Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,54

James said. “Math—help me.”

It was an old nickname for Matthew, given to him by Will, after the Welsh king Math ap Mathonwy—the keeper of all wisdom and knower of all things. Will always said Matthew had been born knowing too much. There was a dark awareness in his gaze now as he leaned in toward James’s ear.

“Jamie,” he whispered. “I’m sorry to have to do this.” He swallowed. “You are cursed. A child of demons. It is why you can see the shadow realm. You are seeing the place you belong.”

James jerked back, staring at Matthew. Matthew, who smelled of brandy and familiarity. Matthew, who could be cruel but never to James.

James’s vision began to slide into grayness.

Matthew went white. “James,” he said. “I didn’t mean it—”

But James could no longer feel Matthew’s hands on his shoulders. He could no longer feel the ballroom floor under his feet. The doors of the ballroom were beginning to crack open, but he could no longer hear them.

The world had gone monochrome. James saw broken black walls, a splintered floor, and dust that glittered like dull jewels scattered across the place where Barbara had fallen. He bent to reach for it as the universe jerked beneath his feet and he was thrust forward into nothingness.

DAYS PAST: IDRIS, 1900

James was just over the scalding fever, reunited with his family in the bright meadows and cool forests of Idris. And yet he felt uneasy as he opened the windows in his bedroom at Herondale Manor, bringing fresh air to the room for the first time in months. Perhaps it was how quickly one traveled, through Portals. He had only just been waving goodbye to Cordelia and her parents, and feeling about Cordelia in a manner that he could not possibly put into words, it was so excellent and strange and perplexing. He could have used several days at sea, or aboard a train, to gaze out at the landscape and feel complicated things. Instead, ten minutes after being at Cirenworth, he was pulling protective sheets off furniture and lighting witchlights, and his father was loudly proclaiming the healing quality of the Idris air.

James was unpacking his things when his mother came into the bedroom, sorting through correspondence. She held out a small envelope. “One for you,” she said, and left him in privacy with the letter.

James didn’t recognize the handwriting. It was in a refined feminine hand. He briefly thought, But I don’t know anybody in Idris to send me a letter, and then realized: Grace.

He sat on the bed to read it. All it said was, Meet me at our Place. Tomorrow, dusk. Yrs, GB.

He felt a bit guilty; he had not thought of Grace in a time. He wondered if she had done anything this past year and, with a start, realized it was plausible that she had gone nowhere and talked to nobody. Tatiana Blackthorn was notorious for avoiding all Shadowhunter society, and especially with the Herondales not in residence, she had very few neighbors, and those some distance away.

By the Angel, he thought. Am I Grace’s only friend?

* * *

“I have no one else, no,” Grace said.

They sat together on the forest floor, James leaning against a high looping oak root and Grace upon a stone. Grace’s look of sorrow turned quickly back to her usual calm composure.

“I have no news to report since our last meeting, I fear,” she said. “But you look as though you have battled against something. More than tired.”

“Oh!” said James. “Well, that is one thing that has happened to me since I last saw you. I’m just getting over scalding fever, I’m afraid.”

Grace mock-flinched away, then laughed. “No, I’ve had it, don’t worry. My poor James! I do hope you weren’t lonely.”

“I was lucky there,” said James. He felt a slight twinge in the pit of his stomach, for no reason he understood. “Cordelia and her mother had both had it, so they could stay. They took good care of me. Cordelia especially. It really made the situation much more tolerable. Much less bad. Than it could have been. If she had not been there.”

Even James understood that he was rambling a bit. Grace only nodded.

* * *

The next day James woke late, to find his parents already out and his sister perched on one of the overstuffed armchairs in the parlor, scribbling furiously into a notebook.

“Do you want to do something?” he asked Lucie.

Without looking up, she said, “I am doing something. I’m writing.”

“What