chapter 10: The Virtue of Angels
The virtue of angels is that they cannot deteriorate;
their flaw is that they cannot improve. Man's
flaw is that he can deteriorate; and his virtue is
that he can improve.
-Hasidic saying
"I suppose you all know by now," Will remarked at breakfast the next morning, "that I went to an opium den last night."
It was a subdued morning. It had dawned rainy and gray, and the Institute felt leadenly weighted down, as if the sky were pressing on it. Sophie passed in and out of the kitchen carrying steaming platters of food, her pale face looking pinched and smal ; Jessamine slumped tiredly over her tea; Charlotte looked weary and unwel from her night spent in the library; and Will 's eyes were red-rimmed, his cheek bruised where Jem had hit him. Only Henry, reading the paper with one hand while he stabbed at his eggs with the other, seemed to have any energy.
Jem was conspicuous mainly by his absence. When Tessa had woken up that morning, she had floated for a moment in a blissful state of forgetfulness, the events of the night before a dim blur. Then she had sat bolt upright, absolute horror crashing over her like a wave of scalding water.
Had she really done all those things with Jem? His bed-his hands on her -the spilled drugs. She had raised her hands and touched her hair. It fel free over her shoulders, where Jem had tugged it out of its plaits. Oh, God, she thought. I really did all that; that was me. She had pressed her hands to her eyes, feeling an overwhelming mix of confusion, terrified happiness- for she could not deny that it had been wonderful in its way-horror at herself, and hideous and total humiliation.
Jem would think she had utterly lost control of herself. No wonder he couldn't face her at breakfast. She could barely face herself in the mirror.
"Did you hear me?" Will said again, clearly disappointed at the reception of his announcement. "I said I went to an opium den last night."
Charlotte looked up from her toast. Slowly she folded her newspaper, set it on the table beside her, and pushed her reading glasses down her upturned nose. "No," she said. "That undoubtedly glorious aspect of your recent activities was unknown to us, in fact."
"So is that where you've been all this time?" Jessamine asked listlessly, taking a sugar cube from the bowl and biting into it. "Are you quite a hopeless addict now? They say it takes only one or two doses."
"It wasn't really an opium den," Tessa protested before she could stop herself. "That is to say-they seemed to have more of a trade in magic powders and things like that."
"So perhaps not an opium den precisely," said Will, "but still a den. Of vice!" he added, punctuating this last bit by stabbing his finger into the air.
"Oh, dear, not one of those places that's run by ifrits," sighed Charlotte.
"Real y, Will -"
"Exactly one of those places," said Jem, coming into the breakfast room and sliding into a chair beside Charlotte-quite as far away from Tessa as it was possible to sit, she noticed, with a pinching feeling in her chest. He didn't look at her either. "Off Whitechapel High Street."
"And how do you and Tessa know so much about it?" asked Jessamine, who appeared revitalized by either her sugar intake or the expectation of some good gossip, or both.
"I used a tracking spel to find Will last night," said Jem. "I was growing concerned at his absence. I thought he might have forgotten the way back to the Institute."
"You worry too much," said Jessamine. "It's sil y."
"You're quite right. I won't make that mistake again," said Jem, reaching for the dish of kedgeree. "As it turned out, Will wasn't in need of my assistance at all."
Will looked at Jem thoughtful y. "I seem to have woken up with what they call a Monday mouse," he said, pointing at the bruised skin under his eye.
"Any idea where I got it?"
"None." Jem helped himself to some tea.
"Eggs," said Henry dreamily, looking at his plate. "I do love eggs. I could eat them all day."
"Was there really a need to bring Tessa with you to Whitechapel?"
Charlotte asked Jem, sliding her glasses off and placing them on the newspaper. Her brown eyes were reproachful.
"Tessa is not made of delicate china," said Jem. "She Will not break."
For some reason this statement, though he said it still without looking at her, sent a flood of images through Tessa's mind of the night before-of clinging to Jem in the shadows of his bed, his hands gripping her shoulders, their mouths fierce on each other's. No, he had not treated her as if she were breakable then. A boiling flood of heat seared her cheeks, and she looked down quickly, praying for her blush to go away.
"You might be surprised to know," said Will, "that I saw something rather interesting in the opium den."
"I'm sure you did," said Charlotte with asperity.
"Was it an egg?" Henry inquired.
"Downworlders," said Will. "Almost all werewolves."
"There's nothing interesting about werewolves." Jessamine sounded aggrieved. "We're focusing on finding Mortmain now, Will, if you haven't forgotten, not some drug-addled Downworlders."
"They were buying yin fen," said Will. "Buckets of it."
At that Jem's head snapped up and he met Will 's eyes.
"They had already begun to change color," said Will. "Quite a few had silver hair, or eyes. Even their skin had started to silver over."
