chapter 8: A Shadow On the Soul
Oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for "the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel," bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; and to the guilty man for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood.
-Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater In the morning when Tessa went down for breakfast, she found to her surprise that Will was not there. She had not realized how completely she had expected him to return during the night, and she found herself pausing in the doorway, scanning the seats around the table as if somehow she had accidental y glanced past him. It was not until her gaze came to rest on Jem, who returned her look with a rueful and worried expression of his own, that she knew that it was true. Will was still gone.
"Oh, he'l be back, for goodness' sake," said Jessamine crossly, banging her teacup down in its saucer. "He always does come crawling home. Look at the two of you. Like you've lost a favorite puppy."
Tessa shot Jem an almost guilty, conspiratorial look as she sat down across from him and took a slice of bread from the toast rack. Henry was absent; Charlotte, at the head of the table, was very clearly trying not to look nervous and worried, and failing. "Of course he will," she said. "Wil can take care of himself."
"Do you think he might have gone back to Yorkshire?" said Tessa. "To warn his family?"
"I . . . don't think so," Charlotte responded. "Wil has avoided his family for years. And he knows the Law. He knows he cannot speak to them. He knows what he would lose." Her eyes rested briefly on Jem, who was playing industriously with his spoon.
"When he saw Cecily, at the manor, he attempted to rush to her-" Jem said.
"In the heat of the moment," said Charlotte. "But he returned with you to London; I am confident he Will return to the Institute as well. He knows you obtained that button, Tessa. He'l want to discover what Starkweather knew."
"Precious little, real y," said Tessa. She still felt obscurely guilty that she had not found more useful information in Starkweather's memories. She had tried to explain what it was like to be in the mind of someone whose brain was decaying, but it had been hard to find the words, and she remembered mainly the look of disappointment on Charlotte's face when she'd said she had discovered nothing useful about Ravenscar Manor. She had told them all of Starkweather's memories of the Shade family, and that indeed if their deaths had been the impetus for Mortmain's desire for justice and vengeance, it did seem as if it would be a powerful one. She had kept his shock at seeing her to herself-it was baffling still, and seemed somehow private.
"What if Will chooses to leave the Clave forever?" Tessa said. "Would he return to his family to protect them?"
"No," Charlotte replied a little sharply. "No. I don't think he Will do that." She would miss Will if he were gone, Tessa thought with surprise. Will was always so unpleasant-and often so to Charlotte-that Tessa sometimes forgot the stubborn love Charlotte seemed to feel for all her charges.
"But if they're in danger-," Tessa protested, then fell silent as Sophie entered the room carrying a pot of hot water, and set it down. Charlotte brightened at the sight of her.
"Tessa, Sophie, Jessamine," she said. "Lest you forget, you all have training this morning with Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood."
"I cannot do it," Jessamine said immediately.
"Why not? I thought you had recovered from your headache-"
"Yes, but I don't want it to come back, do I?" Jessamine stood up hurriedly.
"I'd prefer to help you, Charlotte."
"I don't need your assistance writing to Ragnor Fell, Jessie. I'd really rather you took advantage of the training-"
"But there's dozens of replies piling up in the library from the Downworlders we've queried about Mortmain's whereabouts," Jessamine argued. "I could help you sort through those."
Charlotte sighed. "Very well." She turned to Tessa and Sophie. "In the meantime you won't say anything to the Lightwood boys about Yorkshire, or about Will ? I could do without having them in the Institute right now myself, but there's no help for it. It's a show of good faith and confidence to continue the training. You must behave in all ways as if nothing is wrong. Can you do that, girls?"
"Of course we can, Mrs. Branwell," said Sophie immediately. Her eyes were bright and she was smiling. Tessa sighed inwardly, not sure how to feel. Sophie adored Charlotte, and would do anything to please her. She also detested Will and was unlikely to be worried about his absence. Tessa looked across the table at Jem. She felt a hollowness in her stomach, the ache of not knowing where Will was, and wondered if he felt it too. His normal y expressive face was still and unreadable, though when he caught her glance, he smiled a gentle, encouraging smile. Jem was Will 's parabatai, his blood brother; surely if there were truly something to be concerned about where Will was involved, Jem would not be able to hide it-would he?
