Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours #3)

by Cassandra Clare

“Jamie bach, what’s the trouble?” James gazed at his father. Will looked tired, his mane of black hair disarrayed. People often told James that he was like Will, which he knew was a compliment. All his life, his father had seemed the strongest man he knew, the most principled, the most fierce with his love. Will did not question himself. No, James was nothing like Will Herondale.

He could not imagine his father’s reaction. He could not imagine speaking the words. He had held it all inside so long, he did not know how to do anything but hold on further, tighter, protecting himself the only way he knew how.

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

“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.”

🥺😭

James, you don’t need to tell us what you know. But we will put it together, regardless.” He glanced at Will. “Well, I shall; I can’t promise anything for your father. He’s always been slow.”

That night James slept like the dead, and if his father rose in the middle of the night to check on him as if he were a small boy, if Will sat beside him on his bed and sang to him in rusty Welsh, James did not remember it when he woke up.

He kissed her. She gave a little gasp against his mouth, and her hands slipped down to his shoulders, clutching at him. They had kissed before, at the Shadow Market. But this was something else entirely. It was like the difference between having someone describe a color to you and finally seeing it yourself.

“I am somewhat insulted,” Magnus said, “that you went to Malcolm Fade to seek his advice on what to do about Jesse, and did not come to me. Usually I am the warlock you annoy first, and I consider that a proud tradition.”

“You saved my son’s life,” said Will. “And my daughter trusts you. That’s good enough for me.” He held out a hand to Jesse to shake. “I apologize for having doubted you, son.” At that last word, Jesse lit up like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He had never had a father, James realized. The only parent he had had was Tatiana; the only other adult force in his life had been Belial. And Will seemed to be thinking the same thing. “You really are the spitting image of your father, you know,” he said to Jesse. “Rupert. It’s a pity you never knew him. I’m sure he would have been proud of you.”

Yet when she speaks of what was done to you, my silent heart cries out: this was wrong, it was always wrong. You love as your father loves: wholly, without conditions or hesitancy. To use that as a weapon is blasphemy.

💔😭

“Are you sure they’re attacking you because of the sword?” “Are you suggesting it’s my personality?” Alastair snapped.

😂

“I didn’t ask you here for help. You just happened to turn up right after—” Alastair made a gesture apparently intended to encompass demons hiding in stables, and slid Cortana back into its scabbard at his hip. “I asked you here because I wanted to know why you sent me a note calling me stupid.”

😅 Oops. Time to explain yourself, Thomas.

Dear Alastair, why are you so stupid I brush my teeth don’t tell anyone —Thomas “I don’t know why you don’t want anyone to know you brush your teeth,” Alastair added, “but I will, of course, keep this news in strictest confidence.”

🤣🤣🤣

And also what if the demon who wanted it used it to destroy the world, or something? I would be mortified.

Alastair chuckled. “I think they can sense where it is, sense its presence somehow. If they keep turning up at my house and don’t sense it, they’ll stop. That’s my theory, anyway. Which is good,” he added, “because the last thing my mother needs right now is demons frolicking in her herbaceous borders.”

“I told you it would work!” Will cried in Magnus’s direction. Magnus was busy magicking the unfastened baggage to the top of the steps, blue sparks darting like fireflies from his gloved fingertips. “We should have done that on the way out!” “You did not say it would work,” Magnus said. “You said, as I recall, ‘By the Angel, he’s going to kill us all.’” “Never,” said Will. “My faith in you is unshakable, Magnus. Which is good,” he added, rocking back and forth a little, “because the rest of me feels quite shaken indeed.”

😂

He was looking at both of them, at Matthew and Cordelia, rage and love and hope and despair all in his eyes, and Cordelia wished she could comfort him, and hated that she wished it. “Cordelia, tell me what you want. If it’s Matthew, I’ll go—I’ll take myself out of your life.

💔😭

Layla. The sound of that name hurt, brought back the poem, the story whose thread had bound James and Cordelia, invisibly, over the years. That heart’s delight, one single glance the nerves to frenzy wrought, one single glance bewildered every thought. . . . Layla, she was called.

“Come on, let’s go, shoma mitavanid tozieh bedid, che etefagi brayehe in ahmagha mioftad vagti ma mirim,” Alastair said. You can explain what’s going on with these idiots when we leave. Apparently it had slipped his mind that James had been learning Persian.

❤️ I love the character Alastair has become.

As the door closed, James could hear Alastair asking Cordelia if she was all right, or if he was required to hit anyone for her.

When I realized Cordelia was gone, I ran after her. All the way to your flat, and then to Waterloo. I was on the platform as your train pulled away.

“I am in love with Cordelia, and she is my wife. You must understand, I will do whatever I can to mend things between us.”

He turned back to James and put a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever else happens, don’t hate me, James. Please. I don’t think I could bear it.” James wanted to close his eyes. He knew that behind them he would see two boys running across a green lawn in Idris, one fair-haired and one dark. “I could never hate you, Math.” As Matthew went to join his brother, leaving James alone on the steps, James thought, I could never hate you, for all my hate is reserved for myself. I have none left over for anyone else.

