Whether he knew it or not.
“Whatever it is that Mortmain has been planning,” she heard herself say, “he has been planning it a long time. Since before I was born, when he tricked or coerced my parents into ‘making’ me. And now we know that years ago he involved himself with Wil ’s family and moved them to Ravenscar Manor. I fear we are like chess pieces he slides about a board, and the outcome of the game is already known to him.”
“That is what he desires us to think, Tessa,” said Jem. “But he is only a man. And each discovery we make about him makes him more vulnerable. If we were no threat, he would not have sent that automaton to warn us off.”
“He knew exactly where we would be—”
“There is nothing more dangerous than a man bent on revenge,” said Ragnor. “A man who has been bent on it for nearly three score years, who has nurtured it from a tiny, poisonous seed to a living, choking flower. He wil see it through, unless you end him first.”
“Then, we wil end him,” said Jem shortly. It was as close to a threat as Tessa had ever heard him make.
Tessa looked down at her hands. They were a paler white than they had been when she lived in New York, but they were her hands, familiar, the index finger slightly longer than the middle one, the half-moons of her nails pronounced. I could Change them, she thought. I could become anything, anyone. She had never felt more mutable, more fluid, or more lost.
“Indeed.” Charlotte’s tone was firm. “Ragnor, I want to know why the Herondale family is in that house—that house that belonged to Mortmain— and I want to see to it that they are safe. And I want to do it without Benedict Lightwood or the rest of the Clave hearing about it.”
“I understand. You want me to look out for them as quietly as possible while also making inquiries regarding Mortmain in the area. If he moved them there, it must have been for a purpose.”
Charlotte exhaled. “Yes.”
Ragnor twirled his fork. “That wil be expensive.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “I am prepared to pay.”
Fel grinned. “Then, I am prepared to endure the sheep.”
The rest of the lunch passed in awkward conversation, with Jessamine moodily destroying her food without eating it, Jem unusual y quiet, Henry muttering equations to himself, and Charlotte and Fel finalizing their plans for the protection of Wil ’s family. As much as Tessa approved of the idea—and she did—there was something about the warlock that made her uncomfortable in a way Magnus never had, and she was glad when lunch was over and she could escape to her room with a copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
It was not her favorite of the Bront? sisters’ books—that honor went to Jane Eyre, and then Wuthering Heights, with Tenant a distant third—but she had read the other two so many times that no surprises lay between the pages, only phrases so familiar to her they had become like old friends. What she real y wanted to read was A Tale of Two Cities , but Wil had quoted Sydney Carton to her enough times that she was afraid that picking it up would make her think of him, and make the weight of her nervousness greater. After al , it was never Darnay he quoted, only Sydney, drunk and wrecked and dissipated. Sydney, who died for love.
It was dark out, and the wind was blowing gusts of light rain against the windowpanes when the knock came at her door. It was Sophie, carrying a letter on a silver tray. “A letter for you, miss.”
Tessa put the book down in astonishment. “Mail for me?”
Sophie nodded and came closer, holding out the tray. “Yes, but it doesn’t say who it’s from. Miss Lovelace almost snatched it, but I managed to keep it from her, nosy thing.”
Tessa took the envelope. It was addressed to her, indeed, in a slanting, unfamiliar hand, printed on heavy cream-colored paper. She turned it over once, began to open it, and caught sight of Sophie’s wide-eyed curious gaze reflected in the window. She turned and smiled at her. “That wil be al , Sophie,” she said. It was the way she had read heroines dismissing servants in novels, and it seemed to be correct. With a disappointed look Sophie took her salver and retired from the room.
Tessa unfolded the letter and spread it out on her lap.
Dear sensible Miss Gray,