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December 29, 1940

“I think first,” Catarina said, “lemon cake Oh, lemons I think I miss them most”

Catarina Loss and Tessa Gray alking down Ludgate Hill, just passing the Old Bailey This was a game they sometimes played—ill you eat first when this war is over? Of all the terrible things that were going on, sometimes the most ordinary ran the deepest Food was rationed, and the rations were sg a week Everything cas sies so market—but they were only for children, who could have one each The nurses were fed at the hospital, but the portions were always tiny, and never enough to keep up with all the work they perforth she did It was not all the physical strength of a Shadowhunter, but soered within her and sustained her; she had no idea how the mundane nurses kept up

“Or a banana,” Catarina said “I never liked theone, I findthem That’s always the way, isn’t it?”

Catarina Loss did not care about food She barely ate at all But she wasconversation as they walked down the street This is what you did—you pretended life was normal, even as death rained from above It was the London spirit You kept to your routines as ht for shelter, or you returned hoer there Businesses tried to stay open, even if all the glass blew out of the s or a bons that said, “More open than usual”

You carried on You talked about bananas and lemons

At this point in December, London was at its darkest The sun went down just after three in the afternoon Because of the air raids, London was under blackout orders every night Blackout curtains blocked light from everyStreetlahts People walked the streets carrying their flashlights to find their way through the velvety darkness All of London was shade and corner and nook, every alley blind, every wall a dark blank It made the city mysterious and mournful

To Tessa, it felt like London itself grieved for her Will, felt his loss, turned out every light

Tessa Gray had not particularly enjoyed Christs with the Ger bombs overhead whenever the whined to bring terror to London, to force the city to its knees There were deadly bo rubble where children once slept and fas, you would see walls s of houses, exposed like a doll’s house, scraps of cloth flapping against broken brick, toys and books scattered in piles of rubble More than once she saw a bathtub hanging off the side of what res would happen, like the house where the chih the kitchen table where a fa no one Buses would be upturned Rubble would fall, instantly killing one fa the other stunned and unscathed It was a matter of chance, of inches

There was nothing worse than being left alone, the one you loved ripped from you

“Did you have a good visit this afternoon?” Catarina asked

“The younger generation are still trying to talkaround a hole in the pavement where part of it had been bloay “They think I should go to New York”

“They’re your children,” Catarina said gently “They hat’s best for you They don’t understand”

When Will died, Tessa had known there could be no place for her a the Shadowhunters For a time it had seemed as if there was no place for her in all the world, with so nus Bane had taken Tessa into his horief, and when Tessa slowly enor Fell encircled her

No one understood the pain of bei

ng irateful they had taken her in

It was Catarina who introduced Tessa to nursing when the war broke out Catarina had always been a healer: of Nephilim, of Doorlders, of humans Wherever she was needed, she went She had nursed in the last Great War, only twenty years before, the war that was never supposed to happen again The two of theton Street, close to the London Institute and to St Bart’s Hospital It was not as luxurious as her previous homes—just a small, second-story walk-up with a shared bath in the hall It was easier this way, and cozier Tessa and Catarina shared one s a sheet down the ht and slept during the day At least the raids were only at night now—no uns at noon

The war had caused increased dee of chaos caused by battle—which was alh 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 sorief at bay because there was no ti in safety, would be hellish There would be nothing to do but think about her faelessly as her descendants grew older than her

She looked up at the great do 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’ her step

At that moment, a scream broke out all over the city—the air-raid siren Mo noise It sounded like the approach of an arry bees The Luftwaffe was overhead The bo soon

“I thought we rimly “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 the was not the problem—the problem hen it stopped The silence meant the bombs were less than a hundred feet overhead That’s 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 illuht

“Incendiaries,” Catarina said

Tessa and Catarina rushed forward The incendiary boh up close, siround, they spread fire They were being scattered all up and down the street by the planes, highlighting the road and spitting fla fro the incendiaries as quickly as possible Catarina bent down to one Tessa saw a blue flash; then the bouished 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 sahat Tessa and Catarina wanted the nurses headed to the hospital, not two i

On the other side of the Thah the dark beneath the viaduct, past where the norh Market was held by day Usually, this place was heaving with activity and scraps of the day’swas round Every old cabbage and bruised piece of fruit had been plucked up by hungry people The blackout curtains, lack of streetlight, and the absence ofBut 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 li, 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 was nothing coed on the opposite bank, or the machines that dropped death frohtshows The children still ran about—the young olves, the street children and orphans who had been Turned in the dark corners of the blackout and now roauidance A sside 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