Clockwork Princess (21 page)

He held her to him, and her hands traced the shape of his face, his sharp cheekbones.
So sharp, too sharp, the bones of his face, the pulse of his blood too close to the surface of the skin, collarbones as hard as a metal necklace
.

His hands slid from her waist to her shoulders; his lips skimmed across her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, as her fingers twisted in his shirt, drawing it up so that her palms were against his bare skin. He was so thin, his spine sharp under her touch. Against the firelight she could see him painted in shadow and fire, the moving golden path of the flames turning his white hair to gilt.

I love you
, he had said.
In all the world, you are what I love the most
.

She felt the hot press of his mouth again at the hollow of her throat, then lower. His kisses ended where her dress began. She felt her heart beating beneath his mouth, as if trying to reach him, trying to beat for him. She felt his shy hand slip around her body, to where the lacings fastened her dress closed… .

The door opened with a creak, and they sprang apart, both gasping as if they had been running a race. Tessa heard her own blood thunder loudly in her ears as she stared at the empty doorway. Beside her Jem’s gasp turned into a hitch of laughter.

“What—,” she began.

“Church,” he said, and Tessa dropped her gaze down to see the cat sauntering across the floor of the music room, having nudged the door open, and looking very pleased with himself.

“I’ve never seen a cat look so self-satisfied,” she said as Church—ignoring her, as always—padded up to Jem and nudged at him with his head.

“When I said we might need a chaperon, this wasn’t what I had in mind,” said Jem, but he stroked the cat’s head anyway, and smiled at her out of the corner of his mouth. “Tessa,” he said. “Did you mean what you said? That you would marry me tomorrow?”

She raised her chin and looked directly into his eyes. She could not bear the thought of waiting, and wasting another instant of his life. She wanted suddenly and fiercely to be tied to him—in sickness, in health, for better, for worse—tied to him with a promise and able to give him her word and her love without holding back.

“I meant it,” she said.

The dining room was not quite full, not everyone having yet arrived for breakfast, when Jem made his announcement.

“Tessa and I are going to get married,” he said, very calmly, draping his napkin over his lap.

“Is this meant to be a surprise?” asked Gabriel, who was dressed in gear as if he intended to train after breakfast. He had already taken all the bacon from the serving platter, and Henry was looking at him mournfully. “Aren’t you engaged already?”

“The wedding date was set for December,” said Jem, reaching beneath the table to give Tessa’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “But we have changed our minds. We intend to marry tomorrow.”

The effect was galvanic. Henry choked on his tea and had to be pounded on the back by Charlotte, who appeared to have been stricken speechless. Gideon dropped his cup into his saucer with a clatter, and even Gabriel paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. Sophie, who had just come in from the kitchen carrying a rack of toast, gave a gasp. “But you can’t!” she said. “Miss Gray’s dress was ruined, and the new one isn’t even started yet!”

“She can wear any dress,” Jem said. “She does not have to wear Shadowhunter gold, for she is not a Shadowhunter. She has several pretty gowns; she can choose her favorite.” He ducked his head shyly toward Tessa. “That is, if that is all right with you.”

Tessa did not answer, for at that moment Will and Cecily had crowded in through the doorway. “I have
such
a crick in my neck,” Cecily was saying with a smile. I can hardly believe I managed to fall asleep in such a position—”

She broke off as both of them seemed to sense the mood of the room and paused, glancing around. Will did seem better rested than he had the day before, and pleased to have Cecily by him, though that cautious good mood was clearly evaporating as he glanced around at the expressions of the others in the room. “What’s going on?” he said. “Has something happened?”

“Tessa and I have decided to move up our wedding ceremony,” Jem said. “It will be in the next few days.”

Will said nothing, and his expression did not change, but he went very white. He did not look at Tessa.

“Jem, the Clave,” Charlotte said, ceasing to pound Henry’s back and standing up with a look of agitation on her face. “They have not approved your marriage yet. You cannot go against them—”

“We cannot wait for them either,” Jem said. “It could be months, a year—you know how they prefer to delay than give an answer they fear you will not like.”

