Chain of Gold

by Cassandra Clare

  The sound of running footsteps in the hall interrupted him. The door flew open again; this time it was Matthew and Lucie, both looking harried. Christopher, who had seized a seraph blade from his belt, lowered it in relief. “Thank Raziel,” he said. “I thought it was a demon attacking.”

  Matthew gave Christopher a dark look. “Put that away,” he said. “I don’t fancy being stabbed; I am far too young and beautiful to die.”

  “I see you have been waylaid on your way to find socks, James,” said Lucie. “Bridget came and told us Christopher was here. What’s going on? Has anything happened?”

  “Quite a lot of things, actually,” said Christopher. “We can discuss it all at the Devil Tavern. Thomas is waiting there, and I do not want to leave him alone.”

  * * *

  The Devil Tavern was a half-timbered building on Fleet Street with vast glittering windowpanes that seemed to divide light, leaving the interior of the pub darkly shaded. There were very few people inside, only a few men hunched over tankards of ale, but a grizzled werewolf barkeep and his wide-eyed barmaid watched Lucie, Cordelia, James, Christopher, and Matthew cross the room and ascend the steps, their gazes curious.

  Cordelia was unsurprised to see that the walls of the Merry Thieves’ rooms were crowded with fascinating-looking books. There was an antique-looking dartboard in which several throwing daggers were embedded, its embossed red-and-black surface showing the marks of many more. There was a corner with sheets of metal fixed to the walls and a sturdy steel-topped worktable, upon which sat a set of shiny brass scales and a somewhat battered-looking wooden beer crate filled with glass test tubes, retorts, and other chemistry paraphernalia. A mobile laboratory for Christopher, Cordelia assumed.

  A low horsehair sofa was placed directly across from a fireplace whose mantel boasted a bust of Apollo, below which was carved a verse about wine. Thomas sat upon the sofa, a book in his hand. His broad shoulders were hunched, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion. Still, his face lit up when he saw his friends.

  “Tom,” said James. He went and sank down next to his friend on the worn sofa, placing a hand on his shoulder. He glanced up and saw the others still hesitant. He gestured for them to join him and Thomas. It was always James, Cordelia thought as they drew up chairs. Always James keeping the group together, noticing when they needed each other.

  Thomas set down the book he’d been holding; Cordelia was startled to see it was a book of Sufi poetry, the verses of Hafiz and Ibn al-Farid, written out in Persian and Arabic. “Cordelia,” he said. He sounded weary, as if his voice had been slowed by grief. “Lucie. I’m glad to see you.”

  “Welcome to our sanctum, ladies,” said Matthew, unscrewing the cap of his flask. “Christopher salvaged quite a bit of this furniture for us. Like King Arthur and his knights, we prefer to sit at a round table that we all might be equal.”

  “Also,” Christopher added, taking a book down from the shelves and handing it to James, “it was the only table my mother was willing to spare.”

  “I couldn’t go to Idris,” Thomas said rather suddenly, as if someone had demanded of him why he was still in London. “I wish to see Eugenia, but I need to stay here. I need to help Kit find the cure for this demon disease or poison or whatever this is. What happened to my sister cannot happen to someone else.”

  “Sometimes grief and worry must take the form of action,” said Cordelia. “Sometimes it is unbearable to sit and wait.”

  Thomas shot her a grateful look. “Exactly that,” he said. “So—Christopher told you all about the shards?”

  “Yes,” Christopher interjected, “and James realized the shards are from a Pyxis.”

  “A Pyxis?” Thomas echoed. “But they were destroyed after the Clockwork War. They’re unsafe—remember what happened at school.”

  “Most Pyxides were destroyed after the Clockwork War,” said James. “In Gast’s flat, though, I found a drawing. It looked rather like a sketch of an ordinary box—he wasn’t a very good artist—”

  “Ah, the drawing with the wobbly runes around it?” Matthew said.

  “They weren’t runes,” James said. “They were alchemical symbols—the kind you’d carve onto a Pyxis box.”

  “Oh!” said Lucie. “The markings on the shards. They were alchemical symbols too. Of course.”

  “That wasn’t all,” said James. “On the paper Gast had scrawled a word in Old Persian. Cordelia was able to translate it.”

