Chain of Gold

The narrative jumps to the past, on the night Queen Victoria died:

London grieved for its Queen, but Matthew mourned someone else, “someone he had never known” (440) but whose life he had possibly ended. This is a person Matthew loved, despite not knowing them. Matthew resolved never to share his guilt with anyone else, not even his parents or parabatai. The narrative does not reveal the details of Matthew’s actions or the identity of the person he harmed.

Presently, James is quizzed endlessly by the Enclave at the Institute, before he can excuse himself to visit Matthew. At Matthew’s, James finds the rest of the Merry Thieves working hard to develop an antidote for the demon poison. Christopher, their resident scientist, needs just one more ingredient to finish the antidote: the rare Malos root, forbidden for use as it only grows in soil watered with the blood of mundanes. James notes Christopher’s sketch of the Malos resembles a plant he saw in the Chiswick Manor greenhouse. Excited at the discovery, the group head over to the manor. Nearing the gate, they meet Khora demons, who attack them and gravely injure Christopher. Charles and Alastair arrive, and the demons disappear. Alastair quickly takes Christopher away to the Silent City for treatment.

Alastair’s recent revelations make Cordelia view her childhood in a whole new light. Realizing she has misunderstood her mother and brother, Cordelia reaches out to Sona, who responds warmly and tells Cordelia she will never force marriage on her daughter. Sona also reveals that she is pregnant. Suddenly, an urgent message from James informs Cordelia about Christopher’s injuries and asks her to reach the Devil Tavern. At the tavern, James receives a handwritten note from Jem summoning him to the Silent City. The group break up in two: Thomas and Lucie go to Tatiana’s house to fetch the Malos root for the antidote, while James, Matthew, and Cordelia leave for the Silent City.

The entrance to the Silent City is hidden within Highgate Cemetery. James finds an angel statue with the inscription “Quis ut Deus?” (459) or “Who is Like God” (459). Realizing it is a riddle, James answers “No one is like God” (459), and the statue swivels aside to reveal the buried stairway leading to the Silent City. Inside, the group find the wounded—including Christopher—on beds. Christopher recognizes his friends, but Jem is nowhere to be seen. Christopher starts saying James’s name, the other injured robotically repeating it after him. Snapping out of his spell briefly, Christopher tells James that he must run away immediately. Ariadne rises from her bed and says James has been summoned by the “Lord of Thieves” (462) and must immediately go to him if he wants the killings to stop. Uncle Jem appears and informs the Shadowhunters that he had sent them no message; the handwritten note James received at the Tavern was a fake. Sensing great evil at work, Jem asks them to flee.

As the three friends race out, James gets separated from the group. Matthew and Cordelia find him standing in the cemetery, staring at a spot between two trees. James tells them that he was clawed by Christopher and is now demonically poisoned. He shows his friends a stone archway in the distance, from which they can all glimpse the shadow realm. Unless James passes through the archway, the attack on the Shadowhunters will continue. He has no choice.

At Chiswick Manor, Lucie is drawn to a strange light emanating from the gardens. Leaving Thomas at the greenhouse, she traces the light to a small open shed where Jesse’s body is being kept in a clear coffin. Hidden, Lucie watches Grace talk to Jesse. Grace is about to reveal to Jesse her real feelings about James when a demon appears, berating Grace for removing enchantments placed by her mother; the demon refers to the silver bracelet Grace made James wear. As Grace argues with the demon, it attacks her, threatening to break Jesse’s coffin. Lucie jumps on the demon, startling him, and the two girls flee. Jesse appears in his ghost form, killing the demon with a sword. Grace is shocked that Lucie sees Jesse, but Jesse tells her Lucie has unusual powers and that he trusts her with all of his being. As Thomas arrives with the Malos root he successfully retrieved from the greenhouse, Lucie has a vision of the shadow realm, where she senses James in trouble. She silently indicates to Jesse to go check on James’s whereabouts and bids Thomas to leave so he can work on the antidote. When Jesse returns with the news that James disappeared in the archway alone, Lucie commands him to take her to Highgate Cemetery by means of ghost travel.

