Chain of Gold (20 page)
Authors: Cassandra Clare
Grace had told him that Tatiana had left the house untouched all these years, but that was not entirely true: she had installed this mechanical creature's corpse in its gallery. Why? What did it mean to her? Was it admiration of Mortmain, who had nearly destroyed the Shadowhunters?
James hated to turn his back on the thing, but he moved on, and quickly found the door to Tatiana's study. The room was piled with boxes and crates, stacks of yellowed pages and decaying books. On the wall was a portrait of a boy, about the same age as James, shining green eyes dominating his gaunt face. James knew who it must be, though he had never seen him: Jesse Blackthorn.
There was a metal box set on the low wrought-iron table below
the portrait of the dead boy, carved all over with the winding vines that the Blackthorns used to decorate seemingly everything. The lock was built into the lid, presenting a simple keyhole in the smooth surface.
Without looking directly at the box, he lowered his hand to its lid; he felt his body flash into and out of shadow in irregular jerks and for an awful moment saw that other land, the blighted place of twisted trees.
James thrust his ethereal hand through the lid into the box, closed it around a cold serpent of metal, and withdrew it. It was Grace's mother's bracelet, just as she had described.
He fled from the room, from the manor itself. The moonlight through the dusty windows of the hallways wavered and writhed like a mass of silver snakes.
Out of the manor grounds and nearly home, James became aware that he remained a shadow. He stopped where he was, a nondescript stretch of road lined on both sides with dense trees and foliage, neither Blackthorn nor Herondale home visible. The sky was dark, the moon a bright sliver. Gray shimmered at the edge of his vision as he closed his eyes and willed himself to become solid again.
Nothing happened.
He was not, at the moment, a being who breathed, but he felt himself breathe anyway, hard and shaky. When he had become a shadow during his scalding fever, it had only been for moments. It had not been much longer at Shadowhunter Academy. But he had not made the change on purpose, either time.
Oddly, his mind turned to Cordelia, to her voice reaching through the fever, through the shadows. He fell to his knees, his hands making no mark in the dirt of the road. He closed his eyes.
Let me come back. Let me come back.
Do not leave me alone in these shadows.
He felt a jolt, as if he had fallen and hit the ground hard: his eyes
flew open. He was no longer a shadow. He staggered to his feet, gasping in the cold, clear air. The gray had gone from the edge of his vision.
“Well,” he said out loud to nobody, “never again. That's easily done. Never again.”
The next night Grace was waiting for him under the shade of a yew tree, just inside the entrance to Brocelind Forest. Without a word he placed the bracelet in her hand.
She turned it thoughtfully over and over between her pale fingers, and he saw the moonlight strike across the engraving laid within the curve of metal.
LOYAULTÃ ME LIE.
James knew the meaning. It had been the maxim of a long-dead king of England.
Loyalty Binds Me.
“It was the motto of the Cartwrights,” Grace said, her voice very soft. “I was Grace Cartwright once.” A smile touched her lips, faint as winter moonlight. “As I waited for you, I realized how foolish I had been to ask for this. I can't wear it without my mother seeing. I do not even dare keep it in my room lest she find it.” Grace turned to him. “Would
you
wear it?” she asked. “As my friend. As my only real friend, truly. Then when I see you, I will be reminded of who I am.”
“Of course,” he said, his heart breaking for her. “Of course I will.”
“Hold out your arm,” she whispered, barely loud enough to be heard, and he did.
He told himself later that he would never forget her fingers on his skin, the way the whole of Brocelind Forest, perhaps all of Idris, gave a great sigh, as Grace gently closed the bracelet on his wrist.
He looked down at Grace. How had he never noticed before that her eyes were almost the precise color of silver, like the bracelet itself?
He wore it through the summer, into the next year and the year after. He had, even now, still not taken it off.
F
ALL OF
S
ONGS
Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them,
Fair the fall of songs
When the singer sings them.
