Clockwork Prince

Chapter 17 IN DREAMS

Consciousness came and went in a hypnotic rhythm, like the sea appearing and disappearing on the deck of a boat in a storm. Tessa knew she lay in a bed with crisp white sheets in the center of a long room; that there were other beds, all the same, in the room; and that there were windows high above her letting in shadows and then the bloody light of dawn. She closed her eyes against it, and the darkness came again.

She woke to whispering voices, and faces hovering over her, anxious. Charlotte, her hair knotted back neatly, still in her gear, and beside her Brother Enoch. His scarred face was no longer a terror. She could hear his voice in her mind. The wound to her head is superficial.

“But she fainted,” said Charlotte. To Tessa’s surprise there was real fear in her voice, real anxiety. “With a blow to the head—”

She fainted from repeated shocks. Her brother died in her arms, you said? And she may have thought Will was dead as well. You said he covered her with his body when the explosion occurred. If he had died, he would have given his life for her. That is quite a burden to bear.

“But you do think she’ll be well again?”

When her body and spirit have rested, she will wake. I cannot say when that will be.

“My poor Tessa.” Charlotte touched Tessa’s face lightly. Her hands smelled of lemon soap. “She has no one in the world at all now. . . .”

The darkness returned, and Tessa fell into it, grateful for the respite from light and thought. She wrapped herself in it like a blanket and let herself float, like the icebergs off the coast of Labrador, cradled in the moonlight by icy black water.

A guttural cry of pain cut through her dream of darkness. She was curled on her side in a tangle of sheets, and a few beds away from her lay Will, on his stomach. She realized, though in her state of numbness it was only a faint shock, that he was probably naked; the sheets had been drawn up to his waist, but his back and chest were bare. His arms were folded on the pillows in front of him, his head resting on them, his body tensed like a bowstring. Blood spotted the white sheets beneath him.

Brother Enoch stood at one side of his bed, and beside him Jem, at Will’s head, wearing an anxious expression. “Will,” Jem said urgently. “Will, are you sure you won’t have another pain-killing rune?”

“No—more,” Will ground out, between his teeth. “Just—get it over with.”

Brother Enoch raised what looked like a wickedly sharp pair of silver tweezers. Will gulped and buried his head in his arms, his dark hair startling against the white of the sheets. Jem shuddered as if the pain were his own as the tweezers dug deep into Will’s back and his body tautened on the bed, muscles tensing under the skin, his cry of agony short and muffled. Brother Enoch drew back the tool, a blood-smeared shard of metal gripped in its teeth.

Jem slid his hand into Will’s. “Grip my fingers. It will help the pain. There are only a few more.”

“Easy—for you to say,” Will gasped, but the touch of his parabatai’s hand seemed to relax him slightly. He was arched up off the bed, his elbows digging into the mattress, his breath coming in short pants. Tessa knew she ought to look away, but she couldn’t. She realized she had never seen so much of a boy’s body before, not even Jem’s. She found herself fascinated by the way the lean muscle slid under Will’s smooth skin, the flex and swell of his arms, the hard, flat stomach convulsing as he breathed.

The tweezers flashed again, and Will’s hand bore down on Jem’s, both their fingers whitening. Blood welled and spilled down his bare side. He made no sound, though Jem looked sick and pale. He moved his hand as if to touch Will’s shoulder, then drew it back, biting down on his lip.

All this because Will covered my body with his to protect me, Tessa thought. As Brother Enoch had said, it was a burden to bear indeed.

She lay on her narrow bed in her old room in the New York flat. Through the window she could see gray sky, the rooftops of Manhattan. One of her aunt’s colorful patchwork quilts was on the bed, and she clutched it to her as the door opened and her aunt herself came in.

Knowing what she knew now, Tessa could see the resemblance. Aunt Harriet had blue eyes, faded fair hair; even the shape of her face was like Nate’s. With a smile she came and bent over Tessa, putting a hand on her forehead, cool against Tessa’s hot skin.

“I’m so sorry,” Tessa whispered. “About Nate. It’s my fault he’s dead.”

