فصل 19

19 BOADICEA

Seal’d her mine from her first sweet breath.

Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death

Mine, mine—our fathers have sworn.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Maud”

As the doors of the Sanctuary closed behind them, Tessa looked around apprehensively. The room was darker than it had been when she had come here to meet Camille. There were no candles burning in the great candelabras, only flickering witchlight that emanated from sconces on the walls. The angel statue continued to weep its endless tears into the fountain. The air in the room was bone-chillingly cold, and she shivered.

Sophie, having slipped the key back into her pocket, looked as nervous as Tessa felt. “Here we are, then,” she said. “It’s awful cold in this place.”

“Well, we won’t be here long, I’m sure,” said Jessamine. She was still holding Nate’s knife, which glittered in her hand. “Someone will come back to rescue us. Will, or Charlotte—” “And find the Institute full of clockwork monsters,” Tessa reminded her. “And Mortmain.” She shuddered. “I’m not sure it’ll be quite so simple as you make it out to be.”

Jessamine looked at Tessa with cold dark eyes. “Well, you needn’t sound as if it’s my fault. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Sophie had moved to stand among the massive pillars, and was looking very small. Her voice echoed off the stone walls. “That’s not very kind, miss.”

Jessamine perched herself on the edge of the fountain, then rose to her feet again, frowning. She brushed at the back of her dress, now stained with damp, in an exasperated manner. “Perhaps not, but it’s true. The only reason the Magister is here is because of Tessa.” “I told Charlotte all this was my fault.” Tessa spoke quietly. “I told her to send me away. She wouldn’t.”

Jessamine tossed her head. “Charlotte’s softhearted, and so is Henry. And Will—Will thinks he’s Galahad. Wants to save everyone. Jem, too. None of them are practical.”

“I suppose,” Tessa said, “if it had been your decision to make . . .”

“You’d have been out the door with nothing but the key of the street to your name,” Jessamine said, and sniffed. Seeing the way Sophie was looking at her, she added, “Oh, really! Don’t be such a mush-mouth, Sophie. Agatha and Thomas would still be alive if I’d been in charge, wouldn’t they?” Sophie went pale, her scar standing out along her cheek like the mark of a slap. “Thomas is dead?”

Jessamine looked as if she knew she’d made a mistake. “I didn’t mean that.”

Tessa looked at her, hard. “What happened, Jessamine? We saw you injured—”

“And precious little any of you did about it either,” Jessamine said, and sat down with a flounce on the fountain wall, apparently forgetting to worry about the state of her dress. “I was unconscious . . . and when I awoke, I saw that all of you had gone but Thomas. Mortmain was gone too, but those creatures were still there. One of them began to come after me, and I looked for my parasol, but it had been trampled to shreds. Thomas was surrounded by those creatures. I went toward him, but he told me to run, so . . . I ran.” She tilted her chin up defiantly.

Sophie’s eyes flashed. “You left him there? Alone?”

Jessamine set the knife down on the wall with an angry clatter. “I’m a lady, Sophie. It is expected that a man sacrifice himself for a lady’s safety.”

“That’s rubbish!” Sophie’s hands were tight little fists at her sides. “You’re a Shadowhunter! And Thomas is just a mundane! You could have helped him. You just wouldn’t—because you’re selfish! And—and awful!” Jessamine gaped at Sophie, her mouth wide open. “How dare you speak to me like—”

She broke off as the door of the Sanctuary resounded with the noise of the heavy knocker falling. It sounded again, and then a familiar voice, raised, called out to them, “Tessa! Sophie! It’s Will.” “Oh, thank God,” Jessamine said—clearly just as relieved to be free of her conversation with Sophie as she was to be rescued—and hurried toward the door. “Will! It’s Jessamine. I’m in here too!” “And you’re all three all right?” Will sounded anxious in a way that tightened Tessa’s chest. “What happened? We raced here from Highgate. I saw the door of the Institute open. How in the Angel’s name did Mortmain get in?” “He evaded the wards somehow,” Jessamine said bitterly, reaching for the door handle. “I’ve no idea how.”

“It hardly matters now. He’s dead. The clockwork creatures are destroyed.”

Will’s tone was reassuring—so why, Tessa thought, did she not feel reassured? She turned to look at Sophie, who was staring at the door, a sharp vertical frown line between her eyes, her lips moving very slightly as if she were whispering something under her breath. Sophie had the Sight, Tessa remembered—Charlotte had said so. Tessa’s sense of unease rose and crested like a wave.

