chapter 3 To the Last Hour
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist-slack they may be-these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Carrion Comfort"
Jem was leaning against the side of the Institute's carriage, his eyes closed, his face as pale as paper. Will stood beside him, his hand tightly gripping Jem's shoulder. Tessa knew as she hurried toward them that it was not just a brotherly gesture. His grip would be much of what was keeping Jem upright.
She and Henry had heard the dying scream of the worm. Gabriel had found them, what felt like moments later, racing down the front steps. He had told them breathlessly of the death of the creature, and then of what had happened to Jem, and everything for Tessa had gone white, as if she had been struck suddenly and hard across the face.
They were words she had not heard in a long time, but half-expected always, and dreamed of sometimes in nightmares that left her bolting upright, fighting for air-"Jem," "collapse," "breathing," "blood," "Will," "Will is with him," "Will-"
Of course Will was with him.
The others were swarming about, the Lightwood brothers with their sister, and even Tatiana was quiet, or perhaps Tessa simply could not hear her hysterics. Tessa was aware of Cecily nearby as well, and Henry standing awkwardly beside her, as if he wished to comfort her but did not know how to begin.
Will's eyes met Tessa's as she came closer, almost tripping again over her torn gown. For a moment they were in perfect understanding. Jem was what they could still look each other straight in the eye about. On the topic of Jem they were both fierce and unyielding. Tessa saw Will's hand tighten on Jem's sleeve. "She's here," he said.
Jem's eyes opened slowly. Tessa fought to keep the look of shock from her face. His pupils were blown out, his irises a thin ring of silver around the black. "Ni shou shang le ma, quin ai de?" he whispered.
Jem had been teaching Tessa Mandarin, at her insistence. She understood "quin ai de," at least, if not the rest. My dear, my darling. She reached for his hand, squeezed it. "Jem ..."
"Are you hurt, my love?" Will said. His voice was as level as his eyes, and for a moment the blood came up in Tessa's cheeks and she glanced down at her hand where it held Jem's; his fingers were paler than hers, like a doll's hands, made of porcelain. How had she not seen he was so ill?
"Thank you for the translation, Will," she answered, not looking away from her fiance. Jem and Will were both splattered with black ichor, but Jem's chin and throat were also stained with flecks of red blood. His own blood.
"I am not hurt," Tessa whispered, and then she thought, No, this will not do, not at all. Be strong for him. She straightened her shoulders, keeping her grip on Jem's hand. "Where is his medicine?" she demanded of Will. "Did he not take it before we left the Institute?"
"Do not talk about me as if I am not here," Jem said, but there was no anger in it. He turned his head to the side and said something, softly, under his breath to Will, who nodded and let go of his shoulder. Tessa could sense the tension in Will's posture; he was poised, catlike, to seize Jem again if the other boy should slip or fall, but Jem remained standing. "I am stronger when Tessa is here, you see. I told it to you," said Jem, still in the same soft voice.
At that, Will did duck his head so that Tessa could not see his eyes. "I see it," he said. "Tessa, there is none of his medicine here. I believe he left the Institute without taking enough of it, though he will not admit it. Ride back to the Institute with him in the carriage, and watch over him-someone must."
Jem took a rough breath. "The others-"
"I will drive for you. It will be little trouble; Balios and Xanthos know the way. Henry can drive the Lightwoods." Will was brisk and efficient, too brisk and efficient to even be thanked; he did not seem as if he wanted it. He helped Tessa get Jem into the carriage, very careful not to brush her shoulder or touch her hand as he did. He moved to tell the others what was happening. She caught a bit of Henry explaining that he needed to remove Benedict's record books from the house, before she reached to swing the carriage door closed, shutting herself and Jem into a welcome silence.
"What was inside the house?" Jem asked as they rattled through the open gate bordering the Lightwoods' property. He still looked ghastly, his head back against the cushions of the carriage, his eyes at half-mast, his cheekbones shining with fever. "I heard Henry speaking of Benedict's study ..."
