Will looked down at him. He remembered Jem as he had been when he had just come from Shanghai, and had seemed to be all great dark eyes in a pinched white face. It had not been easy to make him laugh then, but Will had set himself to trying. “Know what?” “That I will die,” Jem said. His eyes were wide, and fever-bright; there was a trace of blood, still, at the corner of his mouth. The shadows under his eyes were nearly blue. Will dug his fingers into Jem’s wrist, denting the material of his shirt. Jem did not wince. “You swore to stay with me,”

