“Alastair will sit in a corner and read. It’s what he always does when things are awkward,” said Cordelia. “I do feel awful not telling my mother what’s really happened, but what good would it do? She needs to rest and be calm.”

“It is hard to keep secrets,” James said. “Both for those who do not know the truth, but also those who keep them. Daisy…” He hesitated. “I’d like to ask you something.”

When he said her name that way, she wanted to give him everything and anything he wanted. “Yes?”

“Tonight, in Nelson Square, I heard what the Hauras demon said to you. You have wielded Cortana before, many times. Even against Belial. But no demon called you ‘paladin’ then.”

Cordelia lowered her hand with the apple in it. She’d been hoping he hadn’t heard. “That isn’t precisely a question.”

“No,” he said. “But I saw the way you were fighting—you have always been incredible with Cortana, but tonight you were different. Like nothing I’ve seen before.” There was no Mask hiding his expression; it was open and clear. “If something has changed with you, you needn’t tell me. But I would like it if you did.”

She set her apple aside. “Do you know what a paladin is?”

“Yes,” he said, “though from history class alone. In the time of Jonathan Shadowhunter, when I gather it was easier to meet a god or an angel, one might swear fealty to such a being to increase one’s power and nobility. So goes the story.”

“And all the stories are true,” Cordelia said. She told him of her meeting with Wayland the Smith, of the change that came over the landscape, the clang of the forge, his words, the oath she had sworn. James watched her intently as she spoke.

“I did not know what effect the pledge would have,” she finished. “But—I have never felt before what I did tonight, battling the Naga demon. It was like a bronze-gold light came down over me, was in me, burning up my veins, making me want to fight. And those demons fled from me.”

“ ‘Bronze gleamed around him like flashing fire or the rays of the rising sun,’ ” quoted James with a smile. “It was rather like Achilles had come to South London.”

Cordelia felt a small, warm spark in her chest. For all the glory of fighting as a paladin, she had felt oddly invisible, separated from the others by a peculiar space. But James had seen her. “Still,” he added. “It is such a great oath, Daisy. To be sworn to a being like Wayland the Smith—he could call upon you at any time, demand you face any danger.”

“As you are doing tonight? I want to be called upon, James. I have always wanted this.”

“To be a hero,” James said, and hesitated. “Cordelia, have you told—”