Clockwork Princess

8 THAT FIRE OF FIRE

Tessa sat at her vanity table methodically brushing out her hair. The air outside was cool but humid, seeming to trap the water of the Thames, scented with iron and city dirt. It was the sort of weather that made her normally thick, wavy hair tangle at the ends. Not that her mind was on her hair; it was simply a repetitive motion, the brushing, that allowed her to keep a sort of forcible calm.

Over and over in her mind she saw Jem’s shock as Charlotte read out Mortmain’s letter, and Will’s burned hands, and the tiny bit of yin fen she had managed to gather up off the floor. She saw Cecily’s arms about Will, and Jem’s anguish as he apologized to Will, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.

She hadn’t been able to bear it. They had been in agony, both of them, and she loved them both. Their pain had been because of her—she was what Mortmain wanted. She was the cause of Jem’s yin fen being gone, and Will’s misery. When she had whirled and run out of the room, it had been because she could not stand it any longer. How could three people who cared for one another so much cause one another so much pain?

She set the hairbrush down and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked tired, with shadowed eyes, as Will had looked all day as he’d sat with her in the library and helped Charlotte with Benedict’s papers, translating some of the passages that were in Greek or Latin or Purgatic, his quill pen moving swiftly over paper, his dark head bent. It was odd to look at Will in the daylight and remember the boy who had held her as if she were a life raft in a storm on the steps of Woolsey’s house. Will’s daylight face was not untroubled, but it was not open or giving either. He had not been unfriendly or cold, but neither had he looked up, or smiled over the library table at her, or acknowledged in any way the events of the previous night.

She had wanted to pull him aside and ask him if he had heard from Magnus, to say to him: No one understands what you feel but me, and no one understands what I feel but you, so can we not feel together? But if Magnus had contacted him, Will would have told her; he was honorable. They were all honorable. If they had not been, she thought, looking down at her hands, perhaps everything would not be so awful.

It had been foolish to offer to go to Mortmain—she knew that now—but the thought had seized her as fiercely as a passion. She could not be the cause of all this unhappiness and not do something to alleviate it. If she gave herself up to Mortmain, Jem would live longer, and Jem and Will would have each other, and it would be as if she had never come to the Institute.

But now, in the cold hours of the evening, she knew that nothing she could do would turn back the clock, or unmake the feelings that existed between them all. She felt hollow inside, as if a piece of her were missing, and yet she was paralyzed. Part of her wanted to run to Will, to see if his hands were healed and to tell him she understood. The rest of her wanted to flee across the hall to Jem’s room and beg him to forgive her. They had never been angry with each other before, and she did not know how to navigate a Jem who was furious. Would he want to end their engagement? Would he be disappointed in her? Somehow that thought was as hard to bear, that Jem might be disappointed in her.

Skritch. She looked up and around the room—a faint noise. Perhaps she had imagined it? She was tired; perhaps it was time to call for Sophie to help her with her dress, and then to retire to bed with a book. She was partway through The Castle of Otranto and finding it an excellent distraction.

She had risen from her chair and gone to ring the servants’ bell when the noise came again, more determined. A sktritch, skritch, against the door of her bedroom. With slight trepidation she crossed the room and flung the door open.

Church crouched on the other side, his blue-gray fur ruffled, his expression furious. Around his neck was tied a bow of silver lace, and attached to the bow was a small piece of rolled paper, like a tiny scroll. Tessa dropped to her knees, reached for the bow, and untied it. The bow fell away, and the cat immediately bolted down the hall.

The paper came free of the lace, and Tessa picked up the paper and unrolled it. Familiar looping script traced its way across the page.

Meet me in the music room.

—J

“There’s nothing here,” Gabriel said.

He and Gideon were in the drawing room. It was quite dark, with the curtains drawn; if they had not had their witchlights, it would have been as black as pitch. Gabriel was going hastily through the correspondence on Charlotte’s desk, for the second time.

“What do you mean, nothing?” said Gideon, standing by the door. “I see a pile of letters there. Certainly one of them must be—”

“Nothing scandalous,” Gabriel said, slamming a desk drawer shut. “Or even interesting. Some correspondence with an uncle in Idris. He appears to have gout.”

