Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices Book 3)

by Cassandra Clare

“Tessa, come here.” He drew her toward him, until he was sitting on the ground and she was leaning against him, her head on his shoulder, his fingers threading through her hair. He could feel her body shaking against him, but she did not pull away. Instead she clung to him, as if truly his presence gave her comfort. And if he thought of how warm she was in his arms or the feel of her breath on his skin, it was only for a moment, and he could pretend that it wasn’t at all.

Distantly she knew that she should not let herself be held like this by any boy who was not her brother or fiancé—but her brother and her fiancé were both dead, and tomorrow Mortmain would find them and punish them both. She could not bring herself, in the face of all that, to care much about propriety.

“I was in the courtyard of an inn, halfway to Wales, when I knew. I felt it. The bond between us being severed. It was as if a great pair of scissors had cut my heart in half.” “Will . . .,” Tessa said. His grief was so palpable, it mixed with her own to create a sharp sadness, lighter for being shared, though it was hard to say who was comforting who now. “You were always half his heart as well.”

“Don’t,” said Tessa. “Jem wasn’t a martyr. It was no punishment for him, being your parabatai. You were like a brother to him—better than a brother, for you had chosen him. When he spoke of you, it was with loyalty and love, unclouded by any doubt.”

‘I can choose to be as much for her as I can be, to burn as brightly for her as I wish.’ ” Tessa made a small sound in her throat. “It was his choice, Tessa. Not something you forced upon him. He was never as happy as when he was with you.” Will was not looking at her, but at the fire. “Whatever else I have ever said to you, no matter what, I am glad he had that time with you. You should be as well.”

It took me so long to understand, but I did, and I do now—you are not a hero out of a book.” Will gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “It’s true,” he said. “I am no hero.” “No,” Tessa said. “You are a person, just like me.” His eyes searched her face, mystified; she held his hand tighter, lacing her fingers with his. “Don’t you see, Will? You’re a person like me. You are like me. You say the things I think but never say out loud. You read the books I read. You love the poetry I love. You make me laugh with your ridiculous songs and the way you see the truth of everything. I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way.” With the hand that was not holding his, she touched his cheek, lightly. “We are the same.” Will’s eyes fluttered closed; she felt his lashes against her fingertips. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged but controlled. “Don’t say those things, Tessa. Don’t say them.”

“You said I am a good man,” he said. “But I am not that good a man. And I am—I am catastrophically in love with you.” “Will—” “I love you so much, so incredibly much,” he went on, “and when you’re this close to me, I forget who you are. I forget you’re Jem’s. I’d have to be the worst sort of person to think what I’m thinking right now. But I am thinking it.”

Will. My heart is my own. It is beyond you to control it. It has been beyond me to control it.” Will’s eyes were still closed. His chest was rising and falling swiftly, and she could hear the hard thump of his heart, rapid beneath the solidity of his rib cage. His body was warm against hers, and alive, and she thought of the automatons’ cold hands on her, and Mortmain’s colder eyes. She thought of what would happen if she lived and Mortmain succeeded in what he wanted and she was shackled to him all her life—a man she did not love and in fact despised.

“There are so many worse things than death,” he said. “Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse. And to go down fighting as a Shadowhunter should, there is no dishonor in that. An honorable death—I have always wanted that.”

“There are two things I want,” she said, and was surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. “If you think Mortmain will try to kill you tomorrow, then I wish to be given a weapon. I shall divest myself of my clockwork angel, and I shall fight by your side, and if we go down, we go down together. For, I too, wish an honorable death, like Boadicea.”

“I can do that for you,” he said at last, subdued. “What was the second thing? That you wanted?” She swallowed. “I want to kiss you one more time before I die.” His eyes flew wide. They were blue, blue like the sea and sky in her dream where he had fallen away from her, blue as the flowers Sophie had put in her hair.

Her words were cut off, for he had caught hold of her and pulled her against him, and crushed his lips down against hers. For a split second it was almost painful, sharp with desperation and thinly controlled hunger, and she tasted salt and heat in her mouth and the gasp of his breath.

Her head slanted to the side as he parted her lips with his and they were not so much kissing as devouring each other. Her fingers gripped his hair tightly, hard enough that it must have hurt, and her teeth grazed his bottom lip. He groaned and pulled her tighter, making her gasp for air.

