Idris, 1899 snippet
For a moment James had the fantasy that Tatiana Blackthorn had brought him here to kill him. She would cut out his heart and leave him lying where his blood ran out across the ground.
Instead she shoved the knife into his hands. “There you go, boy,” she said. “Take your time.”
He thought for a moment that she smiled, but it might have been a trick of the light. She was gone in a rustle of dry grass, leaving James standing before the gates, rusty blade in hand, like Sleeping Beauty’s least successful suitor. With a sigh, he began to cut.
Or at least, he began to try. The dull blade sliced nothing, and the briars were as thick as the bars on the gates. More than once he was stuck sharply by the wicked points of the thorns.
His aching arms soon felt like lead, and his white shirt was spotted with blood. This was ridiculous, he told himself. Surely this went beyond the obligation to help a neighbor with her gardening. Surely his parents would understand if he tossed the knife aside and went home. Surely—
A pair of hands, white as lilies, suddenly fluttered between the vines. “Herondale boy,” whispered a voice. “Let me help you.”
There was a rattling sound, and a moment later a pair of briar cutters—perhaps not entirely new but certainly serviceable—were pushed beneath the gates. James bent to seize them up.
“Thank you, Grace,” he said. “You are Grace, aren’t you? Grace Blackthorn?”
‘Chain of Gold’ snippets, flash fiction links and more
Chain of Gold is published in less than a week so I thought it’s the perfect time to share the snippets that Cassandra Clare has posted online! I have included all the snippets that Cassie shared on her tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and in her newsletters that were clearly marked as Chain of Gold, CoG2 or TLH 1. There are other The Last Hours snippets but we can’t be 100% sure if they are from Chain of Gold. I tried to keep the order the snippets were published in (oldest to newest) but I might have slipped because there are a lot of snippets that Cassie shared over the years. You can also check snippets tagged as TLH in our The Last Hours tag. Please also keep in mind that some snippets might not be in the final version of Chain of Gold!
I have also included links to all the flash fiction stories that were posted on Cassie’s website so that you can reread them if you want to.
Before we start with the snippets, though, you can click here to read the prologue of Chain of Gold.
DAYS PAST: 1897
Lucie Herondale was ten years old when she first met the boy in the forest.
Growing up in London, Lucie had never imagined a place like Brocelind. The forest surrounded Herondale Manor on all sides, its trees bent together at the tops like cautious whisperers: dark green in the summer, burnished gold in the fall. The carpeting of moss underfoot was so green and soft that her father told her it was a pillow for faeries at night, and that the white stars of the flowers that grew only in the hidden country of Idris made bracelets and rings for their delicate hands.
James, of course, told her that faeries didn’t have pillows, they slept underground and they stole away naughty little girls in their sleep. Lucie stepped on his foot, which meant that Papa swept her up and carried her back to the house before a fight could erupt. James came from the ancient and noble line of Herondale, but that didn’t mean he was above pulling his little sister’s plaits if the need arose.
Late one night the brightness of the moon woke Lucie. It was pouring into her room like milk, laying white bars of light over her bed and across the polished wood floor. She slipped out of bed and climbed through the window, dropping lightly to the flower bed underneath. It was a summer night and she was warm in her nightdress.
The edge of the forest, just past the stables where their horses were kept, seemed to glow. She flitted toward it like a small ghost. Her slippered feet barely disturbed the moss as she slid in between the trees.
She amused herself at first by making chains of flowers and hanging them from branches. After that she pretended she was Snow White fleeing from the huntsman. She would run through the tangled trees and then turn dramatically and gasp, putting the back of her hand to her forehead. “You will never slay me,” she said. “For I am of royal blood and will one day be queen and twice as powerful as my stepmother. And I shall cut off her head.”
It was possible, she thought later, that she had not remembered the story of Snow White entirely correctly.
Click here to read the rest of the prologue.
We also have another Chain of Gold excerpt thanks to Hyable. Click here to read it.
And now the snippets! 😀
Tumblr and Newsletter Snippets
Cordelia glanced over her shoulder. “Is it — I mean, I wish to chat alone with you, too, but are we being dreadfully rude asking your brother to walk behind us?”
