فصل 6

6 STRANGE EARTH

We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?

—Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”

“You know,” said Jem, “this isn’t at all what I thought a brothel would look like.”

The two boys stood at the entrance to what Tessa called the Dark House, off Whitechapel High Street. It looked dingier and darker than Will remembered, as if someone had swabbed it with a coating of extra dirt. “What were you imagining exactly, James? Ladies of the night waving from the balconies? Nude statues adorning the entranceway?” “I suppose,” Jem said mildly, “I was expecting something that looked a bit less drab.”

Will had thought rather the same thing the first time he had been there. The overwhelming sensation one had inside the Dark House was that it was a

place no one had ever really thought of as a home. The latched windows looked greasy, the drawn curtains dingy and unwashed.

Will rolled up his sleeves. “We’ll probably have to knock down the door—”

“Or,” said Jem, reaching out and giving the knob a twist, “not.”

The door swung open onto a rectangle of darkness.

“Now, that’s simply laziness,” said Will. Taking a hunting dagger from his belt, he stepped cautiously inside, and Jem followed, keeping tight hold of his jade-headed walking stick. They tended to take turns going first into dangerous situations, though Jem preferred to be rear guard much of the time—Will always forgot to look behind him.

The door swung shut behind them, prisoning them in the half-lit gloom. The entryway looked almost the same as it had the first time Will had been there—the same wooden staircase leading up, the same cracked but still elegant marble flooring, the same air thick with dust.

Jem raised his hand, and his witchlight flared into life, frightening a group of blackbeetles. They scurried across the floor, causing Will to grimace. “Nice place to live, isn’t it? Let’s hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two . . .” “Indeed. Perhaps, if we’re fortunate, we can still catch syphilis.”

“Or demon pox,” Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs. It swung open, unlocked as the front door had been. “There’s always demon pox.”

“Demon pox does not exist.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” said Will, disappearing into the darkness under the stairs.

Together they searched the cellar and the ground-floor rooms meticulously, finding little but rubbish and dust. Everything had been stripped from the room where Tessa and Will had fought off the Dark Sisters; after a long search Will discovered something on the wall that looked like a smear of blood, but there seemed no source for it, and Jem pointed out it could just as well be paint.

Abandoning the cellar, they moved upstairs, and found a long corridor lined with doors that was familiar to Will. He had raced down it with Tessa behind him. He ducked into the first room on the right, which had been the room he’d found her in. No sign lingered of the wild-eyed girl who’d hit him with a flowered pitcher. The room was empty, the furniture having been taken away to be searched inside the Silent City. Four dark indentations on the floor indicated where a bed had once stood.

The other rooms were much the same. Will was trying the window in one when he heard Jem shout that he should come quickly; he was in the last room on the left. Will made haste and found Jem standing in the center of a large square room, his witchlight shining in his hand. He was not alone. There was one piece of furniture remaining here—an upholstered armchair, and seated in it was a woman.

She was young—probably no older than Jessamine—and wore a cheap-looking printed dress, her hair gathered up at the nape of her neck. It was

dull-brown mousy hair, and her hands were bare and red. Her eyes were wide open and staring.

“Gah,” said Will, too surprised to say anything else. “Is she—”

“She’s dead,” said Jem.

“Are you certain?” Will could not take his eyes off the woman’s face. She was pale, but not with a corpse’s pallor, and her hands lay folded in her lap, the fingers softly curved, not stiff with the rigor of death. He moved closer to her and placed a hand on her arm. It was rigid and cold beneath his fingers. “Well, she’s not responding to my advances,” he observed more brightly than he felt, “so she must be dead.” “Or she’s a woman of good taste and sense.” Jem knelt down and looked up into the woman’s face. Her eyes were pale blue and protuberant; they stared past him, as dead-looking as painted eyes. “Miss,” he said, and reached for her wrist, meaning to take a pulse.

She moved, jerking under his hand, and let out a low inhuman moan.

Jem stood up hastily. “What in—”

The woman raised her head. Her eyes were still blank, unfocused, but her lips moved with a grinding sound. “Beware!” she cried. Her voice echoed around the room, and Will, with a yell, jumped back.

The woman’s voice sounded like gears grating against one another. “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, an army born neither of Heaven nor Hell. Beware the hand of man. Beware.” Her voice rose to a high, grinding shriek, and she jerked back and forth in the chair like a puppet being yanked on invisible strings. “BEWARE BEWAREBEWAREBEWARE—” “Good God,” muttered Jem.

“BEWARE!” the woman shrieked one last time, and toppled forward to sprawl on the ground, abruptly silenced. Will stared, openmouthed.

“Is she . . . ?” he began.

“Yes,” Jem said. “I think she’s quite dead this time.”

But Will was shaking his head. “Dead. You know, I don’t think so.”

