She shuddered. “Oh, no. I hate chocolate.”
Will looked horrified. “What kind of monster could possibly hate chocolate?”
“He eats everything,” Agatha told Tessa with a placid smile. “Since he was twelve, he has. I suppose it’s all the training that keeps him from getting fat.”
Tessa, amused at the idea of a fat Will, complimented the pipe-puffing Agatha on her mastery of the enormous kitchen. It looked like a place you could cook for hundreds, with row upon row of jarred preserves and soups, spice tins, and a huge haunch of beef roasting on a hook over the open fireplace.
“Well done,” Will said after they’d left the kitchen. “Complimenting Agatha like that. Now she’ll like you. It’s no good if Agatha doesn’t like you. She’ll put stones in your porridge.”
“Oh, dear,” Tessa said, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was entertained. They went from the kitchen to the music room, where there were harps and a great old piano, gathering dust. Down a set of stairs was the drawing room, a pleasant place where the walls, instead of being bare stone, were papered with a bright print of leaves and lilies. A fire was going in a large grate, and several comfortable armchairs were pulled up near it. There was a great wooden desk in the room too, which Will explained was the place where Charlotte did much of the work of running the Institute. Tessa couldn’t help wondering what it was that Henry Branwell did, and where he did it.
After that there was the weapons room, finer than anything Tessa imagined you might see in a museum. Hundreds of maces, axes, daggers, swords, knives, and even a few pistols hung on the walls, as well as a collection of different kinds of armor, from greaves worn to protect the shins to full suits of chain mail. A solid-looking young man with dark brown hair sat at a high table, polishing a set of short daggers. He grinned when they came in. “Evenin’, Master Will.”
“Good evening, Thomas. You know Miss Gray.” He indicated Tessa.
“You were at the Dark House!” Tessa exclaimed, looking more closely at Thomas. “You came in with Mr. Branwell. I thought—”
“That I was a Shadowhunter?” Thomas grinned. He had a sweet, pleasant, open sort of face, and a lot of curling hair. His shirt was open at the neck, showing a strong throat. Despite his obvious youth, he was extremely tall and muscular, the width of his arms straining against his sleeves. “I’m not, miss—only trained like one.”
Will leaned back against the wall. “Did that order of misericord blades come in, Thomas? I’ve been running into a certain amount of Shax demons lately, and I need something narrow that can pierce armored carapaces.”
Thomas started to say something to Will about shipping being delayed due to weather in Idris, but Tessa’s attention had been distracted by something else. It was a tall box of golden wood, polished to a high shine, with a pattern burned into the front—a snake, swallowing its own tail.
“Isn’t that the Dark Sisters’ symbol?” she demanded. “What’s it doing here?”
“Not quite,” said Will. “The box is a Pyxis. Demons don’t have souls; their consciousness comes from a sort of energy, which can sometimes be trapped and stored. The Pyxis contains them safely—oh, and the design is an ouroboros—the ‘tail devourer.’ It’s an ancient alchemical symbol meant to represent the different dimensions—our world, inside the serpent, and the rest of existence, outside.” He shrugged. “The Sisters’ symbol is the first time I’ve seen anyone draw an ouroboros with two snakes—Oh, no you don’t,” he added as Tessa reached for the box. He deftly stepped in front of her. “The Pyxis can’t be touched by anyone who isn’t a Shadowhunter. Nasty things will happen. Now let’s go. We’ve taken up enough of Thomas’s time.”
“I don’t mind,” Thomas protested, but Will was already on his way out. Tessa glanced back at Thomas from the doorway. He’d gone back to polishing the weaponry, but there was something about the set of his shoulders that made Tessa think he seemed a little bit lonely.
