Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,178

climbed and stared down into the space below.

It was a single room, bare of any decoration save a sword hanging upon one wall. It bore a crosspiece carved with thorns, the symbol of the Blackthorn family. In the center of the room was a table, on which rested a coffin. Standing beside the coffin was Grace Blackthorn, a witchlight torch in her right hand. Her left hand lay atop the coffin, her slim fingers outspread as if she could reach through the glass front and touch the body within.

For the coffin was made of glass, like the coffin of Snow White in fairy tales. And lying within it was Jesse Blackthorn—hair as black as ebony, skin as white as snow. His lips were not red as blood, though: they were pale and set, and his eyes were closed. He wore a suit of funeral white—it was jarring to see him in something other than the clothes he had died in—and his hands were crossed over his chest.

Lucie gripped the wall tightly. Jesse’s body. It had probably only been in this shed a short time—Tatiana would have kept her son with her in Idris until they came to London. But why hadn’t she simply put Jesse inside the main house, rather than in this odd little structure? Somewhere where there would have been a roof over him?

The thought of cold rain falling on his coffin was almost painful. Jesse didn’t look dead; he looked as if sleep had found him as he lay at rest in a garden. He looked as if he might rise at any moment and step free of his glass prison. He looked—alive.

“Jesse,” Grace said. “Jesse, I’m afraid.”

Lucie froze. She had never heard Grace speak like this. Grace sounded afraid, it was true, but more than that, she sounded gentle.

“Jesse, I’m sorry. I hate to leave you out here in the cold, even though I know you don’t feel it.” Grace sounded as if she were fighting tears. “Charles is always wandering around the inside of the manor. I suppose he wants to see what kind of property he will inherit when Mama dies.” Her voice dropped; Lucie had to lean down to hear her. “Oh, Jesse. I’m afraid that they are going to stop me coming here at night. Charles is constantly saying that I shouldn’t be alone in this tumbledown house. He doesn’t know that I’m not alone. You come to talk to me.” She drew her lace-gloved hand back from the coffin. “You asked me why I’m marrying Charles. You asked if it was because I feared what Mama might do to James.”

Lucie froze. In the near-darkness, it was impossible to see Grace’s expression—it seemed to change as the witchlight flickered: gentle one moment, vicious the next.

“But I am so much more selfish than that,” breathed Grace. “I am doing it because it will free me from Mama. I want her to recover, I truly do, but when she does, I must have her realize that I am part of the Consul’s family now and can’t be touched. As for James…”

The shadows thickened in the small room below. Behind Grace, there was only darkness. Lucie knew she should return to the greenhouse, but she was desperate to hear more of what Grace was saying.

“You have asked me so many times what I truly felt for James. And I never told you. I hid so much from you. I always wished to show you my best face, Jesse. You were the only one who ever spoke up for me against Mama. I wish—”

The shadows behind Grace seemed to move.

Lucie gasped. Grace looked up at the noise, just as a crouching shape emerged from the darkness.

It was a demon, half-reptilian and half-human, with leathery bat’s wings and a sharply pointed chin like the tip of a knife. It loomed above Grace, massive and scaled, and she shrieked aloud, dropping her witchlight torch. She began to back away, but the demon was too swift. Its leathery claw shot out; it seized Grace by the throat and lifted her off the ground. Her small feet in their heeled boots kicked wildly.

The demon spoke, its voice echoing off the brick walls. “Grace Blackthorn. You foolish girl.” In the light from the torch, Lucie could see that its face was flat, snakelike, its ovoid eyes glittering like black stones. It had two mouths, but only the lower one moved as it spoke. Great horns curved up from either side of