“Fascinating,” Gideon muttered.

“One cannot help but wonder exactly what it is that the Consul believes Charlotte to be involved in. Some sort of betrayal of the Council?” Gabriel picked up her sheaf of letters and made a face. “We could reassure him of her innocence if only we knew what it was that he suspected.”

“And if I believed he wanted to be reassured of her innocence,” Gideon said. “It seems to me more likely that he is hoping to catch her out.” He reached out a hand. “Give me that letter.”

“The one to her uncle?” Gabriel was dubious, but did as directed. He held the witchlight up, shining its rays over the desk as Gideon bent over and, having appropriated one of Charlotte’s pens, began to scratch out a missive to the Consul.

Gideon was blowing on the ink to dry it when the door of the drawing room flew open. Gideon jerked upright. A yellow glow poured into the room, far brighter than the dim witchlight; Gabriel put up a hand to cover his eyes, blinking. He ought to have put on a Night Vision rune, he thought, but they took time to fade, and he had been concerned it would have raised questions. In the moments that it took his vision to adjust, he heard his brother exclaim, aghast:

“Sophie?”

“I have told you not to call me that, Mr. Lightwood.” Her tone was cold. Gabriel’s vision resolved, and he saw the maid standing in the doorway, a lit lamp in one hand. She was squinting. Her eyes narrowed further as they lit on Gabriel, Charlotte’s letters still in his hand. “Are you—Is that Mrs. Branwell’s correspondence?”

Gabriel dropped the letters hastily onto the desk. “I . . . We . . .”

“Have you been reading her letters?” Sophie looked furious, like some sort of avenging angel, lamp in hand. Gabriel glanced quickly at his brother, but Gideon appeared to be struck speechless.

In all Gabriel’s life he could not remember his brother giving even the prettiest of Shadowhunter girls a second glance. Yet he looked at this scarred mundane servant as if she were the sun rising. It was inexplicable, but it was also undeniable. He could see the horror on his brother’s face as Sophie’s good opinion of him shattered before his eyes.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Yes, we are indeed going through her correspondence.”

Sophie took a step back. “I shall fetch Mrs. Branwell immediately—”

“No—” Gabriel held out a hand. “It isn’t what you think. Wait.” Quickly he outlined what had happened: the Consul’s threats, his request that they spy on Charlotte, and their solution to the problem. “We never intended to reveal a word she had actually written,” he finished. “Our intention was to protect her.”

Sophie’s suspicious expression did not change. “And why should I believe a word of that, Mr. Lightwood?”

Gideon finally spoke. “Ms. Collins,” he said. “Please. I know that since the—unfortunate business—with the scones you have not held me in esteem, but please do believe I would not betray the trust Charlotte has placed in me, nor reward her kindness to me with betrayal.”

Sophie wavered for a moment, then dropped her gaze. “I am sorry, Mr. Lightwood. I wish to believe you, but it is with Mrs. Branwell that my first loyalty must lie.”

Gabriel snatched up from the desk the letter his brother had just written. “Miss Collins,” he said. “Please read this missive. It was what we had intended to send the Consul. If, after reading it, you are still determined in your heart to seek out Mrs. Branwell, then we will not try to stop you.”

Sophie looked from him to Gideon. Then, with a quick inclination of her head, she came forward and set the lamp down on the desk. Taking the letter from Gideon, she unfolded it and read out loud:

“To: Consul Josiah Wayland

From: Gideon and Gabriel Lightwood

Dear Sir,

You have displayed your usual great wisdom in asking us to read Mrs. Branwell’s missives to Idris. We obtained a private glance into said correspondence and observed that she is in almost daily communication with her great-uncle Roderick Fairchild.

The contents of these letters, sir, would shock and disappoint you. It has robbed us of much of our belief in the fairer sex.

Mrs. Branwell displays a most callous, inhumane, and unfeminine attitude toward his many grievous ills. She recommends the application of less liquor to cure his gout, shows unmistakable signs of being amused by his dire ailment of dropsy, and entirely ignores his mention of a suspicious substance building up within his ears and other orifices.