"He had gone mad in there," she said, chafing his cold hands between hers. "In the days before he transformed, when Gabriel said he would not leave the room, his mind must have gone. He had scrawled on the wall in what looked like blood, sentences about 'the Infernal Devices.' That they had no pity, that they would never stop coming-"
"He must have meant the automaton army."
"He must have." Tessa shivered slightly, and moved closer to Jem. "I suppose it was foolish of me-but it has been so peaceful for these past two months-"
"You had forgotten about Mortmain?"
"No. Never forgotten." She glanced toward the window, though she could not see out; she had drawn the curtains when the light had seemed to be hurting Jem's eyes. "Hoped, perhaps, that he might have turned his mind elsewhere."
"We do not know that he hasn't." Jem's fingers wrapped around hers. "Benedict's death is a tragedy perhaps, but those wheels were set in motion long ago. This has nothing to do with you."
"There were other items in the library. Notes and books of Benedict's. Journals. Henry is bringing them back to the Institute to study. My name was in them." Tessa stopped herself; how could she trouble Jem with these things when he was so unwell?
As if Jem were reading her mind, his finger moved over her wrist, resting lightly on her pulse point. "Tessa, it is only a passing attack. It will not last. I would rather you told me the truth, all the truth, whether it is bitter or frightening, that I might share it with you. I would never let harm come to you, nor would any in the Institute." He smiled. "Your pulse is quickening."
The truth, all the truth, whether it is bitter or frightening. "I love you," she said.
He looked at her with a light in his thin face that made it more beautiful. "Wo xi wang ni ming tian ke yi jia gei wo."
"You ..." She drew her brows together. "You want to get married? But we are already engaged. I do not think one can get engaged twice."
He laughed, which turned into a cough; Tessa's whole body tightened, but the cough was slight, and there was no blood. "I said I would marry you tomorrow if I could."
Tessa pretended to toss her head. "Tomorrow is not convenient for me, sir."
"But you are already appropriately attired," he said with a smile.
Tessa looked down at the ruined gold of her wedding dress. "If I were getting married in a slaughterhouse," she allowed. "Ah, well. I did not like this one very much as it was. Much too gaudy."
"I thought you looked beautiful." His voice was soft.
Tessa laid her head against his shoulder. "There will be another time," she said. "Another day, another dress. A time when you are well and everything is perfect."
His voice was still gentle, but it held a terrible weariness. "There is no such thing as perfect, Tessa."
Sophie was standing at the window of her small bedroom, the curtain drawn back, her eyes fixed on the courtyard. It had been hours since the carriages had gone rattling away, and she was meant to be sweeping out the grates, but the brush and bucket were motionless at her feet.
She could hear Bridget's voice drifting softly up from the kitchen below:
"Earl Richard had a daughter;
A comely maid was she.
And she laid her love on Sweet William,
Though not of his degree."
Sometimes, when Bridget was in a particularly melodious mood, Sophie thought about stalking downstairs and pushing her into the oven like the witch in "Hansel and Gretel." But Charlotte would certainly not approve. Even if Bridget were singing about forbidden love between the social classes just at the same moment that Sophie was cursing herself for clutching the curtain fabric tightly in her hand, seeing gray-green eyes in her mind as she wondered and worried-Would Gideon be all right? Was he hurt? Could he fight his father? And how dreadful if he had to-
The gates of the Institute creaked open, and a carriage rattled inside; Will was driving. Sophie recognized him, hatless, his black hair wild in the wind. He leaped down from the driver's seat and came around to help Tessa out of the carriage-even at this distance Sophie could see that a bleak wreck had been made of her golden gown-and then Jem, leaning heavily on his parabatai's shoulder.
Sophie sucked in her breath. Though she no longer fancied herself in love with Jem, she still cared for him a great deal. It was hard not to, considering his openheartedness, his sweetness and graciousness. He had never been anything but exquisitely kind to her. She had been relieved over the past months that he had not had one of his "bad spells," as Charlotte called them-that though happiness had not healed him, he had seemed to be stronger, better....
