“Good God,” said Woolsey. “Are you quite sure you’ve helped him?”
Wil stepped through the gate, and it swung shut behind him. “Quite sure,” said Magnus. “It is always better to live the truth than to live a lie. And that lie would have kept him alone forever. He may have had nearly nothing for five years, but now he can have everything. A boy who looks like that . . .”
Woolsey chuckled.
“Though he had already given his heart away,” Magnus said. “Perhaps it is for the best. What he needs now is to love and have that love returned.
He has not had an easy life for one so young. I only hope she understands.”
Even from this distance Magnus could see Wil take a deep breath, square his shoulders, and set off down the Walk. And—Magnus was quite sure he was not imagining it—there seemed to be almost a spring in his step.
“You cannot save every fal en bird,” said Woolsey, leaning back against the wal and crossing his arms. “Even the handsome ones.”
“One wil do,” said Magnus, and, as Wil was no longer within his sight, he let the front door fal shut.
18
UNTIL I DIE
My whole life long I learn’d to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
A nd speak my passion—heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? ’Tis well!
—Robert Browning, “One Way of Love”
“Miss. Miss!” Tessa woke slowly, Sophie shaking her shoulder. Sunlight was streaming through the windows high above. Sophie was smiling, her eyes alight. “Mrs. Branwel ’s sent me to bring you back to your room. You can’t stay here forever.”
“Ugh. I wouldn’t want to!” Tessa sat up, then closed her eyes as dizziness washed through her. “You might have to help me up, Sophie,” she said in an apologetic voice. “I’m not as steady as I could be.”
“Of course, miss.” Sophie reached down and briskly helped Tessa out of the bed. Despite her slenderness, she was quite strong. She’d have to be, wouldn’t she, Tessa thought, from years of carrying heavy laundry up and down stairs, and coal from the coal scuttle to the grates. Tessa winced a bit as her feet struck the cold floor, and couldn’t help glancing over to see if Wil was in his infirmary bed.
He wasn’t.
“Is Wil al right?” she asked as Sophie helped her slide her feet into slippers. “I woke for a bit yesterday and saw them taking the metal out of his back. It looked dreadful.”
Sophie snorted. “Looked worse than it was, then. Mr. Herondale barely let them iratze him before he left. Off into the night to do the devil knows what.”
“Was he? I could have sworn I spoke to him last night.” They were in the corridor now, Sophie guiding Tessa with a gentle hand on her back.
Images were starting to take shape in Tessa’s head. Images of Wil in the moonlight, of herself tel ing him that nothing mattered, it was only a dream —and it had been, hadn’t it?
“You must have dreamed it, miss.” They had reached Tessa’s room, and Sophie was distracted, trying to get the doorknob turned without letting go of Tessa.
“It’s al right, Sophie. I can stand on my own.”
Sophie protested, but Tessa insisted firmly enough that Sophie soon had the door open and was stoking the fire in the grate while Tessa sank into an armchair. There was a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches on the table beside the bed, and she helped herself to it grateful y. She no longer felt dizzy, but she did feel tired, with a weariness that was more spiritual than physical. She remembered the bitter taste of the tisane she’d drunk, and the way it had felt to be held by Wil —but that had been a dream. She wondered how much else of what she’d seen last night had been a dream—Jem whispering at the foot of her bed, Jessamine sobbing into her blankets in the Silent City . . .
“I was sorry to hear about your brother, miss.” Sophie was on her knees by the fire, the rekindling flames playing over her lovely face. Her head was bent, and Tessa could not see her scar.
“You don’t have to say that, Sophie. I know it was his fault, real y, about Agatha—and Thomas—”
“But he was your brother.” Sophie’s voice was firm. “Blood mourns blood.” She bent farther over the coals, and there was something about the kindness in her voice, and the way her hair curled, dark and vulnerable, against the nape of her neck, that made Tessa say: “Sophie, I saw you with Gideon the other day.”
Sophie stiffened immediately, al over, without turning to look at Tessa. “What do you mean, miss?”
“I came back to get my necklace,” Tessa said. “My clockwork angel. For luck. And I saw you with Gideon in the corridor.” She swal owed. “He was . . . pressing your hand. Like a suitor.”
There was a long, long silence, while Sophie stared into the flickering fire. At last she said, “Are you going to tel Mrs. Branwel ?”
Tessa recoiled. “What? Sophie, no! I just—wanted to warn you.”