Chain of Gold (45 page)

“Why must you be such a fussy ghost?” said Lucie, scooting upright against the pillows. She had been firmly ordered to stay in bed, though she was itching to leap up, seize her pen, and write. What was the point of having exciting things happen to you if you couldn't tell a story about them?

“When I was a girl, I brushed my hair one hundred strokes a
day,” said Jessamine—who, being a ghost, had hair that floated like fine gossamer and never needed brushing. “Why, I—”

She shrieked and shot up into the air, hovering a foot above the nightstand. A wash of cold went over Lucie. She pulled the blankets up around her, looking about the room anxiously. “Jesse?”

He materialized at the foot of the bed, in the same black trousers and shirtsleeves he always wore. His eyes were green and very serious. “I am here.”

Lucie looked up at Jessamine. “Could I have a moment to speak with Jesse alone?”

“Alone?” Jessamine looked horrified. “But he's a gentleman. In your bedroom.”

“I am a ghost,” said Jesse dryly. “What is it exactly you imagine I might do?”

“Please, Jessamine,” said Lucie.

Jessamine sniffed. “Never in my day!” she announced, and vanished in a swirl of petticoats.

“Why are you here?” Lucie said, hugging the blankets to her chest. It was true that Jesse was a ghost, but she still felt awkward about the idea of him seeing her in her nightgown. “I don't remember you leaving. At the bridge.”

“Your brother and friends seemed to have the situation well in hand,” Jesse said. His gold locket glimmered at his throat. “And your brother can see ghosts. He's never seen me before, but—”

“Humph,” Lucie said. “You do realize I just had to be dishonest with my family and pretend as if I didn't know you existed or that you raised the dead to bring Cordelia out of the river.”

“What?”

“I mean, I'm grateful that you did it. Brought Cordelia out of the river, I mean. Don't think I'm not. It's just—”

“You think I called the dead out of the river?” Jesse demanded. “I
answered
the call.”

Despite the blanket, Lucie suddenly felt cold all over. “What do you mean?”

“You called the dead,” said Jesse. “You called the dead, and the dead came. I heard you, across the whole city, calling for someone to help you.”

“What do you mean? Why would I have any ability to call the dead up? I can see them, but I certainly can't command—”

She broke off. She was suddenly back in Emmanuel Gast's bedroom in that small, terrible flat.
You will,
she had said when the ghost proclaimed he would never tell, and he had given up his secrets.
Leave us,
she had said, and he had winked out of existence.

“You were the only one who could see me in the ballroom,” said Jesse. “You have always been the only one who can see me besides my family. There's something unusual about you.”

She stared at him. What if she ordered Jesse to do something? Would he have to do it? Would he have to come to her if she called, as he had on the riverbank?

She swallowed. “When we were beside the river, when you were with me, you were holding that locket at your throat. Clutching it.”

“And you want me to tell you why?” he said, and she knew he'd had the same thought she had. She didn't like the thought. She didn't want to order him around, or Jessamine. Perhaps she had to be panicked, though, she told herself. She'd been frightened in Gast's flat, and again at the river.

“If you want to,” she said.

“This locket was placed around my throat by my mother,” he said. “It contains my last breath.”

“Your last breath?”

“I ought to tell you how I died, I suppose,” he said, perching himself on the windowsill. He seemed to like it there, Lucie thought, just on the threshold. “I was a sickly child. My mother told
the Silent Brothers that I wasn't well enough to withstand being given runes, but I begged and begged. She managed to fight me off until I was seventeen. You might understand that by then, I was desperate to be a Shadowhunter like other Shadowhunters. I told her that if she did not let me get the Marks, I would run away to Alicante and get them myself.”

“And did you? Run away?”

He shook his head. “My mother relented, and the Silent Brothers came to the manor house. The rune ceremony went off without a hitch, and I thought I had triumphed.” He held up his right hand, and she realized what she had thought was a scar was the faint outline of the Voyance rune. “My first rune and my last.”

“What happened?”

“When I returned to my room, I collapsed on my bed. Then I woke in the night burning with fever. I remember screaming, and Grace running into my room. She was half-hysterical. Blood was welling from my skin, turning the sheets to scarlet. I writhed and screamed and tore at the bedspread, but I was weakening, nor could they use healing runes on me. I remember realizing I was dying. I had become so weak. Grace held me as I shivered. She was barefoot, and her nightgown and wrapper were soaked with my blood. I remember my mother coming in. She held the locket to my lips, as if she meant me to kiss it.…”

“Did you?” Lucie whispered.

