Clockwork Prince tid-2 Page 42

  You see it, don’t you, James? Without Tessa there is nothing for me—no joy, no light, no life. If you loved me, you would let me have her. You can’t love her as I do. No one could. If you are truly my brother, you would do this for me.

  But the words remained unspoken, and Jem leaned forward, his voice low and confiding. “Will. There was something I wanted to say to you, and not when everyone else was around.”

  Will braced himself. This was it. Jem was going to tell him about the engagement, and he was going to have to pretend to be happy, and not be sick out the window, which he desperately wanted to be. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “And what’s that?”

  The sun glittered off Jem’s hair as he ducked his head. “I should have talked to you before. But we never have discussed the subject of love, have we, and with you being such a cynic . . .” He grinned. “I thought you’d mock me for it. And besides, I never thought there was a chance she’d return my feelings.”

  “Tessa,” said Will. Her name was like knives in his mouth.

  Jem’s smile was luminous, lighting his whole face, and any hope that Will had harbored in some secret chamber of his heart that perhaps Jem did not really love her, was gone, blown away like mist before a hard wind. “You have never shirked your duties,” Jem said. “And I know that you would have done what you could to save Tessa in the tea warehouse, whoever she was. But I could not help thinking that perhaps the reason you were so determined to save her was because you knew what she meant to me.” He tipped his head back, his smile incandescent. “Did I guess correctly, or am I a thickheaded idiot?”

  “You’re an idiot,” said Will, and swallowed hard, past his dry throat. “But—you are correct. I know what she means to you.”

  Jem grinned. His happiness was printed all over his face, his eyes, Will thought; he had never seen him look like this. He had always thought of Jem as a calm and peaceful presence, always thought that joy, like anger, was too extreme and human an emotion for him. He realized now that he had been quite wrong; Jem had simply not been happy like this before. Not since his parents had died, Will imagined. But Will had never considered it. He had dwelled on whether Jem was safe, whether he was surviving, but not if he was happy.

  Jem is my great sin.

  Tessa had been right, he thought. He had wanted her to break things off with Jem, whatever the cost; now he realized he did not, could not. You might at least believe I know honor—honor, and debt, he had said to Jem, and he had meant it. He owed Jem his life. He could not take from him the one thing Jem wanted more than anything else. Even if it meant Will’s own happiness, for Jem was not only someone to whom he owed a debt that could never be repaid, but, as the covenant said, someone he loved as he loved his own soul.

  Jem looked not just happier, but stronger, Will thought, with healthy color in his cheeks, his back straight. “I ought to apologize,” Jem said. “I was too severe regarding the ifrits’ den. I know you were merely seeking solace.”

  “No, you were right to have—”

  “I wasn’t.” Jem stood up. “If I was harsh with you, it was because I cannot bear to see you treat yourself as if you are worth nothing. Whatever part you might act to the contrary, I see you as you really are, my blood brother. Not just better than you pretend to be, but better than most people could hope to be.” He placed a hand on Will’s shoulder, gently. “You are worth everything, Will.”

  Will closed his eyes. He saw the black basalt Council room, the two circles burning on the ground. Jem stepping from his circle to Will’s, so they inhabited the same space, circumscribed by fire. His eyes had still been black then, wide in his pale face. Will remembered the words of the parabatai oath. Whither thou goest, I will go; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Angel do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. That same voice spoke again to him now. “Thank you for what you did for Tessa,” said Jem.

  Will could not look at Jem; he looked instead toward the wall, where their shadows blended together in relief, so that one could not tell where one boy ended and the other began. “Thank you for watching Brother Enoch pull shards of metal out of my back afterward,” he said.

  Jem laughed. “What else are parabatai for?”

  The Council chamber was draped with red banners slashed with black runes; Jem whispered to Tessa that they were runes of decision and judgment.

  They took their seats toward the front, in a row that also contained Henry, Gideon, Charlotte, and Will. Tessa had not spoken to Will since the day before; he had not been at breakfast, and had joined them in the courtyard late, still buttoning his coat as he ran down the stairs. His dark hair was disheveled, and he looked as if he had not slept. He seemed to be trying to avoid looking at Tessa, and she, in turn, avoided returning his gaze, though she could feel it flicking over her from time to time, like hot flecks of ash landing on her skin.

