The Infernal Devices 01 - Clockwork Angel (5 page)

She backed away, then dashed for the door—but it had slammed shut, and tug as she would on the knob, it wouldn’t budge. Bright light blazed through the room as if the sun had risen. Tessa spun, blinking away the tears in her eyes—and stared.

There was a boy standing in front of her. He couldn’t have been much older than she was—seventeen or possibly eighteen. He was dressed in what looked like workman’s clothes—a frayed black jacket, trousers, and tough-looking boots. He wore no waistcoat, and thick leather straps crisscrossed his waist and chest. Attached to the straps were weapons—daggers and folding knives and things that looked like blades of ice. In his right hand he held a sort of glowing stone—it was shining, providing the light in the room that had nearly blinded Tessa.
His other hand—slim and long-fingered—was bleeding where she had gashed the back of it with her pitcher.

But that wasn’t what made her stare. He had the most beautiful face she had ever seen. Tangled black hair and eyes like blue glass. Elegant cheekbones, a full mouth, and long, thick lashes. Even the curve of his throat was perfect. He looked like every fictional hero she’d ever conjured up in her head. Although she’d never imagined one of them cursing at her while shaking his bleeding hand in an accusing fashion.

He seemed to realize she was staring at him, because the cursing stopped. “You cut me,” he said. His voice was pleasant. British. Very ordinary. He looked at his hand with critical interest. “It might be fatal.”

Tessa looked at him with wide eyes. “Are you the Magister?”

He tilted his hand to the side. Blood ran down it, spattering the floor. “Dear me, massive blood loss. Death could be imminent.”

“Are you the Magister?”

“Magister?” He looked mildly surprised by her vehemence. “That means ‘master’ in Latin, doesn’t it?”

“I …” Tessa was feeling increasingly as if she were trapped in a strange dream. “I suppose it does.”

“I’ve mastered many things in my life. Navigating the streets of London, dancing the quadrille, the Japanese art of flower arranging, lying at charades, concealing a highly intoxicated state, delighting young women with my charms …”

Tessa stared.

“Alas,” he went on, “no one has ever actually referred to me as ‘the master,’ or ‘the magister,’ either. More’s the pity …”

“Are you highly intoxicated at the moment?”
Tessa meant the question in all seriousness, but realized the moment the words were out of her mouth that she must have sounded awfully rude—or worse, flirtatious. He seemed too steady on his feet to really be drunk, anyway. She’d seen Nate intoxicated enough times to know the difference. Perhaps he was merely insane.

“How very direct, but I suppose all you Americans are, aren’t you?” The boy looked amused. “Yes, your accent gives you away. What’s your name, then?”

Tessa looked at him in disbelief. “What’s
my
name?”

“Don’t you know it?”

“You—you’ve come bursting into my room, scared me nearly to death, and now you demand to know my name? What on earth’s
your
name? And who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Herondale,” the boy said cheerfully. “William Herondale, but everyone calls me Will. Is this really your room? Not very nice, is it?” He wandered toward the window, pausing to examine the stacks of books on her bedside table, and then the bed itself. He waved a hand at the ropes. “Do you often sleep tied to the bed?”

Tessa felt her cheeks flame and was amazed, under the circumstances, that she still had the capacity to be embarrassed. Should she tell him the truth? Was it at all possible that he was the Magister? Though anyone who looked like that wouldn’t need to tie girls up and imprison them in order to get them to marry him.

“Here. Hold this.” He handed her the glowing stone. Tessa took it, half-expecting it to burn her fingers, but it was cool to the touch. The moment it struck her palm, its light dimmed to a shimmering flicker. She looked toward him in dismay,
but he had made his way to the window and was looking out, seemingly unconcerned. “Pity we’re on the third floor. I could manage the jump, but it would probably kill you. No, we must go through the door and take our chances in the house.”

“Go through the— What?” Tessa, feeling mired in a semi-permanent state of confusion, shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“How can you not understand?” He pointed at her books. “You read novels. Obviously, I’m here to rescue you. Don’t I
look
like Sir Galahad?” He raised his arms dramatically. “‘
My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure—
’”

Something echoed, far away inside the house—the sound of a door slamming.

