Tessa followed his gaze; out the window the sky was a cloudy steel gray—the usual for London, she thought. Men in hats and long dark coats hurried along the pavement on either side of the street, their shoulders hunched against a brisk wind that carried coal dust, horse manure, and all sorts of eye-stinging rubbish in its wake. Once again Tessa thought she could smell the river.
“Is that a church directly in the middle of the street?” she wondered aloud.
“It’s St. Mary le Strand,” said Will, “and there’s a long story about it, but I’m not going to tell it to you now. Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?”
“I was,” Tessa said, “until you started on about rain. Who cares about rain? We’re on our way to some sort of—vampire society event, and I’ve no idea how I’m supposed to behave, and so far you haven’t helped me much at all.”
The corner of Will’s mouth twitched upward. “Just be careful. When we arrive at the house, you can’t look to me for help or instruction. Remember, I am your human subjugate. You keep me about you for blood—blood whenever you want it—and nothing else.”
“So you’re not going to speak tonight,” Tessa said. “At all.”
“Not unless you instruct me to,” said Will.
“This evening sounds as if it might be better than I thought.”
Will seemed not to have heard her. With his right hand he was tightening one of the metal knife-bearing cuffs on his left wrist. He was staring off toward the window, as if seeing something that wasn’t visible to her. “You might be thinking of vampires as feral monsters, but these vampires are not like that. They are as cultured as they are cruel. Sharpened knives to humanity’s dull blade.” The line of his jaw was set hard in the dim light. “You will have to try to keep up. And for God’s sake, if you can’t, don’t say anything at all. They have a tortuous and opaque sense of etiquette. A serious social gaffe could mean instant death.”
Tessa’s hands tightened on each other in her lap. They were cold. She could feel the cold of Camille’s skin, even through her gloves. “Are you joking? The way you were in the library, about dropping that book?”
“No.” His voice was remote.
“Will, you’re frightening me.” The words came out of Tessa’s mouth before she could stop them; she tensed, expecting mockery.
Will drew his gaze away from the window and looked at her as if some realization had dawned on him. “Tess,” he said, and Tessa felt a momentary jolt; no one had ever called her Tess. Sometimes her brother had called her Tessie, but that was all. “You know you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
She took a breath, one she didn’t need. “And then what? We would turn the carriage around and go home?”
He put his hands out, and took hers. Camille’s hands were so small that Will’s capable dark-gloved ones seemed to swallow them up. “One for all, and all for one,” he said.
She smiled at that, weakly. “The Three Musketeers?”
His steady gaze held hers. His blue eyes were very dark, uniquely so. She had known people before with blue eyes, but they had always been light blue. Will’s were the color of the sky just on the edge of night. His long lashes veiled them as he said, “Sometimes, when I have to do something I don’t want to do, I pretend I’m a character from a book. It’s easier to know what they would do.”
“Really? Who do you pretend you are? D’Artagnan?” Tessa asked, naming the only one of the Three Musketeers that she could remember.
“‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,’” Will quoted. “‘It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’”
“Sydney Carton? But you said you hated A Tale of Two Cities!”
“I don’t really.” Will seemed unabashed by his lie.
“And Sydney Carton was a dissipated alcoholic.”
“Exactly. There was a man who was worthless, and knew he was worthless, and yet however far down he tried to sink his soul, there was always some part of him capable of great action.” Will lowered his voice. “What is it he says to Lucie Manette? That though he is weak, he can still burn?”
Tessa, who had read A Tale of Two Cities more times than she could count, whispered, “‘And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.’” She hesitated. “But that was because he loved her.”
“Yes,” said Will. “He loved her enough to know she was better off without him.” His hands were still on hers, the heat of them burning through her gloves. The wind was brisk outside, and had ruffled his ink black hair as they had crossed the Institute courtyard to the carriage. It made him look younger, and more vulnerable—and his eyes, too, were vulnerable, open like a door. The way he was looking at her, she would not have thought Will could, or would, look at anyone like that. If she could blush, she thought, how she would be blushing now.
