“But it had nothing to do with Jem at all—”
“You didn’t think about him,” said Tessa. “But perhaps you should have. Don’t you understand he thinks you made a mockery out of what’s killing him? And you’re supposed to be his brother.”
Will had whitened. “He can’t think that.”
“He does,” she said. “He understands you don’t care what other people think about you. But I believe he always expected you’d care what he thought. What he felt.”
Will leaned forward. The firelight made odd patterns against his skin, darkening the bruise on his cheek to black. “I do care what other people think,” he said with a surprising intensity, staring into the flames. “It’s all I think about—what others think, what they feel about me, and I about them; it drives me mad. I wanted escape—”
“You can’t mean that. Will Herondale, minding what others think of him?” Tessa tried to make her voice as light as possible. The look on his face startled her. It was not closed but open, as if he were caught half-entangled in a thought he desperately wanted to share, but could not bear to. This is the boy who took my private letters and hid them in his room, she thought, but she could work up no anger about it. She had thought she would be furious when she saw him again, but she was not, only puzzled and wondering. Surely it showed a curiosity about other people that was quite un-Will-like, to want to read them in the first place?
There was something raw in his face, his voice. “Tess,” he said. “That is all I think about. I never look at you without thinking about what you feel about me and fearing—”
He broke off as the drawing room door opened and Charlotte came in, followed by a tall man whose bright blond hair shone like a sunflower in the dim light. Will turned away quickly, his face working. Tessa stared at him. What had he been going to say?
“Oh!” Charlotte was clearly startled to see them both. “Tessa, Will—I didn’t realize you were in here.”
Will’s hands were in fists at his sides, his face in shadow, but his voice was level when he replied: “We saw the fire going. It’s as chill as ice in the rest of the house.”
Tessa stood up. “We’ll just be on our way—”
“Will Herondale, excellent to see you looking well. And Tessa Gray!” The blond man broke away from Charlotte and came toward Tessa, beaming as if he knew her. “The shape-changer, correct? Enchanted to meet you. What a curiosity.”
Charlotte sighed. “Mr. Woolsey Scott, this is Miss Tessa Gray. Tessa, this is Mr. Woolsey Scott, head of the London werewolf pack, and an old friend of the Clave.”
“Very well, then,” said Gideon as the door shut behind Tessa and Will. He turned toward Sophie, who was suddenly acutely aware of the largeness of the room, and how small she felt inside it. “Shall we continue with the training?”
He held out a knife to her, shining like a silver wand in the room’s dimness. His green eyes were steady. Everything about Gideon was steady—his gaze, his voice, the way he held himself. She remembered what it felt like to have those steady arms around her, and shivered involuntarily. She had never been alone with him before, and it frightened her. “I don’t think my heart would be in it, Mr. Lightwood,” she said. “I appreciate the offer all the same, but . . .”
He lowered his arm slowly. “You think that I don’t take training you seriously?”
“I think you’re being very generous. But I ought to face facts, oughtn’t I? This training was never about me or Tessa. It was about your father and the Institute. And now that I’ve slapped your brother—” She felt her throat tighten. “Mrs. Branwell would be so disappointed in me if she knew.”
“Nonsense. He deserved it. And the little matter of the blood feud between our families does come to mind.” Gideon spun the silver knife carelessly about his finger and thrust it through his belt. “Charlotte would probably give you a rise in salary if she knew.”
Sophie shook her head. They were only a few steps from a bench; she sank down onto it, feeling exhausted. “You don’t know Charlotte. She’d feel honor-bound to discipline me.”
Gideon settled himself on the bench—not beside her, but against the far side of it, as distant from her as he could get. Sophie couldn’t decide whether she was pleased about that or not. “Miss Collins,” he said. “There is something you ought to know.”
She laced her fingers together. “What is that?”
He leaned forward a little, his broad shoulders hunched. She could see the flecks of gray in his green eyes. “When my father called me back from Madrid,” he said, “I did not want to come. I had never been happy in London. Our house has been a miserable place since my mother died.”
Sophie just stared at him. She could think of no words. He was a Shadowhunter and a gentleman, and yet he seemed to be unburdening his soul to her. Even Jem, for all his gentle kindness, had never done that.
“When I heard about these lessons, I thought they would be a dreadful waste of my time. I pictured two very silly girls uninterested in any sort of instruction. But that describes neither Miss Gray nor yourself. I should tell you, I used to train younger Shadowhunters in Madrid. And there were quite a few of them who didn’t have the same native ability that you do. You’re a talented student, and it’s a pleasure to teach you.”
Sophie felt herself flush scarlet. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I was pleasantly surprised the first time I came here, and again so the next time and the next. I found that I was looking forward to it. In fact, it would be fair to say that since my return home, I have hated everything in London except these hours here, with you.”
“But you said ‘ay Dios mio’ every time I dropped my dagger—”
He grinned. It lit up his face, changed it. Sophie stared at him. He was not beautiful like Jem was, but he was very handsome, especially when he smiled. The smile seemed to reach out and touch her heart, speeding its pace. He is a Shadowhunter, she thought. And a gentleman. This is not the way to think about him. Stop it. But she could not stop, any more than she had been able to put Jem out of her mind. Though, where with Jem she had felt safe, with Gideon she felt an excitement like lightning that coursed up and down her veins, shocking her. And yet she did not want to let it go.
“I speak Spanish when I’m in a good mood,” he said. “You might as well know that about me.”
“So it wasn’t that you were so weary of my ineptitude that you were wishing to hurl yourself off the roof?”
“Just the opposite.” He leaned closer to her. His eyes were the green-gray of a stormy sea. “Sophie? Might I ask you something?”
She knew she should correct him, ask him to call her Miss Collins, but she didn’t. “I—yes?”
“Whatever happens with the lessons—might I see you again?”
Will had risen to his feet, but Woolsey Scott was still examining Tessa, his hand under his chin, studying her as if she were something under glass in a natural history exhibit. He was not at all what she would have thought the leader of a pack of werewolves would look like. He was probably in his early twenties, tall but slender to the point of slightness, with blond hair nearly to his shoulders, dressed in a velvet jacket, knee breeches, and a trailing scarf with a paisley print. A tinted monocle obscured one pale green eye. He looked like drawings she’d seen in Punch of those who called themselves “aesthetes.”