Before James steps through the archway, Matthew ties a Shadowhunter rope around his waist, the other end tied around Matthew’s waist; if James tugs on the rope three times, it will signal for Cordelia and Matthew to pull him back to the real world. James enters the monochromatic shadow realm, where he sees a being in the form of a handsome man waiting for him among ancient ruins. James greets him, “Hello Grandfather,” identifying him as the infernal Prince Belial and not Belphegor. Through his interactions with the various demons, James has deduced that his grandfather is the fallen angel known as the cleverest one, the king of thieves. Belial confirms that he stole this shadow realm from Belphegor so the attacks he orchestrated cannot be traced back to him. The attacks have been an attempt to summon James. Since Belial alone among fallen angels is forbidden from appearing on Earth in his original form, he needs a human vehicle—and the only vehicle strong enough for him is his own flesh and blood. If James lets Belial share his body, he, too, would enjoy unlimited power. However, if James refuses, one of two things will happen: The demon attacks will continue, or Belial will turn to his other grandchild, Lucie. To Belial’s rage, James still refuses.

In the cemetery, Matthew feels the rope between him and James tauten, smashing him against the archway again and again. Matthew and Cordelia cannot enter the archway; to save Matthew from injury, Cordelia cuts the rope with her sword. She remembers her father saying Cortana can cut through any material, and she uses it to cut through the barrier between worlds, entering the shadow realm.

Meanwhile, Thomas takes the Malos root to Matthew’s house, where Christopher has a lab. Charles tries to forbid Thomas from working on the antidote, but Alastair, who is also at the house, persuades Charles to let Thomas continue. Charles leaves and Alastair stays back to watch over Thomas.

In the realm controlled by Belial, the fallen angel tortures James for refusing him. He raises a massive Mandikhor for James to fight alone. Just then, Cordelia rushes in, and James embraces her and calls her “Daisy, angel.” Though relieved to see her, James bids her to return so she can be safe; Cordelia refuses. Belial whisks away Cortana from Cordelia’s hand, saying that, in his realm, all objects obey him. James and Cordelia fight a losing battle—until James recalls Belial saying every particle in this realm responds to the command of his essence: Since James is Belial’s flesh and blood, he may also hold sway over the realm. Gathering strength, he raises the sand and the branches of the tree around him to swallow and kill the Mandikhor. Cordelia takes advantage of Belial’s stunned astonishment to summon Cortana from his hand, and she stabs him in the chest. Belial vanishes, and his kingdom begins to disintegrate.

Jesse brings Lucie to the cemetery where Matthew lies crumpled on the ground. As Matthew wakes up, James and Cordelia drop into the cemetery from the sky. Cordelia tells them James is poisoned, and Matthew draws healing runes on his parabatai, but they don’t work. Matthew senses James is dying. Just then, Jesse, unseen to all but Lucie, tells her to use his last breath to revive James. When Lucie protests, Jesse tells her he is stuck in a half-death and would prefer his last breath to restore someone to a full life. Lucie takes Jesse’s locket and presses it to James’s lips. As Jesse’s dying breath passes through James, his eyes open; he sees Jesse before Jesse’s half-alive form vanishes forever.

In the aftermath of the Highgate Cemetery incident, the injured receive the antidote and recover.

This chapter is the text’s last flashback:

A young Cordelia was overjoyed to have Alastair back from the academy, but Alastair had changed completely, grown distant from his beloved sister. He went off for long walks by himself while a sad Cordelia trailed after the older brother she idolized. In a vulnerable moment, Alastair confessed to Cordelia that he had turned into a bully at school, choosing to be victimizer rather than victim. After the confession, he shut down again, and Cordelia didn’t broach the subject again.