Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

by Cassandra Clare

“Dance with me,” he said. He was beautiful in his black frock coat, the darkness of the cloth accentuating the gold of his eyes, the sharpness of his cheekbones. Black hair tumbled over his forehead. “You look beautiful, Daisy.”

And when her cheek the moon revealed, a thousand hearts were won: no pride, no shield, could check her power. Layla, she was called.

“Kheili khoshgeli,” he said. He found the words easily: they were the first thing he’d taught himself to say in Persian, though he had never said them to his wife before. You are so beautiful.

“You were calling for Cordelia,” Will said. “I have never heard anyone sound as if they were in such pain. Jamie, you must talk to us.”

Screaming

instead, reaching his hand into his pocket as he did so. Cordelia’s gloves, the pair he had taken from their house, were still there, the kidskin soft as flower petals. He closed his hand around one.

It was Jesse. He stood with an axe in his hands, next to a pile of firewood he’d been splitting. Lucie’s hands shook, and not just with the cold. He was alive. The force of it had never hit her so hard before. She had never seen him like this—never seen the wind lift his black hair, or seen the flush of exertion on his cheeks. Never seen his breath puff out in white clouds as he exhaled. Never seen him breathe at all; he had always been in the world but not part of it, untouched by heat or cold or atmosphere, and here he was breathing and living, his shadow stretching out behind him across the rocky ground. She could not stand it a moment longer. She ran to him. He had time only to look up in surprise and drop the axe before she had thrown her arms around his neck. He caught her against him, gripping her tight, fingers digging into the soft fabric of her dress. He nuzzled his face down into her hair, breathing her name, “Lucie, Lucie,” and his body was warm against hers. For the first time she experienced the scent of him: wool, sweat, skin, woodsmoke, the air just before a storm. For the first time, she felt his heart beating against hers.

This entire section was a beautifully written masterpiece. The author truly brings Jesse to life.

His voice was—well, it was his voice, she knew his voice. But it was so much more physical, more present, than she’d heard it before. And she could feel the vibration in his chest as he spoke.

Though he must have eaten during the time she’d been sleeping, it was clearly still a revelation to him. With each bite he closed his eyes; he even licked spilled cider from his finger with a look that made Lucie’s insides feel muddled.

She wondered if she would ever stop marveling at the realness of this new Jesse. His skin was flushed from the heat of the fire; he had pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, and the muscles in his forearms flexed as he moved.

He rose and turned toward her. Lucie breathed in sharply. His face was beautiful—she had known that, of course she had, it was the same face as always—but before it had been washed out, faded, distant. Now he seemed to glow with a pale fire. There was texture and depth to him that had not been there before, the sense of something real, something that could be touched. There were the faintest of shadows below his eyes, too—had he not been sleeping? Sleeping must be so strange to him; it had been so long since he’d done it. “Jesse,” she said softly. “Is something wrong?” The corner of his mouth curled a little. “You know me so well.”

A boy leaning over him: a boy with hair as black as his own, a boy with green eyes the color of spring leaves, a boy who was already beginning to fade around the edges, like a figure seen in a cloud that disappears when the wind changes. “You said, ‘Who are you?’ ” Jesse said. Magnus seemed to be done examining him; Jesse was leaning against the fireplace mantel, looking as if Lucie’s telling of her story—which was his, too—was draining him as well. “But—I couldn’t answer you.” “I remember,” James said. “Thank you. For saving my life. I didn’t get to say it before.”

“Mine is a complicated story, and people do not want to hear complicated stories. They want simple stories, in which people are either good or evil, and no one good ever makes a mistake, and no one evil ever repents.”

You love as your father loves: wholly, without conditions or hesitancy. To use that as a weapon is blasphemy.

“I wasn’t sure what you wanted to eat, so I got everything.”

“We are not here just to forget,” Matthew said, “but also to remember that there are good and beautiful things in this world, always. And mistakes do not take them from us; nothing takes them from us. They are eternal.”

He had spent only a moment in Cordelia’s room. It held the scent of her perfume, or her soap: spice and jasmine. It brought the memory of her back too painfully.

