Chain of Gold (23 page)

Lucie, seated at her desk by the window, turned in surprise. She had forgotten to kindle the witchlight in her room as dusk had fallen, and for a moment all she could see was a male figure in dark clothes, standing smack in the center of her bedroom.

She shrieked. When nothing happened, she shrieked again, lifted the neat stack of completed pages that she'd set aside, and hurled it at the figure in the middle of her room.

He leaped aside nimbly, but not nimbly enough. The manuscript struck him and exploded into a white cloud of paper.

Lucie reached toward the lamp on her desk. In the sudden illumination she saw him clearly: black hair, as pin-straight as her brother's was wild and untidy. Green eyes looked out at her beneath dark lashes.

“So this is what people mean when they say the pages just flew by,” said Jesse dryly, as the last of the papers settled to his feet. “Was that necessary?”

“Was it necessary to invade my bedroom?” Lucie demanded, her hands on her hips. She could feel her heart pounding, and was a little surprised at herself. It wasn't as if seeing ghosts was that rare an occurrence for her. Jessamine drifted in and out of Lucie's bedroom frequently: she loved to look at Lucie's clothes when she took them out of the wardrobe and to give her unwanted fashion advice. Lucie had been almost ten years old before she'd realized—when Rosamund and Piers Wentworth had laughed at her—that most girls didn't have a pestering ghost friend.

Jesse had picked up a page and was looking at it critically. “Too many uses of the word ‘radiant,' ” he said. “At least three times on the same page. Also ‘golden' and ‘shining.' ”

“I don't recall asking your advice,” Lucie said, rising to her feet. Thank goodness she had changed for dinner and wasn't still sitting about in her dressing gown. She did sometimes forget to get
dressed when deep into a story, the words flying from her fingers. “What was the last book you read?”

“
Great Expectations
,” he said promptly. “I told you, I read a great deal.”

He sat down on the edge of Lucie's bed—and immediately leaped back up, blushing. Lucie took her hands off her hips, amused.

“A ghost with a sense of propriety. That
is
funny.”

He looked at her darkly. He really did have a most arresting face, she thought. His black hair and green eyes made a wintry contrast against his pale skin. As a writer, one had to pay attention to these things. Descriptions were very important.

“There is actually a purpose in my coming here,” he said.

“Other than mocking and humiliating me? I'm so glad!”

Jesse ignored this. “My sister and your brother have arranged a secret rendezvous tonight—”

“Oh, by the Angel.” It was Lucie's turn to sit down heavily on the edge of her bed. “That's dreadfully awkward.”

Before Jesse could say another word, the bedroom door jerked open and Lucie's father stood on the threshold, looking alarmed.

“Lucie?” he said. “Did you call out? I thought I heard you.”

Lucie tensed, but the expression in her father's blue eyes didn't change—mild worry mixed with curious puzzlement. He really couldn't see Jesse.

Jesse looked at her and, very irritatingly, shrugged as if to say,
I told you so
.

“No, Papa,” she said. “Everything is all right.”

He looked at the manuscript pages scattered all over the rug. “Spot of writer's block, Lulu?”

Jesse raised an eyebrow.
Lulu?
he mouthed.

Lucie considered whether it was possible to die of humiliation. She did not dare look at Jesse. She stared straight at her father instead. He still looked worried. “Is something wrong, Papa?”

Will shook his head. Lucie could not remember when the white threads at his temples had appeared, salting the black of his hair. “Long ago,” he said, “I was the one warning the Clave that something terrible was coming. A threat we did not know how to face. Now I
am
the Clave, and I still cannot convince those around me that more steps should be taken than simply setting patrols in a park.”

“Is that really all they are doing?”

“Your mother believes the answer is to be found in the library,” Will said, running his fingers distractedly through his hair. The backs of her father's hands were scarred from a demon attack that had happened years ago, when Lucie was a child. “Your uncle Jem believes the warlocks may have some useful knowledge hidden in their Spiral Labyrinth.”

