A wash of cool air struck her face. She realized distantly that Wil had swung them through a pair of French doors and they were out on a smal stone balcony, one of many overlooking the gardens. She moved away from him, tearing the gold mask from her face, and nearly col apsed against the stone balustrade. After slamming the doors behind them, Wil turned and hurried over to her, laying a hand lightly on her back. “Tessa?”
“I’m al right.” She was glad for the stone railing beneath her hands, its solidity and hardness inexpressibly reassuring. The chil y air was lessening her dizziness too. Glancing down at herself, she could see she had become ful y Tessa again. The white dress was now a ful few inches too short, and the lacing so tight that her décol etage spil ed up and over the low neckline. She knew some women laced themselves tight just to get this effect, but it was rather shocking seeing so much of her own skin on display.
She looked sideways at Wil , glad for the cold air keeping her cheeks from flaming. “I just—I don’t know what happened. That’s never happened to me before, losing the Change without noticing like that. It must have been the surprise of it al . They’re married, did you know that? Nate and Jessamine. Married. Nate was never the marrying sort. And he doesn’t love her. I can tel . He doesn’t love anyone but himself. He never has.”
“Tess,” Wil said again, gently this time. He was leaning against the railing too, facing her. They were only a very little distance apart. Above them the moon swam through the clouds, a white boat on a stil , black sea.
She closed her mouth, aware that she had been babbling. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, looking away.
Almost hesitantly he laid his hand against her cheek, turning her to face him. He had stripped off his glove, and his skin was bare against hers.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “You were bril iant in there, Tessa. Not a step out of place.” She felt her face warm beneath his cool fingers, and was amazed. Was this Wil speaking? Will, who had spoken to her on the roof of the Institute as if she were so much rubbish? “You did love your brother once, didn’t you? I could see your face as he was speaking to you, and I wanted to kil him for breaking your heart.”
You broke my heart, she wanted to say. Instead she said, “Some part of me misses him as—as you miss your sister. Even though I know what he is, I miss the brother I thought I had. He was my only family.”
“The Institute is your family now.” His voice was incredibly gentle. Tessa looked at him in amazement. Gentleness was not something she would ever have associated with Wil . But it was there, in the touch of his hand on her cheek, in the softness of his voice, in his eyes when he looked at her. It was the way she had always dreamed a boy would look at her. But she had never dreamed up someone as beautiful as Wil , not in al her imaginings. In the moonlight the curve of his mouth looked pure and perfect, his eyes behind the mask nearly black.
“We should go back inside,” she said, in a half whisper. She did not want to go back inside. She wanted to stay here, with Wil achingly close, almost leaning into her. She could feel the heat that radiated from his body. His dark hair fel around the mask, into his eyes, tangling with his long eyelashes. “We have only a little time—”
She took a step forward—and stumbled into Wil , who caught her. She froze—and then her arms crept around him, her fingers lacing themselves behind his neck. Her face was pressed against his throat, his soft hair under her fingers. She closed her eyes, shutting out the dizzying world, the light beyond the French windows, the glow of the sky. She wanted to be here with Wil , cocooned in this moment, inhaling the clean sharp scent of him, feeling the beat of his heart against hers, as steady and strong as the pulse of the ocean.
She felt him inhale. “Tess,” he said. “Tess, look at me.”
She raised her eyes to his, slow and unwil ing, braced for anger or coldness—but his gaze was fixed on hers, his dark blue eyes somber beneath their thick black lashes, and they were stripped of al their usual cool, aloof distance. They were as clear as glass and ful of desire. And more than desire—a tenderness she had never seen in them before, had never even associated with Wil Herondale. That, more than anything else, stopped her protest as he raised his hands and methodical y began to take the pins from her hair, one by one.