In his bedroom, James found that someone—Effie, most likely—had placed the broken pieces of Grace’s bracelet on his nightstand. Not wanting to leave them out in the open, he put the two halves in his pocket. He would have to return them to Grace, he supposed, though it was hardly what he wanted to think about right now.
By the time he changed clothes and made his way downstairs, he found Anna—who had managed to produce an entire new outfit out of seemingly thin air—lounging in a tapestry chair, wearing matching velvet trousers and a loose jacket in a deep gold color.
Cordelia arrived back at Curzon Street just as Effie came in to lay out a small feast on the table: Lancashire spice nuts, curried shrimp and lauretta sandwiches, London buns and French eclairs.
The sight of Daisy made the back of James’s throat hurt. As the rest of his friends fell on the food like starving wolves, he watched Cordelia make her way to the sofa. She wore a dark emerald dress that made her hair look like rose petals against green leaves. It had been gathered up in soft curls at the back of her head, held in place by a silk bandeau. There were green slippers on her feet. He caught her eye; when she glanced at him, he saw that she was wearing the necklace he’d given her, the small gold orb gleaming just above the neckline of her gown. She did not seem to have Cortana with her; she must have laid it away upstairs.
His heart gave a slow, hard thump. When they were alone, he could tell her the necklace’s secret. But not now, he told himself; it felt like the fiftieth time today. Not yet.
“So,” Matthew said, holding up the glass in his hand so it caught the light, “are we going to discuss what actually happened this morning?”
“Indeed,” said Thomas. He had an odd air about him, James thought, quiet and inward-seeming, as if something was bothering him. He kept touching the inside of his left forearm, as if his compass rose tattoo ached—though as far as James knew, that was unlikely. “How much of what you told the Enclave was true, James?”
James sank back in his chair. He was so tired he felt as if there were sand under his eyelids. “What I told them was true—but I left a great deal out.”
“May we assume,” said Anna, “that the demon possessing Jesse Blackthorn was Belial?”
James nodded. “Belial wasn’t possessing me, but he was the architect behind the killings. Behind all of it.”
“So the dreams you were having—you were seeing through Belial’s eyes, while he was in Jesse Blackthorn’s body?” asked Christopher.
“I don’t believe Belial was even aware that I was seeing through his eyes. I’m not sure why I was, to be honest. Perhaps it had something to do with Jesse, rather than Belial—but I can’t guess.” James had picked up an empty teacup; he turned it over in his hands. “The person who knows the most about Jesse is Lucie, and we may not have all of that story until we speak to her, too. But it appears she has been acquainted with him—or his ghost—for some time.”
Anna, picking the currants off a London bun, frowned. “Lucie was looking into the circumstances of his death—”
“She was?” Matthew said. “We know she saw his ghost—interacted with him—but why would she do that?”
“I think,” Anna said, in a measured voice, “that she was trying to help Grace. It seems they know each other rather well.”
James recalled Grace, in this drawing room. I know Lucie, like you, can see the dead—but you can also travel in shadows. Can Lucie do the same?
“They do?” The surprise in Cordelia’s eyes was clear. She glanced away quickly, though. “Never mind, Anna. It’s not important.”
“I went with her to question Hypatia Vex,” Anna said. “She told us that Tatiana had refused to have the protection spells placed on Jesse and had hired our old friend Emmanuel Gast to do it instead.”
So that’s how Lucie knew to summon Gast, James realized. There was clearly far more to what Lucie could do, and indeed, what she had already done, than any of them had guessed. He thought of her gold locket. Part of the way Tatiana had preserved her son, it seemed, yet that same son had sacrificed the magic of it to save James’s life. He remembered what Grace had said to him, after: My mother says she knows now there is no chance Jesse will ever return. She says it is as if you stole his last breath.
He had not understood her at the time. But Lucie had known…
Tomorrow, he told himself. He would speak with Lucie then.
“Belial had his hooks in Emmanuel Gast,” said James. “He forced the warlock to place a piece of his essence inside Jesse, so that as Jesse grew older, Belial would have an anchor in him, and a body Belial could possess on this Earth.”