“Yes, you do.” It was Jem, coming into the cell. He was flushed and a little out of breath, as if he had been hurrying. He shot Tessa a conspiratorial glance and closed the door behind him. “You know exactly why you’re here, Jessie—”
“Because I fell in love!” Jessamine snapped. “You ought to know what that’s like. I see how you look at Tessa.” She shot Tessa a poisonous look as Tessa’s cheeks flamed. “At least Nate is human.”
Jem didn’t lose his composure. “I haven’t betrayed the Institute for Tessa,” he said. “I haven’t lied to and endangered those who have cared for me since I was orphaned.”
“If you wouldn’t,” said Jessamine, “you don’t really love her.”
“If she asked me to,” said Jem, “I would know she did not really love me.”
Jessamine sucked in a breath and turned away from him, as if he had slapped her face. “You,” she said in a muffled voice. “I always thought you were the nicest one. But you’re horrible. You’re all horrible. Charlotte tortured me with that Mortal Sword until I told everything. What more could you possibly want from me? You’ve already forced me to betray the man I love.”
At the very corner of Tessa’s vision, she saw Jem roll his eyes. There was a certain theatricality to Jessamine’s despair, as there was to everything she did, but under it—under the role of wronged woman Jessamine had cast herself in—Tessa felt she was genuinely afraid.
“I know you love Nate,” Tessa said. “And I know that I will not be able to convince you that he does not return your sentiment.”
“You’re jealous—”
“Jessamine, Nate cannot love you. There is something wrong with him—some piece missing from his heart. God knows my aunt and I tried to ignore it, to tell each other it was boyish high-jinks and thoughtlessness. But he murdered our aunt—did he tell you that?—murdered the woman who brought him up, and laughed to me about it later. He has no empathy, no capacity for gratitude. If you shield him now, it will win you nothing in his eyes.”
“Nor is it likely you will ever see him again,” said Jem. “If you do not help us, the Clave will never let you go. It will be you and the dead down here for eternity, if you are not punished with a curse.”
“Nate said you would try to frighten me,” said Jessamine in a sliver of a voice.
“Nate also said the Clave and Charlotte would do nothing to you because they were weak,” said Tessa. “That has not proven true. He said to you only what he had to say, to get you to do what he wanted you to. He is my brother, and I tell you, he is a cheat and a liar.”
“We need you to write a letter to him,” said Jem. “Telling him you have knowledge of a secret Shadowhunter plot against Mortmain, and to meet you tonight—”
Jessamine shook her head, plucking at the rough blanket. “I will not betray him.”
“Jessie.” Jem’s voice was soft; Tessa did not know how Jessamine could hold out against him. “Please. We are only asking you to save yourself. Send this message; tell us your usual meeting place. That is all we ask.”
Jessamine shook her head. “Mortmain,” she said. “Mortmain will yet win out over you. Then the Silent Brothers will be defeated and Nate will come to claim me.”
“Very well,” said Tessa. “Imagine that does happen. You say Nate loves you. Then, he would forgive you anything, wouldn’t he? Because when a man loves a woman, he understands that she is weak. That she cannot hold out against, for instance, torture, in the manner in which he could.”
Jessamine made a whimpering sound.
“He understands that she is frail and delicate and easily led,” Tessa went on, and gently touched Jessamine’s arm. “Jessie, you see your choice. If you do not help us, the Clave will know it, and they will not be lenient with you. If you do help us, Nate will understand. If he loves you . . . he has no choice. For love means forgiveness.”
“I . . .” Jessamine looked from one of them to the other, like a frightened rabbit. “Would you forgive Tessa, if it were her?”
“I would forgive Tessa anything,” Jem said gravely.
Tessa could not see his expression, she was facing Jessamine, but she felt her heart skip a beat. She could not look at Jem, too afraid her expression would betray her feelings.
“Jessie, please,” she said instead.
Jessamine was silent for a long time. When she spoke, finally, her voice was as thin as a thread. “You will be meeting him, I suppose, disguised as me.”
Tessa nodded.
“You must wear boys’ clothes,” she said. “When I meet him at night, I am always dressed as a boy. It is safer for me to traverse the streets alone like that. He will expect it.” She looked up, pushing her matted hair out of her face. “Have you a pen and paper?” she added. “I will write the note.”
She took the proffered items from Jem and began to scribble. “I ought to get something in return for this,” she said. “If they will not let me out—”
“They will not,” said Jem, “until it is determined that your information is good.”
“Then they ought to at least give me better food. It’s dreadful here. Just gruel and hard bread.” Having finished scribbling the note, she handed it to Tessa. “The boys’ clothes I wear are behind the doll’s house in my room. Take care moving it,” she added, and for a moment again she was Jessamine, her brown eyes haughty. “And if you must borrow some of my clothes, do. You’ve been wearing the same four dresses I bought you in June over and over. That yellow one is practically ancient. And if you don’t want anyone to know you’ve been kissing in carriages, you should refrain from wearing a hat with easily crushed flowers on it. People aren’t blind, you know.”
“So it seems,” said Jem with great gravity, and when Tessa looked over at him, he smiled, just at her.
15
THOUSANDS MORE
There is something horrible about a flower;
This, broken in my hand, is one of those
He threw it in just now; it will not live another hour;
There are thousands more; you do not miss a rose.
—Charlotte Mew, “In Nunhead Cemetery”
The rest of the day at the Institute passed in a mood of great tension, as the Shadowhunters prepared for their confrontation with Nate that night. There were no formal meals again, only a great deal of rushing about, as weapons were readied and polished, gear was prepared, and maps consulted while Bridget, warbling mournful ballads, carried trays of sandwiches and tea up and down the halls.
If it hadn’t been for Sophie’s invitation to “come and have a pickle” Tessa probably wouldn’t have eaten anything all day; as it was, her knotted throat would allow only a few bites of sandwich to slide down before she felt as if she were choking.
I’m going to see Nate tonight, she thought, staring at herself in the pier glass as Sophie knelt at her feet, lacing up her boots—boys’ boots from Jessamine’s hidden trove of male clothing.
And then I am going to betray him.
She thought of the way Nate had lain in her lap in the carriage on the way from de Quincey’s, and the way he had shrieked her name and held on to her when Brother Enoch had appeared. She wondered how much of that had been show. Probably at least part of him had been truly terrified—abandoned by Mortmain, hated by de Quincey, in the hands of Shadowhunters he had no reason to trust.