“That doesn’t seem small,” said Cordelia.

Malcolm smiled thinly. “For Leviathan, it was as if you wished to enter your house through a mousehole. He could only poke a few of his lesser tendrils through.”

“Those were his lesser tendrils?” James said. He pushed his hair back out of his face; there were bloodstains on his hands. “It’s because the sigil wasn’t completed. Because Charles didn’t die.”

“I’m feeling much better,” said Charles, though James would not have described him as looking much better. He was still quite pale, his lips bluish. There was only so much quick spells and blood-replacement runes could do. He squinted at Malcolm. “Are you the High Warlock?” he said. “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance at last. I’m Charles Fairchild—you might know my mother, the Consul.”

“Charles,” Matthew muttered through clenched teeth. “You’ve just been stabbed.”

Charles was undeterred. “I regret, of course, that we didn’t meet under more auspicious circumstances—”

“Save your strength,” Malcolm said, rather curtly. “You’ll never get your political career off the ground if you die of your wounds today.” He turned to James. “This talk of a sigil is very interesting, but I can keep mundanes out of this garden for only so long. There is a school here, and a church; fairly soon there will begin to be a commotion. I suggest we return to the Institute.”

“Not without Jesse,” said Lucie. “He fought back, he—” She broke off, looking at Malcolm. “He ought to have the Shadowhunter funeral his mother denied him years ago.” She turned to Matthew. “Math, could we borrow your ridiculous overcoat? To wrap Jesse in?”

Matthew looked both sympathetic and slightly vexed as he shucked off the coat. “Yes,” he said, “but it isn’t ridiculous.”

“It isn’t nearly your most ridiculous overcoat,” James allowed. “But it is also far from your least.”

Muttering, Matthew rose and handed the overcoat to Lucie. James and Matthew maneuvered Charles to his feet, draping his arm over Matthew’s shoulder. The group made their way the short distance across the park to where Jesse’s body lay, the Blackthorn sword fallen nearby.

Lucie knelt down and, with her fingertips, closed his eyes gently. She laid the sword on his chest and folded his arms over it, tucking his hands over the hilt.

“Ave atque vale, Jesse Blackthorn,” said James, looking at the pale face he remembered from Highgate Cemetery. The ghost who had saved his life. Hail and farewell, my brother. I wish I had known you.

Flame sparked from Malcolm’s fingers as he began to open a Portal through to the Institute. James wrapped Jesse’s body in Matthew’s medium-ridiculous overcoat, and Malcolm scooped him up as though he weighed no more than a child. Matthew and Charles approached, slowly; Charles was walking under his own power, although leaning heavily on Matthew. Cordelia had taken hold of Lucie’s hand, and she held it tightly as—without a glance back—Malcolm went through the Portal carrying Jesse.

The rest of them followed.

26

OLDER THAN GODS

With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour;

And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour:

And its vapor and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be;

And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depths as the roots of the sea:

And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air:

And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare.

Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods?

Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye Gods?

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Hymn to Proserpine”

The Portal deposited them just inside the front gates of the Institute.

Lucie had tried to prepare herself, but her first glimpse of the church was still a shock. The courtyard had been rucked up like a rug. Stones lay in great uneven piles, scattering the ground from the iron gates to the front steps. Water ran in rivulets through the cracks in the remaining flagstone, smelling of brine and ocean. A massive hole in the center of the courtyard seemed punched there by a giant.

For once, Lucie didn’t feel as if any of this would make a good subject for a novel. She felt drained and exhausted, and worried for Cordelia. Since finding out she was Lilith’s paladin, Daisy hadn’t smiled once; she seemed locked away in her own private unhappiness, the way James often did. Matthew kept glancing at Cordelia covertly, his own expression troubled.

They had battled both Belial and Lilith and survived, Lucie thought, yet it felt very little like a victory. She was finding it more difficult than she would have thought to preserve the impression that she and Malcolm barely knew each other, and had very definitely not previously had several intense and secret conversations about necromancy. Secrets were horrible things to keep, she reflected: she’d only barely remembered before they stepped through the Portal to warn James that their parents thought she’d spent the previous night at Curzon Street instead of haring off to Chiswick House to try to prevent Belial from again possessing Jesse.

“I would prefer not to walk into the Institute carrying the body of a Shadowhunter,” said Malcolm. “I fear it might create the wrong impression.”

“I’ll bring you to the Sanctuary,” Lucie said. “We can lay out Jesse’s body there.”

James kissed her forehead. “Don’t take too long. I expect once Mam and Dad realize we haven’t all been tucked safely up at Curzon Street, they’ll be desperate to see you.”

Lucie led Malcolm toward the Sanctuary, picking her way among the rubble. Fade strode behind her silently, carrying Jesse; he was gazing around speculatively, as if assessing the damage. Lucie couldn’t help but wonder: Was the Institute damaged inside as well? Would they need to move? She could see a few ragged places where stones had been torn from the front edifice, but it seemed to be standing strongly.

A cloaked figure came around the corner of the building, near the door to the Sanctuary. Ghost, Lucie thought at first before she realized: no, this was someone real and alive. The figure turned, and she saw Grace, wrapped in a dark gray cloak, only a bit of her hair and face visible beneath the hood.

“Hush,” Malcolm said, causing Lucie to bristle slightly—it wasn’t as if she’d been about to call out Grace’s name. She wasn’t a fool. “I told her to meet us here. Come.”

Lucie glanced over anxiously at the other end of the courtyard, but if James had noticed Grace at all, he gave no sign—he was greeting several Shadowhunters who had emerged from the Institute. Lucie recognized Charlotte, who had made a distressed beeline for her sons.

Grace moved out of the shadows toward Malcolm and Lucie, then recoiled as she caught sight of the bundle in Malcolm’s arms. “What happened? Is he—is that Jesse?”

Lucie put a finger to her lips and ushered her companions into the Sanctuary. Inside, there were still signs of Thomas and Alastair’s imprisonment—a chair turned over, a messy pile of blankets, the remnants of food. Malcolm carried Jesse to a long mahogany table and laid him down there, discarding the overcoat.