“What do you think, then?”

Instead of answering, Will went and knelt down by the body. He put two fingers to the side of the woman’s cheek and turned her head gently until she faced them. Her mouth was wide, her right eye staring at the ceiling. The left dangled halfway down her cheek, attached to its socket by a coil of copper wire.

“She’s not alive,” said Will, “but not dead, either. She may be . . . like one of Henry’s gadgets, I think.” He touched her face. “Who could have done this?”

“I can hardly guess. But she called us Nephilim. She knew what we are.”

“Or someone did,” said Will. “I don’t imagine she knows anything. I think she’s a machine, like a clock. And she has run down.” He stood up.

“Regardless, we had best get her back to the Institute. Henry will want to have a look at her.”

Jem did not reply; he was looking down at the woman on the floor. Her feet were bare beneath the hem of her dress, and dirty. Her mouth was open and he could see the gleam of metal inside her throat. Her eye dangled eerily on its bit of copper wire as somewhere outside the windows a church clock chimed the midday hour.

Once inside the park, Tessa found herself beginning to relax. She hadn’t been in a green, quiet place since she’d come to London, and she found herself almost reluctantly delighted by the sight of grass and trees, though she thought the park nowhere near as fine as Central Park in New York. The air was not as hazy here as it was over the rest of the city, and the sky overhead had achieved a color that was almost blue.

Thomas waited with the carriage while the girls made their promenade. As Tessa walked beside Jessamine, the other girl kept up a constant stream of chatter. They were making their way down a broad thoroughfare that, Jessamine informed her, was inexplicably called Rotten Row. Despite the inauspicious name, it was apparently the place to see and be seen. Down the center of it paraded men and women on horseback, exquisitely attired, the women with their veils flying, their laughter echoing in the summer air. Along the sides of the avenue walked other pedestrians. Chairs and benches were set up under the trees, and women sat twirling colorful parasols and sipping peppermint water; beside them bewhiskered gentlemen smoked, filling the air with the smell of tobacco mixed with cut grass and horses.

Though no one stopped to talk to them, Jessamine seemed to know who everyone was—who was getting married, who was seeking a husband, who was having an affair with so-and-so’s wife and everyone knew all about it. It was a bit dizzying, and Tessa was glad when they stepped off the row and onto a narrower path leading into the park.

Jessamine slid her arm through Tessa’s and gave her hand a companionable squeeze. “You don’t know what a relief it is to finally have another girl around,” she said cheerfully. “I mean, Charlotte’s all right, but she’s boring and married.” “There’s Sophie.”

Jessamine snorted. “Sophie’s a servant.”

“I’ve known girls who were quite companionable with their ladies’ maids,” Tessa protested. This was not precisely true. She had read about such girls, though she had never known one. Still, according to novels, the main function of a ladies’ maid was to listen to you as you poured your heart out about your tragic love life, and occasionally to dress in your clothes and pretend to be you so you could avoid being captured by a villain. Not that Tessa could picture Sophie participating in anything like that on Jessamine’s behalf.

“You’ve seen what her face looks like. Being hideous has made her bitter. A ladies’ maid is meant to be pretty, and speak French, and Sophie can’t

manage either. I told Charlotte as much when she brought the girl home. Charlotte didn’t listen to me. She never does.”

“I can’t imagine why,” said Tessa. They had turned onto a narrow path that wound between trees. The glint of the river was visible through them, and the branches above knotted together into a canopy, blocking the brightness of the sun.

“I know! Neither can I!” Jessamine raised her face, letting what sun broke through the canopy dance across her skin. “Charlotte never listens to anyone. She’s always henpecking poor Henry. I don’t know why he married her at all.” “I assume because he loved her?”

Jessamine snorted. “No one thinks that. Henry wanted access to the Institute so he could work on his little experiments in the cellar and not have to fight. And I don’t think he minded marrying Charlotte—I don’t think there was anyone else he wanted to marry—but if someone else had been running the Institute, he would have married them instead.” She sniffed. “And then there’s the boys—Will and Jem. Jem’s pleasant enough, but you know how foreigners are. Not really trustworthy and basically selfish and lazy. He’s always in his room, pretending to be ill, refusing to do anything to help out,” Jessamine went on blithely, apparently forgetting the fact that Jem and Will were off searching the Dark House right now, while she promenaded in the park with Tessa. “And Will. Handsome enough, but behaves like a lunatic half the time; it’s as if he were brought up by savages.

He has no respect for anyone or anything, no concept of the way a gentleman is supposed to behave. I suppose it’s because he’s Welsh.”

Tessa was baffled. “Welsh?” Is that a bad thing to be? she was about to add, but Jessamine, thinking that Tessa was doubting Will’s origins, went on with relish.

