Clockwork Prince (36 page)

“Probably tried to kill it before,” said Magnus. “Sometimes they get away.”

“But how will he get back to the Institute?” Tessa wailed.

“He’s a clever boy. He’ll find a way. I’m more concerned with getting
you
back to the Institute before someone notices you’re missing and there’s the devil of a row.” They’d reached the front gates, where the carriage awaited, Cyril resting peacefully in the driver’s seat, his hat pulled down over his eyes.

She glared mutinously at Magnus as he swung the carriage door open and reached out a hand to help her up into it. “How do you know Will and I didn’t have Charlotte’s permission to be here tonight?”

“Do give me more credit than that, darling,” he said, and grinned in such an infectious manner that Tessa, with a sigh, gave him her hand. “Now,” he said, “I’ll take you back to the Institute, and on the way you can tell me all about it.”

“Oh, my dear merciful heavens!” said Sophie, starting up from her chair as Tessa opened the door to Jessamine’s bedroom. “Miss Tessa, what
happened
?”

“Sophie! Shh!” Tessa waved a warning hand as she shut the door behind her. The room was as she had left it. Her nightgown and dressing gown were folded neatly on a chair, the cracked silver mirror was on the vanity table, and Jessamine—Jessamine was still soundly unconscious, her wrists rope-bound to the posts of the bed. Sophie, seated in a chair by the wardrobe, had clearly been there since Will and Tessa had left; she clutched a hairbrush in one hand (to hit Jessamine with, should she awaken again, Tessa wondered?), and her hazel eyes were huge.

“But miss . . .” Sophie’s voice trailed off as Tessa’s gaze went to her reflection in the looking glass. Tessa could not help but stare. Her hair had come down, of course, in a tangled mess all over her shoulders, Jessamine’s pearl pins gone where Will had flung them; she was shoeless and limping, her white stockings filthy, her gloves gone, and her dress obviously nearly choking her to death. “Was it very dreadful?”

Tessa’s mind went suddenly back to the balcony, and Will’s arms around her.
Oh, God.
She pushed the thought away and glanced over at Jessamine, still sleeping peacefully. “Sophie, we are going to have to wake Charlotte. We have no choice.”

Sophie looked at her with round eyes. Tessa could not blame her; she dreaded rousing Charlotte. Tessa had even pleaded with Magnus to come in with her to help break the news, but he had refused, on the grounds that internecine Shadowhunter dramas had nothing to do with him, and he had a novel to get back to besides.

“Miss—,” Sophie protested.

“We must.” As quickly as she could, Tessa told Sophie the gist of what had happened that night, leaving out the part with Will on the balcony. No one needed to know about that. “This is beyond us now. We cannot come in over Charlotte’s head any longer.”

Sophie made no more sound of protest. She laid the hair-brush down on the vanity, stood up, smoothed her skirts, and said, “I will fetch Mrs. Branwell, miss.”

Tessa sank into the chair by the bed, wincing as Jessamine’s dress pinched her. “I wish you would call me Tessa.”

“I know, miss.” Sophie left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Magnus was lying on the sofa in the drawing room with his boots up when he heard the commotion. He grinned without moving at the sound of Archer protesting, and Will protesting. Footsteps neared the door. Magnus flipped a page in his poetry book as the door swung open and Will stalked in.

He was barely recognizable. His elegant evening clothes were torn and stained with mud, his coat ripped lengthwise, his boots encrusted with mud. His hair stood up wildly, and his face was raked by dozens of scratches, as if he had been attacked by a dozen cats simultaneously.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Archer despairingly. “He pushed past me.”

“Magnus,” Will said. He was grinning. Magnus had seen him grin before, but there was real joy in it this time. It transformed Will’s face, took it from beautiful but cold to incandescent. “Tell him to let me in.”

Magnus waved a hand. “Let him in, Archer.”