From the kitchen Bridget's voice rol ed out in a sweet high warble: "Must I go bound while you go free Must I love a man who doesn't love me Must I be born with so little art A s to love a man who'll break my heart?"
Tessa pushed her chair back from the table. "I think I had better go and get dressed."
Having changed from her day dress into gear, Tessa sat down on the edge of her bed and picked up the copy of Vathek Will had given her. It did not bring the thought of Will smiling to her mind, but other images of Will -Wil bending over her in the Sanctuary, covered in blood; Will squinting into the sun on the roof of the Institute; Will rol ing down the hil in Yorkshire with Jem, splattering himself with mud and not caring; Will fal ing off the table in the dining room; Will holding her in the dark. Will, Will, Will.
She threw the book. It struck the fireplace mantel and bounced off, landing on the floor. If only there were some way to scrape Will out of her mind, like scraping the mud off your shoe. If only she knew where he was. Worry made it worse, and she could not stop herself from worrying. She could not forget the look on his face as he had gazed at his sister.
Distraction made her late to the training room; fortunately, when she arrived, the door was open and there was no one there but Sophie, holding a long knife in her hand and examining it thoughtful y as she might examine a dust mop to decide if there was still use in it or if it was time for it to be thrown away.
She looked up as Tessa came into the room. "Well, you look like a wet weekend, miss," she said with a smile. "Is everything all right?" She cocked her head to the side as Tessa nodded. "Is it Master Will ? He's gone off missing for a day or two before. He'l be back, don't you fear."
"That's kind of you to say, Sophie, especial y as I know you are not overfond of him."
"I rather thought you weren't either," said Sophie, "least-ways not anymore . . ."
Tessa looked at her sharply. She had not had a real conversation with Sophie about Will since the roof incident, she thought, and besides, Sophie had warned her off him, comparing him to a poisonous snake. Before Tessa could say anything in reply, the door opened and Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood came in, fol owed by Jem. He winked at Tessa before disappearing, closing the door behind him.
Gideon went straight over to Sophie. "A good choice of blade," he said, faint surprise underlining his words. She blushed, looking pleased.
"So," said Gabriel, who had somehow managed to get behind Tessa without her noticing. After examining the racks of weapons along the wal s, he drew down a knife and handed it to her. "Feel the weight of the blade there."
Tessa tried to feel the weight of it, struggling to remember what he had told her about where and how it should balance in her palm.
"What do you think?" Gabriel asked. She looked up at him. Of the two boys he certainly looked more like his father, with his aquiline features and the faint shading of arrogance to his expression. His slim mouth curled up at the corners. "Or are you too busy worrying about Herondale's whereabouts to practice today?"
Tessa nearly dropped the knife. "What?"
"I heard you and Miss Col ins when I was coming up the stairs.
Disappeared, has he? Not surprising, considering I don't think Will Herondale and a sense of responsibility are even on speaking terms."
Tessa set her chin. Conflicted as she was about Will, there was something about someone outside the Institute's smal family criticizing him that set her teeth on edge. "It's quite a common occurrence, nothing to fuss about," she said. "Wil is a-free spirit. He'l return soon enough."
"I hope not," said Gabriel. "I hope he's dead."
Tessa's hand tightened around the knife. "You mean that, don't you? What did he do to your sister to make you hate him so much?"
"Why don't you ask him?"
"Gabriel." Gideon's voice was sharp. "Shal we get to the instruction, please, and cease wasting time?"
Gabriel glared at his older brother, who was standing quite peaceably with Sophie, but obediently turned his attention from Will to the day's training.
They were practicing how to hold blades today, and how to balance them as they swept them through the air without the blade point drooping forward or the handle slipping from the hand. It was harder than it looked, and today Gabriel wasn't patient. She envied Sophie, being taught by Gideon, who was always a careful, methodical instructor, though he did have a habit of slipping into Spanish whenever Sophie did something wrong. "A y Dios mio," he would say, pul ing the blade from where it had stuck, point down, in the floor.
"Shal we try that again?"
"Stand up straight," Gabriel was saying to Tessa meanwhile, impatiently.
