It was a peculiar experience walking the streets of London as a boy, Tessa thought as she made her way along the crowded pavement of Eastcheap. The men who crossed her path spared her barely a glance, just pushed past her toward the doors of public houses or the next turn in the street. As a girl, walking alone through these streets at night in her fine clothes, she would have been the object of stares and jeers. As a boy she was—invisible. She had never realized what it was like to be invisible before. How light and free she felt—or would have felt, had she not felt like an aristocrat from A Tale of Two Cities on his way to the guil otine in a tumbrel.
She caught sight of Cyril only once, slipping between two buildings across the road from 32 Mincing Lane. It was a great stone building, and the black iron fence surrounding it, in the vanishing twilight, looked like rows of jagged black teeth. From the front gates dangled a padlock, but it had been left open; she slipped through, and then up the dusty steps to the front door, which was also unlocked.
Inside she found that the empty offices, their windows looking out onto Mincing Lane, were stil and dead; a fly buzzed in one, hurling itself over and over against the plated glass panes until it fel , exhausted, to the sil . Tessa shuddered and hurried on.
In each room she walked into, she tensed, expecting to see Nate; in each room, he was not there. The final room had a door that opened out onto the floor of a warehouse. Dim blue light filtered in through the cracks in the boarded-up windows. She looked around uncertainly. “Nate?” she whispered.
He stepped out of the shadows between two flaking plaster pil ars. His blond hair shone in the bluish light, under a silk top hat. He wore a blue tweed frock coat, black trousers, and black boots, but his usual y immaculate appearance was disheveled. His hair hung lankly in his eyes, and there was a smear of dirt across his cheek. His clothes were wrinkled and creased as if he had slept in them. “Jessamine,” he said, relief evident in his tone. “My darling.” He opened his arms.
She came forward slowly, her whole body tensed. She did not want Nate touching her, but she could see no way to avoid his embrace. His arms went around her. His hand caught the brim of her hat and pul ed it free, letting her fair curls tumble down her back. She thought of Wil pul ing the pins from her hair, and her stomach involuntarily tightened.
“I need to know where the Magister is,” she began in a shaking voice. “It’s terribly important. I overheard some of the Shadowhunters’ plans, you see. I know you didn’t wish to tel me, but . . .”
He pushed her hair back, ignoring her words. “I see,” he said, and his voice was deep and husky. “But first—” He tipped her head up with a finger under her chin. “Come and kiss me, sweet-and-twenty.”
Tessa wished he wouldn’t quote Shakespeare. She’d never be able to hear that sonnet again without wanting to be sick. Every nerve in her body
wanted to leap screaming through her skin in revulsion as he leaned toward her. She prayed for the others to burst in as she let him tilt her head up, up— Nate began to laugh. With a jerk of his wrist, he sent her hat sailing into the shadows; his fingers tightened on her chin, the nails digging in. “My apologies for my impetuous behavior,” he said. “I couldn’t help but be curious to see how far you’d go to protect your Shadowhunter friends . . . little sister.”
“Nate.” Tessa tried to jerk backward, out of his grasp, but his grip on her was too strong. His other hand shot out like a snake, spinning her around, pinning her against him with his forearm across her throat. His breath was hot against her ear. He smel ed sour, like old gin and sweat.
“Did you real y think I didn’t know?” he spat. “After that note arrived at Benedict’s bal , sending me off on that wild goose chase to Vauxhal , I realized. It al made sense. I should have known it was you from the beginning. Stupid little girl.”
“Stupid?” she hissed. “I got you to spil your secrets, Nate. You told me everything. Did Mortmain find out? Is that why you look like you haven’t slept in days?”
He jerked his arm tighter around her, making her gasp with pain. “You couldn’t leave wel enough alone. You had to pry into my business.
Delighted to see me brought low, are you? What kind of sister does that make you, Tessie?”
“You would have kil ed me if you had the chance. There is no game you can play, nothing you can say to make me think I’ve betrayed you, Nate.