“You’ve made a murderer of yourself. And you think I ought to be proud? I’m ashamed to be related to you.”
“Related to me? You’re not even human. You are some thing. You are no part of me. From the moment Mortmain told me what you really are, you were dead to me. I have no sister.”
“Then why,” said Tessa in a voice so quiet she could barely hear it herself, “do you keep calling me Tessie?”
He looked at her for a moment in stark confusion. And as she looked back at her brother—the brother she had thought was all she had left in the world—something moved beyond Nate’s shoulder, and Tessa wondered if she was seeing things, if perhaps she was going to faint.
“I wasn’t calling you Tessie,” he said. He sounded baffled, almost lost.
A feeling of unbearable sadness gripped her. “You’re my brother, Nate. You’ll always be my brother.”
His eyes narrowed. For a moment Tessa thought perhaps he had heard her. Perhaps he would reconsider. “When you belong to Mortmain,” he said, “I shall be bound to him forever. For I am the one who made it possible for him to have you.”
Her heart sank. The thing beyond Nate’s shoulder moved again, a disturbance of the shadows. It was real, Tessa thought. Not her imagination. There was something behind Nate. Something moving toward them both. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Sophie, she thought. She hoped the other girl would have the sense to run away before Nate came for her with the knife.
“Come along, then,” he said to Tessa. “There’s no reason to make a fuss. The Magister isn’t going to hurt you—”
“You cannot be sure of that,” Tessa said. The figure behind Nate was almost upon him. There was something pale and glimmering in its hand. Tessa fought to keep her eyes locked on Nate’s face.
“I am sure.” He sounded impatient. “I am not a fool, Tessa—”
The figure exploded into movement. The pale and glimmering object rose above Nate’s head and came down with a heavy crash. Nate pitched forward, crumpling to the ground. The blade rolled from his hand as he struck the carpet and lay still, blood staining his pale blond hair.
Tessa looked up. In the dim light she could see Jessamine standing over Nate, a furious expression on her face. The remains of a shattered lamp were still clutched in her left hand.
“Not a fool, perhaps.” She prodded Nate’s recumbent form with a disdainful toe. “But not your most shining moment, either.”
Tessa could only stare. “Jessamine?”
Jessamine looked up. The neckline of her dress was torn, her hair had come down out of its pins, and there was a purpling bruise on her right cheek. She dropped the lamp, which narrowly missed hitting Nate once again in the head, and said, “I’m quite all right, if that’s what you’re so pop-eyed about. It wasn’t me they wanted, after all.”
“Miss Gray! Miss Lovelace!” It was Sophie, out of breath from running up and down stairs. In one hand she held the slender iron Sanctuary key. She looked down at Nate as she reached the end of the corridor, her mouth opening in surprise. “Is he all right?”
“Oh, who cares if he’s all right?” Jessamine said, bending to pick up the knife that Nate had dropped. “After all the lies he told! He lied to me! I really thought—” She flushed dark red. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.” She straightened and whirled on Sophie, her chin held high. “Now, don’t just stand there staring, Sophie, do let us into the Sanctuary before God knows what comes after us all and tries to kill us again.”
Will burst out of the mansion and onto the front steps, Jem just behind him. The lawn ahead of them was stark in the moonlight; their carriage was where they had left it in the center of the drive. Jem was relieved to see that the horses hadn’t spooked despite all the noise, though he supposed that Balios and Xanthos, belonging to Shadowhunters as they did, had probably seen much worse.
“Will.” Jem came to a stop beside his friend, trying to conceal the fact that he needed to catch his breath. “We must get back to the Institute as soon as possible.”
“You will get no disagreement from me on that front.” Will gave Jem a keen look; Jem wondered if his face was as flushed and feverish-looking as he feared. The drug, which he had taken in a great quantity before they’d left the Institute, was wearing off faster than it should have been; at another time the realization would have prickled Jem with anxiety. Now he put it aside.
“Do you think Mortmain expected us to kill Mrs. Dark?” he asked, less because he felt the question was an urgent one than because he needed a few more moments to catch his breath before he climbed into the carriage.
