“Nothing,” Lucie said. “It doesn’t appear to be a talent we share, James. Like seeing the shadow realm.” She glanced around the factory. “Speaking of which, this place gives me the creeps. I’d rather be elsewhere, gun or not.”

No one disagreed. As they headed back out of the factory, into the grim drizzle, Cordelia could not help but hear, over and over, the last words Filomena had spoken to her. She thought she would hear them for the rest of her life.

Cordelia, you are a great heroine. Even in the realm of the dead they speak of you. You are the bearer of the blade Cortana, which can slay anything. You have spilled the blood of a Prince of Hell.

You could have saved me.

GRACE: 1897

Some time after Jesse’s death, Tatiana told Grace that she had a surprise for her, and that she would take her to Brocelind Forest to receive it. But, she added, Grace must be blindfolded for the whole trip, as she was not permitted to know where in the forest she was going, or who she was meeting there.

For some reason the excursion had to happen in the dead of night, and Grace was sorry to have to miss her appointment with Jesse that evening. He always managed to get away from Tatiana—who liked to weep over his ghost when the mood took her—long enough to spend some time reading aloud to Grace. They were halfway through Mr. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Grace found it deliciously frightening in a way that had nothing to do with the terrors of her everyday life.

The trip into the forest in the pitch dark was eerie. Grace, blindly following her mother, tripped over roots and lost her balance stepping into unexpected divots, sending unpleasant jolts up her legs. Tatiana did not hurry her, but nor did she break her stride. And when they did stop, she did not remove the blindfold, but let her daughter stand in confused silence as minutes passed.

Grace wasn’t sure if she would be in trouble if she spoke, so she kept her silence and quietly counted to herself. When she got to about two hundred, a voice spoke out of the darkness, though there had been no sound to indicate someone approaching.

“Yes,” the voice said consideringly—a man’s, with a dark, sweet timbre. “She’s just as beautiful as you said.”

There was another silence, and then her mother said, “Well, go on, then.”