“Jessamine,” she called. “Jessamine, don’t open the door—”

But it was too late. The door had swung wide. And there on the threshold stood Mortmain, flanked by clockwork monsters.

Thank the Angel for glamours, Will thought. The sight of a boy riding bareback on a charging black horse down Farringdon Road would normally be enough to raise eyebrows even in a metropolis as jaded as London. But as Will went by—the horse kicking up great puffs of London dust as it reared and snorted its way through the streets—no one turned a hair or batted the lash of an eye. Yet even as they seemed not to see him, they found reasons to move out of his way—a dropped pair of eyeglasses, a step to the side to avoid a puddle in the road—and avoid being trampled.

It was almost five miles from Highgate to the Institute; it had taken them three-quarters of an hour to cover the distance in the carriage. It took Will and Balios only twenty minutes to make the return trip, though the horse was panting and lathered with sweat by the time Will pounded through the Institute gates and drew up in front of the steps.

His heart sank immediately. The doors were open. Wide open, as if inviting in the night. It was strictly against Covenant Law to leave the doors of an Institute standing ajar. He had been correct; something was terribly wrong.

He slid from the horse’s back, boots clattering loudly against the cobblestones. He looked for a way to secure the animal, but as he’d cut its harness, there was none, and besides, Balios looked inclined to bite him. He shrugged and made for the steps.

Jessamine gasped and leaped back as Mortmain stepped into the room. Sophie screamed and ducked behind a pillar. Tessa was too shocked to move. The four automatons, two on either side of Mortmain, stared straight ahead with their shining faces like metal masks.

Behind Mortmain was Nate. A makeshift bandage, stained with blood, was tied around his head. The bottom of his shirt—Jem’s shirt—had a ragged strip torn from it. His baleful gaze fell on Jessamine.

“You stupid whore,” he snarled, and started forward.

“Nathaniel.” Mortmain’s voice cracked like a whip; Nate froze. “This is not an arena in which to enact your petty revenges. There is one more thing I need from you; you know what it is. Retrieve it for me.” Nate hesitated. He was looking at Jessamine like a cat with its gaze fixed on a mouse.

“Nathaniel. To the weapons room. Now.”

Nate dragged his gaze from Jessie. For a moment he looked at Tessa, the rage in his expression softening into a sneer. Then he turned on his heel and stalked from the room; two of the clockwork creatures peeled themselves from Mortmain’s side and followed him.

The door closed behind him, and Mortmain smiled pleasantly. “The two of you,” he said, looking from Jessamine to Sophie, “get out.”

“No.” The voice was Sophie’s, small but stubborn, though to Tessa’s surprise, Jessamine showed no inclination to leave either. “Not without Tessa.”

Mortmain shrugged. “Very well.” He turned to the clockwork creatures. “The two girls,” he said. “The Shadowhunter and the servant. Kill them both.”

He snapped his fingers and the clockwork creatures sprang forward. They had the grotesque speed of skittering rats. Jessamine turned to run, but she had gone only a few steps when one of them seized her, lifting her off the ground. Sophie darted among the pillars like Snow White fleeing into the woods, but it did her little good. The second creature caught up to her swiftly and bore her to the ground as she screamed. In contrast Jessamine was utterly silent; the creature holding her had one metal hand clamped across her mouth and the other around her waist, fingers digging in cruelly. Her feet kicked uselessly in the air like the feet of a criminal dangling at the end of a hangman’s rope.

Tessa heard her own voice as it emerged from her throat as if it were a stranger’s. “Stop it. Please, please, stop it!”

Sophie had broken away from the creature holding her and was scrambling across the floor on her hands and knees. Reaching out, it caught her by the ankle and jerked her backward across the floor, her apron tearing as she sobbed.

“Please,” Tessa said again, fixing her eyes on Mortmain.

“You can stop it, Miss Gray,” he said. “Promise me you won’t try to run.” His eyes burned as he looked at her. “Then I’ll let them go.”

Jessamine’s eyes, visible above the metal arm clamping her mouth, pleaded with Tessa. The other creature was on its feet, holding Sophie, who dangled limply in its grip.

“I’ll stay,” Tessa said. “You have my word. Of course I will. Just let them go.”

There was a long pause. Then, “You heard her,” Mortmain said to his mechanical monsters. “Take the girls out of this room. Bring them downstairs. Don’t harm them.” He smiled then, a thin, crafty smile. “Leave Miss Gray alone with me.” Even before he passed through the front doors, Will felt it—the jangling sense that something dreadful was happening here. The first time he’d ever felt this sensation, he’d been twelve years old, holding that blasted box—but he’d never imagined feeling it in the fastness of the Institute.