Will had his jacket open and was rummaging in one of the pockets. “I imagine so,” he said, almost absently, “or probably he hoped we’d all kill one another, which would have been ideal for him. Clearly he wants de Quincey dead as well and has decided to use the Nephilim as his own band of personal assassins.” Will drew a folding knife from his inner pocket and looked at it with satisfaction. “A single horse,” he observed, “is much faster than a carriage.”
Jem gripped the cage he was holding tighter. The gray cat, behind its bars, was looking around with wide yellow interested eyes. “Please tell me you aren’t going to do what I suspect you’re going to do, Will.”
Will flipped the knife open and started up the drive. “There’s no time to lose, James. And Xanthos can pull the carriage perfectly well by himself, if you’re the only one in it.”
Jem went after him, but the heavy cage, as well as his own fevered exhaustion, slowed his progress. “What are you doing with that knife? You’re not going to murder the horses, are you?”
“Of course not.” Will raised the blade and began to slash at the harness fastening Balios, his favored of the two animals, to the carriage.
“Ah,” said Jem. “I see. You’re going to ride off on that horse like Dick Turpin and leave me here. Have you gone mad?”
“Someone’s got to look after that cat.” The girth and traces fell away, and Will swung himself up onto Balios.
“But—” Really alarmed now, Jem set the cage down. “Will, you can’t—”
It was too late. Will dug his heels into the horse’s sides. Balios reared and neighed, Will clinging on resolutely—Jem could have sworn he was grinning—and then the horse wheeled and pounded toward the gates. Inside of a moment, horse and rider were out of sight.
19
BOADICEA
Seal’d her mine from her first sweet breath.
Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death
Mine, mine—our fathers have sworn.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Maud”
As the doors of the Sanctuary closed behind them, Tessa looked around apprehensively. The room was darker than it had been when she had come here to meet Camille. There were no candles burning in the great candelabras, only flickering witchlight that emanated from sconces on the walls. The angel statue continued to weep its endless tears into the fountain. The air in the room was bone-chillingly cold, and she shivered.
Sophie, having slipped the key back into her pocket, looked as nervous as Tessa felt. “Here we are, then,” she said. “It’s awful cold in this place.”
“Well, we won’t be here long, I’m sure,” said Jessamine. She was still holding Nate’s knife, which glittered in her hand. “Someone will come back to rescue us. Will, or Charlotte—”
“And find the Institute full of clockwork monsters,” Tessa reminded her. “And Mortmain.” She shuddered. “I’m not sure it’ll be quite so simple as you make it out to be.”
Jessamine looked at Tessa with cold dark eyes. “Well, you needn’t sound as if it’s my fault. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Sophie had moved to stand among the massive pillars, and was looking very small. Her voice echoed off the stone walls. “That’s not very kind, miss.”
Jessamine perched herself on the edge of the fountain, then rose to her feet again, frowning. She brushed at the back of her
dress, now stained with damp, in an exasperated manner. “Perhaps not, but it’s true. The only reason the Magister is here is because of Tessa.”
“I told Charlotte all this was my fault.” Tessa spoke quietly. “I told her to send me away. She wouldn’t.”
Jessamine tossed her head. “Charlotte’s softhearted, and so is Henry. And Will—Will thinks he’s Galahad. Wants to save everyone. Jem, too. None of them are practical.”
“I suppose,” Tessa said, “if it had been your decision to make . . .”
“You’d have been out the door with nothing but the key of the street to your name,” Jessamine said, and sniffed. Seeing the way Sophie was looking at her, she added, “Oh, really! Don’t be such a mush-mouth, Sophie. Agatha and Thomas would still be alive if I’d been in charge, wouldn’t they?”
Sophie went pale, her scar standing out along her cheek like the mark of a slap. “Thomas is dead?”
Jessamine looked as if she knew she’d made a mistake. “I didn’t mean that.”