"This is very disturbing." Charlotte frowned. "We should speak to Woolsey Scott as soon as this Mortmain matter is cleared up. If there is an issue of addiction to warlock powders in his pack, he Will want to know about it."
"Don't you think he already does?" said Will, sitting back in his chair. He looked pleased to have finally gotten a reaction to his news. "It is his pack, after all."
"His pack is all of London's wolves," objected Jem. "He can't possibly keep real track of them all."
"I'm not sure you want to wait," said Will. "If you can get hold of Scott, I'd speak to him as soon as possible."
Charlotte tilted her head to the side. "And why is that?"
"Because," said Will. "One of the ifrits asked a werewolf why he needed so much yin fen. Apparently it works on werewolves as a stimulant. The answer was that it pleased the Magister that the drug kept them working all night long."
Charlotte's teacup crashed into her saucer. "Working on what?"
Will smirked, clearly pleased at the effect he was having. "I've no idea. I lost consciousness about then. I was having a lovely dream about a young woman who had mislaid nearly all her clothes . . ."
Charlotte was white-faced. "Dear God, I hope Scott isn't caught up with the Magister. De Quincey first, now the wolves-al our all ies. The Accords . . ."
"I'm sure it Will all be all right, Charlotte," said Henry mildly. "Scott doesn't seem the sort to get tangled up with Mortmain's sort."
"Perhaps you should be there when I speak with him," said Charlotte.
"Nominal y, you are the head of the Institute-"
"Oh, no," said Henry with a look of horror. "Darling, you'l be quite all right without me. You're such a genius where these negotiations are concerned, and I'm simply not. And besides, the invention I'm working on now could shatter the whole clockwork army into pieces if I get the formulations right!"
He beamed round the table proudly. Charlotte looked at him for a long moment, then pushed her chair back from the table, stood up, and walked out of the room without another word.
Will regarded Henry from beneath half-lidded eyes. "Nothing ever disturbs your circles, does it, Henry?"
Henry blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Archimedes," Jem said, as usual knowing what Will meant, though not looking at him. "He was drawing a mathematical diagram in the sand when his city was attacked by Romans. He was so intent on what he was doing that he didn't see the soldier coming up behind him. His last words were 'Do not disturb my circles.' Of course, he was an old man by then."
"And he was probably never married," said Will, and he grinned at Jem across the table.
Jem didn't return his grin. Without looking at Will, or Tessa-without looking at any of them-he got to his feet and went out of the room after Charlotte.
"Oh, bother," said Jessamine. "Is this one of those days where we all stalk out in a fury? Because I simply haven't got the energy for it." She put her head down on her arms and closed her eyes.
Henry looked bewilderedly from Will to Tessa. "What is it? What have I done wrong?"
Tessa sighed. "Nothing dreadful, Henry. It's just-I think Charlotte wanted you to come with her."
"Then, why didn't she say so?" Henry's eyes were mournful. His joy over his eggs and inventions seemed to have vanished. Perhaps he shouldn't have married Charlotte, Tessa thought, her mood as bleak as the weather.
Perhaps, like Archimedes, he would have been happier drawing circles in the sand.
"Because women never say what they think," said Will. His eyes drifted toward the kitchen, where Bridget was clearing up the remains of the meal.
Her singing floated lugubriously out into the dining room.
"'I fear you are poisoned, my own pretty boy, I fear you are poisoned, my comfort and joy!' 'O yes, I am poisoned; mother, make my bed soon, There's a pain in my heart, and I mean to lie down.'"
"I swear that woman had a previous career as a death-hunter selling tragic bal ads down around the Seven Dials," said Will. "And I do wish she wouldn't sing about poisoning just after we've eaten." He looked sideways at Tessa.
"Shouldn't you be off putting on your gear? Haven't you training with the lunatic Lightwoods today?"
"Yes, this morning, but I needn't change clothes. We're just practicing knife throwing," said Tessa, somewhat amazed that she was able to have this mild and civil a conversation with Will after the events of last night. Cyril's handkerchief, with Will 's blood on it, was still in her dresser drawer; she remembered the warmth of his lips on her fingers, and darted her eyes away from his.
"How fortunate that I am a crack hand at knife throwing." Will got to his feet and held out his arm to her. "Come along; it'l drive Gideon and Gabriel mad if I watch the training, and I could do with a little madness this morning."
Will was correct. His presence during the training session seemed to madden Gabriel at least, though Gideon, as he seemed to do with everything, took this intrusion in a stolid manner. Will sat on a low wooden bench that ran along one of the wal s, and ate an apple, his long legs stretched out before him, occasional y call ing out bits of advice that Gideon ignored and that Gabriel took like blows to the chest.
