Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,55

are you writing about?”

“Well, if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll write about you.”

So, with nothing else to do, he walked to Blackthorn Manor.

The manor looked, to his eyes, identical to how it had appeared the first time he’d gone there a year ago, to cut the briars from the gates. The house itself was closed and silent, like a giant bat curled into itself to sleep through the day, until the darkness gave it leave to unfurl its wings again. If anything, the briars were longer than they had been when he first began his work last year, the thorns more numerous, longer and sharper. The first half of the motto above the gates was obscured, and all that could be read now was LEX NULLA.

He walked the perimeter, around the stone wall, through the uncut underbrush. He felt silly. He hadn’t brought a book or a sword or anything to do. When he came again to the front gates, though, Grace was waiting behind them.

“I could see you through my bedroom window,” Grace said, without preamble. “You looked lost.”

“Good morning,” James said, and Grace smiled at his manners. “Do you think your mother would want me to trim the briars up again?”

An awkward silence fell. Then Grace said, “I cannot imagine that my mother would mind if the vines were to be cleaned up. If I fetched you shears, and you cut them back from the gates, I would keep you company.”

“That seems a fine bargain,” said James with a grin.

“I cannot promise to make enough idle conversation to fill the time, of course,” Grace added. “I could read to you, if you like.”

“No! No, thank you,” he said quickly. Grace looked surprised, so James added, “I would rather hear about your life.”

“My life is this house,” she said.

“Then,” he said, “tell me about the house.”

* * *

So she did. James never told his parents where he was going. He would simply leave the house in the afternoon, trim the vines and overgrowth outside the walls of the manor, and talk with Grace for two hours or so, before growing tired and thirsty, begging Grace’s pardon, and sauntering home.

Grace told him of the manor’s grandeur and the layers of dust and neglect that had overtaken it: “Sometimes I feel I live in a giant cobweb, but my mother doesn’t trust anyone to come and clean, and the place is too big for any two people to keep up.” She told him of the twisting thorns carved into the oak banister, the coat of arms above the mantel, the frightening metal statue lurking on the second floor. Her descriptions sounded dreadful to James, like the house was a carcass, once a beautiful living thing, rotting away.

The thought made him shiver, but when he returned home, the feeling faded; at night he still fell asleep to his memory of Cordelia’s voice, low and steady in his ear.

* * *

Lucie announced she planned to read to James from her work in progress, Secret Princess Lucie Is Rescued from Her Terrible Family. James listened with a carefully arranged look of interest, even though he was subjected to endless tales of Cruel Prince James and his many awful deeds.

“I think that Cruel Prince James has been somewhat boxed in by his name,” James offered at one point. Lucie informed him that she wasn’t looking for critique at this stage in the creative process.

“Secret Princess Lucie only wishes to be kind, but Cruel Prince James is driven to cruelty because he simply cannot stand to see Princess Lucie best him again and again, in every domain,” said Lucie.

“I’m going to go now,” said James.

Lucie closed the notebook and looked at James. “What’s she like, Grace Blackthorn? You see her sometimes when you’re over there cutting the briars, don’t you?”

“I suppose.” James was caught off guard. “She’s… sad. She’s terribly lonely, I think. All she knows is her mother and their creepy house.”

“How awful for her.”

“Yes, it is awful. She is truly to be pitied.”

“Indeed,” said Lucie.

* * *

At their spot in the forest, James told Grace about the friends he’d made: Matthew (who Grace knew was the Consul’s son), and Thomas and Christopher, who he referred to as “your cousins,” to no reaction from Grace. She only said, shyly, “I must say that I am a little glad that they are not here with you in Idris. Oh, I am sure you would be having a grander time if they were! But then we