Chain of Gold

by Cassandra Clare

  Kellington cleared his throat. “Honored guests,” he said. “Tonight we have something unusual. A Shadowhunter has offered to entertain us.”

  A murmur ran through the room. James and Matthew kept clapping, and a dark-haired vampire girl with bright combs in her hair joined in the applause. Anna leaned over and whispered in Hypatia’s ear.

  “Please enjoy the performance of the lovely Cordelia Carstairs,” Kellington said, hastily turning to descend the stairs.

  Cordelia laid a hand on his arm. “I will require you to accompany me,” she said. “On the violin.”

  Matthew chuckled, almost reluctantly. “She is clever,” he said, as Kellington, looking annoyed, strode off to retrieve his instrument. As he moved through the crowd, Cordelia, looking far calmer than James suspected she was, reached up and unpinned her hair.

  James caught his breath as it fell down around her shoulders, spilled down her back, the deep red of rose petals. It stroked her bare brown skin like silk. Her glowing bronze dress clung to her as she reached back and unsheathed Cortana, drawing it forward. Every glittering light in the Hell Ruelle caught fire along the blade.

  “I have always loved stories,” she said, and her clear voice carried through the room. “One of my favorite tales is that of the servant girl Tawaddud. After the death of a rich merchant, his son wasted all the inheritance he got until he had nothing left but one servant, a girl known through all the caliphate for her brilliance and her beauty. Her name was Tawaddud. She begged the son to take her to the court of the caliph Harun al-Rashid, and there to sell her for a vast sum of money. The son insisted he could not get such a princely sum for the sale of one servant. Tawaddud insisted she would convince the caliph that there was no wiser or more eloquent or learned woman in all the land but she. Eventually the son was worn down. He brought her to the court, and she came before the caliph, and she told him this.”

  Cordelia nodded at Kellington, who had come to stand beside the stage. He began to play a haunting tune on the violin, and Cordelia began to move.

  It was a dance, but not a dance. She moved fluidly with Cortana. It was gold and she followed that gold in fire. She spoke, and her low, husky voice matched the dance and the music of the violin.

  “Oh my Lord, I am versed in syntax and poetry and jurisprudence and exegesis and philosophy. I am skilled in music and in the knowledge of the divine ordinances, and in arithmetic and geodesy and geometry and the fables of the ancients.”

  Cortana wove with her words, underlining each one with steel. She turned as her sword turned, and her body curved and moved like water or fire, like a river under an infinity of stars. It was beautiful—she was beautiful, but it was not a distant beauty. It was a beauty that lived and breathed and reached out with its hands to crush James’s chest and make him breathless.

  “I have studied the exact sciences, geometry and philosophy, and medicine and logic and rhetoric and composition.”

  Cordelia sank to her knees. Her sword whipped around her, a narrow circlet of fire. The violin sang, and her body sang, and James could see the court of the caliph, and the brave girl kneeling before Harun al-Rashid and telling him of her worth.

  “I can play the lute and know its gamut and notes and notation and the crescendo and diminuendo.”

  Beside James, Matthew sucked in his breath. James glanced quickly at his parabatai. Matthew—Matthew looked as he did sometimes when he thought no one was watching him. There was a haunted loneliness in that look, a desire almost beyond comprehension for something even Matthew himself did not understand.

  His gaze was fixed on Cordelia. But then, everyone in the room was looking at her as her body bent backward and her hair swept from side to side, an arc of fire. Her brown skin glowed; perspiration glimmered on her collarbones. James’s blood was pounding through his body like a river through a broken dam.

  “If I sing and dance, I seduce.” Cordelia straightened with a snap. Her eyes met the gaze of her audience, direct and challenging. “And if I dress and scent myself, I slay.”

  She slammed Cortana into its sheath. Kellington had stopped playing the violin; he, too, was staring at Cordelia like a lovesick sheep. James had an overwhelming urge to kick him.