The human subjugate’s gray face twisted, and the door slammed behind Will. “Magnus!” He half-staggered, half-stalked over to the fireplace, where he leaned against the mantel. “You won’t believe—”

“Shh,” said Magnus, his book still open on his knees. “Listen to this:

“Swinburne,” said Will, leaning against the mantel. “Sentimental and overrated.”

“
You
don’t know what it is to be immortal.” Magnus tossed the book aside and sat up. “So what is it you want?”

Will pulled up his sleeve. Magnus swallowed a sound of surprise. Will’s forearm bore a long, deep, and bloody gash. Blood braceleted his wrist and dripped from his fingers. Embedded in the gash, like a crystal sunk into the wall of a cave, was a single white tooth.

“What the—,” Magnus began.

“Demon tooth,” Will said, his breath a little short. “I chased that blue bastard all around Chiswick, but it got away from me—not before it bit me, though. It left this tooth in me. You can use it, right? To summon the demon?” He took hold of the tooth and yanked it free. Even more blood welled up and spilled down his arm, splattering onto the ground.

“Camille’s carpet,” Magnus protested.

“It’s blood,” said Will. “She ought to be thrilled.”

“Are you all right?” Magnus looked at Will in fascination. “You’re bleeding a great deal. Haven’t you a stele on your person somewhere? A healing rune—”

“I don’t care about healing runes. I care about this.” Will dropped the bloody tooth into Magnus’s hand. “Find the demon for me. I know you can do it.”

Magnus glanced down with a moue of distaste. “I most likely can, but . . .”

The light in Will’s face flickered. “But?”

“But not tonight,” said Magnus. “It may take me a few days. You’ll have to be patient.”

Will took a ragged breath. “I can’t be patient. Not after tonight. You don’t understand—” He staggered then, and caught himself by seizing the mantel. Alarmed, Magnus rose from the sofa.

“Are you all right?”

The color was coming and going in Will’s face. His collar was dark with sweat. “I don’t know—,” he gasped. “The tooth. It might have been poisonous . . .”

His voice trailed off. He slid forward, his eyes rolling up. With an epithet of surprise Magnus caught Will before he could hit the bloody carpet and, hoisting the boy in his arms, carried him carefully over to the sofa.

Tessa, seated in the chair beside Jessamine’s bed, massaged her aching ribs and sighed. The corset was still biting into her, and she had no idea when she’d get a chance to remove it; her feet ached, and she hurt down deep in her soul. Seeing Nate had been like having a knife twisted in a fresh wound. He had danced with “Jessamine”—flirted with her—and had casually discussed the fate of Tessa, his sister, as if it meant nothing to him at all.

She supposed it should not surprise her, that she should be beyond surprise where Nate was concerned. But it hurt just the same.

And Will—those few moments out on the balcony with Will had been the most confusing of her life. After the way Will had spoken to her on the roof, she had sworn never to entertain romantic thoughts of him again. He was no dark, brooding Heathcliff nursing a secret passion, she had told herself, merely a boy who thought himself too good for her. But the way he had looked at her on the terrace, the way he had smoothed her hair back from her face, even the faint tremble in his hands when he’d touched her—surely those things could not be the product of falsehood.

But then, she had touched him back the same way. In that moment she had wanted nothing but Will. Had felt nothing but Will. Yet just the night before she had touched and kissed Jem; she had felt that she loved him; she had let him see her as no one had ever seen her before. And when she thought of him now, thought of his silence this morning, his absence from dinner, she missed him again, with a physical pain that could not be a lie.

Could you really love two different people at once? Could you split your heart in half? Or was it just that the time with Will on the balcony had been a madness induced by warlock drugs? Would it have been the same with
anyone
? The thought haunted her like a ghost.

“Tessa.”

Tessa nearly leaped out of her seat. The voice was almost a whisper. It was Jessamine. Her eyes were half-open, the reflected firelight flickering in their brown depths.

Tessa sat up straight. “Jessamine. Are you . . .”