“Not a bit,” Lucie assured her. “Look at him. He’s quite distracted, reading.”
And he was. James had a book out and was calmly reading while he walked. Though he seemed entirely caught up in whatever he was perusing, he nevertheless skirted oncoming passers-by, the occasional rock or fallen branch, and once even a small boy holding a hoop, with admirable grace. Cordelia suspected that if she had tried such a stunt, she would have crashed into a tree.
“You’re so lucky,” Cordelia said, wistfully, still looking over her shoulder at James.
“Goodness me, why?” Lucie looked at her with wide eyes. Where James’ eyes were amber, Lucie’s were a pretty pale blue, a shade lighter than her father’s. The famous dark blue Herondale eyes had gone to Will’s sister’s children.
Cordelia’s head snapped back around. “Oh, because —“ Because you get to spend time with James every day? She doubted Lucie thought that was any special gift; one didn’t, when it was one’s family. “He’s such a good older brother. If I’d asked Alastair to walk ten paces behind me in a park he would have made sure to stick by my side the entire time just to be annoying.”
“Pfft!” Lucie exhaled. “Of course I adore Jamie but he’s been dreadful lately, ever since he fell in love.”
She might as well have dropped an incendiary device on Cordelia’s head. Everything seemed to fly apart around her. “He’s what?”
“Fallen in love,” Lucie repeated, with the look of someone enjoying imparting a bit of gossip. “Oh, he won’t say with who, of course, because it’s Jamie and he never tells us anything. But Father’s diagnosed him and he says it’s definitely love.”
“You make it sound like consumption.” Cordelia’s head was whirling with dismay. James in love? With who? The look he had given her when she stepped down from the carriage, perhaps she had imagined that?
“Well, it is a bit, isn’t it? He gets all pale and moody and stares off out of windows like Keats.”
“Did Keats stare out of windows? I don’t recall hearing that.”
Lucie plowed on, undeterred by the question of whether England’s foremost romantic poet did or did not stare out of windows. “He won’t say anything to anyone but Matthew, and Matthew is a tomb where James is concerned. I heard a bit of their conversation once by accident, though —“
“Accident?” Cordelia raised an eyebrow.
“I may have been hiding beneath a table,” said Lucie, with dignity. “But it was only because I had lost an earring and was looking for it.”
Cordelia suppressed a smile. “Go on.”
“He is definitely in love, and Matthew definitely thinks he is being foolish. He does not like her.”
James and Matthew separated, Matthew to dance with Lucie, and James to speak to his parents. Cordelia saw them glance over toward her and looked away quickly; still, she was not at all surprised when James appeared a moment later in front of her, flashing a smile at his aunt and uncle.
“Miss Carstairs,” he said, with a slight bow in Cordelia’s direction. “Would you favor me with this dance?”
“It’s a waltz,” said Cordelia’s mother, before Cordelia could speak. “My daughter does not know how to waltz.”
Cordelia bit her lip. She certainly knew how to dance: her mother had engaged an expert instructor to teach her the quadrille and the lancer, the stately minuet and the cotilion. But the waltz was a seductive dance, one where you could feel your partner’s body against yours, scandalous when it had first become popular.
She very much wanted to waltz with James.
From where they were, they had a perfect view of James, standing straight and polite as Tatiana Blackthorn, wearing a faded fuschia dresses stained with dark spots, advanced on him, a witchlight torch in her hand.
“How dare you come here, Will Herondale,” she said, a savage tone to her voice. “What is left for you to destroy? You murdered my husband and my father —“
Lucie made a small whimpering noise. Cordelia clutched at her cold hand, squeezing it for comfort.
“That’s James.” It was Grace, dressed all in a long white nightgown with a white dressing-gown over it. White slippers covered her feet and her blonde hair was loose, falling over her shoulders. “It isn’t Mr. Herondale, Mama. It’s his son.”
Will had been sitting on the floor, the rug bunched up under his feet, with his back against Tessa’s legs. He looked up when Jem came in, and Jem, in his Silent Brother robes, went over to Will and sat down beside him. He drew Will’s head against his shoulder, and Will held the front of Jem’s robes in his fists and he cried. It was the first time it had ever occurred to James that his father might cry about anything.
