They emerged in a shadowy grove ringed with tombs, the sky above them the deep blue of late twilight. James was there, standing still as a statue. A statue of a dark prince, all in black, with hair like crow’s feathers. He was in the process of casting aside his jacket, puzzlingly, since it had grown cold now that it was evening.

He was not looking at Matthew or Cordelia, but at something in the distance. His expression was stark, his eyes ringed with darkness. He looked ill, Cordelia realized with dismay. As if, just as Matthew had said, there was something very wrong.

Matthew cupped his hands around his mouth. “James!”

James turned slowly, dropping his jacket to the ground. He was moving mechanically, like an automaton.

Cordelia’s unease mounted. She went toward James, slowly, as if she were approaching a startled deer in the forest. He watched her with restless gold eyes; there was color in his cheeks, a high consumptive flush. She heard Matthew curse under his breath.

“James,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

He rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt. On the back of his wrist, just above where the cuff of his shirt would have ended, were four small, bloody crescents, surrounded by a tracery of darkening veins.

Nail marks.

“Christopher,” said James, and Cordelia remembered with horror the way Christopher had clutched at James in the sickroom, gripping his wrist. “I know he didn’t mean to.” His mouth twisted into a painful smile. “No one tell him. He’d be so upset.”

Oh, James, no. Please, no. She thought of Oliver Hayward, dead because Barbara had clawed him in her last agonies. Not James.

Matthew’s voice shook. “We have to go back to the Silent City. We have to get you to Jem—”

“No,” Cordelia whispered. “It isn’t safe for James there. If we went to the Institute—or brought Jem there—”

“Absolutely not,” said James very calmly. “I’m not going anywhere. Not anywhere in London, at least.”

“Bloody hell, he’s hallucinating,” said Matthew with a groan.

But Cordelia didn’t think he was. In a low voice, she said, “James. What do you see?”

James raised his hand and pointed. “There. Between those two trees.”

And he was right—suddenly Cordelia, and Matthew as well, could see what James had been staring at all this time. Between two cedar trees was a large archway. It seemed to be made of dark light; it curved with Gothic flourishes, as though it were part of the cemetery, but Cordelia knew it was not. Through it, she could glimpse a swirl of dark chaos, as if she were looking through a Portal into the vastness of black space itself.

“A gateway,” said Matthew slowly.

“Like Ariadne said,” whispered Cordelia. “James—your blood—” She shook her head. “Don’t. Don’t do it, whatever it is. Everything about this feels wrong.”