“Hush,” her aunt said. “It isn’t your fault. It is his and mine. I always felt such guilt, you see, Tessa. Knowing I was his mother but not being able to bear telling him. I let him get away with anything he wanted, until he was spoiled beyond saving. If I had told him that I was really his mother, he would not have felt so betrayed when he discovered the truth, and would not have turned against us. Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”

“I miss you so much,” Tessa said. “I have no family now. . . .”

Her aunt leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. “You have more family than you think.”

“We will almost certainly forfeit the Institute now,” said Charlotte. She did not sound brokenhearted, but distant and detached. Tessa was hovering like a ghost over the infirmary, looking down at where Charlotte stood with Jem at the foot of Tessa’s own bed. Tessa could see herself, asleep, her dark hair spread like a fan across her pillows. Will lay asleep a few beds over, his back striped with bandages, an iratze black against the back of his neck. Sophie, in her white cap and dark dress, was dusting the windowsills. “We have lost Nathaniel Gray as a source, one of our own has turned out to be a spy, and we are no closer to finding Mortmain than we were a fortnight ago.”

“After all that we have done, have learned? The Clave will understand—”

“They will not. They are already at the end of their tether where I am concerned. I might as well march over to Benedict Lightwood’s house and make over the Institute paperwork in his name. Have done with it.”

“What does Henry say about all this?” asked Jem. He was no longer in gear, and neither was Charlotte; he wore a white shirt and brown cloth trousers, and Charlotte was in one of her drab dark dresses. As Jem turned his hand over, though, Tessa saw that it was still spotted with Will’s dried blood.

Charlotte snorted in an unladylike manner. “Oh, Henry,” she said, sounding exhausted. “I think he’s just so shocked that one of his devices actually worked that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. And he can’t bear to come in here. He thinks it’s his fault that Will and Tessa are hurt.”

“Without that device we might all be dead, and Tessa in the hands of the Magister.”

“You are welcome to explain that to Henry. I have given up the attempt.”

“Charlotte . . .” Jem’s voice was soft. “I know what people say. I know you’ve heard the cruel gossip. But Henry does love you. When he thought you were hurt, at the tea warehouse, he went almost mad. He threw himself against that machine—”

“James.” Charlotte clumsily patted Jem’s shoulder. “I do appreciate your attempt to console me, but falsehoods never do anyone any good in the end. I long ago accepted that Henry loves his inventions first, and me second—if at all.”

“Charlotte,” Jem said wearily, but before he could say another word, Sophie had moved to stand beside them, dust cloth in hand.

“Mrs. Branwell,” she said in a low voice. “If I might speak to you for just a moment.”

Charlotte looked surprised. “Sophie . . .”

“Please, ma’am.”

Charlotte placed a hand on Jem’s shoulder, said something softly into his ear, and then nodded toward Sophie. “Very well. Come with me to the drawing room.”

As Charlotte left the room with Sophie, Tessa realized to her surprise that Sophie was actually taller than her mistress. Charlotte’s presence was such that one often forgot how very small she was. And Sophie was as tall as Tessa herself, as slender as a willow. Tessa saw her again in her mind with Gideon Lightwood, pressed up against the corridor wall, and Tessa worried.

As the door closed behind the two women, Jem leaned forward, his arms crossed over the foot of Tessa’s brass bed. He was looking at her, smiling a little, though crookedly, his hands hanging loose—dried blood across the knuckles, and under the nails.

“Tessa, my Tessa,” he said in his soft voice, as lulling as his violin. “I know you cannot hear me. Brother Enoch says you’re not hurt badly. I can’t say I find that enough to comfort me. It’s rather like when Will assures me that we’re only a little bit lost somewhere. I know it means we won’t be seeing a familiar street again for hours.”

He dropped his voice, so low that Tessa wasn’t sure if what he said next was real or part of the dream darkness rising to claim her, though she fought against it.

“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.” He closed his eyes as if he were bone-weary, and she saw how thin his eyelids were, like parchment paper, and how tired he looked. “Wo ai ni, Tessa,” he whispered. “Wo bu xiang shi qu ni.”

She knew, without knowing how she knew, what the words meant.

I love you.

And I don’t want to lose you.

I don’t want to lose you, either, she wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Lassitude rose up instead, in a dark wave, and covered her in silence.

Darkness.

