There was little to slow Cordelia and the others down until they reached Highgate, where the narrow streets were snarled up with evening traffic. The driver of the hansom cab, refusing to brave the bottleneck, deposited them in front of a pub on Salisbury Road.

James asked Cordelia and Matthew to wait while he went to search for the entrance to the Silent City. It often moved about within the cemetery, he had told Cordelia in the carriage, and could be found in various locations depending on the day.

Matthew gave the pub a longing look, but was soon distracted by a large stone tablet at the junction of Highgate Hill and Salisbury Road. It was caged by iron rails and carved with the words THRICE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON.

“ ‘Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London Town,’  ” said Matthew, with a dramatic gesture. “This is where it’s meant to have happened—him hearing the Bow Bells, I mean.”

Cordelia nodded; she had been told the story often enough when she was a child. Richard Whittington had been a mundane boy who set out from London with his cat, determined to make his fortune elsewhere, only to hear the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow calling him back to a promised glory if he returned. And so he had, and become mayor of London, three times.

Cordelia wasn’t sure what had happened to the cat. All the stories might be true, she thought, but it would be awfully nice if such obvious signals were on offer for her own destiny.

Matthew slipped his silver flask from his waistcoat and began to unscrew it. Though he was in gear, he had not sacrificed his blue spats to duty. Cordelia only looked at him as he tipped back his head and swallowed, then screwed the cap back on. “Dutch courage,” he said.

“Are the Dutch particularly brave, or just particularly drunk?” she asked, her voice sharper than she’d intended.

“A little of both, I imagine.” His tone was light, but he put away the flask. “Did you know Dick Whittington’s cat might never have existed? Scandalous fiction, apparently.”

“Does it matter if he had a cat or not?”

“The truth always matters,” Matthew said.

“Not when it comes to stories,” Cordelia said. “The point of stories is not that they are objectively true, but that the soul of the story is truer than reality. Those who mock fiction do so because they fear the truth.”

She felt, rather than saw, Matthew turn to look at her in the dimming light. His voice was hoarse. “James is my parabatai,” he said. “And I love him. The only thing that I have never understood about him is his feelings for Grace Blackthorn. I have wished for a long time for him to place his affections somewhere else, and yet, when I saw him with you in the Whispering Room, I was not happy.”