Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,40

were greeting each other; Grace had turned and was gazing toward the folly.

“I had thought we would not go to Idris this year,” James said. “I wrote to Grace to tell her, but her mother kept the letter from her. We were each left wondering at the silence of the other. I only discovered she had come to London yesterday, at the ball.”

Cordelia felt numb. Well, of course he had run off, then. Every summer he had seen Grace save this one; how he must have missed her. She had always known James possessed a life she knew little of with his friends in London, but she had not realized how very much she didn’t know him. He might as well be a stranger. A stranger in love with someone else. And she, Cordelia, the interloper.

“I am glad we are friends again,” Cordelia said. “Now you must wish to speak to Grace alone. Just signal her to join you here—everyone is distracted. You will be quite unnoticed.”

James began to speak, but Cordelia had already turned and made her way back toward the lake and the picnickers. She could not bear to pause and listen to him thank her for going away.

* * *

Lucie didn’t blame Cordelia for wanting to tell James off; he’d been terribly rude the night before. Even if a girl was just your friend, you shouldn’t leave her in the middle of a dance. Besides, it gave the Rosamund Wentworths of the world too much scope for nasty gossip. She reminded herself to tell Cordelia about what had happened to Eugenia Lightwood as soon as they were alone.

In fact, there was a great deal she wished to discuss with Cordelia when they were alone. Last night I met a ghost that no one else could see. The ghost of a boy who is dead, but not quite dead.

She had opened her mouth a few times to mention Jesse to James or her parents, then decided against it. For a reason she couldn’t quite understand, it felt private, like a secret she had been charged with. It was hardly Jesse’s fault she could see him, and he had saved her all those years ago in Brocelind. She remembered telling him that when she grew up, she wanted to be a writer. That sounds wonderful, he had said in a wistful tone. At the time she’d believed he was stricken with envy about her glorious future career. It was only now that it occurred to her he might have been talking about growing up.

“I see Cordelia is returning,” said Anna. She was leaning back on her elbows, the sunshine bright on her dark hair. “But without James. Interesting.”

Anna, like Lucie, found everything about human behavior interesting. Sometimes Lucie thought Anna ought to be a writer too. Her memoirs would be sure to be scandalous.

Cordelia was indeed making her way back toward them, stepping carefully between the brightly colored picnic blankets. She sank down beside Lucie, fanning herself with her straw bonnet. She was wearing another ghastly pastel dress, Lucie noticed. She wished Sona would let Cordelia dress as she wished.

“Did James get what he deserved?” Lucie asked. “Did you keelhaul him?”

Cordelia’s smile was bright. “He is thoroughly abashed, I assure you. But we are good friends again.”

“Where is he, then?” Thomas inquired. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and Lucie could just glimpse the edge of the colored ink design on his left forearm. It was unusual for Shadowhunters to get tattoos, as their skin was so often Marked by runes, but Thomas had done just that in Spain. “Did you bury his body in the park somewhere?”

“He went to speak to Grace Blackthorn,” said Cordelia, selecting a bottle of lemonade. Lucie glanced at her sharply—she herself had only realized the night before that the girl James was in love with was Grace, not Daisy. She hoped she hadn’t put silly thoughts into Cordelia’s head by rattling on in the park about how James might be in love with her.

Cordelia certainly didn’t seem bothered, and she’d brushed off the whole idea in Kensington Gardens. She probably thought of James as a cousin. It was certainly a setback to Lucie’s hopes. It would have been delightful to have Daisy as a sister-in-law, and she could not imagine that Grace would be delightful in the same way. She couldn’t recall ever having seen her smile or laugh, and she would be unlikely to be charmed by Will’s songs about demon pox.

“I didn’t