The threesome had disappeared inside the Institute. Cyril had come from the stables and was dealing with the whickering Balios and Xanthos. Sophie took a deep breath and let the curtain fall away from her hand. Charlotte might need her, want her, to assist with Jem. If there was anything she could do ... She pulled herself away from the window and hurried out into the corridor and down the narrow servants' stairs.
In the hall downstairs she met Tessa, ashen and pinched-looking, hesitating just outside Jem's bedroom. Through the partly open door Sophie could see Charlotte bending over Jem, who was sitting on the bed; Will leaned by the fireplace, his arms crossed, tension clear in every line of his body. Tessa raised her head as she saw Sophie, a little of the color coming back into her face. "Sophie," she cried softly. "Sophie, Jem isn't well. He's had another ... another bout of illness."
"It will be all right, Miss Tessa. I've seen him very ill before, and he always comes through it, right as rain."
Tessa closed her eyes. The shadows beneath them were gray. She did not need to say what they were both thinking, that one day there would be a time when he would have an attack and he would not come through it.
"I ought to be fetching hot water," Sophie added, "and cloths-"
"I should be fetching those things," said Tessa. "And I would, but Charlotte says that I must change out of this dress, that demon blood can be dangerous if it too greatly encounters the skin. She sent Bridget for cloths and poultices, and Brother Enoch will arrive at any moment. And Jem will not hear otherwise, but-"
"That is enough," Sophie said firmly. "You will do him no good at all if you let yourself become ill as well. I will help you with the dress. Come, let us manage it, and quickly."
Tessa's eyes fluttered open. "Dear sensible Sophie. Of course you are right." She began to move across the corridor, toward her room. At the door she paused, and turned to look at Sophie. Her wide gray eyes searched the other girl's face, and she seemed to nod to herself, as if she had been proved right in a guess. "He is all right, you know. Not hurt at all."
"Master Jem?"
Tessa shook her head. "Gideon Lightwood."
Sophie blushed.
Gabriel wasn't sure quite why he was in the Institute's drawing room, except that his brother had told him to come here and wait, and even after everything that had happened, he was still used to doing what Gideon said. He was surprised at how plain the room was, nothing like the grand drawing rooms in either the Lightwoods' Pimlico house or the one in Chiswick. The walls were papered with a faded print of cabbage roses, the surface of the desk stained with ink and scarred with the marks of letter openers and pen nibs, and the grate was sooty. Over the fireplace hung a water-blotched mirror, framed in gilt.
Gabriel glanced at his own reflection. His gear was torn at the neck, and there was a red mark on his jaw where a long graze was in the process of healing. There was blood all over his gear-Your own blood, or your father's blood?
He pushed the thought away quickly. It was odd, he thought, how he was the one who looked like their mother, Barbara. She had been tall and inclined toward slenderness, with curling brown hair and eyes he remembered as the purest green, like the grass that sloped down toward the river behind the house. Gideon looked like their father: broad and stocky, with eyes more gray than green. Which was ironic, because Gabriel was the one who had inherited their father's temperament: headstrong and quick to anger, slow to forgive. Gideon and Barbara were more peacemakers, quiet and steady, faithful in their beliefs. They were both much more like-
Charlotte Branwell came in through the open door of the drawing room in a loose dress, her eyes as bright as a small bird's. Whenever Gabriel saw her, he was struck by how small she was, how he towered over her. What had Consul Wayland been thinking, giving this tiny creature power over the Institute and all the Shadowhunters of London?
"Gabriel." She inclined her head. "Your brother says you were not hurt."
"I'm quite all right," he said shortly, and immediately knew he had sounded rude. He had not meant to, precisely. His father had drilled into his head for years now what a fool Charlotte was, how useless and easily influenced, and though he knew his brother disagreed-disagreed enough to come and live in this place and leave his family behind-it was a hard lesson to put aside. "I thought you would be with Carstairs."
"Brother Enoch has arrived, with another of the Silent Brothers. They have banned us all from Jem's room. Will is pacing outside in the corridor like a caged panther. Poor boy." Charlotte looked at Gabriel briefly before walking to the fireplace. In her glance was a look of keen intelligence, quickly masked by the lowering of her eyelashes. "But enough of that. I understand that your sister has already been delivered to the Blackthorns' residence in Kensington," she said. "Is there someone you would like me to send a message to for you?"