"No, straight. Like this." He demonstrated. She wanted to snap at him that she, unlike him, had not had a lifetime of being taught how to stand and move; that Shadowhunters were natural acrobats, and she was nothing of the sort.
"Hmph," she said. "I'd like to see you learn how to manage sitting and standing up straight in stays and petticoats and a dress with a foot's worth of train!"
"So would I," said Gideon from across the room.
"Oh, by the Angel," said Gabriel, and he took her by the shoulders, flipping her around so she stood with her back to him. He put his arms around her, straightening her spine, arranging the knife in her hand. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and it made her shiver-and fil ed her with annoyance. If he was touching her, it was only because he presumed he could, without asking, and because he thought it would irritate Will.
"Let me go," she said, under her breath.
"This is part of your training," said Gabriel in a bored voice. "Besides, look at my brother and Miss Col ins. She isn't complaining."
She glanced across the room at Sophie, who seemed earnestly engaged in her lesson with Gideon. He was standing behind her, one arm around her from the back, showing her how to hold a needle-tipped throwing knife. His hand was gently cupped around hers, and he appeared to be speaking to the back of her neck, where her dark hair had escaped from its tight chignon and curled becomingly. When he saw Tessa looking at them, he flushed.
Tessa was amazed. Gideon Lightwood, blushing! Had he been admiring Sophie? Apart from her scar, which Tessa barely noticed anymore, she was lovely, but she was a mundane, and a servant, and the Lightwoods were awful snobs. Tessa's insides felt suddenly tight. Sophie had been treated abominably by her previous employer. The last thing she needed was some pretty Shadowhunter boy taking advantage of her.
Tessa looked around, about to say something to the boy with his arms around her-and stopped. She had forgotten that it was Gabriel beside her, not Jem. She had grown so used to Jem's presence, the ease with which she could converse with him, the comfort of his hand on her arm when they walked, the fact that he was the only person in the world now she felt she could say absolutely anything to. She realized with surprise that though she had just seen him at breakfast, she missed him, with what felt almost like an ache inside.
She was so caught up in this mixture of feelings-missing Jem, and a sense of passionate protectiveness over Sophie-that her next throw went wide by several feet, flying by Gideon's head and bouncing off the windowsill.
Gideon looked calmly from the fal en knife to his brother. Nothing seemed to bother him, not even his own near decapitation. "Gabriel, what is the problem, exactly?"
Gabriel turned his gaze on Tessa. "She won't listen to me," he said spiteful y. "I can't instruct someone who won't listen."
"Maybe if you were a better instructor, she'd be a better listener."
"And maybe you would have seen the knife coming," said Gabriel, "if you paid more attention to what's going on around you and less to the back of Miss Col ins's head."
So even Gabriel had noticed, Tessa thought, as Sophie blushed. Gideon gave his brother a long, steady look-she sensed there would be words between the two of them at home-then turned to Sophie and said something in a low voice, too low for Tessa to hear.
"What's happened to you?" she said under her breath to Gabriel, and felt him stiffen.
"What do you mean?"
"You're usual y patient," she said. "You're a good teacher, Gabriel, most of the time, but today you're snappish and impatient and . . ." She looked down at his hand on her arm. "Improper."
He had the good grace to release her, looking ashamed of himself. "A thousand pardons. I should not have touched you like that."
"No, you shouldn't. And after the way you criticize Will -"
He flushed along his high cheekbones. "I've apologized, Miss Gray. What more do you want of me?"
"A change in behavior, perhaps. An explanation of your dislike of Will -"
"I've told you! If you wish to know why I dislike him, you can ask him yourself!" Gabriel whirled and stalked out of the room.
Tessa looked at the knives stuck into the wal and sighed. "So ends my lesson."
"Try not to be too put out," said Gideon, approaching her with Sophie by his side. It was very odd, Tessa thought; Sophie usual y seemed uneasy around men, any men, even gentle Henry. With Will she was like a scalded cat, and with Jem, blushing and watchful, but beside Gideon she seemed . . .
Well, it was hard to define. But it was most peculiar.
