She tightened her grip on his lapels, pulling him closer with surprising strength. “He did,” she whispered. “But he was dead, dead in his prime. His wife… she wept and wept. I remember her tears.” Her eyes fixed on Thomas’s. “Perhaps there is no forgiveness.”

Her fingers loosened their grip and slowly trailed down his coat, leaving a bloody smear behind. Her face went slack as the light left her eyes.

Numbly, Thomas laid her limp body on the ground. His mind whirled. Should he bring her inside? Someone might come along soon, and she was not glamoured—mundanes should not see her like this, and yet perhaps the Enclave would not want him to move her?

At least he could arrange her as a Shadowhunter should be laid out in death. He shut her eyes with his thumb, and reached for her hands to fold them on her chest. Something rolled free of her left hand, clanking gently against the icy ground.

It was a stele. What had she been doing with it? Trying to heal herself?

Thomas heard footsteps approaching and lifted his head, dazed. Could the murderer be returning, worried that Lilian might survive—and determined to come back and make certain she hadn’t? Quickly, he stuffed the stele into his pocket and drew a knife from his belt.

“Oi! There! Don’t you dare run!”

Thomas froze. It was the Shadowhunter patrol he’d seen earlier. Four men rounded the corner, Inquisitor Bridgestock in the lead. They slowed as they approached, staring in shock at Thomas, and at Miss Highsmith’s body.

He realized in a split second how it must look. A Shadowhunter dead beside him, and him with a knife in his bloody hand. Worse yet, he wasn’t scheduled for patrol—no one knew about his nightly outings. No one could vouch for him. His friends could say they knew he was patrolling on his own, but that wasn’t much, was it?

A clamor of voices started up as the Inquisitor moved toward Thomas, his face set, his black cape swirling around his legs. Thomas dropped the knife and let his hands fall to his sides, knowing it would be pointless to speak. He didn’t bother to try to understand what they were all saying. Everything felt slow and surreal, like a terrible dream that was trying to pull him under. He watched from what felt like miles away as Bridgestock spoke in a triumphant voice.

“Gentlemen, we have found the murderer,” he said. “Arrest him at once.”

Having set the book aside, Cordelia was watching James sleep. She had an excuse, she supposed, beyond unrequited love. She was watching over him. Protecting him, from the terrors of the night, from the threat of Belial. She felt the weight of Cortana in her hands, as she felt the weight of the trust Wayland the Smith had placed in her.

Go forth. Be a warrior.