Clockwork Princess Page 9

  The Council does not serve the Consul; it has always been the other way around. I am a symbol of the power of the Council and the Clave. When my authority is undermined by disobedience, it undermines the authority of us all. Better a dutiful boy like my nephew, whose worth is untested, than one whose worth has been tested and found wanting.

  In the Angel's name,

  Consul Josiah Wayland

  Will remembered.

  Another day, months ago, in Jem's bedroom. Rain pounding against the windows of the Institute, streaking the glass with clear lines.

  "And that is all?" Jem had asked. "That is the whole of it? The truth?" He'd been sitting at his desk, one of his legs bent up on the chair beneath him; he'd looked very young. His violin had been propped against the side of the chair. He had been playing it when Will had come in and, without preamble, announced that it was the end of pretense--he had a confession to make, and he meant to make it now.

  That had ended the Bach. Jem had put the violin away, his eyes on Will's face the whole time, anxiety blooming behind his silver eyes as Will had paced and spoken, paced and spoken, until he had run out of words.

  "That is all of it," Will had said finally when he was done. "And I do not blame you if you hate me. I could understand it."

  There'd been a long pause. Jem's gaze had been steady on his face, steady and silver in the wavering light of the fire. "I could never hate you, William."

  Will's guts contracted now as he saw another face, a pair of steady blue-gray eyes looking up at his. "I tried to hate you, Will, but I could never manage it," she had said. In that moment Will had been painfully aware that what he had told Jem was not "the whole of it." There was more truth. There was his love for Tessa. But it was his burden to bear, not Jem's. It was something that must be hidden for Jem to be happy. "I deserve your hatred," Will had said to Jem, his voice cracking. "I put you in danger. I believed I was cursed and that all who cared for me would die; I let myself care for you, and let you be a brother to me, risking the danger to you--"

  "There was no danger."

  "But I believed there was. If I held a revolver to your head, James, and pulled the trigger, would it really matter if I did not know that there were no bullets in the chambers?"

  Jem's eyes had widened, and then he'd laughed, a soft laugh. "Did you think I did not know you had a secret?" he'd said. "Did you think I walked into my friendship with you with my eyes shut? I did not know the nature of the burden you carried. But I knew there was a burden." He'd stood up. "I knew you thought yourself poison to all those around you," he'd added. "I knew you thought there to be some corruptive force about you that would break me. I meant to show you that I would not break, that love was not so fragile. Did I do that?"

  Will had shrugged once, helplessly. He had almost wished Jem would be angry with him. It would have been easier. He'd never felt so small within himself as he did when he faced Jem's expansive kindness. He thought of Milton's Satan. Abashed the Devil stood, / And felt how awful goodness is. "You saved my life," Will had said.

  A smile had spread across Jem's face, as brilliant as the sunrise breaking over the Thames. "That is all I ever wanted."

  "Will?" A soft voice broke him from his reverie. Tessa, sitting across from him inside the carriage, her gray eyes the color of rain in the dim light. "What are you thinking of?"

  With an effort he pulled himself out of memory, his eyes fixing on her face. Tessa's face. She wore no hat, and the hood of her brocade cloak had fallen back. Her face was pale--wider across the cheekbones, slightly pointed at the chin. He thought he had never seen a face that had such a power of expression: Her every smile divided his heart as lightning might split a blackened tree, as did her every look of sorrow. At the moment she was gazing at him with a wistful concern that caught his heart. "Jem," he said, with perfect honesty. "I was thinking of his reaction when I told him of Marbas's curse."

  "He felt only sorrow for you," she said immediately. "I know he did; he told me as much."

  "Sorrow but not pity," said Will. "Jem has always given me exactly what I needed in the way that I needed it, even when I did not know myself what I required. All parabatai are devoted. We must be, to give so much of ourselves to each other, even if we gain in strength by doing so. But with Jem it is different. For so many years I needed him to live, and he kept me alive. I thought he did not know that he was doing it, but maybe he did."

  "Perhaps," Tessa said. "He would never have counted a moment of such effort as wasted."

