Lily was gazing at him as if she was sorry for him. As if she could know how he felt. He wanted to put out her eyes, to stop her looking at him like that, but she might be useful.

“Let’s make a bargain,” Janus suggested. “You do me one favor, when the time comes, without asking questions, and I will do what I can to bring Raphael to your world. It isn’t going to be easy, and it will take time. You don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me. If you do, I can always send a message back to Thule telling them to kill Raphael.”

She winced.

“Do we have a deal?” Janus said.

There was a long silence. Janus could still hear the songs and bells of the Shadow Market flowing on, past this dark alley with the undead.

Then Lily said, “We have a deal.”

He let Lily leave, and followed her quietly. He saw her take out her phone, as if she might call somebody and warn them. But she didn’t. She put her phone back in her pocket.

It was almost funny. Janus knew no way back into that other world, but it didn’t matter if this girl was smart or if she wanted to be good, because she was wild and clawing and frantic to believe him. Hope made everybody a fool.

To make people obey, all you had to do was first make sure they were desperate. Janus should know that well enough. He’d been desperate for years. Don’t repeat that to the other Jace, Lily had said. As if Janus was planning to have any conversations with the other Jace, the one from this world, the one who’d gotten lucky. Janus didn’t need to talk to him. Janus would learn everything he had to know about this world, so he could pass himself off as the other Jace.

Then he would kill this world’s version of himself and take his place. Beside Clary.

It was near dawn when Mina woke crying. Tessa stirred, but Jem dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder and murmured, “I’ll go, love.”

Tessa had suffered pains that Jem could not, bringing Mina into the world. His wife would never lose sleep with the baby while Jem was in the house. That was Jem’s privilege.

Jem crept up to Mina’s room, quiet so as not to wake Kit and to let Tessa go back to sleep.

When he reached her room, though, he saw Kit was awake. Kit was already in the baby’s room, with Mina in his arms.

“Hey,” Kit said to the baby, speaking seriously as if to a teammate. “C’mon, do me a solid, will you, Min? You’ve been waking them up all week. I bet they’re tired.”