Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare Page A

will make quite an excellent parabatai for Lucie.”
    Cordelia looked over at Lucie, who smiled at her. It was a slightly shaky smile. There were shadows in Lucie’s eyes, as if something was bothering her. When she didn’t reply to Tessa, James moved a step closer to his sister, as though to put a barrier between her and further attention. “Cordelia was a great help to Barbara,” he said. “She was the one who had the idea to cut her corset away.”
    Sona looked slightly horrified. “Cordelia has a tendency to throw herself into every situation headlong,” she said to Tessa and Will. “I’m sure you understand.”
    â€œOh, we do,” said Will. “We’re always speaking very sternly to our children about that very thing. ‘If you don’t throw yourself into situations headlong, James and Lucie, you can expect bread and water for supper again.’  ”
    Alastair choked on a laugh. Sona stared at Will as if he were a lizard with feathers. “Good night, Mr. Herondale,” she said, turning both herself and her offspring toward the door. “This has certainly been a most interesting evening.”
----
    It was long past midnight. Tessa Herondale sat in front of the mirror in the bedroom she had shared with her husband for twenty-three years, and brushed her hair. The windows were closed, but soft summer air seeped in under the sill.
    She recognized Will’s step in the hallway before he came into the bedroom. More than twenty years of marriage did that.
    He shut the door behind him and came to lean against one of the bedposts, watching her at the vanity table. He had shrugged off his jacket and undone his tie. His dark hair was mussed, and in the slightly blurred mirror, he looked no different to Tessa than he had when he was seventeen.
    She quirked a smile at him.
    â€œWhat is it?” he said.
    â€œYou’re posing,” she said. “It makes me want to paint a portrait of you. I’d call it Gentleman, Dissipated .”
    â€œYou can’t paint a line, Tess,” he said, and came over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Now that he was close up, she could see the silver in his dark hair. “Much less capture my glorious handsomeness, which, I hardly need to point out, has only grown with age.”
    She didn’t disagree—he was as handsome as ever, his eyes still the same startling blue—but there was no need to encourage Will. Instead she reached up and tugged on one of the more silvered locks of his hair. “I’m well aware of that. I saw Penelope Mayhew flirting with you tonight. Shamelessly!”
    He bent his head to kiss her neck. “I hadn’t noticed.”
    She smiled at him in the mirror. “I take it from your insouciant manner that all went well in Seven Dials. Did you hear from Gideon? Or”—she made a face—“Bridgestock?”
    â€œCharles, actually. It was a nest of Shax demons. Quite a few more than they’ve been used to dealing with lately, but nothing they couldn’t manage. Charles was very insistent that there was nothing to worry about.” Will rolled his eyes. “I have a feeling he was fretting in case I suggested the picnic at Regent’s Park lake tomorrow be canceled. All the young ones are going.”
    There was a very faint lilt at the end of Will’s speech, whichsometimes came when he was tired. The faintest remnants of an accent, sanded away by time and distance. Still, when he was exhausted or grieved, it came back, and his voice would roll softly like the green hills of Wales.
    â€œDo you worry?” he said, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I do, sometimes. About Lucie and James.”
    She set down her hairbrush and turned around, concerned. “Worry about the children? Why?”
    â€œAll this—” He waved his hand vaguely. “The boating parties, the regattas and cricket matches and