  "He has never said anything to you of it?"

  She shook her head. Her small hands, in their white gloves, were in fists in her lap. "He speaks of you only with the greatest pride, Will," she said. "He admires you more than you could ever know. When he learned of the curse, he was heartbroken for you, but there was also, almost, a sort of ..."

  "Vindication?"

  She nodded. "He had always believed you were good," she said. "And then it was proven."

  "Oh, I don't know," he said bitterly. "To be good and to be cursed, it is not the same thing."

  She leaned forward and caught at his hand, pressing it between her own. The touch was like white fire through his veins. He could not feel her skin, only the cloth of the gloves, and yet it did not matter. You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire. He had wondered once why love was always phrased in terms of burning. The conflagration in his own veins, now, gave the answer. "You are good, Will," she said. "There is no one better placed than I am to be able to say with perfect confidence how good you really are."

  He said slowly, not wanting her to move her hands away, "You know, when we were fifteen years old, Yanluo, the demon who murdered Jem's parents, was finally slain. Jem's uncle determined to relocate himself from China to Idris and invited Jem to come and live with him there. Jem refused--for me. He said you do not leave your parabatai. That it was part of the words of the oath. 'Thy people shall be my people.' I wonder, if I had had the chance to return to my family, would I have done the same for him?"

  "You are doing it," Tessa said. "Do not think I do not know that Cecily wants you to return home with her. And do not think I do not know that you remain for Jem's sake."

  "And yours," he said before he could stop himself. She withdrew her hands from his, and he cursed himself silently and savagely: How could you have been so foolish? How could you, after two months? You've been so careful. Your love for her is only a burden she endures out of politeness. Remember that.

  But Tessa was only pulling aside the curtain as the carriage came to a stop. They were rolling into a mews, from whose entry hung a sign: all drivers of vehicles are directed to walk their horses while passing under this archway. "We are here," she said, as if he had not said a word. Perhaps he had not, Will thought. Perhaps he had not spoken aloud. Perhaps he was only losing his mind. Certainly it was not unimaginable, under the circumstances.

  When the carriage door opened, it brought with it a blast of cool Chelsea air. He saw Tessa raise her head as Cyril helped her down. He joined Tessa on the cobblestones. The place smelled of the Thames. Before the Embankment had been built, the river had come much closer to these rows of houses, their edges softened by gaslight in the darkness. Now the river was separated by a greater distance, but one could still smell the salt-dirt-iron tang of water.

  The front of No. 16 was Georgian, made of plain red brickwork, with a bay window that jutted out over the front door. There was a small paved court and a garden behind an elegant fence with a great deal of delicate scrolling ironwork. The gate was already open. Tessa pushed through and marched up the front steps to knock upon the door, Will only a few steps behind her.

  The door was opened by Woolsey Scott, wearing a canary-yellow brocaded silk dressing gown over trousers and a shirt. He had a gold monocle perched in one eye socket, and regarded them both through it with some distaste. "Bother," he said. "I would have had the footman answer and send you away, but I thought you were somebody else."

>   "Who?" Tessa inquired, which did not seem to Will to be germane to the issue, but it was Tessa's way--she was forever asking questions; leave her alone in a room, and she'd begin asking questions of the furniture and plants.

  "Someone with absinthe."

  "Swallow enough of that stuff and you'll think you're somebody else," said Will. "We're seeking Magnus Bane; if he isn't here, just tell us and we'll not take up more of your time."

  Woolsey sighed as if greatly prevailed upon. "Magnus," he called. "It's your blue-eyed boy."

  There were footsteps in the corridor behind Woolsey, and Magnus appeared in full evening dress, as if he had just come from a ball. Starched white shirtfront and cuffs, swallowtail black coat, and hair like a ragged fringe of dark silk. His eyes flicked from Will to Tessa. "And to what do I owe the honor, at such a late hour?"

  "A favor," Will said, and amended himself when Magnus's eyebrows went up. "A question."

  Woolsey sighed and stepped back from the door. "Very well. Come into the drawing room."