And then she wished she had not thought of that. For that thought led, inevitably and unpleasantly, to another: Was he looking at her now, or at Camille, who was, indeed, exquisitely beautiful? Was that the reason for his change in expression? Could he see Tessa through the disguise, or only the shell of her?
She drew back, taking her hands from his, though his were closed tightly around hers. It took her a moment to disengage them.
“Tessa—,” he began, but before he could say more, the carriage came to a jerking stop that set the velvet curtains swaying. Thomas called, “We’re here!” from the driver’s seat. Will, after taking a deep breath, swung the door open and leaped down to the pavement, lifting his hand to help her down after him.
Tessa bent her head as she exited the carriage to avoid crushing any of the roses on Camille’s hat. Though Will wore gloves, as she did, she could almost imagine she felt the pulsing of blood under his skin, even through the double layer of fabric that separated them. He was flushed, the color high in his cheeks, and she wondered if it was the cold whipping the blood into his face, or something else.
They were standing in front of a tall white house with a white-pillared entrance. It was surrounded by similar houses on either side, like rows of pale dominoes. Up a row of white steps was a pair of double doors painted black. They were ajar, and Tessa could see the glimmer of candlelight from within, shimmering like a curtain.
Tessa turned to look at Will. Behind him Thomas was seated at the front of the carriage, his hat tipped forward to hide his face. The silver-handled pistol tucked into his waistcoat pocket was entirely hidden from view.
Somewhere in the back of her head, she felt Camille laugh, and she knew, without knowing how she knew, that she was sensing the vampire woman’s amusement at her admiration of Will. There you are, Tessa thought, relieved despite her annoyance. She had begun to fear that Camille’s inner voice would never come to her.
She drew away from Will, lifting her chin. The haughty pose wasn’t natural to her—but it was to Camille. “You will address me not as Tessa but as a servant would,” she said, her lip curling. “Now come.” She jerked her head imperiously toward the steps, and started off without looking back to see if he followed.
An elegantly dressed footman awaited her at the top of the steps. “Your Ladyship,” he murmured, and as he bowed, Tessa saw the two fang punctures in his neck, just above the collar. She turned her head to see Will behind her, and was about to introduce him to the footman when Camille’s voice whispered in the back of her head, We do not introduce our human pets to each other. They are our nameless property, unless we choose to give them names.
Ugh, Tessa thought. In her disgust, she hardly noticed as the footman guided her down a long corridor and into a large marble-floored room. He bowed again and departed; Will moved to her side, and for a moment they both stood staring.
The space was lit only by candles. Dozens of gold candela-bras dotted the room, fat white candles blazing in the holders. Hands carved of marble reached fro
m the walls, each gripping a scarlet candle, drips of red wax blooming like roses along the sides of the carved marble.
And among the candelabras moved vampires, their faces as white as clouds, their movements graceful and liquid and strange. Tessa could see their similarities to Camille, the features they shared—the poreless skin, the jewel-colored eyes, the pale cheeks splotched with artificial rouge. Some looked more human than others; many were dressed in the fashions of bygone ages—knee breeches and cravats, skirts as full as Marie Antoinette’s or gathered into trains at the back, lace cuffs and linen frills. Tessa’s gaze scanned the room frantically, searching for a familiar fair-haired figure, but Nathaniel was nowhere to be seen. Instead she found herself trying not to stare at a tall skeletal woman, dressed in the heavily wigged and powdered fashion of a hundred years ago. Her face was stark and dreadful, whiter than the white powder dusting her hair. Her name was Lady Delilah, Camille’s voice whispered in Tessa’s mind. Lady Delilah held a slight figure by the hand, and Tessa’s mind recoiled—a child, in this place?—but when the figure turned, she saw that it was a vampire as well, sunken dark eyes like pits in its rounded childish face. It smiled at Tessa, showing bared fangs.
“We must look for Magnus Bane,” Will said under his breath. “He is meant to guide us through this mess. I shall point him out if I see him.”