"Must he be here?" Gabriel growled to Tessa the second time he had nearly dropped a knife while handing it to her. He put a hand on her shoulder, showing her the sight line for the target she was aiming at-a black circle drawn on the wall. She knew how much he would rather she were aiming at Will. "Can't you tell him to go away?"
"Now, why would I do that?" Tessa asked reasonably. "Wil is my friend, and you are someone whom I do not even like."
She threw the knife. It missed its target by several feet, striking low in the wal near the floor.
"No, you're still weighting the point too much-and what do you mean, you don't like me?" Gabriel demanded, handing her another knife as if by reflex, but his expression was very surprised indeed.
"Well," Tessa said, sighting along the line of the knife, "you behave as if you dislike me. In fact, you behave as if you dislike us all."
"I don't," Gabriel said. "I just dislike him." He pointed at Will.
"Dear me," said Will, and he took another bite of his apple. "Is it because I'm better-looking than you?"
"Both of you be quiet," Gideon called from across the room. "We're meant to be working, not snapping at each other over years-old petty disagreements."
"Petty?" Gabriel snarled. "He broke my arm."
Will took another bite out of his apple. "I can hardly believe you're stil upset about that."
Tessa threw the knife. This throw was better. It landed inside the black circle, if not in the center itself. Gabriel looked around for another knife and, not seeing one, let out an exhalation of annoyance. "When we run the Institute," he said, pitching his voice loud enough for Will to hear, "this training room Will be far better kept up and supplied."
Tessa looked at him angrily. "Amazing that I don't like you, isn't it?"
Gabriel's handsome face crumpled into an ugly look of contempt. "I don't see what this has to do with you, little warlock; this Institute isn't your home.
You don't belong in this place. Believe me, you'd be better off with my family running things here; we could find uses for your . . . talent. Employment that would make you rich. You could live where you liked. And Charlotte can go run the Institute in York, where she'l do considerably less harm."
Will was sitting upright now, apple forgotten. Gideon and Sophie had ceased their practicing and were watching the conversation-Gideon wary, Sophie wide-eyed. "If you hadn't noticed," Will said, "someone already runs the York Institute."
"Alloysius Starkweather is a senile old man." Gabriel dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "And he has no descendants he can beg the Consul to appoint in his place. Since the business with his granddaughter, his son and daughter-in-law packed up and went to Idris. They won't come back here for love or money."
"What business with his granddaughter?" Tessa demanded, flashing back to the portrait of the sickly-looking little girl on the staircase of the York Institute.
"Only lived to be ten or so," said Gabriel. "Never was very healthy, by all accounts, and when they first Marked her-Well, she must have been improperly trained. She went mad, turned Forsaken, and died. The shock kil ed old Starkweather's wife, and sent his children scurrying to Idris. It wouldn't be much trouble to get him replaced by Charlotte. The Consul must see he's no good-far too married to the old ways."
Tessa looked at Gabriel in disbelief. His voice had retained its cool indifference as he'd told the story of the Starkweathers, as if it were a fairy tale. And she-she didn't want to pity the old man with the sly eyes and the bloody room full of dead Downworlders' remains, but she couldn't help it.
She pushed Aloysius Starkweather from her mind. "Charlotte runs this Institute," she said. "And your father Will not take it from her."
"She deserves to have it taken from her."
Will tossed his apple core into the air, at the same time drawing a knife from his belt and throwing it. The knife and the apple sailed across the room together, somehow managing to stick into the wal just beside Gabriel's head, the knife driven cleanly through the core and into the wood. "Say that again," said Will, "and I'll darken your daylights for you."
Gabriel's face worked. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
Gideon took a step forward, warning in every line of his posture. "Gabriel -"
But his brother ignored him. "You don't even know what your precious Charlotte's father did to mine, do you? I only just learned it myself a few days ago. My father finally broke down and told us. He'd protected the Fairchilds til then."
"Your father?" Will 's tone was incredulous. "Protected the Fairchilds?"
"He was protecting us as well." Gabriel's words tumbled over themselves.
"My mother's brother-my uncle Silas-was one of Granvil e Fairchild's closest friends. Then Uncle Silas broke the Law-a tiny thing, a minor infraction-and Fairchild discovered it. all he cared about was the Law, not friendship, not loyalty. He went straight to the Clave." Gabriel's voice rose.
"My uncle killed himself in shame, and my mother died of the grief. The Fairchilds don't care about anyone but themselves and the Law!"
For a moment the room was silent; even Will was speechless, looking utterly taken aback. It was Tessa who spoke at last, "But that is the fault of Charlotte's father. Not of Charlotte."
Gabriel was white with rage, his green eyes standing out against his pale skin. "You don't understand," he said viciously. "You're not a Shadowhunter.
