Jessamine was stil shrieking as the Silent Brother lifted her and threw her over his shoulder. As Tessa stared, wide-eyed, he strode from the room carrying her. Her cries and gasps echoed down the corridor long after the door closed behind them—and then were cut off suddenly.
“Jessamine—,” Tessa began.
“She is quite al right. He has probably put a Rune of Quietude on her. That is al . There is nothing to worry about,” said Charlotte, and she sat down on the edge of the bed. She looked down at her own hands, wonderingly, as if they did not belong to her. “Henry . . .”
“Shal I rouse him for you, Mrs. Branwel ?” Sophie asked gently.
“He is in the crypt, working. . . . I could not bear to get him.” Charlotte’s voice was distant. “Jessamine has been with us since she was a little girl.
It would have been too much for him, too much. He does not have it in him to be cruel.”
“Charlotte.” Tessa touched her shoulder gently. “Charlotte, you are not cruel either.”
“I do what I must. There is nothing to worry about,” Charlotte said again, and burst into tears.
14
THE SILENT CITY
She howl’d aloud, “I am on fire within.
There comes no murmur of reply.
What is it that will take away my sin,
A nd save me lest I die?”
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Palace of Art”
“Jessamine,” Henry said again, for what must have been the fifth or sixth time. “I stil can’t believe it. Our Jessamine?”
Every time he said it, Tessa noticed, Charlotte’s mouth grew a little tighter. “Yes,” she said again. “Jessamine. She has been spying on us and reporting our every move to Nate, who has been passing the information to Mortmain. Must I say it again?”
Henry blinked at her. “I’m sorry, darling. I have been listening. It is only that—” He sighed. “I knew she was unhappy here. But I did not think Jessamine hated us.”
“I don’t think she did—or does.” This was Jem, who was standing near the fire in the drawing room, one arm upon the mantel. They had not gathered for breakfast as they usual y did; there had been no formal announcement as to why, but Tessa guessed that the idea of going on with breakfast, with Jessamine’s place empty, as if nothing had happened, had been too dreadful for Charlotte to bear.
Charlotte had wept for only a short time that night before she had regained her composure; she had waved away Sophie’s and Tessa’s attempts to help with cold cloths or tea, shaking her head stiffly and saying over and over that she should not al ow herself to break down like this, that now was the time for planning, for strategy. She had marched to Tessa’s room, with Sophie and Tessa hurrying at her heels, and pried feverishly at the floorboards until she’d turned up a smal chapbook, like a family Bible, bound in white leather and wrapped in velvet. She had slipped it into her pocket with a determined expression, waving away Tessa’s questions, and risen to her feet. The sky outside the windows had already begun to brighten with the wan light of dawn. Looking exhausted, she had told Sophie to instruct Bridget to serve a simple cold breakfast in the drawing room, and to let Cyril know so that the menfolk might be informed. Then she had left.
With Sophie’s help Tessa had final y and grateful y fought her way free of Jessamine’s dress; she had bathed, and put on her yel ow dress, the one Jessamine had bought her. She thought the color might brighten her mood, but she stil felt wan and tired.
She found the same look reflected on Jem’s face when she came into the drawing room. His eyes were shadowed, and he looked quickly away from her. It hurt. It also made her think of the night before, with Wil , on the balcony. But that had been different, she told herself. That had been a result of warlock powders, a temporary madness. Nothing like what had happened between her and Jem.
“I don’t think she hates us,” Jem said again now, correcting his use of the past tense. “She has always been someone so ful of wanting. She has always been so desperate.”
“It is my fault,” Charlotte said softly. “I should not have tried to force being a Shadowhunter upon her when it was something she so clearly despised.”
“No. No!” Henry hurried to reassure his wife. “You were never anything but kind to her. You did everything you could. There are some mechanisms that are so—so broken that they cannot be repaired.”
“Jessamine is not a watch, Henry,” Charlotte said, her tone remote. Tessa wondered if she were stil angry with Henry for not seeing Woolsey Scott with her, or if she were simply angry at the world. “Perhaps I should just parcel up the Institute with a bow and give it to Benedict Lightwood.
This is the second time that we have had a spy under our roof and not known about it until significant damage was done. Clearly I am incompetent.”
“In a way it was real y just the one spy,” Henry began, but fel silent as Charlotte gave him a look that could have melted glass.