Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(73)

Tessa made a sound of disbelief. “Why? I am being forced to marry him. What difference does it make if I have spirit or learning? What could he possibly care?”

“Oh, you are to be more than his bride, Miss Gray. You are to be the ruin of the Nephilim. That is why you were created. And the more knowledge of them you have, the more your sympathies lie with them, the more effective a weapon you will be to raze them to the ground.”

Tessa felt as if the air had been knocked out of her. “I don’t care what Mortmain does. I will not cooperate in harming the Shadowhunters. I would die or be tortured first.”

“It does not matter what you want. You will find that there is no resistance you could mount against his will that would matter. Besides, there is nothing you need do to destroy the Nephilim other than be what you are. And be married to Mortmain, which requires no action on your part.”

“I’m engaged to someone else,” spat Tessa. “James Carstairs.”

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Black. “I’m afraid the Magister’s claim supersedes his. Besides, James Carstairs will be dead by Tuesday. Mortmain has bought up all the yin fen in England and blocked any new shipments. Perhaps you should have thought of this sort of thing before you fell in love with an addict. Although I did think it would be the blue-eyed one,” she mused. “Don’t girls usually fall in love with their rescuers?”

Tessa felt the cloak of the surreal begin to descend. She could not believe that she was here, trapped in this carriage with Mrs. Black, and that the warlock woman seemed content to discuss Tessa’s romantic tribulations. She turned toward the window. The moon was up, and she could see that they were riding along a narrow road—there were shadows about the carriage, and below, a rocky ravine fell away into darkness. “There are all sorts of ways of being rescued.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Black, with a glint of teeth as she smiled. “You can be assured that no one will be coming to rescue you now.”

You are to be the ruin of the Nephilim.

“Then I will have to rescue myself,” Tessa said. Mrs. Black’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement as she turned her head toward Tessa with a whir and a click. But Tessa was already gathering herself, gathering all her energy in her legs and body in the way that she had been taught, so that when she launched herself across the carriage at the door, it was with all the force she possessed.

She heard the lock on the door break and Mrs. Black scream, a high whine of rage. A metal arm raked Tessa’s back, seizing the collar of her dress, which tore away, and Tessa was falling, slamming down onto the rocks by the side of the road, falling and sliding and tumbling into the ravine as the carriage hurtled away down the road, Mrs. Black screaming at the driver to stop. Wind rushed into Tessa’s ears as she fell, her arms and hands windmilling wildly against the empty space all around her, and any hopes that the ravine was shallow or that the fall would be survivable were gone. As she fell, she glimpsed a narrow stream glinting far below her, twisting among jagged rocks, and she knew she would break against the ground like fragile china when she struck.

She closed her eyes and willed that the end be quick.

Will stood at the top of a high green hill and looked out over the sea. The sky and sea were both so intensely blue that they seemed to merge one into the other, so that there was no fixed point upon the horizon. Gulls and terns wheeled and shrieked above him, and the salt wind blew through his hair. It was as warm as summer, and his jacket lay discarded on the grass; he was in shirtsleeves and braces, and his hands were brown and tanned by the sun.

“Will!” He turned at the familiar voice and saw Tessa coming up the hill toward him. There was a small path cut along the side of the hill, lined with unfamiliar white flowers, and Tessa looked like a flower herself, in a white dress like the one she had worn to the ball the night he had kissed her on Benedict Lightwood’s balcony. Her long brown hair blew in the wind. She had taken off her bonnet and held it in one hand, waving it at him and smiling as if she were glad to see him. More than glad. As if seeing him were all the joy of her heart.

His own heart leaped up at the sight of her. “Tess,” he called, and reached out a hand as if he could pull her toward him. But she was still such a distance away—she seemed both very near and very far suddenly and at the same time. He could see every detail of her pretty upturned face but could not touch her, and so he stood, waiting and desiring, and his heart beat like wings in his chest.

At last she was there, close enough that he could see where the grass and flowers bent beneath the tread of her shoes. He reached out for her, and she for him. Their hands closed on each other’s, and for a moment they stood smiling, and her fingers were warm in his.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Will said, and she looked up at him with a smile that vanished from her face as her feet slipped and she tilted toward the edge of the cliff. Her hands tore out of his, and suddenly he was reaching for air as she fell away from him, silently fell, a white blur against the blue horizon.

Will sat bolt upright in bed, his heart slamming against his ribs. His room at the White Horse was half-full of moonlight, which clearly outlined the unfamiliar shapes of the furniture: the washstand and side table with its unread copy of Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women, the overstuffed chair by the fireplace, in which the flames had burned down to embers. The sheets of his bed were cold, but he was sweating; he swung his legs over the side and walked to the window.