Clockwork Princess

17

O

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OBLE

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Howe’er it be, it seems to me,

’Tis only noble to be good.

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

And simple faith than Norman blood.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Lady Clara Vere de Vere”

Charlotte’s dark head was bent over a letter when Gabriel came into the drawing room. It was chilly in the room, the fire dead in the grate. Gabriel wondered why Sophie had not built it up—too much time spent training. His father wouldn’t have had patience with that. He liked servants who were trained to fight, but he preferred them to acquire that knowledge before they entered his service.

Charlotte looked up. “Gabriel,” she said.

“You wanted to see me?” Gabriel did his best to keep his voice even. He couldn’t help the feeling that Charlotte’s dark eyes could see through him, as if he were made of glass. His eyes flicked toward the paper on her desk. “What is that?”

She hesitated. “A letter from the Consul.” Her mouth was twisted into a tight, unhappy line. She glanced down again and sighed. “All I ever wanted was to run this Institute as my father had. I never thought it would be quite so hard. I shall write to him again, but—” She broke off then, with a tight, false smile. “But I did not ask you here to talk about myself,” she said. “Gabriel, you have looked tired these past few days, and tense. I know we are all distressed, and I fear that in that distress your—situation—may have been forgotten.”

“My situation?”

“Your father,” she clarified, rising from her chair and approaching him. “You must be grieving him.”

“What of Gideon?” he said. “He was his father too.”

“Gideon grieved your father some time ago,” she said, and to his surprise she was standing at his elbow. “For you it must be new and raw. I did not want you to think I had forgotten.”

“After everything that’s happened,” he said, his throat starting to close with bewilderment—and something else, something he did not want to identify too closely—“after Jem, and Will, and Jessamine, and Tessa, after your household has been very nearly cut in half, you do not wish me to believe that you have forgotten me?”

She laid a hand on his arm. “Those losses do not make your loss nothing—”

“That cannot be it,” he said. “You cannot want to comfort me. You asked me to find out if my loyalty is still to my father, or to the Institute—”

“Gabriel, no. Nothing like that.”

“I can’t give you the answer you want,” Gabriel said. “I cannot forget that he stayed with me. My mother died—and Gideon left—and Tatiana is a useless fool—and there was never anyone else, never anyone else to bring me up, and I had nothing, just my father, just the two of us, and now you, you and Gideon, you expect me to despise him, but I can’t. He was my father, and I—” His voice broke.

“Loved him,” she said gently. “You know, I remember you when you were just a little boy, and I remember your mother. And I remember your brother, always standing next to you. And your father’s hand on your shoulder. If it matters, I do believe he loved you, too.”

“It doesn’t matter. Because I killed my father,” Gabriel said in a shaking voice. “I put an arrow through his eye—I spilled his blood. Patricide—”

“It was not patricide. He wasn’t your father anymore.”

“If that was not my father, if I did not end my father’s life, then where is he?” Gabriel whispered “Where is my father?” and felt Charlotte reach up to draw him down, to embrace him as a mother would, holding him as he choked dryly against her shoulder, tasting tears in his throat but unable to shed them. “Where is my father?” he said again, and when she tightened her hold on him, he felt the iron in her grip, the strength of her holding him up, and wondered how he had ever thought this small woman was weak.

To: Charlotte Branwell

From: Consul Josiah Wayland

My Dear Mrs. Branwell,

An informant whose name you cannot at this time disclose? I would venture a guess that there is no informant, and that this is all your own invention, a ploy to convince me of your rightness.

Pray cease your impression of a parrot witlessly repeating “March upon Cadair Idris at once” at all the hours of the day, and show me instead that you are performing your duties as leader of the London Institute. Otherwise I fear I must suppose that you are unfit to do so, and will be forced to relieve you of them at once.

As a token of your compliance, I must ask that you cease speaking of this matter entirely, and implore no members of the Enclave to join you in your fruitless quest. If I hear that you have brought this matter before any other Nephilim, I shall consider it the gravest disobedience and act accordingly.

