Consciousness came and went in a hypnotic rhythm, like the sea appearing and disappearing on the deck of a boat in a storm. Tessa knew she lay in a bed with crisp white sheets in the center of a long room; that there were other beds, al the same, in the room; and that there were windows high above her letting in shadows and then the bloody light of dawn. She closed her eyes against it, and the darkness came again.
She woke to whispering voices, and faces hovering over her, anxious. Charlotte, her hair knotted back neatly, stil in her gear, and beside her Brother Enoch. His scarred face was no longer a terror. She could hear his voice in her mind. The wound to her head is superficial.
“But she fainted,” said Charlotte. To Tessa’s surprise there was real fear in her voice, real anxiety. “With a blow to the head—”
She fainted from repeated shocks. Her brother died in her arms, you said? A nd she may have thought Will was dead as well. You said he covered her with his body when the explosion occurred. If he had died, he would have given his life for her. That is quite a burden to bear.
“But you do think she’l be wel again?”
When her body and spirit have rested, she will wake. I cannot say when that will be.
“My poor Tessa.” Charlotte touched Tessa’s face lightly. Her hands smel ed of lemon soap. “She has no one in the world at al now. . . .”
The darkness returned, and Tessa fel into it, grateful for the respite from light and thought. She wrapped herself in it like a blanket and let herself float, like the icebergs off the coast of Labrador, cradled in the moonlight by icy black water.
A guttural cry of pain cut through her dream of darkness. She was curled on her side in a tangle of sheets, and a few beds away from her lay Wil , on his stomach. She realized, though in her state of numbness it was only a faint shock, that he was probably naked; the sheets had been drawn up to his waist, but his back and chest were bare. His arms were folded on the pil ows in front of him, his head resting on them, his body tensed like a bowstring. Blood spotted the white sheets beneath him.
Brother Enoch stood at one side of his bed, and beside him Jem, at Wil ’s head, wearing an anxious expression. “Wil ,” Jem said urgently. “Wil , are you sure you won’t have another pain-kil ing rune?”
“No—more,” Wil ground out, between his teeth. “Just—get it over with.”
Brother Enoch raised what looked like a wickedly sharp pair of silver tweezers. Wil gulped and buried his head in his arms, his dark hair startling against the white of the sheets. Jem shuddered as if the pain were his own as the tweezers dug deep into Wil ’s back and his body tautened on the bed, muscles tensing under the skin, his cry of agony short and muffled. Brother Enoch drew back the tool, a blood-smeared shard of metal gripped in its teeth.
Jem slid his hand into Wil ’s. “Grip my fingers. It wil help the pain. There are only a few more.”
“Easy—for you to say,” Wil gasped, but the touch of his parabatai’s hand seemed to relax him slightly. He was arched up off the bed, his elbows digging into the mattress, his breath coming in short pants. Tessa knew she ought to look away, but she couldn’t. She realized she had never seen so much of a boy’s body before, not even Jem’s. She found herself fascinated by the way the lean muscle slid under Wil ’s smooth skin, the flex and swel of his arms, the hard, flat stomach convulsing as he breathed.
The tweezers flashed again, and Wil ’s hand bore down on Jem’s, both their fingers whitening. Blood wel ed and spil ed down his bare side. He made no sound, though Jem looked sick and pale. He moved his hand as if to touch Wil ’s shoulder, then drew it back, biting down on his lip.
A ll this because Will covered my body with his to protect me, Tessa thought. As Brother Enoch had said, it was a burden to bear indeed.
She lay on her narrow bed in her old room in the New York flat. Through the window she could see gray sky, the rooftops of Manhattan. One of her aunt’s colorful patchwork quilts was on the bed, and she clutched it to her as the door opened and her aunt herself came in.
Knowing what she knew now, Tessa could see the resemblance. A unt Harriet had blue eyes, faded fair hair; even the shape of her face was like Nate’s. With a smile she came and bent over Tessa, putting a hand on her forehead, cool against Tessa’s hot skin.