We have blood pride. Family pride. Granvil e Fairchild wanted the Institute to go to his daughter, and the Consul made it happen. But even though Fairchild is dead, we can still take that away from him. He was hated-so hated that no one would have married Charlotte if he hadn't paid off the Branwel s to hand Henry over. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows he doesn't really love her. How could he-"
There was a crack, like the sound of a rifle shot, and Gabriel fell silent.
Sophie had slapped him across the face. His pale skin was already beginning to redden. Sophie was staring at him, breathing hard, an incredulous look on her face, as if she could not believe what she had done.
Gabriel's hands tightened at his sides, but he didn't move. He couldn't, Tessa knew. He could not strike a girl, a girl who was not even a Shadowhunter or a Downworlder but merely a mundane. He looked to his brother, but Gideon, expressionless, met his eyes and shook his head slowly; with a choked sound Gabriel spun on his heel and stalked from the room.
"Sophie!" Tessa exclaimed, reaching for her. "Are you all right?"
But Sophie was looking anxiously up at Gideon. "I'm so sorry, sir," she said. "There's no excuse-I lost my head, and I-"
"It was a well -placed blow," Gideon said calmly. "I see you've been paying attention to my training."
Will was sitting up on the bench, his blue eyes lively and curious. "Was it true?" he said. "That story Gabriel just told us."
Gideon shrugged. "Gabriel worships our father," he said. "Anything Benedict says is like a pronouncement from on high. I knew my uncle had kil ed himself, but not the circumstances, until the day after we first came back from training you. Father asked us how the Institute seemed to be run, and I told him it seemed in fine condition, no different from the Institute in Madrid. In fact, I told him I could see no evidence that Charlotte was doing a lax job. That was when he told us this story."
"If you don't mind my asking," said Tessa, "what was it that your uncle had done?"
"Silas? fell in love with his parabatai. Not, actual y, as Gabriel says, a minor infraction but a major one. Romantic relationships between parabatai are absolutely forbidden. Though even the best-trained Shadowhunter can fal prey to emotion. The Clave would have separated the two of them, though, and that Silas couldn't face. That's why he kil ed himself. My mother was consumed with rage and grief. I can well believe that her dying wish was that we would take the Institute from the Fairchilds. Gabriel was younger than I when our mother died-only five years old, clinging to her skirts still -and it seems to me his feelings are too overwhelming for him now to quite understand them. Whereas I-I feel that the sins of the fathers should not be visited on the sons."
"Or the daughters," said Will.
Gideon looked at him and gave him a crooked smile. There was no dislike in it; in fact, it was jarringly the look of someone who understood Will, and why he behaved as he did. Even Will looked a bit surprised. "There is the problem that Gabriel Will never come back here, of course," said Gideon.
"Not after this."
Sophie, whose color had started to return, paled again. "Mrs. Branwel Will be furious-"
Tessa waved her back. "I'll go after him and apologize, Sophie. It Will be all right."
She heard Gideon call after her, but she was already hurrying from the room. She hated to admit it, but she'd felt a spark of sympathy for Gabriel when Gideon had been tell ing his story. Losing a mother when you were so young you could barely remember her later was something she had familiarity with. If someone had told her that her mother had had a dying wish, she wasn't sure she wouldn't have done everything in her power to execute it . . . whether it made sense or not.
"Tessa!" She was partway down the corridor when she heard Will call ing after her. She spun and saw him striding down the hal in her direction, a half smile on his face.
Her next words wiped his smile away. "Why are you following me? Will, you shouldn't have left them alone! You must go back to the training room, right away."
Will planted his feet. "Why?"
Tessa threw up her hands. "Don't men notice anything? Gideon has designs on Sophie-"
"On Sophie?"
"She's a very beautiful girl," flared Tessa. "You're an idiot if you haven't noticed the way he looks at her, but I don't want him taking advantage of her.
She's had enough such trouble in her life-and besides, if you're with me, Gabriel won't talk to me. You know he won't."
Will muttered something under his breath and seized her wrist. "Here.
Come with me."
The warmth of his skin against hers sent a jolt up her arm. He pulled her into the drawing room and across to the great windows that looked down over the courtyard. He released her wrist just in time for her to lean forward and see the Lightwoods' carriage rattling furiously across the stone yard and under the iron gates.
"There," Will said. "Gabriel's gone anyway, unless you want to chase after the carriage. And Sophie's perfectly sensible. She's not going to let Gideon Lightwood have his way with her. Besides, he's about as charming as a postbox."
Tessa, surprising even herself, let out a gasp of laughter. She put her hand up to cover her mouth, but it was too late; she was already laughing, leaning a little against the window.
Will looked at her, his blue eyes quizzical, his mouth just beginning to quirk up in a grin. "I must be more amusing than I thought. Which would make me very amusing indeed."
