Jem was often lost in admiring her, but he did not let himself do so for long tonight. Instead he lifted her in his arms. Her hands flew out like startled starfish and came to rest, the smallest tenderest weights, against his collarbone. Mina’s dark eyes popped open all the way, and she went quiet.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Jem’s wife whispered, laughing softly. “Daddy’s girl.”

“She knows I brought her something from the Market,” said Jem, and gently rubbed the faerie salve on Mina’s soft pink gums.

Mina wriggled and fussed as he did so, kicking her legs as if she were swimming in a race, but when Jem was finished the salve seemed to do its work quickly. Then she settled, her small face bewildered but happy, as if Jem had performed some peculiar and marvelous feat.

Tessa said it was early for a baby to start teething. Mina was remarkable and advanced in all sorts of ways, Jem considered proudly.

“Qiān jīn,” Jem murmured to her. “You are more like your mother every day.”

She was very like Tessa. Whenever he pointed this out, Tessa and Kit seemed skeptical.

“I mean, she’s a baby, so she mostly looks like a kind of screwed-up turnip,” said Kit. “In … uh, a good way. But if she looks like anyone …”

Kit had shrugged. Tessa had the same expression on her face now as Kit had worn then.

“Still no,” Tessa informed him. “She looks just like you.”

Jem lifted Mina up and toward the witchlights, one hand cupped protectively around the fragile curve of her head. Happiness came easily to Mina. She crowed with delight, witchlight radiant around her ruffled cap of black hair and her round waving arms, and he was dazzled and overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of his good fortune.

“But—she’s so beautiful,” Jem said helplessly.

“And where might she get that from? I love you forever, James Carstairs,” said Tessa, leaning her dear head against his shoulder. “But you are a fool.”

Jem drew Mina back in and held her close, and she nuzzled her dimpled cheek against his, burbling to him joyfully. From the day she was born, Mina had gurgled at ceilings and walls and into the tiny caves of her cupped hands. Her gurgling grew higher pitched and more excited when she was in Tessa’s or Jem’s arms, trying to attract their attention. She talked in her sleep as her mother did. She was always talking, and Jem was always listening, and soon he would understand every word.

Their daughter was so like Tessa. Jem knew what he knew.

Janus zipped his jacket up to hide the blood as he passed a faerie stall. He’d decided he’d risked his luck long enough and he should make his way home.