فصل 14

14 BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE

Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew

Wanted to know what the River knew,

For they were young and the Thames was old,

And this is the tale that the River told.

—Rudyard Kipling, “The River’s Tale”

Stepping through the Institute’s iron gate, Tessa felt a bit like Sleeping Beauty leaving her castle behind its wall of thorns. The Institute was in the center of a square, and streets left the square in each cardinal direction, plunging into narrow labyrinths between houses. Still with his hand courteously on her elbow, Jem led Tessa down a narrow passage. The sky overhead was like steel. The ground was still damp from the rain earlier in the day, and the sides of the buildings that seemed to press in on either side were streaked with damp and stained with black residues of dust.

Jem talked as they went, not saying much of import but keeping up a soothing chatter, telling her what he had thought of London when he had first come here, how everything had seemed to him a uniform shade of gray—even the people! He had been unable to believe it could rain so much in one place, and so unceasingly. The damp had seemed to come up from the floors and into his bones, so that he’d thought he would eventually sprout mold, in the manner of a tree. “You do get used to it,” he said as they came out from the narrow passage and into the broadness of Fleet Street. “Even if sometimes you feel as if you ought to be able to be wrung out like a washrag.” Remembering the chaos of the street during the day, Tessa was comforted to see how much quieter it was in the evening, the thronging crowds reduced to the occasional figure striding along the pavement, head down, keeping to the shadows. There were still carriages and even single riders in the road, though none seemed to notice Tessa and Jem. A glamour at work? Tessa wondered, but didn’t ask. She was enjoying just listening to Jem talk. This was the oldest part of the city, he told her, where London had been born. The shops that lined the street were closed, their blinds drawn, but advertisements still blared from every surface, advertisements for everything from Pears soap to hair tonic to announcements urging people to attend a lecture on spiritualism. As Tessa walked, she caught glimpses of the spires of the Institute between the buildings, and couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else could see them. She remembered the parrot woman with the green skin and feathers. Was the Institute really hidden in plain sight? Curiosity getting the better of her, she asked Jem as much.

“Let me show you something,” he said. “Stop here.” He took Tessa by the elbow and turned her so that she was facing across the street. He pointed. “What do you see there?”

She squinted across the street; they were near the intersection of Fleet Street and Chancery Lane. There seemed nothing remarkable about where they stood. “The front of a bank. What else is there to see?”

“Now let your mind wander a bit,” he said, still in the same soft voice. “Look at something else, the way you might avoid looking directly at a cat so as not to frighten it. Glance at the bank again, out of the corner of your eye. Now look at it, directly, and very fast!” Tessa did as directed—and stared. The bank was gone; in its place was a half-timbered tavern, with great diamond-paned windows. The light within the windows was tinted with a reddish glow, and through the open front door more red light poured out onto the pavement. Through the glass dark shadows moved—not the familiar shadows of men and women, but shapes too tall and thin, too oddly elongated or many-limbed to be human. Bursts of laughter interrupted a high, sweet, thin music, haunting and seductive. A sign hanging over the door showed a man reaching to tweak the nose of a horned demon. Lettered below the image were the words THE DEVIL TAVERN.

This is where Will was the other night. Tessa looked toward Jem. He was staring at the tavern, his hand light on her arm, his breathing slow and soft. She could see the red light of the pub reflected in his silvery eyes like sunset on water. “Is this your favorite place?” she asked.

The intensity went out of his gaze; he looked at her, and laughed. “Lord, no,” he said. “Just something I wanted you to see.”

Someone came out the tavern door then, a man in a long black overcoat, an elegant watered silk hat placed firmly on his head. As he glanced up the street, Tessa saw that his skin was an inky dark blue, his hair and beard as white as ice. He moved east toward the Strand as Tessa watched, wondering if he would garner curious stares, but his passage was no more noted by passersby than that of a ghost would be. In fact, the mundanes who passed in front of the Devil Tavern seemed barely to notice it at all, even when several spindly, chittering figures exited and nearly knocked over a tired-looking man wheeling an empty cart. He paused to look around for a moment, puzzled, then shrugged and went on.

