Back Chain of Iron
Chapters (49)
  1. Dedication
  2. PART ONE
  3. LONDON: EAST END
  4. 1 THE BRIGHT WEB
  5. 2 ALL THAT TURNS
  6. GRACE: 1893–1896
  7. 3 BITTER AND SWEET
  8. 4 A GOOD NAME
  9. 5 THE KING IS DEAD
  10. LONDON: 48 CURZON STREET
  11. 6 THINGS TO COME
  12. GRACE: 1896
  13. 7 TREAD LIGHTLY
  14. LONDON: FINCH LANE
  15. 8 TO BRING A FIRE
  16. 9 THE SCARS REMAINING
  17. LONDON: SHOE LANE
  18. 10 THE DAMNED EARTH
  19. GRACE: 1897
  20. 11 CROWNS AND POUNDS AND GUINEAS
  21. LONDON: SHEPHERD MARKET
  22. 12 REQUIEM
  23. GRACE: 1899
  24. 13 THE WINTRY WIND
  25. 14 THE FLAMING FORGE
  26. 15 WALK BY DAYTIME
  27. 16 DARK BREAKS TO DAWN
  28. LONDON: GOLDEN SQUARE
  29. PART TWO
  30. 17 PROPHET OF EVIL
  31. 18 GOBLIN MARKET
  32. 19 THINE OWN PALACE
  33. 20 EQUAL TEMPER
  34. GRACE: 1899–1900
  35. 21 HELL’S OWN TRACK
  36. 22 HEART OF IRON
  37. GRACE: 1903
  38. 23 A SILKEN THREAD
  39. 24 HE SHALL RISE
  40. 25 ARCHANGEL RUINED
  41. 26 OLDER THAN GODS
  42. 27 WAKE WITH WINGS
  43. GRACE: 1900
  44. 28 NO WISE MAN
  45. 29 A BROKEN MIRROR
  46. Epilogue
  47. NOTES ON THE TEXT
  48. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  49. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“No,” James said quietly. “You couldn’t have.”

“I could have stopped him from going out into the streets, in the snow—”

“He didn’t die from lack of money,” James said. “Nor did he die from the cold. He was murdered.”

Cordelia knew that James was being reasonable, but she had no use for reason. She wanted to explode with fury, wanted to destroy something. “You didn’t need to give him five thousand—you could have given him a little bit, a little money to get him safely home.”

Something flickered in James’s eyes. Anger. She had never seen those golden eyes furious before, not at her. She felt a sick sort of gladness: now, instead of feeling nothing, she felt rage. She felt despair. She felt the agony of hurting James, the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

“Had I given him any money at all, he would have gone out to spend it at the pub, and he still would have been staggering drunk and he still would have been killed. And you would still be blaming me, because you don’t want to think that his own choices—”

“Cordelia.”

She turned, saw Alastair standing at the entrance to the narrow corridor. He was backlit by witchlight; it turned the edges of his hair to light, reminding her of the time he’d dyed it. “Brother Enoch says if you wish to say goodbye, it has to be now.”

Cordelia nodded mechanically. “I’m coming.”

She had to edge past James before she turned to go; as she did, their shoulders brushed. She heard him sigh in frustration before following her. Then they were back out in the square and trailing Alastair into the Ossuarium, where Sona stood by Elias’s body. Brother Enoch was there, too, motionless, his hands folded in front of him like a priest’s.

James had paused by the double doors. Cordelia didn’t look at him; she couldn’t. She took Alastair’s hand and crossed the marble floor to where her father lay. Alastair drew her close against his side. Her mother stood very still, her eyes red and swollen, her head bent.

“Ave atque vale,” Alastair said. “Hail and farewell, Father.”

“Ave atque vale,” Sona echoed. Cordelia knew she should say it too, the traditional farewell, but her throat was too tight for words. Instead she reached out and took her father’s hand, exposed where the sheet was turned back. It was cold and rigid. Not her father’s hand at all. Not the hand that had lifted her up when she was small, or guided her bladework as she trained. Gently, she set it on his chest.

Her body stiffened. Elias’s Voyance rune—the rune every Shadowhunter had on the back of their dominant hand—was missing.

She heard Filomena’s voice again, echoing through the empty sailcloth factory. He took from me. My strength. My life.

Her strength.