It was utterly still, not moving, somehow more frightening for its stillness and silence. Tessa could not even tell if it was watching them. It seemed to be turned toward them, but though it had a head, that head was featureless but for the slash of a mouth; metal teeth gleamed within. It seemed to have no eyes.
Tessa quelled the scream rising in her throat. It was an automaton. She had faced them before. She would not scream. Will, propped on his elbow, was staring. “By the Angel—”
“That thing’s been following us; I’m sure of it,” said Jem in a low, urgent voice. “I saw a flash of metal earlier, from the carriage, but I wasn’t sure. Now I am. If you go tearing off down the hill, you risk leading that thing right to your family’s door.”
“I see,” Will said. The half-hysterical tone had gone from his voice. “I won’t go near the house. Let me up.”
Jem hesitated.
“I swear on Raziel’s name,” Will ground out, between his teeth. “Now let me up.”
Jem rolled away and onto his feet; Will leaped up, pushing Jem aside, and, without a glance at Tessa, took off running—not toward the house but away from it, toward the mechanical creature on the ridge. Jem staggered for a moment, openmouthed, swore, and darted after him.
“Jem!” Tessa cried. But he was nearly out of earshot already, racing after Will. The automaton had vanished from view. Tessa said an unladylike word, hiked up her skirts, and gave chase.
It was not easy, running up a wet Yorkshire hill in heavy skirts, brambles tearing at her as she went. Practicing in her training clothes had given Tessa a new appreciation for why it was that men could move so quickly and cleanly, and could run so fast. The material of her dress weighed a ton, the heels on her boots caught on rocks as she ran, and her corset left her uncomfortably short of breath.
By the time she reached the top of the ridge, she was only just in time to see Jem, far ahead of her, disappear into a dark copse of trees. She looked around wildly but could see neither the road nor the Starkweathers’ carriage. With her heart pounding, she dashed after him.
The copse was wide, spreading along the ridgeline. The moment Tessa ducked in among the trees, the light vanished; thick tree branches interweaving above her blocked out the sun. Feeling like Snow White fleeing into the forest, she looked around helplessly for a sign of where the boys had gone—broken branches, trodden leaves—and caught a shimmer of light on metal as the automaton surged out of the dark space between two trees and lunged for her.
She screamed, leaping away, and promptly tripped on her skirts. She went over backward, thumping painfully into the muddy earth. The creature stabbed one of its long insectile arms toward her. She rolled aside and the metal arm sliced into the ground beside her. There was a fallen tree branch near her; her fingers scrabbled at it, closed around it, and lifted it just as the creature’s other arm swung toward her. She swept the branch between them, concentrating on the parrying and blocking lessons she’d gotten from Gabriel.
But it was only a branch. The automaton’s metal arm sheared it in half. The end of the arm sprang open into a multi-fingered metal claw and reached for her throat. But before it could touch her, Tessa felt a violent fluttering against her collarbone. Her angel. She lay frozen as the creature jerked its claw back, one of its “fingers” leaking black fluid. A moment later it gave a high-pitched whine and collapsed backward, a freshet of more black liquid pouring from the hole that had been sliced clean through its chest.
Tessa sat up and stared.
Will stood with a sword in his hand, its hilt smeared with black. He was bareheaded, his thick dark hair tousled and tangled with leaves and bits of grass. Jem stood beside him, a witchlight stone blazing through his fingers. As Tessa watched, Will slashed out with the sword again, cutting the automaton nearly in half. It crumpled to the muddy ground. Its insides were an ugly, horribly biological-looking mess of tubes and wires.
Jem looked up. His gaze met Tessa’s. His eyes were as silver as mirrors. Will, despite having saved her, did not appear to notice she was there at all; he drew back his foot and delivered a savage kick to the metal creature’s side. His boot rang against metal.
“Tell us,” he said through gritted teeth. “What are you doing here? Why are you following us?”
The automaton’s razor-lined mouth opened. Its voice when it spoke sounded like the buzzing and grinding of faulty machinery. “I . . . am . . . a . . . warning . . . from the Magister.”
“A warning to who? To the family in the manor? Tell me!” Will looked as if he were going to kick the creature again; Jem laid a hand on his shoulder.
“It doesn’t feel pain, Will,” he said in a low voice. “And it says it has a message. Let it deliver it.”
“A warning . . . to you, Will Herondale . . . and to all Nephilim . . .” The creature’s broken voice ground out, “The Magister says . . . you must cease your investigation. The past . . . is the past. Leave Mortmain’s buried, or your family will pay the price. Do not dare approach or warn them. If you do, they will be destroyed.”
Jem was looking at Will; Will was still ashy-pale, but his cheeks were burning with rage. “How did Mortmain bring my family here? Did he threaten them? What has he done?”
The creature whirred and clicked, then began to speak again. “I . . . am . . . a . . . warning . . . from . . .”
Will snarled like an animal and slashed down with the sword. Tessa remembered Jessamine, in Hyde Park, tearing a faerie creature to ribbons with her delicate parasol. Will cut at the automaton until it was little more than ribbons of metal; Jem, throwing his arms around his friend and yanking him bodily backward, finally stopped him.
“Will,” he said. “Will, enough.” He glanced up, and the other two followed his gaze. In the distance, through the trees, other shapes moved—more automatons, like this one. “We must go,” Jem said. “If we want to draw them off, away from your family, we must leave.”
Will hesitated.
“Will, you know you cannot go near them,” Jem said desperately. “If nothing else, it is the Law. If we bring danger to them, the Clave will not move to help them in any way. They are not Shadowhunters anymore. Will.”
Slowly Will lowered his arm to his side. He stood, with one of Jem’s arms still around his shoulders, staring down at the pile of scrap metal at his feet. Black liquid dripped from the blade of the sword that dangled in his hand, and scorched the grass below.
Tessa exhaled. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until that moment. Will must have heard her, for he raised his head and his gaze met hers across the clearing. Something in it made her look away. Agony stripped so raw was not meant for her eyes.
* * *
In the end they hid the remains of the destroyed automaton as swiftly as possible, by burying them in the soft earth beneath a rotting log. Tessa helped as best she could, hampered by her skirts. By the end of it her hands were as black with dirt and mud as Will’s and Jem’s were.
None of them spoke; they worked in an eerie silence. When they were done, Will led the way out of the copse, guided by the light of Jem’s witchlight rune-stone. They emerged from the woods nearly at the road, where the Starkweather carriage waited, Gottshall dozing in the driver’s seat as if only a few moments had passed since they had arrived.