Chain of Iron

“I know that,” said James, “and so I’ve told Cordelia all that happened, even that I kissed Grace—”

“You did what?” Matthew threw his hands in the air, splattering wine onto the snow. It stained the white crystals red. “Are you mad?”

“Daisy knows—”

“Cordelia has far too much dignity to show that you have hurt her, but she also has honor. I know you have an agreement with her that you will not see Grace while you’re married—to save Cordelia from ridicule, from the Enclave gossiping that you were forced to marry her after you compromised her. She deserves better than to be seen as an anchor around your neck.”

“An anchor around my—I didn’t invite Grace over. She appeared at my door and demanded to talk to me. I cannot even recall why I kissed her, or if I even bloody wanted to—”

Matthew gave James an odd look—more than odd; it seemed as if he were trying to make sense of something he could not quite remember. “You shouldn’t have let her into the house, James.”

“I have apologized to Daisy,” James said, “and I will do so again—but what difference does this make to you, Math? You know the circumstances of our marriage—”

“I know that ever since you met Grace Blackthorn, she has been a misery in your life,” said Matthew. “I know there was a light in your eyes, and she puts it out.”

“It is being separated from her that makes me miserable,” James said. Yet he was keenly aware, as he had been the night before, that there seemed to be two James Herondales. The one who believed what he was saying, and the one torn by doubt.

The doubts never seemed to last for more than a moment, though. They would slip away until he barely remembered them, just as he barely recalled kissing Grace the day before. He knew that he had. He could remember kissing Daisy—in fact, the memory was so sharp-sweet it was difficult to think of other things. But he could not recall why he had kissed Grace, or what it had been like when he had.

“You have always believed love came at a cost,” said Matthew. “That it was torment and torture and pain. But there should be some joy. There is joy in being with someone you love, even knowing you can never have them, even knowing they will never love you back.” He sucked in a ragged breath of cold air. “But even the moments you are with Grace, you don’t look happy. You don’t seem happy when you talk about her. Love should bring you happiness, at least in the imagining of what your lives will eventually be like when you are together. What will your future with her be like? Tell me how you think of it.”

James knew it was impossible. All his dreams of a future with Grace had been abstract, none concrete. When he thought of her in the house on Curzon Street, he realized suddenly that he had chosen nothing in the house with Grace in mind. He had considered his own wants and Cordelia’s. He had never thought of Grace’s, for he had no idea what they might be.

He felt the bracelet cold against his wrist, the metal picking up the chill of the snow. “Enough,” he said. “We shouldn’t be discussing this now. We should be looking for answers.”

“I will not continue to watch you make yourself miserable,” said Matthew. “There is no point to it—if you will never see reason or good sense—”

“Because you’re a bastion of reason and good sense?” James snapped. He knew he had a temper, just like his father; his anger spilled past everything else now, tasting of copper and fury. “Matthew, you are drunk. For all I know, you mean nothing you are saying right now.”

“I mean all of it,” Matthew protested. “In vino veritas—”

“Don’t you quote Latin at me,” said James. “Even if you were sober, which would be a fine chance, you’ve never taken love seriously enough to lecture me about this. Your passions have been a series of dalliances and ill-conceived attachments. Look at me and tell me there is someone you love more than that bottle in your hand.”

Matthew had gone very white. James realized with a distant dismay that he had broken a pact between them, unspoken, that he would not speak to Matthew about his drinking. That if it remained unmentioned, it might vanish.

Matthew turned then, raising his arm—James stepped forward, but Matthew had already violently slammed the bottle against the brick wall. Glass sprayed in all directions; Matthew flinched back. A flying bit of glass had scratched his face, just beneath his eye. He wiped at the blood on his face and said, “I don’t want to see you ruin your life. But if you don’t love Cordelia, you should let someone else love her.”

“I could hardly stop them, could I?” said James. “Now let me see your hand—Matthew—”

“There you two are,” a voice called. Cordelia was approaching, picking her way through the slippery new snow. “No luck, I’m afraid; I tracked down a faerie smith who sometimes worked with other metals but not adamas, it seems—” She stopped, looking between them, her lips pressed together worriedly. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with you two?”

Matthew held up his left hand. James heard Cordelia make a sound of distress; she hurried toward them. James started, feeling sick: glass from the bottle had gone into Matthew’s hand, and blood seeped out from the cuts on his palm.

Mechanically, James fumbled for his stele. Matthew turned his hand over, looking at it curiously; the blood was running fast, no doubt mixed with wine. Fat red drops splashed onto the snow.

“I was playing around,” Matthew said, sounding drunker than James suspected he was. “I cut myself and James brought me back here for a healing rune. So silly of me. Who knew toys had sharp edges?”

James began to draw the healing rune onto Matthew’s hand, as Cordelia searched in her bag for something with which they could bind up the wound. It had stopped snowing, James realized; he wasn’t sure why he was so very cold.

 

The blue tent opened into a much larger space than Lucie would have guessed from its outer appearance. Malcolm was seated in an armchair next to a long table that had been set up on a threadbare carpet laid out on the ground. On the table were books, stacks and stacks of them: histories of Shadowhunter families, books of fairy tales, necromantic texts.

“Is this where you live?” Lucie demanded, looking around. “How lovely—so many books! Though what do you do during the day?”

“Of course I don’t live here.” Malcolm did not appear especially pleased to see her, though he was the one who had summoned her. “I keep some of my books here. A few that I would not like discovered in my flat should the Shadowhunters choose to raid it.” Rising, he gestured toward the armchair, the one seat in the room. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

Lucie sat as Malcolm picked up his pipe. “I must apologize for how I behaved at the Ruelle,” he said without preamble. He leaned back against the book-strewn table. “For the past ninety years I have believed that Annabel—” His voice cracked; he cleared his throat and went on. “That my Annabel was content in the Adamant Citadel. She was not with me, but I dreamed she might be happy. Might even come back to me. Even if she did not, had she died as Iron Sisters and Silent Brothers die—fading into silence, their bodies preserved forever in the Iron Tombs—I should have gone to lay down near her resting place, that I might sleep by her side for eternity.”