Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Prince

“Good evening.” The hulking shadow of Aloysius Stark-weather loomed up suddenly in the doorway; Tessa wondered with a flush of embarrassment how long he’d been standing there. “Mr. Herondale, Mr. Carstairs, Miss, ah—”

“Gray,” Tessa said. “Theresa Gray.”

“Indeed.” Starkweather made no apologies, just settled himself heavily at the head of the table. He was carrying a square, flat box, the sort bankers used to keep their papers in, which he set down beside his plate. With a flash of excitement Tessa saw that there was a year marked on it—1825—and even better, three sets of initials. JTS, AES, AHM.

“No doubt your young miss will be pleased to know I’ve buckled to her demands and searched the archives all day and half last night besides,” Starkweather began in an aggrieved tone. It took Tessa a moment to realize that in this case, “young miss” meant Charlotte. “It’s lucky, she is, that my father never threw anything out. And the moment I saw the papers, I remembered.” He tapped his temple. “Eighty-nine years, and I never forget a thing. You tell old Wayland that when he talks about replacing me.”

“We surely will, sir,” said Jem, his eyes dancing.

Starkweather took a hearty gulp of his wine and made a face. “By the Angel, this stuff’s disgusting.” He set the glass down and began pulling papers from the box. “What we have here is an application for Reparations on behalf of two warlocks. John and Anne Shade. A married couple.

“Now, here’s the odd bit,” the old man went on. “The filing was done by their son, Axel Hollingworth Mortmain, twenty-two years old. Now, of course warlocks are barren—”

Will shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes slanting away from Tessa’s.

“This son was adopted,” said Jem.

“Shouldn’t be allowed, that,” said Starkweather, taking another slug of the wine he had pronounced disgusting. His cheeks were beginning to redden. “Like giving a human child to wolves to raise. Before the Accords—”

“If there are any clues to his whereabouts,” said Jem, gently trying to steer the conversation back onto its track. “We have very little time—”

“Very well, very well,” snapped Starkweather. “There’s little information about your precious Mortmain in here. More about the parents. It seems suspicion fell on them when it was discovered that the male warlock, John Shade, was in possession of the Book of the White. Quite a powerful spell book, you understand; disappeared from the London Institute’s library under suspicious circumstances back in 1752. The book specializes in binding and unbinding spells—tying the soul to the body, or untying it, as the case may be. Turned out the warlock was trying to animate things. He was digging up corpses or buying them off medical students and replacing the more damaged bits with mechanisms. Then trying to bring them to life. Necromancy—very much against the Law. And we didn’t have the Accords in those days. An Enclave group swept in and slaughtered both warlocks.”

“And the child?” said Will. “Mortmain?”

“No hide nor hair of him,” said Starkweather. “We searched, but nothing. Assumed he was dead, till this turned up, cheeky as you please, demanding reparations. Even his address—”

“His address ?” Will demanded. That information had not been included in the scroll they had seen at the Institute. “In London?”

“Nay. Right here in Yorkshire.” Starkweather tapped the page with a wrinkled finger. “Ravenscar Manor. A massive old pile up north from here. Been abandoned now, I think, for decades. Now that I think about it, can’t figure how he could’ve afforded it in the first place. It’s not where the Shades lived.”

“Still,” said Jem. “An excellent starting point for us to go looking. If it’s been abandoned since his tenancy, there may be things he left behind. In fact, he may well still be using the place.”

“I suppose.” Starkweather sounded unenthusiastic about the whole business. “Most of the Shades’ belongings were taken for spoils.”

“Spoils,” Tessa echoed faintly. She remembered the term from the Codex . Anything a Shadowhunter took from a Downworlder who had been caught breaking the Law belonged to him. Those were the spoils of war. She looked across the table at Jem and Will; Jem’s gentle eyes resting on her with concern, Will’s haunted blue ones holding all their secrets. Did she really belong to a race of creatures that was at war with what Jem and Will were?

“Spoils,” Starkweather rumbled. He had polished off his wine and started on Will’s untouched glass. “Do those interest you, girl? We’ve quite a collection here in the Institute. Puts the London collection to shame, or so I’m told.” He stood up, nearly knocking over his chair. “Come along. I’ll show them to you, and tell you the rest of this sorry tale, though there’s not that much more to it.”

Tessa looked quickly to Will and Jem for a cue, but they were already on their feet, following the old man out of the room. Starkweather spoke as he walked, his voice drifting back over his shoulder, making the rest of them hurry to match his long strides.

“Never thought much of this Reparations business myself,” he said as they passed down another dimly lit, interminably long stone corridor. “Makes Downworlders uppity, thinking they have a right to get something out of us. All the work we do and no thanks, just hands held out for more, more, more. Don’t you think so, gentlemen?”

“Bastards, all of them,” said Will, who seemed as if his mind were a thousand miles away. Jem looked at him sideways.

“Absolutely!” barked Starkweather, clearly pleased. “Not that one should use such language in front of a lady, of course. As I was saying, this Mortmain was protesting the death of Anne Shade, the male warlock’s wife—said she’d had nothing to do with her husband’s projects, hadn’t known about them, he claimed. Her death was undeserved. Wanted a trial of those guilty of what he called her ‘murder,’ and his parents’ belongings back.”

“Was the Book of the White among what he asked for?” Jem inquired. “I know it’s a crime for a warlock to own such a volume . . .”

“It was. It was retrieved and placed in the London Institute library, where no doubt it remains still. Certainly no one was going to give it to him. ”

Tessa did a quick mental calculation in her head. If he was eighty-nine now, Starkweather would have been twenty-six at the time of the Shades’ deaths. “Were you there?”

His bloodshot eyes danced over her; she noticed that even now, a little drunk, he didn’t seem to want to look at her too directly. “Was I where?”

“You said an Enclave group was sent out to deal with the Shades. Were you among them?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Aye,” he said, his Yorkshire accent thickening for a moment. “Dinna take long to get the both of them. They weren’t prepared. Not a bit. I remember them lying there in their blood. The first time I saw dead warlocks, I was surprised they bled red. I could have sworn it’d be another color, blue or green or some such.” He shrugged. “We took the cloaks off them, like skins off a tiger. I was given the keeping of them, or more rightly, my father was. Glory, glory. Those were the days.” He grinned like a skull, and Tessa thought of Bluebeard’s chamber where he kept the remains of the wives he had killed. She felt both very hot and very cold all over.

“Mortmain never had a chance, did he,” she said quietly. “Filing his complaint like that. He was never going to get his reparations.”

“Of course not!” barked Starkweather. “Rubbish, all of it—claiming the wife wasn’t involved. What wife isn’t neck-deep in her husband’s business? Besides, he wasn’t even their blood son, couldn’t have been. Probably more of a pet to them than anything else. I’d wager the father’d have used him for spare parts if it came down to it. He was better off without them. He should have been thanking us, not asking for a trial—”