Tessa was just drawing on her velvet gloves as she ducked through the front doors of the Institute. A sharp wind had come up off the river and was blowing armfuls of leaves through the courtyard. The sky had gone thunderous and gray. Wil stood at the foot of the stairs, hands in his pockets, looking up at the church steeple.
He was hatless, and the wind lifted his black hair and blew it back from his face. He did not seem to see Tessa, and for a moment she stood and looked at him. She knew it was not right to do; Jem was hers, she was his now, and other men might as wel not exist. But she could not stop herself from comparing the two—Jem with his odd combination of delicacy and strength, and Wil like a storm at sea, slate blue and black with bril iant flashes of temper like heat lightning. She wondered if there would ever be a time when the sight of him didn’t move her, make her heart flutter, and if that feeling would subside as she grew used to the idea of being engaged to Jem. It was new enough stil that it did not seem real.
There was one thing that was different, though. When she looked at Wil now, she no longer felt any pain.
Wil saw her then, and smiled through the hair that blew across his face. He reached up to push it back. “That’s a new dress, isn’t it?” he said as she came down the stairs. “Not one of Jessamine’s.”
She nodded, and waited resignedly for him to say something sarcastic, about her, Jessamine, the dress, or al three.
“It suits you. Odd that gray would make your eyes look blue, but it does.”
She looked at him in astonishment, but before she could do more than open her mouth to ask him if he was feeling al right, the carriage came rattling around the corner of the Institute with Cyril at the reins. He pul ed up in front of the steps, and the door of the carriage opened; Charlotte was inside, wearing a wine-colored velvet dress and a hat with a sprig of dried flowers in it. She looked as nervous as Tessa had ever seen her. “Get in quickly,” she cal ed, holding her hat on as she leaned out the door. “I think it’s going to rain.”
To Tessa’s surprise, Cyril drove her, Charlotte, and Wil not to the manor house in Chiswick but to an elegant house in Pimlico, which was apparently the Lightwoods’ weekday residence. It had begun to rain, and their wet things—gloves, hats, and coats—were taken from them by a sour-faced footman before they were ushered down many polished corridors and into a large library, where a roaring fire burned in a deep grate.
Behind a massive oak desk sat Benedict Lightwood, his sharp profile made even sharper by the play of light and shadow inside the room. The drapes were pul ed across the windows, and the wal s were lined with heavy tomes bound in dark leather, gold printing across the spines. On either side of him stood his sons—Gideon at his right, his blond hair fal ing forward to hide his expression, his arms crossed over his broad chest. On the other side was Gabriel, his green eyes alight with a superior amusement, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He looked as if he were about to start whistling.
“Charlotte,” said Benedict. “Wil . Miss Gray. Always a pleasure.” He gestured for them to seat themselves in the chairs set before the desk.
Gabriel grinned nastily at Wil as he sat. Wil looked at him, his face a careful blank, and then looked away. Without a sarcastic remark, Tessa thought, baffled. Without even a cold glare. What was going on?
“Thank you, Benedict.” Charlotte, tiny, her spine straight, spoke with perfect poise. “For seeing us on such short notice.”
“Of course.” He smiled. “You do know that there’s nothing you can do that’s going to change the outcome of this. It isn’t up to me what the Council rules. It is their decision entirely.”
Charlotte tilted her head to the side. “Indeed, Benedict. But it is you who are making this happen. If you had not forced Consul Wayland into making a show of disciplining me, there would be no ruling.”
Benedict shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Ah, Charlotte. I remember you when you were Charlotte Fairchild. You were such a delightful little girl, and believe it or not as you wil , I am fond of you even now. What I am doing is in the best interests of the Institute and the Clave. A woman cannot run the Institute. It is not in her nature. You’l be thanking me when you’re home with Henry raising the next generation of Shadowhunters, as you should be. It might sting your pride, but in your heart you know I’m correct.”
Charlotte’s chest rose and fel rapidly. “If you abdicated your claim on the Institute before the ruling, do you truly think it would be such a disaster?
Me, running the Institute?”
“Wel , we’l never find out, wil we?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Charlotte said. “I think most Council members would choose a woman over a dissolute reprobate who fraternizes not just with Downworlders but with demons.”
There was a short silence. Benedict didn’t move a muscle. Neither did Gideon.
Final y Benedict spoke, though now there were teeth in the smooth velvet of his voice. “Rumors and innuendo.”