"A-message?"
She paused before the fireplace, clasping her hands behind her back. "You need to go somewhere, Gabriel, unless you want me to turn you out of doors with only the key of the streets to your name."
Turn me out of doors? Was this horrible woman actually throwing him out of the Institute? He thought of what his father had always told him: The Fairchilds don't care about anyone but themselves and the Law. "I-the house in Pimlico-"
"The Consul will shortly be informed of all that transpired at Lightwood House," said Charlotte. "Both of your family's London residences will be confiscated in the name of the Clave, at least until they can be searched and it can be determined that your father left nothing behind that could provide the Council with clues."
"Clues to what?"
"To your father's plans," she said, unfazed. "To his connection to Mortmain, his knowledge of Mortmain's plans. To the Infernal Devices."
"I've never even heard of the bloody Infernal Devices," Gabriel protested, and then blushed. He had sworn, and in front of a lady. Not that Charlotte was quite like any other lady.
"I believe you," she said. "I don't know if Consul Wayland will, but that is your lookout. If you will give me an address-"
"I haven't got one," Gabriel said, in desperation. "Where do you think I could go?"
She just looked at him, one eyebrow raised.
"I want to stay with my brother," he said finally, aware that he sounded petulant and angry, but not quite sure what to do about it.
"But your brother lives here," she said. "And you have made your feelings about the Institute and about my claim to it very clear. Jem told me what you believe. That my father drove your uncle to suicide. It isn't true, you know, but I don't expect you to believe me. It does leave me wondering, however, why you would wish to remain here."
"The Institute is a refuge."
"Was your father planning on running it as a refuge?"
"I don't know! I don't know what his plans are-what they were!"
"Then why did you go along with them?" Her voice was soft but merciless.
"Because he was my father!" Gabriel shouted. He spun away from Charlotte, his breath becoming ragged in his throat. Only barely aware of what he was doing, he wrapped his arms around himself, hugging his own body tight, as if he could keep himself from coming undone.
Memories of the past few weeks, memories that Gabriel had been doing his best to press back into the very recesses of his mind, threatened to burst out into the light: weeks in the house after the servants had been sent away, hearing the noises coming from the upstairs rooms, screams in the night, blood on the stairs in the morning, Father shouting gibberish from behind the locked library door, as if he could no longer form words in English ...
"If you are going to throw me out on the street," Gabriel said, with a sort of terrible desperation, "then do it now. I do not want to think I have got a home when I have not. I do not want to think I am going to see my brother again if I am not going to."
"You think he would not go after you? Find you wherever you were?"
"I think he has proved who he cares for most," said Gabriel, "and it is not me." He slowly straightened, loosing his grip on himself. "Send me away or let me stay. I will not beg you."
Charlotte sighed. "You will not have to," she said. "Never before have I sent away anyone who told me they had nowhere else to go, and I will not start now. I will ask of you only one thing. To allow someone to live in the Institute, in the very heart of the Enclave, is to place my trust in their good intentions. Do not make me regret that I have trusted you, Gabriel Lightwood."
The shadows had lengthened in the library. Tessa sat in a pool of light by one of the windows, beside a shaded blue lamp. A book had been open on her lap for several hours, but she had not been able to concentrate on it. Her eyes skidded over the words on the pages without absorbing them, and she would often find that she was pausing to try to remember who a character was, or why they were doing what they were doing.
She was in the middle of beginning chapter five yet again when the creak of a floorboard alerted her, and she looked up to find Will standing before her, damp-haired, his gloves in his hands.
"Will." Tessa set the book down on the windowsill beside her. "You startled me."
"I didn't mean to interrupt," he said in a low voice. "If you are reading ..." He began to turn away.
"I am not," she said, and he stopped, looking back at her over his shoulder. "I cannot lose myself in words now. I cannot calm the distraction of my mind."
