A sort of spasm seemed to cross Gabriel’s face. Gideon put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. They never had respected their father properly. Never had mourned him after they let Will Herondale and Jem Carstairs murder him.
Gideon nodded. “Go ahead,” he said, with a short nod. “We will await you here.”
Herondales, Tatiana thought as she made her way to the Italian gardens. Tainted blood ran in their veins. In her opinion, their name dominated the history books more than it should. There should be far more instances of the name “Lightwood” and less of the name “Herondale.” After all, she wouldn’t be surprised if Will Herondale’s warlock wife wasn’t the first time they’d sullied the line with Downworlder blood.
She had reached the small, walled structure in the center of the garden. The door was unlocked—she cursed Grace silently: stupid, lazy girl—and she hurried inside to see if any damage had been done. To her relief, Jesse’s coffin was pristine: the wood glowing, the glass untouched by dust. The ancient Blackthorn sword that would one day be her son’s hung gleaming on the wall.
She laid a hand on the surface. There lay her boy, her sleeping prince. He resembled her husband, in her opinion. Rupert had possessed such fine bones, such delicacy and perfection of feature and form. The day he had been torn from this world had been a tragedy. She had stopped every clock in this house and the country manor at the time they had taken his body away, for then her world had ended.
Save for Jesse. She lived for Jesse now, and for revenge.
“Worry not,” said a silken voice.
Tatiana knew who had spoken before she glanced up.
He was a swirl of dust at first, a handful of glittering sand that re-formed into the shape of a beautiful man clothed in gray, with eyes like shards of mirrors.
“Grace will look after him,” Tatiana said. “She cares for her brother like you care for no one.”
“I will let no harm come to Jesse,” said the Prince of Hell. “What he carries is too precious.”
Tatiana knew he was not truly there, that Belial could not walk upon the earth save as an illusion of himself. Still, he was bright as broken glass, bright as cities burning. They said Lucifer was the most beautiful angel who had ever lost Heaven, but Tatiana did not believe that. There could be no angel more beautiful than Belial, for he was ever-changing. He had a thousand shapes.
“Why should I believe that?” she demanded. “You let me sicken from that poison, and I could have died. You promised me that only my enemies would be harmed. And look”—she threw her arm out in the direction of the courtyard where Gideon and Gabriel waited for her—“they still live!”
“I would never have let you die,” said Belial. “It was necessary to keep suspicion from falling upon you. What I did, I did in order to save you.”
Bitterness roughened her voice. “Save me for what? That I may languish in prison while my enemies flourish?”
Belial laid his hands on Jesse’s coffin. His fingers were long, like a spider’s legs. “We have discussed this before, Tatiana. The death of Barbara was my gift to you, but it was only the beginning. What we have in mind for the Herondales and Lightwoods and Carstairs is so much greater and more terrible than simple death.”
“But your plan to raise James Herondale up in darkness seems to have failed. Even after I prepared him for you—”
For just a moment, Belial’s expression lost its composure, and in that space Tatiana seemed able to see down through the abyss into the visible darkness of the Pit. “You prepared him?” he sneered. “When he came to me in my realm, there was no bracelet on his wrist. He was protected.”
Tatiana blanched. “That’s not possible. It was on his wrist at the meeting today. I saw it!”
A smirk passed over Belial’s face, but vanished quickly. “That was not all. You did not tell me that the Carstairs girl bears one of the blades of Wayland the Smith.”
He opened his jacket. There on his chest was a wound, a bloody tear in the fabric of his shirt through which dark red blood seeped. A wound that seemed fresh and unhealed. Though Tatiana knew he was not really here in a solid form, not really bleeding, the sight was still disturbing. One should not be able to wound a Prince of Hell.
She took a step back. “I—I didn’t think it important. The girl seems like nothing—”
“Then you do not understand what Cortana is. As long as she bears that sword, and protects James, I will not be able to come near him.” Belial snapped his jacket closed. “Those fools believe that since I have been wounded by that blade, I will not be able to return to their world for a century’s time. They do not know I have an anchor here. Nor do they understand the power of my wrath.” He bared his teeth, and each was a sharp, filed point. “They will see my return sooner than they think.”
Tatiana knew she should dread the rage of a Prince of Hell, but there could be no fear when you had already lost everything that mattered. Her lip curled back. “I suppose you will be facing that return alone, as I will be imprisoned in the Adamant Citadel.” She touched Jesse’s coffin, a sob rising in her throat. “And my beautiful boy will languish without me.”
“Oh Tatiana, my dark swan,” Belial murmured, and now he was smiling. “Don’t you see this is the culmination of my plan? The Herondales, the Lightwoods, the Enclave, all of them have blocked you from their seats of power. But where does the heart of the Nephilim lie? It lies in their gift from the angel, the adamas. The steles that draw their runes, the seraph blades that protect them.”
