“Will.” Magnus’s voice was gentle but urgent. “Did you bring me here because you hoped I could help him?”
Will looked up blindly. “I don’t know why I summoned you,” he said. “I don’t think it was because I believed there was anything you could do. I think rather I thought you were the only one who might understand.”
Magnus looked surprised. “The only one who might understand?”
“You have lived so long,” Will said. “You must have seen so many die, so many that you loved. And yet you survive and you go on.”
Magnus continued to look astonished. “You summoned me here—a warlock to the Institute, just after a battle in which you were nearly all killed—to talk?”
“I find you easy to talk to,” Will said. “I cannot say why.”
Magnus shook his head slowly, and leaned against the post of the bed. “You are so young,” he murmured. “But then again, I do not think a Shadowhunter has ever called upon me before simply to pass the watches of the night with him.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Will said. “Mortmain has taken Tessa, and I believe now I know where she might be. There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to go after her. But I cannot leave Jem. I swore an oath. And what if he wakes in the night and finds I am not here?” He looked as lost as a child. “He will think I left him willingly, not caring that he was dying. He will not know. And yet if he could speak, would he not tell me to go after Tessa? Is that not what he would want?” Will dropped his face into his hands. “I cannot say, and it is tearing me in half.”
Magnus looked at him silently for a long moment. “Does he know you are in love with Tessa?”
“No.” Will lifted his face, shocked. “No. I have never said a word. It was not his burden to bear.”
Magnus took a deep breath and spoke gently. “Will. You asked me for my wisdom, as someone who has lived many lifetimes and buried many loves. I can tell you that the end of a life is the sum of the love that was lived in it, that whatever you think you have sworn, being here at the end of Jem’s life is not what is important. It was being here for every other moment. Since you met him, you have never left him and never not loved him. That is what matters.”
“You really mean that,” Will said wonderingly, and then, “Why are you being so kind to me? I owe you a favor still, don’t I? I remember that, you know, though you have never called it in.”
“Haven’t I?” Magnus said, and then smiled at him. “Will, you treat me as a human being, a person like yourself; rare is the Shadowhunter who treats a warlock like that. I am not so heartless that I would call in a favor from a brokenhearted boy. One who I think, by the way, will be a very good man someday. So I will tell you this. I will stay here when you go, and I will watch over your Jem for you, and if he wakes, I will tell him where you went, and that it was for him. And I will do what I can to preserve his life: I do not have yin fen, but I do have magic, and perhaps there is something in an old spell book I might find that can help him.”
“I would count it a great favor,” Will said.
Magnus stood looking down at Jem. There was sadness etched on his face, that face that was usually so merry or sardonic or uncaring, a sadness that surprised Will. “‘For whence had that former sorrow so easily penetrated to the quick, but that I had poured out my soul upon the dust, in loving one who must die?’” Magnus said.
Will looked up at him. “What was that?”
“Confessions of Saint Augustine,” said Magnus. “You asked me how I, being immortal, survive so many deaths. There is no great secret. You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.” He drew away from the bed. “I will give you a moment alone with him, to say good-bye as you need. You can find me in the library.”
Will nodded, speechless, as Magnus went to retrieve his gloves, then turned and left the room. Will’s mind was spinning.
He looked again at Jem, motionless in the bed. I must accept that this is the end, he thought, and even his thoughts felt hollow and distant. I must accept that Jem will never look at me, never speak to me again. You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.
And yet it still did not seem real to him, as if it were a dream. He stood up and leaned over Jem’s still form. He touched his parabatai’s cheek lightly. It was cold.
“Atque in pepetuum, frater, ave atque vale,” he whispered. The words of the poem had never seemed so fitting: Forever and ever, my brother, hail and farewell.
Will began to straighten up, to turn away from the bed. And as he did, he felt something wrap tightly around his wrist. He glanced down and saw Jem’s hand braceleting his own. For a moment he was too shocked to do anything but stare.
“I am not dead yet, Will,” Jem said in a soft voice, thin but as strong as wire. “What did Magnus mean by asking you if I knew you were in love with Tessa?”
11
FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
—Sarah Williams, “The Old Astronomer”
“Will?”
After so much time of silence, of only Jem’s breaths, raggedly in and out, Will thought for a moment he was imagining it, his best friend’s voice speaking to him out of the dimness. As Jem released his grip on Will’s wrist, Will sank into the armchair beside the bed. His heart was pounding, half with relief and half with a sickly dread.
Jem turned his head toward him, against the pillow. His eyes were dark, their silver swallowed up by black. For a moment the two young men just stared at each other. It was like the calm just as one engaged in a battle, Will thought, when thought fled and inevitability took over.
“Will,” Jem said again, and coughed, pressing his hand to his mouth. When he took it away, there was blood on his fingers. “Did I—have I been dreaming?”
Will started upright. Jem had sounded so clear, so sure—What did Magnus mean by asking you if I knew you were in love with Tessa?—but it was as if that burst of strength had fled from him, and now he sounded dizzy and bewildered.
Had Jem really heard what Magnus had said to him? And if he had, was there any chance it could be passed off as a dream, a feverish hallucination? The thought filled Will with a mixture of relief and disappointment. “Dream what?”
Jem looked down at his bloody hand, and slowly closed it into a fist. “The fight in the courtyard. Jessamine’s death. And they took her, didn’t they? Tessa?”
“Yes,” Will whispered, and he repeated the words Charlotte had said to him earlier. They had brought him no comfort, but perhaps they would to Jem. “Yes, but I don’t think they’ll hurt her. Remember, Mortmain desired her unhurt.”
“We must find her. You know that, Will. We must—” Jem struggled into a sitting position, and immediately began to cough again. Blood spattered the white coverlet. Will held Jem’s frail and shaking shoulders until the coughing ceased to rack his frame, then took one of the damp cloths from the bedside table and began to clean Jem’s hands. When he reached to wipe the blood from his parabatai’s face, Jem took the cloth gently from his grasp and looked at him gravely. “I am not a child, Will.”