Clockwork Princess

Page 32

She looked down hopelessly at her wet dress. It would take ages to remove without Sophie's help, and she was desperate for warmth. She wrapped the blanket around herself, wet clothes and all, and curled up on the prickly hay-stuffed mattress. It smelled of mold and probably had mice living in it, but at this moment it felt like the most luxurious bed Tessa had ever stretched herself upon.
Tessa knew it was wiser to stay awake. But despite everything, she could no longer withstand the demands of her battered and exhausted body. Clutching the metal weapon to her chest, she slid away into sleep.
"So this is him, then? The Nephilim?"
Will did not know how long he had been sitting slumped against the wall of the stable, growing ever wetter with the rain, when the growling voice came out of the darkness. He lifted his head, too late to ward off the hand reaching for him. A moment later it had grabbed his collar and hauled him to his feet.
He stared through eyes dimmed by rain and agony at a group of werewolves standing in a half circle around him. There were perhaps five of them, including the one who had him slammed up against the stable wall, a hand fisted in his bloody shirt. They were all dressed similarly, in black garb so wet with rain, it shone like oilskin. All were hatless, their hair-worn long as werewolves did-plastered to their heads.
"Get your hands off me," Will said. "The Accords forbid touching a Nephilim unprovoked-"
"Unprovoked?" The werewolf in front of him yanked him forward and slammed him back against the wall again. In ordinary circumstances it most likely would have hurt, but these were not ordinary circumstances. The physical pain of Will's parabatai rune had faded, but his whole body felt dry and hollow, all the meaning sucked out of the center of him. "I'd say it's provoked. If it wasn't for you Nephilim, the Magister never would have come after our lot with his dirty drugs and his filthy lies-"
Will looked at the werewolves with an emotion bordering on hilarity. Did they really think they could hurt him, after what he had lost? For five years it had been his absolute truth. Jem and Will. Will and Jem. Will Herondale lives, therefore Jem Carstairs lives also. Quod erat demonstrandum. To lose an arm or a leg would be painful, he imagined, but to lose the central truth of your life felt-fatal.
"Dirty drugs and filthy lies," Will drawled. "That does sound unsanitary. Though, tell me, is it true that instead of bathing, werewolves just lick themselves once a year? Or do you all lick one another? Because that's what I've heard."
The hand in his shirt tightened. "You want to be a little more respectful, Shadowhunter."
"No," Will said. "No, I really don't."
"We've heard all about you, Will Herondale," said one of the other werewolves. "Always crawling to Downworlders for help. We'd like to see you crawl now."
"You'll have to cut me off at the knees, then."
"That," said the werewolf holding Will, "can be arranged."
Will exploded into action. He slammed his head into the face of the werewolf in front of him. He both heard and felt the sick crunch of the werewolf's nose breaking, hot blood spurting over the man's face as he staggered back across the courtyard and crumpled onto his knees on the cobblestones. His hands were pressed to his face, trying to stem the flow of blood.
A hand grasped Will's shoulder, claws piercing the fabric of Will's wet shirt. He whirled around to face the wolves and saw in this second werewolf's hand, silvery in the moonlight, the sharp gleam of a knife. His assailant's eyes shone through the rain, gold-green and menacing.
They did not come out here to taunt or hurt me, Will realized. They came out here to kill me.
For one black moment Will was tempted to let them. The thought of it seemed like an enormous relief-all pain gone, all responsibility gone, a simple submersion in death and forgetting. He stood without moving as the knife swung toward him. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly-the iron edge of the knife swinging toward him, the sneering face of the werewolf blurred by the rain.
The image he had dreamed the night before flashed before his eyes: Tessa, running up a green path toward him. Tessa. His hand came up automatically and grasped the werewolf's wrist in one hand as he ducked the blow, swinging under the wolf's arm. He brought the arm down hard, breaking the bone with a savage splintering. The lycanthrope screamed, and a dark bolt of glee shot through Will. The dagger fell to the cobblestones as Will kicked his opponent's legs out from under him, then slammed his elbow into the man's temple. The wolf went down in a heap and didn't move again.
Will snatched up the dagger and turned to face the others. There were only three of them standing now, and they looked decidedly less sure of themselves than they had before. He grinned, cold and terrible, and tasted the metal of rain and blood in his mouth. "Come and kill me," he said. "Come and kill me if you think you can." He kicked the unconscious werewolf at his feet. "You'll have to do better than your friends."