It was dark in the cell, and Tessa was conscious first of a feeling of great loneliness and terror. Jessamine lay in the narrow bed, her fair hair hanging in lank ropes over her shoulders. Tessa both hovered over her and felt somehow as if she were touching her mind. She could feel a great aching sense of loss. Somehow Jessamine knew that Nate was dead. Before, when Tessa had tried to touch the other girl’s mind, she had met resistance, but now she felt only a growing sadness, like the stain of a drop of black ink spreading through water.

Jessie’s brown eyes were open, staring up into the darkness. I have nothing. The words were as clear as a bell in Tessa’s mind. I chose Nate over the Shadowhunters, and now he is dead, and Mortmain will want me dead as well, and Charlotte despises me. I have gambled and lost everything.

As Tessa watched, Jessamine reached up and drew a small cord from her neck over her head. At the end of the cord was a gold ring with a glittering white stone—a diamond. Clasping it between her fingers, she began to use the diamond to scratch letters into the stone wall.

JG.

Jessamine Gray.

There might have been more to the message, but Tessa would never find out; as Jessamine pressed down on the gemstone, it shattered, and her hand slammed against the wall, scraping her knuckles.

Tessa did not need to touch Jessamine’s mind to know what she was thinking. Even the diamond had not been real. With a low cry Jessamine rolled over and buried her face in the rough blankets of the bed.

When Tessa woke again, it was dark. Faint starlight streamed through the high infirmary windows, and there was a witchlight lamp lit on the table near her bed. Beside it was a cup of tisane, steam rising from it, and a small plate of biscuits. She rose to a sitting position, about to reach for the cup—and froze.

Will was seated on the bed beside hers, wearing a loose shirt and trousers and a black dressing gown. His skin was pale in the starlight, but even the light’s dimness couldn’t wash out the blue of his eyes. “Will,” she said, startled, “what are you doing awake?” Had he been watching her sleep, she wondered? But what an odd and un-Will-like thing to do.

“I brought you a tisane,” he said, a little stiffly. “But you sounded as if you were having a nightmare.”

“Did I? I don’t even remember what I dreamed.” She drew the covers up over herself, though her modest nightgown more than covered her. “I thought I had been escaping into sleep—that real life was the nightmare and that sleep was where I could find peace.”

Will picked up the mug and moved to sit beside her on the bed. “Here. Drink this.”

She took the cup from him obediently. The tisane had a bitter but appealing taste, like the zest of a lemon. “What will it do?” she asked.

“Calm you,” said Will.

She looked at him, the taste of lemon in her mouth. There seemed a haze across her vision; seen through it, Will looked like something out of a dream. “How are your injuries? Are you in pain?”

He shook his head. “Once all the metal was out, they were able to use an iratze on me,” he said. “The wounds are not completely healed, but they are healing. By tomorrow they will be scars.”

“I am jealous.” She took another sip of the tisane. It was beginning to make her feel light-headed. She touched the bandage across her forehead. “I believe it will be a good while before this comes off.”

“In the meantime you can enjoy looking like a pirate.”

She laughed, but it was shaky. Will was close enough to her that she could feel the heat emanating from his body. He was furnace-hot. “Do you have a fever?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“The iratze raises our body temperatures. It’s part of the healing process.”

“Oh,” she said. Having him so close to her was sending little shivers through her nerves, but she felt too light-headed to draw away.

“I am sorry about your brother,” he said softly, his breath stirring her hair.

“You couldn’t be.” She spoke bitterly. “I know you think he deserved what he got. He probably did.”

“My sister died. She died, and there was nothing I could do about it,” he said, and there was raw grief in his voice. “I am sorry about your brother.”

She looked up at him. His eyes, wide and blue, that perfect face, the bow-shape of his mouth, turned down at the corners in concern. Concern for her. Her skin felt hot and tight, her head light and airy, as if she were floating. “Will,” she whispered. “Will, I feel very odd.”

Will leaned across her to put the mug down on the table, and his shoulder brushed hers. “Do you want me to get Charlotte?”

She shook her head. She was dreaming. She was nearly sure of it now; she had the same feeling of being in her body and yet not in it as she had had when she was dreaming of Jessamine. The knowledge that it was a dream made her bolder. Will was still leaning forward, his arm extended; she curled against him, her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes. She felt him jerk with surprise.

