فصل 5

5 THE SHADOWHUNTER’S CODEX

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Higher Pantheism”

It took an age of wandering glumly from corridor to identical corridor before Tessa, by lucky chance, recognized a rip in yet another of the endless tapestries and realized that the door to her bedroom must be one of the ones lining that particular hallway. A few minutes of trial and error later, and she was gratefully shutting the correct door behind her and sliding the bolt home in the lock.

The moment she was back in her nightgown and had slipped under the covers, she opened The Shadowhunter’s Codex and began to read. You’ll never understand us from reading a book, Will had said, but that wasn’t the point really. He didn’t know what books meant to her, that books were symbols of truth and meaning, that this one acknowledged that she existed and that there were others like her in the world. Holding it in her hands made Tessa feel that everything that had happened to her in the past six weeks was real—more real even than living through it had been.

Tessa learned from the Codex that all Shadowhunters descended from an archangel named Raziel, who had given the first of them a volume called the Gray Book, filled with “the language of Heaven”—the black runic Marks that covered the skin of trained Shadowhunters such as Charlotte and Will. The Marks were cut into their skin with a styluslike tool called a stele—the odd penlike object she’d seen Will use to draw on the door at the Dark House. The Marks provided Nephilim with all sorts of protection: healing, superhuman strength and speed, night vision, and even allowed them to hide themselves from mundane eyes with runes called glamours. But they were not a gift anyone could use. Cutting Marks into the skin of a Downworlder or human—or even a Shadowhunter who was too young or improperly trained—would be torturously painful and result in madness or death.

The Marks were not the only way they protected them-selves—they wore tough, enchanted leather garments called gear when they went into battle. There were sketches of men in the gear of different countries. To Tessa’s surprise, there were also sketches of women in long shirts and trousers—not bloomers, such as the sort she’d seen ridiculed in newspapers, but real men’s trousers. Turning the page, she shook her head, wondering if Charlotte and Jessamine really wore such outlandish getups.

The next pages were devoted to the other gifts Raziel had given the first Shadowhunters—powerful magical objects called the Mortal Instruments—and a home country: a tiny piece of land sliced out of what was then the Holy Roman Empire, surrounded with wardings so that mundanes could not enter it. It was called Idris.

The lamp flickered low as Tessa read, her eyelids slipping lower and lower. Downworlders, she read, were supernatural creatures such as faeries, werewolves, vampires, and warlocks. In the case of vampires and werewolves, they were humans infected with demon disease. Faeries, on the other hand, were half-demon and half-angel, and therefore possessed both great beauty and an evil nature. But warlocks—warlocks were the direct offspring of humans and demons. No wonder Charlotte had asked if both her parents were human. But they were, she thought, so I can’t possibly be a warlock, thank God. She stared down at an illustration showing a tall man with shaggy hair, standing in the center of a pentagram chalked onto a stone floor. He looked completely normal, save for the fact that he had eyes with slit pupils like a cat’s. Candles burned at each of the star’s five points. The flames seemed to slide together, blurring as Tessa’s own vision blurred in exhaustion. She closed her eyes—and was instantly dreaming.

In the dream she danced through whirling smoke down a corridor lined with mirrors, and each mirror she passed showed her a different face. She could hear lovely, haunting music. It seemed to come from some distance away, and yet was all around. There was a man walking ahead of her—a boy, really, slender and youthful—but though she felt that she knew him, she could neither see his face nor recognize him. He might have been her brother, or Will, or someone else entirely. She followed, calling to him, but he receded down the corridor as if the smoke carried him with it. The music rose and rose to a crescendo— And Tessa woke, breathing hard, the book sliding off her lap as she sat up. The dream was gone, but the music remained, high and haunting and sweet. She made her way to the door and peered out into the hallway.

The music was louder in the corridor. In fact, it was coming from the room across the hall. The door was ajar slightly, and notes seemed to pour through the opening like water through the narrow neck of a vase.

A dressing gown hung on a hook by the door; Tessa drew it down and slipped it on over her nightclothes, stepping out into the hallway. As if in a dream, she crossed the corridor and put her hand gently to the door; it swung open under her touch. The room within was dark, lit only by moonlight. She saw that it was not unlike her own bedroom across the hall, the same large four-poster bed, the same dark heavy furniture. The curtains had been pulled back from one tall window, and pale silver light poured into the room like a rain of needles. In the square patch of moonlight before the window, someone was standing. A boy—he seemed too slight to be a grown man—with a violin propped against his shoulder. His cheek rested against the instrument, and the bow sawed back and forth over the strings, wringing notes out of it, notes as fine and perfect as anything Tessa had ever heard.

His eyes were closed. “Will?” he said, without opening his eyes or ceasing to play. “Will, is that you?”

Tessa said nothing. She could not bear to speak, to interrupt the music—but in a moment the boy broke it off himself, lowering his bow and opening his eyes with a frown.

