Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(33)

He raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. Not a heart. Perhaps you should not attempt quotations if you cannot get them correct.”

“And maybe you should stop pitying yourself,” he said. “Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two.”

“Says the man who has none.”

“Oh!” Woolsey staggered back with his hand against his heart, mock swooning. “The dove has teeth. Very well, if you don’t wish to discuss personal matters, then perhaps something more general? Your own nature? Magnus seems convinced you are a warlock, but I am not so sure. I think there may be some of the blood of faeries about you, for what is the magic of shape-changing if it is not a magic of illusion? And who are the masters of magic and illusion if not the Fair Folk?”

Tessa thought of the blue-haired faerie woman at Benedict’s party who had claimed to know her mother, and her breath hitched in her throat. Before she could say another word to Woolsey, though, Magnus and Will came back in through the door—Will, as predicted, just as bloody as before, and scowling. He looked from Tessa to Woolsey and laughed a short laugh. “I suppose you were right, Magnus,” he said. “Tessa is in no danger from him. One cannot say the same in reverse.”

“Tessa, darling, put the poker down,” Magnus said, holding out his hand. “Woolsey can be dreadful, but there are better ways of handling his moods.”

With a last glare at Woolsey, Tessa handed the poker to Magnus. She went to retrieve her gloves, and Will his coat, and there was a blur of movement and voices, and she heard Woolsey laugh. She was barely paying attention; she was too focused on Will. She could tell already from the look on his face that whatever he and Magnus had said to each other in private, it had not solved the problem of Jem’s drugs. He looked haunted, and a little deadly, the blood freckling his high cheekbones only making the blue of his eyes more startling.

Magnus led them from the drawing room and out to the front door, where the cool air hit Tessa like a wave. She tugged her gloves on and nodded a good-bye to Magnus, who shut the door, closing the two of them out in the night.

The Thames glittered past the trees, the roadway, and the Embankment, and the gas lamps on Battersea Bridge shone down into the water, a nocturne in blue and gold. The shadow of the carriage was visible beneath the trees by the gate. Above them the moon appeared and disappeared between moving banks of gray cloud.

Will was utterly still. “Tessa,” he said.

His voice sounded peculiar, odd and choked. Tessa stepped quickly down to stand beside him, looking up into his face. Will’s face was so often changeable as moonlight itself; she had never seen his expression so still.

“Did he say he would help?” she whispered. “Magnus?”

“He will try, but—the way he looked at me—he felt sorry for me, Tess. That means there’s no hope, doesn’t it? If even Magnus thinks the endeavor is doomed, there is nothing more I can do, is there?”

She laid her hand upon his arm. He did not move. It was so peculiar, being this close to him, the familiar feel and presence of him, when for months they had avoided each other, had barely spoken. He had not even wanted to meet her eyes. And now he was here, smelling of soap and rain and blood and Will…. “You have done so much,” she whispered. “Magnus will try to help, and we will keep searching, and something may yet come to light. You cannot abandon hope.”

“I know. I know it. And yet I feel such dread in my heart, as if it were the last hour of my life. I have felt hopelessness before, Tess, but never such fear. And yet I have known—I have always known …”

That Jem would die. She did not say it. It was between them, unspoken.

“Who am I?” he whispered. “For years I pretended I was other than I was, and then I gloried that I might return to the truth of myself, only to find there is no truth to return to. I was an ordinary child, and then I was a not very good man, and now I do not know how to be either of those things any longer. I do not know what I am, and when Jem is gone, there will be no one to show me.”

“I know just who you are. You’re Will Herondale,” was all she said, and then suddenly his arms were around her, his head on her shoulder. She froze at first out of pure astonishment, and then carefully she returned the embrace, holding him as he shuddered. He was not crying; this was something else, a sort of paroxysm, as if he were choking. She knew she should not touch him, yet she could not imagine Jem wanting her to push Will away at such a moment. She could not be Jem for him, she thought, could not be his compass that always pointed north, but if nothing else she could make his a slighter burden to carry.

“Would you like this rather dreadful snuffbox someone gave me? It’s silver, so I can’t touch it,” Woolsey said.

Magnus, standing at the bay window of the drawing room, the curtain pulled aside just enough so that he could see Will and Tessa on his front steps, clinging to each other as if their lives depended on it, hummed noncommittally in response.

Woolsey rolled his eyes. “Still out there, are they?”

“Quite.”

“Messy, all that romantic love business,” said Woolsey. “Much better to go on as we do. Only the physical matters.”

“Indeed.” Will and Tessa had broken apart at last, though their hands were still joined. Tessa appeared to be coaxing Will down the steps. “Do you think you would have married, if you hadn’t had nephews to carry on the family name?”