“Is that why you wrote this?” The Consul drew from his coat pocket the first letter Gabriel and Gideon had sent him. He looked at it in contempt and let it flutter to the ground. “This ridiculous missive, calculated to annoy me?”
“Did it work?”
For a moment Gabriel thought the Consul was going to hit him. But the look of anger passed quickly from the older man’s eyes; when he spoke again, it was calmly. “I suppose I should not have expected a Lightwood to react well to being blackmailed. Your father would not have. I confess I thought you of weaker stuff.”
“If you intend to try another avenue to persuade me, do not bother,” Gabriel said. “There is no point in it.”
“Really? You’re that loyal to Charlotte Branwell, after all her family did to yours? Gideon I might have expected this from—he takes after your mother. Too trusting in nature. But not you, Gabriel. From you I expected more pride in your blood.”
Gabriel let his head fall back against the wall. “There was nothing,” he said. “You understand? There was nothing in Charlotte’s correspondence to interest you, to interest anyone. You told us you would destroy us utterly if we did not report on her activities, but there was nothing to report on. You gave us no choice.”
“You could have told me the truth.”
“You did not want to hear it,” said Gabriel. “I am not stupid, and neither is my brother. You want Charlotte removed as head of the Institute, but you do not want it to be too clear that it was your hand that removed her. You wished to discover her engaged in some sort of illegal dealing. But the truth is that there is nothing to be discovered.”
“Truth is malleable. Truth can be uncovered, certainly, but it can also be created.”
Gabriel’s gaze snapped to the Consul’s face. “You would rather I lied to you?”
“Oh, no,” said the Consul. “Not to me.” He put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “The Lightwoods have always had honor. Your father made mistakes. You should not pay for them. Let me give you back what you have lost. Let me return to you Lightwood House, the good name of your family. You could live in the house with your brother and sister. You need no longer be dependent on the charity of the Enclave.”
Charity. The word was bitter. Gabriel thought of his brother’s blood on the flagstones of the Institute. Had Charlotte not been so foolish, so determined to take the shape-changer girl into the bosom of the Institute against the objections of Clave and Consul, the Magister would not have sent his forces against the Institute. Gideon’s blood would not have been spilled.
In fact, whispered a small voice at the back of his mind, had it not been for Charlotte, my father’s secret would have remained a secret. Benedict would not have been forced to betray the Magister. He would not have lost the source of the drug that held off the astriola. He might never have transformed. His sons might never have learned of his sins. The Lightwoods could have continued in blissful ignorance.
“Gabriel,” said the Consul. “This offer is for you only. It must be kept a secret from your brother. He is like your mother, too loyal. Loyal to Charlotte. His mistaken loyalty may do him credit, but it will not help us here. Tell him that I grew tired of your antics; tell him that I no longer desire any action from you. You are a good liar”—here he smiled sourly—“and I feel sure you can convince him. What do you say?”
Gabriel set his jaw. “What do you wish me to do?”
Will shifted in the armchair by the side of Jem’s bed. He had been here for hours now, and his back was growing stiff, but he refused to move. There was always the chance that Jem might wake, and expect him there.
At least it was not cold. Bridget had built up the fire in the grate; the damp wood popped and crackled, sending up the occasional blaze of sparks. The night outside the windows was dark without a hint of blue or clouds, only a flat black as if it had been painted on the glass.
Jem’s violin leaned against the foot of his bed, and his cane, still slicked with blood from the fight in the courtyard, lay beside it. Jem himself lay still, propped up on pillows, no color at all in his pale face. Will felt as if he were seeing him for the first time after a long absence, for that brief moment when you were apt to notice changes in familiar faces before they became part of the scenery of one’s life once again. Jem looked so thin—how had Will not noticed?—all extra flesh stripped away from the bones of cheek and jaw and forehead, so he was all hollows and angles. There was a faint bluish sheen to his closed eyelids, and to his mouth. His collarbones curved like the prow of a ship.
Will upbraided himself. How had he not realized all these months that Jem was dying—so quickly, so soon? How had he not seen the scythe and the shadow?
“Will.” It was a whisper at the door. He looked up dully and saw Charlotte there, her head around the doorway. “There is … someone here to see you.”
Will blinked as Charlotte moved out of the way and Magnus Bane stepped around her and into the room. For a moment Will could think of nothing to say.
“He says you summoned him,” Charlotte said, sounding a little dubious. Magnus stood, looking indifferent, in a charcoal-gray suit. He was slowly rolling his gloves, dark gray kid, off his thin brown hands.
“I did summon him,” Will said, feeling as if he were waking up. “Thank you, Charlotte.”
Charlotte gave him a look that mixed sympathy with the unspoken message Be it on your head, Will Herondale, and went out of the room, closing the door conspicuously behind her.
“You came,” Will said, aware that he sounded stupid. He never liked it when people observed the obvious aloud, and here he was doing just that. He could not shake his feeling of discombobulation. Seeing Magnus here, in the middle of Jem’s bedroom, was like seeing a faerie knight seated among the white-wigged barristers of the Old Bailey.
Magnus dropped his gloves on top of a table and moved toward the bed. He put out a hand to brace himself against one of the posts as he looked down at Jem, so still and white that he could have been carved on top of a tomb. “James Carstairs,” he said, murmuring the words under his voice as if they had some incantatory power.
“He’s dying,” Will said.
“That much is evident.” It could have sounded cold, but there were worlds of sadness in Magnus’s voice, a sadness that Will felt with a jolt of familiarity. “I thought you believed he had a few days, a week perhaps.”
“It is not just the lack of the drug.” Will’s voice sounded rusty; he cleared his throat. “In fact, we have a little of that, and have administered it. But there was a fight this afternoon, and he lost blood and was weakened. He is not strong enough, we fear, to recover himself.”
Magnus reached out and with great gentleness lifted Jem’s hand. There were bruises on his pale fingers, and the blue veins ran like a map of rivers under the skin of his wrist. “Is he suffering?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps it would be better to let him die.” Magnus looked at Will, his eyes dark gold-green. “Every life is finite, Will. And you knew, when you chose him, that he would die before you did.”
Will stared ahead of him. He felt as if he were hurtling down a dark tunnel, one that had no end, no sides to grip to slow his fall. “If you think that would be the best thing for him.”