“So, you see,” said Wil , “my curse can hardly be cal ed nonsense. I have seen it at work. And since that day I have striven to be sure that what happened to El a wil happen to no one else in my life. Can you imagine it? Can you?” He raked his hands through his black hair, letting the tangled strands fal back into his eyes. “Never letting anyone near you. Making everyone who might otherwise love you, hate you. I left my family to distance myself from them, and that they might forget me. Each day I must show cruelty to those I have chosen to make my home with, lest they let themselves feel too much affection for me.”
“Tessa . . .” Magnus’s mind was suddenly ful of the serious-faced gray-eyed girl who had looked at Wil as if he were a new sun dawning on the horizon. “You think she does not love you?”
“I do not think so. I have been foul enough to her.” Wil ’s voice was wretchedness and misery and self-loathing al combined. “I think there was a time when she almost—I thought she was dead, you see, and I showed her—I let her see what I felt. I think she might have returned my feelings after that. But I crushed her, as brutal y as I could. I imagine she simply hates me now.”
“And Jem,” said Magnus, dreading the answer, knowing it.
“Jem is dying anyway,” Wil said in a choked voice. “Jem is what I have al owed myself. I tel myself, if he dies, it is not my fault. He is dying anyway, and in pain. El a’s death at least was swift. Perhaps through me he can be given a good death.” He looked up miserably, met Magnus’s accusing eyes. “No one can live with nothing,” he whispered. “Jem is al I have.”
“You should have told him,” said Magnus. “He would have chosen to be your parabatai anyway, even knowing the risks.”
“I cannot burden him with that knowledge! He would keep it secret if I asked him to, but it would pain him to know it—and the pain I cause others would only hurt him more. Yet if I were to tel Charlotte, to tel Henry and the rest, that my behavior is a sham—that every cruel thing I have said to them is a lie, that I wander the streets only to give the impression that I have been out drinking and whoring when in reality I have no desire to do either—then I have ceased to push them away.”
“And thus you have never told anyone of this curse? No one but myself, since you were twelve years old?”
“I could not,” Wil said. “How could I be sure they would form no attachment to me, once they knew the truth? A story like that might engender pity, pity could become attachment, and then . . .”
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “Are you not concerned about me?”
“That you might love me?” Wil sounded genuinely startled. “No, for you hate Nephilim, do you not? And besides, I imagine you warlocks have ways to guard against unwanted emotions. But for those like Charlotte, like Henry, if they knew the persona I presented to them was false, if they knew of my true heart . . . they might come to care for me.”
“And then they would die,” said Magnus.
*
Charlotte raised her face slowly from her hands. “And you’ve absolutely no idea where he is?” she asked for the third time. “Wil is simply—gone?”
“Charlotte.” Jem’s voice was soothing. They were in the drawing room, with its wal paper of flowers and vines. Sophie was by the fire, using the poker to coax more flames from the coal. Henry sat behind the desk, fiddling with a set of copper instruments; Jessamine was on the chaise, and Charlotte was in an armchair by the fire. Tessa and Jem sat somewhat primly side by side on the sofa, which made Tessa feel peculiarly like a guest. She was ful of sandwiches that Bridget had brought in on a tray, and tea, its warmth slowly thawing her insides. “It isn’t as if this is unusual.
When do we ever know where Wil is at nighttime?”
“But this is different. He saw his family, or his sister at least. Oh, poor Wil .” Charlotte’s voice shook with anxiety. “I had thought perhaps he was final y beginning to forget about them . . .”
“No one forgets about their family,” said Jessamine sharply. She sat on the chaise longue with a watercolor easel and papers propped before her; she had recently made the decision that she had fal en behind in pursuing the maidenly arts, and had begun painting, cutting silhouettes, pressing flowers, and playing on the spinet in the music room, though Wil said her singing voice made him think of Church when he was in a particularly complaining mood.
“Wel , no, of course not,” said Charlotte hastily, “but perhaps not to live with the memory constantly, as a sort of dreadful weight on you.”
“As if we’d know what to do with Wil if he didn’t have the morbs every day,” said Jessamine. “Anyway, he can’t have cared about his family that much in the first place or he wouldn’t have left them.”
Tessa gave a little gasp. “How can you say that? You don’t know why he left. You didn’t see his face at Ravenscar Manor—”
“Ravenscar Manor.” Charlotte was staring blindly at the fireplace. “Of al the places I thought they’d go . . .”
“Pish and tosh,” said Jessamine, looking angrily at Tessa. “At least his family’s alive. Besides, I’l wager he wasn’t sad at al ; I’l wager you he was shamming. He always is.”
Tessa glanced toward Jem for support, but he was looking at Charlotte, and his look was as hard as a silver coin. “What do you mean,” he said, “of al the places you thought they’d go? Did you know that Wil ’s family had moved?”