Chain of Gold

by Cassandra Clare

  “And I always bring my sword.” Cordelia tapped the hilt of Cortana, currently half-concealed beneath a fold of blanket.

  “Ah, the famous Cortana.” Anna’s eyes sparkled. “A sword that bears no runes, yet can kill demons, they say. Is that true?”

  Cordelia nodded proudly. “My father slew the great demon Yanluo with it. They say the blade of Cortana can cut through anything.”

  “That sounds very useful.” Anna touched the hilt lightly and withdrew her hand. “How are you finding London?”

  “Honestly? It is overwhelming. I have spent most of my life traveling, and in London I only know James and Lucie.”

  Anna smiled like a sphinx. “But you brought enough food to provision an army.” She cocked her head to the side. “I’d like to invite you to tea at my flat, Cordelia Carstairs. There are some matters we should discuss.”

  Cordelia was stunned. What could glamorous Anna Lightwood possibly have to discuss with her? The thought crossed her mind that perhaps it had to do with her father, but before she could ask, Anna’s face lit up and she began waving at two approaching figures.

  Cordelia turned to see Anna’s brother Christopher and Thomas Lightwood picking their way along the edge of the lake. Thomas towered over Christopher, who appeared to be chatting to him amiably, the sun glinting off his spectacles.

  Anna’s smile took on a curl at the edges. “Christopher! Thomas! Over here!”

  Cordelia plastered on a bright smile as they came closer. “Do come say hello,” she said. “I’ve lemon tartlets, and ginger beer, if you like.”

  The boys glanced at each other. A moment later they were settling onto the blanket, Christopher nearly upsetting the picnic basket. Thomas was more careful with his long arms and legs, as if nervous he might knock something over. He wasn’t beautiful like James, but he would certainly suit a lot of girls. As for Christopher, his fine-boned resemblance to Anna was even clearer up close.

  “I see why you called for our help,” Thomas said, his hazel eyes sparkling as he took in the picnic spread. “It would be staggeringly difficult for you to consume all this by yourselves. Best to call in the reserves.”

  Christopher snagged a lemon tart. “Thomas used to be able to clear out our larder in an hour—and the eating contests he had with Lucie, I shudder to report them.”

  “I may have heard a bit about that,” said Cordelia. Thomas adores ginger beer, Lucie had told her once, and Christopher is obsessed with lemon tarts. She hid a smile. “I know we’ve met before on occasion, but now that I’m officially in London, I hope that we’ll become friends.”

  “Absolutely certainly,” said Christopher, “especially if there will be more lemon tarts in the offing.”

  “I doubt she carries them everywhere with her, Kit,” said Thomas, “stuffed into her hats and whatnot.”

  “I keep them in my weapons belt instead of seraph blades,” said Cordelia, and both boys laughed.

  “How is Barbara, Thomas?” asked Anna, as she picked up an apple. “Is she well after last night?”

  “She seems quite recovered,” Thomas said, gesturing to where Barbara was walking down by the lake with Oliver. She was twirling a bright blue parasol and chatting animatedly. Thomas bit into a meat pie.

  “If you were a truly dedicated brother, you would be at her side,” Anna said. “I would hope that if I collapsed, Christopher would weep inconsolably and be incapable of consuming meat pies.”

  “Barbara doesn’t want me near her,” Thomas said, unperturbed. “She’s hoping Oliver will propose.”

  “Is she?” said Anna, her dark eyebrows winging upward in amusement.

  “Alastair!” Cordelia called. “Do come eat! The food is vanishing!”

  But her brother—who was not, Cordelia noticed, chatting with boys from the Academy, but was standing alone by the lakeside—only cast her a glance that indicated that she was tiresome.

  “Ah,” said Thomas, in a slightly too casual voice. “Alastair is here.”

  “Yes,” said Cordelia. “He’s the man of our house at the moment, since my father is in Idris.”