“Will—,” he started, and then, seeing Tessa, his lips parted in surprise. “You’re not Will.” He sounded curious, but not at all annoyed, despite the fact that Tessa had barged into his bedroom in the middle of the night and surprised him playing the violin in his nightclothes, or what Tessa assumed were his nightclothes. He wore a light loose-fitting set of trousers and a collarless shirt, with a black silk dressing gown tied loosely over them. She had been right. He was young, probably the same age as Will, and the impression of youth was heightened by his slightness. He was tall but very slender, and disappearing below the collar of his shirt, she could see the curling edges of the black designs that she had earlier seen on Will’s skin, and on Charlotte’s.

She knew what they were called now. Marks. And she knew what they made him. Nephilim. The descendant of men and angels. No wonder that in the moonlight his pale skin seemed to shine like Will’s witchlight. His hair was pale silver as well, as were his angular eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, clearing her throat. The noise sounded terribly harsh to her, and loud in the silence of the room; she wanted to cringe. “I—I didn’t mean to come in here like this. It’s—My room is across the hall, and . . .” “That’s all right.” He lowered the violin from his shoulder. “You’re Miss Gray, aren’t you? The shape-changer girl. Will told me a bit about you.”

“Oh,” Tessa said.

“Oh?” The boy’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t sound terribly pleased that I know who you are.”

“It’s that I think Will is angry with me,” Tessa explained. “So whatever he told you—”

He laughed. “Will is angry with everyone,” he said. “I don’t let it color my judgment.”

Moonlight spilled off the polished surface of the boy’s violin as he turned to lay it down on top of the wardrobe, the bow beside it. When he turned back to her, he was smiling. “I should have introduced myself earlier,” he said. “I’m James Carstairs. Please call me Jem—everyone does.” “Oh, you’re Jem. You weren’t at dinner,” Tessa recalled. “Charlotte said you were ill. Are you feeling better?”

He shrugged. “I was tired, that’s all.”

“Well, I imagine it must be tiring, doing what you all do.” Having just read the Codex, Tessa felt herself burning up with questions about Shadowhunters. “Will said you came from a long way away to live here—were you in Idris?

He raised his eyebrows. “You know of Idris?”

“Or did you come from another Institute? They’re in all the big cities, aren’t they? And why to London—”

He interrupted her, bemused. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

“My brother always says curiosity is my besetting sin.”

“As sins go, it isn’t the worst one.” He sat down on the steamer trunk at the foot of the bed, and regarded her with a curious gravity. “So go ahead; ask me whatever you want. I can’t sleep anyway, and distractions are welcome.” Immediately Will’s voice rose up in the back of Tessa’s head. Jem’s parents had been killed by demons. But I can’t ask him about that, Tessa thought. Instead she said, “Will told me you came from very far away. Where did you live before?” “Shanghai,” Jem said. “You know where that is?”

“China,” said Tessa with some indignation. “Doesn’t everyone know that?”

Jem grinned. “You’d be surprised.”

“What were you doing in China?” Tessa asked, with honest interest. She couldn’t quite picture the place Jem was from. When she thought of China, all that came to mind was Marco Polo and tea. She had the sense that it was very, very far, as if Jem had come from the ends of the earth—east of the sun and west of the moon, Aunt Harriet would have said. “I thought no one went there but missionaries and sailors.” “Shadowhunters live all over the world. My mother was Chinese; my father was British. They met in London and moved to Shanghai when he was offered the position of running the Institute there.” Tessa was startled. If Jem’s mother had been Chinese, then so was he, wasn’t he? She knew there were Chinese immigrants in New York—they mostly worked in laundries or sold hand-rolled cigars from stands on the street. She had never seen one of them who looked anything like Jem, with his odd silvery hair and eyes. Perhaps it had something to do with him being a Shadowhunter? But she couldn’t think of a way to ask that didn’t seem horrendously rude.

Fortunately, Jem didn’t seem to be waiting for her to continue the conversation. “I apologize for asking, but—your parents are dead, aren’t they?”

“Did Will tell you that?”

“He didn’t need to. We orphans learn to recognize one another. If I might ask—were you very young when it happened?”

“I was three when they died in a carriage accident. I hardly remember them at all.” Only in tiny flashes—the scent of tobacco smoke, or the pale lilac of my mother’s dress. “My aunt raised me. And my brother, Nathaniel. My aunt, though—” At this, to her surprise, her throat began to tighten. A vivid picture of Aunt Harriet came to her mind, lying in the narrow brass bed in her bedroom, her eyes bright with fever. Not recognizing Tessa at the end and calling her by her mother’s name, Elizabeth. Aunt Harriet had been the only mother Tessa had really ever known. Tessa had held her thin hand while she’d died, there in the room with the priest. She remembered thinking that now she truly was alone. “She died recently. She took a fever unexpectedly. She never had been very strong.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jem said, and he genuinely did sound sorry.

“It was terrible because my brother was already gone by then. He’d left for England a month before. He’d even sent us back presents—tea from Fortnum and Mason, and chocolates. And then Aunt took sick and died, and I wrote to him over and over, but my letters came back. I was in despair. And then the ticket arrived. A ticket for a steamship to Southampton, and a note from Nate saying he’d meet me at the docks, that I must come live with him in London now that Aunt was gone. Except now I don’t think he ever wrote that note at all—” Tessa broke off, her eyes stinging. “I’m sorry. I’m maundering on. You don’t need to hear all this.” “What sort of man is your brother? What is he like?”

