“Henry!” Charlotte looked seriously alarmed. “Tel me you have not been working on a torture device.”
“Not at al . I cal it the Confuser. It emits a vibration that directly affects the human brain, rendering it incapable of tel ing between fiction and fact.”
Henry, looking proud, reached for his box. “He wil simply spil everything that is in his mind, with no attention to the consequences . . .”
Charlotte held up a warning hand. “Not right now, Henry. If we must utilize the . . . Confuser on Nate Gray, we wil do so when we have brought him back here. At the moment we must concentrate on reaching the warehouse before Tessa. It is not that far; I suggest Cyril takes us there, then returns for Tessa.”
“Nate wil recognize the Institute’s carriage,” Tessa objected. “When I saw Jessamine leaving for a meeting with Nate, she was most decidedly going on foot. I shal walk.”
“You wil get lost,” said Wil .
“I won’t,” said Tessa, indicating the map. “It’s a simple walk. I could turn left at Gracechurch Street, go along Eastcheap, and cut through to Mincing Lane.”
An argument ensued, with Jem, to Tessa’s surprise, siding with Wil against the idea of her walking the streets alone. Eventual y it was decided that Henry would drive the carriage to Mincing Lane, while Tessa would walk, with Cyril fol owing her at a discreet distance, lest she lose herself in the crowded, dirty, noisy city. With a shrug she agreed; it seemed less trouble than arguing, and she didn’t mind Cyril.
“I don’t suppose anyone’s going to point out,” said Wil , “that once again we are leaving the Institute without a Shadowhunter to protect it?”
Charlotte rol ed up the map with a flick of her wrist. “And which of us would you suggest stay home, then, instead of helping Tessa?”
“I didn’t say anything about anyone staying home.” Wil ’s voice dropped. “But Cyril wil be with Tessa, Sophie’s only half-trained, and Bridget . . .”
Tessa glanced over at Sophie, who was sitting quietly in the corner of the library, but the other girl gave no sign of having heard Wil . Meanwhile, Bridget’s voice was wafting faintly from the kitchen, another miserable bal ad: “So John took out of his pocket
A knife both long and sharp,
A nd stuck it through his brother’s heart,
A nd the blood came pouring down.
Says John to William, ‘Take off thy shirt,
A nd tear it from gore to gore,
A nd wrap it round your bleeding heart,
A nd the blood will pour no more.’”
“By the Angel,” said Charlotte, “we real y are going to have to do something about her before she drives us al to madness, aren’t we?”
Before anyone could reply, two things happened at once: Something tapped at the window, startling Tessa so much that she took a step back, and a great, echoing noise sounded through the Institute—the sound of the summoning bel . Charlotte said something to Wil —lost in the noise of the bel —and he left the room, while Charlotte crossed it, slid the window up and open, and captured something hovering outside.
She turned away from the window, a fluttering piece of paper in her hand; it looked a bit like a white bird, edges flapping in the breeze. Her hair blew about her face too, and Tessa was reminded how young Charlotte was. “From Nate, I suppose,” said Charlotte. “His message for Jessamine.”
She brought it to Tessa, who tore the creamy parchment lengthwise in her eagerness to get it open.
Tessa glanced up. “It is from Nate,” she confirmed. “He has agreed to meet Jessie in the usual place at sundown—” She gave a little gasp as, recognizing itself somehow as having been read, the note burst into quick, heatless flames, consuming itself until it was only a film of black ash on her fingers.
“That gives us only a little time,” said Henry. “I wil go and tel Cyril to ready the carriage.” He looked to Charlotte, as if for approval, but she only nodded without meeting his eyes. With a sigh Henry left the room—nearly bumping into Wil , who was on his way back in, fol owed by a figure in a traveling cloak. For a moment Tessa wondered in confusion if it was a Silent Brother—until the visitor drew his hood back and she saw the familiar sandy-blond curling hair and green eyes.
“Gideon Lightwood?” she said in surprise.
“There.” Charlotte slipped the map she was holding into her pocket. “The Institute wil not be Shadowhunterless.”
Sophie got hastily to her feet—then froze, as if, outside the atmosphere of the training room, she was not sure what to do or say in front of the eldest Lightwood brother.