Jesse didn’t reply. She’d meant to be amusing, but his eyes had gone dark and serious. How odd that even when one was a ghost, the eyes were the window to the soul. And she knew Jesse had a soul. And that it was as alive as anything else living, desperate to be free in the world once more, not sentenced to a half-existence of consciousness that came only at night.
Jesse glanced out the window. They were passing through Piccadilly Circus, nearly deserted at such a late hour. The statue of Eros in the center was lightly dusted with snow; a lone tramp slept upon the steps below it. “Don’t have too much hope, Lucie. Sometimes hope is dangerous.”
“Have you said that to Grace?”
“She won’t listen. Not a word. I—I don’t wish you to be disappointed.”
Lucie reached out her hand, still in its blue kid glove. Jesse seemed to be watching her in the faint reflection traced against the inside of the window, though of course he could not also see himself. Perhaps he preferred it that way.
He turned his own hand over, palm up. Drawing off her glove, she rested her fingers lightly on his. Oh. The feel of him—his hand was cool but slightly insubstantial, like the memory of a touch. And yet it sent sparks through her veins—she could almost see them, like fireflies in the dark.
She cleared her throat. “Don’t worry about me being disappointed,” she said. “I am terribly busy with important things, and I have a wedding to arrange tomorrow.”
He looked over at her then, smiling almost reluctantly. “You’re the only one planning this wedding?”
She tossed her head, making the flowers on her hat tremble. “The only competent one.”
“Oh, indeed. I recall the scene in Secret Princess Lucie Is Rescued from Her Terrible Family in which Princess Lucie bests Cruel Prince James at the art of flower arranging.”
“James was very annoyed by that chapter,” said Lucie, with some satisfaction. Light glowed into the carriage as they passed the streetlamps: outside, a lone policeman walked his solitary beat before the Corinthian portico of the Haymarket Theatre.
She could no longer feel Jesse’s hand against hers. She glanced down and saw that she seemed to be resting her fingers against nothing—he seemed to have gone from slightly to entirely insubstantial. She frowned, but he had already withdrawn his hand, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined things.
“I suppose you’ll see Grace tomorrow,” Jesse said. “She seems unbothered by the wedding and appears to wish your brother well.”
Lucie couldn’t help but wonder. Grace was a subject she and Jesse could only touch on lightly. She never saw them at the same time, since Jesse lay unconscious during the day, and Grace had difficulty getting away from the Bridgestocks and Charles during the night; Jesse often visited her, but she never spoke to Lucie about their conversations. For all that Grace and Lucie were working together to save Jesse, the topic of him as he was, now, was an awkward one.
Jesse did seem to understand that Grace had gotten engaged to Charles in order to be protected from Tatiana’s influence, and that James and Cordelia were marrying to save Cordelia’s reputation. He even seemed to think it was the right thing to do. But Jesse loved his sister with a great protective love, and Lucie had no desire to discuss with him the fact that she worried Grace had broken James’s heart.
Especially not while she still needed Grace’s help.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” she said briskly. Turning out of Shoe Lane, they rolled through the iron gateway of the Institute and into the courtyard. The cathedral rose above them, dark and imposing against the sky. “When—when will I see you again?”
She immediately wished she hadn’t asked. He always turned up, rarely missing more than a night between their meetings. She shouldn’t press him.
Jesse smiled a little sadly. “Would that I could make an appearance during the wedding. It is a pity. I would have liked to see you in your suggenes dress. It looked like a butterfly’s wings.”
She had shown him the material—an iridescent peach-lavender shot silk—before; still, she was surprised he recalled it. Lights were coming on in the Institute; Lucie knew that her parents would soon be emerging to welcome her back. She drew away from Jesse, reaching to gather up her discarded glove, as the front door of the Institute opened, spilling warm yellow light across the flagstones.
“Perhaps tomorrow night—” she began, but Jesse was already gone.
GRACE: 1893–1896
Once upon a time, she had been someone else, she remembers that much. A different girl, though she had the same skinny wrists and white-blond hair. When she was still small, her parents sat her down and explained that she and they and everyone they knew were not ordinary people, but the descendants of angels. Nephilim, sworn to protect the world from the monsters that threatened it. The girl had a drawing of an eye on the back of her hand, from before remembering. Her parents put it there, and it marked her as one of the Shadowhunters and allowed her to see the monsters that were invisible to others.