Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Prince

“It must be nice, though,” Tessa said, playing with the bedclothes, “that he’s going to live here. He’ll be so close to you—”

“It will be the worst thing in the world,” Sophie said, and suddenly her eyes were full of tears. Tessa froze in horror, wondering what she could have said so wrong. The tears stood in Sophie’s eyes, without falling, making their green shimmer. “If he lives here, he’ll see me as I really am. A servant.” Her voice cracked. “I knew I should never have gone to see him when he asked me. Mrs. Branwell’s not the type to punish her servants for having followers and the like, but I knew it was wrong anyway, because he’s himself and I’m me, and we don’t belong together.” She reached up a hand and wiped at her eyes, and then the tears did fall, spilling down both her cheeks, the whole and the scarred one. “I could lose everything if I let myself—and what’s he stand to lose? Nothing.”

“Gideon’s not like that.”

“He’s his father’s son,” Sophie said. “Who says that doesn’t matter? It’s not as if he was going to marry a mundane as it was, but to see me building up his fire, doing the washing-up—”

“If he loves you, he won’t mind all that.”

“People always mind all that. They are not so noble as you think.”

Tessa thought of Will with his face in his hands, saying, If you love him, please, Tessa, don’t tell him what I just told you. “One finds nobility in the oddest places, Soph. Besides, would you really want to be a Shadowhunter? Wouldn’t you rather—”

“Oh, but I do want it,” said Sophie. “More than anything in the world. I always have.”

“I never knew,” Tessa said, marveling.

“I used to think if I married Master Jem—” Sophie picked at the blanket, then looked up and smiled bleakly. “You haven’t broken his heart yet, have you?”

“No,” Tessa said. Just torn my own in two. “I haven’t broken his heart at all.”

Music poured out from under Jem’s door, which was partly cracked open. Will stood with his hand on the knob, his shoulder against the wall. He felt profoundly exhausted, more tired than he ever had in his life. A terrible burning energy had kept him alert since he had left Cheyne Walk, but it was gone now, drained away, and there was only an exhausted darkness.

He had waited for Tessa to call after him once he had slammed the drawing room door, but she had not. He could still see her, looking at him, with her eyes like great gray storm clouds. Jem has proposed to me, and I have said yes.

Do you love him?

I love him.

And yet here he was, standing in front of Jem’s door. He did not know if he had come here to try to talk Jem out of Tessa—if such a thing could be accomplished—or, more likely, if this was where he had learned to go for comfort and he could not unlearn the habit of years. He pushed the door open; witchlight poured out into the hallway, and he stepped into Jem’s room.

Jem was sitting on the trunk at the foot of his bed, his violin balanced on his shoulder. His eyes were closed as the bow sawed over the string, but the corners of his lips quirked up as his parabatai came into the room, and he said: “Will? Is that you, Will?”

“Yes,” Will said. He was standing just inside the room, feeling as if he could go no farther.

Jem stopped playing and opened his eyes. “Telemann,” he said. “Fantasia in E-flat major.” He set the violin and bow down. “Well, come in, then. You’re making me nervous, standing there.”

Will took a few more steps inside. He had spent so much time in this room, he knew it as well as his own. Jem’s collection of music books; the case in which his violin lived when he was not playing it; the windows that let in square patches of sunlight. The trunk that had come all the way from Shanghai. The cane with its jade top, leaning against the wall. The box with Kwan Yin on it, that held Jem’s drugs. The armchair in which Will had spent countless nights, watching Jem sleep, counting his breaths and praying.

Jem looked up at him. His eyes were luminous; no suspicion colored them, only a simple happiness at seeing his friend. “I am glad you’re here.”

“So am I,” said Will gruffly. He felt awkward, and wondered if Jem could sense it. He had never felt awkward around his parabatai before. It was the words, he thought, there on the tip of his tongue, pleading to be said.

You see it, don’t you, James? Without Tessa there is nothing for me—no joy, no light, no life. If you loved me, you would let me have her. You can’t love her as I do. No one could. If you are truly my brother, you would do this for me.

But the words remained unspoken, and Jem leaned forward, his voice low and confiding. “Will. There was something I wanted to say to you, and not when everyone else was around.”

Will braced himself. This was it. Jem was going to tell him about the engagement, and he was going to have to pretend to be happy, and not be sick out the window, which he desperately wanted to be. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “And what’s that?”

The sun glittered off Jem’s hair as he ducked his head. “I should have talked to you before. But we never have discussed the subject of love, have we, and with you being such a cynic . . .” He grinned. “I thought you’d mock me for it. And besides, I never thought there was a chance she’d return my feelings.”

“Tessa,” said Will. Her name was like knives in his mouth.

Jem’s smile was luminous, lighting his whole face, and any hope that Will had harbored in some secret chamber of his heart that perhaps Jem did not really love her, was gone, blown away like mist before a hard wind. “You have never shirked your duties,” Jem said. “And I know that you would have done what you could to save Tessa in the tea warehouse, whoever she was. But I could not help thinking that perhaps the reason you were so determined to save her was because you knew what she meant to me.” He tipped his head back, his smile incandescent. “Did I guess correctly, or am I a thickheaded idiot?”

“You’re an idiot,” said Will, and swallowed hard, past his dry throat. “But—you are correct. I know what she means to you.”

Jem grinned. His happiness was printed all over his face, his eyes, Will thought; he had never seen him look like this. He had always thought of Jem as a calm and peaceful presence, always thought that joy, like anger, was too extreme and human an emotion for him. He realized now that he had been quite wrong; Jem had simply not been happy like this before. Not since his parents had died, Will imagined. But Will had never considered it. He had dwelled on whether Jem was safe, whether he was surviving, but not if he was happy.

Jem is my great sin.

Tessa had been right, he thought. He had wanted her to break things off with Jem, whatever the cost; now he realized he did not, could not. You might at least believe I know honor—honor, and debt, he had said to Jem, and he had meant it. He owed Jem his life. He could not take from him the one thing Jem wanted more than anything else. Even if it meant Will’s own happiness, for Jem was not only someone to whom he owed a debt that could never be repaid, but, as the covenant said, someone he loved as he loved his own soul.