Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices Book 3)

by Cassandra Clare

“Stop,” she said again, and caught at his sleeve, turning him to face her. He was flushed, breathless, his arm as tense as iron beneath her grip. “When you searched for the cure before, you did not know what you know now. You did not have the allies you have now. We will go and we will ask Magnus Bane. He has eyes and ears in Downworld; he knows of all kinds of magic. He helped you with your curse; he can help us with this as well.”

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. Tessa stared. She could not help watching him when she knew he could not see her—the fine spidering dark lashes against his cheekbones, the faint blue tint to his eyelids. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes. Of course. Tessa—thank you. I did not think.” “You were grieved,” she said, suddenly aware that she was still holding his arm, and that they were close enough that she could have pressed a kiss to his cheek, or wrapped her arms about his neck to comfort him. She stepped back, releasing him. His eyes opened.

Yea, though God search it warily enough, There is not one sound thing in all thereof; Though he search all my veins through, searching them He shall find nothing whole therein but love. —Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Laus Veneris”

“That is all of it,” Will had said finally when he was done. “And I do not blame you if you hate me. I could understand it.” There’d been a long pause. Jem’s gaze had been steady on his face, steady and silver in the wavering light of the fire. “I could never hate you, William.” Will’s guts contracted now as he saw another face, a pair of steady blue-gray eyes looking up at his. “I tried to hate you, Will, but I could never manage it,” she had said.

There was his love for Tessa. But it was his burden to bear,

Jem’s eyes had widened, and then he’d laughed, a soft laugh. “Did you think I did not know you had a secret?” he’d said. “Did you think I walked into my friendship with you with my eyes shut? I did not know the nature of the burden you carried. But I knew there was a burden.” He’d stood up. “I knew you thought yourself poison to all those around you,” he’d added. “I knew you thought there to be some corruptive force about you that would break me. I meant to show you that I would not break, that love was not so fragile. Did I do that?”

“You saved my life,” Will had said. A smile had spread across Jem’s face, as brilliant as the sunrise breaking over the Thames. “That is all I ever wanted.”

With an effort he pulled himself out of memory, his eyes fixing on her face. Tessa’s face. She wore no hat, and the hood of her brocade cloak had fallen back. Her face was pale—wider across the cheekbones, slightly pointed at the chin. He thought he had never seen a face that had such a power of expression: Her every smile divided his heart as lightning might split a blackened tree, as did her every look of sorrow. At the moment she was gazing at him with a wistful concern that caught his heart.

“Jem has always given me exactly what I needed in the way that I needed it, even when I did not know myself what I required. All parabatai are devoted. We must be, to give so much of ourselves to each other, even if we gain in strength by doing so. But with Jem it is different. For so many years I needed him to live, and he kept me alive. I thought he did not know that he was doing it, but maybe he did.”

“He speaks of you only with the greatest pride, Will,” she said. “He admires you more than you could ever know. When he learned of the curse, he was heartbroken for you, but there was also, almost, a sort of . . .” “Vindication?” She nodded. “He had always believed you were good,” she said. “And then it was proven.”

She leaned forward and caught at his hand, pressing it between her own. The touch was like white fire through his veins.

You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire. He had wondered once why love was always phrased in terms of burning. The conflagration in his own veins, now, gave the answer.

“There is no one better placed than I am to be able to say with perfect confidence ...

Jem refused—for me. He said you do not leave your parabatai. That it was part of the words of the oath. ‘Thy people shall be my people.’ I wonder, if I had had the chance to return to my family, would I have done the same for him?”

“Do not think I do not know that Cecily wants you to return home with her. And do not think I do not know that you remain for Jem’s sake.” “And yours,” he said before he could stop himself. She withdrew her hands from his, and he cursed himself silently and savagely: How could you have been so foolish? How could you, after two months? You’ve been so careful. Your love for her is only a burden she endures out of politeness. Remember that.

Perhaps he had not, Will thought. Perhaps he had not spoken aloud. Perhaps he was only losing his mind. Certainly it was not unimaginable, under the circumstances.

“Who?” Tessa inquired, which did not seem to Will to be germane to the issue, but it was Tessa’s way—she was forever asking questions; leave her alone in a room, and she’d begin asking questions of the furniture and plants.

“Swallow enough of that stuff and you’ll think you’re somebody else,” said Will.

Woolsey sighed as if greatly prevailed upon. “Magnus,” he called. “It’s your blue-eyed boy.”

Tessa stripped off her gloves and stood with her hands close to the fire, shivering slightly. Her hair was a damp mass of curls at the back of her neck, and Will looked away from her before he could remember what it felt like to put his hands through that hair and feel the strands wind about his fingers. It was easier at the Institute, with Jem and the others to distract him, to remember that Tessa was not his to recall that way. Here, feeling as if he were facing the world with her by his side—feeling that she was here for him instead of, quite sensibly, for the health of her own fiancé—it was nearly impossible.

Her chin was up, and Will remembered what he had said to her once, about being like Boadicea. She was brave, and he adored her for it, even as it was employed in the defense of her love for someone else.

Will did not know what happened after that; everything went suddenly white, and Woolsey’s monocle was flying across the room. Will’s head hit something painfully, and the werewolf was under him, kicking and swearing, and they were rolling across the rug, and there was a sharp pain in his wrist, where Woolsey had clawed him. The pain cleared his head, and he was aware that Woolsey was pinning him to the ground, his eyes gone yellow and his teeth bared and as sharp as daggers, ready to bite.

“You’re glaring at me,” he said to Magnus. “You look like Church before he bites someone.”

