Clockwork Princess (10 page)

“I am not a fool, Will.”

“No, more’s the pity,” Will muttered. “Jem—Jem is all the better part of myself. I would not expect you to understand. I owe him this.”

“Then what am I?” Cecily asked.

Will exhaled, too exasperated to check himself. “You are my weakness.”

“And Tessa is your heart,” she said, not angrily but thoughtfully. “Not a fool, as I told you,” she added at his startled expression. “I know that you love her.”

Will put his hand to his head, as if her words had caused a splitting pain there. “Have you told anyone? You mustn’t, Cecily. No one knows, and it must remain that way.”

“I would hardly tell anyone.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?” His voice had gone hard. “You must be ashamed of your brother—harboring illicit feelings for his
parabatai
’s fiancée—”

“I am not ashamed of you, Will. Whatever you feel, you have not acted on it, and I suppose we all want things we cannot have.”

“Oh?” Will said. “And what do you want that you cannot have?”

“For you to come home.” A strand of black hair was stuck to her cheek by the dampness, making her look as if she had been crying, though Will knew she had not.

“The Institute is my home.” Will sighed and leaned his head back against the stone archway. “I cannot stand out here arguing with you all evening, Cecy. If you are determined to follow me into Hell, I cannot stop you.”

“Finally, you have seen sense. I knew you would; you are related to me, after all.”

Will fought the urge to shake her, again. “Are you ready?”

She nodded, and Will raised his hand to knock on the door.

The door flew open, and Gideon stood on the threshold of his bedroom, blinking as if he had been in a dark place and had just come out into the light. His trousers and shirt were wrinkled, and one of his braces had slid halfway down his arm.

“Mr. Lightwood?” Sophie said, hesitating on the threshold. She was carrying a tray in her hands, loaded with scones and tea, just heavy enough to be uncomfortable. “Bridget told me you had rung for a tray—”

“Yes. Of course, yes. Do come in.” As if snapped into full wakefulness, Gideon straightened and ushered her over the threshold. His boots were off, kicked into a corner. The whole room lacked its usual neatness. Gear was strewn over a high-backed chair—Sophie winced inside to think what that would do to the upholstery—a half-eaten apple was on the nightstand, and sprawled in the middle of the bed was Gabriel Lightwood, fast asleep.

He was clearly wearing his brother’s clothes, for they were far too short at his wrists and ankles. Asleep he looked younger, the usual tension smoothed from his face. One of his hands clutched a pillow as if for reassurance.

“I couldn’t wake him,” Gideon said, unconsciously hugging his elbows. “I ought to have brought him back to his own room, but …” He sighed. “I couldn’t bring myself.”

“Is he staying?” Sophie asked, setting the tray down on the nightstand. “At the Institute, I mean.”

“I—I don’t know. I think so. Charlotte told him he was welcome. I think she terrified him.” Gideon’s mouth quirked slightly.

“Mrs. Branwell?” Sophie bristled, as she always did when she thought her mistress was being criticized. “But she is the gentlest of people!”

“Yes—that is
why
I think she terrified him. She embraced him and told him that if he remained here, the incident with my father would be put into the past. I am not sure
which
incident with my father she was referring to,” Gideon added dryly. “Most likely the one where Gabriel supported his bid to take over the Institute.”

“You don’t think she meant the most recent?” Sophie pushed a lock of hair that had come free back under her cap. “With the …”

“Enormous worm? No, oddly, I don’t. It is not in my brother’s nature, though, to expect to be forgiven. For anything. He understands only the strictest discipline. He may think Charlotte is trying to play a trick on him, or that she is mad. She showed him to a room he could have, but I think the entire business frightened him. He came to speak to me about it, and fell asleep.” Gideon sighed, looking at his brother with a mixture of fondness, exasperation, and sorrow that made Sophie’s heart beat in sympathy.

“Your sister …,” she began.

“Oh, Tatiana wouldn’t even consider staying here for a moment,” Gideon said. “She has fled to the Blackthorns’, her in-laws, and good riddance. She is not a stupid girl—in fact, she considers her intelligence to be quite superior—but she is a self-important and vain one, and there is no love lost between her and my brother. And he had been awake for days, mind you. Waiting in that great blasted house, locked out of the library, pounding on the door when no answer came from my father …”

“You feel protective of him,” Sophie observed.

