“Will!” She caught at his arm. “Don’t you dare apologize. Do you understand what it means to me that you are here? It is like a miracle or the direct intervention of Heaven, for I had been praying to see the faces of those I cared for again before I died.” She spoke simply, straightforwardly—it was one of the things he had always loved about Tessa, that she did not hide or dissemble, but spoke her mind without embellishment. “When I was in the Dark House, there was no one who cared enough to search for me. When you found me, it was an accident. But now—”
“Now I have condemned us both to the same fate,” he said in a low voice. He drew a dagger from his belt and drove it against the invisible wall before him. The runed silver blade of the dagger shattered, and Will cast the broken hilt aside and cursed again, under his breath.
Tessa put a light hand on his shoulder. “We are not condemned,” she said. “Surely you have not come by yourself, Will. Henry, or Jem, will find us. From the other side of the wall, we can be freed. I have seen how Mortmain does it, and . . .”
Will did not know what happened then. His expression must have changed at the mention of Jem’s name, for he saw some of the color leave her face. Her hand tightened on his arm.
“Tessa,” he said. “I am alone.”
The word “alone” came out broken, as if he could taste the bitterness of loss on his tongue and struggled to speak around it.
“Jem?” she said. It was more than a question. Will said nothing; his voice seemed to have fled. He had thought to spirit her from this place before he told her about Jem, had imagined telling her somewhere safe, somewhere where there would be space and time to comfort her. He knew now he had been a fool to think it, to imagine that what he had lost would not be written all over his face. The remaining color drained from her skin; it was like watching a fire flicker and go out. “No,” she whispered.
“Tessa . . .”
She took a step back from him, shaking her head. “No, it’s not possible. I would have known—it can’t be possible.”
He reached out a hand to her. “Tess—”
She had begun to shake violently. “No,” she said again. “No, don’t say it. If you don’t say it, it won’t be true. It can’t be true. It isn’t fair.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Her face crumpled, shattered like a dam under too much pressure. She sank to her knees, folding in on herself. Her arms went around her body. She was holding herself tightly, as if she could keep from breaking apart. Will felt a fresh wave of the helpless agony he had experienced in the courtyard of the Green Man. What had he done? He had come here to save her, but instead of saving her he had only succeeded in inflicting agony. It was as if he were truly cursed—capable only of bringing suffering to those he loved.
“I am sorry,” he said again, with all his heart in the words. “So sorry. I would have died for him if I could.”
At that, she looked up. He braced himself for the accusation in her eyes, but it was not there. Instead she reached up her hand to him silently. In wonder and surprise he took it, and let her draw him down until he was kneeling opposite her.
Her face was streaked with tears, surrounded by the tumble of her hair, outlined in gold by the firelight. “I would have too,” she said. “Oh, Will. This is all my fault. He threw away his life for me. If he had taken the drug more sparingly—if he had allowed himself to rest and be ill instead of pretending good health for my sake—”
“No!” He took her by the shoulders, turning her toward him. “It’s not your fault. No one could imagine that it was—”
She shook her head. “How can you bear to have me near you?” she said in despair. “I took your parabatai from you. And now we will both die here. Because of me.”
“Tessa,” he whispered, shocked. He could not remember the last time he had been in this position, the last time he had had to comfort someone whose heart was broken, and had genuinely been allowed to, rather than forcing himself to turn away. He felt as clumsy as he had as a child, dropping knives from his hands before Jem had taught him how to use them. He cleared his throat. “Tessa, come here.” He drew her toward him, until he was sitting on the ground and she was leaning against him, her head on his shoulder, his fingers threading through her hair. He could feel her body shaking against him, but she did not pull away. Instead she clung to him, as if truly his presence gave her comfort.
And if he thought of how warm she was in his arms or the feel of her breath on his skin, it was only for a moment, and he could pretend that it wasn’t at all.
Tessa’s grief, like a storm, spent itself slowly over the course of hours. She wept, and Will held her and did not let go, except for once when he rose and built up the fire. He returned swiftly and sat down beside her again, their backs against the invisible wall. She touched the place on his shoulder where her tears had soaked through the fabric.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d told him she was sorry over the past hours, as they’d shared the tales of what had happened to them since their separation at the Institute. He’d spoken to her of his farewell to Jem and Cecily, his ride across the countryside, the moment he had realized Jem was gone. She’d told him of what Mortmain had demanded of her, that she Change into his father, and give him the last bit of the puzzle that would turn his automaton army into an unstoppable force.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Tess,” Will said now. He was looking toward the fire, the only light in the room. It painted him in shades of gold and black. The shadows under his eyes were violet, the angle of his cheekbones and collarbones sharply outlined. “You have suffered, just as I have. Seeing that village destroyed—”
“We were both there at the same time,” she said, wonderingly. “If I had known you were near—”
“If I had known you were near, I would have charged Balios directly up the hill to you.”
“And been murdered by Mortmain’s creatures in the process. It is better that you did not know.” She followed his gaze to the fire. “You found me in the end; that is what matters.”
“Of course I found you. I promised Jem I would find you,” he said. “Some promises cannot be broken.”
He took a shallow breath. She felt it against her side: she was curled half against him, and his hands were shaking, almost imperceptibly, as he held her. Distantly she knew that she should not let herself be held like this by any boy who was not her brother or fiancé—but her brother and her fiancé were both dead, and tomorrow Mortmain would find them and punish them both. She could not bring herself, in the face of all that, to care much about propriety.
“What was the point of all that pain?” she asked. “I loved him so much, and I wasn’t even there when he died.”
Will’s hand smoothed down her back—light and quick, as if he were afraid she would draw away. “Neither was I,” he said. “I was in the courtyard of an inn, halfway to Wales, when I knew. I felt it. The bond between us being severed. It was as if a great pair of scissors had cut my heart in half.”