Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(128)

On the bed Tessa stirred, crying out in a dry voice. In her sleep, since the battle, she had called out names. She had called for Nate, and for her aunt, and for Charlotte. “Jem,” she whispered now, clutching fitfully at her coverlet.

Charlotte turned away from Enoch as she reached for the cool cloth again and laid it across Tessa’s forehead. She knew she should not ask, and yet—

“How is he? Our Jem? Is he—adjusting to the Brotherhood?”

She felt Enoch’s reproach. You know I cannot tell you that. He is no longer your Jem. He is Brother Zachariah now. You must forget him.

“Forget him? I cannot forget him,” Charlotte said. “He is not as your other Brothers, Enoch; you know that.”

The rituals that make a Silent Brother are our deepest secrets.

“I am not asking to know of your rituals,” Charlotte said. “Yet I know that most Silent Brothers sever their ties to their mortal lives before they enter the Brotherhood. But James could not do that. He still has that which tethers him to this world.” She looked down at Tessa, her eyelids fluttering as she breathed harshly. “It is a cord that ties each of them to the other, and unless it is dissolved properly, I fear it may harm them both.”

“‘She is coming, my own, my sweet;

Were it ever so airy a tread,

My heart would hear her and beat,

Were it earth in an earthy bed;

My dust would hear her and beat,

Had I lain for a century dead;

Would start and tremble under her feet,

And blossom in purple and red.’”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Henry said irritably, pushing up the ink-stained sleeves of his dressing gown. “Can’t you read something less depressing? Something with a good battle in it.”

“It’s Tennyson,” said Will, sliding his feet off the ottoman near the fire. They were in the drawing room, Henry’s chair pulled up near the fire, a sketchbook open on his lap. He was still pale, as he had been since the battle at Cadair Idris, though he was beginning to get his color back. “It will improve your mind.”

Before Henry could reply, the door opened, and Charlotte came in, looking tired, the lace-edged sleeves of her sack dress stained with water. Will immediately set his book down, and Henry, too, looked up inquiringly from his sketchbook.

Charlotte glanced from one of them to the other, noting the book on the side table beside the silver tea service. “Have you been reading to Henry, Will?”

“Yes, some dreadful thing, all full of poetry.” Henry had a pen in one hand and papers scattered all over the lap rug drawn up around his knees.

Henry had met with his usual fortitude the news that even the Silent Brothers’ healing would not let him walk again. And a conviction that he must build himself a chair, like a sort of Bath chair but better, with self-propelling wheels and all manner of other accoutrements. He was determined that it be able to go up and down stairs, so that he could still get to his inventions in the crypt. He had been scribbling designs for the chair the whole hour that Will had been reading to him from “Maud,” but then poetry had never been Henry’s area of interest.

“Well, you are released from your duties, Will, and, Henry, you are released from further poetry,” said Charlotte. “If you like, darling, I can help you gather your notes—” She slipped around behind her husband’s chair and reached over his shoulders, helping scoop his scattered papers into a neat pile. He took her wrist as she moved, and looked up at her—a gaze of such trust and adoration that it made Will feel as if tiny knives were cutting at his skin.

It was not as if he begrudged Charlotte and Henry their happiness—far from it. But he could not help but think of Tessa. Of the hopes he had cherished once and repressed later. He wondered if she had ever looked at him like that. He did not think so. He had worked so hard to destroy her trust, and though all he wanted was a true chance to rebuild it for her, he could not help but fear—

He pushed the dark thoughts back and rose to his feet, about to explain that he intended to go see Tessa. Before he could speak, there was a knock at the door, and Sophie came in, looking unaccountably anxious. The anxiety was explained a moment later when the Inquisitor followed her into the room.

Will, used to seeing him in his ceremonial robes at Council meetings, almost didn’t recognize the stern-looking man in the gray morning coat and dark trousers. There was a livid scar on his cheek that had not been there before.

“Inquisitor Whitelaw.” Charlotte straightened up, her expression suddenly serious. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

“Charlotte,” said the Inquisitor, and he held out his hand. There was a letter, sealed with the seal of the Council. “I have brought a message for you.”

Charlotte looked at him in bewilderment. “You could not simply have sent it through the post?”

“This letter is of grave importance. It is imperative that you read it now.”

Slowly Charlotte reached out and took it. She pulled at the flap, then frowned and crossed the room to take a letter opener from her bureau. Will took the opportunity to stare at the Inquisitor covertly. The man was frowning at Charlotte and ignoring Will entirely. He could not help but wonder if the scar on the Inquisitor’s cheek was a relic of the Council’s battle with Mortmain’s automatons.

Will had been sure that they were all going to die, together, there under the mountain, until Tessa had blazed up in all the glory of the angel and struck down Mortmain like lightning striking down a tree. It had been one of the most wondrous things he had ever seen, but his wonder had been consumed quickly by terror when Tessa had collapsed after the Change, bleeding and insensible, however hard they’d tried to wake her. Magnus, near exhaustion, had barely been able to open a Portal back to the Institute with Henry’s help, and Will remembered only a blur after that, a blur of exhaustion and blood and fear, more Silent Brothers summoned to tend the wounded, and the news coming from the Council of all who had been killed in battle before the automatons had disintegrated upon Mortmain’s death. And Tessa—Tessa not speaking, not waking, being carried off to her room by the Silent Brothers, and he had not been able to go with her. Being neither brother nor husband he could only stand and stare after her, closing and unclosing his bloodstained hands. Never had he felt more helpless.