The Pyxis exploded. The Shadowhunters yelled and dived out of the way as wooden shrapnel blew in all directions. Wind tore across the bridge, flattening Cordelia to her knees, a howling hurricane of fire-scented air.

At last the howling died down. The bridge was empty and silent, only the wind blowing a bit of discarded refuse back and forth across the roadway. Cordelia rose to her feet and reached down a hand to help Lucie up after her. Ahead, she could still see the glimmering light of Magnus’s bridge, mundane traffic still making its way across it.

“—too easy,” Thomas finished. His face was smeared with soot.

“Bloody hell,” said James, reaching for a knife, just as the world seemed to explode around them.

Out of the wind and air, the Mandikhor suddenly appeared, twice as big as it had been before, and clothed in ragged darkness. It rose above them like a shadow drawn in blood, its head thrown back, each of its talons gleaming like a dagger.

James flung his knife just as the Mandikhor sprang toward him, shadows spilling from it and racing across the bridge in all directions. The world had turned gray and black again. James could see London on either side of the river, but it was a ruined London, the Tower shattered and broken, fires burning along the wharves, the blackened spires of churches standing as skeletons against a smoke-stained sky. He could hear his friends all around him, their shouts and cries as they fought back the shadows, but he could no longer see them. He was alone in his nightmare realm.

The Mandikhor leaped toward him and seized hold of him. James had been braced for an attack, but this was something different: the demon was holding him fast, claws sunk into the front of his gear jacket. Its lips curled back from its teeth. “Come with me,” the demon hissed. “Come with me, child of demons, to where you will be honored. You see the same world I do. You see the world as it really is. I know who your mother is, and who your grandfather is. Come with me.”

James went cold.

I know who your mother is, and who your grandfather is. He thought of the demon in the park: Why destroy your own kind?

“I am a Shadowhunter,” he said. “I will not listen to your lies.”

“You know I speak the truth,” said the Mandikhor, its hot breath searing James’s skin. “I swear on the names of Asmodeus, of Belial, of Belphegor and Sammael, that I can end this scourge if you will come with me. No more need die.”

James froze. A demon, swearing on the names of the Princes of Hell. A voice in the back of his head screamed, Do it! Go with him! End the sickening, the dying! Another voice, quieter but steadier, whispered, Demons lie. Even when they swear, they lie.

“No,” he said, but his voice shook.