It seemed almost as if she were begging him to say it even if he did not mean it, but what would be the point of that? No. She must want him to mean it. To be willing to do it: risk the end of the only life he knew, risk never seeing any of those he loved again. He closed his eyes and saw, against the backs of his eyelids, the faces of his parents. His sister. Jem. Thomas. Christopher. Matthew. Matthew, who he would be damaging in a way that might never be repaired.

He struggled to say the words, to shape them. When he finally spoke, his voice was as hoarse as if he had been screaming. “No. I cannot do it.”

He saw her flinch back. “This is because you did not come to Idris,” she said, her lips trembling. “At the beginning of this summer. You—you forgot me.”

“I could never have forgotten you. Not after weeks, or months, or years, Grace.”

“Any man would marry me,” she went on. “Any man would do this if I asked him. But not you. You have to be different.” Her mouth twisted. “You are made of different stuff than other men.”

James flung up a hand in protest. “Grace, I do want to marry you—”

“Not enough.” She took a step back from him—then her eyes widened suddenly, and she screamed. James’s body moved faster than thought. He flung himself at Grace and they both hit the pavement hard. Grace gasped and pressed herself against the river wall as a demon shot past them, a hairbreadth away.

And it was a demon. A dark, twisted shape like a mangled tree root, eyeless and noseless but with thorn-sharp brown teeth, its body coated with black slime. It had no wings, but long, bent legs like a frog’s: it sprang at them again, and this time James yanked a blade from his belt and flung it. Runes flashed across the blade like fire as it sailed through the air and struck, nearly blowing apart the demon’s chest. Ichor splattered, and it vanished back to its own dimension.

Grace had scrambled to her feet; he pulled her up the steps and onto the bridge, for a better vantage point. “A Cerberus demon,” she said, blinking. “But it was dead—the one in the greenhouse was dead—that’s why I thought I could leave—” She sucked in her breath. “Oh, God. There are more of them coming.”

She thrust out her hands as if she could push them away. They were coming, indeed: dark shapes were appearing through the fog from the middle of the bridge, crawling and leaping like hellish frog-monsters, slithering and slipping across the wet road. As one hopped toward them, it shot out a long, black, sticky tongue, snatched up an unfortunate pigeon, and deposited the bird into its fanged mouth.