Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2)

by Cassandra Clare

he bent to kiss her bared shoulder as the fabric slid aside. No one had ever kissed her bare skin there before, and the feeling was so startling that she put out a hand to brace herself, and knocked a pillow from the bed; it hit the small side table. There was the sound of a crash. A sudden sweet dark scent, as of spices, filled the room. Jem jerked his hands back, a look of horror on his face. Tessa sat up as well, pulling the front of her nightdress together, suddenly self-conscious.

Tessa, you must go.” She thought of Will, ordering her out of the attic. Was this how it was always going to be—some boy would kiss her, and then order her away as if she were an unwanted servant? “I won’t go,”

“Please,” he said softly. His voice was husky. She recognized the emotion. It was shame. “I do not want you to see me on my knees, grubbing around on the floor for the drug that I need to live. That is not how any man wants the girl he—” He took a shaking breath. “I’m sorry, Tessa.”

When she closed her eyes, she saw Jem’s face, and then Will’s, his hand to his bloody mouth. Thoughts of the two of them swirled together in her head until she fell asleep finally, not sure if she was dreaming of kissing one of them, or the other.

“What business with his granddaughter?” Tessa demanded, flashing back to the portrait of the sickly-looking little girl on the staircase of the York Institute. “Only lived to be ten or so,” said Gabriel. “Never was very healthy, by all accounts, and when they first Marked her—Well, she must have been improperly trained. She went mad, turned Forsaken, and died. The shock killed old Starkweather’s wife, and sent his children scurrying to Idris.

“Your father?” Will’s tone was incredulous. “Protected the Fairchilds?” “He was protecting us as well.” Gabriel’s words tumbled over themselves. “My mother’s brother—my uncle Silas—was one of Granville Fairchild’s closest friends. Then Uncle Silas broke the Law—a tiny thing, a minor infraction—and Fairchild discovered it. All he cared about was the Law, not friendship, not loyalty. He went straight to the Clave.” Gabriel’s voice rose. “My uncle killed himself in shame, and my mother died of the grief. The Fairchilds don’t care about anyone but themselves and the Law!”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Tessa, “what was it that your uncle had done?” “Silas? Fell in love with his parabatai. Not, actually, as Gabriel says, a minor infraction but a major one. Romantic relationships between parabatai are absolutely forbidden.

“He understands you don’t care what other people think about you. But I believe he always expected you’d care what he thought. What he felt.” Will leaned forward. The firelight made odd patterns against his skin, darkening the bruise on his cheek to black. “I do care what other people think,” he said with a surprising intensity, staring into the flames. “It’s all I think about—what others think, what they feel about me, and I about them; it drives me mad. I wanted escape—”

“I wondered if it was true,” said Jem. “And if it is, perhaps it might be useful to communicate to the Consul that Benedict’s motive for wanting the Institute is revenge, not selfless desire to see it run better.” “It’s not true. It can’t be.” Charlotte shook her head. “Silas Lightwood did kill himself—because he was in love with his parabatai—but not because my father told the Clave about it. The first the Clave knew of it was from Silas’s suicide note. In fact, Silas’s father asked my father for help in writing Silas’s eulogy. Does that sound like a man who blamed my father for his son’s death?” Jem’s eyes darkened. “That’s interesting.”

Charlotte stopped herself, her heart aching. “Is there nothing—” “You know there’s nothing.” He lowered his arm, the blood on his sleeve like an accusation, and gave her the sweetest smile. “Dear Charlotte,” he said. “You have always been like the best sort of older sister I could have hoped for. You do know that, don’t you?” Charlotte just looked at him, openmouthed. It sounded so much like a good-bye, she could not bear to reply. He turned with his usual light tread and made his way out of the room. She watched him go, telling herself it meant nothing, that he was no worse than he had been, that he still had time.

he was halfway down the first one when he paused. Tessa’s door was here, he knew, across from Jem’s. And there, in front of her door, stood Jem—though “stood” was perhaps not the right word. He was pacing back and forth, “wearing a path in the carpet,” as Charlotte would have said. “James,” Will said, more surprised than anything else. Jem’s head jerked up, and he backed away from Tessa’s door instantly, retreating toward his own. His face went blank. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you wandering the halls at all hours.” “I think we can agree that the reverse is more out of character,” said Will. “Why are you awake? Are you all right?” Jem cast a last glance at Tessa’s door, and then turned to face Will. “I was going to apologize to Tessa,” he said. “I think my violin playing was keeping her awake.

Jem, having cleaned the blood from his hand with Will’s handkerchief, took the packet and stared down at the yin fen. “I have enough of this,” he said. “For at least another month.” He looked up then, a sudden flicker in his eyes. “Or did Tessa tell you—” “Did she tell me what?” “Nothing. I spilled some of the powder the other day.

