Tessa would have expected a sarcastic comment from Will at this juncture, but he was staring off toward the gates. Gideon looked embarrassed, Jem as if he were pleased.
Charlotte pulled away from Henry, blushing furiously and straightening her hat, but obviously delighted. “Are you really, Henry?”
“Absolutely! Not only is my wife beautiful, she is brilliant, and that brilliance should be recognized!”
“This,” said Will, still looking off toward the gates, “is when Jessamine would have told you to stop because you were making her sick.”
The smile vanished from Charlotte’s face. “Poor Jessie . . .”
But Henry’s expression was uncharacteristically hard. “She shouldn’t have done what she did, Lottie. It’s not your fault. We can only hope the Council deals with her leniently.” He cleared his throat. “And let’s have no more talk about Jessamine today, shall we? Tonight is for celebration. The Institute is still ours.”
Charlotte beamed at him, with so much love in her eyes that Tessa had to look away, toward the Institute. She blinked. High up in the stone wall, her eyes caught a flicker of movement. A curtain twitched away from the corner of a window, and she saw a pale face peering down. Sophie, looking for Gideon? She couldn’t be sure—the face was gone as soon as it had appeared.
Tessa dressed with special care that night, in one of the new gowns Charlotte had provided her: blue satin with a heart-shaped basque and a deeply cut, rounded neckline over which was pinned a chemisette of Mechlin lace. The sleeves were short and ruched, showing her long white arms, and she wore her hair in curls, pinned up and back, a coiffure interlaced with dark blue pansies. It was not until after Sophie had carefully fixed them in her hair that Tessa realized they were the color of Will’s eyes, and wanted suddenly to pull them out, but of course she did nothing of the sort, only thanked Sophie for her efforts and complimented her sincerely on how prettily her hair had turned out.
Sophie left before she did, to go and help Bridget in the kitchen. Tessa sat down automatically in front of the mirror to bite her lips and pinch her cheeks. She needed the color, she thought. She was unusually pale. The jade pendant was shoved down under the Mechlin lace, where it could not be seen; Sophie had looked at it as Tessa had dressed, but had not commented. She reached for the clockwork angel pendant and fastened it, too, around her throat. It sat below the other pendant, just under her collarbones, and steadied her with its ticking. There was no reason she could not wear both, was there?
When she emerged into the corridor, Jem was waiting for her. His eyes lit up when he saw her, and after a glance up and down the hall, he drew her toward him and kissed her on the mouth.
She willed herself to melt into the kiss, to dissolve against him as she had done before. His mouth was soft on hers and tasted sweet, and his hand when it cupped her neck was strong and gentle. She moved closer to him, wanting to feel the beat of his heart.
He drew back, breathless. “I didn’t mean to do that . . .”
She smiled. “I think you did, James.”
“Not before I saw you,” he said. “I meant only to ask if I could escort you to dinner. But you look so beautiful.” He touched her hair. “I’m afraid too much passion could start you shedding petals like a tree in autumn, though.”
“Well, you can,” she said. “Escort me to dinner, that is.”
“Thank you.” He ran his fingertips lightly across her cheekbones. “I thought I would wake up this morning and it would have been a dream, you saying yes to me. But it wasn’t. Was it?” His eyes searched her face.
She shook her head. She could taste tears in the back of her throat and was glad for the kid gloves that hid the burn on her left hand.
“I’m sorry you’re getting such a bad bargain in me, Tessa,” he said. “In years, I mean. Shackling yourself to a dying man when you’re only sixteen . . .”
“You’re only seventeen. Plenty of time to find a cure,” she whispered. “And we will. Find one. I will be with you. Forever.”
“Now, that I believe,” he said. “When two souls are as one, they stay together on the Wheel. I was born into this world to love you, and I will love you in the next life, and the one after that.”
She thought of Magnus. We are chained to this life by a chain of gold, and we dare not sever it for fear of what lies beyond the drop.
She knew what he meant now. Immortality was a gift, but not one without its consequences. For if I am immortal, she thought, then I have only this, this one life. I will not turn and change as you do, James. I will not see you in Heaven, or on the banks of the great river, or in whatever life lies beyond this one.
But she did not say it. It would hurt him, and if there was anything she knew to be true, it was that a fierce unreasoning desire lived in her to protect him from hurt, to stand between him and disappointment, between him and pain, between him and death, and fight them all back as Boadicea had fought back the advancing Romans. She reached up and touched his cheek instead, and he put his face against her hair, her hair full of flowers the color of Will’s eyes, and they stood like that, clasped together, until the dinner bell rang a second time.
Bridget, who could be heard singing mournfully in the kitchen, had outdone herself in the dining room, placing candles in silver holders everywhere so the whole place glimmered with light. Cut roses and orchids floated in silver bowls on the white linen tablecloth. Henry and Charlotte presided at the head of the table. Gideon, in evening dress, sat with his eyes fixed on Sophie as she came in and out of the room, though she seemed to be studiously avoiding his glances. And beside him sat Will.
I love Jem. I am marrying Jem. Tessa had repeated it to herself all the way down the hall, but it made little difference; her heart flipped sickeningly in her chest when she saw Will. She had not seen him in evening dress since the night of the ball, and, despite seeming pale and ill, he still looked ridiculously handsome in it.
“Is your cook always singing?” Gideon was asking in an awed tone as Jem and Tessa came in. Henry looked up and, on seeing them, smiled all over his friendly, freckled face.
“We were beginning to wonder where you two were—,” he began.
“Tessa and I have news,” Jem burst out. His hand found Tessa’s, and held it; she stood frozen as three curious faces turned toward them—four, if you counted Sophie, who had just walked into the room. Will sat where he was, gazing at the silver bowl in front of him; a white rose was floating in it, and he seemed prepared to stare at it until it went under. In the kitchen Bridget was still singing one of her awful sad songs; the lyrics drifted in through the door:
“’Twas on an evening fair I went to take the air,
I heard a maid making her moan;
Said, ‘Saw ye my father? Or saw ye my mother?
Or saw ye my brother John?
Or saw ye the lad that I love best,
And his name it is Sweet William?’”
I may murder her, Tessa thought. Let her make a song about that.
“Well, you have to tell us now,” said Charlotte, smiling. “Don’t leave us dangling in suspense, Jem!”
Jem raised their joined hands and said, “Tessa and I are engaged to be married. I asked her, and—she accepted me.”