  Jem was a perfect gentleman; their engagement was still secret, and other than smiling at her every time she looked at him, he behaved in no way out of the ordinary. As they settled themselves in their seats at the Council, she felt him brush her arm with the knuckles of his right hand, gently, before moving his hand away.

  She could feel Will watching them, from the end of the row they sat in. She did not look toward him.

  In seats on the raised platform at the chamber’s center sat Benedict Lightwood, his eagle profile turned away from the mass of the Council, his jaw set. Beside him sat Gabriel, who, like Will, looked exhausted and unshaven. He glanced once at his brother as Gideon entered the room, and then away as Gideon took his seat, deliberately, among the Shadowhunters of the Institute. Gabriel bit his lip and looked down at his shoes, but did not move from where he sat.

  She recognized a few more faces in the audience. Charlotte’s aunt Callida was there, as was gaunt Aloysius Starkweather—despite, as he had complained, doubtless not being invited. His eyes narrowed as they fell on Tessa, and she turned back quickly to the front of the room.

  “We are here,” said Consul Wayland when he had taken his place before the lectern with the Inquisitor seated to his left, “to determine to what extent Charlotte and Henry Branwell have been of assistance to the Clave during the past fortnight in the matter of Axel Mortmain, and whether, as Benedict Lightwood has put in a claim, the London Institute would be better off in other hands.”

  The Inquisitor rose. He was holding something that gleamed silver and black in his hands. “Charlotte Branwell, please come up to the lectern.”

  Charlotte got to her feet, and climbed up the stairs to the stage. The Inquisitor lowered the Mortal Sword, and Charlotte wrapped her hands around the blade. In a quiet voice she recounted the events of the past two weeks—searching for Mortmain in newspaper clippings and historical accounts, the visit to Yorkshire, the threat against the Herondales, discovering Jessie’s betrayal, the fight at the warehouse, Nate’s death. She never lied, though Tessa was conscious of when she left out a detail here or there. Apparently the Mortal Sword could be gotten around, if only slightly.

  There were several moments during Charlotte’s speech when the Council members reacted audibly: breathing in sharply, shuffling their feet, most notably to the revelation of Jessamine’s role in the proceedings. “I knew her parents,” Tessa heard Charlotte’s aunt Callida saying from the back of the room. “Terrible business—terrible!”

  “And the girl is where now?” the Inquisitor demanded.

  “She is in the cells of the Silent City,” said Charlotte, “awaiting punishment for her crime. I informed the Consul of her whereabouts.”

  The Inquisitor, who had been pacing up and down the platform, stopped and looked Charlotte keenly in the face. “You say this girl was like a daughter to you,” he said, “and yet you handed her over to the Brothers willingly? Why would you do something like that?”

  “The Law is hard,” said Charlotte, “but it is the Law.”

  Consul Wayland’s mouth flicked up at th
e corner. “And here you said she’d be too soft on wrongdoers, Benedict,” he said. “Any comment?”

  Benedict rose to his feet; he had clearly decided to shoot his cuffs today, and they protruded, snowy white, from the sleeves of his tailored dark tweed jacket. “I do have a comment,” he said. “I wholeheartedly support Charlotte Branwell in her leadership of the Institute, and renounce my claim on a position there.”

  A murmur of disbelief ran through the crowd.

  Benedict smiled pleasantly.

  The Inquisitor turned and looked at him in disbelief. “So you are saying,” he echoed, “that despite the fact that these Shadowhunters killed Nathaniel Gray—or were responsible for his death—our only link to Mortmain, despite the fact that once again they harbored a spy beneath their roof, despite the fact that they still don’t know where Mortmain is, you would recommend Charlotte and Henry Branwell to run this Institute?”

