Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(139)

“But what of you?” said Will. “Tell me what I can do, for you are my parabatai, and I do not wish you to go into the shadows of the Silent City alone.”

“I have no choice. But if there is one thing I could ask of you, it is that you be happy. I want you to have a family and grow old with those who love you. And if you wish to marry Tessa, then do not let the memory of me keep you apart.”

“She may not want me, you know,” Will said.

Jem smiled, fleetingly. “Well, that part is up to you, I think.”

Will smiled back, and for just that moment they were Jem-and-Will again. Will could see Jem, but also through him, to the past. Will remembered the two of them, running through the dark streets of London, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, seraph blades gleaming in their hands; hours in the training room, shoving each other into mud puddles, throwing snowballs at Jessamine from behind an ice fort in the courtyard, asleep like puppies on the rug in front of the fire.

Ave atque vale, Will thought. Hail and farewell. He had not given much thought to the words before, had never thought about why they were not just a farewell but also a greeting. Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would, as long as life was mortal. In every meeting there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in every parting there was some of the joy of meeting as well.

He would not forget the joy.

“We spoke of how to say good-bye,” Jem said. “When Jonathan bid farewell to David, he said, ‘Go in peace, for as much as we have sworn, both of us, saying the Lord be between me and thee, forever.’ They did not see each other again, but they did not forget. So it will be with us. When I am Brother Zachariah, when I no longer see the world with my human eyes, I will still be in some part the Jem you knew, and I will see you with the eyes of my heart.”

“Wo men shi sheng si ji jiao,” said Will, and he saw Jem’s eyes widen, fractionally, and the spark of amusement inside them. “Go in peace, James Carstairs.”

They stayed looking at each other for a long moment, and then Jem drew up his hood, hiding his face in shadow, and turned away.

Will closed his eyes. He could not hear Jem go, not anymore; he did not want to know the moment when he left and Will was alone, did not want to know when his first day as a Shadowhunter without a parabatai truly began. And if the place over his heart, where his parabatai rune had been, flared up with a sudden burning pain as the door closed behind Jem, Will told himself it was only a stray ember from the fire.

He leaned back against the wall, then slowly slid down it until he was sitting on the floor, beside his throwing knife. He did not know how long he sat there, but he could hear the noise of horses in the courtyard, the rattle of the Silent Brothers’ carriage pulling out of the drive. The clang of the gate as it shut. We are dust and shadows.

“Will?” He looked up; he had not noticed the slight figure in the doorway of the training room until she spoke. Charlotte took a step forward and smiled at him. There was kindness in her smile, as there always was, and he fought to not close his eyes against the memories—Charlotte in the doorway of this very room. Didn’t you recall what I told you yesterday, that we were welcoming a new arrival to the Institute today? … James Carstairs …

“Will,” she said, again, now. “You were correct.”

He lifted his head, his hands dangling between his knees. “Correct about what?”

“About Jem and Tessa,” she said. “Their engagement is ended. And Tessa is awake. She is awake, and well, and asking for you.”

When I am in the darkness, I will think of it in the light, with you.

Tessa sat upright against the pillows Sophie had carefully arranged for her (the two girls had embraced, and Sophie had brushed the tangles from Tessa’s hair and said “bless, bless” so many times that Tessa had had to ask her to stop before she made them both cry) and looked down at the jade pendant in her hands.

She felt as if she were split into two different people. One was counting her blessings over and over that Jem was alive, that he would survive to see the sun rise again, that the poisonous drug he had suffered from so long would not burn the life out of his veins. The other—

“Tess?” A soft voice at the door; she looked up and saw Will there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor.

Will. She thought of the boy who had come into her room at the Dark House and distracted her from her terror by chattering about Tennyson and hedgehogs and dashing fellows who come to rescue one, and how they were never wrong. She had thought him handsome then, but now she thought him something else entirely. He was Will, in all his perfect imperfection; Will, whose heart was as easy to break as it was carefully guarded; Will, who loved not wisely but entirely and with everything he had.

“Tess,” he said again, hesitating at her silence, and came in, half-closing the door behind him. “I—Charlotte said you wished to speak with me—”

“Will,” she said, and she knew she was too pale, and her skin was blotchy with tears, her eyes still red, but it didn’t matter, because it was Will, and she put her hands out, and he came immediately and took them, closing them in his own warm, scarred fingers.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, his eyes searching her face. “I must speak with you, but I do not wish to burden you until you are in full health again.”

“I am well,” she said, returning the pressure of his fingers with her own. “Seeing Jem has eased my mind. Did it ease yours?”