They lunged at him, claws out, and Will went down hard onto the cobblestones, his head cracking against the stone. A set of claws raked his shoulder; he rolled sideways under a flurry of blows and lashed upward with his dagger. There was a high yelp of pain that ended on a whine, and the weight on top of Will, which had been moving and struggling, went limp. Will rolled to the side and sprang to his feet, spinning around.
The wolf he had stabbed lay open-eyed, dead in a widening pool of blood and rainwater. The two remaining werewolves were struggling to their feet, caked in mud and drenched in water. Will was bleeding from his shoulder where one of them had dug deep furrows with his claws; the pain was glorious. He laughed through the blood and the mud as the rain sluiced the blood from the blade of his dagger. "Again," he said, and barely recognized his own voice, strained and cracked and deadly. "Again."
One of the werewolves spun and bolted. Will laughed again and moved toward the last of them, who stood, frozen, clawed hands extended-with bravery or terror, Will wasn't sure, and didn't care. His dagger felt like an extension of his wrist, part of his arm. One good blow and a jerk upward, and he would rip through bone and cartilage, stabbing toward the heart-
"Stop!" The voice was hard, commanding, familiar. Will cut his eyes to the side. Striding across the courtyard, his shoulders hunched against the rain, his expression furious, was Woolsey Scott. "I command you, both of you, stop this instant!"
The werewolf dropped his hands to his sides instantly, his claws vanishing. He bent his head, the classic gesture of submission. "Master-"
A boiling tide of rage poured over Will, obliterating rationality, sense, everything but rage. He reached out and jerked the werewolf toward him, his arm wrapping the man's neck, blade against his throat. Woolsey, only a few feet away, came up short, his green eyes shooting daggers.
"Come any closer," Will said, "and I'll cut your little wolfling's throat."
"I told you to stop," Woolsey said in a measured tone. He was wearing, as he always was, a beautifully cut suit, a brocade riding coat atop it, everything now liberally soaked with rain. His fair hair, plastered to his face and neck, was colorless with water. "Both of you."
"But I don't have to listen to you!" Will shouted. "I was winning! Winning!" He glanced about the courtyard at the three scattered bodies of the wolves he had fought-two unconscious, one dead. "Your pack attacked me unprovoked. They broke the Accords. I was defending myself. They broke the Law!" His voice rose, harsh and unrecognizable. "I am owed their blood, and I will have it!"
"Yes, yes, buckets of blood," said Woolsey. "And what would you do with it if you had it? You don't care about this werewolf. Let him go."
"No."
"At least let him free so he can fight you," Woolsey said.
Will hesitated, then released his grip on the werewolf he held, who faced his pack leader, looking terrified. Woolsey snapped his fingers in the wolf's direction. "Run, Conrad," he said. "Fast. And now."
The werewolf didn't need to be told twice; he turned on his heels and darted away, vanishing behind the stables. Will turned back to Woolsey with a sneer.
"So your pack are all cowards," he said. "Five against one Shadowhunter? Is that how it is?"
"I didn't tell them to come out here after you. They're young. And stupid. And impetuous. And half their pack was killed by Mortmain. They blame your kind." Woolsey stepped a little closer, his eyes raking up and down Will, as cold as green ice. "I assume your parabatai is dead, then," he added with shocking casualness.
Will was not ready to hear the words at all, would never be ready. The battle had cleared his head of the pain for a moment. Now it threatened to return, all-encompassing and terrifying. He gasped as if Woolsey had punched him, and took an involuntary step back.
"And you're trying to get yourself killed because of it, Nephilim boy? Is that what's going on?"
Will swiped his wet hair out of his face and looked at Woolsey with hatred. "Maybe I am."
"Is that how you respect his memory?"
"What does it matter?" Will said. "He's dead. He'll never know what I do or what I don't do."
"My brother is dead," Woolsey said. "I still struggle to fulfill his wishes, to continue the Praetor Lupus in his memory, and to live as he would have had me live. Do you think I'm the sort of person who would ever be found in a place like this, consuming pig swill and drinking vinegar, knee deep in mud, watching some tedious Shadowhunter brat destroy even more of my already diminished pack, if it weren't for the fact that I serve a greater purpose than my own desires and sorrows? And so do you, Shadowhunter. So do you."