âRobert Louis Stevenson, “Bright Is the Ring of Words”
“You have to understand,” said
Charles, his eyes glittering earnestly. “The Enclave is extremely annoyed with you, James. Some of them I would even say are angry.”
It was the morning after his odd visit to Chiswick; James was sitting in the chair in front of his father's desk. Tessa had never redecorated the Institute's office and it still had a dark Victorian feel to it, with pine-colored wallpaper and Aubusson rugs on the floors. The chair his father sat in was heavy mahogany, the armrests chipped and scratched. Charles Fairchild leaned against the wall near the door, which he had shut and locked after the three of them. His red hair gleamed like a dull old penny in the witchlight.
Lucie had been swept away by Tessa after breakfast to help in the infirmary. The Silent Brothers had put Barbara, Piers, and Ari
adne into deep, unwavering enchanted sleep: they had hopes that their bodies would resist the poison while they rested. One could sense the shadow in the house, the sickroom atmosphere, along with the thick tension in this room.
“That seems like it must be very upsetting for the Enclave, then,” said James. “Bad for their dyspepsia.”
He was trying not to glare at Charles but was losing the battle. He'd slept badly the night before after returning to the Institute with his father. It would have been one thing if his father had been angry, but it was clear Will had been more worried than anything else, and James's insistence that he'd merely gone for a walk and ended up in Chiswick didn't help matters.
“You need to take this seriously, James,” said Charles. “It was necessary to use a Tracking rune to find youâ”
“I wouldn't say it was
necessary
,” said James. “I was not in need of help, nor was I lost.”
“James,” his father said calmly. “You
disappeared
.”
“I should have told you I was going out,” said James. “Butâdemons attacked us in daylight yesterday. We still have three Shadowhunters in the infirmary, and no cure for their condition. Why is the Enclave focused on me?”
Red flared in Charles's face. “The Enclave is meeting to discuss the situation with the demons today. But we're Shadowhuntersâlife doesn't simply stop because of a demon attack. According to Tatiana, you went to her house last night and demanded to see Grace, and when she said no, you smashed her greenhouse to piecesâ”
Will threw up his hands. “Why would James vandalize a random outbuilding because he couldn't see a girl? It's ridiculous, Charles, and you know it.”
James half closed his eyes. He didn't want to look directly at his father and see Will's distress: his tie askew and his jacket rumpled and his face showing the evidence of a sleepless night. “I told you,
Charles. I never spoke to Mrs. Blackthorn or Grace, either. And there was a Cerberus demon in that greenhouse.”
“Maybe so,” said Charles. He was beginning to remind James of a dog that refused to give up a shoe it was gnawing on. “But you would never have been in a position to see it had you not already been on the grounds of Chiswick House and broken into the greenhouse.”
“I didn't break into the greenhouse,” said James, which was technically true.
“Then tell me what you did do!” Charles pounded his right fist into the palm of his other hand. “If what Tatiana is saying isn't true, then why don't you tell me what did happen?”
I went into the shadow realm to see if I could find a connection to the demon attacks. I followed a light I believe was Cortana and discovered myself in the greenhouse, where Cordelia Carstairs was already being attacked by a tentacle.
No. No one would believe him. And they would think he was mad, and he would be getting Cordelia and Matthew and Lucie and Thomas and Christopher into trouble as well.
Silent, James gritted his teeth.
Charles sighed. “You leave us to assume the worst, James.”
“That he's a senseless vandal? Honestly, Charles,” said Will. “You know how Tatiana feels about our family.”
“I killed a demon in that greenhouse,” James said evenly. “I did what I was supposed to do. Yet I am the one the Enclave is blaming, rather than the Shadowhunter keeping a demon on the grounds of her house.”
It was Will's turn to sigh. “Jamie, we know that Benedict kept Cerberus demons.”
“The one that was thereâand I do believe you when you say it was thereâcannot be blamed on Tatiana,” said Charles. “The rest of the property has been searched, and there were no more. It was your bad luck to stumble across this one.”