“And it is not as if our marriage can be their focus at the moment,” Tessa said. “Benedict Lightwood’s papers, searching for Mortmain—all must take priority. But this is a personal matter.”

“There are no personal matters to the Clave,” Will said. His voice sounded hollow and odd, as if he were a great distance away. There was a pulse pounding at his throat. Tessa thought of the delicate rapport they had begun to build between them over the past few days and wondered if this would destroy it, dashing it into pieces like a fragile craft against rocks. “My mother and father—”

“There are Laws about marriage to mundanes. There are no Laws about marriage between a Nephilim and what Tessa is. And if I must, like your father, I will give up being a Shadowhunter for this.”

“James—”

“I would have thought you of all people would understand that,” said Jem, the look he bent on Will both puzzled and hurt.

“I am not saying I don’t understand. I’m only urging you to
think—
”

“I have thought.” Jem sat back. “I have a mundane marriage license, legally procured and signed. We could walk into any church and marry today. I would much prefer you all be there, but if you cannot be, we will do it regardless.”

“To marry a girl just to make her a widow,” said Gabriel Lightwood. “Many would say that was not a kindness.”

Jem went rigid beside Tessa, his hand stiff in hers. Will started forward, but Tessa was already on her feet, burning holes in Gabriel Lightwood with her eyes.

“Do not
dare
speak about it as if Jem has all the choice about it and I have none,” she said, never moving her eyes from his face. “This engagement was not forced on me, nor do I have any illusions about Jem’s health. I choose to be with him for however many days or minutes we are granted, and to count myself blessed to have them.”

Gabriel’s eyes were as cold as the sea off the Newfoundland coast. “I was only concerned for your welfare, Miss Gray.”

“Better to look out for your own,” Tessa snapped.

And now those green eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

“I believe the lady means,” Will drawled, “that
she
is not the one who killed her father. Or have you so quickly recovered from it that we have no need for concern for your sensibilities, Gabriel?”

Cecily gave a gasp. Gabriel rose to his feet, and in his expression Tessa saw again the boy who had challenged Will to single combat the first time she had met him—all arrogance, stiffness, and hate. “If you ever dare—,” he began.

“Stop,”
Charlotte said—and then she broke off, as through the windows came the sound of the rusty gates of the Institute grinding open and the clop of horse hooves on pavement. “Oh, by the Angel.
Jessamine
.” Charlotte scrambled to her feet, discarding her napkin on her plate. “Come—we must go down to greet her.”

It proved, if an ill-timed arrival in other respects, at least an excellent distraction. There was a slight hubbub, and a deal of puzzlement on the part of Gabriel and Cecily, neither of whom really understood precisely who Jessamine was or the part she had played in the life of the Institute. They proceeded down the corridor in a disorderly fashion, Tessa hanging back slightly; she felt breathless, as if her corset had been laced too tightly. She thought of the night before, holding Jem in the music room as they kissed and whispered to each other for hours of the wedding they would have, the marriage that would follow—as if they had all the time in the world. As if getting married would grant him immortality, though she knew it would not.

As she started down the stairs toward the entryway, she stumbled, distracted. A hand on her arm steadied her. She looked up, and saw Will.

They stood there for a moment, frozen together like a statue. The others were already on their way down the stairs, their voices rising up like smoke. Will’s hand was gentle on Tessa’s arm, though his face was almost expressionless, seeming carved out of granite. “You do not agree with the rest of them, do you?” she said, with more of a sharp edge than she meant. “That I should not marry Jem today. You asked me if I loved him enough to marry him and make him happy, and I told you I did. I don’t know if I can make him happy entirely, but I can try.”

“If anyone can, you can,” he said, his eyes locking with hers.

“The others think I have illusions about his health.”

“Hope is not illusion.”

The words were encouraging, but there was something in his voice, something dead that frightened her.

“Will.” She caught at his wrist. “You would not abandon me now—not leave me the only one who still searches for a cure? I cannot do it without you.”

