“Get him—back?” Grace stared. “You mean try to kidnap him? Steal his body from a warlock and—Mother, no. I can’t do that. My power doesn’t even work on Malcolm.”

“But it would work on Jesse,” Tatiana said.

There was an awful silence. It was like the silence that had filled the room after Jesse died. “I don’t,” Grace said at last, “understand what you mean, Mother.”

“Let them bring him back,” Tatiana drawled. “Let them do the difficult work. Then convince him his place is with you—with us. When that is done, return with him, to me. I will furnish you both with instructions. It will all be very simple. Simple enough even for you.”

“I don’t—” Grace shook her head. She felt physically sick. “I don’t understand what you’re suggesting.”

Tatiana’s face hardened. “Must I spell it out for you? You only have one power, Grace, one thing that makes you special. Seduce him,” she said. “Compel him. Make him believe he loves you above everything else in the world. Make him yours, as you were never able to make James Herondale yours.”

Nausea rose in the pit of Grace’s stomach. Her pulse was racing and her chest was tight. “Jesse is my brother.”

“Nonsense,” Tatiana said. “You share no blood. You are barely even my daughter. We are partners, you and I. Partners in a common cause.”

“I won’t,” Grace whispered. Had she ever said no to her mother before so plainly? It didn’t matter. There was no world in which she could do what Tatiana asked, no world in which she could make filthy and horrible the only pure love she had ever known.

Tatiana’s eyes burned. “Oh, you will do this,” she hissed. “You must. The strength is all on my side, not yours. You have no choice, Grace Blackthorn.”

No choice. It was at that moment that Grace realized something she had never realized before. That her mother had cursed her with power over men, but not women—never women—not because she did not believe women had influence, but because she could not bear the thought that Grace might ever have power over her.

With her blood screaming in her ears, Grace took three steps forward, until she was inches from the vanity, inches from her mother’s grinning face. She picked up a heavy silver hairbrush and looked into Tatiana’s furious eyes.

With a cry, she hurled the brush at the mirror as hard as she could. The glass shattered, Tatiana’s image splintering into sparkling shards. Sobbing, Grace ran from the room.