He could see her, in his mind’s eye, in her plain calico dress, the ribbons of her bonnet streaming in the wind. May Day in Padstow—so long ago now—but he could remember the girls with flowers in their hands, and the blue of the water. Her dark brown hair. Annabel.

You are being a fool, he told himself again. He drew his overcoat around him as he reached the gates of the courtyard. There was someone there, leaning against the iron railings. Not a Shadowhunter—a tall man dressed in green and black, an emerald stickpin gleaming at his lapel.

“Magnus,” Malcolm said, slowing his gait. “How odd to see you here.”

Magnus had his arms crossed over his chest. His expression as he surveyed the courtyard was somber. “Is it?”

“I would have expected you to rush to the rescue earlier,” said Malcolm. He was fond of Magnus, as fond as he could be of anyone. But the other warlock had a well-deserved reputation for throwing his energy away on Shadowhunters. “Are you regretful to have missed the battle?”

Magnus’s gold-green eyes glittered like the emerald in his pin. “Mock my guilt if you like, but it is real. After the last series of attacks, I rushed to London, settled myself here, and waited for something else to happen. But it has been quiet. When I was asked to bring some of the spell books from the Cornwall Institute to the Spiral Labyrinth itself, I thought it safe to go. And now this has happened in my absence.”

“The Labyrinth required you for some time,” said Malcolm. “I know Hypatia was—displeased.”

The corner of Magnus’s mouth twitched upward. “It turns out that moving a collection of powerful spell books from one place to another without awakening an ancient evil is more difficult than expected.”

Malcolm felt a mild stirring of interest. “An ancient evil?”

Magnus skimmed a glance over the courtyard. “Unrelated to this one, admittedly, and less destructive.” He cocked his head to the side. “Speaking of which. You seem—different, Malcolm. Are you, too, affected by what you see here?”

At another time, in another world, Malcolm would also have been concerned. Now he could think only of Annabel, of the cliffs of Cornwall, of a different future. “I learned something while you were gone. Something I had given up ever knowing.”

Magnus’s gaze was unreadable. He did not ask what Malcolm had discovered; he was wiser than that. “How did you learn it?”