“I would not be willing.” Will sounded sharp. “You’re my blood brother. I’ve sworn an oath not to let any harm come to you—” “Leaving aside oaths,” said Jem, “and power plays, did any of this have to do with me?” “I don’t know what you mean—” “I had begun to wonder if you were capable of the desire to spare anyone suffering.” Will rocked back slightly, as if Jem had pushed him. “I…” He swallowed, looking for the words. It had been so long since he had searched for words that would earn him forgiveness and not hatred,

“You hurt everyone,” said Jem. “Everyone whose life you touch.” “Not you,” Will whispered. “I hurt everyone but you. I never meant to hurt you.” Jem put his hands up, pressing his palms against his eyes. “Will—” “You can’t never forgive me,” Will said, hearing the panic tinging his own voice. “I’d be—” “Alone?” Jem lowered his hands, but he was smiling now, crookedly. “And whose fault is that?”

“Know what?” “That I will die,” Jem said. His eyes were wide, and fever-bright; there was a trace of blood, still, at the corner of his mouth. The shadows under his eyes were nearly blue. Will dug his fingers into Jem’s wrist, denting the material of his shirt. Jem did not wince. “You swore to stay with me,” he said. “When we made our oath, as parabatai. Our souls are knit. We are one person, James.” “We are two people,” said Jem. “Two people with a covenant between us.” Will knew he sounded like a child, but he could not help it. “A covenant that says you must not go where I cannot come with you.”

Have you ever asked yourself why I agreed to be your parabatai?” “No better offers forthcoming?” Will tried for humor, but his voice cracked like glass. “I thought you needed me,” Jem said. “There is a wall you have built about yourself, Will, and I have never asked you why. But no one should shoulder every burden alone. I thought you would let me inside if I became your parabatai, and then you would have at least someone to lean upon.

“I am not Jessamine.” He looked at her levelly. There was something in his eyes, a sort of quizzical admiration; she wondered if it was simply admiration of Jessamine’s looks. “No,” he said. “No, even though you are the perfect picture of Jessamine, I can see Tessa through it somehow—as if, if I were to scrape away a layer of paint, there would be my Tessa underneath.” “I am not your Tessa either.”

there’s something wrong. I—I couldn’t feel anything from her.” “Well, I suppose it’s hard to meddle in someone’s brains if they’ve got no brains to start with.” Tessa made a face. “Be flippant about it if you like, but there is something wrong with Jessamine. Trying to touch her mind is like trying to touch—a nest of snakes, or a poisonous cloud. I can feel a little of her emotions. A great deal of rage, and longing, and bitterness. But I cannot pick out the individual thoughts among them. It is like trying to hold water.” “That’s curious. Have you ever come across anything like it before?” Tessa shook her head.

“What it produces is nothing.” Will tugged at the window curtain. “The child would be born dead. They always are. Stillborn, I mean. The offspring of a demon and a Shadowhunter parent is death.”

I hope you appreciate the service done you.” Tessa shook her head in bewilderment. “Service? What service? Are you speaking of Mortmain? Do you know what I am?” “Do you know what I am?” Tessa thought of the Codex. “A faerie?” she guessed. “And do you know what a changeling is?” Tessa shook her head.

“Are you telling me I’m a changeling?” Hyacinth bubbled over with giggles. “Of course not! What a ridiculous thought!”

“The Institute is your family now.” His voice was incredibly gentle. Tessa looked at him in amazement. Gentleness was not something she would ever have associated with Will. But it was there, in the touch of his hand on her cheek, in the softness of his voice, in his eyes when he looked at her. It was the way she had always dreamed a boy would look at her.

“I have wanted to do this,” he said, “every moment of every hour of every day that I have been with you since the day I met you. But you know that. You must know. Don’t you?” She looked up at him, lips parted in bewilderment. “Know what?” she said, and Will, with a sigh of something like defeat, kissed her.

And Will—Will, whom Tessa had expected to reach for his seraph blades—did something entirely unexpected. He raised a trembling finger, pointed at the blue-skinned demon, and breathed, “You.” The blue-skinned demon blinked.

“Will’s been hunting demons all night. So brave.” Camille’s expression was a mixture of amazement and annoyance. “I am brave,” Will said. He looked pleased with himself. The painkilling tonics had enlarged his pupils, and his eyes looked very dark. “Yes, you are,” Magnus said, and kissed him. It wasn’t the most dramatic kiss, but Will flailed his free arm as if a bee had landed on him; Magnus had to hope Camille would assume this was passion. When they broke apart, Will looked stunned.