“There was a very ordinary tavern there once,” said Jem. “As it grew more and more infested with Downworlders, the Nephilim became concerned about the intertwining of the Shadow World with the mundane world. They barred mundanes from the place by the simple expedient of using a glamour to convince them that the tavern had been knocked down and a bank erected in its place. The Devil is a nearly exclusively Downworlder haunt now.” Jem glanced up at the moon, a frown crossing his face. “It’s growing late. We’d better move on.” After a single glance back at the Devil, Tessa moved after Jem, who continued to chat easily as they went, pointing out things of interest—the Temple Church, where the law courts were now, and where once the Knights Templar had sustained pilgrims on their route to the Holy Land. “They were friends of the Nephilim, the knights. Mundanes, but not without their own knowledge of the Shadow World. And of course,” he added, as they came out from the network of streets and onto Blackfriars Bridge itself, “many think that the Silent Brothers are the original Black Friars, though no one can prove it. This is it,” he added, gesturing before him. “My favorite place in London.”

Looking out over the bridge, Tessa couldn’t help but wonder what Jem liked so much about the place. It stretched from one bank of the Thames to the other, a low granite bridge with multiple arches, the parapets painted dark red and gilded with gold and scarlet paint that gleamed in the moonlight. It would have been pretty if it hadn’t been for the railway bridge that ran along the east side of it, silent in the shadows but still an ugly latticework of iron railings stretching away to the river’s opposite bank.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jem said again, just as he had outside the Institute. “The railway bridge, it’s hideous. But it means people rarely come here to admire the view. I enjoy the solitude, and just the look of the river, silent under the moon.” They walked to the center of the bridge, where Tessa leaned against a granite parapet and looked down. The Thames was black in the moonlight. The expanse of London stretched away on either bank, the great dome of St. Paul’s looming up behind them like a white ghost, and everything shrouded in the softening fog that laid a gently blurring veil over the harsh lines of the city.

Tessa glanced down at the river. The smell of salt and dirt and rot came off the water, mixing with the fog. Still there was something portentous about London’s river, as if it carried the weight of the past in its currents. A bit of old poetry came into her head. “’Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,’” she said, half under her breath. Normally she would never have quoted poetry aloud in front of anyone, but there was something about Jem that made her feel that whatever she did, he wouldn’t pass judgment on her.

“I’ve heard that bit of rhyme before,” was all he said. “Will’s quoted it at me. What is it?”

“Spenser. ‘Prothalamion.’” Tessa frowned. “Will does seem to have an odd affinity for poetry for someone so . . . so . . .”

“Will reads constantly, and has an excellent memory,” said Jem. “There is very little he does not remember.” There was something in his voice that lent weight to his assertion beyond the mere statement of fact.

“You like Will, don’t you?” said Tessa. “I mean, you’re fond of him.”

“I love him as if he were my brother,” said Jem matter-offactly.

“You can say that,” Tessa said. “However horrid he is to everyone else, he loves you. He’s kind to you. What did you ever do, to make him treat you so differently from all the rest?”

Jem leaned sideways against the parapet, his gaze on her but still faraway. He tapped his fingers thoughtfully against the jade top of his cane. Taking advantage of his clear distraction, Tessa let herself stare at him, marveling a little at his strange beauty in the moonlight. He was all silver and ashes, not like Will’s strong colors of blue and black and gold.

Finally he said, “I don’t know, really. I used to think it was because we were both without parents, and therefore he felt we were the same—”

“I’m an orphan,” Tessa pointed out. “So is Jessamine. He doesn’t think he is like us.”

“No. He doesn’t.” Jem’s eyes were guarded, as if there were something he wasn’t saying.

“I don’t understand him,” Tessa said. “He can be kind one moment and absolutely awful the next. I cannot decide if he is kind or cruel, loving or hateful—”

“Does it matter?” Jem said. “Is it required that you make such a decision?”

