Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,214

the way Tessa looked at James and wondered if she sensed it too. “Cordelia has done me the honor of agreeing to marry me.”

Cordelia held out her hand, on which the Herondale ring gleamed. “We are both,” she said, “very happy, and we hope you will be happy too.”

She glanced at her mother. To her surprise, Sona’s eyes were troubled. But I did as you wished, Mâmân, she cried out silently. I made a good marriage.

Both Will and Tessa were looking at Sona, as if waiting for her reaction.

Cordelia’s mother exhaled slowly and straightened, her dark eyes passing from Cordelia to James. “Cheshmet roshan,” she said, and inclined her head toward Will and Tessa. “I have given my blessing.”

A broad smile spread across Will’s face. “Then we have no choice but to give our blessing too. Cordelia Carstairs,” he said, “the Carstairs and the Herondales will be bonded even more closely now. If James could have chosen his wife from all the women in all the worlds that are or ever were, I would wish for no other.”

Tessa laughed. “Will! You cannot compliment our new daughter only on the chance of her last name!”

Will was grinning like a boy. “Wait until I tell Jem—”

The door burst open, and Lucie spilled in. “I was just listening at the door,” she announced, with no shame whatsoever. “Daisy! You are to be my sister!”

She raced to Cordelia and embraced her. Alastair came into the room, too—quiet, but smiling when Cordelia looked at him. It was so close to the joyous scene Cordelia had always dreamed of. She had only to try to forget that Will might have wished for her to join his family, but if James had been free to choose, he would have chosen someone else.

* * *

It was only later that night that Cordelia learned what had happened to Tatiana, from Alastair—who, she assumed, had heard the story from Charles.

Tatiana had been shown relative leniency. It was the general opinion of the Enclave that the death of her son had broken her mind, and that though what she had done in response—sought out the help of dark warlocks to engage with her in necromancy and dark magic—was reprehensible, she had been maddened by grief. They all recalled the loss of Jesse and pitied her; rather than be locked up in the Silent City, or have her Marks stripped, Tatiana would be sent to live with the Iron Sisters in the Adamant Citadel.

Almost prison, but not quite, as Alastair described it.

Grace would move in with the Bridgestocks. Apparently Ariadne had insisted; Alastair theorized that it was also a way for the Bridgestocks to save face and make it look as if Ariadne and Charles’s engagement had been dissolved amicably.

“How odd,” said Cordelia. She wondered why Ariadne had made such a demand. Even if she didn’t want to marry Charles, why would she want to live with Grace? Then again, Cordelia suspected there was more to pretty Ariadne Bridgestock than met the eye.

“There is more,” Alastair said. He was sitting at the foot of his sister’s bed. Cordelia was propped against her pillows, brushing out her long hair. “Our father is to be released.”

“Released?” Cordelia sat bolt upright, her heart pounding. “What do you mean?”

“The charges against him have been resolved,” said Alastair, “the whole messy business deemed an accident. He will be returning to London in a fortnight.”

“Why would they let him go free, Alastair?”

He smiled at her, though his eyes did not light up. “Because of you, just as you wanted. You did it, Cordelia—you are a hero now. That changes things. For them to try your father for a crime of negligence he no longer remembers—it would be an unpopular gesture. People want to see things set right, after so much loss and horror. They want to see families reunited. Even more so because of the baby.”

“How do they know about the baby?”

Alastair’s eyes darted away from hers—his tell, the small sign that he was lying, which he had displayed since he was a small child. “I don’t know. Someone must have told them.”

Cordelia could not speak. It was all she had wanted, for so long. Free her father, save her family. It had been her mantra, the words she had chanted over and over to herself as she fell asleep at night. Now she did not know how she felt.

“Alastair,” she whispered, “the reason I went to the Silent City with Matthew and James was to talk to