Chain of Gold (38 page)

He set her on her heels, his hands still on her hips. She could feel the imprint of the Herondale ring he wore against her side. He was staring, and Cordelia realized with a jolt that she had left her coat in the carriage. She was standing in front of Matthew and James in her new dress, with nothing else to cover her.

She could not help but be conscious of how closely the dress clung to her body. The fabric over her hips was so tight that she hadn't been able to wear a petticoat beneath it, only her combination and a light corset. Anyone could see the shape of her waist, the swell of her bosom, and even the silk draped across the curve of her stomach. The narrow sleeves slipped down her shoulders, uncovering the tops of her breasts; the weight and softness of the material was like a caress. She felt elegant in a way she never had before, and a little wild.

“Cordelia,” said Matthew. He looked slightly stunned, as if he'd walked into a wall. “You look different.”

“Different?” Anna scoffed. “She looks stunning.”

James hadn't moved. He was looking at Cordelia, and his eyes had darkened, from the color of a tiger's eyes to something richer and deeper. Something like the gold of Cortana when it flashed in the air. He exhaled and let her go, stepping back. Cordelia could feel
her heart beating in her throat, a sharp pulse, as if she had drunk too much of her mother's strong tea.

“We had better go in,” James said, and Cordelia saw Anna smile sideways, a catlike smile, before she led them into the narrow court.

The faerie at the door recognized Anna and Matthew and let them all pass through into the Hell Ruelle with only a lift of her lavender eyebrows. They found themselves in the Ruelle's dazzling series of interconnected rooms. As they followed Anna, who strode along with purpose, Cordelia realized what she had not before: that the rooms spread out from a central large chamber like the arms of a starfish. The ceilings in the passages were low, but every room was illuminated by electric light, brilliant and harsher than witchlight.

They found Hypatia Vex holding court in the central chamber. The decor of the octagonal room had been changed. The walls were now hung with paintings of bacchanals: naked dancers encircled with streaming ribbons, demons with eyes painted red and foreheads garlanded with flowers, their bodies lacquered gold like James's eyes. Behind Hypatia Vex hung a massive triptych of a dark-haired woman holding a black owl with golden eyes.

The stage in the center of the room was empty now, though chairs and couches had been arranged around it. They were full of Downworlders. Cordelia recognized the vampire girl Lily, jeweled combs in her black hair, sipping blood from a crystal glass. She winked at Anna, but Anna was focused on Hypatia, who was seated on an intricately carved oak settee, upholstered in red-and-green jacquard fabric. She was wearing another shimmering gown, this one black silk that made it seem as if the luxurious curves of her body had been dipped into ink.

Nor was she alone. Next to her was a handsome werewolf with green-gold eyes. Cordelia had seen him the last time they had come here. He had been the violin player in the string quartet. Now there was no music and he was focused on Hypatia, his body turned
toward hers attentively, his long fingers playing gently with a strap of her gown.

Anna's blue eyes narrowed.

“Anna,” said James in his low voice. “You may have your work cut out for you.”

“That's Claude Kellington,” said Matthew. “He's the master of entertainment here. In charge of the stage.”

Anna turned to them, her eyes bright. “Matthew,” she said. “Distract him.”

Matthew winked and strode over to the settee. Lily glanced over at him as he passed her, possibly sizing him up as a potential snack. He was very handsome, Cordelia thought; she didn't know why she didn't respond to him as she did to James. But then, she didn't respond to anyone as she did to James.

Raising an eyebrow, Kellington rose and followed Matthew back into the crowd. Cordelia and James exchanged a look as Matthew wove toward them, the werewolf in tow.

“Please don't tell me the three of you have some sort of act,” said Kellington as he drew near, and Cordelia realized with a jolt of surprise that Anna had slipped away, silent as a cat. “No one wants to see singing and dancing Shadowhunters.”

“I was hoping my
parabatai
and I might recite some poetry,” said Matthew. “Perhaps about the bonds of brotherly love.”

Kellington gave Matthew an amused look. He had a sharply handsome sort of face, and curling chestnut hair. A gold ring stamped with the words
Beati Bellicosi
flashed on his hand. “I recall the poetry you recited to me once,” he said. “Though not as particularly brotherly. However, we're looking for new performers tonight.” He glanced at James. “Do you have any talents, besides standing there looking good and saying nothing?”