  Cordelia rose to her feet, her chest rising and falling with her quick breath. “And wise men were brought from around the land to test Tawaddud, but she was wiser than them all. So wise and beautiful was she that in the end, the caliph granted her whatever it was she wanted—all the wishes of her heart.”

  Cordelia bowed.

  “And that is the end of the story,” she said, and began to descend the steps.

  * * *

  Cordelia had never been stared at by so many people in her life. Escaping the stage, she slithered into the crowd, though it was a different crowd than it had been—everyone seemed to want to smile at her now, or incline their heads, or wink. Several Downworlders said, “Beautifully done,” as she passed.

  She murmured her thanks and was immensely grateful when she reached James and Matthew. James seemed completely composed; Matthew was looking at her with wide eyes. “Bloody hell,” he said admiringly, as soon as she came into range. He looked far more serious than he usually did. “What was that?”

  “It was a fairy tale,” James said briefly. “Well done, Cordelia.” He indicated the now-empty jacquard settee. “Anna has disappeared with Hypatia, so I would call your distraction a success.”

  Cordelia. He had not called her Daisy. She didn’t know what to think of that. She put a hand to her chest; her heart was pounding, from nerves and from the dancing. “What do we do now?” she said. “How long does seduction usually last?”

  “Depends if you do it properly,” said Matthew, with a little of his old grin.

  “Well, I hope for Hypatia’s sake that Anna does it properly, yet for our sake I hope she hurries it up,” said James.

  Matthew had gone still. “Both of you,” he said. “Listen.”

  Cordelia listened, and heard at first only the buzz and murmur of the crowd. Then, beneath it, the whisper of a familiar word, spoken low and urgently.

  A Shadowhunter. A Shadowhunter is here.

  “Do they mean us?” She looked around in puzzlement and saw Kellington gazing toward the door, his mouth flat with irritation. Someone had just come into the chamber—someone with bright red hair, wearing a heavy tweed coat.

  “Charles.” Matthew’s eyes were green slits. “By the Angel. What is he doing here?”

  James swore softly. Charles was moving through the crowd, his coat buttoned to the throat, looking around uncomfortably. He looked desperately out of place.

  “We should go,” James said. “But we can’t leave Anna.”

  “You two run and hide yourselves,” said Matthew. “Charles will go off his head if he sees you here.”

  “But what about you?” said Cordelia.

  “He’s used to this kind of thing from me,” Matthew said, and his whole face seemed to have tightened. His eyes were glittering like chips of glass. “I’ll deal with Charles.”

  James looked at Matthew for a long moment. Cordelia sensed the whisper of unspoken words passing between them, the silent communication of parabatai. Perhaps one day she would have that with Lucie; at the moment, it seemed almost like magic.

  James nodded at Matthew, turned, and caught hold of Cordelia’s hand. “This way,” he said, and they plunged into the crowd. Behind her, Cordelia heard Matthew say Charles’s name with exaggerated loud surprise. The crowd was shifting and moving as Downworlders flinched away from Charles; James and Cordelia edged around Kellington and into a red-paneled corridor leading away from the main chamber.

  There was an open door about halfway down the corridor; a plaque on the door proclaimed it to be THE WHISPERING ROOM. James ducked into it, drawing Cordelia after him. She had time only to see that they were in a dimly lit, deserted room when he slammed the door behind them. She leaned against the wall, catching her breath, as they both loo
ked around.

  They were in a sort of parlor, or perhaps an office. The walls were hung with silver paper, decorated with images of golden scales and feathers. There was a tall walnut desk large as a table, with a raised surface piled with neat stacks of writing paper weighted down by a copper bowl of peaches. Hypatia’s writing desk, perhaps? A clearly enchanted fire burned in the grate, the flames silver and blue. The smoke that rose from the fire traced delicate patterns on the air in the shape of acanthus leaves. Its smoke smelled sweet, like attar of roses.

  “What do you think Charles is doing here?” Cordelia said.

  James was studying the books on the walls—a very typically Herondale thing to do. “Where did you learn to dance like that?” he said abruptly.