Josiah Wayland, Consul of the Clave

Sophie had brought Charlotte the letter at the breakfast table. Charlotte pried it open with her butter knife, breaking through the Wayland seal (a horseshoe with the C of the Consul below it), and fairly tore it open in her eagerness to read.

The rest of them watched her, Henry with concern on his bright, open face as two dark red spots bloomed slowly over Charlotte’s cheekbones while her eyes scanned the lines. The others sat still, arrested over their meals, and Cecily could not help but think how it was strange in a way to see a group of men hanging upon the reaction of a woman.

Though a smaller group of men than it should have been. The absence of Will and Jem felt like a new wound, a clean white slice not yet filled in with blood, the shock almost too fresh for pain.

“What is it?” Henry said anxiously. “Charlotte, dear …”

Charlotte read the words of the message out with the emotionless beats of a metronome. When she was done, she pushed the letter away, still staring at it. “I simply cannot …” She began. “I do not understand.”

Henry had flushed red beneath his freckles. “How dare he write to you like that,” he said, with unexpected ferocity. “How dare he address you in that manner, dismiss your concerns—”

“Perhaps he is correct. Perhaps he is mad. Perhaps we all are,” Charlotte said.

“We are not!” Cecily exclaimed, and she saw Gabriel look sideways at her. His expression was difficult to read. He had been pale since he had come into the dining room, and had barely spoken or eaten, staring instead at the tablecloth as if it held the answers to all the questions in the universe. “The Magister is in Cadair Idris. I am sure of it.”

Gideon was frowning. “I believe you,” he said. “We all do, but without the ear of the Consul, the matter cannot be placed before the Council, and without a Council there can be no assistance for us.”

“The portal is nearly ready for use,” said Henry. “When it works, we should be able to transport as many Shadowhunters as needed to Cadair Idris in a matter of moments.”

“But there will be no Shadowhunters to transport,” said Charlotte. “Look, here, the Consul forbids me to speak of this matter to the Enclave. Its authority supersedes mine. To overstep his command like that—we could lose the Institute.”

“And?” Cecily demanded heatedly. “Do you care more for your position than you care for Will and Tessa?”

“Miss Herondale,” Henry began, but Charlotte silenced him with a gesture. She looked very tired.

“No, Cecily, it is not that, but the Institute provides us protection. Without it our ability to help Will and Tessa is severely compromised. As the head of the Institute, I can provide them assistance that a single Shadowhunter could not—”

“No,” Gabriel said. He had pushed away his plate, and his slim fingers were tense and white as he gestured. “You cannot.”

“Gabriel?” said Gideon in a questioning tone.

“I will not stay silent,” Gabriel said, and rose to his feet, as if he intended to either make a speech or sprint away from the table, Cecily was not sure. He turned a haunted green gaze on Charlotte. “The day that the Consul came here, when he brought me and my brother away for questioning, he threatened us until we promised to spy on you for him.”

Charlotte paled. Henry began to stand up from the table. Gideon threw a hand out pleadingly.

“Charlotte,” he said. “We never did it. We never told him a word. Nothing that was true, anyway,” he amended, looking around as the rest of the occupants of the room stared at him. “Some lies. Misdirection. He stopped asking after only two letters. He knew there was no use in it.”

“It’s true, ma’am,” came a small voice from the corner of the room. Sophie. Cecily almost hadn’t noticed her there, pale under her white mobcap.

“Sophie!” Henry sounded utterly shocked. “You knew about this?”

“Yes, but—” Sophie’s voice shook. “He threatened Gideon and Gabriel awfully, Mr. Branwell. He told them he would have the Lightwoods stricken off the Shadowhunter records, that he would have Tatiana turned out in the street. And still they didn’t tell him anything. When he stopped asking, I thought he’d realized there was nothing to find out and given up. I’m so sorry. I just—”

“She didn’t want to hurt you,” Gideon said desperately. “Please, Mrs. Branwell. Do not blame Sophie for this.”

“I don’t,” said Charlotte, her eyes dark and quick, moving from Gabriel to Gideon to Sophie, and back again. “But I rather imagine there is more to this story. Isn’t there?”

“That is all there is, truly—,” Gideon began.

“No,” Gabriel said. “It isn’t. When I came to you, Gideon, and told you that the Consul no longer wanted us to report to him about Charlotte, that was a lie.”

“What?” Gideon looked horrified.

“He brought me aside on my own, the day of the attack on the Institute,” Gabriel said. “He told me that if I helped him discover some wrongdoing on Charlotte’s part, he would give back the Lightwood estate to us, restore the honor to our name, cover up what our father did …” He took a deep breath. “And I told him I would do it.”

“Gabriel,” Gideon groaned, and buried his face in his hands. Gabriel looked as if he were about to be sick, half-wavering on his feet. Cecily was torn between pity and horror, remembering that night in the training room, how she had told him she had faith in him that he would make the right choices.

“That is why you looked so frightened when I called you to speak with me earlier today,” Charlotte said, her gaze steady on Gabriel. “You thought I had found you out.”

Henry began to rise to his feet, his pleasant, open face darkening with the first real anger Cecily thought she had ever seen on it. “Gabriel Lightwood,” he said. “My wife has shown you nothing but kindness, and this is how you repay it?”

Charlotte put a restraining hand on her husband’s arm. “Henry, wait,” she said. “Gabriel. What did you do?”

“I listened to your conversation with Aloysius Starkweather,” Gabriel said in an empty voice. “I wrote a letter to the Consul afterward, telling him that you were basing your requests that he march on Wales on the words of a madman, that you were credulous, too headstrong …”

Charlotte’s eyes seemed to pierce through Gabriel like nails; Cecily thought she would never want that gaze on her, not in her life. “You wrote it,” she said. “Did you send it?”

Gabriel took a long, gasping breath. “No,” he said, and reached into his sleeve. He drew out a folded paper and threw it down onto the table. Cecily stared at it. It was smudged with fingerprints and soft at the edges, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times. “I could not do it. I did not tell him anything at all.”

Cecily let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Sophie made a soft noise; she started toward Gideon, who was looking as if he were recovering from being punched in the stomach. Charlotte remained as calm as she had been throughout. She reached out, picked up the letter, glanced over it, and then placed it back on the table.

“Why didn’t you send it?” she said.

He looked at her, an odd shared look that passed between them, and said, “I had my reasons to reconsider.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Gideon said. “Gabriel, you are my brother….”

“You cannot make all choices for me, Gideon. Sometimes I have to make my own. As Shadowhunters we are meant to be selfless. To die for mundanes, for the Angel, and most of all for each other. Those are our principles. Charlotte lives by them; Father never did. I realized that I had been mistaken before in putting my loyalty to my bloodline above principle, above everything. And I realized the Consul was wrong about Charlotte.” Gabriel stopped abruptly; his mouth was set in a thin, white line. “He was wrong.” He turned to Charlotte. “I cannot take back what I have done in the past, or what I considered doing. I know of no way to make up to you my doubt in your authority, or my ungratefulness for your kindness. All I can do is tell you what I know: that you cannot wait for an approval from Consul Wayland that will never come. He will never march upon Cadair Idris for you, Charlotte. He does not want to agree to any plan that has your stamp of authority on it. He wishes you out of the Institute. Replaced.”

“But he is the one who put me here,” Charlotte said. “He supported me—”

“Because he thought you would be weak,” said Gabriel. “Because he believes women are weak and easily manipulated, but you have proved not to be, and it has ruined all his planning. He does not just desire you discredited; he needs it. He was clear enough with me that even if I could not discover you engaged in any true wrongdoing, he was granting me the freedom to invent a lie that would convict you. As long as it was a convincing one.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together. “Then he never had faith in me,” she whispered. “Never.”

Henry tightened his grip on her arm. “But he should have,” he said. “He underestimated you, and that is not a tragedy. That you have proven to be better, cleverer, and stronger than anyone could have expected, Charlotte—it is a triumph.”

Charlotte swallowed, and Cecily wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to have someone look at her as Henry looked at Charlotte—as if she were a wonder on the earth. “What do I do?”

“What you think best, Charlotte darling,” said Henry.

“You are the leader of the Enclave, and of the Institute,” said Gabriel. “We have faith in you, even if the Consul does not.” He ducked his head. “You have my loyalty from this day forward. For whatever it is worth to you.”

“It is worth a great deal,” Charlotte said, and there was something in her voice, a quiet authority that made Cecily want to rise and proclaim her own loyalty, simply to win the balm of Charlotte’s approval. Cecily couldn’t imagine feeling that way, she realized, about the Consul. And that is why the Consul hates her, she thought. Because she is a woman, and yet he knows she can command loyalty in a way he never could. “We proceed as if the Consul does not exist,” Charlotte went on. “If he is determined to remove me from my place here, then I have nothing to safeguard. It is simply a matter of doing what we must before he has a chance to stop us. Henry, how long before your invention is ready?”

“Tomorrow,” Henry said promptly. “I shall work through the night—”

“It will be the first time it is ever used,” said Gideon. “Does that not seem a bit risky?”

“We have no other way of getting to Wales in time,” said Charlotte. “Once I send my message, we will have only a short time before the Consul comes to relieve me of my place.”

“What message?” Cecily asked, bewildered.

“I am going to send a message to all the members of the Clave,” Charlotte said. “At once. Not the Enclave. The Clave.”

“But only the Consul is allowed—,” Henry began, then shut his mouth like a box. “Ah.”

“I will tell them the situation as it stands and ask for their assistance,” said Charlotte. “I am not sure what response we can count on, but surely some will stand with us.”

“I will stand with you,” said Cecily.

“And I, of course,” Gabriel said. His expression was resigned, nervous, considering, determined. Never had Cecily liked him more.

“And I,” said Gideon, “though”—and his gaze, as it passed over his brother, was worried—“a mere six of us, one only barely trained, against whatever force Mortmain has mustered …” Cecily was caught between pleasure that he had counted her as one of them and annoyance that he had said she was barely trained. “It could be a suicide mission.”

Sophie’s soft voice spoke again. “You may have only six Shadowhunters on your side, but you have at least nine fighters. I am trained as well, and I would like to fight alongside you. So will Bridget and Cyril.”

Charlotte looked half-pleased, half-startled. “But, Sophie, you have only just begun to be trained—”

“I have been trained longer than Miss Herondale,” said Sophie.

“Cecily is a Shadowhunter—”

“Miss Collins has a natural talent,” said Gideon. He spoke slowly, the conflict clear on his face. He did not want Sophie in the fighting, in danger, and yet would not lie about her abilities. “She should be allowed to Ascend and become a Shadowhunter.”

“Gideon—,” Sophie began, startled, but Charlotte was already looking at her with a keen dark gaze.

“Is that what you want, Sophie, dear? To Ascend?”

Sophie stammered. “I—it is what I have always wanted, Mrs. Branwell, but not if it meant I had to leave your service. You have been so kind to me, I would not wish to repay that by abandoning you—”

“Nonsense,” Charlotte said. “I can find another maid; I cannot find another Sophie. If being a Shadowhunter was what you wanted, my girl, I wish you had spoken. I could have gone to the Consul before I was at odds with him. Still, when we return—”

She broke off, and Cecily heard the words beneath the words: If we return.

“When we return, I will put you forward for Ascension,” Charlotte finished.

“I will speak out for her case as well,” Gideon said. “After all, I have my father’s place on the Council—his friends will listen to me; they still owe loyalty to our family—and besides, how else can we be married?”

“What?” said Gabriel with a wild hand gesture that accidentally flipped the nearest plate onto the floor, where it shattered.

“Married?” said Henry. “You’re marrying your father’s friends on the Council? Which of them?”

Gideon had gone an odd sort of greenish color; clearly he had not meant those words to escape him, and he did not know what to do now that they had. He was staring at Sophie in horror, but it didn’t seem she was likely to be much help either. She looked as shocked as a fish that had been stranded unexpectedly on land.

Cecily stood up and dropped her serviette onto her plate. “All right,” she said, doing her best to approximate the commanding tones her mother used when she needed something done about the house. “Everyone out of the room.”

Charlotte, Henry, and Gideon began to rise to their feet. Cecily threw her hands up. “Not you, Gideon Lightwood,” she said. “Honestly! But you”—she pointed at Gabriel—“do stop staring. And come along.” And taking him by the back of the jacket, she half-dragged him from the room, Henry and Charlotte hard on their heels.

The moment they had left the dining room, Charlotte strode off toward the drawing room with the announced purpose of composing a message for the Clave, Henry by her side. (She paused at the turn of the corridor to look back at Gabriel with an amused quirk of her mouth, but Cecily suspected he did not see it.) Cecily put it out of her mind quickly, regardless. She was too busy pressing her ear up against the dining room door, trying to hear what was going on inside.

Gabriel, after a moment’s pause, leaned back against the wall beside the door. He was in equal parts pale and flushed, his pupils dilated with shock. “You shouldn’t do that,” he said finally. “Eavesdropping is most incorrect behavior, Miss Herondale.”

“It’s your brother,” Cecily whispered, ear against the wood. She could hear murmurs inside but nothing definite. “I should think you’d want to know.”

He ran both his hands through his hair and exhaled like someone who’d been running a long distance. Then he turned to her and took a stele from his waistcoat pocket. He carved a rune quickly into his wrist, then placed his hand flat against the door. “I do, at that.”

Cecily’s gaze darted from his hand to the thoughtful expression on his face. “Can you hear them?” she demanded. “Oh, that is not at all fair!”

“It’s all very romantic,” Gabriel said, and then frowned. “Or it would be, if my brother could get a word out without sounding like a choking frog. I fear he will not go down in history as one of the world’s great wooers of women.”

Cecily crossed her arms in vexation. “I do not see why you are being so difficult,” she said. “Or are you bothered that your brother wishes to marry a servant girl?”

The expression Gabriel turned on her was fierce, and Cecily suddenly regretted tweaking him after what he had just been through. “Nothing I can think of him doing would be worse than what my father did. At least his taste runs to human women.”

And yet it was so difficult not to tweak him. He was so aggravating. “That is hardly a great endorsement for a woman as fine as Sophie.”

Gabriel looked as if he were about to deliver a sharp retort, but then he thought better of it. “I did not mean it like that. She is a fine girl and will be a fine Shadowhunter when she Ascends. She will bring honor to our family, and the Angel knows we need it.”

“I believe you will bring honor to your family too,” Cecily said quietly. “What you just did, what you confessed to Charlotte—that took courage.”

Gabriel was still for a moment. Then he reached out his hand toward her. “Take my hand,” he said. “You will be able to hear what is going on in the dining room, through me, if you desire.”

After a moment’s hesitation Cecily took Gabriel’s hand. It was warm and rough in hers. She could feel the thrum of his blood through his skin, oddly comforting—and indeed, through him, as if she had her own ear pressed to the door, she could hear the low rumble of spoken words: Gideon’s soft hesitant voice, and Sophie’s delicate one. She closed her eyes and listened.

“Oh,” said Sophie faintly, and sat down in one of the chairs. “Oh, my.”

She could not help but sit; her legs felt wobbly and uneasy. Gideon, meanwhile, was standing by the sideboard, looking panicked. His blond-brown hair was tousled wildly as if he had been running his hands through it. “My dear Miss Collins—,” he began.

“This is,” Sophie began, and paused. “I don’t— This is quite unexpected.”

