Chain of Iron

“Get him—back?” Grace stared. “You mean try to kidnap him? Steal his body from a warlock and—Mother, no. I can’t do that. My power doesn’t even work on Malcolm.”

“But it would work on Jesse,” Tatiana said.

There was an awful silence. It was like the silence that had filled the room after Jesse died. “I don’t,” Grace said at last, “understand what you mean, Mother.”

“Let them bring him back,” Tatiana drawled. “Let them do the difficult work. Then convince him his place is with you—with us. When that is done, return with him, to me. I will furnish you both with instructions. It will all be very simple. Simple enough even for you.”

“I don’t—” Grace shook her head. She felt physically sick. “I don’t understand what you’re suggesting.”

Tatiana’s face hardened. “Must I spell it out for you? You only have one power, Grace, one thing that makes you special. Seduce him,” she said. “Compel him. Make him believe he loves you above everything else in the world. Make him yours, as you were never able to make James Herondale yours.”

Nausea rose in the pit of Grace’s stomach. Her pulse was racing and her chest was tight. “Jesse is my brother.”

“Nonsense,” Tatiana said. “You share no blood. You are barely even my daughter. We are partners, you and I. Partners in a common cause.”

“I won’t,” Grace whispered. Had she ever said no to her mother before so plainly? It didn’t matter. There was no world in which she could do what Tatiana asked, no world in which she could make filthy and horrible the only pure love she had ever known.

Tatiana’s eyes burned. “Oh, you will do this,” she hissed. “You must. The strength is all on my side, not yours. You have no choice, Grace Blackthorn.”

No choice. It was at that moment that Grace realized something she had never realized before. That her mother had cursed her with power over men, but not women—never women—not because she did not believe women had influence, but because she could not bear the thought that Grace might ever have power over her.

With her blood screaming in her ears, Grace took three steps forward, until she was inches from the vanity, inches from her mother’s grinning face. She picked up a heavy silver hairbrush and looked into Tatiana’s furious eyes.

With a cry, she hurled the brush at the mirror as hard as she could. The glass shattered, Tatiana’s image splintering into sparkling shards. Sobbing, Grace ran from the room.

* * *

As James closed the door behind Thomas and the others, he exhaled a long breath. It was a cold, clear night, with no hint of snow. The moon burned like the solitary light at the top of a watchtower, and the shadows cast by lampposts and carriages were stark and black against the icy white ground.

James wondered if he would sleep tonight without fear of nightmares. He felt gritty with exhaustion, his throat and eyes dry, but there was a bright wire of excitement that ran underneath his tiredness. For the first time today, he was about to be alone with Cordelia.

He closed the front door and went back to the drawing room. The fire was burning low. Cordelia was still on the sofa; she had raised her arms to readjust the combs in her hair. He watched silently from the doorway as a few unruly red locks spilled over her hands: the fire turned their edges to blood and gold. It was beautiful, but so was the upraised curve of her arms, the turn of her wrists, the shape of her capable hands. So was everything about her.

“Daisy,” he said.

She slid the last comb into place and turned to look at him. There was an incredible sadness in her eyes. For a moment, he felt as if he were seeing the girl she had been, every time her father had let her down, every time she had been lonely, disappointed—all the pain she’d borne silently, without tears.

He ought to have been there for her. He would be now, he told himself, striding across the room. He sat down beside her, reaching for her hands. They were small in his, and freezing cold. “You’re cold—”

“I cannot be Lucie’s parabatai,” she said.

He looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I am bound to Lilith,” she said. “Her paladin—I cannot raise a weapon save in her name. How can I train with Lucie? I cannot touch a seraph blade, raise a sword—”

“We’ll fix it,” said James. “We’ll get help—from Magnus, from Jem, Ragnor—”

“Perhaps.” She didn’t sound convinced. “But even if we can find a solution, our ceremony is barely a month away. I cannot ask the Clave to—to delay it without explanation, and I cannot explain without awful consequences. And the result would be the same. The Silent Brothers would never approve Lucie binding herself to someone who serves a demon.” Her voice was full of loathing. “I could not put that burden on Lucie either. I will tell her tomorrow that there isn’t any—that it can’t happen.”

“She won’t give up hope,” said James.

“But she should,” said Cordelia. “Even if we could free me from Lilith, I will always have made this mistake. I will always be someone you shouldn’t trust to be your sister’s parabatai.”

“That’s ridiculous.” James remembered that moment in the park, when Lilith had revealed the truth. He had been furious. But not at Cordelia. He had been furious for her. She wanted to do good more than anyone else he knew, wanted to be a hero because it would be the best way to help the most people. In tricking Cordelia as she had, Lilith had turned what was beautiful about Cordelia’s nature back on itself—like a faerie who made the deepest desires of a mortal a weapon with which to hurt them. “Daisy, Lucie and I share a bond with Belial, a monster worse than Lilith. If anything, this makes the two of you more alike. It makes us more alike.”

“But that is not your fault,” she said passionately. “You cannot help who your grandfather was! I chose this.” Her cheeks were flushed now, her eyes bright. “I may not have known what I was choosing, but does that make a difference? All I wanted, all I ever wanted, was to save my father, to be a hero, to be Lucie’s parabatai. I have lost all those things.”

“No,” he said. “You are a hero, Daisy. We would have lost today, without you.”

Her eyes softened. “James,” she said, and he wanted to shiver. He loved the way she said his name. He had always loved it. He knew that now. “You were right.” She tried to smile. “I am cold.”

He drew her closer, settling her against his chest. Her body relaxed against his, her head against his shoulder. He smoothed a palm down her back, trying not to let his mind wander to the warm curves of her body.

“There’s something I always wonder,” she said, her breath against his neck. “We are raised to see demons, and we do. I cannot even recall the first I ever encountered. Yet we do not see angels. We are descended from them, but they are invisible to us. Why is that?”

“I suppose,” James said, “because angels require you to have faith. They want us to believe in them without seeing them. That is, I think, what faith is meant to be. We are to believe in them as we believe in all things intangible—goodness, and mercy, and love.”