Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,23

am shocked.” But his eyes were dancing. “Did James tell you about tomorrow?”

“He did say there was some sort of excursion—a picnic, I think. I am not sure if I am invited, though.”

“Of course you’re invited. I’m inviting you.”

“Oh. Can you do that?”

“I think you’ll find I can do whatever I want, and I usually do.”

“Because the Consul is your mother?” Cordelia said.

He raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve always hoped to meet her,” Cordelia said. “Is she here tonight?”

“No, she’s in Idris,” he said, with a gracious half shrug. “She left a few days ago. It’s unusual for the Consul to live in London—she’s rarely here. The Clave requires her.”

“Oh,” said Cordelia, struggling to hide her disappointment. “How long will she be—”

Matthew spun her in a surprising twirl that left the other dancers looking at them in puzzlement. “You will come to the picnic tomorrow, won’t you?” he said. “It will keep Lucie amused while James moons after Grace. You want Lucie to be happy, don’t you?”

“Of course I do—” Cordelia began, and then, glancing around, realized that she had not seen Lucie in some time. No matter how she craned her head and searched among the dancers, she did not see her friend’s blue dress, or the glint of her brown hair. Puzzled, she turned to Matthew. “But where is she? Where did Lucie go?”

3 THIS LIVING HAND

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again.

—John Keats, “This Living Hand”

It was a bit like the moment in a dream where one realized one was dreaming, only in reverse. When Lucie saw the boy from the forest come into the ballroom, she assumed she was dreaming, and only when her parents began to hurry over toward him and his two companions did she realize that she wasn’t.

In a daze, she pushed through the crowd toward the ballroom doors. As she neared her parents, she recognized the woman they were speaking to, her taffeta dress stretched across bony arms and shoulders, her oversize hat covered with lace, tulle, and a memorable stuffed bird. Tatiana Blackthorn.

Lucie had always been a bit frightened of Tatiana, especially when she had come to their house, demanding that James cut the thorns from her gates. She remembered her as a sort of towering skeleton, but with the passage of years, it seemed that Tatiana had shrunk: still tall, but no longer a giant.

And there beside her was Grace. Lucie recalled her as a determinedly poised child, but she was quite different now. Cold and lovely and statuesque.

But Lucie barely spared them a glance. She was staring at the boy who had come in with them. The changeling boy she had last seen in Brocelind Forest.

He had not altered at all. His hair was still a black spill over his forehead, his eyes the same eerie green. He wore the same clothes he had in the forest: dark trousers and an ivory shirt whose sleeves had been rolled up above his elbows. It was very odd attire for a ball.

He was watching as Tessa and Will greeted Tatiana and Grace, Will bending to kiss Grace’s satin-gloved hand. Oddly, neither of them greeted the boy. As Lucie neared them, her brows drew down into a frown. They were speaking to each other, ignoring him entirely, talking through him as if he weren’t there. How could they be so rude?

Lucie hurried forward, her mouth opening, her gaze fixed on the boy, her boy, her boy from the forest. He raised his head and saw her looking, and to her astonishment, a look of horror passed over his face.

She stopped dead. She could see James making his way through the crowd toward them somewhere in the distance, but the boy was already stepping away from Tatiana and Grace, moving toward Lucie. Speeding toward her, actually, like a runaway horse on Rotten Row.

No one else seemed to see him. No one turned to look at either of them, even when he seized hold of Lucie’s wrist and drew her after him out of the room.

* * *

“Would you do me the honor of this dance?” said James.

He was conscious of the presence of his parents, and of Tatiana Blackthorn, observing everything with her poison-green eyes. He was conscious of the music, continuing around them, and conscious