Clockwork Princess (14 page)

“Do as you like.” Magnus let the curtain fall back, blocking the view of Will and Tessa’s carriage as it passed out of sight.

Breakfast was at first a quiet affair. Gideon and Gabriel came down together, both subdued, Gabriel barely saying a word, aside from asking Henry to pass the butter. Cecily had placed herself at the far end of the table and was reading a book as she ate; Tessa longed to see the title, but Cecily had placed the book at such an angle that it was not visible. Will, across from Tessa, had the dark shadows of sleeplessness below his eyes, a memory of their eventful night; Tessa herself poked unenthusiastically at her kedgeree, silent until the door opened and Jem came in.

She looked up with surprise and a lurch of delight. He did not look unusually ill, only tired and pale. He slid gracefully into the seat beside her. “Good morning.”

“You look much better, Jemmy,” Charlotte observed with delight.

Jemmy?
Tessa looked at Jem with amusement; he shrugged and gave her a self-deprecating grin.

She looked across the table and found Will watching them. Her gaze brushed his, just for a moment, a question in her eyes. Was there any chance that somehow Will had found some replacement
yin fen
in the time between returning home and this morning? But no, he looked as surprised as she felt.

“I am, quite,” Jem said. “The Silent Brothers were of great assistance.” He reached to pour himself a cup of tea, and Tessa watched the bones and tendons move in his thin wrist, distressingly visible. When he set the pot down, she reached for his hand beneath the table, and he clasped it. His slim fingers wound about hers reassuringly.

Bridget’s voice floated out from the kitchen.

“Cold blows the wind tonight, sweetheart,
Cold are the drops of rain;
The very first love that ever I had
In greenwood he was slain.
I’ll
do as much for my sweetheart
As any young woman may;
I’ll sit and mourn at his graveside
A twelve-month and a day.”

“By the Angel, she’s depressing,” said Henry, setting down his newspaper directly on his plate and causing the edge to soak through with egg yolk. Charlotte opened her mouth as if to object, and closed it again. “It’s all heartbreak, death, and unrequited love.”

“Well, that is what most songs are about,” said Will. “Requited love is ideal but doesn’t make much of a ballad.”

Jem looked up, but before he could say anything, a great reverberation sounded through the Institute. Tessa was familiar enough with her London home now to know it as the sound of the doorbell. They all looked down the table at the same time at Charlotte, as if their heads were mounted on springs.

Charlotte, looking startled, put down her fork. “Oh, dear,” she said. “There is something I had meant to tell you all, but—”

“Ma’am?” It was Sophie, drifting into the room with a salver in one hand. Tessa could not help but notice that though Gideon was staring at her, she seemed to be deliberately avoiding his gaze, her cheeks pinking slightly. “Consul Wayland is downstairs requesting to speak with you.”

Charlotte took the folded paper off the salver, gazed at it, sighed, and said, “Very well. Send him up.”

Sophie vanished in a swirl of skirts.

“Charlotte?” Henry sounded puzzled. “What is going on?”

“Indeed.” Will let his cutlery clatter onto his plate. “The Consul? Breaking up our breakfast time? Whatever next? The Inquisitor over for tea? Picnics with the Silent Brothers?”

“Duck pies in the park,” said Jem under his breath, and he and Will smiled at each other, just a flash, before the door opened and the Consul swept it.

Consul Wayland was a big man, broad-chested and thick-armed, and the robes of the Consul’s status always seemed to hang a bit awkwardly from his wide shoulders. He was blond bearded like a Viking, and at the moment his expression was stormy. “Charlotte,” he said without preamble. “I am here to talk to you about Benedict Lightwood.”

There was a faint rustling; Gabriel’s fingers had clenched on the tablecloth. Gideon put a hand lightly over his brother’s wrist, stilling him, but the Consul was already looking at them. “Gabriel,” he said. “I had rather thought you might go to the Blackthorns’ with your sister.”

Gabriel’s fingers tightened on the handle of his teacup. “They are quite overset in their grief for Rupert,” he said. “I did not think now was the time to intrude.”

“Well, you are grieving your father, are you not?” said the Consul. “Grief shared is grief lessened, they say.”

“Consul—,” Gideon began, shooting a worried look at his brother.

“Though perhaps it might be rather awkward to lodge with your sister, considering that she has brought a complaint against you for murder.”

Gabriel made a noise as if someone had spilled boiling water over him. Gideon threw his napkin down and stood up.

“Tatiana did
what
?” he demanded.

“You heard me,” the Consul said.

“It was not murder,” said Jem.

“As you say,” said the Consul. “I was informed that it was.”

“Were you also
informed
that Benedict had turned into a gigantic worm?” Will inquired, and Gabriel looked at him in surprise, as if he had not expected to be defended by Will.

“Will, please,” Charlotte said. “Consul, I notified you yesterday that Benedict Lightwood had been discovered to be in the last stages of
astriola—
”

“You told me there was a battle, and he was killed,” the Consul replied. “But what I am hearing reported is that he was ill with the pox, and that as a result he was hunted down and killed despite offering no resistance.”

