“It’s not your fault, Filomena,” Cordelia said. “You fought bravely. But tell us who he was. Was he a Shadowhunter?”

Filomena’s head whipped toward her. Her gaze fixed on Cordelia, her eyes changing shape, widening into impossible circles. “Per quale motivo sono stata abbandonata, lasciata sola a farmi massacrare?” she whispered. Why did you leave me alone to be slaughtered?

Filomena’s voice rose to an eerie singsong, the musical Italian words skipping over each other in her haste to say them: “Cordelia, tu sei una grande eroina. Persino nel regno dei morti si parla di te. Sei colei che brandisce la spada Cortana, in grado di uccidere qualunque cosa. Hai versato il sangue di un Principe dell’Inferno. Avresti potuto salvarmi.”

Stricken, Cordelia could only stammer, “Filomena—I’m so sorry, Filomena—”

But Filomena had begun to twist and jerk, as if a strong wind were blowing through her. A network of lines appeared on her face, splintering with lightning speed into a web of cracks throughout her whole body. She moaned, a sound of terrible pain. “Lasciami andare… let me go.… There, I have told you.… I cannot bear it any longer.…”

“Go, if you wish it.” Lucie spread her hands out. “Filomena, I will not hold you here.”

The Italian girl went still. For a moment, she looked as she had in life—her face full of hope and thought, the tension of her body gone. Then she shuddered and crumbled apart like dust, vanishing into nothing among the particles in the air.

“By the Angel,” said Anna, gazing at Lucie. “Is it always so harrowing, speaking with ghosts?”

Lucie was silent; it was James who replied. “No,” he said. “But ghosts remain on Earth to fulfill unfinished business. I think Filomena’s was telling us what she knew. Once she’d done that, she was desperate to rest.”

“I’m not sure she knew that much, poor girl,” Matthew said.

“What did she say to you, Cordelia?” Thomas asked. “That was a great deal of Italian.”

Before Cordelia could respond, a loud noise echoed from deeper within the factory. The small group of Shadowhunters spun around. Cordelia caught her breath—the dangling chains were whipping back and forth overhead, the hooks suspended from them swinging wildly.

“We’re not alone,” Anna hissed suddenly, angling her witchlight toward the gallery above. The ruby necklace at her throat was pulsing with light like a second heart.

Dust and grayness, the humped shapes of broken machines; then Cordelia spotted a shadow moving along the underside of the gallery railing, scuttling on what seemed like countless thick grayish limbs.

Cordelia whipped Cortana from its sheath. All around her, the others were arming themselves: Anna with her whip, Thomas his Argentinian bolas, James with a throwing knife, Matthew with a seraph blade, Lucie her axe.