“Maybe I didn’t realize how much I’d shut myself away from humanity all those years in the Spiral Labyrinth,” she admitted. “You fought in the War, you saw so much violence, so much death, but I was hiding—”

“You were fighting,” Jem corrected her. “In your way, which was as essential as mine.”

“I was fighting. But I was also hiding. I didn’t want to be fully in the world until you could be there too. And now, I suppose, I’m waking up to being fully human again. Which is terrifying, especially now.”

“Tessa, why now?” he said again, alarm growing. What could Brother Enoch have told her to send her into this kind of spiraling panic?

Tessa took his palm and pressed it flat against her stomach. “The reason I had so much trouble Changing back to myself is that I’m not only myself right now.”

“You mean …?” He was almost afraid to hope.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Really?” He felt like a live wire, the idea of it, a baby, lighting his synapses on fire. He had never let himself hope for this, because he knew better than anyone how difficult it had been for Tessa, watching her children age as she did not. She had been a wonderful mother, she had loved being a mother, but he knew what it had cost her. He’d always assumed she would never want to endure that again.

“Really. Diapers, strollers, playdates with Magnus and Alec, assuming we can persuade Magnus to wait a few years before he starts training our child to blow things up, the whole nine yards. So … what do you think?”

Jem felt like his heart would burst. “I’m happy. I’m—‘happy’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. But you …” He examined her expression carefully. He knew her face better than his own, could read it like one of Tessa’s beloved books, and he read now: terror, longing, sorrow, and most of all, joy. “You’re happy too?”

“I didn’t think I could ever feel this way again,” Tessa said. “There was a time when I thought there was no more joy left to me. And now …” Her smile blazed like the sun. “Why do you look so surprised?”

He didn’t know how to say it without hurting her, making the pain fresh again by reminding her of her loss—but of course, she could read his face just as well as he could read hers. “Yes,” said Tessa. “I might lose them someday. As I’ll lose you. I can’t bear the thought of it.”

“Tessa—”

“But we bear so much that seems unthinkable. The only truly unbearable burden is living without love. You taught me that.” She laced her fingers through his, squeezed tight. She was so unimaginably strong. “You and Will.”