It is there. Jem gestured toward what looked like a miniature city of white houses. It was the necropolis of Alicante, where families of Idris were buried. Narrow lanes threaded among the mausoleums, paved with crushed white stone. Lucie had always loved the way the tombs looked like small houses, with doors or gates and sloping roofs. Unlike mundanes, Shadowhunters did not tend to decorate their graves with statues of angels. The names of the families who owned the tombs were carved over the doors, or etched on metal plates: BELLEFLEUR, CARTWRIGHT, CROSSKILL, LOVELACE, even BRIDGESTOCK. Death made unlikely neighbors. She found what she was looking for at last, a large tomb under a shaded tree, bearing the name BLACKTHORN.

She stopped and looked. It was a tomb like any other, save for the design of thorns that ran around the plinth. The names of those who had died marched up and down the tomb’s left side like orderly soldiers. It was easy to find the newest. JESSE BLACKTHORN, BORN 1879, DIED 1896.

It had only been 1897 when she had met him in the woods, Lucie realized. He had been a ghost for such a short time. He had seemed so much older than her then; she had never given thought to how frightened he must have been himself.

Everybody thought Jesse had died long ago. Nobody knew what he had sacrificed since.

She touched the locket hanging around her throat and turned to Jem. “Can I have a moment alone here, please?”

Jem glanced down at her, clearly worried. It was hard to read his face, his closed eyes, but he had hesitated when she first asked him to bring her to Idris to pay respects in the graveyard and not to tell her parents. He had only agreed when she’d said that if he didn’t do it, she’d find a warlock who would take her.

He touched her hair lightly. Do not dwell too much on death. Lucie means light. Look to the day, not the night.

“I know, Uncle Jem,” she said. “It will only be a moment.”

He nodded and vanished into the shadows, the way Silent Brothers always did.