"I'm not laughing at you," she told him in between giggles. "Just-Oh! The look on Gabriel's face when Sophie slapped him. My goodness." She pushed her hair out of her face and said, "I really shouldn't be laughing. Half the reason he was so awful was your goading him. I should be angry with you."
"Oh, should," said Will, spinning away to drop into a chair near the fire, and stretching out his long legs toward the flames. Like every room in England, Tessa thought, it was chil y in here except just in front of the fire. One roasted in the front and froze in the back, like a badly cooked turkey. "No good sentences ever include the word 'should.' I should have paid the tavern bil ; now they're coming to break my legs. I should never have run off with my best friend's wife; now she devils me constantly. I should-"
"You should," Tessa said softly, "think about the way the things you do affect Jem."
Will rol ed his head back against the leather of the chair and regarded her.
He looked drowsy and tired and beautiful. He could have been some Pre- Raphaelite Apol o. "Is this a serious conversation now, Tess?" His voice stil held humor but was edged, like a gold blade edged in razored steel.
Tessa came and sat down in the armchair across from his. "Aren't you worried that he's cross with you? He's your parabatai. And he's Jem. He's never cross."
"Perhaps it's better that he's cross with me," said Will. "So much saintlike patience cannot be good for anyone."
"Do not mock him." Tessa's tone was sharp.
"Nothing is beyond mockery, Tess."
"Jem is. He has always been good to you. He is nothing but goodness.
That he hit you last night, that only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness."
"Jem hit me?" Will, fingering his cheek, looked amazed. "I must confess, I remember very little of last night. Only that the two of you woke me, though I very much wanted to stay asleep. I remember Jem shouting at me, and you holding me. I knew it was you. You always smel of lavender."
Tessa ignored this. "Well, Jem hit you. And you deserved it."
"You do look scornful-rather like Raziel in all those paintings, as if he were looking down on us. So tell me, scornful angel, what did I do to deserve being hit in the face by James?"
Tessa reached for the words, but they eluded her; she turned to the language she and Will shared-poetry. "You know, in that essay of Donne's, what he says-"
"'License my roving hands, and let them go'?" quoted Will, eyeing her.
"I meant the essay about how no man is an island. Everything you do touches others. Yet you never think about it. You behave as if you live on some sort of-of Will island, and none of your actions can have any consequences. Yet they do."
"How does my going to a warlock den affect Jem?" Will inquired. "I suppose he had to come and haul me out, but he's done more dangerous things in the past for me. We protect each other-"
"No, you don't," Tessa cried in frustration. "Do you think he cares about the danger? Do you? His whole life has been destroyed by this drug, this yin fen, and there you go off to a warlock den and drug yourself up as if it doesn't even matter, as if it's just a game to you. He has to take this foul stuff every day just so he can live, but in the meantime it's kil ing him. He hates to be dependent on it. He can't even bring himself to buy it; he has you do that."
Will made a sound of protest, but Tessa held up a hand. "And then you swan down to Whitechapel and throw your money at the people who make these drugs and addict other people to them, as if it were some sort of holiday on the Continent for you. What were you thinking?"
"But it had nothing to do with Jem at all -"
"You didn't think about him," said Tessa. "But perhaps you should have.
Don't you understand he thinks you made a mockery out of what's kil ing him? And you're supposed to be his brother."
Will had whitened. "He can't think that."
"He does," she said. "He understands you don't care what other people think about you. But I believe he always expected you'd care what he thought.
What he felt."
Will leaned forward. The firelight made odd patterns against his skin, darkening the bruise on his cheek to black. "I do care what other people think," he said with a surprising intensity, staring into the flames. "It's all I think about-what others think, what they feel about me, and I about them; it drives me mad. I wanted escape-"
"You can't mean that. Will Herondale, minding what others think of him?"
Tessa tried to make her voice as light as possible. The look on his face startled her. It was not closed but open, as if he were caught half-entangled in a thought he desperately wanted to share, but could not bear to. This is the boy who took my private letters and hid them in his room, she thought, but she could work up no anger about it. She had thought she would be furious when she saw him again, but she was not, only puzzled and wondering.
Surely it showed a curiosity about other people that was quite un-Wil -like, to want to read them in the first place?
There was something raw in his face, his voice. "Tess," he said. "That is all I think about. I never look at you without thinking about what you feel about me and fearing-"
He broke off as the drawing room door opened and Charlotte came in, fol owed by a tal man whose bright blond hair shone like a sunflower in the dim light. Will turned away quickly, his face working. Tessa stared at him.
What had he been going to say?
"Oh!" Charlotte was clearly startled to see them both. "Tessa, Will -I didn't realize you were in here."
