James puzzled at that, but there was no time to ask. “Magnus,” he said. “If Belial did something to you, we’ll have to call the Silent Brothers—Jem, maybe—”
Magnus had risen painfully to his feet. He held out a hand, shaking his head firmly. “I’m fine. Just stunned. I didn’t realize Belial would be blocking the entrance to Edom.”
“Belial was—” Cordelia swallowed down her questions, looking from James to Magnus and back again. “What do we do now?”
Magnus moved stiffly toward the door. “This is much worse than I’d thought. Do nothing, do you understand? Take no more risks. I must reach the Spiral Labyrinth and speak with the warlock council.”
“Let us at least help you,” said James. “You could take our carriage—”
“No.” Magnus spoke sharply. “You must trust me. Remain here. Keep yourselves safe.”
Without another word, he was gone. In the distance, James heard the front door slam. Bewildered and more than a little dizzy, James turned to Cordelia, only to realize she was staring at him in horror.
“James,” she said. “You’re bleeding.”
* * *
To Cordelia’s relief, James’s wound was not as serious as it looked. He had stripped off his jacket with uncharacteristic obedience, making her wince—the sleeve of the shirt was soaked through with blood. She unbuttoned the shirt with shaking fingers—it seemed moments ago that James had helped her with her coat in the entryway—and hissed through her teeth. Something had dug a shallow groove along James’s bicep.
“And Belial did this?” she demanded, reaching for a damp rag to sponge the blood away. It was generally better to get a look at a cut before using a healing rune on it, lest the iratze close up skin over dirt or debris in the wound. “By throwing a bullet at you?”
“Seems so,” said James. “Oddly, not a power of his that was mentioned in the Monarchia Daemonium.”
He’d told her what had happened in the shadow realm as Cordelia had gotten bandages and water, and somehow found her stele. She set the stele to his skin now, carefully etching iratzes onto the skin below the cut. James flinched and said, “And the bloody gun’s gone. I lost it there. What a mess.”
“It’s not important,” Cordelia said firmly. “You’ve other weapons, just as good.”
He looked at her quietly for a moment. “How did you—come to me where I was?”
“I’m not sure,” Cordelia said. “I heard you call out for me. It was as if I was pulled toward you—but all I could see was shadows, and then I knew you in the dark. That you were there. I lifted up Cortana so I could see, and I heard Belial’s voice.” Give yourself to me, be mine. I will let you sleep.
He glanced up at her; she was standing over him as he sat on the arm of one of the upholstered chairs. They had abandoned the study for the drawing room, where the furniture was still upright. Witchlight glowed from sconces above the mantel, softly illuminating the room.
“I was afraid,” Cordelia said, “after Magnus came back without you, that you would be trapped there.” “Afraid” seemed a pale word for it. She had been terrified. “Did you open a door to return? Like a Portal?”
His golden eyes searched her face. She moved the stele up his arm, to make a third Mark: the graze was already healing, closing into a scar. Dirt and blood stained his undershirt, and his cheekbone was scraped, his hair a wild explosion. She wondered if it was odd that in some ways she preferred this James—mess and blood and sweat and all—to the perfectly behaved gentleman with the Mask at the ready. “Perhaps Belial didn’t want me there,” he said, which was not quite an answer to the question. “He did say he never sent me any visions of the murders—never intended me to see them at all.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Yes,” said James, after a pause. “I know he’s a liar, but he usually wants me to think he’s all-powerful. I don’t see the advantage of lying to me in a way that makes it seem as if he made a mistake.”
“Then what does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” James said, though Cordelia suspected he had some guesses. “But I believe I do understand why he is so fearful of Cortana and of you. When we were in the shadow realm, Magnus said to him, ‘You have one. You only need three.’？”
“One what?”
“One wound, I think,” said James. “From Cortana. It still hasn’t healed. It’s like the wound of the Fisher King; it bleeds and bleeds. I guessed that two more blows from the sword—mortal wounds, not scratches—could finish him. And when I mentioned that, Belial seemed terrified.”