Tessa looked at Jem with a little surprise. The others had asked her what he might have done to get himself into his current situation, if she knew where the Dark Sisters might be keeping him, if he had the same power she did. But no one had ever asked what he was like.

“Aunt used to say he was a dreamer,” she said. “He always lived in his head. He never cared about how things were, only how they would be, someday, when he had everything he wanted. When we had everything we wanted,” she corrected herself. “He used to gamble, I think because he couldn’t imagine losing—it wasn’t part of his dreams.” “Dreams can be dangerous things.”

“No—no.” She shook her head. “I’m not saying it right. He was a wonderful brother. He . . .” Charlotte was right; it was easier to fight back tears if she found something, some object, to fix her gaze on. She stared at Jem’s hands. They were slender and long, and he had the same design on the back of his hand that Will did, the open eye. She pointed at it. “What’s that meant to do?” Jem seemed not to notice she had changed the subject. “It’s a Mark. You know what those are?” He held his hand out to her, palm down. “This one is the Voyance. It clears our Sight. Helps us to see Downworld.” He turned his hand over, and drew up the sleeve of his shirt. All along the pale inside of his wrist and inner arm were more of the Marks, very black against his white skin. They seemed to thread with the pattern of his veins, as if his blood ran through the Marks, too. “For swiftness, night vision, angelic power, to heal quickly,” he read out loud. “Though their names are more complex than that, and not in English.” “Do they hurt?”

“They hurt when I received them. They don’t hurt at all now.” He drew his sleeve down and smiled at her. “Now, don’t tell me that’s all the questions you have.”

Oh, I have more than you think. “Why can’t you sleep?”

She saw that she had caught him off guard; a look of hesitancy flashed across his face before he spoke. But why hesitate? she thought. He could always lie, or simply deflect, as Will would have. But Jem, she sensed instinctively, wouldn’t lie. “I have bad dreams.” “I was dreaming too,” she said. “I dreamed about your music.”

He grinned. “A nightmare, then?”

“No. It was lovely. The loveliest thing I’ve heard since I came to this horrible city.”

“London isn’t horrible,” Jem said equably. “You simply have to get to know it. You must come with me out into London someday. I can show you the parts of it that are beautiful—that I love.”

“Singing the praises of our fair city?” a light voice inquired. Tessa whirled, and saw Will, leaning against the frame of the doorway. The light from the corridor behind him outlined his damp-looking hair with gold. The hem of his dark overcoat and his black boots were edged with mud, as if he had just come from outdoors, and his cheeks were flushed. He was bareheaded as always. “We treat you well here, don’t we, James? I doubt I’d have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there, again?” “Yang guizi,” said Jem, who appeared unsurprised by Will’s sudden appearance. “’Foreign devils.’”

“Hear that, Tessa? I’m a devil. So are you.” Will unhitched himself from the doorway and sauntered into the room. He flung himself down onto the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his coat. It had a shoulder cape attached to it, very elegant, lined in blue silk.

“Your hair’s wet,” Jem said. “Where have you been?”

“Here, there, and everywhere.” Will grinned. Despite his usual grace, there was something about the way he moved—the flush on his cheeks and the glitter in his eyes—

“Boiled as an owl, are you?” Jem said, not without affection.

Ah, Tessa thought. He’s drunk. She’d seen her own brother under the influence of alcohol enough times to recognize the symptoms. Somehow, she felt obscurely disappointed.

Jem grinned. “Where have you been? The Blue Dragon? The Mermaid?”

“The Devil Tavern, if you must know.” Will sighed and leaned against one of the posts of the bed. “I had such plans for this evening. The pursuit of blind drunkenness and wayward women was my goal. But alas, it was not to be. No sooner had I consumed my third drink in the Devil than I was accosted by a delightful small flower-selling child who asked me for two-pence for a daisy. The price seemed steep, so I refused. When I told the girl as much, she proceeded to rob me.” “A little girl robbed you?” Tessa said.

“Actually, she wasn’t a little girl at all, as it turns out, but a midget in a dress with a penchant for violence, who goes by the name of Six-Fingered Nigel.”

“Easy mistake to make,” Jem said.

“I caught him in the act of slipping his hand into my pocket,” Will said, gesturing animatedly with his scarred, slender hands. “I couldn’t let that stand, of course. A fight broke out almost immediately. I had the upper hand until Nigel leaped onto the bar and struck me from behind with a pitcher of gin.” “Ah,” said Jem. “That does explain why your hair’s wet.”

“It was a fair fight,” Will said. “But the proprietor of the Devil didn’t see it that way. Threw me out. I can’t go back for a fortnight.”

“Best thing for you,” Jem said unsympathetically. “Glad to hear it’s business as usual, then. I was worried for a moment there that you’d come home early to see if I was feeling better.”

“You seem to be doing perfectly well without me. In fact, I see you’ve met our resident shape-shifting mystery woman,” Will said, glancing toward Tessa. It was the first time he’d acknowledged her presence since he’d appeared in the doorway. “Do you normally turn up in gentlemen’s bedrooms in the middle of the night? If I’d known that, I would have campaigned harder to make sure Charlotte let you stay.” “I don’t see how what I do is your concern,” Tessa replied. “Especially since you abandoned me in the corridor and left me to find my own way back to my room.”