“Did I hurt you?” she whispered, belatedly remembering his back.

“I don’t care,” he said fervently. “I don’t care.” His arms went around her, and he held her; she rested her cheek against the warm juncture of his neck and shoulder. She heard the echo of his pulse and smelled the scent of him, blood and sweat and soap and magic. It was not like it had been on the balcony, all fire and desire. He held her carefully, laying his cheek against her hair. He was shaking, even as his chest rose and fell, even as he hesitantly slid his fingers beneath her chin, lifting her face . . .

“Will,” Tessa said. “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter what you do. We’re dreaming, you know.”

“Tess?” Will sounded alarmed. His arms tightened about her. She felt warm and soft and dizzy. If only Will really were like this, she thought, not just in dreams. The bed rolled under her like a boat set adrift on the sea. She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.

The night air was cold, the fog thick and yellowish-green under the intermittent pools of gaslight as Will made his way down King’s Road. The address Magnus had given him was on Cheyne Walk, down near the Chelsea Embankment, and Will could already smell the familiar scent of the river, silt and water and dirt and rot.

He had been trying to keep his heart from beating its way out of his chest ever since he had found Magnus’s note, neatly folded on a tray on the table beside his bed. It had said nothing beyond a curtly scrawled address: 16 Cheyne Walk. Will was familiar with the Walk and the area around it. Chelsea, near the river, was a popular haunt for artists and literary types, and the windows of the public houses he passed glowed with welcoming yellow light.

He drew his coat around him as he turned a corner, making his way south. His back and legs still ached from the injuries he had sustained, despite the iratzes; he was sore, as if he’d been stung by dozens of bees. And yet he hardly felt it. His mind was full of possibilities. What had Magnus discovered? Surely he would not summon Will if there were no reason? And his body was full of Tessa, the feel and scent of her. Strangely, what pierced his heart and mind most sharply was not the memory of her lips under his at the ball, but the way she had leaned into him tonight, her head on his shoulder, her breath soft against his neck, as if she trusted him utterly. He would have given everything he had in the world and everything he would ever have, just to lie beside her in the narrow infirmary bed and hold her while she slept. Pulling away from her had been like pulling his own skin off, but he’d had to do it.

The way he always had to. The way he always had to deny himself what he wanted.

But maybe—after tonight—

He cut the thought off before it bloomed in his mind. Better not to think about it; better not to hope and be disappointed. He looked around. He was on Cheyne Walk now, with its fine houses with their Georgian fronts. He stopped in front of number 16. It was tall, with a wrought iron fence about it and a prominent bay window. Set into the fence was an ornately worked gate; it was open, and he slipped inside and made his way up to the front door, where he rang the bell.

To his great surprise it was opened not by a footman but by Woolsey Scott, his blond hair in tangles to his shoulders. He wore a dark green dressing gown of Chinese brocade over a pair of dark trousers and a bare chest. A gold-rimmed monocle perched in one eye. He carried a pipe in his left hand, and as he examined Will at his leisure, he exhaled, sending out a cloud of sweet-smelling, cough-inducing smoke. “Finally broken down and admitted you’re in love with me, have you?” he inquired of Will. “I do enjoy these surprise midnight declarations.” He leaned against the door frame and waved a languid ringed hand. “Go along, have at it.”

For once Will was speechless. It was not a position he found himself in often, and he was forced to admit that he did not like it.

“Oh, leave him be, Woolsey,” said a familiar voice from inside the house—Magnus, hurrying along the corridor. He was fastening his shirt cuffs as he came forward, and his hair was a thicket of mussed black tangles. “I told you Will would be coming by.”

Will looked from Magnus to Woolsey. Magnus was barefoot; so was the werewolf. Woolsey had a glimmering gold chain around his neck. From it hung a pendant that said Beati Bellicosi, “Blessed Are the Warriors.” Beneath it was an imprint of a wolf’s paw. Scott noticed Will staring at it and grinned. “Like what you see?” he inquired.

“Woolsey,” said Magnus.

“Your note to me did have something to do with demon summoning, didn’t it?” Will asked, looking at Magnus. “This isn’t you . . . calling in your favor, is it?”