  No one offered to take their hats or coats, and once they reached the drawing room, Tessa stripped off her gloves and stood with her hands close to the fire, shivering slightly. Her hair was a damp mass of curls at the back of her neck, and Will looked away from her before he could remember what it felt like to put his hands through that hair and feel the strands wind about his fingers. It was easier at the Institute, with Jem and the others to distract him, to remember that Tessa was not his to recall that way. Here, feeling as if he were facing the world with her by his side--feeling that she was here for him instead of, quite sensibly, for the health of her own fiance--it was nearly impossible.

  Woolsey threw himself into a flower-patterned armchair. He had plucked the monocle from his eye and was swinging it around his fingers on its long gold chain. "I simply cannot wait to hear what this is about."

  Magnus moved toward the fireplace and leaned against the mantel, the very picture of a young gentleman at leisure. The room was painted a pale blue, and decorated with paintings that featured vast fields of granite, gleaming blue seas, and men and women in classical dress. Will thought he recognized a reproduction of an Alma-Tadema--or at least it must have been a reproduction, mustn't it?

  "Don't gape at the walls, Will," said Magnus. "You have been all but absent for months. What brings you here now?"

  "I did not want to trouble you," Will muttered. It was only partly the truth. Once the curse Will had believed he was under had been proved, by Magnus, to be false, he had avoided Magnus--not because he was angry with the warlock, or had no more need of him, but because the sight of Magnus caused him pain. He had written him a short letter, telling him what had happened and that his secret was a secret no more. He had spoken of Jem's engagement to Tessa. He had asked that Magnus not reply. "But this--this is a crisis."

  Magnus's cat eyes widened. "What sort of crisis?"

  "It is about yin fen," said Will.

  "Gracious," Woolsey said. "Don't tell me my pack is taking the stuff again?"

  "No," Will said. "There is none of it to take." He saw dawning comprehension on Magnus's face and went on to explain the situation, as best he could. Magnus didn't change expression as Will spoke, any more than Church did when someone spoke to him. Magnus only watched out of his gold-green eyes until Will was done.

  "And without the yin fen?" Magnus said at last.

  "He will die," said Tessa, turning from the fireplace. Her cheeks were flushed carnation pink, whether from the heat of the fire or from the stress of the situation, Will could not tell. "Not immediately, but--within the week. His body cannot sustain itself without the powder."

  "How does he take it?" Woolsey inquired.

  "Dissolved in water, or inhaled-- What has that got to do with anything?" Will demanded.

  "Nothing," Woolsey said. "I was only wondering. Demon drugs are a curious thing."

  "For us, who love him, it is a sight more than curious," Tessa said. Her chin was up, and Will remembered what he had said to her once, about being like Boadicea. She was brave, and he adored her for it, even as it was employed in the defense of her love for someone else.

  "Why have you come to me with this?" Magnus's voice was quiet.

  "You helped us before," Tessa said. "We thought perhaps you could help again. You helped with de Quincey--and Will, with his curse--"

  "I am not at your beck and call," Magnus said. "I helped with de Quincey because Camille requested it of me, and Will, once, because he offered me a favor in return. I am a warlock. And I do not serve Shadowhunters for free."

  "And I am not a Shadowhunter," said Tessa.

  There was a silence. Then: "Hmm," Magnus said, and turned away from the fire. "I understand, Tessa, that you are to be congratulated?"

  "I ..."

  "On your engagement to James Carstairs."

  "Oh." She flushed, and her hand went to her throat, where she always wore Jem's mother's necklace, his gift to her. "Yes. Thank you."

  Will felt rather than saw Woolsey's eyes on all three of them--Magnus, Tessa, and himself--sliding from one to the other, the mind behind the eyes examining, deducing, enjoying.

  Will's shoulders tightened. "I would be happy to offer anything," he said. "This time. Another favor, or whatever you wanted, for the yin fen. If it's payment, I could arrange--that is, I could try--"

  "I may have helped you before," Magnus said. "But this--" He sighed. "Think, the pair of you. If someone is buying up all the yin fen in the country, then it is someone who has a reason. And who has a reason to do that?"

