Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

by Cassandra Clare

She wished—but it didn’t matter what she wished. She’d learned that again in Paris.

“Well,” said James after a long silence. “I thought, when I was ten years old and my father showed everyone the drawings I’d made of myself as Jonathan Shadowhunter, slaying a dragon, that was the most my parents would ever humiliate me. But that is no longer the case. There is a new champion.”

“I want to be honest with you,” he said. “Very honest, because I think it is the only hope we have to come out of this. And I do still hope, Daisy. I will not bother you about it—about you and me—but I will not give up on us either.”

“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.”

It’s hard to explain, but when someone is your parabatai, or nearly, and you feel distant from them, it is like a piece has been cut out of your heart.”

He touched her mouth with his fingertips, and she saw his eyes darken. “That’s how I feel when I am away from you.”

“Can I touch you?” she whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes. Please.”

“My turn,” he said, stilling her hands. “Let me touch you. Tell me to stop”—he kissed the corner of her mouth—“if you want me to.”

“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,”

“Oh God,” he whispered against her mouth, and she thought, Of course, he’s never learned to call out to the Angel, like we do. “Oh God, Lucie,” and she wanted to fall apart in pieces so that he could fit more closely with her, wanted to break so she could be joined back together with him.

“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.”

“Ey pesar,” he whispered, “nik ze hadd mibebari kar-e jamal.” His tongue swept Thomas’s lower lip; Thomas shuddered, pressed into him, his breath catching with every kiss, every movement of Alastair’s body. “Ba conin hosn ze to sabr konam?”

Desire burned deep in his belly like a swallowed coal, but he knew it made no difference. Alastair was shaking his head. “I learned—with Charles—things cannot be all stolen moments. But neither can we hurt others by blindly pursuing what we want—” “So you do want me,” Thomas said,

Alastair’s eyes darkened. “How can you even ask—”

“Some people like being miserable,” said Lucie, staring off above Cordelia’s head. “Some people won’t do things that would make them, and other people, happy, just because.”

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

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he said. “I never did.” He shook his head, his eyes closed. “I can’t bear it. Cordelia. Please.”

All I have is you.” Thomas straightened up. His heart felt as if it had frozen in his chest. “And I am not enough?” “You can’t be my only reason to stay,” Alastair whispered. “I can’t expect you to carry that weight. It isn’t fair to you.” “I wish,” Thomas said, surprised at the coldness in his own voice, “that you would stop telling me what the best thing for me is. You tell me over and over that there are all these reasons why you think my loving you would be bad for me.” Alastair’s chest was rising and falling quickly. “I didn’t say anything about love.” “Well, I did,” Thomas said. “You came here; you even said it was because you hoped to talk to me. You’re the one chasing me around, telling me to leave you alone.”

It’s not good for you to see me, for us to meet, but I want to see you. I want to see you every damned moment of every day, and so I spent the night standing outside this ugly pink building in hopes of seeing you, and now that I have seen you, I am reminded of all the reasons this is a bad idea. Believe me,”

“You’re the only person who thinks I’m not, and if we were in a relationship, I would disappoint you, and you would stop being the one person who thinks well of me.” “Don’t go to Tehran,” said Thomas. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Turning away love because one believes one does not deserve it, for instance.” Alastair looked at her beadily. “You are simply not going to stop bothering me about Thomas, are you?” “I just don’t understand it,” Cordelia said. “Ariadne is living with Anna—surely it would not be the end of the world if you and Thomas were to love each other?” “Ask Mâmân,” said Alastair grimly.

“Thomas could have anyone,” said Alastair, with a righteously moping air. “He could choose better than me.”

“Listen to yourself, Cordelia!” James shouted. “You are without Cortana! You cannot even lift a weapon! Do you know what it means to me, that you cannot protect yourself? Do you understand that I am terrified, every moment of every day and night, for your safety?”

“You’re bleeding,” James said. He closed the distance between them in two strides. He caught her chin and lifted it, his thumb stroking across her cheekbone. “Just a scratch,” he breathed. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Daisy, tell me—”

“It’s the furthest thing from nothing,” James rasped.

