Will was silent most of the way, drumming his slim fingers on his black-trousered knees, his blue eyes distant and thoughtful. It was Jem who did the talking, leaning across Tessa to draw the curtains back on her side of the carriage. He pointed out items of interest—the graveyard where the victims of a cholera epidemic had been interred, and the ancient gray walls of the city rising up in front of them, crenellated across the top like the pattern on his ring. Once they were through the walls, the streets narrowed. It was like London, Tessa thought, but on a reduced scale; even the stores they passed—a butcher’s, a draper’s—seemed smaller. The pedestrians, mostly men, who hurried by, chins dug into their collars to block the light rain that had begun to fall, were not as fashionably dressed; they looked “country,” like the farmers who came into Manhattan on occasion, recognizable by the redness of their big hands, the tough, sunburned skin of their faces.
The carriage swung out of a narrow street and into a huge square; Tessa drew in a breath. Before them rose a magnificent cathedral, its Gothic turrets piercing the gray sky like Saint Sebastian stuck through with arrows. A massive limestone tower surmounted the structure, and niches along the front of the building held sculpted statues, each one different. “Is that the Institute? Goodness, it’s so much grander than London’s—”
Will laughed. “Sometimes a church is only a church, Tess.”
“That’s York Minster,” said Jem. “Pride of the city. Not the Institute. The Institute’s in Goodramgate Street.” His words were confirmed as the carriage swung away from the cathedral, down Deangate, and onto the narrow, cobbled lane of Goodramgate, where they rattled beneath a small iron gate between two leaning Tudor buildings.
When they emerged on the other side of the gate, Tessa saw why Will had laughed. What rose before them was a pleasant-enough-looking church, surrounded by enclosing walls and smooth grass, but it had none of the grandeur of York Minster. When Gottshall came around to swing the door of the carriage open and help Tessa down to the ground, she saw that occasional headstones rose from the rain-dampened grass, as if someone had intended to begin a cemetery here and had lost interest halfway through the proceedings.
The sky was nearly black now, silvered here and there with clouds made near-transparent by starlight. Behind her, Jem’s and Will’s familiar voices murmured; before her, the doors of the church stood open, and through them she could see flickering candles. She felt suddenly bodiless, as if she were the ghost of Tessa, haunting this odd place so far from the life she had known in New York. She shivered, and not just from the cold.
She felt the brush of a hand against her arm, and warm breath stirred her hair. She knew who it was without turning. “Shall we go in, my betrothed?” Jem said softly in her ear. She could feel the laughter in him, vibrating through his bones, communicating itself to her. She almost smiled. “Let us beard the lion in his den together.”
She put her hand through his arm. They made their way up the steps of the church; she looked back at the top, and saw Will gazing up after them, apparently unheeding as Gottshall tapped him on the shoulder, saying something into his ear. Her eyes met his, but she looked quickly away; entangling gazes with Will was confusing at best, dizzying at worst.
The inside of the church was small and dark compared to the London Institute’s. Pews dark with age ran the length of the walls, and above them witchlight tapers burned in holders made of blackened iron. At the front of the church, in front of a veritable cascade of burning candles, stood an old man dressed all in Shadowhunter black. His hair and beard were thick and gray, standing out wildly around his head, his gray-black eyes half-hidden beneath massive eyebrows, his skin scored with the marks of age. Tessa knew him to be almost ninety, but his back was still straight, his chest as thick around as the trunk of a tree.
“Young Herondale, are you?” he barked as Will stepped forward to introduce himself. “Half-mundane, half-Welsh, and the worst traits of both, I’ve heard.”
Will smiled politely. “Diolch.”
Starkweather bristled. “Mongrel tongue,” he muttered, and turned his gaze to Jem. “James Carstairs,” he said. “Another Institute brat. I’ve half a mind to tell the lot of you to go to blazes. That upstart bit of a girl, that Charlotte Fairchild, foisting you all on me with nary a by-your-leave.” He had a little of the Yorkshire accent that his servant had, though much fainter; still, the way he pronounced “I” did sound a bit like “Ah.” “None of that family ever had a bit o’ manners. I could do without her father, and I can do without—”
His flashing eyes came to rest on Tessa then, and he stopped abruptly, his mouth open, as if he had been slapped in the face midsentence. Tessa glanced at Jem; he looked as startled as she did at Starkweather’s sudden silence. But there, in the breach, was Will.
“This is Tessa Gray, sir,” he said. “She is a mundane girl, but she is the betrothed of Carstairs here, and an Ascendant.”
“A mundane, you say?” demanded Starkweather, his eyes wide.
“An Ascendant,” said Will in his most soothing, silken voice. “She has been a faithful friend to the Institute in London, and we hope to welcome her into our ranks soon.”
“A mundane,” the old man repeated, and broke into a fit of coughing. “Well, times have—Yes, I suppose then—” His eyes skipped across Tessa’s face again, and he turned to Gottshall, who was looking martyred among the luggage. “Get Cedric and Andrew to help you bring our guests’ belongings up to their rooms,” he said. “And do tell Ellen to instruct Cook to set three extra places for dinner tonight. I may have forgotten to remind her that we would have guests.”
The servant gaped at his master before nodding in a seeming daze; Tessa couldn’t blame him. It was clear that Starkweather had meant to send them packing and had changed his mind at the last moment. She glanced at Jem, who looked just as mystified as she felt; only Will, blue eyes wide and face as innocent as a choirboy’s, seemed as if he had expected nothing else.
“Well, come along, then,” said Starkweather gruffly without looking at Tessa. “You needn’t stand there. Follow me and I’ll show you to your rooms.”
“By the Angel,” Will said, scraping his fork through the brownish mess on his plate. “What is this stuff?”
Tessa had to admit, it was difficult to tell. Starkweather’s servants—mostly bent old men and women and a sour-faced female housekeeper—had done as he’d asked and had set three extra places for supper, which consisted of a dark, lumpy stew ladled out of a silver tureen by a woman in a black dress and white cap, so bent and old that Tessa had to physically prevent herself from leaping up to assist her with the serving. When the woman was done, she turned and shuffled off, leaving Jem, Tessa, and Will alone in the dining room to stare at one another across the table.
A place had been set for Starkweather as well, but he wasn’t at it. Tessa had to admit that if she were him, she wouldn’t be rushing to eat the stew either. Heavy with overcooked vegetables and tough meat, it was even more unappetizing-looking in the dim light of the dining room. Only a few tapers lit the cramped space; the wallpaper was dark brown, the mirror over the unlit hearth stained and discolored. Tessa felt dreadfully uncomfortable in her evening dress, a stiff blue taffeta borrowed from Jessamine and let out by Sophie, which had turned to the color of a bruise in the unhealthy light.