“And you think we are?” Tessa asked, shock making her voice small. “At one, that is?”
Jem knelt down at her feet, so that he was gazing up into her face. She saw him as he had been on Blackfriars Bridge, a lovely silver shadow against the darkness. “I cannot explain love,” he said. “I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you. That you were the center of everything I did and felt and thought.”
Overwhelmed, Tessa shook her head slowly. “Jem, I never imagined—”
“There is a force and strength in love,” he said. “That is what that inscription means. It is in the Shadowhunter wedding ceremony, too. For love is as strong as death. Have you not seen how much better I have been these past weeks, Tessa? I have been ill less, coughing less. I feel stronger, I need less of the drug—because of you. Because my love for you sustains me.”
Tessa stared. Was such a thing even possible, outside of fairy tales? His thin face glowed with light; it was clear he believed it, absolutely. And he had been better.
“You speak of sacrifice, but it is not my sacrifice I offer. It is yours I ask of you,” he went on. “I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain. But I love you enough to hope that you will not care that I am being selfish in trying to make the rest of my life—whatever its length—happy, by spending it with you. I want to be married to you, Tessa. I want it more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life.” He looked up at her through the veil of silvery hair that fell over his eyes. “That is,” he said shyly, “if you love me, too.”
Tessa looked down at Jem, kneeling before her with the pendant in his hands, and understood at last what people meant when they said someone’s heart was in their eyes, for Jem’s eyes, his luminous, expressive eyes that she had always found beautiful, were full of love and hope.
And why should he not hope? She had given him every reason to believe she loved him. Her friendship, her trust, her confidence, her gratitude, even her passion. And if there was some small locked away part of herself that had not quite given up Will, surely she owed it to herself as much as to Jem to do whatever she could to destroy it.
Very slowly she reached down and took the pendant from Jem. It slipped around her neck on a gold chain, as cool as water, and rested in the hollow of her throat above the spot where the clockwork angel lay. As she lowered her hands from its clasp, she saw the hope in his eyes light to an almost unbearable blaze of disbelieving happiness. She felt as if someone had reached inside her chest and unlocked a box that held her heart, spilling tenderness like new blood through her veins. Never had she felt such an overwhelming urge to fiercely protect another person, to wrap her arms around someone else and curl up tightly with them, alone and away from the rest of the world.
“Then, yes,” she said. “Yes, I will marry you, James Carstairs. Yes.”
“Oh, thank God,” he said, exhaling. “Thank God.” And he buried his face in her lap, wrapping his arms around her waist. She bent over him, stroking his shoulders, his back, the silk of his hair. His heart pounded against her knees. Some small inner part of her was reeling with amazement. She had never imagined she had the power to make someone else so happy. And not a magical power either—a purely human one.
A knock came at the door; they sprang apart. Tessa hastily rose to her feet and made her way to the door, pausing to smooth down her hair—and, she hoped, calm her expression—before opening it. This time it really was Sophie. Though, her mutinous expression showed she had not come of her own accord. “Charlotte is summoning you to the drawing room, miss,” she said. “Master Will has returned, and she wishes to have a meeting.” She glanced past Tessa, and her expression soured further. “You, too, Master Jem.”
“Sophie—,” Tessa began, but Sophie had already turned and was hurrying away, her white cap bobbing. Tessa tightened her grip on the doorknob, looking after her. Sophie had said that she did not mind Jem’s feelings for Tessa, and Tessa knew now that Gideon was the reason why. Still . . .
She felt Jem come up behind her and slip his hands into hers. His fingers were slender; she closed her own around them, and let out her held breath. Was this what it meant to love someone? That any burden was a burden shared, that they could give you comfort with a word or a touch? She leaned her head back against his shoulder, and he kissed her temple. “We’ll tell Charlotte first, when there’s a chance,” he said, “and then the others. Once the fate of the Institute is decided . . .”
“You sound as if you don’t mind what happens to it,” said Tessa. “Won’t you miss it here? This place has been your home.”
His fingers stroked her wrist lightly, making her shiver. “You are home for me now.”
19
IF TREASON DOTH PROSPER
Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
—Sir John Harrington
Sophie was tending a blazing fire in the drawing room grate, and the room was warm, almost stuffy. Charlotte sat behind her desk, Henry in a chair beside her. Will was sprawled in one of the flowered armchairs beside the fire, a silver tea service at his elbow and a cup in his hand. When Tessa walked in, he sat upright so abruptly that some of the tea spilled on his sleeve; he set the cup down without taking his eyes off her.
He looked exhausted, as if he had been walking all night. He still wore his overcoat, of dark blue wool with a red silk lining, and the legs of his black trousers were splattered with mud. His hair was damp and tangled, his face pale, his jaw dark with the shadow of stubble. But the moment he saw Tessa, his eyes glowed like lanterns at the touch of the lamplighter’s match. His whole face changed, and he gazed upon her with such an inexplicable delight that Tessa, astonished, stopped in her tracks, causing Jem to bump into her. For that moment, she could not look away from Will; it was as if he held her gaze to him, and she remembered again the dream she had had the night before, that she was being comforted by him in the infirmary. Could he read the memory of it on her face? Was that why he was staring?
Jem peered around her shoulder. “Hallo, Will. Sure it was a good idea to spend all night out in the rain when you’re still healing?”
Will tore his eyes away from Tessa. “I am quite sure,” he said firmly. “I had to walk. To clear my head.”
“And is your head clear now?”
“Like crystal,” Will said, returning his gaze to Tessa, and the same thing happened again. Their gazes seemed to lock together, and she had to tear her eyes away and move across the room to sit on the sofa near the desk, where Will was not in her direct line of sight. Jem came and sat down beside her, but did not reach for her hand. She wondered what would happen if they announced what had just happened now, casually: The two of us are going to be married.
But Jem had been correct; it was not the right time for that. Charlotte looked as if, like Will, she had been awake all night; her skin was a sickly yellow color, and there were dark auburn bruises beneath her eyes. Henry sat beside her at the desk, his hand protectively over hers, watching her with a worried expression.