“And what do you believe?” said Lucie.

“I believe there are always those who stay vigilant and seek the truth rather than easy answers,” he said, with a smile that Lucie could tell was more for her than for himself. “In the meantime, I shall be with your mother in the library. We are still under the
A
section of the
Unusual Demons
book. Who knew there was a wormlike creature called the Aaardshak common in Sri Lanka?”

“Cordelia, perhaps,” said Lucie. “She has been everywhere.” She frowned. “Is it selfishly awful to worry that all this business will delay our becoming
parabatai
? I feel I will be a better Shadowhunter when it is done. Were you not one, after you became
parabatai
with Uncle Jem?”

“A better Shadowhunter and a better man,” said Will. “All the best of me, I learned from Jem and your mother. All I want for you and Cordelia is to have what I had, a friendship that shall shape all your days. And never to be parted.”

Lucie knew her parents had done great deeds that had become famous Nephilim stories, but they had suffered too much. Lucie had long ago decided that living in a story would be terribly
uncomfortable. Far better to write them, and control the tale so it was never too sad or too scary, only just enough to be intriguing.

Will sighed. “Get some sleep,
fy nghariad bach
. Hopefully our infirmary dwellers will be better tomorrow.”

The door clicked shut behind her father, and Lucie gazed around her shadowed room. Where was her ghost?

“Well, that was interesting,” said Jesse in a thoughtful voice.

Lucie spun around and glared at Jesse, who was sitting on the windowsill, all pale skin and dark eyebrows like slashes in his face. He did not reflect against the glass panes. They were black and empty behind him.

“You're just lucky I didn't tell him you were here,” she said. “He would have believed me. And if he thought there was a boy in his daughter's room, he would have figured out how to tear him limb from limb, even if he couldn't see him.”

Jesse didn't seem particularly concerned. “What did he call you? When he was leaving the room?”

“
Fy nghariad bach
. It means ‘my darling' in Welsh. ‘My little darling.' ”

She gazed at him challengingly, but he didn't seem inclined to mock her. “My mother speaks often of your father,” he said. “I did not think he would be like that.”

“Like what?”

His gaze slid away from hers. “My own father died before I was born. I thought perhaps I would see him when I died, but I have not. The dead go somewhere far away. I cannot follow them.”

“Why not?” Lucie had once asked Jessamine what happened after one died: Jessamine had replied that she did not know, that the limbo ghosts inhabited was not the land of death.

“I am held here,” said Jesse. “When the sun rises, I go into darkness. I am not conscious again until the night. If there is an afterlife, I have never seen it.”

“But you can speak to your sister and mother,” said Lucie. “They must know how odd all this is. But they keep it a secret? Has Grace ever told James?”

“She has not,” said Jesse. “The Blackthorns are used to keeping secrets. It is only by accident that I discovered Grace was meeting your brother tonight. I saw her writing to James, though she didn't know I was there.”

“Oh, yes—the secret rendezvous,” Lucie said. “Are you worried that Grace will be ruined?”

It was distressingly easy for a young lady to be “ruined”—her reputation destroyed if she was found alone with a gentleman. The mother always hoped the gentleman would do the right thing and marry the lady rather than doom her to a life of a shame, even if he didn't love her, but it was far from a sure thing. And if he didn't, one could be sure no other man would go near her. She would never marry.

Lucie thought of Eugenia.

“Nothing so trivial,” said Jesse. “You know the stories of my grandfather, I am sure?”

Lucie raised an eyebrow. “The one who turned into a great worm because of demon pox, and was slain by my father and uncles?”

“I feared your parents would not have considered it the kind of tale suitable for a young lady's ears,” said Jesse. “I see that was an idle concern.”

“They tell it every Christmas,” said Lucie smugly.

