Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Prince

It came, but not as the light usually did, as steady as a beacon. It came in shattered fragments, as if she were watching a mirror break into pieces. Each piece held an image that whipped by her, some at terrifying speed. She saw the image of a horse rearing back, a dark hill covered in snow, the black basalt Council room of the Clave, a cracked headstone. She struggled to seize and catch at a single image. Here was one, a memory: Starkweather dancing at a ball with a laughing woman in an empire-waisted ball gown. Tessa discarded it, reaching for another:

The house was small, nestled in the shadows between one hill and another. Starkweather watched from the darkness of a copse of trees as the front door opened and out came a man. Even in memory Tessa felt Starkweather’s heart begin to beat more quickly. The man was tall, broad-shouldered—and as green-skinned as a lizard. His hair was black. The child he held by the hand, by contrast, seemed as normal as a child could be—small, chubby-fisted, pink-skinned.

Tessa knew the man’s name, because Starkweather knew it.

John Shade.

Shade hoisted the child up onto his shoulders as through the door of the house spilled a number of odd-looking metal creatures, like a child’s jointed dolls, but human-size, and with skin made of shining metal. The creatures were featureless. Though, oddly, they wore clothes—the rough workman’s coveralls of a Yorkshire farmer on some, and on others plain muslin dresses. The automatons joined hands and began to sway as if they were at a country dance. The child laughed and clapped his hands.

“Look well on this, my son,” said the green-skinned man, “for one day I shall rule a clockwork kingdom of such beings, and you shall be its prince.”

“John!” came a voice from inside the house; a woman leaned through the window. She had long hair the color of a cloudless sky. “John, come in. Someone will see! And you’ll frighten the boy!”

“He’s not frightened at all, Anne.” The man laughed, and set the boy down on the ground, ruffling his hair. “My little clockwork prince . . .”

A swell of hatred rose in Starkweather’s heart at the memory, so violent that it ripped Tessa free, sending her spinning through the darkness again. She began to realize what was happening. Starkweather was becoming senile, losing the thread that connected thought and memory. What came and went in his mind was seemingly random. With an effort she tried to visualize the Shade family again, and caught the brief edge of a memory—a room torn apart, cogs and cams and gears and ripped metal everywhere, fluid leaking as black as blood, and the green-skinned man and blue-haired woman lying dead among the ruins. Then that, too, was gone, and she saw, again and again, the face of the girl from the portrait on the stairwell—the child with the fair hair and stubborn expression—saw her riding a small pony, her face set determinedly, saw her hair blowing in the wind off the moors—saw her screaming and writhing in pain as a stele was set to her skin and black Marks stained its whiteness. And last, Tessa saw her own face, appearing out of the shadowy gloom of the York Institute’s nave, and she felt the wave of his shock ripple through her, so strong that it threw her out of his body and back into her own.

There was a faint thump as the button fell out of her hand and struck the floor. Tessa raised her head and looked into the mirror over her vanity. She was herself again, and the bitter taste in her mouth now was blood where she had bitten her lip.

She rose to her feet, feeling ill, and went over to the window, throwing it open to feel the cool night air on her sweaty skin. The night outside was heavy with shadow; there was little wind, and the black gates of the Institute seemed to loom before her, their motto speaking more than ever of mortality and death. A glimmer of movement caught her eye. She looked down and saw a white shape gazing up at her from the stony courtyard below. A face, twisted but recognizable. Mrs. Dark.

She gasped and jerked back reflexively, out of sight of the window. A wave of dizziness came over her. She shook it off fiercely, her hands gripping the sill, and pulled herself forward again, gazing down with dread—

But the courtyard was empty, nothing moving inside it but shadows. She closed her eyes, then opened them again slowly, and put her hand to the ticking angel at her throat. There had been nothing there, she told herself, just the rags of her wild imagination. Telling herself she’d better rein in her daydreaming or she’d end up as mad as old Starkweather, she slid the window shut.

In the morning when Tessa went down for breakfast, she found to her surprise that Will was not there. She had not realized how completely she had expected him to return during the night, and she found herself pausing in the doorway, scanning the seats around the table as if somehow she had accidentally glanced past him. It was not until her gaze came to rest on Jem, who returned her look with a rueful and worried expression of his own, that she knew that it was true. Will was still gone.

“Oh, he’ll be back, for goodness’ sake,” said Jessamine crossly, banging her teacup down in its saucer. “He always does come crawling home. Look at the two of you. Like you’ve lost a favorite puppy.”

Tessa shot Jem an almost guilty, conspiratorial look as she sat down across from him and took a slice of bread from the toast rack. Henry was absent; Charlotte, at the head of the table, was very clearly trying not to look nervous and worried, and failing. “Of course he will,” she said. “Will can take care of himself.”

“Do you think he might have gone back to Yorkshire?” said Tessa. “To warn his family?”

“I . . . don’t think so,” Charlotte responded. “Will has avoided his family for years. And he knows the Law. He knows he cannot speak to them. He knows what he would lose.” Her eyes rested briefly on Jem, who was playing industriously with his spoon.

“When he saw Cecily, at the manor, he attempted to rush to her—” Jem said.

“In the heat of the moment,” said Charlotte. “But he returned with you to London; I am confident he will return to the Institute as well. He knows you obtained that button, Tessa. He’ll want to discover what Starkweather knew.”

“Precious little, really,” said Tessa. She still felt obscurely guilty that she had not found more useful information in Starkweather’s memories. She had tried to explain what it was like to be in the mind of someone whose brain was decaying, but it had been hard to find the words, and she remembered mainly the look of disappointment on Charlotte’s face when she’d said she had discovered nothing useful about Ravenscar Manor. She had told them all of Starkweather’s memories of the Shade family, and that indeed if their deaths had been the impetus for Mortmain’s desire for justice and vengeance, it did seem as if it would be a powerful one. She had kept his shock at seeing her to herself—it was baffling still, and seemed somehow private.

“What if Will chooses to leave the Clave forever?” Tessa said. “Would he return to his family to protect them?”

“No,” Charlotte replied a little sharply. “No. I don’t think he will do that.” She would miss Will if he were gone, Tessa thought with surprise. Will was always so unpleasant—and often so to Charlotte—that Tessa sometimes forgot the stubborn love Charlotte seemed to feel for all her charges.