“What happened?” Jessamine’s head rolled fretfully from side to side. “I don’t remember.” She tried to sit up and gasped, finding her hands bound. “Tessa! Why on earth—”

“It’s for your own good, Jessamine.” Tessa’s voice shook. “Charlotte—she has questions she has to ask you. It would be so much better if you were willing to answer them—”

“The party.” Jessamine’s eyes flicked back and forth, as if she were watching something Tessa couldn’t see. “Sophie, that little monkey, was going through my things. I found her with the invitation in her hands—”

“Yes, the party,” said Tessa. “At Benedict Lightwood’s. Where you were meeting Nate.”

“You read his note?” Jessamine’s head whipped to the side. “Don’t you know how rude and improper it is to read another person’s private correspondence?” She tried to sit up again, and fell back once more against the pillows. “Anyway, he didn’t sign it. You can’t prove—”

“Jessamine, there is little advantage in falsehood now. I can prove it, for I went to the party, and I spoke with my brother there.”

Jessamine’s mouth opened in a pink O. For the first time she seemed to note what Tessa was wearing. “My dress,” she breathed. “You disguised yourself as me?”

Tessa nodded.

Jessamine’s eyes darkened. “Unnatural,” she breathed. “Disgusting creature! What did you do to Nate? What did you say to him?”

“He made it very clear you have been spying for Mortmain,” said Tessa, wishing that Sophie and Charlotte would return. What on earth was taking them so long? “That you have betrayed us, reporting on all our activities, carrying out Mortmain’s commands—”

“Us?” Jessamine screamed, struggling upright as much as the ropes would allow her. “You are not a Shadowhunter! You owe them no loyalty! They do not care about you, any more than they care about me. Only Nate cares for me—”

“My brother,” Tessa said in a barely controlled voice, “is a lying murderer, incapable of feeling. He may have married you, Jessamine, but he does not love you. The Shadowhunters have helped and protected me, as they have done for you. And yet you turn on them like a dog the moment my brother snaps his fingers. He will abandon you, if he does not kill you first.”

“Liar!” Jessamine screamed. “You don’t understand him. You never did! His soul is pure and fine—”

“Pure as ditch water,” Tessa said. “I understand him better than you do; you are blinded by his charm. He cares nothing for you.”

“Liar—”

“I saw it in his eyes.
I saw the way he looks at you
.”

Jessamine gasped. “How can you be so cruel?”

Tessa shook her head. “You can’t see it, can you?” she said wonderingly. “For you it is all play, like those dolls in your dollhouse—moving them about, making them kiss and marry. You wanted a mundane husband, and Nate was good enough. You cannot see what your traitorousness has cost those who have always cared for you.”

Jessamine bared her teeth; in that moment she looked enough like a trapped, cornered animal that Tessa almost shrank back. “I love Nate,” she said. “And he loves me. You are the one who does not understand love. ‘Oh, I cannot decide between Will and Jem. Whatever shall I do?’” she said in a high-pitched voice, and Tessa flushed hotly. “So what if Mortmain wants to destroy the Shadowhunters of Britain. I say let them burn.”

Tessa gaped at her, just as the door behind her was flung open, and Charlotte marched in. She looked drawn and hollow with exhaustion, in a gray dress that matched the shadows beneath her eyes, but her carriage was erect, her eyes clear. Behind her came Sophie, scuttling as if frightened—and a moment later Tessa saw why, for bringing up the rear of the party was an apparition in parchment-colored robes, his face hidden beneath the shadow of his hood, and a deadly bright blade in his hand. It was Brother Enoch, of the Silent Brothers, carrying the Mortal Sword.

“Let us burn? Is that what you said, Jessamine?” said Charlotte in a bright, hard voice so unlike her that Tessa stared.

Jessamine gasped. Her eyes were fixed on the blade in Brother Enoch’s hand. Its great hilt was carved in the shape of an angel with outspread wings.

Brother Enoch flicked the Sword toward Jessamine, who flinched back, and the ropes binding her wrists to the bedposts unraveled. Her hands fell limply into her lap. She stared at them, and then at Charlotte. “Charlotte, Tessa’s a liar. She’s a lying Downworlder—”