“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.”

“James is special. He has always burned bright. But when he looks at you, his light blazes up like a bonfire.”

“Animals are innocent. To have their trust is an honor. He will be miserable unless you let him stay with you, help you. You are not saving him from a burden by keeping him away. Only breaking his heart.”

😭 Poor wee Oscar! 🐶

James reached out and ruffled Matthew’s damp hair. “You should rest,” he said. Matthew leaned into James’s touch. “I would. But I don’t want all of you to leave. It’s selfish, but—” “I’ll stay,” said James. “As will I,” said Thomas. Christopher closed his doctor’s bag with a snap. “We’ll all stay,” he said. Which was how they ended up sleeping curled on the eiderdown before the fire, like a litter of puppies.

❤️🥹

“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.”

Out of the shadows came James, an avenging angel with pistol in hand. He was coatless, and his gun seemed almost to glow in the clear cold, the inscription on its side shining: LUKE 12:49. She knew the verse by heart. I have come to bring a fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.

But James was utterly silent. When she rose to her feet, he made no move to help her, only stared with blazing eyes. His face was white; his jaw was set in an expression Cordelia recognized as a rare emotion for James: absolute, incandescent rage.

“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?”

Well, James thought as he and Cordelia crossed the ballroom, either she believes the story about the trumpet or has accepted that my father is a mad person and needs to be humored. Most likely, he had to admit, it was the latter.

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.

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.

“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.

“If you plan to face Belial somehow, let me come with you,” he said, to Cordelia’s surprise. “I know Belial would be likely to step on me as though I were an ant. But I would stand with you, for as long as I am able.”

Alastair! ❤️

Alastair, still kneeling, regarded her with thoughtful dark eyes. “You know,” he said, “when Cortana chose you as its bearer instead of me, everyone thought I was upset because I had wanted to be the one. The bearer. But—it wasn’t that. It was never that.” He rose to his feet, laying Cortana atop the workbench. “When you first picked up the sword . . . I realized, in that instant, that being its wielder would mean you were always the one in danger. You would be the one to take the bigger risks, to fight the harder fights. And I would be the one who would watch you, again and again, walk into danger. And I hated that thought.”

🥺

“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.”

“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.

“It may be Cordelia’s sword that kills Belial. But all of us stand behind her. Everything we have done, everything we have accomplished, has made us part of the force that drives her blade. Nor is our task done. We are still needed, Anna. You are still needed.”

As they watched, a line of figures appeared, carrying lamps that gave out their own glow. Like fireflies they danced across the lava plain, but then they grew closer, and the Shadowhunters had come, and Grace and Jesse had made fire-messages work, and perhaps there was still such a thing as hope in the world.

As they got closer, Ari could see their faces. She recognized Gideon and Sophie and Eugenia Lightwood, Piers Wentworth and Rosamund and Thoby, but most were strangers, not members of the London Enclave but Shadowhunters from elsewhere who had come to fight.

And then she froze, as she saw her mother. Her mother was in battle gear, her gray-brown hair swept up in a practical plait at the back of her neck, a weapons belt around her waist. Ari couldn’t remember the last time Flora Bridgestock had actually put on gear. As though she knew her daughter was looking at her, Flora’s gaze came to rest directly on Ari, and they locked eyes. For a moment, Flora seemed expressionless, and Ari felt a terrible anxiety go through her. And then, slowly, Flora smiled. There was hope in that smile, and pain and sorrow. She reached out her hand—not commandingly, but hopefully, as if to say, Come here, please, and Ari went to join her.

“He would not consider this a sacrifice,” he said. “He would not want to live with Belial possessing him. If there was no other way out, he would take death as a gift.” “Matthew,” Cordelia said softly. Anna’s eyes flashed. “You’re his parabatai, Math. Surely you can’t be arguing for his death.” “I don’t want to,” Matthew said. “I know I might not survive it myself. But he asked me to be his voice when he no longer had one. And I cannot betray that promise.”

What had been a risk before, fighting the Watchers on their own, was now far more. Now, it was suicide. She caught Anna’s eye. They looked at each other for a long moment before, together, they turned to face the demons.

Matthew whirled, white-faced. “Run, Cordelia,” he said. She hesitated—just as a Roman soldier bearing a gladius lurched around the corner. He made straight for her, and without a moment’s thought, Matthew stepped into its way. He raised his seraph blade, and the stone gladius slammed into it, sending him skidding back several feet. Cordelia started toward him, and so did Thomas, but it was as if the statues sensed blood—Britannia bore down on him, raising her spear— Something lunged into Matthew, knocking him out of the way. The spear jammed into the wall just behind where he’d been standing, sending chips of stone flying as he and Alastair rolled across the abbey floor. Alastair. Alastair had saved Matthew’s life. Thomas only had a moment to take that in before he spun to hiss at Cordelia, “Run—get to James—”

“Go,” Alastair rasped, his eyes fixed on his sister. He was bleeding from a cut at his temple. “Layla. Go.” Cordelia ran.