She felt his body shudder against hers. “I can do that for you,” he said at last, subdued. “What was the second thing? That you wanted?”
She swallowed. “I want to kiss you one more time before I die.”
His eyes flew wide. They were blue, blue like the sea and sky in her dream where he had fallen away from her, blue as the flowers Sophie had put in her hair. “Don’t—”
“Say anything I don’t mean,” she finished for him. “I know. I am not. I mean it, Will. And I know it is entirely beyond the bounds of propriety to ask it. I know I must seem a bit mad.” She glanced down, and then up again, gathering her courage. “And if you can tell me that you can die tomorrow without our lips ever touching again, and you will not regret it at all, then tell me, and I will desist in asking, for I know I have no right—”
Her words were cut off, for he had caught hold of her and pulled her against him, and crushed his lips down against hers. For a split second it was almost painful, sharp with desperation and thinly controlled hunger, and she tasted salt and heat in her mouth and the gasp of his breath. And then he gentled, with a force of restraint she could feel all through her body, and the slide of lips against lips, the interplay of tongue and teeth, altered from pain to pleasure in the sliver of a moment.
On the balcony at the Lightwoods’, he had been so careful, but he was not being careful now. His hands slid roughly down her back, tangling in her hair, fisting in the loose fabric at the back of her dress. Half-lifting her so their bodies collided; he was against her, the long slim length of his body, hard and fragile at the same time. Her head slanted to the side as he parted her lips with his and they were not so much kissing as devouring each other. Her fingers gripped his hair tightly, hard enough that it must have hurt, and her teeth grazed his bottom lip. He groaned and pulled her tighter, making her gasp for air.
“Will—,” she whispered, and he stood up, lifting her in his arms, still kissing her. She held tight to his back and shoulders as he carried her over to the bed and laid her down on it. She was already barefoot; he kicked off his boots and climbed up beside her. Part of her training had been in how to remove gear, and her hands were light and quick on his gear, undoing the clasps and pulling it aside like a shell. He batted it aside impatiently, and knelt upright to undo his weapons belt.
She watched him, swallowing hard. If she was going to tell him to stop, now was the moment. His scarred hands were nimble, undoing the fastenings, and as he turned to drop the belt over the side of the bed, his shirt—damp with sweat, and sticking to him—slid up and showed her the hollow curve of his stomach, the arched bone of his hip. She had always thought Will was beautiful, his eyes and lips and face, but she had never particularly thought of his body that way. But the shape of him was lovely, like the planes and angles of Michelangelo’s David. She reached out to touch him, to run her fingers, as soft as spider silk, across the flat hard skin of his stomach.
His response was immediate and startling. He sucked in his breath and closed his eyes, his body going very still. She ran her fingers along the waistband of his trousers, her heart pounding, hardly knowing what she was doing—there was an instinct here, driving her, that she couldn’t identify or explain. Her hand curved about his waist, thumb flicking against his hipbone, drawing him down.
He slid down over her, slowly, elbows resting on either side of her shoulders. Their eyes met, held; they were touching all along their bodies, but neither of them spoke. Her throat ached: adoration, heartbreak, in equal measure. “Kiss me,” she said.
He lowered himself slowly, slowly, until their lips just brushed. She arched upward, wanting to meet his mouth with hers, but he drew back, nuzzling at her cheek, now his lips pressing the corner of her mouth—and then along her jaw and down her throat, sending little shocks of astonished pleasure through her body. She had always thought of her arms, her hands, her neck, her face, as separate—not that her skin was all the same delicate envelope, and that a kiss placed on her throat might be felt all the way down to the bottom of her feet.
“Will.” Her hands pulled at his shirt, and it came away, the buttons tearing, his head shaking free of the fabric, all wild dark hair, Heathcliff on the moors. His hands were less sure on her dress, but it came away as well, off over her head, and was cast aside, leaving Tessa in her chemise and corset. She went motionless, shocked at being so undressed in front of anyone but Sophie, and Will took a wild look at her corset that was only part desire.
“How—,” he said. “Does it come off?”
Tessa couldn’t help herself; despite everything, she giggled. “It laces,” she whispered. “In the back.” And she guided his hands around her until his fingers were on the strings of the corset. She shivered then, and not from cold but from the intimacy of the gesture. Will pulled her against him, gentle now, and kissed the line of her throat again, and her shoulder where the chemise bared it, his breath soft and hot against her skin until she was breathing just as hard, her hands smoothing up and over his shoulders, his arms, his sides. She kissed the white scars the Marks had left on his skin, winding herself around him until they were a heated tangle of limbs and she was swallowing down the gasps he made against her mouth.
“Tess,” he whispered. “Tess—if you want to stop—”
She shook her head silently. The fire in the grate had nearly burned down again; Will was all angles and shadows and soft and hard skin against her. No.
“You want this?” His voice was hoarse.
“Yes,” she said. “Do you?”
His finger traced the outline of her mouth. “For this I would have been damned forever. For this I would have given up everything.”
She felt the burn behind her eyes, the pressure of tears, and blinked wet eyelashes. “Will . . .”
“Dw i’n dy garu di am byth,” he said. “I love you. Always.” And he moved to cover her body with his own.
Late in the night or early in the morning, Tessa woke. The fire had burned down entirely, but the room was lit by the peculiar torchlight that seemed to go on and off without rhyme or reason.
She drew back, propping herself on her elbow. Will was asleep beside her, immured in the unmoving slumber of the utterly exhausted. He looked at peace, though—more so than she had ever seen him before. His breath was regular, his eyelashes fluttering slightly in dreams.
She had fallen asleep with her head on his arm, the clockwork angel, still around her throat, resting against his shoulder, just to the left of his collarbone. As she moved away, the clockwork angel slipped free and she saw to her surprise that where it had lain against his skin it had left a mark behind, no bigger than a shilling, in the shape of a pale white star.
20
THE INFERNAL DEVICES
Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille,
Then took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.
—Oscar Wilde, “The Harlot’s House”
“It’s beautiful,” Henry breathed.
The Shadowhunters of the London Institute—along with Magnus Bane—stood in a loose half circle in the crypt, staring at one of the bare stone walls—or, more precisely, at something that had appeared on one of the bare stone walls.