Tessa looked at her, hard. “What happened, Jessamine? We saw you injured—”
“And precious little any of you did about it either,” Jessamine said, and sat down with a flounce on the fountain wall, apparently forgetting to worry about the state of her dress. “I was unconscious . . . and when I awoke, I saw that all of you had gone but Thomas. Mortmain was gone too, but those creatures were still there. One of them began to come after me, and I looked for my parasol, but it had been trampled to shreds. Thomas was surrounded by those creatures. I went toward him, but he told me to run, so . . . I ran.” She tilted her chin up defiantly.
Sophie’s eyes flashed. “You left him there? Alone?”
Jessamine set the knife down on the wall with an angry clatter. “I’m a lady, Sophie. It is expected that a man sacrifice himself for a lady’s safety.”
“That’s rubbish!” Sophie’s hands were tight little fists at her sides. “You’re a Shadowhunter! And Thomas is just a mundane! You could have helped him. You just wouldn’t—because you’re selfish! And—and awful!”
Jessamine gaped at Sophie, her mouth wide open. “How dare you speak to me like—”
She broke off as the door of the Sanctuary resounded with the noise of the heavy knocker falling. It sounded again, and then a familiar voice, raised, called out to them, “Tessa! Sophie! It’s Will.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jessamine said—clearly just as relieved to be free of her conversation with Sophie as she was to be rescued—and hurried toward the door. “Will! It’s Jessamine. I’m in here too!”
“And you’re all three all right?” Will sounded anxious in a way that tightened Tessa’s chest. “What happened? We raced here from Highgate. I saw the door of the Institute open. How in the Angel’s name did Mortmain get in?”
“He evaded the wards somehow,” Jessamine said bitterly, reaching for the door handle. “I’ve no idea how.”
“It hardly matters now. He’s dead. The clockwork creatures are destroyed.”
Will’s tone was reassuring—so why, Tessa thought, did she not feel reassured? She turned to look at Sophie, who was staring at the door, a sharp vertical frown line between her eyes, her lips moving very slightly as if she were whispering something under her breath. Sophie had the Sight, Tessa remembered—Charlotte had said so. Tessa’s sense of unease rose and crested like a wave.
“Jessamine,” she called. “Jessamine, don’t open the door—”
But it was too late. The door had swung wide. And there on the threshold stood Mortmain, flanked by clockwork monsters.
Thank the Angel for glamours, Will thought. The sight of a boy riding bareback on a charging black horse down Farringdon Road would normally be enough to raise eyebrows even in a metropolis as jaded as London. But as Will went by—the horse kicking up great puffs of London dust as it reared and snorted its way through the streets—no one turned a hair or batted the lash of an eye. Yet even as they seemed not to see him, they found reasons to move out of his way—a dropped pair of eyeglasses, a step to the side to avoid a puddle in the road—and avoid being trampled.
It was almost five miles from Highgate to the Institute; it had taken them three-quarters of an hour to cover the distance in the carriage. It took Will and Balios only twenty minutes to make the return trip, though the horse was panting and lathered with sweat by the time Will pounded through the Institute gates and drew up in front of the steps.
His heart sank immediately. The doors were open. Wide open, as if inviting in the night. It was strictly against Covenant Law to leave the doors of an Institute standing ajar. He had been correct; something was terribly wrong.
He slid from the horse’s back, boots clattering loudly against the cobblestones. He looked for a way to secure the animal, but as he’d cut its harness, there was none, and besides, Balios looked inclined to bite him. He shrugged and made for the steps.
Jessamine gasped and leaped back as Mortmain stepped into the room. Sophie screamed and ducked behind a pillar. Tessa was too shocked to move. The four automatons, two on either side of Mortmain, stared straight ahead with their shining faces like metal masks.
Behind Mortmain was Nate. A makeshift bandage, stained with blood, was tied around his head. The bottom of his shirt—Jem’s shirt—had a ragged strip torn from it. His baleful gaze fell on Jessamine.
“You stupid whore,” he snarled, and started forward.
“Nathaniel.” Mortmain’s voice cracked like a whip; Nate froze. “This is not an arena in which to enact your petty revenges. There is one more thing I need from you; you know what it is. Retrieve it for me.”
