Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,7

“I suppose you’ve met her, in Idris? Doesn’t your house there adjoin Blackthorn Manor?”

James nodded mechanically. He could feel the weight of the bracelet around his right wrist, though he had worn it now for so many years that usually he was unconscious of its presence. “I usually see her every summer,” he said. “Not this summer, of course.”

Not this summer. He hadn’t been able to argue with his parents when they’d said the Herondale family would be spending this summer in London. Hadn’t been able to mention the reason he wanted to return to Idris. After all, as far as they were aware, he barely even knew Grace. The sickness, the horror that gripped him at the thought that he would not see her for another year was nothing he could explain.

It was a secret he had carried since he was thirteen. In his mind, he could see the tall gates rising before Blackthorn Manor, and his own hands in front of him—a child’s hands, without scars, cutting industriously away at the thorny vines. He could see the Long Hall in the manor, and the curtains blowing across the windows, and hear music. He could see Grace in her ivory dress.

Matthew was watching him with thoughtful green eyes that were no longer dancing. Matthew, alone of all James’s friends, knew that there was a connection between James and Grace Blackthorn.

“London is being positively swarmed by new arrivals,” Matthew remarked. “The Carstairs family will be with us soon, won’t they?”

James nodded. “Lucie is wild with excitement to see Cordelia.”

Matthew poured more wine into his glass. “Can’t blame them for being tired of rusticating in Devon—what’s that house of theirs called? Cirenworth? I gather they arrive in a day or two—”

Thomas upset his drink. James’s drink and Christopher’s test tube went with it. Thomas was still growing accustomed to occupying so much space in the world, and he sometimes proved clumsy.

“All of the Carstairs family are coming, did you say?” said Thomas.

“Not Elias Carstairs,” said Matthew. Elias was Cordelia’s father. “But Cordelia, and of course…” He trailed off meaningfully.

“Oh, bloody hell,” said Christopher. “Alastair Carstairs.” He looked vaguely ill. “I’m not remembering incorrectly? He’s an awful pill?”

“ ‘Awful pill’ seems a kind way of putting it,” said James. Thomas was mopping up his drink; James looked at him with concern. Thomas had been a shy, small boy at school, and Alastair a rotten bully. “We can avoid Alastair, Tom. There’s no reason for us to spend time with him, and I can’t imagine he’ll be yearning for our society either.”

Thomas spluttered, but not in response to what James had said. The contents of Christopher’s spilled test tube had turned a violent puce and begun to eat through the table. They all leaped up to grab for Polly’s dish towels. Thomas hurled a pitcher of water at the table, which drenched Christopher, and Matthew doubled over laughing.

“I say,” said Christopher, mopping wet hair out of his eyes. “I do think that worked, Tom. The acid has been neutralized.”

Thomas was shaking his head. “Someone should neutralize you, you mopstick—”

Matthew collapsed in hysterics.

In the midst of the chaos, James could not help feeling very far away from it all. For so many years, in so many hundreds of secret letters between London and Idris, he and Grace had sworn to each other that one day they would be together; that one day when they were adults, they would marry, whether their parents wished it or not, and live together in London. It had always been their dream.

So why hadn’t she told him she was coming?

* * *

“Oh, look! The Royal Albert Hall!” Cordelia cried, pressing her nose against the window of the carriage. It was a brilliant day, bright sunlight streaming down over London, making the sparkling white row houses of South Kensington glow like rows of ivory soldiers in an expensive chess set. “London really does have marvelous architecture.”

“A shrewd observation,” drawled her older brother, Alastair, who was ostentatiously reading a book on sums in the corner of the carriage, as if to announce that he couldn’t be bothered to glance out the window. “I’m sure no one has ever commented on London’s buildings before.”

Cordelia glared at him, but he didn’t look up. Couldn’t he tell she was just trying to raise everyone’s spirits? Their mother, Sona, was leaning exhaustedly against the side of the carriage, violet hollows under her eyes, her normally radiant brown skin sallow. Cordelia had been worried about her for