“And you found your way to Jem’s room instead?”

“It was the violin,” Jem explained. “She heard me practicing.”

“Ghastly wailing noise, isn’t it?” Will asked Tessa. “I don’t know how all the cats in the neighborhood don’t come running every time he plays.”

“I thought it was pretty.”

“That’s because it was,” Jem agreed.

Will pointed a finger accusingly in their direction. “You’re ganging up on me. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? I’ll be odd man out? Dear God, I’ll have to befriend Jessamine.”

“Jessamine can’t stand you,” Jem pointed out.

“Henry, then.”

“Henry will set you on fire.”

“Thomas,” Will suggested.

“Thomas,” Jem began—and doubled up, suddenly racked with an explosive fit of coughing so violent that he slid from the steamer trunk to crouch on his knees. Too shocked to move, Tessa could only stare as Will—his expansive drunkenness seeming to vanish in a split second—sprang off the bed and knelt down by Jem, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“James,” he said quietly. “Where is it?”

Jem held up a hand to ward him off. Racking gasps shook his thin frame. “I don’t need it—I’m all right—”

He coughed again, and a fine spray of red splattered the floor in front of him. Blood.

Will’s hand tightened on his friend’s shoulder; Tessa saw the knuckles whiten. “Where is it? Where did you put it?”

Jem waved his hand feebly toward the bed. “On—,” he gasped. “On the mantel—in the box—the silver one—”

“I’ll get it, then.” It was as gently as Tessa had ever heard Will say anything. “Stay here.”

“As if I’d go anywhere.” Jem scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth; it came away with red streaking the open-eye Mark.

Standing up, Will turned—and saw Tessa. For a moment he looked purely startled, as if he’d forgotten she was there at all.

“Will—,” she whispered. “Is there anything—”

“Come with me.” Catching her by the arm, Will marched her, gently, toward the open door. He thrust her out into the corridor, moving to block her view of the room. “Good night, Tessa.”

“But he’s coughing blood,” Tessa protested in a low voice. “Perhaps I should get Charlotte—”

“No.” Will glanced over his shoulder, then back at Tessa. He leaned toward her, his hand on her shoulder. She could feel every one of his fingers pressing into the flesh. They were close enough that she could smell the night air on his skin, the scent of metal and smoke and fog. Something about the way he smelled was strange, but she couldn’t place exactly what it was.

Will spoke in a low voice. “He has medicine. I’ll get it for him. There’s no need for Charlotte to know about this.”

“But if he’s ill—”

“Please, Tessa.” There was a pleading urgency in Will’s blue eyes. “It would be better if you said nothing about it.”

Somehow Tessa found she could not say no. “I—all right.”

“Thank you.” Will released her shoulder, and raised his hand to touch her cheek—so lightly she thought she might almost have imagined it. Too startled to say anything, she stood in silence as he closed the door between them. As she heard the lock slide home, she realized why she had thought something was odd when Will had leaned toward her.

Though Will had said he’d been out all night drinking—though he’d even claimed to have had a pitcher of gin smashed over his head—there had been no smell of alcohol on him at all.

It was a long time before Tessa could sleep again. She lay awake, the Codex open at her side, the clockwork angel ticking at her chest, and she watched the lamplight trace patterns across the ceiling.

Tessa stood looking at herself in the mirror over the vanity table as Sophie did up the buttons on the back of her dress. In the morning light that streamed through the high windows, she looked very pale, the gray shadows under her eyes standing out in splotches.

She had never been one to stare in mirrors. A quick glance to see that her hair was all right and that there were no spots on her clothes. Now she could not stop looking at that thin, pale face in the glass. It seemed to ripple as she looked at it, like a reflection seen in water, like the vibration that took her just before the Change. Now that she had worn other faces, seen through other eyes, how could she ever say any face was really her own, even if it was the face she had been given at birth? When she Changed back to herself, how was she to know there wasn’t some slight shift in her very self, something that made her not who she was anymore? Or did it matter what she looked like at all? Was her face nothing but a mask of flesh, irrelevant to her true self?

She could see Sophie reflected in the mirror as well; her face was turned so that her scarred cheek was to the mirror. It looked even more awful in daylight. It was like seeing a lovely painting slashed to ribbons with a knife. Tessa itched to ask her what had happened, but knew she shouldn’t. Instead she said, “I’m much obliged to you for helping me with the dress.” “Pleased to be of service, miss.” Sophie’s tone was flat.

“I only wanted to ask,” Tessa began. Sophie stiffened. She thinks I’m going to ask her about her face, Tessa thought. Out loud she said, “The way you talked to Will in the corridor last night—” Sophie laughed. It was a short laugh, but a real one. “I am permitted to speak to Mr. Herondale however I like, whenever I like. It’s one of the conditions of my employment.”

“Charlotte lets you make your own conditions?”

