Clockwork Prince tid-2 Page 17

  Jem took her hand. “I can’t glamour you against the glances of mundanes,” he said. “So keep your head down and keep close to me.”

  Tessa smiled crookedly but didn’t take her hand out of his. “You said that already.”

  He leaned close and whispered into her ear. His breath sent a shiver racing through her whole body. “It’s very important.”

  He reached past her for the door and swung it open. He leaped down onto the pavement and helped her down after him, pulling her close against his side. Tessa looked up and down the street. There were some incurious stares from the crowds, but the two of them were largely ignored. They headed toward a narrow door painted red. There were steps around it, but unlike all the other steps in the area, they were bare. No one was sitting on them. Jem took them quickly, pulling her up after him, and rapped sharply on the door.

  It was opened after a moment by a woman in a long red dress, fitted so tightly to her body that Tessa’s eyes widened. She had black hair piled on her head, kept in place by a pair of gold chopsticks. Her skin was very pale, her eyes rimmed with kohl—but on closer examination Tessa realized she was white, not foreign. Her mouth was a sulky red bow. It turned down at the corners as her gaze came to rest on Jem.

  “No,” she said. “No Nephilim.”

  She moved to shut the door, but Jem had raised his cane; the blade shot out from the base of it, holding the door open wide. “No trouble,” he said. “We’re not here for the Clave. It’s personal.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “We’re looking for someone,” he said. “A friend. Take us to him, and we won’t bother you further.”

  At that, she threw her head back and laughed. “I know who you’re looking for,” she said. “There’s only one of your kind here.” She turned away from the door with a shrug of contempt. Jem’s blade slid back into its casing with a hiss, and he ducked under the low lintel, drawing Tessa after him.

  Beyond the door was a narrow corridor. A heavy sweet smell hung on the air, like the smell that hung about Jem’s clothing after he had taken his drug. Her hand tightened involuntarily on his. “This is where Will comes to buy the—to buy what I need,” he whispered, inclining his head so that his lips nearly touched her ear. “Although why he would be here now . . .”

  The woman who had opened the door for them glanced back over her shoulder as she set off down the hall. There was a slit up the back of her dress, showing much of her legs—and the end of a long, slender forked tail, marked with black and white markings like the scales of a snake. She’s a warlock, Tessa thought with a dull thud at her heart. Ragnor, the Dark Sisters, this woman—why was it that warlocks always seemed so—sinister? With the exception of Magnus perhaps, but she had the feeling Magnus was an exception to many rules.

  The corridor widened out into a large room, its walls painted dark red. Great lamps, their sides carved and painted with delicate traceries that threw patterned light against the walls, hung down from the ceiling. Along the walls were ranged beds, in bunks, like the inside of a ship. A large round table dominated the center of the room. At it sat a number of men, their skin the same blood-red as the walls, their black hair clipped close to their heads. Their hands ended in blue-black talons that had also been clipped, probably to allow them to more easily count and sift and mix the various powders and concoctions they had spread out before them. The powders seemed to glimmer and shine under the lamplight, like pulverized jewels.

  “Is this an opium den?” Tessa whispered into Jem’s ear.

  His eyes were raking the room anxiously. She could sense the tension in him, a thrum just under the skin, like the fast-beating heart of a hummingbird. “No.” He sounded distracted. “Not really—mostly demon drugs and faerie powders. Those men at the table, they’re ifrits. Warlocks without powers.”

  The woman in the red dress was leaning over the shoulder of one of the ifrits. Together they looked up and over at Tessa and Jem, their eyes lingering on Jem. Tessa didn’t like the way they were looking at him. The warlock woman was smiling; the ifrit’s look was calculating. The woman straightened up and swayed over to them, her hips moving like a metronome under the tight satin of her dress.

  “Madran says we have what you want, silver boy,” said the warlock woman, raking a blood-red nail across Jem’s cheek. “No need for pretense.”