He saw Agatha’s body first, the moment he stepped over the threshold. She lay on her back, her glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling, the front of her plain gray dress soaked with blood. A wave of almost overwhelming rage washed over Will, leaving him light-headed. Biting his lip hard, he bent to close her eyes before he rose and looked around.

The signs of a melee were everywhere—torn scraps of metal, bent and broken gears, splashes of blood mixing with pools of oil. As Will moved toward the stairs, his foot came down on the shredded remains of Jessamine’s parasol. He gritted his teeth and moved on to the staircase.

And there, slumped across the lowest steps, lay Thomas, eyes closed, motionless in a widening pool of scarlet. A sword rested on the ground beside him, a little ways away from his hand; its edge was chipped and dented as if he had been using it to hack apart rocks. A great jagged piece of metal protruded from his chest. It looked a little like the torn blade of a saw, Will thought as he crouched down by Thomas’s side, or like a sharp bit of some larger metal contraption.

There was a dry burning in the back of Will’s throat. His mouth tasted of metal and rage. He rarely grieved during a battle; he saved his emotions for afterward—those he had not already learned to bury so deeply that he barely felt them at all. He had been burying them since he was twelve years old. His chest knotted with pain now, but his voice was steady when he spoke. “Hail and farewell, Thomas,” he said, reaching to close the other boy’s eyes. “Ave—” A hand flew up and gripped his wrist. Will stared down, dumbfounded, as Thomas’s glassy eyes slid toward him, pale brown under the whitish film of death. “Not,” he said, with a clear effort to get the words out, “a Shadowhunter.” “You defended the Institute,” Will said. “You did as well as any of us would have done.”

“No.” Thomas closed his eyes, as if exhausted. His chest rose, barely; his shirt was soaked almost black with blood. “You’d’ve fought ‘em off, Master Will. You know you would.”

“Thomas,” Will whispered. He wanted to say, Be quiet, and you’ll be all right when the others get here. But Thomas manifestly would not be all right. He was human; no healing rune could help him. Will wished that Jem were here, instead of himself. Jem was the one you wanted with you when you were dying. Jem could make anyone feel that things were going to be all right, whereas Will privately suspected that there were few situations that his presence did not make worse.

“She’s alive,” Thomas said, not opening his eyes.

“What?” Will was caught off guard.

“The one you come back for. Her. Tessa. She’s with Sophie.” Thomas spoke as if it were a fact obvious to anyone that Will would have come back for Tessa’s sake. He coughed, and a great mass of blood poured out of his mouth and down his chin. He didn’t seem to notice. “Take care of Sophie, Will. Sophie is—” But Will never found out what Sophie was, because Thomas’s grip went suddenly slack, and his hand fell away and struck the stone floor with an ugly thump. Will drew back. He had seen death enough times, and knew when it had come. There was no need to close Thomas’s eyes; they were closed already. “Sleep, then,” he said, not quite knowing where the words came from, “good and faithful servant of the Nephilim. And thank you.” It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but it was all there was. Will scrambled to his feet and dashed up the staircase.

The doors had closed behind the clockwork creatures; the Sanctuary was very silent. Tessa could hear the water splashing in the fountain behind her.

Mortmain stood regarding her calmly. He still wasn’t frightening to look at, Tessa thought. A small, ordinary man, with dark hair going gray at his

temples, and those odd light eyes. “Miss Gray,” he said, “I had hoped our first time alone together would be a more pleasant experience for us both.”

Tessa’s eyes burned. She said, “What are you? A warlock?”

His smile was swift, and without feeling. “Merely a human being, Miss Gray.”

“But you did magic,” she said. “You spoke in Will’s voice—”

“Anyone can learn to imitate voices, with the proper training,” he said. “A simple trick, like sleight of hand. No one ever expects them. Certainly not Shadowhunters. They believe humans are good at nothing, as well as being good for nothing.” “No,” Tessa whispered. “They don’t think that.”

His mouth twisted. “How quickly you have grown to love them, your natural enemies. We will soon train you out of that.” He moved forward, and Tessa shrank back. “I will not hurt you,” he said. “I merely want to show you something.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a gold watch, very fine-looking, on a thick gold chain.

Is he wondering what time it is? The mad urge to giggle rose up in the back of Tessa’s throat. She forced it down.

He held the watch out to her. “Miss Gray,” he said, “please take this.”