“It’s not simply anyone who can work at the Institute,” Sophie explained. “You need to have a touch of the Sight. Agatha has it, and so does Thomas. Mrs. Branwell wanted me right away when she knew I had it, said she’d been looking for a maid for Miss Jessamine for simply ages. She warned me about Mr. Herondale, though, said he’d likely be rude to me, and familiar. She said I could be rude right back, that nobody would mind.” “Someone ought to be rude to him. He’s rude enough to everyone else.”

“I’d warrant that’s what Mrs. Branwell thought.” Sophie shared a grin with Tessa in the mirror; she was absolutely lovely when she smiled, Tessa thought, scar or no scar.

“You like Charlotte, don’t you?” she said. “She does seem awfully kind.”

Sophie shrugged. “In the old house I was in service in, Mrs. Atkins—that was the housekeeper—she would keep track of every candle we used, every bit of soap we had. We had to use the soap down to a sliver before she’d give us a new bit. But Mrs. Branwell gives me new soap whenever I want it.” She said this as if it were a firm testament to Charlotte’s character.

“I suppose they have a lot of money here at the Institute.” Tessa thought of the gorgeous furnishings and the grandeur of the place.

“Perhaps. But I’ve made over enough dresses for Mrs. Branwell to know she doesn’t buy them new.”

Tessa thought of the blue gown Jessamine had worn to dinner the night before. “What about Miss Lovelace?”

“She has her own money,” said Sophie darkly. She stepped back from Tessa. “There. You’re fit to be seen now.”

Tessa smiled. “Thank you, Sophie.”

When Tessa came into the dining room, the others were already midway through breakfast—Charlotte in a plain gray dress, spreading jam onto a piece of toast; Henry half-hidden behind a newspaper; and Jessamine picking daintily at a bowl of porridge. Will had a pile of eggs and bacon on his plate and was digging into them industriously, which Tessa couldn’t help noting was unusual for someone who claimed to have been out drinking all night.

“We were just talking about you,” Jessamine said as Tessa found a seat. She pushed a silver toast rack across the table toward Tessa. “Toast?”

Tessa, picking up her fork, looked around the table anxiously. “What about me?”

“What to do with you, of course. Downworlders can’t live in the Institute forever,” said Will. “I say we sell her to the Gypsies on Hampstead Heath,” he added, turning to Charlotte. “I hear they purchase spare women as well as horses.” “Will, stop it.” Charlotte glanced up from her breakfast. “That’s ridiculous.”

Will leaned back in his chair. “You’re right. They’d never buy her. Too scrawny.”

“That’s enough,” Charlotte said. “Miss Gray shall remain. If for no other reason than because we’re in the middle of an investigation that requires her assistance. I’ve already dispatched a message to the Clave telling them that we’re keeping her here until this Pandemonium Club matter is cleared up and her brother is found. Isn’t that right, Henry?” “Quite,” Henry said, setting the newspaper down. “The Pandemonium thingie is a top priority. Absolutely.”

“You’d better tell Benedict Lightwood, too,” said Will. “You know how he is.”

Charlotte blanched slightly, and Tessa wondered who Benedict Lightwood might be. “Will, today I’d like you to revisit the site of the Dark Sisters’ house; it’s abandoned now, but it’s still worth a final search. And I want you to take Jem with you—” At that, the amusement left Will’s expression. “Is he well enough?”

“He is quite well enough.” The voice wasn’t Charlotte’s. It was Jem’s. He had come into the room quietly and was standing by the sideboard, his arms folded across his chest. He was much less pale than he had been the previous night, and the red waistcoat he wore brought a slight tinge of color to his cheeks. “In fact, he’s ready when you are.” “You should have some breakfast first,” Charlotte fretted, pushing the plate of bacon toward him. Jem sat, and smiled at Tessa across the table. “Oh, Jem—this is Miss Gray. She’s—”

“We’ve met,” Jem said quietly, and Tessa felt a rush of heat in her face. She couldn’t help staring at him as he picked up a piece of bread and applied butter to it. It seemed hard to imagine that anyone quite so ethereal-looking could possibly eat toast.

Charlotte looked puzzled. “You have?”

“I encountered Tessa in the corridor last night and introduced myself. I think I may have given her something of a fright.” His silver eyes met Tessa’s across the table, sparkling with amusement.

Charlotte shrugged. “Very well, then. I’d like you to go with Will. In the meantime, today, Miss Gray—”

“Call me Tessa,” Tessa said. “I would prefer it if everyone did.”

“Very well, Tessa,” said Charlotte with a little smile. “Henry and I will be paying a call on Mr. Axel Mortmain, your brother’s employer, to see if he, or any of his employees, might have any information as to your brother’s whereabouts.” “Thank you.” Tessa was surprised. They had said they were going to look for her brother, and they were actually doing it. She hadn’t expected that they would.

“I’ve heard of Axel Mortmain,” said Jem. “He was a taipan, one of the big business heads in Shanghai. His company had offices on the Bund.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte, “the newspapers say he made his fortune in imports of silk and tea.”

“Bah.” Jem spoke lightly, but there was an edge to his voice. “He made his fortune in opium. All of them did. Buying opium in India, sailing it to Canton, trading it for goods.”