“No,” said Jesse matter-of-factly. “I died.”

For the first time in her life, Lucie felt a pang of pity for Grace. To have her brother die in her arms like that. She could not imagine the agony.

“I came slowly to understand I was a ghost after that,” said Jesse. “And it took me months of trying before my mother and sister could hear me and speak to me. Even then, I disappeared every morning when the sun came up, and only came back to conscious
ness with evening. I spent many nights walking alone in Brocelind Forest, with only the dead to see me. And you. A little girl who'd fallen into a faerie trap.”

Lucie blushed.

“I was surprised when you saw me,” he said. “And even more when I was able to touch your hand and lift you out of that pit. I thought perhaps it was because you were so young, but no. There is something unusual about you, Lucie. You have a power that is tied to the dead.”

Lucie sighed. “If only I could have had a power that was tied to bread-and-butter pudding.”

“That would not have helped Cordelia last night,” Jesse said. He let his head fall back against the windowpane, and Lucie saw that of course he was not reflected in the dark glass. “My mother believes that once everything is in order, and she has all the ingredients a warlock will need, the last breath in this locket can be used to resurrect me. But on the riverbank, I was holding it because…”

Lucie raised her eyebrows.

“I thought at first you might have been in the water. Drowning. The life force in the locket could have emptied your lungs and let you breathe.” He hesitated. “I thought, if you were dying, I would use it to bring you back.”

Lucie inhaled sharply. “You would do that? For me?”

His eyes were fathomless deep green, the way Lucie imagined the depth of the ocean. His lips parted as if he meant to answer, just as a shaft of dawn light pierced the window glass. He stiffened, his eyes still locked on hers, as if he had been shot through with an arrow.

“Jesse,” she whispered, but he had already vanished.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,

Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,

Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,

And, mingling with the still night and mute sky,

Its awful hush is felt inaudibly

—Percy Bysshe Shelley, “A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire”

It was late afternoon by
the time James was able to pry himself away from the Institute—it seemed every Enclave member who passed through the gates wanted to interrogate him about Mandikhor demons—and head to Grosvenor Square to meet the rest of the Merry Thieves.

After letting himself into Matthew's house with his key, James paused for a moment on the steps that led to the cellar. He knew his friends were in the laboratory: he could hear their voices rising up toward him like smoke, could hear Christopher chattering, Matthew's low and musical tones. He could
feel
Matthew's presence, this close to his
parabatai
, like one magnet coming within range of another.

He found his friends seated around a high, marble-topped laboratory table. Everywhere were instruments of curious design: a galvanometer for measuring electrical currents, a torsion balance machine, and a clockwork orrery of gold, bronze, and silver—a gift from Charlotte to Henry some years ago. A dozen different microscopes, astrolabes, retorts, and measuring devices were scattered across the table and cabinet tops. On a plinth rested the Colt Single Action army revolver Christopher and Henry had been working on for months before all this had happened. Its river-gray nickel plating was deeply engraved with runes and a curving inscription:
LUKE 12:49
.

Christopher's brass goggles were pushed up into his hair; he wore a shirt and trousers that had been burned and stained so many times he had been forbidden to wear them outside. Matthew could have been his mirror opposite: in blue-and-gold waistcoat and matching spats, he stood well away from the flames of the Bunsen burners, which had been turned up so high that the room was the temperature of a tropical island. Oscar napped gently at his feet.

“What's going on, Kit?” said James. “Testing to see the temperature at which Shadowhunters melt?”

“My hair is certainly ruined,” said Matthew, pushing his hands through the sweat-darkened strands. “I believe Christopher is hard at work on the antidote. I am assisting by providing witty observations and trenchant commentary.”

“I'd rather you handed me that beaker,” said Christopher, pointing. Matthew shook his head. James grabbed the beaker and passed it to Christopher, who added a few drops of its contents to the liquid simmering in a retort by his elbow. He frowned. “It's not going well, I'm afraid. Without this one ingredient, it doesn't seem likely to work.”

“What ingredient?” James asked.

“Malos root, a rare plant. Shadowhunters aren't supposed to cultivate it because doing so violates the Accords. I have been
searching, and I asked Anna to try to get me some in Downworld, but we've had no luck.”

“Why would anyone be forbidden from growing some silly plant?” said Matthew.

“This plant only grows in soil that has been soaked by the blood of murdered mundanes,” said Christopher.