“I'm quite skilled at throwing knives,” James said calmly. He moved to the side, Kellington's gaze following him, as Anna slid
onto the settee beside Hypatia and lifted the warlock's hand to her lips for a kiss. Hypatia looked more than a little surprised.

“If a Shadowhunter gets up and starts waving knives around, we're going to have a riot,” said Kellington. “Hypatia wants to entertain her guests, not kill them.” His gaze slid to Cordelia. It was a gaze like being touched, she thought. Not entirely pleasant, but certainly novel. Kellington seemed to be examining her from head to toe and finding himself not displeased. “What about
you
?”

Matthew and James both stared at her.

“I suppose I could perform,” Cordelia said breathlessly.

She heard her own voice as if from a distance. Was she mad? What was she offering? What would she even
do
? She heard Kellington agree and felt James's slender, scarred fingers on her arm. “Cordelia, you don't need to—” he began.

“I can do it,” she said.

He met her gaze directly, and she saw that there was no doubt in his expression. He was looking at her with exactly the faith he showed when he looked at Matthew, at Lucie, or at Thomas. With a total belief that she could do anything, if it was required of her to do it.

It was as if she could suddenly get enough air into her lungs: Cordelia inhaled, nodded at James, and turned to Kellington.

“I am ready,” she said.

With a bow, the werewolf led her toward the stage.

—
—

You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since—on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hours of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.

—Charles Dickens
, Great Expectations

Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,

But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.

I kiss you and the world begins to fade.

—William Butler Yeats,
Land of Heart's Desire

From her window, Lucie could
see the steady stream of carriages arriving through the arched entrance to the Institute. She drew back with a frown. Where
were
Thomas and Christopher? She didn't blame either of them for having had difficulty concentrating the day before. Barbara's death was on all their minds. But it
had
meant the three of them had failed to make a proper plan for meeting up tonight.

Well, she thought, if she had to spy on the Enclave meeting alone, then that was what she'd do. She had just gone to fetch her stele from atop the dresser when she heard something rattle against the glass of her window. Assuming Thomas and Christopher were trying to get her attention with pebbles—their usual method—she darted over and threw the window open.

Something that looked like a burning butterfly sailed past her
head, and Lucie gave a shriek. She ran toward it as it alighted on her desk and burst into red-orange flames. It was small, no bigger than her hand, and she hastened to put it out with a handy pen wiper.

“Sorry, Luce!” It was Christopher, clambering in through her window. He dropped to the floor and was followed a moment later by Thomas, who had a hole burned into the collar of his shirt and looked cross about it. “It was an experiment—method of sending messages using fire runes—”

Lucie looked skeptically at the charred spot on her desk where the message had sparked its last. It had landed on several manuscript pages of
The Beautiful Cordelia
, and they were now quite ruined. “Well, don't experiment on me!” she said. “You've destroyed a very important scene in which Cordelia is romanced by a pirate king.”

“Piracy is unethical,” said Thomas.

“Not in this case,” said Lucie. “You see, the pirate king is secretly the son of an earl—”

Christopher and Thomas exchanged glances. “We really ought to go,” said Christopher, retrieving Lucie's stele and handing it to her. “The Enclave meeting is about to start.”

They crept out of Lucie's room and hurried to one of the empty storerooms on the second floor, above the library. It was Lucie's father who had taught her how to draw this particular rune, so she did the honors as they all knelt in a loose circle on the floor: the rune was a large one, covering a good amount of space. When Lucie was done, she finished it off with a flourish and sat back.

The floor between their kneeling legs shimmered and went transparent. Lucie, Thomas, and Christopher were now looking down at the library below them as if through the lens of a telescope. They could see everyone gathered in the room very clearly, down to the colors of their eyes and the details of their clothes.

Extra rows of tables had been set up, and Shadowhunters filled the room. Lucie's father and mother were there, of course, and her
uncle Gabriel as well, seated toward the front of the room where Will stood, flanked by Inquisitor Bridgestock and a stiff-looking Charles Fairchild. Lucie could not help but wonder what their relationship had been like since Charles had ended his engagement to Ariadne.

Charles rapped sharply on one of the tables, making Lilian Highsmith jolt in her seat. “To order,” he said. “To order. My thanks to the members of the Enclave who could join us here. Though this information has not been made public, as of today there have been a total of six major attacks by an unknown type of demon on Nephilim in London. All except the attack at the Baybrooks' residence took place in daylight.”