  Jem flinched back from her touch. Tessa had never seen him look so unnerved. “I told you, we’re here for a friend,” he snapped. “A Nephilim. Blue eyes, black hair—” His voice rose. “Ta xian zai zai na li?”

  She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. “You are foolish,” she said. “There is little of the yin fen left, and when it is gone, you will die. We struggle to obtain more, but lately the demand—”

  “Spare us your attempts to sell your merchandise,” said Tessa, suddenly angry. She couldn’t bear the look on Jem’s face, as if each word were the cut of a knife. No wonder Will bought his poisons for him. “Where is our friend?”

  The warlock woman hissed, shrugged, and pointed toward one of the bunk beds bolted to the wall. “There.”

  Jem whitened as Tessa stared. Their occupants were so still that at first she had thought the beds were empty, but she realized now, looking more closely, that each was taken up by a sprawled figure. Some lay on their sides, arms trailing over the edges of the bed, hands splayed; most were on their backs, eyes open, staring at the ceiling or the bunk above them.

  Without another word Jem began to stalk across the room, Tessa on his heels. As they drew closer to the beds, she realized that not all the occupants were human. Blue, violet, red, and green skin flashed past; green hair as long and netted as a web of seaweed brushed restlessly against a dirty pillow; taloned fingers gripped the wooden sides of a bunk as someone moaned. Someone else was giggling softly, hopelessly, a sound sadder than weeping; another voice repeated a children’s rhyme over and over and over again:

  “Oranges and lemons

  Say the bells of St. Clement’s

  When will ye pay me?

  Ring the bells at Old Bailey

  When I grow rich

  Say the bells of Shoreditch—”

  “Will,” whispered Jem. He had stopped at a bunk halfway down the wall, and leaned against it, as if his legs threatened to give way.

  Lying in the bunk was Will, half-tangled in a dark, ragged blanket. He wore nothing but trousers and a shirt; his weapons belt hung on a nail peg inside the bunk. His feet were bare, his eyes half-lidded, their blue only slightly visible beneath the fringe of his dark lashes. His hair was wet with sweat, pasted to his forehead, his cheeks bright red and feverish. His chest rose and fell raggedly, as if he were having trouble drawing breath.

  Tessa reached out and put the back of her hand to his forehead. It was burning. “Jem,” she said softly. “Jem, we must get him out of here.”

  The man in the bunk beside them was still singing. Not that he was quite a man, exactly. His body was short and twisted, his shoeless feet ending in cloven hooves.

  “When will that be?

  Say the bells of Stepney

  I do not know,

  Says the great bell of Bow”

  Jem was still staring down at Will, motionless. He seemed frozen. His face had gone a patchy white and red color.

  “Jem!” Tessa whispered. “Please. Help me get him on his feet.” When Jem did not move, she reached out, took Will by the shoulder, and shook him. “Will. Will, wake up, please.”

  Will only groaned and turned away from her, burying his head against his arm. He was a Shadowhunter, she thought, six feet of bone and muscle, far too heavy for her to lift. Unless—

  “If you do not help me,” Tessa said to Jem, “I swear, I will Change into you, and I will lift him myself. And then everyone here will see what you look like in a dress.” She fixed him with a look. “Do you understand?”

  Very slowly he raised his eyes to hers. He did not look fazed by the idea of being seen by ifrits
in a dress; he did not look as if he saw her at all. It was the first time she could remember seeing those silver eyes without any light behind them. “Do you?” he said, and reached into the bunk, catching Will by the arm and hauling him sideways, taking little care, and bumping Will’s head, hard, against the side rail of the bed.

  Will groaned and opened his eyes. “Let me go—”

  “Help me with him,” Jem said without looking at Tessa, and together they wrestled Will out of the bunk. He nearly fell, sliding his arm around Tessa to balance himself as Jem retrieved his weapons belt from the nail it was hanging from.

  “Tell me this is not a dream,” Will whispered, nuzzling his face into the side of her neck. Tessa jumped. He felt feverishly hot against her skin. His lips grazed her cheekbone; they were as soft as she remembered.

