Cordelia still had the rope they had used to climb to Gast’s window. Matthew took it from her; as James and Cordelia looked on, mystified, he secured one end of the rope around James’s waist.

Despite the shaking of his hands, he tied an excellent knot.

The other end of the rope he secured around his own waist.When he was done, he looked steadily at James. “Go on, then,” he said. “If something happens—if you need us to pull you back through—tug on the rope three times.”

“I will,” James said. He turned to Cordelia; he was standing so close to the archway that the outline of his left side seemed grayed out, as if he were a sketch that was rapidly being erased. “Cordelia—”

Cordelia leaned over and kissed James swiftly on the cheek. She saw him blink and touch his fingers to the spot in surprise. “Come back,” she said.

James nodded. There was nothing more for any of them to say. With a last look behind him, James stepped through the archway and disappeared.

The world beyond the archway was black and gray. James moved first through amorphous shapes, and then into a place where a path wound between dunes of dry sand. The air was thick and acrid and tasted of smoke, and dust seemed to blow ceaselessly through the air, forcing him to shield his eyes with one hand.

Just above him, he could see a hole in gray-black clouds, and strange constellations of stars. They gleamed like the eyes of spiders. Some distance away, clouds had gathered and black rain was falling.

His only comfort was the rope around his waist. Like all Shadowhunter rope, its reach was much longer than it appeared: it unrolled and unrolled behind him with no sign of running out. He kept tight hold of it with his right hand: somewhere on the other end were Matthew and Cordelia.

After some time, the landscape changed. For the first time he saw the ruins of what had once been a civilization. Broken pillars littered the dry ground, along with the crumbling remains of old stone walls. In the far distance he thought he could make out the shape of a watchtower.

The path curved around a dune. When James emerged from the other side, he could see the tower more clearly. It rose like a spear against the torn sky. In front of him was a square surrounded by the ruins of walls, and in the middle of the square stood a man.