She stared at him. “I don’t want it.”

He moved toward her again. Tessa retreated until the back of her skirts brushed the low wall of the fountain. “Take the watch, Miss Gray.”

Tessa shook her head.

“Take it,” he said. “Or I will recall my clockwork servants and have them crush the throats of your two friends until they are dead. I need only go to the door and call to them. It is your choice.” Bile rose in the back of Tessa’s throat. She stared at the watch he held out to her, dangling on its gold chain. It was clearly unwound. The hands had long ago stopped spinning, the time seemingly frozen at midnight. The initials J. T. S. were carved on the back in elegant script.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why do you want me to take it?”

“Because I want you to Change,” Mortmain said.

Tessa’s head jerked up. She stared at him incredulously. “What?”

“This watch used to belong to someone,” he said. “Someone I very much want to meet again.” His voice was even, but there was a sort of undercurrent beneath it, an eager hunger that terrified Tessa more than any rage might have. “I know the Dark Sisters taught you. I know you know your power. You are the only one in the world who can do what you do. I know this because I made you.” “You made me?” Tessa stared. “You’re not saying—you can’t be my father—”

“Your father?” Mortmain laughed shortly. “I am a human, not a Downworlder. There is no demon in me, nor do I consort with demons. There is no blood shared between the two of us, Miss Gray. And yet if it were not for me, you would not exist.” “I don’t understand,” Tessa whispered.

“You don’t need to understand.” Mortmain’s temper was visibly fraying. “You need to do as I tell you. And I am telling you to Change. Now.”

It was like standing in front of the Dark Sisters again, frightened and alert, her heart pounding, being told to access a part of herself that terrified her. Being told to lose herself in that darkness, that nothingness between self and other. Perhaps it would be easy to do as he told her—to reach out and take the watch as commanded, to abandon herself in someone else’s skin as she had done before, with no will or choice of her own.

She looked down, away from Mortmain’s searing gaze, and saw something glittering on the fountain wall just behind her. A splash of water, she thought for a moment—but no. It was something else. She spoke then, almost without meaning to.

“No,” she said.

Mortmain’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?”

“I said no.” Tessa felt as if she were outside herself somehow, watching herself face down Mortmain as if she were watching a stranger. “I won’t do it. Not unless you tell me what you mean when you say you made me. Why am I like this? Why is it that you need my power so badly? What do you plan to force me to do for you? You are doing more than just building an army of monsters. I can see that. I’m not a fool like my brother.”

Mortmain slid the watch back into his pocket. His face was an ugly mask of rage. “No,” he said. “You are not a fool like your brother. He is a fool and a coward. You are a fool who has some courage. Though it will do you little good. And it is your friends who will suffer for it. While you watch.” He turned on his heel then and strode toward the door.

Tessa bent down and seized up the object that had glittered behind her. It was the knife Jessamine had put there, the blade gleaming in the Sanctuary witchlight. “Stop,” she cried. “Mr. Mortmain. Stop.” He turned then, and saw her holding the knife. A look of disgusted amusement spread across his face. “Really, Miss Gray,” he said. “Do you honestly think you can harm me with that? Did you think I came entirely unarmed?” He moved his jacket aside slightly, and she saw the butt of a pistol, gleaming at his belt.

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t think I can hurt you.” She turned the knife around then, so that the hilt was away from her, the blade pointing directly at her own chest. “But if you take one more step toward that door, I promise you, I’ll put this knife through my heart.” Repairing the mess Will had made of the carriage harnesses took Jem longer than he would have liked, and the moon was worryingly high in the sky by

the time he rattled through the gates of the Institute and pulled Xanthos up at the foot of the steps.

Balios, untethered, was standing by the newel post at the foot of the stairs, looking exhausted. Will must have ridden like the devil, Jem thought, but at least he had arrived safely. It was a small bit of reassurance, considering that the doors of the Institute stood wide, sending a dart of horror through him. It was a sight that seemed so wrong that it was like looking at a face missing eyes or a sky with no stars. It was something that simply should not be.

Jem raised his voice. “Will?” he called. “Will, can you hear me?” When there was no answer, he leaped down from the driver’s seat of the carriage and reached up to pull his jade-headed cane down after him. He held it lightly, balancing the weight. His wrists had begun to ache, which concerned him. Usually withdrawal from the demon powder began as pain in his joints, a dull ache that spread slowly until his whole body burned like fire. But he could not afford that pain now. There was Will to think about, and Tessa. He could not rid himself of the image of her on the steps, looking down at him as he spoke the ancient words. She had looked so worried, and the thought that she might have been worried about him had given him an unexpected pleasure.

