“Two reasons,” said Will. “First, she would be duty-bound to tell the Clave, and if Benedict Lightwood is hosting this ball, I would make a fair guess that some of his followers will be there. But they might not all be. If the Clave is warned, they may be able to get word to him before anyone can arrive to observe what is truly going on. Second, the ball began an hour ago. We do not know when Nate will arrive, seeking Jessamine, and if he does not see her, he may well depart. He is the best connection to Mortmain we have. We do not have any time to lose or waste, and waking Charlotte to tell her of this will do both.”
“Jem, then?”
Something flickered in Will’s eyes. “No. Not tonight. Jem is not well enough, but he will say he is. After last night I owe it to him to leave him out of this.”
Tessa looked at him hard. “Then what do you propose to do?”
Will’s mouth quirked up at both corners. “Miss Gray,” he said, “would you be amenable to attending a ball with me?”
“Do you remember the last party we went to?” Tessa inquired.
Will’s smile remained. He had that look of heightened intensity that he wore when he was strategizing a plan. “Don’t tell me that you weren’t thinking the same thing I was, Tessa.”
Tessa sighed. “Yes,” she said. “I shall Change into Jessamine and go in her place. It is the only plan that makes sense.” She turned to Sophie. “Do you know the dress Nate spoke of? A white dress of Jessamine’s?”
Sophie nodded.
“Get it brushed and ready to be worn,” said Tessa. “You will have to do my hair as well, Sophie. Are you calm enough?”
“Yes, miss.” Sophie got to her feet and scurried across the room to the wardrobe, which she threw open. Will was still looking at Tessa; his smile widened.
Tessa lowered her voice. “Will, has it crossed your mind that Mortmain might be there?”
The smile vanished from Will’s face. “You will go nowhere near him if he is.”
“You cannot tell me what to do.”
Will frowned. He was not reacting at all in the way Tessa felt he should. When Capitola in The Hidden Hand dressed up as a boy and took on the marauding Black Donald to prove her bravery, no one snapped at her.
“Your power is impressive, Tessa, but you are in no position to capture a powerful adult magic user like Mortmain. You will leave that to me,” he said.
She scowled at him. “And how do you plan not to be recognized at this ball? Benedict knows your face, as do—”
Will seized the invitation out of her hand and waved it at her. “It’s a masked ball.”
“And I suppose you just happen to have a mask.”
“As a matter of fact I do,” said Will. “Our last Christmas party was themed along the lines of the Venetian Carnevale.” He smirked. “Tell her, Sophie.”
Sophie, who was busy with what looked like a concoction of spiderwebs and moonbeams on the brushing tray, sighed. “It’s true, miss. And you let him deal with Mortmain, you hear? It’s too dangerous otherwise. And you’ll be all the way in Chiswick!”
Will looked at Tessa with triumph. “If even Sophie agrees with me, you can’t very well say no.”
“I could,” Tessa said mutinously, “but I won’t. Very well. But you must stay out of Nate’s way while I speak with him. He isn’t an idiot; if he sees us together, he’s quite capable of putting two and two together. I get no sense from his note that he expects Jessamine to be accompanied.”
“I get no sense from his note at all,” said Will, bounding to his feet, “except that he can quote Tennyson’s lesser poetry. Sophie, how quickly can you have Tessa ready?”
“Half an hour,” said Sophie, not looking up from the dress.
“Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour, then,” said Will. “I’ll wake Cyril. And be prepared to swoon at my finery.”
The night was a cool one, and Tessa shivered as she passed through the doors of the Institute and stood at the head of the steps outside. This was where she had sat, she thought, that night she and Jem had walked to Blackfriars Bridge together, the night the clockwork creatures had attacked them. It was a clearer night tonight, despite the day of rain; the moon chased stray wisps of cloud across an otherwise unmarked black sky.
The carriage was there, at the foot of the steps, Will waiting in front of it. He glanced up as the doors of the Institute closed behind her. For a moment they simply stood and looked at each other. Tessa knew what he was seeing—she had seen it herself, in the mirror in Jessamine’s room. She was Jessamine down to the last inch, clothed in a delicate ivory silk dress. It was low-cut, revealing a great deal of Jessamine’s white bosom, with a silk ribbon at the collar to emphasize the shape of her throat. The sleeves were short, leaving her arms vulnerable to the night air. Even if the neckline hadn’t been so low, Tessa would have felt naked without her angel, but she couldn’t wear it: Nate would have been sure to notice it. The skirt, with a waterfall train, belled out behind her from a laced, slender waist; her hair was dressed high, with a length of pearls held in place by pearl pins, and she wore a gold domino half mask that set off Jessamine’s pale, fair hair to perfection. I look so delicate, she had thought with detachment, staring at the mirror’s silvered surface as Sophie had fussed about her. Like a faerie princess. It was easy to think such thoughts when the reflection was not truly your own.
But Will—Will. He had said she should be ready to swoon at his finery, and she had rolled her eyes, but in his black and white evening dress, he looked more beautiful than she had imagined. The stark and simple colors brought out the angular perfection of his features. His dark hair tumbled over a black half mask that emphasized the blueness of the eyes behind it. She felt her heart contract, and hated herself instantly for it. She looked away from him, at Cyril, in the driver’s seat of the carriage. His eyes narrowed in confusion as he saw her; he looked from her to Will, and back again, and shrugged. Tessa wondered what on earth Will had told him they were doing to explain the fact that he was taking Jessamine to Chiswick in the middle of the night. It must have been quite a story.
“Ah,” was all Will said as she descended the steps and drew her wrap around herself. She hoped he would put down to the cold the involuntary shiver that went over her as he took her hand. “I see now why your brother quoted that execrable poetry. You are meant to be Maud, aren’t you? ‘Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls’?”
“You know,” Tessa said as he helped her up into the carriage, “I don’t care for that poem either.”
He swung himself up after her and slammed the carriage door shut. “Jessamine adores it.”
The carriage began to rumble across the cobblestones, and through the open doors of the gate. Tessa found that her heart was beating very fast. Fear of being caught by Charlotte and Henry, she told herself. Nothing to do with being alone with Will in the carriage. “I am not Jessamine.”
He looked at her levelly. There was something in his eyes, a sort of quizzical admiration; she wondered if it was simply admiration of Jessamine’s looks. “No,” he said. “No, even though you are the perfect picture of Jessamine, I can see Tessa through it somehow—as if, if I were to scrape away a layer of paint, there would be my Tessa underneath.”