“I stand corrected,” Matthew admitted. “Ugh.”

“Dark magic plants, is it?” James's eyes narrowed. “Christopher—can you draw me a sketch of the root?”

“Certainly,” said Christopher, as if this were not at all an odd request. He took a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket and began to scribble on the back. The liquid in the retort had begun to turn black. James eyed it warily.

“There were some forbidden plants growing in Tatiana's greenhouse,” James explained. “I told Charles about it at the time, and he didn't seem to feel they were of great concern, but—”

Christopher held up the sketch, of an almost tulip-like plant with sharp-edged white leaves and a black root.

“Yes,” James said, his excitement rising. “I remember those—they
were
in the greenhouse at Chiswick. They struck me because those leaves looked like knives. We could go there now—is there a carriage free?”

“Yes.” Matthew's excitement matched James's own. “Charles had some sort of meeting, but he left the second carriage in the mews. Put your goggles down, Christopher—time for some fieldwork.”

Christopher grumbled slightly. “All right, all right—but I have to go change. I'm not allowed out in these clothes.”

“Just switch off anything that might burn down the house first,” said Matthew, catching hold of James's arm. “We'll meet you in the front garden.”

James and Matthew fled through the house (pursued by Oscar,
barking in excitement), then paused a moment on the front steps, breathing in the cool air. The sky was heavy with clouds; a bit of weak sunlight peeked through, illuminating the path from the Fairchilds' front steps to the wall of the front garden, and the gate that led to the street. It had been raining earlier, and the stone was still wet.

“Where's Thomas?” James asked, as Matthew tipped his face back to look up at the clouds: though they did not look rain-heavy, they had an energy to them as of an oncoming electrical storm. As did Matthew, James thought.

“Patrolling with Anna,” said Matthew. “Remember, Thomas is the most elderly of our group. He is required for day patrol.”

“I am not sure just eighteen is precisely elderly,” said James. “He should have some years before senility sets in.”

“I get the sense sometimes that he rather likes Alastair Carstairs. Which would indicate senility has already set in.”

“I am not sure he
likes
him precisely,” said James, “but rather feels as if he ought to be given a second chance after his behavior at school.” James paused, thinking of Alastair's strained face and panicked eyes in the library at Cornwall Gardens. “And perhaps he is right. Perhaps we all deserve one.”

“There are some people who do not deserve one.” Matthew's voice was fierce. “If I ever catch you considering befriending Alastair, James—”

“Then what?” James said, arching an eyebrow.

“Then I will have to tell you what Alastair said to me the day we left the Academy,” said Matthew. “And I would rather not. Cordelia should never know it, if nothing else. She loves him and she should be allowed that.”

Cordelia.
There was something about the way Matthew said her name. James turned to him, puzzled. He wanted to say that if Alastair had truly said something so awful it would threaten Cordelia's affection for him, Matthew should not suffer it in silence, but
there was no chance. Christopher had burst out the front door, pulling on gloves. He wore a hat, tilted sideways on his head, and a green scarf that matched none of his other clothes.

“Where's the carriage?” he asked, descending the steps.

“We were waiting for you, Christopher, not fetching you a carriage,” said James, as the three of them crossed the front garden to the mews, where a large carriage house held the Consul's horses and means of transportation. “Besides, I'm fairly sure Darwin said something about it being healthful for scientists to walk.”

Christopher looked indignant. “He certainly didn't—”

The front gate rattled. James turned to see shadows perched atop it. No, not shadows—demons, ragged and black. They leaped soundlessly to the ground, one after another, stalking toward the Shadowhunters.

“Khora demons,” James whispered; Matthew already had a shortsword out, and Christopher a seraph blade. It crackled as he named it, like a broken radiometer.

James whipped a throwing knife from his belt, turning to realize that they had been cut off from retreating to the house. The demons were circling them, as they had tried to circle Christopher on the bridge.

“I don't like this,” said Matthew. His eyes were burning, his teeth bared. “At all.”

The hat had fallen from Christopher's head; it lay sodden on the damp, stony ground. He kicked at it in frustration. “James? What next?”

James heard Cordelia's voice in his head, gentle and certain.
You are the leader.
“We cut through the circle of demons, there”—he pointed, talking fast—“and duck into the carriage house. Lock the doors behind us with a rune.”

“Brings new meaning to the saying ‘don't frighten the horses,' ” Matthew muttered. “All right. Let's go.”