“He wasn’t breaking the law, James.” Charlotte pushed the newspaper across the table toward Jessamine. “Meanwhile, Jessie, perhaps you and Tessa can go through the paper and make note of anything that might pertain to the investigation, or be worth a second look—” Jessamine recoiled from the paper as if it were a snake. “A lady does not read the newspaper. The society pages, perhaps, or the theater news. Not this filth.”

“But you are not a lady, Jessamine—,” Charlotte began.

“Dear me,” said Will. “Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.”

“What I mean,” Charlotte said, correcting herself, “is that you are a Shadowhunter first, and a lady second.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jessamine said, pushing her chair back. Her cheeks had turned an alarming shade of red. “You know,” she said, “I wouldn’t have expected you to notice, but it seems clear that the only thing Tessa has to put on her back is that awful old red dress of mine, and it doesn’t fit her. It doesn’t even fit me anymore, and she’s taller than I am.” “Can’t Sophie . . . ,” Charlotte began vaguely.

“You can take a dress in. It’s another thing to make it twice as big as it was to start with. Really, Charlotte.” Jessamine blew out her cheeks in exasperation. “I think you ought to let me take poor Tessa into town to get some new clothes. Otherwise, the first time she takes a deep breath, that dress will fall right off her.” Will looked interested. “I think she should try that out now and see what happens.”

“Oh,” Tessa said, thoroughly confused. Why was Jessamine being so kind to her suddenly when she’d been so unpleasant only the day before? “No, really it’s not necessary—”

“It is,” Jessamine said firmly.

Charlotte was shaking her head. “Jessamine, as long as you live in the Institute, you are one of us, and you have to contribute—”

“You’re the one who insists we have to take in Downworlders who are in trouble, and feed and shelter them,” Jessamine said. “I’m quite sure that includes clothing them as well. You see, I will be contributing—to Tessa’s upkeep.” Henry leaned across the table toward his wife. “You’d better let her do it,” he advised. “Remember the last time you tried to get her to sort the daggers in the weapons room, and she used them to cut up all the linens?” “We needed new linens,” said Jessamine, unabashed.

“Oh, all right,” Charlotte snapped. “Honestly, sometimes I despair of the lot of you.”

“What’ve I done?” Jem inquired. “I only just arrived.”

Charlotte put her face into her hands. As Henry began to pat her shoulders and make soothing noises, Will leaned across Tessa toward Jem, ignoring her completely as he did so. “Should we leave now?” “I need to finish my tea first,” Jem said. “Anyway, I don’t see what you’re so fired up about. You said the place hadn’t been used as a brothel in ages?”

“I want to be back before dark,” Will said. He was leaning nearly across Tessa’s lap, and she could smell that faint boy-smell of leather and metal that seemed to cling to his hair and skin. “I have an assignation in Soho this evening with a certain attractive someone.” “Goodness,” Tessa said to the back of his head. “If you keep seeing Six-Fingered Nigel like this, he’ll expect you to declare your intentions.”

Jem choked on his tea.

Spending the day with Jessamine began as badly as Tessa had feared. The traffic was dreadful. However crowded New York might have been, Tessa had never seen anything like the snarling mess of the Strand at midday. Carriages rolled side by side with costermongers’ carts piled high with fruit and vegetables; women shawled and carrying shallow baskets full of flowers dived madly in and out of traffic as they tried to interest the occupants of various carriages in their wares; and cabs came to a full stop in the midst of traffic so that the cabdrivers could scream at one another out their windows. This noise added to the already awesome din—ice cream peddlers shouting “Hokey-pokey, penny a lump,” newspaper boys hawking the day’s latest headline, and someone somewhere playing a barrel organ. Tessa wondered how everyone living and working in London wasn’t deaf.

As she stared out the window, an old woman carrying a large metal cage full of fluttering colorful birds stepped out alongside their coach. The old woman turned her head, and Tessa saw that her skin was as green as a parrot’s feathers, her eyes wide and all black like a bird’s, her hair a shock of multicolored feathers. Tessa started, and Jessamine, following her gaze, frowned. “Close the curtains,” she said. “It keeps out the dust.” And, reaching past Tessa, Jessamine did just that.

Tessa looked at her. Jessamine’s small mouth was set in a thin line. “Did you see—?” Tessa began.

“No,” Jessamine said, shooting Tessa what she had often seen referred to in novels as a “killing” look. Tessa glanced hastily away.

Things did not improve when they finally reached the fashionable West End. Leaving Thomas patiently waiting with the horses, Jessamine dragged Tessa in and out of various dressmakers’ salons, looking at design after design, standing by while the prettiest shop assistant was chosen to model a sample. (No real lady would let a dress that might have been worn by a stranger touch her skin.) In each establishment she gave a different false name and a different story; in each establishment the owners seemed enchanted by her looks and obvious wealth and couldn’t help her fast enough. Tessa, mostly ignored, lurked on the sidelines, half-dead from boredom.

In one salon, posing as a young widow, Jessamine even examined the design for a black mourning dress of crepe and lace. Tessa had to admit it would have set off her blond pallor well.

