“But perhaps,” Belial mused, “you do not yet understand your situation. London is cut off from the rest of the world. A sigil of fire blocks the borders of the city, and none may enter or leave, by means magical or mundane, save at my whim. I have sealed every entrance, every exit, from the Portal in your crypt to the roads that lead out of London. Nor will any telephone or telegraph or other such nonsense function. I control the minds of all within these borders, from the meanest mundane to the most powerful Downworlder. London is locked away from the rest of the world. No help can come for you.”
Rosamund gave a little shriek and covered her mouth with her hands. The others were staring. Belial was clearly enjoying himself to the hilt, Cordelia thought; it was sickening, and she resolved to show no emotion. Not even when black lines began to appear on the student’s skin, ragged seamlike cuts, as if he were a rag doll that had been stitched together and was now coming undone. “If,” Belial said, “you will come with me, James, and listen to my proposition, I will give the Shadowhunters of London a chance to escape.”
“Escape?” snapped Charles. “What do you mean, escape?”
A seam split in the student’s cheek. It gaped wide, and black flies began to crawl out of the wound. “There is a gate called York,” Belial hissed, “down by your River Thames, a gate that comes from nowhere and goes to nowhere. I will give the Shadowhunters of London thirty-six hours to depart London through that gate. No tricks,” he said, holding up his hands as James began to protest. The student’s hands were seamed with black lines, several of his fingers dangling as if held on by threads. “The Portal will take any who pass through it safely to a spot just outside Idris. It is only London I want, and only London I will take; I have no interest in Nephilim. But the lives of any who remain will be forfeit.”
“You will let the other inhabitants of London live?” Jesse asked. “The mundanes, the Downworlders…”
“Indeed.” Belial grinned, and the student’s face split apart and hung in flaps of skin. His hands were peeling away from the wrists, like bloody gloves. “I wish to rule an inhabited city. It amuses me to have them go about their normal lives, knowing nothing—”
There was a wet, squelching noise. Cordelia forced herself not to look away as the student toppled over. What was left of him resembled a raw side of beef stuffed into a suit of clothes. She wanted badly to be sick.
And then the last of the mundanes stepped forward. Cordelia heard Matthew swear softly. It was the little girl, her blank face innocent and clear, her wide eyes a shade of blue that reminded Cordelia of Lucie. “James,” Belial said, and the force of his voice seemed to shake the little girl’s body.
“Stop,” James said. Cordelia could sense him trembling beside her. She felt a cold terror. They were watching murder, murder after murder happening before their eyes, and James would blame himself. “Leave the girl alone—”
Blood flecked the child’s lips as she spoke with the voice of a Prince of Hell. “Not unless you will come with me to Edom.”
James hesitated. “You will leave Cordelia out of this,” he said. “Regardless of Cortana. You will not harm her.”
“No,” Cordelia cried, but Belial was grinning, the little girl’s face twisted horribly into a leer.
“All right,” he said. “Unless she attacks me. I will leave her be, if you agree to hear me out. I will lay before you your future—”
“All right,” James said desperately. “Leave the girl. Let her go. I will go with you to Edom.”
Instantly, the little girl’s eyes rolled up in her head. She collapsed to the ground, her small body still and barely breathing. As she exhaled, a plume of dark smoke emerged, rising and diffusing into the air. Rosamund dropped to her knees beside the girl and put her hand against the girl’s shoulder. Above them all, the smoke-shadow began to coalesce, spinning like a small tornado.
“James, no.” Matthew started toward him, the wind whipping his blond hair. “You can’t agree to that—”
“He’s right.” Cordelia caught at James’s arm. “James, please—”
James turned toward her. “This was always going to happen, Daisy,” he said, catching urgently at her hands. “You have to believe me, believe in me, I can—”
Cordelia screamed as her hands were torn from his. She was lifted off her feet—it was as if a hand were gripping her, squeezing her. She was flung aside like a doll; she hit the stone steps with a force that knocked the breath from her body.
Shadow swirled around her. As she struggled to sit up, gasping past her broken ribs, she saw James, half-hidden from her by darkness. It was as if she were looking at him through dimmed glass. She saw him turn toward her, saw him look directly at her, even as she tried to get to her feet, tasting bitter blood in her mouth.
I love you, she read in his eyes.
“James!” she screamed, as the shadows between them thickened. She could hear Lucie screaming, hear the others shouting, hear the terrible beating of her own terrified heart. Holding her side, she started toward James, aware of the Watchers moving toward the steps, toward her. If she could just reach him first—
But the shadow was everywhere now, cutting off her vision, filling the world. She could barely see James—the smudge of his pale face, the gleam of the pistol at his waist. And then she saw something else—Matthew, moving more quickly than she would have thought possible, shot through a gap in the darkness and flung himself at James, catching hold of his sleeve just as the darkness closed in on them both.
It seemed to boil and churn—there was a flash of bloody gold light, as if Cordelia looked through a Portal—and then it was gone. Gone entirely, not the wisp of a shadow remaining, only empty steps, and a scatter of what looked very much like sand.
Belial was gone. And he had taken James and Matthew with him.
INTERMISSION: GRIEF
Grief, Cordelia would realize during that night and the next day, was like drowning. Sometimes one would surface from the dark water: a period of brief lucidity and calmness, during which ordinary tasks might be accomplished. During which one’s behavior was, presumably, normal, and it was possible to hold a conversation.
The rest of the time, one was pulled deep below the water. There was no lucidity, only panic and terror, only her mind screaming incoherently, only the sensation of dying. Of not being able to breathe.
She would remember the time later as flashes of light in the dark, moments when she surfaced, when the making of memories was possible, if incomplete.
She did not remember getting from the courtyard into her bedroom—James’s bedroom—at the Institute. That was a drowning time. She remembered only suddenly being in the bed, a bed that was much too big for her alone. Alastair was leaning over her, his eyes red, drawing healing runes on her left arm with his stele. “Tekan nakhor,” he said, “dandehaat shekastan.” Don’t move; your ribs are broken.