Chapters (49)
- Dedication
- PART ONE
- LONDON: EAST END
- 1 THE BRIGHT WEB
- 2 ALL THAT TURNS
- GRACE: 1893–1896
- 3 BITTER AND SWEET
- 4 A GOOD NAME
- 5 THE KING IS DEAD
- LONDON: 48 CURZON STREET
- 6 THINGS TO COME
- GRACE: 1896
- 7 TREAD LIGHTLY
- LONDON: FINCH LANE
- 8 TO BRING A FIRE
- 9 THE SCARS REMAINING
- LONDON: SHOE LANE
- 10 THE DAMNED EARTH
- GRACE: 1897
- 11 CROWNS AND POUNDS AND GUINEAS
- LONDON: SHEPHERD MARKET
- 12 REQUIEM
- GRACE: 1899
- 13 THE WINTRY WIND
- 14 THE FLAMING FORGE
- 15 WALK BY DAYTIME
- 16 DARK BREAKS TO DAWN
- LONDON: GOLDEN SQUARE
- PART TWO
- 17 PROPHET OF EVIL
- 18 GOBLIN MARKET
- 19 THINE OWN PALACE
- 20 EQUAL TEMPER
- GRACE: 1899–1900
- 21 HELL’S OWN TRACK
- 22 HEART OF IRON
- GRACE: 1903
- 23 A SILKEN THREAD
- 24 HE SHALL RISE
- 25 ARCHANGEL RUINED
- 26 OLDER THAN GODS
- 27 WAKE WITH WINGS
- GRACE: 1900
- 28 NO WISE MAN
- 29 A BROKEN MIRROR
- Epilogue
- NOTES ON THE TEXT
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“No,” James said quietly. “You couldn’t have.”
“I could have stopped him from going out into the streets, in the snow—”
“He didn’t die from lack of money,” James said. “Nor did he die from the cold. He was murdered.”
Cordelia knew that James was being reasonable, but she had no use for reason. She wanted to explode with fury, wanted to destroy something. “You didn’t need to give him five thousand—you could have given him a little bit, a little money to get him safely home.”
Something flickered in James’s eyes. Anger. She had never seen those golden eyes furious before, not at her. She felt a sick sort of gladness: now, instead of feeling nothing, she felt rage. She felt despair. She felt the agony of hurting James, the last thing in the world she wanted to do.
“Had I given him any money at all, he would have gone out to spend it at the pub, and he still would have been staggering drunk and he still would have been killed. And you would still be blaming me, because you don’t want to think that his own choices—”
“Cordelia.”
She turned, saw Alastair standing at the entrance to the narrow corridor. He was backlit by witchlight; it turned the edges of his hair to light, reminding her of the time he’d dyed it. “Brother Enoch says if you wish to say goodbye, it has to be now.”
Cordelia nodded mechanically. “I’m coming.”
She had to edge past James before she turned to go; as she did, their shoulders brushed. She heard him sigh in frustration before following her. Then they were back out in the square and trailing Alastair into the Ossuarium, where Sona stood by Elias’s body. Brother Enoch was there, too, motionless, his hands folded in front of him like a priest’s.
James had paused by the double doors. Cordelia didn’t look at him; she couldn’t. She took Alastair’s hand and crossed the marble floor to where her father lay. Alastair drew her close against his side. Her mother stood very still, her eyes red and swollen, her head bent.
“Ave atque vale,” Alastair said. “Hail and farewell, Father.”
“Ave atque vale,” Sona echoed. Cordelia knew she should say it too, the traditional farewell, but her throat was too tight for words. Instead she reached out and took her father’s hand, exposed where the sheet was turned back. It was cold and rigid. Not her father’s hand at all. Not the hand that had lifted her up when she was small, or guided her bladework as she trained. Gently, she set it on his chest.
Her body stiffened. Elias’s Voyance rune—the rune every Shadowhunter had on the back of their dominant hand—was missing.
She heard Filomena’s voice again, echoing through the empty sailcloth factory. He took from me. My strength. My life.
Her strength.