Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(90)

Pray cease your peremptory rallying cries to Cadair Idris. Attempt to keep in mind that I am the Consul. I command the armies of the Shadowhunters, madam, not yourself. Fix your mind instead on an attempt to better keep your Shadowhunters in check.

Yours truly,

Josiah Wayland, Consul



“There’s a man here to see you, Mrs. Branwell.”

Charlotte glanced up wearily to see Sophie standing in the doorway. She looked tired, as they all did; the unmistakable traces of weeping were beneath her eyes. Charlotte knew the signs—she had seen them in her own mirror that morning.

She sat behind the desk in the drawing room, staring down at the letter in her hand. She had not expected Consul Wayland to be pleased by her news, but neither had she expected this blank contempt and refusal. I command the armies of the Shadowhunters, madam, not yourself. Fix your mind instead on an attempt to better keep your Shadowhunters in check.

Keep them in check. She fumed. As if they were all children and she no better than their governess or nursemaid, parading them in front of the Consul when they were washed and dressed, and hiding them in the playroom the rest of the time that he not be disturbed. They were Shadowhunters, and so was she. And if he did not think that Will was reliable, he was a fool. He knew of the curse; she had told him herself. Will’s madness had always been like Hamlet’s, half play and half wildness, and all driving toward a certain end.

The fire crackled in the grate; outside, the rain sheeted down, painting the windowpanes in silver lines. That morning she had passed Jem’s bedroom, the door open, the bed divested of its linens, the possessions cleared away. It could have been anyone’s room. All the evidence of his years with them, gone with the wave of a hand. She had leaned against the wall of the corridor, sweat beading on her brow, her eyes burning. Raziel, did I do the right thing?

She passed her hand over her eyes now. “Now, of all times? It isn’t Consul Wayland, is it?”

“No, ma’am.” Sophie shook her dark head. “It’s Aloysius Starkweather. He says it is a matter of the greatest urgency.”

“Aloysius Starkweather?” Charlotte sighed. Some days simply piled horror on horror. “Well, let him in, then.”

She folded the letter she had written as a response to the Consul, and had just sealed it when Sophie returned and ushered Aloysius Starkweather into the room, before excusing herself. Charlotte did not rise from her desk. Starkweather looked much as he had the last time she had seen him. He seemed to have calcified, as if while he was getting no younger, he could get no older either. His face was a map of wrinkled lines, framed with a white beard and white hair. His clothes were dry; Sophie must have hung his overcoat downstairs. The suit he wore was at least ten years out of fashion, and he smelled faintly of old mothballs.

“Please be seated, Mr. Starkweather,” said Charlotte as courteously as she could to someone who she knew disliked her, and had hated her father.

But he did not sit down. His hands were locked behind his back, and as he turned, surveying the room around him, Charlotte saw with a flash of alarm that one of the cuffs of his jacket was splattered with blood.

“Mr. Starkweather,” she said, and now she did rise. “Are you hurt? Should I summon the Brothers?”

“Hurt?” he barked out. “Why would I be hurt?”

“Your sleeve.” She pointed.

He drew his arm away and gazed at it before huffing out a laugh. “Not my blood,” he said. “I was in a fight, earlier. He took objection …”

“Took objection to what?”

“To my cutting off all his fingers and then slitting his throat,” said Starkweather, meeting her eyes. His own were gray-black, the color of stone.

“Aloysius.” Charlotte forgot to be polite. “The Accords forbid unproved attacks on Downworlders.”

“Unprovoked? I’d say this was provoked. His folk murdered my granddaughter. My daughter nearly died of grief. The house of Starkweather destroyed—”

“Aloysius!” Charlotte was seriously alarmed now. “Your house is not destroyed. There are still Starkweathers in Idris. I do not say that to minimize your sorrow, for some losses are with us always.” Jem, she thought, unbidden, and the pain of the thought pushed her back into the chair. She rested her elbows on the table, her face in her hands. “I do not know why you came to tell me this now,” she murmured. “Did you not see the runes upon the door of the Institute? This is a time of great sorrow for us—”

“I came to tell you because it’s important!” Aloysius flared up. “It regards Mortmain, and Tessa Gray.”

Charlotte lowered her hands. “What do you know of Tessa Gray?”

Aloysius had turned away. He stood facing the fire, his long shadow cast across the Persian rug on the floor. “I am not a man who thinks much of the Accords,” he said. “You know it; you have been in Councils with me. I was brought up to believe that everything touched by demons was foul and corrupt. That it was the blood right of a Shadowhunter to kill these creatures and to take what they had as spoils and treasure. The spoils room of the Institute in York was left in my charge, and I kept it filled until the day the new Laws were passed.” He scowled.

“Let me guess,” said Charlotte. “You did not stop there.”

“Of course not,” said the old man. “What are man’s Laws to the Angel’s? I know the right way of doing things. I kept a lower profile, but I did not cease taking spoils, or destroying those Downworlders who crossed my path. One of those was John Shade.”