"𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒆, 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒊𝒕."

♛

"Daisy, you summoned a demon? All by yourself?" Lucie exclaimed. "How enterprising and brave and—also a terrible idea," she added hastily, catching James's dark expression. "A very bad idea. But also, enterprising."

"Well, it was certainly interesting," Cordelia said. She was perched on the edge of a table, nibbling the corner of a piece of shortbread. "I wouldn't do it again, though. Unless I had to."

"Which you will not," James said. He gave Cordelia a mock-stern look, and she smiled at him, and the stern part of the look melted away. Now they were gazing soppily at each other.

Dahlia was sitting sideways on the armchair where Matthew was sitting, reading a book. Her feet were on one side and her back resting against the other. She was laying her head against his chest as he read a book out loud to her in a soft voice only she heard.

They were all gathered in the library, where Bridget had set out sandwiches, game pies, tea, and pastries for them, since, as she loudly complained, she did not have time to put together a real supper for so many people on short notice. (Besides, she had added, the brewing storm was giving her the worriments, and she could not concentrate enough to cook.)

Everyone except Thomas and Alastair—who had, according to Matthew, rather inexplicably gone on some sort of errand in an Institute carriage—had gathered around the food. Even Charles had turned up briefly, taken a game pie, and stormed out, leaving them to an inevitable discussion of Belial's plans.

"Now that we know this whole dreadful bracelet business," Anna said, sitting cross-legged in the middle of a table near a shelf holding books on sea demons, "surely it points toward Belial's goals. Certainly breaking James's heart and tormenting him was part of it," she added, "but I do not believe it was a goal in itself. More of a treat to enjoy along the way."

"Ugh." Cordelia shuddered. "Well, clearly he sought to control James. He always has—he wishes James to collude with him. To offer up his body for possession. He no doubt hoped he could talk him into it using Grace."

Christopher, holding a chicken sandwich as delicately as he might hold a beaker of acid, said, "It is a terrible story, but an encouraging one in a way. The bracelet was Belial's will made manifest. But James matched Belial's will with his own."

James frowned. "I do not feel ready for a battle of wills with Belial," he said. "Though I have wondered if my training with Jem has helped me to hold out against him."

The courtyard below seemed to flash in colors of blue and scarlet as lightning speared through the clouds. And the clouds themselves—Lucie had never seen anything like them. Thick but jagged-edged, as though they had been drawn onto the darkening sky with a razor dipped in melted gunmetal. As they heaved and collided with each other, she felt her skin prickle, as if snapped by a dozen elastic bands.

The door to the library slammed open. It was Charles, his red hair falling out of its usual cap of stiff pomade. He was pushing someone ahead of him, someone in a torn and wet dress, with straggling hair the color of milk.

Lucie saw James stiffen. "Grace," he said.

Everyone went still, save Christopher, who rose to his feet, his expression hardening. "Charles, what on earth—?"

Charles's face was twisted in a look of fury. "I found her creeping around the entrance to the Sanctuary," he said. "She's broken out of the Silent City, clearly."

Dahlia nearly tumbled out of Matthew's grip. "Math, Chris is going to want to see her, I must go to him-"

"You will do no such thing."

Dahlia had always thought of Grace as cold and self-possessed, hard and shining as an icicle. But now she was cringing back—she looked awful; her hair was hanging in wet strings, there were scratches up and down her bare arms, and she was shivering violently. "Let me go, Charles—please, let me go—"

"Let you go?" said Charles incredulously. "You're a prisoner. A criminal."

"I hate saying this, but Charles is right," said Matthew, who had put his book away, his hands tightening around Dahlia in a protective hold. "We should contact the Silent City—"

"It's gone," Grace whispered. "It's all gone."

Dahlia could not help but look at James. It was clear, when he had told them his story earlier, that he did not expect to encounter Grace again soon, if ever; now he looked frozen in place, staring at her as if she were a dream that had sprung to life, and not the nice kind of dream.

"Grace?" Dahlia spoke up, wrenching herself away from Matthew who looked absolutely furious. "What is the matter? How did you-"

Grace was shivering so hard her teeth chattered. "The Silent City. It's been taken—"

"Stop lying," Charles interrupted. "Look here—"

Jesse snapped. "Charles, stop," he said, stalking across the room. "Let go of her," he added, and Charles, to everyone's surprise, did exactly that, though with a look of reluctance. "Gracie," Jesse said carefully, drawing off his jacket. He flung it over Grace's thin shoulders; Jesse was hardly burly, but his jacket seemed to swallow up his sister. "How did you get out of the Silent City?"

