James recalled Grace, in this drawing room. I know Lucie, like you, can see the dead—but you can also travel in shadows. Can Lucie do the same?

“They do?” The surprise in Cordelia’s eyes was clear. She glanced away quickly, though. “Never mind, Anna. It’s not important.”

“I went with her to question Hypatia Vex,” Anna said. “She told us that Tatiana had refused to have the protection spells placed on Jesse and had hired our old friend Emmanuel Gast to do it instead.”

So that’s how Lucie knew to summon Gast, James realized. There was clearly far more to what Lucie could do, and indeed, what she had already done, than any of them had guessed. He thought of her gold locket. Part of the way Tatiana had preserved her son, it seemed, yet that same son had sacrificed the magic of it to save James’s life. He remembered what Grace had said to him, after: My mother says she knows now there is no chance Jesse will ever return. She says it is as if you stole his last breath.

He had not understood her at the time. But Lucie had known…

Tomorrow, he told himself. He would speak with Lucie then.

“Belial had his hooks in Emmanuel Gast,” said James. “He forced the warlock to place a piece of his essence inside Jesse, so that as Jesse grew older, Belial would have an anchor in him, and a body Belial could possess on this Earth.”

“But why now?” said Christopher. “Why possess Jesse now?”

“Because I refused him,” said James wearily. “Because his attempt to possess me went disastrously wrong. Not only did he not possess me; he was wounded by Cortana. He has remained in fear of it.”

“Belial wanted to make a warrior,” said Cordelia. “He believed that if he murdered Shadowhunters, took their runes and gave them to Jesse, he could create a warrior capable of defeating Cortana—half Prince of Hell, half Shadowhunter.”

Anna smiled at her. “But it sounds as if you fought and defeated this being. Belial, as it turns out, was no match for our Cordelia.”

Cordelia’s voice was low, and ragged around the edges. “Anna, no. That’s—that’s not what happened.”

Anna did not look surprised. She set her teacup down, her blue eyes fixed on Cordelia. “Daisy,” she said. “Tell us.”

James wanted to jump in, to tell the story, to save Cordelia from having to say the words. He found his fingers digging into the arm of his chair as, steadily and without emotion, she told them the story from the moment the faerie woman had approached her at the Hell Ruelle, to her trip to the White Horse, her vision of the forge, her oath and subsequent discovery that it was not Wayland the Smith she had sworn loyalty to, but the Mother of Demons.