“I didn’t realize you let mundanes fight with you,” she said to Will after they’d left the weapons room behind. “Is Thomas a servant, or—”
“Thomas has been with the Institute for almost his entire life,” Will said, guiding Tessa around a sharp turn in the corridor. “There are families who have the Sight in their veins, families who have always served Shadowhunters. Thomas’s parents served Charlotte’s parents in the Institute, and now Thomas serves Charlotte and Henry. And his children will serve theirs. Thomas does everything—drives, cares for Balios and Xanthos—those are our horses—and helps with the weapons. Sophie and Agatha manage the rest, though Thomas assists them on occasion. I suspect he’s sweet on Sophie and doesn’t like to see her work too hard.”
Tessa was glad to hear it. She’d felt awful about her reaction to Sophie’s scar, and the thought that Sophie had a male admirer—and a handsome one at that—eased her conscience slightly. “Perhaps he’s in love with Agatha,” she said.
“I hope not. I intend to marry Agatha myself. She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.” He paused in front of a door—big and oak, with thick brass hinges. “Here we are, now,” he said, and the door swung open at his touch.
The room they entered was bigger even than the ballroom she had seen before. It was longer than it was wide, with rectangular oak tables set down the middle of it, vanishing up to the far wall, which was painted with an image of an angel. Each table was illuminated by a glass lamp that flickered white. Halfway up the walls was an interior gallery with a wooden railing running around it that could be reached by means of spiral staircases on either side of the room. Rows upon rows of bookshelves stood at intervals, like sentries forming alcoves on either side of the room. There were more bookshelves upstairs as well; the books inside were hidden behind screens of fretted metal, each screen stamped with a pattern of four Cs. Huge, outward-curving stained-glass windows, lined with worn stone benches, were set at intervals between the shelves.
A vast tome had been left out on a stand, its pages open and inviting; Tessa moved toward it, thinking it must be a dictionary, only to find that its pages were scrawled with illegible, illuminated script and etched with unfamiliar-looking maps.
“This is the Great Library,” said Will. “Every Institute has a library, but this one is the largest of them all—the largest in the West, at any rate.” He leaned against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. “I said I would get you more books, didn’t I?”
Tessa was so startled that he remembered what he had said, that it took her several seconds to respond. “But the books are all behind bars!” she said. “Like a literary sort of prison!”
Will grinned. “Some of these books are dangerous,” he said. “It’s wise to be careful.”
“One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
“I’m not sure a book has ever changed me,” said Will. “Well, there is one volume that promises to teach one how to turn oneself into an entire flock of sheep—”
“Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry,” said Tessa, determined not to let him run wildly off with the conversation.
“Of course, why one would want to be an entire flock of sheep is another matter entirely,” Will finished. “Is there something you want to read here, Miss Gray, or is there not? Name it, and I shall attempt to free it from its prison for you.”
“Do you think the library has The Wide, Wide World? Or Little Women?”
“Never heard of either of them,” said Will. “We haven’t many novels.”
“Well, I want novels,” said Tessa. “Or poetry. Books are for reading, not for turning oneself into livestock.”
Will’s eyes glittered. “I think we may have a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland about somewhere.”
Tessa wrinkled her nose. “Oh, that’s for little children, isn’t it?” she said. “I never lik
ed it much—seemed like so much nonsense.”
Will’s eyes were very blue. “There’s plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it.”
But Tessa had already spied a familiar volume on a shelf and went over to greet it like an old friend. “Oliver Twist!” she cried. “Have you any other of Mr. Dickens’s novels?” She clasped her hands together. “Oh! Do you have A Tale of Two Cities?”
“That silly thing? Men going around getting their heads chopped off for love? Ridiculous.” Will unpeeled himself from the door and made his way toward Tessa where she stood by the bookshelves. He gestured expansively at the vast number of volumes all around him. “No, here you’ll find all sorts of advice about how to chop off someone’s else’s head if you need to; much more useful.”
“I don’t!” Tessa protested. “Need to chop off anyone’s head, that is. And what’s the point of a lot of books no one actually wants to read? Haven’t you really any other novels?”