"Nor I," he said, turning fully now. He was no longer spattered in blood. His clothes were clean, and his skin mostly unmarked, though she could see the pinkish-white lines of grazes on his neck, disappearing down into the collar of his shirt, healing as the iratzes did their work.
"Is there news of my-is there news of Jem?"
"There is no change," he said, though she had guessed as much. If there had been a change, Will would not have been here. "The Brothers will still not let anyone into the room, not even Charlotte.
"And why are you here?" he went on. "Sitting in the dark?"
"Benedict wrote on the wall of his study," she said in a low voice. "Before he turned into that creature, I imagine, or while it was happening. I don't know. 'The Infernal Devices are without pity. The Infernal Devices are without regret. The Infernal Devices are without number. The Infernal Devices will never stop coming.'"
"The infernal devices? I assume he means Mortmain's clockwork creatures. Not that we have seen any of them for months."
"That does not mean they will not come back," Tessa said. She looked down at the library table, its scratched veneer. How often Will and Jem must have sat here together, studying, carving their initials, as bored schoolboys did, into the table's surface. "I am a danger to you here."
"Tessa, we have talked about this before. You are not the danger. You are the thing Mortmain wants, yes, but if you were not here and protected, he could get you easily, and to what destruction would he turn your powers? We don't know-only that he wants you for something, and that it is to our advantage to keep you from him. It is not selflessness. We Shadowhunters are not selfless."
She looked up at that. "I think you are very selfless." At his noise of disagreement she said: "Surely you must know that what you do is exemplary. There is a coldness to the Clave, it is true. We are dust and shadows. But you are like the heroes of ancient times, like Achilles and Jason."
"Achilles was murdered with a poisoned arrow, and Jason died alone, killed by his own rotting ship. Such is the fate of heroes; the Angel knows why anyone would want to be one."
Tessa looked at him. There were shadows under his blue eyes, she saw, and his fingers were worrying at the material of his cuffs, thoughtlessly, as if he were not aware he was doing it. Months, she thought. Months since they had been alone together for more than a moment. They'd had only accidental encounters in hallways, in the courtyard, awkwardly exchanged pleasantries. She had missed his jokes, the books he had lent her, the flashes of laughter in his gaze. Caught in the memory of the easier Will of an earlier time, she spoke without thinking:
"I cannot stop recollecting something you told me once," she said.
He looked at her in surprise. "Yes? And what is that?"
"That sometimes when you cannot decide what to do, you pretend you are a character in a book, because it is easier to decide what they would do."
"I am," Will said, "perhaps, not someone to take advice from if you are seeking happiness."
"Not happiness. Not exactly. I want to help-to do good-" She broke off and sighed. "And I have turned to many books, but if there is guidance in them, I have not found it. You said you were Sydney Carton-"
Will made a sound, and sank down onto a chair on the opposite side of the table from her. His lashes were lowered, veiling his eyes.
"And I suppose I know what that makes the rest of us," she said. "But I do not want to be Lucie Manette, for she did nothing to save Charles; she let Sydney do it all. And she was cruel to him."
"To Charles?" Will said.
"To Sydney," Tessa said. "He wanted to be a better man, but she would not help him."
"She could not. She was engaged to Charles Darney."
"Still, it was not kind," Tessa said.
Will threw himself out of his chair as quickly as he had thrown himself into it. He leaned forward, his hands on the table. His eyes were very blue in the blue light of the lamp. "Sometimes one must choose whether to be kind or honorable," he said. "Sometimes one cannot be both."
"Which is better?" Tessa whispered.
Will's mouth twisted with bitter humor. "I suppose it depends on the book."
Tessa craned her head back to look at him. "You know that feeling," she said, "when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing close around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage, and you cannot let go or turn the course aside." His blue eyes were dark with understanding-of course Will would understand-and she hurried on. "I feel now as if the same is happening, only not to characters on a page but to my own beloved friends and companions. I do not want to sit by while tragedy comes for us. I would turn it aside, only I struggle to discover how that might be done."
"You fear for Jem," Will said.
"Yes," she said. "And I fear for you, too."
"No," Will said hoarsely. "Don't waste that on me, Tess."
