Chain of Gold

by Cassandra Clare

“No,” he said, but his voice shook.

  The Mandikhor hissed. “So ungrateful,” it said. “You alone can walk between the world of Earth and the dark kingdom.”

  James stared into the demon’s blood-red eyes. “Do you mean the kingdom of Belphegor?”

  The Mandikhor made an awful noise; after a moment, James realized it was chuckling. “So like a human,” it said, “to know so much, and yet know so little.”

  James opened his mouth to speak, just as an arcing golden light seared the air. “Leave him alone!” Cordelia shouted, as Cortana divided the darkness.

  James jerked free, rolling away from the demon and up onto his feet as Cordelia threw herself at the Mandikhor. The gold of the sword was the only color in the black-and-white world—the gold and the flame-red of her hair. Cortana whipped back and forth—its blade slashed across the demon’s chest, opening a long black wound—the demon howled and struck out, its massive paw slamming into Cordelia and sending her flying. Cortana tumbled from her hand, skidding across the bridge as she hurtled over the railing with a scream.

  James heard Lucie scream, “Daisy!” and the sound of a distant splash. The world seemed to go silent as he bent to seize up Cortana. He strode toward the Mandikhor, his blood burning.

  The demon had sunk to its forelegs. It was bleeding from the wound Cordelia had dealt it, ichor spreading around it like a shadow. “You cannot slay me here,” it snarled as James came near. “My roots are deep within another realm. As I feed there, I grow stronger. I am a legion who cannot be touched.” With a final hiss, it vanished.

  Color sprang back into the world. James spun, Cortana in hand: he could see the bridge as it had always been, dull gold and white in the moonlight, and his friends running toward him. He did not see Lucie. He remembered her calling out Cordelia’s name. He remembered the sound of the water. Cordelia. Cordelia.

  “Where is she?” Matthew gasped as he neared James. “Where’s Cordelia?”

  “She’s in the river,” James said, and began to run.

  * * *

  Lucie stared frantically at the river. She could see steps leading down to it from what looked like a passage through a building beside the bridge. She hurtled down the stairs to ground level and found herself in a dimly lit, narrow street lined with tall warehouses, blackened with soot and grime. There was the passage, a dark hole in the nearest building. She ran to it and saw stone stairs descending to a faint gleam at the bottom: the river. She raced to where an old cobbled ramp led into the water, an empty barge moored beside it. The river flowed by, black and silent, under the clouded sky; mist rose from the water.

  There was no sign of Cordelia. Panic mounted in Lucie’s stomach as she stared out into the black water. She didn’t know if Cordelia could swim, and even a strong swimmer could drown in the currents of the Thames. And what if Cordelia had hit her head, or had been knocked out by the long fall from the bridge?

  A sob caught in her throat. She dropped her seraph blade, which sputtered against the muddy pebbles of the bank, and began to fumble with the buttons of her gear jacket. The water didn’t look very deep. She wasn’t a strong swimmer, but she could try.

  In the distance, she could see the fog-enshrouded shape of a barge arrowing slowly down the center of the river. “Help!” she shouted. “Help! Someone has fallen in the river!” She raced along the bank, waving frantically at the barge, which was disappearing into the mist. “Bring her out, please!” Lucie screamed. “Help me!”

  But the barge had vanished. She could see figures on the bridge above her, the eerie light of seraph blades. The boys were still fighting. She could never reach Magnus in time, nor could he put aside what he was doing: he had to remain utterly focused on the illusion of the false bridge. She would have to go into the river, even if she might drown herself.

  She took a step forward, her boot coming down in the shallow, dark water. She shivered as the icy liquid seeped through the leather. She took another step in, and froze.

  The river was moving, surging, about ten feet from the bridge. The water had begun to churn, yellowish-gray foam sliding along its dark surface. A bitter smell wafted across the water: rotten fish and old blood and the age-old mud of the riverbed.

  Lucie’s foot slipped on a loose pebble. She went to her knees as the waters of the Thames began to rise and part like the water of the Red Sea. A shine of white broke the black surface of the water. She stared for an uncomprehending instant until she realized what she was seeing. The shine was moonlight on river-washed bone.

