Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Prince

Jessamine shook her head, plucking at the rough blanket. “I will not betray him.”

“Jessie.” Jem’s voice was soft; Tessa did not know how Jessamine could hold out against him. “Please. We are only asking you to save yourself. Send this message; tell us your usual meeting place. That is all we ask.”

Jessamine shook her head. “Mortmain,” she said. “Mortmain will yet win out over you. Then the Silent Brothers will be defeated and Nate will come to claim me.”

“Very well,” said Tessa. “Imagine that does happen. You say Nate loves you. Then, he would forgive you anything, wouldn’t he? Because when a man loves a woman, he understands that she is weak. That she cannot hold out against, for instance, torture, in the manner in which he could.”

Jessamine made a whimpering sound.

“He understands that she is frail and delicate and easily led,” Tessa went on, and gently touched Jessamine’s arm. “Jessie, you see your choice. If you do not help us, the Clave will know it, and they will not be lenient with you. If you do help us, Nate will understand. If he loves you . . . he has no choice. For love means forgiveness.”

“I . . .” Jessamine looked from one of them to the other, like a frightened rabbit. “Would you forgive Tessa, if it were her?”

“I would forgive Tessa anything,” Jem said gravely.

Tessa could not see his expression, she was facing Jessamine, but she felt her heart skip a beat. She could not look at Jem, too afraid her expression would betray her feelings.

“Jessie, please,” she said instead.

Jessamine was silent for a long time. When she spoke, finally, her voice was as thin as a thread. “You will be meeting him, I suppose, disguised as me.”

Tessa nodded.

“You must wear boys’ clothes,” she said. “When I meet him at night, I am always dressed as a boy. It is safer for me to traverse the streets alone like that. He will expect it.” She looked up, pushing her matted hair out of her face. “Have you a pen and paper?” she added. “I will write the note.”

She took the proffered items from Jem and began to scribble. “I ought to get something in return for this,” she said. “If they will not let me out—”

“They will not,” said Jem, “until it is determined that your information is good.”

“Then they ought to at least give me better food. It’s dreadful here. Just gruel and hard bread.” Having finished scribbling the note, she handed it to Tessa. “The boys’ clothes I wear are behind the doll’s house in my room. Take care moving it,” she added, and for a moment again she was Jessamine, her brown eyes haughty. “And if you must borrow some of my clothes, do. You’ve been wearing the same four dresses I bought you in June over and over. That yellow one is practically ancient. And if you don’t want anyone to know you’ve been kissing in carriages, you should refrain from wearing a hat with easily crushed flowers on it. People aren’t blind, you know.”

“So it seems,” said Jem with great gravity, and when Tessa looked over at him, he smiled, just at her.

The rest of the day at the Institute passed in a mood of great tension, as the Shadowhunters prepared for their confrontation with Nate that night. There were no formal meals again, only a great deal of rushing about, as weapons were readied and polished, gear was prepared, and maps consulted while Bridget, warbling mournful ballads, carried trays of sandwiches and tea up and down the halls.

If it hadn’t been for Sophie’s invitation to “come and have a pickle” Tessa probably wouldn’t have eaten anything all day; as it was, her knotted throat would allow only a few bites of sandwich to slide down before she felt as if she were choking.

I’m going to see Nate tonight, she thought, staring at herself in the pier glass as Sophie knelt at her feet, lacing up her boots—boys’ boots from Jessamine’s hidden trove of male clothing.

And then I am going to betray him.

She thought of the way Nate had lain in her lap in the carriage on the way from de Quincey’s, and the way he had shrieked her name and held on to her when Brother Enoch had appeared. She wondered how much of that had been show. Probably at least part of him had been truly terrified—abandoned by Mortmain, hated by de Quincey, in the hands of Shadowhunters he had no reason to trust.

Except that she had told him they were trustworthy. And he had not cared. He had wanted what Mortmain was offering him. More than he had wanted her safety. More than he had cared about anything else. All the years between them, the time that had knitted them together so closely that she had thought them inseparable, had meant nothing to him.

“You can’t brood on it, miss,” said Sophie, rising to her feet and dusting off her hands. “He aren’t—I mean, he isn’t worth it.”

“Who isn’t worth it?”

“Your brother. Wasn’t that what you were thinking on?”

Tessa squinted suspiciously. “Can you tell what I’m thinking because you have the Sight?”

Sophie laughed. “Lord, no, miss. I can read it on your face like a book. You always have the same look when you think of Master Nathaniel. But he’s a bad hat, miss, not worth your thoughts.”

“He’s my brother.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re like him,” said Sophie decisively. “Some are just born bad, and that’s all there is to it.”

Some imp of the perverse made Tessa ask: “And what of Will? Do you still think he was born bad? Lovely and poisonous like a snake, you said.”

Sophie raised her delicately arched eyebrows. “Master Will is a mystery, no doubt.”

Before Tessa could reply the door swung open, and Jem stood in the doorway. “Charlotte sent me to give you—,” he began, and broke off, staring at Tessa.

She looked down at herself. Trousers, shoes, shirt, waistcoat, all in order. It was certainly a peculiar feeling, wearing men’s clothes—they were tight in places she was not used to clothes being tight, and loose in others, and they itched—but that hardly explained the look on Jem’s face.

“I . . .” Jem had flushed all over, red spreading up from his collar to his face. “Charlotte sent me to tell you we’re waiting in the drawing room,” he said. Then he turned around and left the room hurriedly.

“Goodness,” Tessa said, perplexed. “What was that about?”

Sophie chuckled softly. “Well, look at yourself.” Tessa looked. She was flushed, she thought, her hair tumbling loose over her shirt and waistcoat. The shirt had clearly been made with something of a feminine figure in mind, since it did not strain over the bosom as much as Tessa had feared it would; still, it was tight, thanks to Jessie’s smaller frame. The trousers were tight as well, as was the fashion, molding themselves to her legs. She cocked her head to the side. There was something indecent about it, wasn’t there? A man was not supposed to be able to see the shape of a lady’s upper legs, or so much of the curve of her hips. There was something about the men’s clothing that made her look not masculine but . . . undressed.

“My goodness,” she said.

“Indeed,” said Sophie. “Don’t worry. They’ll fit better once you Change, and besides . . . he fancies you anyway.”

“I—you know—I mean, you think he fancies me?”

“Quite,” said Sophie, sounding unperturbed. “You should see the way he looks at you when he doesn’t think you see. Or looks up when a door opens, and is always disappointed when it isn’t you. Master Jem, he isn’t like Master Will. He can’t hide what he’s thinking.”