“Oh, yes. With that black hair of his, you can absolutely tell. His mother was a Welshwoman. His father fell in love with her, and that was that. He left the Nephilim. Maybe she cast a spell on him.” Jessamine laughed. “They have all kinds of odd magic and things in Wales, you know.” Tessa did not know. “Do you know what happened to Will’s parents? Are they dead?”

“I suppose they must be, mustn’t they, or they would have come looking for him?” Jessamine furrowed her brow. “Ugh. Anyway. I don’t want to talk about the Institute anymore.” She swung around to look at Tessa. “You must be wondering why I’ve been being so nice to you.” “Er . . .” Tessa had been wondering, rather. In novels girls like herself, girls whose families had once had money but who had fallen on hard times, were often taken in by kindly wealthy protectors and were furnished with new clothes and a good education. (Not, Tessa thought, that there had been anything wrong with her education. Aunt Harriet had been as learned as any governess.) Of course, Jessamine did not in any way resemble the saintly older ladies of such tales, whose acts of generosity were totally selfless. “Jessamine, have you ever read The Lamplighter?” “Certainly not. Girls shouldn’t read novels,” said Jessamine, in the tone of someone reciting something she’d heard somewhere else. “Regardless, Miss Gray, I have a proposition to put to you.” “Tessa,” Tessa corrected automatically.

“Of course, for we are already the best of friends,” Jessamine said, “and shall soon be even more so.”

Tessa regarded the other girl with bafflement. “What do you mean?”

“As I am sure horrid Will has told you, my parents, my dear papa and mama, are dead. But they left me a not inconsiderable sum of money. It was put aside in trust for me until my eighteenth birthday, which is only in a matter of months. You see the problem, of course.” Tessa, who did not see the problem, said, “I do?”

“I am not a Shadowhunter, Tessa. I despise everything about the Nephilim. I have never wanted to be one, and my dearest wish is to leave the Institute and never speak to a single soul who resides there ever again.” “But I thought that your parents were Shadowhunters. . . .”

“One does not have to be a Shadowhunter if one does not wish to,” Jessamine snapped. “My parents did not. They left the Clave when they were young. Mama was always perfectly clear. She never wanted the Shadowhunters near me. She said she would never wish that life on a girl. She wanted other things for me. That I would make my debut, meet the Queen, find a good husband, and have darling little babies. An ordinary life.” She said the words with a savage sort of hunger. “There are other girls in this city right now, Tessa, other girls my age, who aren’t as pretty as me, who are dancing and flirting and laughing and catching husbands. They get lessons in French. I get lessons in horrid demon languages. It’s not fair.” “You can still get married.” Tessa was puzzled. “Any man would—”

“I could marry a Shadowhunter.” Jessamine spat out the word. “And live like Charlotte, having to dress like a man and fight like a man. It’s disgusting. Women aren’t meant to behave like that. We are meant to graciously preside over lovely homes. To decorate them in a manner that is pleasing to our husbands. To uplift and comfort them with our gentle and angelic presence.” Jessamine sounded neither gentle nor angelic, but Tessa forbore mentioning this. “I don’t see how I . . .”

Jessamine caught Tessa’s arm fiercely. “Don’t you? I can leave the Institute, Tessa, but I cannot live alone. It wouldn’t be respectable. Perhaps if I were a widow, but I am only a girl. It just isn’t done. But if I had a companion—a sister—” “You wish me to pretend to be your sister?” Tessa squeaked.

“Why not?” Jessamine said, as if this were the most reasonable suggestion in the world. “Or you could be my cousin from America. Yes, that would work. You do see,” she added, more practically, “that it isn’t as if you have anywhere else to go, is it? I’m quite positive we would catch husbands in no time at all.” Tessa, whose head had begun to ache, wished Jessamine would cease to speak of “catching” husbands the way one might catch a cold, or a runaway cat.

“I could introduce you to all the best people,” Jessamine continued. “There would be balls, and dinner parties—” She broke off, looking around in sudden confusion. “But—where are we?” Tessa glanced around. The path had narrowed. It was now a dark trail leading between high twisted trees. Tessa could no longer see the sky, nor hear the sound of voices. Beside her, Jessamine had come to a halt. Her face creased with sudden fear. “We’ve wandered off the path,” she whispered.

“Well, we can find our way back, can’t we?” Tessa spun around, looking for a break in the trees, a patch of sunlight. “I think we came from that way—”

Jessamine caught suddenly at Tessa’s arm, her fingers claw-like. Something—no, someone—had appeared before them on the path.

The figure was small, so small that for a moment Tessa thought they were facing a child. But as the form stepped forward into the light, she saw that it was a man—a hunched, wizened-looking man, dressed like a peddler, in ragged clothes, a battered hat pushed back on his head. His face was wrinkled and white, like a mold-covered old apple, and his eyes were gleaming black between thick folds of skin.

