He carried her away from the brougham, his eyes on what was happening in the courtyard. Charlotte had dispatched her automaton, and Bridget and Henry were in the middle of slicing another into bits. Sophie, Gideon, Gabriel, and Cecily had two automatons on the ground among them, and were carving them up like a Christmas roast. Jem had not returned.
“Will,” Jessie said, her voice a weak thread. “Will, please set me down.”
“I need to get you inside, Jessamine.”
“No.” She coughed, and Will saw to his horror that blood was running from the corners of her mouth. “I won’t survive that long. Will—if ever you cared about me at all, even a bit, put me down.”
Will sank to the foot of the stairs with Jessie in his arms, trying his best to cradle her head against his shoulder. Blood freely stained her throat and the front of her white dress, pasting the material to her body. She was terribly thin, her collarbone sticking out like the wings of a bird, her cheeks sunk into hollows. She resembled a patient staggering out of Bedlam more than the pretty girl who had left them only eight weeks ago.
“Jess,” he said softly. “Jessie. Where are you hurt?”
She gave a ghastly sort of smile. Red rimmed the edges of her teeth. “One of the creature’s talons went through my back,” she whispered, and indeed, as Will looked down, he saw that the back of her dress was soaked through with blood. Blood stained his hands, his trousers, his shirt, filling his throat with its choking coppery smell. “It pierced my heart. I can feel it.”
“An iratze—” Will began to fumble at his belt for his stele.
“No iratze will help me now.” Her voice was sure.
“Then the Silent Brothers—”
“Even their power cannot save me. Besides, I cannot bear to have them touch me again. I would rather die. I am dying, and I am glad of it.”
Will looked down at her, stunned. He could remember when Jessie had come to the Institute, fourteen years old and as wicked as an angry cat with all her claws out. He had never been kind to her, nor she to him—he had never been kind to anyone save Jem—but Jessie had saved him the trouble of regretting it. Still, he had admired her in an odd way, admired the strength of her hatred and the force of her will.
“Jessie.” He put his hand on her cheek, awkwardly smearing the blood.
“You needn’t.” She coughed again. “Be kind to me, that is. I know you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You never visited me in the Silent City. The others all came. Tessa and Jem, Henry and Charlotte. But not you. You are not forgiving, Will.”
“No.” He said it because it was true, and because part of the reason he had never liked Jessamine was that in some ways she reminded him of himself. “Jem is the forgiving one.”
“And yet I always liked you better.” Her eyes darted over his face thoughtfully. “Oh, no, not like that. Don’t think it. But the way you hated yourself … I understood that. Jem always wanted to give me a chance, as Charlotte did. But I do not want the gifts of generous hearts. I want to be seen as I am. And because you do not pity me, I know if I ask you to do something, you will do it.”
She gave a gasping breath. The blood had formed bubbles about her mouth. Will knew what that meant: Her lungs were punctured or dissolving, and she was drowning in her own blood. “What is it?” he said urgently. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Take care of them,” she whispered. “Baby Jessie and the others.”
It took Will a moment before he realized that she meant her dolls. Good God. “I will not let them destroy any of your things, Jessamine.”
She gave the ghost of a smile. “I thought they might—not want anything to remember me by.”
“You are not hated, Jessamine. Whatever world lies beyond this one, do not go to it thinking that.”
“Oh, no?” Her eyes were fluttering shut. “Though surely you would all have liked me a bit better if I had told you where Mortmain was. I might not have lost your love then.”
“Tell me now,” Will urged. “Tell me, if you can, and earn that love back—”
“Idris,” she whispered.
“Jessamine, we know that’s not true—”
Jessamine’s eyes flew open. The whites were tinted scarlet now, like blood in water. “You,” she said. “You of all people should have understood.” Her fingers tightened suddenly, spasmodically, on his lapel. “You are a terrible Welshman,” she said thickly, and then her chest hitched, and did not hitch again. She was dead.
Her eyes were open, fixed on his face. He touched them lightly, closing her eyelids, leaving the bloody prints of his thumb and forefinger behind. “Ave atque vale, Jessamine Lovelace.”
“No!” It was Charlotte. Will looked up through a mist of shock to see others gathered about him—Charlotte, slumped in Henry’s arms; Cecily with her eyes wide; and Bridget, holding two oil-spattered blades, quite expressionless. Behind them Gideon was sitting on the steps of the Institute with his brother and Sophie on either side of him. He was leaning back, very pale, his jacket off; a torn strip of cloth was tied about one of his legs, and Gabriel was applying what was likely a healing rune to his arm.
Henry nuzzled his face into Charlotte’s neck and murmured soothing things as tears ran down his wife’s face. Will looked at them, and then at his sister.
“Jem,” he said, and the name was a question.
“He went off after Tessa,” said Cecily. She was staring down at Jessamine, her expression a mixture of pity and horror.
A white light seemed to flash in front of Will’s eyes. “Went off after Tessa? What do you mean?”
“One—one of the automatons seized her and threw her into a carriage.” Cecily faltered at the fierceness in his tone. “None of us could follow. The creatures were blocking us. Then Jem ran through the gates. I assumed—”
Will found that his hands had tightened, quite unconsciously, on Jessamine’s arms, leaving livid marks in the skin. “Someone take Jessamine from me,” he said raggedly. “I must go after them.”
“Will, no—,” Charlotte began.
“Charlotte.” The word tore out of his throat. “I must go—”
There was a clang—the sound of the Institute gates slamming shut. Will’s head jerked up, and he saw Jem.
The gates had just closed behind him, and he was walking toward them. He was moving slowly, as if drunk or injured, and as he drew closer, Will saw that he was covered in blood. The coal-black blood of the automatons, but a great deal of red blood as well—on his shirt, streaking his face and hands, and in his hair.
He neared them, and stopped dead. He looked the way Thomas had looked when Will had found him on the steps of the Institute, bleeding out and nearly dead.
“James?” Will said.
There was a world of questions in that one word.
“She’s gone,” Jem said in a flat, uninflected voice. “I ran after the carriage—but it was gaining speed and I could not run fast enough. I lost them near Temple Bar.” His eyes flicked toward Jessamine, but he did not even seem to see her body, or Will holding her, or anything at all. “If I could have run faster—,” he said, and then he doubled up as if he had been struck, a cough ripping through him. He hit the ground on his knees and elbows, blood spattering the ground at his feet. His fingers clawed at the stone. Then he rolled onto his back and was still.