“The other night,” she went on, “in your room, when Will came in. He said he had been drinking all night, but then, later, when you—later he seemed to become instantly sober. I’ve seen my brother drunk. I know it doesn’t vanish like that in an instant; even my aunt throwing a pail of cold water in Nate’s face wouldn’t have roused him from stupor, not if he were truly intoxicated. And Will didn’t smell of alcohol, or seem ill the next morning. But why would he lie and say he was drunk if he wasn’t?” Jem looked resigned. “And there you have the essential mystery of Will Herondale. I used to wonder the same thing myself. How anyone could drink as much as he claimed and survive, much less fight as well as he does. So one night I followed him.” “You followed him?”

Jem grinned crookedly. “Yes. He went out, claiming an assignation or some such, and I followed him. If I’d known what to expect, I would have worn sturdier shoes. All night he walked through the city, from St. Paul’s to

Spitalfields Market to Whitechapel High Street. He went down to the river and wandered about the docks. Never did he stop to speak to a single soul. It was like following a ghost. The next morning he was ready with some ribald tale of false adventures, and I never demanded the truth. If he wishes to lie to me, then he must have a reason.” “He lies to you, and yet you trust him?”

“Yes,” Jem said. “I trust him.”

“But—”

“He lies consistently. He always invents the story that will make him look the worst.”

“Then, has he told you what happened to his parents? Either the truth or lies?”

“Not entirely. Bits and pieces,” Jem said after a long pause. “I know that his father left the Nephilim. Before Will was ever born. He fell in love with a mundane girl, and when the Council refused to make her a Shadowhunter, he left the Clave and moved with her to a very remote part of Wales, where they thought they wouldn’t be interfered with. The Clave was furious.” “Will’s mother was a mundane? You mean he is only half a Shadowhunter?”

“Nephilim blood is dominant,” said Jem. “That’s why there are three rules for those who leave the Clave. First, you must sever contact with any and all Shadowhunters you have ever known, even your own family. They can never speak to you again, nor can you speak to them. Second, you cannot call upon the Clave for help, no matter what your danger. And the third . . .”

“What’s the third?”

“Even should you leave the Clave,” said Jem, “they can still lay claim to your children.”

A little shiver went through Tessa. Jem was still staring out at the river, as if he could see Will in its silvered surface. “Every six years,” he said, “until the child is eighteen, a representative of the Clave comes to your family and asks the child if they would like to leave their family and join the Nephilim.” “I can’t imagine anyone would,” Tessa said, appalled. “I mean, you’d never be able to speak to your family again, would you?”

Jem shook his head.

“And Will agreed to that? He joined the Shadowhunters regardless?”

“He refused. Twice, he refused. Then, one day—Will was twelve or so—there was a knock on the Institute door and Charlotte answered it. She would have been eighteen then, I think. Will was standing there on the steps. She told me he was covered in road dust and dirt as if he’d been sleeping in hedgerows. He said, ‘I am a Shadowhunter. One of you. You have to let me in. I have nowhere else to go.’” “He said that? Will? ‘I have nowhere else to go’?”

He hesitated. “You understand, all this is information I heard from Charlotte. Will’s never mentioned a word of any of it to me. But that’s what she claims he said.”

“I don’t understand. His parents—they’re dead, aren’t they? Or they would have come looking for him.”

“They did,” Jem said quietly. “A few weeks after Will arrived, Charlotte told me, his parents followed. They came to the front door of the Institute and banged on it, calling for him. Charlotte went into Will’s room to ask him if he wanted to see them. He had crawled under the bed and had his hands over his ears. He wouldn’t come out, no matter what she did, and he wouldn’t see them. I think Charlotte finally went down and sent them away, or they left of their own accord, I’m not sure—” “Sent them away? But their child was inside the Institute. They had a right—”

“They had no right.” Jem spoke gently enough, Tessa thought, but there was something in his tone that put him as far away from her as the moon. “Will chose to join the Shadowhunters. Once he made that choice, they had no more claim on him. It was the right and responsibility of the Clave to turn them away.” “And you’ve never asked him why?”