  "Mortmain," Tessa whispered before Will could say it. He could still remember his own voice:

  "Mortmain's minions have been buying up the yin fen supply in the East End. I confirmed it. If you had run out and he was the only one with a supply ..."

  "We would have been put in his power," said Jem. "Unless you were willing to let me die, of course, which would be the sensible course of action."

  But with enough yin fen to last them twelve months, Will had thought there was no danger. Had thought that Mortmain would find some other way to harry and torment them, for surely he would see this plan could not work. Will had not expected a year's worth of the drug to be gone in eight weeks.

  "You do not want to help us," Will said. "You do not want to position yourself as an enemy of Mortmain's."

  "Well, can you blame him?" Woolsey rose in a whirl of yellow silk. "What could you possibly have to offer that would make the risk worth it to him?"

  "I will give you anything," said Tessa in a low voice that Will felt in his bones. "Anything at all, if you can help us help Jem."

  Magnus gripped a handful of his black hair. "God, the two of you. I can make inquiries. Track down some of the more unusual shipping routes. Old Molly--"

  "I've been to her," Will said. "Something's frightened her so badly, she won't even crawl out of her grave."

  Woolsey snorted. "And that doesn't tell you anything, little Shadowhunter? Is it really worth all this, just to stretch your friend's life out another few months, another year? He will die anyway. And the sooner he dies, the sooner you can have his fiancee, the one you're in love with." He cut his amused gaze toward Tessa. "Really you ought to be counting with great eagerness the days till he expires."

  Will did not know what happened after that; everything went suddenly white, and Woolsey's monocle was flying across the room. Will's head hit something painfully, and the werewolf was under him, kicking and swearing, and they were rolling across the rug, and there was a sharp pain in his wrist, where Woolsey had clawed him. The pain cleared his head, and he was aware that Woolsey was pinning him to the ground, his eyes gone yellow and his teeth bared and as sharp as daggers, ready to bite.

  "Stop it. Stop it!" Tessa, by the fire, had seized up a poker; Will choked and put his hand against Woolsey's face, pushing him away. Woolsey yelled, and suddenly the weight was off Will's chest; Magnus had lifted the werewolf and shoved him away. Then Magnus's
hands were fisted in the back of Will's jacket, and Will found himself being dragged from the room, Woolsey staring after him, one hand to his face where Will's silver ring had burned his cheekbone.

  "Let me go. Let me go!" Will struggled, but Magnus's grip was like iron. He marched Will down the corridor and into a half-lit library. Will pulled free just as Magnus let go of him, resulting in an inelegant stumble that fetched him up against the back of a red velvet sofa. "I cannot leave Tessa alone with Woolsey--"

  "Her virtue is hardly in danger from him," Magnus said dryly. "Woolsey will behave himself, which is more than I can say for you."

  Will turned around slowly, wiping blood from his face. "You're glaring at me," he said to Magnus. "You look like Church before he bites someone."

  "Picking a fight with the head of the Praetor Lupus," Magnus said bitterly. "You know what his pack would do to you if they had an excuse. You want to die, don't you?"

  "I don't," Will said, surprising even himself a little.

  "I don't know why I ever helped you."

  "You like broken things."

  Magnus took two strides across the room and seized Will's face in his long fingers, forcing his chin up. "You are not Sydney Carton," he said. "What good will it do you to die for James Carstairs, when he is dying anyway?"

  "Because if I save him, then it is worth it--"

  "God!" Magnus's eyes narrowed. "What is worth it? What could possibly be worth it?"

  "Everything I have lost!" Will shouted. "Tessa!"

  Magnus dropped his hand from Will's face. He took several paces backward and breathed in and out slowly, as if mentally counting to ten. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "About what Woolsey said."

  "If Jem dies, I cannot be with Tessa," said Will. "Because it will be as if I were waiting for him to die, or took some joy in his death, if it let me have her. And I will not be that person. I will not profit from his death. So he must live." He lowered his arm, his sleeve bloody. "It is the only way any of this can ever mean anything. Otherwise it is only--"