She was in the Tuileries—more bloody ghosts, more creatures carved of stone—when she spotted the trail of ichor. She was still a Shadowhunter, and she was a Shadowhunter in desperate need of distraction, so she followed it. She caught up with the Shax demon in the Opera district but stayed in the shadows, wanting to see what it was up to. Shax demons were trackers, used to hunt people who didn’t want to be found. And this demon was definitely tracking something.

Céline tracked it in turn.

She tracked it through the slumbering courtyards of the Louvre. It was oozing ichor from a wound, but it wasn’t moving like a creature slinking off to nurse its wounds. Its giant pincers skittered at the cobblestones as it hesitated at corners, deciding which way to turn. This was a predator, tracking its prey.

The demon paused in the archway of the Louvre, at the foot of the Pont des Arts. The small pedestrian bridge stretched across the Seine, its railings crowded with lovers’ locks. It was said that if a couple attached a lock to the Pont des Arts, their love would last forever. The bridge was almost deserted at this hour, except for one young couple, locked in an embrace. Completely oblivious to the Shax demon slithering out of the shadows, pincers clicking together in eager anticipation.

Céline always carried a misericord blade. Its narrow point was exactly what she needed to penetrate the insectoid demon’s carapace.

She hoped.

“Gadreel,” Céline whispered, naming a seraph blade. She crept behind the Shax demon, as steady and silent as it was. She, too, could be a predator. In one smooth, sure motion, she stabbed the misericord straight through the carapace, then slid the seraph blade into the wound she’d opened.

The demon dissolved.

It had all happened so swiftly, so quietly, that the couple on the bridge didn’t even break from their embrace. They were too intent on each other to realize how close they’d come to being a demon’s late-night snack. Céline lingered, trying to imagine it: standing on the bridge with someone who loved her, a man gazing so intently into her eyes that he wouldn’t have noticed the world ending.

But Céline’s imagination gave out. Reality had caged her in. As long as she thought Stephen hadn’t noticed her, she could fantasize about what might happen if he ever did.

Now she knew. She could not unknow.

Céline wiped and sheathed her blades, then crept closer to the couple, close enough to hear what they were saying. She was glamoured, so there was no danger in doing a little eavesdropping, but she tried to keep herself hidden in case more demons appeared. What words did a man say to the woman he loved, when he thought no one else could hear? She might never find out, if she waited for someone to say them to her.

“I hate to say I told you so,” the woman said, “but …”