“If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me,” Jem said. “You asked why I think he tolerates me better than other people. I’d imagine it’s precisely because I’ve never asked him why.” He smiled at her, wryly. The cold air had whipped color into his cheeks, and his eyes were bright. Their hands were close to each other’s on the parapet. For a brief, half-confused moment Tessa thought that he might be about to put his hand over hers, but his gaze slid past her and he frowned. “Bit late for a walk, isn’t it?” Following his gaze, she saw the shadowy figures of a man and a woman coming toward them across the bridge. The man wore a workman’s felt hat and a dark woolen coat; the woman had her hand on his arm, her face inclined toward his. “They probably think the same thing about us,” Tessa said. She looked up into Jem’s eyes. “And you, did you come to the Institute because you had nowhere else to go? Why didn’t you stay in Shanghai?” “My parents ran the Institute there,” said Jem, “but they were murdered by a demon. He—it—was called Yanluo.” His voice was very calm. “After they died, everyone thought that the safest thing for me would be to leave the country, in case the demon or its cohorts came after me as well.” “But why here, why England?”

“My father was British. I spoke English. It seemed reasonable.” Jem’s tone was as calm as ever, but Tessa sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her. “I thought I would feel more at home here than I would in Idris, where neither of my parents had ever been.” Across the bridge from them the strolling couple had paused at a parapet; the man seemed to be pointing out features of the railway bridge, the woman nodding as he spoke. “And did you—feel more at home, that is?”

“Not precisely,” Jem said. “Almost the first thing I realized when I came here was that my father never thought of himself as British, not the way an Englishman would. Real Englishmen are British first, and gentlemen second. Whatever else it is they might be—a doctor, a magistrate or landowner—comes third. For Shadowhunters it’s different. We are Nephilim, first and foremost, and only after that do we make a nod to whatever country we might have been born and bred in. And as for third, there is no third. We are only ever Shadowhunters. When other Nephilim look at me, they see only a Shadowhunter. Not like mundanes, who look at me and see a boy who is not entirely foreign but not quite like them either.” “Half one thing and half another,” Tessa said. “Like me. But you know you’re human.”

Jem’s expression softened. “As are you. In all the ways that matter.”

Tessa felt the backs of her eyes sting. She glanced up and saw that the moon had passed behind a cloud, giving it a pearlescent luster. “I suppose we should go back. The others must be worried.”

Jem moved to offer her his arm—and paused. The strolling couple Jem had noted before were suddenly in front of them, blocking their way. Though they must have moved very swiftly to reach the far side of the bridge so fast, they stood eerily still now, their arms linked. The woman’s face was concealed in the shadow of a plain bonnet, the man’s hidden beneath the brim of his felt hat.

Jem’s hand tightened on Tessa’s arm, but his voice was neutral when he spoke. “Good evening. Is there something we can help you with?”

Neither of them spoke, but they moved a step closer, the woman’s skirt rustling in the wind. Tessa looked around, but there was no one else on the bridge, no one visible at either embankment. London seemed utterly deserted under the blurring moon.

“Pardon me,” Jem said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me and my companion go by.” He took a step forward, and Tessa followed. They were close enough now to the silent couple that when the moon came out from behind its cloud, flooding the bridge with silvery light and illuminating the face of the man in the felt hat, Tessa recognized him instantly.

The tangled hair; the wide once-broken nose and scarred chin; and most of all the protruding, popping eyes, the same eyes as the woman who stood beside him, her blank stare fixed on Tessa in a manner terribly reminiscent of Miranda’s.

But you’re dead. Will killed you. I saw your body. Tessa whispered, “It’s him, the coachman. He belongs to the Dark Sisters.”

The coachman chuckled. “I belong,” he said, “to the Magister. While the Dark Sisters served him, I served them. Now I serve him alone.”

The coachman’s voice sounded different from how Tessa remembered—less thick, more articulate, with an almost sinister smoothness. Beside Tessa, Jem had gone very still. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Why are you following us?” “The Magister has directed us to follow you,” the coachman said. “You are Nephilim. You are responsible for the destruction of his home, the

destruction of his people, the Children of the Night. We are here to deliver a declaration of war. And we are here for the girl.” He turned his eyes to Tessa. “She is the property of the Magister, and he will have her.”

“The Magister,” said Jem, his eyes very silver in the moonlight. “Do you mean de Quincey?”

“The name you give him does not matter. He is the Magister. He has told us to deliver a message. That message is war.”

