“If you truly love me,” she said, her gray eyes flaring, “then you will marry me. Now. We must elope. If we were mundanes, we could run to Gretna Green and marry, and nothing could tear us apart. I would belong to you, and not to her.”

James was stunned. “But we are not mundanes. Their marriage ceremony would not be considered valid by the Clave. Marry me in a Shadowhunter ceremony, Grace. You don’t need her permission—”

“We cannot do that,” Grace protested. “We cannot remain in the Shadowhunter world where my mother can reach us. We must escape her influence, her ability to punish us. We must be married in Gretna and if needs be, we will let our Marks be stripped.”

“Let our Marks be stripped?” James went cold all over. Having your Marks stripped was the most severe punishment a Shadowhunter could endure. It meant exile and becoming a mundane.

He tried to imagine never seeing his parents again, or Lucie, or Christopher or Thomas. Having the bond that tied him to Matthew severed, like having his right hand sliced off. Becoming a mundane and losing everything that made him a Shadowhunter. “Grace, no. That isn’t the answer.”

“It isn’t the answer for you,” she said coolly, “for you have always been a Shadowhunter. I have never been trained, never borne but a few Marks. I know nothing of the history, I have no warrior partner nor friends—I might as well have been raised a mundane!”

“In other words,” said James, “you would be losing nothing, and I would be losing everything.”

Grace stepped out of James’s arms. Pain took her place, the ache of being without her. It was physical, inexpressible, and unexplainable. It was simply what it was: when she was not there, he felt it like a wound.

“You would not be losing me,” said Grace.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, as steadily as he could through the pain. “But we have only to wait a little while and we can be together without also losing everything else.”

“You don’t understand,” Grace cried. “You can’t. You don’t know—”

“Then tell me. What is it? What don’t I know?”

Her voice was hoarse. “I must have you do this for me, James,” she said. “I must. It is so important. More than you can know. Only say you will. Only say it.”