“You sound as if you don’t mind what happens to it,” said Tessa. “Won’t you miss it here? This place has been your home.”
His fingers stroked her wrist lightly, making her shiver. “You are home for me now.”
19
IF TREASON DOTH PROSPER
Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
—Sir John Harrington
Sophie was tending a blazing fire in the drawing room grate, and the room was warm, almost stuffy. Charlotte sat behind her desk, Henry in a chair beside her. Wil was sprawled in one of the flowered armchairs beside the fire, a silver tea service at his elbow and a cup in his hand. When Tessa walked in, he sat upright so abruptly that some of the tea spil ed on his sleeve; he set the cup down without taking his eyes off her.
He looked exhausted, as if he had been walking al night. He stil wore his overcoat, of dark blue wool with a red silk lining, and the legs of his black trousers were splattered with mud. His hair was damp and tangled, his face pale, his jaw dark with the shadow of stubble. But the moment he saw Tessa, his eyes glowed like lanterns at the touch of the lamplighter’s match. His whole face changed, and he gazed upon her with such an inexplicable delight that Tessa, astonished, stopped in her tracks, causing Jem to bump into her. For that moment, she could not look away from Wil ; it was as if he held her gaze to him, and she remembered again the dream she had had the night before, that she was being comforted by him in the infirmary. Could he read the memory of it on her face? Was that why he was staring?
Jem peered around her shoulder. “Hal o, Wil . Sure it was a good idea to spend al night out in the rain when you’re stil healing?”
Wil tore his eyes away from Tessa. “I am quite sure,” he said firmly. “I had to walk. To clear my head.”
“And is your head clear now?”
“Like crystal,” Wil said, returning his gaze to Tessa, and the same thing happened again. Their gazes seemed to lock together, and she had to tear her eyes away and move across the room to sit on the sofa near the desk, where Wil was not in her direct line of sight. Jem came and sat down beside her, but did not reach for her hand. She wondered what would happen if they announced what had just happened now, casual y: The two of us are going to be married.
But Jem had been correct; it was not the right time for that. Charlotte looked as if, like Wil , she had been awake al night; her skin was a sickly yel ow color, and there were dark auburn bruises beneath her eyes. Henry sat beside her at the desk, his hand protectively over hers, watching her with a worried expression.
“We are al here, then,” Charlotte said briskly, and for a moment Tessa wanted to remark that they were not, for Jessamine was not with them.
She stayed silent. “As you probably know, we are near the end of the two-week period granted to us by Consul Wayland. We have not discovered the whereabouts of Mortmain. According to Enoch, the Silent Brothers have examined Nathaniel Gray’s body and learned nothing from it, and as he is dead, we can learn nothing from him.”
A nd as he is dead. Tessa thought of Nate as she remembered him, when they had been very young, chasing dragonflies in the park. He had fal en in the pond, and she and Aunt Harriet—his mother—had helped to pul him out; his hand had been slippery with water and green-growing underwater plants. She remembered his hand sliding out of hers in the tea warehouse, slippery with blood. You don’t know everything I’ve done, Tessie.
“We can certainly report what we know about Benedict to the Clave,” Charlotte was saying when Tessa forcibly snapped her mind back to the conversation at hand. “It would seem to be the sensible course of action.”
Tessa swal owed. “What about what Jessamine said? That we’d be playing into Mortmain’s hands by doing so.”
“But we cannot do nothing,” said Wil . “We cannot sit back and hand over the keys to the Institute to Benedict Lightwood and his lamentable offspring. They are Mortmain. Benedict is his puppet. We must try. By the Angel, haven’t we enough evidence? Enough to earn him a trial by the Sword, at least.”