Julian shook his head and held his arm out, turning it so the Insight rune on his forearm was visible, stark against his skin. “We’re Nephilim.”

The piskies murmured among themselves again.

“We’re looking for Annabel Blackthorn,” said Julian. “We want to take her home where she’ll be protected.”

The piskies looked dubious.

“She said you knew where she was,” said Julian. “You’ve been talking to her?”

“We knew her and Malcolm years ago,” said the piskie. “It is not often a mortal lives so long. We were curious.”

“You might as well tell us,” said Emma. “We’ll let you go if you do.”

“And if we don’t?” said the smallest piskie.

“We won’t let you go,” said Julian.

“She’s in Porthallow Church,” said the smallest piskie, speaking up for the group. “It’s been empty these many years. She knows it and feels safe there, and there are few tallfolk in the area on most days.”

“Is Porthallow Church near here?” Julian demanded. “Is it close to the town?”

“Very close,” said the tallest piskie. “Killing close.” He raised his thin, pale hands, pointing. “But you cannot go today. It is Sunday, when the tallfolk come in groups to study the graveyard beside the church.”

“Thank you,” said Julian. “You’ve been very helpful, indeed.”

* * *

Dru pushed the door of her bedroom open. “Jaime?” she whispered.

There was no answer. She crept inside, shutting the door after her. She was carrying a plate of scones that Bridget had made. When she’d asked for a whole plate of them, Bridget had giggled at something it seemed clear only she remembered, then sharply told Dru not to eat them all or she’d get fatter.

Dru had long ago learned not to eat much in front of people she didn’t know, or seem as if she was hungry, or put too much food on her plate. She hated the way they looked at her if she did, as if to say, oh, that’s why she’s not thin.

But for Jaime, she’d been willing to do it. After he’d made himself at home in her room—flinging himself across her bed as if he’d been sleeping there for days, then bolting up and asking if he could use the shower—she’d asked if he was hungry and he’d lowered his eyelashes, smiling up at her. “I didn’t want to impose, but . . .”

She’d hurried off to the kitchen and didn’t want to return empty-handed. That was something a scared thirteen-year-old might do, but not a sixteen-year-old. Or however old he thought she was. She hadn’t been specific.

“Jaime?”

He came out of the bathroom in jeans, pulling his T-shirt on. She caught a glimpse of a black tattoo—not a Mark, but words in Roman letters—snaking across flat brown skin before the T-shirt covered his stomach. She stared at him without speaking as he approached her and grabbed a scone. He winked at her. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said faintly.

He sat on the bed, scattering crumbs, black hair damp and curling with the humidity. She placed the scones carefully on the top of the dresser. By the time she turned back around, he was asleep, head pillowed on his arm.

She perched herself on the nightstand table for a moment, her arms around herself. She could see Diego in the colors and curves of Jaime’s face. It was as if someone had taken Diego and sharpened him, made all his angles more acute. A tattoo of more script looped around one brown wrist and disappeared up Jaime’s shirtsleeve; she wished she knew enough Spanish to translate it.

She started to turn toward the door, meaning to leave him alone to rest. “Don’t go,” he said. She spun around and saw that his eyes were half-open, his lashes casting shadows on his too-sharp cheekbones. “It’s been a long time since I had anyone to talk to.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed. Jaime rolled over on his back, his arms folded behind his head. He was all long limbs and black hair and lashes like spider’s legs. Everything about him was slightly off-kilter, where everything about Diego had been even lines like a comic book. Dru tried not to stare.

“I was looking at the stickers on your nightstand,” he said. Dru had bought them in a store on Fleet Street when she’d been out with Diana picking up sandwiches. “They’re all horror movies.”

“I like horror movies.”

He grinned. Black hair flopped into his eyes. He shoved it back. “You like to be scared?”

“Horror movies don’t scare me,” said Dru.

“Aren’t they supposed to?” He sounded genuinely interested. Dru couldn’t remember the last time anyone had seemed genuinely interested in her love for slasher films and vintage horror. Julian had sometimes stayed up to watch Horror Hotel with her, but she knew that was just older-brother kindness.

“I remember the Dark War,” she said. “I remember watching people die in front of me. My father was one of the Endarkened. He came back, but it wasn’t—it wasn’t him.” She swallowed hard. “When I watch a scary movie, I know whatever happens, I’ll be all right when it’s over. I know the people in it were just actors and after everything was done, they walked away. The blood was fake and washed off.”

Jaime’s eyes were dark and fathomless. “It almost lets you believe none of those things exist,” he said. “Imagine if they didn’t.”

She smiled a little sadly. “We’re Shadowhunters,” she said. “We don’t get to imagine that.”

* * *

“People will do anything to get out of housework,” said Julian.

“Not you,” Emma said. She was lying on the sofa with her legs hooked over the arm.

Since they couldn’t follow Annabel to the church today, they’d decided to spend the afternoon reading through Malcolm’s diaries and studying Annabel’s drawings. By the time the sun began going down, they had a sizable amount of notes systematically arranged around the cottage in piles. Notes about timeline—when Malcolm had joined Annabel’s family, how they, who ran the Cornwall Institute, had adopted him when he was a child. How intensely Annabel had loved Blackthorn Manor, the Blackthorns’ ancestral home in the green hills of Idris, and how they had played in Brocelind Forest together. When Malcolm had started planning for their future, and built the cottage in Polperro, and how he and Annabel had hidden their relationship, exchanging all their messages through Annabel’s raven. When Annabel’s father had discovered them, and thrown his daughter out of the Blackthorn house, and Malcolm had found her the next morning, weeping alone on the beach.

Malcolm had determined then that he would need protection for them from the Clave. He had known of the collection of spell books at the Cornwall Institute. He would need a powerful patron, he had decided. Someone he could trade the Black Volume to, who in turn would keep the Council away from them.

Emma read aloud from the diaries, and Julian took notes. Every once in a while they would stop, take pictures with their phones of their notes and questions, and text them to the Institute. Sometimes they got questions back and scrambled to answer them; sometimes they got nothing. Once they got a picture of Ty, who had found an entire row of first-edition Sherlock Holmes books in the library and was beaming. Once they got a picture of Mark’s foot. Neither of them knew what to make of that.