He grinned, showing teeth as sharp as razors. “Pretty girls.”

Tessa glanced at Jessamine; the other girl was rigid and staring, her mouth a white line. “We ought to go,” Tessa whispered, and pulled at Jessamine’s

arm. Slowly, as if she were in a dream, Jessamine allowed Tessa to turn her so they faced back the way they had come—

And the man was before them once again, blocking the way back to the park. Far, far in the distance, Tessa thought she could see the park, a sort of clearing, full of light. It looked impossibly far away.

“You wandered off the path,” said the stranger. His voice was singsong, rhythmic. “Pretty girls, you wandered off the path. You know what happens to girls like you.”

He took a step forward.

Jessamine, still rigid, was clutching her parasol as though it were a lifeline. “Goblin,” she said, “hobgoblin, whatever you are—we have no quarrel with any of the Fair Folk. But if you touch us—” “You wandered from the path,” sang the little man, coming closer, and as he did, Tessa saw that his shining shoes were not shoes after all but gleaming hooves. “Foolish Nephilim, to come to this place un-Marked. Here is land more ancient than any Accords. Here there is strange earth. If your angel blood should fall upon it, golden vines will grow from the spot, with diamonds at their tips. And I claim it. I claim your blood.” Tessa tugged at Jessamine’s arm. “Jessamine, we should—”

“Tessa, be quiet.” Shaking her arm free, Jessamine pointed her parasol at the goblin. “You don’t want to do this. You don’t want—”

The creature sprang. As he hurtled toward them, his mouth seemed to peel wide, his skin splitting, and Tessa saw the face beneath—fanged and vicious. She screamed and stumbled backward, her shoe catching on a tree root. She thumped to the ground as Jessamine raised her parasol, and with a flick of Jessamine’s wrist, the parasol burst open like a flower.

The goblin screamed. He screamed and fell back and rolled on the ground, still screaming. Blood streamed from a wound in his cheek, staining his ragged gray jacket.

“I told you,” Jessamine said. She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling as if she had been racing through the park. “I told you to leave us alone, you filthy creature—” She struck at the goblin again, and now Tessa could see that the edges of Jessamine’s parasol gleamed an odd gold-white, and were as sharp as razors. Blood was splattered across the flowered material.

The goblin howled, throwing up his arms to protect himself. He looked like a little old hunched man now, and though Tessa knew it was an illusion, she couldn’t help feeling a pang of pity. “Mercy, mistress, mercy—” “Mercy?” Jessamine spat. “You wanted to grow flowers out of my blood! Filthy goblin! Disgusting creature!” She slashed at him again with the parasol, and again, and the goblin screamed and thrashed. Tessa sat up, shaking the dirt out of her hair, and staggered to her feet. Jessamine was still screaming, the parasol flying, the creature on the ground spasming with each blow. “I hate you!” Jessamine shrieked, her voice thin and trembling. “I hate you, and everything like you—Downworlders—disgusting, disgusting—”

“Jessamine!” Tessa ran to the other girl and threw her arms around her, pinning Jessamine’s arms against her body. For a moment Jessamine struggled, and Tessa realized there was no way she could hold her. She was strong, the muscles under her soft feminine skin coiled and as tense as a whip. And then Jessamine went suddenly limp, sagging back against Tessa, her breath hitching as the parasol drooped in her hand. “No,” she wailed. “No. I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to. No—” Tessa glanced down. The goblin’s body was humped and motionless at their feet. Blood spread across the ground from the place where he lay, running across the earth like dark vines. Holding Jessamine as she sobbed, Tessa could not help but wonder what would grow there now.

It was, unsurprisingly, Charlotte who recovered from her astonishment first. “Mr. Mortmain, I’m not sure what you could possibly mean—”

“Of course you are.” He was smiling, his lean face split from ear to ear by an impish grin. “Shadowhunters. The Nephilim. That’s what you call yourselves, isn’t it? The by-blows of men and angels. Strange, since the Nephilim in the Bible were hideous monsters, weren’t they?” “You know, that’s not necessarily true,” Henry said, unable to restrain his inner pedant. “There’s an issue of translation from the original Aramaic—”

“Henry,” Charlotte said warningly.

“Do you really trap the souls of the demons you kill in a gigantic crystal?” Mortmain went on, wide eyed. “How magnificent!”

“D’you mean the Pyxis?” Henry looked baffled. “It’s not a crystal, more like a wooden box. And they aren’t so much souls—demons don’t have souls. They have energy—”

“Be quiet, Henry,” Charlotte snapped.

“Mrs. Branwell,” Mortmain said. He sounded dreadfully cheerful. “Please do not concern yourself. I already know everything about your kind, you see. You’re Charlotte Branwell, aren’t you? And this is your husband, Henry Branwell. You run the London Institute from the site of what was once the church of All-Hallows-the-Less. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t know who you were? Especially once you tried to glamour my footman? He can’t bear being glamoured, you know. Gives him a rash.” Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “And how have you come by all this information?”