“That greenhouse is full of dark magic plants,” said James. “Surely someone noticed that.”
“It is,” Charles admitted, “but given the severity of her complaints, James, no one is going to note the presence of a few belladonna bushes in her shrubbery. You still wouldn't have run across the demon if you hadn't been trespassing already.”
“Tell Tatiana we'll pay for the repairs to the greenhouse,” said Will wearily. “I must say all this seems a vast overreaction, Charles. James happened to be there, he ran into a demon, and things took their natural course. Would you rather he'd let it loose to devour the neighborhood?”
Charles cleared his throat. “Let us stick to practicalities.” Sometimes James had a hard time remembering that Charles was a Shadowhunter, and not one of the thousands of bowler-hatted, sack-suited bankers who flooded down Fleet Street every morning on their way to offices in the City. “I have had a long conversation with Bridgestock this morningâ”
Will said something rude in Welsh.
“However you may feel about him, he remains the Inquisitor,” said Charles. “And at the moment, with my mother in Idris dealing with the Elias Carstairs situation, I represent her interests here in London. When the Inquisitor speaks, I must hear him out.”
James started. He had not connected Charlotte's trip to Idris with the situation affecting Cordelia's father. He supposed he should have: he recalled overhearing his sister and Cordelia in Kensington Gardens, Cordelia saying her father had made a mistake. The tremble in her voice.
“No punishment is being recommended for James at this point,” Charles went on. “But JamesâI suggest you avoid Chiswick House, and avoid Tatiana Blackthorn and her daughter entirely.”
James went still. The hands of the grandfather clock were blades, sweeping slowly around the face, cutting time.
“Let me apologize to her,” James said; the silver bracelet felt as if it were burning on his wrist. He didn't know if he meant Tatiana or Grace.
“Now, James,” Charles said. “You should not try to make a young woman choose between you and her family. It is not kind. Grace told me herself that if she were to marry a man not of her mother's choosing, she would be disownedâ”
“You barely know her,” James snapped. “One carriage rideâ”
“I know her better than you think,” said Charles, with a flash of schoolboy superiority.
“Are you two talking about the same girl?” said Will, his eyebrows rising. “Grace Blackthorn? I don't seeâ”
“It's nothing. Nothing.” James could stand it no longer. He rose, buttoning his jacket. “I must be off,” he said. “There's an orangery in Kensington Gardens that needs smashing. Ladies, lock up your outbuildings. James Herondale is in town and he has been slighted in love!”
Charles looked pained.
“James,”
he said, but James had already swept past him and out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Cordelia plucked nervously at the fabric of her visiting gown. Quite surprisingly, an official invitation to tea from Anna Lightwoodâon monogrammed stationery, no lessâhad arrived by penny post that morning. Cordelia was shocked that after everything that had happened, Anna had remembered her desultory offer. Still, she had seized at the opportunity to get out of the house like a drowning man seizing a rope.
She'd barely been able to sleep after getting home the night before. Curled under her coverlet, she couldn't help thinking of Cousin Jem and her father, and helplessly of James, the way he'd been gentle with her ankle, the look on his face when he'd talked
about the shadow realm that only he could see. She couldn't think of a way to help him, any more than she could help her father. She wondered if not being able to help the people you loved was the worst feeling in the world.
Then at lunch, her mother and Alastair had occupied themselves by trading the latest gossipâRaziel knew where they'd found it outâthat James had been discovered wandering about Tatiana Blackthorn's gardens, having merrily smashed in all her windows and terrified her and her daughter by racing drunkenly about her lawn. Even Risa looked amused as she refilled the teapot.
Cordelia was horrified. “That is
not
what happened!”
“And how would
you
know?” said Alastair, sounding a bit as if he knew exactly why she did. But he couldn't have guessed, could he? Cordelia couldn't be sure; Alastair often seemed as if he knew a great deal more than he was letting on. She thought longingly of the distant past when the two of them had been able to settle their differences by hitting each other over the head with toy teakettles.