Before she could reply, the library door opened. It was Charlotte, looking drained and exhausted. Will turned toward her quickly.
"How is Jem?" he said.
"He is awake and talking," said Charlotte. "He has had some of the yin fen, and the Silent Brothers have been able to make his condition stable, and to stop the internal bleeding."
At the mention of internal bleeding, Will looked as if he were going to throw up; Tessa imagined she looked much the same.
"He can have a visitor," Charlotte went on. "In fact, he has requested it."
Will and Tessa exchanged a quick glance. Tessa knew what both were thinking: Which of them should the visitor be? Tessa was Jem's fiancee, but Will was his parabatai, which was sacred in and of itself. Will had begun to step back, when Charlotte spoke again, sounding tired down to her bones:
"He has asked for you, Will."
Will looked startled. He darted a glance at Tessa. "I-"
Tessa could not deny the little burst of surprise and almost-jealousy she had felt behind her rib cage at Charlotte's words, but she pushed it down ruthlessly. She loved Jem enough to want whatever he wanted for himself, and he always had his reasons. "You go," she said gently. "Of course he would want to see you."
Will began to move toward the door to join Charlotte. Halfway there he turned back and crossed the room to Tessa. "Tessa," he said, "while I am with Jem, would you do something for me?"
Tessa looked up and swallowed. He was too close, too close: All the lines, shapes, angles of Will filled her field of vision as the sound of his voice filled her ears. "Yes, certainly," she said. "What is it?"
To: Edmund and Linette Herondale
Ravenscar Manor
West Riding, Yorkshire
Dear Dad and Mam,
I know it was cowardly of me to have left as I did, in the early morning before you woke, with only a note to explain my absence. I could not bear to face you, knowing what I had decided to do, and that I was the worst of disobedient daughters.
How can I explain the decision I made, how I arrived at it? It seems, even now, like madness. Each day in fact is madder than the one before it. You did not lie, Dad, when you said the life of a Shadowhunter was like a feverish dream-
Cecily drew the nib of the pen viciously through the lines she had written, then crumpled up the paper in one hand and rested her head on the desk.
She had started this letter so many times, and had yet to arrive at any satisfactory version. Perhaps she should not be attempting it now, she thought, not when she had been trying to calm her nerves since they had returned to the Institute. Everyone had been swarming about Jem, and Will, after roughly checking her for injuries in the garden, had barely spoken to her again. Henry had gone running for Charlotte, Gideon had drawn Gabriel aside, and Cecily had found herself climbing the Institute stairs alone.
She had slipped into her bedroom, not bothering to divest herself of her gear, and curled up on the soft four-poster bed. As she'd lain among the shadows, hearing the faint sounds of London passing by outside, her heart had clenched with sudden, painful homesickness. She'd thought of the green hills of Wales, and of her mother and father, and had bolted out of the bed as if she had been pushed, stumbling to the desk and taking up pen and paper, the ink staining her fingers in her haste. And yet the right words would not come. She felt as if she bled her regret and her loneliness from her very pores, and yet she could not shape those feelings into any sentiment she could imagine her parents could bear reading.
At that moment there was a knock on the door. Cecily reached for a book she had left resting on the desk, propped it up as if she had been reading, and called: "Come in."
The door swung open; it was Tessa, standing hesitantly in the doorway. She was no longer wearing her destroyed wedding dress but a simple gown of blue muslin with her two necklaces glittering at her throat: the clockwork angel and the jade pendant that had been her bridal gift from Jem. Cecily looked at Tessa curiously. Though the two girls were friendly, they were not close. Tessa had a certain wariness around her that Cecily suspected the source of without ever being able to prove it; on top of that there was something fey and strange about her. Cecily knew she could shape-shift, could transform herself into the likeness of any person, and Cecily could not rid herself of the sense that it was unnatural. How could you know someone's true face if they could change it as easily as someone else might change a gown?
"Yes?" Cecily said. "Miss Gray?"
"Please call me Tessa," said the other girl, shutting the door behind her. It was not the first time she had asked Cecily to call her by her given name, but habit and perversity kept Cecily from doing it. "I came to see if you were all right and if you needed anything."
