a struck link // christopher lightwood {3}

thirty-one // raise your head (take a look around you)

{ above. }

In the courtyard of the Institute, cloaked in its shadows, Grace watched them return, weary, bleeding, silent. Cordelia, leaning against James, her face a mask of dismay. Matthew, folded on himself as if he might find a black hole in his chest to spaghettify into. Seanan clutching her arm to her chest. Malcolm, carrying Grace's brother's body, and Lucie following behind him.

Grace closed her eyes and saw Istanbul in the darkness, saw the Grand Bazaar, saw the werewolf and his scowling daughter and her bright black eyes. She saw Amarna. She saw a redheaded boy she'd wanted as much out of her own curiosity as for his usefulness, a boy she'd used as much to forget as to get the upper hand. She saw Christopher, watching her with a surprising trust as she reached to take his bared arm.

And she saw all of it sliding away. She couldn't go back to Istanbul, nor to Amarna, not with her brother discovered and here. She couldn't—

A hand grabbed her arm and spun her roughly around, and she found herself staring into a pair of wide black eyes, bright and furious and ringed around the pupil in gold.

Grace's mouth worked, but it took a moment to find words. "What are you doing here? How—did you find me, why are you . . . ?"

She got no answer, only a tightening grip on her wrist and a yank.

< & >

"Evidently," James said, "Belial was planning for something to happen, that didn't." He scrubbed a hand down his face and stared at the atlas sprawled out on the table in front of him. They'd reconvened at the Devil, those of them available—himself, Matthew, Cordelia, and Seanan, Seanan wearing a wool skirt and a blanket but only chemise and camisole, no corset or shirt, since her left arm was currently bandaged up and in a sling to keep her from reopening the wound.

Matthew traced the lines of the pattern they'd drawn. "I stand by what Anna said. It looks more like a person than any kind of sigil."

This was followed by a beat of silence.

"Do you think," Cordelia said, "that might have something to do with Lilith? She bound me. She messed with your head, James. Might she have . . . I don't know, added to the sigil, with kills of her own, to mess it up? Maybe she asked Moira to do some dirty work for her, work she knew I would not do?"

"I don't think so," said Seanan. "Does someone have a pencil?"

Everyone looked at each other and eventually Matthew produced a small drawing pencil from a coat pocket and handed it to her. Seanan took it and began to sketch over the lines they'd drawn.

"Now, I'm just speculatin' here," she said, "but I think this might be—"

The door burst open, banging against the wall, hard enough they all jumped.

James looked up and stared.

There in the doorway was Grace Blackthorn, terrified and flushed and shaking, and holding her by the arm was a werewolf with a turquoise scarf looped loosely over her dark hair, carrying a crate in her other hand.

The werewolf pushed Grace forward. She stumbled a little, stunned, and opened her mouth up to speak, but got no more than a breath out before the werewolf dumped out the crate onto the table.

It was full of papers. Letters, receipts, reports. Maps.

"What is this?" James asked. He looked from the crate to its contents to the werewolf to Grace, wide-eyed and stunned. "Grace, what—"

"By the angel," said Seanan. "Look at this." She held up one of the receipts. "Look at it. These are from Amarna."

James turned to look at her. "What?"