Her voice was low, husky; the voice that had read Layla and Majnun to him, so long ago. He had fallen in love with her then. He had loved her ever since, but had not known it; even in his blindness, though, her voice had sent disconcerting shivers up his spine. “I thought of you all the time,” he said. It was true; he had thought of her, dreamed of her. The bracelet had whispered to him that none of it meant anything. “I wanted you with me. All the time.”

How had he lived with her, in the same house, for weeks, and not kissed her, touched her, every day? He would die for that chance again.

“I love you,” he said. He knew it wasn’t enough, knew it even before she closed her eyes, as if terribly weary. “I may have believed I loved Grace, but she was not the person I imagined. I think also I did not want to believe I could have been so wrong, especially about something so important. The time I have been married to you, Daisy, has been—the happiest of my life.” There, he thought wretchedly. It was some of the truth, if not the whole of it.

She opened her eyes slowly. “Is that all?” “Not quite,” he said. “If you love Matthew, then tell me now. I will stop importuning you. I will leave you two to be happy.”

James :(((((

I was wrong about my marriage. I didn’t think it was real. It was real. The most real thing in my life. He had told her he loved her.

‘Against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.’”

But he was undeniably handsome, with a sharp, articulate face, and long-lashed green eyes several shades lighter than Matthew’s.

“That house is our home,” he said in the same quiet tone. “Our home. It isn’t anything to me without you in it.”

“Cordelia,” he whispered. He cupped her cheek in his hand. She closed her eyes, her lashes fluttering down, a fringe of dark copper. He wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt. “Come home. It doesn’t mean you forgive me. I’ll apologize a hundred times, a thousand times. We can play chess. Sit in front of the fire. We can talk. About Paris, about Matthew, Lucie, anything you want. We’ve always been able to talk—”

Even melancholy and low-lidded, the depths of her dark eyes never failed to utterly undo him.

Beautiful...

“I require you more,” James said. “Math, let me help you—”

But you cannot fix someone, Cordelia,” she added. “In the end, if they can be fixed at all, they must do the repairs themselves.”

“How much love people have denied themselves through the ages because they believed they did not deserve it. As if the waste of love is not the greater tragedy.”

Jesse met her gaze. She could certainly see why Lucie had been drawn to him, Cordelia thought. He was attractive, but that was not all of it; there was an intensity to him, a focus, as if everything he saw, he carefully considered. It made one wish to be considered by him.

“I really must get Cordelia back home,” he said, laying a hand on her back. It was an entirely ordinary husbandly gesture, not at all remarkable. It felt to Cordelia like being struck by lightning between her shoulder blades.

She looked at him in surprise. For all he had joked on the stairway about being humiliated, there was only a quiet determination in his face, his eyes. Even a sort of steely pride. He was not ashamed of anything he felt, that much was clear. “I went after you that night,” he said. “The night you left. I followed you to Matthew’s, and then to the train station. I was on the platform—I saw you board the train. I would have gone after you, but my father had Tracked me to Waterloo. Lucie had disappeared, and I had to go after her.” She looked down at the gloves in her hand. “You were there? On the train station platform?” “Yes,” James said. He reached out and folded her hand over the gloves. His own was reddened with cold, his fingernails bitten down to the quick. “I wanted you to know. I went after you the moment I knew you’d left. I didn’t wait until hurt pride settled in or anything like that. I realized you were leaving and I ran after you, because when someone you love is leaving, all you think about is getting them back.” Someone you love. His face was inches from hers. She thought, I could raise myself up on my toes and kiss him. He would kiss me back. I could put down the dreadful weight I’ve been carrying, this weight of caution that says: Be careful. You could be hurt again.

Aaaaaaaaaa

Cordelia, he’s breaking his heart over you. He’s so miserable—”

“But I know how he looks. Like he wants to die without you.

Jesse stroked her hair back from her face, his fingers gentle. Careful. “My Lucie,” he breathed. “You know it’s the people who we love the most who can hurt us the most.”