Grace said nothing, only clutched Jesse's jacket around her and trembled. There was a starkness in her eyes that frightened Lucie. She had seen that look before, in the eyes of ghosts whose last memories were of something dreadful, something terrifying....

"She needs runes," Jesse said. "Healing runes, warming runes. I don't know how—"

"I'll do it," said Christopher. Ari and Anna rose to help him, and soon enough Grace was seated on a chair, with Christopher drawing on her left arm with his stele. She would not let go of Jesse's jacket, but clutched it around herself with one hand.

"Grace," Dahlia said. She sat in front of Grace on the balls of her feet. "You need to tell us what's happened. Why you're here."

"I hate to say this," said Anna, "but ought she be restrained while we question her? She does have a very dangerous power."

Grace pushed a handful of wet hair back from her face. "My power's gone," she said dully. "It was taken."

"And why should we believe that?" said Charles, frowning.

"Because it's true," said Christopher. "She told you to let her go, Charles. And you didn't."

"He's right," Matthew said. "I've seen her use it before. Charles should have had to do whatever she asked."

Charles looked puzzled.

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" said Cordelia. "The Silent Brothers were supposed to take it away."

"They didn't," said Grace. She began to shake wildly. "It was my mother. They brought her into the Silent City. I told them she would find me and she did—"

She lifted her hands, as if she could ward something off, something terrible and invisible. Christopher caught at her wrist as Jesse's jacket slid to the floor. To Dahlia's delight, his touch seemed to calm Grace. She leaned toward him—it seemed instinctive, unconscious—and said, "She ripped the power out of me. Not with her own hands. She had some kind of creature with her, some kind of demon."

"This is nonsense," Charles said. "Tatiana is safely locked in the Silent City, and this is some tale Grace has concocted to explain why she has escaped from prison."

"I don't think it's nonsense," Dahlia said sharply. "If she had truly escaped from the Silent City, this is the last place she'd come."

"There's one way to be sure," James said. "Charles, we must reach the Silent City."

There was a long silence. Then: "Fine," Charles said. "I'll summon the First Patrol. We'll ride out to Highgate; see what's going on. If anything at all," he added, with a tinge of malice.

He left, slamming the library door behind him. Jesse had come to stand on the other side of Grace, opposite Christopher. He put his hand on his sister's shoulder.

"Grace," Christopher said, "it's all right. You're safe here. Just tell us, slowly, what happened."

"I told them," Grace said in a singsong voice. "That she would always find me, my mother. She came to my cell. She had one of them with her. They look like Silent Brothers but they're not. Its eyes were—open. They shone with an awful sort of light."

James straightened up. "Its eyes were alight? Did they shine with a color?"

"Green," Grace said. "An ugly sort of awful green. The Silent Brother, he put his hands on my face, and my mother told him to take away my power, to rip it out of me."

"It hurt?" Jesse asked gently.

Grace nodded. "She was laughing. She said I didn't matter anymore. That I was nothing now. An empty shell. She turned her back on me, so—I ran. I ran through the Silent City—it was full of those creatures." Her voice rose, her words tripping over each other. "They looked like Silent Brothers and Iron Sisters, but they weren't. They had weapons, and those awful eyes. They were attacking the real Brothers. I saw Brother Enoch stab one of them with a longsword, but it didn't fall down. It didn't die. It should have died. Even a Silent Brother would have died from that. They're not immortal." She clutched her bare, frost-reddened hands together, and Dahlia could not help remembering how glamorous she had once found Grace, how perfectly elegant. Her pale hair hung in wet snarls, and her feet, Dahlia suddenly realized, were bare—bare and filthy and crusted with dried blood.

"The real Silent Brothers began to move up the stairs. Brother Enoch saw me, and he pulled me along with them. It was like being caught up in a flood. It carried me along. Enoch was trying to shield me. He kept saying I had to tell the Institute something—"

"What was it?" James said. "What did we need to know?"

Grace cringed back. She was afraid of James.

"Grace," Dahlia said. She spoke gently but firmly, like a nanny to a child. "What did Brother Enoch say?"

"He said that my mother must have found the key," Grace whispered. "And taken it from the Citadel." She swallowed. "He said they had come from the Path of the Dead. Then he pushed me through a door, and I fell out into the night. I was alone. I was in London, and I was alone in the graveyard."

