“You are welcome to explain that to Henry. I have given up the attempt.”
“Charlotte . . .” Jem’s voice was soft. “I know what people say. I know you’ve heard the cruel gossip. But Henry does love you. When he thought you were hurt, at the tea warehouse, he went almost mad. He threw himself against that machine—”
“James.” Charlotte clumsily patted Jem’s shoulder. “I do appreciate your attempt to console me, but falsehoods never do anyone any good in the end. I long ago accepted that Henry loves his inventions first, and me second—if at all.”
“Charlotte,” Jem said wearily, but before he could say another word, Sophie had moved to stand beside them, dust cloth in hand.
“Mrs. Branwell,” she said in a low voice. “If I might speak to you for just a moment.”
Charlotte looked surprised. “Sophie . . .”
“Please, ma’am.”
Charlotte placed a hand on Jem’s shoulder, said something softly into his ear, and then nodded toward Sophie. “Very well. Come with me to the drawing room.”
As Charlotte left the room with Sophie, Tessa realized to her surprise that Sophie was actually taller than her mistress. Charlotte’s presence was such that one often forgot how very small she was. And Sophie was as tall as Tessa herself, as slender as a willow. Tessa saw her again in her mind with Gideon Lightwood, pressed up against the corridor wall, and Tessa worried.
As the door closed behind the two women, Jem leaned forward, his arms crossed over the foot of Tessa’s brass bed. He was looking at her, smiling a little, though crookedly, his hands hanging loose—dried blood across the knuckles, and under the nails.
“Tessa, my Tessa,” he said in his soft voice, as lulling as his violin. “I know you cannot hear me. Brother Enoch says you’re not hurt badly. I can’t say I find that enough to comfort me. It’s rather like when Will assures me that we’re only a little bit lost somewhere. I know it means we won’t be seeing a familiar street again for hours.”
He dropped his voice, so low that Tessa wasn’t sure if what he said next was real or part of the dream darkness rising to claim her, though she fought against it.
“I’ve never minded it,” he went on. “Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not be truly lost if one knew one’s own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.” He closed his eyes as if he were bone-weary, and she saw how thin his eyelids were, like parchment paper, and how tired he looked. “Wo ai ni, Tessa, ” he whispered. “Wo bu xiang shi qu ni.”
She knew, without knowing how she knew, what the words meant.
I love you.
And I don’t want to lose you.
I don’t want to lose you, either, she wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Lassitude rose up instead, in a dark wave, and covered her in silence.
Darkness.
It was dark in the cell, and Tessa was conscious first of a feeling of great loneliness and terror. Jessamine lay in the narrow bed, her fair hair hanging in lank ropes over her shoulders. Tessa both hovered over her and felt somehow as if she were touching her mind. She could feel a great aching sense of loss. Somehow Jessamine knew that Nate was dead. Before, when Tessa had tried to touch the other girl’s mind, she had met resistance, but now she felt only a growing sadness, like the stain of a drop of black ink spreading through water.
Jessie’s brown eyes were open, staring up into the darkness. I have nothing. The words were as clear as a bell in Tessa’s mind. I chose Nate over the Shadowhunters, and now he is dead, and Mortmain will want me dead as well, and Charlotte despises me. I have gambled and lost everything.
As Tessa watched, Jessamine reached up and drew a small cord from her neck over her head. At the end of the cord was a gold ring with a glittering white stone—a diamond. Clasping it between her fingers, she began to use the diamond to scratch letters into the stone wall.
JG.
Jessamine Gray.
There might have been more to the message, but Tessa would never find out; as Jessamine pressed down on the gemstone, it shattered, and her hand slammed against the wall, scraping her knuckles.
Tessa did not need to touch Jessamine’s mind to know what she was thinking. Even the diamond had not been real. With a low cry Jessamine rolled over and buried her face in the rough blankets of the bed.
When Tessa woke again, it was dark. Faint starlight streamed through the high infirmary windows, and there was a witch-light lamp lit on the table near her bed. Beside it was a cup of tisane, steam rising from it, and a small plate of biscuits. She rose to a sitting position, about to reach for the cup—and froze.
Will was seated on the bed beside hers, wearing a loose shirt and trousers and a black dressing gown. His skin was pale in the starlight, but even the light’s dimness couldn’t wash out the blue of his eyes. “Will,” she said, startled, “what are you doing awake?” Had he been watching her sleep, she wondered? But what an odd and un-Will-like thing to do.
“I brought you a tisane,” he said, a little stiffly. “But you sounded as if you were having a nightmare.”
“Did I? I don’t even remember what I dreamed.” She drew the covers up over herself, though her modest nightgown more than covered her. “I thought I had been escaping into sleep—that real life was the nightmare and that sleep was where I could find peace.”
Will picked up the mug and moved to sit beside her on the bed. “Here. Drink this.”
She took the cup from him obediently. The tisane had a bitter but appealing taste, like the zest of a lemon. “What will it do?” she asked.
“Calm you,” said Will.
She looked at him, the taste of lemon in her mouth. There seemed a haze across her vision; seen through it, Will looked like something out of a dream. “How are your injuries? Are you in pain?”
He shook his head. “Once all the metal was out, they were able to use an iratze on me,” he said. “The wounds are not completely healed, but they are healing. By tomorrow they will be scars.”
“I am jealous.” She took another sip of the tisane. It was beginning to make her feel light-headed. She touched the bandage across her forehead. “I believe it will be a good while before this comes off.”
“In the meantime you can enjoy looking like a pirate.”
She laughed, but it was shaky. Will was close enough to her that she could feel the heat emanating from his body. He was furnace-hot. “Do you have a fever?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“The iratze raises our body temperatures. It’s part of the healing process.”
“Oh,” she said. Having him so close to her was sending little shivers through her nerves, but she felt too light-headed to draw away.
“I am sorry about your brother,” he said softly, his breath stirring her hair.
“You couldn’t be.” She spoke bitterly. “I know you think he deserved what he got. He probably did.”
“My sister died. She died, and there was nothing I could do about it,” he said, and there was raw grief in his voice. “I am sorry about your brother.”
She looked up at him. His eyes, wide and blue, that perfect face, the bow-shape of his mouth, turned down at the corners in concern. Concern for her. Her skin felt hot and tight, her head light and airy, as if she were floating. “Will,” she whispered. “Will, I feel very odd.”