Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

by Cassandra Clare

“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?”

Ari looked at her in surprise. “But… you’ve always said you don’t dance.” “I like to break rules,” Anna said. “Even ones I have set myself.” Ari smiled and held out her hand. “Then let us dance.”

“Matthew, what I feel for James hasn’t changed. It has nothing to do with you. You ought to be adored above all things, for you are wonderful. You ought to have someone’s whole heart. But I do not have a whole heart to give you.” “Because you still love James,” Matthew said flatly.

“I always have loved him,” Cordelia said, with the ghost of a smile. “I always will. It is not a choice; it is part of me, like my heart or my soul or… or Cortana.”

“I cannot and never will love you in the way you wish to be loved, Math. The way you deserve to be loved.

Matthew raised his chin. There was a terrible look in his eyes, the sort of look her father had when he had lost a great deal at the gambling table. “Am I so hard to love?”

“But you don’t love me.” There was real bitterness in his voice now. “I understand, you’ve made it clear enough; I’m a drunk and always will be—”

“See,” Thomas said, in a low voice. “The sky has not fallen.”

“Do you realize we’re under the mistletoe?” Alastair said, his dark eyes sparking with mischief.

“Would you like me to do something about it?” Thomas said.

“Right here?” he said, hooking his fingers into Thomas’s waistband. “Right now?” “I’d kiss you right here,” Thomas said in a harsh whisper. “I’d kiss you in front of the Enclave. I am not ashamed of anything I feel about you. You are the one, I think, who doesn’t want it.”

Alastair tipped his face up, and Thomas could see what his lashes had been hiding: the slow-melting desire in his eyes. “I want it,” he said.

“For so long, as a ghost, you were the only one I could touch. And now I am alive, and you are the only one I cannot.” He looked up at the stars in the clear sky above them. “It hardly seems worth the return.”

And though Lucie could not touch him, Jesse’s presence warmed her, surrounded her, calmed her. She felt a pressure in her throat: Why had no one ever told her how close happiness was to tears?

“I have always wanted to bear it with you,” said Thomas quietly. “Yes,” Alastair said. His eyes were bright with cold. “Raziel knows, perhaps that is the reason I have not become like Tatiana myself. You keep me human, Tom.”

You may falter at times. But I do not believe a moment of weakness is failure. Not as long as you keep trying. In the meantime—let me help you.”

“No one says that. What they say is that I am the handsomer one.” “That,” said Matthew, “is also clearly untrue.” “And the better dancer.” “James, this terrible habit of lying seems to have come on you suddenly. I am concerned, very concerned—”

Have you ever wanted something,” he said, looking at Thomas with a sudden directness, “something you knew you should not have, but that you could not keep away from? Something that occupied all your waking and dreaming thoughts with reminders of how much you wanted it?”

“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 have hidden them for years. All the years that I have loved you. I fell in love with you when you had the scalding fever, when we were both children, and I never stopped.” “But you never said—”

“If it were not for you, my Daisy, I would have belonged to Belial long ago. 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.”

When she licked his throat, he groaned. “You have no idea how much I have wanted you,” he said. “Every moment of being married to you has been bliss and torture.” He dragged up her skirts, ran his hands up the sides of her legs, his fingertips skating over the silk of her stockings. “The things you did to me—when you came to me wanting help with your corset, on our wedding night—”

“But only because my self-control was hanging on by the thinnest thread. I pictured myself lunging at you, you absolutely horrified by what I wanted to do to you—” “I would not have been horrified,” Cordelia said, looking at him steadily. “I want you to do things to me. I want to do things to you.”

“How much do you like this dress?” he asked. “Because I can take it off you slowly, or I can take it off you fast—” “Fast,” she said, and caught her breath as he took hold of the fabric at her neckline and, with a quick movement, ripped it apart.

I thought perhaps that it was not in my nature to want.” He let his eyes roam over her, making her skin prickle. “That was wildly inaccurate.”

“I never had anything with Grace,” he said gently. “Nothing that was real. You are my first, Cordelia. You are all my firsts.” He closed his eyes. “We can keep talking, if you desire, but tell me now, because I am going to need to go into the adjoining room and run cold water on myself for at least—”

“Are you ready?” he whispered. His voice was dry and rasping, as if he were choking on his own need for her, and she arched up against him and said yes, she was ready, yes please.

“I never want anyone to see you like this but me.”

“I’ve loved you for years without being able to say it,” he said. “You will now have to put up with me finally speaking aloud every ridiculous, possessive, jealous, impassioned thought I have ever had and been forced to hide, even from myself. It may take some time to work through them all.”