“Not unless Lady Audley’s Secret is that she slays demons in her spare time.” Will bounded up onto one of the ladders and yanked a book off the shelf. “I’ll find you something else to read. Catch.” He let it fall without looking, and Tessa had to dart forward to seize it before it hit the floor.
It was a large squarish volume bound in dark blue velvet. There was a pattern cut into the velvet, a swirling symbol reminiscent of the marks that decorated Will’s skin. The title was stamped on the front in silver: The Shadowhunter’s Codex. Tessa glanced up at Will. “What is this?”
“I assumed you’d have questions about Shadowhunters, given that you’re currently inhabiting our sanctum sanctorum, so to speak. That book ought to tell you anything you want to know—about us, about our history, even about Downworlders like you.” Will’s face turned grave. “Be careful with it, though. It’s six hundred years old and the only copy of its kind. Losing or damaging it is punishable by death under the Law.”
Tessa thrust the book away from her as if it were on fire. “You can’t be serious.”
“You’re right. I’m not.” Will leaped down from the ladder and landed lightly in front of her. “You do believe everything I say, though, don’t you? Do I seem unusually trustworthy to you, or are you just a naïve sort?”
Instead of replying, Tessa scowled at him and stalked across the room toward one of the stone benches inside a window alcove. Throwing herself down onto the seat, she opened the Codex and began to read, studiously ignoring Will even as he moved to sit beside her. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her as she read.
The first page of the Nephilim book showed the same image she’d grown used to seeing on the tapestries in the corridors: the angel rising out of the lake, holding a sword in one hand and a cup in the other. Underneath the illustration was a note: The Angel Raziel and the Mortal Instruments.
“That’s how it all began,” Will said cheerfully, as if oblivious to the fact that she was ignoring him. “A summoning spell here, a bit of angel blood there, and you’ve a recipe for indestructible human warriors. You’ll never understand us from reading a book, mind you, but it’s a start.”
“Hardly human—more like avenging angels,” Tessa said softly, turning the pages. There were dozens of pictures of angels—tumbling out of the sky, shedding feathers as a star might shed sparks as it fell. There were more images of the Angel Raziel, holding open a book on whose pages runes burned like fire, and there were men kneeling around him, men on whose skin Marks could be seen. Images of men like the one she’d seen in her nightmare, with missing eyes and sewed-shut lips; images of Shadowhunters brandishing flaming swords, like warrior angels out of Heaven. She looked up at Will. “You are, then, aren’t you? Part angel?”
Will didn’t answer. He was looking out the window, through a clear lower pane. Tessa followed his gaze; the window gave out onto what had to be the front of the Institute, for there was a rounded courtyard below them, surrounded by walls. Through the bars of a high iron gate surmounted by a curved arch, she could glimpse a bit of the street beyond, lit by dim yellow gaslight. There were iron letters worked into the wrought arch atop the gate; when looked at from this direction, they were backward, and Tessa squinted to decipher them.
“Pulvis et umbra sumus. It’s a line from Horace. ‘We are dust and shadows.’ Appropriate, don’t you think?” Will said. “It’s not a long life, killing demons; one tends to die young, and then they burn your body—dust to dust, in the literal sense. And then we vanish into the shadows of history, nary a mark on the page of a mundane book to remind the world that once we existed at all.”
Tessa looked at him. He was wearing that look she found so odd and compelling—that amusement that didn’t seem to pass beyond the surface of his features, as if he found everything in the world both infinitely funny and infinitely tragic all at the same time. She wondered what had made him this way, how he had come to find darkness amusing, for it was a quality he didn’t appear to share with any of the other Shadowhunters she had met, however briefly. Perhaps it was something he had learned from his parents—but what parents?
“Don’t you ever worry?” she said softly. “That what’s out there—might come in here?”