Jesse stood up. Lucie could not help but glance at the mirror over the vanity, where she could see the reflection of her own face, but not Jesse. A girl in an empty room, talking to herself. “Grandfather Benedict dabbled in a great deal of black magic,” he said. “And his relationship with demons—” He shuddered. “When he died, he left a Cerberus demon behind in the greenhouse. Its mandate is to protect our family.”

“The demon James saw in the greenhouse? But he killed it. And
when the Enclave searched the grounds, they found nothing.”

“The Cerberus had been bred with a certain demonic plant,” said Jesse. “When slain, it drops pods that at first look harmless. After some hours, they hatch and become new Cerberus demons. By now they would be full grown.”

Lucie felt a chill. “What do you fear?”

“Grace left the house without my mother's knowledge—indeed, against her express orders. The newborn Cerberus demons would have sensed it. My grandfather instilled them with the mandate to protect our family. They will go forth to find Grace and retrieve her,” said Jesse.

“But how can you be sure? Why would the new demons inherit the mandate of the old?”

“I read it in my grandfather's papers,” Jesse said. “He hoped to create an obedient demon that would give birth to new demons when slain—ones that would remember all their progenitor knew. Believe me, I never thought his plan would actually
work
. Grandfather was mad as a hatter. But by the time I became aware of what was going on, it was too late.”

“But…,” Lucie spluttered. “Will they harm Grace?”

“No. They regard her as a Blackthorn. But if Herondale—if your brother is with her, they will regard him as an enemy. He killed their progenitor in the greenhouse. They will attack him, and it will be no easy task to fend off a group of Cerberus demons alone.”

Not only would James be alone, Lucie was not even sure he was armed. “What does your mother know of this? Surely she could not have wanted a demon on her property—”

“My mother resents Shadowhunters, and not without reason. I think she has always felt protected by the presence of the Cerberus in the greenhouse.” Jesse sighed. “To be honest, I am not even sure she knows about the new demons. I only worked out what had happened when I saw them leaving the manor, and as a ghost, I could
not stop them.” His voice was full of frustration. “I have not even been able to find my mother to warn her what is going on.”

Shaking her head, Lucie fell to her knees in front of the trunk at the foot of her bed that held her weaponry. She threw it open. Dust puffed up: inside were stacks of daggers, seraph blades, knives, chains, darts, and other such items, all wrapped daintily in folded velvet.

Noiselessly, Jesse appeared beside her. “Cerberus demons are not small. You might wish to bring a few more foot soldiers.”

“I was planning on that,” said Lucie, taking a small axe out of her trunk. “What will you do in the meantime?”

“Try to track down my mother and send her after Grace. She can tell the Cerberus demons to stand down; they'll listen to her. Do you have any idea where James and Grace are meeting?”

Lucie yanked a satchel that held several daggers and seraph blades out of the trunk and looped it over her shoulder. “You mean you don't know?”

“No; I did not see all of the letter,” said Jesse. “Do you think you can find them?”

“I'm certainly going to try.” Lucie rose, axe in hand. “Let me tell you something, Jesse Blackthorn. Your mother may have reason to be resentful of Shadowhunters, but if her ridiculous demons hurt my brother, I will have no pity. I shall beat her to death with her own stupid hat.”

And with that, she flung open her bedroom window, crawled out onto the ledge, and dropped noiselessly into the night.

No growth of moor or coppice,

No heather-flower or vine,

But bloomless buds of poppies,

Green grapes of Proserpine,

Pale beds of blowing rushes

Where no leaf blooms or blushes

Save this whereout she crushes

For dead men deadly wine.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Garden of Proserpine”

Cordelia and Matthew went only
a short way down the alley before a door rose up in front of them. It shimmered in the side of a worn-looking wall, and Cordelia suspected that to mundanes, the opening would not be visible at all.

Inside was a narrow hallway whose walls were heavy red cloth tapestries hanging from ceiling to floor, obscuring whatever was behind them. At the end of the hall was another door, also painted red.