  She turned to look at him in surprise. He was leaning against the bookshelf now, watching her. “I had a dance instructor in Paris,” she said. “My mother believed that learning to dance aided in learning grace in battle. That dance,” she added, “was forbidden to be taught to unmarried ladies, but my dance instructor did not care.”

  “Well, thank the Angel you were there,” he said. “Matthew and I could certainly not have pulled off that dance on our own.”

  Cordelia smiled wanly. On the stage, dancing, she had imagined that James was watching her, that he found her beautiful, and the power that had flooded through her at the thought had felt like electricity. Now she looked away from him, trailing her hand along the top of the desk, near the stack of papers held down by the copper bowl.

  “Be careful,” James said, with a quick warning gesture. “I suspect that is faerie fruit. It has no effect on warlocks—no magical effect, at least. But on humans…”

  She drew back. “Surely it does not harm you if you do not eat it.”

  “Oh, it does not. But I have met those who have tasted it. They say the more you have of it, the more you want, and the more you ache when you can have no more. And yet… I have always thought—is not knowing what it tastes like just another form of torture? The torture of wondering?”

  His words were light, but there was an oddness to the way he was looking at her, Cordelia thought—a sort of depth to his gaze that seemed unfamiliar. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes a deeper gold than usual.

  Beauty could tear at your heart like teeth, she thought, but she did not love James because he was beautiful: he was beautiful to her because she loved him. The thought brought hot blood to her cheeks; she glanced away, just as the door rattled in its frame.

  Someone was trying to get in. James whirled, his eyes wild. Cordelia’s hand flew to the hilt of Cortana. “We’re not meant to be in here—” she began.

  She got no further. A moment later James had pulled her toward him. His arms went round her, lifting her up and against him. His mouth was gentle, even as he crushed her against him; she realized what he was doing a beat later as the door opened, and she heard voices on the threshold. She gave a little gasp, and felt James’s pulse jump; his right hand slid into her hair, his rune-scarred palm against her cheek as he kissed her.

  James was kissing her.

  She knew it wasn’t real. She knew he was making it look as if they were Downworlders having an assignation in the Whispering Room—but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered except the way he was kissing her, gloriously kissing her.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, arching her body up against his. She felt his breath hiss out against her mouth; he was kissing her carefully, even as the movements of his hands and body mimicked passion.

  But she didn’t want careful. She wanted it shattering and tremendous, wanted the passion to be real, the kissing to be the desperate everything she had always dreamed of.

  She opened her lips against James’s. His were so soft, and he tasted of barley sugar and spice. She heard nervous laughter at the door of the room and felt James’s hand tighten on her waist. His other hand left her cheek and cupped the back of her neck as he deepened the kiss, suddenly, as if he couldn’t help himself. He leaned into it, into her, his tongue tracing the shape of her mouth, making her shudder.

  “Oh,” she whispered softly against him, and heard the door close. Whoever it was had gone. She kept her arms around James’s neck. If he wanted this over, he would have to end it.

  He broke off the kiss but didn’t let her go. He was still holding her against him, his body a hard cradle for hers. She stroked the side of his neck with her fingers; there was a faint white scar just above his collar, in the shape of a star.…

  His breathing went ragged. “Daisy… my Daisy…”

  “I think more people are coming,” she whispered.

  It wasn’t true, and they both knew it. It didn’t matter. He pulled her against him with such force she nearly tripped, her heel catching on the rug. Her shoe came off, and she kicked away the second one, going up on tiptoe to reach James’s mouth—his lips were firm and sweet, teasing now as he ran them over the seam of her lips, over her cheekbone, down to her jaw. She was swimming in dizziness as she felt him undo the strap of Cortana with one hand, his other hand tracing the bodice of her dress. She had never known her body could feel like this, tense and taut with desire while at the same time she seemed to float.

