Clockwork Princess

by Cassandra Clare

  "And yet I am beginning to come to see that many things that I had always thought were certain, are not certain. And Will is one of those things. I was certain he was a scoundrel, but Gideon has told me more about him, and I begin to understand he has a very peculiar sense of honor."

  "And you respect that."

  "I wish to respect it. I wish to understand it. And James Carstairs is one of the best of us; even if I hated Will, I would want him spared now, for Jem's sake."

  "The thing I must tell my brother," Cecily said. "Jem would want me to tell him. It is important enough. And it will take but a moment."

  Gabriel rubbed the skin at his temples. He was so very tall--he seemed to tower above Cecily, for all that he was very slender. He had a sharply planed face, not quite pretty, but elegant, his lower lip shaped nearly exactly like a bow. "All right," he said. "I will go in and send him out."

  "Why you? And not me?"

  "If he is angry, if he is grief-stricken, it is better I see it, and that he be furious with me than with you," Gabriel said matter-of-factly. "I am trusting you, Miss Herondale, that this is important. I hope you won't disappoint me."

  Cecily said nothing, just watched as Gabriel pushed the door of the sickroom open and went in. She leaned against a wall, her heart pounding, as a murmur of voices came from within. She could hear Charlotte say something about blood replacement runes, which were apparently dangerous--and then the door opened and Gabriel came out.

  She stood up straight. "Is Will--"

  Gabriel's eyes flashed at her, and a moment later Will appeared, on Gabriel's heels, reaching around to shut the door firmly behind him. Gabriel nodded at Cecily and set off down the hall, leaving her alone with her brother.

  She had always wondered how you could be alone with someone else, really. If you were with them, weren't you by definition not alone? But she felt entirely alone now, for Will seemed to be somewhere else completely. He did not even seem to be angry. He leaned against the wall by the door, beside her, and yet he seemed as insubstantial as a ghost.

  "Will," she said.

  He did not seem to hear her. He was trembling, his hands shaking with strain and tension.

  "Gwilym Owain," she said again, more softly.

  He turned his head to look at her at least, though his eyes were as blue and cold as the water of Llyn Mwyngil in the lee of the mountains. "I first came here when I was twelve," he said.

  "I know," Cecily said, bewildered. Did he think she could have forgotten? Losing Ella, and then her Will, her beloved older brother, in only a matter of days? But Will did not even seem to hear her.

  "It was, to be precise, the tenth of November of that year. And every year after, on the anniversary of that day, I would fall into a black mood of despair. That was the day--that and my birthday--when I was most strongly reminded of Mam and Dad, and of you. I knew you were alive, that you were out there, that you wanted me back, and I could not go, could not even send you a letter. I wrote dozens, of course, and burned them. You had to hate me and blame me for Ella's death."

  "We never blamed you--"

  "After the first year, even though I still dreaded the day's approach, I began to find that there was something Jem simply had to do every November tenth, some training exercise or some search that would take us to the far end of the city in the cold, wet winter weather. And I would abuse him bitterly for it, of course. Sometimes the damp chill made him ill, or he would forget his drugs and become ill on the day, coughing blood and confined to bed, and that would be a distraction too. And only after it had happened three times--for I am very stupid, Cecy, and think only of myself--did I realize that of course he was doing it for me. He had noticed the date and was doing all he could to draw me from my melancholy."

  Cecily stood stock-still, staring at him. Despite the words that pounded in her head to be spoken, she could say nothing, for it was as if the veil of years had fallen away and she was seeing her brother at last, as he had been as a child, petting her clumsily when she was hurt, falling asleep on the rug in front of the fire with a book open on his chest, climbing out of the pond laughing and shaking water out of his black hair. Will, with no wall between himself and the world outside.

  He put his arms about himself as if he were cold. "I do not know who to be without him," he said. "Tessa is gone, and every moment she is gone is a knife ripping me apart from the inside. She is gone, and they cannot track her, and I have no idea where to go or what to do next, and the only person I can imagine speaking my agony to is the one person who cannot know. Even if he were not dying."

  "Will. Will." She put her hand on his arm. "Please listen to me. This is about finding Tessa. I believe I know where Mortmain is."

