James tried to focus on Matthew’s face. It wasn’t as easy as it ought to have been. Lights danced behind his eyelids when he closed them, and his hands were still shaking. Surely this could not be from one sip of blue ruin. He knew he wasn’t drunk, but a feeling of detachment was still there. As if nothing he did now mattered. “Tell me, Matthew,” he said. “Tell me the name of the shadow that is always hanging over you. I can become a shadow. I could fight it for you.”

Matthew squeezed his eyes shut, as if in pain. “Oh, Jamie,” he sighed. “What if I said there is no shadow?”

“I would not believe you,” said James. “I know what I feel in my own heart.”

“James,” said Matthew. “You’re starting to slide off the bridge.”

“Good.” James closed his eyes. “Maybe I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

Matthew leaped down, just in time to catch James as he slumped backward off the wall.

James knelt upon the roof of the Institute. He knew that he was dreaming, yet at the same time it felt impossible that what was happening to him was not real: he could see London laid out before him as clearly as a painting, see its roads and alleys and boulevards, see the stars hanging high above the city, pale white as the pearly teeth of a child’s doll. He could see himself, as from a distance, see the black of his hair, and the deeper black of the wings that rose from his back.

He saw himself struggle with the weight of the wings. They were jagged and dark, with overlapping layers of feathers that shaded from deep black to gray. He realized then—they were not his wings: a monster knelt on his back, a creature whose face he could not see. A humped, misshapen thing, in pale gray rags, its sharp talons dug deep into his back.

He felt the pain. It was as fierce as fire, burning through his skin; he staggered to his feet, twisting and turning as if he could hurl the creature off him. Light blazed up all around him—pale gold light, the same light he had seen when he had passed into the shadow realm and then into the Chiswick greenhouse.

The light of Cortana.

He saw her there, the blade in her hand, her hair like fire. She cut at the creature on James’s back, and with a searing pain it tore away from him, Cortana sunk deep into its body. It fell away, tumbling down the steep incline of the roof.

James’s shirt was rags, soaked in blood. He could feel more blood trickling between his shoulder blades. Cordelia ran to him. She whispered his name: James, James, as if no one had ever spoken it before.