He turned to start up the steps, and paused. Someone was already coming down them. More than one person—a crowd. They were backlit by the light of the Institute, and for a moment he blinked at them, seeing only silhouettes. A few seemed strangely misshapen.

“Jem!” The voice was high, desperate. Familiar.

Jessamine.

Galvanized, Jem darted up the stairs, and then paused. In front of him stood Nathaniel Gray, his clothes torn and spotted with blood. A makeshift bandage was wound around his head and was soaked with blood by his right temple. His expression was grim.

On either side of him moved clockwork automatons, like obedient servants. One flanked his right side, one his left. Behind were two more. One held a struggling Jessamine; the other a limp, half-insensible Sophie.

“Jem!” Jessamine shrieked. “Nate’s a liar. He was helping Mortmain all this time—Mortmain’s the Magister, not de Quincey—”

Nathaniel whirled. “Silence her,” he barked at the clockwork creature behind him. Its metal arms tightened around Jessamine, who choked and fell silent, her face white with pain. Her eyes darted toward the automaton on Nathaniel’s right. Following her gaze, Jem saw that the creature held the familiar golden square of the Pyxis in its hands.

At the look on his face, Nate smiled. “None but a Shadow-hunter can touch it,” he said. “No living creature, that is. But an automaton is not alive.”

“That is what all this was about?” Jem demanded, astounded. “The Pyxis? What possible use could it be to you?”

“My master wants demon energies, and demon energies he shall have,” said Nate pompously. “Nor will he forget that I am the one who provided them for him.”

Jem shook his head. “And what will he give you then? What did he give you to betray your sister? Thirty pieces of silver?”

Nate’s face twisted, and for a moment Jem thought he could see through the blandly handsome mask to what was really underneath—something malignant and repellent that made Jem want to turn away and retch. “That thing,” he said, “is not my sister.” “It is hard to believe, isn’t it,” said Jem, making no effort to hide his loathing, “that you and Tessa share anything at all, even a single drop of blood. She is so much finer than you.” Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. “She is not my concern. She belongs to Mortmain.”

“I don’t know what Mortmain has promised you,” Jem said, “but I can promise you that if you hurt Jessamine or Sophie—and if you take the Pyxis from these premises—the Clave will hunt you. And find you. And kill you.” Nathaniel shook his head slowly. “You don’t understand,” he said. “None of the Nephilim understand. The most you can offer is to let me live. But the Magister can promise me that I won’t ever die.” He turned to the clockwork creature on his left, the one not holding the Pyxis. “Kill him,” he said.

The automaton sprang toward Jem. It was faster by far than the creatures Jem had faced on Blackfriars Bridge. He barely had time to flip the catch that released the blade at the end of his cane and raise it, before the thing was on him. The creature squealed like a braking train when Jem drove the blade directly into its chest and sawed it from side to side, tearing the metal wide open. The creature spun away, spraying a Catherine wheel of red sparks.

Nate, caught by the spray of fire, yelled and jumped back, beating at the sparks burning holes into his clothes. Jem took the opportunity to leap up two of the steps and slam Nate across the back with the flat of his blade, knocking him to his knees. Nate twisted around to look for his clockwork protector, but it was staggering from side to side across the steps, sparks fountaining from its chest; it seemed evident that Jem had severed one of its central mechanisms. The automaton holding the Pyxis stood stock-still; clearly Nate was not its first priority.

“Drop them!” Nate cried to the clockwork creatures holding Sophie and Jessamine. “Kill the Shadowhunter! Kill him, do you hear?”

Jessamine and Sophie, released, tumbled to the ground, both gasping but clearly still alive. Jem’s relief was short-lived, though, as the second pair of automatons lurched toward him, moving with incredible speed. He slashed out at one with his cane. It leaped back, out of range, and the other raised a hand—not a hand, really, more a square block of metal, its side edged with ragged teeth like a saw— A yell came from behind Jem, and Henry charged past him, wielding a massive broadsword. He swung it hard, slashing through the automaton’s raised arm and sending its hand flying. It skidded across the cobblestones, sparking and hissing, before bursting into flames.

“Jem!” It was Charlotte’s voice, raised in warning. Jem spun, and saw the other automaton reaching for him from behind. He drove his blade into the

creature’s throat, sawing at the copper tubes inside, while Charlotte slashed at its knees with her whip. With a high whine, it collapsed to the ground, legs severed. Charlotte, her pale face set, brought the whip down again, while Jem turned to see that Henry, his ginger hair pasted to his forehead with sweat, was lowering his broadsword. The automaton he had attacked was now a heap of scrap metal on the ground.