"Oh, God." The dagger fell out of Will's hand and landed in the mud at his feet. "What do I do now?" he whispered.
He had no idea why he was asking Woolsey, except that there was no one else in the world to ask. Not even when he thought he was cursed had he felt so alone.
Woolsey looked at him coolly. "Do what your brother would have wanted," he said, then turned and stalked off back toward the inn.
Chapter 15 Stars, Hide Your Fires
Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
-Shakespeare, Macbeth
Consul Wayland,
I write to you on a matter of the gravest import. One of the Shadowhunters of my Institute, William Herondale, is upon the road to Cadair Idris even as I write. He has discovered along the way an unmistakable sign of Miss Gray's passage. I enclose his letter for your perusal, but I am sure you will agree that the whereabouts of Mortmain are now established and that we must with all haste assemble what forces we can and march immediately upon Cadair Idris. Mortmain has shown in the past a remarkable ability to slip from the nets we cast. We must take advantage of this moment and strike with all possible haste and force. I await your speedy reply.
Charlotte Branwell
The room was cold. The fire had long burned down in the grate, and the wind outside was howling around the corners of the Institute, rattling the panes of the windows. The lamp on the nightstand was turned down low, and Tessa shivered in the armchair by the bed, despite the shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders.
In the bed Jem was asleep, his head pillowed on his hand. He breathed just enough to move the blankets slightly, though his face was as pale as the pillows.
Tessa stood, letting the shawl slip from her shoulders. She was in her nightgown, the way she had been the first time she had ever met Jem, bursting into his room to find him playing the violin by the window. Will? he had said. Will, is that you?
He stirred and murmured now as she crawled into the bed with him, drawing the blankets over them both. She cupped her hands around his and held their joined hands between them. She tangled their feet together and kissed his cool cheek, warming his skin with her breath. Slowly she felt him stir against her, as if her presence were bringing him to life.
His eyes opened and looked into hers. They were blue, achingly blue, the blue of the sky where it meets the sea.
"Tessa?" Will said, and she realized it was Will in her arms, Will who was dying, Will breathing out his last breath-and there was blood on his shirt, just over his heart, a spreading red stain-
Tessa sat bolt upright, gasping. For a moment she stared about her, disoriented. The tiny, dark room, the musty blanket wrapped around her, her own damp clothes and bruised body, seemed foreign to her. Then memory came back in a flood, and with it a wave of nausea.
She missed the Institute piercingly, in a way she had never even missed her home in New York. She missed Charlotte's bossy but caring voice, Sophie's understanding touch, Henry's puttering, and of course-she could not help it-she missed Jem and Will. She was terrified for Jem, for his health, but she was frightened for Will as well. The battle in the courtyard had been bloody, vicious. Any of them could have been hurt or killed. Was that the meaning of her dream, Jem turning into Will? Was Jem ill, was Will's life in danger? Not either of them, she prayed silently. Please, let me die before harm comes to either of them.
A noise startled her out of her reverie-a sudden dry scraping that sent a brutal shiver down her spine. She froze. Surely it was just the scratching of a branch against the window. But, no-there it came again. A scraping, dragging noise.
Tessa was on her feet in a moment, the blanket still wrapped around her. Terror was like a live thing inside her. All the tales she had ever heard of monsters in the dark woods seemed to be fighting for space in her mind. She closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath, and saw the spindly automatons on the front steps of the Institute, their shadows long and grotesque, like human beings pulled out of shape.
She drew the blanket closer around herself, her fingers closing spasmodically on the material. The automatons had come for her on the Institute steps. But they were not very intelligent-able to follow simple commands, to recognize particular human beings. Still, they could not think for themselves. They were machines, and machines could be fooled.
The blanket was patchwork, the kind that would have been sewed by a woman, a woman who had lived in this house. Tessa drew in her breath and reached-reached into the blanket, searching for a flicker of ownership, the signature of whatever spirit had created and owned it. It was like plunging her hand into dark water and feeling around for an object. After what felt like an age of searching, she lit upon it-a flicker in the darkness, the solidity of a soul.
She concentrated on it, wrapping it around her like the blanket she clung to. The Change was easier now, less painful. She saw her fingers warp and change, becoming the clubbed, arthritic hands of an old woman. Liver spots rose on her skin, her back hunched, and her dress began to hang off her withered form. When her hair fell in front of her eyes, it was white.