Chain of Iron

He desperately wished, now, for the patrol he’d seen earlier. They’d barely been a few blocks from here. How could they have missed this?

Lilian Highsmith’s eyelids flickered open. She caught at the front of his coat, shaking her head, as if to say, Enough. Stop trying.

His breath hitched. “Miss Highsmith,” he said urgently. “It’s Thomas—Thomas Lightwood. Who did this to you?”

She tightened her grip on his lapels, pulling him closer with surprising strength. “He did,” she whispered. “But he was dead, dead in his prime. His wife … she wept and wept. I remember her tears.” Her eyes fixed on Thomas’s. “Perhaps there is no forgiveness.”

Her fingers loosened their grip and slowly trailed down his coat, leaving a bloody smear behind. Her face went slack as the light left her eyes.

Numbly, Thomas laid her limp body on the ground. His mind whirled. Should he bring her inside? Someone might come along soon, and she was not glamoured—mundanes should not see her like this, and yet perhaps the Enclave would not want him to move her?

At least he could arrange her as a Shadowhunter should be laid out in death. He shut her eyes with his thumb, and reached for her hands to fold them on her chest. Something rolled free of her left hand, clanking gently against the icy ground.

It was a stele. What had she been doing with it? Trying to heal herself?

Thomas heard footsteps approaching and lifted his head, dazed. Could the murderer be returning, worried that Lilian might survive—and determined to come back and make certain she hadn’t? Quickly, he stuffed the stele into his pocket and drew a knife from his belt.

“Oi! There! Don’t you dare run!”

Thomas froze. It was the Shadowhunter patrol he’d seen earlier. Four men rounded the corner, Inquisitor Bridgestock in the lead. They slowed as they approached, staring in shock at Thomas, and at Miss Highsmith’s body.

He realized in a split second how it must look. A Shadowhunter dead beside him, and him with a knife in his bloody hand. Worse yet, he wasn’t scheduled for patrol—no one knew about his nightly outings. No one could vouch for him. His friends could say they knew he was patrolling on his own, but that wasn’t much, was it?

A clamor of voices started up as the Inquisitor moved toward Thomas, his face set, his black cape swirling around his legs. Thomas dropped the knife and let his hands fall to his sides, knowing it would be pointless to speak. He didn’t bother to try to understand what they were all saying. Everything felt slow and surreal, like a terrible dream that was trying to pull him under. He watched from what felt like miles away as Bridgestock spoke in a triumphant voice.

“Gentlemen, we have found the murderer,” he said. “Arrest him at once.”

 

Having set the book aside, Cordelia was watching James sleep. She had an excuse, she supposed, beyond unrequited love. She was watching over him. Protecting him, from the terrors of the night, from the threat of Belial. She felt the weight of Cortana in her hands, as she felt the weight of the trust Wayland the Smith had placed in her.

Go forth. Be a warrior.

Not that it was a hardship, watching her husband sleep. She had thought when they first became engaged that she would lie beside James at night, hearing his breaths even out into slumber. When she had realized they would have separate bedrooms, it had felt like a loss of that dream.

She would have liked to say the real thing was a disappointment. But it would have been a lie. She had watched him toss and turn and finally fall asleep, his free arm bent behind his head, his cheek resting almost in the crook of his elbow. The lines of worry on his face had smoothed out into clarity and innocence. His cheeks flushed with his dreaming, his black eyelashes fluttering against his high cheekbones. Watching him, she thought of Majnun from Ganjavi’s poem, a boy so beautiful he illuminated the darkness.

When he moved in his sleep, his thin shirt slid up, showing the ridges of his stomach. She had blushed at that, and looked away a little, before asking herself fiercely, Why? She had kissed that soft mouth, the lower lip fuller than the upper, dented slightly in the center. She had felt his body all up and down her own, the heat of him, his muscles straining to pull her closer.

She knew he wanted her. He might not love her, but from the moment she had asked him to kiss her—to teach her—he had desired her, and she had felt powerful. Beautiful. She was a paladin, a warrior. When he told her he had kissed Grace, she had felt shock and hurt, and then an absolute refusal to cry. She would not be weak. She would demand a kiss, demand that he show his desire. They could not always be on unequal footing.

It had worked better than she had ever imagined. So well she knew it could easily have gone on, have tumbled over the edge of restraint into territory that was unknown, irrevocable. And though she had wanted that, she had been the one to pull away in the end, to put a stop to it.

Because you know it would be the end of you, whispered a small voice in the back of her mind. Because if you fell even a little more in love with him, the fall would break you.

It was true. She knew that if she gave even one more bit of herself to James, she would go up like a bonfire lit by a thousand torches. There would be nothing left of her but ash. In desire they could be on equal footing, but in the matter of love, they were not.

Something had been brightening at the edge of her vision for some time now: she glanced out the window and saw the faint seashell glow of dawn. Relief flooded through her. They were safe, for the moment. It was morning. The sun was rising and nothing had happened.

James’s head turned fretfully on the pillow. Setting down Cortana, Cordelia moved closer, wondering if the light was waking him. She could draw the curtain—

He gasped, his body arching suddenly backward, shoulders and heels digging into the mattress. “Not the garden,” he gasped. “No—get back inside—no—no!”

“James!” She unlocked the door, threw it wide, and called down the corridor for help. When she turned back, James was thrashing, his wrist bloody where the rope tore against his skin.

She flew to his side as he cried out, “Let her go! Let her go!”

She scrabbled at the rope around his wrist, bloodying her fingertips as she worked to untie him. He sprang up suddenly, tearing free of the headboard. He scrambled to his feet and, barefoot, staggered to the window, catching hold of the frame. Cordelia realized he was trying to force it open.

Footsteps were pounding up the stairs. Matthew burst into the room, rumpled-looking, green eyes dark with sleep and worry. Seeing James at the window, he caught hold of him by the shoulders, spinning him around. James’s eyes were wide, staring, blind.

“Let—her—go,” James gasped, struggling.

“Wake up!” Matthew demanded, forcing James’s body back against the wall.

James was still pushing against him, stiff-armed, but his movements were slower now, his chest no longer heaving. “Matthew,” he whispered. “Matthew, is that you?”

“Jamie bach.” Matthew dug his fingers into James’s shoulders. “It’s me. Look at me. Wake up.”

James’s eyes focused slowly. “Perhaps there is no forgiveness,” he whispered, his voice oddly hollow.

“Probably not,” said Matthew, “and we’ll all go to Hell, but what matters now is that you are all right.”