Clockwork Angel

Page 48

“They said it was a declaration of war,” Tessa finished. “That they were coming to wreak revenge on us—on you, I suppose—for what happened to de Quincey.”
“And the creature referred to him as the Magister?” Charlotte asked.
Tessa pressed her lips together firmly to keep them from trembling. “Yes. He said the Magister wanted me and that he had been sent to retrieve me. Charlotte, this is my fault. If it weren’t for me, de Quincey wouldn’t have sent those creatures tonight, and Jem—” She looked down at her hands. “Maybe you should just let him have me.”
Charlotte was shaking her head. “Tessa, you heard de Quincey last night. He hates Shadowhunters. He would strike at the Clave regardless of you. And if we gave you to him, all we would be doing is placing a potentially valuable weapon in his hands.” She looked at Henry. “I wonder why he waited this long. Why not come for Tessa when she was out with Jessie? Unlike demons, these clockwork creatures can go out during the day.”
“They can,” said Henry, “but not without alarming the populace—not yet. They don’t look enough like ordinary human beings to pass without exciting comment.” He took a shining gear from his pocket and held it up. “I examined the remains of the automatons down in the courtyard. These ones de Quincey sent after Tessa on the bridge are not like the one in the crypt. They’re more sophisticated, made of tougher metals, and with a more advanced jointure. Someone’s been working on the design in those blueprints Will found, refining it. The creatures are faster now, and deadlier.”
But how refined? “There was a spell,” Tessa said quickly. “On the blueprint. Magnus deciphered it… .”
“The binding spell. Meant to tie a demon energy to an automaton.” Charlotte looked at Henry. “Did de Quincey—?”
“Succeed in performing it?” Henry shook his head. “No. Those creatures are simply configured to follow a pattern, like music boxes. But they are not animate. They do not have intelligence or will or life. And there is nothing demonic about them.”
Charlotte exhaled in relief. “We must find de Quincey before he succeeds in his goal. Those creatures are difficult enough to kill as it is. The Angel knows how many of them he’s made, or how difficult they’d be to kill if they had the cunning of demons.”
“An army born neither of Heaven nor Hell,” said Tessa softly.
“Exactly,” said Henry. “De Quincey must be found and stopped. And in the meantime, Tessa, you must stay in the Institute. Not that we want to keep you a prisoner here, but it would be safer if you remained inside.”
“But for how long—?” Tessa began—and broke off, as Sophie’s expression changed. She was looking at something over Tessa’s shoulder, her hazel eyes suddenly wide. Tessa followed her gaze.
It was Will. He stood in the doorway of the drawing room. There was a streak of blood across his white shirt; it looked like paint. His face was still, almost masklike, his gaze fixed on Tessa. As their eyes met across the room, she felt the pulse jump in her throat.
“He wants to talk to you,” Will said.
There was a moment of silence as everyone in the drawing room looked at him. There was something forbidding about the intensity of Will’s gaze, the tension of his stillness. Sophie had her hand at her throat, her fingers nervously fluttering at her collar.
“Will,” Charlotte said finally. “Do you mean Jem? Is he all right?”
“He’s awake and talking,” Will said. His gaze slid momentarily to Sophie, who had glanced down, as if to hide her expression. “And now he wants to speak to Tessa.”
“But …” Tessa looked toward Charlotte, who seemed troubled. “Is he all right? Is he well enough?”
Will’s expression didn’t change. “He wants to talk to you,” he said, enunciating each word very clearly. “So you will get up, and you will come with me, and you will talk to him. Do you understand?”
“Will,” Charlotte began sharply, but Tessa was already rising, smoothing down her rumpled skirts with the flat of her hands. Charlotte looked worriedly at her, but said nothing more.
Will was utterly silent as they made their way down the corridor, witchlight sconces throwing their shadows against the far walls in spindly patterns. There was blackish oil as well as blood splattered on his white shirt, smudging his cheek; his hair was tangled, his jaw set. She wondered if he had slept at all since dawn, when she had left him in the attic. She wanted to ask him, but everything about him—his posture, his silence, the set of his shoulders—said that no questions would be welcome.
He pushed open the door of Jem’s room and ushered her in ahead of him. The only light in the room came from the window and from a taper of witchlight on the bedside table. Jem lay half-under the covers of the high carved bed. He was as white as his nightshirt, the lids of his closed eyes dark blue. Leaning against the side of the bed was his jade-headed cane. Somehow it had been repaired and was whole again, gleaming as if new.
Jem turned his face toward the sound of the door, not opening his eyes. “Will?”
Will did something then that amazed Tessa. He forced his face into a smile, and said, in a passably cheerful tone, “I brought her, like you asked.”
