Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1)

Tessa glanced down at herself. She hadn’t bothered with a crinoline, or even shoes. She’d just thrown on a dress and slid her bare feet into slippers. Her hair was straggling down around her shoulders, and she imagined she likely resembled the madwoman Mr. Rochester kept in his attic in Jane Eyre. “Well, Nate can’t have gone very far, not as ill as he is,” Tessa said. “Isn’t anyone looking for him?”

Jessamine threw up her hands. “Everyone’s looking for him. Will, Charlotte, Henry, Thomas, even Agatha. I don’t suppose you want us to roust poor Jem out of bed and make him part of the search party too?”

Tessa shook her head. “Honestly, Jessamine—” She broke off, turning away. “Well, I’m going to look as well. You can stay here if you like.”

“I do like.” Jessamine tossed her head as Tessa spun away and stalked off down the corridor, her mind whirling. Where on earth could Nate have gone? Had he been feverish, delirious? Had he gotten out of bed not knowing where he was and staggered off to look for her? The thought made her heart clench. The Institute was a baffling maze, she thought as she turned yet another blind corner into yet another tapestry-lined corridor. If she could barely find her way around it even now, how could Nate possibly—

“Miss Gray?”

Tessa turned and saw Thomas emerging from one of the doors along the hall. He was in shirtsleeves, his hair tousled as usual, his brown eyes very serious. She felt herself go very still. Oh, God, it’s bad news. “Yes?”

“I’ve found your brother,” Thomas said, to Tessa’s astonishment.

“You have? But where was he?”

“In the drawing room. Got himself a bit of a hiding place, behind the curtains, he had.” Thomas spoke hastily, looking sheepish. “Minute he saw me, he went right off his chump. Started screamin’ and yellin’. Tried to bolt right past me, an’ I nearly had to give him one over the gash to keep him quiet—” At Tessa’s look of incomprehension, Thomas paused, and cleared his throat. “That is to say, I’m afraid I may have frightened him, miss.”

Tessa put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear. But he’s all right?”

It seemed that Thomas did not know quite where to look. He was embarrassed to have found Nate cowering behind Charlotte’s curtains, Tessa thought, and she felt a wave of indignation on Nate’s behalf. Her brother wasn’t a Shadowhunter; he hadn’t grown up killing things and risking his life. Of course he was terrified. And he was probably delirious with fever, on top of that. “I had better go in and see him. Just me, you understand? I think he needs to see a familiar face.”

Thomas looked relieved. “Yes, miss. And I’ll wait out here, just for now. You just let me know when you want me to summon the others.”

Tessa nodded and moved past Thomas to push the door open. The drawing room was dim, the only illumination the gray afternoon light that spilled through the tall windows. In the shadows the sofas and armchairs scattered about the room looked like crouched beasts. In one of the larger armchairs by the fire sat Nate. He had found the bloodstained shirt and trousers he had been wearing at de Quincey’s, and had put them on. His feet were bare. He sat with his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. He looked wretched.

“Nate?” Tessa said softly.

At that he looked up—and sprang to his feet, a look of incredulous happiness on his face. “Tessie!”

With a little cry Tessa rushed across the room and threw her arms around her brother, hugging him fiercely. She heard him give a little whimper of pain, but his arms went around her too, and for a moment, embracing him, Tessa was back in her aunt’s little kitchen in New York, with the smell of cooking all around her and her aunt’s soft laughter as she scolded them for making so much noise.

Nate pulled away first, and looked down at her. “God, Tessie, you look so different. . . .”

A shudder went through her. “What do you mean?”

He patted her cheek, almost absently. “Older,” he said. “Thinner. You were a round-faced little girl when I left New York, weren’t you? Or is that just the way I remember you?”

Tessa reassured her brother that she was still the same little sister he’d always known, but her mind was only partly engaged with his question. She couldn’t help staring at him worriedly; he no longer looked as gray as he had, but he was still pale, and bruises stood out in blue, black, and yellow patches on his face and neck. “Nate . . .”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, reading the anxiety on her face.

“Yes, it is. You should be in bed, resting. What are you doing in here?”

“I was trying to find you. I knew you were here. I saw you, before that bald bastard with the missing eyes got at me. I figured they’d imprisoned you, too. I was going to try to get us out.”

“Imprisoned? Nate, no, it’s not like that.” She shook her head. “We’re safe here.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “This is the Institute, isn’t it? I was warned about this place. De Quincey said it was run by madmen, monsters who called themselves Nephilim. He said they keep the damned souls of men penned up in some kind of box of theirs, screaming—”

“What, the Pyxis? It holds bits of demon energy, Nate, not men’s souls! It’s perfectly harmless. I’ll show it to you later, in the weapons room, if you don’t believe me.”

Nate looked no less grim. “He said that if the Nephilim got their hands on me, they’d take me apart, piece by piece, for breaking their Laws.”

A cold shiver went up Tessa’s spine; she drew away from her brother, and saw that one of the drawing room windows was open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze. So her shiver had been more than just nerves. “Did you open the window? It’s so cold in here, Nate.”

Nate shook his head. “It was open when I came in.”

Shaking her head, Tessa went across the room and drew the window down. “You’ll catch your death—”

“Never mind my death,” Nate said irritably. “What about the Shadowhunters? Are you saying they haven’t kept you imprisoned here?”

“No.” Tessa turned away from the window. “They haven’t. They’re strange people, but the Shadowhunters have been kind to me. I wanted to stay here. They’ve been generous enough to let me.”

Nate shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Tessa felt a spark of anger, which surprised her; she pushed it back. It wasn’t Nate’s fault. There was so much he didn’t know. “Where else was I going to go, Nate?” she asked, crossing the room to him and taking his arm. She led him back over to the armchair. “Sit down. You’re exhausting yourself.”

Nate sat obediently, and looked up at her. There was a distant look in his eyes. Tessa knew that look. It meant he was plotting, hatching some mad plan, dreaming a ridiculous dream. “We can still get away from this place,” he said. “Get to Liverpool, get on a steamer. Go back to New York.”

“And do what?” Tessa said as gently as she could. “There’s nothing there for us. Not with Aunt dead. I had to sell all our things to pay for the funeral. The apartment’s gone. There was no rent money. There’s no place for us in New York, Nate.”

“We’ll make a place. A new life.”

Tessa looked at her brother sadly. There was pain in seeing him like this, his face full of hopeless pleading, bruises blossoming on his cheekbones like ugly flowers, his fair hair still matted in places with blood. Nate was not like other people, Aunt Harriet had always said. He had a beautiful innocence about him that had to be protected at all costs.

And Tessa had tried. She and her aunt had hidden Nate’s own weaknesses from him, the consequences of his own flaws and failings. Never telling him of the work Aunt Harriet had had to do to make up the money he had lost gambling, of the taunts Tessa had endured from other children, calling her brother a drunk, a wastrel. They had hidden these things from him to keep him from being hurt. But he had been hurt anyway, Tessa thought. Maybe Jem was right. Maybe the truth was always best.