“Of course I do; he is my little brother.” He moved toward the bed and brushed a hand over Gabriel’s tousled brown hair; the other boy moved and made a restless sound but did not wake.

“I thought he would not forgive you for going against your father,” Sophie said. “You had said—that you were frightened of it. That he would consider your actions a betrayal of the Lightwood name.”

“I think he has begun to question the Lightwood name. Just as I did, in Madrid.” Gideon stepped away from the bed.

Sophie ducked her head. “I am sorry,” she said. “Sorry about your father. Whatever anyone said about him, or whatever he might have done, he was your father.”

He turned toward her. “But, Sophie—”

She did not correct him for the use of her Christian name. “I know that he did deplorable things,” she said. “But you should be allowed to mourn him nonetheless. No one can take your grief from you; it belongs to you, and you alone.”

He touched her cheek lightly with the tips of his fingers. “Did you know your name means ‘wisdom’? It was very well-given.”

Sophie swallowed. “Mr. Lightwood—”

But his fingers had spread out to cup her cheek, and he was bending to kiss her.
“Sophie,”
he breathed, and then their lips found each other, a light touch giving way to a greater pressure as he leaned in. Lightly and delicately she curved her hands—
so rough, worn down with washing and carrying, with scraping the grates and dusting and polishing
, she fretted, but he didn’t seem to be bothered or notice—around his shoulders.

Then she moved closer to him, and the heel of her shoe caught on the carpet, and she was slipping to the floor, Gideon catching at her. They tumbled to the ground together, Sophie’s face flaming in embarrassment—dear God, he would think she had pulled him down on purpose, that she was some sort of wanton madwoman intent on passion. Her cap had fallen off, and her dark curls fell over her face. The rug was soft beneath her, and Gideon, above her, was whispering her name with concern. She turned her head aside, her cheeks still burning, and found herself gazing beneath his four-poster bed.

“Mr. Lightwood,” she said, raising herself up on her elbows. “Are those
scones
under your bed?”

Gideon froze, blinking, a rabbit cornered by hounds. “What?”

“There.” She pointed to the mounded dark shapes piled beneath the four-poster. “There is a veritable
mountain
of scones beneath your bed. What on earth?”

Gideon sat up, raking his hands through his tumbled hair as Sophie scrambled back away from him, her skirts rustling around her. “I …”

“You called for those scones. Nearly every day. You
asked
for them, Mr. Lightwood. Why would you do that if you didn’t want them?”

His cheeks darkened. “It was the only way I could think of to see you. You wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t listen when I tried to talk to you—”

“So you lied?” Seizing up her fallen cap, Sophie rose to her feet. “Do you have any idea how much work I have to do, Mr. Lightwood? Carrying coal and hot water, dusting, polishing, cleaning up after
you
and the others—and I don’t mind or complain, but how dare you make extra work for me, make me drag heavy trays up and down the stairs, just to bring you something you didn’t even
want
?”

Gideon scrambled to his feet, his clothes even more wrinkled now. “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not think.”

“No,” Sophie said, furiously tucking her hair up under her cap. “You lot never do, do you?”

And with that, she stalked from the room, leaving Gideon staring hopelessly after her.

“Nicely done, brother,” said Gabriel from the bed, blinking sleepy green eyes at Gideon.

Gideon threw a scone at him.

“Henry.” Charlotte moved across the floor of the crypt. The witchlight torches were burning so brightly it looked almost as if it were day, though she knew it was closer to midnight. Henry was hunched over the largest of the great wooden tables scattered about the center of the room. Something or other odious was burning in a beaker on another table, giving off great puffs of lavender smoke. A massive piece of paper, the sort butchers used to wrap their wares in, was spread across Henry’s table, and he was covering it with all sorts of mysterious ciphers and calculations, muttering to himself under his breath as he scribbled. “Henry, darling, aren’t you exhausted? You’ve been down here for hours.”

Henry started and looked up, pushing the spectacles he wore when he worked up into his gingery hair. “Charlotte!” He seemed astonished, if thrilled, to see her; only Henry, Charlotte thought dryly, would be astonished to see his own wife in their own home. “My angel. What are you doing down here? It’s freezing cold. It can’t be good for the baby.”

