His eyes went black. And suddenly she was falling, struggling in a complete, choking darkness. There was no light—no, there was light in the distance, flickering, the wan light of an illuminated doorway. She struggled to catch at something to arrest her fall.

Jesse. Where was Jesse? She could see nothing but darkness. She thought of James: Was this what it was like to fall into shadow? This terrible, alien, unmoored feeling?

Jesse! She reached out for him—she could sense he was there with her, somehow. She was touching mist, shadow, and then her hands closed on something solid. It writhed in her grip. She held on hard; yes, it had a human form. They were falling together. If she held on tight enough, she could bring him back, she thought, like Janet had done for Tam Lin in the old story.

But there was something wrong. A terrible pressure of wrongness, invading her chest, stealing her breath. The shadows around her seemed to break into pieces, each one a snarling, twisting monster—a thousand demons born of darkness. She felt a barrier, unbreakable, terrible, rise up before her, as if she had arrived at the gates of Hell. The form in her arms was spiky-sharp, burning and stabbing her; she let go—

And hit the ground, hard, knocking out her breath. She moaned and rolled over, retching dryly.

“Lucie! Lucie!” Jesse was hovering over her, an expression of terror on his face. She was on the wooden floor of her room, she realized dazedly. She must have tumbled off the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, reaching out to touch him, but her fingers glided through his shoulder. They both froze, staring at each other. “No, no,” she said. “I’ve made it worse—”

“You haven’t.” He closed his hand over her reaching one. His fingers were solid. “It’s the same. Nothing’s changed. But we can’t try that again, Lucie. There are some things, I think, that cannot be commanded.”

“Death is a jealous mistress,” Lucie whispered. “She fights to keep you.”

“I am not hers,” he said. “I am yours for as long as I can be.”

“Stay,” she said, and closed her eyes. She felt more drained than she ever had before, more exhausted. She thought again of James. She should have been more sympathetic, she thought, all these years. She had never understood before: how bitter it was to have power, and not be able to turn it to any kind of good.

Thomas almost welcomed the bitter cold, the crunch of ice underneath his boots, the aching stiffness in his fingers and toes. All day he had waited for this, for the solitude of patrolling alone late at night, when all his senses seemed heightened, and the melancholy that followed him everywhere was replaced—if only for a few hours—by a sense of purpose.