"It is not your fault he is like this today," Gideon went on. His eyes on Tessa were steady. This close up she could see that they were not precisely the same color as his brother's. They were more of a gray-green, like the ocean under a cloudy sky. "Things have been . . . difficult for us at home with Father, and Gabriel is taking it out on you, or, real y, anyone who happens to be nearby."
"I'm most sorry to hear that. I hope your father is well," murmured Tessa, praying she would not be stricken down on the spot for this blatant falsehood.
"I suppose I had better go after my brother," said Gideon without answering her question. "If I do not, he Will take the carriage and leave me stranded. I hope to have him back to you at our next session in a better humor." He bowed to Sophie, then Tessa. "Miss Col ins, Miss Gray."
And he was gone, leaving both girls looking after him in mingled confusion and surprise.
With the training session merciful y over, Tessa found herself hurrying to change back into her ordinary clothes, and then to lunch, eager to see if Will had returned. He hadn't. His chair, between Jessamine and Henry, still sat empty-but there was someone new in the room, someone who made Tessa stop short at the doorway, trying not to stare. A tal man, he sat near the head of the table beside Charlotte, and was green. Not a very dark green -his skin had a faint greenish sheen to it, like light reflecting off the ocean, and his hair was snowy white. From his forehead curled two smal elegant horns.
"Miss Tessa Gray," said Charlotte, making the introductions, "this is the High Warlock of London, Ragnor Fell. Mr. Fell, Miss Gray."
After murmuring that she was delighted to meet him, Tessa sat down at the table beside Jem, diagonal y from Fell, and tried not to stare at him out of the corner of her eye. As Magnus's cat's eyes were his warlock's mark, Fel 's would be his horns and tinted skin. She couldn't help being fascinated by Downworlders still, warlocks in particular. Why were they marked and she wasn't?
"What's on the carpet, then, Charlotte?" Ragnor was saying. "Did you real y call me out here to discuss dark doings on the Yorkshire moors? I was under the impression that nothing of great interest ever happened in Yorkshire. In fact, I was under the impression that there was nothing in Yorkshire except sheep and mining."
"So you never knew the Shades?" Charlotte inquired. "The warlock population of Britain is not so large . . ."
"I knew them." As fell sawed into the ham on his plate, Tessa saw that he had an extra joint to each finger. She thought of Mrs. Black, with her elongated taloned hands, and repressed a shudder. "Shade was a little mad, with his obsession with clockwork and mechanisms. Their death was a shock to Downworld. The ripples of it went through the community, and there was even some discussion of vengeance, though none, I believe, was ever taken."
Charlotte leaned forward. "Do you remember their son? Their adopted child?"
"I knew of him. A married warlock couple is rare. One who adopts a human child from an orphanage is rarer still. But I never saw the boy. Warlocks-we live forever. A gap of thirty, even fifty, years between meetings is not unusual.
Of course now that I know what the boy grew up to be, I wish I had met him.
Do you think there is value in attempting to discover who his true parents were?"
"Certainly, if it can be discovered. Whatever information we can glean about Mortmain could be useful."
"I can tell you he gave himself that name," said Fell. "It sounds like a Shadowhunter name. It is the sort of name someone with a grudge against Nephilim, and a dark sense of humor, would take. Mort main-"
"Hand of death," supplied Jessamine, who was proud of her French.
"It does make one wonder," said Tessa. "If the Clave had simply given Mortmain what he wanted-reparations-would he still have become what he did? Would there ever have been a Pandemonium Club at all?"
"Tessa-," Charlotte began, but Ragnor fell waved her silent. He gazed amusedly down the table at Tessa. "You're the shape-changer, aren't you?"
he said. "Magnus Bane told me about you. No mark on you at all, they say."
Tessa swal owed and looked him straight in the eye. They were discordantly human eyes, ordinary in his extraordinary face. "No. No mark."
He grinned around his fork. "I do suppose they've looked everywhere?"
"I'm sure Will 's tried," said Jessamine in a bored tone. Tessa's silverware clattered to her plate. Jessamine, who had been mashing her peas flat with the side of her knife, looked up when Charlotte let out an aghast, "Jessamine!"
Jessamine shrugged. "Well, he's like that."