  He kissed her throat as her head fell back. She felt him bend to lay Cortana against the wall; when he straightened, his arms tightened around her. He moved them both away from the bookcase, half-carrying her, his mouth urgent against hers. They stumbled across the carpet, hands and lips frantic as they fetched up against the massive desk. Cordelia arched backward, her hands gripping the desk’s edge, her body curving into James’s in a way that made him inhale sharply.

  His hands shaped the curves of her, sweeping from her hips to her waist, rising to cup her breasts. She gasped, breathing into the new sensation, wanting his hands on her. His fingers curved to hook into the neckline of her gown. He was touching her skin, her bare skin. She shivered in amazement and he looked at her, his eyes wild and hot and golden. He shrugged off his black frock coat, tossing it aside; when he came back to her, she could feel the heat of his body through her thin silk dress.

  Even in her dance, even in the training room, she had never felt her body so absolutely right as she did now. He lifted her onto the walnut desk, so she sat on a wooden perch above him. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He cradled her face between his hands. Her hair was a curtain of flames streaming about both of them as they kissed and kissed.

  At last she drew him up. Her back met the wood of the desk as he leaned over her, one hand braced above her head. The feel of his body all along hers scorched her blood. She understood now why poets said love was like burning. The heat of it was all through her and in her, and all she wanted was more—more kisses, more touches, to be devoured by this like a forest by wildfire.

  And his face—she had never seen him like this, eyes burning and lost to desire, his pupils wide and black. He groaned as she touched him, running her palms over his hard chest, his rigid arms holding him braced over her. She tangled her fingers in the dark riot of his hair as he bent to kiss the swell of each breast, his breath hot against her skin.

  The door to the room opened again. James froze, and a moment later scrambled up and off the desk, seizing his coat. He handed it to Cordelia as she sat up hurriedly.

  Matthew stood on the threshold, staring at them both. Cordelia clutched the coat to her, though she was still fully dressed. Still, it felt like something of a shield against Matthew’s stunned gaze.

  “James,” he said, and he sounded as if he didn’t quite believe the evidence of his own eyes. His expression was tense and sharp as his eyes flicked from James to Cordelia’s shoes, discarded on the floor.

  “We’re not meant to be in here,” Cordelia said hurriedly. “James thought if we pretended—I mean, if someone came in and thought—”

  “I understand,” Matthew said, looking not at her, but at James. And James, Cordelia thought, looked composed—so composed, as if nothing had happened. O
nly his hair was mussed a little, and his tie askew, but his expression was unremarkable: calm, faintly curious.

  “Is Charles still here?” he said.

  Languidly, Matthew leaned against the doorframe. His hands moved slowly as he spoke, describing pale arcs in the air. “He left. He gave me quite a dressing-down first, I can assure you, for spending my time in such a swamp of debauchery and ruin. He said he thought I would have at least brought you or Anna to look after me.” He grimaced.

  “Hard luck, old chap,” said James, turning to Cordelia, and reaching out a hand to help her down from the desk. The heat had gone from his golden eyes; they were cool and unreadable. She handed him his coat and he shrugged it on. “Why was he here?”

  “The Enclave is looking into what Downworlders know about the situation,” said Matthew. “Days after we already had the idea, of course.”

  “We ought to leave,” said James. “Charles may have gone, but nothing prevents other Clave members from making an unwelcome appearance.”

  “We have to warn Anna,” said Cordelia, clearing her throat. She thought she sounded remarkably steady, all things considered.

  Matthew’s smile was brittle. “Hypatia won’t like that.”

  “Still,” Cordelia said stubbornly, retrieving one shoe, and then the other. “We must.”

  She took Cortana back from where James had leaned it against the wall and followed the boys out into the corridor. She bit her lip as they hurried down the damask-papered hallway in silence. The scent of the smoke in the Whispering Room clung to her hair and clothes, sickly sweet.

  “Here,” Matthew said, as an ornately carved golden door rose up in front of them, its knob carved in the shape of a dancing nymph. It seemed Hypatia had altered the entrance to her room, just as she had altered the walls in the central chamber. “The bedroom of Hypatia Vex. Cordelia, I assume you wish to knock?”