We are married, and we will remain married, and in love, until the stars burn out of the sky.” “That is very poetic,” said Cordelia. “Rather the sort of thing Lord Byron Mandrake would have said to the beautiful Cordelia.” “I believe she was promised a herd of stallions,” said James, “which I cannot provide.” “Well, what use are you then?” Cordelia wondered aloud.

“You have to promise,” said Will, “not to shout when I tell you.” “Ah,” said James, “rather what you said to me when it turned out the puppy you bought me when I was nine was in fact a werewolf, and had to be returned, with apologies, to his family.” “A mistake anyone could make,” said Jesse. “Thank you, Jesse,” said Will. “The fact is—it’s going to be Charles. Stay strong, James.”

but Alastair caught hold of Thomas and pulled him close, his fingers cupping the back of Thomas’s neck. His eyes were wide, black, feverish. “I need to get out of here,” he said. “Come for a carriage ride with me. I have to breathe.” He leaned his forehead against Thomas’s. “Come with me, please. I need you.”

I want a Cordelia who can leave me, because then I know that when she stays with me, it is by choice.”

“Don’t just stand there, Carstairs,” he said. “It isn’t me Thomas needs now. It’s you.” Alastair looked stunned, and Cordelia knew immediately what he was thinking: That can’t be true, it can’t be me Thomas needs, or wants.

“You are grieving,” she said, “but you are a warrior. You have always been a warrior.” She looked over at Alastair, who stood by the window, gazing out at the blackened sky. “You will help her to do what is necessary.” “Yes,” Alastair said. “I will.”

His voice carried the weight of a thousand emotions: resignation, loss, anger—and hope. “I know I cannot fight beside you, Layla. I only make one request. Be careful with your life. Not only for your own sake, but for mine.”

“No,” Matthew said. “I didn’t come here to abandon James to his fate. I came to save him from it.” “Good for you,” said Belial, sounding bored. “James, you must know this is the best thing for everyone. I don’t want to have to resort to violence.” “Of course you do,” James said. “You love resorting to violence.” “That seems true,” said Matthew. “I only agreed to come,” put in Stymphalia, “because I thought there might be violence.” “The birdie and the drunk are right,” Belial allowed.

And now, well—there isn’t anyone I’d rather be stuck at the end of the world with.” Anna put out her hand. After a moment, with a look of bemusement, Alastair shook it. “I’m glad that you’ll be here, looking after London,” she added. “We’ll see you soon.”

“I think,” he said, “that you are my unfinished business.”

If you are reading this, this is the first Fire-Message that has been sent with success. It has been written by Grace Blackthorn and invented by Christopher Lightwood.

I was denying myself the thing I wanted more than anything else in the world because I didn’t believe I deserved

Not only because I wish to have what I desire. Although I do desire you,” he added in a quieter voice. “I desire you with an ardor that frightens me.” Thomas said, “Come lie down next to me.”

“I love you. Let me love you,” he said, and when Alastair kissed him again, a hard, hot, openmouthed kiss, Thomas lost himself in it, in the way Alastair touched him.

He looked at her. His eyes were still gold, and full of sorrow. “Daisy,” he said. And plunged the sword into his own heart.

“You will not leave me,” Anna said fiercely. “I want you to stay, with me, at Percy Street. I do not want you to move to some flat somewhere, with sconces—” Ari was shaking her head, smiling; she could not believe they were having this conversation now, but when had Anna ever waited to say what she thought needed to be said?

“Daisy,” he said. “You believed in me.” “Of course I did,” she replied, and she realized as she spoke the words that that was all she really needed to say. “I always will.”

Cordelia had passed the drawing room in her mother’s house and seen Alastair sitting on the sofa with the baby—a swaddled mass of blankets with two pink fists visible, waving as Alastair sang, in a low voice, a Persian melody Cordelia half remembered: You are the moon in the sky, and I am the star that circles around you. It was a song their father had sung to them when they were very small. How things came full circle, Cordelia could not help but think, in the last ways one would expect.

The Home Mark, which was permanent, had been given to him by Will, who had also presented him with the gift of a stele that had once belonged to Will’s father (and had now been modified to create fire-messages, as all current steles were). They were both gifts, Lucie thought, the rune and the stele—a sort of welcome combined, she hoped, with a promise.

(Thomas still remembered Alastair asking him if he would like it if they lived together; Alastair had been clearly terrified that Thomas would say no, and Thomas had had to kiss him and kiss him until he was pushed up against a wall and breathless before he finally believed that Thomas’s answer was yes.)

“I am in love with Alastair Carstairs,” Thomas had said loudly and slowly, so there could be no mistake, “and I am going to spend the rest of my life with him.”