Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1)

“Even should you leave the Clave,” said Jem, “they can still lay claim to your children.”

A little shiver went through Tessa. Jem was still staring out at the river, as if he could see Will in its silvered surface. “Every six years,” he said, “until the child is eighteen, a representative of the Clave comes to your family and asks the child if they would like to leave their family and join the Nephilim.”

“I can’t imagine anyone would,” Tessa said, appalled. “I mean, you’d never be able to speak to your family again, would you?”

Jem shook his head.

“And Will agreed to that? He joined the Shadowhunters regardless?”

“He refused. Twice, he refused. Then, one day—Will was twelve or so—there was a knock on the Institute door and Charlotte answered it. She would have been eighteen then, I think. Will was standing there on the steps. She told me he was covered in road dust and dirt as if he’d been sleeping in hedgerows. He said, ‘I am a Shadowhunter. One of you. You have to let me in. I have nowhere else to go.’”

“He said that? Will? ‘I have nowhere else to go’?”

He hesitated. “You understand, all this is information I heard from Charlotte. Will’s never mentioned a word of any of it to me. But that’s what she claims he said.”

“I don’t understand. His parents—they’re dead, aren’t they? Or they would have come looking for him.”

“They did,” Jem said quietly. “A few weeks after Will arrived, Charlotte told me, his parents followed. They came to the front door of the Institute and banged on it, calling for him. Charlotte went into Will’s room to ask him if he wanted to see them. He had crawled under the bed and had his hands over his ears. He wouldn’t come out, no matter what she did, and he wouldn’t see them. I think Charlotte finally went down and sent them away, or they left of their own accord, I’m not sure—”

“Sent them away? But their child was inside the Institute. They had a right—”

“They had no right.” Jem spoke gently enough, Tessa thought, but there was something in his tone that put him as far away from her as the moon. “Will chose to join the Shadowhunters. Once he made that choice, they had no more claim on him. It was the right and responsibility of the Clave to turn them away.”

“And you’ve never asked him why?”

“If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me,” Jem said. “You asked why I think he tolerates me better than other people. I’d imagine it’s precisely because I’ve never asked him why.” He smiled at her, wryly. The cold air had whipped color into his cheeks, and his eyes were bright. Their hands were close to each other’s on the parapet. For a brief, half-confused moment Tessa thought that he might be about to put his hand over hers, but his gaze slid past her and he frowned. “Bit late for a walk, isn’t it?”

Following his gaze, she saw the shadowy figures of a man and a woman coming toward them across the bridge. The man wore a workman’s felt hat and a dark woolen coat; the woman had her hand on his arm, her face inclined toward his. “They probably think the same thing about us,” Tessa said. She looked up into Jem’s eyes. “And you, did you come to the Institute because you had nowhere else to go? Why didn’t you stay in Shanghai?”

“My parents ran the Institute there,” said Jem, “but they were murdered by a demon. He—it—was called Yanluo.” His voice was very calm. “After they died, everyone thought that the safest thing for me would be to leave the country, in case the demon or its cohorts came after me as well.”

“But why here, why England?”

“My father was British. I spoke English. It seemed reasonable.” Jem’s tone was as calm as ever, but Tessa sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her. “I thought I would feel more at home here than I would in Idris, where neither of my parents had ever been.”

Across the bridge from them the strolling couple had paused at a parapet; the man seemed to be pointing out features of the railway bridge, the woman nodding as he spoke. “And did you—feel more at home, that is?”

“Not precisely,” Jem said. “Almost the first thing I realized when I came here was that my father never thought of himself as British, not the way an Englishman would. Real Englishmen are British first, and gentlemen second. Whatever else it is they might be—a doctor, a magistrate or landowner—comes third. For Shadowhunters it’s different. We are Nephilim, first and foremost, and only after that do we make a nod to whatever country we might have been born and bred in. And as for third, there is no third. We are only ever Shadowhunters. When other Nephilim look at me, they see only a Shadowhunter. Not like mundanes, who look at me and see a boy who is not entirely foreign but not quite like them either.”

“Half one thing and half another,” Tessa said. “Like me. But you know you’re human.”

Jem’s expression softened. “As are you. In all the ways that matter.”

Tessa felt the backs of her eyes sting. She glanced up and saw that the moon had passed behind a cloud, giving it a pearlescent luster. “I suppose we should go back. The others must be worried.”

Jem moved to offer her his arm—and paused. The strolling couple Jem had noted before were suddenly in front of them, blocking their way. Though they must have moved very swiftly to reach the far side of the bridge so fast, they stood eerily still now, their arms linked. The woman’s face was concealed in the shadow of a plain bonnet, the man’s hidden beneath the brim of his felt hat.

Jem’s hand tightened on Tessa’s arm, but his voice was neutral when he spoke. “Good evening. Is there something we can help you with?”

Neither of them spoke, but they moved a step closer, the woman’s skirt rustling in the wind. Tessa looked around, but there was no one else on the bridge, no one visible at either embankment. London seemed utterly deserted under the blurring moon.

“Pardon me,” Jem said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me and my companion go by.” He took a step forward, and Tessa followed. They were close enough now to the silent couple that when the moon came out from behind its cloud, flooding the bridge with silvery light and illuminating the face of the man in the felt hat, Tessa recognized him instantly.

The tangled hair; the wide once-broken nose and scarred chin; and most of all the protruding, popping eyes, the same eyes as the woman who stood beside him, her blank stare fixed on Tessa in a manner terribly reminiscent of Miranda’s.

But you’re dead. Will killed you. I saw your body. Tessa whispered, “It’s him, the coachman. He belongs to the Dark Sisters.”

The coachman chuckled. “I belong,” he said, “to the Magister. While the Dark Sisters served him, I served them. Now I serve him alone.”

The coachman’s voice sounded different from how Tessa remembered—less thick, more articulate, with an almost sinister smoothness. Beside Tessa, Jem had gone very still. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Why are you following us?”

“The Magister has directed us to follow you,” the coachman said. “You are Nephilim. You are responsible for the destruction of his home, the destruction of his people, the Children of the Night. We are here to deliver a declaration of war. And we are here for the girl.” He turned his eyes to Tessa. “She is the property of the Magister, and he will have her.”

“The Magister,” said Jem, his eyes very silver in the moonlight. “Do you mean de Quincey?”

“The name you give him does not matter. He is the Magister. He has told us to deliver a message. That message is war.”

Jem’s hand tightened on the head of his cane. “You serve de Quincey but are not vampires. What are you?”