“Did you just kiss me?” Will inquired. Magnus made a split-second decision. “No.” “I thought—” “On occasion the aftereffects of the painkilling spells can result in hallucinations of the most bizarre sort.” “Oh,” Will said.

I only want your assurance that you will tell no one what transpired between us last night on the balcony.” “Oh, that was you,” said Will, with the air of someone who has just recollected a surprising detail. “Spare me,” she snapped, stung despite herself. “We were under the influence of warlock powders. It meant nothing. Even I do not blame you for what happened, however tedious you are being about it now. But there is no need for anyone else to know, and if you were a gentleman—” “But I am not.”

“Then give me your word you will tell no one, not even Jem, and I will go away and cease to bore you.” “You have my word on the Angel,” he said. “It was not something I had planned to brag of in the first place. Though why you are so keen that no one here suspect you of a lack of virtue, I do not know.” Jem’s face flashed across her inner eye. “No,” she said. “You truly don’t.” And with that she turned on her heel and stalked from the room, leaving him staring after her in confusion.

moment. She had to say it, before their friendship suffered further. Before there could be more awkwardness. “Jem,” she said. “Yes?” “I—you must know—how very much your friendship means to me,” she began, awkwardly. “And—” A look of pain flashed across his face. “Please don’t.” Thrown off her stride, Tessa could only blink. “What do you mean?” “Every time you say that word, ‘friendship,’ it goes into me like a knife,” he said. “To be friends is a beautiful thing, Tessa, and I do not scorn it, but I have hoped for a long time now that we might be more than friends. And then I had thought after the other night that perhaps my hopes were not in vain. But now—”

“I fear that you think that I regret that night. I do not.” His thumb brushed over her wrist, the bare skin between the cuff of her dress and her glove. “I only regret that it came too soon. I—I would have wanted to—to court you first. To take you driving, with a chaperon.” “A chaperon?” Tessa laughed despite herself.

“There is only one girl I care to make swoon,” he said. “The question is, does she?” She smiled at him. “She does.” A moment later—she did not know how it had happened—he was kissing her, his lips soft on hers, his hand rising to cup her cheek and chin, holding her face steady. Tessa heard a light crinkling and realized it was the sound of the silk flowers on her hat being crushed against the side of the carriage as his body pressed hers back. She clutched at his coat lapels, as much to keep him close as to stop herself from falling over. The carriage came to a jerking halt. Jem drew back from her, looking dazed. “By the Angel,” he said. “Perhaps we do need a chaperon.”

“Unrequited love is a ridiculous state, and it makes those in it behave ridiculously.”

“I am not your brother.” “Very well, my half brother, if you must have it—” “You’re not my sister. Not even by half.” He said the words with a cruel pleasure. “Your mother and my mother were not the same woman.” “That’s not possible,” Tessa whispered. “You’re lying. Our mother was Elizabeth Gray—” “Your mother was Elizabeth Gray, born Elizabeth Moore,” said Nate. “Mine was Harriet Moore.” “Aunt Harriet?”

“I’ve never minded it,” he went on. “Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not be truly lost if one knew one’s own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.”

“Are you lying, Marbas?” Magnus snapped. “Do you swear on Baal that you are telling the truth?” “I swear,” said Marbas, red eyes rolling. “What benefit would it be to me to lie?” Will slid to his knees. His hands were locked across his stomach as if they were keeping his guts from spilling out. Five years, he thought. Five years wasted. He heard his family screaming and pounding on the doors of the Institute and himself ordering Charlotte to send them away. And they had never known why. They had lost a daughter and a son in a matter of days, and they had never known why. And the others—Henry and Charlotte and Jem—and Tessa—and the things he had done—

Will stared down at his hands. “My whole life wrecked, destroyed…” “You’re seventeen,” Magnus said. “You can’t have wrecked a life you’ve barely lived.

“Your place is with me,” Jem said. “It always will be.” “What do you mean?” He flushed, the color dark against his pale skin. “I mean,” he said, “Tessa Gray, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” Tessa sat bolt upright. “Jem!” They stared at each other for a moment. At last he said, trying for lightness, though his voice cracked, “That was not a no, I suppose, though neither was it a yes.” “You can’t mean it.” “I do mean it.”

“We’ll tell Charlotte first, when there’s a chance,” he said, “and then the others. Once the fate of the Institute is decided…” “You sound as if you don’t mind what happens to it,” said Tessa. “Won’t you miss it here? This place has been your home.” His fingers stroked her wrist lightly, making her shiver. “You are home for me now.”

his mouth sudden and hot on hers. She fell and spun and drowned in the kiss; his lips were soft and his body was hard against her, and he tasted like rain. Heat spread through the pit of her stomach as his mouth moved urgently on hers, willing her response. Jem’s face flashed against the back of her closed eyelids. She put her hands flat against Will’s chest and shoved him away from her, as hard as she could. Her breath came out on a violent exhalation: “No.” Will took a surprised step backward.