  Figures rose from the water, pallid as ash. A woman with long, streaming hair, her face bloated and black. A woman in a wide-skirted gown, her throat cut, her eyes black and empty. A massive man with the marks of a rope still dark around his neck, wearing the arrow-stamped uniform of a prisoner.

  He was carrying Cordelia in his arms. Ghosts rose up on either side of him, a veritable army of the drowned and dead. In the center of them all, the ghost prisoner held Cordelia, her body limp, her bright hair soaked and streaming down over her shoulders. Her gear was dark with river water, all of it sluicing off her as the ghosts carried her inexorably forward to the riverbank and laid her down.

  “Thank you,” Lucie whispered.

  The ghost prisoner straightened up. For a long moment, all the ghosts simply stared at Lucie, their eyes empty hollows of darkness. Then they vanished.

  “Cordelia?” Lucie tried to rise, to go to Cordelia, but her damp knees gave out under her. In the distance, she was aware that the fight on the bridge had stopped. She knew James and the others would come to her, but every second seemed stretched out to a year. Her energy seemed to have fled her body completely. Every breath was a chore.

  “Cordelia,” she whispered again, and this time Cordelia stirred. With relief so overwhelming Lucie was almost sick, she saw her friend’s lashes flutter against her cheeks. Cordelia rolled to her side and began to cough, her body spasming as she choked up river water.

  Lucie sagged back, half-delirious. The boys were coming down the steps of the bridge now, racing toward her and Cordelia, calling out their names. A distance behind them came Magnus, hurrying but looking exhausted. As he came closer, he slowed and gave Lucie a peculiar, searching look. Or maybe she was imagining it.… At least there were arms around her, Lucie thought, arms holding her up, wrapping her close.

  Only then did it strike her as strange. She looked up and saw a face hovering above hers, white as salt, with jade-green eyes. Behind his dark head the sky seemed to be spinning. Around his neck, his golden locket burned like a star. As she watched, he touched it with two fingers, his lips tightening.

  “Jesse Blackthorn,” Lucie whispered, as the world swam away and the dim light faded. He was the one, she realized. He had called up the ghosts. He had saved Cordelia. “Why did you do that?”

  But the darkness drew her down before he could reply.

  DAYS PAST: CIRENWORTH HALL, 1900

  “It’s mine!”

  “It certainly isn’t!” Outraged, Alastair made another grab for the sword. Cordelia stepped nimbly backward, holding Cortana over her head, but Alastair was taller. He stomped on her foot and snatched it away, his black hair falling into his eyes as he scowled.

  “Tell her, Father,” he said. “Tell her it isn’t hers!”

  “Kerm nariz, Alastair. Enough.” Tall and weathered, his blond hair just turning to silver, Elias Carstairs had a lazy voice that matched his lazy and economical gestures. He was in good health today, and Cordelia was glad. There were many days her father was absent from the training room, lying ill in a darkened room, a damp cloth over his eyes.

  He peeled himself away from the pillar he’d been leaning against and regarded his offspring with a thoughtful indulgence. Elias had always been their weapons master, the one who had trained them in the physical arts of Shadowhunting since they had been small.

  He was the one who had turned the ballroom at Cirenworth into a training area. He had bought the great house f
rom mundanes and seemed to take pleasure in removing evidence of their mundanity. He tore out the parquet floors and put down softer wood from trees in Idris, better for cushioning falls. Chandeliers were replaced with hooks to hang weapons from, and the walls were painted saffron yellow, the color of victory.

  Elias had lived in Beijing for many years and favored the weapons and fighting styles of Nephilim there, from the zhaˇn maˇ da¯o to the double-edged jiàn to the long-handled qia¯ng. He taught his children shua¯ngda¯o, the art of wielding two swords at the same time. He hung rope darts and chain whips from the rafters and built a lei tai, a raised fighting platform, at the west end of the room. Alastair and Cordelia stood on the lei tai now, glaring at each other.

  “Cordelia,” said Elias, clasping his hands behind his back. “Why, exactly, do you want Cortana?”