She had always thought Will was beautiful, his eyes and lips and face, but she had never particularly thought of his body that way. But the shape of him was lovely, like the planes and angles of Michelangelo’s David. She reached out to touch him, to run her fingers, as soft as spider silk, across the flat hard skin of his stomach.

Her hands pulled at his shirt, and it came away, the buttons tearing, his head shaking free of the fabric, all wild dark hair, Heathcliff on the moors.

She went motionless, shocked at being so undressed in front of anyone but Sophie, and Will took a wild look at her corset that was only part desire. “How—,” he said. “Does it come off?” Tessa couldn’t help herself; despite everything, she giggled. “It laces,” she whispered. “In the back.” And she guided his hands around her until his fingers were on the strings of the corset.

“For this I would have been damned forever. For this I would have given up everything.”

“Dw i’n dy garu di am byth,” he said. “I love you. Always.” And he moved to cover her body with his own.

She had fallen asleep with her head on his arm, the clockwork angel, still around her throat, resting against his shoulder, just to the left of his collarbone. As she moved away, the clockwork angel slipped free and she saw to her surprise that where it had lain against his skin it had left a mark behind, no bigger than a shilling, in the shape of a pale white star.

Like wire-pulled automatons, Slim silhouetted skeletons Went sidling through the slow quadrille, Then took each other by the hand, And danced a stately saraband; Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. —Oscar Wilde, “The Harlot’s House”

“Well, I think Henry and Magnus should go first,” Gabriel said. “They invented the blasted thing.” Everyone turned on him. “It’s like he’s replaced Will,” said Gideon, eyebrows up. “They say all the same sort of things.” “I am not like Will!” Gabriel snapped. “I should hope not,” said Cecily, though so quietly that he wondered if anyone else had heard her.

She was looking especially pretty today, though he had no idea why. She was dressed in the same plain black woman’s gear as Charlotte; her hair was secured demurely behind her head, and the ruby necklace at her throat glowed against her skin. However, Gabriel reminded himself sternly, since they were most likely about to direct themselves all into mortal danger, thinking about whether Cecily was pretty ought not to be foremost on his mind. He told himself to stop immediately.

“I am nothing like Will Herondale,”...

“To fight with us?” Gideon looked amazed. “But Silent Brothers don’t— I mean, they aren’t warriors—” That is incorrect. Shadowhunters we were and Shadowhunters we remain, even when changed to become Brothers. We were founded by Jonathan Shadowhunter himself, and though we live by the book, we may yet die by the sword if we so choose. Charlotte was beaming. “They learned of my message,” she said.

“They came. Brother Enoch, Brother Micah, and Brother Zachariah.”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhHhHhH 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

meaning. All he knew was that Cecily, braver than all of them, had stepped through the unknown doorway and was gone. And he could not let her go alone.

On the other side of the invisible wall was lounging a familiar figure in an elegant dark suit, one thumb hooked into the waistband of his trousers. His cat-pupilled eyes glimmered with mirth. Magnus Bane.

“I would, at any rate, but then, I am well known to be remarkably shy.”

“Sorry?” He looked at her in disbelief. “Nage ddim—you’re mad if you think I’m sorry, Tess.” His knuckle brushed her cheek. “There is more, so much more I want to say to you—” “No,” she teased. “Will Herondale, with more to say?” He ignored this.

Her fingers closed on the hilt of a dagger, and she yanked it from the belt, smiling as he looked down at her in surprise. She kissed his cheek and stepped back. “After all,” she said, “you weren’t lying about that tattoo of the dragon of Wales, were you?”

Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire! —William Blake, “Jerusalem”

At last, as they moved into a wider tunnel, they heard something—the sound of a distant cry of horror. Magnus went tense all over. Will’s head jerked up. “Cecily,” he said, and then he was running twice as fast as he had been, both Magnus and Tessa racing to keep up.

Will’s hands were suddenly tight on Tessa’s upper arms. She caught a glimpse of his white, set face as he pushed her toward Magnus, hissing: “Stay with her!” Tessa began to protest, but Magnus caught hold of her, drawing her back even as Will dashed into the melee, fighting his way toward his sister.

