Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Princess

There was a silence. Even the Consul did not seem to have a ready word to hand. Cecily had put her book down and was looking intently from Gabriel to the Consul and back again.

“I beg your pardon, Consul, but whatever Tatiana is telling you, she does not know the truth of the situation,” said Gabriel. “Only I was there in the house with my father as he sickened. I was alone with him as he was going mad for the past fortnight. Finally I came here; I begged for my brother’s help,” Gabriel said. “Charlotte kindly lent me the assistance of her Shadowhunters. By the time we had arrived back at the house, the thing that had been my father had torn my sister’s husband apart. I assure you, Consul, there was no manner in which my father could have been saved. We were in a fight for our lives.”

“Then why would Tatiana—”

“Because she is humiliated,” Tessa said. It was the first words she had spoken since the Consul had entered the room. “She said as much to me. She believed it would be a blight on the family name if the demon pox was known of; I assume she is trying to present some kind of alternate narrative in the hopes you will repeat it to the Council. But she is not telling the truth.”

“Really, Consul,” said Gideon. “What makes more sense? That we all ran mad and killed my father, and his sons are covering it up, or that Tatiana is lying? She never thinks things through; you know that.”

Gabriel stood with his hand on the back of his brother’s chair. “If you believe I would have so lightly committed patricide, feel free to bring me to the Silent City to be questioned.”

“That would probably be the most sensible course of action,” the Consul said.

Cecily set her teacup down with a sharp bang that made everyone at the table jump. “That is not fair,” she said. “He is telling the truth. We all are. You must know that.”

The Consul gave her a long, measuring look, then turned back to Charlotte. “You expect my trust?” he said. “And yet you conceal your actions from me. Actions have consequences, Charlotte.”

“Josiah, I informed you about what happened at Lightwood House the moment everyone returned and I was assured they were all right—”

“You should have told me before,” the Consul said flatly. “The moment Gabriel arrived. This was no routine mission. As it is, you have left yourself in a position in which I must defend you, despite the fact that you disobeyed protocol and set out upon this mission without Council approval.”

“There wasn’t time—”

“Enough,” said the Consul, in a voice that implied it was anything but enough. “Gideon and Gabriel, you will come with me to the Silent City to be questioned.” Charlotte began to protest, but the Consul held up a hand. “To have Gabriel and Gideon cleared by the Brothers is expedient; it will avoid any mess and allow me to have Tatiana’s request for reparations dismissed swiftly. The two of you.” Consul Wayland turned to the Lightwood brothers. “Go downstairs to my carriage and wait for me. We will all three adjourn to the Silent City; when the Brothers are done with you, if they find nothing of interest, we will return you here.”

“ If they find nothing,” Gideon said in a disgusted tone. He took his brother by the shoulders and guided him out of the room. As Gideon closed the door behind them, Tessa noticed something spark on his hand. He was wearing his Lightwood ring again.

“All right,” said the Consul, rounding on Charlotte. “Why did you not tell me the very moment your Shadowhunters returned and told you Benedict was dead?”

Charlotte fixed her eyes on her tea. Her mouth was pressed into a firm line. “I wanted to protect the boys,” she said. “I wanted them to have some moments of peace and quiet. Some respite, after seeing their father die before their eyes, before you started asking questions, Josiah!”

“That is hardly all,” the Consul went on, ignoring her expression. “Benedict’s books and papers. Tatiana told us of them. We searched his house, but his journals are gone, his desk is empty. This is not your investigation, Charlotte; those papers belong to the Clave.”

“What are you searching for in them?” Henry asked, moving his newspaper off his plate. He sounded deceptively uninterested in the answer, but there was a hard glint in his eyes that belied his apparent disinterest.

“Information about his connection to Mortmain. Information about any other Clave members that might have had a connection to Mortmain. Clues as to Mortmain’s whereabouts—”

“And his devices?” Henry said.

The Consul paused midsentence. “His devices?”

“The Infernal Devices. His army of automatons. It is an army created for the purpose of destroying Shadowhunters, and he means to bend it against us,” Charlotte, seemingly recovered, said as she set her napkin down. “In fact, if Benedict’s increasingly incomprehensible notes are believed, that time will come sooner rather than later.”

“So you did take his notes and journals. The Inquisitor was convinced of it.” The Consul rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes.

“Of course I took them. And of course I will give them to you. I always planned to do so.” Eminently composed, Charlotte picked up the small silver bell by her plate and rang it; when Sophie appeared, she whispered to the girl for a moment, and Sophie, with a curtsy to the Consul, slipped out of the room.

“You should have left the papers where they were, Charlotte. It is procedure,” said the Consul.

“There was no reason for me not to look at them—”

“You must trust my judgment, and the Law’s. Protecting the Lightwood boys is not a higher priority than discovering Mortmain’s whereabouts, Charlotte. You are not running the Clave. You are part of the Enclave, and you will report to me. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Consul,” Charlotte said as Sophie reentered the room with a packet of papers, which she silently offered to the Consul. “The next time one of our esteemed members turns into a worm and eats another esteemed member, we will inform you immediately.”

The Consul’s jaw set. “Your father was my friend,” he said. “I trusted him, and because of that I have trusted you. Do not make me sorry I appointed you, or supported you against Benedict Lightwood when he challenged your position.”

“You went along with Benedict!” Charlotte cried. “When he suggested I be given a fortnight only to complete an impossible task, you agreed to it! You spoke not a word in my defense! If I were not a woman, you would not have behaved in such a way.”

“If you were not a woman,” said the Consul, “I would not have had to.”

And with that, he was gone, in a swirl of dark robes and dully sparking runes. No sooner had the door closed behind him than Will hissed: “How could you give him those papers? We need those—”

Charlotte, who had sagged back in her chair, her eyes half-closed, said, “Will, I have already been up all night copying down the relevant parts. Much of it was—”

“Gibberish?” Jem suggested.

“Pornographic?” said Will at the same time.

“Could be both,” said Will. “Haven’t you ever heard of pornographic gibberish before?”

Jem grinned, and Charlotte put her face in her hands. “It was more the former than the latter, if you must know,” she said. “I copied down all I could, with Sophie’s invaluable assistance.” She looked up then. “Will—you need to remember. This is no longer our charge. Mortmain is the Clave’s problem, or at least that is how they see it. There was a time when we were singularly responsible for Mortmain, but—”

“We are responsible for protecting Tessa!” Will said with a sharpness that startled even Tessa. Will paled slightly when he realized everyone had looked at him with surprise, but he went on anyway: “Mortmain wants Tessa, still. We cannot imagine he has given up. He may come with automatons, he may come with witchcraft and fire and betrayal, but he will come .”