James had been silent for a moment. Finally he said, “So more is at stake than just my sleeping through the night.”

Potentially much more, agreed Jem. You must build a fortress of control around yourself. You must come to know this power, so that you may master it.

“Was this how it was for my mother?” James had said quietly. “Before she learned to control her shape-shifting?”

Your mother had brutal teachers. They held her against her will and forced her to Change. It must have been terrifying, and painful. James was silent. You know that your mother has not used her power since the end of the Clockwork War. Since then the act of shape-shifting has been… difficult for her. Painful. She has chosen not to do it.

“Is this all because of my grandfather?” James had demanded. “My mother’s demon father? Is this his gift to us? I would have been perfectly satisfied with a new pair of socks on my birthday.”

The question of your grandfather’s identity, Jem had said, is one that I’ve concerned myself with since before you were born. It may well cast some light on your power, and your mother’s as well. But that identity has been well hidden—so well hidden as to be suspicious in itself. Beyond the fact that he was a Greater Demon, I have no other insight yet to share.

As far as James could tell, Jem made no progress over the next year in determining his grandfather’s identity, or at least no progress worth sharing. But in that year, James learned to prevent himself from being drawn into the shadow realm, under Jem’s instruction. On a cold night in winter, with a bitter wind blowing, Jem took him to the top of Hampstead Heath, and he resisted the pull even when shivering so hard his teeth seemed to shake. They sparred in the training room, Jem surprisingly spry for a Silent Brother, and talked through the feelings that triggered the power—how to control them and breathe through them, even in the middle of a fight. On one memorable occasion, Jem borrowed Matthew’s dog, Oscar Wilde, riled him up, and released him on an unsuspecting James during breakfast.

James thought some of Jem’s training ideas were deliberate pranks—Silent Brothers had the best poker faces he could imagine, after all. His father assured him that it wasn’t in Jem’s nature, and that however odd the training, he was sure it was intended sincerely. And James had to admit that the strange regimen did seem to work.