Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,85

of the passage was a cabinet of carved ebony, an array of curios spread out under glass. Matthew gave the glass a playful tap.

The cabinet swung inward.

Within was a golden grotto. The whole room gleamed, from the painted ceiling to the floor where the carpet shone as if it were flaxen tissue paper. There were giltwood tables holding all manner of treasures: clockwork birds inlaid with lapis and gold, gauntlets and blades of delicate faerie workmanship, a polished wooden box decorated with the symbol of an ourobouros—a serpent biting its own tail—and an apple carved from a single ruby. At the very end of the room was a four-poster bed the size of Cordelia’s whole bedroom at home, inlaid with copper and brass, covered in dozens of cloth-of-gold cushions. Seated upon the edge of the bed as if it were a throne was a woman, a sleek warlock who seemed artfully shaped from enchanted materials: her skin mahogany, her hair bronze, her dress a shimmering gold.

Cordelia hesitated upon the threshold. There were other people in the room besides the warlock woman: Malcolm Fade himself, and Anna Lightwood, lounging alone on a conversation settee of walnut wood and gilt velvet, her long legs hooked over the slender wooden arms.

Malcolm Fade smiled. “Welcome, little Shadowhunters. Few of your kind ever see the inner chambers of Hypatia Vex.”

“Is she welcome, I wonder?” asked Hypatia, with a catlike smile. “Let her approach.”

Cordelia and Matthew advanced together, Cordelia moving cautiously around the rococo chairs and tables, gleaming with gilt and pearls. Close up, the pupils of Hypatia Vex’s eyes were the shape of stars: her warlock mark. “I cannot say I care for the idea of so many Nephilim infesting my salon. Are you interesting, Cordelia Carstairs?”

Cordelia hesitated.

“If you have to think about it,” said Hypatia, “then you’re not.”

“That hardly makes sense,” said Cordelia. “Surely if you do not think, you cannot be interesting.”

Hypatia blinked, creating the effect of stars turning off and on like lamps. Then she smiled. “I suppose you may stay a moment.”

“Good work, Cordelia,” said Anna, swinging her legs off the edge of the settee. “Arabella, how are the drinks coming on?”

Cordelia turned to realize a faerie woman with tumbling blue and green hair was also in the room. She was standing in an alcove, partially hidden: before her was a sideboard where she was mixing drinks. Her hands waved in midair like fronds in water, unstoppering decanters and crystal vials full of red liquid, and busily pouring them into a variety of goblets and flutes.

Cordelia’s eyes narrowed.

“Just ready, darling!” Arabella said, and walked over to distribute drinks. Matthew accepted a drink with alacrity. Cordelia noticed that Arabella walked with a rocking, unsteady gait, as if she were a sailor unaccustomed to treading on the land.

When Arabella gave Anna her drink, Anna pulled Arabella into her lap. Arabella giggled, kicking up her French heels. Her legs were shockingly bare, and covered in a faint iridescent pattern of scales. They flashed in the golden light like a rainbow.

A mermaid. So this was Hypatia’s “friend from the seaside.” They were a type of faerie rarely seen out of water, since their human legs caused them pain to walk on.

Arabella noticed Cordelia’s gaze and shrugged, shoulders moving fluidly beneath her heavy masses of blue and green hair. “I have not been on land for many years. The last time I visited this ugly city, the Downworlders and Shadowhunters were trying to form the Accords. I was not much impressed with Nephilim then, and I have not been fond of Shadowhunters since. Still, exceptions can be made.”

Before the Accords were formed. This woman had not been on the land for more than thirty years.

Arabella leaned into Anna as she spoke, and Anna’s scarred fingers drifted nimbly through the waves of the mermaid’s hair. Tiny fish, small as sparks from a fire and bright blue, stirred when disturbed and leaped from strand to strand, chasing Anna’s movements.

“My lovely, your hair is like a beautiful stream,” murmured Anna. “Because there are fish in it.”

Apparently Anna could seduce multiple people in one evening. Arabella blushed and bounced up to gather more drinks from the sideboard.

“We know why Anna brought you, Matthew,” said Malcolm. “You are amusing. But is there a reason this young Carstairs girl is accompanying you tonight?”

“Because we need your help,” said Cordelia.

Everyone in the room laughed. Malcolm smiled and raised his empty glass to Cordelia as if she had made a particularly good joke; Arabella