Will 's hands were in fists at his sides, his face in shadow, but his voice was level when he replied: "We saw the fire going. It's as chil as ice in the rest of the house."
Tessa stood up. "We'l just be on our way-"
"Wil Herondale, excel ent to see you looking well. And Tessa Gray!" The blond man broke away from Charlotte and came toward Tessa, beaming as if he knew her. "The shape-changer, correct? Enchanted to meet you. What a curiosity."
Charlotte sighed. "Mr. Woolsey Scott, this is Miss Tessa Gray. Tessa, this is Mr. Woolsey Scott, head of the London werewolf pack, and an old friend of the Clave."
"Very well, then," said Gideon as the door shut behind Tessa and Will. He turned toward Sophie, who was suddenly acutely aware of the largeness of the room, and how smal she felt inside it. "Shal we continue with the training?"
He held out a knife to her, shining like a silver wand in the room's dimness.
His green eyes were steady. Everything about Gideon was steady-his gaze, his voice, the way he held himself. She remembered what it felt like to have those steady arms around her, and shivered involuntarily. She had never been alone with him before, and it frightened her. "I don't think my heart would be in it, Mr. Lightwood," she said. "I appreciate the offer all the same, but . . ."
He lowered his arm slowly. "You think that I don't take training you seriously?"
"I think you're being very generous. But I ought to face facts, oughtn't I? This training was never about me or Tessa. It was about your father and the Institute. And now that I've slapped your brother-" She felt her throat tighten.
"Mrs. Branwel would be so disappointed in me if she knew."
"Nonsense. He deserved it. And the little matter of the blood feud between our families does come to mind." Gideon spun the silver knife carelessly about his finger and thrust it through his belt. "Charlotte would probably give you a rise in salary if she knew."
Sophie shook her head. They were only a few steps from a bench; she sank down onto it, feeling exhausted. "You don't know Charlotte. She'd feel honor-bound to discipline me."
Gideon settled himself on the bench-not beside her, but against the far side of it, as distant from her as he could get. Sophie couldn't decide whether she was pleased about that or not. "Miss Col ins," he said. "There is something you ought to know."
She laced her fingers together. "What is that?"
He leaned forward a little, his broad shoulders hunched. She could see the flecks of gray in his green eyes. "When my father called me back from Madrid," he said, "I did not want to come. I had never been happy in London.
Our house has been a miserable place since my mother died."
Sophie just stared at him. She could think of no words. He was a Shadowhunter and a gentleman, and yet he seemed to be unburdening his soul to her. Even Jem, for all his gentle kindness, had never done that.
"When I heard about these lessons, I thought they would be a dreadful waste of my time. I pictured two very sil y girls uninterested in any sort of instruction. But that describes neither Miss Gray nor yourself. I should tell you, I used to train younger Shadowhunters in Madrid. And there were quite a few of them who didn't have the same native ability that you do. You're a talented student, and it's a pleasure to teach you."
Sophie felt herself flush scarlet. "You can't be serious."
"I am. I was pleasantly surprised the first time I came here, and again so the next time and the next. I found that I was looking forward to it. In fact, it would be fair to say that since my return home, I have hated everything in London except these hours here, with you."
"But you said 'ay Dios mio' every time I dropped my dagger-"
He grinned. It lit up his face, changed it. Sophie stared at him. He was not beautiful like Jem was, but he was very handsome, especial y when he smiled. The smile seemed to reach out and touch her heart, speeding its pace. He is a Shadowhunter, she thought. A nd a gentleman. This is not the way to think about him. Stop it. But she could not stop, any more than she had been able to put Jem out of her mind. Though, where with Jem she had felt safe, with Gideon she felt an excitement like lightning that coursed up and down her veins, shocking her. And yet she did not want to let it go.
"I speak Spanish when I'm in a good mood," he said. "You might as well know that about me."
"So it wasn't that you were so weary of my ineptitude that you were wishing to hurl yourself off the roof?"
"Just the opposite." He leaned closer to her. His eyes were the green-gray of a stormy sea. "Sophie? Might I ask you something?"
She knew she should correct him, ask him to call her Miss Col ins, but she didn't. "I-yes?"
"Whatever happens with the lessons-might I see you again?"
Will had risen to his feet, but Woolsey Scott was still examining Tessa, his hand under his chin, studying her as if she were something under glass in a natural history exhibit. He was not at all what she would have thought the leader of a pack of werewolves would look like. He was probably in his early twenties, tal but slender to the point of slightness, with blond hair nearly to his shoulders, dressed in a velvet jacket, knee breeches, and a trailing scarf with a paisley print. A tinted monocle obscured one pale green eye. He looked like drawings she'd seen in Punch of those who called themselves "aesthetes."