"What of the other Silent Brothers?" said Matthew. "Jem is in Idris, but Enoch, Shadrach—"

Grace shook her head. "I don't know. I couldn't get back into the City, couldn't even see the door. I ran until I found the road. A hansom cab pulled over, asked if I was all right. He felt sorry for me, the driver. He brought me here—"

She was cut off by the sound of the Institute gate slamming open, a harsh, metallic thud. Lucie turned to the window, peering out through the half-frosted pane. "It's Charles," she said in relief, seeing the redheaded figure on horseback gallop through the gates. "He's riding Balios out to Highgate."

The gate closed behind him. The air was full of flying bits of small debris, snatched up by the wind: twigs and dead leaves and bits of old birds' nests. Above, the clouds seemed to be heaving and surging like the surface of the sea.

"The key," Anna said, frowning. "What does that mean, that Tatiana took the key from the Adamant Citadel?"

"My mother was looking for a key," Jesse said grimly. "She and Belial. It was in her notes."

Matthew said, "A key to the prisons of the Silent City, perhaps? Tatiana must have let herself out of her cell. And let these—these things in. These false Silent Brothers and Iron Sisters."

"We know from what James saw in the mirror that Belial was trying to possess someone," said Jesse. "That he was using Chimera demons. They must have possessed the Silent Brothers, and be acting on Belial's orders —"

"Silent Brothers cannot be possessed," said Cordelia. "They have the same protections we all do. If anything, theirs would be stronger."

Still holding Grace's wrist, Christopher said, "It sounds as if they were fighting with each other, isn't that right, Grace? As if some of them were defending you and the City?"

Grace nodded. "Enoch was still himself. And the others that I recognized. The dark ones, the glowing ones—they were strangers. I'd never seen them before."

"Really," said James. "Were they dressed differently, as well? Try to remember, Grace. It's important."

Grace looked at her feet. "Yes. Their robes were white, instead of parchment, and they had different runes on them."

"White robes." Lucie exchanged a look with James; she could feel her face growing hot with anxiety. "Burial garments."

"The Iron Tombs," said James. "That's how Belial managed it. Most Silent Brothers would be protected from possession, but not the ones in the tombs. Their souls have left their bodies, and those bodies have been taken to rest under the volcanic plains, near the Adamant Citadel. They're empty vessels."

Anna cursed floridly. Ari said, "There is a key to the Tombs. I've seen drawings of it. It's kept—oh, it's kept in the Adamant Citadel—" She covered her mouth with her hand.

Jesse said numbly, "My mother must have stolen it. She would have unlocked the tombs for Belial, let him in. He would have brought the Chimeras there. Possessed the bodies of the Iron Sisters and Silent

Brothers who were lying there, undefended. And once that was done, marched them to the Silent City to attack."

" 'They wake,' " Cordelia whispered. " 'They rise.' 'They march.' All those messages, they were telling us what step Belial was at in his plan. But we didn't realize."

"We've been outplayed," James said quietly. "That business of Tatiana's, appearing at the Christmas party, throwing out those accusations, even kidnapping Alexander—"

"It was too easy, capturing her," Cordelia said. "She wanted to be arrested. She wanted to be thrown into the Silent City so she could do— whatever this is."

"I don't know if it's what she wants, precisely," said Jesse. "All of this is what Belial wants. He used her, as a pawn in his chess game. A piece he could move into the Silent City, a sort of Trojan horse, filled with his evil, his will—"

A massive thunderclap sounded. It shook the Institute: several lamps fell over, and the burning logs tumbled in the grate. Dahlia rose, gripping the windowsill as the others gasped—and saw, through the glass, that the Institute gate was open.

But it was far too soon for Charles to have returned from Highgate. She rose up on her tiptoes to look down.

And froze.

In the courtyard below stood Tatiana Blackthorn, a deadly scarecrow in a bloodstained dress. The wind whipped her stark-white hair around her face. Her arms were upraised, as if she meant to call down the lightning.

And she was not alone. Surrounding her in a half circle were just what Grace had described—Silent Brothers, in ice-white robes, their hoods pushed back to show their eyes, which shone with an acid-green fire.

Dahlia stumbled backwards and Matthew held her flush against him.

Tatiana threw her head back, and black lightning crackled through the clouds. "Come out!" she called, in a voice that echoed like a massive bell tolling through the Institute, shaking the stone of its foundations. "Come out, Lightwoods! Come out, Carstairs! Come out, Fairchilds! Come out, Herondales! Come out and meet your fate!"

♛

long break? yes. well i just realized i still have five to six chapters left to write in this book and my head hurt. gonna take a break and just write later, cause one: i think I'm burning out, and two: Matthew is giving me a headache.

that's all, tata :)