Signs of the tender feminine care one would expect from a woman to her male relatives, and the respect any relatively young woman should give her elder as his due—there are none! Mrs. Branwell, we fear, has run mad with power. She must be stopped before it is too late and many brave Shadowhunters have fallen by the wayside for lack of feminine care.

Yours faithfully,

Gideon and Gabriel Lightwood”

There was silence when she had finished. Sophie stood for what felt like an eternity, staring wide-eyed at the paper. At last she said, “Which one of you wrote this?”

Gideon cleared his throat. “I did.”

She looked up. She had pressed her lips together, but they were trembling. For a horrible moment Gabriel thought she was about to cry. “Oh, my gracious,” she said. “And is this the first?”

“No, there has been one other,” Gabriel admitted. “It was about Charlotte’s hats.”

“Her hats?” A peal of laughter escaped Sophie’s lips, and Gideon looked at her as if he had never seen anything so marvelous. Gabriel had to admit she did look quite pretty when she laughed, scar or not. “And was the Consul furious?”

“Murderously so,” said Gideon.

“Are you going to tell Mrs. Branwell?” demanded Gabriel, who could not stand the suspense another moment.

Sophie had stopped laughing. “I will not,” she said, “for I do not wish to compromise you in the eyes of the Consul, and also, I think such news would hurt her, and to no good end. Spying on her like that, that awful man!” Her gaze sparked. “If you would like aid in your plan to frustrate the Consul’s schemes, I am happy to give it. Let me keep the letter, and I shall ensure that it is posted tomorrow.”

The music room was not as dusty as Tessa remembered it—it looked as if it had received a good cleaning recently; the mellow wood of the windowsills and floors shone, as did the grand piano in the corner. A fire was leaping in the grate, outlining Jem in fire as he turned away from it and, seeing her, smiled a nervous smile.

Everything in the room seemed soft, as muted as watercolor—the light of the fire bringing the white-sheeted instruments to life like ghosts, the dark gleam of the piano, the flames a dim reflected gold in the windowpanes. She could see her and Jem too, facing each other: a girl in a dark blue evening dress, and a thin rake of a boy with a mop of silvery hair, his black jacket hanging just slightly too loose on his slender frame.

His face in the shadows was all vulnerability, anxiety in the soft curve of his mouth. “I was not sure that you would come.”

At that, she took a step forward, wanting to fling her arms about him, but she stopped herself. She had to speak first. “Of course I came,” she said. “Jem, I am so sorry. So very sorry. I cannot explain—it was a sort of madness. I could not bear the thought that harm would come to you because of me, because in some way I am connected to Mortmain, and he to me.”

“That is not your fault. It was never your choice—”

“I was not seeing sense. Will was right; Mortmain cannot be trusted. Even if I went to him, there is no guarantee that he would honor his end of the bargain. And I would be placing a weapon in the hands of your enemy. I do not know what he wants to use me for, but it is not for the good of Shadowhunters; of that we can be sure. I could even in the end yet be what hurts you all.” Tears stung her eyes, but she held them back by force. “Forgive me, Jem. We cannot waste the time we have together in anger. I understand why you did what you did—I would have done it for you.”

His eyes went soft and silver as she spoke. “Zhe shi jie shang, wo shi zui ai ne de,” he whispered.

She understood it. In all the world, you are what I love the most.

“Jem—”

“You know that; you must know that. I could never let you go away from me, not into danger, not while I have breath.” He held his hand up, before she could take a step toward him. “Wait.” He bent down, and when he rose, he was holding his square violin case and bow. “I—There was something I wished to give you. A bridal gift, when we were married. But I would like to give it to you now, if you will let me.”

“A gift?” she said, wonderingly. “After—But we quarreled!”

He smiled at that, the lovely smile that lit his face and made you forget how thin and drawn he looked. “An integral part of married life, I have been informed. It will have been good practice.”