Fel turned back to his plate with a faint smile on his face. "I remember Will 's father. Quite the ladies' man, he was. They couldn't resist him. Until he met Will 's mother, of course. Then he threw it all in and went to live in Wales just to be with her. What a case he was."
"He fell in love," said Jem. "It isn't that peculiar."
"'Fel ' into it," said the warlock, still with the same faint smile. "Hurtled into it is more like. Headlong-crashed into it. Still, there are always some men like that-just one woman for them, and only she Will do, or nothing."
Charlotte looked over at Henry, but he appeared completely lost in thought, counting something-though who knew what-off on his fingers. He was wearing a pink and violet waistcoat today, and had gravy on his sleeve.
Charlotte's shoulders slumped visibly, and she sighed. "Well," she said. "By all accounts they were very happy together-"
"Until they lost two of their three children and Edmund Herondale gambled away everything they had," said Fell. "But I imagine you never told young Will about that."
Tessa exchanged a glance with Jem. My sister is dead, Will had said.
"They had three children, then?" she said. "Wil had two sisters?"
"Tessa. Please." Charlotte looked uneasy. "Ragnor . . . I never hired you to invade the privacy of the Herondales, or Will. I did it because I had promised Will I would tell him if harm came to his family."
Tessa thought of Will -a twelve-year-old Will, clinging to Charlotte's hand, begging to be told if his family died. Why run? she thought for the hundredth time. Why put them behind you? She had thought perhaps he did not care, but clearly he had cared. Cared still. She could not stop the tightening at her heart as she thought of him call ing out for his sister. If he loved Cecily as she had once loved Nate . . .
Mortmain had done something to his family, she thought. As he had to hers. That bound them to each other in a peculiar way, she and Will. Whether he knew it or not.
"Whatever it is that Mortmain has been planning," she heard herself say, "he has been planning it a long time. Since before I was born, when he tricked or coerced my parents into 'making' me. And now we know that years ago he involved himself with Will 's family and moved them to Ravenscar Manor. I fear we are like chess pieces he slides about a board, and the outcome of the game is already known to him."
"That is what he desires us to think, Tessa," said Jem. "But he is only a man. And each discovery we make about him makes him more vulnerable. If we were no threat, he would not have sent that automaton to warn us off."
"He knew exactly where we would be-"
"There is nothing more dangerous than a man bent on revenge," said Ragnor. "A man who has been bent on it for nearly three score years, who has nurtured it from a tiny, poisonous seed to a living, choking flower. He Will see it through, unless you end him first."
"Then, we Will end him," said Jem shortly. It was as close to a threat as Tessa had ever heard him make.
Tessa looked down at her hands. They were a paler white than they had been when she lived in New York, but they were her hands, familiar, the index finger slightly longer than the middle one, the half-moons of her nails pronounced. I could Change them, she thought. I could become anything, anyone. She had never felt more mutable, more fluid, or more lost.
"Indeed." Charlotte's tone was firm. "Ragnor, I want to know why the Herondale family is in that house-that house that belonged to Mortmain- and I want to see to it that they are safe. And I want to do it without Benedict Lightwood or the rest of the Clave hearing about it."
"I understand. You want me to look out for them as quietly as possible while also making inquiries regarding Mortmain in the area. If he moved them there, it must have been for a purpose."
Charlotte exhaled. "Yes."
Ragnor twirled his fork. "That Will be expensive."
"Yes," Charlotte said. "I am prepared to pay."
Fel grinned. "Then, I am prepared to endure the sheep."
The rest of the lunch passed in awkward conversation, with Jessamine moodily destroying her food without eating it, Jem unusual y quiet, Henry muttering equations to himself, and Charlotte and fell finalizing their plans for the protection of Will 's family. As much as Tessa approved of the idea-and she did-there was something about the warlock that made her uncomfortable in a way Magnus never had, and she was glad when lunch was over and she could escape to her room with a copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
It was not her favorite of the Bronte sisters' books-that honor went to Jane Eyre, and then Wuthering Heights, with Tenant a distant third-but she had read the other two so many times that no surprises lay between the pages, only phrases so familiar to her they had become like old friends. What she real y wanted to read was A Tale of Two Cities , but Will had quoted Sydney Carton to her enough times that she was afraid that picking it up would make her think of him, and make the weight of her nervousness greater. After all, it was never Darnay he quoted, only Sydney, drunk and wrecked and dissipated. Sydney, who died for love.
