Page 39
Will froze. Still in the same tone of voice, he said, “You mean his disability?”
Gabriel blinked. “What?”
“That’s what you called it. Back at the Institute. His ‘disability. ’” Will tossed the bloody cloth aside. “And you wonder why we aren’t friends. ”
“I just wondered,” Gabriel said, in a more subdued voice, “if perhaps you have ever had enough. ”
“Enough of what?”
“Enough of behaving as you do. ”
Will crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes glinted dangerously. “Oh, I can never get enough,” he said. “Which, incidentally, is what your sister said to me when—”
The carriage door flew open. A hand shot out, grabbed Will by the back of the shirt, and hauled him inside. The door banged shut after him, and Thomas, sitting bolt upright, seized the reins of the horses. A moment later the carriage had lurched forth into the night, leaving Gabriel staring, infuriated, after it.
“What were you thinking?” Jem, having deposited Will onto the carriage seat opposite him, shook his head, his silvery eyes shining in the dimness. He held his cane between his knees, his hand resting lightly atop the dragon’s-head carving. The cane had belonged to Jem’s father, Will knew, and had been designed for him by a Shadowhunter weapons maker in Beijing. “Baiting Gabriel Lightwood like that—why do you do it? What’s the point?”
“You heard what he said about you—”
“I don’t care what he says about me. It’s what everyone thinks. He just has the nerve to say it. ” Jem leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. “You know, I cannot function as your missing sense of self-preservation forever. Eventually you will have to learn to manage without me. ”
Will, as he always did, ignored this. “Gabriel Lightwood is hardly much of a threat. ”
“Then forget Gabriel. Is there a particular reason you keep biting vampires?”
Will touched the dried blood on his wrists, and smiled. “They don’t expect it. ”
“Of course they don’t. They know what happens when one of us consumes vampire blood. They probably expect you to have more sense. ”
“That expectation never seems to serve them very well, does it?”
“It hardly serves you, either. ” Jem looked at Will thoughtfully. He was the only one who never fell out of temper with Will. Whatever Will did, the most extreme reaction he seemed to be able to provoke in Jem was mild exasperation. “What happened in there? We were waiting for the signal—”
“Henry’s bloody Phosphor didn’t work. Instead of sending up a flare of light, it set the curtains on fire. ”
Jem made a choked noise.
Will glared at him. “It’s not funny. I didn’t know whether the rest of you were going to show up or not. ”
“Did you really think we wouldn’t come after you when the whole place went up like a torch?” Jem asked reasonably. “They could have been roasting you over a spit, for all we knew. ”
“And Tessa, the silly creature, was supposed to be out the door with Magnus, but she wouldn’t leave—”
“Her brother was manacled to a chair in the room,” Jem pointed out. “I’m not sure I would have left either. ”
“I see you’re determined to miss my point. ”
“If your point is that there was a pretty girl in the room and it was distracting you, then I think I’ve taken your point handily. ”
“You think she’s pretty?” Will was surprised; Jem rarely opined on this sort of thing.
“Yes, and you do too. ”
“I hadn’t noticed, really. ”
“Yes, you have, and I’ve noticed you noticing. ” Jem was smiling. Despite the stress of the battle, he looked healthy tonight. There was color in his cheeks, and his eyes were a dark and steady silver. There were times, when the illness was at its worst, when all the color drained even from his eyes, leaving them horribly pale, nearly white, with that black speck of pupil in the center like a speck of black ash on snow. It was times like that when he also became delirious. Will had held Jem down while he’d thrashed about and cried out in another language and his eyes had rolled back into his head, and every time it happened, Will thought that this was it, and Jem was really going to die this time. He sometimes then thought about what he would do afterward, but he couldn’t imagine it, any more than he could look back and remember his life before he had come to the Institute. Neither bore thinking about for very long.
But then there were other times, like this, when he looked at Jem and saw no mark of illness on him, and wondered what it would be like in a world where Jem was not dying. And that did not bear thinking about either. It was a terrible black place in himself that the fear came from, a dark voice he could only silence with anger, risk, and pain.
“Will. ” Jem’s voice cut into Will’s unpleasant reverie. “Have you heard a single word I’ve said in the past five minutes?”
“Not really. ”
“We needn’t talk about Tessa if you don’t want to, you know. ”
“It’s not Tessa. ” This was true. Will hadn’t been thinking about Tessa. He was getting good at not thinking about her, really; all it took was determination and practice. “One of the vampires had a human servant who rushed me. I killed him,” said Will. “Without even thinking about it. He was just a stupid human boy, and I killed him. ”
“He was a darkling,” said Jem. “He was Turning. It would have been a matter of time. ”
“He was just a boy,” Will said again. He turned his face toward the window, though the brightness of the witchlight in the carriage meant that all he could see was his own face, reflected back at him. “I’m going to get drunk when we get home,” he added. “I think I’m going to have to. ”
“No, you won’t,” said Jem. “You know exactly what will happen when we get home. ”
Because he was right, Will scowled.
