Jessamine very slowly raised her face. “Is it from Nate?”
“No,” Tessa answered gently. “It’s something of yours.” She reached into her pocket and drew it out, extending her hand toward Jessamine. In her palm lay a tiny baby dol that she had taken from its crib inside Jessamine’s dol ’s house. “Baby Jessie.”
Jessamine made an “oh” sound low in her throat, and plucked the dol from Tessa’s grasp. She held it tightly, against her chest. Her eyes spil ed over, her tears making tracks in the grime on her face. She real y was a most pitiful sight, Tessa thought. If only . . .
“Jessamine,” Tessa said again. She felt as if Jessamine were an animal in need of gentling, and that repeating her name in a kind tone might somehow help. “We need your help.”
“In betraying Nate,” Jessamine snapped. “But I don’t know anything. I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Yes, you do.” It was Jem, coming into the cel . He was flushed and a little out of breath, as if he had been hurrying. He shot Tessa a conspiratorial glance and closed the door behind him. “You know exactly why you’re here, Jessie—”
“Because I fel in love!” Jessamine snapped. “You ought to know what that’s like. I see how you look at Tessa.” She shot Tessa a poisonous look as Tessa’s cheeks flamed. “At least Nate is human.”
Jem didn’t lose his composure. “I haven’t betrayed the Institute for Tessa,” he said. “I haven’t lied to and endangered those who have cared for me since I was orphaned.”
“If you wouldn’t,” said Jessamine, “you don’t real y love her.”
“If she asked me to,” said Jem, “I would know she did not real y love me.”
Jessamine sucked in a breath and turned away from him, as if he had slapped her face. “You,” she said in a muffled voice. “I always thought you were the nicest one. But you’re horrible. You’re al horrible. Charlotte tortured me with that Mortal Sword until I told everything. What more could you possibly want from me? You’ve already forced me to betray the man I love.”
At the very corner of Tessa’s vision, she saw Jem rol his eyes. There was a certain theatricality to Jessamine’s despair, as there was to everything she did, but under it—under the role of wronged woman Jessamine had cast herself in—Tessa felt she was genuinely afraid.
“I know you love Nate,” Tessa said. “And I know that I wil not be able to convince you that he does not return your sentiment.”
“You’re jealous—”
“Jessamine, Nate cannot love you. There is something wrong with him—some piece missing from his heart. God knows my aunt and I tried to ignore it, to tel each other it was boyish high-jinks and thoughtlessness. But he murdered our aunt—did he tel you that?—murdered the woman who brought him up, and laughed to me about it later. He has no empathy, no capacity for gratitude. If you shield him now, it wil win you nothing in his eyes.”
“Nor is it likely you wil ever see him again,” said Jem. “If you do not help us, the Clave wil never let you go. It wil be you and the dead down here for eternity, if you are not punished with a curse.”
“Nate said you would try to frighten me,” said Jessamine in a sliver of a voice.
“Nate also said the Clave and Charlotte would do nothing to you because they were weak,” said Tessa. “That has not proven true. He said to you only what he had to say, to get you to do what he wanted you to. He is my brother, and I tel you, he is a cheat and a liar.”
“We need you to write a letter to him,” said Jem. “Tel ing him you have knowledge of a secret Shadowhunter plot against Mortmain, and to meet you tonight—”
Jessamine shook her head, plucking at the rough blanket. “I wil not betray him.”
“Jessie.” Jem’s voice was soft; Tessa did not know how Jessamine could hold out against him. “Please. We are only asking you to save yourself.
Send this message; tel us your usual meeting place. That is al we ask.”
Jessamine shook her head. “Mortmain,” she said. “Mortmain wil yet win out over you. Then the Silent Brothers wil be defeated and Nate wil come to claim me.”
“Very wel ,” said Tessa. “Imagine that does happen. You say Nate loves you. Then, he would forgive you anything, wouldn’t he? Because when a man loves a woman, he understands that she is weak. That she cannot hold out against, for instance, torture, in the manner in which he could.”
Jessamine made a whimpering sound.
“He understands that she is frail and delicate and easily led,” Tessa went on, and gently touched Jessamine’s arm. “Jessie, you see your choice.
If you do not help us, the Clave wil know it, and they wil not be lenient with you. If you do help us, Nate wil understand. If he loves you . . . he has no choice. For love means forgiveness.”
“I . . .” Jessamine looked from one of them to the other, like a frightened rabbit. “Would you forgive Tessa, if it were her?”