Cordelia tried to rise to her feet but screamed out in pain and collapsed back to her knees. Lucie, kneeling over James, looked at her with sudden panic. “Daisy—”

“It’s nothing,” Cordelia said. “Please, there must be something we can do for James—” She drew in a shuddering breath. “He killed the Mandikhor. He destroyed it. He can’t die. It’s not fair.”

Matthew was kneeling by James’s side, his stele already in his hand. Runes given by one’s parabatai were always the most powerful: Matthew’s hands were steady as he scrolled healing runes over James’s hands, his wrists, the base of his throat.

They all froze, holding their breath. Cordelia, painfully, pulled herself closer, her scarlet hair hanging down to touch the green leaves on the ground. Her gaze was fixed on James.

The iratzes on his skin shimmered—and vanished.

“They won’t work.” It was Jesse. The anger had left his face now; he stood near Cordelia, unseen by anyone but Lucie, and there was a terrible sorrow in his eyes. “He is too close to death.”

Matthew gasped. His hand flew to his chest: he pressed there, hard, as if a knife had gone into his heart and he was trying to stop the bleeding. His face was utterly white. “He’s dying,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can feel it.”

Lucie caught at her brother’s hands. They were cold in hers, unmoving. Tears spilled from her eyes, and onto his face, tracing tracks in the grime. “Please, Jamie,” she whispered. “Please don’t die. Please take another breath. For Mam and Papa. For me.”

“Give him mine,” said Jesse.

Lucie’s head jerked up. She stared at Jesse. There was an odd look on his face: a strange, almost luminous resignation. “What do you mean?”

Cordelia stared. “Who are you talking to? Lucie?”

Jesse moved toward them. He knelt down, and the grass did not bend under the weight of his body. He drew the gold chain of his locket over his head and held it out to Lucie.

She remembered what he had said after the fight on Tower Bridge. That he would have given his last breath to her. That it would have had enough life force to empty her lungs of water if she had been drowning. As James was drowning in poison now.

“But what will happen to you?” she whispered. She was aware that Cordelia was staring at her; Matthew was doubled up in agony, his breaths coming in ragged gasps.

“Does it matter?” said Jesse. “This is his life. Not a shadow of a life. Not years of waiting in the dark.”

Lucie reached out her hand. It closed around the locket, and she felt it tumble into her palm, cool and solid. For a moment she hesitated—just for a moment, her eyes fixed on Jesse, kneeling in the grass.