Tessa Gray breathed in the city that had once, briefly but indelibly, been her home. How many nights had she stood on this same bridge, gazing at the hulking shadow of Notre Dame, the rippling waters of the Seine, the proud scaffolding of the Eiffel Tower—all of it, Paris’s heartbreaking beauty, blurred by her ceaseless tears. How many nights had she searched the river for her ageless reflection, imagining the seconds, days, years, centuries she might live, and every one of them in a world without Will.

No, not imagining.

Because it had been unimaginable.

Unimaginable, but here she was, more than fifty years later, still living. Still without him. Heart forever broken yet still beating, still strong.

Still capable of love.

She’d fled to Paris after he died, stayed until she was strong enough to face her future, and hadn’t been back since. On the face of things, the city hadn’t changed. But then, on the face of things, neither had she. You couldn’t trust the face of things to show you their truth. You didn’t have to be a shape-shifter to know that.

I’m so sorry, Tessa. I had her, and I let her go.

Even after all these years, she wasn’t used to it, this cold version of Jem’s voice speaking inside her mind, at once so intimate and so far away. His hand rested on the railing bare inches from hers. She could have touched him. He wouldn’t pull away, not from her. But his skin would be so cold, so dry, like stone.

Everything about him like stone.

“You found her—that’s what we set out to do, right? This was never about bringing the lost Herondale back to the Shadowhunter world or choosing a path for her.”

There was comfort in the familiar weight of the jade pendant around her neck, warm against her chest. She still wore it, every day, as she had since the day Jem gave it to her, more than a century before. He didn’t know.

What you say is true, but still … it does not seem right for a Herondale to be in danger while we do nothing. I fear I failed you, Tessa. That I have failed him.

Between her and Jem, there was only ever one him.

“We found her, for Will. And you know Will would want her to choose for herself. Just like he did.”

If he had still been wholly Jem, she would have put her arms around him. She would have let him feel, in her embrace, her breath, her heartbeat, how impossible it was for him to fail either her or Will.

But he was both Jem and not Jem. Both himself and unfathomably other, and she could only stand beside him, assure him with useless words that he had done enough.

He’d warned her once what would happen, as he became less himself, more Silent Brother—promised her that the transformation would never be complete. When I no longer see the world with my human eyes, I will still be in some part the Jem you knew, he had said. I will see you with the eyes of my heart.