Then she looked down at her brother. His lips were blue, his eyes sunken into his head. He was barely breathing. Carefully, as if she were holding a glass containing the last drop of water in the world, Lucie opened the little locket and pressed the curve of the metal against his lips.

There was a pause, enough time for a sigh.

Then her brother’s chest lifted with Jesse Blackthorn’s last breath. His eyes opened, bright gold, and from the four crescent wounds in his wrist, black fluid spilled—his body was ridding itself of the Mandikhor’s poison.

Lucie’s hand closed tightly around the locket, so tightly the edge of the metal cut into her palm. Cordelia cried out; Matthew lifted his head, the color returning to his face. He scrambled to James’s side and pulled James into his lap.

James, slumped against Matthew’s chest, struggled to focus. Lucie knew what he was seeing. A boy leaning over him: a boy with hair as black as his own, a boy with green eyes the color of hawthorn leaves, a boy who was already beginning to fade around the edges, like a figure seen in a cloud that disappears when the wind changes.

“Who are you?” James whispered, his voice ragged.

But Jesse was already gone.

“What do you mean, ‘Who are you?’ ” Matthew demanded. “I’m your parabatai, you nitwit.”

He was busy drawing healing runes on whatever parts of James he could reach, which Cordelia could only applaud. She had no idea what Lucie had done to heal her brother, but that was not what mattered now.

“I didn’t mean you, Matthew,” James said. His eyes were closed, his dark lashes feathered against the tops of his cheekbones. “Obviously.”

Matthew ran a ringed hand through James’s wild hair and smiled. “Are you going to tell us what happened yet? It isn’t every day a fellow goes into a demon realm and then falls out of the sky. I’d think you’d want to share this experience with your friends.”

“Believe me when I say it is a long story,” said James. “I promise you we are in no danger now—”

“Did you really kill the Mandikhor?” asked Lucie.

“Yes,” said James, “and Cordelia destroyed the one who raised it.” He held out a hand, scarred with cuts and filthy with dirt. “Daisy? Would you come here?” He smiled crookedly. “I would come to you, but I do not think I have the strength to walk.”

Cordelia tried to rise, but a hot white pain shot up her leg. She bit down on a whimper. “My leg is broken, I think. Very vexing, but I’m quite all right.”