  “They may not know where Mortmain is,” said Benedict, “but they know who he is. As the great mundane military strategist Sun Tzu said in The Art of War, ‘If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.’ We know now who Mortmain really is—a mortal man, not a supernatural being; a man afraid of death; a man bent on revenge for what he considers the undeserved murder of his family. Nor does he have compassion for Downworlders. He utilized werewolves to help him build his clockwork army swiftly, feeding them drugs to keep them working around the clock, knowing the drugs would kill the wolves and ensure their silence. Judging by the size of the warehouse he used and the number of workers he employed, his clockwork army will be sizeable. And judging by his motivations and the years over which he has refined his strategies for revenge, he is a man who cannot be reasoned with, cannot be dissuaded, cannot be stopped. We must prepare for a war. And that we did not know before.”

  The Inquisitor looked at Benedict, thin-lipped, as if he suspected that something untoward was going on but could not imagine what it might be. “Prepare for a war? And how do you suggest we do that—building, of course, on all this supposedly valuable information the Branwells have acquired?”

  Benedict shrugged. “Well, that of course will be for the Council to decide over time. But Mortmain has tried to recruit powerful Downworlders such as Woolsey Scott and Camille Belcourt to his cause. We may not know where he is, but we now know his ways, and we can trap him in that manner. Perhaps by allying ourselves with some of Downworld’s more powerful leaders. Charlotte seems to have them all well in hand, don’t you think?”

  A faint laugh ran around the Council, but they were not laughing at Charlotte; they were smiling with Benedict. Gabriel was watching his father, his green eyes burning.

  “And the spy in the Institute? Would you not call that an example of her carelessness?” said the Inquisitor.

  “Not at all,” said Benedict. “She dealt with the matter swiftly and without compassion.” He smiled at Charlotte, a smile like a razor. “I retract my earlier statement about her softheartedness. Clearly she is as able to deal justice without pity as any man.”

  Charlotte paled, but said nothing. Her small hands were very still on the Sword.

  Consul Wayland sighed gustily. “I wish you had come to this conclusion a fortnight ago, Benedict, and saved us all this trouble.”

  Benedict shrugged elegantly. “I thought she needed to be tested,” he said. “Fortunately, she has passed that test.”

  Wayland shook his head. “Very well. Let us vote on it.” He handed what looked like a cloudy glass vessel to the Inquisitor, who stepped down among the crowd and handed the vial to the woman sitting in the first chair of the first row. Tessa watched in fascination as she bent her head and whispered into the vial, then passed it to the man on her left.

  As the vial made its way around the room, Tessa felt Jem slip his hands into hers. She jumped, though her voluminous skirts, she suspected, largely hid their hands. She laced her fingers through his slim, delicate ones and closed her eyes. I love him. I love him. I love him. And indeed, his touch made her shiver, though it also made her want to weep—with love, with confusion, with heartbreak, remembering the look on Will’s face when she had told him she and Jem were engaged, the happiness going out of him like a fire doused by rain.

  Jem drew his hand out of hers to take the vial from Gideon on his other side. She heard him whisper, “Charlotte Branwell,” before he passed the vial over her, to Henry on her other side. She looked at him, and he must have misconstrued the unhappiness in her eyes, because he smiled at her encouragingly. “It will be all right,” he said. “They’ll choose Charlotte.”

  When the vial finished its travels, it was handed back to the Inquisitor, who presented it with a flourish to the Consul. The Consul took the vial and, placing it on the lectern before him, drew a rune on the glass with his stele.

  The vial trembled, like a kettle on the boil. White smoke poured from its open neck—the collected whispers of hundreds of Shadowhunters. They spelled words out across the air.

  CHARLOTTE BRANWELL.

  Charlotte dropped her hands from the Mortal Sword, almost sagging in relief. Henry made a whooping noise and threw his hat into the air. The room was filled with chatter and confusion. Tessa couldn’t stop herself from glancing down the row at Will. He had slumped down in his seat, his head back, his eyes closed. He looked white and drained, as if this last bit of business had taken the remainder of his energy.