“But—”

“Tessa, did you imagine that there exists any quarrel, large or small, that could make me stop loving you?” He sounded amazed, and she thought suddenly of Will, of the years that Will had tested Jem’s loyalty, driven him mad with lies and evasion and self-harm, and through all of it Jem’s love for his blood brother had never frayed, much less broken.

“I was afraid,” she said softly. “And I—I have no gift for you.”

“Yes, you do.” He said it quietly but firmly. “Sit down, Tessa, please. Do you remember how we met?”

Tessa sat down on a low chair with gilded arms, her skirts crinkling around her. “I barged into your room in the middle of the night like a madwoman.”

Jem grinned. “You glided gracefully into my bedroom and found me playing the violin.” He was tightening the screw on the bow; he finished, set it down, and lovingly took his violin out of its case. “Would you mind if I play for you now?”

“You know I love to hear you play.” It was true. She even loved to hear him talk about the violin, though she understood little of it. She could listen to him rattle on passionately for hours about rosin, pegs, scrolls, bowing, finger positions, and the tendency of A strings to break—without getting bored.

“Wo wei ni xie de,” he said as he raised the violin to his left shoulder and tucked it under his chin. He had told her that many violinists used a shoulder rest, but he did not. There was a slight mark on the side of his throat, like a permanent bruise, where the violin rested.

“You—made something for me?”

“I wrote something for you,” he corrected with a smile, and began to play.

She watched in amazement. He began simply, softly, his grip light on the bow, producing a soft, harmonic sound. The melody rolled over her, as cool and sweet as water, as hopeful and lovely as sunrise. She watched his fingers in fascination as they moved and an exquisite note rose from the violin. The sound deepened as the bow moved faster, Jem’s forearm sawing back and forth, his slim body seeming to blur into motion from the shoulder. His fingers slid up and down slightly, and the pitch of the music deepened, thunderclouds gathering on a bright horizon, a river that had become a torrent. The notes crashed at her feet, rose to surround her; Jem’s whole body seemed to be moving in tune with the sounds he wrung from the instrument, though she knew his feet were firmly planted on the floor.

Her heart raced to keep pace with the music; Jem’s eyes were shut, the corners of his mouth downturned as if in pain. Part of her wanted to rush to her feet, to put her arms about him; the other part of her wanted to do nothing to stop the music, the lovely sound of it. It was as if he had taken his bow and used it as a paintbrush, creating a canvas upon which his soul was clearly displayed. As the last soaring notes reached higher and higher, climbing toward Heaven, Tessa was aware that her face was wet, but only when the last of the music had faded away and he had lowered the violin did she realize she had been crying.

Slowly Jem put the violin back into its case and laid the bow beside it. He straightened and turned to her. His expression was shy, though his white shirt was soaked through with sweat and the pulse in his neck was pounding.

Tessa was speechless.

“Did you like it?” he said. “I could have given you . . . jewelry, but I wanted it to be something that was wholly yours. That no one else would hear or own. And I am not good with words, so I wrote how I felt about you in music.” He paused. “Did you like it?” he said again, and the soft dropping-off of his voice at the end of the question indicated that he expected to receive an answer in the negative.

Tessa raised her face so that he could see the tears on it. “Jem.”

He dropped to his knees before her, his face all contrition. “Ni jue de tong man, qin ai de?”

“No—no,” she said, half-crying, half-laughing. “I am not hurt. Not unhappy. Not at all.”

A smile broke across his face, lighting his eyes with delight. “Then you did like it.”

“It was like I saw your soul in the notes of the music. And it was beautiful.” She leaned forward and touched his face lightly, the smooth skin over his hard cheekbone, his hair like feathers against the back of her hand. “I saw rivers, boats like flowers, all the colors of the night sky.”

