—

A luminous blue stone.

“Not Magnus,” breathed Cordelia. “It was never—it wasn’t Magnus.” She felt sick. “James—”

“No,” James whispered. “But who, then? This isn’t part of Belial’s plan. Look at his face.”

Indeed, fury had twisted Jesse Blackthorn’s features; he was barely recognizable. It was as if his human face was a skin stretched too tightly over the features below: Belial’s true, monstrous face. “Enough!” Belial hissed. “Show me who you are.”

False Magnus bowed low to the ground, and when he rose, he had transformed once more. Standing before them was a slender woman, her skin pale as milk, and her hair jet-black, falling down her back like dark water. She would have been beautiful but for her eyes: black snakes writhing from otherwise empty sockets. A rope of deep blue gems wound about her throat.