In fact, bits of clockwork were scattered across the courtyard, some of it still burning, like a field of fallen stars. Jessamine and Sophie were clinging to each other; Jessamine supporting the other girl, whose throat was necklaced with dark bruises. Jessamine met Jem’s eyes across the steps. He thought it might have been the first time she’d really ever looked like she was glad to see him.

“He’s gone,” she said. “Nathaniel. He vanished with that creature—and the Pyxis.”

“I don’t understand.” Charlotte’s bloodied face was a mask of shock. “Tessa’s brother . . .”

“Everything he said to us was a lie,” said Jessamine. “The whole business with sending you off after the vampires was a diversion.”

“Dear God,” said Charlotte. “So de Quincey wasn’t lying—” She shook her head, as if to clear it of cobwebs. “When we reached his house in Chelsea, we found him there with just a few vampires, no more than six or seven—certainly not the hundred Nathaniel had warned about, and no clockwork creatures that anyone could find. Benedict slew de Quincey, but not before the vampire laughed at us for calling him the Magister—said we had let Mortmain make fools of us. Mortmain. And I’d thought he was just—just a mundane.”

Henry sank down on the top step, his broad sword clanking. “This is a disaster.”

“Will,” Charlotte said dazedly, as if in a dream. “And Tessa. Where are they?”

“Tessa’s in the Sanctuary. With Mortmain. Will—” Jessamine shook her head. “I didn’t realize he was here.”

“He’s inside,” Jem said, raising his gaze to the Institute. He remembered his poison-racked dream—the Institute in flames, a haze of smoke over London, and great clockwork creatures striding to and fro among the buildings like monstrous spiders. “He would have gone after Tessa.” Mortmain’s face had drained of blood. “What are you doing?” he demanded, striding toward her.

Tessa set the tip of the blade to her chest and pushed. The pain was sharp, sudden. Blood bloomed on the bosom of her dress. “Don’t come any closer.”

Mortmain stopped, his face contorted with fury. “What makes you think I care if you live or die, Miss Gray?”

“As you said, you made me,” said Tessa. “For whatever reason, you desired that I exist. You valued me enough that you would not have wanted the Dark Sisters to harm me in any permanent way. Somehow, I am significant to you. Oh, not my self, of course. My power. That is what matters to you.” She could feel blood, warm and wet, trickling down her skin, but the pain was nothing compared to her satisfaction at seeing the look of fear on Mortmain’s face.

He spoke through gritted teeth. “What is it you want from me?”

“No. What is it you want from me? Tell me. Tell me why you created me. Tell me who my true parents are. Was my mother really my mother? My father, my father?”

Mortmain’s smile was twisted. “You are asking the wrong questions, Miss Gray.”

“Why am I . . . what I am, and Nate is only human? Why is he not like me?”

“Nathaniel is only your half brother. He is nothing more than a human being, and not a very good example of that. Do not mourn that you are not more like him.”

“Then . . .” Tessa paused. Her heart was racing. “My mother could not have been a demon,” she said quietly. “Or anything supernatural, because Aunt Harriet was her sister, and she was only human. So it must have been my father. My father was a demon?” Mortmain grinned, a sudden ugly grin. “Put down the knife and I will give you your answers. Perhaps we can even summon up the thing that fathered you, if you are so desperate to meet him—or should I say ‘it’?” “Then I am a warlock,” Tessa said. Her throat felt tight. “That is what you are saying.”

Mortmain’s pale eyes were full of scorn. “If you insist,” he said, “I suppose that is the best word for what you are.”

Tessa heard Magnus Bane’s clear voice in her head: Oh, you’re a warlock. Depend on it. And yet—

“I don’t believe any of this,” Tessa said. “My mother, she would never have—not with a demon.”

“She had no idea.” Mortmain sounded almost pitying. “No idea that she was being unfaithful to your father.”

Tessa’s stomach lurched. This was nothing she hadn’t thought might be possible, nothing she hadn’t wondered about. Still, to hear it spoken aloud was something else. “If the man I thought was my father, was not my father, and my true father was a demon,” she said, “then why am I not marked like a warlock is marked?” Mortmain’s eyes sparkled with malevolence. “Indeed, why are you not? Perhaps because your mother had no idea what she was, any more than you do.”

“What do you mean? My mother was human!”

