Gabriel shook his head. “You’re a decent Shadowhunter, James,” he said, “and a gentleman. You have your—disability, but no one blames you for that. But this—” He curled his lip, jabbing a finger in Will’s direction. “This filth will only drag you down. Find someone else to be your parabatai. No one expects Will Herondale to live past nineteen, and no one will be sorry to see him go, either—”
That was too much for Tessa. Without thinking about it she burst out indignantly, “What a thing to say!”
Gabriel, interrupted midrant, looked as shocked as if one of the tapestries had suddenly started talking. “Pardon me?”
“You heard me. Telling someone you wouldn’t be sorry if they died! It’s inexcusable!” She took hold of Will by the sleeve. “Come along, Will. This—this person—obviously isn’t worth wasting your time on.”
Will looked hugely entertained. “So true.”
“You—you—” Gabriel, stammering slightly, looked at Tessa in an alarmed sort of way. “You haven’t the slightest idea of the things he’s done—”
“And I don’t care, either. You’re all Nephilim, aren’t you? Well, aren’t you? You’re supposed to be on the same side.” Tessa frowned at Gabriel. “I think you owe Will an apology.”
“I,” said Gabriel, “would rather have my entrails yanked out and tied in a knot in front of my own eyes than apologize to such a worm.”
“Gracious,” said Jem mildly. “You can’t mean that. Not the Will being a worm part, of course. The bit about the entrails. That sounds dreadful.”
“I do mean it,” said Gabriel, warming to his subject. “I would rather be dropped into a vat of Malphas venom and left to dissolve slowly until only my bones were left.”
“Really,” said Will. “Because I happen to know a chap who could sell us a vat of—”
The door of the library opened. Mr. Lightwood stood on the threshold. “Gabriel,” he said in a freezing tone. “Do you plan to attend the meeting—your first Enclave meeting, if I must remind you—or would you rather play out here in the corridor with the rest of the children?”
No one looked particularly pleased by that comment, especially Gabriel, who swallowed hard, nodded, shot one last glare at Will, and followed his father back into the library, slamming the door shut behind them.
“Well,” said Jem after the door had closed behind Gabriel. “That was about as bad as I had expected it would be. Is this the first time you’ve seen him since last year’s Christmas party?” he asked, addressing the question to Will.
“Yes,” said Will. “Do you think I should have told him I missed him?”
“No,” said Jem.
“Is he always like that?” Tessa asked. “So awful?”
“You should see his older brother,” said Jem. “Makes Gabriel look sweeter than gingerbread. Hates Will even more than Gabriel, too, if that’s possible.”
Will grinned at that, then turned and began making his way down the corridor, whistling as he went. After a moment’s hesitation, Jem went after him, gesturing for Tessa to follow.
“Why would Gabriel Lightwood hate you, Will?” Tessa asked as they went. “What did you do to him?”
“It wasn’t anything I did to him,” Will said, stalking along at a rapid pace. “It was something I did to his sister.”
Tessa looked sideways at Jem, who shrugged. “Where there’s our Will, there’s a half-dozen angry girls claiming he’s compromised their virtue.”
“Did you?” Tessa asked, hurrying to keep up with the boys. There was simply only so fast you could walk in heavy skirts that swished around your ankles as you went. The delivery of dresses from Bond Street had come the day before, and she was only just beginning to get used to wearing such expensive stuff. She remembered the light dresses she’d worn as a little girl, when she’d been able to run up to her brother, kick him in the ankle, and dart away without him being able to catch her. She wondered briefly what would happen if she tried to do that to Will. She doubted it would work out to her advantage, though the thought had a certain appeal. “Compromise her virtue, I mean.”
“You have a lot of questions,” Will said, veering sharply to the left and up a set of narrow stairs. “Don’t you?”
“I do,” Tessa said, the heels of her boots clicking loudly on the stone steps as she followed Will upward. “What’s parabatai? And what did you mean about Gabriel’s father being a disgrace to Shadowhunters?”
“Parabatai in Greek is just a term for a soldier paired with a chariot driver,” said Jem, “but when Nephilim say it, we mean a matched team of warriors—two men who swear to protect each other and guard each other’s backs.”
“Men?” said Tessa. “There couldn’t be a team of women, or a woman and a man?”
“I thought you said women didn’t have bloodlust,” Will said without turning around. “And as for Gabriel’s father, let’s say that he has something of a reputation for liking demons and Downworlders more than he should. I would be surprised if some of the elder Lightwood’s nocturnal visits to certain houses in Shadwell haven’t left him with a nasty case of demon pox.”
“Demon pox?” Tessa was horrified and fascinated at the same time.
“He’s made that up,” Jem hastily reassured her. “Really, Will. How many times do we have to tell you there’s no such thing as demon pox?”
Will had stopped in front of a narrow door at a bend in the staircase. “I think this is it,” he said, half to himself, and jiggled the knob. When nothing happened, he took his stele out of his jacket and scrawled a black Mark on the door. It swung open, with a puff of dust. “This ought to be a storeroom.”
Jem followed him inside, and after a moment so did Tessa. She found herself in a small room whose only illumination was from an arched window set high in the wall above. Watery light poured through, showing a square space filled with trunks and boxes. It could have been any spare storage room anywhere, if it hadn’t been for what looked like piles of old weapons stacked in the corners—heavy rusty-looking iron things with broad blades and chains connected to spiked chunks of metal.
Will took hold of one of the trunks and moved it sideways to create a clear square of space on the floor. More dust puffed up. Jem coughed and shot him a reproachful look. “One would think you brought us here to murder us,” he said, “if it weren’t that your motivations for doing so seem cloudy at best.”
“Not murder,” Will said. “Hold on. I need to move one more trunk.”
As he pushed the heavy thing toward the wall, Tessa cast a sidelong look at Jem. “What did Gabriel mean,” she asked, pitching her voice too low for Will to hear, “‘your disability’?”
Jem’s silvery eyes widened fractionally, before he said, “My ill health. That’s all.”
He was lying, Tessa knew. He had the same sort of look Nate did when he lied—a little too clear-eyed a gaze to be a truthful one. But before she could say anything else, Will straightened up and announced, “There we are. Come sit down.”