“I dreamed of this,” he said. “Of being able to touch you. Really touch you. I could always only half feel you—and I imagined what it would be like—I tortured myself with it—” “Is it like what you thought?” Lucie whispered. “I think it might break me,” he said, and stretched out above her. “You might break me, Lucie,”

“Because I am not letting you go. Not now.” “No.” Jesse pressed his lips to her hair. “I do not think I could bear to be let go by you, Lucie Herondale. I think I would follow you, even if you ordered me away. I am alive because of you, but not only because you commanded me to live. I am alive because my life has you in it.”

I was waiting for the day he would come to life and the day they would be together like this 🥺 both of them deserve all the happiness in the world.

“Perhaps,” Anna said. “And perhaps you should ask James what truly happened that night. It may be as you fear. But I am an excellent reader of faces, Daisy. And when I see James looking at Grace, I see nothing at all. But when I see him looking at you, he is transformed. We all carry a light inside ourselves. It burns with the flame of our souls. But there are other people in our lives who add their own flames to ours, creating a brighter conflagration.” She glanced quickly at Ariadne, and then back at Cordelia. “James is special. He has always burned bright. But when he looks at you, his light blazes up like a bonfire.”

Matthew laughed a little breathlessly. “I am saying that with you, I have no armor. I feel everything. For better or worse.”

He is just so sweet and lovable, ugh Matthew

He caught at her shoulders. “You cannot hurt yourself, Daisy. You must not. Hate me, hit me, do anything you want to me. Cut up my suits and set fire to my books. Tear my heart into pieces, scatter them across England. But do not harm yourself—” He pulled her toward him, suddenly, pressing his lips to her hair, her cheek. She caught him by the arms, her fingers digging into his sleeves, holding him to her. “I swear to the Angel,” he said, in a muffled voice, “if you die, I will die, and I will haunt you. I will give you no peace—”

🥺🥺🥺

“Do you remember when I gave this to you?” She nodded. “Our two-week anniversary, I believe it was.” “I didn’t tell you then what was inside,” he said, “not because I did not want you to know, but because I could not face the truth of it myself. I wrote these words down and folded them up and put them where they would be near you. It was selfish. I wanted to speak them to you, but not to face the consequences. But here.” He held out the slip of paper. “Read them now.” As she read, her expression changed. They were familiar, lines from Lord Byron. There yet are two things in my destiny— A world to roam through, and a home with thee. The first were nothing—had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness. “ ‘A world to roam through,’ ” Cordelia whispered. “That is why you chose this necklace. The shape of the world.” She fixed her gaze on his. “It means…” Her eyes were deep and wide, and this time he let himself touch her cheek, his palm against her soft skin, his whole body burning at even that little touch. “It means I would rather have a home with you than all the world,” he said fiercely. “If you cannot believe me now, believe the James who gave you that necklace, long before you left for Paris. My God, what other reason could I have for placing those verses there, save that I loved you, but was too much a coward to say it?” Cordelia leaned her cheek against his hand and looked up at him through the dark fringe of her lashes. “So you loved me and you loved Grace a...

Why had no one ever told her how close happiness was to tears?

All Hell’s power could not extinguish that love.

“I love you,” Cordelia said. She had never said it to him before, and she sensed somehow now was not the time for flowery phrases or shy deflections. He needed to know. “Asheghetam. I love you. I love you. Without you, I cannot breathe.”

“I did not break that enchantment knowingly. Yes, I fought it, without knowing I was fighting. But what snapped that band was the force of what I felt for you.”

For there is no one else in this world, my most beautiful, maddening, adorable wife, that I could ever have loved half as much as I have loved you. My heart beats for you,” he said. “Only ever you.”

Jamessssssss aaaaa

“You have no idea how much I have wanted you,” he said. “Every moment of being married to you has been bliss and torture.”

We are married, and we will remain married, and in love, until the stars burn out of the sky.”

Cordelia’s heart was too full for speech. Without a word, she caught hold of her husband’s hand. Side by side with James, Cordelia ran.