Mortmain shook his head. “Miss Gray, you continue to ask the wrong questions. What you must understand is that much was planned so that you would someday come to be. The planning began even before me—and I carried it forward, knowing I was overseeing the creation of something unique in the world. Something unique that would belong to me. I knew that I would one day marry you, and you would be mine forever.” Tessa looked at him in horror. “But why? You don’t love me. You don’t know me. You didn’t even know what I looked like! I could have been hideous!”

“It would not have mattered. You can appear as hideous or as beautiful as you like. The face you wear now is only one of a thousand possible faces. When will you learn that there is no real Tessa Gray?” “Get out,” Tessa said.

Mortmain looked at her with his pale eyes. “What did you say to me?”

“Get out. Leave the Institute. Take your monsters with you. Or I will stab myself in the heart.”

For a moment he hesitated, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. This must have been what he was like when forced to make a lightning-swift business decision—to buy or to sell? To invest or to expand? He was a man used to sizing up the situation in an instant, Tessa thought. And she was only a girl. What chance did she have to outmaneuver him?

Slowly he shook his head. “I don’t believe you’ll do it. You may be a warlock, but you’re still a young girl. A delicate female.” He took a step toward her. “Violence is not in your nature.” Tessa gripped the handle of the knife tightly. She could feel everything—the hard slick surface under her fingers, the pain where it pierced her skin, the beat of her own heart. “Don’t come a step closer,” she said in a shaking voice, “or I’ll do it. I’ll drive the knife in.” The tremble in her voice seemed to give him conviction; his jaw firmed, and he moved toward her with a confident stride. “No, you won’t.”

Tessa heard Will’s voice in her head. She took poison rather than let herself be captured by the Romans. She was braver than any man.

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

Something in her face must have changed, for the confidence went from his expression and he lunged toward her, his arrogance gone, reaching desperately for the knife. Tessa spun away from Mortmain, turning to face the fountain. The last thing she saw was the silvery water splashing high above her as she drove the knife toward her chest.

Will was breathless as he approached the doors of the Sanctuary. He had fought two of the clockwork automatons in the stairwell and had thought he was done for, until the first one—having been run through several times with Thomas’s sword—began to malfunction and pushed the second creature out a window before collapsing and crashing down the stairs in a whirlwind of crumpling metal and shooting sparks.

Will had cuts on his hands and arms from the creatures’ jagged metal hides, but he had not slowed down for an iratze. He drew out his stele as he ran, and hit the Sanctuary doors at a dead run. He slashed the stele across the doors’ surface, creating the fastest Open rune of his life.

The doors’ lock slid back. Will took a split second of time to switch his stele for one of the seraph blades on his belt. “Jerahmeel,” he whispered, and as the blade blazed up with white fire, he kicked the Sanctuary doors open.

And froze in horror. Tessa lay crumpled by the fountain, whose water was stained with red. The front of her blue and white dress was a sheet of scarlet, and blood spread from beneath her body in a widening pool. A knife lay by her limp right hand, its hilt smeared with blood. Her eyes were closed.

Mortmain knelt by her side, his hand on her shoulder. He glanced up as the doors burst open, and then staggered to his feet, backing away from Tessa’s body. His hands were red with blood, and his shirt and jacket were stained with it.

“I . . . ,” he began.

“You killed her,” Will said. His voice sounded stupid to his own ears, and very far away. He saw again in his mind’s eye the library of the house he had lived in with his family as a child. His own hands on the box, curious fingers unclasping the catch that held it closed. The library filled with the sound of screaming. The road to London, silver in the moonlight. The words that had gone through his head, over and over, as he’d walked away from everything he had ever known, forever. I have lost everything. Lost everything.

Everything.

“No.” Mortmain shook his head. He was fiddling with something—a ring on his right hand, made of silver. “I didn’t touch her. She did this to herself.”

“You lie.” Will moved forward, the shape of the seraph blade beneath his fingers comforting and familiar in a world that seemed to shift and change around him like the landscape of a dream. “Do you know what happens when I drive one of these into human flesh?” he rasped, raising Jerahmeel. “It will burn as it cuts you. You will die in agony, burning from the inside out.” “You think you grieve her loss, Will Herondale?” Mortmain’s voice was full of torment. “Your grief is nothing to mine. Years of work—dreams—more than you could ever imagine, wasted.” “Then be comforted, for your pain will be of short duration,” said Will, and he lunged forward, blade outstretched. He felt it graze the cloth of Mortmain’s jacket—and meet no further resistance. He stumbled forward, righted himself, and stared. Something clinked to the floor at his feet, a brass button. His blade must have severed it from Mortmain’s jacket. It winked at him from the ground like a mocking eye.

