Anna shrugged. “As you wish,” she said. “I had better go—as you know, I do not like to keep a lady waiting.”

Ariadne did not stay to watch Anna leave; she did not think she could endure it, so she did not see Anna walk only a short distance before sinking down onto the front steps of a neighboring house. Flicking the half-burned cheroot into the snow, Anna put her head into her hands and shook violently, dry-eyed and silent, unable to catch her breath.

Lucie had waited what felt like hours upon hours for the household to fall into silence. With Gabriel injured and in the infirmary, Cecily and Alexander had remained at the Institute. Lucie had spent much of dinner playing with Alexander, letting him walk on the table and feeding him biscuits. In times of crisis, she had found, busying oneself with the care of children meant no one troubled you with questions.

Eventually she had retired to her room. She had heard Christopher come home, and voices in the library, but she had already wedged a chair against her door and was busy packing. She wasn’t at all sure what one was supposed to wear to visit a warlock’s house in Cornwall and engage in necromantic rituals. Eventually she decided on a few warm wool dresses, her axe, five seraph blades, a gear jacket, and a bathing costume. One never knew, and Cornwall was the seaside.

She left a note propped against her vanity table, took her packed valise, and crept out of her bedroom. Making her way through the halls of the Institute, she found them dark and silent. Good—everyone was asleep. She slipped downstairs and into the Sanctuary without a sound.

The room was a blaze of light. Every taper had been lit, filling the space with wavering illumination. In its center Jesse’s body had been laid on a muslin-covered bier, surrounded by a circle of white candles, each in a single long holder. Around the bier were scattered squares of parchment, each inscribed with a rune: most were of mourning, though a few represented honor and courage in combat.

The Silent Brothers had done their work well. Lucie was glad the Sanctuary had been kept sealed, save for them. She did not like the idea of strangers gawking at Jesse’s body. He would be a curiosity to them, and she could not bear that.

Lucie set her valise down and approached Jesse slowly. He had been arranged with the Blackthorn sword on his chest, his hands folded atop the cross guard. A white silk blindfold was bound over his eyes. The sight made her stomach turn cold; he looked dead, as he never had to her before in his coffin at Chiswick House. His skin was the shade of porcelain; his lashes lay long and dark against his colorless cheeks. A beautiful faerie prince, she thought, felled like Snow White, neither alive nor dead.…