Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(100)

“Gabriel,” Gideon groaned, and buried his face in his hands. Gabriel looked as if he were about to be sick, half-wavering on his feet. Cecily was torn between pity and horror, remembering that night in the training room, how she had told him she had faith in him that he would make the right choices.

“That is why you looked so frightened when I called you to speak with me earlier today,” Charlotte said, her gaze steady on Gabriel. “You thought I had found you out.”

Henry began to rise to his feet, his pleasant, open face darkening with the first real anger Cecily thought she had ever seen on it. “Gabriel Lightwood,” he said. “My wife has shown you nothing but kindness, and this is how you repay it?”

Charlotte put a restraining hand on her husband’s arm. “Henry, wait,” she said. “Gabriel. What did you do?”

“I listened to your conversation with Aloysius Starkweather,” Gabriel said in an empty voice. “I wrote a letter to the Consul afterward, telling him that you were basing your requests that he march on Wales on the words of a madman, that you were credulous, too headstrong …”

Charlotte’s eyes seemed to pierce through Gabriel like nails; Cecily thought she would never want that gaze on her, not in her life. “You wrote it,” she said. “Did you send it?”

Gabriel took a long, gasping breath. “No,” he said, and reached into his sleeve. He drew out a folded paper and threw it down onto the table. Cecily stared at it. It was smudged with fingerprints and soft at the edges, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times. “I could not do it. I did not tell him anything at all.”

Cecily let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Sophie made a soft noise; she started toward Gideon, who was looking as if he were recovering from being punched in the stomach. Charlotte remained as calm as she had been throughout. She reached out, picked up the letter, glanced over it, and then placed it back on the table.

“Why didn’t you send it?” she said.

He looked at her, an odd shared look that passed between them, and said, “I had my reasons to reconsider.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Gideon said. “Gabriel, you are my brother….”

“You cannot make all choices for me, Gideon. Sometimes I have to make my own. As Shadowhunters we are meant to be selfless. To die for mundanes, for the Angel, and most of all for each other. Those are our principles. Charlotte lives by them; Father never did. I realized that I had been mistaken before in putting my loyalty to my bloodline above principle, above everything. And I realized the Consul was wrong about Charlotte.” Gabriel stopped abruptly; his mouth was set in a thin, white line. “He was wrong.” He turned to Charlotte. “I cannot take back what I have done in the past, or what I considered doing. I know of no way to make up to you my doubt in your authority, or my ungratefulness for your kindness. All I can do is tell you what I know: that you cannot wait for an approval from Consul Wayland that will never come. He will never march upon Cadair Idris for you, Charlotte. He does not want to agree to any plan that has your stamp of authority on it. He wishes you out of the Institute. Replaced.”

“But he is the one who put me here,” Charlotte said. “He supported me—”

“Because he thought you would be weak,” said Gabriel. “Because he believes women are weak and easily manipulated, but you have proved not to be, and it has ruined all his planning. He does not just desire you discredited; he needs it. He was clear enough with me that even if I could not discover you engaged in any true wrongdoing, he was granting me the freedom to invent a lie that would convict you. As long as it was a convincing one.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together. “Then he never had faith in me,” she whispered. “Never.”

Henry tightened his grip on her arm. “But he should have,” he said. “He underestimated you, and that is not a tragedy. That you have proven to be better, cleverer, and stronger than anyone could have expected, Charlotte—it is a triumph.”

Charlotte swallowed, and Cecily wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to have someone look at her as Henry looked at Charlotte—as if she were a wonder on the earth. “What do I do?”

“What you think best, Charlotte darling,” said Henry.

“You are the leader of the Enclave, and of the Institute,” said Gabriel. “We have faith in you, even if the Consul does not.” He ducked his head. “You have my loyalty from this day forward. For whatever it is worth to you.”

“It is worth a great deal,” Charlotte said, and there was something in her voice, a quiet authority that made Cecily want to rise and proclaim her own loyalty, simply to win the balm of Charlotte’s approval. Cecily couldn’t imagine feeling that way, she realized, about the Consul. And that is why the Consul hates her, she thought. Because she is a woman, and yet he knows she can command loyalty in a way he never could. “We proceed as if the Consul does not exist,” Charlotte went on. “If he is determined to remove me from my place here, then I have nothing to safeguard. It is simply a matter of doing what we must before he has a chance to stop us. Henry, how long before your invention is ready?”

“Tomorrow,” Henry said promptly. “I shall work through the night—”

“It will be the first time it is ever used,” said Gideon. “Does that not seem a bit risky?”