Magnus shook his rumpled head. “No. This is business, nothing else. Woolsey’s been kind enough to let me lodge with him while I decide what to do next.”

“I say we go to Rome,” said Scott. “I adore Rome.”

“All well and fine, but first I need the use of a room. Preferably one with little or nothing in it.”

Scott removed his monocle and stared at Magnus. “And you’re going to do what in this room?” His tone was more than suggestive.

“Summon the demon Marbas,” said Magnus, flashing a grin.

Scott choked on his pipe smoke. “I suppose we all have our ideas about what constitutes an enjoyable evening . . .”

“Woolsey.” Magnus ran his hands through his rough black hair. “I hate to bring this up, but you do owe me. Hamburg? 1863?”

Scott threw his hands up. “Oh, very well. You may utilize my brother’s room. No one’s used it since he died. Enjoy. I’ll be in the drawing room with a glass of sherry and some rather naughty woodcuts I had imported from Romania.”

With that, he turned and padded off down the hall. Magnus gestured Will inside, and he entered gladly, the warmth of the house enveloping him like a blanket. Since there was no footman, he slid off his blue wool frock coat and draped it over his arm as Magnus watched him with a curious gaze. “Will,” he said. “I see you wasted no time after you got my note. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“You know what this means to me,” said Will. “Did you really think I’d delay?”

Magnus’s eyes searched his face. “You are prepared,” he said. “For this to fail? For the demon to be the incorrect one? For the summoning not to work?”

For a long moment Will could not move. He could see his own face in the mirror that hung by the door. He was horrified to see how raw he looked—as if there were no longer any wall between the world and his own heart’s desires. “No,” he said. “I am not prepared.”

Magnus shook his head. “Will . . .” He sighed. “Come with me.”

He turned with catlike grace and made his way down the hall and up the curving wooden steps. Will followed, up through the shadowed staircase, the thick Persian stair runner muffling his footsteps. Niches set back in the walls contained polished marble statues of entwined bodies. Will looked away from them hastily, and then back. It wasn’t as if Magnus seemed to be paying attention to what Will was doing, and he’d honestly never imagined two people could get themselves into a position like that, much less make it look artistic.

They reached the second landing, and Magnus padded off down the corridor, opening doors as he went and muttering to himself. Finally finding the correct room, he threw the door open and gestured for Will to follow him.

The bedroom of Woolsey Scott’s dead brother was dark and cold, and the air smelled of dust. Automatically Will fumbled for his witchlight, but Magnus waved a dismissing hand at him, blue fire sparking from his fingertips. A fire roared up suddenly in the grate, lighting the room. It was furnished, though everything had been draped with white cloths—the bed, the wardrobe and dressers. As Magnus stalked through the room, rolling up his shirtsleeves and gesturing with his hands, the furniture began to slide back from the center of the room. The bed swung around and lay flat against the wall; the chairs and bureaus and washstand flew into the corners of the room.

Will whistled. Magnus grinned. “Easily impressed,” Magnus said, though he sounded slightly out of breath. He knelt down in the now denuded center of the room and hastily drew a pentagram. In each point of the occult symbol, he scrawled a rune, though none were runes Will knew from the Gray Book. Magnus raised his arms and held them out over the star; he began to chant, and gashes opened up in his wrists, spilling blood into the pentagram’s center. Will tensed as the blood struck the floor and began to burn with an eerie blue glow. Magnus backed out of the pentagram, still chanting, reached into his pocket, and produced the demon’s tooth. As Will watched, Magnus tossed it into the now flaming center of the star.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, out of the burning heart of the fire, a dark shape began to take form. Magnus had stopped chanting; he stood, his narrowed eyes focused on the pentagram and what was happening within it, the gashes on his arms closing swiftly. There was little sound in the room, just the crackle of the fire and Will’s harsh breathing, loud in his own ears, as the dark shape grew in size—coalesced, and, finally, took a solid, recognizable shape.

It was the blue demon from the party, no longer dressed in evening wear. Its body was covered in overlapping blue scales, and a long yellowish tail with a stinger on the end switched back and forth behind it. The demon looked from Magnus to Will, its scarlet eyes narrowed.

“Who summons the demon Marbas?” it demanded in a voice that sounded as if its words were echoing from the bottom of a well.

