Chain of Iron

“Not in here,” he said. Somehow this room was his and Cordelia’s place. It was bad enough having Grace in his home the day after Elias’s death. There had to be limits. “The drawing room.”

She gave him a lingering, curious look but went where he indicated, her delicate boots clicking on the parquet floors as she walked.

James locked the drawing room door behind them. He hadn’t been in here since the argument with Elias. He could still see a small porcelain figurine tipped sideways on one of the shelves, where Elias had knocked it over.

He turned to Grace. “We had an agreement.”

She had shrugged off her heavy cape; under it she wore a cream wool dress embroidered with blue. It was tight around the waist and hips, narrowing to a swirl of lace panels below the knee. “You told me how things were going to be,” she said, “but I don’t recall agreeing.”

He leaned back against the side of the piano. “I don’t mean to be unkind,” he said. “But this is not fair on either of us. Nor is it fair on Daisy. I made her a promise, and I intend to keep it.”

“Daisy,” she echoed, laying her gloved hand on the back of a chair. “Such a pretty nickname. I don’t think you have one for me.”

“Cordelia is a much longer name than Grace,” he said shortly. “You said you had something important to tell me.”

“I have a question, really. About Lucie.”

James didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “You’ve never shown much interest in Lucie.” Every summer in Idris, he had offered to introduce her to his sister, but Grace had refused, saying sometimes that she could not bear to part with a moment of her time alone with James, saying other times that she wished to meet Lucie when she was free of her mother and could speak of her love for James openly. James happened to think that the last thing Lucie wanted to hear about was a strange girl’s passion for her older brother, but Grace would not be moved.

“It is about her power,” Grace said. “I know Lucie, like you, can see the dead—but you can also travel in shadows. Can Lucie do the same?”

“Why do you want to know?” James asked. “And why now?”

“The murders, I suppose,” Grace said, looking away. “They’ve been so awful—and I know of your shadow power, but few others do, and I suppose I wondered if you and Lucie had any way of—of perhaps seeing the ghosts of those who had been murdered? Of knowing who might have done this?”

This was rather awkwardly close to the truth, James thought, though he could not share that thought with Grace. Certainly nothing he knew currently would comfort her. He couldn’t help but feel sympathy; she had always been so sheltered in Idris—from demons, from the ordinary violence of a mundane city.

“We can only see ghosts who linger on this Earth because they have unfinished business, or are tied to a place or object,” he said gently. “I can only hope the murdered dead will have passed on to peace, and so no—we will not see them.”

He could not imagine telling Grace about the Regency ghost, the factory, Filomena’s ghost. Not the way he told things to Cordelia. “Grace,” he said, “is that truly what is bothering you? Is something else wrong? Are you not happy at the Bridgestocks’?”

“Happy?” she echoed. “It is all right, I suppose. I do not think they like me much—but consider my position. Ariadne wishes to befriend me and exchange confidences, but how can I? I cannot tell her of my situation without revealing yours; I cannot speak of my pain without revealing your secrets, and Cordelia’s. I can confide in no one, while you can confide in any of your friends.”

James opened his mouth, and closed it again; she was right, in her way, and he had not thought of it—not thought of her isolation, only her impending marriage to Charles.

She stepped closer, raising her eyes to his, and James felt his heartbeat quicken. “I cannot speak to Charles, either,” she said. “He is in Paris, and besides, we are not given to confidences with one another. I suppose I thought you would find some way to get messages to me—some way to let me know you still loved me—”

“I told you I couldn’t,” James said, blood singing in his ears.

“You said you wouldn’t. Duty, you said, and honor.” She laid her gloved hand lightly on his arm. “But do we not also owe a duty to love?”

“Is that why you came here?” James said hoarsely. “To hear that I love you?”

She placed her hands against his chest. Her face was almost waxen in its pallor—beautiful but still, like a doll’s. James could feel the weight of the bracelet, heavy on his wrist. A reminder of all he had sworn, all he and Grace had felt for each other, must still feel for each other. “I don’t have to hear it,” she whispered. “Just kiss me. Kiss me, James, and I will know you love me.”

Love me. Love me. Love me.

A force that seemed imprinted on every corner of his soul flared to life, burning up his blood: he could smell her perfume, jasmine and spice. He closed his eyes and took hold of her wrists. Some small part of his brain was crying out in protest, even as he pulled her up against him—she was slight and slender; why had he remembered her as soft and curving? He crushed his lips to hers and heard her make a muffled sound, a gasp of surprise.

Her hands looped around his neck; her lips answered his as he kissed and kissed her. The hunger inside him was desperate. It was as if he were at a faerie feast, where the more mortals consumed, the more intense their hunger became, until they starved to death among the plenty.

When he abruptly released her and staggered backward, she looked as stunned as he felt. A vast emptiness ached inside him. He was drowning in it: it was a physical, almost violent pain.

“I should go,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed. “I can see—perhaps I should not have come here. I will not—I shan’t come again.”

“Grace—”

Halfway to the door, she whirled to look at him, an accusation in her eyes. “I do not know who you were kissing just now, James Herondale,” she said. “But it certainly wasn’t me.”

 

Before long the little village of Uffington came into view, the hill rising sharply behind it, and Matthew and Cordelia could see the white horse—like a clumsy child’s drawing splayed across the mountainside. Nearby, a flock of sheep grazed placidly, apparently unimpressed at being in the presence of a famous historical artifact.

Matthew took the road up as far as it went, leaving the Ford next to a path that took a jagged route to the top. They walked the rest of the way, Cordelia glad that she had brought her thickest woolen coat; the wind over the downs was sharp as a knife. Matthew’s cheeks were scarlet by the time they reached the top of the scarp, a few feet from the chalk-filled trenches that formed the horse—up close, they were startlingly white.

“Look.” Cordelia pointed. She felt an odd surety, an instinctive sense that she was right deep in her bones. “The horse is facing that way, almost pointing with its nose. Down to that copse, you see, there’s a path—an old road, I think.”

Matthew seemed a little startled, but he joined her on the descent to the path, occasionally stopping to help her when her skirts made walking tricky. Cordelia half wished she’d worn her gear, though it likely wouldn’t have kept her as warm.