Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,106

being three years old and fussy. She felt somewhere in the core of her heart the truth of what her mother had just said. And one should put truth in books, she thought, but this would never be the sort of thing she put in the pages of The Beautiful Cordelia. Books were about experiencing joy. This was the raw and awful stuff of life.

It was much too terrible.

* * *

James was sitting at his writing desk, trying to read, but his eyes were skipping over the words on the page. He kept thinking of Barbara. He had not been extremely close with his cousin—the difference in age between them meant she regarded him indulgently as a child, as she did Thomas—but she had been there all his life, kind and cheerful, without her sister’s sharp tongue, always expecting the ready best of everyone. He had never lived in a world without Barbara in it.

Lucie was in the library, he knew, absorbing the company of others. But James had always found solace in books. Admittedly not the kind of book he was reading currently, though.

He had been surprised how very little material there was in the library on the Princes of Hell. They were not the kind of demons Shadowhunters fought—in the mythology about them, they were the mirrors of angels like Raziel. Their interests seemed to go beyond humanity, who were like ants to them. Their battles were with angels and the rulers of realms—other worlds than Earth, dimensions the princes seemed to collect like chess pieces. They could not be killed, though sometimes they were able to wound each other in a manner that left the injured party weakened for years.

There were nine of them in total. There was Sammael, the first to loose demons upon the Earth. Azazel, the forger of weapons who fell from grace when he gifted humans with the instruments of violence. Belial, who “did not walk among men,” was described as the prince of necromancers and warlocks, and a thief of realms. Mammon, the prince of greed and wealth, could be bribed with money and riches. Astaroth, who tempted men to bear false witness, and who took advantage of the grieving. Asmodeus, the demon of lust and rumored general of Hell’s army. Belphegor, the prince of sloth and, strangely, tricksters and snake-oil salesmen. Leviathan, the demon of envy, chaos, and the sea, who was monstrous and rarely summoned. And lastly, of course, there was Lucifer, the leader of the archangels, the most beautiful of any prince, the leader of the rebellion against Heaven.

It seemed impossible to James any of them could be his grandfather. It was like having a mountain for a grandfather, or an exploding star. Nothing evil was more powerful than the Princes of Hell, save perhaps Lilith, the mother of demons.

He sighed and set the book down, trying to push back an intrusive thought of Grace. He did not like the way they had parted at the riverbank: she had said she would need time, and he knew he must give her that. Still, the thought of her burned inside his stomach, as if he had swallowed a match tip.

A knock on the door pulled him from his reverie. He set his book down, rising to his feet. His muscles ached.

“Come in,” he called.

It was his father, but Will was not alone: Uncle Jem was with him, a noiseless presence in his drifting parchment robes. His hood was down, as it often was when he was inside the Institute. Will had told James many years ago that when Jem had first become a Silent Brother, he had not liked people to see his scars. It was strange to think of Uncle Jem having such feelings.

“Someone’s here to see you,” Will said, moving aside to let Jem pass into the room. He glanced from his son to his old parabatai. James knew that under the songs and jokes, the careful deflection, his father was a man who felt things deeply. He himself was like his father in that way: they both loved intensely, and could be intensely hurt.

If it bothered Will that James and Jem had secrets he did not know and could not share, he did not show it. James had been miserable until Jem had shown him how to control the shadow power. All Will had ever cared about was that after his lessons with Jem, James seemed happier.

Will’s blue eyes were deeply shadowed; James knew he and Tessa