She was about to tell Will that Camille would recognize Magnus for her, when she caught sight of a slender man with a shock of fair hair, wearing a black swallowtail coat. Tessa felt her heart leap—and then fall in bitter disappointment as he turned. It was not Nathaniel. This man was a vampire, with a pale, angular face. His hair was not yellow like Nate’s but was almost colorless under the candlelight. He dropped Tessa a wink and began to move toward her, pushing through the crowd. There were not only vampires among them, Tessa saw, but human subjugates as well. They carried gleaming serving trays, and on the trays were sets of empty glasses. Beside the glasses lay an array of silver utensils, all sharp-pointed. Knives, of course, and thin tools like the awls shoemakers used to punch holes in leather.
As Tessa stared in confusion, one of the subjugates was stopped by the woman in the white powdered wig. She snapped her fingers imperiously, and the darkling—a pale boy in a gray jacket and trousers—turned his head to the side obediently. After plucking a thin awl from the tray with her skinny fingers, the vampire drew the sharp tip across the skin of the boy’s throat, just below his jaw. The glasses rattled on the tray as his hand shook, but he didn’t drop the tray, not even when the woman lifted a glass and pressed it against his throat so that the blood ran down into it in a thin stream.
Tessa’s stomach tightened with a sudden mixture of revulsion—and hunger; she could not deny the hunger, even though it belonged to Camille and not her. Stronger than the thirst, though, was her horror. She watched as the vampire woman lifted the glass to her lips, the human boy beside her standing gray-faced and trembling as she drank.
She wanted to reach for Will’s hand, but a vampire baroness would never hold the hand of her human subjugate. She straightened her spine, and beckoned Will to her side with a quick snap of her fingers. He looked up in surprise, then moved to join her, clearly fighting to hide his annoyance. But hide it he must. “Now, don’t go wandering off, William,” she said with a meaningful glance. “I don’t want to lose you in the crowd.”
Will’s jaw set. “I’m getting the oddest feeling that you’re enjoying this,” he said under his breath.
“Nothing odd about it.” Feeling unbelievably bold, Tessa chucked him under the chin with the tip of her lace fan. “Simply behave yourself.”
“They are so hard to train, aren’t they?” The man with the colorless hair emerged out of the crowd, inclining his head toward Tessa. “Human subjugates, that is,” he added, mistaking her startled expression for confusion. “And then once you have them properly trained, they die of something or other. Delicate creatures, humans. All the longevity of butterflies.”
He smiled. The smile showed teeth. His skin had the bluish paleness of hardened ice. His hair was nearly white and hung arrow-straight to his shoulders, just brushing the collar of his elegant dark coat. His waistcoat was gray silk, figured with a pattern of twisting silver symbols. He looked like a Russian prince out of a book. “It’s good to see you, Lady Belcourt,” he said, and there was an accent to his voice too, not French—more Slavic. “Did I catch a glimpse of a new carriage through the window?”
This is de Quincey, Camille’s voice breathed in Tessa’s mind. Images rose up suddenly in her brain, like a fountain turned on, pouring forth visions instead of water. She saw herself dancing with de Quincey, her hands on his shoulders; she stood by a black stream under the white sky of a northern night, watching as he fed on something pale and sprawled in the grass; she sat motionless at a long table of other vampires, de Quincey at the head of it, as he shouted and screamed at her and brought his fist down so hard that the marble top of the table shivered into cracks. He was shouting at her, something about a werewolf and a relationship she would live to regret. Then she was sitting alone in a room, in the dark, and weeping, and de Quincey came in and knelt by her chair and took her hand, wanting to comfort her, though he had been the one to cause her pain. Vampires can weep? Tessa thought first, and then, They have known each other a long time, Alexei de Quincey and Camille Belcourt. They were friends once, and he thinks they are friends still.
