Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

The glare from his blue eyes stabbed through her. “There was no last night,” he said through his teeth.

 

At that, she sat up straight, almost awake. “Oh, truly? We just went right from one afternoon on through til the next morning? How odd no one else has remarked on it. I should think it some sort of miracle, a day with no night—”

 

“Don’t test me, Tessa.” Wil ’s hands were clenched on his knees, his fingernails, half-moons of dirt under them, digging into the fabric of his trousers.

 

“Your sister’s alive,” she said, knowing perfectly wel that she was provoking him. “Oughtn’t you be glad?”

 

He whitened. “Tessa—,” he began, and leaned forward as if he meant to do she knew not what—strike the window and break it, shake her by the shoulders, or hold her as if he never meant to let her go. It was al one great bewilderment with him, wasn’t it? Then the compartment door opened and Jem came in, carrying a damp cloth.

 

He looked from Wil to Tessa and raised his silvery eyebrows. “A miracle,” he said. “You got him to speak.”

 

“Just to shout at me, real y,” said Tessa. “Not quite loaves and fishes.”

 

Wil had gone back to staring out the window, and looked at neither of them as they spoke.

 

“It’s a start,” said Jem, and he sat down beside her. “Here. Give me your hands.”

 

Surprised, Tessa held her hands out to him—and was horrified. They were filthy, the nails cracked and broken and thick with half-moons of dirt where she had clawed at the Yorkshire earth. There was even a bloody scratch across her knuckles, though she had no memory of having gotten it.

 

Not a lady’s hands. She thought of Jessamine’s perfect pink and white paws. “Jessie would be horrified,” she said mournful y. “She’d tel me I had charwoman’s hands.”

 

“And what, pray tel , is dishonorable about that?” said Jem as he gently cleaned the dirt from her scratches. “I saw you chase after us, and that automaton creature. If Jessamine does not know by now that there is honor in blood and dirt, she never wil .”

 

The cool cloth felt good on her fingers. She looked up at Jem, who was intent on his task, his lashes a fringe of lowered silver. “Thank you,” she said. “I doubt I was any help at al , and probably a hindrance, but thank you al the same.”

 

He smiled at her, the sun coming out from behind clouds. “That’s what we’re training you for, isn’t it?”

 

She lowered her voice. “Have you any idea what could have happened? Why Wil ’s family would be living in a house Mortmain once owned?”

 

Jem glanced over at Wil , who was stil staring bitterly out the window. They had entered London, and gray buildings were beginning to rise up around them on either side. The look Jem gave Wil was a tired, loving sort of look, a familial look, and Tessa realized that, though when she had imagined them as brothers, she had always imagined Wil as the older, the caretaker, and Jem as the younger, the reality was far more complicated than that. “I do not,” he said, “though it makes me think that the game Mortmain is playing is a long one. Somehow he knew exactly where our investigations would lead us, and he arranged for this—encounter—to shock us as much as possible. He wishes us to be reminded who it is who has the power.”

 

Tessa shuddered. “I don’t know what he wants from me, Jem,” she said in a low voice. “When he said to me that he made me, it was as if he were saying he could unmake me just as easily.”

 

Jem’s warm arm touched hers. “You cannot be unmade,” he said just as softly. “And Mortmain underestimates you. I saw how you used that branch against the automaton—”

 

“It was not enough. If it had not been for my angel—” Tessa touched the pendant at her throat. “The automaton touched it and recoiled. Another mystery I do not understand. It protected me before, and again this time, but in other situations lies dormant. It is as much a mystery as my talent.”

 

“Which, fortunately, you did not need to use to Change into Starkweather. He seemed quite happy simply to give us the Shade files.”

 

“Thank goodness,” said Tessa. “I wasn’t looking forward to it. He seems such an unpleasant, bitter man. But if it ever turns out to be necessary . .

 

.” She took something from her pocket and held it up, something that glinted in the carriage’s dim light. “A button,” she said smugly. “It fel from the cuff of his jacket this morning, and I picked it up.”

 

Jem smiled. “Very clever, Tessa. I knew we’d be glad we brought you with us—”

 

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