He sliced again and again, blood sluicing over his blade and drenching his fist, falling onto the stones beneath their feet, pooling in the crevices. Rage rose within him and soon he was stabbing harder, bringing down the knife over and over again, his other gloved hand over his victim’s mouth, muffling the screams until they were no more than bubbling gasps.
When there was nothing left of the Shadowhunter but limp flesh, the killer loosened his grasp. The body slid to the cobblestones. He knelt and carefully, almost tenderly, rolled up the dying man’s sleeve and held his own bare arm close to the Shadowhunter’s.
The killer produced an object from his jacket, a slim metal shaft that did not reflect the light, its surface crisscrossed with etched lines. He ran his fingers over his victim’s Swiftness rune, tracing the marks on the dead man’s flesh, feeling the energy just below the surface, the power of the rune itself.
The killer smiled.
The rune was his now. He had earned it.
8 TO BRING A FIRE
I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.
—Luke 12:49–51
After waking late the next morning, Cordelia dressed in a warm wool skirt and white high-necked blouse and made her way downstairs and into the dining room, where she found James seated at the table with an open copy of Housman’s poems at his left elbow and a breakfast plate at his right.
He offered her a tired smile. He didn’t look much better than she felt—there were crescent moons of darkness under his eyes. As she sat down across from him, she couldn’t help but notice his poetry book was upside down.
Risa bustled in with tea and breakfast for her. James stayed silent, his face closed, his eyes half-lidded. As soon as she was gone, he said, “Daisy, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you. It’s about what happened the night before our wedding.”
Cordelia attacked her boiled egg with vigor. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had gone on at the Devil. “I… believe I heard something about a reverse mermaid?”
“Ah,” said James, sitting back in his chair. “That was Matthew’s fault, and truly one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. Anyway, it seems Claribella has found true love in the arms of a gin-soaked kelpie, so I suppose no one was harmed too badly.”
“Really?” Cordelia was amused, but James went on, his expression darkening.
“It’s not that. All I’d really wanted was to spend some time with the Merry Thieves that night. But I’d only just got to our quarters when—I found myself in that other world.” His left hand, with its long, elegant fingers, played with the fork by his plate. He’d eaten very little. “Belial’s world.”
The name seemed to fall between them like a shadow. Belial. When Cordelia had seen him, he had taken the form of a beautiful man, icy-pale. It had been hard to look upon him and imagine him as anyone’s grandfather, much less Lucie and James’s.
“But—that’s not possible,” Cordelia said. “Belial’s realm was destroyed. We saw him shatter and vanish—Jem said it would take a hundred years for him to regain enough strength to return!”
James shrugged unhappily. “And yet… it was so real. I felt it, Cordelia—I felt his presence. I may not be able to explain it, but—”
“Did you say anything to Jem?”
“Yes. I sent him a message this morning. Or at least, I tried.” James released the fork. He had bent several of the tines. “It seems he’s still in the Spiral Labyrinth with Magnus; I cannot get through. I’ll try again, but meanwhile, we must do everything we can to understand what’s going on, how it’s possible that I could be sensing Belial nearby when he could not possibly be there.”
A look flickered at the back of James’s eyes—a look that made Cordelia sit up straight, suddenly very worried indeed. But before she could respond, they heard the doorbell ring.
Risa hurried in from the front hall. “Oun pessareh ke tou Sirk bazi mikoneh, injast,” she told Cordelia, rolling her eyes.
James looked inquiring.
“She said, ‘The one from the circus is here,’？” translated Cordelia, giving Risa a mock-stern look. “She means Matthew. She disapproves of his waistcoats.”
James started to grin as Matthew swaggered into the dining room, a spring in his step. He wore burgundy-and-olive spats with a matching waistcoat, and folded gracefully into a seat at the head of the table. He helped himself to a kipper from James’s untouched plate before announcing, “I have news.”