Jem’s hand tightened on the head of his cane. “You serve de Quincey but are not vampires. What are you?”

The woman standing beside the coachman made a strange sighing noise, like the high whistle of a train. “Beware, Nephilim. As you slay others, so shall you be slain. Your angel cannot protect you against that which neither God nor the Devil has made.” Tessa began to turn toward Jem, but he was already in motion. His hand swung up, the jade-headed cane in it. There was a flash. A wickedly sharp and shimmering blade shot from the end of the cane. With a swift turn of his body, Jem plunged the blade forward and slashed it into the coachman’s chest. The man staggered back, a high whirring sound of surprise issuing from his throat.

Tessa drew in her breath. A long slash across the coachman’s shirt gaped open, and beneath it was visible neither flesh nor blood but shining metal, raggedly scored by Jem’s blade.

Jem drew his blade back, letting out a breath, satisfaction mixed with relief. “I knew it—”

The coachman snarled. His hand darted into his coat and withdrew a long serrated knife, the kind butchers used to cut through bone, while the woman, snapping into action, moved toward Tessa, her ungloved hands outstretched. Their movements were jerky, uneven—but very, very fast, much faster than Tessa would have guessed they could move. The coachman’s companion advanced on Tessa, her face expressionless, her mouth half-open. Something metallic gleamed inside it—metal, or copper. She has no gullet, and I would guess, no stomach. Her mouth ends in a sheet of metal behind her teeth.

Tessa retreated until her back hit the parapet. She looked for Jem, but the coachman was advancing on him again. Jem slashed away at him with the blade, but it seemed only to slow the man down. The coachman’s coat and shirt hung away from his body now in ragged strips, clearly showing the metal carapace beneath.

The woman grabbed for Tessa, who darted aside. The woman lumbered forward and crashed into the parapet. She seemed to feel no more pain than the coachman did; she drew herself stiffly upright and turned to move toward Tessa again. The impact seemed to have damaged her left arm, though, for it hung bent at her side. She swung toward Tessa with her right arm, fingers grasping, and seized her by the wrist. Her grip was tight enough to make Tessa scream as the small bones in her wrist flared with pain. She clawed at the hand that held her, her fingers sinking deep into slick, soft skin. It peeled away like the skin of a fruit, Tessa’s nails scraping against the metal beneath with a harshness that sent shivers up her spine.

She tried to jerk her hand back, but she only succeeded in pulling the woman toward her; she was making a whirring, clicking noise in her throat that sounded unpleasantly insec-tile, and up close her eyes were pupil-less and black. Tessa pulled her foot back to kick out— And there was the sudden clang of metal on metal; Jem’s blade flashed down with a clean slice, cutting the woman’s arm in half at the elbow. Tessa, released, fell back, the bodiless hand falling from her wrist, striking the ground at her feet; the woman was jerking around toward Jem, whir-click, whir-click. He moved forward, striking at the woman hard with the flat of the cane, knocking her back a step, and then another and another until she hit the railing of the bridge so hard that she overbalanced. Without a cry she fell, plunging toward the water below; Tessa raced to the railing just in time to see her slip beneath the surface. No bubbles rose to show where she had vanished.

Tessa spun back around. Jem was clutching his cane, breathing hard. Blood ran down the side of his face from a cut, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. He held his weapon loosely in one hand as he gazed at a dark humped shape on the ground at his feet, a shape that moved and jerked, flashes of metal showing between the ribbons of its torn clothing. When Tessa moved closer she saw that it was the body of the coachman, writhing and jerking. His head had been sliced cleanly away, and a dark oily substance pumped from the stump of his neck, staining the ground.

Jem reached up to push his sweat-dampened hair back, smearing the blood across his cheek. His hand shook. Hesitantly Tessa touched his arm. “Are you all right?”

His smile was faint. “I should be asking you that.” He shuddered slightly. “Those mechanical things, they unnerve me. They—” He broke off, staring past her.

At the south end of the bridge, moving toward them with sharp staccato motions, were at least a half dozen more of the clockwork creatures. Despite the jerkiness of their movements, they were approaching swiftly, almost hurtling forward. They were already a third of the way across the bridge.

With a sharp click the blade vanished back into Jem’s cane. He seized Tessa’s hand, his voice breathless. “Run.”

They ran, Tessa clutching his hand, glancing behind only once, in terror. The creatures had made it to the center of the bridge and were moving toward them, gathering speed. They were male, Tessa saw, dressed in the same kind of dark woolen coats and felt hats as the coachman had been. Their faces gleamed in the moonlight.

Jem and Tessa reached the steps at the end of the bridge, and Jem kept a tight grip on Tessa’s hand as they hurtled down the stairs. Her boots slipped on the damp stone, and he caught her, his cane clattering awkwardly against her back; she felt his chest rise and fall against hers, hard, as if he were gasping. But he couldn’t be out of breath, could he? He was a Shadowhunter. The Codex said they could run for miles. Jem pulled away, and she saw that his face was tight, as if he were in pain. She wanted to ask him if he’d been hurt, but there was no time. They could hear clattering footsteps on the stairs above them. Without a word Jem took hold of her wrist again and pulled her after him.

They passed the Embankment, lit by the glow of its dolphin lamps, before Jem turned aside and plunged between two buildings into a narrow alley. The alley sloped up, away from the river. The air between the buildings was dank and close, the cobblestones slick with filth. Washing flapped like ghosts from windows overhead. Tessa’s feet were screaming in their fashionable boots, her heart slamming against her chest, but there was no slowing down. She could hear the creatures behind them, hear the whir-click of their movements, closer and closer.

The alley opened out into a wide street, and there, rising up before them, was the looming edifice of the Institute. They dashed through the entrance, Jem releasing her as he whirled to slam and lock the gates behind them. The creatures reached them just as the bolts slid home; they crashed against the gate like windup toys unable to stop themselves, rattling the iron with a tremendous crash.

Tessa backed up, staring. The clockwork creatures were pressed up against the gates, their hands reaching through the gaps in the iron. She looked around wildly. Jem stood beside her. He was as white as paper, one hand pressed to his side. She reached for his hand, but he stepped back, out of her reach. “Tessa.” His voice was uneven. “Get into the Institute. You need to get inside.” “Are you hurt? Jem, are you injured?”

“No.” His voice was muffled.

A rattle from the gate made Tessa look up. One of the clockwork men had his hand through a gap in the gate and was pulling at the iron chain that held it closed. As she stared in fascinated horror, she saw that he was dragging at the loops of metal with such force that the skin was peeling away from his fingers, showing the jointed metal hands beneath. There was obviously tremendous strength in those hands. The metal was warping and twisting in his grip; it was clearly a matter of minutes before the chain split and broke.

Tessa seized hold of Jem’s arm. His skin was burning hot to the touch; she could feel it through his clothes. “Come on.”

With a groan he let her pull him toward the front door of the church; he was staggering, and leaning on her heavily, his breath rattling in his chest. They lurched up the stairs, Jem sliding out of her grip almost the moment they reached the top step. He hit the ground on his knees, choking coughs ripping through him, his whole body spasming.

The gate burst open. The clockwork creatures spilled through into the drive, led by the one who had torn the chain apart, his skin-stripped hands gleaming in the moonlight.

Remembering what Will had said, that one had to have Shadowhunter blood to open the door, Tessa reached for the bellpull that hung beside it and yanked it, hard, but heard no sound. Desperate, she whirled back to Jem, still crouched on the ground. “Jem! Jem, please, you have to open the door—” He raised his head. His eyes were open, but there was no color to them. They were all white, like marbles. She could see the moon reflected in them.

“Jem!”

He tried to rise to his feet, but his knees gave out; he slumped to the ground, blood running from the corners of his mouth. The cane had rolled from his hand, almost to Tessa’s feet.

The creatures had reached the foot of the steps; they began to surge upward, lurching a little, the one with the skinned hands in the lead. Tessa flung herself against the doors of the Institute, pounding her fists against the oak. She could hear the hollow reverberations of her blows echoing on the other side, and despaired. The Institute was so huge, and there was no time.

At last she gave up. Turning away from the door, she was horrified to see that the leader of the creatures had reached Jem; it was bending over him, its skinned metal hands on his chest.