They spun toward the area James had indicated, knives flying from James's hands like arrows from a bow. Each met its target, sinking deep into demon flesh. The Khora demons skittered away, howling, and the boys bolted through the gap between them toward the mews, just as the sky crackled with thunder.

They sprang through white tendrils of fog; James reached the gate to the mews first and kicked it open, then nearly doubled over, pain shooting through him.

He turned to see that a Khora had seized hold of Matthew and thrown him. Christopher was battling another of the shadowy creatures, his seraph blade describing a sputtering arc of light as he slashed at it. James choked—Matthew must have had the breath knocked out of him—and turned to race toward his
parabatai
as the Khora reared up over Matthew's body—

A flash of gold sprang between Matthew and the shadow, sending the Khora reeling back.

It was Oscar. The retriever sailed past the demon, missing a savage blow from its claws by barely an inch, and landed near Matthew.

The Khora started back toward the boy and the dog. Matthew threw his arms around Oscar—the puppy James had saved and given to him so long ago—curving his body to protect his dog. James spun, a knife in each hand, and let them fly.

The knives sank to their hilts in the demon's skull. It blew apart; one of the other demons screamed, and Matthew leaped to his feet, seizing up his fallen sword. James could hear him shouting at Oscar to go back into the house, but Oscar clearly felt he had scored a great victory and had no intention of listening. He growled as Christopher paused at the mews gate, shouting for the others to follow him.

James turned.
“Christopher—”

It rose up behind Christopher, a massive shadow, the biggest
Khora demon James had seen yet. Christopher started to turn, raising his seraph blade, but it was too late. The Khora had reached around Christopher, almost as if it meant to embrace him, pulling his body back toward it. His weapon went flying.

Matthew started to run toward Christopher, skidding across the wet ground. James couldn't move—he was out of knives; he grabbed for the seraph blade in his belt, but there was no time. The demon's great clawed hand raked across Christopher's chest.

Christopher screamed, and the Khora demon shoved him away. He crumpled to the ground.

“No!”
James broke into a run, zigzagging toward Christopher's fallen body. Something lunged toward him; he heard Matthew shout, and a
chalikar
sliced an oncoming Khora in half. James jerked his seraph blade free, heading for the demon that had wounded Kit.

It turned to look at him. Its eyes were knowing, almost amused. It bared its teeth—and vanished, just as the Khora demons in the park had.

“Jamie, they've gone,” Matthew called. “They've all gone—”

The front gates burst open with a ringing clang of metal, and a carriage rolled into the front garden. The doors flew open, disgorging Charles Fairchild; James dimly realized that Alastair Carstairs was also there, looking around himself with a stunned expression. As James dropped to his knees by Christopher, he could hear Charles demanding to know what was going on.

Matthew shouted back, asking if Charles was blind, couldn't he see Christopher was hurt and needed to go to the Silent City? Charles kept demanding what had happened to the demons, where had they gone, he'd seen one when they'd first crashed through the gates, but where were they now?

I will take him,
Alastair was saying.
I will take him to the Silent City.
But the words seemed to echo from some far-off place, someplace where James was not kneeling in the wet and the fog next to
a motionless Christopher, whose chest had been scored across by the ragged lines of demon claws. Someplace where Christopher was not still and silent no matter how much James begged him to open his eyes. Someplace where Christopher's blood was not mixing with the rain on the cobblestones, surrounding him in a pool of crimson. Someplace better than this.

Cordelia had been hoping to speak to her brother again, but she rose so late in the day that by the time Risa had helped her dress and sent her downstairs, Alastair had already gone out.

Despite the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows, the house seemed muffled and dim, the ticking of the clock unnaturally loud as she ate her porridge in the dining room. It tasted like sawdust in her mouth. She kept remembering Alastair's words of the night before:
I wanted you to have a childhood, a thing I never had. I wanted you to be able to love and respect your father as I never could.

She realized with a chill of shame that she had badly misunderstood her mother and brother. She had thought they would not stand up for her father because of cowardice and social pressure. Now she realized they knew Elias might have been in the wrong—so drunk that he could not properly consider the safety of those he was sending on a dangerous mission.

She had thought her mother wanted her to marry to rid her of the shame of being the daughter of a man on trial in Idris. Now she realized it was far more complicated.

No wonder Sona and Alastair had looked with wariness on her attempts to “save” her father. They had been afraid she would find out the truth. Her blood felt cold in her veins. They really could lose everything, she thought. She had never quite believed it before. She had always thought justice would prevail. But justice was not as simple as she'd thought.