“Oh, my darling,” he murmured, reaching for his knife as her eyes widened in realization and fear. “My darling. Why did you have to die?”

Kit ran up the stone steps to his room, slamming the door behind him, as soon as they retured to Cirenworth Hall. Jem thought it might be best to give him privacy, for a little while.

He was still slightly worried as he climbed the steps himself, following the sound of a song echoing off the slate walls.

“Black for hunting through the night

For death and mourning the color’s white

Gold for a bride in her wedding gown

And red to call enchantment down.

Saffron lights the victory march,

Green will mend our broken hearts.

Silver for the demon towers,

And bronze to summon wicked powers.”

It was a variation on an ancient Shadowhunter song; Jem could not have guessed how old. His father had sung it to him when he was a child.

When he pushed open the door, the world narrowed down for a moment to a single room, and that room was full of soft light. There was a cluster of shining witchlights arranged in the old-fashioned iron grate, and pearlescent rays caught in Tessa’s brown curls as she bent over the cradle, rocking it gently. The cradle had been carved more than a hundred years ago from an oak felled in these woods. Jem had seen it made, with careful hands and patient love. The cradle rocked just as smoothly now as it had then.

Plaintive grizzling drifted from the cradle, and Jem leaned over to see its occupant. She lay on soft white bedding, piles on piles of fleeciness so it seemed she slept on a cloud. Her shock of hair was very black against the sheets and her small face was screwed up in outraged distress.

Wilhelmina Yiqiang Ke Carstairs. For their lost Will, the first and only possible name, and wild rose, because all those who Jem loved best grew in beautiful rebellion. He’d wanted a Chinese name for his darling, and wanted to commemorate lost Rosemary, who had trusted Jem and Tessa with what was infinitely precious to her and was now infinitely precious to him: Rosemary had trusted him with Kit. Rosemary was the herb meant for remembrance, and Zachariah meant remember. The longer Jem lived, the more surely he believed that life was a wheel, coming full circle, and bringing you to those you were meant to love. She had an imposing name, their little one, and it might have been longer had they included Gray, but Tessa said that warlocks chose their own name, if she chose to be a warlock. Mina might choose to be a Shadowhunter. She might be anything she pleased. She was everything already.