Jem exhaled, sinking down onto the floor by her chair as if the strength had gone out of him. “That is a rare magic,” he said. He leaned his head against her, his temple against her knee, and she kept up the stroking of his hair, carding her fingers through its softness. “Both my parents loved music,” he said abruptly. “My father played the violin, my mother the qin. I chose the violin, though I could have learned either. I regretted it sometimes, for there are melodies of China I cannot play on the violin, that my mother would have liked me to know. She used to tell me the story of Yu Boya, who was a great player of the qin. He had a best friend, a woodcutter named Zhong Ziqi, and he would play for him. They say that when Yu Boya played a song of water, his friend would know immediately that he was describing rushing rivers, and when he played of mountains, Ziqi would see their peaks. And Yu Boya would say, ‘It is because you understand my music.’ ” Jem looked down at his own hand, curled loosely on his knee. “People still use the expression ‘zhi yin’ to mean ‘close friends’ or ‘soul mates,’ but what it really means is ‘understanding music.’ ” He reached up and took her hand. “When I played, you saw what I saw. You understand my music.”

“I don’t know anything about music, Jem. I cannot tell a sonata from a partita—”

“No.” He turned, rising up onto his knees, bracing himself on the arms of her chair. They were close enough now that she could see where his hair was damp with sweat at his temples and nape, smell his scent of rosin and burned sugar. “That is not the kind of music I mean. I mean—” He made a sound of frustration, caught at her hand, brought it to his chest, and pressed it flat over his heart. The steady beat hammered against her palm. “Every heart has its own melody,” he said. “You know mine.”

“What happened to them?” Tessa whispered. “The woodcutter and the musician?”

Jem’s smile was sad. “Zhong Ziqi died, and Yu Boya played his last song over his friend’s grave. Then he broke his qin and never played again.”

Tessa felt the hot press of tears under her lashes, trying to force its way through. “What a terrible story.”

“Is it?” Jem’s heart skipped and stuttered under her fingers. “While he lived and they were friends, Yu Boya wrote some of the greatest music that we know. Would he have been able to do that alone? Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us. And there is a beauty that brevity alone provides.” He dropped his gaze, then raised it to hers. “I would give you everything of myself,” he said. “I would give you more in two weeks than most men would give you in a lifetime.”

“There is nothing you haven’t given me, nothing I am dissatisfied with. . . .”

“I am,” he said. “I want to be married to you. I would wait for you forever, but . . .”

But we do not have forever. “I have no family,” Tessa said slowly, her eyes on his. “No guardian. No one who might be . . . offended . . . by a more immediate marriage.”

Jem’s eyes widened slightly. “I—Do you mean that? I would not want you to not have all the time you require to prepare.”

“What kind of preparation do you imagine I might require?” Tessa said, and for just that moment her thoughts ghosted back to Will, to the way he had put his hands in the fire to save Jem’s drugs, and watching him, she could not help but remember that day in the drawing room when he had told her he loved her, and when he had left, she had closed her hand around a poker, that the burning pain of it against her skin might shut out, even for a moment, the pain in her heart.

Will. She had lied to him then—if not in exact words, then in implication. She had let him think she did not love him. The thought still gave her pain, but she did not regret it. There had been no other way. She knew Will well enough to know that even had she broken things off with Jem, he would not have been with her. He could not have stood a love bought at the price of his parabatai’s happiness. And if there was some part of her heart that belonged to Will and Will alone, and always would, then it served no one to reveal it. She loved Jem, too—loved him even more now than she had when she had agreed to marry him.

Sometimes one must choose whether to be kind or honorable, Will had said to her. Sometimes one cannot be both.

Perhaps it did depend on the book, she thought. But in this, the book of her life, the way of dishonor was only unkindness. Even if she had hurt Will in the drawing room, over time as his feelings for her faded, he would someday thank her for keeping him free. She believed that. He could not love her forever.

She had set her feet on this path long ago. If she intended to see it through next month, then she could see it through the next day. She knew that she loved Jem, and though there was a part of her that loved Will as well, it was the best gift she could give both of them that neither Will nor Jem should ever know it.

“I don’t know,” Jem said, gazing up at her from the floor, his expression a mixture of hope and disbelief. “The Council has not yet approved our request . . . and you do not have a dress . . .”

“I do not care about the Council. And I do not care what I wear, if you do not. If you mean it, Jem, I will marry you whenever you like.”