It was dark out, and the wind was blowing gusts of light rain against the windowpanes when the knock came at her door. It was Sophie, carrying a letter on a silver tray. "A letter for you, miss."
Tessa put the book down in astonishment. "Mail for me?"
Sophie nodded and came closer, holding out the tray. "Yes, but it doesn't say who it's from. Miss Lovelace almost snatched it, but I managed to keep it from her, nosy thing."
Tessa took the envelope. It was addressed to her, indeed, in a slanting, unfamiliar hand, printed on heavy cream-colored paper. She turned it over once, began to open it, and caught sight of Sophie's wide-eyed curious gaze reflected in the window. She turned and smiled at her. "That Will be all, Sophie," she said. It was the way she had read heroines dismissing servants in novels, and it seemed to be correct. With a disappointed look Sophie took her salver and retired from the room.
Tessa unfolded the letter and spread it out on her lap.
Dear sensible Miss Gray, I write to you on behalf of a mutual friend, one William Herondale.
I know that it is his habit to come and go-most often go-from the Institute as he pleases, and that therefore it may be some time before any alarm is raised at his absence. But I ask you, as one who holds your good sense in esteem, not to assume this absence to be of the ordinary sort. I saw him myself last night, and he was, to say the least, distraught when he left my residence. I have reason for concern that he might do himself an injury, and therefore I suggest that his whereabouts be sought and his safety ascertained. He is a difficult young man to like, but I believe you see the good in him, as I do, Miss Gray, and that is why I humbly address my letter to you- Your servant, Magnus Bane Postscript: If I were you, I would not share the contents of this letter with Mrs. Branwell. Just a suggestion.
M.B.
Though reading Magnus's letter made her feel as if her veins were full of fire, somehow Tessa survived the rest of the afternoon, and dinner as well, without-she thought-betraying any outward sign of her distress. It seemed to take Sophie an agonizingly long time to help her out of her dress, brush her hair, stoke the fire, and tell her the day's gossip. (Cyril's cousin worked in the Lightwoods' house and had reported that Tatiana-Gabriel and Gideon's sister-was due to return from her honeymoon on the Continent with her new husband any day now. The household was in an uproar as she was rumored to have a most unpleasant disposition.) Tessa muttered something about how she must take after her father that way. Impatience made her voice a croak, and Sophie was only just prevented from rushing out to get her a tisane of mint by Tessa's insistence that she was exhausted, and needed sleep more than she needed tea.
The moment the door shut behind Sophie, Tessa was on her feet, shimmying out of her nightclothes and into a dress, lacing herself up as best she could and throwing a short jacket on over the top. After a cautious glance out into the corridor, she slipped out of her room and across the hal to Jem's door, where she knocked as quietly as she could. For a moment nothing happened, and she had the fleeting worry that he had already gone to sleep, but then the door flew open and Jem stood on the threshold.
She had clearly caught him in the middle of readying himself for bed; his shoes and jacket were off, his shirt open at the col ar, his hair an adorable rumpled mess of silver. She wanted to reach out and smooth it down. He blinked at her. "Tessa?"
Without a word she handed him the note. He glanced up and down the corridor, then gestured her inside the room. She shut the door behind him as he read Magnus's scrawl once, and then again, before bal ing it up in his hand, the crackling paper loud in the room. "I knew it," he said.
It was Tessa's turn to blink. "Knew what?"
"That this wasn't an ordinary sort of absence." He sat down on the trunk at the foot of his bed and shoved his feet into his shoes. "I felt it. Here." He put his hand over his chest. "I knew there was something strange. I felt it like a shadow on my soul."
"You don't think he'd really hurt himself, do you?"
"Hurt himself, I don't know. Put himself in a situation where he might be hurt -" Jem stood up. "I should go."
"Don't you mean 'we'? You weren't thinking of going looking for Will without me, were you?" she asked archly, and when he said nothing, she said, "That letter was addressed to me, James. I didn't have to show it to you."
