Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,167

tainted with the shadow of what he had done.

He knelt before the statue of Jonathan Shadowhunter in his family’s parlor, his hands covered in ash. “Bless me,” he said haltingly, “for I have sinned. I have…” He stopped, unable to say the words. “Tonight someone died because of me. Because of my actions. Someone I loved. Someone I didn’t know. But I loved them just the same.”

He had thought the prayer might help. It did not. He had shared his secret with Jonathan Shadowhunter, but he would never share it with anyone else: not his parabatai, not his parents, not a single friend or stranger. From that night on, an impassable chasm opened between Matthew and the whole world. None of them knew it, but he was cut off from them forever in all the ways that mattered.

But that was as it should be, Matthew thought. After all, he had committed murder.

18 DARKNESS STIRS

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