Cordelia was alone in the hallway. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door to James’ room.
She had never been in a boy’s bedroom before, and it was quite a scandalous action to enter now, but the significance of it seemed small, swallowed up by her worry. James was half under the covers of the bed, moving restlessly from side to side, his face flushed with fever. His nightclothes clung to him, wet with sweat. It was a bright day outside and sunlight speared through the room, illuminating the bowls of burning herbs that Enoch had left behind.
James rolled toward her. His eyes, the color of sunlight, blinked open slowly. “Matthew?” he said. “Matthew, is that you?”
He took a deep breath, and crossed the floor of blades and constellations to the other boy’s side. He stood at the foot of the stairs, looking down.
“But of course,” he said, very softly, “your sentiments are reciprocated.”
He stooped over him, tilting his chin up. Their lips met. The other boy made a soft sound, almost like surrender, stretching under his body. He slid an arm around his neck and pulled him down onto the stairs.
Anna’s deep-blue eyes narrowed as she studied him. James was sitting on the edge of his chair, hands clasped together and leaning forward in Anna’s direction. These cousins looked more like brother and sister than James and Lucie, or Anna and Christopher. James’s face was chiseled and serious, while Anna’s features were sharp and roguish, but they shared the same coloring of crow-black hair and snow-white skin. More than that, both had an air of cleverness that seemed thrown up as a defense against sensitivity, sharp minds that shut away hearts too easily broken. Seeing the similarity made Cordelia wonder what had happened to Anna, and fear what might happen to James.
Anna flicked an eyebrow upward, a scratch of ink dashed across a page. “Ah yes, about that. Let me be perfectly clear what you are asking: you want me to seduce a pretty warlock in order to procure you an [item redacted for spoilers!]?”
Anna surveyed the room, and when she was answered with cautious nods she threw her hands into the air.
“You are off your heads, every one of you.”
“Can you not do it?” Thomas asked apprehensively.
Anna toyed with her watch chain so the chain caught the light and glittered. “Oh, I daresay I could.”
There was a collective moan lamenting Thomas’s stupidity in asking such a question. Lucie told Thomas he was a dolt. Thomas begged Anna’s pardon.
“Not at all, Thomas, I know you’re an innocent soul. That said,” Anna drawled, “I take many issues with your request. For a start, it is against my strict policy to seduce anybody twice.”
“Every outlaw must have a code,” James said.
“Good work, Cordelia,” said Anna, swinging her legs off the edge of the settee. “Arabella, how are the drinks coming on?”
Cordelia turned to see a faerie woman with tumbling blue and green hair standing by a sideboard at the far end of the room. Her hands waved in midair like fronds in water, unstoppering decanters and crystal vials full of red liquid, and busily pouring them into a variety of goblets and flutes.
“Just ready, darling!” Arabella said, and walked over to distribute drinks. Matthew accepted a drink with alacrity. Cordelia noticed that Arabella walked with a rocking, unsteady gait, as if she was a sailor unaccustomed to treading on the land.
When Arabella gave Anna her drink, Anna pulled Arabella into her lap. Arabella giggled, kicking up her French heels. Her long legs were shockingly bare, and covered in a faint iridescent pattern of scales. They flashed in the golden light like a rainbow.
A mermaid. So this was Hypatia’s “friend from the seaside.” They were rarely seen on land, since their human legs caused them pain to walk on.
Arabella noticed Cordelia’s gaze and shrugged, shoulders moving fluidly beneath her heavy masses of blue and green hair. “I have not been on land for many years. The last time I visited this city, the Downworlders and Shadowhunters were trying to form the Accords. I was not much impressed with Nephilim then, and I have not been fond of Shadowhunters since. Still, exceptions can be made.”
Before the Accords were formed. The faerie woman had not been on the land for more than thirty years.
Arabella leaned into Anna as she spoke, and Anna’s scarred fingers drifted gently though the waves of the mermaid’s hair. Tiny fish, small as sparks from a fire and bright blue, stirred when disturbed and leaped from strand to strand chasing Anna’s graceful movements.
