“What did you dream?” he said. His tone was calm and ordinary, as if there were nothing unusual about her waking up and finding him sitting on the edge of her bed.
She shuddered at the memory. “I dreamed I was being taken apart—that bits of me were being put on display for Shadowhunters to laugh at—”
“Tess.” He touched her hair gently, pushing the tangled locks behind her ears. She felt pul ed to him, like iron filings to a magnet. Her arms ached to go around him, her head to rest in the crook of his shoulder. “God damn that devil Starkweather for showing you what he did, but you must know it’s not like that anymore. The Accords have forbidden spoils. It was just a dream.”
But no, she thought. This is the dream. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark; the gray light in the room made his eyes glow an almost unearthly blue, like a cat’s. When she drew a shuddering breath, her lungs felt fil ed with the scent of him, Wil and salt and trains and smoke and rain, and she wondered if he had been out, walking the streets of York as he did in London. “Where have you been?” she whispered. “You smel like nighttime.”
“Out kicking over the traces. As usual.” He touched her cheek with warm, cal used fingers. “Can you sleep now? We’re meant to rise early tomorrow. Starkweather is lending us his carriage so that we might investigate Ravenscar Manor. You, of course, are welcome to remain here. You need not accompany us.”
She shuddered. “Stay here without you? In this big, gloomy place? I would prefer not to.”
“Tess.” His voice was ever so gentle. “That must have been quite a nightmare, to have taken the spirit out of you so. Usual y you are not afraid of much.”
“It was awful. Even Henry was in my dream. He was taking apart my heart as if it were made of clockwork.”
“Wel , that settles it,” Wil said. “Pure fantasy. As if Henry is a danger to anyone except himself.” When she didn’t smile, he added, fiercely, “I would never let anyone touch a hair on your head. You know that, don’t you, Tess?”
Their gazes caught and locked. She thought of the wave that seemed to catch at her whenever she was near Wil , how she had felt herself drawn over and under, pul ed to him by forces that seemed beyond her control—in the attic, on the roof of the Institute. As if he felt the same pul , he bent toward her now. It felt natural, as right as breathing, to lift her head, to meet his lips with hers. She felt his soft exhalation against her mouth; relief, as if a great weight had been taken from him. His hands rose to cup her face. Even as her eyes fluttered shut, she heard his voice in her head, again, unbidden:
There is no future for a Shadowhunter who dallies with warlocks.
She turned her face quickly, and his lips brushed her cheek instead of her mouth. He drew back, and she saw his blue eyes open, startled—and hurt. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t know that, Wil .” She dropped her voice. “You have made it very clear,” she said, “what kind of use you have for me.
You think I am a toy for your amusements. You should not have come in here; it is not proper.”
He dropped his hands. “You cal ed out—”
“Not for you.”
He was silent except for his ragged breathing.
“Do you regret what you said to me that night on the roof, Wil ? The night of Thomas’s and Agatha’s funeral?” It was the first time either of them had made reference to the incident since it had happened. “Can you tel me you did not mean what you said?”
He bent his head; his hair fel forward, hiding his face. She clenched her own hands into fists at her sides to stop herself from reaching out and pushing it back. “No,” he said, very low. “No, the Angel forgive me, I can’t say that.”
Tessa withdrew, curling in on herself, turning her face away. “Please go away, Wil .”
“Tessa—”
“Please.”
There was a long silence. He stood up then, the bed creaking beneath him as he moved. She heard his light tread on the floorboards, and then the door of the bedroom shutting behind him. As if the sound had snapped some cord that held her upright, she fel back against the pil ows. She stared up at the ceiling a long time, fighting back in vain against the questions that crowded her mind—What had Wil meant, coming to her room like that? Why had he shown her such sweetness when she knew that he despised her? And why, when she knew that he was the worst thing in the world for her, did sending him away seem like such a terrible mistake?