“No,” Wil said softly. “No, it isn’t possible.” He felt as if a great storm were blowing through his head; he remembered Jem’s voice saying the wall is coming down, and he envisioned a great wal that had surrounded him, isolated him, for years, crumbling away into sand. He was free—and he was alone, and the icy wind cut through him like a knife. “No.” His voice had taken on a low, keening note. “Magnus . . .”
“Are you lying, Marbas?” Magnus snapped. “Do you swear on Baal that you are tel ing the truth?”
“I swear,” said Marbas, red eyes rol ing. “What benefit would it be to me to lie?”
Wil slid to his knees. His hands were locked across his stomach as if they were keeping his guts from spil ing out. Five years, he thought. Five years wasted. He heard his family screaming and pounding on the doors of the Institute and himself ordering Charlotte to send them away. And they had never known why. They had lost a daughter and a son in a matter of days, and they had never known why. And the others—Henry and Charlotte and Jem—and Tessa—and the things he had done— Jem is my great sin.
“Wil is right,” said Magnus. “Marbas, you are a blue-skinned bastard. Burn and die!”
Somewhere at the edge of Wil ’s vision, dark red flame soared toward the ceiling; Marbas screamed, a howl of agony cut off as swiftly as it had begun. The stench of burning demon flesh fil ed the room. And stil Wil crouched on his knees, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Gentle hands touched his shoulders. “Wil ,” Magnus said, and there was no humor in his voice, only a surprising kindness. “Wil , I am sorry.”
“Everything I’ve done,” Wil said. His lungs felt as if he couldn’t get enough air. “Al the lying, the pushing people away, the abandonment of my family, the unforgivable things I said to Tessa—a waste. A bloody waste, and al because of a lie I was stupid enough to believe.”
“You were twelve years old. Your sister was dead. Marbas was a cunning creature. He has fooled powerful magicians, never mind a child who had no knowledge of the Shadow World.”
Wil stared down at his hands. “My whole life wrecked, destroyed . . .”
“You’re seventeen,” Magnus said. “You can’t have wrecked a life you’ve barely lived. And don’t you understand what this means, Wil ? You’ve spent the last five years convinced that no one could possibly love you, because if they did, they would be dead. The mere fact of their continued survival proved their indifference to you. But you were wrong. Charlotte, Henry, Jem—your family—”
Wil took a deep breath, and let it out. The storm in his head was ebbing slowly.
“Tessa,” he said.
“Wel .” Now there was a touch of humor to Magnus’s voice. Wil realized the warlock was kneeling beside him. I am in a werewolf’s house, Wil thought, with a warlock comforting me, and the ashes of a dead demon mere feet away. Who could ever have imagined? “I can give you no assurance of what Tessa feels. If you have not noticed, she is a decidedly independent girl. But you have as much a chance to win her love as any man does, Wil , and isn’t that what you wanted?” He patted Wil on the shoulder and withdrew his hand, standing up, a thin dark shadow looming over Wil . “If it’s any consolation, from what I observed on the balcony the other night, I do believe she rather likes you.”
Magnus watched as Wil made his way down the front walk of the house. Reaching the gate, he paused, his hand on the latch, as if hesitating on the threshold of the beginning of a long and difficult journey. The moon had come out from behind the clouds and shone on his thick dark hair, the pale white of his hands.
“Very curious,” said Woolsey, appearing behind Magnus in the doorway. The warm lights of the house turned Woolsey’s dark blond hair into a pale gold tangle. He looked as if he’d been sleeping. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were fond of that boy.”
“Know better in what sense, Woolsey?” Magnus asked, absently, stil watching Wil , and the light sparking off the Thames behind him.
“He’s Nephilim,” said Woolsey. “And you’ve never cared for them. How much did he pay you to summon Marbas for him?”
“Nothing,” said Magnus, and now he was not seeing anything that was there, not the river, not Wil , only a wash of memories—eyes, faces, lips, receding into memory, love that he could no longer put a name to. “He did me a favor. One he doesn’t even remember.”
“He’s very pretty,” said Woolsey. “For a human.”
“He’s very broken,” said Magnus. “Like a lovely vase that someone has smashed. Only luck and skil can put it back together the way it was before.”
“Or magic.”
“I’ve done what I can,” Magnus said softly as Wil pushed the latch, at last, and the gate swung open. He stepped out onto the Walk.
“He doesn’t look very happy,” Woolsey observed. “Whatever it was you did for him . . .”
“At the moment he is in shock,” said Magnus. “He has believed one thing for five years, and now he has realized that al this time he has been looking at the world through a faulty mechanism—that al the things he sacrificed in the name of what he thought was good and noble have been a waste, and that he has only hurt what he loved.”