“I don’t,” Will said, surprising even himself a little. “I don’t know why I ever helped you.” “You like broken things.” Magnus took two strides across the room and seized Will’s face in his long fingers, forcing his chin up. “You are not Sydney Carton,” he said. “What good will it do you to die for James Carstairs, when he is dying anyway?” “Because if I save him, then it is worth it—” “God!” Magnus’s eyes narrowed. “What is worth it? What could possibly be worth it?” “Everything I have lost!” Will shouted. “Tessa!”

“If Jem dies, I cannot be with Tessa,” said Will. “Because it will be as if I were waiting for him to die, or took some joy in his death, if it let me have her. And I will not be that person. I will not profit from his death. So he must live.”

The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away.”

“ ‘True love cannot die,’ ” Will said, translating the inscription on the back in the light from the corridor. “I can’t wear this, Magnus. It’s too pretty for a man.” “So are you. Go home and clean yourself up. I will call upon you as soon as I have information.” He looked at Will keenly. “In the meantime do your best to be worthy of my assistance.”

“You don’t know James Carstairs. Don’t speak about him.” “Love him, do you?” Woolsey managed to make it sound unpleasant. “But you love Will, too.” Tessa froze inside. She had known that Magnus knew of Will’s affection for her, but the idea that what she felt for him in return was written across her face was too terrifying to contemplate. “That’s not true.” “Liar,” said Woolsey. “Really, what is the difference if one of them dies? You always have a fine secondary option.”

“One can love two children. But your heart can be given in romantic love to only a single other,” said Woolsey. “That is the nature of Eros, is it not? So novels would tell us, though I have no experience of it myself.” “I have come to understand something about novels,” Tessa said.

Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.”

“A heart divided against itself cannot stand, as they say. You love them both, and it tears you apart.”

“Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two.”

He looked from Tessa to Woolsey and laughed a short laugh. “I suppose you were right, Magnus,” he said. “Tessa is in no danger from him. One cannot say the same in reverse.” “Tessa, darling, put the poker down,” Magnus said, holding out his hand. “Woolsey can be dreadful, but there are better ways of handling his moods.” With a last glare at Woolsey, Tessa handed the poker to Magnus. She went to retrieve her gloves, and Will his coat, and there was a blur of movement and voices, and she heard Woolsey laugh.

She was barely paying attention; she was too focused on Will. She could tell already from the look on his face that whatever he and Magnus had said to each other in private, it had not solved the problem of Jem’s drugs. He looked haunted, and a little deadly, the blood freckling his high cheekbones only making the blue of his eyes more startling.

Will was utterly still. “Tessa,” he said. His voice sounded peculiar, odd and choked. Tessa stepped quickly down to stand beside him, looking up into his face. Will’s face was so often changeable as moonlight itself; she had never seen his expression so still.

She laid her hand upon his arm. He did not move. It was so peculiar, being this close to him, the familiar feel and presence of him, when for months they had avoided each other, had barely spoken. He had not even wanted to meet her eyes. And now he was here, smelling of soap and rain and blood and Will. . . . “You have done so much,” she whispered.

“I know. I know it. And yet I feel such dread in my heart, as if it were the last hour of my life. I have felt hopelessness before, Tess, but never such fear. And yet I have known—I have always known . . .”

“I know just who you are. You’re Will Herondale,” was all she said, and then suddenly his arms were around her, his head on her shoulder.

He was not crying; this was something else, a sort of paroxysm, as if he were choking.

She could not be Jem for him, she thought, could not be his compass that always pointed north, but if nothing else she could make his a slighter burden to carry.

Will and Tessa had broken apart at last, though their hands were still joined. Tessa appeared to be coaxing Will down the steps.

Will and Tessa walk toward their carriage. Somehow, despite the difference in their height and build, she appeared to be the one who was being leaned upon.

“Do you think there’s a chance for him?” “A chance for who?” “Will Herondale. To be happy.” Woolsey sighed gustily and put down his glass. “Is there a chance for you to be happy if he isn’t?” Magnus said nothing.

“I have wondered that, but no. It is something else. I feel that I owe him. I have heard it said that when you save a life, you are responsible for that life. I feel I am responsible for that boy.

If he never finds happiness, I will feel I have failed him. If he cannot have that girl he loves, I will feel I have failed him. If I cannot keep his parabatai by him, I will feel I failed him.” “Then you will fail him,” Woolsey said.

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d, Let darkness keep her raven gloss: Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground. —Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam A.H.H.”

“You look much better, Jemmy,” Charlotte observed with delight. Jemmy? Tessa looked at Jem with amusement; he shrugged and gave her a self-deprecating grin. She looked across the table and found Will watching them. Her gaze brushed his, just for a moment, a question in her eyes. Was there any chance that somehow Will had found some replacement yin fen in the time between returning home and this morning? But no, he looked as surprised as she felt.

“Cold blows the wind tonight, sweetheart, Cold are the drops of rain; The very first love that ever I had In greenwood he was slain. I’ll do as much for my sweetheart As any young woman may; I’ll sit and mourn at his graveside A twelve-month and a day.”

Will, his eyes suspiciously bright, opened his mouth. Jem reached out and clapped a hand over it.

“No,” said Jem. “I would forbid him as well.” Tessa turned to Jem with the first expression of anger toward him Cecily had ever seen on her face. “You cannot forbid me—any more than you could Will—” “I can,” Jem said. “For a very simple reason. The drug is not a cure, Tessa. It only extends my living. I will not allow you to throw away your own life for a remnant of mine. If you go to Mortmain, it will be for nothing. I still won’t take the drug.” Will lifted his head. “James—” But Tessa and Jem were staring at each other, eyes locked. “You would not,” Tessa breathed. “You would not insult me by hurling a sacrifice I made for you back in my face like that.” Jem strode across the room and seized the packet—and the letter—off Charlotte’s desk. “I would rather insult you than lose you,” he said, and before any of them could make a move to stop him, he cast both items into the fire.