Mortmain leaned forward eagerly, templing his hands. “I am a student of the occult. Since my time in India as a young man, when I first learned of them, I have been fascinated with the shadow realms. For a man in my position, with sufficient funds and more than sufficient time, many doors are open. There are books one may purchase, information that can be paid for. Your knowledge is not as secret as you might think.” “Perhaps,” said Henry, looking deeply unhappy, “but—It is dangerous, you know. Killing demons—it’s not like shooting tigers. They can hunt you as well as you can hunt them.” Mortmain chuckled. “My boy, I have no intention of racing out to fight demons bare-handed. Of course this sort of information is dangerous in the hands of the flighty and the hotheaded, but mine is a careful and sensible mind. I seek only an expansion of my knowledge of the world, nothing more.” He looked about the room. “I must say, I’ve never had the honor of talking to Nephilim before. Of course, mention of you is frequent in the literature, but to read about something and to truly experience it are two very different things, I’m sure you’ll agree. There is so very much you could teach me—” “That,” Charlotte said in a freezing tone, “will be quite enough of that.”

Mortmain looked at her, puzzled. “Pardon me?”

“Since you seem to know so much about Nephilim, Mr. Mortmain, might I ask if you know what our mandate is?”

Mortmain looked smug. “To destroy demons. To protect humans—mundanes, as I understand you call us.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte, “and a great deal of the time what we are protecting humans from is their own very foolish selves. I see that you are no exception to this rule.”

At that, Mortmain looked actually astonished. His glance went to Henry. Charlotte knew that look. It was a look only exchanged between men, a look

that said, Can you not control your wife, sir? A look, she knew, that was quite wasted on Henry, who seemed to be trying to read the upside-down blueprints on Mortmain’s desk and was paying very little attention to the conversation.

“You think the occult knowledge you have acquired makes you very clever,” said Charlotte. “But I have seen my share of dead mundanes, Mr. Mortmain. I cannot count the times we have attended to the remains of some human who fancied himself expert in magical practices. I remember, when I was a girl, being summoned to the home of a barrister. He belonged to some silly circle of men who believed themselves to be magicians. They spent their time chanting and wearing robes and drawing pentagrams on the ground. One evening he determined that his skill was sufficient to attempt the raising of a demon.” “And was it?”

“It was,” Charlotte said. “He raised the demon Marax. It proceeded to slaughter him, and all of his family.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “We found most of them hanging headless, upside down in the carriage house. The youngest of his children was roasting on a spit over the fire. We never did find Marax.” Mortmain had paled, but retained his composure. “There are always those who overreach their abilities,” he said. “But I—”

“But you would never be so foolish,” Charlotte said. “Save that you are, at this very moment, being that foolish. You look at Henry and myself and you are not afraid of us. You are amused! A fairy tale come to life!” She slammed her hand down hard on the edge of his desk, making him jump. “The might of the Clave stands behind us,” she said, in as cold a tone as she could muster. “Our mandate is to protect humans. Such as Nathaniel Gray. He has vanished, and something occult is clearly behind that vanishing. And here we find his erstwhile employer, clearly steeped in matters of the occult. It beggars belief that the two facts are not connected.” “I—He—Mr. Gray has vanished?” Mortmain stammered.

“He has. His sister came to us, searching for him; she had been informed by a pair of warlocks that he was in grave danger. While you, sir, are amusing yourself, he may be dying. And the Clave does not look kindly on those who stand in the way of its mandate.” Mortmain passed a hand over his face. When he emerged from behind it, he looked gray. “I shall, of course,” he said, “tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Excellent.” Charlotte’s heart was beating fast, but her voice betrayed no anxiety.

“I used to know his father. Nathaniel’s father. I employed him almost twenty years ago when Mortmain’s was mainly a shipping concern. I had offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin—” He broke off as Charlotte tapped her fingers impatiently on the desk. “Richard Gray worked for me here in London. He was my head clerk, a kind and clever man. I was sorry to lose him when he moved his family to America. When Nathaniel wrote to me and told me who he was, I offered him a job on the spot.” “Mr. Mortmain.” Charlotte’s voice was steely. “This is not germane—”

“Oh, but it is,” the small man insisted. “You see, my knowledge of the occult has always been of assistance to me in business matters. Some years ago, for instance, a well-known Lombard Street bank collapsed—destroyed dozens of large companies. My acquaintance with a warlock helped me avoid disaster. I was able to withdraw my funds before the bank dissolved, and that saved my company. But it raised Richard’s suspicions. He must have investigated, for eventually he confronted me with his knowledge of the Pandemonium Club.” “You are a member, then,” Charlotte murmured. “Of course.”

