Chain of Iron (The Last Hours, #2)

by Cassandra Clare

Alastair’s pupils flared; even as Thomas drew back hesitantly, Alastair caught hold of Thomas’s shirtfront in a firm grip. He slid onto his knees so that they faced each other; with Thomas sitting back on his heels, their heads were at the same level.

“Just imagine,” Thomas said. “What if we’d never gone to the Academy together? What if none of those things had happened, and Paris was the first time we’d met? And this was the second?”

Then Alastair smiled. It was the ghost of his old arrogant smile, just touched with the lofty wickedness Thomas remembered from school. It had made his heart skip a beat then; it raced now.

the sheer intensity of breathing and moving together with Alastair Carstairs.

And in the moment, Thomas could only think that if he had to be arrested for murder for this to happen, it had been worth it.

“You should be afraid,” said Magnus, very softly. “You have one. You only need three.”

“You have one,” James said, his voice ringing clearly through the darkness. “All you need is three.” Belial turned his burning eyes on James. “What did you say, child of my blood?” “One wound,” said James, gambling that he was right. “You already have one mortal wound from Cortana. All it takes is three—”

Cordelia.

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And there were hands on his shoulders, and they were hers, Cordelia’s, and she said, in a voice of absolute determination: “He is not yours. He is mine. He is mine.”

I knew I would be able to come home, because of you. That you would lead me back. You are my constant star, Daisy.”

“I only want to know one thing,” he said. “Did you mean it, what you said?” “Mean what?” “What you said in the shadow realm,” he murmured. “That I was yours.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said. She could feel the slight tremors running through his body—tremors of stress, which meant he was forcing himself to otherwise hold very still. “You don’t say things you don’t mean, Daisy—”

“Fine.” She jerked her chin up, away from his hand, her mouth trembling as she said, “I meant it, then—you belong to me and not to him—you will never belong to him, James—”

They sank to the floor, James still holding her; he let her down gently onto the carpet, arching over her, his expression drunk and dizzy. “Daisy,” he whispered. “Daisy, my Daisy.”

His body stretched the length of hers, pressing her into the yielding carpet; he was stripped to his undershirt, and she let her hands go free—sliding them up his biceps, feeling the swell of muscles there and in his back as he rose over her on his elbows. “That’s right,” he whispered against her mouth. “Touch me—do what you want—anything—”

He moaned softly against her mouth, murmuring that she was beautiful, that she was his—

Will looked him straight in the eye. “Did you murder Lilian Highsmith?”

“Lilith,” Belial said bitterly. “Of course. I should have known.”

‘Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us.’ Do you understand? Keep hold of me, Daisy. Keep hold of me and don’t let go.”

“Daisy,” she heard James say; she felt his stele brush over her arm, the faint sting and then the numbness of healing runes being applied. “Daisy, my love, I’m so sorry—”

A murmur ran around the room as Will smiled at Jem. It was a smile James knew well: the very specific smile Will had only for his parabatai. If it was odd to see someone smile at a Silent Brother like that, the oddness had long since faded for James; this was his father and his uncle Jem, as he had always known them.

“No apology will make up for what I’ve done in the past,” Alastair continued. “And to make you choose between me and your friends would only make it worse. So I will make the choice. Go back to the library. They’re waiting for you.”

“Tom, you patrolled alone at night because you like things that are dangerous and unhealthy for you. I won’t be one of those things.”

Her eyes softened. “James,” she said, and he wanted to shiver. He loved the way she said his name. He had always loved it. He knew that now.

He loved Cordelia; no, he was in love with her. He had been pushing the thought back all day, knowing he could not let himself fully realize it until the danger was over—until he was alone with Daisy, until he could tell her—

“It is real,” he said roughly. “What we have is—is a marriage.”

“I want to talk to you.” He kissed her forehead, then let her go. “Wait for me upstairs, in your room. There is a great deal I need to explain to you. It’s desperately important. Do you believe me?”

In the moment when Grace stood in the forest and fastened the bracelet onto James’s wrist, she saw something change in him. It was as if she had taken a lamp and turned down its flame. From then on, James loved her. Or believed he loved her. To him, there was no difference.

“But you didn’t, did you? You loved Cordelia despite everything. Loved her enough to shatter the spell, break the bracelet.”

“I remembered how, when you took the bracelet off me four months ago, I felt as though a fog had been lifted from my brain. I could think again. I’ve only been half-alive since I was fourteen. You have not just made me think that I loved you, you have subsumed my will over and over until I no longer know who I am. Do you even understand what it is that you’ve done?”

Tessa was curled up in a window seat, her hair hanging thick and lustrous around her shoulders, her nose buried in a copy of a book called The Jewel of Seven Stars. It always amused him that even though her life was filled with demons and vampires, warlocks and faeries, his wife made a beeline for fantastical fiction every time they entered Foyles bookshop.

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So I told myself to stop.” Cordelia licked her dry lips. “Stop what?” “Hoping, I suppose,” he said. “That you would see that I loved you.”