“My lovely, your hair is like a beautiful stream,” murmured Anna. “Because there are fish in it.”
Arabella blushed. Apparently Anna could seduce multiple people in one evening ..
“But Cortana is still here,” Lucie said, indicating the shining blade. “Daisy will be miserable without it. It’s more than just a sword to her.” She started to struggle upright. “I must bring it to her immediately.”
Lucie took Cordelia’s hand and drew her over to the refreshment table, where a group of girls in colorful dresses had gathered. In the avalanche of introductions, Cordelia caught only a few of their names: Catherine Townsend, Rosamund Wentworth and Ariadne Bridgestock, who had brown skin a shade darker than Cordelia’s own. She was a tall, lovely-looking girl a few years older than the others.
“What a pretty dress,” Ariadne said to Cordelia, her voice warm. Her own gown was of flattering wine-colored silk. “I believe that’s the shade they call ‘ashes of roses.’ Very popular in Paris.”
“Oh, yes,” Cordelia said eagerly. She’d known so few girls growing up — just Lucie, really — so how did one impress them and charm them? It was desperately important. “I did get this dress in Paris, as a matter of fact. On Rue de la Paix. Jeanne Paquin made it herself.”
She saw Lucie’s eyes widen in concern. Rosamund’s lips tightened. “How fortunate you are,” she said coolly. “Most of us here in the poky little London Enclave rarely get to travel abroad. You must think us so dull.”
“Oh,” said Cordelia, realizing she had put her foot in it. “No, not at all —“
“My mother has always said Shadowhunters aren’t meant to have much of an interest in fashion,” said Catherine. “She says it’s mundane.”
“Someone ought to tell Matthew,” said Ariadne. “Or is that rule only for girls?”
Rosamund rolled her eyes. “Ariadne, really —“ she began, and broke off with a laugh. “Speak of the devils,” she said. “Look who’s just come in.”
She was looking toward the far doors of the ballroom, through which two boys had just spilled. Cordelia saw James first, as she always did. He was tall, beautiful, smiling: a painter’s vision in black and white with tousled ebony hair.
She heard Lucie groan as the girls whispered among themselves: she caught James’ name in the whispers, and then a second name in the same breath: Matthew Fairchild.
They raced away from the greenhouse, through overgrown grass and tangled weeds. When they were some distance away, in a clearing near the entrance to what had once been the Italian Gardens, James came up short.
Cordelia nearly stumbled into him. She was dizzy, her vision blurring. The pain in her leg had returned, redoubled. She dropped her witchlight into the grass, and sank to the ground.
They were in a small hollow of overgrowth; the greenhouse was a great dark star in the distance, capping a rise of garden. Dark trees leaned together overhead, their branches knotted. The air at least was clean and cool, and Cordelia gulped it in as she reached for her stele.
“Daisy.” James went down on his knees, facing her in the grass. “Daisy, let me see.”
She looked at him. He had put the gun away, though she could still see it tucked into his waistband. His black hair was tangled, full of leaves and bits of grass.
“Daisy.” James placed his hands gently on her ankle, above her low leather boots, and began to raise the leg of her trousers. The hem was soaked through with blood, and Cordelia couldn’t hold back a small noise as her ankle was bared.
The skin looked as if it had been torn with a serrated knife. The top of her boot was drenched in blood.
James drew his stele from his inside pocket. With infinite care, he touched the tip to her calf — the horror, Cordelia thought, that her mother would have experienced at the idea of a boy touching her daughter’s leg — and traced the outlines of a healing rune.
It felt as if someone had poured cool water over her burning skin. She watched as the injured flesh began to knit itself back together, slashed skin sealing up as if years of healing had been compressed into seconds.
“You look as if you’ve never seen what an iratze can do,” James said, a small quirk to the corner of his mouth. “Have you not been injured before?”
“Not this badly,” said Cordelia. She sighed. “I know I should have — you must be thinking what a baby I’ve been.”
“Not at all. I was thinking that you reminded me a bit of Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights. My mother has a favorite passage about how she was bitten by a bull-dog — “She did not yell out—no! she would have scorned to do it if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow.’”