  A scream pierced the hubbub. Tessa was on her feet in moments, whirling around. It was Charlotte’s aunt Callida screaming, her elegant gray head thrown back and her finger pointing Heavenward. Gasps ran around the room as the other Shadowhunters followed her gaze. The air above them was filled with dozens—scores, even—of buzzing black metal creatures, like enormous steel black beetles with coppery wings, zipping back and forth through the air, filling the room with the ugly sound of metallic buzzing.

  One of the metal beetles dipped down and hovered in front of Tessa, just at eye level, making a clicking sound. It was eyeless, though there was a circular plate of glass in the flat front of its head. She felt Jem reach for her arm, trying to pull her away from it, but she jerked away impatiently, seized her hat off her head, and slammed it down on top of the thing, trapping it between her hat and the seat of her chair. It immediately set up an enraged, high-pitched buzzing. “Henry!” she called. “Henry, I’ve got one of the things—”

  Henry appeared behind her, pink-faced, and stared down at the hat. A small hole was opening in the side of the elegant gray velvet where the mechanical creature was tearing at it. With a curse Henry brought his fist down hard, crushing the hat and the thing inside it against the seat. It buzzed and went still.

  Jem reached around and lifted the smashed hat gingerly. What was left under it was a scatter of parts—a metal wing, a shattered chassis, and broken-off stumps of copper legs. “Ugh,” said Tessa. “It’s so very—buglike.” She glanced up as another cry went through the room. The insectile creatures had come together in a black swirl in the center of the room; as she stared, they swirled faster and faster and then vanished, like black beetles sucked down a drain.

  “Sorry about the hat,” said Henry. “I’ll get you another.”

  “Bother the hat,” said Tessa as the cries of the angry Council echoed through the room. She looked toward the center of the room; the Consul stood with the glowing Mortal Sword in his hand, and behind him was Benedict, stone-faced, with eyes like ice. “Clearly, we have bigger things to worry about.”

  “It’s a sort of camera,” Henry said, holding the bits of the smashed metal beetle creature on his lap as the carriage clopped toward home. “Without Jessamine, Nate, or Benedict, Mortmain must be out of reliable human spies who can report to him. So he sent these things.” He poked at a shard; the bits were gathered together in the wreckage of Tessa’s hat, held on his lap as they jounced along.

  “Benedict didn’t look any too pleased to see those things,” said Will. “He
must realize Mortmain already knows about his defection.”

  “It was a matter of time,” said Charlotte. “Henry, can those things record sound, like a phonautograph, or simply pictures? They were flying around so quickly—”

  “I’m not sure.” Henry frowned. “I shall have to examine the parts more closely in the crypt. I can find no shutter mechanism, but that does not mean—” He looked up at the uncomprehending faces focused on him, and shrugged. “In any case,” he said, “perhaps it is not the worst thing for the Council to get a look at Mortmain’s inventions. It is one thing to hear about them, another to see what he is doing. Don’t you think, Lottie?”

  Charlotte murmured an answer, but Tessa didn’t hear it. Her mind was caught up in going over a peculiar thing that had occurred just after she’d left the Council chambers and was waiting for the Branwells’ carriage. Jem had just turned away from her to speak to Will, when the flap of a black cloak caught her eye, and Aloysius Starkweather stalked up to her, his grizzled face fierce. “Miss Gray,” he’d barked. “That clockwork creature—the way it approached you . . .”

  Tessa had stood silently, staring—waiting for him to accuse her of something, though she could not imagine what.

  “Thee’s all right?” he’d said, abruptly and at last, his Yorkshire accent seeming suddenly very pronounced. “It dinna harm thee?”

  Slowly Tessa had shaken her head. “No, Mr. Starkweather. Thank you kindly for your inquiry into my welfare, but no.”

  By then Jem and Will had turned and were staring. As if aware he was drawing attention, Starkweather had nodded once, sharply, turned, and walked off, his ragged cloak blowing behind him.

  Tessa could make neither head nor tail of the whole business. She was just thinking of her brief time in Starkweather’s head, and the astonishment he’d felt when he’d first seen her, when the carriage came to a jerking halt before the Institute. Relieved to be free of their cramped quarters, the Shadowhunters and Tessa spilled out, onto the drive.