Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(34)

“I suppose I would have had to. Cry God for England, Harry, Saint George, and the Praetor Lupus!” Woolsey laughed; he had poured himself a glass of red wine from the decanter on the sideboard, and he swirled it now, gazing down into its changeable depths. “You gave Will Camille’s necklace,” he observed.

“How did you know?” Magnus’s mind was only half on the conversation; the other half was watching Will and Tessa walk toward their carriage. Somehow, despite the difference in their height and build, she appeared to be the one who was being leaned upon.

“You were wearing it when you left the room with him, but not when you returned. I don’t suppose you told him what it’s worth? That he’s wearing a ruby that would cost more than the Institute?”

“I didn’t want it,” Magnus said.

“Tragic reminder of lost love?”

“Didn’t suit my complexion.” Will and Tessa were in the carriage now, and their driver was snapping the reins. “Do you think there’s a chance for him?”

“A chance for who?”

“Will Herondale. To be happy.”

Woolsey sighed gustily and put down his glass. “Is there a chance for you to be happy if he isn’t?”

Magnus said nothing.

“Are you in love with him?” Woolsey asked—all curiosity, no jealousy. Magnus wondered what it was like to have a heart like that, or rather to have no heart at all.

“No,” Magnus said. “I have wondered that, but no. It is something else. I feel that I owe him. I have heard it said that when you save a life, you are responsible for that life. I feel I am responsible for that boy. If he never finds happiness, I will feel I have failed him. If he cannot have that girl he loves, I will feel I have failed him. If I cannot keep his parabatai by him, I will feel I failed him.”

“Then you will fail him,” Woolsey said. “In the meantime, while you are moping and seeking yin fen, I think I may take myself traveling. See the countryside. The city depresses me in the winter.”

“Do as you like.” Magnus let the curtain fall back, blocking the view of Will and Tessa’s carriage as it passed out of sight.

To: Consul Josiah Wayland

From: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw

Josiah,

I was deeply concerned to hear of your letter to the Council on the topic of Charlotte Branwell. As old acquaintances, I had hoped you could perhaps speak more freely to me than you have to them. Is there some issue regarding her that concerns you? Her father was a dear friend of ours both, and I have not known her to do a dishonorable thing.

Yours in concern,

Victor Whitelaw





6

LET DARKNESS


Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d,

Let darkness keep her raven gloss:

Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,

To dance with death, to beat the ground.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam A.H.H.”



To: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw

From: Consul Josiah Wayland

It is with some trepidation that I pen this letter to you, Victor, for all that we have known each other for some years now. I feel a bit like the prophetess Cassandra, doomed to know the truth and to have no one believe her. Perhaps it is my sin of hubris, which put Charlotte Branwell in the place she now occupies and from which she devils me.

Her undermining of my authority is constant, the instability which I fear it will cause in the Clave severe. What should have been a disaster for her—the revelation that she harbored spies under her roof, the Lovelace girl’s complicity in the Magister’s schemes—has been recast as a triumph. The Enclave hails the inhabitants of the Institute as those who uncovered the Magister and have harried him from London. That he has not been seen or heard from in the past months has been put down to Charlotte’s good judgment and is not seen, as I suspect it is, as a tactical retreat and regrouping on his part. Though I am the Consul and lead the Clave, it seems very much to me that this will go down as the time of Charlotte Branwell, and that my legacy will be lost—

To: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw

From: Consul Josiah Wayland

Victor,

While your concern is much appreciated, I have no anxiety regarding Charlotte Branwell that I did not touch on in my letter to the Council.

May you take heart in the strength of the Angel in these troubled times,

Josiah Wayland



Breakfast was at first a quiet affair. Gideon and Gabriel came down together, both subdued, Gabriel barely saying a word, aside from asking Henry to pass the butter. Cecily had placed herself at the far end of the table and was reading a book as she ate; Tessa longed to see the title, but Cecily had placed the book at such an angle that it was not visible. Will, across from Tessa, had the dark shadows of sleeplessness below his eyes, a memory of their eventful night; Tessa herself poked unenthusiastically at her kedgeree, silent until the door opened and Jem came in.

She looked up with surprise and a lurch of delight. He did not look unusually ill, only tired and pale. He slid gracefully into the seat beside her. “Good morning.”

“You look much better, Jemmy,” Charlotte observed with delight.

Jemmy? Tessa looked at Jem with amusement; he shrugged and gave her a self-deprecating grin.

She looked across the table and found Will watching them. Her gaze brushed his, just for a moment, a question in her eyes. Was there any chance that somehow Will had found some replacement yin fen in the time between returning home and this morning? But no, he looked as surprised as she felt.