Taking a deep breath, Tessa dashed across the room to Charlotte and knelt down, laying her fingers to Charlotte’s throat; there was a pulse there, fluttering weakly. Putting her hands under Charlotte’s arms, she began to drag her toward the wal , away from the center of the room, where the automaton was spinning and spitting sparks, reaching up with its pincered hands to claw at Jem and Wil .
They were too quick for it, though. Tessa laid Charlotte down among the burlap sacks of tea and gazed across the room, trying to determine a path that might lead her to Henry. Nate was dashing back and forth, shouting and cursing at the mechanical creature; in answer Wil sawed off one of its horns and threw it at Tessa’s brother. It bounced across the floor, skittering and sparking, and Nate jumped back. Wil laughed. Jem meanwhile was clinging on to the creature’s neck, doing something that Tessa could not see. The creature itself was turning in circles, but it had been designed for reaching out and grabbing what was in front of it, and its “arms” did not bend properly. It could not reach what clung to the back of its neck and head.
Tessa almost wanted to laugh. Wil and Jem were like mice scurrying up and down the body of a cat, driving it to distraction. But hack and slash as they might at the metal creature with their blades, they were inflicting few injuries. Their blades, which she had seen shear through iron and steel as if they were paper, were leaving only dents and scratches on the surface of the mechanical creature’s body.
Nate, meanwhile, was screaming and cursing. “Shake them off!” he yel ed at the automaton. “Shake them off, you great metal bastard!”
The automaton paused, then shook itself violently. Wil slipped, catching on to the creature’s neck at the last moment to keep himself from fal ing.
Jem was not so lucky; he stabbed forward with his sword-cane, as if he meant to drive it into the creature’s body to arrest his fal , but the blade merely skidded down the creature’s back. Jem fel , gracelessly, his weapon clattering, his leg bent under him.
“James!” Wil shouted.
Jem dragged himself painful y to his feet. He reached for the stele at his belt, but the creature, sensing weakness, was already on him, reaching out its clawed hands. Jem took several staggering steps backward and fumbled something out of his pocket. It was smooth, oblong, metal ic—the object Henry had given him in the library.
He reached back a hand to throw it—and Nate was behind him suddenly, kicking out at his injured, likely broken, leg. Jem didn’t make a sound, but the leg went out from under him with a snapping noise and he hit the ground for a second time, the object rol ing from his hand.
Tessa scrambled to her feet and ran for it just as Nate did the same. They col ided, his greater weight and height bearing her to the floor. She rol ed as she fel , as Gabriel had taught her to, to absorb the impact, though the shock stil left her breathless. She reached for the device with shaking fingers, but it skittered away from her. She could hear Wil screaming her name, cal ing to her to throw it to him. She stretched her hand out farther, her fingers closing around the device—and then Nate seized her by one leg and dragged her back toward him, mercilessly.
He is bigger than I am, she thought. Stronger than I am. More ruthless than I am. But there is one thing I can do that he cannot.
She Changed.
She reached out with her mind for the grip of his hand on her ankle, his skin touching her own. She reached out for the intrinsic, inborn Nate that she had always known, that spark inside him that flickered the way it did inside everyone, like a candle in a dark room. She heard him suck in his breath, and then the Change took her, rippling her skin, melting her bones. The buttons at her col ar and cuffs snapped as she grew in size, convulsions thrashing through her limbs, ripping her leg free of Nate’s grasp. She rol ed away from her brother, staggering to her feet, and saw his eyes widen as he looked at her.
She was now, other than her clothes, an exact mirror image of himself.
She whirled on the automaton. It was frozen, waiting for instructions, Wil stil clinging to its back. He raised his hand, and Tessa threw the device, silently thanking Gabriel and Gideon for the hours of knife throwing instruction. It flew through the air in a perfect arc, and Wil caught it out of the sky.
Nate was on his feet. “Tessa,” he snarled. “What in the bloody hel do you possibly think you’re—”
“Seize him!” she shouted at the automaton, pointing at Nate. “Catch him and hold him!”
The creature did not move. Tessa could hear nothing but Nate’s harsh breathing beside her, and the sound of clanking from the metal creature; Wil had vanished behind it and was doing something, though she could not see what.
“Tessa, you’re a fool,” Nate hissed. “This cannot work. The creature is obedient only to—”
“I am Nathaniel Gray!” Tessa shouted up at the metal giant. “And I order you in the name of the Magister to seize this man and hold him!”