“Will,” she whispered against his mouth. She wanted him closer to her so badly, it was like an ache, a painful hot ache that spread out from her stomach to speed her heart and knot her hands in his hair and set her skin to burning. “Will, you need not be so careful. I will not break.”
“Tessa,” he groaned against her mouth, but she could hear the hesitation in his voice. She nipped gently at his lips, teasing him, and his breath caught. His hands flattened against the small of her back, pressing her to him, as his self-control slipped and his gentleness began to blossom into a more demanding urgency. Their kisses grew deeper and deeper still, as if they could breathe each other, consume each other, devour each other whole. Tessa knew she was making whimpering sounds in the back of her throat; that Will was pushing her back, back against the railing in a way that should have hurt but oddly did not; that his hands were at the bodice of Jessamine’s dress, crushing the delicate fabric roses. Distantly Tessa heard the knob of the French doors rattle; they opened, and still she and Will clung together, as if nothing else mattered.
There was a murmur of voices, and someone said, “I told you, Edith. That’s what happens when you drink the pink drinks,” in a disapproving tone. The doors shut again, and Tessa heard footsteps going away. She broke away from Will.
“Oh, my heavens,” she said, breathless. “How humiliating—”
“I don’t care.” He pulled her back to him, nuzzled the side of her neck, his face hot against her cold skin. His mouth glanced across hers. “Tess—”
“You keep saying my name,” she murmured. She had one hand on his chest, holding him a little bit away, but had no idea how long she could keep it there. Her body ached for him. Time had snapped and lost its meaning. There was only this moment, only Will. She had never felt anything like it, and she wondered if this was what it was like for Nate when he was drunk.
“I love your name. I love the sound of it.” He sounded drunk too, his mouth on hers as he spoke so she could feel the delicious movement of his lips. She breathed his breath, inhaling him. Their bodies fit together perfectly, she couldn’t help noticing; in Jessie’s white satin heeled shoes, she was but a little shorter than he was, and had only to tilt her head back slightly to kiss him. “I have to ask you something. I have to know—”
“So there you two are,” came a voice from the doorway. “And quite a spectacular display you’re making, if I do say so.”
They sprang apart. There, standing in the doorway—though Tessa could not remember the sound of the doors having opened—a long cigar held between his thin brown fingers, was Magnus Bane.
“Let me guess,” Magnus said, exhaling smoke. It made a white cloud in the shape of a heart that distorted as it drifted away from his mouth, expanding and twisting until it was no longer recognizable. “You had the lemonade.”
Tessa and Will, now standing side by side, glanced at each other. It was Tessa who spoke first. “I—yes. Nate brought me some.”
“It has a bit of a warlock powder mixed into it,” said Magnus. He was wearing all black, with no other ornamentation save on his hands. Each finger bore a ring set with a huge stone of a different color—lemon yellow citrine, green jade, red ruby, blue topaz. “The kind that lowers your inhibitions and makes you do things you would”—he coughed delicately—“not otherwise do.”
“Oh,” said Will. And then: “Oh.” His voice was low. He turned away, leaning his hands on the balustrade. Tessa felt her face begin to burn.
“Gracious, that’s a lot of bosom you’re showing,” Magnus went on blithely, gesturing toward Tessa with the burning tip of his cigar. “Tout le monde sur le balcon, as they say in French,” he added, miming a vast terrace jutting out from his chest. “Especially apt, as we are now, in fact, on a balcony.”
“Let her alone,” said Will. Tessa couldn’t see his face; he had his head down. “She didn’t know what she was drinking.”
Tessa crossed her arms, realized this only intensified the severity of the bosom problem, and dropped them. “This is Jessamine’s dress, and she’s half my size,” she snapped. “I would never go out like this under ordinary circumstances.”
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “Changed back into yourself, did you? When the lemonade took effect?”
Tessa scowled. She felt obscurely humiliated—to have been caught kissing Will; to be standing in front of Magnus in something her aunt would have dropped dead to see her in—yet part of her wished Magnus would go away so she could kiss Will again. “What are you doing here, yourself, if I might ask?” she snapped ungraciously. “How did you know we were here?”
“I have sources,” said Magnus, trailing smoke airily. “I thought you two might be up against it. Benedict Lightwood’s parties have a reputation for danger. When I heard you were here—”
“We’re well equipped to handle danger,” Tessa said.
Magnus eyed her bosom openly. “I can see that,” he said. “Armed to the teeth, as it were.” Done with his cigar, he flicked it over the balcony railing. “One of Camille’s human subjugates was here and recognized Will. He got a message to me, but if one of you was recognized already, what’s the chance it could happen again? It’s time to make yourselves scarce.”
“What do you care if we get out or not?” It was Will, his head still down, his voice muffled.
“You owe me,” Magnus said, his voice steely. “I mean to collect.”
Will turned on him. Tessa was startled to see the expression on his face. He looked sick and ill. “I should have known that was it.”
“You may choose your friends, but not your unlikely saviors,” Magnus said cheerfully. “Shall we go, then? Or would you rather stay here and take your chances? You can start up with the kissing where you left off when you get back to the Institute.”
Will scowled. “Get us out of here.”
Magnus’s cat eyes gleamed. He snapped his fingers, and a shower of blue sparks fell around them in a sudden, startling rain. Tessa tensed, expecting them to burn her skin, but she felt only wind rushing past her face. Her hair lifted as a strange energy crackled through her nerves. She heard Will gasp—and then they were standing on one of the stone paths in the garden, near the ornamental pond, the great Lightwood manor rising, silent and dark, above them.
“There,” said Magnus in a bored tone. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
Will looked at him with no gratitude. “Magic,” he muttered.
Magnus threw his hands up. They still crackled with blue energy, like heat lightning. “And just what do you think your precious runes are? Not magic?”
“Shush,” Tessa said. She was bone-weary suddenly. She ached where the corset crushed her ribs, and her feet, in Jessamine’s too-small shoes, were in agony. “Stop spouting off, the both of you. I think someone’s coming.”
They all paused, just as a chattering group rounded the corner of the house. Tessa froze. Even in the cloudy moonlight, she could see they were not human. They were not Downworlders, either. It was a group of demons—one a shambling corpse-like figure with black holes for eyes; another half again the size of a man, blue-skinned and dressed in a waistcoat and trousers, but with a barbed tail, lizard’s features, and a flat snakelike snout; and another that seemed to be a spinning wheel covered in wet red mouths.