Chain of Gold

The story shifts to the summer Thomas was interning as a Shadowhunter with the Madrid Institute:

On the recommendation of the Merry Thieves, Thomas visited Paris for a short holiday. In Paris, he ran into Cordelia’s brother, Alistair Carstairs, who used to bully Thomas mercilessly at school. Thomas had never liked the sarcastic, cold Alastair and wished to avoid him—but he was surprised to find himself enjoying Alastair’s company. For his part, Alastair acknowledged he bullied Thomas, and he now admired Thomas’s physique. The two Shadowhunters enjoyed Paris together, admiring the newly constructed Eiffel Tower and visiting art galleries and restaurants. Sharing a dinner, Thomas told Alastair he wanted to get his arm tattooed with an image of a compass with a rose at its center. Alastair touched the spot on his arm Thomas indicated, and Thomas felt a strong sexual charge for Alastair. Their time together ended, and Thomas saw a vulnerable side of Alastair he had never seen before. However, their feelings for each other remained unsaid.

Back in the present, Lucie rushes to the Devil Tavern so she can find the Merry Thieves and learn Grace and James’s meeting spot. Christopher and Thomas join Lucie, and they head off to Anna Lightwood’s flat where Matthew had gone earlier in the evening. In front of Anna’s building is an irate Alastair, waiting for Cordelia who is not yet back from her visit to Hell Ruelle. Alastair rues aloud leaving Cordelia alone with Anna; upon hearing this, Christopher, Anna’s brother, confronts him. Thomas reigns in Alastair, but Alastair berates him publicly as a “scrubby schoolboy trailing after [him]” (252), hurting Thomas’s feelings.

As Matthew and Cordelia return, Lucie updates them with the news from Jesse, pretending it was the Institute’s resident ghost, Jessamine, who alerted her to the threat to James. Their differences set aside for the moment, the group arm themselves and head to the site of James’s assignation with Grace.

Feeling worried and once again struck by the intensity of his feelings for Grace, James waits for her at the riverside at Chelsea Embankment. Grace arrives and tells James about the danger she is in: Alarmed by James’s visit to Chiswick Manor, Tatiana plans to take Grace away to Idris, secluding her once more. James implores Grace to come to the Institute to protect herself from Tatiana. However, Grace wants James to elope with her—but this would mean James’s permanent expulsion from Shadowhunter society, and he would be forbidden from meeting his family, parabatai, and friends. Grace refuses James’s next suggestion that they wait a little and marry in a Shadowhunter ceremony instead. She doesn’t want to live in the Shadowhunter world where Tatiana can always reach her.

Suddenly, the Cerberus offspring appear. The bulk of combat falls on James, since Grace has no training as a Shadowhunter. In the nick of time, the other Shadowhunters arrive and join the battle. James is surprised to see Alastair defend him, spearing a demon. Even though the Shadowhunters fight furiously, more demons keep pouring in. Like the demon on Fleet Street in Chapter 1, the largest demon seems to recognize James, shocking him by addressing him directly as “Herondale boy” and berating him for slaying his “own kind.” The demon reveals James’s grandfather is not just a greater demon but the greatest Prince of Hell: the highest order of fallen angels. James leverages this information to bid the demons to retreat in his grandfather’s name. Bound by James’s blood, the demons retreat—on the condition that James and the others keep the encounter a secret. If the group betray this promise, the demons will kill their families.

As the demons disappear, Tatiana’s carriage pulls into sight. She orders Grace to join her. James begs Grace to stay back, but Grace pleads helplessness. She tells James not to contact her for some time since she needs space to think over things. The Blackthorn women depart. The Shadowhunters discuss the attack and the demon’s revelation to James, agreeing to guard the information. To lighten the mood, Lucie asks to see the tattoo Thomas got in Madrid. Thomas reluctantly shows his arm, bearing a compass with a rose at its heart, just as he described it to Alastair. Alastair is affected by the sight, suggesting possible feelings for Thomas. Cordelia and Alastair go home, while the rest of the group head for the Institute.

Back at the Institute, the young Shadowhunters meet a visiting Ragnor Fell. The Merry Thieves know him, as he taught all of them. After Tessa calls away Will for an urgent matter, Ragnor tells the group he is here on Hypatia’s request. Ragnor suspects a non-warlock is behind the recent demon attacks. The mastermind may have paid an unscrupulous warlock to summon the demons through dimensional magic, which protects the demons from sunlight, enabling their daytime appearance. Ragnor himself cannot investigate directly, since he doesn’t want to cross the Clave. He urges the young Shadowhunters to investigate independently and asks them to quiz the corrupt London warlock Emmanuel Gast, an expert at dimensional magic. Ragnor hands them Gast’s address. Just then, an ashen-faced Will and Tessa return, giving Thomas the terrible news that his sister Barbara has died from her injuries.

Yet unaware of Barbara’s passing, the Carstairs finish dinner. Cordelia feels connected to Alastair after their battle that night, but Alastair criticizes her friends, much to Cordelia’s dismay. When the doorbell rings, Alastair goes downstairs to receive the visitor, asking Cordelia to go to bed. Given Alastair’s dislike of her friends, Cordelia suspects he may tell the visitor—who turns out to be Charles, Matthew’s older brother and the Consul’s son—about the evening’s demon attack. She hides behind some curtains so she can eavesdrop. Cordelia witnesses Alastair tell Charles he loves him. Her heart breaks for Alastair, since Charles is sworn to marry Ariadne Bridgestock. However, Charles tells Alastair he loves him, too, and marrying a woman is merely a front so he can pursue his political ambitions. He suggests Ariadne is also in love with someone else, and their engagement may soon break off. As Charles and Alastair kiss, Cordelia feels ashamed for violating her brother’s privacy, but now she better understands his defensive, prickly front.

