She touched the pearl bracelet at her wrist, and then his face, with light, adoring fingers. “And what is he now?” she whispered. “Happy or wistful or sad or lonely? Do not tell me he is lonely. For you must know. You always knew.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tessa said. “You’re an awful liar, Mr. Herondale. Still—” She bit her lip. “I don’t like wandering about. You can show me around if you promise no tricks.”

Before they began to move up the hill toward the Basilias, Tessa bent and kissed Kit gently on the forehead.

Tessa laid a gentle hand on Cordelia’s shoulder. “The cruel will always spread rumors,” she said. “And others who take pleasure in that cruelty will believe them and spread them. But I believe that in the end, truth wins out.”

“I’ll go with you. I’d like to live with you,” Kit said. “Oh.” Tessa blinked. “Oh!” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, smiling all over her kind face.

“These words, they have a special appeal to you, don’t they?” she asked softly. “These dead languages. Why is that?”

Tessa smiled down at the baby, a slow bright smile, and whispered, “Hello, Clary.”

As usual, Tessa lay awake a long time that night before sleep began to come. Nightmares had plagued her recently—usually of Mortmain, his cold gray eyes, and his colder voice saying measuredly that he had made her, that there is no Tessa Gray.

Tessa smiled. “The Fairchilds, too, have been dear to me in my life,” she said, “and your red hair and your stubbornness recall to me people I once loved.”

Gabriel’s eyes were as cold as the sea off the Newfoundland coast. “I was only concerned for your welfare, Miss Gray.” “Better to look out for your own,” Tessa snapped.

“Whip me bloody. Kill me. I don’t care!” Tessa shouted, and was gratified to see that the Dark Sisters looked at least a little taken aback by her outburst; she’d been too terrified to raise her voice to them before. “I won’t let you give me to the Magister! I’d rather die!”

“I don’t see how what I do is your concern,” Tessa replied. “Especially since you abandoned me in the corridor and left me to find my own way back to my room.”

“You asked me if I have loved anyone but Will,” she said. “And the answer is yes. I have loved you. I always have, and I always will.”

“It is not the same,” said Tessa. “When Will was Jamie’s age, he tried to drive everyone he loved away. Jamie is as loving as ever to us, to Lucie, to Matthew, his parabatai. It is himself he wishes to destroy.”

Maybe I am dying, Tessa thought. And, This cannot be.

You can probably tell from everything I’ve said how much I — how much we — love Kit. I just love him, Magnus, like he was my own. He is my own. I’d kill anyone who wanted to hurt him, just as I would protect Mina or Jem with my life.

“But we bear so much that seems unthinkable. The only truly unbearable burden is living without love. You taught me that.” She laced her fingers through his, squeezed tight. She was so unimaginably strong. “You and Will.”

Tessa ran to James, dropping down to kneel beside him and fuss over his bruises and cuts.

Tessa threw the knife. This throw was better. It landed inside the black circle, if not in the center itself.

“Yeah, I’m still absorbing the fact that I’m literally Rosemary’s baby,” he remarked. “Read that book,” Tessa said with a faint smile. “Saw that movie,” returned Kit.