Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

by Cassandra Clare

He understood now why poets damned their hearts, their capacity for desolation and want.

“Oh, what?” snapped Alastair. “Are we all supposed to pretend that Cordelia didn’t run off to Paris with Matthew because James made her miserable, always gazing after that vacuous Grace Blackthorn? And now they’re all back, and they all look miserable. What an appalling mess.”

And that had been part of it, Jem thought. Strength of will could not be dismissed, but there was also the great weakness of demons: they did not understand either love or faith.

Everyone had looked at him, Sophie’s knitting needles arrested in mid-motion. “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.” There had been a momentary silence. “I didn’t think you even liked Alastair,” Gideon had said, looking puzzled. “Not much, at least.”

“When you first came to London,” he said, “all I could think was that I disliked your brother, and I expected you would be like him. But you won me over quite quickly—you were kind and brave, and so many other things I aspired to be.” He took her hand, though there was nothing romantic about the gesture; he pressed the smooth river stone into her palm and closed her fingers over it. “I don’t think I realized—until you sent the Merry Thieves to me at my lowest point—how much I would need someone in my life who would see the truth of me and offer me kindness, even though I had not asked for it. Even when I felt I did not deserve it. And when I travel the seas with Oscar, every time I set eyes upon a new land, I will think of you and of that kindness. I will always carry it with me, and the knowledge that it is the gifts we did not have the strength to ask for that matter the most.”

James smiled at Cordelia—that lovely, lazy smile that always made her feel as if delightful sparks were running along her spine. She moved closer to him, dropping the stone Matthew had given her into her pocket. For a moment they stood looking at the park together in companionable silence.

“I have no sorrow,” he said. He took her hand, locking his fingers with hers. “Life is a long chain of events, of decisions and choices,” he said. “When I fell in love with you, I was changed. Belial could not alter that. Nothing could alter that. And everything that happened after, everything he tried to do through the bracelet, only strengthened what I felt for you and brought us closer to one another. It was because of him and his meddling that we married in the first place. I loved you already, but being married to you only made me fall more inescapably in love; I had never been so happy as I was every moment we were together, and it was that love that led me to shatter the bracelet, and realize that indeed I had a will that could contest Belial’s.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face, his touch gentle, his eyes locked on hers. “So no, I do not feel sorrow, for all I went through brought me to where we are now. To you. We have been in the crucible, and come out as gold.”

“When we are home?” said James softly. “Here we are, with all those we love, and those who love us. We are home.”

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.