“Not until I get al the answers I want,” she said. “Wil , if warlocks are made by having one demon parent and one human parent, what happens if one of those parents is a Shadowhunter?”
“A Shadowhunter would never al ow that to happen,” said Wil flatly.
“But in the Codex it says that most warlocks are the result of—of a violation,” Tessa said, her voice hitching on the ugly word, “or shape-changer demons taking on the form of a loved one and completing the seduction by a trick. Jem told me Shadowhunter blood is always dominant. The Codex says the offspring of Shadowhunters and werewolves, or faeries, are always Shadowhunters. So could not the angel blood in a Shadowhunter cancel out that which was demonic, and produce—”
“What it produces is nothing.” Wil tugged at the window curtain. “The child would be born dead. They always are. Stil born, I mean. The offspring of a demon and a Shadowhunter parent is death.” In the little light he looked at her. “Why do you want to know these things?”
“I want to know what I am,” she said. “I believe I am some . . . combination that has not been seen before. Part faerie, or part—”
“Have you ever thought of transforming yourself into one of your parents?” Wil asked. “Your mother, or father? It would give you access to their memories, wouldn’t it?”
“I have thought of it. Of course I have. But I have nothing of my father’s or mother’s. Everything that was packed in my trunks for the voyage here was discarded by the Dark Sisters.”
“What about your angel necklace?” Wil asked. “Wasn’t that your mother’s?”
Tessa shook her head. “I tried. I—I could reach nothing of her in it. It has been mine so long, I think, that what made it hers has evaporated, like water.”
Wil ’s eyes gleamed in the shadows. “Perhaps you are a clockwork girl. Perhaps Mortmain’s warlock father built you, and now Mortmain seeks the secret of how to create such a perfect facsimile of life when al he can build are hideous monstrosities. Perhaps al that beats beneath your chest is a heart made of metal.”
Tessa drew in a breath, feeling momentarily dizzy. His soft voice was so convincing, and yet—“No,” she said sharply. “You forget, I remember my childhood. Mechanical creatures do not change or grow. Nor would that explain my ability.”
“I know,” said Wil with a grin that flashed white in the darkness. “I only wanted to see if I could convince you.”
Tessa looked at him steadily. “I am not the one who has no heart.”
It was too dark in the carriage for her to tel , but she sensed that he flushed, darkly. Before he could say anything in response, the wheels came to a jerking halt. They had arrived.
12
MASQUERADE
So now I have sworn to bury
A ll this dead body of hate,
I feel so free and so clear
By the loss of that dead weight,
That I should grow light-headed, I fear,
Fantastically merry;
But that her brother comes, like a blight
On my fresh hope, to the Hall tonight.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Maud”
Cyril had paused the carriage outside the gates of the property, under the shade of a leafy oak tree. The Lightwoods’ country house in Chiswick, just outside London proper, was massive, built in the Pal adian style, with soaring pil ars and multiple staircases. The radiance of the moon made everything pearlescent like the inside of an oyster shel . The stone of the house seemed to gleam silver, while the gate that ran around the property had the sheen of black oil. None of the lights in the house seemed to be il uminated—the place was as dark as pitch and grave-silent, the vast grounds stretching al around it, down to the edge of a meander in the Thames River, unlit and deserted. Tessa began to wonder if they had made a mistake in coming here.
As Wil left the carriage, helping her down after him, his head turned, his fine mouth hardening. “Do you smel that? Demonic witchcraft. Its stink is on the air.”
Tessa made a face. She could smel nothing unusual—in fact, this far out of the city center, the air seemed cleaner than it had near the Institute.
She could smel wet leaves and dirt. She looked over at Wil , his face raised to the moonlight, and wondered what weapons lay concealed under his closely fitted frock coat. His hands were sheathed in white gloves, his starched shirtfront immaculate. With the mask, he could have been an il ustration of a handsome highwayman in a penny dreadful.
Tessa bit her lip. “Are you certain? The house looks deadly quiet. As if no one were home. Could we be wrong?”