He took a deep breath, half-closing his shadowed blue eyes. “Of course not. I would not give up on him, on you. I will help. I will continue. It is only—”

He broke off, turning his face away. The light that came down through the window high above illuminated cheek and chin and the curve of his jaw.

“Only what?”

“You remember what else I said to you that day in the drawing room,” he said. “I want you to be happy, and him to be happy. And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart, Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours. I would give over my own life for your happiness. I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that. It is unfair to tell you this, I know, when you can do nothing about it.” He took a shuddering breath. “How you must despise me.”

Tessa felt as if the ground had dropped out from beneath her. She remembered what she had told herself the night before: that surely Will’s feelings for her had faded. That over the term of years, his pain would be less than hers. She had believed it. But now— “I do not despise you, Will. You have been nothing but honorable—more honorable than ever I could have asked you to be—”

“No,” he said bitterly. “You expected nothing of me, I think.”

“I have expected
everything
of you, Will,” she whispered.

“More than you ever expected of yourself. But you have given even more than that.” Her voice faltered. “They say you cannot divide your heart, and yet—”

“Will! Tessa!” It was Charlotte’s voice, calling up to them from the entryway. “Do stop dawdling! And can one of you fetch Cyril? We may need help with the carriage if the Silent Brothers intend to stay at all.”

Tessa looked helplessly at Will, but the moment between them had snapped; his expression had closed; the desperation that had fueled him a moment before was gone. He was shut away as if a thousand locked doors stood between them. “You go on down. I will be there shortly.” He said it without inflection, turned, and sprinted up the steps.

Tessa put a hand against the wall as she made her way numbly down the stairs. What had she almost done? What had she nearly told Will?

And yet I love you
.

But God in Heaven, what good would that do, what benefit would it be to anyone to say those words? Only the most awful burden on him, for he would know what she felt but not be able to act on it. And it would tie him to her, would not free him to seek out someone else to love—someone who was
not
engaged to his best friend.

Someone else to love
. She stepped out onto the front stairs of the Institute, feeling the wind cut through her dress like a knife. The others were there, gathered on the steps a bit awkwardly, especially Gabriel and Cecily, who looked as if they were wondering what on earth they were doing there. Tessa barely noticed them. She felt sick at the heart and knew it was not the cold. It was the idea of Will in love with someone else.

But that was pure selfishness. If Will found someone else to love, she would suffer through it, biting her lips in silence, as he had suffered her engagement to Jem. She owed him that much, she thought, as a dark carriage driven by a man in the parchment robes of the Silent Brothers rattled through the open gates. She owed Will behavior that was as honorable as his own.

The carriage clattered up to the foot of the stairs and paused. Tessa felt Charlotte move uneasily behind her. “Another carriage?” she said, and Tessa followed her gaze to see that there was indeed a second carriage, all black with no crest, rolling silently in behind the first.

“An escort,” said Gabriel. “Perhaps the Silent Brothers are worried she will try to escape.”

“No,” said Charlotte, bewilderment shading her voice. “She wouldn’t—”

The Silent Brother driving the first carriage put away his reins and dismounted, moving to the carriage door. At that moment the second carriage pulled up behind him, and he turned. Tessa could not see his expression, as his face was hidden by his hood, but something in the cast of his body betokened surprise. She narrowed her eyes—there was something strange about the horses drawing the second carriage: their bodies gleamed not like the pelts of animals but like metal, and their movements were unnaturally swift.

The driver of the second carriage leaped down from his seat, landing with a jarring thud, and Tessa saw the gleam of metal as his hand went to the neck of his parchment robes—and pulled the robes away.

Beneath was a shimmering metal body with an ovoid head, eyeless, copper rivets holding together the joints of elbows, knees, and shoulders. Its right arm, if you could call it that, ended it a crude bronze crossbow. It raised that arm now and flexed it. A steel arrow, fletched with black metal, flew through the air and punched into the chest of the first Silent Brother, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying several feet across the courtyard, before he struck the earth, blood soaking the chest of the familiar robes.