Cordelia looked surprised. “I knew you would understand,” she said, laying a hand on Lucie’s arm. “And Lucie…”

Lucie glanced about. Cordelia had the air of someone wanting to confide a secret. James and Matthew were deep in conversation with a werewolf—a woman with long, gray-brown hair and a necklace of teeth, presiding over a glass case full of colorful crystal bottles from which perfumed scents wafted. A hand-lettered sign on a shelf declared WILL COVER UP THE SMELL OF WET FUR.

“I know that you’ve been doing something—something you’re keeping secret. I’m not angry,” Cordelia hastened to add. “I just wish you’d tell me what it is.”

Lucie tried to cover her surprise; she had thought that—busy with marriage and a house to keep up—Cordelia hadn’t been paying her any mind. “I’m sorry, truly,” she said slowly. “What if I told you… that I am trying to help someone, someone who is very deserving of help, but for their safety I cannot share the specifics at this point?”

Cordelia looked hurt. “But… I’m your parabatai. Or I will be, very soon. We are meant to face our challenges together. If there is someone who needs help, I could help them as well.”

Oh, Daisy, Lucie thought. If only it were that easy. She thought of Grace—her bluntness, her maddening secrecy—and knew that Cordelia would not understand Lucie’s decision to work with her. “I can’t,” she said. “It is not my secret to tell.”

After a moment Cordelia withdrew her hand. “I trust you,” she said, but her voice sounded a bit… small. “I hope you can tell me sometime soon, but I understand you’re trying to protect someone. I won’t push any further. Now, let’s get back to the others, shall we?”

Surely I could have managed that better, Lucie thought, as they rejoined their companions. James and Matthew were speaking to a gentry faerie wearing a fur cap in the Russian style, the flaps covering his ears. He was shaking his head: no, he didn’t know anyone buying or selling adamas. As the girls started toward them, a pixie brushed by Lucie’s ear and whispered, “Malcolm Fade wishes to see you. Find him in the blue tent.”

Startled, Lucie stopped in the middle of the aisle, causing a collision with a selkie loaded down with shopping bags. “Watch where you’re going, Shadowhunter!” the creature hissed, making a gesture with her flipper-like hand. It was a rude gesture, to be sure, but it also clearly indicated a stall in the distance—one draped with swaths of cheap blue velvet.

“Luce, are you all right?” Cordelia asked.

“Yes… I just remembered something. Something I need to tell Christopher. I’m just going to find him—I’ll be right back.”

“Lucie—wait!”