  His eyes snapped wide at that. "How could you know?"

  "I was close enough to you to hear what Jessamine said when she was dying," Cecily said, feeling the blood pounding in him under his skin. His heart was hammering. "She said you were a terrible Welshman."

  "Jessamine?" He sounded bewildered, but she saw the slight narrowing of his eyes. Perhaps, unconsciously, he was beginning to follow the same line of thought that she had.

  "She kept saying Mortmain was in Idris. But the Clave knows he is not," said Cecily rapidly. "You did not know Mortmain when he lived in Wales, but I did. He knows it well. And once you did too. We grew up in the shadow of the mountain, Will. Think."

  He stared at her. "You don't imagine--Cadair Idris?"

  "He knows those mountains, Will," she said. "And he would find it all funny, a great joke on you and all the Nephilim. He has taken her exactly where you fled from. He has taken her to our home."

  "A posset?" said Gideon, taking the steaming mug from Sophie. "I feel like a child again."

  "It has spice and wine in it. It will do you good. Build up your blood." Sophie fussed about, not looking at Gideon directly as she set the tray she had been carrying down on the nightstand beside his bed. He was sitting up, one of the legs of his trousers cut away below the knee and the leg itself wrapped in bandages. His hair was still disarrayed from the fight, and though he had been given clean clothes to wear, he still smelled slightly of blood and sweat.

  "These build up my blood," he said, holding out an arm on which two blood-replacement runes, sangliers, had been inked.

  "Is that supposed to mean that you don't like possets, either?" she demanded, her hands on her hips. She could still recall how annoyed she'd been with him about the scones, but she had forgiven him completely the night before, while reading his letter to the Consul (which she had not had a chance to post yet--it was still in the pocket of her bloodstained apron). And today, when the automaton had sliced at his leg on the Institute steps and he'd fallen, blood pouring from the open wound, her heart had seized up with a terror that had surprised her.

  "No one likes possets," he said with a faint but charming smile.

  "Do I have to stay and make sure you drink it, or are you going to throw it under the bed? Because then we'll have mice."

  He had the grace to look sheepish; Sophie rather wished she had been there when Bridget had swept into his room and announced that she was there to clean the scones out from under the bed. "Sophie," he said, and when she gave him a stern look, he took a hasty swig of the posset. "Miss Collins. I have not yet had a chance to properly apologize to you, so let me take it now. Please forgive me for the trick I played on you with the scones. I did not mean to show you disrespect. I hope you do not imagine I think any less of you for your position in the household, for you are one of the finest and bravest ladies I have ever had the pleasure of knowing."

  Sophie took her hands off her hips. "Well," she said. It was not many gentlemen who would apologize to a servant. "That is a very pretty apology."

  "And I am sure the scones are very good," he added hastily. "I just don't like scones. I never have liked scones. It's not your scones."

  "Do please stop saying the word 'scone,' Mr. Lightwood."

  "All right."

>   "And they are not my scones; Bridget made them."

  "All right."

  "And you are not drinking your posset."

  He opened his mouth, then shut it hastily and lifted the mug. When he was looking at her over the rim, she relented, and smiled. His eyes lit up.

  "Very well," she said. "You do not like scones. How do you feel about sponge cake?"

  It was midafternoon and the sun was high and weak in the sky. A dozen or so of the Enclave Shadowhunters, and several Silent Brothers, were spread out across the property of the Institute. They had taken away Jessamine earlier, and the body of the dead Silent Brother, whose name Cecily had not known. She could hear voices from the courtyard, and the clank of metal, as the Enclave sifted through remnants of the automaton attack.

  In the drawing room, however, the loudest noise was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. The curtains were drawn back, and in the pale sunlight the Consul stood scowling, his thick arms crossed over his chest. "This is madness, Charlotte," he said. "Utter madness, and based on the fancy of a child."