“The natural state of Shadowhunters is battle,” said Tessa. “When it is always ongoing, there is no time to stop and think that it is not an ideal state for happiness. Alas, we have had that time for the past decade or so. Perhaps we had begun to think ourselves invincible.”
“People are only invincible in books,” said Cordelia.
“I think you will find most of the time, not even then,” said Tessa. “But at least we can always pick up a book and read it anew. Stories offer a thousand fresh starts.”
It was true, Cordelia thought. She had read the story of Layla and Majnun a thousand times, and each time the beginning was a thrill, even though she knew—and dreaded—the end.
Last night,” Cordelia said, “you were most appallingly rude to me, and I would like an apology.”
James looked up at her. So this was what it would be like to be taller than James, she thought. She didn’t mind it. His expression was calm, unreadable even. It wasn’t an unfriendly look, but it was entirely closed off, letting no one in. It was an expression she had seen on James’ face before: she had always thought of it privately as The Mask.
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to apologize?”
Maybe it wasn’t better to be taller than him, she thought. When he looked up at her, he had to do it through his eyelashes, which were thick and black as the silk fringes on a scarf. “I am trying to think of the best way to do it. What I did—leaving you on the dance floor—was unforgivable. I am trying to think of a reason you ought to forgive me anyway, because if you did not, it would break my heart.”
She cleared her throat. “That is a decent start.”
His smile was faint, but real. “You’ve always had a charitable heart, Daisy.”
“Don’t you Daisy me,” she said. “Have you taken the time to understand what it is to be a girl in such a situation? A girl cannot ask a gentleman to dance; she is at the mercy of the choice of the opposite sex. She cannot even refuse a dance if it is asked of her. To have a boy walk away from her on the dance floor is humiliating. To have it happen when one is wearing a truly frightful gown, even more so. They will all be discussing what is wrong with me.”
His eyes flew wide. “Wrong with you?” he repeated. “There is nothing wrong with you. Everything you say is true, and I am a fool for not having thought of it before. All I can do is swear to you that you will never lack at any social event in future, someone to stand up with or dance attendance on you. You might not credit it, having met Thomas and Christopher and Matthew, but they are quite popular. We can make you the toast of the season.”
“Really?” she said. “Thomas and Christopher and Matthew are popular?”
He laughed. “Yes, and I can make you a further promise as well. If I offend you again, I will wear a truly frightful gown to the next significant social gathering.
As they came out from the avenue and into the broad circular drive in front of the house, Lucie was struck by the destroyed beauty of the manor. A double set of stairs, wonderfully constructed, led up to a broad entryway: blackened vines twisted their way around fluted columns. If she cast her gaze up she could see the balconies her mother had spoken of-but they had been taken over by clusters of thorns.
James broke off. The wind caught the edges of his black morning coat. They flew like wings at his sides.
“You worry about Lucie?” asked Cordelia, a little puzzled.
“It’s not that,” James said. “I suppose I worry we all tumble into our roles too easily—Christopher the scientist, Thomas the kind one, Matthew the libertine. And I—I don’t know what I am, exactly.”
“You are the leader,” said Cordelia.
He looked amused. “Am I?”
“The four of you are tightly knit,” said Cordelia. “Anyone could see that. And none of you is so simple. Thomas is more than just kind, and Christopher more than beakers and test tubes, Matthew more than wit and waistcoats. Each of you follows his own star— but you are the thread that binds all four together. You are the one who sees what everyone needs, if anyone requires extra care from their friends, or even to be left alone. Some groups of friends drift apart, but you would never let that happen.”
James’s amusement had gone. There was a little roughness in his voice when he said, “So I am the one who cares the most, is that it?”
“Ah, Magnus Bane,” said Matthew. “My personal hero.”
“Indeed you once described him as Oscar Wilde if he had magic powers,” said James.
“I’ll ruin her life, if you want to play that game.” Tatiana jabbed a finger towards James’ chest. “You care, Herondale. This is your weakness.”
“The point of stories is not that they are objectively true, but that the soul of the story is truer than reality. Those who mock fiction do so because they fear the truth.”