“Tessa,” he breathed. He reached for her as if he were drowning, and she ducked her head down to brush her lips against his. Jem raised himself up on his knees. His mouth ghosted across hers, once, twice, until her lips opened and she could taste his burned-sugar sweetness. “You are too far away,” he whispered, and then his arms were around her, and there was no space between them, and he was drawing her down off the chair, and they were kneeling together on the floor, their arms around each other.

He held her to him, and her hands traced the shape of his face, his sharp cheekbones. So sharp, too sharp, the bones of his face, the pulse of his blood too close to the surface of the skin, collarbones as hard as a metal necklace.

His hands slid from her waist to her shoulders; his lips skimmed across her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, as her fingers twisted in his shirt, drawing it up so that her palms were against his bare skin. He was so thin, his spine sharp under her touch. Against the firelight she could see him painted in shadow and fire, the moving golden path of the flames turning his white hair to gilt.

I love you, he had said. In all the world, you are what I love the most.

She felt the hot press of his mouth again at the hollow of her throat, then lower. His kisses ended where her dress began. She felt her heart beating beneath his mouth, as if trying to reach him, trying to beat for him. She felt his shy hand slip around her body, to where the lacings fastened her dress closed. . . .

The door opened with a creak, and they sprang apart, both gasping as if they had been running a race. Tessa heard her own blood thunder loudly in her ears as she stared at the empty doorway. Beside her Jem’s gasp turned into a hitch of laughter.

“What—,” she began.

“Church,” he said, and Tessa dropped her gaze down to see the cat sauntering across the floor of the music room, having nudged the door open, and looking very pleased with himself.

“I’ve never seen a cat look so self-satisfied,” she said as Church—ignoring her, as always—padded up to Jem and nudged at him with his head.

“When I said we might need a chaperon, this wasn’t what I had in mind,” said Jem, but he stroked the cat’s head anyway, and smiled at her out of the corner of his mouth. “Tessa,” he said. “Did you mean what you said? That you would marry me tomorrow?”

She raised her chin and looked directly into his eyes. She could not bear the thought of waiting, and wasting another instant of his life. She wanted suddenly and fiercely to be tied to him—in sickness, in health, for better, for worse—tied to him with a promise and able to give him her word and her love without holding back.

“I meant it,” she said.

The dining room was not quite full, not everyone having yet arrived for breakfast, when Jem made his announcement.

“Tessa and I are going to get married,” he said, very calmly, draping his napkin over his lap.

“Is this meant to be a surprise?” asked Gabriel, who was dressed in gear as if he intended to train after breakfast. He had already taken all the bacon from the serving platter, and Henry was looking at him mournfully. “Aren’t you engaged already?”

“The wedding date was set for December,” said Jem, reaching beneath the table to give Tessa’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “But we have changed our minds. We intend to marry tomorrow.”

The effect was galvanic. Henry choked on his tea and had to be pounded on the back by Charlotte, who appeared to have been stricken speechless. Gideon dropped his cup into his saucer with a clatter, and even Gabriel paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. Sophie, who had just come in from the kitchen carrying a rack of toast, gave a gasp. “But you can’t!” she said. “Miss Gray’s dress was ruined, and the new one isn’t even started yet!”

“She can wear any dress,” Jem said. “She does not have to wear Shadowhunter gold, for she is not a Shadowhunter. She has several pretty gowns; she can choose her favorite.” He ducked his head shyly toward Tessa. “That is, if that is all right with you.”

Tessa did not answer, for at that moment Will and Cecily had crowded in through the doorway. “I have such a crick in my neck,” Cecily was saying with a smile. I can hardly believe I managed to fall asleep in such a position—”

She broke off as both of them seemed to sense the mood of the room and paused, glancing around. Will did seem better rested than he had the day before, and pleased to have Cecily by him, though that cautious good mood was clearly evaporating as he glanced around at the expressions of the others in the room. “What’s going on?” he said. “Has something happened?”

“Tessa and I have decided to move up our wedding ceremony,” Jem said. “It will be in the next few days.”

