The war had caused increased demonic activity—as all wars did, demons taking advantage of chaos caused by battle—which was almost overwhelming the Shadowhunters. Though it was a terrible thought to have, Tessa regarded the war as a kind of personal blessing. Here, she could be useful. One of the good things about being a nurse was that there was always something that needed doing. Always. Constant activity kept grief at bay because there was no time to think. Going to New York, sitting in safety, would be hellish. There would be nothing to do but think about her family. She did not know how to do this, how to go on agelessly as her descendants grew older than her.
She looked up at the great dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, lording over the city exactly as it had done for hundreds of years. How did it feel, seeing its city below, its sprawling child, blown to pieces?
“Tessa?” Catarina said.
“I’m fine,” Tessa replied.
At that moment, a scream broke out all over the city—the air-raid siren. Moments later came the humming noise. It sounded like the approach of an army of angry bees. The Luftwaffe was overhead. The bombs would be falling soon.
“I thought we might be spared for a few more days,” Catarina said grimly. “It was so nice to only have two air raids this week. I suppose even the Luftwaffe wants to celebrate the holiday.”
The two quickened their steps. Then it came—that uncanny sound. As the bombs fell, they whistled. Tessa and Catarina stopped. The whistling was just above them, all around. The whistling was not the problem—the problem was when it stopped. The silence meant the bombs were less than a hundred feet overhead. That was when you waited. Were you going to be next? Where could you go when death was silent and came from the sky?
There was a clanking and a hissing sound up ahead, and the street was suddenly illuminated with spitting, phosphorescent light.
“Incendiaries,” Catarina said.
Tessa and Catarina rushed forward. The incendiary bombs were canisters that looked harmless enough up close, similar to a long thermal flask. When they hit the ground, they spread fire. They were being scattered all up and down the street by the planes, highlighting the road and spitting flames at the buildings. The fire wardens began running from all directions, dampening the incendiaries as quickly as possible. Catarina bent down to one. Tessa saw a blue flash; then the bomb extinguished. Tessa ran up to another and stamped at the sparks until a fire warden poured a bucket of water over it. But now there were hundreds all over the road.
“Must get on,” Catarina said. “It looks to be a long one tonight.”
Passing Londoners tipped their hats. They saw what Tessa and Catarina wanted them to see—just two brave young nurses headed to the hospital, not two immortal beings trying to stem an endless tide of suffering.
* * *
On the other side of the Thames, a figure was making its way through the dark beneath the viaduct, past where the normally flourishing Borough Market was held by day. Usually, this place was heaving with activity and scraps of the day’s market. Tonight, everything was muted and there was barely anything remaining on the ground. Every old cabbage and bruised piece of fruit had been plucked up by hungry people. The blackout curtains, lack of streetlights, and absence of mundanes on the streets made this corner of London foreboding. But the cloaked figure walked without hesitation, even as the air-raid siren ripped through the night. His destination was just around the corner.
Even with the war, the Shadow Market went on, though it was fragmentary. Like the mundanes with their ration cards, their limited supplies of food, of clothing, and even of bathwater, things here were in short supply. The old-book stalls had been picked through. Instead of hundreds of potions and powders, only a dozen or so graced the vendors’ tables. The sparkle and the fire were nothing compared to the flames that raged on the opposite bank or the machines that dropped death from the sky, so there seemed little point in putting on light shows. The children still ran about—the young werewolves, the street children and orphans who had been Turned in the dark corners of the blackout and now roamed, seeking nourishment and parental guidance. A small vampire, Turned far too young, trailed alongside Brother Zachariah, pulling on his cloak for fun. Zachariah did not disturb him. The child looked lonely and dirty, and if it pleased him to trail a Silent Brother, then Zachariah would allow it.
“What are you?” said the little boy.
A kind of Shadowhunter, Brother Zachariah replied.
“Did you come to kill us? I heard ’at’s what they do.”
No. That is not what we do. Where is your family?
“Gone,” the little boy said. “A bomb dropped on us, and my master came and got me.”
It had been all too easy to pluck these little ones out of the wreckage of a home, take them by the hand to some pitch-black alley, and Turn them. Demon activity too was at an all-time high. After all, who could tell whether that torn limb was from someone killed by a bomb or someone ripped apart by a demon? Did it make a difference? Mundanes had their own demonic ways.
