Learn about Loss (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #4)(11)

Even before he turned his head, Jem knew who would be sitting there beside him. “Will?” he said.

And it was Will. Not Will old and tired and wasted as Jem had last seen him, and not even Will as he had been when they’d first met Tessa Gray. No, this was Will as he had been in the first few years when they had lived and trained together in the London Institute. As he had been when they made their oath and become parabatai. Thinking this, Jem looked at his shoulder, where his parabatai rune had been inscribed. The flesh there was unmarked. He saw that Will was doing the same thing, looking under his collar for the rune on his chest.

Jem said, “How is this possible?”

Will said, “This is the time between when we had pledged to become parabatai and when we went through the ritual. Look. See the scar here?” He showed Jem a distinctive mark on his wrist.

“You got that from an Iblis demon,” Jem said. “I remember. It was two nights after we had decided. It was the first fight we had once we’d made up our minds.”

“So that is when we are,” Will said. “But what I don’t know is where we are. Or how this is happening.”

“I think,” Jem said, “that a friend has made a bargain for me. I think that we are here together because the demon Belial is afraid of her, and she asked this for me. Because I would not ask for myself.”

“Belial!” Will said. “Well, if he’s afraid of this friend of yours, I hope I never meet her.”

“I wish you could,” Jem said. “But let’s not waste whatever time we have talking about people you don’t have any interest in. You may not know where we are, but I do. And I am afraid that the span of time that we have together may not be long.”

“That has always been the case with us,” Will said. “But let us be grateful to your terrifying friend, because however long we have, here we are together and I see no sign of yin fen on you, and we are in possession of the knowledge that there was never any curse on me. For however long, there is no shadow on us.”

“There is no shadow,” Jem agreed. “And we are in a place that I long wished to go with you. This is Shanghai, where I was born. Remember when we used to talk about traveling here together? There were so many places I wanted to show you.”

“I remember you thought very highly of a temple or two,” Will said. “You promised me gardens, although why you think I care for gardens, I don’t know. And there were some vistas or famous rock formations or things.”

“Forget the rock formations,” Jem said. “There’s a dumpling place down the street, and I haven’t eaten human food in almost a century. Let’s go see who can eat the most dumplings in the shortest amount of time. And duck! You really ought to try pressed duck! It’s a great delicacy.”

Jem looked at Will, suppressing a smile. His friend glared back, but at last neither of them could hold back their laughter. Will said, “There is nothing so sweet as feasting upon the bones of my enemies. Especially with you at my side.”

There was a lightness in Jem’s chest that Jem realized, finally, was joy. He saw that joy mirrored in his parabatai’s face. The face of the one you love is the best mirror of all. It shows you your own happiness and your own pain and it helps you to bear both, because to bear either alone is to be overwhelmed by the flood.

Jem stood up and held out his hand to Will. Without realizing it, he held his breath. Perhaps this was a dream after all, and when Jem touched him Will would vanish away again. But Will’s hand was warm and solid and strong, and Jem drew him up easily. Together they began to run lightly over the tiles of the roof.

The night was very beautiful and warm, and they were both young.





Read on for a snippet from the fourth Ghosts of the Shadow Market story, “A Deeper Love,” by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson:





A Deeper Love excerpt





December 29, 1940



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

Catarina Loss and Tessa Gray were walking down Ludgate Hill, just passing the Old Bailey. This was a game they sometimes played—what will 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 small—an ounce of cheese, four thin pieces of bacon, and one egg a week. Everything came in tiny amounts. Some things simply went away, like lemons. There were oranges sometimes—Tessa saw them at the fruit and veg 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 performed. Tessa was lucky to have the strength she did. It was not all the physical strength of a Shadowhunter, but some trace of angelic endurance lingered within her and sustained her; she had no idea how the mundane nurses kept up.

“Or a banana,” Catarina said. “I never liked them much before, but now that they are gone, I find myself craving them. That’s always the way, isn’t it?”

Catarina Loss did not care about food. She barely ate at all. But she was making conversation 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 much as you could, even if you slept in a Tube station at night for shelter, or you returned home to find the neighbor’s house or yours was no longer there. Businesses tried to stay open, even if all the glass blew out of the windows or a bomb went through the roof. Some would put out signs that said, “More open than usual.”