Jem helped her up into their compartment; there was much bustling about the luggage, and Wil tipping the porter in among shouts and whistling as the train prepared to depart. The door swung shut behind them just as the train pul ed forward, steam rushing past the windows in white drifts, wheels clacking merrily.
“Did you bring anything to read on the journey?” asked Wil , settling into the seat opposite Tessa; Jem was beside her, his cane leaning up against the wal .
She thought of the copy of Vathek and his poem in it; she had left it at the Institute to avoid temptation, the way you might leave behind a box of candies if you were banting and didn’t want to put on weight. “No,” she said. “I haven’t come across anything I particularly wanted to read lately.”
Wil ’s jaw set, but he said nothing.
“There is always something so exciting about the start of a journey, don’t you think?” Tessa went on, nose to the window, though she could see little but smoke and soot and hurtling gray rain; London was a dim shadow in the mist.
“No,” said Wil as he sat back and pul ed his hat down over his eyes.
Tessa kept her face against the glass as the gray of London began to fal away behind them, and with it the rain. Soon they were rol ing through green fields dotted with white sheep, with here and there the point of a vil age steeple in the distance. The sky had turned from steel to a damp, misty blue, and smal black clouds scudded overhead. Tessa watched it al with fascination.
“Haven’t you ever been in the countryside before?” asked Jem, though unlike Wil ’s, his question had the flavor of actual curiosity.
Tessa shook her head. “I don’t remember ever leaving New York, except to go to Coney Island, and that isn’t real y countryside. I suppose I must have passed through some of it when I came from Southampton with the Dark Sisters, but it was dark, and they kept the curtains across the windows, besides.” She took off her hat, which was dripping water, and laid it on the seat between them to dry. “But I feel as if I have seen it before.
In books. I keep imagining I’l see Thornfield Hal rising up beyond the trees, or Wuthering Heights perched on a stony crag—”
“Wuthering Heights is in Yorkshire,” said Wil , from under his hat, “and we’re nowhere near Yorkshire yet. We haven’t even reached Grantham.
And there’s nothing that impressive about Yorkshire. Hil s and dales, no proper mountains like we have in Wales.”
“Do you miss Wales?” Tessa inquired. She wasn’t sure why she did it; she knew asking Wil about his past was like poking a dog with a sore tail, but she couldn’t seem to help it.
Wil shrugged lightly. “What’s to miss? Sheep and singing,” he said. “And the ridiculous language. Fe hoffwn i fod mor feddw, fyddai ddim yn cofio fy enw.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means ‘I wish to get so drunk I no longer remember my own name,’ Quite useful.”
“You don’t sound very patriotic,” observed Tessa. “Weren’t you just reminiscing about the mountains?”
“Patriotic?” Wil looked smug. “I’l tel you what’s patriotic,” he said. “In honor of my birthplace, I’ve the dragon of Wales tattooed on my—”
“You’re in a charming temper, aren’t you, Wil iam?” interrupted Jem, though there was no edge to his voice. Stil , having observed them now for some time, together and apart, Tessa knew it meant something when they cal ed each other by their ful first names instead of the familiar shortened forms. “Remember, Starkweather can’t stand Charlotte, so if this is the mood you’re in—”
“I promise to charm the dickens out of him,” said Wil , sitting up and readjusting his crushed hat. “I shal charm him with such force that when I am done, he wil be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.”
“The man’s eighty-nine,” muttered Jem. “He may wel have that problem anyway.”
“I suppose you’re storing up al that charm now?” Tessa inquired. “Wouldn’t want to waste any of it on us?”
“That’s it exactly.” Wil sounded pleased. “And it isn’t Charlotte the Starkweathers can’t stand, Jem. It’s her father.”
“Sins of the fathers,” said Jem. “They’re not inclined to like any Fairchild, or anyone associated with one. Charlotte wouldn’t even let Henry come up—”
“That is because every time one lets Henry out of the house on his own, one risks an international incident,” said Wil . “But yes, to answer your unasked question, I do understand the trust Charlotte has placed in us, and I do intend to behave myself. I don’t want to see that squinty-eyed Benedict Lightwood and his hideous sons in charge of the Institute any more than anyone else does.”
“They’re not hideous,” said Tessa.
Wil blinked at her. “What?”
“Gideon and Gabriel,” said Tessa. “They’re real y quite good-looking, not hideous at al .”
“I spoke,” said Wil in sepulchral tones, “of the pitch-black inner depths of their souls.”
Tessa snorted. “And what color do you suppose the inner depths of your soul are, Wil Herondale?”