Magnus jerked his chin toward the pentagram. The message was clear: This was Will’s business now.

Will took a step forward. “You don’t remember me?”

“I remember you,” the demon growled. “You chased me through the grounds of the Lightwood country house. You tore out one of my teeth.” It opened its mouth, showing the gap. “I tasted your blood.” Its voice was a hiss. “When I escape this pentagram, I will taste it again, Nephilim.”

“No.” Will stood his ground. “I’m asking you if you remember me.”

The demon was silent. Its eyes, dancing with fire, were unreadable.

“Five years ago,” said Will. “A box. A Pyxis. I opened it, and you emerged. We were in my father’s library. You attacked, but my sister fended you off with a seraph blade. Do you recollect me now?”

There was a long, long silence. Magnus kept his cat’s eyes fixed on the demon. There was an implied threat in them, one that Will couldn’t read. “Speak the truth,” Magnus said finally. “Or it will go badly for you, Marbas.”

The demon’s head swung toward Will. “You,” it said reluctantly. “You are that boy. Edmund Herondale’s son.”

Will sucked in a breath. He felt suddenly light-headed, as if he were going to pass out. He dug his nails into his palms, hard, gashing the skin, letting the pain clear his head. “You remember.”

“I had been trapped for twenty years in that thing,” Marbas snarled. “Of course I remember being freed. Imagine it, if you can, idiot mortal, years of blackness, darkness, no light or movement—and then the break, the opening. And the face of the man who imprisoned you hovering just above your gaze.”

“I am not the man who imprisoned you—”

“No. That was your father. But you look just like him to my eyes.” The demon smirked. “I remember your sister. Brave girl, fending me off with that blade she could hardly use.”

“She used it well enough to keep you away from us. That’s why you cursed us. Cursed me. Do you remember that?”

The demon chuckled. “‘All who love you will find only death. Their love will be their destruction. It may take moments, it may take years, but any who look upon you with love will die of it. And I shall begin it with her.’”

Will felt as if he were breathing fire. His whole chest burned. “Yes.”

The demon cocked its head to the side. “And you summoned me that we might reminisce about this shared event in our past?”

“I called you up, you blue-skinned bastard, to get you to take the curse off me. My sister—Ella—she died that night. I left my family to keep them safe. It’s been five years. It’s enough. Enough!”

“Do not try to engage my pity, mortal,” said Marbas. “I was twenty years tortured in that box. Perhaps you too should suffer for twenty years. Or two hundred—”

Will’s whole body tensed. Before he could fling himself toward the pentagram, Magnus said, in a calm tone, “Something about this story strikes me as odd, Marbas.”

The demon’s eyes flicked toward him. “And what is that?”

“A demon, upon being let out of a Pyxis, is usually at its weakest, having been starved for as long as it was imprisoned. Too weak to cast a curse as subtle and strong as the one you claim to have cast on Will.”

The demon hissed something in a language Will didn’t know, one of the more uncommon demon languages, not Cthonic or Purgatic. Magnus’s eyes narrowed.

“But she died,” Will said. “Marbas said my sister would die, and she did. That night.”

Magnus’s eyes were still fixed on the demon’s. Some kind of battle of wills was taking place silently, outside Will’s range of understanding. Finally Magnus said, softly, “Do you really wish to disobey me, Marbas? Do you wish to anger my father?”

Marbas spat a curse, and turned to Will. Its snout twitched. “The half-caste is correct. The curse was false. Your sister died because I struck her with my stinger.” It swished its yellowish tail back and forth, and Will remembered Ella knocked to the ground by that tail, the blade skittering from her hand. “There has never been a curse on you, Will Herondale. Not one put there by me.”

“No,” Will said softly. “No, it isn’t possible.” He felt as if a great storm were blowing through his head; he remembered Jem’s voice saying the wall is coming down, and he envisioned a great wall that had surrounded him, isolated him, for years, crumbling away into sand. He was free—and he was alone, and the icy wind cut through him like a knife. “No.” His voice had taken on a low, keening note. “Magnus . . .”

“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—

Jem is my great sin.

“Will is right,” said Magnus. “Marbas, you are a blue-skinned bastard. Burn and die!”