Shocked, Will dropped the seraph blade. Jerahmeel fell to the floor, still burning. Mortmain was gone—entirely gone. He had vanished like a warlock might vanish, a warlock who had trained in the practice of magic for years. For a human, even a human with occult knowledge, to accomplish such a thing . . .

But that didn’t matter; not now. Will could think of only one thing. Tessa. Half in dread, half in hope, he crossed the room to where she lay. The fountain made its wretched soothing noises as he knelt down and lifted her into his arms.

He had held her like this only once before, in the attic, the night they had burned de Quincey’s town house. The memory of it had come to him, unbidden, often enough since. Now it was torture. Her dress was soaked in blood; so was her hair, and her face was streaked with it. Will had seen enough injuries to know that no one could lose blood like this and live.

“Tessa,” he whispered. He crushed her against him; it didn’t matter now what he did. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, where her throat met her shoulder. Her hair, already beginning to stiffen with blood, scratched his cheek. He could feel the beat of her pulse through her skin.

He froze. Her pulse? His heart leaped; he drew away, meaning to lower her to the ground, and found her looking at him with wide gray eyes.

“Will,” she said. “Is it really you, Will?”

Relief crashed over him first, followed instantly by a boiling terror. To have Thomas die before his eyes, and now this, too. Or perhaps she could be saved? Though not with Marks. How were Downworlders healed? It was knowledge only the Silent Brothers had. “Bandages,” Will said, half to himself. “I must get bandages.” He began to loosen his grip on her, but Tessa caught at his wrist with her hand. “Will, you must be careful. Mortmain—he’s the Magister. He was here—”

Will felt as if he were choking. “Hush. Save your strength. Mortmain’s gone. I must get help—”

“No.” She tightened her grip on him. “No, you needn’t do that, Will. It’s not my blood.”

“What?” he said, staring. Perhaps she was delirious, he thought, but her grip and her voice were surprisingly strong for someone who should have been dead. “Whatever he did to you, Tessa—” “I did it,” she said in the same firm little voice. “I did it to myself, Will. It was the only way I knew to make him go away. He would never have left me here. Not if he’d thought I was alive.” “But—”

“I Changed. When the knife touched me, I Changed, just in that moment. It was something that Mortmain had said that gave me the idea—that sleight of hand is a simple trick and that no one ever expects it.” “I don’t understand. The blood?”

She nodded, her small face alight with relief, with her pleasure in telling him what she had done. “There was a woman, once, that the Dark Sisters made me Change into, who had died of a gunshot wound, and when I Changed her blood poured all over me. Did I tell you that? I thought perhaps I had, but it doesn’t matter—I remembered it, and I Changed into her, just for that moment, and the blood came, as it had before. I turned away from Mortmain so he couldn’t see me change, and crumpled forward as if the knife had truly gone in—and indeed, the force of the Change, doing it so quickly, made me quite sincerely faint. The world went dark, and then I heard Mortmain calling my name. I knew I must have come back to myself, and I knew I must pretend to be dead. I fear he would have certainly found me out had you not arrived.” She looked down at herself, and Will could have sworn there was a faintly smug tone to her voice as she said, “I tricked the Magister, Will! I would not have thought it possible—he was so confident of his superiority over me. But I recalled what you had said about Boadicea. If it had not been for your words, Will . . .” She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance—shattered it. He had let the walls down when he’d thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up. Helplessly he pulled her against him. For a moment she clung to him tightly, warm and alive in his arms. Her hair brushed his cheek. The color had come back into the world; he could breathe again, and for that moment he breathed her in—she smelled of salt, blood, tears, and Tessa.

When she drew back from his embrace, her eyes were shining. “I thought when I heard your voice that it was a dream,” she said. “But you are real.” Her eyes searched his face, and, as if satisfied at what they found there, she smiled. “You are real.” He opened his mouth. The words were there. He was about to say them when a jolt of terror went through him, the terror of someone who, wandering in a mist, pauses only to realize that they have stopped inches from the edge of a gaping abyss. The way she was looking at him—she could read what was in his eyes, he realized. It must have been written plainly there, like words on the page of a book. There had been no time, no chance, to hide it.

“Will,” she whispered. “Say something, Will.”

But there was nothing to say. There was only the emptiness, as there had been before her. As there always would be.

I have lost everything, Will thought. Everything.