I write to you on behalf of a mutual friend, one William Herondale. I know that it is his habit to come and go—most often go—from the Institute as he pleases, and that therefore it may be some time before any alarm is raised at his absence. But I ask you, as one who holds your good sense in esteem, not to assume this absence to be of the ordinary sort. I saw him myself last night, and he was, to say the least, distraught when he left my residence. I have reason for concern that he might do himself an injury, and therefore I suggest that his whereabouts be sought and his safety ascertained. He is a difficult young man to like, but I believe you see the good in him, as I do, Miss Gray, and that is why I humbly address my letter to you— Your servant,
Magnus Bane
Postscript: If I were you, I would not share the contents of this letter with Mrs. Branwell. Just a suggestion.
M.B.
Though reading Magnus’s letter made her feel as if her veins were ful of fire, somehow Tessa survived the rest of the afternoon, and dinner as wel , without—she thought—betraying any outward sign of her distress. It seemed to take Sophie an agonizingly long time to help her out of her dress, brush her hair, stoke the fire, and tel her the day’s gossip. (Cyril’s cousin worked in the Lightwoods’ house and had reported that Tatiana— Gabriel and Gideon’s sister—was due to return from her honeymoon on the Continent with her new husband any day now. The household was in an uproar as she was rumored to have a most unpleasant disposition.)
Tessa muttered something about how she must take after her father that way. Impatience made her voice a croak, and Sophie was only just prevented from rushing out to get her a tisane of mint by Tessa’s insistence that she was exhausted, and needed sleep more than she needed tea.
The moment the door shut behind Sophie, Tessa was on her feet, shimmying out of her nightclothes and into a dress, lacing herself up as best she could and throwing a short jacket on over the top. After a cautious glance out into the corridor, she slipped out of her room and across the hal to Jem’s door, where she knocked as quietly as she could. For a moment nothing happened, and she had the fleeting worry that he had already gone to sleep, but then the door flew open and Jem stood on the threshold.
She had clearly caught him in the middle of readying himself for bed; his shoes and jacket were off, his shirt open at the col ar, his hair an adorable rumpled mess of silver. She wanted to reach out and smooth it down. He blinked at her. “Tessa?”
Without a word she handed him the note. He glanced up and down the corridor, then gestured her inside the room. She shut the door behind him as he read Magnus’s scrawl once, and then again, before bal ing it up in his hand, the crackling paper loud in the room. “I knew it,” he said.
It was Tessa’s turn to blink. “Knew what?”
“That this wasn’t an ordinary sort of absence.” He sat down on the trunk at the foot of his bed and shoved his feet into his shoes. “I felt it. Here.”
He put his hand over his chest. “I knew there was something strange. I felt it like a shadow on my soul.”
“You don’t think he’d real y hurt himself, do you?”
“Hurt himself, I don’t know. Put himself in a situation where he might be hurt—” Jem stood up. “I should go.”
“Don’t you mean ‘we’? You weren’t thinking of going looking for Wil without me, were you?” she asked archly, and when he said nothing, she said, “That letter was addressed to me, James. I didn’t have to show it to you.”
He half-closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he was smiling crookedly. “James,” he said. “Ordinarily only Wil cal s me that.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No. Don’t be. I like the sound of it on your lips.”
Lips. There was something strangely, delicately indelicate about the word, like a kiss itself. It seemed to hover in the air between them while they both hesitated. But it’s Jem, Tessa thought in bewilderment. Jem. Not Wil , who could make her feel as if he were running his fingers along her bare skin just by looking at her— “You’re right,” Jem said, clearing his throat. “Magnus would not have sent the letter to you had he not intended you to be part of searching for Wil .
Perhaps he thinks your power wil be useful. In either case—” He turned from her, going to his wardrobe and flinging it open. “Wait for me in your room. I wil be there momentarily.”
Tessa wasn’t sure if she nodded—she thought she had—and moments later she found herself back in her bedroom, leaning against the door.
Her face felt hot, as if she had stood too close to a fire. She looked around. When had she started to think of this room as her bedroom? The big, grand space, with its mul ioned windows and softly glowing witchlight tapers, was so unlike the tiny box room she had slept in in the flat in New York, with its puddles of wax on the bedside table, caused by her staying up al night reading by candlelight, and the cheap wooden-framed bed with its thin blankets. In the winter the windows, il -seated, would rattle in their frames when the wind blew.