  "I am not a child," Cecily snapped. She was seated in a chair by the fireplace, the same one Will had fallen asleep in the night before--had it been such a short time ago? Will stood beside her, glowering. He had not changed his clothes. Henry was in Jem's room with the Silent Brothers; Jem had still not regained consciousness, and only the arrival of the Consul had dragged Charlotte and Will from his side. "And my parents knew Mortmain, as you well know. He befriended my family, my father. He gave us Ravenscar Manor when my father had--when we lost our house near Dolgellau."

  "It is true," said Charlotte, who stood behind her desk, papers spread out before her on the surface. "I spoke to you of it this summer, of what Ragnor Fell had reported to me about the Herondales."

  Will pulled his fists from his trouser pockets and faced the Consul angrily. "It was a joke to Mortmain, giving my family that house! He toyed with us. Why would he not extend the joke in this manner?"

  "Here, Josiah," said Charlotte, indicating one of the papers on the desk in front of her. A map of Wales. "There is a Lake Lyn in Idris--and here, Tal-y-Llyn lake, at the foot of Cadair Idris--"

  "'Llyn' means 'lake,'" said Cecily in an exasperated tone. "And we call it Llyn Mwyngil, though some call it Tal-y-Llyn--"

  "And there are probably other locations in the world with the name of Idris," snapped the Consul, before he seemed to realize that he was arguing with a fifteen-year-old girl, and subsided.

  "But this one means something," Will said. "They say the lakes around the mountain are bottomless--that the mountain itself is hollow, and inside it sleep the Cwn Annwn, the Hounds of the Underworld."

  "The Wild Hunt," said Charlotte.

  "Yes." Will raked his dark hair back. "We are Nephilim. We believe in legends, in myths. All the stories are true. Where better than a hollow mountain already associated with dark magic and portents of death to hide himself and his contraptions? No one would find it odd if strange noises came from the mountain, and no locals would investigate. Why else would he even be in the area? I always wondered why he took a particular interest in my family. Maybe it was simple proximity--the opportunity to devil a Nephilim family. He would have been unable to resist it."

  The Consul was leaning against the desk, his eyes on the map beneath Charlotte's hands. "It is not enough."

  "Not enough? Not enough for what?" Cecily cried.

  "To convince the Clave." The Consul stood. "Charlotte, you will understand. To launch a force against Mortmain on the assumption that he is in Wales, we will have to convene a Council meeting. We cannot take a small force and risk being outnumbered, especially by those creatures--how many of them were here this morning when you were attacked?"

  "Six or seven, not counting the creature that seized Tessa," said Charlotte. "We believe they can fold in upon themselves and were therefore able to fit within the small confines of a brougham."

  "And I believe that Mortmain did not realize that Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood would be with you, and thus underestimated the numbers he would need. Otherwise I suspect you might all be dead."

  "Hang the Lightwoods," muttered Will. "I believe he underestimated Bridget. She carved those creatures up like a Christmas turkey."

  The Consul threw his hands up. "We have read Benedict Lightwood's papers. In them he states that Mortmain's stronghold is just outside London, and that Mortmain intends to send a force against the London Enclave--"

  "Benedict Lightwood was going rapidly insane when he wrote that," Charlotte interrupted. "Does it seem likely Mortmain would have shared with him his true plans?"

  "What next and next?" The Consul's voice was snappish, but also deadly cold. "Benedict had no reason to lie in his own journals, Charlotte, which you should not have read. If you were not so convinced that you should know more than the Council, you would have given them over immediately. Such displays of disobedience do not incline me to trust you. If you must, you can bring this issue of Wales up with the Council when we meet in a fortnight--"

  "A fortnight?" Will's voice rose; he was pale, with splotches of red standing out on his cheekbones. "Tessa was taken today. She does not have a fortnight."

  "The Magister wanted her unharmed. You know that, Will," said Charlotte in a soft voice.

  "He also wants to marry her! Do you not think she would hate becoming his plaything more than she would hate death? She could be married by tomorrow--"

  "And to the devil with it if she is!" said the Consul. "One girl, who is not Nephilim, is not, cannot, be our priority!"

  "She is my priority!" Will shouted.

  There was a silence. Cecily could hear the sound of the damp wood popping in the grate. The fog that smeared the windows was dark yellow, and the Consul's face was cast in shadow. Finally: "I thought she was your parabatai's fiancee," he said tightly. "Not yours."