“When this place is not home to the salon, it is a gaming house,” Matthew whispered to Cordelia as they approached the door. “There
is even a trapdoor in the roof, so that if they are raided by police, the gamesters can escape over the eaves.”

The door was flung suddenly open. Lounging in the space it revealed was a tall man in an iron-gray jacket and trousers. In the dimness, his hair appeared utterly white. Cordelia thought he must be in his sixties at least, but as they approached she realized his face was young and sharp, his eyes dark purple.

This must be Malcolm Fade, High Warlock of London. Most warlocks had a mark that set them apart, a physical sign of their demon blood: blue skin, horns, claws made of stone. Malcolm's eyes were certainly an unearthly shade, like amethysts.

“Three of you this time?” he said to Anna.

She nodded. “Three.”

“We try to limit the number of Shadowhunters in the salon,” said Malcolm. “I prefer Nephilim to feel outnumbered among Downworlders, as it is so often the other way around.” A woman's voice called from behind him: Malcolm didn't turn, but smiled. “You do enliven the place, though, as Hypatia reminds me.” He thrust the door wide and stood aside to allow them to enter. “Come in. Are you armed? Never mind, of course you are. You're Shadowhunters.”

Anna passed through the doorway and then Matthew, Cordelia last. As she stepped by Malcolm, he peered down into her face. “There's no Blackthorn blood in your family, is there?” he asked suddenly.

“No—none, I don't think,” said Cordelia, surprised.

“Good.” He ushered them past. Inside, the salon was a series of interconnected rooms, decorated in blazing jewel tones of red and green, blue and gold. They moved down a bronze-painted corridor and into an octagonal room full of Downworlders. Chatter and laughter rose up about them like a tide.

Cordelia felt her heart flutter a bit—there was something about this night that felt dangerous, and not because she was in a room
full of Downworlders. The fact that none of them were making any attempt to hide it did make it seem somehow less worrisome. Vampires stalked by proudly, their faces gleaming in the electric light; werewolves prowled the shadows in elegant evening dress. There was music coming from a string quartet standing on a raised cherrywood stage in the center of the room. Cordelia glimpsed a handsome violin player with the gold-green eyes of a werewolf, and a clarinetist with auburn curls, his calves ending in the hard hooves of a goat.

The walls were a deep blue, and massive gilt-framed paintings hung upon them, depicting scenes from mythology. At least, Cordelia thought they were scenes from mythology. Usually when people were naked in paintings, she found, it was because the painter believed that the Greeks and Romans had no need or use for clothing. Which Cordelia found puzzling, especially when the subjects were engaged in activities such as fighting minotaurs or wrestling serpents. Any Shadowhunter knew that in a battle, gear that covered your body was crucial.

“I simply cannot see why one would wish to picnic in the nude,” Cordelia said. “There would be ants in dreadful places.”

Anna laughed. “Cordelia, you are a breath of fresh air,” she said, as a woman with dark hair bore down on them, carrying a silver salver. Her black hair was wrapped around an ivory comb hung about with silk peonies, and her embroidered gown was deep crimson. Glittering on the salver were crystal glasses filled with sparkling liquid.

“Champagne?” she said, and as she smiled, the glimmer of fang teeth appeared against her lower lip. A vampire.

“Thank you, Lily,” said Anna, taking a glass. Matthew did the same, and after a moment's hesitation, Cordelia followed. She had never had champagne, nor anything like it—according to her mother, ladies drank only sweet liquors like sherry and ratafia.

Matthew downed his champagne in one swallow, placed the empty glass back on Lily's tray, and took another. Cordelia lifted her glass as a dapper warlock with a ring of quills around his neck passed by arm in arm with a blond vampire in a garnet-red frock. She was lovely, and pale as new snow: Cordelia thought of the mundane women who paid to have their faces enameled white to preserve their youth and keep their fashionable pallor.

They ought to just become vampires, she thought. It would be less expensive.

“What's that little smile of yours?” Matthew inquired. “You look as if you're about to laugh.”

