When they emerged on the other side of the gate, Tessa saw why Wil had laughed. What rose before them was a pleasant-enough-looking church, surrounded by enclosing wal s and smooth grass, but it had none of the grandeur of York Minster. When Gottshal came around to swing the door of the carriage open and help Tessa down to the ground, she saw that occasional headstones rose from the rain-dampened grass, as if someone had intended to begin a cemetery here and had lost interest halfway through the proceedings.
The sky was nearly black now, silvered here and there with clouds made near-transparent by starlight. Behind her, Jem’s and Wil ’s familiar voices murmured; before her, the doors of the church stood open, and through them she could see flickering candles. She felt suddenly bodiless, as if she were the ghost of Tessa, haunting this odd place so far from the life she had known in New York. She shivered, and not just from the cold.
She felt the brush of a hand against her arm, and warm breath stirred her hair. She knew who it was without turning. “Shal we go in, my betrothed?” Jem said softly in her ear. She could feel the laughter in him, vibrating through his bones, communicating itself to her. She almost smiled. “Let us beard the lion in his den together.”
She put her hand through his arm. They made their way up the steps of the church; she looked back at the top, and saw Wil gazing up after them, apparently unheeding as Gottshal tapped him on the shoulder, saying something into his ear. Her eyes met his, but she looked quickly away; entangling gazes with Wil was confusing at best, dizzying at worst.
The inside of the church was smal and dark compared to the London Institute’s. Pews dark with age ran the length of the wal s, and above them witchlight tapers burned in holders made of blackened iron. At the front of the church, in front of a veritable cascade of burning candles, stood an old man dressed al in Shadowhunter black. His hair and beard were thick and gray, standing out wildly around his head, his gray-black eyes half-hidden beneath massive eyebrows, his skin scored with the marks of age. Tessa knew him to be almost ninety, but his back was stil straight, his chest as thick around as the trunk of a tree.
“Young Herondale, are you?” he barked as Wil stepped forward to introduce himself. “Half-mundane, half-Welsh, and the worst traits of both, I’ve heard.”
Wil smiled politely. “Diolch.”
Starkweather bristled. “Mongrel tongue,” he muttered, and turned his gaze to Jem. “James Carstairs,” he said. “Another Institute brat. I’ve half a mind to tel the lot of you to go to blazes. That upstart bit of a girl, that Charlotte Fairchild, foisting you al on me with nary a by-your-leave.” He had a little of the Yorkshire accent that his servant had, though much fainter; stil , the way he pronounced “I” did sound a bit like “Ah.” “None of that family ever had a bit o’ manners. I could do without her father, and I can do without—”
His flashing eyes came to rest on Tessa then, and he stopped abruptly, his mouth open, as if he had been slapped in the face midsentence.
Tessa glanced at Jem; he looked as startled as she did at Starkweather’s sudden silence. But there, in the breach, was Wil .
“This is Tessa Gray, sir,” he said. “She is a mundane girl, but she is the betrothed of Carstairs here, and an Ascendant.”
“A mundane, you say?” demanded Starkweather, his eyes wide.
“An Ascendant,” said Wil in his most soothing, silken voice. “She has been a faithful friend to the Institute in London, and we hope to welcome her into our ranks soon.”
“A mundane,” the old man repeated, and broke into a fit of coughing. “Wel , times have—Yes, I suppose then—” His eyes skipped across Tessa’s face again, and he turned to Gottshal , who was looking martyred among the luggage. “Get Cedric and Andrew to help you bring our guests’ belongings up to their rooms,” he said. “And do tel El en to instruct Cook to set three extra places for dinner tonight. I may have forgotten to remind her that we would have guests.”
The servant gaped at his master before nodding in a seeming daze; Tessa couldn’t blame him. It was clear that Starkweather had meant to send them packing and had changed his mind at the last moment. She glanced at Jem, who looked just as mystified as she felt; only Wil , blue eyes wide and face as innocent as a choirboy’s, seemed as if he had expected nothing else.
“Wel , come along, then,” said Starkweather gruffly without looking at Tessa. “You needn’t stand there. Fol ow me and I’l show you to your rooms.”
“By the Angel,” Wil said, scraping his fork through the brownish mess on his plate. “What is this stuff?”