You earned every bit of it. Al ying yourself with Mortmain—”
He shook her, hard enough to make her teeth rattle. “As if my al iances are any of your business. I was doing wel for myself until you and your Nephilim friends came and meddled. Now the Magister wants my head on a block. Your fault. Al your fault. I was almost in despair, til I got that ridiculous note from Jessamine. I knew you were behind it, of course. Al the trouble you must have gone through too, torturing her to get her to write me that ridiculous missive—”
“We didn’t torture her,” Tessa ground out. She struggled, but Nate only held her more tightly, the buttons on his waistcoat digging into her back.
“She wanted to do it. She wanted to save her own skin.”
“I don’t believe you.” The hand that wasn’t across her throat gripped her chin; his nails dug in, and she yelped with pain. “She loves me.”
“No one could love you,” Tessa spat. “You’re my brother—I loved you—and you have kil ed even that.”
Nate leaned forward and growled, “I am not your brother.”
“Very wel , my half brother, if you must have it—”
“You’re not my sister. Not even by half.” He said the words with a cruel pleasure. “Your mother and my mother were not the same woman.”
“That’s not possible,” Tessa whispered. “You’re lying. Our mother was Elizabeth Gray—”
“Your mother was Elizabeth Gray, born Elizabeth Moore,” said Nate. “Mine was Harriet Moore.”
“A unt Harriet?”
“She was engaged once. Did you know that? After our parents—your parents—were married. The man died before the wedding could take place. But she was already with child. Your mother raised the baby as hers to spare her sister the shame of the world knowing she had consummated her marriage before it had taken place. That she was a whore.” His voice was as bitter as poison. “I’m not your brother, and I never was. Harriet—she never told me she was my mother. I found out from your mother’s letters. Al those years, and she never said a word. She was too ashamed.”
“You kil ed her,” Tessa said numbly. “Your own mother.”
“Because she was my mother. Because she’d disowned me. Because she was ashamed of me. Because I’l never know who my father was.
Because she was a whore.” Nate’s voice was empty. Nate had always been empty. He had never been anything but a pretty shel , and Tessa and her aunt had dreamed into him empathy and compassion and sympathetic weakness because they had wanted to see it there, not because it was.
“Why did you tel Jessamine that my mother was a Shadowhunter?” Tessa demanded. “Even if Aunt Harriet was your mother, she and my mother were sisters. Aunt Harriet would have been a Shadowhunter, too, and so would you. Why tel such a ridiculous lie?”
He smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” His grip tightened on her neck, choking her. She gasped and thought suddenly of Gabriel, saying, A im your kicks at the kneecaps; the pain is agonizing.
She kicked up and backward, the heel of her boot col iding with Nate’s knee, making a dul cracking sound. Nate yel ed, and his leg went out from under him. He kept his grip on Tessa as he fel , rol ing so that his elbow jammed into her stomach as they tumbled to the ground together. She gasped, the air punched from her lungs, her eyes fil ing with tears.
She kicked out at him again, trying to scramble backward, and caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder, but he lunged at her, seizing her by the waistcoat. The buttons popped off it in a rain as he dragged her toward him; his other hand gripped her hair as she flailed out at him, raking her nails down his cheek. The blood that sprang immediately to the surface was a savagely satisfying sight.
“Let me go,” she panted. “You can’t kil me. The Magister wants me alive—”
“‘Alive’ is not ‘unhurt,’” Nate snarled, blood running down his face and off his chin. He knotted his hand in her hair and dragged her toward him; she screamed at the pain and lashed out with her boots, but he was nimble, dodging her flailing feet. Panting, she sent up a silent cal : Jem, Will, Charlotte, Henry—where are you?
“Wondering where your friends are?” He hauled her to her feet, one hand in her hair, the other fisted in the back of her shirt. “Wel , here’s one of them, at least.”
A grinding noise alerted Tessa to a movement in the shadows. Nate dragged her head around by the hair, shaking her. “Look,” he spat. “It’s time you knew what you are up against.”