  Will raised his chin. "If she is Jem's fiancee, then I am duty bound to guard her as if she were my own. That is what it means to be parabatai."

  "Oh, yes." The Consul's voice dripped sarcasm. "Such loyalty is commendable." He shook his head. "Herondales. As stubborn as rocks. I remember when your father wanted to marry your mother. Nothing would dissuade him, though she was no candidate for Ascension. I had hoped for more amenability in his children."

  "You'll forgive my sister and myself if we do not agree," said Will, "considering that if my father had been more amenable, as you say, we would not exist."

  The Consul shook his head. "This is a war," he said. "Not a rescue."

  "And she is not just a girl," said Charlotte. "She is a weapon in the hands of the enemy. I am telling you, Mortmain intends to use her against us."

  "Enough." The Consul lifted his overcoat from the back of a chair and shrugged himself into it. "This is a profitless conversation. Charlotte, see to your Shadowhunters." His gaze swept over Will and Cecily. "They seem ... overexcited."

  "I see that we cannot force your cooperation, Consul." Charlotte's face was like thunder. "But remember that I will put it on record that we warned you of this situation. If in the end we were correct and disaster comes from this delay, all that results will be on your head."

  Cecily expected the Consul to look angry, but he only flipped up his hood, hiding his features. "That is what it means to be Consul, Charlotte."

  Blood. Blood on the flagstones of the courtyard. Blood staining the stairs of the house. Blood on the leaves of the garden, the remains of what had once been Gabriel's brother-in-law lying in thick pools of drying blood, hot jets of blood splattering Gabriel's gear as the arrow he had released drove into his father's eye--

  "Regretting your decision to remain at the Institute, Gabriel?" The cool, familiar voice cut through Gabriel's feverish thoughts, and he looked up with a gasp.

  The Consul stood over him, outlined by weak sunlight. He wore a heavy overcoat, gloves, and an expression as if Gabriel had done something to amuse him.

  "I--" Gabriel caught h
is breath, forced the words to come out evenly. "No. Of course not."

  The Consul quirked an eyebrow. "That must be why you are crouching here around the side of the church, in bloodstained clothes, looking as if you're terrified someone might find you."

  Gabriel scrambled to his feet, grateful for the hard stone wall behind him, bearing him up. He glared at the Consul. "Are you suggesting that I did not fight? That I ran away?"

  "I am not suggesting any such thing," said the Consul mildly. "I know that you stayed. I know that your brother was injured--"

  Gabriel took a sharp rattling breath, and the Consul's eyes narrowed.

  "Ah," he said. "So that is it, isn't it? You saw your father die, and you thought you were going to see your brother die as well?"

  Gabriel wanted to scrabble at the wall behind him. He wanted to hit the Consul in his unctuous, falsely sympathetic face. He wanted to run upstairs and throw himself down by his brother's bed, refuse to leave, as Will had refused to leave Jem until Gabriel had forced him away. Will was a better brother to Jem than he himself was to Gideon, he had thought bitterly, and there was no blood shared between them. It was that in part that had driven him back out of the Institute, to this hiding space behind the stables. Surely no one would look for him here, he had told himself.

  He had been wrong. But he was wrong so often, what was one more time?

  "You saw your brother bleed," said the Consul, still in the same mild voice. "And you remembered--"

  "I killed my father," Gabriel said. "I put an arrow through his eye--I spilled his blood. Do you think I don't know what that means? His blood will cry to me from the ground, as Abel's blood called to Cain. Everyone says he wasn't my father anymore, but he was still all that remained of him. He was a Lightwood once. And Gideon could have been killed today. To lose him as well--"

  "You see what I meant," said the Consul. "When I spoke of Charlotte and her refusal to obey the Law. The cost of life it engenders. It could have been your brother's life sacrificed to her overweening pride."

  "She does not seem proud."

  "Is that why you wrote this?" The Consul drew from his coat pocket the first letter Gabriel and Gideon had sent him. He looked at it in contempt and let it flutter to the ground. "This ridiculous missive, calculated to annoy me?"