  “Jem,” Tessa said desperately, and Jem looked over at them; he had been buckling Will’s belt over his own, and it seemed clear he hadn’t heard a word Will had said. He knelt down to stuff Will’s feet into his boots, then rose to take his parabatai’s arm. Will seemed delighted by this.

  “Oh, good,” he said. “Now we’re all three together.”

  “Shut up,” said Jem.

  Will giggled. “Listen, Carstairs, you haven’t any of the needful on you, have you? I’d stump up, but I’m flat out.”

  “What did he say?” Tessa was baffled.

  “He wants me to pay for his drugs.” Jem’s voice was stiff. “Come. We’ll get him to the carriage, and I’ll come back with the money.”

  As they struggled toward the door, Tessa heard the voice of the cloven-footed man, following them, thin and as high as music piped through reeds, ending in a high-pitched giggle.

  “Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

  And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!”

  * * *

  Even the dirty Whitechapel air seemed clear and fresh after the cloying incense stench of the faerie drug den. Tessa almost stumbled going down the stairs. The carriage was thankfully still at the curb, and Cyril was swinging himself down out of the seat, heading over to them, concern on his big, open face.

  “Is he all right, then?” he said, taking the arm that Will had draped over Tessa’s shoulders and draping it over his own. Tessa slipped aside gratefully; her back had begun to ache.

  Will predictably, though, did not like this. “Let me go,” he said with sudden irritation. “Let me go. I can stand.”

  Jem and Cyril exchanged glances, then moved apart. Will staggered, but stayed upright. He raised his head, the cold wind lifting the sweaty hair from his neck and forehead, blowing it across his eyes. Tessa thought of him up on the roof of the Institute: And I behold London, a human awful wonder of God.

  He looked at Jem. His eyes were bluer than blue, his cheeks flushed, his features angelic. He said, “You did not have to come and fetch me like some child. I was having quite a pleasant time.”

  Jem looked back at him. “God damn you,” he said, and hit Will across the face, sending him spinning. Will didn’t lose his footing, but fetched up against the side of the carriage, his hand to his cheek. His mouth was bleeding. He looked at Jem with total astonishment.

  “Get him into the carriage,” Jem said to Cyril, and turned and went back through the red door—to pay for whatever Will had taken, Tessa thought. Will was still staring after him, the blood reddening his mouth.

  “James?” he said.

  “Come along, then,” said Cyril, not unkindly. He really was awfully like Thomas, Tessa thought as he opened the carriage door and helped Will inside, and then Tessa after him. He gave her a handkerchief from his pocket. It was warm and smelled like cheap eau de cologne. She smiled and thanked him as he shut the door.

  Will was slumped in the corner of the carriage, his arms around himself, his eyes half-open. Blood had trickled down his chin. She leaned over and pressed the handkerchief to his mouth; he reached up and put his hand over hers, holding it there. “I’ve made a mess of things,” he said. “Haven’t I?”

  “Dreadfully, I’m afraid,” said Tessa, trying not to notice the warmth of his hand over hers. Even in the darkness of the carriage, his eyes were luminously blue. What was it Jem had said, though, about beauty? Beauty is harsh. Would people forgive Will the things he did if he were ugly? And did it help him, in the end, to be forgiven? Though, she could not help but feel he did the things he did not because he loved himself too much but because he hated himself. And she did not know why.

  He closed his eyes. “I’m so tired, Tess,” he said. “I only wanted pleasant dreams for once.”

  “That is not the way to get them, Will,” she said softly. “You cannot buy or drug or dream your way out of pain.”

  His hand tightened over hers.

  The carriage door opened. Tessa drew back from Will hastily. It was Jem, his face like thunder; he spared a cursory glance at Will, threw himself into a seat, and reached up to rap on the roof. “Cyril, drive home,” he called, and after a moment the carriage lurched forward into the night. Jem reached out and drew the curtains across the windows. In the dimness Tessa slipped the handkerchief into her sleeve. It was still damp with Will’s blood.