  He looked at her expectantly.

  “It was a demon’s name,” Cordelia said. “Merthykhuwar.” She frowned. Such demons had featured in old stories from her childhood; she had always thought of them as near-mythical, like dragons. “In modern Persian it would be Mardykhor. But Shadowhunters—Shadowhunters call it a Mandikhor. They are said to be viciously poisonous.”

  “You think Gast summoned up a Mandikhor demon?” Matthew asked. “But aren’t they meant to be extinct? And what’ve they got to do with Pyxis boxes?”

  James flipped open the book Christopher had handed him and slid a pair of small gilt reading glasses onto his nose. Something in Cordelia’s chest tightened, as if she had snagged a small piece of her heart, like a piece of cloth on a thorn. She looked away from the sight of James and his adorable spectacles. She had to find someone else to feel this way about. Or someone to feel a different way about. Anything, so she could stop feeling like this.

  She tried not to think about what he had said in the training room. I no longer have an understanding with Grace. But why? What could have happened between them, and happened so quickly?

  “ ‘The Mandikhor is both here and there, both one and many,’ ” James quoted. “See, one of the nastiest things about the Mandikhor is that it can split itself into many pieces, each of which is both its own separate demon and a part of the original creature. That’s why they’re best captured in Pyxis boxes. The Mandikhor is difficult to kill—partly because it can produce an endless stream of smaller demons; you’d find yourself not even being able to get near it. But with a Pyxis, if you use the box to capture the Mandikhor, the smaller demons will disappear.” He looked up from the book. “I started to guess it was a Pyxis when Christopher told me about the shards. Cordelia’s translation confirmed it. I knew Gast must have summoned up one of the few demons he would need a Pyxis to capture. In this case, a Mandikhor.”

  “It doesn’t look anything like those creatures that attacked us at the park,” said Christopher, peering over James’s shoulder. The book was illustrated, but Cordelia didn’t need to see it: she knew what a Mandikhor looked like. Scorpion tail, lion body, triple row of jaws dripping poison.

  “I am fairly sure those were the Khora,” offered Cordelia. “The smaller demons that split from the Mandikhor. They do not resemble it. And that must be why Gast referred to the demon in the singular—he did raise one demon. It split into smaller demons later.”

  “So someone hired Gast to raise a Mandikhor and trap it in a Pyxis,” said Lucie. “But when he returned to his flat with the demon caged in the box, they ambushed and killed him—and set the creature free.”

  “Gast is not the mind behind this,” James agreed. “He was a tool, useful only for building a Pyxis and summoning the demon. Someone else is directing its movements and attacks.”

  “Not just summoning the demon,” said Lucie. “Remember what Ragnor said—Gast summoned it in such a way, using dimensional magic, that it is protected from sunlight.”

  They all exchanged glances. Cordelia knew what the others were thinking—who could have hired Gast? Was there no motive save to spread bloodshed, contagion, and death?

  Thomas ran a hand through his thick hair. “If the demon were trapped and killed, what of those who are poisoned? Would they get better?”

  James shook his head. “The sick will not be healed. We still need an antidote for that. But the demons will be gone, and that is quite a start.” He set the book down. “The Enclave has been searching for these demons with no success—ho
w would they have guessed they were seeking the offspring of an extinct creature? But now that we know it is a Mandikhor…”

  “In the stories of Merthykhuwar demons, they make their homes in between spaces,” Cordelia said slowly. “For instance, the border between two countries, or the middle of a bridge. Somewhere that is neither here nor there.”

  James drew off his spectacles; he was biting his lip thoughtfully. “When I went into the shadow realm, from the ballroom,” he said, “I saw—among others things—Tower Bridge. A strange red light poured from it. I think—”

  Matthew sat up straight. “We know Gast raised the demon from a bridge,” he said. “A place between, as Cordelia said. Perhaps it still resides there.”

  “So if we were to go to Tower Bridge, with a Pyxis, it’s possible that we could recapture the Mandikhor?” said Lucie. “And then the Khora would disappear—just as if it had died?”

  “Yes, but we’d have to get a Pyxis first,” said Christopher practically. “That would be difficult.”