  Christopher had produced a small black notebook and was scribbling in it. Anna was gazing down at the lake, where several of the young ladies—Rosamund, Ariadne, and Catherine among them—had decided to take a turn. “He has my sympathy,” said Thomas, with an easy smile. “My father is often in Idris as well, with the Consul—”

  I know, Cordelia thought, but before she could ask him anything, she heard Lucie calling her name. She looked up to see her future parabatai heading toward them, holding a straw hat in place with one hand and a basket in the other. Behind her was James, his hands in the pockets of his pin-striped trousers. He wore no hat, and the wind tugged at his already tousled black hair.

  “Oh, lovely!” Lucie said, upon seeing Cordelia’s mountain of food. “We can combine our winnings. Let’s see what you have.”

  Anna and Christopher made space as Lucie dropped to her knees and began unpacking yet more food—cheese and jam tarts, sandwiches and lemonade. James sat down by Christopher, glancing idly at his notebook. He said something in a low voice, and Thomas and Christopher laughed.

  Cordelia felt her breath catch in her throat. She hadn’t really spoken to James since they’d danced the night before. Unless one counted him asking her to remove his stele from his jacket. She remembered the way his hands had been fisted at his sides. He seemed a different person now.

  “What did it turn out to be, last night?” she said to Lucie. “The demon business in Seven Dials.”

  James glanced over at her. His smile was easy—too easy, Cordelia thought. As if he were an actor on a stage, told to look as if he were enjoying himself. “Shax demons all up and down Monmouth Street. They had to call on Ragnor Fell to help glamour the place so the mundanes wouldn’t notice what was going on.”

  Thomas frowned. “It’s odd,” he said, “after so long, we encountered that demon the other night, and now yesterday—”

  “You encountered a demon?” Lucie demanded. “When was that?”

  “Er,” said Thomas, his hazel eyes darting around. “I may have been wrong. It may not have been a demon. It may have been a textbook about demons.”

  “Thomas,” said Lucie. “You are the most dreadful liar. I want to know what happened.”

  “You can always get the truth out of Matthew,” said James. “You can wheedle anything out of him, you know that, Luce.” He glanced around the lake. “Where is Matthew? Isn’t he meant to be coming?”

  He looked over at Cordelia, and she felt a sudden rush of anger. She’d been quiet—now that she’d managed to lure all these people to her Picnic Blanket of Machinations, how was she meant to bring up her father? But James’s words brought back the night before in a sharp flash of memory. He was asking her if she knew where Matthew was because she’d danced with Matthew, and she’d danced with Matthew because James had abandoned her and Matthew had stepped in.

  Cordelia rose to her feet, nearly knocking over a bottle of ginger beer. She took a deep breath, brushed off her blue serge skirt, and said, “James, I’d like to speak with you in private for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

  Everyone looked astonished, even Lucie; James only nodded.

  “Lead the way,” he said.

  * * *

  There was a small Italian folly near the lake, complete with white pillars. Cordelia led James away from the crowd of picnickers in silence, passing a few groups of strolling mundanes; now she climbed the few steps of the folly to its central pavilion, turned, and faced him.

  “Last night,” she said, “you were most appallingly rude to me, and I would like an apology.”

  He looked up at her. So this was what it would be like to be taller than James, she thought. She didn’t mind it. His expression was calm, unreadable even. It wasn’t an unfriendly look, but it was entirely closed off, letting no one in. It was an expression she had seen on James’s face before: she had always thought of it
privately as the Mask.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to apologize?”

  Maybe it wasn’t better to be taller than him, she thought. When he looked up at her, he had to do it through his eyelashes, which were thick and black as the silk fringes on a scarf. “I am trying to think of the best way to do it. What I did—leaving you on the dance floor—was unforgivable. I am trying to think of a reason you ought to forgive me anyway, because if you did not, it would break my heart.”

  She cleared her throat. “That is a decent start.”

  His smile was faint, but real, breaking through the Mask. “You’ve always had a charitable nature, Daisy.”

  She pointed her finger at him. “Don’t you Daisy me,” she said. “Have you taken the time to understand what it is to be a girl in such a situation? A girl cannot ask a gentleman to dance; she is at the mercy of the choice of the opposite sex. She cannot even refuse a dance if it is asked of her. To have a boy walk away from her on the dance floor is humiliating. To have it happen when one is wearing a truly frightful gown, even more so. They will all be discussing what is wrong with me.”