Will said nothing, and his expression did not change, but he went very white. He did not look at Tessa.

“Jem, the Clave,” Charlotte said, ceasing to pound Henry’s back and standing up with a look of agitation on her face. “They have not approved your marriage yet. You cannot go against them—”

“We cannot wait for them either,” Jem said. “It could be months, a year—you know how they prefer to delay than give an answer they fear you will not like.”

“And it is not as if our marriage can be their focus at the moment,” Tessa said. “Benedict Lightwood’s papers, searching for Mortmain—all must take priority. But this is a personal matter.”

“There are no personal matters to the Clave,” Will said. His voice sounded hollow and odd, as if he were a great distance away. There was a pulse pounding at his throat. Tessa thought of the delicate rapport they had begun to build between them over the past few days and wondered if this would destroy it, dashing it into pieces like a fragile craft against rocks. “My mother and father—”

“There are Laws about marriage to mundanes. There are no Laws about marriage between a Nephilim and what Tessa is. And if I must, like your father, I will give up being a Shadowhunter for this.”

“James—”

“I would have thought you of all people would understand that,” said Jem, the look he bent on Will both puzzled and hurt.

“I am not saying I don’t understand. I’m only urging you to think—”

“I have thought.” Jem sat back. “I have a mundane marriage license, legally procured and signed. We could walk into any church and marry today. I would much prefer you all be there, but if you cannot be, we will do it regardless.”

“To marry a girl just to make her a widow,” said Gabriel Lightwood. “Many would say that was not a kindness.”

Jem went rigid beside Tessa, his hand stiff in hers. Will started forward, but Tessa was already on her feet, burning holes in Gabriel Lightwood with her eyes.

“Do not dare speak about it as if Jem has all the choice about it and I have none,” she said, never moving her eyes from his face. “This engagement was not forced on me, nor do I have any illusions about Jem’s health. I choose to be with him for however many days or minutes we are granted, and to count myself blessed to have them.”

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.

And now those green eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

“I believe the lady means,” Will drawled, “that she is not the one who killed her father. Or have you so quickly recovered from it that we have no need for concern for your sensibilities, Gabriel?”

Cecily gave a gasp. Gabriel rose to his feet, and in his expression Tessa saw again the boy who had challenged Will to single combat the first time she had met him—all arrogance, stiffness, and hate. “If you ever dare—,” he began.

“Stop,” Charlotte said—and then she broke off, as through the windows came the sound of the rusty gates of the Institute grinding open and the clop of horse hooves on pavement. “Oh, by the Angel. Jessamine.” Charlotte scrambled to her feet, discarding her napkin on her plate. “Come—we must go down to greet her.”

It proved, if an ill-timed arrival in other respects, at least an excellent distraction. There was a slight hubbub, and a deal of puzzlement on the part of Gabriel and Cecily, neither of whom really understood precisely who Jessamine was or the part she had played in the life of the Institute. They proceeded down the corridor in a disorderly fashion, Tessa hanging back slightly; she felt breathless, as if her corset had been laced too tightly. She thought of the night before, holding Jem in the music room as they kissed and whispered to each other for hours of the wedding they would have, the marriage that would follow—as if they had all the time in the world. As if getting married would grant him immortality, though she knew it would not.

As she started down the stairs toward the entryway, she stumbled, distracted. A hand on her arm steadied her. She looked up, and saw Will.

They stood there for a moment, frozen together like a statue. The others were already on their way down the stairs, their voices rising up like smoke. Will’s hand was gentle on Tessa’s arm, though his face was almost expressionless, seeming carved out of granite. “You do not agree with the rest of them, do you?” she said, with more of a sharp edge than she meant. “That I should not marry Jem today. You asked me if I loved him enough to marry him and make him happy, and I told you I did. I don’t know if I can make him happy entirely, but I can try.”

“If anyone can, you can,” he said, his eyes locking with hers.

“The others think I have illusions about his health.”

“Hope is not illusion.”

The words were encouraging, but there was something in his voice, something dead that frightened her.

“Will.” She caught at his wrist. “You would not abandon me now—not leave me the only one who still searches for a cure? I cannot do it without you.”

