“What a very satisfying response,” said Mrs. Black.
Tessa glared. She was crouched in her corner of the carriage, as far as she could get from the horrible sight of the creature that had once been Mrs. Black. She had screamed at the first sight of her, and hastily clapped a hand over her mouth; but it was too late. Mrs. Black had been plainly delighted by her terrified reaction.
“You were beheaded,” Tessa said. “How is it that you live? Like that?”
“Magic,” said Mrs. Black. “It was your brother who suggested to Mortmain that in my current form I could be of use to him. It was your brother who spilled the blood that made my continued existence possible. Lives for my life.”
She grinned horribly, and Tessa thought of her brother, dying in her arms. You don’t know everything I’ve done, Tessie. She swallowed back bile. After her brother was dead, she had tried to Change into him, to glean any information about Mortmain she could from his memories, but they had been only a gray swirl of anger and bitterness and ambition: she had found nothing solid within them. A fresh surge of hate welled in her for Mortmain, who had found her brother’s weaknesses and exploited them. Mortmain, who held Jem’s yin fen in a cruel attempt to make the Shadowhunters dance to his tune. Even Mrs. Black, in a way, was a prisoner of his manipulations.
“You are doing Mortmain’s bidding because you think he will give you a body,” Tessa said now. “Not that—that thing you have, but some sort of real, human body.”
“Human.” Mrs. Black snorted. “I expect better than human. But better than this as well, something that will allow me to pass undetected among mundanes and practice my craft again. As for the Magister, I know he will have the power to do it, because of you. He will soon be all-powerful, and you will help him get there.”
“You are a fool to trust him to reward you.”
Mrs. Black’s gray lips wobbled with mirth. “Oh, but he will. He has sworn it, and I have done everything I promised. Here I am delivering his perfect bride—trained by me! By Azazel, I remember when you stepped off the boat from America. You seemed so purely mortal, so entirely useless, I despaired of ever training you to be any sort of use at all. But with enough brutality anything can be shaped. You will serve nicely now.”
“Not all that is mortal is useless.”
A snort. “You say that because of your association with the Nephilim. You have been with them rather than your own kind for far too long.”
“What kind? I have no kind. Jessamine said my mother was a Shadowhunter—”
“She was a Shadowhunter,” said Mrs. Black. “But your father was not.”
Tessa’s heart skipped a beat. “He was a demon?”
“He was no angel.” Mrs. Black smirked. “The Magister will explain it all to you, in time—what you are, and why you live, and what you were created for.” She settled back with a creak of automated joints. “I have to say that I was almost impressed when you ran off with that Shadowhunter boy, you know. It showed you had spirit. In fact, it turned out to the Magister’s benefit that you have spent so much time with the Nephilim. You are acquainted with Downworld now, and you have shown yourself equal to it. You have been forced to use your gift in arduous circumstances. Tests that I might have created for you would not have been as challenging and would not have yielded the same learning and confidence. I can see the difference in you. You will make a fine bride for the Magister.”
Tessa made a sound of disbelief. “Why? I am being forced to marry him. What difference does it make if I have spirit or learning? What could he possibly care?”
“Oh, you are to be more than his bride, Miss Gray. You are to be the ruin of the Nephilim. That is why you were created. And the more knowledge of them you have, the more your sympathies lie with them, the more effective a weapon you will be to raze them to the ground.”
Tessa felt as if the air had been knocked out of her. “I don’t care what Mortmain does. I will not cooperate in harming the Shadowhunters. I would die or be tortured first.”
“It does not matter what you want. You will find that there is no resistance you could mount against his will that would matter. Besides, there is nothing you need do to destroy the Nephilim other than be what you are. And be married to Mortmain, which requires no action on your part.”
“I’m engaged to someone else,” spat Tessa. “James Carstairs.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Black. “I’m afraid the Magister’s claim supersedes his. Besides, James Carstairs will be dead by Tuesday. Mortmain has bought up all the yin fen in England and blocked any new shipments. Perhaps you should have thought of this sort of thing before you fell in love with an addict. Although I did think it would be the blue-eyed one,” she mused. “Don’t girls usually fall in love with their rescuers?”
Tessa felt the cloak of the surreal begin to descend. She could not believe that she was here, trapped in this carriage with Mrs. Black, and that the warlock woman seemed content to discuss Tessa’s romantic tribulations. She turned toward the window. The moon was up, and she could see that they were riding along a narrow road—there were shadows about the carriage, and below, a rocky ravine fell away into darkness. “There are all sorts of ways of being rescued.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Black, with a glint of teeth as she smiled. “You can be assured that no one will be coming to rescue you now.”
You are to be the ruin of the Nephilim.
“Then I will have to rescue myself,” Tessa said. Mrs. Black’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement as she turned her head toward Tessa with a whir and a click. But Tessa was already gathering herself, gathering all her energy in her legs and body in the way that she had been taught, so that when she launched herself across the carriage at the door, it was with all the force she possessed.
She heard the lock on the door break and Mrs. Black scream, a high whine of rage. A metal arm raked Tessa’s back, seizing the collar of her dress, which tore away, and Tessa was falling, slamming down onto the rocks by the side of the road, falling and sliding and tumbling into the ravine as the carriage hurtled away down the road, Mrs. Black screaming at the driver to stop. Wind rushed into Tessa’s ears as she fell, her arms and hands windmilling wildly against the empty space all around her, and any hopes that the ravine was shallow or that the fall would be survivable were gone. As she fell, she glimpsed a narrow stream glinting far below her, twisting among jagged rocks, and she knew she would break against the ground like fragile china when she struck.
She closed her eyes and willed that the end be quick.
Will stood at the top of a high green hill and looked out over the sea. The sky and sea were both so intensely blue that they seemed to merge one into the other, so that there was no fixed point upon the horizon. Gulls and terns wheeled and shrieked above him, and the salt wind blew through his hair. It was as warm as summer, and his jacket lay discarded on the grass; he was in shirtsleeves and braces, and his hands were brown and tanned by the sun.
“Will!” He turned at the familiar voice and saw Tessa coming up the hill toward him. There was a small path cut along the side of the hill, lined with unfamiliar white flowers, and Tessa looked like a flower herself, in a white dress like the one she had worn to the ball the night he had kissed her on Benedict Lightwood’s balcony. Her long brown hair blew in the wind. She had taken off her bonnet and held it in one hand, waving it at him and smiling as if she were glad to see him. More than glad. As if seeing him were all the joy of her heart.