A crowd of other vampire children ran past, and the little boy ran off with them. The sky roared, thick with the sound of planes. Brother Zachariah listened to the noise of the bombing with a musician’s ear. The bombs whistled when they dropped, but there was that strange punctuating silence as they neared the earth. Silences in music were as important as sound. In this case, the silences told so much of the story to come. Tonight, the bombs were falling on the other side of the river like rain—a thundering symphony with too many notes. Those bombs would be falling near the Institute, near St. Bart’s Hospital, where Tessa worked. Fear for her ran through Zachariah, cold as the river cutting across the city. In these empty days since Will’s death, emotion was a rare visitor for him, but when it came to Tessa, feeling always bloomed.
“Bad one tonight,” said a faerie woman with silver scaled skin who sold enchanted toy toads. They leaped about on her table, with protruding golden tongues. “Like a toad?”
She pointed at one of the toy toads. It turned blue, then red, then green, then flipped on its back and spun, before turning into a stone. Then it burst forth into toad form again and the cycle continued.
No, thank you, Zachariah said.
He turned to keep moving, but the woman spoke again.
“He’s waiting for you,” she said.
Who is he?
“The one you have come to meet.”
For months now, he had been slowly trailing a series of contacts through the faerie world, trying to find out about the lost Herondales he had learned of at the Shadow Market and carnival in Tennessee. He had not come specifically to meet anyone tonight—he had a number of contacts who provided information as they came by it. But someone had come to meet him.
Thank you, he said politely. Where am I to go?
“The King’s Head Yard,” she said, smiling widely. Her teeth were small and pointed.
Brother Zachariah nodded. The King’s Head Yard was a nearby alley—a horseshoe-shaped offshoot of Borough High Street. It was accessed through an arch between the buildings. As he approached it, he heard the sound of planes overhead, then the whistling of a payload being dropped.
Nothing to do but keep going. Zachariah crossed under the archway partway, then stopped.
I am here, he said to the darkness.
“Shadowhunter,” a voice said.
From the bend at the end of the yard, a figure emerged. It was a faerie, and clearly one of the Court. He was extremely tall and almost human in appearance but for his wings, which were brown and white and spread wide, almost touching the opposite walls.
I understand you wish to speak to me, Brother Zachariah said politely.
The faerie stepped closer, and Zachariah could see a copper mask in the form of a hawk covering the top half of his face.
“You have been interfering,” the faerie said.
In what, precisely? Zachariah inquired. He did not move back, but he tightened his grip on his staff.
“Things that do not concern you.”
I have been making inquiries about a lost Shadowhunter family. That is very much something that concerns me.
“You come to my brethren. You ask the fey.”
This was true. Since his encounter with Belial at the carnival in Tennessee, Brother Zachariah had been pursuing many leads in Faerie. He had seen, after all, a Herondale descendant with a faerie wife and child. They had fled, but it had not been him they feared. Whatever danger threatened the lost Herondale, Zachariah had learned it came from Faerie.
“What is it you know?” the faerie asked, stepping forward.
I would advise you not to come closer.
“You have no idea of the danger of what you seek. This is Faerie business. Cease your meddling in that which affects our Lands and our Lands alone.”
I repeat, Zachariah said calmly, though his grip on the staff was firm now, I ask of Shadowhunters. That is very much my business.
“Then you do so at your peril.”
A blade flashed in the faerie’s hand. He swung at Zachariah, who moved at once, rolling to the ground and coming up next to the faerie, striking his arm and knocking the sword free.
The whistling of the bombs had stopped. That meant they were right overhead.
Then, they fell. Three of them clanked down on the stones at the opening of the archway and began spitting their phosphorescent flames. This distracted the faerie for just a moment, and Zachariah took the opportunity to dash around the horseshoe and out the other side. He had no desire to continue this fight, to cause problems between the Silent Brothers and the fey. Zachariah had no idea why the faerie had become so violent. Hopefully he would simply return from whence he came. Zachariah slipped onto the Borough High Street, dodging the falling cylinders. But he had barely begun his flight when the faerie was behind him. Zachariah spun, his staff ready.
I have no quarrel with you. Let us go our separate ways.
Below the hawk mask, the faerie’s teeth were gritted. He sliced out with his sword, ripping the air in front of Brother Zachariah, slashing his cloak. Zachariah leaped and spun, his staff wheeling through the air to slam against the sword. As they fought, the canisters landed closer and closer, coughing fire. Neither flinched.