Lucie turned to Thomas and Christopher. “Six attacks?” she whispered. “I only know of three. Did you know of more?”

Thomas shook his head. “Even I did not know. I imagine the Enclave has become fearful of panicking people. If it makes you feel better, I think a lot of people didn't know.”

Lucie looked back down. Many members of the Enclave seemed to be murmuring to each other in agitation. She could see her father standing with his arms crossed over his chest, a frozen expression on his face. He had not known.

“There are now twenty-five very sick Shadowhunters in the Silent City,” said Charles. “Due to the gravity of the situation, travel in and out of London has been suspended for the moment by the Clave.”

Lucie, Christopher, and Thomas exchanged startled looks. When had this happened? As a murmur swept through the crowd in the library, it seemed clear that many of the adults in attendance were equally surprised.

“What do you mean by ‘for the moment'?” called George Penhallow. “How long will we be forbidden to travel?”

Charles clasped his hands behind his back. “Indefinitely.”

The murmur in the room became a roar. “What of those in
Idris?” called Ida Rosewain. “Will they be able to return? What of our families there?”

Bridgestock shook his head. “All Portal travel is suspended—”

“Good,” muttered Lilian Highsmith. “I've never trusted those newfangled inventions. I heard about a young man who went through a Portal with his
parabatai
and ended up with the other fellow's leg attached to him.”

Bridgestock ignored this. “There will be no entering or exiting London, no passing beyond the warded boundaries of the city. Not for now.”

Lucie and Christopher looked at Thomas in dismay, but his mouth had only tightened into a sharp line. “Good,” he said. “My family will be safe in Idris.”

“Henry, though,” said Christopher in a worried voice. “He was to return and help us with the antidote.”

Lucie had not known that. She patted Christopher's hand as comfortingly as she could. “The Silent Brothers are also looking for a cure,” she whispered. “It is not just you, Christopher. Besides, I have every confidence you could do it on your own.”

“And I will help you,” Thomas added, but Christopher only looked mournfully down at the scene unfolding below.

“What is the meaning of this? Why are we being imprisoned in London?” Martin Wentworth was shouting. He had risen to his feet. “Now is the time we need the Clave's assistance—”

“It's a quarantine, Martin,” said Will, in his steady voice. “Let the Inquisitor explain.”

But it was Charles who spoke. “All of you,” he said loudly. “You know that my—that Barbara Lightwood was stricken down by a demon attack. Poison flooded her system. She could not withstand it and died a few days ago.”

Thomas winced, and Martin Wentworth's face turned from red to white as he clearly thought of his son, Piers.

Charles went on. “Oliver Hayward was with her when she died. In the last throes of her agony, not recognizing her friends and loved ones, she attacked him, scratching and hitting him.”

Lucie remembered the blood on Oliver's hands, his cuffs. The library was silent. She could not bear to look at Thomas.

“As you may also know,” Charles went on, “the Hayward family runs the York Institute, and Oliver understandably wished to return home after losing his beloved.”

“As any upstanding young man might well do,” muttered Bridgestock.

Charles ignored this. “We received the news yesterday that Oliver had fallen ill. His scratches festered and he was overcome by the same symptoms that have claimed those here in London who have been attacked by these demons.” He paused. “Oliver died this morning.”

There was an audible gasp. Lucie felt sick.

Laurence Ashdown bolted to his feet. “But Hayward wasn't attacked by a demon! Nor is the poison of demons contagious!”

“The poison causes an ailment,” said Will calmly. “It has been determined by the Silent Brothers that this ailment can be transmitted by bite or scratch. While it is not highly contagious, it is contagious nonetheless. Hence the quarantine.”

“Is that why all the sick were moved to the Silent City and are not being allowed visitors? Is that what's going on?” demanded Wentworth.

Lucie was again startled: she had not known the sick were not to be visited. Thomas, noting her distress, whispered, “The injunction against visitors was handed down only this morning. Christopher and I heard Uncle Gabriel discussing it.”

“The Silent City is the right place for them to be,” said Charles. “The Brothers can take the best care of the afflicted, and no demon can enter the place.”

“So what is the Clave's plan?” Ida Rosewain's voice rose. “Is their intention to trap us in London—with demons carrying a poison disease we don't know how to treat—so we all simply
die
?”

Even Bridgestock looked taken aback. It was Will who spoke.

“We are Shadowhunters,” he said. “We do not wait to be saved by others. We save ourselves. We here in London are as equipped as any member of the Clave to solve this problem, and it will be solved.”