  “Wrong with you?” he repeated. “There is nothing wrong with you. Everything you say is true, and I am a fool for not having thought of it before. All I can do is swear to you that you will never lack at any social event in future, someone to stand up with or dance attendance on you. You might not credit it, having met Thomas and Christopher and Matthew, but they are quite popular. We can make you the toast of the season.”

  “Really?” she said. “Thomas and Christopher and Matthew are popular?”

  He laughed. “Yes, and I can make you a further promise as well. If I offend you again, I will wear a truly frightful gown to the next significant social gathering.”

  “Very well.” She put her hand out. “We can shake on it like gentlemen do.”

  He stepped forward to shake her hand. His warm fingers curled around hers. His lips, slightly curved, looked incredibly soft. He appeared to be searching her face with his gaze; she wondered what he was looking for.

  “James,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Rather than you wearing a frightful dress,” she said, “perhaps there is another way you could help me.”

  “Anything.” He had not let go of her hand.

  “You could tell me which of the young men of the Enclave are eligible,” she said. “If I had need of—of marrying, which of them are kind, and would not be terrible company.”

  He looked stunned. “You cannot get married—”

  “Why not?” She drew her hand back from his. “Do you think I would be an undesirable match?”

  He had gone a strange color; she had no idea why until she looked behind her and realized that a carriage had just drawn up near the folly.

  The carriage’s doors were painted with the four Cs of the Shadowhunter government: Clave, Council, Covenant, Consul. Matthew was in the box seat, reins in hand, the wind blowing through his blond curls.

  Behind him, laughing, was Matthew’s brother, Charles, and beside him, Grace, in a straw bonnet and a blue dress trimmed in matching Cluny lace.

  Cordelia glanced back at James and saw something in his eyes flicker—a sort of dark light behind the irises. He was watching Charles help Grace down from the carriage. Matthew was scrambling out of his driver’s seat, leaving the reins loose, casting about for his friends.

  “What is it between you and Grace Blackthorn?” Cordelia said quietly. “Do you have an understanding?”

  “Understanding” was something of a broad term. It could mean a secret engagement, or as little as a declaration of serious romantic interest. But it seemed to fit as well as anything else.

  The odd light was still in James’s eyes, darkening their gold to smoked glass. “There are those close to me I would give up my life for,” he said. “You know that.”

  The names were unspoken but Cordelia knew them: Lucie, Will, Tessa, Christopher, Matthew, Thomas. Jem Carstairs.

  “Grace is one of them,” said James. “We are neighbors in Idris. I have seen her every summer for years. We love one another—but it is a secret. Neither my parents nor her mother are aware of our bond.” He lifted his wrist, the bracelet there gleaming for a moment in the sun. “She gave me this when we were thirteen. It is a promise between us.” There was an odd distance in his voice, as if he were reciting a story he had heard, rather than recalling a memory. Shyness, perhaps, at revealing something so intimate?

  “I see,” said Cordelia. She looked over at the carriage. Ariadne had come up to Charles and they were greeting each other; Grace had turned and was gazing toward the folly.

  “I had thought we would not go to Idris this year,” James said. “I wrote to Grace to tell her, but her mother kept the letter from her. We were each left wondering at the silence of the other. I only discovered she had come to London yesterday, at the ball.”

  Cordelia felt numb. Well, of course he had run off, then. Every summer he had seen Grace save this one; how he must have missed her. She had always known James possessed a life she knew little of with his friends in London, but she had not realized how very much she didn’t know him. He might as well be a stranger. A stranger in love with someone else. And she, Cordelia, the interloper.

  “I am glad we are friends again,” Cordelia said. “Now you must wish to speak to Grace alone. Just signal her to join you here—everyone is distracted. You will be quite unnoticed.”

  James began to speak, but Cordelia had already turned and made her way back toward the lake and the picnickers. She could not bear to pause and listen to him thank her for going away.