“I offered Richard membership in the club—even took him to a meeting or two—but he was uninterested. Shortly after that he moved his family to America.” Mortmain spread his hands wide. “The Pandemonium Club is not for everyone. Traveling widely as I have, I heard stories of similar organizations in many cities, groups of men who know of the Shadow World and wish to share their knowledge and advantages, but one pays the heavy price of secrecy for membership.” “One pays a heavier price than that.”

“It isn’t an evil organization,” Mortmain said. He sounded almost wounded. “There were many great advancements, many great inventions. I saw a warlock create a silver ring that could transport the wearer to another location whenever he twisted one around his finger. Or a doorway that could bring you anywhere in the world you wanted to go. I’ve seen men brought back from the brink of death—” “I’m aware of magic and what it can do, Mr. Mortmain.” Charlotte glanced at Henry, who was examining a blueprint for some sort of mechanical gadget, mounted on a wall. “There is one question that concerns me. The warlocks who appear to have kidnapped Mr. Gray are somehow associated with the club. I have always heard it called a club for mundanes. Why would there be Downworlders in it?” Mortmain’s forehead creased. “Downworlders? You mean the supernatural folk—warlocks and lycanthropes and the like? There are levels and levels of membership, Mrs. Branwell. A mundane such as myself can become a member of the club. But the chairmen—those who run the enterprise—they are Downworlders. Warlocks, lycanthropes, and vampires. The Fair Folk shun us, though. Too many captains of industry—railroads, factories, and the like—for them. They hate such things.” He shook his head. “Lovely creatures, faeries, but I do fear progress will be the death of them.” Charlotte was uninterested in Mortmain’s thoughts on faeries; her mind was whirling. “Let me guess. You introduced Nathaniel Gray to the club, exactly as you had introduced his father.” Mortmain, who had seemed to be regaining a bit of his old confidence, wilted again. “Nathaniel had worked in my office in London for only a few days before he confronted me. I gathered he had learned of his father’s experience at the club, and it had given him a fierce desire to know more. I couldn’t refuse. I brought him to a meeting and thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t.” He shook his head. “Nathaniel took to the club like a duck to water. A few weeks after that first meeting, he was gone from his lodging house. He sent a letter for me, terminating his employment and saying he was going to work for another Pandemonium Club member, someone who apparently was willing to pay him enough to sustain his gambling habits.” He sighed. “Needless to say, he left no forwarding address.” “And that’s all?” Charlotte’s voice rose in disbelief. “You didn’t try to look for him? Find out where he had gone? Who his new employer was?”

“A man can take employment where he likes,” Mortmain said, blustering. “There was no reason to think—”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

“No. I told you—”

Charlotte cut him off. “You say he took to the Pandemonium Club like a duck to water, yet you haven’t seen him at a single meeting since he left your employment?”

A look of panic flickered in Mortmain’s eyes. “I . . . I have not been to a meeting since then myself. Work has kept me extremely busy.”

Charlotte looked hard at Axel Mortmain across his massive desk. She was a good judge of character, she had always thought. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t come across men like Mortmain before. Bluff, genial, confident men, men who believed that their success in business or some other worldly pursuit meant that they would have the same success should they choose to pursue the magical arts. She thought of the barrister again, the walls of his Knightsbridge house painted scarlet with the blood of his family. She thought what his terror might have been like, in those last moments of his life. She could see the beginnings of a similar fear in Axel Mortmain’s eyes.

“Mr. Mortmain,” she said, “I am not a fool. I know there is something you are concealing from me.” She took from her reticule one of the cogs that Will had retrieved from the Dark Sisters’ house, and set it on the desk. “This looks like something your factories might produce.” With a distracted look Mortmain glanced down at the small piece of metal on his desk. “Yes—yes, that’s one of my cogs. What of it?”

“Two warlocks calling themselves the Dark Sisters—both members of the Pandemonium Club—they’ve been murdering humans. Young girls. Barely more than children. And we found this in the cellar of their home.” “I’ve nothing to do with any murders!” Mortmain exclaimed. “I never—I thought—” He had begun to sweat.

“What did you think?” Charlotte’s voice was soft.

Mortmain picked up the cog in shaking fingers. “You can’t imagine . . .” His voice trailed off. “A few months ago one of the club’s board members—a Downworlder, and very old and powerful—came to me and asked me to sell him some mechanical equipment cheaply. Cogs and cams and the like. I didn’t ask what it was for—why would I? There seemed nothing remarkable about the request.” “By any chance,” Charlotte said, “was this the same man whose employment Nathaniel joined after he left yours?”

Mortmain dropped the cog. As it rolled across the table, he slammed his hand down on top of it, halting its progress. Though he said nothing, Charlotte could tell by the flicker of fear in his eyes that her guess was correct. A tingle of triumph ran through her nerves.