“Demons and other unpleasantness, you mean?” Will asked, though Tessa wasn’t sure if that was what she had meant, or if she had been speaking of the evils of the world in general. He placed a hand against the wall. “The mortar that made these stones was mixed with the blood of Shadowhunters. Every beam is carved of rowan wood. Every nail used to hammer the beams together is made of silver, iron, or electrum. The place is built on hallowed ground surrounded by wards. The front door can be opened only by one possessing Shadowhunter blood; otherwise it remains locked forever. This place is a fortress. So no, I am not worried.”
“But why live in a fortress?” At his surprised look she elaborated. “You clearly aren’t related to Charlotte and Henry, they’re hardly old enough to have adopted you, and not all Shadowhunter children must live here or there would be more than you and Jessamine—”
“And Jem,” Will reminded her.
“Yes, but—you see what I mean. Why don’t you live with your family?”
“None of us have parents. Jessamine’s died in a fire, Jem’s—well Jem came from quite a distance away to live here, after his parents were murdered by demons. Under Covenant Law, the Clave is responsible for parentless Shadowhunter children under the age of eighteen.”
“So you are one another’s family.”
“If you must romanticize it, I suppose we are—all brothers and sisters under the Institute’s roof. You as well, Miss Gray, however temporarily.”
“In that case,” Tessa said, feeling hot blood rise to her face, “I think I would prefer it if you called me by my Christian name, as you do with Miss Lovelace.”
Will looked at her, slow and hard, and then smiled. His blue eyes lit when he smiled. “Then you must do the same for me,” he said. “Tessa.”
She had never thought about her name much before, but when he said it, it was as if she were hearing it for the first time—the hard T, the caressing S, the way it seemed to end on a breath. Her own breath was very short when she said, softly, “Will.”
“Yes?” Amusement glittered in his eyes.
With a sort of horror Tessa realized that she had simply said his name for the sake of saying it; she hadn’t actually had a question. Hastily she said, “How do you learn—to fight like you do? To draw those magical symbols, and the rest of it?”
Will smiled. “We had a tutor who provided our schooling and physical training—though he’s left for Idris, and Charlotte’s looking for a replacement—along with Charlotte, who takes care of teaching us history and ancient languages.”
“So she’s your governess?”
A look of dark mirth passed across Will’s features. “You could say that. But I wouldn’t call Charlotte a governess if I were you, not if you want to preserve your limbs intact. You wouldn’t think it to look
at her, but she’s quite skilled with a variety of weapons, our Charlotte.”
Tessa blinked in surprise. “You don’t mean—Charlotte doesn’t fight, does she? Not the way you and Henry do.”
“Certainly she does. Why wouldn’t she?”
“Because she’s a woman,” Tessa said.
“So was Boadicea.”
“Who?”
“‘So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,/Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like—’” Will broke off at Tessa’s look of incomprehension, and grinned. “Tennyson? If you were English, you’d know. Remind me to find a book about her for you. Regardless, she was a powerful warrior queen. When she was finally defeated, she took poison rather than let herself be captured by the Romans. She was braver than any man. I like to think Charlotte is much in the same mold, if somewhat smaller.”
“But she can’t be any good at it, can she? I mean, women don’t have those sort of feelings.”
“What kind of feelings are those?”
“Bloodlust, I suppose,” Tessa said after a moment. “Fierceness. Warrior feelings.”
“I saw you waving that hacksaw at the Dark Sisters,” Will pointed out. “And if I recall correctly, Lady Audley’s secret was, in fact, that she was a murderer.”
“So you’ve read it!” Tessa couldn’t hide her delight.
He looked amused. “I prefer The Trail of the Serpent. More adventure, less domestic drama. Neither is as good as The Moonstone, though. Have you read Collins?”
“I adore Wilkie Collins,” Tessa cried. “Oh—Armadale! And The Woman in White. . . Are you laughing at me?”
“Not at you,” said Will, grinning, “more because of you. I’ve never seen anyone get so excited over books before. You’d think they were diamonds.”
The Infernal Devices Series Page 8