He and Lily opened the remaining doors. The women who could move on their own did. Too many could not. Alec picked up one woman after another and carried them out. Lily helped women who needed support to walk. Alec gave the women to the Downworlders of the Shadow Market whenever he could, so he was able to get back to the basement faster. He reached the top of the stairs with another woman and saw the hall was deserted, taken over by smoke and falling masonry. Everyone had fled the death trap this building had become.

Alec bundled the woman into Lily’s arms. Lily was small enough that it was difficult, but she was strong enough to bear her weight.

“Take her. I have to get the others.”

“I don’t want to go!” Lily shouted over the crackling fire. “I don’t ever want to abandon anybody again!”

“You won’t. Lily, go.”

Lily stumbled for the door under her heavy burden, sobbing. Alec turned back. The smoke had turned the whole world into a gray hell. He couldn’t see or breathe.

A hand caught his shoulder. Joaquín stood behind him.

“You can’t go down there!” he panted. “I’m so sorry about those women, but they’re—”

Alec said icily, “Downworlders?”

“It’s too dangerous. And you—you have a lot to go back to.”

Magnus and Max. If Alec closed his eyes, he could see them with absolute clarity. But he knew he had to be worthy of going back to them.

Joaquín was still holding on to him. Alec shrugged him off, and not gently.

“I will not leave one woman down there, abused and forgotten,” he said. “Not one. No real Shadowhunter would.”

He looked over his shoulder at Joaquín as he was going down the steps into hell.

“You can leave,” said Alec. “If you do, you can still call yourself a Shadowhunter. But will you be one?”

Rafael lay on the cobbled street as Jem and Tessa hovered over him. Jem used every silent enchantment he had learned among the Silent Brothers. Tessa whispered every healing spell she had learned in the Spiral Labyrinth. Jem could tell, from long, bitter experience, that there was too much broken and bruised within that small body.

There was a fire burning and a battle raging. Jem could not pay attention to any of it, could not bring himself to care about anything but the child under his hands.

“Dittany, Jem,” Tessa whispered desperately. “I need dittany.”

Jem climbed to his feet, searching the crowd. There were so many from the Shadow Market here, there was surely one who could help. His gaze fell on Mother Hawthorn, with starlight on her dandelion hair.

She met his eyes and made to run. Jem was fast as a Shadowhunter still, when he had to be. He was at her side in a moment, catching her wrist.

“Do you have dittany?”

“If I do,” snarled Mother Hawthorn, “why should I give it to you?”