“Oh,” said Jem, with an uncharacteristic lack of interest. Usual y he would have asked Tessa what she had said to Sophie, and either reassured her or helped her plot a course of action to win Sophie’s forgiveness. His customary vivid interest in everything seemed oddly missing, Tessa thought with alarm; he was quite pale as wel , and seemed to be glancing behind her as if checking to see whether she was quite alone. “Is now— that is, I would like to speak to you in private, Tessa. Are you feeling wel enough?”
“That depends on what you have to tel me,” she said with a laugh, but when her laugh brought no answering smile, apprehension rose inside her.
“Jem—you promise everything’s al right? Wil —”
“This is not about Wil ,” he said. “Wil is out wandering and no doubt perfectly al right. This is about—Wel , I suppose you might say it’s about me.”
He glanced up and down the corridor. “Might I come in?”
Tessa briefly thought about what Aunt Harriet would say about a girl who al owed a boy she was not related to into her bedroom when there was no one else there. But then Aunt Harriet herself had been in love once, Tessa thought. Enough in love to let her fiancé do—wel , whatever it was exactly that left one with child. Aunt Harriet, had she been alive, would have been in no position to talk. And besides, etiquette was different for Shadowhunters.
She opened the door wide. “Yes, come in.”
Jem came into the room, and shut the door firmly behind him. He walked over to the grate and leaned an arm against the mantel; then, seeming to decide that this position was unsatisfactory, he came over to where Tessa was, in the middle of the room, and stood in front of her.
“Tessa,” he said.
“Jem,” she replied, mimicking his serious tone, but again he did not smile. “Jem,” she said again, more quietly. “If this is about your health, your— il ness, please tel me. I wil do whatever I can to help you.”
“It is not,” he said, “about my il ness.” He took a deep breath. “You know we have not found Mortmain,” he said. “In a few days, the Institute may be given to Benedict Lightwood. He would doubtless al ow Wil and me to remain here, but not you, and I have no desire to live in a house that he runs.
And Wil and Gabriel would kil each other inside a minute. It would be the end of our little group; Charlotte and Henry would find a house, I have no doubt, and Wil and I perhaps would go to Idris until we were eighteen, and Jessie—I suppose it depends what sentence the Clave passes on her.
But we could not bring you to Idris with us. You are not a Shadowhunter.”
Tessa’s heart had begun to beat very fast. She sat down, rather suddenly, on the edge of her bed. She felt faintly sick. She remembered Gabriel’s sneering jibe about the Lightwoods’ finding “employment” for her; having been to the bal at their house, she could imagine little worse. “I see,” she said. “But where should I go—No, do not answer that. You hold no responsibility toward me. Thank you for tel ing me, at least.”
“Tessa—”
“You al have already been as kind as propriety has al owed,” she said, “given that al owing me to live here has done none of you any good in the eyes of the Clave. I shal find a place—”
“Your place is with me,” Jem said. “It always wil be.”
“What do you mean?”
He flushed, the color dark against his pale skin. “I mean,” he said, “Tessa Gray, wil you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Tessa sat bolt upright. “Jem!”
They stared at each other for a moment. At last he said, trying for lightness, though his voice cracked, “That was not a no, I suppose, though neither was it a yes.”
“You can’t mean it.”
“I do mean it.”
“You can’t—I’m not a Shadowhunter. They’l expel you from the Clave—”
He took a step closer to her, his eyes eager. “You may not be precisely a Shadowhunter. But you are not a mundane either, nor provably a Downworlder. Your situation is unique, so I do not know what the Clave wil do. But they cannot forbid something that is not forbidden by the Law.
They wil have to take your—our—individual case into consideration, and that could take months. In the meantime they cannot prevent our engagement.”
“You are serious.” Her mouth was dry. “Jem, such a kindness on your part is indeed incredible. It does you credit. But I cannot let you sacrifice yourself in that way for me.”
“Sacrifice? Tessa, I love you. I want to marry you.”
“I . . . Jem, it is just that you are kind, so selfless. How can I trust that you are not doing this simply for my sake?”
He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and drew out something smooth and circular. It was a pendant of whitish-green jade, with Chinese characters carved into it that she could not read. He held it out to her with a hand that trembled ever so slightly.
“I could give you my family ring,” he said. “But that is meant to be given back when the engagement is over, exchanged for runes. I want to give you something that wil be yours forever.”
She shook her head. “I cannot possibly—”
He interrupted her. “This was given to my mother by my father, when they married. The writing is from the I Ching, the Book of Changes. It says, When two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze.”