  * * *

  Lucie didn’t blame Cordelia for wanting to tell James off; he’d been terribly rude the night before. Even if a girl was just your friend, you shouldn’t leave her in the middle of a dance. Besides, it gave the Rosamund Wentworths of the world too much scope for nasty gossip. She reminded herself to tell Cordelia about what had happened to Eugenia Lightwood as soon as they were alone.

  In fact, there was a great deal she wished to discuss with Cordelia when they were alone. Last night I met a ghost that no one else could see. The ghost of a boy who is dead, but not quite dead.

  She had opened her mouth a few times to mention Jesse to James or her parents, then decided against it. For a reason she couldn’t quite understand, it felt private, like a secret she had been charged with. It was hardly Jesse’s fault she could see him, and he had saved her all those years ago in Brocelind. She remembered telling him that when she grew up, she wanted to be a writer. That sounds wonderful, he had said in a wistful tone. At the time she’d believed he was stricken with envy about her glorious future career. It was only now that it occurred to her he might have been talking about growing up.

  “I see Cordelia is returning,” said Anna. She was leaning back on her elbows, the sunshine bright on her dark hair. “But without James. Interesting.”

  Anna, like Lucie, found everything about human behavior interesting. Sometimes Lucie thought Anna ought to be a writer too. Her memoirs would be sure to be scandalous.

  Cordelia was indeed making her way back toward them, stepping carefully between the brightly colored picnic blankets. She sank down beside Lucie, fanning herself with her straw bonnet. She was wearing another ghastly pastel dress, Lucie noticed. She wished Sona would let Cordelia dress as she wished.

  “Did James get what he deserved?” Lucie asked. “Did you keelhaul him?”

  Cordelia’s smile was bright. “He is thoroughly abashed, I assure you. But we are good friends again.”

  “Where is he, then?” Thomas inquired. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and Lucie could just glimpse the edge of the colored ink design on his left forearm. It was unusual for Shadowhunters to get tattoos, as their skin was so often Marked by runes, but Thomas had done just that in Spain. “Did you bury his body in the park somewhere?”

  “He went to speak to Grace Blackthorn,” said Cordelia
, selecting a bottle of lemonade. Lucie glanced at her sharply—she herself had only realized the night before that the girl James was in love with was Grace, not Daisy. She hoped she hadn’t put silly thoughts into Cordelia’s head by rattling on in the park about how James might be in love with her.

  Cordelia certainly didn’t seem bothered, and she’d brushed off the whole idea in Kensington Gardens. She probably thought of James as a cousin. It was certainly a setback to Lucie’s hopes. It would have been delightful to have Daisy as a sister-in-law, and she could not imagine that Grace would be delightful in the same way. She couldn’t recall ever having seen her smile or laugh, and she would be unlikely to be charmed by Will’s songs about demon pox.

  “I didn’t realize she was here.” Christopher helped himself to a sixth lemon tart.

  “She is,” Matthew said, appearing out of the thicket of parasols and picnickers. He slid gracefully into a sitting position beside Anna, who glanced at him and winked. Matthew and Anna were especially close: they enjoyed many of the same things, like fashionable clothes, disreputable salons, shocking art, and scandalous plays. “Apparently, Charles promised last night to bring her here in our carriage. We had to detour out to Chiswick to fetch her.”

  “Did you get a look at Lightwood—at Chiswick House?” asked Thomas. “I hear it’s in utter disrepair.”

  Matthew shook his head. “Grace was waiting for us at the front gates when we arrived. I did think it a bit odd.”

  Chiswick House had once belonged to Benedict Lightwood and was meant to pass to his sons, Gabriel and Gideon. Everything changed after Benedict’s disgrace, and in the end the newly named Chiswick House had been given to Tatiana, even though she had married a Blackthorn.

  Tatiana had famously let the place fall to pieces—perhaps because after Jesse had died, she had not felt there was anyone of Blackthorn blood to whom the house could be left. Grace was Tatiana’s adopted ward, not her daughter by blood. When Tatiana died, the house would pass back into the hands of the Clave, who might even return it to the Lightwoods. Tatiana would probably rather burn it down than have that happen.