Cordelia looked around, Cortana in her hand. The sword sat perfectly, any feeling of wrongness banished. It hummed with the rightness of being wielded, of being one with her. She saw that the boys had already spilled from their carriage some distance away; they were bright shadows in the darkness, Christopher with a glowing seraph blade, Matthew with gleaming chalikars in his hand. There were dozens of small, gray-skinned, trollish demons charging about Nelson Square like mad things, hopping on top of the carriages, hurling snowballs at each other.

“Hauras demons!” called James, who wore an expression that mingled annoyance and anger. Hauras demons were pests. Sometimes called scamp demons, they were fast and ugly—scaled and horned, with vicious talons—but only about the size of small wolves.

James let a blade go. Cordelia had seen him throw before but had nearly forgotten how good he was at it. The knife flew like silver death from his hand, severing a Hauras demon’s head from its body. Ichor splattered, and the two halves of the demon puffed into nothingness; the other scamp demons shrieked and laughed.

“Ooh! Pests!” Lucie cried in outrage as two of the creatures caught at her skirts, tearing at the velvet rosettes. With no room to swing her weapon, she began to club at them with the handle of her axe. Cordelia sliced out with Cortana, a bright golden line of fire against the night. She saw one demon puff into ash; the other, squealing, released Lucie’s skirts and darted into the center of the square, where it joined the rest of the scamps in trying to trip and unbalance the Shadowhunters—lunging and jabbing them with sharp little talons, laughing and cackling all the while.

One leaped at Matthew, who jammed a chalikar into its throat with both hands, not even bothering to throw it. The demon crumpled, gurgling, and disappeared. Another came from behind; Matthew turned—stumbled, and slipped. He went down, slamming hard into the icy ground.

Cordelia started toward him, but James was already there, hauling his parabatai to his feet. She caught a glimpse of Matthew’s white face before he drew a seraph blade from his belt: it blazed up, its brightness searing a line across Cordelia’s vision. She could see Christopher laying about with his blade, James with a long knife. The night was filled with shrieks and hissing, their feet churning the snowy ground into a stinking mess of ice and ichor.

It all seemed almost silly—the Hauras were ridiculous-looking creatures—until Lucie screamed. Cordelia whipped around and ran toward her, only to see the ground between them, all ice and dirt, erupt. Something long, slithering, and scaled burst from it, scattering clods of earth.

A Naga demon. Cordelia had seen illustrations of them in India. This one had a long snake’s body and a flat, arrow-shaped head, split by a wide mouth lined with yellow, spiky teeth. Its eyes were black saucers.