Ahead of Will and Jem, in the first carriage, Tessa sat on the velvet bench seat across from Henry and Charlotte; they were talking in murmurs about the night and how it had gone. Tessa let the words wash over her, barely caring. Only two Shadowhunters had been killed, but de Quincey’s escape was a disaster, and Charlotte was worried that the Enclave would be angry with her. Henry made soothing noises, but Charlotte seemed inconsolable. Tessa would have felt bad for her, if she’d had the energy to feel much at all.
Nathaniel lay across Tessa, his head in her lap. She bent over him, stroking his filthy matted hair with her gloved fingers. “Nate,” she said, so softly that she hoped Charlotte couldn’t hear her. “It’s all right now. Everything’s all right. ”
Nathaniel’s lashes fluttered and his eyes opened. His hand came up—the fingernails broken, his joints swollen and twisted—and he took tight hold of her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “Don’t go,” he said thickly. His eyes fluttered shut again; he was clearly drifting in and out of consciousness, if he was really conscious at all. “Tessie—stay. ”
No one else ever called her that; she shut her eyes, willing the tears back. She did not want Charlotte—or any Shadowhunter—to see her cry.
12
BLOOD AND WATER
I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss
Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss,
Brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin;
Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Laus Veneris”
When they reached the Institute, Sophie and Agatha were waiting at the open doors with lanterns. Tessa stumbled with tiredness as she left the carriage, and was surprised—and grateful—when Sophie came to help her up the steps. Charlotte and Henry half-carried Nathaniel. Behind them the carriage with Will and Jem in it rattled through the gates, Thomas’s voice carrying on the cool night air as he called out a greeting.
Jessamine, not to Tessa’s surprise, was nowhere to be seen.
They in
stalled Nathaniel in a bedroom much like Tessa’s—the same dark heavy wood furniture, the same grand bed and wardrobe. As Charlotte and Agatha settled Nathaniel into the bed, Tessa sank into the chair beside it, half-feverish with worry and exhaustion. Voices—soft sickroom voices—swirled around her. She heard Charlotte say something about the Silent Brothers, and Henry answered in a subdued voice. At some point Sophie appeared at her elbow and urged her to drink something hot and sweet-sour that brought energy slowly flooding back into her veins. Soon enough she was able to sit up and look around her a bit, and she realized to her surprise that except for herself and her brother, the room was empty. Everyone had gone.
She glanced down at Nathaniel. He lay corpse-still, his face lividly bruised, his matted hair tangled against the pillows. Tessa could not help but recall with a pang the beautifully dressed brother of her memories, his fair hair always so carefully brushed and arranged, shoes and cuffs spotless. This Nathaniel did not look like someone who had ever spun his sister around the living room in a dance, humming to himself under his breath for the sheer joy of being alive.
She leaned forward, meaning to look more closely at his face, and saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she saw it was only herself, reflected in the mirror on the far wall. In Camille’s dress, she looked to her own eyes like a child playing dress-up. She was too slight for the sophisticated style of it. She looked like a child—a silly child. No wonder Will had—
“Tessie?” Nathaniel’s voice, weak and frail, broke her instantly out of her thoughts of Will. “Tessie, don’t leave me. I think I’m ill. ”
“Nate. ” She reached for his hand, seized it between her gloved palms. “You’re all right. You’ll be all right. They’ve sent for doctors… . ”
“Who are ‘they’?” His voice was a thin cry. “Where are we? I don’t know this place. ”
“This is the Institute. You’ll be safe here. ”
Nathaniel blinked. There were dark rings, almost black, around each of his eyes, and his lips were crusted with what looked like dried blood. His eyes wandered from side to side, not fixing on anything. “Shadowhunters. ” He sighed the word on an exhale of breath. “I didn’t think they really existed… . The Magister,” Nathaniel whispered suddenly, and Tessa’s nerves jumped. “He said they were the Law. He said they were to be feared. But there is no law in this world. There is no punishment—just killing or being killed. ” His voice rose. “Tessie, I’m so sorry—about everything—”
“The Magister. Do you mean de Quincey?” Tessa demanded, but Nate made a choking sound then, and stared behind her with a look of terrible fear. Releasing his hand, Tessa turned to see what he was staring at.
Charlotte had come into the room almost noiselessly. She was still wearing her men’s clothes, though she had thrown an old-fashioned long cloak on over them, with a double clasp at the throat. She looked very small, in part because Brother Enoch stood beside her, casting a vast shadow across the floor. He wore the same parchment robes he had before, though now his staff was black, its head carved in the shape of dark wings. His hood was up, casting his face in shadow.