Charlotte laughed, but she didn’t object when Henry hurried over to her and gave her a gentle hug. Ever since he had found out they were going to have a child, he had been treating her like fine china. He pressed a kiss into the top of her hair now and drew back to study her face. “In fact, you look a little peaked. Perhaps rather than supper you should have Sophie bring you some strengthening beef tea in your room? I shall go and—”

“Henry. We decided not to have supper hours ago—everyone was brought sandwiches in their rooms. Jem is still too ill to eat, and the Lightwood boys too shaken up. And you know how Will is when Jem is unwell. And Tessa, too, of course. Really, the whole house is going all to pieces.”

“Sandwiches?” said Henry, who seemed to have seized on this as the substantive part of Charlotte’s speech, and was looking wistful.

Charlotte smiled. “There are some for you upstairs, Henry, if you can tear yourself away. I suppose I shouldn’t scold you—I’ve been going through Benedict’s journals, and quite fascinating they are—but what
are
you working on?”

“A portal,” said Henry eagerly. “A form of transport. Something that might conceivably whisk a Shadowhunter from one point of the globe to another in a matter of seconds. It was Mortmain’s rings that gave me the idea.”

Charlotte’s eyes were wide. “But Mortmain’s rings are assuredly dark magic… .”

“But this is not. Oh, and there is something else. Come. It is for Buford.”

Charlotte allowed her husband to take her wrist and draw her across the room. “I have told you a hundred times, Henry, no son of mine will ever be named Buford— By the Angel, is that a
cradle
?”

Henry beamed. “It is better than a cradle!” he announced, flinging his arm out to indicate the sturdy-looking wooden baby’s bed, hung between two poles that it might rock from side to side. Charlotte had to admit to herself it was quite a nice-looking piece of furniture. “It is a self-rocking cradle!”

“A what?” Charlotte asked faintly.

“Watch.” Proudly Henry stepped forward and pressed some sort of invisible button. The cradle began to rock gently from side to side.

Charlotte expelled a breath. “That’s lovely, darling.”

“Don’t you like it?” Henry beamed. “There, it’s rocking a bit faster now.” It was, with a slight jerkiness to the motion that gave Charlotte the feeling that she had been cast adrift on a choppy sea.

“Hm,” she said. “Henry, I do have something I wish to speak to you about. Something important.”

“More important than our child being rocked gently to sleep each night?”

“The Clave has decided to release Jessamine,” Charlotte said. “She is returning to the Institute. In two days.”

Henry turned to her with an incredulous look. Behind him the cradle was rocking even faster, like a carriage hurtling ahead at full tilt. “She is coming back
here
?”

“Henry, she has nowhere else to go.”

Henry opened his mouth to reply, but before a word could emerge, there was a terrible ripping sound, and the cradle tore free of its mooring and flew across the room to crash against the farthest wall, where it exploded into splinters.

Charlotte gave a little gasp, her hand rising to cover her mouth. Henry’s brow furrowed. “Perhaps with some refinements to the design …”

“No, Henry,” Charlotte said firmly.

“But—”

“Under no circumstances.” There were daggers in Charlotte’s voice.

Henry sighed. “Very well, dear.”

The Infernal Devices are without pity. The Infernal Devices are without regret. The Infernal Devices are without number. The Infernal Devices will never stop coming
.

The words written on the wall of Benedict’s study echoed in Tessa’s head as she sat by Jem’s bed, watching him sleep. She was not sure what time it was exactly; certainly it was “in the wee smalls,” as Bridget would have said, no doubt past midnight. Jem had been awake when she had come in, just after Will had gone, awake and sitting up and well enough to take some tea and toast, though he’d been more breathless than she would have liked, and paler.

Sophie had come later to clear away the food, and had smiled at Tessa. “Fluff his pillows up,” she had suggested in a whisper, and Tessa had done it, though Jem had looked amused at her fussing. Tessa had never had much experience with sickrooms. Taking care of her brother when he’d been drunk was the closest she had come to playing nursemaid. She did not mind it now that it was Jem, did not mind sitting holding his hand while he breathed softly, his eyes half-closed, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones.