Chain of Iron

“James!” Will was beaming, and for a moment James forgot everything but how glad he was to see his family. He went to embrace his father, and hugged his mother, too: for the first time, she felt light and almost frail to him. He wished he had been here for the battle, that he had been able to protect them more directly than he had.

When Tessa drew back, she eyed James with concern. “By the Angel, what’s happened to you—and to Daisy?” she said, taking in their bedraggled appearances. “How did you know to come?”

“Didn’t you send Malcolm to fetch us?” James said, glancing over at Cordelia; she was being embraced by Alastair.

“No,” said Will, his brow furrowed.

“I must have misunderstood what he said,” said James quickly. “Never mind—”

“Where’s your sister?” said Will. “And the High Warlock, too, for that matter?”

“They’re in the Sanctuary,” said James. “And Matthew’s in the infirmary with Charles and his parents.”

Sophie, who had been in the middle of unbuckling her leather gauntlets, looked up. “What’s happened to Charles?”

Will sat down on the table, his booted feet braced on the nearby chair. “I am getting the feeling,” he said, “that there is a story here. Perhaps the other half of the story we already know. Would you say that’s correct, James?”

James hesitated. “If we could speak in private—”

“Certainly not.” The voice was the Inquisitor’s. “If you think there is any chance of more of this business being kept from the Enclave—”

“No one’s been keeping anything from the Enclave,” said Will. His eyes were heavy-lidded, which meant he was quite angry. “Least of all my son.”

“We have been attacked,” said Bridgestock, his voice rising. He looked as if he hadn’t been in the battle at all—his robes were spotless—but his voice throbbed with rage, nonetheless. “By a creature of the Pit. Sent by Hell itself to wipe us off the face of the Earth. Someone has called the sea demon forth. ‘Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up Leviathan—’”

“And who are you suggesting has called up Leviathan?” said Tessa, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I am saying we have been lazy; we have allowed corruption among ourselves,” said Bridgestock. His small eyes glittered. “We have allowed among ourselves the descendants of demons.”

That was the moment that James decided telling the whole truth would not be possible.

“That’s enough,” he said. “You want to know what happened? Who’s been killing Shadowhunters? Who tried to raise Leviathan? I was going to wait for the Consul, but if you insist, I’ll tell you now. As long as you don’t insult my mother or my family again.”

Bridgestock looked furious, and James wondered if he’d gone too far—Bridgestock was the Inquisitor, the second most powerful figure in the Clave. But he could not go directly against the will of the Enclave without bitter scandal, and the crowd was already looking at James expectantly, even the Pouncebys. Curiosity always won out, James thought, watching all those realizations flicker across Bridgestock’s face, turning his angry expression to a sardonic scowl. “Very well, then,” he said, with a dismissive gesture in James’s direction. “I’m sure the assembly would like to hear what you have to say.”

So James talked—and, rather surprisingly, with no preparation, told a cohesive story that nevertheless left out several of the most important details. He explained that he had been concerned about Thomas’s arrest, knowing they had the wrong suspect. (Bridgestock coughed and shifted from foot to foot.) He went through his own discovery of the pattern of the murders on a London map, the way they had formed Leviathan’s sigil. He claimed he had woken Cordelia, then Matthew and Lucie, who had been guests at their house. Together, they had raced to Mount Street Gardens and found Charles under attack. The attacker, James explained, was Jesse Blackthorn. Jesse’s body, it seemed, had been magically preserved by his mother all this time, presumably through the use of the dark arts—after all, they already knew she had attempted necromancy. It was why she had been imprisoned in the Citadel.

“So she succeeded?” Sophie demanded, looking quite ill. “She raised her son from the dead?”

Not quite, James explained: Jesse’s body had been preserved as some kind of memorial. Tatiana had enlisted the help of a demon to assist her in doing so, and that demon had taken over Jesse’s body, and had clearly been trying to raise Leviathan, Prince of Hell, to destroy the London Nephilim. Cordelia had stabbed Jesse with Cortana, he added, driving out the demon, which must have closed the gateway allowing Leviathan entry.

“Who would want to raise Leviathan?” Christopher wondered aloud. “Surely any of the other Princes of Hell would be less … disgusting.”

“He might be considered quite handsome by other sea demons,” said Anna. “We can’t know.”

“Be quiet,” said Bridgestock. He was red in the face. “You’re telling us the killer is some—some long-dead boy? Doesn’t that seem ridiculous—and convenient?”

“Only if you’re more interested in finding someone to punish than finding the murderer,” said James. “Even if you’re not inclined to believe me, Jesse’s body is being examined by the Silent Brothers. Once they’re done, maybe you’d like to explain to the Enclave how a boy who would be twenty-four today if he’d lived has been perfectly preserved at the age of seventeen, exactly when he’s known to have died?”

There is more than that, said the familiar, silent voice of Jem, who had just come into the library with Lucie. His parchment-colored robes were spotted with blood at the sleeves, his hood drawn back to show his face—his scarred cheeks, his dark hair streaked with white. James felt a wave of relief at the sight of him; he hadn’t realized quite how stressful it had been to have Jem away, in a place he could not be reached. You would have to explain how it is that Jesse Blackthorn is covered in exactly the runes that are missing from the bodies of the murdered. Filomena di Angelo’s Strength rune. Elias Carstairs’s Voyance rune. Lilian Highsmith’s Precision rune. Every one is a match.

A murmur ran around the room as Will smiled at Jem. It was a smile James knew well: the very specific smile Will had only for his parabatai. If it was odd to see someone smile at a Silent Brother like that, the oddness had long since faded for James; this was his father and his uncle Jem, as he had always known them.

When Jem crossed the room to speak quietly to Will, Lucie stayed where she was; she smiled at her parents but did not run to embrace them. She seemed to be learning restraint, James thought; he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Lucie’s exuberance had always been so much a part of her.

“Lilian Highsmith knew her killer,” said Bridgestock, raising his voice to be heard over the buzzing gossip in the room. “She recognized him. The Lightwood boy swore to it under the Sword. How would she have known Tatiana’s brat?”

“She didn’t,” said Lucie. “She thought he was his father, Rupert. They looked exactly alike, and Lilian knew the Blackthorns—she would have recognized Rupert.” She met James’s eyes across the room: he thought of Elias, who must also have thought he was seeing a man he’d known years ago—a man he’d thought was dead.