  Jem said nothing all the way back from Whitechapel, merely stared stonily ahead of him with his arms folded while Will slept, a faint smile on his face, in the corner of the carriage. Tessa, across from them both, could think of nothing to say to break Jem’s silence. This was so utterly unlike him—Jem, who was always sweet, always kind, always optimistic. His expression now was worse than blank, his nails digging into the fabric of his gear, his shoulders stiff and angular with rage.

  The moment they drew up in front of the Institute, he threw the door open and leaped out. She heard him shout something to Cyril about helping Will to his room, and then he stalked away, up the steps, without another word to her. Tessa was so shocked, she could only stare after him for a moment. She moved to the carriage door; Cyril was already there, his hand up to help her down. Barely had Tessa’s shoes hit the cobblestones than she was hurrying after Jem, calling his name, but he was already inside the Institute. He had left the door open for her, and she dashed in after him, after only a brief glance to confirm that Will was being helped by Cyril. She hurried up the stairs, dropping her voice as she realized that, of course, the Institute was asleep, the witchlight torches dimmed to their lowest glow.

  She went to Jem’s room first and knocked; when there was no answer, she sought a few of his most commonly visited haunts—the music room, the library—but, finding nothing, she returned, disconsolate, to her own room to ready herself for bed. In her nightgown, her dress brushed and hung up, she crawled between the sheets of her bed and stared at the ceiling. She even picked up Will’s copy of Vathek from her floor, but for the first time the poem in the front failed to make her smile, and she could not concentrate on the story.

  She was startled at her own distress. Jem was angry at Will, not at her. Still, she thought, it was perhaps the first time he had lost his temper in front of her. The first time he had been curt with her, or not attended with kindness to her words, had not seemed to think of her first before himself. . . .

  She had taken him for granted, she thought with surprise and shame, watching the flickering candlelight. She had assumed his kindness was so natural and so innate, she had never asked herself whether it cost him any effort. Any effort to stand between Will and the world, protecting each of them from the other. Any effort to accept the loss of his family with equanimity. Any effort to remain cheerful and calm in the face of his own dying.

  A rending noise, the sound of something being wrenched apart, tore through the room. Tessa sat bolt upright. What was that? It seemed to be coming from outside her door—across the hall—

  Jem?

  She leaped to her feet and caught her dressing gown down from its peg. Hurriedly slipping into it, she darted out the door and into the corridor.

  She had been correct—the noise was coming fr
om Jem’s room. She remembered the first night she had met him, the lovely violin music that had poured like water through the doorway. This noise sounded nothing like Jem’s music. She could hear the saw of bow against string, yet it sounded like screaming, like a person screaming in awful pain. She both longed to go in and felt terrified to do so; finally she took hold of the knob of the door and swung it open, and then ducked inside and pulled the door closed fast after her.

  “Jem,” she whispered.

  The witchlight torches were burning low on the walls. Jem sat on the trunk at the foot of his bed in just his shirtsleeves and trousers, his silver hair tousled, the violin propped against his shoulder. He was sawing at it viciously with the bow, wringing awful sounds out of it, making it scream. As Tessa watched, one of the violin strings snapped with a shriek.

  “Jem!” she cried again, and when he did not look up, she strode across the room and wrenched the bow out of his hand. “Jem, stop! Your violin—your lovely violin—you’ll ruin it.”

  He looked up at her. His pupils were enormous, the silver of his eyes only a thin ring around the black. He was breathing hard, his shirt open at the neck, sweat standing out on his collarbones. His cheeks were flushed. “What does it matter?” he said in a voice so low it was almost a hiss. “What does any of it matter? I’m dying. I won’t outlast the decade. What does it matter if the violin goes before I do?”

  Tessa was appalled. He never spoke like this about his illness, never.

  He stood up and turned away from her, toward the window. Only a little moonlight found its way into the room through the fog; there seemed to be shapes visible in the white mist pressed against the window—ghosts, shades, mocking faces. “You know it is true.”