Nate hesitated. He was looking at Jessamine like a cat with its gaze fixed on a mouse.
“Nathaniel. To the weapons room. Now.”
Nate dragged his gaze from Jessie. For a moment he looked at Tessa, the rage in his expression softening into a sneer. Then he turned on his heel and stalked from the room; two of the clockwork creatures peeled themselves from Mortmain’s side and followed him.
The door closed behind him, and Mortmain smiled pleasantly. “The two of you,” he said, looking from Jessamine to Sophie, “get out.”
“No.” The voice was Sophie’s, small but stubborn, though to Tessa’s surprise, Jessamine showed no inclination to leave either. “Not without Tessa.”
Mortmain shrugged. “Very well.” He turned to the clockwork creatures. “The two girls,” he said. “The Shadowhunter and the servant. Kill them both.”
He snapped his fingers and the clockwork creatures sprang forward. They had the grotesque speed of skittering rats. Jessamine turned to run, but she had gone only a few steps when one of them seized her, lifting her off the ground. Sophie darted among the pillars like Snow White fleeing into the woods, but it did her little good. The second creature caught up to her swiftly and bore her to the ground as she screamed. In contrast Jessamine was utterly silent; the creature holding her had one metal hand clamped across her mouth and the other around her waist, fingers digging in cruelly. Her feet kicked uselessly in the air like the feet of a criminal dangling at the end of a hangman’s rope.
Tessa heard her own voice as it emerged from her throat as if it were a stranger’s. “Stop it. Please, please, stop it!”
Sophie had broken away from the creature holding her and was scrambling across the floor on her hands and knees. Reaching out, it caught her by the ankle and jerked her backward across the floor, her apron tearing as she sobbed.
“Please,” Tessa said again, fixing her eyes on Mortmain.
“You can stop it, Miss Gray,” he said. “Promise me you won’t try to run.” His eyes burned as he looked at her. “Then I’ll let them go.”
Jessamine’s eyes, visible above the metal arm clamping her mouth, pleaded with Tessa. The other creature was on its feet, holding Sophie, who dangled limply in its grip.
“I’ll stay,” Tessa said. “You have my word. Of course I will. Just let them go.”
There was a long pause. The
n, “You heard her,” Mortmain said to his mechanical monsters. “Take the girls out of this room. Bring them downstairs. Don’t harm them.” He smiled then, a thin, crafty smile. “Leave Miss Gray alone with me.”
Even before he passed through the front doors, Will felt it—the jangling sense that something dreadful was happening here. The first time he’d ever felt this sensation, he’d been twelve years old, holding that blasted box—but he’d never imagined feeling it in the fastness of the Institute.
He saw Agatha’s body first, the moment he stepped over the threshold. She lay on her back, her glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling, the front of her plain gray dress soaked with blood. A wave of almost overwhelming rage washed over Will, leaving him light-headed. Biting his lip hard, he bent to close her eyes before he rose and looked around.
The signs of a melee were everywhere—torn scraps of metal, bent and broken gears, splashes of blood mixing with pools of oil. As Will moved toward the stairs, his foot came down on the shredded remains of Jessamine’s parasol. He gritted his teeth and moved on to the staircase.
And there, slumped across the lowest steps, lay Thomas, eyes closed, motionless in a widening pool of scarlet. A sword rested on the ground beside him, a little ways away from his hand; its edge was chipped and dented as if he had been using it to hack apart rocks. A great jagged piece of metal protruded from his chest. It looked a little like the torn blade of a saw, Will thought as he crouched down by Thomas’s side, or like a sharp bit of some larger metal contraption.
There was a dry burning in the back of Will’s throat. His mouth tasted of metal and rage. He rarely grieved during a battle; he saved his emotions for afterward—those he had not already learned to bury so deeply that he barely felt them at all. He had been burying them since he was twelve years old. His chest knotted with pain now, but his voice was steady when he spoke. “Hail and farewell, Thomas,” he said, reaching to close the other boy’s eyes. “Ave—”
The Infernal Devices Series Page 37