Will said a word Sir Galahad would never have said, and sprang away from the window. He landed with a wince, and glanced ruefully down at his injured hand. “I’ll need to take care of this later. Come along …” He looked at her pointedly, a question in his eyes.

“Miss Gray,” she said faintly. “Miss Theresa Gray.”

“Miss Gray,” he repeated. “Come along, then, Miss Gray.” He sprang past her, moved toward the door, found the knob, turned it, yanked—

Nothing happened.

“It won’t work,” she said. “The door cannot be opened from the inside.”

Will grinned ferociously. “Can’t it?” He reached for his belt, for one of the objects that hung on it. He chose what looked like a long, slender twig, picked clean of smaller branches, and made of a whitish-silver material. He placed the end of it against the door and
drew
. Thick black lines spiraled
out from the tip of the flexible cylinder, making an audible hissing noise as they spread across the wooden surface like a directed spill of ink.

“You’re
drawing
?” Tessa demanded. “I don’t really see how that can possibly—”

There was a noise like cracking glass. The doorknob, untouched, spun—fast, then faster, and the door sprang open, a faint puff of smoke rising from the hinges.

“Now you do,” Will said, and, pocketing the strange object, gestured for Tessa to follow him. “Let’s go.”

Inexplicably, she hesitated, looking back toward the room that had been her prison for nearly two months. “My books—”

“I’ll get you more books.” He urged her into the corridor ahead of him, and pulled the door shut behind them. After catching hold of her wrist, he drew her down the hallway and around a corner. Here were the stairs that she had descended so many times with Miranda. Will took them two at a time, pulling her after him.

From above them Tessa heard a scream. It was unmistakably Mrs. Dark’s.

“They’ve found you missing,” Will said. They had reached the first landing, and Tessa slowed her pace—only to be jerked ahead by Will, who seemed disinclined to stop.

“Aren’t we going out the front door?” she demanded.

“We can’t. The building’s surrounded. There’s a line of carriages pulled up out front. I appear to have arrived at an unexpectedly exciting time.” He started down the stairs again, and Tessa followed. “Do you know what the Dark Sisters had planned for this evening?”

“No.”

“But you were expecting someone called the Magister?” They were in the cellar now, where the plaster walls gave way suddenly to damp stone. Without Miranda’s lantern it was quite dark. Heat rose to meet them like a wave. “By the Angel, it’s like the ninth circle of Hell down here—”

“The ninth circle of Hell is cold,” Tessa said automatically.

Will stared at her. “What?”

“In the
Inferno
,” she told him. “Hell is cold. It’s covered in ice.”

He stared at her for another long moment, the corners of his mouth twitching, then held out his hand. “Give me the witchlight.” At her blank expression he made an impatient noise. “The stone. Give me the stone.”

The moment his hand closed about the stone, light blazed up from it again, raying out through his fingers. For the first time Tessa saw that he had a design on the back of his hand, drawn there as if in black ink. It looked like an open eye. “As for the temperature of Hell, Miss Gray,” he said, “let me give you a piece of advice. The handsome young fellow who’s trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is
never
wrong. Not even if he says the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs.”

He really
is
mad,
Tessa thought, but didn’t say so; she was too alarmed by the fact that he had started toward the wide double doors of the Dark Sisters’ chambers.

“No!” She caught at his arm, pulling him back. “Not that way. There’s no way out. It’s a dead end.”

“Correcting me again, I see.” Will turned and strode the other way, toward the shadowy corridor Tessa had always feared. Swallowing hard, she followed him.

The corridor narrowed as they went along it, the walls
pressing in on either side. The heat was even more intense here, making Tessa’s hair spring into curls and paste itself to her temples and neck. The air felt thick and was hard to breathe. For a while they walked in silence, until Tessa could stand it no longer. She had to ask, even though she knew the answer would be no.

“Mr. Herondale,” she said, “did my brother send you to find me?”

She half-feared he’d make some mad comment in response, but he simply looked at her curiously. “Never heard of your brother,” he said, and she felt the dull ache of disappointment gnaw at her heart. She’d known Nate couldn’t have sent him—he’d have known her name, then, wouldn’t he?—but it still hurt. “And outside of the past ten minutes, Miss Gray, I’d never heard of you, either. I’ve been following the trail of a dead girl for near on two months. She was murdered, left in an alley to bleed to death. She’d been running from … something.” The corridor had reached a forking point, and after a pause Will headed to the left. “There was a dagger beside her, covered in her blood. It had a symbol on it. Two snakes, swallowing each other’s tails.”