"Ah." Cecily felt a slight pang of disappointment. "I am quite all right."
Tessa moved forward slightly. "Is that Great Expectations?"
"Yes." Cecily did not say that she had seen Will reading it, and had picked it up to try to gain insight into what he was thinking. So far she was woefully lost. Pip was morbid, and Estella so awful that Cecily wanted to shake her.
"'Estella,'" Tessa said softly. "'To the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.'"
"So you memorize passages of books, just like Will? Or is this a favorite?"
"I don't have Will's memory," said Tessa, coming forward slightly. "Or his mnemosyne rune. But I do love that book." Her gray eyes searched Cecily's face. "Why are you still in your gear?"
"I was thinking of going up to the training room," Cecily said. "I find I can think well there, and it isn't as if anyone minds one way or the other what I do."
"More training? Cecily, you've just been in a battle!" Tessa protested. "I know it can sometimes take more than one application of runes to entirely heal- Before you start training again, I should call someone to you: Charlotte, or-"
"Or Will?" Cecily snapped. "If either of them cared, they would have come already."
Tessa paused by the bedside. "You cannot think Will doesn't care about you."
"He isn't here, is he?"
"He sent me," Tessa said, "because he is with Jem," as if that explained everything. Cecily supposed that in a way it did. She knew that Will and Jem were close friends, but also that it was more than that. She had read of parabatai in the Codex, and knew that the bond was one that did not exist among mundanes, something closer than brothers and better than blood. "Jem is his parabatai. He has made a vow to be there in times like this."
"He would be there, vow or not. He would be there for any of you. But he has not so much as come by to see if I needed another iratze."
"Cecy ...," Tessa began. "Will's curse-"
"It wasn't a real curse!"
"You know," Tessa said thoughtfully, "in its way, it was. He believed no one could love him, and that if he allowed them to, it would result in their death. That is why he left you all. He left you to keep you safe, and here you are now-the very definition, to him, of not safe. He cannot bear to come and look at your injuries, because to him it is as if he had put them there himself."
"I chose this. Shadowhunting. And not only because I wanted to be with Will."
"I know that," Tessa said. "But I also sat with Will while he was delirious from exposure to vampire blood, choking on holy water, and I know the name he called out. It was yours."
Cecily looked up in surprise. "Will called out for me?"
"Oh, yes." A small smile touched the edge of Tessa's mouth. "He wouldn't tell me who you were, of course, when I asked him, and it drove me half-mad-" She broke off, and looked away.
"Why?"
"Curiosity," said Tessa with a shrug, though there was a flush on her cheekbones. "It's my besetting sin. In any event, he loves you. I know that with Will everything is backward and upside down, but the fact that he isn't here is only further proof to me of how precious you are to him. He is used to pushing away everyone he loves, and the more he loves you, the more he will violently try not to show it."
"But there is no curse-"
"The habits of years are not unlearned so quickly," Tessa said, and her eyes were sad. "Do not make the mistake of believing that he does not love you because he plays at not caring, Cecily. Confront him if you must and demand the truth, but do not make the mistake of turning away because you believe that he is a lost cause. Do not cast him from your heart. For if you do, you will regret it."
To: Members of the Council
From: Consul Josiah Wayland
Forgive the delay in my reply, gentlemen. I wished to be sure that I was not giving you my opinions in any spirit of precipitate haste, but rather that my words were the sound and well-reasoned results of patient thought.
I am afraid I cannot second your recommendation of Charlotte Branwell as my successor. Though possessed of a good heart, she is altogether too flighty, emotional, passionate, and disobedient to have the making of a Consul. As we know, the fair sex has its weaknesses that men are not heir to, and sadly she is prey to all of them. No, I cannot recommend her. I urge you to consider another-my own nephew, George Penhallow, who will be twenty-five this November and is a fine Shadowhunter and an upstanding young man. I believe he has the moral certainty and strength of character to lead the Shadowhunters into a new decade.
In Raziel's name,
Consul Josiah Wayland