“Is it?” Gideon moved away from the sideboard and leaned on the table; his shirtsleeves were rolled up slightly, and Sophie found herself staring at his wrists, downed with faint blond hair and marked with the white memories of Marks. “Surely you must have been able to see the respect and esteem I had for you. The admiration.”

“Well,” Sophie said. “Admiration.” She managed to make it sound like a very pale word indeed.

Gideon flushed. “My dear Miss Collins,” he began again. “It is true that my feelings for you go far beyond admiration. I would describe them as the most ardent affection. Your kindness, your beauty, your generous heart—they have quite overset me, and it is to that alone that I can ascribe my behavior of this morning. I do not know what came over me, to speak the dearest wishes of my heart aloud. Please do not feel obligated to accept my proposal simply because it was public. Any embarrassment over the matter would and should be mine.”

Sophie looked up at him. Color was coming and going in his cheeks, making his agitation clear. “But you haven’t proposed,”

Gideon looked startled. “I— What?”

“You haven’t proposed,” Sophie said with equanimity. “You did announce to the whole breakfast table that you intended to marry me, but that is not a proposal. That is only a declaration. A proposal is when you ask me.”

“Now that’s putting my brother in his place,” said Gabriel, looking delighted in that manner that younger siblings did when their brothers or sisters were entirely set down.

“Oh, shush!” whispered Cecily, squeezing his hand hard. “I want to hear what Mr. Lightwood says!”

“Very well, then,” said Gideon, in the decided (yet slightly terrified) manner of Saint George setting off to fight the dragon. “A proposal it shall be.”

Sophie’s eyes tracked him as he crossed the room toward her and knelt down at her feet. Life was an uncertain thing, and there were some moments one wished to remember, to imprint upon one’s mind that the memory might be taken out later, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book, and admired and recollected anew.

She knew she would not want to forgot the way Gideon reached for her hand with his own hand trembling, or the way he bit his lip before he spoke. “My dear Miss Collins,” he said. “Please forgive me for my untoward outburst. It is simply that I have such—such strong esteem—no, not esteem, adoration—for you that I feel as if it must blaze from me every moment of the day. Ever since I came to this house, I have been struck more forcibly each day by your beauty, your courage, and your nobility. It is an honor I could never deserve but most earnestly aspire to if you could only be mine—that is, if you would consent to be my wife.”

“Gracious,” Sophie said, startled out of all countenance. “Have you been practicing that?”

Gideon blinked. “I assure you it was entirely extemporaneous.”

“Well, it was lovely.” Sophie squeezed his hands. “And yes. Yes, I love you, and yes, I will marry you, Gideon.”

A brilliant smile broke out over his face, and he startled both of them by reaching for her and kissing her soundly on the mouth. She held his face between her hands as they kissed—he tasted slightly of tea leaves, and his lips were soft and the kiss entirely sweet. Sophie floated in it, in the prism of the moment, feeling safe from all the rest of the world.

Until Bridget’s voice broke in on her happiness, drifting lugubriously from the kitchen.

“On a Tuesday they were wed

And by Friday they were dead

And they buried them in the churchyard side by side,

Oh, my love,

And they buried them in the churchyard side by side.”

Breaking away from Gideon with some reluctance, Sophie rose to her feet and dusted off her dress. “Please forgive me, my dear Mr. Lightwood—I mean Gideon—but I must go and murder the cook. I shall be directly back.”

“Ohhh,” Cecily breathed. “That was so romantic!”

Gabriel took his hand away from the door and smiled down at her. His face quite changed when he smiled: all the sharp lines were softened, and his eyes went from the color of ice to the green of leaves in spring sunshine. “Are you crying, Miss Herondale?”

She blinked damp eyelashes, suddenly aware that her hand was still in his—she could still feel the soft pulse beat in his wrist against hers. He leaned toward her, and she caught the early-morning scent of him: tea and shaving soap—

She pulled away hastily, freeing her hand. “Thank you for allowing me to listen,” she said. “I must—I need to go to the library. There is something I must do before tomorrow.”