Lucie felt a spark of warmth in her chest. Her father was a good leader. It was one of the things she loved about him. He knew when people needed to be calmed and encouraged. Charles, who wanted so badly to be a leader himself, knew only how to frighten and demand.

“Will is correct,” Charles said cautiously. “We have the assistance of the Silent Brothers, and I myself will be acting as Consul in my mother's stead, since she cannot return from Idris.”

Charles glanced into the crowd and, for a moment, seemed to be looking directly at Alastair Carstairs. Odd that he was there, Lucie thought, but Sona was not. Though Alastair would certainly report on the state of things to his family.

Alastair returned Charles's glance and looked away; Lucie sensed Thomas's shoulder tense beside hers.

“We will be splitting into three groups,” said Bridgestock. “One group will be in charge of research, digging up everything in our libraries regarding whether anything like this has happened before—demon disease, demons that can exist in daylight, and so on. Group two will handle night patrols, and group three day patrols. Every Shadowhunter over the age of eighteen and under the age of fifty-five will be given an area of London to patrol.”

“I do not see why the demons would remain within the boundary of the city,” said Lilian Highsmith darkly. “We may be quarantined, but they are not.”

“We have not been abandoned,” said Will. “York, too, is under
quarantine, though there have been no further cases of illness there yet, but the Shadowhunters of the Cornwall Institute as well as some Shadowhunters from Idris will be patrolling outside London, and patrols will be stepped up through all the British Isles. If the demons flee London, they will be caught.”

“These demons didn't just appear out of thin air,” said Bridgestock. “They were summoned. We need to interrogate all the magic users in London in order to track down the culprit.”

“It's not quite demons, is it?” Lucie whispered. “If it's a Mandikhor, then it's really just one demon. Maybe… Ought we to tell them?”

“Not at the moment,” said Thomas. “The last thing they need is us falling out of the ceiling to announce that we have a theory that it's a demon that splits into parts.”

“In fact, not even so much as a theory as a hypothesis,” said Christopher. “We have not proved it yet, or even tested it. And I am not sure how it would change their plans or behavior. It may be one demon, but it acts as many demons, and that is what they are seeking to combat.”

In the library, Will frowned. “Maurice, we've been over this. Not only will such an action panic all the magicians and Downworlders in London, we have no assurance that whoever raised these demons is even still in the city. It would be a waste of manpower that we need elsewhere.”

“But someone is at fault for this and must pay for it!” snapped Bridgestock.

Will began to say, surprisingly gently, “And that will happen, but we must find this demon first—”

“My daughter is dying!” Bridgestock shouted, suddenly enough to jolt the room. “Ariadne is dying, and I demand to know who is responsible!”

“Well, my niece is already dead.” It was Uncle Gabriel, having
risen to his feet. He looked furious, his green eyes nearly black. Lucy rather wished her aunt Cecily was there, for she would surely have been cheering him on. “And yet rather than wasting my energy on imagining revenge, I will be patrolling London's streets, hoping to prevent what happened to her from happening to another innocent—”

“Well and good, Lightwood,” said Bridgestock, his eyes glittering, “but I am the Inquisitor, and you are not. It is my task to root out evil at its source—”

The view went dark and the library below vanished. Lucie glanced up in surprise to see that Thomas had drawn a line through her rune, closing their window to the library below. His eyes, like his uncle Gabriel's, were glittering with fury.

Christopher put his hand on Thomas's shoulder. “I'm sorry, Tom. About Oliver, and—”

“There's no need to apologize.” Thomas spoke in a tight voice. “It is best we know the situation. As soon as we have hold of the Pyxis, we will handle this ourselves, for if we wait for the Enclave to come to a consensus, I expect more will die.”

James watched as Cordelia ascended the steps to the raised cherrywood stage in the middle of the room. He was aware of Matthew standing beside him, swearing under his breath. He didn't blame him—he knew how his
parabatai
felt: that somehow they had thrown Cordelia to the wolves of the Hell Ruelle.

Kellington, standing beside her, clapped his hands, and the crowd began to quiet. Not fast enough, James thought. He began to applaud loudly, and beside him, following his lead, Matthew did the same. Anna, snuggled next to Hypatia on the settee, also clapped, causing Kellington to glance toward her and frown. Hypatia looked back at him with wide, starry eyes and shrugged.