“You would look absolutely beautiful in this, and could not possibly fail to make an advantageous remarriage.” The dressmaker winked in a conspiratorial fashion. “In fact, do you know what we call this design? ‘The Trap Rebaited.’” Jessamine giggled, the dressmaker smiled limpidly, and Tessa considered racing out into the street and ending it all by throwing herself under a hansom cab. As if conscious of her annoyance, Jessamine glanced toward her with a condescending smile. “I’m also looking for a few dresses for my cousin from America,” she said. “The clothes there are simply horrible. She’s as plain as a pin, which doesn’t help, but I’m sure you can do something with her.” The dressmaker blinked as if this were the first time she’d noticed Tessa, and perhaps it was. “Would you like to choose a design, ma’am?”

The following whirlwind of activity was something of a revelation for Tessa. In New York her clothes had been bought by her aunt—ready-made pieces that had had to be altered to fit, and always cheap material in drab shades of dark gray or navy. She had never before learned, as she did now, that blue was a color that suited her and brought out her gray-blue eyes, or that she should wear rose pink to put color in her cheeks. As her measurements were taken amidst a blur of discussion of princess sheaths, cuirass bodices, and someone named Mr. Charles Worth, Tessa stood and stared at her face in the mirror, half-waiting for the features to begin to slip and change, to reform themselves. But she remained herself, and at the end of it all she had four new dresses on order to be delivered later in the week—one pink, one yellow, one striped blue and white with bone buttons, and a gold and black silk—as well as two smart jackets, one with darling beaded tulle adorning the cuffs.

“I suspect you may actually look pretty in that last outfit,” Jessamine said as they climbed back up into the carriage. “It’s amazing what fashion can do.”

Tessa counted silently to ten before she replied. “I’m awfully obliged to you for everything, Jessamine. Shall we return to the Institute now?”

At that, the brightness went out of Jessamine’s face. She truly hates it there, Tessa thought, puzzled more than anything else. What was so dreadful about the Institute? Of course its whole reason for existing was peculiar enough, certainly, but Jessamine had to be used to that by now. She was a Shadow-hunter like the rest.

“It’s such a lovely day,” Jessamine said, “and you’ve hardly seen anything of London. I think a walk in Hyde Park is in order. And after that, we could go to Gunter’s and have Thomas get ices for us!” Tessa glanced out the window. The sky was hazy and gray, shot through with lines of blue where the clouds briefly drifted apart from one another. In no way would this be considered a lovely day in New York, but London seemed to have different standards for weather. Besides, she owed Jessamine something now, and the last thing in the world the other girl wanted to do, clearly, was go home.

“I adore parks,” said Tessa.

Jessamine almost smiled.

“You didn’t tell Miss Gray about the cogs,” Henry said.

Charlotte looked up from her notes and sighed. It had always been a sore point for her that, however often she had requested a second, the Clave only

allowed the Institute one carriage. It was a fine one—a town coach—and Thomas was an excellent driver. But it did mean that when the Institute’s Shadowhunters went their separate ways, as they were doing today, Charlotte was forced to borrow a carriage from Benedict Lightwood, who was far from her favorite person. And the only carriage he was willing to lend her was small and uncomfortable. Poor Henry, who was so very tall, was bumping his head against the low roof.

“No,” she said. “The poor girl, she seemed so dazed already. I couldn’t tell her that the mechanical devices we found in the cellar had been manufactured by the company that employed her brother. She’s so worried about him. It seemed more than she’d be able to bear.” “It might not mean anything, darling,” Henry reminded her. “Mortmain and Company manufactures most of the machine tools used in England. Mortmain is really something of a genius. His patented system for producing ball bearings—” “Yes, yes.” Charlotte tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. “And perhaps we should have told her. But I thought it best that we speak to Mr. Mortmain first and gather what impressions we can. You’re correct. He may know nothing at all, and there may be little connection. But it would be quite a coincidence, Henry. And I am very wary of coincidence.” She glanced back down at the notes she’d made about Axel Mortmain. He was the only (and likely, though the notes did not specify, illegitimate) son of Dr. Hollingworth Mortmain, who in a matter of years had risen from the humble position of ship’s surgeon on a trading vessel bound for China to wealthy private trader, buying and selling spices and sugar, silk and tea, and—it wasn’t stated, but Charlotte was in agreement with Jem on the matter—probably opium. When Dr. Mortmain had died, his son, Axel, at barely twenty years of age, had inherited his fortune, which he’d promptly invested in building a fleet of ships faster and sleeker than any others plying the seas. Within a decade the younger Mortmain had doubled, then quadrupled, his father’s riches.

In more recent years he had retired from Shanghai to London, had sold his trading ships, and had used the money to buy a large company that produced the mechanical devices needed to make timepieces, everything from pocket watches to grandfather clocks. He was a very wealthy man.

The carriage drew up in front of one of a row of white terraced houses, each with tall windows looking out over the square. Henry leaned out of the carriage and read the number off a brass plaque affixed to a front gatepost. “This must be it.” He reached for the carriage door.

“Henry,” said Charlotte, placing a hand on his arm. “Henry, do keep in mind what we talked about this morning, won’t you?”