  Cordelia paused a moment. She was thirteen, and she rarely bothered to try to get in between Alastair and the things he wanted. There was no one in the world more stubborn or fussy than her brother, in her opinion. But Cortana was different. She’d been dreaming of wielding Cortana since she was a little girl—the heft of its golden hilt, the arc of its blade through the air.

  And Alastair, she knew, had never dreamed about that: he was a good fighter, but largely disinterested. He preferred following Shadowhunter politics and scheming to actual demon chasing.

  “Cortana was made by Wayland the Smith,” she said. “He made swords for all the greatest heroes. Excalibur for Arthur. Durendal for Roland and Hector. Sigurd, who slew the dragon Fafnir, bore a sword named Balmung made by Wayland—”

  “Cordelia, we know all this,” said Alastair crossly. “No need for a history lesson.”

  Cordelia glared.

  “So you want to be a hero,” said Elias, with a gleam of interest.

  Cordelia considered. “Cortana has one sharp edge and one dull one,” she said. “Because of that, it has often been called a sword of mercy. I want to be a merciful hero.”

  Elias nodded and turned to his son. “And you?”

  Alastair flushed. “It’s a Carstairs sword,” he said shortly. “I’m Alastair Carstairs and I always will be. When Cordelia gets married and has a passel of brats, one of them will end up with Cortana—and they won’t be a Carstairs.”

  Cordelia made an indignant sound, but Elias held up a silencing hand. “He’s right,” he said. “Cordelia, let your brother keep the sword.”

  Alastair smirked, twirled the sword in his hand, and headed for the edge of the lei tai. Cordelia stood where she was, rage and indignation prickling up her spine. She thought of all the times she’d come into the training room to gaze at Cortana in its crystal box, the words etched on its blade the first thing she’d learned to read: I am Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal. She thought of the way she’d always gently tapped the box, barely brushing it with her fingers, as if to reassure the sword that someday it would be taken out and wielded again. And when Elias had finally opened the box, declaring that today was the day he would choose Cortana’s owner, her heart had soared.

  She couldn’t bear it. “But Cortana is mine!” she burst out as her brother reached the edge of the platform. “I know it is!”

  Alastair opened his mouth to deliver a retort—but only gasped as the sword wrenched itself out of his grasp and flew across the room toward his sister. Cordelia held out a hand as if to ward it off, startled, and the hilt smacked into her palm. She closed her hand around it reflexively and felt a jolt go up her arm.

  Cortana.

  Alastair looked as if he wanted to sputter, but didn’t. He was too clever and too self-conscious to be a sputterer. “Father,” he said instead. “Is this some sort of trick?”

  Elias only smiled as if he’d known what was going to happen. “Sometimes the sword chooses the bearer,” he said. “Cortana will be Cordelia’s. Now, Alastair—”

  But Alastair had stalked from the room.

  Elias turned to his daughter. “Cordelia,” he said. “A blade of Wayland the Smith is a great gift, but it is also a great responsibility. One that may one day cause you sorrow.”

  Cordelia nodded. She was sure her father was right, in some distant way that adults were sometimes. Still, gazing down at Cortana’s golden blade, she couldn’t imagine ever being anything but happy with it in her hand.

  17 THE HOLLOW SEA

  “Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me,

  With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,

  And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea,

  And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?”

  “From the other world I come back to you:

  My locks are uncurled with dripping drenching dew.

  You know the old, whilst I know the new:

  But to-morrow you shall know this too.”

  —Christina Rossetti, “The Poor Ghost”

  “So,” said Will Herondale, a dark edge to his voice, “for some reason, you thought it was a good idea to take on a Mandikhor demon all by yourselves?”

  Lucie’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment she thought her father was talking to her, and considered flight. She discarded the idea immediately—her body was pinned down by heavy sheets and blankets. She blinked at her familiar surroundings; somehow she had been tucked into her own bed at home. The room smelled comfortingly of tea and of her father’s cologne. Not surprisingly, as he was seated in a chair next to the bed. Her mother had her hand on Will’s shoulder, and James leaned against a wall nearby. He clearly hadn’t changed clothes since the fight on the bridge, though his hands and face had been cleaned of blood and ichor and a new healing rune gleamed against his throat.

  Someone had laid the golden blade of Cortana across Lucie’s vanity table. She supposed there had been no chance to return it to Cordelia after her recovery from the river.

