The knife went in, grinding past bone, sinking into soft tissue, blood pulsing up and around the blade, the stench of it, hot and coppery, thickening the air.…

James sat up in bed, pain shooting through his chest. His heart was slamming against his ribs. He choked, memories flooding back—the empty streets, the shops and stalls of Shepherd Market. The man leaving the noisy, bright pub, heading for the narrower streets, perhaps hoping to find an unwatched mews house to sleep in.

The killer, the blade, the hate again, that hatred hot as fire.

I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.

He pushed himself upright, dread growing like a cancer in the pit of his stomach. He had thrashed about in the bed hard enough to tear his pajama top; his shoulder and arm were bare, freezing in the cold air coming from the open window.

It was cold, so cold; he gripped the man’s brown coat with one hand, driving the knife in with the other—

James was suddenly unable to breathe. “No,” he gasped, throwing off the bedcovers, sucking in lungfuls of air. He staggered to the window—he knew he hadn’t left it open; he had checked twice last night—and slammed it shut.

He could see the man on his back, staring up at the sky. He knew him. His brown coat, his face, his voice.

Elias.

He threw on his trousers, buttoned up his shirt with shaking hands. Let it have been a nightmare, a meaningless dream and not a vision. Maybe he had only had a dream because he and Elias had fought last night; maybe he’d dreamed of Elias only because he was angry with him. Such things happened.

A pounding started up downstairs, someone knocking over and over on the door. James raced out of his room, barefoot, and tore down the stairs. Cordelia was already in the entryway, her hair a loose red river, a dressing gown thrown on over her nightclothes. Risa was there with her; she tore open the door, and Sona Carstairs stumbled inside.

“Mâmân?” he heard Cordelia say, her voice rising with panic. “Mâmân?”

Sona gave a keening wail. Risa caught her in her arms, and Sona buried her face against her old nursemaid’s shoulder, weeping as if her heart would break.

“He’s dead, Layla,” she sobbed. “They found him this morning. Your father is dead.”

Though Cordelia had visited the Silent City before, she had never been inside the Ossuarium. She had been lucky, she realized numbly, as she, James, Alastair, and Sona filed along a narrow corridor, following the light of Brother Enoch’s witchlight torch. She had not encountered death so close to her before.