Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Prince

“Sophie! Shh!” Tessa waved a warning hand as she shut the door behind her. The room was as she had left it. Her nightgown and dressing gown were folded neatly on a chair, the cracked silver mirror was on the vanity table, and Jessamine—Jessamine was still soundly unconscious, her wrists rope-bound to the posts of the bed. Sophie, seated in a chair by the wardrobe, had clearly been there since Will and Tessa had left; she clutched a hairbrush in one hand (to hit Jessamine with, should she awaken again, Tessa wondered?), and her hazel eyes were huge.

“But miss . . .” Sophie’s voice trailed off as Tessa’s gaze went to her reflection in the looking glass. Tessa could not help but stare. Her hair had come down, of course, in a tangled mess all over her shoulders, Jessamine’s pearl pins gone where Will had flung them; she was shoeless and limping, her white stockings filthy, her gloves gone, and her dress obviously nearly choking her to death. “Was it very dreadful?”

Tessa’s mind went suddenly back to the balcony, and Will’s arms around her. Oh, God. She pushed the thought away and glanced over at Jessamine, still sleeping peacefully. “Sophie, we are going to have to wake Charlotte. We have no choice.”

Sophie looked at her with round eyes. Tessa could not blame her; she dreaded rousing Charlotte. Tessa had even pleaded with Magnus to come in with her to help break the news, but he had refused, on the grounds that internecine Shadowhunter dramas had nothing to do with him, and he had a novel to get back to besides.

“Miss—,” Sophie protested.

“We must.” As quickly as she could, Tessa told Sophie the gist of what had happened that night, leaving out the part with Will on the balcony. No one needed to know about that. “This is beyond us now. We cannot come in over Charlotte’s head any longer.”

Sophie made no more sound of protest. She laid the hair-brush down on the vanity, stood up, smoothed her skirts, and said, “I will fetch Mrs. Branwell, miss.”

Tessa sank into the chair by the bed, wincing as Jessamine’s dress pinched her. “I wish you would call me Tessa.”

“I know, miss.” Sophie left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Magnus was lying on the sofa in the drawing room with his boots up when he heard the commotion. He grinned without moving at the sound of Archer protesting, and Will protesting. Footsteps neared the door. Magnus flipped a page in his poetry book as the door swung open and Will stalked in.

He was barely recognizable. His elegant evening clothes were torn and stained with mud, his coat ripped lengthwise, his boots encrusted with mud. His hair stood up wildly, and his face was raked by dozens of scratches, as if he had been attacked by a dozen cats simultaneously.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Archer despairingly. “He pushed past me.”

“Magnus,” Will said. He was grinning. Magnus had seen him grin before, but there was real joy in it this time. It transformed Will’s face, took it from beautiful but cold to incandescent. “Tell him to let me in.”

Magnus waved a hand. “Let him in, Archer.”

The human subjugate’s gray face twisted, and the door slammed behind Will. “Magnus!” He half-staggered, half-stalked over to the fireplace, where he leaned against the mantel. “You won’t believe—”

“Shh,” said Magnus, his book still open on his knees. “Listen to this:

I am tired of tears and laughter,

And men that laugh and weep

Of what may come hereafter

For men that sow to reap:

I am weary of days and hours,

Blown buds of barren flowers,

Desires and dreams and powers

And everything but sleep.”

“Swinburne,” said Will, leaning against the mantel. “Sentimental and overrated.”

“ You don’t know what it is to be immortal.” Magnus tossed the book aside and sat up. “So what is it you want?”

Will pulled up his sleeve. Magnus swallowed a sound of surprise. Will’s forearm bore a long, deep, and bloody gash. Blood braceleted his wrist and dripped from his fingers. Embedded in the gash, like a crystal sunk into the wall of a cave, was a single white tooth.

“What the—,” Magnus began.

“Demon tooth,” Will said, his breath a little short. “I chased that blue bastard all around Chiswick, but it got away from me—not before it bit me, though. It left this tooth in me. You can use it, right? To summon the demon?” He took hold of the tooth and yanked it free. Even more blood welled up and spilled down his arm, splattering onto the ground.

“Camille’s carpet,” Magnus protested.

“It’s blood,” said Will. “She ought to be thrilled.”

“Are you all right?” Magnus looked at Will in fascination. “You’re bleeding a great deal. Haven’t you a stele on your person somewhere? A healing rune—”

“I don’t care about healing runes. I care about this.” Will dropped the bloody tooth into Magnus’s hand. “Find the demon for me. I know you can do it.”

Magnus glanced down with a moue of distaste. “I most likely can, but . . .”

The light in Will’s face flickered. “But?”

“But not tonight,” said Magnus. “It may take me a few days. You’ll have to be patient.”

Will took a ragged breath. “I can’t be patient. Not after tonight. You don’t understand—” He staggered then, and caught himself by seizing the mantel. Alarmed, Magnus rose from the sofa.

“Are you all right?”

The color was coming and going in Will’s face. His collar was dark with sweat. “I don’t know—,” he gasped. “The tooth. It might have been poisonous . . .”

His voice trailed off. He slid forward, his eyes rolling up. With an epithet of surprise Magnus caught Will before he could hit the bloody carpet and, hoisting the boy in his arms, carried him carefully over to the sofa.

Tessa, seated in the chair beside Jessamine’s bed, massaged her aching ribs and sighed. The corset was still biting into her, and she had no idea when she’d get a chance to remove it; her feet ached, and she hurt down deep in her soul. Seeing Nate had been like having a knife twisted in a fresh wound. He had danced with “Jessamine”—flirted with her—and had casually discussed the fate of Tessa, his sister, as if it meant nothing to him at all.

She supposed it should not surprise her, that she should be beyond surprise where Nate was concerned. But it hurt just the same.

And Will—those few moments out on the balcony with Will had been the most confusing of her life. After the way Will had spoken to her on the roof, she had sworn never to entertain romantic thoughts of him again. He was no dark, brooding Heathcliff nursing a secret passion, she had told herself, merely a boy who thought himself too good for her. But the way he had looked at her on the terrace, the way he had smoothed her hair back from her face, even the faint tremble in his hands when he’d touched her—surely those things could not be the product of falsehood.

But then, she had touched him back the same way. In that moment she had wanted nothing but Will. Had felt nothing but Will. Yet just the night before she had touched and kissed Jem; she had felt that she loved him; she had let him see her as no one had ever seen her before. And when she thought of him now, thought of his silence this morning, his absence from dinner, she missed him again, with a physical pain that could not be a lie.

Could you really love two different people at once? Could you split your heart in half? Or was it just that the time with Will on the balcony had been a madness induced by warlock drugs? Would it have been the same with anyone ? The thought haunted her like a ghost.