“And you could tell me of your own feelings,” Lucie said quietly, “for I think perhaps loving someone you cannot be with is a thing you understand better than I had guessed before today.” Cordelia flushed. “Next time we train,” Lucie said, “we will talk about everything.”

But a shadow had fallen over Cordelia’s expression at the mention of training. “Yes,” she said, and then James was there, and he and Cordelia were bidding goodbye to Lucie and joining the others, ready to leave for Kensington and Mayfair.

Lucie watched them silently. She wanted to go with her friends, wanted it badly, but it was her duty to save Jesse; no one else could do it. It was her power. She had used it, abused it even; if she did not turn it into some kind of good, then what was she? James had used his power more than once to save lives.

It was her turn now.

“There is nothing to worry about, Mâmân, see?” Cordelia said, gently laying her hand against her mother’s cheek.

Sona smiled up at her. To Cordelia’s relief, when she and Alastair had arrived at Cornwall Gardens, they had found Sona wrapped in a velvet dressing gown, installed on the plush drawing-room sofa before a blazing fire. Sona was not wearing her roosari, and her dark hair spilled over her shoulders; she looked young, if more than a little tired. “You two are so dirty,” she said, indicating Alastair, who was hovering in the drawing-room doorway. “A mother always worries when her children come home looking as if they have fallen in a mud puddle.”

When her children come home. But this was not Cordelia’s home, not any longer. Home was Curzon Street. Home was not this house, where they had all been unhappy in one way or another.

But now was not the time to say such a thing to her mother. Not now, with everything so uncertain.

“It was a small fight, that is all,” Alastair said; he had already described the battle to Sona in abbreviated terms. Not the full truth, only a part of it: Cordelia felt, with some discomfort, as if she were getting quite used to that phenomenon. “And the Institute was defended.”

“You have been so very brave,” said Sona. “My brave son.” She patted Cordelia’s hand where it now lay beside hers. “And you, my brave daughter. Like Sura or Youtab.”

At another time, Cordelia would have glowed at being compared to heroines of Persian history. Not now, though, not with the bitter thought of Lilith still at the forefront of her mind. She forced a smile. “You should rest, Mâmân—”

“Oh, nonsense.” Sona waved a dismissive hand. “You would not know, but I was also confined to bed before you were born, and Alastair, too. Speaking of which, Alastair, darling, would you give us a moment alone for women’s talk?”