Dreams that strive to seem awake,

Ghosts that walk by daytime,

Weary winds the way they take,

Since, for one child’s absent sake,

May knows well, whate’er things make

Sport, it is not Maytime.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “A Dark Month”

It was sunset, and Berwick Street was lively with foot traffic: tradesmen going home from work, rouged ladies already plying their trade from doorways, and laborers in high spirits arriving at the Blue Posts pub.

Leaning against the wall by the entrance to Tyler’s Court, Lucie sighed. Fog softened the edges of the city, turning the lights of salesmen’s naphtha flare lamps into shimmering, heatless bonfires. Balios, waiting at the curb with the carriage, stomped his feet and neighed softly, his breath a white plume in the air.

“Lucie Herondale?”

She whirled, about to snap at Grace for being late—and froze. Behind her stood a girl in a thin muslin dress, far too lightweight for the winter weather. Scanty blond hair was scraped back under a white cap. She was bone-thin, her arms and neck pitted with black sores. Through them, Lucie could see the street beyond, as if she looked through cracks in a brick wall.

“I’m Martha,” the girl whispered. “I heard you could help folks like me.” She drifted closer: her skirts seemed to end in a kind of white smoke that floated just above the pavement. “That you could command us.”

“I—” Lucie took a step back. “I shouldn’t. I oughtn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Please.” The girl moved closer: her eyes were white, as Filomena’s had been, though they were blank and pupil-less. “I want to forget what I did. I shouldn’t have taken the laudanum. My mam had the greater need. She died screaming ’cause I took it. And then there was no more for anyone.”

“You want to forget?” Lucie whispered. “Is—is that it?”

“No,” said the girl. “I want to feel again what I felt when I took the laudanum.” The girl bit at her insubstantial thumb, her white eyes rolling. “All those lovely dreams. You could command me to have them again.” She drifted closer; Lucie stumbled back, almost catching the heel of her boot on the pavement. A strange feeling arrowed through her—a sort of ice, sizzling in her veins.

“Leave her alone.”

Jesse stood at the alley’s entrance, looking so real it was hard even for Lucie to recall he wasn’t exactly there. His gaze was fixed on Martha.

“Please,” the ghost-girl whined. “She helps you. Don’t be selfish—”

“You know what you were doing,” Jesse said. His green eyes were burning; Lucie realized, at the look of fear on Martha’s face, that Jesse must be a terrible oddity to her. He was not alive enough to be among the living, nor dead enough to seem natural to the dead. “There is no excuse to harm the living. Now go.”