  “But perhaps not impossible,” said Matthew. He was tapping his fingers restlessly against the arm of his chair, his hair and necktie disheveled. “If most were destroyed after the Clockwork War…”

  “A few remain,” said James. “Unfortunately, they’re in Idris.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” muttered Matthew, reaching for his flask again. “I think it will be noticed by the Clave if we disappear from London and turn up in Idris, rooting around the Gard like treasure hunters.”

  James gave him an exasperated look. “The only Pyxides in the Clave’s possession are in Idris. There are a few others. We just need to find one. There’s a certain shop in Limehouse—”

  “Wait,” said Cordelia suddenly. “A box covered in alchemical symbols—the ourobouros is an alchemical symbol, isn’t it? Matthew, didn’t we see a box with a serpent design on it? In the Hell Ruelle?”

  Matthew started. “Yes,” he said. “In the chamber of Hypatia Vex. A wooden box with an ourobouros symbol burned into the sides. It makes sense; Hypatia is an inveterate collector.”

  “Excellent,” said Christopher. “We’ll just tell her we need it, then.”

  “Go ahead, if you fancy being turned into a china cabinet,” said James. “Hypatia does not like Shadowhunters.” He looked thoughtful. “Good catch, though, Daisy. There must be some way for us to get to it.”

  “We could rob the Hell Ruelle,” said Thomas.

  “And wear masks,” said Lucie eagerly. “Like highwaymen.”

  “Only a fool would rob Hypatia Vex,” said Matthew. “And let it not be said that Matthew Fairchild is a fool. At least, let it not be said in my hearing. I would find it very hurtful.”

  “I think Christopher is right,” said Cordelia. “We should ask Hypatia.”

  Christopher looked stunned and gratified in equal measure. “We should?”

  “Well, not us,” said Cordelia. “It is true she does not like most Shadowhunters. But there is certainly at least one she likes very much.”

  * * *

  “Daisy, darling, I’m delighted to see you,” Anna declared. “Though it is entirely bad form to appear unannounced at teatime. There simply won’t be enough cake for everybody. The girls will have cake and the boys nothing. There is no other fair way to do it.”

  The flat on Percy Street remained a cheerful oasis of chaos. Perhaps it was even more chaotic than it had been on Cordelia’s last visit. A lace-edged ribbon that Cordelia suspected came from a lady’s corset adorned one of the knives stuck in Anna’s mantelpiece, swinging jauntily from a jeweled hilt. Anna’s gold-covered sofa and mismatched chairs were all filled with people. Thomas, too tall for the chairs, was stretched out on the hearth rug with his boots balanced on the coal bucket. On her small table, Anna had laid out, with the air of a magnificent hostess, a fruitcake she called barmbrack, and a Victoria sponge she’d purchased from a pastry cook’s.

  “That is unjust desserts,” said James.

  “The world is unjust, my love,” Anna told him. She sat upon the arm of the high wing-backed chair where Christopher was sitting, swinging one booted foot in front of her, and idly reached down to stroke Thomas’s hair. The fine strands slipped through her long, scarred fingers. “Of course I would offer you cake, dear cousin, if I thought it would ease your heart.”

  Thomas gave her a fond but tired look. “I think in this case, assistance would be better than cake.”

  “By all means,” said Anna. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  As James explained that they required a Pyxis—though not precisely why, implying it was related to the demon attacks—Cordelia looked back and forth between the two cousins, James and Anna. In many ways, the two of them looked more like brother and sister than James and Lucie, or Anna and Christopher. They shared the same crow-black hair, like Will’s and Cecily’s, and the same chiseled, angular faces. They both wore their intelligence like armor—sharp minds and sharp retorts protecting what softness might lie beneath.

  “And so,” James finished, “we thought, perhaps tonight at the Hell Ruelle—”

  Anna flicked an eyebrow upward. “Ah yes, about that. Let me be perfectly clear what you are asking: You want me to seduce a warlock in order to procure you a tragically outmoded box in which to, no doubt, house a dangerous demon?” Anna surveyed the room. “How did you decide on this plan? And why in Raziel’s name haven’t you told anyone else about it?”