His face crinkled in confusion. “Cecily—”

But she was already hurrying away down the corridor, without looking back.

To: Edmund and Linette Herondale

Ravenscar Manor

West Riding, Yorkshire

Dear Mam and Dad,

I have started this letter to you so many times and never sent it. At first it was guilt. I knew I had been a willful, disobedient girl in leaving you, and I could not face the evidence of my wrongdoing in stark black letters on a page.

After that it was homesickness. I missed you both so much. I missed the rich green hills sweeping up from the manor, and the heather all purple in the summer, and Mam singing in the garden. It was cold here, all black and brown and gray, pea-soup fogs and choking air. I thought I might die of loneliness, but how could I tell you that? After all, it was what I had chosen.

And then it was sorrow. I had planned to come here and bring Will back with me, to make him see where his duty lay, and bring him home. But Will has his own ideas about duty, and honor, and the promises he has made. And I came to see that I could not bring someone home when they were already there. And I did not know how to tell you that.

And then it was happiness. That may seem so very strange to you, as it did to me, that I would not be able to return home because I had found contentment. As I trained to become a Shadowhunter, I felt the stirring in my blood, the same stirring Mam always spoke of feeling every time we came from Welshpool into sight of the Dyfi Valley. With a seraph blade in my hand, I am more than just Cecily Herondale, youngest of three, daughter of good parents, someday to make an advantageous marriage and give the world children. I am Cecily Herondale, Shadowhunter, and mine is a high and glorious position.

Glory. Such an odd word, something women are not supposed to want, but is not our queen triumphant? Was not Queen Bess called Gloriana?

But how could I tell you I had chosen glory over peace? The hard-bought peace you left the Clave to provide for me? How could I say I was happy as a Shadowhunter without it causing you the gravest unhappiness? This is the life you turned away from, the life from whose dangers you sought to shelter Will and me and Ella. What could I tell you that would not break your hearts?

Now—now it is understanding. I have come to realize what it means to love someone more than you love yourself. I realize now that all you ever wanted was, not for me to be like you but to be happy. And you gave me—you gave us—a choice. I see those who have grown up in the Clave, and who never had a choice about what they wished to be, and I am grateful for what you did. To have chosen this life is a very different thing from having been born into it. The life of Jessamine Lovelace has taught me that.

And as for Will, and bringing him home: I know, Mam, you feared that the Shadowhunters would take all the love out of your gentle boy. But he is loved and loving. He has not changed. And he loves you, as do I. Remember me, for I will always remember you.

Your loving daughter,

Cecily

To: Members of the Clave of the Nephilim

From: Charlotte Branwell

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Arms,

It is my sad duty to relate to you all that despite the fact that I have presented Consul Wayland with incontrovertible proof provided by one of my Shadowhunters that Mortmain, the gravest threat the Nephilim has faced in our times, is resident at Cadair Idris in Wales—our esteemed Consul has mysteriously decided to ignore this information. I myself regard knowledge of the location of our enemy and the opportunity to defeat his plans for our destruction as of the deepest importance.

By means provided to me by my husband, the renowned inventor Henry Branwell, the Shadowhunters at my disposal in the London Institute will be proceeding with utmost dispatch to Cadair Idris, there to lay down our lives in an attempt to stop Mortmain. I am most grieved to leave the Institute undefended, but if Consul Wayland can be roused to any action at all, he is most welcome to send guards to defend a deserted building. There are but nine of our number, three of them not even Shadowhunters but brave mundanes trained by us at the Institute who have volunteered to fight beside us. I cannot say that our hopes at this time are high, but I believe the attempt must be made.

Obviously I cannot compel any of you. As Consul Wayland has reminded me, I am not in a position to command the forces of the Shadowhunters, but I would be most obliged if any of you who agree with me that Mortmain must be fought and fought now will come to the London Institute tomorrow at midday and render us your assistance.

Yours truly,

Charlotte Branwell, head of the London Institute