“It is. Unless the Mortal Cup is used to turn that mundane into a Shadowhunter. It is not a common result, but it does happen. If the Shadowhunter in question applies to the Clave for an Ascension for their partner, the Clave is required to consider it for at least three months. Meanwhile, the mundane embarks on a course of study to learn about Shadowhunter culture—”
Jem’s voice was drowned out by the train whistle as the locomotive emerged from the tunnel. Tessa looked at Will, but he was staring fixedly out the window, not looking at her at all. She must have imagined it.
“It’s not a bad idea, I suppose,” said Tessa. “I do know rather a lot; I’ve finished nearly all of the Codex.”
“It would seem reasonable that I brought you with me,” said Jem. “As a possible Ascender, you might want to learn about Institutes other than the one in London.” He turned to Will. “What do you think?”
“It seems as fine an idea as any.” Will was still looking out the window; the countryside had grown less green, more stark. There were no villages visible, only long swathes of gray-green grass and outcroppings of black rock.
“How many Institutes are there, other than the one in London?” Tessa asked.
Jem ticked them off on his hands. “In Britain? London, York, one in Cornwall—near Tintagel—one in Cardiff, and one in Edinburgh. They’re all smaller, though, and report to the London Institute, which in turn reports to Idris.”
“Gideon Lightwood said he was at the Institute in Madrid. What on earth was he doing there?”
“Faffing about, most likely,” said Will.
“Once we finish our training, at eighteen,” said Jem, as if Will hadn’t spoken, “we’re encouraged to travel, to spend time at other Institutes, to experience something of Shadowhunter culture in new places. There are always different techniques, local tricks to be learned. Gideon was away for only a few months. If Benedict called him back so soon, he must think that his acquisition of the Institute is assured.” Jem looked troubled.
“But he’s wrong,” Tessa said firmly, and when the troubled look didn’t leave Jem’s gray eyes, she cast about for something to change the subject. “Where is the Institute in New York?”
“We haven’t memorized all their addresses, Tessa.” There was something in Will’s voice, a dangerous undercurrent. Jem looked at him narrowly, and said:
“Is everything all right?”
Will took his hat off and laid it on the seat next to him. He looked at them both steadily for a moment, his gaze level. He was beautiful to look at as always, Tessa thought, but there seemed something gray about him, almost faded. For someone who so often seemed to burn very brightly, that light in him seemed exhausted now, as if he had been rolling a rock up a hill like Sisyphus. “Too much to drink last night,” he said finally.
Really, why do you bother, Will? Don’t you realize we both know you’re lying? Tessa almost said, but one look at Jem stopped her. His gaze as he regarded Will was worried—very worried indeed, though Tessa knew he did not believe Will about the drinking, any more than she did. But, “Well,” was all he said, lightly, “if only there were a Rune of Sobriety.”
“Yes.” Will looked back at him, and the strain in his expression relaxed slightly. “If we might return to discussing your plan, James. It’s a good one, save one thing.” He leaned forward. “If she is meant to be affianced to you, Tessa will need a ring.”
“I had thought of that,” said Jem, startling Tessa, who had imagined he had come up with this Ascendant idea on the spot. He slipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket and drew out a silver ring, which he held out to Tessa on his palm. It was not unlike the silver ring Will often wore, though where Will’s had a design of birds in flight, this one had a careful etching of the crenellations of a castle tower around it. “The Carstairs family ring,” he said. “If you would . . .”
She took it from him and slipped it onto her left ring finger, where it seemed to magically fit itself. She felt as if she ought to say something like It’s lovely, or Thank you, but of course this wasn’t a proposal, or even a gift. It was simply an acting prop. “Charlotte doesn’t wear a wedding ring,” she said. “I hadn’t realized Shadowhunters did.”
“We don’t,” said Will. “It is customary to give a girl your family ring when you become engaged, but the actual wedding ceremony involves exchanging runes instead of rings. One on the arm, and one over the heart.”
“‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave,’” said Jem. “Song of Solomon.”
“‘Jealousy is cruel as the grave’?” Tessa raised her eyebrows. “That’s not . . . very romantic.”
“‘The coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame,’” said Will, quirking his eyebrows up. “I always thought females found the idea of jealousy romantic. Men, fighting over you . . .”
“Well, there aren’t any graves in mundane wedding ceremonies,” said Tessa. “Though your ability to quote the Bible is impressive. Better than my aunt Harriet’s.”
“Did you hear that, James? She just compared us to her aunt Harriet.”
Jem, as always, was unruffled. “We must be on familiar terms with all religious texts,” he said. “To us they are instruction manuals.”
“So you memorize them all in school?” She realized she had seen neither Will nor Jem at their studies since she had been at the Institute. “Or rather, when you are tutored?”
“Yes, though Charlotte’s rather fallen off in tutoring us lately, as you might imagine,” said Will. “One either has a tutor or one is schooled in Idris—that is, until you attain your majority at eighteen. Which will be soon, thankfully, for the both of us.”
“Which one of you is older?”
“Jem,” said Will, and “I am,” said Jem, at the same time. They laughed in unison as well, and Will added, “Only by three months, though.”
“I knew you’d feel compelled to point that out,” said Jem with a grin.
Tessa looked from one of them to the other. There could not be two boys who looked more different, or who had more different dispositions. And yet. “Is that what it means to be parabatai?” she said. “Finishing each other’s sentences and the like? Because there isn’t much on it in the Codex.”
Will and Jem looked at each other. Will shrugged first, casually. “It is rather difficult to explain,” he said loftily. “If you haven’t experienced it—”
“I meant,” Tessa said, “you cannot—I don’t know—read each other’s minds, or the like?”
Jem made a spluttering noise. Will’s lambent blue eyes widened. “Read each other’s minds? Horrors, no.”
“Then, what’s the point? You swear to guard each other, I understand that, but aren’t all Shadowhunters meant to do that for each other?”
“It’s more than that,” said Jem, who had stopped spluttering and spoke somberly. “The idea of parabatai comes from an old tale, the story of Jonathan and David. ‘And it came to pass . . . that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. . . . Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.’ They were two warriors, and their souls were knit together by Heaven, and out of that Jonathan Shadowhunter took the idea of parabatai, and encoded the ceremony into the Law.”