He half-closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he was smiling crookedly. "James," he said. "Ordinarily only Will call s me that."
"I'm sorry-"
"No. Don't be. I like the sound of it on your lips."
Lips. There was something strangely, delicately indelicate about the word, like a kiss itself. It seemed to hover in the air between them while they both hesitated. But it's Jem, Tessa thought in bewilderment. Jem. Not Will, who could make her feel as if he were running his fingers along her bare skin just by looking at her- "You're right," Jem said, clearing his throat. "Magnus would not have sent the letter to you had he not intended you to be part of searching for Will.
Perhaps he thinks your power Will be useful. In either case-" He turned from her, going to his wardrobe and flinging it open. "Wait for me in your room. I Will be there momentarily."
Tessa wasn't sure if she nodded-she thought she had-and moments later she found herself back in her bedroom, leaning against the door. Her face felt hot, as if she had stood too close to a fire. She looked around.
When had she started to think of this room as her bedroom? The big, grand space, with its mul ioned windows and softly glowing witchlight tapers, was so unlike the tiny box room she had slept in in the flat in New York, with its puddles of wax on the bedside table, caused by her staying up all night reading by candlelight, and the cheap wooden-framed bed with its thin blankets. In the winter the windows, il -seated, would rattle in their frames when the wind blew.
A soft knock on the door drew her out of her reverie, and she turned, flinging it open to find Jem on the threshold. He was full y dressed in Shadowhunter gear-the tough leather-looking black coat and trousers, the heavy boots. He put a finger to his lips and gestured for her to fol ow him.
It was probably ten o'clock at night, Tessa guessed, and the witchlight was burning low. They took a curious, winding path through the corridors, not the one she was used to taking to get to the front doors. Her confusion was answered when they reached a door set at the end of a long corridor. There was a rounded look to the space they stood in, and Tessa guessed they were probably inside one of the Gothic towers that stood at each corner of the Institute.
Jem pushed the door open and ushered her in after him; he closed the door firmly behind them, slipping the key he had used back into his pocket.
"This," he said, "is Will 's room."
"Gracious," Tessa said. "I've never been in here. I was starting to imagine he slept upside down, like a bat."
Jem laughed and went past her, over to a wooden bureau, and began to rummage through the contents on top of it as Tessa glanced around. Her heart was beating fast, as if she were seeing something she wasn't meant to see-some secret, hidden part of Will. She told herself not to be sil y, it was just a room, with the same heavy dark furniture as all the other Institute rooms. It was a mess, too-covers kicked down to the foot of the bed; clothes draped over the backs of chairs, teacups half-ful of liquid not yet cleared away, balanced precariously on the nightstand. And everywhere books-books on the side tables, books on the bed, books in stacks on the floor, books double-lined in shelves along the wal s. As Jem rummaged, Tessa wandered to the shelves and looked curiously at the titles.
She was not surprised to find that they were almost all fiction and poetry.
Some were titles in languages she couldn't read. She recognized Latin and the Greek alphabet. There were also books of fairy tales, The A rabian Nights, James Payn's work, Anthony Trol ope's Vicar of Bullhampton, Thomas Hardy's Desperate Remedies, a pile of Wilkie Col ins-The New Magdalen, The Law and the Lady, The Two Destinies , and a new Jules Verne novel titled Child of the Cavern that she itched to get her hands on.
And then, there it was-A Tale of Two Cities. With a rueful smile she reached to take it from the shelf. As she lifted it, several scrawled-on papers that had been pressed between the covers fluttered to the floor. She knelt to pick them up-and froze. She recognized the handwriting instantly. It was her own.
Her throat tightened as she thumbed through the pages. Dear Nate, she read. I tried to Change today, and failed. It was a coin they gave me, and I could get nothing from it. Either it was never owned by a person, or my power is weakening. I would not care, but that they whipped me-have you ever been whipped before? No, a silly question. Of course you haven't. It feels like fire being laid in lines across your skin. I am ashamed to say I cried, and you know how I hate to cry . . . And Dear Nate, I missed you so much today, I thought I would die. If you are gone, there is no one in the world who cares if I am dead or alive. I feel myself dissolving, vanishing into nothingness, for if there is no one in the world who cares for you, do you really exist at all?
