Chain of Iron

With help from Lucie and Tessa, the guests were steered into their seats, and James and Cordelia were able to sit down. Lucie had managed to arrange it so most of the friends were sitting together in a cheerful group. Only Anna—off in a corner looking glamorous and chatting to Magnus Bane about Ragnor Fell’s sojourn in Capri—had not joined them. (Cordelia had suggested asking her, but Matthew had said, “Anna is like a cat. You have to let her come to you,” which Christopher had confirmed as true.)

Serving staff crowded around, bringing them plates piled with bits of everything. Cordelia popped a fig into her mouth, savoring the sweetness spreading across her tongue. She thought of her mother, the figs and honey they had often had on special occasions.

“Welcome to the family,” Christopher said to Cordelia. “You’re our cousin-in-law now. I’ve never had one of those before.”

“All Shadowhunters are related already,” Matthew said, tucking his flask into his breast pocket and deftly intercepting a passing waiter with a tray of champagne flutes. He abstracted two and passed one to James with a flourish. “You were already ninth cousins once removed, most likely.”

“Thank you for that distressing analysis,” Cordelia said, raising her own glass in a mock formal toast. “I shall be an honorary Thief, I hope.”

“Well, we’ll have to see,” said Matthew, his eyes twinkling. “How you are at thievery and such.”

“It really is excellent, all this, you know,” Christopher said. “I mean, even though the whole wedding is … you know … because …”

Thomas jumped in before Christopher could find his words. “Expensive, yes,” he agreed loudly. “But it’s well worth it, I say.”

“Anyway, it’ll be quite a lark that you have your own house now, James,” Christopher went on. “No more drafty Devil Tavern rooms.”

“The Merry Thieves gathering in respectable surroundings,” said Matthew. “Who would have thought?”

“I like the Devil Tavern rooms,” protested James.

“I like a fire in the grate that doesn’t get rained out,” said Thomas.

“You are not to send your things from the Devil Tavern to my new house,” James said sternly. “It is not a storage facility for my misbegotten friends.”

Cordelia said nothing as the boys burst into protests and chatter. She was grateful to them all for taking everything in stride, for not hating her for marrying James. They seemed to understand the situation despite its complexities.

On the other hand, they were all going on about the new house, and not for the first time today, she thought, At the end of this party, I don’t go home with my mother and father and Alastair. I go home with my husband to our house. Their house. The house she knew nothing about at all, not even its location.

Her mother had been impatient with Cordelia’s decision to let James handle the purchase and readying of the house. Gentlemen, Sona had said, had no idea about decorating things, and didn’t Cordelia want to put her own stamp on it? Make sure it would be a house she’d be willing to live in the rest of her life?

Cordelia had just said she was content to let James make it a surprise. His parents were buying it, she had thought to herself, and it would be his after the divorce. Perhaps he would want to live in it with Grace.

She glanced down the row of tables, unable to help herself. Grace was there, seated beside Charles, silent and beautiful as always. Ariadne sat on her other side—Cordelia had nearly forgotten that Grace was now living with the Bridgestocks. It was all very odd.

Suddenly Charles rose to his feet and headed toward them, looking worryingly pleased with himself.

Matthew had seen him too. “My brother heaves into view on the horizon,” he said to James in a low voice. “Careful. He looks very happy about something.”

“The new Mr. and Mrs. Herondale!” Charles called out, and Matthew rolled his eyes. “Might I be the first to offer my congratulations?” He extended his hand to James.

James took it and shook. “You are not the first, Charles, but we appreciate it no less.”

“What an excellent wedding,” Charles went on, looking up at the rafters of the Institute above them as if taking in the room for the first time. “We’ll have quite the wedding season this year, what?”

“What?” said James, and then, “Oh, of course, yourself and … Miss Blackthorn.”

Matthew took a long sip of champagne.

Cordelia studied James’s face, but James betrayed nothing. He smiled pleasantly at Charles, and as always Cordelia was both impressed by and a little frightened by the impenetrability of the Mask—her name for the unreadable, blank expression James deployed to great effect whenever he wished to disguise his feelings. “We shall look forward to toasting your health and happiness in this very hall soon enough, Charles.”

Charles departed. Matthew raised a glass. “That is what in Paris they call sang-froid, Monsieur Herondale.”

Cordelia privately agreed. The Mask frightened her sometimes, when she could not tell what James was thinking, but it certainly had its uses. Wearing it, James seemed invulnerable.

“Is that a compliment?” Christopher asked curiously. “Doesn’t it mean ‘cold blood’?”

“Coming from Matthew, it is definitely a compliment,” Anna said with a laugh; she’d appeared at the table quite suddenly, Magnus Bane in tow. He was wearing a light blue tailcoat with gold buttons, a gold waistcoat, taupe knee breeches, and buckled boots. He looked like pictures Cordelia had seen of men at the court of the Sun King.

“You all know Magnus Bane, of course?” Anna gestured to the tall figure standing next to her.

“It’s my understanding,” Cordelia said, “that the question is never whether you know Magnus Bane. The question is always whether Magnus Bane knows you.”

“Oh, I like that,” Anna said, clearly pleased. “Very clever, Daisy.”

Magnus, to his credit, looked a bit abashed. It was a strange effect alongside his general level of glamorousness; he and Anna—in a polished black suit and sky-blue waistcoat, her family’s ruby necklace at her throat—made quite a sartorial pair. “Congratulations. I wish you and James all the happiness in the world.”

“Thank you, Magnus,” Cordelia said. “It’s good to see you. Do you think there’s any chance you’ll be staying in London permanently?”

“Perhaps,” said Magnus. He had been in and out of London for the past few months, sometimes present, often away. “First I must depart for the Cornwall Institute, to undertake a project there. Tomorrow, in fact.”

“And what project is that?” Matthew asked. “Something glamorous, secret, and admirable?”

“Something dull,” Magnus said firmly, “but well paying. I’ve been assigned the task of conducting a survey of the spell books at the Cornwall Institute. Some may be dangerous, but others could be indispensable in the hands of the Spiral Labyrinth. Jem—Brother Zachariah, I should say—will be accompanying me; it seems he is the only Shadowhunter trusted by both the Clave and the Spiral Labyrinth.”

“You’ll be in good company, then,” Cordelia said. “But I’m sorry that you’ll be leaving London. James and I were hoping to invite you to dinner at our new house.”