"Adorable," he pronounced final y. "Charlotte, I insist they stay while we talk. What a charming couple they make. See how his dark hair sets off her pale skin-"
"Thank you," said Tessa, her voice shooting several octaves higher than usual, "Mr. Scott, that's very gracious, but there is no attachment between Will and myself. I don't know what you've heard-"
"Nothing!" he declared, throwing himself into a chair and arranging his scarf around him. "Nothing at all, I assure you, though your blushing belies your words. Come along now, everyone, sit down. There's no need to be intimidated by me. Charlotte, ring for some tea. I'm parched."
Tessa looked to Charlotte, who shrugged as if to say there was nothing to be done about it. Slowly Tessa sat back down. Will sat as well. She didn't look at him; she couldn't, with Woolsey Scott grinning at them both as if he knew something she didn't know.
"And where's young Mr. Carstairs?" he inquired. "Adorable boy. Such interesting coloring. And so talented on the violin. Of course, I've heard Garcin himself play at the Paris Opera, and after that, well, everything simply sounds like coal dust scraping the eardrums. Pity about his il ness."
Charlotte, who had gone across the room to ring for Bridget, returned and sat down, smoothing her skirts. "In a way, that's what I wanted to speak to you about-"
"Oh, no, no, no." From nowhere Scott had produced a majolica box, which he waved in Charlotte's direction. "No serious discussion, please, until I've had my tea and a smoke. Egyptian cigar?" He offered her the box. "They're the finest available."
"No, thank you." Charlotte looked mildly horrified at the idea of smoking a cigar; indeed, it was hard to picture, and Tessa felt Will, beside her, laugh silently. Scott shrugged and went back to his smoking preparations. The majolica box was a clever little thing with compartments for the cigars, tied in a bundle with a silk ribbon, new matches and old, and a place to tap one's ashes. They watched as the werewolf lit his cigar with evident relish, and the sweet scent of tobacco fil ed the room.
"Now," he said. "Tel me how you've been, Charlotte, darling. And that abstracted husband of yours. still wandering around the crypt inventing things that blow up?"
"Sometimes," said Will, "they're even supposed to blow up."
There was a rattle, and Bridget arrived with a tea tray, sparing Charlotte the need to answer. She set the tea things down on the inlaid table between the chairs, glancing back and forth anxiously. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Branwell. I thought there was only going to be two for tea-"
"It's quite all right, Bridget," said Charlotte, her tone firmly dismissive. "I Will ring for you if we need anything else."
Bridget dropped a curtsy and left, casting a curious eye over her shoulder at Woolsey Scott as she went. He took no notice of her. He had already poured milk into his teacup and was looking reproachful y at his hostess.
"Oh, Charlotte."
She looked at him in bewilderment. "Yes?"
"The tongs-the sugar tongs," Scott said sadly, in the voice of someone remarking on the tragic death of an acquaintance. "They're silver."
"Oh!" Charlotte looked startled. Silver, Tessa remembered, was dangerous for werewolves. "I'm so sorry-"
Scott sighed. "It's quite all right. Fortunately, I travel with my own." From another pocket in his velvet jacket-which was buttoned over a silk waistcoat with a print of water lilies that would have put one of Henry's to shame-he produced a rol ed-up bit of silk; unrol ing it revealed a set of gold tongs and a teaspoon. He set them on the table, took the lid off the teapot, and looked pleased. "Gunpowder tea! From Ceylon, I presume? Have you ever had the tea in Marrakech? They drench it in sugar or honey-"
"Gunpowder?" said Tessa, who had never been able to stop herself from asking questions even when she knew perfectly well it was a bad idea.
"There isn't gunpowder in the tea, is there?"
Scott laughed and set the lid back down. He sat back while Charlotte, her mouth set in a thin line, poured tea into his cup. "How charming! No, they call it that because the leaves of the tea are rol ed into smal pel ets that resemble gunpowder."
Charlotte said, "Mr. Scott, we really must discuss the situation at hand."
"Yes, yes, I read your letter." He sighed. "Downworlder politics. So dull. I don't suppose you'd let me tell you about having my portrait painted by Alma- Tadema? I was dressed as a Roman soldier-"
"Will," said Charlotte firmly. "Perhaps you should share with Mr. Scott what you saw in Whitechapel last night."
Will, somewhat to Tessa's surprise, obediently did as told, keeping the sarcastic observations to a minimum. Scott watched him over the rim of his teacup as Will spoke. His eyes were such a pale green, they were nearly yel ow.
"Sorry, my boy," he said when Will was done speaking. "I don't see why this requires an urgent meeting. We're all aware of the existence of these ifrit dens, and I can't be watching every member of my pack at every moment. If some of them choose to partake in vice . . ." He leaned closer. "You do know that your eyes are almost the exact shade of pansy petals? Not quite blue, not quite violet. Extraordinary."
