Anna noticed many people taking in the sight of her in her men’s clothing and nodding appreciatively. The men seemed pleased or amused, the women either admiring or—interested. Quite a few raked Anna boldly with their eyes, their gazes clinging to the feminine body revealed by her fitted clothes. It was as if in casting off dresses she had cast off society’s expectation of a woman’s modesty and could allow herself to be admired, desired. Her soul soared with new confidence: she felt herself a gorgeous creature, neither a gentleman nor a lady. A gentlewoman, she thought, and winked at one of the only people she recognized: the werewolf Woolsey Scott, head of the Praetor Lupus. He wore a bottle-green smoking jacket and was puffing away on a hookah pipe while holding court for a cluster of fascinated mundanes.

“Of course,” Anna heard him say, “they had a difficult time getting my bathtub into one of the tree houses, but I would hardly leave it behind. One must always bring one’s own bathtub.”

“That’s Somebody Somebody Yeats over there,” Matthew said, indicating a tall, bespectacled man. “He read a new work the last time I was here.”

“And it was wonderful,” said a voice. It came from a woman sitting near where Matthew and Anna stood. She was a stunning warlock with the scaled skin of a snake, colored silver, almost opalescent. Her long green hair tumbled over her shoulders and was strung through with a fine gold mesh. She wore a red gown that clung to her frame. She tipped her head up elegantly toward Matthew and Anna.

“Are all London Shadowhunters so handsome as you?” she asked. She had a German accent.

“No,” Anna said simply.

“Definitely not,” Matthew agreed.

The warlock smiled.

“Your London Shadowhunters are more interesting than ours,” she said. “Ours are very tedious. Yours are beautiful and amusing.”

Someone grumbled something at this, but the rest of the group laughed appreciatively.

“Do sit and join us,” the woman said. “I am Leopolda Stain.”

Most of the people around Leopolda seemed to be fawning mundanes, like the group around Woolsey Scott. One man wore a black robe covered in symbols Anna did not recognize. Matthew and Anna sat down on the rug, against a pile of tasseled pillows that served as a sofa. Next to them was a woman wearing a gold turban scarf pinned with a sapphire.

“Are you two of the Chosen?” she asked Matthew and Anna.

“Certainly,” Matthew said.

“Ah. I could tell from the way Leopolda reacted to you. She is quite wonderful, is she not? She is from Vienna and knows simply everyone—Freud, Mahler, Klimt, Schiele….”

“Marvelous,” Matthew said. He probably did think it was marvelous—Matthew adored art and artists.

“She’s going to help us,” the woman said. “Obviously, we’ve had such troubles here. Why, Crowley wasn’t even recognized here in London! He had to go to the Ahathoor Temple in Paris to be initiated to the grade of Adeptus Minor, which I’m sure you heard about.”