I thought you—you said you were as eager to be alone with me as I was—” “I imagined you wanted an apology! You saved my life at the tea warehouse, and I am grateful, Will. I thought you wanted me to tell you that—” Will looked as if she had slapped him. “I didn’t save your life so you’d be grateful!” “Then, what?” Her voice rose. “You did it because it’s your mandate? Because the Law says—” “I did it because I love you!”

I had to make you hate me, Tessa. So I tried. And then I wanted to die. I had thought I could bear it if you hated me, but I could not.

It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt—I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamed. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted—and then I realized that truly I just wanted you.

“It’s too late,” she said. “Don’t say that.” His voice was half a whisper. “I love you, Tessa. I love you.” She shook her head. “Will … stop.” He took a ragged breath. “I knew you would be reluctant to trust me,” he said. “Tessa, please, is it that you do not believe me, or is it that you cannot imagine ever loving me back? Because if it is the second—” “Will. It doesn’t matter—” “Nothing matters more!” His voice grew in strength. “I know that if you hate me it is because I forced you to. I know that you have no reason to give me a second chance to be regarded by you in a different light. But I am begging you for that chance. I will do anything. Anything.”

“He never told me anything. He never said a word about you to me. Not that way.” He pushed his hair back from his face, that characteristic gesture she had seen him make a thousand times, only now his hand was visibly shaking. “Do you love him?” “Yes, I love him,” she said, and she saw Will flinch. “Don’t you?” “But he would understand,” he said dazedly. “If we explained it to him. If we told him … he would understand.”

“Told him what?” Will only looked at her. There had been light in his eyes on the stairs, as he’d locked the door, when he’d kissed her—a brilliant, joyous light. And it was going now, fading like the last breath of someone dying.

“You promise me,” he said. “That you love him. Enough to marry him and make him happy.” “Yes,” she said. “Then, if you love him,” he said quietly, “please, Tessa, don’t tell him what I just told you. Don’t tell him that I love you.”

“What you have endured,” she said, “since you were twelve years old—it would have killed most people. You have always believed that no one loved you, that no one could love you, as their continued survival was proof to you that they did not. But Charlotte loves you. And Henry. And Jem. And your family. They all have always loved you, Will Herondale, for you cannot hide what is good about yourself, however hard you try.” He lifted his head and looked at her. She saw the flame of the fire reflected in his blue eyes. “And you? Do you love me?” Her nails dug into her palms. “Will,” she said. He looked at her, almost through her, blindly. “Do you love me?” “I…” She took a deep breath. It hurt. “Jem has been right about you all this time. You were better than I gave you credit for being, and for that I am sorry. Because if this is you, what you are truly like, and I think that it is—then you will have no difficulty finding someone to love you, Will, someone for whom you come first in their heart. But I…” He made a sound halfway between a choking laugh and a gasp. “‘First in your heart,’” he said. “Would you believe that is not the only time you have said that to me?” She shook her head, bewildered. “Will, I have not—” “You can never love me,” he said flatly,

I know what she means to you.” Jem grinned. His happiness was printed all over his face, his eyes, Will thought; he had never seen him look like this. He had always thought of Jem as a calm and peaceful presence, always thought that joy, like anger, was too extreme and human an emotion for him. He realized now that he had been quite wrong; Jem had simply not been happy like this before. Not since his parents had died, Will imagined. But Will had never considered it. He had dwelled on whether Jem was safe, whether he was surviving, but not if he was happy. Jem is my great sin. Tessa had been right, he thought. He had wanted her to break things off with Jem, whatever the cost; now he realized he did not, could not. You might at least believe I know honor—honor, and debt, he had said to Jem, and he had meant it. He owed Jem his life. He could not take from him the one thing Jem wanted more than anything else. Even if it meant Will’s own happiness, for Jem was not only someone to whom he owed a debt that could never be repaid, but, as the covenant said, someone he loved as he loved his own soul.

I love Jem. I am marrying Jem. Tessa had repeated it to herself all the way down the hall, but it made little difference; her heart flipped sickeningly in her chest when she saw Will.

He raised his glass of wine. “I do not know two finer people,” he said, “and could not imagine better news. May your lives together be happy and long.” His eyes sought Tessa’s, then slid away from her, fastening on Jem. “Congratulations, brother.” A flood of other voices came after his speech. Sophie set the pitcher down and came to embrace Tessa; Henry and Gideon shook Jem’s hand, and Will stood watching it all, still holding the glass.