And Cecily was caught and thrown to the side by one of the Silent Brothers. In a whirl of parchment robes, he spun to face the creature, staff held before him. As the automaton lurched toward him, the Brother swung out with the staff, with such speed and force that the automaton was knocked back, its chest dented inward. It tried to move forward again, but its body was too badly bent. It gave an angry whir, and Cecily, scrambling back up to her feet, cried out a warning. Another automaton had loomed up beside the first. As the Silent Brother turned, the second automaton knocked the staff from his hand and seized him, lifting him off his feet, wrapping its metal arms around his body from behind, in the parody of an embrace. The Brother’s hood fell back, and his silvery hair shone out in the dim chamber like starlight. All the air rushed out of Tessa’s lungs in a single instant. The Silent Brother was Jem.

Jem. It was as if the world had stopped. Every figure was still, even the automatons, frozen in time. Tessa stared across the room at Jem, and he looked back at her. Jem, in the parchment robes of a Silent Brother. Jem, whose silvery hair, tumbling over his face, was threaded through with black. Jem, whose cheeks were scarred with two matching red cuts, one over each cheekbone. Jem, who was not dead.

The automaton gave a roar and toppled forward. Its legs had been sliced clean through from behind, and as it fell, Tessa saw Will rising from a crouch, a long-bladed sword in his hand. He reached out for the automaton as if he could catch it, prevent its fall, but it had already crashed to the floor, half on top of Jem, whose staff had rolled from his hand. Jem lay still, pinned by the massive machine above him.

The weight of a thousand things was in Will’s voice: disbelief and amazement, relief and betrayal. Jem began to struggle up onto his elbows just as Will’s sword, smeared with black oil, riven with dents, clattered to the ground.

Jem scrabbled for Will’s hand, caught it in his, and pressed the fingers of his blood brother’s hand to the inside of his own wrist. He willed his parabatai to understand.

Will struck with his blade, slicing through the jointed knees of two creatures. “I like that stick of yours,” he said. “It’s a staff.” Jem swung out to knock another automaton sideways. “Made by the Iron Sisters, only for Silent Brothers.”

“Anyone can sharpen a stick.” “It’s a staff,” Jem repeated,

some inner part of Jem, some part that had been lost without his even knowing it was lost, felt the pleasure of fighting together with Will one last time. “Whatever you say, James,” said Will. “Whatever you say.”

“You can’t kill me,” she gasped.

I’m a bad bitch you can’t kill me 😎🤠

Brother Zachariah.

JEM

“Henry,” Charlotte said, sounding a little frightened, “is the pain bad? Can you stand?” “There’s little pain,” Henry said. “But I cannot stand. I cannot feel my legs at all.”

Tessa, where was Tessa? Cecily saw Will realize Tessa’s absence at the same time that she did; he turned, his hand on Jem’s arm, his blue eyes scanning the room. She saw his lips form the word “Tessa,” though she could hear nothing over the ever-louder shrieking of the wind, the shuddering of metal—

Tessa’s eyes met Will’s as he raised his head and saw her. A look of dismay passed over his face, and he started forward. Jem seized his sleeve. His eyes were on Tessa too; they were wide and dark and full of horror.

“Yes.” She heard Jem—or was it Will—make a muffled sound. “Yes, I will take that bargain.” She looked up.

Will turning to Jem, his expression stricken. He had reached out for his parabatai. “James,” he had said. “You can find out—what they’re doing to her—if she’ll live—” But Brother Enoch had stepped between them. His name is not James Carstairs, he had said. It is Zachariah now. Will’s look, the way he had lowered his hand. “Let him speak for himself.” But Jem had only turned, turned and walked away from all of them, out of the Institute, Will watching him go in disbelief, and Charlotte had remembered the first time they had ever met: Are you really dying? I am sorry.

She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.’ ” “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Henry said irritably, pushing up the ink-stained sleeves of his dressing gown. “Can’t you read something less depressing? Something with a good battle in it.” “It’s Tennyson,” said Will, sliding his feet off the ottoman near the fire. They were in the drawing room, Henry’s chair pulled up near the fire, a sketchbook open on his lap. He was still pale, as he had been since the battle at Cadair Idris, though he was beginning to get his color back. “It will improve your mind.”

It was not as if he begrudged Charlotte and Henry their happiness—far from it. But he could not help but think of Tessa. Of the hopes he had cherished once and repressed later. He wondered if she had ever looked at him like that. He did not think so. He had worked so hard to destroy her trust, and though all he wanted was a true chance to rebuild it for her, he could not help but fear—