With a cry she seized up Jem’s cane and brandished it. “Get away from him!” she cried.

The creature straightened up, and in the moonlight, for the first time, she saw its face clearly. It was smooth, almost featureless, only indentations where the eyes and mouth should have been, and no nose. It raised its skinned hands; they were stained dark with Jem’s blood. Jem himself lay very still, his shirt torn, blood pooling blackly around him. As Tessa stared in horror, the clockwork man wiggled his bloody fingers at her, in a sort of grotesque parody of a wave—then turned and sprang away down the steps, almost scuttling, like a spider. He dashed through the gates and was lost to view.

Tessa moved toward Jem, but the other automatons moved swiftly to block her way. They were all as blank-faced as their leader, a matching set of faceless warriors, as if there had not quite been time to finish them.

With a whir-click a pair of metal hands reached for her, and she swung the cane, almost blindly. It connected with the side of a clockwork man’s head. She felt the impact of wood against metal ringing up her arm, and he staggered to the side, but only for a moment. His head whipped back around with incredible speed. She swung again, the cane slamming against his shoulder this time; he lurched, but other hands flashed out, seizing the cane, yanking it from her grasp with such force that the skin of her hand burned. She remembered the painful strength of Miranda’s grip on her, as the automaton who had snatched the cane from her brought it down across his knee with stunning force.

It snapped in half with an awful sound. Tessa whirled to run, but metal hands clamped down on her shoulders, yanking her back. She struggled to pull free—

And the doors of the Institute burst open. The light that poured from them blinded her momentarily, and she could see nothing but the outline of dark figures, ringed in light, spilling from the church’s interior. Something whistled by her head, grazing her cheek. There was the grinding sound of metal on metal, and then the clockwork creature’s arms relaxed and she fell forward onto the steps, choking.

Tessa looked up. Charlotte stood above her, her face pale and set, a sharp metal disc in one hand. Another, matching, disc was buried in the chest of the mechanical man who had held her. He was twisting and spasming in a circle, like a malfunctioning toy. Blue sparks flew from the gash in his neck.

Around him the rest of the creatures were spinning and lurching as the Shadowhunters converged on them, Henry bringing his seraph blade down in an arc, slicing open the chest of one of the automatons, sending it reeling and jerking into the shadows. Beside him was Will, swinging what looked like a sort of scythe, over and over, chopping another of the creatures to bits with such fury that it sent up a fountain of blue sparks. Charlotte, darting down the steps, threw the second of her disks; it sheared through the head of a metal monster with a sickening noise. He crumpled to the ground, leaking more sparks and black oil.

The remaining two creatures, seeming to think better of the situation, turned and sprang toward the gates. Henry darted after them with Charlotte on his heels, but Will, dropping his weapon, turned and raced back toward the steps. “What happened?” he shouted at Tessa. She stared, too dazed to answer. His voice rose, tinged with furious panic. “Are you hurt? Where’s Jem?” “I’m not hurt,” she whispered. “But Jem, he collapsed. There.” She pointed to where Jem lay, crumpled in the shadows beside the door.

Will’s face went blank, like a slate wiped clean of chalk. Without looking at her again he raced up the stairs and dropped down by Jem, saying something in a low voice. When there was no reply, Will raised his head,

shouting for Thomas to come help him carry Jem, and shouting something else, something Tessa couldn’t make out through her dizziness. Perhaps he was shouting at her. Perhaps he thought this was all her fault? If she hadn’t grown so angry, if she hadn’t run away and made Jem follow her— A dark shadow loomed in the lit doorway. It was Thomas, tousle-haired and serious, who went without a word to kneel down by Will. Together they lifted Jem to his feet, an arm slung around each of their shoulders. They hurried inside without a backward glance.

Dazed, Tessa looked out over the courtyard. Something was strange, different. It was the sudden silence after all the clamor and noise. The destroyed clockwork creatures lay in shattered pieces about the courtyard, the ground was slick with viscous fluid, the gates hung open, and the moon shone blankly down on everything just as it had shone down on her and Jem on the bridge, when he had told her that she was human.