He smiled ruefully. “I will do my best not to embarrass you or trip up the investigation. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why you bring me along on these things. You know I’m a bumbler when it comes to people.” “You’re not a bumbler, Henry,” Charlotte said gently. She longed to reach out and stroke his face, push his hair back and reassure him. But she held herself back. She knew—she had been advised enough times—not to force on Henry affection he probably did not want.

Leaving the carriage with the Lightwoods’ driver, they mounted the stairs and rang the bell; the door was opened by a footman wearing dark blue livery and a dour expression. “Good morning,” he said brusquely. “Might I inquire as to your business here?” Charlotte glanced sideways at Henry, who was staring past the footman with a dreamy sort of expression. Lord knew what his mind was on—cogs, gears, and gadgets, no doubt—but it certainly wasn’t on their present situation. With an inward sigh she said, “I am Mrs. Gray, and this is my husband, Mr. Henry Gray. We’re seeking a cousin of ours—a young man named Nathaniel Gray. We haven’t heard from him in nearly six weeks. He is, or was, one of Mr. Mortmain’s employees—” For a moment—it might have been her imagination—she thought she saw something, a flicker of uneasiness, in the footman’s eyes. “Mr. Mortmain owns quite a large company. You can’t expect him to know the whereabouts of everyone who works for him. That would be impossible. Perhaps you should inquire with the police.” Charlotte narrowed her eyes. Before they had left the Institute, she had traced the insides of her arms with persuasion runes. It was the rare mundane who was totally unsusceptible to their influence. “We have, but they don’t seem to have progressed at all with the case. It’s so dreadful, and we’re so concerned about Nate, you see. If we could see Mr. Mortmain for a moment . . .” She relaxed as the footman nodded slowly. “I’ll inform Mr. Mortmain of your visit,” he said, stepping back to allow them inside. “Please wait in the vestibule.” He looked startled, as if surprised at his own acquiescence.

He swung the door wide, and Charlotte followed him in, Henry behind her. Though the footman failed to offer Charlotte a seat—a failure of politesse she attributed to the confusion brought on by the persuasion runes—he did take Henry’s coat and hat, and Charlotte’s wrap, before leaving the two of them to stare curiously around the entryway.

The room was high ceilinged but not ornate. It was also absent the expected pastoral landscapes and family portraits. Instead, hanging from the ceiling were long silk banners painted with the Chinese characters for good luck; an Indian platter of hammered silver propped in one corner; and pen-and-ink sketches of famous landmarks lining the walls. Charlotte recognized Mount Kilimanjaro, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and a section of China’s Great Wall. Mortmain clearly was a man who traveled a great deal and was proud of the fact.

Charlotte turned to look at Henry to see if he was observing what she was, but he was staring vaguely off toward the stairs, lost in his own mind again; before she could say anything, the footman rematerialized, a pleasant smile on his face. “Please come this way.” Henry and Charlotte followed the footman to the end of the corridor, where he opened a polished oak door and ushered them before him.

They found themselves in a grand study, with wide windows looking out onto the square. Dark green curtains were pulled back to let in the light, and

through the windowpanes Charlotte could see their borrowed carriage waiting for them at the curb, the horse with its head dipped into a nose-bag, the driver reading a newspaper on his high seat. The green branches of trees moved on the other side of the street, an emerald canopy, but it was noiseless. The windows blocked all sound, and there was nothing audible in this room at all save the faint ticking of a wall clock with MORTMAIN AND COMPANY engraved on the face in gold.

The furniture was dark, a heavy black-grained wood, and the walls were lined with animal heads—a tiger, an antelope, and a leopard—and more foreign landscapes. There was a great mahogany desk in the center of the room, neatly arranged with stacks of paper, each pile weighted down with a heavy copper gear. A brass-bound globe bearing the legend WYLD’S GLOBE OF THE EARTH, WITH THE LATEST DISCOVERIES! anchored one corner of the desk, the lands under the rule of the British empire picked out in pinkish red. Charlotte always found the experience of examining mundane globes a strange one. Their world was not the same shape as the one she knew.

Behind the desk sat a man, who rose to his feet as they entered. He was a small energetic-looking figure, a middle-aged man with hair graying suitably at the sideburns. His skin looked windburned, as if he had often been outside in rough weather. His eyes were a very, very light gray, his expression pleasant; despite his elegant, expensive-looking clothes, it was easy to imagine him on the deck of a ship, peering keenly into the distance. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Walker gave me to understand that you are looking for Mr. Nathaniel Gray?” “Yes,” Henry said, to Charlotte’s surprise. Henry rarely, if ever, took the lead in conversations with strangers. She wondered if it had anything to do with the intricate-looking blueprint on the desk. Henry was looking at it as yearningly as if it were food. “We’re his cousins, you know.” “We do appreciate you taking this time to talk to us, Mr. Mortmain,” Charlotte added hastily. “We know he was only an employee of yours, one of dozens—”

“Hundreds,” said Mr. Mortmain. He had a pleasant baritone voice, which at the moment sounded very amused. “It is true I can’t keep track of them all. But I do remember Mr. Gray. Though I must say, if he ever mentioned that he had cousins who were Shadowhunters, I can’t say I recall it.”