“His name,” she said. “Tell me his name.”

Mortmain was staring at the desk. “It would be worth my life to tell you.”

“What about Nathaniel Gray’s life?” said Charlotte.

Without meeting her eyes Mortmain shook his head. “You’ve no idea how powerful this man is. How dangerous.”

Charlotte straightened up. “Henry,” she said. “Henry, bring me the Summoner.”

Henry turned away from the wall and blinked at her in confusion. “But, darling—”

“Bring me the device!” Charlotte snapped. She loathed snapping at Henry; it was like kicking a puppy. But sometimes it had to be done.

The look of confusion didn’t leave Henry’s face as he joined his wife before Mortmain’s desk, and drew something from his jacket pocket. It was a dark metal oblong, with a series of peculiar-looking dials across the face of it. Charlotte took it and brandished it at Mortmain.

“This is a Summoner,” she told him. “It will allow me to summon the Clave. Inside of three minutes they will surround your house. Nephilim will drag you from this room, screaming and kicking. They will perform upon you the most exquisite tortures until you are forced to speak. Do you know what happens to a man when demon blood is dripped into his eyes?”

Mortmain gave her a ghastly look, but said nothing.

“Please don’t test me, Mr. Mortmain.” The device in Charlotte’s hand was slippery with sweat, but her voice was even. “I would hate to watch you die.”

“Good Lord, man, tell her!” Henry burst out. “Really, there’s no need for this, Mr. Mortmain. You’re only making it harder on yourself.”

Mortmain covered his face with his hands. He had always wanted to meet real Shadowhunters, Charlotte thought, looking at him. And now he had.

“De Quincey,” he said. “I don’t know his first name. Just de Quincey.”

By the Angel. Charlotte exhaled slowly, lowering the device to her side. “De Quincey? It can’t be . . .”

“You know who he is?” Mortmain’s voice was dull. “Well, I suppose you would.”

“He’s the head of a powerful London vampire clan,” Charlotte said almost reluctantly, “a very influential Downworlder, and an ally of the Clave. I can’t imagine that he would—” “He’s the head of the club,” said Mortmain. He looked exhausted, and a little gray. “Everyone else answers to him.”

“The head of the club. Has he a title?”

Mortmain looked faintly surprised to be asked. “The Magister.”

With a hand that shook only slightly, Charlotte slipped the device she had been holding into her sleeve. “Thank you, Mr. Mortmain. You’ve been most helpful.”

Mortmain looked at her with a sort of drained resentment. “De Quincey will find out that I’ve told you. He’ll have me killed.”

“The Clave will see that he does not. And we will keep your name out of this. He shall never know you spoke to us.”

“You would do that?” Mortmain said softly. “For what was it—a foolish mundane?”

“I have hopes for you, Mr. Mortmain. You seem to have realized your own folly. The Clave will be watching you—not only for your own protection, but to see that you stay away from the Pandemonium Club and organizations like it. For your own sake, I hope you will regard our meeting as a warning.” Mortmain nodded. Charlotte moved to the door, Henry behind her; she already had it open and was standing on the threshold when Mortmain spoke again. “They were only cogs,” he said softly. “Only gears. Harmless.” It was Henry, to Charlotte’s surprise, who replied, without turning, “Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them.” Mortmain was silent as the two Shadowhunters left the room. A few moments later they were out in the square, breathing fresh air—as fresh as

the air of London ever was. It might be thick with coal smoke and dust, Charlotte thought, but at least it was free of the fear and desperation that had hung like a haze in Mortmain’s study.

Drawing the device from her sleeve, Charlotte offered it to her husband. “I suppose I ought to ask you,” she said as he received it with a grave expression, “what is that object, Henry?” “Something I’ve been working on.” Henry looked at it fondly. “A device that can sense demon energies. I was going to call it a Sensor. I haven’t got it working yet, but when I do!” “I’m sure it will be splendid.”

Henry transferred his fond expression from the device to his wife, a rare occurrence. “What pure genius, Charlotte. Pretending you could summon the Clave on the spot, just to frighten that man! But how did you know I’d have a device you could put to your uses?” “Well, you did, darling,” said Charlotte. “Didn’t you?”

Henry looked sheepish. “You are as terrifying as you are wonderful, my dear.”

“Thank you, Henry.”

The ride back to the Institute was a silent one; Jessamine stared out the window of the cab at the snarling London traffic and refused to say a word. She held her parasol across her lap, seemingly indifferent to the fact that the blood on its edges was staining her taffeta jacket. When they reached the churchyard, she let Thomas help her down from the carriage before reaching to grip Tessa’s hand.

