The alarm would be raised, but that did not matter now. She had cast the last die, crossed the Rubicon. There would be no going back. She did not care. She had been done with all things Nephilim for a long time. She could not outrun them and their pursuit, not on this Earth, but that did not matter either. She had chosen her allies well.
At that moment, she saw him. He stood atop the hill, smiling down at her. He was beautiful as ever, beautiful as sin and freedom were beautiful. She was panting by the time she reached him—he was leaning his back against a mossy boulder, examining his translucent nails. All of Belial was translucent, as if he had been formed out of human tears. She could see through him to the long stretch of empty volcanic land beyond.
“Do you have it?” he said in his musical voice.
“A fine greeting,” said Tatiana. She could see that instead of one wound staining the white of his clothes, he now had two, one below the other. They were freely bleeding. Her lips tightened. Stupid children, she thought, as dangerously foolish as their parents, unaware of the stakes in the game they played. “Did our plan come to fruition? Were you able to use the adamas I provided you?”
“Indeed, and your son performed his part excellently.” Belial smiled, and if there was a wince behind that smile, Tatiana did not see it. “That part of our plan is behind us. We look to the future now. And the future rests on you. Do you have what you promised me?”
“Yes.” Tatiana reached for the metal object tucked beneath her thick belt. She held it up—an iron key, blackened with age and heavy with promise. “The key to the Iron Tombs.” She glanced behind her. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she could see small figures swarming out of the Citadel, like troubled ants. “Now take me from here, as you swore you would.”
Belial swept a bow. “At your service, my dark swan,” he said, and his laughter wrapped her like the sweet blaze of laudanum, lifting her up as the black-and-green world faded all around her.
Carrying her far away.
NOTES ON THE TEXT
Sink Street is not a real location in London, but rather features in the Evelyn Waugh novel A Handful of Dust as being next to Golden Square. The passages Cordelia reads about Wayland the Smith’s barrow （a real place you can really visit!） come from the 1899 edition of Country Life Illustrated; the passages about Istanbul （Constantinople at the time） are from The City of the Sultan by Julia Pardoe, published in 1836. “Chi! Khodah margam bedeh,” said by Alastair, is an expression of frustration; literally it means “God give me death.”
Five thousand pounds, the amount Elias asks James for, is about six hundred thousand pounds in today’s currency. Wow.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With so many thanks to everyone who both helped with the crafting of the prose of this story and pitched in to keep me going during the many dark days of 2020. With thanks to my intrepid assistant, Emily Houk; my research angel, Clary Goodman; my writing partners Holly Black and Kelly Link as well as Robin Wasserman, Steve Berman, Jedediah Berry, Elka Cloke, Kate Welsh, and Maureen Johnson. Thanks to Fariba Kooklan and Marguerite Maghen for help with Farsi, and Sarah Ismail for translating the Baudelaire poem that begins chapter 2. Thanks as always to my agents, Jo Volpe and Suzie Townsend, and my editor, Karen Wojtyla. With hugs to Cat and Rò for cheering me up; my always gratitude to my family, and, of course, all my love to Josh: I have run out of ways to express how important you are to me.