Jem thought of Roland and Auraline’s descendant Rosemary and the man she’d loved. They might have a child by now. The curse the faeries had talked about had already claimed lives. This danger was far greater than he had ever suspected. Jem had to protect Rosemary from the Unseelie King and the Riders who brought death. If there was a child, Jem had to save that child. Jem had already failed to save so many.

Jem rose and left Mother Hawthorn. He went to the barbed-wire edge of the Market, moving desperately fast, as if he could race back into the past and save those he had lost there.

When he stopped, Tessa caught him. She held him in her arms, and when he stopped trembling, she drew his head down to hers.

“Jem, my Jem. It’s all right. I thought it was a very beautiful story,” she said.

“What?”

“Not her story,” said Tessa. “Not the story of her warped sight and terrible choices. I can see the story behind hers. The story of Auraline and Roland.”

“But all the people who were hurt,” Jem murmured. “The children we loved.”

“My James knew the power of a love story, as well as I do,” said Tessa. “No matter how dark and hopeless the world seemed, Lucie could always find beauty in a story. I know what they would have thought.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jem instantly.

He hadn’t meant to make Tessa speak of her children. He knew how much losing them had hurt her. Every time he dreamed of a child, he remembered the pain she had endured, and knew he could never ask her to lose more. She was enough for him: she always would be.

“Auraline grew up in horror. She felt cursed. And he was lost and wandering. They seemed destined for misery. Only they found each other, Jem. They were together and happy, all the days of their lives. Her story is just like mine, because I found you.”

Tessa’s smile lit the night. She always brought hope when he was in despair, as she had brought words when everything within him was silence. Jem put his arms around her and held on tightly.

“I hope you learned what you needed to learn tonight,” Alec told Jem and Tessa when they reached their rooms.

Jem had looked upset when he bolted from the fireside, but he and Tessa had seemed different when they returned.

“I hope they’re all right,” Alec said quietly to Lily when Jem and Tessa went off to prepare for their midnight visit to the warlock’s house.

“Of course Tessa’s fine,” said Lily. “You do realize she gets to go to the Jem-nasium anytime she wants?”