Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,79

street, their wives fingering the material and exclaiming on the fit. Boswell’s butcher had thrown its doors open and was selling cuts of meat—“Whatever will spoil before tomorrow, darling,” Anna said, noting Cordelia’s curious stare—by gaslight, and there were bakers and grocers doing the same. They passed a tea shop and then the Blue Posts pub, its windows alive with light.

“Here,” said Anna, and the carriage stopped. They scrambled out and found themselves at the corner of Berwick and a small alley called Tyler’s Court, leading away from the main thoroughfare. The air was full of the sound of people laughing and shouting, and the smell of roasting nuts.

After a brief, whispered conference with Matthew, Anna disappeared down the alley, her tall, black-clad form melding almost immediately with the shadows. Cordelia was left alone with Matthew. He had his hat tipped down over one eye and was regarding her thoughtfully.

Cordelia glanced about at the shop signs. She could see the silhouettes of women lounging in doorways. She thought of her mother’s voice saying, A fallen woman, you know. As if the girl in question had merely overbalanced. Cordelia tried to imagine it. Kissing men for money, doing more than just kissing.…

“What are you thinking?” Matthew asked.

Cordelia wrenched her gaze away from a woman with rouged cheeks smiling up at a man in ill-fitting laborer’s clothes. “What’s a lapidary?” she asked, not because she actually wanted to know, but because the sign opposite her said A. JONES, LAPIDARY and Matthew was making her nervous.

“A lapidary phrase is one that is worth carving into stone,” said Matthew, “and preserving forever—a wise saying such as ‘we are dust and shadows,’ or alternately, any words that come out of my mouth.”

Cordelia pointed at the sign. “They sell phrases there?”

“They sell objects with phrases carved into them,” Matthew said. “For instance, if you wished words of love to be etched into your wedding band. Or words of regret and sorrow on your grave. For my own headstone, I was hoping for something a bit grand.”

“You surprise me,” said Cordelia. “I am all astonishment.”

Matthew threw his arms up in the air, his face glowing in the naphtha beacons. “Perhaps a simple ‘O grave, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?’ But does that truly capture the light I brought to the lives of friends and acquaintances, the sorrow they will feel when it is extinguished? Perhaps:

‘Shed not for him the bitter tear

Nor give the heart to vain regret;

’Tis but the casket that lies here,

The gem that filled it sparkles yet.’ ”

Matthew’s voice had risen; applause rose from the crowd outside the Blue Posts when he was finished. He lowered his arms just as Anna emerged from the alley.

“Do stop babbling rot, Matthew,” she said. “Now come along, the both of you, they’re expecting us.”

It was deep night, the forest deep and dark. The beautiful Cordelia, astride her white palfrey, galloped along the twisting road that gleamed white in the moon’s graceful light. Her shining scarlet hair blew behind her, and her radiantly beautiful face was set with steely determination.

Suddenly she cried out. A black stallion had appeared, blocking the road ahead of her. She pulled back on the reins, skidding to a halt with a gasp.

It was him! The man from the inn! She recognized his handsome face, his radiant green eyes. Her head swam. What could he possibly be doing out here in the midst of the night, wearing very tight breeches?

“My word,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I was warned that the ladies in this neighborhood were fast, but I didn’t think that was meant to be taken literally.”

Cordelia gasped. The nerve of him! “Pray, remove yourself from my path, sir! For I have an urgent errand this night, upon whose completion many lives depend!”

Lucie reached the end of her sentence—and her typewriter ribbon—and clapped her hands together in delight. Pray, remove yourself from my path, sir! Cordelia had such spirit! And sparks were about to fly between her and the handsome highwayman, who was in reality a duke’s son, convicted of a crime he hadn’t committed and forced to make his living on the roads. It was all so romantic—

“Miss Herondale?” said a soft voice behind her.

Lucie, seated at her desk by the window, turned in surprise. She had forgotten to kindle the witchlight in her room as dusk had fallen, and for a moment all she could see was a male figure in dark clothes, standing smack in