Jem’s eyes flicked open; Tessa was relieved to see that they had returned to their usual color. Still, they had the look of shadowed holes in his pale face.
“Tessa,” he said, “I’m so sorry.”
Tessa looked at Will—for permission or guidance, she wasn’t sure, but he was staring straight ahead. Clearly he would be no help. Without another glance at him she hurried across the room and sank down in the chair by the side of Jem’s bed. “Jem,” she said in a low voice, “you shouldn’t be sorry, or be apologizing to me. I should be the one apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was the target of those clockwork things, not you.” She patted the coverlet gently; wanting to touch his hand but not daring to. “If it wasn’t for me, you never would have been hurt.”
“Hurt.” Jem spoke the word on an exhale of breath, almost with disgust. “I wasn’t hurt.”
“James.” Will’s tone held a warning note.
“She should know, William. Otherwise she’ll think this was all her fault.”
“You were ill,” Will said, not looking at Tessa as he spoke. “It’s nobody’s fault.” He paused. “I just think you should be careful. You’re not well still. Talking will just tire you out.”
“There are more important things than being careful.” Jem struggled to sit up, the cords in his neck straining as he lifted himself, propping his back against the pillows. When he spoke again, he was slightly breathless. “If you don’t like it, Will, you don’t have to stay.”
Tessa heard the door open and close behind her with a soft click. She knew without looking that Will had gone. She couldn’t help it—a slight pang went through her, the way it always seemed to do when he left a room.
Jem sighed. “He’s so stubborn.”
“He was right,” Tessa said. “At least, he was right that you don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to. I know none of it was your fault.”
“Fault has nothing to do with it,” Jem said. “I just think you might as well have the truth. Concealing it rarely helps anything.” He looked toward the door for a moment, as if his words were half-meant for the absent Will. Then he sighed again, raking his hands through his hair. “You know,” he said, “that for most of my life I lived in Shanghai with my parents? That I was raised in the Institute there?”
“Yes,” Tessa said, wondering if he was still a little dazed. “You told me, on the bridge. And you told me that a demon had killed your parents.”
“Yanluo,” said Jem. There was hatred in his voice. “The demon had a grudge against my mother. She’d been responsible for the death of a number of its demon offspring. They’d had a nest in a small town called Lijiang, where they’d been feeding on local children. She burned the nest out and escaped before the demon found her. Yanluo bided its time for years—Greater Demons live forever—but it never forgot. When I was eleven, Yanluo found a weak spot in the ward that protected the Institute, and tunneled inside. The demon killed the guards and took my family prisoner, binding us all to chairs in the great room of the house. Then it went to work.
“Yanluo tortured me in front of my parents,” Jem went on, his voice empty. “Over and over it injected me with a burning demon poison that scorched my veins and tore at my mind. For two days I went in and out of hallucinations and dreams. I saw the world drowned in rivers of blood, and I heard the screams of all the dead and dying throughout history. I saw London burning, and great metal creatures striding here and there like huge spiders—” He caught his breath. He was very pale, his nightshirt stuck to his chest with sweat, but he waved away Tessa’s expression of concern. “Every few hours I would come back to reality long enough to hear my parents screaming for me. Then on the second day, I came back and heard only my mother. My father had been silenced. My mother’s voice was raw and cracked, but she was still saying my name. Not my name in English, but the name she had given me when I was born: Jian. I can still hear her sometimes, calling out for me.”
His hands were tight on the pillow he held, tight enough that the fabric had begun to tear.
“Jem,” Tessa said softly. “You can stop. You needn’t tell me all of it now.”
“You remember when I said that Mortmain had probably made his money smuggling opium?” he asked. “The British bring opium into China by the ton. They have made a nation of addicts out of us. In Chinese we call it ‘foreign mud’ or ‘black smoke.’ In some ways Shanghai, my city, is built on opium. It wouldn’t exist as it does without it. The city is full of dens where hollow-eyed men starve to death because all they want is the drug, more of the drug. They’ll give anything for it. I used to despise men like that. I couldn’t understand how they were so weak.”
He took a deep breath.
“By the time the Shanghai Enclave became worried at the silence from the Institute and broke in to save us, both my parents were already dead. I don’t remember any of it. I was screaming and delirious. They took me to the Silent Brothers, who healed my body as well as they could. There was one thing they couldn’t fix, though. I had become addicted to the substance the demon had poisoned me with. My body was dependent on it the way an opium addict’s body is dependent on the drug. They tried to wean me off it, but going without it caused terrible pain. Even when they were able to block the pain with warlock spells, the lack of the drug pushed my body to the brink of death. After weeks of experimentation they decided that there was nothing to be done: I could not live without the drug. The drug itself meant a slow death, but to take me off it would mean a very quick one.”