  “Because we are guessing?” hazarded Matthew.

  “Because we cannot,” said Lucie stiffly. “We have sworn a vow to protect the source who gave us the information our guesses are based on. We cannot even tell you, dear Anna. You must simply trust us that this is for a good reason.”

  Anna threw her hands up. “All right. You are off your heads, every one of you.”

  James’s mouth tugged upward at the corner. “Don’t you think you could do it?”

  “Humph.” Anna toyed with her watch so the chain caught the light and glittered. “I could do it. But it goes entirely against my code. It is against my strict policy to seduce anybody twice.”

  “I didn’t know you’d seduced Hypatia once,” said Matthew.

  Anna waved an impatient hand. “Ages ago. How do you think I got invited to the Hell Ruelle in the first place? Honestly, Matthew.”

  “How did you leave things with Hypatia?” said Lucie. “Was her heart broken? In that case, she might want… revenge.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “Wait here a moment, my dear novelist. In fact, all of you wait here, except Cordelia. You come with me, Daisy.”

  She swung up from her place on the arm of Christopher’s chair and strode across the room, bounding up a couple of steps and disappearing behind a wooden door. Cordelia stood, smoothed the frills of her gown, wiggled her eyebrows at Lucie, and marched into the infamous bedchamber of Anna Lightwood.

  It was surprisingly ordinary. If Cordelia had hoped for scandalous etchings or tearstained love letters pinned to the walls, there were none. Instead there were cigars laid out with bottles of cologne on a battered walnut desk, and a kingfisher-blue waistcoat slung carelessly over a japanned screen. The bed was unmade, the sheets a tangle of silk.

  As Cordelia closed the door carefully after her, Anna glanced up, tossing her a grin and a brightly colored bundle. Cordelia caught it reflexively. It was a long bolt of cloth: a royal-blue silk.

  “What’s this?” asked Cordelia.

  Anna leaned against one of her bedposts, her hands in her pockets. “Indulge me. Hold it up against yourself.”

  Cordelia did as she was told. Perhaps Anna was having a dress made for a paramour? And using Cordelia as a model?

  “Yes,” Anna murmured. “The shade quite suits your coloring. As would a claret, I think, or a deep gold or saffron. None of these insipid pastels all the girls are wearing.”

  Cordelia smoothed a hand down the fabric. “I didn’t think you liked dresses.”

  Anna shrugged, a
brief lilt of her shoulders. “Wearing them myself was like having my soul in a prison of petticoats, but I deeply appreciate a beautiful woman in a gown that matches her. In fact, one of my favorite paramours—a lady who entertained me for almost two weeks—was a belle who you might know from the mundane fashion papers.”

  “Is this for her? Is it—” Cordelia began, delighted.

  Anna laughed. “I’ll never tell. Now put it down and come along. I’ve got what I came for.”

  She held up a small black-bound memorandum book. Cordelia hadn’t even seen her retrieve it. They strode out of the bedroom, Anna waving the book over her head in triumph. “This,” she announced, “will hold the answers to all our questions.”

  The occupants of the parlor looked up. Lucie, Christopher, and Matthew were squabbling over cake—though, Cordelia saw, a piece had been set on a plate for Thomas already and rested in his lap. James was looking into the cold grate of the fireplace, his expression distant.

  Matthew looked up, his eyes fever-bright. “Is this your list of conquests?”

  “Of course not,” Anna declared. “It’s a memorandum book… about my conquests. That is an important but meaningful distinction.”

  Cordelia sank back onto the sofa beside Lucie, who had succeeded in acquiring a piece of Victoria sponge. Matthew leaned against the frame of the sofa beside her; James was looking over at Anna now, his eyes the color of sunlight through pale yellow leaves.

  Anna flipped through the book. There were many pages, and many names written in a bold, sprawling hand.

  “Hmm, let me see. Katherine, Alicia, Virginia—a very promising writer, you should look out for her work, James—Mariane, Virna, Eugenia—”

  “Not my sister Eugenia?” Thomas nearly upended his cake.

  “Oh, probably not,” Anna said. “Laura, Lily… ah, Hypatia. Well, it was a brief encounter, and I suppose you might say she seduced me.…”