Will, his eyes suspiciously bright, opened his mouth. Jem reached out and clapped a hand over it. “I cannot understand,” Jem said, talking over Will’s muffled protests, “how you could know that Benedict Lightwood is dead but not the manner of his death. If there was no body to find, it was because he had become more demon than human, and had vanished when slain, as demons do. But the missing servants—the death of Tatiana’s
own husband—
”

The Consul looked weary. “Tatiana Blackthorn says that a group of Shadowhunters from the Institute murdered her father and that Rupert was killed in the brawl.”

“Did she mention that her father had eaten her husband?” Henry inquired, finally looking up from his newspaper. “Oh, yes. Ate him. Left his bloody boot in the garden for us to find. There were teeth marks. Love to know how that could have been an accident.”

“I would think that counted as offering resistance,” Will said. “Eating one’s son-in-law, that is. Though I suppose everyone has their family altercations.”

“You are not seriously suggesting,” Charlotte said, “that the worm—that Benedict should have been subdued and restrained, are you, Josiah? He was in the last stages of the pox! He had gone mad and become a worm!”

“He could have become a worm and
then
gone mad,” Will said diplomatically. “We cannot be entirely sure.”

“Tatiana is greatly upset,” the Consul said. “She is considering demanding reparations—”

“Then I will pay them.” It was Gabriel, having pushed his chair back from the table and risen to his feet. “I will give my ridiculous sister my salary for the rest of my life if she desires it, but I will
not
admit to wrongdoing—not for myself, not for any of us. Yes, I put an arrow through his eye.
Its
eye. And I would do it again. Whatever that thing was, it was not my father anymore.”

There was a silence. Even the Consul did not seem to have a ready word to hand. Cecily had put her book down and was looking intently from Gabriel to the Consul and back again.

“I beg your pardon, Consul, but whatever Tatiana is telling you, she does not know the truth of the situation,” said Gabriel. “Only I was there in the house with my father as he sickened. I was alone with him as he was going mad for the past fortnight. Finally I came here; I begged for my brother’s help,” Gabriel said. “Charlotte kindly lent me the assistance of her Shadowhunters. By the time we had arrived back at the house, the thing that had been my father had torn my sister’s husband apart. I assure you, Consul, there was no manner in which my father could have been saved. We were in a fight for our lives.”

“Then why would Tatiana—”

“Because she is humiliated,” Tessa said. It was the first words she had spoken since the Consul had entered the room. “She said as much to me. She believed it would be a blight on the family name if the demon pox was known of; I assume she is trying to present some kind of alternate narrative in the hopes you will repeat it to the Council. But she is not telling the truth.”

“Really, Consul,” said Gideon. “What makes more sense? That we all ran mad and killed my father, and his sons are covering it up, or that Tatiana is lying? She never thinks things through; you know that.”

Gabriel stood with his hand on the back of his brother’s chair. “If you believe I would have so lightly committed patricide, feel free to bring me to the Silent City to be questioned.”

“That would probably be the most sensible course of action,” the Consul said.

Cecily set her teacup down with a sharp bang that made everyone at the table jump. “That is not fair,” she said. “He is telling the truth. We all are. You must know that.”

The Consul gave her a long, measuring look, then turned back to Charlotte. “You expect my trust?” he said. “And yet you conceal your actions from me. Actions have consequences, Charlotte.”

“Josiah, I informed you about what happened at Lightwood House the moment everyone returned and I was assured they were all right—”

“You should have told me before,” the Consul said flatly. “The moment Gabriel arrived. This was no routine mission. As it is, you have left yourself in a position in which I must defend you, despite the fact that you disobeyed protocol and set out upon this mission without Council approval.”

“There wasn’t time—”

“Enough,” said the Consul, in a voice that implied it was anything but enough. “Gideon and Gabriel, you will come with me to the Silent City to be questioned.” Charlotte began to protest, but the Consul held up a hand. “To have Gabriel and Gideon cleared by the Brothers is expedient; it will avoid any mess and allow me to have Tatiana’s request for reparations dismissed swiftly. The two of you.” Consul Wayland turned to the Lightwood brothers. “Go downstairs to my carriage and wait for me. We will all
three
adjourn to the Silent City; when the Brothers are done with you, if they find nothing of interest, we will return you here.”

“
If
they find nothing,” Gideon said in a disgusted tone. He took his brother by the shoulders and guided him out of the room. As Gideon closed the door behind them, Tessa noticed something spark on his hand. He was wearing his Lightwood ring again.

“All right,” said the Consul, rounding on Charlotte. “Why did you not tell me the very moment your Shadowhunters returned and told you Benedict was dead?”

Charlotte fixed her eyes on her tea. Her mouth was pressed into a firm line. “I wanted to protect the boys,” she said. “I wanted them to have some moments of peace and quiet. Some respite, after seeing their father die before their eyes, before you started asking questions, Josiah!”

“That is hardly all,” the Consul went on, ignoring her expression. “Benedict’s books and papers. Tatiana told us of them. We searched his house, but his journals are gone, his desk is empty. This is not your investigation, Charlotte; those papers belong to the Clave.”

“What are you searching for in them?” Henry asked, moving his newspaper off his plate. He sounded deceptively uninterested in the answer, but there was a hard glint in his eyes that belied his apparent disinterest.