Will widened his extraordinary eyes and smirked. "I think it was the mention of the Magister that concerned Charlotte."
"Ah." Scott turned his gaze on Charlotte. "You're concerned that I'm betraying you the way you thought de Quincey did. That I'm in league with the Magister-let's just call him by his name, shall we? Mortmain-and I'm letting him use my wolves to do his bidding."
"I had thought," Charlotte said, haltingly, "that perhaps London's Downworlders felt betrayed by the Institute, after what happened with de Quincey. His death-"
Scott adjusted his monocle. As he did, light flashed along the gold band he wore around his index finger. Words gleamed out against it: L'art pour l'art.
"Was the best surprise I've had since I discovered the Savoy Turkish Baths on Jermyn Street. I despised de Quincey. Loathed him with every fiber of my being."
"Well, the Night Children and the Moon's Children's have never quite-"
"De Quincey had a werewolf kil ed," Tessa said suddenly, her memories mixing with Camil e's, with the recol ection of a pair of yel ow-green eyes like Scott's. "For his-attachment-to Camil e Belcourt."
Woolsey Scott turned a long, curious look on Tessa. "That," he said, "was my brother. My older brother. He was pack leader before me, you see, and I inherited the post. Usual y one must kil to become pack leader. In my case, it was put to a vote, and the task of avenging my brother in the name of the pack was mine. Only now, you see-" He gestured with an elegant hand.
"You've taken care of de Quincey for me. You've no idea how grateful I am."
He cocked his head to the side. "Did he die well ?"
"He died screaming." Charlotte's bluntness startled Tessa.
"What a beautiful thing to hear." Scott put down his teacup. "For this you have earned a favor. I Will tell you what I know, though it isn't much. Mortmain came to me in the early days, wanting me to join with him in the Pandemonium Club. I refused, for de Quincey had already joined, and I would not be part of a club that had him in it. Mortmain let me know there would be a place for me should I change my mind-"
"Did he tell you of his goals?" Will interrupted. "Of the ultimate purpose of the club?"
"The destruction of all Shadowhunters," said Scott. "I rather thought you knew that. It isn't a gardening club."
"He has a grudge, we think," said Charlotte. "Against the Clave.
Shadowhunters kil ed his parents some years ago. They were warlocks, deep in the study of the black arts."
"Less of a grudge, more of an idee fixe," said Scott. "An obsession. He would see your kind wiped out, though he seems content to start with England and work his way out from there. A patient, methodical sort of madman. The worst kind." He sat back in his chair and sighed. "News has reached me of a group of young wolves, unsworn to any pack, who have been doing some sort of underground work and have been getting paid very well for it. Flashing their tin around among the pack wolves and creating animosities. I did not know about the drug."
"It Will keep them working for him, night and day, until they drop from exhaustion or the drug kil s them," said Will. "And there is no cure for addiction to it. It is deadly."
The werewolf's yel ow-green eyes met his. "This yin fen, this silver powder, it is what your friend James Carstairs is addicted to, isn't it? And he's alive."
"Jem survives it because he is a Shadowhunter, and because he uses as little as possible, as infrequently as possible. And even then it Will kil him in the end." Will 's voice was deadly flat. "As would withdrawing from it."
"Well, well," said the werewolf breezily. "I do hope that the Magister's merrily buying the stuff up doesn't create a shortage, in that case."
Will went white. It was clear the thought hadn't occurred to him. Tessa turned toward Will, but he was already on his feet, moving toward the door. It shut behind him with a bang.
Charlotte frowned. "Lord, he's off to Whitechapel again," she said. "Was that necessary, Woolsey? I think you just terrified the poor boy, and probably for nothing."
"Nothing wrong with a bit of foresight," said Scott. "I took my own brother for granted, until de Quincey kil ed him."
"De Quincey and the Magister were two of a kind-ruthless," Charlotte said. "If you could help us-"
"The whole situation is certainly beastly," observed Scott. "Unfortunately, lycanthropes who are not members of my pack are not my responsibility."
"If you could simply send out feelers, Mr. Scott. Any bit of information about where they are working or what they are doing could be invaluable. The Clave would be grateful."
"Oh, the Clave," said Scott, as if deadly bored. "Very well. Now, Charlotte.
Let us talk about you."
"Oh, but I am very dull," said Charlotte, and she-quite deliberately, Tessa was sure-upset the teapot. It struck the table with a gratifying bang, spil ing hot water. Scott jumped up with a cry, flipping his scarf out of the way of danger. Charlotte rose to her feet, clucking. "Woolsey, dear," she said, placing a hand on his arm, "you've been such a help. Let me show you out.
There's an antique keris that was sent to us from the Bombay Institute I've just been yearning to show you. . . ."