  “Christopher was using one of his new devices,” James lied. “It’s meant to pick up the traces of dark magic. We didn’t think it would really come to anything. That is why we didn’t summon you.”

  Will’s eyebrows flew up. “All six of you showed up to Tower Bridge in gear, despite thinking it wouldn’t come to anything?”

  Lucie squeezed her eyes half-shut. Better by far that they think she was asleep. James could definitely handle this on his own: as he never tired of reminding her, he was older.

  “We thought it best to be prepared,” said James. “Besides, I know you did much more risky things when you were my age.”

  “It’s dreadful the way you keep throwing that in my face,” said Will.

  “Well, I think they did very well,” said Tessa. “A Mandikhor demon is not easy to defeat.”

  “And we did not defeat it,” James said grimly. “There will continue to be attacks. The Nephilim are still in danger.”

  “Darling, the responsibility does not lie on you to fix all this,” said Tessa, her voice gentle. “Just to know the demon is in fact a Mandikhor will help a great deal.”

  “Yes, and you should tell Christopher that the Clave wishes to use this new device of his—it seems as if it could be very useful,” said Will.

  “Ah,” said James. “Tragically, the device was eaten by the demon.”

  Unable to help herself, Lucie giggled.

  “You’re awake!” Tessa rushed to the bed and hugged her daughter furiously. “Oh, Lucie!”

  Will rose and hugged her as well. For a moment Lucie let herself enjoy being surrounded by the love and attention of her parents, even as she could hear Will scolding her for running out onto the riverbank alone.

  “But I did it for Cordelia!” she exclaimed, as her parents drew back, her mother seating herself on the bed beside Lucie, where she could hold her hand. “You would have done it for Jem, Papa, when you were parabatai.”

  Will leaned back against a post of the bed. “You aren’t parabatai with Cordelia yet.”

  “It isn’t just for boys to risk their lives for each other,” Lucie said fiercel
y. “I had to call for help—”

  “Yes, and thank the Angel one of the passing boatmen saw Cordelia and brought her to shore,” said Tessa. “You did help save her, Lucie.”

  Lucie glanced at James. She knew he had not seen the ghosts who had taken Cordelia from the water—even Magnus had been too far away to glimpse them. Nevertheless, he looked thoughtful.

  “Cordelia was quite all right once she coughed up the river water,” he said reassuringly. “Matthew, Christopher, and Thomas took her home in a hansom cab.”

  “But Cortana is still here,” Lucie said, indicating the shining blade. “Daisy will be miserable without it. It’s more than just a sword to her.” She started to struggle upright. “I must bring it to her immediately.”

  “Lucie, no,” said Tessa. “You need to rest—”

  “I will bring it to Kensington,” said James. There was a distant look in his eyes. “I wish to check on Cordelia and make sure she is recovering from the river.”

  Tessa still looked worried. “Take the carriage, James, please,” she said. “It will be safer.”

  Nephilim carriages were reinforced with demon-repelling electrum and runes cleverly woven throughout the wood. James sighed and nodded.

  “And take Bridget and her massive spear,” said Will, doing a poor job at hiding a smile. “And perhaps change out of your gear first? It never hurts to look your best for a social call.”

  * * *

  If only there were a rune for drying clothes, Cordelia thought mournfully. She felt as if she were definitely squelching. She was pressed up against Matthew in the back of the hansom cab on a bench seat that faced Thomas and Christopher. Matthew had kindly thrown his gear jacket over her shoulders since her own was wet; he was in shirtsleeves, one arm around her, holding her steady. It was an odd but not unpleasant feeling.

  It was still all something of a blur—she recalled the force with which the demon’s paw had struck her, the feeling of weightlessness as her feet left the bridge. The moon turning upside down and the river rushing up with horrifying speed. Bitter black water, the smell of damp and rot, the struggle to free herself from what she thought now might have been river weeds. Her first clear memory was of James leaning down over her with a stele in one hand and Cortana in the other. She had been choking and gasping, her body convulsing as her lungs emptied of water. James had drawn iratze after iratze onto her arm as the Merry Thieves crowded around.