Brother Zachariah should really have learned better by now. Of course Tessa would have sent word to Will, and while Will often traded upon Brother Zachariah’s position as a Silent Brother to command his services and thus his presence, he very seldom spoke to Zachariah of his duties as a Silent Brother, as if he could make Zachariah not what he was by dint of sheer determination.

If anyone could have done it, Will would have been that one.

Will threw him the walking stick, which he must have stolen from James’s room, and confiscated Brother Zachariah’s staff. Jem had asked them to give James his room at the Institute, fill it with their son’s bright presence, and not keep it as some dreary shrine. He was not dead. He had felt when they made him a Silent Brother as if he had been cut open and all things inside him ripped out.

Only, there was that which they could not take away.

“Carry it awhile,” said Will. “It lightens my heart to see you with it. We could all do with lighter hearts tonight.”

He traced a carving upon the staff, the Herondale ring winking by moonlight.

Where shall I carry it?

“Wherever you please. I thought I would walk with you a little way, my parabatai.”

How far? asked Jem.

Will smiled. “Need you ask? I will go with you as far as I possibly may.”

Jem smiled back. Perhaps there was more hope and less sorrow in store for Matthew Fairchild than he feared. None knew better than Jem that someone could be not fully known yet still entirely loved. Forgiven all sins, and dearest in darkness. James would not let his parabatai travel any shadowy paths alone. No matter what catastrophe came, Jem believed the son had as great a heart as his father.

New streetlights showed Will’s and Jem’s silhouettes, walking together through their city, as they had of old. Even though both knew they must part.

Across London the bells rang all together in a sudden terrifying clamor. Frightened birds in mad wheeling flight cast deeper shadows across the city at night, and Jem knew the queen was dead.

A new age was beginning.

Every Exquisite Thing

By Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson

London, 1901

This one was stained with something purple.

This one had a hole in the sleeve.

This one was missing a … back. An entire back. It was just a front of a shirt and two sleeves clinging on for dear life.

“Christopher,” Anna said, turning the garment over in her hands, “how do you do these things?”

Everyone had their small wonderland. For her brother Christopher and Uncle Henry, it was the laboratory. For Cousin James and Uncle Will, the library. For Lucie, her writing desk, where she wrote her long adventures for Cordelia Carstairs. For Matthew Fairchild, it was any troublesome corner of London.

For Anna Lightwood, it was her brother’s wardrobe.