“I had no choice. And then I saw—you had gone to where your father died,” he said, after a moment. “I thought—I was afraid—” “That I wanted to die too?” Cordelia whispered. It had not occurred to her that he might think that. “James. I may be foolish, but I am not self-destructive.” “And I thought, had I made you as miserable as that? I have made so many mistakes, but none were calculated to hurt you. And then I saw what you were doing, and I thought, yes, she does want to die. She wants to die and this is how she’s chosen to do it.” He was breathing hard, almost gasping, and she realized how much of his fury was despair.

“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.

“if you die, I will die, and I will haunt you. I will give you no peace—”

Perhaps it had been meant to be a quick kiss, but she could not help herself: she kissed back. And it was like breathing air after being trapped underground for weeks, like coming up into sunlight after darkness.

Kissing him was like traveling, exciting and unfamiliar, and at the same time it was coming home. It was everything.

“Daisy,” he whispered against her mouth, sending delicious shivers through her, a chorus of cascading sparks. “Do you have any idea what it would do to me if something happened to you? Do you?”

She stalked off. James turned to Cordelia—he looked a mess, flushed and disheveled, his mouth red from kisses. “Daisy—don’t go—I’ll get rid of whoever it is, you can wait upstairs—”

“I need to tell you something,” he said, his voice shaking. “To show you something.”

She sucked in a breath; she so desperately wanted to tell him she would wait for him upstairs, she so desperately wanted him, it felt like a sort of insanity. Her whole body screamed at her: Be with him, touch him, let him love you.

“Are we really going to discuss it?” Jesse said. “Or are you just going to go ahead and use the mirror?” James looked at Jesse over his shoulder. “And here you were worried about fitting into the London Enclave.” Despite himself, despite everything, he felt himself smile. “It’s like you’ve known us for years.”

Matthew smiled up at James, who restrained the urge to ruffle his hair. It was a thin reflection of the Smile for which he was famous, but it was there. “Do you hear that?” said Matthew, nudging James with his elbow. “A scientist says I’m better.”

“And I thought, since you couldn’t go, I might try to bring some of the party to you. To remind you that even though you are here, it is not forever, and soon enough you will again be someone who goes to parties.”

“There is someone else,” she said, “who has been harmed greatly by my actions, through no fault of their own. Someone who deserves to know the truth.” She took a deep breath. “Cordelia. Cordelia Carstairs.”

Tessa gave a small chuckle. “Lucie, my love, I know that to you I am your boring old mother, but I had my share of adventures when I was younger.

Lucie got to her feet. “It’s one of my favorite parts of the Christmas party, you know,” she said. “What is?” asked Tessa. “The part when you do my hair beforehand,” Lucie said, and kissed her mother on the cheek.

Thomas glared at the fruit basket, and the fruit basket glared back.

Alastair looked at him with his dark eyebrows peaked. “I live here,” he pointed out. “Thomas, have you brought me a fruit basket?”

He looked sulky and bitten-lipped and ferocious, like a Persian prince from a fairy tale. A Persian prince from a fairy tale? SHUT UP, THOMAS.

Sona’s eyes sparkled. “So many young people learning Persian these days,” she said, as if highly entertained. She leaned forward. “Tell me, where is my son? I do hope he didn’t abandon you at the front door.” “Not at all,” Thomas said. “I managed to talk him into coming to the Christmas party. He went to change clothes.”

“I am delighted that Alastair has a friend who will look out for his best interests, even when he does not. Not like that ahmag Charles,” Sona added, as if to herself. But she was looking at Thomas even more closely than before.

“Charles never cared for Alastair,” Sona said. “Not the way he deserves to be cared for. Alastair deserves to have someone in his life who understands how truly wonderful he is. Who suffers when he suffers, and is happy when he is happy.”

He only watched Alastair: Alastair being gentle, Alastair being loving, the Alastair Sona had known, but Thomas so rarely ever saw. As Alastair bid goodbye to his mother, Thomas could not help but wonder: If Alastair was so utterly determined to hide that part of himself from Thomas, did it matter that Thomas knew it existed at all?

He closed his eyes. “Try not to collect any painful memories, Lucie,” he said. “Do not get too attached to anything, or anyone. For if you lose them, the memory will burn in your mind like a poison for which there will never be any cure.”

“I know you believe that I only want you now that I cannot have you,” he said. “But it is not true.”

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.