Chain of Iron

She handed him the brush and turned around, dangling her legs off the end of the bed. She felt him move behind her, kneeling, his hand lifting the heavy coil of her brown hair to loosen it over her shoulders.

“Long ago,” he said in a low voice, “when Grace first came to us, I used to brush her hair out at night. My mother had no interest in doing it, and otherwise it would tangle and snarl, and Grace would cry.”

Lucie leaned back as the heavy brush slid through her hair, followed by his fingers. It felt decadent, luxurious to be touched like this. His hand grazed the nape of her neck, sending shivers up her spine. Not at all like when Jessamine did it.

“Grace must have been just a child when she first came to you,” she said.

“She was a slip of a thing. Terrified. Remembered almost nothing about her parents. I think, if my mother had loved her, Grace would have devoted herself entirely to my mother’s wishes and goals. But—” She sensed him shaking his head. “I was all Grace had. Sometimes I think that’s why I came back as I did. I do not remember death itself, but I do remember waking out of it. I had heard Grace crying in her sleep and knew I must go to her. I have always been all she has. It is why I cannot bear to tell her—”

He broke off. Lucie turned; he was kneeling on the bedcovers, the brush in one hand, his expression frozen between guilt and alarm.

“That you are fading,” she said quietly. “That you have been, slowly, since you gave your last breath to save my brother.”

He set the brush aside. “You know?”

She thought of the way his hand had faded against hers in the carriage, the way he had gone part-transparent when he was angry, as if he lacked the energy to appear whole.

“I guessed it,” she whispered. “It is why I have been so desperate—I am afraid. Jesse, if you fade, will I ever see you again?”

“I don’t know.” His green gaze was stark. “I fear it as anyone would fear dying, and I know as little about what waits on the other side of the great gate.”

She laid her hand on his wrist. “Do you trust me?”

He managed a smile. “Most of the time.”

She turned fully, so that her hands were on his shoulders. “I want to command you to live.”

He jerked in surprise; she felt the movement under her hands. She was as close to him as she had been the night they danced. “Lucie. There are limits. I cannot be commanded to do what is impossible.”

“Let us forget, just for a moment, what is possible and impossible,” Lucie said. “It may do nothing; it may make you stronger. But I cannot live with myself if I do not try.”

She did not mention the animals she had tried this experiment on, or her unsuccessful attempts to call back Jesse himself while he slept in his coffin. But—unlike the animals—Jesse occupied a place between life and death and was therefore unpredictable; perhaps she needed him there, consciously alongside her, to raise him properly. She thought of the Regency ghost again, after she had commanded him to forget. There had been a look of peace on his face that had startled her.

There was a long pause. “All right,” Jesse said. There was uncertainty in his eyes, but his cheeks were flushed; she knew it was not real blood, real heat, but it made her spirits lift nevertheless. Other ghosts did not blush, or touch, or shiver. Jesse was already different. “Try.”

She settled back on her heels. She was quite a bit smaller than he was, and felt slight indeed as she laid her palms against his chest. She could feel the fabric of his shirt, the hard solidity of him.

“Jesse,” she said softly. “Jesse Rupert Blackthorn. I command you to breathe. To return to yourself. Live.”

He gasped. She had never heard a ghost gasp, or imagined it, and for a moment her heart soared. His green eyes widened, and he caught at her shoulder—his grip was hard, almost painful.

“Knit your soul with your body,” she said. “Live, Jesse. Live.”

His eyes went black. And suddenly she was falling, struggling in a complete, choking darkness. There was no light—no, there was light in the distance, flickering, the wan light of an illuminated doorway. She struggled to catch at something to arrest her fall.

Jesse. Where was Jesse? She could see nothing but darkness. She thought of James: Was this what it was like to fall into shadow? This terrible, alien, unmoored feeling?

Jesse! She reached out for him—she could sense he was there with her, somehow. She was touching mist, shadow, and then her hands closed on something solid. It writhed in her grip. She held on hard; yes, it had a human form. They were falling together. If she held on tight enough, she could bring him back, she thought, like Janet had done for Tam Lin in the old story.

 

But there was something wrong. A terrible pressure of wrongness, invading her chest, stealing her breath. The shadows around her seemed to break into pieces, each one a snarling, twisting monster—a thousand demons born of darkness. She felt a barrier, unbreakable, terrible, rise up before her, as if she had arrived at the gates of Hell. The form in her arms was spiky-sharp, burning and stabbing her; she let go—

And hit the ground, hard, knocking out her breath. She moaned and rolled over, retching dryly.

“Lucie! Lucie!” Jesse was hovering over her, an expression of terror on his face. She was on the wooden floor of her room, she realized dazedly. She must have tumbled off the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, reaching out to touch him, but her fingers glided through his shoulder. They both froze, staring at each other. “No, no,” she said. “I’ve made it worse—”

“You haven’t.” He closed his hand over her reaching one. His fingers were solid. “It’s the same. Nothing’s changed. But we can’t try that again, Lucie. There are some things, I think, that cannot be commanded.”

“Death is a jealous mistress,” Lucie whispered. “She fights to keep you.”

“I am not hers,” he said. “I am yours for as long as I can be.”

“Stay,” she said, and closed her eyes. She felt more drained than she ever had before, more exhausted. She thought again of James. She should have been more sympathetic, she thought, all these years. She had never understood before: how bitter it was to have power, and not be able to turn it to any kind of good.

 

Thomas almost welcomed the bitter cold, the crunch of ice underneath his boots, the aching stiffness in his fingers and toes. All day he had waited for this, for the solitude of patrolling alone late at night, when all his senses seemed heightened, and the melancholy that followed him everywhere was replaced—if only for a few hours—by a sense of purpose.

Thomas missed the weight of the bolas in his hand, but even his tutor in Madrid—Maestro Romero of Buenos Aires—would have agreed it wasn’t the best choice for stalking a killer on the streets of London. Such a weapon wasn’t easy to hide, and he had to be stealthy.

He knew that if anyone found out what he was doing, there would be trouble. He had never seen his parents as stern as they had been when they explained the new rules the Enclave had decided on. And he agreed with them: the curfew absolutely made sense, as did the rule against anyone patrolling alone.

Except him.

Earlier in the evening, Thomas had been in South Kensington and could not resist paying a visit to the Carstairs. He had half hoped Cordelia would be there—he liked her, and truly felt for her. But it had been Alastair who had answered the door. Alastair, looking strained and tense, as if grief had tightened his skin over his bones. His lower lip was red, as if he’d bitten it, his fingers—fingers that had run so gently over the inside of Thomas’s forearm, where a compass rose now unfurled its inked lines—twitching nervously at his side.