He had never experienced travel into the shadow realm like this before. The world hurtled away from James, as if he were rocketing down a tunnel. One moment the study was there, the fire, Cordelia, the London night beyond the window. The next his familiar world was flying away—he reached out to catch it, to grab on, but only darkness surrounded him; no moon, no stars, just a darkness that felt infinite, never-ending.

A light flared in the shadows, an amber glow that gradually intensified. Magnus stood a few feet away from James, yellow light playing around his right hand. He gazed about, frowning. “This,” he said, “is not Edom.”

James got to his feet, the world righting itself around him. Suddenly there was an up and a down, a sense of gravity absent a real sense of space. And there was ground underfoot, or something like it. It was not the dust of Edom, but a smooth and polished surface, stretching into the infinite distance, made up of alternating squares of dark and light. “Magnus,” he said, “I think we may be standing on a chessboard.”

Magnus muttered something under his breath. It sounded as if he were cursing in another language. James turned in a circle: he thought he could see glints above him, like pinprick holes in the black sky. A faint glow clung to everything: he could see it outlining his hands, his feet. Magnus seemed to be glowing slightly too. James moved his hand across the air and watched his bracelet glitter.

“James, think,” Magnus said. “Can you picture Edom, the last time you saw it? Can you recall the dark fortress?”

James took a deep breath. The cold air tasted like metal, silvery-sharp. He had never felt so far away from home, yet he was not at all afraid. Somewhere, he thought, somewhere very close, if he could just reach out—

And then he saw it, a small whirlwind, like a miniature sandstorm. He stepped back as it grew, solidifying, taking shape.

It was a throne. The sort of throne James had seen in books, illustrating pictures of angels—ivory and gold, with gold steps rising up toward a massive seat. A peculiar symbol was carved repeatedly into the sides, spiky and odd-looking, and across its back were written the words: AND HE WHO OVERCOMES, AND HE WHO KEEPS MY DEEDS UNTIL THE END, TO HIM I WILL GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS; AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AND I WILL GIVE HIM THE MORNING STAR.

This was an angel’s throne, he thought, or at least it had been made to look very like one. And the words carved on the throne were in Latin, though the strange symbol carved across the sides and arms was nothing he recognized—