These were the letters she had written her brother from the Dark House, not expecting Nate to read them-not expecting anyone to read them. They were more of a diary than letters, the only place where she could pour forth her horror, her sadness, and her fear. She knew that they had been found, that Charlotte had read them, but what were they doing here in Will's room, of all places, hidden between the pages of a book?
"Tessa." It was Jem. She turned quickly, slipping the letters into the pocket of her coat as she did so. Jem stood by the bureau, holding a silver knife in his hand. "By the Angel, this place is such a tip, I wasn't sure I'd be able to find it." He turned it over in his hands. "Wil didn't bring much from home when he came here, but he did bring this. It's a dagger his father gave him. It has the Herondale bird markings on the blade. It should have a strong enough imprint of him for us to track him with it."
Despite the encouraging words, he was frowning.
"What's wrong?" Tessa asked, crossing the room to him.
"I found something else," he said. "Wil has always been the one to buy my -my medicine for me. He knew I despised the whole transaction, finding Downworlders Will ing to sel it, paying for the stuff . . ." His chest rose and fel quickly, as if merely talking about it sickened him. "I would give him money, and off he would go. I found a bill, though, for the last transaction. It appears the drugs-the medicine-does not cost what I thought it did."
"You mean Will 's been cheating you out of money?" Tessa was surprised.
Will could be awful and cruel, she thought, but somehow she had thought his cruelty of a more refined order than that. Less petty. And to do that to Jem, of all people . . .
"Quite the opposite. The drugs cost much more than he said they did. He must have been making up the difference somehow." still frowning, he slid the dagger into his belt. "I know him better than anyone else in the world," he said matter-of-factly. "And yet still I find that Will has secrets that surprise me."
Tessa thought of the letters stuffed into the Dickens book, and what she intended to say to Will about it when she saw him again. "Indeed," she said.
"Though it is not so much a mystery, is it? Will would do anything for you-"
"I'm not sure I would take it quite that far." Jem's tone was wry.
"Of course he would," said Tessa. "Anyone would. You're so kind and so good-"
She broke off, but Jem's eyes had already widened. He looked surprised, as if he were not used to such praise, but surely he must be, Tessa thought in confusion. Surely everyone who knew him knew how lucky they were. She felt her cheeks begin to warm again, and cursed herself. What was going on?
A faint rattle came from the window; Jem turned after a moment's pause.
"That Will be Cyril," he said, and there was a slight, rough undercurrent to his voice. "I-I asked him to bring the carriage around. We had better go."
Tessa nodded, wordless, and fol owed him from the room.
When Jem and Tessa emerged from the Institute, the wind was still gusting into the courtyard, sending dried leaves skittering in circles like faerie dancers. The sky was heavy with a yel ow fog, the moon a gold disk behind it. The Latin words over the Institute's gates seemed to glow, picked out by the moonlight: We are dust and shadows.
Cyril, waiting with the carriage and the two horses, Balios and Xanthos, looked relieved to see them; he helped Tessa up into the carriage, Jem fol owing her, and then swung himself up into the driver's seat. Tessa, sitting opposite Jem, watched with fascination as he drew both the dagger and the stele from his belt; holding the dagger in his right hand, he drew a rune on the back of that hand with the tip of his stele. It looked to Tessa like all Marks looked, a ripple of unreadable waving lines, circling around to connect with one another in bold black patterns.
He gazed down at his hand for a long moment, then shut his eyes, his face stil with intense concentration. Just as Tessa's nerves began to sing with impatience, his eyes flew open. "Brick Lane, near Whitechapel High Street,"
he said, half to himself; returning the dagger and stele to his belt, he leaned out the window, and she heard him repeat the words to Cyril. A moment later Jem was back in the carriage, shutting the window against the cold air, and they were sliding and bumping forward over the cobblestones.
Tessa took a deep breath. She had been eager to look for Will all day, worried about him, wondering where he was-but now that they were rol ing into the dark heart of London, all she could feel was dread.