“I’m so sorry,” Tessa whispered. “A bout Nate. It’s my fault he’s dead.”
“Hush,” her aunt said. “It isn’t your fault. It is his and mine. I always felt such guilt, you see, Tessa. Knowing I was his mother but not being able to bear telling him. I let him get away with anything he wanted, until he was spoiled beyond saving. If I had told him that I was really his mother, he would not have felt so betrayed when he discovered the truth, and would not have turned against us. Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”
“I miss you so much,” Tessa said. “I have no family now. . . .”
Her aunt leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. “You have more family than you think.”
“We wil almost certainly forfeit the Institute now,” said Charlotte. She did not sound brokenhearted, but distant and detached. Tessa was hovering like a ghost over the infirmary, looking down at where Charlotte stood with Jem at the foot of Tessa’s own bed. Tessa could see herself, asleep, her dark hair spread like a fan across her pil ows. Wil lay asleep a few beds over, his back striped with bandages, an iratze black against the back of his neck. Sophie, in her white cap and dark dress, was dusting the windowsil s. “We have lost Nathaniel Gray as a source, one of our own has turned out to be a spy, and we are no closer to finding Mortmain than we were a fortnight ago.”
“After al that we have done, have learned? The Clave wil understand—”
“They wil not. They are already at the end of their tether where I am concerned. I might as wel march over to Benedict Lightwood’s house and make over the Institute paperwork in his name. Have done with it.”
“What does Henry say about al this?” asked Jem. He was no longer in gear, and neither was Charlotte; he wore a white shirt and brown cloth trousers, and Charlotte was in one of her drab dark dresses. As Jem turned his hand over, though, Tessa saw that it was stil spotted with Wil ’s dried blood.
Charlotte snorted in an unladylike manner. “Oh, Henry,” she said, sounding exhausted. “I think he’s just so shocked that one of his devices actual y worked that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. And he can’t bear to come in here. He thinks it’s his fault that Wil and Tessa are hurt.”
“Without that device we might al be dead, and Tessa in the hands of the Magister.”
“You are welcome to explain that to Henry. I have given up the attempt.”
“Charlotte . . .” Jem’s voice was soft. “I know what people say. I know you’ve heard the cruel gossip. But Henry does love you. When he thought you were hurt, at the tea warehouse, he went almost mad. He threw himself against that machine—”
“James.” Charlotte clumsily patted Jem’s shoulder. “I do appreciate your attempt to console me, but falsehoods never do anyone any good in the end. I long ago accepted that Henry loves his inventions first, and me second—if at al .”
“Charlotte,” Jem said wearily, but before he could say another word, Sophie had moved to stand beside them, dust cloth in hand.
“Mrs. Branwel ,” she said in a low voice. “If I might speak to you for just a moment.”
Charlotte looked surprised. “Sophie . . .”
“Please, ma’am.”
Charlotte placed a hand on Jem’s shoulder, said something softly into his ear, and then nodded toward Sophie. “Very wel . Come with me to the drawing room.”
As Charlotte left the room with Sophie, Tessa realized to her surprise that Sophie was actual y tal er than her mistress. Charlotte’s presence was such that one often forgot how very smal she was. And Sophie was as tal as Tessa herself, as slender as a wil ow. Tessa saw her again in her mind with Gideon Lightwood, pressed up against the corridor wal , and Tessa worried.
As the door closed behind the two women, Jem leaned forward, his arms crossed over the foot of Tessa’s brass bed. He was looking at her, smiling a little, though crookedly, his hands hanging loose—dried blood across the knuckles, and under the nails.
“Tessa, my Tessa,” he said in his soft voice, as lul ing as his violin. “I know you cannot hear me. Brother Enoch says you’re not hurt badly. I can’t say I find that enough to comfort me. It’s rather like when Wil assures me that we’re only a little bit lost somewhere. I know it means we won’t be seeing a familiar street again for hours.”
He dropped his voice, so low that Tessa wasn’t sure if what he said next was real or part of the dream darkness rising to claim her, though she fought against it.
“I’ve never minded it,” he went on. “Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not be truly lost if one knew one’s own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.” He closed his eyes as if he were bone-weary, and she saw how thin his eyelids were, like parchment paper, and how tired he looked. “Wo ai ni, Tessa,” he whispered. “Wo bu xiang shi qu ni.”
She knew, without knowing how she knew, what the words meant.