“Jesse Blackthorn,” she said. “I command you to bring me with you to my brother. Take me to Highgate Cemetery.”

He stiffened. “Lucie. No.”

Grace took a step toward them, looking puzzled. She began to reach out her hand toward Jesse.

“I command it,” Lucie said fiercely. With a look of fury on his face, Jesse pulled her into his arms, and the ground disappeared beneath her feet.

20 LESS THAN GODS

Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous

To less than gods. On the other side up rose

Belial, in act more graceful and humane.

A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed

For dignity composed, and high exploit.

—John Milton, Paradise Lost

“The rope is still slack,” Matthew said, after some interminable amount of time had gone by in the graveyard. He was very pale; Cordelia was worried about him. James’s passage into the other world seemed to be sapping his strength.

Cordelia had come as close to the archway as she could. She’d thought perhaps she could glimpse James through it, but she saw only a view of dead ground and broken trees, and a red moon rising.

“What if something’s happened to him?” Matthew asked.

“You told James to yank on the rope if he needed to get out,” said Cordelia. “He knows what to do.” She glanced down; she could see where his faint footprints led up to the archway and abruptly vanished. She reached out to touch the space below the arch, experimentally—maybe there was a weak spot in the barrier?

There was not. It was as unyielding as granite. Through it, she could see individual grains of sand stirred by the wind of another world. It seemed so close.

There was a crack as the rope pulled taut. Cordelia whirled as Matthew shouted out, the rope whiplashing forward, yanking him off his feet. He hit the ground hard on his back, struggling as he was dragged toward the archway.

He scrabbled at the earth, trying to slow his progress, his clothes catching and ripping on roots protruding from the ground. He slammed into the archway, hard, just before the rope went slack—he rolled away, groaning, as Cordelia ran toward him, unsheathing Cortana.

She dropped to her knees beside Matthew. There was dirt and blood in his hair. She caught at the rope, raising her blade.

“No,” Matthew rasped. “James—”

He didn’t want her to cut the connection to James, she knew. But being repeatedly slammed into the barrier between this world and the next would kill Matthew. Cordelia knew that, too; even if Matthew didn’t care, she did.

She brought Cortana down, cutting the rope around Matthew’s waist. Matthew rolled onto his stomach, struggling to his knees, just as Cordelia seized the severed end of the rope, wrapping a loose coil around her wrist and gripping as tightly as she could.

“Cordelia—” Matthew reached for her.