At the Institute, Will and Tessa meet Cecily and Gabriel Lightwood, Christopher’s parents, to whom the Herondales are related. The Lightwoods tell Will and Tessa that a grief-stricken Sophie and Gideon, Barbara and Thomas’s parents, are returning to Idris to be with their other daughter Eugenia. Thomas meanwhile will stay with them. Though Thomas is also heartbroken at his sister’s death, he wants to drown his sorrow in battling the demon threat in London. While Lucie is around the grown-ups, James has withdrawn to research about the Princes of Hell, the greatest of the fallen angels.

James is frustrated by the Institute’s lack of literature on fallen angles; all he learns is that they are nine in number and that they are the distorted mirror images of the benevolent angles. The greatest of the fallen is Lucifer, the chief of the archangels who led the revolt against Heaven. James tries not to think about someone like Lucifer being his grandfather. His thoughts turn to Grace and the unsatisfactory ending of their last meeting. He calls for Uncle Jem to discuss his confused feelings, and James confesses to him that he cannot share everything on his mind (the promise given to the Cerberus demons forbids James from revealing their attack). He lets Jem assume that the Cerberus at the greenhouse told him about his grandfather. James is worried that if his grandfather was indeed the Prince of Hell, James himself may be evil. Jem reassures James that ancestry does not define him; he is a good person. As Jem promises his adopted nephew that he will contact an old friend to investigate his grandfather’s true identity, he gets a message from the Silent Brothers that there has been another demon attack in London.

James visits Cordelia to tell her about the attack and recruit her for a visit to Emmanuel Gast’s house. Cordelia learns that the same demons that attacked them at Regent Park descended upon a group of Shadowhunters that night, killing one person and injuring two others. James and Cordelia meet Lucie and Matthew; the group climb the window to Gast’s house using a Shadowhunter rope (which runs far longer than it looks). The apartment seems deserted. James and Matthew find the sketch of a box with strange symbols drawn on its sides. Cordelia finds wood shards with symbols resembling those on the box.

Meanwhile, Lucie wanders off to the bedroom—and finds the dismembered corpse of Gast, who was obviously heavily tortured before being killed. Lucie inadvertently summons his ghost, and when she questions him about the demon attacks, he confesses it was he who raised a demon in exchange for gold; he captured the demon in a box for his client, who then betrayed and killed him. This unknown person must have then released the demon. Bound by Lucie’s ghost-magic, Gast tells her his client was heavily disguised in cloaks. Lucie is disturbed when Gast remarks on her ghost-mastery as a “monstrous power” (300). When the others join her, the ghost vanishes.

The group return to the Institute, eager to further explore the sketch of the box and wooden shards they collected from Gast’s house. Will and Tessa are annoyed that their children took their carriage without asking, but Cordelia saves James and Lucie by lying that they stole the carriage to bring her to the Institute.

Feeling grateful to Cordelia and concerned for Lucie, James wonders why his feelings for Grace fluctuate. At times, he feels painfully drawn to her, while he also sometimes almost forgets her. He still wishes for Grace to contact him. Just then, Grace and Tatiana arrive at the Institute: Tatiana is badly injured and soaked with blood, and Grace tells them Tatiana was attacked at Chiswick Manor by an unknown demon. Tatiana is taken to the infirmary, while Grace and James talk in private. Meanwhile, Lucie confronts Matthew, who has been drinking a lot of alcohol. She tells him that she is concerned about him because he is like a brother to her, and her brother’s parabatai. Matthew grows enraged and walks away.

As James consoles Grace, Grace tells him she is sure Tatiana will recover since “her bitterness will keep her alive” (317). While Tatiana is indisposed, Grace has a small window of time to take steps to ensure her future. These steps involve marrying Charles Fairchild, to whom Grace has recently become engaged; Charles broke off his engagement to Ariadne, who is sick in the infirmary. James is deeply shocked, but Grace reminds him he rejected her offer of marriage. Since James failed the test of her love, she chose to marry someone else. After retrieving her bracelet from a shattered James, she leaves.

When Matthew learns of James’s heartbreak, he meets Grace and accuses her of using James to escape Tatiana’s control. Matthew says that since her plan with James failed, she simply discarded James and moved on to Charles. Grace comes close to Matthew and demands he kiss her; he is unable to resist. Grace tells him that if he obstructs her marriage to his brother, she will tell James and Charles about the kiss. The narrative suggests Grace may have enchanted Matthew into kissing her.

Lucie requests Cordelia to search for James, who has been missing since Grace’s arrival. While looking, Cordelia runs into a distraught Anna, who asks her to accompany her to the infirmary. In the sickroom, Anna only has eyes for the unconscious Ariadne. Anna whispers to Ariadne that it is not her fault Charles left her; rather, Charles’s behavior reflects on him. Cordelia is struck by the intensity of Anna’s feelings for Ariadne.