He took a deep breath, half-closing his shadowed blue eyes. “Of course not. I would not give up on him, on you. I will help. I will continue. It is only—”

He broke off, turning his face away. The light that came down through the window high above illuminated cheek and chin and the curve of his jaw.

“Only what?”

“You remember what else I said to you that day in the drawing room,” he said. “I want you to be happy, and him to be happy. And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart, Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours. I would give over my own life for your happiness. I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that. It is unfair to tell you this, I know, when you can do nothing about it.” He took a shuddering breath. “How you must despise me.”

Tessa felt as if the ground had dropped out from beneath her. She remembered what she had told herself the night before: that surely Will’s feelings for her had faded. That over the term of years, his pain would be less than hers. She had believed it. But now—“I do not despise you, Will. You have been nothing but honorable—more honorable than ever I could have asked you to be—”

“No,” he said bitterly. “You expected nothing of me, I think.”

“I have expected everything of you, Will,” she whispered. “More than you ever expected of yourself. But you have given even more than that.” Her voice faltered. “They say you cannot divide your heart, and yet—”

“Will! Tessa!” It was Charlotte’s voice, calling up to them from the entryway. “Do stop dawdling! And can one of you fetch Cyril? We may need help with the carriage if the Silent Brothers intend to stay at all.”

Tessa looked helplessly at Will, but the moment between them had snapped; his expression had closed; the desperation that had fueled him a moment before was gone. He was shut away as if a thousand locked doors stood between them. “You go on down. I will be there shortly.” He said it without inflection, turned, and sprinted up the steps.

Tessa put a hand against the wall as she made her way numbly down the stairs. What had she almost done? What had she nearly told Will?

And yet I love you.

But God in Heaven, what good would that do, what benefit would it be to anyone to say those words? Only the most awful burden on him, for he would know what she felt but not be able to act on it. And it would tie him to her, would not free him to seek out someone else to love—someone who was not engaged to his best friend.

Someone else to love. She stepped out onto the front stairs of the Institute, feeling the wind cut through her dress like a knife. The others were there, gathered on the steps a bit awkwardly, especially Gabriel and Cecily, who looked as if they were wondering what on earth they were doing there. Tessa barely noticed them. She felt sick at the heart and knew it was not the cold. It was the idea of Will in love with someone else.

But that was pure selfishness. If Will found someone else to love, she would suffer through it, biting her lips in silence, as he had suffered her engagement to Jem. She owed him that much, she thought, as a dark carriage driven by a man in the parchment robes of the Silent Brothers rattled through the open gates. She owed Will behavior that was as honorable as his own.

The carriage clattered up to the foot of the stairs and paused. Tessa felt Charlotte move uneasily behind her. “Another carriage?” she said, and Tessa followed her gaze to see that there was indeed a second carriage, all black with no crest, rolling silently in behind the first.

“An escort,” said Gabriel. “Perhaps the Silent Brothers are worried she will try to escape.”

“No,” said Charlotte, bewilderment shading her voice. “She wouldn’t—”

The Silent Brother driving the first carriage put away his reins and dismounted, moving to the carriage door. At that moment the second carriage pulled up behind him, and he turned. Tessa could not see his expression, as his face was hidden by his hood, but something in the cast of his body betokened surprise. She narrowed her eyes—there was something strange about the horses drawing the second carriage: their bodies gleamed not like the pelts of animals but like metal, and their movements were unnaturally swift.

The driver of the second carriage leaped down from his seat, landing with a jarring thud, and Tessa saw the gleam of metal as his hand went to the neck of his parchment robes—and pulled the robes away.

Beneath was a shimmering metal body with an ovoid head, eyeless, copper rivets holding together the joints of elbows, knees, and shoulders. Its right arm, if you could call it that, ended it a crude bronze crossbow. It raised that arm now and flexed it. A steel arrow, fletched with black metal, flew through the air and punched into the chest of the first Silent Brother, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying several feet across the courtyard, before he struck the earth, blood soaking the chest of the familiar robes.