Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(23)

“You are considering remaining at the Institute?” Cecily said in surprise, reading it on his face. “What does Charlotte say?”

“She will allow it.” Gabriel’s face changed briefly, a sudden vulnerability showing where only hardness had shown before. “My brother is here.”

“Yes,” said Cecily. “So is mine.”

Gabriel paused for a moment, almost as if that had not occurred to him. “Will,” he said. “You do look very much like him. It is … unnerving.” He shook his head then, as if clearing it of cobwebs. “I just saw your brother,” he said. “Pounding down the front steps of the Institute as if the Four Horsemen were chasing him. I don’t suppose you’d know what that’s about?”

Purpose. Cecily’s heart leaped. She seized the knife out of Gabriel’s hand, ignoring his startled exclamation. “Not at all,” she said, “but I intend to find out.”

Just as the City of London seemed to shutter itself as the workday ended, the East End was bursting into life. Will moved through streets lined with stalls selling secondhand clothes and shoes. Rag-and-bone men and knife sharpeners pushed their carts through the byways, shouting their wares in hoarse voices. Butchers lounged in open doorways, their aprons spattered with blood, carcasses hanging in their windows. Women putting out washing called to each other across the streets in voices so tinged with the accent of everyone born within the sound of Bow Bells that they might as well have been speaking Russian, for all that Will could understand them.

A faint drizzle had begun to fall, dampening Will’s hair as he crossed in front of a wholesale tobacconist’s, closed now, and turned a corner onto a narrower street. He could see the spire of Whitechapel Church in the distance. The shadows gathered in here, the fog thick and soft and smelling of iron and rubbish. A narrow gutter ran down the center of the street, filled with stinking water. Up ahead was a doorway, a gas carriage lamp hanging to either side. As Will was passing, he ducked into it suddenly and thrust out his hand.

There was a cry, and then he was hauling a slim, black-clad figure toward him—Cecily, a velvet cloak thrown on hastily over her gear. Dark hair spilled from the edges of her hood, and his own blue eyes gazed back at him, snapping with fury. “Let go of me!”

“What are you doing following me about the back streets of London, you little idiot?” Will gave her arm a light shake.

Her eyes narrowed. “This morning it was cariad, now it’s idiot?”

“These streets are dangerous,” Will said. “And you know nothing of them. You are not even using a glamour rune. It is one thing to declare you are not afraid of anything when you live in the country, but this is London.”

“I am not afraid of London,” Cecily said defiantly.

Will leaned close, almost hissing into her ear. “Fyddai’n wneud unrhyw dda yn ddweud wrthych i fynd adref?”

She laughed. “No, it would not do you any good to tell me to go home. Rwyt ti fy mrawd ac rwy eisiau mynd efo chi.”

Will blinked at her words. You are my brother and I want to go with you. It was the sort of thing he was used to hearing Jem say, and though Cecily was unlike Jem in every other conceivable way, she did share one quality with him: an absolute stubbornness. When Cecily said she wanted something, it did not express an idle desire but an iron determination.

“Don’t you even care where I’m going?” he said. “What if I were going to Hell?”

“I’ve always wanted to see Hell,” Cecily said calmly. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Most of us spend our time struggling to stay out of it,” said Will. “I am going to an ifrit den, if you must know, to purchase drugs from violent, dissolute reprobates. They may clap eyes on you and decide to sell you.”

“Wouldn’t you stop them?”

“I suppose it would depend on how much they would give me.”

She shook her head. “Jem is your parabatai,” she said. “He is your brother, given to you by the Clave. But I am your sister by blood. Why will you do anything in the world for him but you only want me to go home?”

“How do you know the drugs are for Jem?”

“I am not a fool, Will.”

“No, more’s the pity,” Will muttered. “Jem—Jem is all the better part of myself. I would not expect you to understand. I owe him this.”

“Then what am I?” Cecily asked.

Will exhaled, too exasperated to check himself. “You are my weakness.”

“And Tessa is your heart,” she said, not angrily but thoughtfully. “Not a fool, as I told you,” she added at his startled expression. “I know that you love her.”

Will put his hand to his head, as if her words had caused a splitting pain there. “Have you told anyone? You mustn’t, Cecily. No one knows, and it must remain that way.”

“I would hardly tell anyone.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?” His voice had gone hard. “You must be ashamed of your brother—harboring illicit feelings for his parabatai’s fiancée—”

“I am not ashamed of you, Will. Whatever you feel, you have not acted on it, and I suppose we all want things we cannot have.”

“Oh?” Will said. “And what do you want that you cannot have?”