. .”
“You’re only seventeen. Plenty of time to find a cure,” she whispered. “And we wil . Find one. I wil be with you. Forever.”
“Now, that I believe,” he said. “When two souls are as one, they stay together on the Wheel. I was born into this world to love you, and I wil love you in the next life, and the one after that.”
She thought of Magnus. We are chained to this life by a chain of gold, and we dare not sever it for fear of what lies beyond the drop.
She knew what he meant now. Immortality was a gift, but not one without its consequences. For if I am immortal, she thought, then I have only this, this one life. I will not turn and change as you do, James. I will not see you in Heaven, or on the banks of the great river, or in whatever life lies beyond this one.
But she did not say it. It would hurt him, and if there was anything she knew to be true, it was that a fierce unreasoning desire lived in her to protect him from hurt, to stand between him and disappointment, between him and pain, between him and death, and fight them al back as Boadicea had fought back the advancing Romans. She reached up and touched his cheek instead, and he put his face against her hair, her hair ful of flowers the color of Wil ’s eyes, and they stood like that, clasped together, until the dinner bel rang a second time.
Bridget, who could be heard singing mournful y in the kitchen, had outdone herself in the dining room, placing candles in silver holders everywhere so the whole place glimmered with light. Cut roses and orchids floated in silver bowls on the white linen tablecloth. Henry and Charlotte presided at the head of the table. Gideon, in evening dress, sat with his eyes fixed on Sophie as she came in and out of the room, though she seemed to be studiously avoiding his glances. And beside him sat Wil .
I love Jem. I am marrying Jem. Tessa had repeated it to herself al the way down the hal , but it made little difference; her heart flipped sickeningly in her chest when she saw Wil . She had not seen him in evening dress since the night of the bal , and, despite seeming pale and il , he stil looked ridiculously handsome in it.
“Is your cook always singing?” Gideon was asking in an awed tone as Jem and Tessa came in. Henry looked up and, on seeing them, smiled al over his friendly, freckled face.
“We were beginning to wonder where you two were—,” he began.
“Tessa and I have news,” Jem burst out. His hand found Tessa’s, and held it; she stood frozen as three curious faces turned toward them—four, if you counted Sophie, who had just walked into the room. Wil sat where he was, gazing at the silver bowl in front of him; a white rose was floating in it, and he seemed prepared to stare at it until it went under. In the kitchen Bridget was stil singing one of her awful sad songs; the lyrics drifted in through the door:
“ ’Twas on an evening fair I went to take the air,
I heard a maid making her moan;
Said, ‘Saw ye my father? Or saw ye my mother?
Or saw ye my brother John?
Or saw ye the lad that I love best,
A nd his name it is Sweet William?’”
I may murder her, Tessa thought. Let her make a song about that.
“Wel , you have to tel us now,” said Charlotte, smiling. “Don’t leave us dangling in suspense, Jem!”
Jem raised their joined hands and said, “Tessa and I are engaged to be married. I asked her, and—she accepted me.”
There was a shocked silence. Gideon looked astonished—Tessa felt rather sorry for him, in a detached sort of way—and Sophie stood holding a pitcher of cream, her mouth open. Both Henry and Charlotte looked startled out of their wits. None of them could have been expecting this, Tessa thought; whatever Jessamine had said about Tessa’s mother being a Shadowhunter, she was stil a Downworlder, and Shadowhunters did not marry Downworlders. This moment had not occurred to her. She had thought somehow that they would tel everyone separately, careful y, not that Jem would blurt it out in a fever of joyous happiness in the dining room. And she thought, Oh, please smile. Please congratulate us. Please don’t spoil this for him. Please.
Jem’s smile had only just begun to slip, when Wil rose to his feet. Tessa drew a deep breath. He was beautiful in evening dress, that was true, but he was always beautiful; there was something different about him now, though, a deeper layer to the blue of his eyes, cracks in the hard and perfect armor around himself that let through a blaze of light. This was a new Wil , a different Wil , a Wil she had caught only glimpses of—a Wil that perhaps only Jem had ever real y known. And now she would never know him. The thought pierced her with a sadness as if she were remembering someone who had died.