1897
“Don’t scream,” said a voice above her. “It’ll bring them.”
Lucie threw her head back and stared. Leaning down over the side of the pit was a boy. Older than her brother, James—maybe even sixteen years old. He had a lovely melancholy face and straight black hair without a hint of curl. The ends of his hair almost touched the collar of his shirt.
“Bring who?” Lucie put her fists on her hips.
“The faeries,” he said. “This is one of their pit traps. They usually use them to catch animals, but they’d be very pleased to find a little girl instead.”
Anna was in trousers and a jacket of sharp French tailoring. Her blue eyes were the exact color of Will’s, darker than Lucie’s: they matched her waistcoat, and the lapis head of her walking stick.
“Have you seen James?” Cordelia demanded without preamble. “No,” said Anna shortly. “No clue as to his whereabouts, I’m afraid.”
Cordelia frowned, not because of James, but because of Anna’s expression. “Anna? What’s wrong?”
Anna scowled. “I had come here to horsewhip Charles, but it appears that he is elsewhere.”
“Charles Fairchild?” Cordelia echoed blankly. “I believe he’s at home—he called a gathering at his house for high-ranking Clave officials. You could go horsewhip him there, but it would make for a very strange meeting.”
“High-ranking Clave officials?” Anna rolled her eyes. “Well, no wonder I don’t know about it. So I suppose I’ll have to wait until later to puncture him like the pustulant boil he is.”
“You should not thank me,” Cordelia said. “Or treat me as though I am being entirely unselfish.”
James raised his winging black eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Of course I want to help, but I also cannot help believing that if I were able to do such a service to the Clave as aiding in ending this demonic disease, surely they would grant my father leniency in his trial.”
“I wouldn’t call that selfish,” said James. “What you are talking about is undertaking to do good for the sake of your father and your family.”
Cordelia smiled weakly. “Well, I’m sure you’ll add that to the list of my many qualities when you are helping me find a husband.”
James did not smile back. “Daisy,” he said. “I cannot—I do not think that I—” He cleared his throat. “I am not the right person to find you a husband.”
#23 a, b & c
a “Christopher was the son of James’s aunt Cecily and uncle Gabriel. He had the fine bone structure of his parents, dark brown hair…”
b “Anna, Cordelia realized. This was Anna Lightwood, Lucie’s cousin.”
c “Anna indeed,” said James. “And there is her brother, Christopher, dancing with Rosamund Wentworth.”
Alexander looked mutinous. “Not fair,” he said. He was tired and fussy, as he had been awake for many hours past his usual bed- time. Lucie wasn’t sure what time it was exactly; it all seemed strangely like a bad dream, timeless and imprecise.
Lucie glanced up and frowned. “Jessamine. Don’t take the child’s ball from him.”
“I just want to be included,” Jessamine protested.
Lucie hesitated. She knew what she ought to say about the way Matthew had chosen to address his pain, but she could not bear to say the words to her brother. A moment later she was spared the choice as footsteps sounded in the hall. Her mother and father came in, both bright-eyed from the brisk wind outside. Tessa stopped to set her gloves on a small Moroccan table by the door, while Will swept over to kiss Lucie and ruffle James’s hair.
“Gracious,” said James, his tone light. “What is the meaning of all this unbridled affection?”
“We were with your aunt and uncle,” said Tessa, and Lucie realized her mother’s eyes were a bit too bright. Tessa took a seat on the sofa. “My poor loves. All our hearts are shattered.”
Will sighed. “I remember when Gideon and Gabriel could barely stand each other. I am glad you and James have each other, Luce.”
Will sat down beside his wife and pulled her into his lap. “I am going to kiss your mother now,” he announced. “Flee if you will, children. If not, we could play Ludo when the romance is over.”
“The romance is never over,” said James glumly.
He was terribly, shockingly pale: his green eyes fever-bright and shadowed.
“I was invited,” he said.
“You can’t have been,” Lucie said, putting her hands on her hips. The witchlight had flared up, and she could see that the room was in some disarray: someone had knocked over a decanter, and the billiard table was crosswise. “You are a forest-dwelling faerie changeling.”
