“You must mean Mother Hawthorn,” said Rose. “She’s always here. She tells stories to the children. Loves children. Hates everybody else. If you’re looking for her, stick around the kids. She’s sure to come.”

So they headed toward a campfire where most of the children were congregated. A faerie was playing the bandonion at this fire. Jem smiled to hear the music.

Rafe clung to Alec’s shirt and glared jealously around. The other kids seemed intimidated by his scowl.

A teenage warlock girl was doing magic tricks, creating shadow puppets in the smoke of the fire. Tessa whispered helpful hints in the girl’s ear. Even Rafe laughed, all the sullenness gone from his face. He was only a child, leaning into Alec’s side, learning to be happy.

“He says she is very good,” Lily translated for Alec. “He likes magic, but most of the powerful warlocks left ages ago. He wants to know if the cool man can do that.”

Alec took out his phone to show Rafael a video of Magnus and a witchlight.

“Look, it turns red,” Alec said, and Rafe instantly seized the phone. “No, we don’t grab! We stop stealing. I have to text Magnus back sometime, and I can’t if you keep stealing my phone.”

Alec glanced through the leaping iridescent flames at Jem.

“I was actually wondering if you could give me some advice,” he said. “I mean, you were saying all that stuff earlier. Like—romantic stuff. You always know what to say.”

“Me?” Jem asked, startled. “No, I’ve never thought of myself as very good with words. I like music. It’s easier to express what you feel with music.”

“Alec is right,” said Tessa.

Jem blinked. “He is?”

“At some of the worst and darkest times in my life, you have always known what to say to comfort me,” said Tessa. “I had one of my darkest moments when we were young, and we had only known each other a little while. You came to me and said words that I carried with me like a light. That was one of the moments that made me fall in love with you.”

She lifted her hand to his face, her fingers tracing the scars there. Jem dropped a kiss on her wrist.

“If my words comforted you, we are even,” he said. “Your voice is the music I love best in all the world.”

“You see,” Alec muttered darkly to Lily.

“We do love an eloquent babe,” said Lily.

Tessa leaned close to Jem and whispered in the language she’d learned for him: “Wŏ ài nĭ.”

And at that moment, looking into her eyes, Jem caught a flash of movement and then stillness in the dark. The faerie woman with the dandelion hair had been coming toward the children, pushing her little cart full of poisons. She stopped at the sight of Jem. She recognized him, as he did her.

“Mother Hawthorn,” said the warlock girl Tessa had talked to. “Have you come to tell us a story?”