Surprised at the contact, Tessa could only stare. Jessamine’s fingers in hers were icy. “Come along,” Jessamine snapped impatiently, and pulled her companion toward the Institute doors, leaving Thomas staring after them.

Tessa let the other girl draw her up the stairs, into the Institute proper, and down a long corridor, this one almost identical to the one outside Tessa’s bedroom. Jessamine located a door, pushed Tessa through it, and followed, shutting the door behind them. “I want to show you something,” she said.

Tessa looked around. It was another of the large bedrooms of which the Institute seemed to have an infinite number. Jessamine’s, though, had been decorated somewhat to her taste. Above the wooden wainscoting the walls were papered in rose silk, and the coverlet on the bed was printed with flowers. There was a white vanity table too, its surface covered with an expensive-looking dressing table set: a ring stand, a bottle of flower water, and a silver-backed hairbrush and mirror.

“Your room is lovely,” Tessa said, more in hopes of calming Jessamine’s evident hysteria than because she meant it.

“It’s much too small,” Jessamine said. “But come—over here.” And flinging the bloodied parasol down onto her bed, she marched across the room to a corner by the window. Tessa followed with some puzzlement. There was nothing in the corner but a high table, and on the table was a dollhouse. Not the sort of two-room cardboard Dolly’s Playhouse that Tessa had had as a child. This was a beautiful miniature reproduction of a real London town house, and when Jessamine touched it, Tessa saw that the front of it swung open on tiny hinges.

Tessa caught her breath. There were beautiful tiny rooms perfectly decorated with miniature furniture, everything built to scale, from the little wooden chairs with needlepoint cushions to the cast-iron stove in the kitchen. There were small dolls, too, with china heads, and real little oil paintings on the walls.

“This was my house.” Jessamine knelt down, bringing herself to eye level with the dollhouse rooms, and gestured for Tessa to do the same.

Awkwardly, Tessa did, trying not to kneel on Jessamine’s skirts. “You mean this was the dollhouse you had when you were a little girl?”

“No.” Jessamine sounded irritated. “This was my house. My father had this made for me when I was six. It’s modeled exactly on the house we lived in, on Curzon Street. This was the wallpaper we had in the dining room”—she pointed—“and those are exactly the chairs in my father’s study. You see?” She looked at Tessa intently, so intently that Tessa felt sure she was supposed to be seeing something here, something beyond an extremely expensive toy that Jessamine should have long ago grown out of. She simply didn’t know what that could be. “It’s very pretty,” she said finally.

“See, here in the parlor is Mama,” said Jessamine, touching one of the tiny dolls with her finger. The doll wobbled in its plush armchair. “And here in the study, reading a book, is Papa.” Her hand glided over the little porcelain figure. “And upstairs in the nursery is Baby Jessie.” Inside the little crib there was indeed another doll, only its head visible above tiny coverlets. “Later they’ll have dinner here, in the dining room. And then Mama and Papa will sit in the drawing room by the fire. Some nights they go to the theater, or to a ball or a dinner.” Her voice had grown hushed, as if she were reciting a well-remembered litany. “And then Mama will kiss Papa good night, and they will go to their rooms, and they will sleep all night long. There will be no calls from the Clave that drive them out in the middle of the night to fight demons in the dark. There will be no one tracking blood into the house. No one will lose an arm or an eye to a werewolf, or have to choke down holy water because a vampire attacked them.” Dear God, Tessa thought.

As if Jessamine could read Tessa’s mind, her face twisted. “When our house burned, I had nowhere else to go. It wasn’t as if there were relations that could take me in; all of Mama and Papa’s relations were Shadowhunters and hadn’t spoken to them since they’d broken with the Clave. Henry is the one who made me that parasol. Did you know that? I thought it was quite pretty until he told me that the fabric is edged with electrum, as sharp as a razor. It was always meant to be a weapon.” “You saved us,” Tessa said. “In the park today. I can’t fight at all. If you hadn’t done what you did—”

“I shouldn’t have done it.” Jessamine stared into the doll-house with empty eyes. “I will not have this life, Tessa. I will not have it. I don’t care what I have to do. I won’t live like this. I’d rather die.” Alarmed, Tessa was about to tell her not to talk like that, when the door opened behind them. It was Sophie, in her white cap and neat dark dress. Her eyes, when they rested on Jessamine, were wary. She said, “Miss Tessa, Mr. Branwell very much wants to see you in his study. He says it’s important.” Tessa turned to Jessamine to ask her if she would be all right, but Jessamine’s face had closed like a door. The vulnerability and anger were gone; the cold mask was back. “Go along, then, if Henry wants you,” she said. “I’m quite tired of you already, and I think I’m getting a headache. Sophie, when you return, I’ll need you to massage my temples with eau de cologne.” Sophie’s eyes met Tessa’s across the room with something like amusement. “As you like, Miss Jessamine.”