“Forget the rock formations,” Jem said. “There’s a dumpling place down the street, and I haven’t eaten human food in half a century. Let’s go see who can eat the most dumplings in the shortest amount of time. And duck! You really ought to try pressed duck! It’s a great delicacy.”

Jem looked at Will, suppressing a smile. His friend glared back, but at last neither of them could hold back their laughter. Will said, “There is nothing so sweet as feasting upon the bones of my enemies. Especially with you at my side.”

There was a lightness in Jem’s chest that he realized, finally, was joy. He saw that joy mirrored in his parabatai’s face. The face of the one you love is the best mirror of all. It shows you your own happiness and your own pain and it helps you to bear both, because to bear either alone is to be overwhelmed by the flood.

Jem stood up and held out his hand to Will. Without realizing it, he held his breath. Perhaps this was a dream after all, and when Jem touched him Will would vanish away again. But Will’s hand was warm and solid and strong, and Jem drew him up easily. Together they began to run lightly over the tiles of the roof.

The night was very beautiful and warm, and they were both young.

A Deeper Love

By Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson

London, December 29, 1940

“I think first,” Catarina said, “lemon cake. Oh, lemons. I think I miss them most.”

Catarina Loss and Tessa Gray were walking down Ludgate Hill, just passing the Old Bailey. This was a game they sometimes played: What will you eat first when this war is over? Of all the terrible things that were going on, sometimes the most ordinary ran the deepest. Food was rationed, and the rations were small—an ounce of cheese, four thin pieces of bacon, and one egg a week. Everything came in tiny amounts. Some things simply went away, like lemons. There were oranges sometimes—Tessa saw them at the fruit-and-veg market—but they were only for children, who could have one each. The nurses were fed at the hospital, but the portions were always tiny, and never enough to keep up with all the work they performed. Tessa was lucky to have the strength she did. It was not all the physical strength of a Shadowhunter, but some trace of angelic endurance lingered within her and sustained her; she had no idea how the mundane nurses kept up.

“Or a banana,” Catarina said. “I never liked them much before, but now that they are gone, I find myself craving them. That’s always the way, isn’t it?”