Jessamine sat back in her chair, narrowing her brown eyes. “How interesting.”
Tessa’s hands shook as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She hated that Will had this effect on her. Hated it. She knew better. She knew what he thought of her. That she was nothing, worth nothing. And still a look from him could make her tremble with mingled hatred and longing. It was like a poison in her blood, to which Jem was the only antidote. Only with him did she feel on steady ground.
“Come.” Jem took her arm lightly. A gentleman would not normally touch a lady in public, but here in the Institute the Shadowhunters were more familiar with one another than were the mundanes outside. When she turned to look at him, he smiled at her. Jem put the full force of himself into each smile, so that he seemed to be smiling with his eyes, his heart, his whole being. “We’ll find Charlotte.”
“And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” Jessamine said crossly as they made their way to the door.
Jem glanced back over his shoulder. “You could always wake up Henry. It looks like he’s eating paper in his sleep again, and you know how Charlotte hates that.”
“Oh, bother,” said Jessamine with an exasperated sigh. “Why do I always get the silly tasks?”
“Because you don’t want the serious ones,” said Jem, sounding as close to exasperated as Tessa had ever heard him. Neither of them noticed the icy look she shot them as they left the library behind and headed down the corridor.
“Mr. Bane has been awaiting your arrival, sir,” the footman said, and stepped aside to let Will enter. The footman’s name was Archer—or Walker, or something like that, Will thought—and he was one of Camille’s human subjugates. Like all those enslaved to a vampire’s will, he was sickly-looking, with parchment pale skin and thin, stringy hair. He looked about as happy to see Will as a dinner party guest might be to see a slug crawling out from under his lettuce.
The moment Will entered the house, the smell hit him. It was the smell of dark magic, like sulfur mixed with the Thames on a hot day. Will wrinkled his nose. The footman looked at him with even more loathing. “Mr. Bane is in the drawing room.” His voice indicated that there was no chance whatsoever that he was going to accompany Will there. “Shall I take your coat?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Coat still on, Will followed the scent of magic down the corridor. It intensified as he drew nearer to the door of the drawing room, which was firmly closed. Tendrils of smoke threaded out from the gap beneath the door. Will took a deep breath of sour air, and pushed the door open.
The inside of the drawing room looked peculiarly bare. After a moment Will realized that this was because Magnus had taken all the heavy teak furniture, even the piano, and pushed it up against the walls. An ornate gasolier hung from the ceiling, but the light in the room was provided by dozens of thick black candles arranged in a circle in the center of the room. Magnus stood beside the circle, a book open in his hands; his old-fashioned cravat was loosened, and his black hair stood up wildly about his face as if charged with electricity. He looked up when Will came in, and smiled. “Just in time!” he cried. “I really think we may have him this round. Will, meet Thammuz, a minor demon from the eighth dimension. Thammuz, meet Will, a minor Shadowhunter from—Wales, was it?”
“I will rip out your eyes,” hissed the creature sitting in the center of the burning circle. It was certainly a demon, no more than three feet high, with pale blue skin, three coal black, burning eyes, and long blood-red talons on its eight-fingered hands. “I will tear the skin from your face.”
“Don’t be rude, Thammuz,” said Magnus, and although his tone was light, the circle of candles blazed suddenly, brightly upward, causing the demon to shrink in on itself with a scream. “Will has questions. You will answer them.”
Will shook his head. “I don’t know, Magnus,” he said. “He doesn’t look like the right one to me.”
“You said he was blue. This one’s blue.”
“He is blue,” Will acknowledged, stepping closer to the circle of flame. “But the demon I need—well, he was really a cobalt blue. This one’s more . . . periwinkle.”
“What did you call me?” The demon roared with rage. “Come closer, little Shadowhunter, and let me feast upon your liver! I will tear it from your body while you scream.”
Will turned to Magnus. “He doesn’t sound right either. The voice is different. And the number of eyes.”
“Are you sure—”
“I’m absolutely sure,” said Will in a voice that brooked no contradiction. “It’s not something I would ever—could ever—forget.”
Magnus sighed and turned back to the demon. “Thammuz,” he said, reading aloud from the book. “I charge you, by the power of bell and book and candle, and by the great names of Sammael and Abbadon and Moloch, to speak the truth. Have you ever encountered the Shadowhunter Will Herondale before this day, or any of his blood or lineage?”
“I don’t know,” said the demon petulantly. “Humans all look alike to me.”
Magnus’s voice rose, sharp and commanding. “Answer me!”
“Oh, very well. No, I’ve never seen him before in my life. I’d remember. He looks as if he’d taste good.” The demon grinned, showing razor-sharp teeth. “I haven’t even been to this world for, oh, a hundred years, possibly more. I can never remember the difference between a hundred and a thousand. Anyway, the last time I was here, everyone was living in mud huts and eating bugs. So I doubt he was around”—he pointed a many-jointed finger at Will—“unless Earthkind lives much longer than I was led to believe.”
Magnus rolled his eyes. “You’re just determined not to be any help at all, aren’t you?”
The demon shrugged, a peculiarly human gesture. “You forced me to tell the truth. I told it.”
“Well, then, have you ever heard of a demon like the one I was describing?” Will broke in, a tinge of desperation in his voice. “Dark blue, with a raspy sort of voice, like sandpaper—and he had a long, barbed tail.”
The demon regarded him with a bored expression. “Do you have any idea how many kinds of demons there are in the Void, Nephilim? Hundreds upon hundreds of millions. The great demon city of Pandemonium makes your London look like a village. Demons of all shapes and sizes and colors. Some can change their appearance at will—”
“Oh, be quiet, then, if you’re not going to be of any use,” Magnus said, and slammed the book shut. Instantly the candles went out, the demon vanishing with a startled cry, leaving behind only a wisp of foul-smelling smoke.
The warlock turned to Will. “I was so sure I had the right one this time.”
“It’s not your fault.” Will flung himself onto one of the divans shoved up against the wall. He felt hot and cold at the same time, his nerves prickling with a disappointment he was trying to force back without much success. He pulled his gloves off restlessly and shoved them into the pockets of his still buttoned coat. “You’re trying. Thammuz was right. I haven’t given you very much to go on.”
“I assume,” Magnus said quietly, “that you have told me all you remember. You opened a Pyxis and released a demon. It cursed you. You want me to find that demon and see if it will remove the curse. And that is all you can tell me?”