Somewhere at the edge of Will’s vision, dark red flame soared toward the ceiling; Marbas screamed, a howl of agony cut off as swiftly as it had begun. The stench of burning demon flesh filled the room. And still Will crouched on his knees, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Gentle hands touched his shoulders. “Will,” Magnus said, and there was no humor in his voice, only a surprising kindness. “Will, I am sorry.”

“Everything I’ve done,” Will said. His lungs felt as if he couldn’t get enough air. “All the lying, the pushing people away, the abandonment of my family, the unforgivable things I said to Tessa—a waste. A bloody waste, and all because of a lie I was stupid enough to believe.”

“You were twelve years old. Your sister was dead. Marbas was a cunning creature. He has fooled powerful magicians, never mind a child who had no knowledge of the Shadow World.”

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. And don’t you understand what this means, Will? You’ve spent the last five years convinced that no one could possibly love you, because if they did, they would be dead. The mere fact of their continued survival proved their indifference to you. But you were wrong. Charlotte, Henry, Jem—your family—”

Will took a deep breath, and let it out. The storm in his head was ebbing slowly.

“Tessa,” he said.

“Well.” Now there was a touch of humor to Magnus’s voice. Will realized the warlock was kneeling beside him. I am in a werewolf’s house, Will thought, with a warlock comforting me, and the ashes of a dead demon mere feet away. Who could ever have imagined? “I can give you no assurance of what Tessa feels. If you have not noticed, she is a decidedly independent girl. But you have as much a chance to win her love as any man does, Will, and isn’t that what you wanted?” He patted Will on the shoulder and withdrew his hand, standing up, a thin dark shadow looming over Will. “If it’s any consolation, from what I observed on the balcony the other night, I do believe she rather likes you.”

Magnus watched as Will made his way down the front walk of the house. Reaching the gate, he paused, his hand on the latch, as if hesitating on the threshold of the beginning of a long and difficult journey. The moon had come out from behind the clouds and shone on his thick dark hair, the pale white of his hands.

“Very curious,” said Woolsey, appearing behind Magnus in the doorway. The warm lights of the house turned Woolsey’s dark blond hair into a pale gold tangle. He looked as if he’d been sleeping. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were fond of that boy.”

“Know better in what sense, Woolsey?” Magnus asked, absently, still watching Will, and the light sparking off the Thames behind him.

“He’s Nephilim,” said Woolsey. “And you’ve never cared for them. How much did he pay you to summon Marbas for him?”

“Nothing,” said Magnus, and now he was not seeing anything that was there, not the river, not Will, only a wash of memories—eyes, faces, lips, receding into memory, love that he could no longer put a name to. “He did me a favor. One he doesn’t even remember.”

“He’s very pretty,” said Woolsey. “For a human.”

“He’s very broken,” said Magnus. “Like a lovely vase that someone has smashed. Only luck and skill can put it back together the way it was before.”

“Or magic.”

“I’ve done what I can,” Magnus said softly as Will pushed the latch, at last, and the gate swung open. He stepped out onto the Walk.

“He doesn’t look very happy,” Woolsey observed. “Whatever it was you did for him . . .”

“At the moment he is in shock,” said Magnus. “He has believed one thing for five years, and now he has realized that all this time he has been looking at the world through a faulty mechanism—that all the things he sacrificed in the name of what he thought was good and noble have been a waste, and that he has only hurt what he loved.”

“Good God,” said Woolsey. “Are you quite sure you’ve helped him?”

Will stepped through the gate, and it swung shut behind him. “Quite sure,” said Magnus. “It is always better to live the truth than to live a lie. And that lie would have kept him alone forever. He may have had nearly nothing for five years, but now he can have everything. A boy who looks like that . . .”

Woolsey chuckled.

“Though he had already given his heart away,” Magnus said. “Perhaps it is for the best. What he needs now is to love and have that love returned. He has not had an easy life for one so young. I only hope she understands.”

Even from this distance Magnus could see Will take a deep breath, square his shoulders, and set off down the Walk. And—Magnus was quite sure he was not imagining it—there seemed to be almost a spring in his step.

“You cannot save every fallen bird,” said Woolsey, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. “Even the handsome ones.”

“One will do,” said Magnus, and, as Will was no longer within his sight, he let the front door fall shut.