At that, he laughed. He had the same smile she remembered. “Is that what you thought?”
“You told me about faerie traps!” she said. “You appeared from the forest and vanished back into it—”
“I am no faerie, nor a changeling,” he said. “Shadowhunters know about faerie traps too.”
“But you have no runes,” she said.
“Barbara laughed. Cordelia envied her, to have such an easy rapport with her mother. A moment later a brown-haired boy approached and invited Barbara to dance; she was whisked away, and Tessa steered Sona and Cordelia to the next table, where Lucie’s uncle Gabriel Lightwood sat beside a beautiful woman with long dark hair and blue eyes—his wife, Cecily. Will Herondale was leaning against the edge of their table, arms folded, smiling.
Will looked over as they approached, and his face softened when he saw Tessa, and behind her, Cordelia. In him, Cordelia could see a bit of what James would become when he was grown. “
A demon lunged for Alastair: Cordelia brought Cortana down in a great curving arc, severing its head.
Alastair looked peevish. “Really,” he said. “I could have done that on my own.”
Lucie went to pat Xanthos’s soft, white- speckled nose; Cordelia tried to smile at Bridget, who was eyeing them both suspiciously.
“Carriage all ready for you, Miss Baggage,” Bridget said to Lucie. “Try to not get in trouble. It fusses your parents.”
“I’m just taking Cordelia home,” Lucie said, blinking innocently. Bridget wandered off, muttering about finding certain people stuck in certain trees while sneaking out of certain windows. Lucie bent to whisper something in Xanthos’s ear before gesturing for Cordelia to join her in the carriage. “It’s all glamoured,” she explained, as the brougham rattled under the open gate and into the streets of London. “It would upset the mundanes to see a carriage racing about with no driver.”
“So the horse knows where to take us?” Cordelia settled back against the upholstered bench seat. “But it’s not to Cornwall Gardens?”
Lucie shook her head. “Balios and Xanthos are special horses. And we’re going to Chiswick House.”
Cordelia stared. “Chiswick House? We’re going to see Grace and Tatiana? Oh, Lucie, I don’t know—”
Instagram and Twitter Snippets
“Wanting what you can’t have will only rip your heart apart.” – Matthew
“No one can follow me into the shadows. Not even you.” – James
There was something about the comfort of your parabatai – no one else could give it to you, not mother or sister or father or lover. It was a transcendence of all that.
“Thomas was more than just kind, and Christopher more than beakers and test tubes, Matthew more than wit and waistcoats. Each of you follows his own star—but you are the thread that binds all four together.”
“The point of stories is not that they are objectively true, but that the soul of the story is truer than reality.”
“Herondale boy. I know you. The blood of demons burns in your veins. Why destroy your own kind?”
“There is no special protection in this world for kind people.”
Matthew
“All pain fades. All misery passes. Humanity is drawn to light, not darkness.”
“There is no better distraction in this world than losing yourself in books for a while.”
So many people loved without hope of return, without the dream of a touch or a glance from the object of their affection. They pined away like mortal starving for faerie fruit.
Furthermore, Cassie’s publisher Simon and Schuster also shared some snippets online:
“Tea is always an excuse for a clandestine agenda.”
“Perhaps being dead has made you forget how precious and perilous life is.”
“We suffer for love because love is worth it.”
“That’s everyone’s dream, isn’t it? Instead of many who give you little pieces of themselves—one who gives you everything.”
“You decide the the truth about yourself. No one else. And the choice about what kind of person you will be is yours alone.”
Flash fiction
May – The Devil Tavern / June – Days Past: Lucie and Cordelia / July – Days Past: Christopher /
August – Cirenworth Hall / September – The City of Bones / October – Lucie and Ghosts /
November – A Lightwood Christmas Carol, Part 1 / December – A Lightwood Christmas Carol, Part 2 / January – The Anniversary Party, Part 1 / February – The Anniversary Party, Part 2
That’s it! Check TMISource.com on Sunday for an overview of the most important information about Chain of Gold.
TMI Source 
This is awesome! Definitely missed a few of these when they were posted.