Tessa shook her head.
“Very well.” Henry looked disappointed. “There was something I wished you to see. If you’ll simply look here—” He turned the heart carefully in his long fingers, revealing a flat metal panel on the opposite side of it. The panel had been etched with a seal—a large Q, a small D inside it.
“De Quincey’s mark,” said Charlotte. She looked bleak. “I’ve seen it before, on correspondence from him. He’s always been an ally of the Clave, or so I thought. He was there at the Accords when they were signed. He’s a powerful man. He controls all the Night Children in the western part of the city. Mortmain says that de Quincey bought mechanical parts from him, and this would seem to bear that out. It looks as if you weren’t the only thing in the Dark Sisters’ house that was being prepared for the Magister’s use. These clockwork creatures were as well.”
“If this vampire is the Magister,” Tessa said slowly, “then he is the one who had the Dark Sisters capture me, and he is the one who forced Nate to write me that letter. He must know where my brother is.”
Charlotte almost smiled. “You are single-minded, aren’t you.”
Tessa’s voice was hard. “Don’t imagine that I don’t want to know what the Magister wants with me. Why he had me captured and trained. How on earth he knew I had my—my ability. And don’t think I wouldn’t want revenge if I could have it.” She took a shuddering breath. “But my brother is all I have. I must find him.”
“We will find him, Tessa,” Charlotte said. “Somehow all of this—the Dark Sisters, your brother, your own ability, and de Quincey’s involvement—fits together like a puzzle. We simply haven’t found all the missing bits of it yet.”
“I must say, I hope we find them soon,” Henry said, casting a sad glance at the body on the table. “What could a vampire want with a lot of half-mechanical people? None of this makes any sense.”
“Not yet,” said Charlotte, and she set her small chin. “But it will.”
Henry remained in his laboratory even after Charlotte had announced that it was past time for them to return upstairs for supper. Insisting that he would be along in five minutes, he waved them off absently as Charlotte shook her head.
“Henry’s laboratory—I’ve never seen anything like it,” Tessa said to Charlotte when they were halfway up the stairs. She was already out of breath, though Charlotte was moving with a steady, purposeful gait and looked as if she would never tire.
“Yes,” Charlotte replied a little sadly. “Henry would spend all day and all night there if I allowed it.”
If I allowed it. The words surprised Tessa. It was the husband, wasn’t it, who decided what was and was not allowed, and how his home should be run? The wife’s duty was simply to carry out his wishes, and to provide him with a calm and stable refuge from the chaos of the world. A place he might retreat. But the Institute was hardly that. It was part home, part boarding school, and part battle station. And whoever might be in charge of it, it clearly wasn’t Henry.
With an exclamation of surprise, Charlotte stopped short on the step above Tessa. “Jessamine! What on earth’s the matter?”
Tessa looked up. Jessamine stood at the head of the stairs, framed in the open doorway. She still wore her day clothes, though her hair, now in elaborate ringlets, had clearly been arranged for evening, no doubt by the ever-patient Sophie. There was an immense scowl on her face.
“It’s Will,” she said. “He’s being absolutely ridiculous in the dining room.”
Charlotte looked puzzled. “How is this different from his being totally ridiculous in the library or the weapons room or any of the other places he’s usually ridiculous?”
“Because,” Jessamine said, as if this should be obvious, “we have to eat in the dining room.” She turned and flounced off down the hallway, glancing back over her shoulder to make sure that Tessa and Charlotte were following her.
Tessa couldn’t help but smile. “It is a bit like they’re your children, isn’t it?”
Charlotte sighed. “Yes,” she said. “Except for the part where they’re required to love me, I suppose.”
Tessa could think of nothing to say in reply to that.
Since Charlotte insisted that there was something she had to do in the drawing room before supper, Tessa made her way to the dining room by herself. Once she had arrived there—quite proud of herself for not having lost her way—she found that Will was standing on one of the sideboards, tinkering with something attached to the ceiling.
Jem was seated in a chair, looking up at Will with a dubious expression. “It serves you right if you break it,” he said, and inclined his head as he caught sight of Tessa. “Good evening, Tessa.” Following her stare, he grinned. “I was hanging the gasolier crookedly, and Will is endeavoring to straighten it.”
Tessa could see nothing wrong with the gasolier, but before she could say so, Jessamine stalked into the room and shot a glare at Will. “Really! Can’t you get Thomas to do that? A gentleman needn’t—”
“Is that blood on your sleeve, Jessie?” Will inquired, glancing down.
Jessamine’s face tightened. Without another word she turned on her heel and stalked to the far end of the table, where she set herself down in a chair and stared stonily ahead.
“Did something happen while you and Jessamine were out?” It was Jem, looking genuinely worried. As he turned his head to look at Tessa, she saw something green gleam against the base of his throat.
Jessamine looked over at Tessa, a look of near panic on her face. “No,” Tessa began. “It was nothing—”
“I’ve done it!” Henry entered the room triumphantly, brandishing something in his hand. It looked like a copper tube with a black button on one side. “I’ll wager you didn’t think I could, did you?”
Will abandoned his efforts with the gasolier to glare at Henry. “None of us have the slightest idea what you’re on about. You do know that?”
“I’ve gotten my Phosphor to work at last.” Henry proudly brandished the object. “It functions on the principle of witchlight but is five times more powerful. Merely press a button, and you will see a blaze of light the like of which you have never imagined.”
There was a silence. “So,” said Will finally, “it’s a very, very bright witchlight, then?”
“Exactly,” Henry said.
“Is that useful, precisely?” Jem inquired. “After all, witchlight is just for illumination. It’s not as if it’s dangerous. . . .”
“Wait till you see it!” Henry replied. He held up the object. “Watch.”
Will moved to object, but it was too late; Henry had already pressed the button. There was a blinding flare of light and a whooshing sound, and the room was plunged into blackness. Tessa gave a yelp of surprise, and Jem laughed softly.
“Am I blind?” Will’s voice floated out of the darkness, tinged with annoyance. “I’m not going to be at all pleased if you’ve blinded me, Henry.”
“No.” Henry sounded worried. “No, the Phosphor seems to—Well, it seems to have turned all the lights in the room off.”