Chain of Iron

Alastair, looking horrified, could not absent himself soon enough; he muttered something about packing a valise, and fled.

Sona looked at her daughter with bright eyes. For a moment of terror, Cordelia wondered if her mother was going to ask her if she was pregnant. She couldn’t bear the thought.

“Layla, darling,” Sona said. “There is something I wished to speak to you about. I have thought a great deal about many things in the days since your father died.” Cordelia was surprised; her mother spoke clearly, an undertone of regret in her voice—but the terrible grief Cordelia had expected from a mention of Elias was absent. Something sad and quiet and bittersweet seemed to be in its place. “I know that you did not want to marry James Herondale—”

“Mâmân, that is not—”

“I am not saying you do not love him,” said Sona. “I can see from the way you look at him that you do. And perhaps marriage would have come, later, but it came when it did because scandal forced it. And that was never what I wanted for you.” She drew her wrapper more closely about herself. “Our lives rarely turn out the way we expect them to, Layla. When I married your father, I knew him only as a great hero. Later, when I realized the extent of his troubles, I distanced myself from my family. I was too proud—I couldn’t bear for them to know.”

In the kitchen, Risa was singing; the sound seemed miles away. Cordelia whispered, “Mâmân …”

Sona’s eyes gleamed, too bright. “Do not worry yourself over it. Only listen to me. When I was a girl, I had so many dreams. Dreams of heroism, of glamour, of travel. Layla—what I want for you above all things is that you follow the truth of your dreams. No scorn, no shame, no part of society’s opinion matters more than that.”

It was like a knife in the heart. Cordelia could not speak.

Sona went on. “What I am saying, and I will say the same to Alastair, too, is that I do not want you hovering over me, doting on me until the baby comes. I am a Shadowhunter too, and besides—I want to know you are pursuing your own happiness. It will make me happier than anything else in the world. Otherwise I will be miserable. Do you understand?”

All Cordelia could do in response was murmur assent and embrace her mother. One day I will tell her all the truth, she thought fiercely. One day.

“Layla.” It was Alastair, having changed out of his torn and ichor-stained clothes. He looked less rumpled but still weary, and grim about the mouth, as if he were not looking forward to returning to the infirmary and Charles. Cordelia had tried to talk to him about it in the carriage on the way to Kensington, but he had been tight-lipped. “The carriage is waiting for us. You can always return tomorrow.”

“Don’t you dare,” whispered Sona, releasing Cordelia with a smile. “Now—run along back to that handsome husband of yours. I am sure he misses you.”

“I will.” Cordelia straightened up. Her eyes met her brother’s across the room. “Only I need to speak with Alastair first. There is something I must ask him to do.”

 

“Excellent lying, James,” said Matthew, raising a glass of port. “Really top-notch.”

James mimed raising a glass in return. He had wanted to collapse into a chair the moment they’d walked through the front door; rather luckily, Effie had appeared and proceeded to lecture them thoroughly about not getting ichor and dust on the rugs.

“I was warned you’d be coming home filthy,” she said. “But no one told me about the smell of fish. Lord, it’s awful. Like a bunch of rotted oysters.”

“That’s enough, Effie,” said James, seeing Christopher turn green.

“And where’s Mrs. Herondale at?” Effie inquired. “Did the stink drive her off?”

James had explained that Cordelia was visiting her mother and would be returning shortly, which seemed to energize Effie. She packed them all off to clean up and return brushed, washed, and ichor-free to the drawing room, where a fire had been laid in the hearth.

In his bedroom, James found that someone—Effie, most likely—had placed the broken pieces of Grace’s bracelet on his nightstand. Not wanting to leave them out in the open, he put the two halves in his pocket. He would have to return them to Grace, he supposed, though it was hardly what he wanted to think about right now.

By the time he changed clothes and made his way downstairs, he found Anna—who had managed to produce an entire new outfit out of seemingly thin air—lounging in a tapestry chair, wearing matching velvet trousers and a loose jacket in a deep gold color.

Cordelia arrived back at Curzon Street just as Effie came in to lay out a small feast on the table: Lancashire spice nuts, curried shrimp and lauretta sandwiches, London buns and French eclairs.

The sight of Daisy made the back of James’s throat hurt. As the rest of his friends fell on the food like starving wolves, he watched Cordelia make her way to the sofa. She wore a dark emerald dress that made her hair look like rose petals against green leaves. It had been gathered up in soft curls at the back of her head, held in place by a silk bandeau. There were green slippers on her feet. He caught her eye; when she glanced at him, he saw that she was wearing the necklace he’d given her, the small gold orb gleaming just above the neckline of her gown. She did not seem to have Cortana with her; she must have laid it away upstairs.

His heart gave a slow, hard thump. When they were alone, he could tell her the necklace’s secret. But not now, he told himself; it felt like the fiftieth time today. Not yet.

“So,” Matthew said, holding up the glass in his hand so it caught the light, “are we going to discuss what actually happened this morning?”

“Indeed,” said Thomas. He had an odd air about him, James thought, quiet and inward-seeming, as if something was bothering him. He kept touching the inside of his left forearm, as if his compass rose tattoo ached—though as far as James knew, that was unlikely. “How much of what you told the Enclave was true, James?”

James sank back in his chair. He was so tired he felt as if there were sand under his eyelids. “What I told them was true—but I left a great deal out.”

“May we assume,” said Anna, “that the demon possessing Jesse Blackthorn was Belial?”

James nodded. “Belial wasn’t possessing me, but he was the architect behind the killings. Behind all of it.”

“So the dreams you were having—you were seeing through Belial’s eyes, while he was in Jesse Blackthorn’s body?” asked Christopher.

“I don’t believe Belial was even aware that I was seeing through his eyes. I’m not sure why I was, to be honest. Perhaps it had something to do with Jesse, rather than Belial—but I can’t guess.” James had picked up an empty teacup; he turned it over in his hands. “The person who knows the most about Jesse is Lucie, and we may not have all of that story until we speak to her, too. But it appears she has been acquainted with him—or his ghost—for some time.”

Anna, picking the currants off a London bun, frowned. “Lucie was looking into the circumstances of his death—”

“She was?” Matthew said. “We know she saw his ghost—interacted with him—but why would she do that?”