Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,200

raised against her. But your blood, his blood, is a barrier I cannot cut. I cannot bind you without his chain.”

Something silver flashed in her hand. She caught at his arm; he tried to pull away, but she held fast. He felt something cold against his skin, and heard a click like a lock turning as the metal circle closed about his wrist. A spark of pain traveled up his arm, like a sudden shock of electricity.

He tried to step back. Shadowy images rose before his eyes. In the last moment before it all changed, he saw Cordelia—she stood some distance away from him, at the edge of the Institute roof. When he tried to turn, to look at her, she covered her face with her hands and moved back, out of his reach. He saw the moon behind her, or perhaps it was not the moon. It was a silver, spinning thing, a wheel in the night, so bright it blinded him to every other star.

* * *

It had been raining in London, but the weather in Idris, even at the edge of sunset, was warm. Lucie had followed Uncle Jem along the path from the spot where they had Portaled in, just outside Alicante. One could not Portal directly into the walled city; it was warded against such things. Lucie didn’t mind. Her destination was not within the city limits.

Jem—she never could think of him as Brother Zachariah, no matter how hard she tried—walked along beside her as they skirted the Imperishable Fields. His hood was down, and the wind ruffled his black hair. Though his face was scarred, she realized for the first time that it was a young face—much more like her mother’s than her father’s. Was it strange for Will, she wondered, to be aging and have Jem remain in appearance still a boy? Or when you loved someone, did you not notice these things, just as her parents saw no difference between themselves?

It is there. Jem gestured toward what looked like a miniature city of white houses. It was the necropolis of Alicante, where families of Idris were buried. Narrow lanes threaded among the mausoleums, paved with crushed white stone. Lucie had always loved the way the tombs looked like small houses, with doors or gates and sloping roofs. Unlike mundanes, Shadowhunters did not tend to decorate their graves with statues of angels. The names of the families who owned the tombs were carved over the doors, or etched on metal plates: BELLEFLEUR, CARTWRIGHT, CROSSKILL, LOVELACE, even BRIDGESTOCK. Death made unlikely neighbors. She found what she was looking for at last, a large tomb under a shaded tree, bearing the name BLACKTHORN.

She stopped and looked. It was a tomb like any other, save for the design of thorns that ran around the plinth. The names of those who had died marched up and down the tomb’s left side like orderly soldiers. It was easy to find the newest. JESSE BLACKTHORN, BORN 1879, DIED 1896.

It had only been 1897 when she had met him in the woods, Lucie realized. He had been a ghost for such a short time. He had seemed so much older than her then; she had never given thought to how frightened he must have been himself.

Everybody thought Jesse had died long ago. Nobody knew what he had sacrificed since.

She touched the locket hanging around her throat and turned to Jem. “Can I have a moment alone here, please?”

Jem glanced down at her, clearly worried. It was hard to read his face, his closed eyes, but he had hesitated when she first asked him to bring her to Idris to pay respects in the graveyard and not to tell her parents. He had only agreed when she’d said that if he didn’t do it, she’d find a warlock who would take her.

He touched her hair lightly. Do not dwell too much on death. Lucie means light. Look to the day, not the night.

“I know, Uncle Jem,” she said. “It will only be a moment.”

He nodded and vanished into the shadows, the way Silent Brothers always did.

Lucie turned back to the tomb. She knew it did not contain any part of Jesse, yet it comforted her to be there all the same. “I have told no one what I saw at Chiswick House, and I never shall,” she said aloud. “I haven’t kept silence to protect Grace, or your mother. Only to protect you. I did not expect you to be such