Tessa felt a jolt.
Left in an alley to bleed to death. There was a dagger beside her.
Surely the body had been Emma’s. “That’s the same symbol that’s on the side of the Dark Sisters’ carriage—That’s what I call them, Mrs. Dark and Mrs. Black, I mean—”

“You’re not the only one who calls them that; the other Downworlders do the same,” said Will. “I discovered that fact while investigating the symbol. I must have carried that knife through a hundred Downworld haunts, searching for someone who might recognize it. I offered a
reward for information. Eventually the name of the Dark Sisters came to my ears.”

“Downworld?” Tessa echoed, puzzled. “Is that a place in London?”

“Never mind that,” said Will. “I’m boasting of my investigative skills, and I would prefer to do it without interruption. Where was I?”

“The dagger—” Tessa broke off as a voice echoed down the corridor, high and sweet and unmistakable.

“Miss Gray.”
Mrs. Dark’s voice. It seemed to drift between the walls like coiling smoke.
“Oh, Miss Graaaay. Where are you?”

Tessa froze. “Oh, God, they’ve caught up with—”

Will seized her wrist again, and they were off running, the witchlight in his other hand throwing a wild pattern of shadows and light against the stone walls as they hurtled down the twisting corridor. The floor sloped down, the stones underfoot growing gradually more slick and damp as the air around them grew hotter and hotter. It was as if they were racing down into Hell itself as the voices of the Dark Sisters echoed off the walls.
“Miss Graaaaaay! We shan’t let you run, you know. We shan’t let you hide! We’ll find you, poppet. You know we will.”

Will and Tessa careened around a corner, and came up short—the corridor ended at a pair of high metal doors. Releasing Tessa, Will flung himself against them. They burst open and he tumbled inside, followed by Tessa, who spun to slam them shut behind her. The weight of them was almost too much for her to manage, and she had to throw her back against them to force them, finally, closed.

The only illumination in the room was Will’s glowing stone, its light sunk down now to an ember between his fingers. It lit him in the darkness, like limelight on a stage,
as he reached around her to slam the bolt home on the door. The bolt was heavy and flaking with rust, and, standing as close to him as she was, she could feel the tension in his body as he dragged it home and let it fall into place.

“Miss Gray?” He was leaning against her, her back against the closed doors. She could feel the driving rhythm of his heart—or was it her heart? The odd white illumination cast by the stone shimmered against the sharp angle of his cheeks, the faint sheen of sweat on his collarbones. There were marks there, too, she saw, rising from the unbuttoned collar of his shirt—like the mark on his hand, thick and black, as if someone had inked designs onto his skin.

“Where are we?” she whispered. “Are we safe?”

Without answering he drew away, raising his right hand. As he lifted it, the light blazed up higher, illuminating the room.

They were in a sort of cell, though it was very large. The walls, floor, and ceiling were stone, sloping down to a large drain in the middle of the floor. There was only one window, very high up in the wall. There were no doors save the ones they had come through. But none of that was what made Tessa draw in her breath.

The place was a slaughterhouse. There were long wooden tables running the length of the room. Bodies lay on one of them—human bodies, stripped and pale. Each had a black incision in the shape of a
Y
marking its chest, and each head dangled back over the edge of the table, the hair of the women sweeping the floor like brooms. On the center table were piles of bloodstained knives and machinery—copper cogs and brass gears and sharp-toothed silver hacksaws.

Tessa crammed a hand into her mouth, stifling a scream. She tasted blood as she bit down on her own fingers. Will didn’t seem to notice; he was white-faced as he looked around, mouthing something under his breath that Tessa couldn’t make out.

There was a crashing noise and the metal doors shuddered, as if something heavy had flung itself against them. Tessa lowered her bleeding hand and cried out, “Mr. Herondale!”

He turned, as the doors shuddered again. A voice echoed from the other side of them: “Miss Gray! Come out now, and we won’t hurt you!”