Tessa thought of the blue-haired faerie woman at Benedict’s party who had claimed to know her mother, and her breath hitched in her throat. Before she could say another word to Woolsey, though, Magnus and Will came back in through the door—Will, as predicted, just as bloody as before, and scowling. He looked from Tessa to Woolsey and laughed a short laugh. “I suppose you were right, Magnus,” he said. “Tessa is in no danger from him. One cannot say the same in reverse.”
“Tessa, darling, put the poker down,” Magnus said, holding out his hand. “Woolsey can be dreadful, but there are better ways of handling his moods.”
With a last glare at Woolsey, Tessa handed the poker to Magnus. She went to retrieve her gloves, and Will his coat, and there was a blur of movement and voices, and she heard Woolsey laugh. She was barely paying attention; she was too focused on Will. She could tell already from the look on his face that whatever he and Magnus had said to each other in private, it had not solved the problem of Jem’s drugs. He looked haunted, and a little deadly, the blood freckling his high cheekbones only making the blue of his eyes more startling.
Magnus led them from the drawing room and out to the front door, where the cool air hit Tessa like a wave. She tugged her gloves on and nodded a good-bye to Magnus, who shut the door, closing the two of them out in the night.
The Thames glittered past the trees, the roadway, and the Embankment, and the gas lamps on Battersea Bridge shone down into the water, a nocturne in blue and gold. The shadow of the carriage was visible beneath the trees by the gate. Above them the moon appeared and disappeared between moving banks of gray cloud.
Will was utterly still. “Tessa,” he said.
His voice sounded peculiar, odd and choked. Tessa stepped quickly down to stand beside him, looking up into his face. Will’s face was so often changeable as moonlight itself; she had never seen his expression so still.
“Did he say he would help?” she whispered. “Magnus?”
“He will try, but—the way he looked at me—he felt sorry for me, Tess. That means there’s no hope, doesn’t it? If even Magnus thinks the endeavor is doomed, there is nothing more I can do, is there?”
She laid her hand upon his arm. He did not move. It was so peculiar, being this close to him, the familiar feel and presence of him, when for months they had avoided each other, had barely spoken. He had not even wanted to meet her eyes. And now he was here, smelling of soap and rain and blood and Will. . . . “You have done so much,” she whispered. “Magnus will try to help, and we will keep searching, and something may yet come to light. You cannot abandon hope.”
“I know. I know it. And yet I feel such dread in my heart, as if it were the last hour of my life. I have felt hopelessness before, Tess, but never such fear. And yet I have known—I have always known . . .”
That Jem would die. She did not say it. It was between them, unspoken.
“Who am I?” he whispered. “For years I pretended I was other than I was, and then I gloried that I might return to the truth of myself, only to find there is no truth to return to. I was an ordinary child, and then I was a not very good man, and now I do not know how to be either of those things any longer. I do not know what I am, and when Jem is gone, there will be no one to show me.”
“I know just who you are. You’re Will Herondale,” was all she said, and then suddenly his arms were around her, his head on her shoulder. She froze at first out of pure astonishment, and then carefully she returned the embrace, holding him as he shuddered. He was not crying; this was something else, a sort of paroxysm, as if he were choking. She knew she should not touch him, yet she could not imagine Jem wanting her to push Will away at such a moment. She could not be Jem for him, she thought, could not be his compass that always pointed north, but if nothing else she could make his a slighter burden to carry.
“Would you like this rather dreadful snuffbox someone gave me? It’s silver, so I can’t touch it,” Woolsey said.
Magnus, standing at the bay window of the drawing room, the curtain pulled aside just enough so that he could see Will and Tessa on his front steps, clinging to each other as if their lives depended on it, hummed noncommittally in response.
Woolsey rolled his eyes. “Still out there, are they?”
“Quite.”
“Messy, all that romantic love business,” said Woolsey. “Much better to go on as we do. Only the physical matters.”
“Indeed.” Will and Tessa had broken apart at last, though their hands were still joined. Tessa appeared to be coaxing Will down the steps. “Do you think you would have married, if you hadn’t had nephews to carry on the family name?”
“I suppose I would have had to. Cry God for England, Harry, Saint George, and the Praetor Lupus!” Woolsey laughed; he had poured himself a glass of red wine from the decanter on the sideboard, and he swirled it now, gazing down into its changeable depths. “You gave Will Camille’s necklace,” he observed.
“How did you know?” Magnus’s mind was only half on the conversation; the other half was watching Will and Tessa walk toward their carriage. Somehow, despite the difference in their height and build, she appeared to be the one who was being leaned upon.
“You were wearing it when you left the room with him, but not when you returned. I don’t suppose you told him what it’s worth? That he’s wearing a ruby that would cost more than the Institute?”
“I didn’t want it,” Magnus said.
“Tragic reminder of lost love?”
“Didn’t suit my complexion.” Will and Tessa were in the carriage now, and their driver was snapping the reins. “Do you think there’s a chance for him?”
“A chance for who?”
“Will Herondale. To be happy.”
Woolsey sighed gustily and put down his glass. “Is there a chance for you to be happy if he isn’t?”
Magnus said nothing.
“Are you in love with him?” Woolsey asked—all curiosity, no jealousy. Magnus wondered what it was like to have a heart like that, or rather to have no heart at all.
“No,” Magnus said. “I have wondered that, but no. It is something else. I feel that I owe him. I have heard it said that when you save a life, you are responsible for that life. I feel I am responsible for that boy. If he never finds happiness, I will feel I have failed him. If he cannot have that girl he loves, I will feel I have failed him. If I cannot keep his parabatai by him, I will feel I failed him.”
“Then you will fail him,” Woolsey said. “In the meantime, while you are moping and seeking yin fen, I think I may take myself traveling. See the countryside. The city depresses me in the winter.”
“Do as you like.” Magnus let the curtain fall back, blocking the view of Will and Tessa’s carriage as it passed out of sight.
To: Consul Josiah Wayland
From: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw
Josiah,
I was deeply concerned to hear of your letter to the Council on the topic of Charlotte Branwell. As old acquaintances, I had hoped you could perhaps speak more freely to me than you have to them. Is there some issue regarding her that concerns you? Her father was a dear friend of ours both, and I have not known her to do a dishonorable thing.