Cordelia took a sip of champagne—it tasted like airy bubbles—and regarded him archly. “What of it?”

“Most girls would be afraid,” he said. “I mean, not Anna. Or Lucie. But most.”

“I don't frighten easily,” said Cordelia.

“I'm beginning to sense that.” He glanced over at Anna and Lily: the vampire girl was laughing, her head close to Anna's. “Anna can seduce anyone,” Matthew said to Cordelia, in a low voice. “Anyone at all. It's her talent.”

“Not my only talent, I hope,” said Anna, looking up as Malcolm Fade reappeared. He gestured to Lily with a dismissive wave; Lily flounced off in a swirl of silk.

“Hypatia wishes to see you, Anna,” said Malcolm. “She has a friend visiting from out of town who has requested to meet you.”

Anna gave a curling smile. “And this friend is visiting from where?”

“The seaside,” said Malcolm. “Do come, you know how Hypatia gets.”

Anna dropped a wink to Cordelia and Matthew and turned to follow Malcolm down a passageway papered with damask wallpaper. They were quickly out of view.

“She's so beautiful,” said Cordelia. “Anna, I mean.”

“Anna has a quality.” Matthew raised a thoughtful eyebrow. “The French would call it
jolie laide
.”

Cordelia knew French well enough to frown. “Pretty-ugly? She's not ugly!”

“It doesn't mean that,” Matthew said. “It means unusually pretty. Oddly beautiful. It denotes having a face with character.” His gaze traveled from the top of her hair to the tips of her shoes. “Like you have.”

He reached out to snag a glass of champagne off a passing tray as the handsome werewolf from the string quartet went by with a smile. Somehow Matthew had drunk the one he had and discarded it with impressive speed and discretion. He took a swallow of the new one and met Cordelia's eyes over the rim.

Cordelia was not entirely sure how she felt about being called “pretty-ugly,” but there were more important issues at hand. She didn't know when she would again be alone with Matthew. She said, “Do you remember how I asked you about your mother at the ball?”

“I always enjoy thinking about my mother at these sorts of parties,” he said.

She took another swallow of champagne and tried to restrain a hiccup. “Your mother is the Consul,” she continued.

“I had noticed that, yes.”

“And she is currently in Idris, where they are preparing to try my father.”

His eyes narrowed. “I thought—” He shook his head. A group of vampire ballerinas glanced over at them and giggled. “Never mind. I think too much and I drink too much. That is always my problem.”

“There is something I don't understand,” said Cordelia. “Why haven't they tried my father with the Mortal Sword yet? Then they would have proof he's innocent.”

Matthew looked faintly surprised. “Indeed. It makes little sense
to possess a magical object that forces the holder to tell the truth if you aren't going to use it in criminal trials.”

The word “criminal” still shook Cordelia to the bone. “We have very little information, but my brother does have school friends in Idris. He has heard they do not plan to use the Mortal Sword in the trial. Do you think you could convince your mother that they must?”

Matthew had procured another drink, possibly from a potted plant. He was watching her over the rim of the glass. Cordelia wondered how many people had seen Matthew grinning over a drink and failed to spot him watching them with those dark green eyes. “You are very upset about this, aren't you?” he said.

“It is my family,” she said. “If my father is found guilty, we will not just lose him, we will be as the Lightwoods were after Benedict's death. Everything we have will be stripped from us. Our name will be disgraced.”

“Do you care that much? About disgrace?”

“No,” said Cordelia. “But my mother and brother do, and I do not know if they would survive.”

Matthew set his glass down on a marquetry side table. “All right,” he said. “I will write to my mother in Idris.”

The relief was almost painful. “Thank you,” said Cordelia. “But have her write back to Lucie, please, at the Institute. I don't want my mother to see the reply before I do, in case she says no.”

Matthew frowned. “My mother would not—” He broke off, looking past her to where Lily waved from the other end of the room. “That is Anna's signal,” he said. “We must go.”