“Indeed, Alexei,” she said, and as she said it, she knew this was the name she had been trying to recall at the dinner table the other night—the foreign name the Dark Sisters had spoken. Alexei. “I wanted something a bit . . . roomier.” She held her hand out, and stood still while he kissed it, his lips cold on her skin.
De Quincey’s eyes slid past Tessa to Will, and he licked his lips. “And a new subjugate as well, I see. This one is quite fetching.” He reached out a thin pale hand, and drew his forefinger down the side of Will’s cheek to his jaw. “Such unusual coloring,” he mused. “And these eyes.”
“Thank you,” said Tessa, in the manner of one being complimented on an especially tasteful choice of wallpaper. She watched nervously as de Quincey moved even closer to Will, who looked pale and strained. She wondered if he was having trouble holding himself back when surely every one of his nerves was screaming Enemy! Enemy!
De Quincey trailed his finger from Will’s jaw to his throat, to the point at his collarbone where his pulse beat. “There,” he said, and this time when he smiled, his white fangs were visible. They were sharp and fine at the points, like needles. His eyelids drooped, languorous and heavy, and his voice when he spoke was thick. “You wouldn’t mind, Camille, would you, if I just had a little bite. . . .”
Tessa’s vision went white. She saw de Quincey again, the front of his white shirt scarlet with blood—and she saw a body hanging upside down from a tree at the dark stream’s edge, pale fingers dangling in the black water. . . .
Her hand whipped out, faster than she’d ever imagined she could have moved, and caught de Quincey’s wrist. “My darling, no,” she said, a wheedling tone in her voice. “I’d so like to keep him to myself for just a little while. You know how your appetite runs away with you sometimes.” She lowered her eyelids.
De Quincey chuckled. “For you, Camille, I will exercise my restraint.” He drew his wrist away, and for a moment, under the flirtatious poise, Tessa thought she saw a flash of anger in his eyes, quickly masked. “In honor of our long acquaintance.”
“Thank you, Alexei.”
“Have you given any further thought, my dear,” he said, “to my offer of a membership in the Pandemonium Club? I know the mundanes bore you, but they are a source of funds, nothing more. Those of us on the board are on the verge of some very . . . exciting discoveries. Power beyond your wildest dreams, Camille.”
Tessa waited, but Camille’s inner voice was silent. Why? She fought down panic and managed to smile at de Quincey. “My dreams,” she said, and hoped h
e would think the hoarseness in her voice was from amusement and not fear, “may be more wild already than you imagine.”
Beside her, she could tell that Will had shot her a surprised look; he quickly schooled his features to blandness, though, and glanced away. De Quincey, his eyes gleaming, only smiled.
“I ask only that you consider my offer, Camille. And now I must attend to my other guests. I trust I will see you at the ceremony?”
Dazed, she simply nodded. “Of course.”
De Quincey bowed, turned, and vanished into the crowd. Tessa let her breath out. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding it.
“Don’t,” said Will softly at her side. “Vampires don’t need to breathe, remember.”
“My God, Will.” Tessa realized she was shaking. “He would have bitten you.”
Will’s eyes were dark with rage. “I would have killed him first.”
A voice spoke at Tessa’s elbow. “And then you would both be dead.”
She whirled and saw that a tall man had appeared just behind her, as soundlessly as if he had drifted there like smoke. He wore an elaborate brocade jacket, like something out of the previous century, with a riot of white lace at his collar and cuffs. Below the long jacket Tessa glimpsed knee breeches, and high buckled shoes. His hair was like rough black silk, so dark it had a bluish sheen to it; his skin was brown, the cast of his features like Jem’s. She wondered if perhaps, like Jem, he was of foreign extraction. In one ear he sported a silver loop from which dangled a diamond pendant the size of a finger, which sparkled brilliantly under the lights, and there were diamonds set into the head of his silver walking stick. He seemed to gleam all over, like witchlight. Tessa stared; she had never seen anyone dressed in such a mad fashion.
“This is Magnus,” said Will quietly, sounding relieved. “Magnus Bane.”
The Infernal Devices Series Page 20