“Can you describe the Shadowhunter you saw?” asked Alec, and Jem translated for him.

“I think you can do it,” Jem added to the child encouragingly. “You see so much.”

Rafael gave Jem a dark look, as though he disliked praise. He spent a few more moments in furious thought, kicking his too-big boots over the edge of the stone bench, then reached into the pocket of his tattered trousers and placed a slim wallet in Alec’s hands.

“Oh.” Alec looked startled. “You stole this from the Shadowhunter you saw?”

Rafael nodded.

“That’s great. I mean …” Alec paused. “It’s good that you’re helping us, but it’s very bad to steal wallets generally. Don’t do it again.”

“No te entiendo,” Rafael announced firmly.

He said that he didn’t understand Alec, and his tone suggested that he wasn’t planning to understand Alec on this topic anytime soon.

“Don’t say the other word,” Alec said quickly.

“What other word?” Jem asked.

“Don’t ask,” said Alec, and opened the wallet.

Shadowhunters did not carry mundane forms of identification like passports or ID cards, but they carried other things. Alec took out a weapons requisition document marked with the Breakspear family symbol.

“Clive Breakspear,” Alec said slowly. “The head of the Institute. Juliette said that these Shadowhunters act as mercenaries. What if this warlock hired them?”

“We have to find out what’s happening,” said Jem. “And stop it.”

Alec set his jaw. “Rafael can show us the house after he gets some rest,” he said. “Tomorrow night we’ll go back to the Shadow Market. We’ll try to find the information you’re looking for and tell the Queen of the Market what, if anything, we’ve discovered.”

Rafael nodded, then held his hand out for the wallet. Alec shook his head.

“What is this secret you want to know about?” Lily asked Jem.

“Lily, it’s a secret,” Alec said reprovingly.

There were crickets chirping in an odd beautiful melody beyond the walls.

“I trust you both,” Jem said slowly. “You came here to help us. I trust this will go no further. I’m looking for someone who needs my help. There’s a hidden line of Shadowhunters I became aware of in the 1930s.”

Lily shook her head. “The 1930s were such a disappointment. Every year, they insisted on not being the 1920s.”

Will had died in the 1930s, and Tessa had been in agony. Jem had not liked the 1930s much either.

“This family has been hunted for decades,” said Jem. “I don’t know why. I learned how they split off from the Nephilim, but I still didn’t know why faeries are hunting them. I met one of them, but she refused my help and ran away. Since then, I have looked for them, and friends I trust have asked discreetly around the Shadow Markets. The year I met you there, Lily, I was searching for Ragnor Fell, to find out what he could tell me. I want to know why they are being hunted, so that I can help them. Whoever their enemies are, they are mine, too.”