So, thank goodness for tea with Anna, even if she had nothing decent to wear. Cordelia cast a last glance at herself in the pier glass between the vestibule windows. While her apple-green princess dress with pink embroidery was fashionable and pretty, all the flounces made her resemble an old-fashioned lamp, and her face above the lace collar looked jaundiced. With a sigh, Cordelia caught up her gloves and reticule from the hall table and headed toward the door.
“Cordelia!” Sona hurried toward her, the heels of her boots click-clicking on the parquet floor. “Where are you going?”
“To take tea with Anna Lightwood,” said Cordelia. “She invited me yesterday.”
“That's what your brother said, but I didn't credit it. I want you to make friends, Layla.” Sona rarely used Cordelia's pet nameâgiven to her by Sona, after the heroine of the poem they both
lovedâunless she was worried. “You know that I do. But I am not sure you should visit Miss Lightwood.”
Cordelia felt her back stiffen. Alastair had come to observe the conversation between his sister and mother. He was leaning against the doorway to the breakfast room, smirking. “I accepted the invitation,” she said. “I will go.”
“At the ball the other night, I overheard much talk about Anna Lightwood,” said Sona, “and none of it was complimentary. There are those in the Enclave who see her as improper and brash. We have come here to make friends and form alliances, not to alienate the powerful. Are you certain she is the best choice for a social call?”
“She seems proper enough.” Cordelia reached for her new straw hat, decorated with a silk posy and ribbons.
Alastair spoke from the doorway. “There may be those in the older generation who disapprove of Anna, but in our set she is one of the most popular Shadowhunters in London. It would be unwise for Cordelia to turn down her invitation.”
“Really?” Sona looked curious. “Can that be true?”
“It is.” Alastair pushed back a lock of his pale hair. Cordelia could remember when his hair had been black as a crow's wing, before he had started dying it. “Anna's uncle is the head of the Institute. Her godmother is the Consul. Without a question, the most prominent families to know in London are the Herondales, the Lightwoods, and the Fairchilds, and Anna is tied to all of them.”
“Very well,” said Sona, after a pause. “But Alastair, you go with her. Pay a short call and observe the proprieties. Afterward, if you like, the two of you can go shopping in Leadenhall Market.”
Cordelia half expected a protest from Alastair, but he only shrugged. “As you say, Mother,” he said, brushing past Cordelia on his way to the door. He was already dressed to go out, Cordelia thought with mingled surprise and amusement, in a deep gray flannel coat that suited his dark eyes. The shape of his weapons belt was
just visible beneath the line of his coat; the Enclave had suggested that all Shadowhunters arm themselves as a precaution when going out, even in daylight. Cordelia herself had Cortana strapped to her back, glamoured so that it would be invisible to mundanes.
Perhaps Alastair really did know more than he was letting on.
The late afternoon sun shone brightly on Grosvenor Square as Matthew's father, Henry, answered the door at the Consul's house.
James ceased what he suspected might have been overly loud knocking as the door swung open. Henry smiled when he saw James: he had a plain but kindly face, ginger hair that had faded to brown streaked with gray, and a hint of Matthew's grin.
“Come in, come in, James,” he said, rolling backward. He had been terribly injured twenty-five years ago in the Battle of Cadair Idris, and he had never walked again. He had taken a standard Bath chair for invalids and bent his inventive spirit upon itâit was fitted now with a smaller version of the wheels one might find on an automobile. A curved appendage with an electric light hung over one of Henry's shoulders. Over the other shoulder, a clawed attachment allowed him to reach for objects placed high overhead. A shelf beneath the seat carried books.
Christopher adored his godfather and spent hours in Henry's laboratory, working on all sorts of inventions as well as improvements to the Bath chair. Some had been very useful, like the steam-powered elevator they had installed so that Henry could easily reach his cellar laboratory; others, like Henry and Christopher's attempt to create a demon-repelling ointment, had not.
