Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices, The)
Page 48
He brought his hand up and cupped her cheek. She could see the hope in his expression, slowly dawning. “And what is that?”
“Come with me,” she said. “Stay with me. Be with me. See everything with me. I have traveled the world and seen so much, but there is so much more, and no one I would rather see it with than you. I would go everywhere and anywhere with you, Jem Carstairs.”
His thumb slid along the arch of her cheekbone. She shivered. It had been so long since someone had looked at her like that, as if she were the world’s great marvel, and she knew she was looking at him like that too. “It seems unreal,” he said huskily. “I have loved you for so long. How can this be true?”
“It is one of the great truths of my life,” Tessa said. “Will you come with me? For I cannot wait to share the world with you, Jem. There is so much to see.”
She was not sure who reached for who first, only that a moment later she was in his arms and he was whispering “Yes, of course, yes,” against her hair. He sought her mouth tentatively—she could feel his gentle tension, the weight of so many years between their last kiss and this. She reached up, curling her hand around the back of his neck, drawing him down, whispering “Bie zhao ji.” Don’t worry, don’t worry. She kissed his cheek, the edge of his mouth, and finally his mouth, the pressure of his lips on hers intense and glorious, and Oh, the beat of his heart, the taste of his mouth, the rhythm of his breath. Her senses blurred with memory: how thin he had been once, the feeling of his shoulder blades as sharp as knives beneath the fine linen of the shirts he had once worn. Now she could feel strong, solid muscle when she held him, the thrum of life through his body where it pressed against hers, the soft cotton of his jumper gripped between her fingers.
Tessa was aware that above their small embankment people were still walking along Blackfriars Bridge, that the traffic was still passing, and that passersby were probably staring, but she didn’t care; after enough years you learned what was important and what wasn’t. And this was important: Jem, the speed and stutter of his heart, the grace of his gentle hands sliding to cup her face, his lips soft against hers as he traced the shape of her mouth with his. The warm solid definitive realness of him. For the first time in many long years she felt her heart open, and knew love as more than a memory.
No, the last thing she cared about was whether people were staring at the boy and girl kissing by the river, as London, its cities and towers and churches and bridges and streets, circled all about them like the memory of a dream. And if the Thames that ran beside them, sure and silver in the afternoon light, recalled a night long ago when the moon shone as brightly as a shilling on this same boy and girl, or if the stones of Blackfriars knew the tread of their feet and thought to themselves: At last, the wheel comes full circle, they kept their silence.
A NOTE ON TESSA’S ENGLAND
As in Clockwork Angel and Clockwork Prince, the London and Wales of Clockwork Princess is, as much as I could make it, an admixture of the real and the unreal, the famous and the forgotten. The Lightwood family house is based upon Chiswick House, which you can still visit. As for No. 16 Cheyne Walk, where Woolsey Scott lives, it was at the time actually rented together by Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and George Meredith. They were members of the aesthetic movement, like Woolsey. Although none of them were ever (proved to be) werewolves. The Argent Rooms are based on the scandalous Argyle Rooms.
As for Will’s mad ride across the countryside from London to Wales, I am indebted to Clary Booker, who helped me map the route, found inns that Will would have stayed at on the way, and speculated on the weather. As much as possible I tried to stick to roads and inns that did exist. (The Shrewsbury-Welshpool road is now the A458.) I have been to Cadair Idris myself and climbed it, visited Dolgellau and Taly-Llyn, and seen Llyn Cau, though never jumped in to see where it would take me.
Blackfriars Bridge exists of course, then and now, and the description of it in the epilogue is as close to my experience of the bridge as I could make it. The Infernal Devices began with a daydream of Jem and Tessa on Blackfriars Bridge, and I think it is fitting that it ends there too.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Cindy and Margaret Pon for help with Mandarin Chinese; Clary Booker for mapping Will’s journey from London to Cadair Idris; Emily-Jo Thomas for help with Will’s and Cecily’s Welsh; Aspasia Diafa, Patrick Oltman, and Wayne Miller for help with Latin and ancient Greek. Thank you to Moritz Wiest for scanning the whole manuscript so it could be delivered during Hurricane Sandy.
Much thanks for familial support from my mother and father, as well as Jim Hill and Kate Connor; Nao, Tim, David, and Ben; Melanie, Jonathan, and Helen Lewis; Florence and Joyce. To those who read and critiqued and pointed out anachronisms—Sarah Smith, Delia Sherman, Holly Black, Kelly Link, Ellen Kushner, Clary Booker—tons of thanks. And thanks to those whose smiling faces and snarky remarks keep me going another day: Elka Cloke, Holly Black, Robin Wasserman, Emily Houk, Maureen Johnson, Libba Bray, and Sarah Rees Brennan. My always-gratitude to my agent, Russell Galen; my editor, Karen Wojtyla; and the teams at Simon & Schuster and Walker Books for making it all happen. And lastly, my thanks to Josh, who brought me tea and cats while I worked.
CASSANDRA CLARE
is the author of the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Mortal Instruments series and Infernal Devices trilogy. Her books have more than twelve million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts. Visit her online at cassandraclare.com.
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JACKET DESIGN BY RUSSELL GORDON
JACKET PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION
COPYRIGHT © 2013 BY CLIFF NIELSEN
Margaret K. McElderry Books
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Also by Cassandra Clare
THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS:
City of Bones
City of Ashes
City of Glass
City of Fallen Angels
City of Lost Souls
THE INFERNAL DEVICES:
Clockwork Angel
Clockwork Prince
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MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Margaret K. McElderry Books edition March 2013
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