She looked up at him, realization dawning. “You mean—”
“No one can break into the Adamant Citadel,” he said. “But you will be escorted in, my dear. And then you will strike at the Clave from its very heart. We will strike together.”
With her hand braced upon the coffin of her son, Tatiana began to smile.
NOTES ON THE TEXT
Most of the places in the London of Chain of Gold are real: there was a Devil Tavern on Fleet Street and Chancery, where Samuel Pepys and Dr. Samuel Johnson drank. Though it was demolished in 1787, I like to think it lived on as a Downworlder haunt, invisible to mundanes. The poem Cordelia recites when she is dancing in the Hell Ruelle is from Sir Richard Francis Burton’s The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, published in 1885. The Dick Whittington stone is real, and located at the foot of Highgate Hill. Layla and Majnun ( ) is an epic poem in Persian/Farsi, written in 1188 by the poet Nizami Ganjavi. I have used the exonym “Persian” to refer to the language Cordelia and her family speak throughout, as Cordelia and Alastair did not grow up in Iran and “Persian” was the way anyone speaking or thinking in English in 1903 would have thought of the language. I’d also like to take this moment to thank Tomedes Translation and Fariba Kooklan for help with the Persian in this book. The excerpts of Layla and Majnun are taken from James Atkinson’s 1836 translation, which is the one most likely for Cordelia to have owned.
Explore the World of The Dark Artifices
Lady Midnight
Book 1
Lord of Shadows
Book 2
Queen of Air and…
Book 3
Explore the World of The Mortal Instruments
City of Bones
Book 1
City of Ashes
Book 2
City of Glass
Book 3
City of Fallen Angels
Book 4
City of Lost Souls
Book 5
City of Heavenly Fire
Book 6
Explore the World of The Infernal Devices
Clockwork Angel
Book 1
Clockwork Prince
Book 2
Clockwork Princess
Book 3
More Books to Enjoy
The Red Scrolls of Magic
Ghosts of the Shadow Market
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy
The Bane Chronicles
/> The Shadowhunter's Codex
The Infernal Devices
Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books)
Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (4 books)
Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cassandra Clare is the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Dark Artifices series, Mortal Instruments series, and Infernal Devices trilogy. She is the coauthor of The Red Scrolls of Magic with Wesley Chu; The Bane Chronicles with Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson; Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Robin Wasserman; and Ghosts of the Shadow Market with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, Kelly Link, and Robin Wasserman. Her books have more than fifty million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages and made into a feature film and a TV show. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts. Visit her at CassandraClare.com. Learn more about the world of the Shadowhunters at Shadowhunters.com.
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Cassandra-Clare
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Simon & Schuster, New York
Also by Cassandra Clare
THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS
City of Bones
City of Ashes
City of Glass
City of Fallen Angels
City of Lost Souls
City of Heavenly Fire
THE INFERNAL DEVICES
Clockwork Angel
Clockwork Prince
Clockwork Princess
THE DARK ARTIFICES
Lady Midnight
Lord of Shadows
Queen of Air and Darkness
THE ELDEST CURSES
With Wesley Chu
The Red Scrolls of Magic
The Shadowhunter’s Codex
With Joshua Lewis
The Bane Chronicles
With Sarah Rees Brennan
and Maureen Johnson
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy
With Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson,
and Robin Wasserman
Ghosts of the Shadow Market
With Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson,
Kelly Link, and Robin Wasserman
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2020 by Cassandra Clare, LLC
Jacket photo-illustration copyright © 2020 by Cliff Nielsen
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Mike Rosamilia
Jacket design by Nick Sciacca
The text for this book was set in Dolly.
Jacket design by Nicholas Sciacca
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clare, Cassandra, author.
Title: Chain of gold / Cassandra Clare.
Description: First edition. | New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, [2020] | Series: The last hours ; book 1 | Audience: Ages 14 up. | Audience: Grades 10–12. | Summary: Cordelia Carstairs, a Shadowhunter trained to battle demons, travels with her brother to London where they reconnect with childhood friends but soon must face devastating demon attacks in the quarantined city.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019032235 (print) | LCCN 2019032236 (eBook) | ISBN 9781481431873 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481431897 (eBook)
Subjects: CYAC: Supernatural—Fiction. | Demonology—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | London (England)—History—20th century—Fiction. | Great Britain—History—Edward VII, 1901–1910—Fiction. Classification: LCC PZ7.C5265 Ch 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.C5265 (eBook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032235
LC eBook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032236
Chain of Gold Page 56