“There is not time to perfect the skill. It is now Lilith needs you.” Seeing that Louis is unconvinced he goes on. “She is so young. She is such a good person. She cared more about me, and more about protecting the Great Secret, than about anything else. She was prepared to give her life for it. But she doesn’t have to, don’t you see? We can save her. She told me what it meant to be a necromancer. I can’t pretend I understood everything she said, it’s so much to take in, so much to comprehend … but I believed every word of what she said.”

Louis looks down at Lilith. He briskly wipes a tear from his eye.

Bram tries to find the right words. “If it goes wrong, you can say I made you do it. That I wouldn’t pass on the Great Secret to you unless you tried.”

Louis’s face hardens. “If it goes wrong, we will damn her to the Darkness—did she tell you that? Did she talk of the hell that waits for spirits who are lost? Have you any true conception of what risk we are taking here, not just for Lilith but for ourselves, too?” He stands, shaking his head, still clutching the box that holds the Elixir and the Montgomery diamonds, staring at it.

Bram sighs. He closes his eyes for a moment, and then puts his hand on Louis’s arm and says, “I won’t make you do it. I can’t. To use what I know, to withhold it from you … that would be wrong. It would not be what Lilith would want. I will tell you the Great Secret, whatever you decide to do. But I believe saving her would be right.” He reaches down and touches Lilith’s sleek, shiny hair. Looking back up at Louis, he says quietly, “Bring her back to us. If you love her, please, bring her back to us.”

*   *   *