CHA RLOTTE BRA NWELL.
Charlotte dropped her hands from the Mortal Sword, almost sagging in relief. Henry made a whooping noise and threw his hat into the air. The room was fil ed with chatter and confusion. Tessa couldn’t stop herself from glancing down the row at Wil . He had slumped down in his seat, his head back, his eyes closed. He looked white and drained, as if this last bit of business had taken the remainder of his energy.
A scream pierced the hubbub. Tessa was on her feet in moments, whirling around. It was Charlotte’s aunt Cal ida screaming, her elegant gray head thrown back and her finger pointing Heavenward. Gasps ran around the room as the other Shadowhunters fol owed her gaze. The air above them was fil ed with dozens—scores, even—of buzzing black metal creatures, like enormous steel black beetles with coppery wings, zipping back and forth through the air, fil ing the room with the ugly sound of metal ic buzzing.
One of the metal beetles dipped down and hovered in front of Tessa, just at eye level, making a clicking sound. It was eyeless, though there was a circular plate of glass in the flat front of its head. She felt Jem reach for her arm, trying to pul her away from it, but she jerked away impatiently, seized her hat off her head, and slammed it down on top of the thing, trapping it between her hat and the seat of her chair. It immediately set up an enraged, high-pitched buzzing. “Henry!” she cal ed. “Henry, I’ve got one of the things—”
Henry appeared behind her, pink-faced, and stared down at the hat. A smal hole was opening in the side of the elegant gray velvet where the mechanical creature was tearing at it. With a curse Henry brought his fist down hard, crushing the hat and the thing inside it against the seat. It buzzed and went stil .
Jem reached around and lifted the smashed hat gingerly. What was left under it was a scatter of parts—a metal wing, a shattered chassis, and broken-off stumps of copper legs. “Ugh,” said Tessa. “It’s so very—buglike.” She glanced up as another cry went through the room. The insectile creatures had come together in a black swirl in the center of the room; as she stared, they swirled faster and faster and then vanished, like black beetles sucked down a drain.
“Sorry about the hat,” said Henry. “I’l get you another.”
“Bother the hat,” said Tessa as the cries of the angry Council echoed through the room. She looked toward the center of the room; the Consul stood with the glowing Mortal Sword in his hand, and behind him was Benedict, stone-faced, with eyes like ice. “Clearly, we have bigger things to worry about.”
“It’s a sort of camera,” Henry said, holding the bits of the smashed metal beetle creature on his lap as the carriage clopped toward home. “Without Jessamine, Nate, or Benedict, Mortmain must be out of reliable human spies who can report to him. So he sent these things.” He poked at a shard; the bits were gathered together in the wreckage of Tessa’s hat, held on his lap as they jounced along.
“Benedict didn’t look any too pleased to see those things,” said Wil . “He must realize Mortmain already knows about his defection.”
“It was a matter of time,” said Charlotte. “Henry, can those things record sound, like a phonautograph, or simply pictures? They were flying around so quickly—”
“I’m not sure.” Henry frowned. “I shal have to examine the parts more closely in the crypt. I can find no shutter mechanism, but that does not mean —” He looked up at the uncomprehending faces focused on him, and shrugged. “In any case,” he said, “perhaps it is not the worst thing for the Council to get a look at Mortmain’s inventions. It is one thing to hear about them, another to see what he is doing. Don’t you think, Lottie?”
Charlotte murmured an answer, but Tessa didn’t hear it. Her mind was caught up in going over a peculiar thing that had occurred just after she’d left the Council chambers and was waiting for the Branwel s’ carriage. Jem had just turned away from her to speak to Wil , when the flap of a black cloak caught her eye, and Aloysius Starkweather stalked up to her, his grizzled face fierce. “Miss Gray,” he’d barked. “That clockwork creature—the way it approached you . . .”
Tessa had stood silently, staring—waiting for him to accuse her of something, though she could not imagine what.
“Thee’s al right?” he’d said, abruptly and at last, his Yorkshire accent seeming suddenly very pronounced. “It dinna harm thee?”
Slowly Tessa had shaken her head. “No, Mr. Starkweather. Thank you kindly for your inquiry into my welfare, but no.”