Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Prince

“‘The coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame,’” said Will, quirking his eyebrows up. “I always thought females found the idea of jealousy romantic. Men, fighting over you . . .”

“Well, there aren’t any graves in mundane wedding ceremonies,” said Tessa. “Though your ability to quote the Bible is impressive. Better than my aunt Harriet’s.”

“Did you hear that, James? She just compared us to her aunt Harriet.”

Jem, as always, was unruffled. “We must be on familiar terms with all religious texts,” he said. “To us they are instruction manuals.”

“So you memorize them all in school?” She realized she had seen neither Will nor Jem at their studies since she had been at the Institute. “Or rather, when you are tutored?”

“Yes, though Charlotte’s rather fallen off in tutoring us lately, as you might imagine,” said Will. “One either has a tutor or one is schooled in Idris—that is, until you attain your majority at eighteen. Which will be soon, thankfully, for the both of us.”

“Which one of you is older?”

“Jem,” said Will, and “I am,” said Jem, at the same time. They laughed in unison as well, and Will added, “Only by three months, though.”

“I knew you’d feel compelled to point that out,” said Jem with a grin.

Tessa looked from one of them to the other. There could not be two boys who looked more different, or who had more different dispositions. And yet. “Is that what it means to be parabatai ?” she said. “Finishing each other’s sentences and the like? Because there isn’t much on it in the Codex. ”

Will and Jem looked at each other. Will shrugged first, casually. “It is rather difficult to explain,” he said loftily. “If you haven’t experienced it—”

“I meant,” Tessa said, “you cannot—I don’t know—read each other’s minds, or the like?”

Jem made a spluttering noise. Will’s lambent blue eyes widened. “Read each other’s minds? Horrors, no.”

“Then, what’s the point? You swear to guard each other, I understand that, but aren’t all Shadowhunters meant to do that for each other?”

“It’s more than that,” said Jem, who had stopped spluttering and spoke somberly. “The idea of parabatai comes from an old tale, the story of Jonathan and David. ‘And it came to pass . . . that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. . . . Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.’ They were two warriors, and their souls were knit together by Heaven, and out of that Jonathan Shadowhunter took the idea of parabatai , and encoded the ceremony into the Law.”

“But it doesn’t just have to be two men. It can be a man and a woman, or two women?”

“Of course.” Jem nodded. “You have only eighteen years to find and choose a parabatai. Once you are older than that, the ritual is no longer open to you. And it is not merely a matter of promising to guard each other. You must stand before the Council and swear to lay down your life for your parabatai. To go where they go, to be buried where they are buried. If there were an arrow speeding toward Will, I would be bound by oath to step in front of it.”

“Handy, that,” said Will.

“And he, of course, is bound to do the same for me,” said Jem. “Whatever he may say to the contrary, Will does not break oaths, or the Law.” He looked hard at Will, who smiled faintly and stared out the window.

“Goodness,” said Tessa. “That’s all very touching, but I don’t see exactly how it confers any advantages.”

“Not everyone has a parabatai ,” said Jem. “Very few of us, actually, find one in the allotted time. But those who do can draw on the strength of their parabatai in battle. A rune put on you by your parabatai is always more potent than one you put on yourself, or one put on by another. And there are some runes we can utilize that no other Shadowhunter can, because they draw on our doubled power.”

“But what if you decide that you don’t want to be parabatai anymore?” Tessa asked curiously. “Can the ritual be broken?”

“Dear God, woman,” said Will. “Are there any questions you don’t want to know the answer to?”

“I don’t see the harm in telling her.” Jem’s hands were folded atop his cane. “The more she knows, the better she will be able to pretend she plans to Ascend.” He turned to Tessa. “The ritual cannot be broken save in a few situations. If one of us were to become a Downworlder or a mundane, then the binding is cut. And of course, if one of us were to die, the other would be free. But not to choose another parabatai. A single Shadowhunter cannot take part in the ritual more than once.”

“It is like being married, isn’t it,” said Tessa placidly, “in the Catholic church. Like Henry the Eighth; he had to create a new religion just so he could escape from his vows.”

“Till death do us part,” said Will, his gaze still fixed on the countryside speeding past outside the window.

“Well, Will won’t need to create a new religion just to be rid of me,” said Jem. “He’ll be free soon enough.”

Will looked over sharply, but it was Tessa who spoke. “Don’t say that,” she admonished Jem. “A cure could still be found. I don’t see any reason to abandon all hope.”

She almost shrank back at the look Will bent on her: blue, blazing, and furious. Jem seemed not to notice as he replied, calmly and unaffectedly. “I haven’t abandoned hope,” he said. “I just hope for different things than you do, Tessa Gray.”

Hours went by after that, hours during which Tessa nodded off, her head propped against her hand, the dull sound of the train’s wheels winding its way into her dreams. She woke at last with Jem shaking her gently by the shoulders, the train whistle blowing, and the guard shouting out the name of York station. In a flurry of bags and hats and porters they descended to the platform. It was nowhere near as crowded as Kings Cross, and covered by a far more impressive arched glass and iron roof, through which could be glimpsed the gray-black sky.

Platforms stretched as far as the eye could see; Tessa, Jem, and Will stood on the one closest to the main body of the station, where great gold-faced railway clocks proclaimed the time to be six o’clock. They were farther north now, and the sky had already begun to darken to twilight.

They had only just gathered beneath one of the clocks when a man stepped out of the shadows. Tessa barely suppressed a start at the sight of him. He was heavily cloaked, wearing a black oilskin-looking hat, and boots like an old sailor. His beard was long and white, his eyes crested with thick white eyebrows. He reached out and laid a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Nephilim?” he said, his voice gruff and thickly accented. “Is it you?”

“Dear God,” said Will, putting his hand over his heart in a theatrical gesture. “It’s the Ancient Mariner who stoppeth one of three.”

“Ah’m ’ere at t’bequest of Aloysius Starkweather. Art t’lads he wants or not? Ah’ve not got all night to stand about.”

“Important appointment with an albatross?” Will inquired. “Don’t let us keep you.”

“What my mad friend means to say,” said Jem, “is that we are indeed Shadowhunters of the London Institute. Charlotte Branwell sent us. And you are . . . ?”

“Gottshall,” the man said gruffly. “Me family’s been serving the Shadowhunters of the York Institute for nigh on three centuries now. I can see through tha’ glamours, young ones. Save for this one,” he added, and turned his eyes on Tessa. “If there’s a glamour on the girl, it’s summat I’ve never seen before.”