Cordelia felt a slight thrill of unease. “Go where?”

“Into the heart of it all,” said Matthew, gesturing toward the damask-papered corridor Anna had disappeared down before. “Brace yourself. Warlocks can be as tricky as faeries if they set their minds to it.”

Curious, Cordelia followed Matthew down the hall. Paper lanterns lit the way. At the very end of the passage was a cabinet of carved ebony, an array of curios spread out under glass. Matthew gave the glass a playful tap.

The cabinet swung inward.

Within was a golden grotto. The whole room gleamed, from the painted ceiling to the floor where the carpet shone as if it were flaxen tissue paper. There were giltwood tables holding all manner of treasures: clockwork birds inlaid with lapis and gold, gauntlets and blades of delicate faerie workmanship, a polished wooden box decorated with the symbol of an
ourobouros
—a serpent biting its own tail—and an apple carved from a single ruby. At the very end of the room was a four-poster bed the size of Cordelia's whole bedroom at home, inlaid with copper and brass, covered in dozens of cloth-of-gold cushions. Seated upon the edge of the bed as if it were a throne was a woman, a sleek warlock who seemed artfully shaped from enchanted materials: her skin mahogany, her hair bronze, her dress a shimmering gold.

Cordelia hesitated upon the threshold. There were other people in the room besides the warlock woman: Malcolm Fade himself, and Anna Lightwood, lounging alone on a conversation settee of walnut wood and gilt velvet, her long legs hooked over the slender wooden arms.

Malcolm Fade smiled. “Welcome, little Shadowhunters. Few of your kind ever see the inner chambers of Hypatia Vex.”

“Is she welcome, I wonder?” asked Hypatia, with a catlike smile. “Let her approach.”

Cordelia and Matthew advanced together, Cordelia moving cautiously around the rococo chairs and tables, gleaming with gilt and pearls. Close up, the pupils of Hypatia Vex's eyes were the shape of stars: her warlock mark. “I cannot say I care for the idea of so many Nephilim infesting my salon. Are you interesting, Cordelia Carstairs?”

Cordelia hesitated.

“If you have to think about it,” said Hypatia, “then you're not.”

“That hardly makes sense,” said Cordelia. “Surely if you do not think, you cannot be interesting.”

Hypatia blinked, creating the effect of stars turning off and on like lamps. Then she smiled. “I suppose you may stay a moment.”

“Good work, Cordelia,” said Anna, swinging her legs off the edge of the settee. “Arabella, how are the drinks coming on?”

Cordelia turned to realize a faerie woman with tumbling blue and green hair was also in the room. She was standing in an alcove, partially hidden: before her was a sideboard where she was mixing drinks. Her hands waved in midair like fronds in water, unstoppering decanters and crystal vials full of red liquid, and busily pouring them into a variety of goblets and flutes.

Cordelia's eyes narrowed.

“Just ready, darling!” Arabella said, and walked over to distribute drinks. Matthew accepted a drink with alacrity. Cordelia noticed that Arabella walked with a rocking, unsteady gait, as if she were a sailor unaccustomed to treading on the land.

When Arabella gave Anna her drink, Anna pulled Arabella into her lap. Arabella giggled, kicking up her French heels. Her legs were shockingly bare, and covered in a faint iridescent pattern of scales. They flashed in the golden light like a rainbow.

A mermaid.
So this was Hypatia's “friend from the seaside.” They were a type of faerie rarely seen out of water, since their human legs caused them pain to walk on.

Arabella noticed Cordelia's gaze and shrugged, shoulders moving fluidly beneath her heavy masses of blue and green hair. “I have not been on land for many years. The last time I visited this ugly city, the Downworlders and Shadowhunters were trying to form the Accords. I was not much impressed with Nephilim then, and I have not been fond of Shadowhunters since. Still, exceptions can be made.”

Before the Accords were formed. This woman had not been on the land for more than thirty years.