Clockwork Prince (7 page)

She herself had come from a poor family, and had been called “stupid” and been slapped often when she’d first begun working as a maid—because she hadn’t been used to delicate furniture or real silver, or china so thin you could see the darkness of the tea through the sides. But she had learned, and when it had become clear that she was going to be very pretty, she had been promoted to parlor maid. A parlor maid’s lot was a precarious one. She was meant to look beautiful for the household, and therefore her salary had begun to go down each year that she’d aged, once she had turned eighteen.

It had been such a relief, coming to work at the Institute—where no one minded that she was nearly twenty, or demanded that she stare at the walls, or cared whether she spoke before she was spoken to—that she had almost thought it worth the mutilation of her pretty face at the hands of her last employer. She still avoided looking at herself in mirrors if she could, but the dreadful horror of loss had faded. Jessamine mocked her for the long scar that disfigured her cheek, but the others seemed not to notice, save Will, who occasionally said something unpleasant, but in an almost perfunctory way, as if it were expected of him but his heart were not in it.

But that was all before she had fallen in love with Jem.

She recognized his voice now as he came down the hall, raised in laughter, and answering him was Miss Tessa. Sophie felt an odd little pressure against her chest. Jealousy. She despised herself for it, but it could not be stopped. Miss Tessa was always kind to her, and there was such enormous vulnerability in her wide gray eyes—such a need for a friend—that it was impossible to dislike her. And yet, the way Master Jem looked at her . . . and Tessa did not even seem to notice.

No. Sophie just couldn’t bear to encounter the two of them in the hall, with Jem looking at Tessa the way he had been lately. Clutching the sweeping brush and bucket to her chest, Sophie opened the nearest door and ducked inside, closing it most of the way behind her. It was, like most of the rooms in the Institute, an unused bedroom, meant for visiting Shadowhunters. She would give the rooms a turn once a fortnight or so, unless someone was using them; otherwise they stood undisturbed. This one was quite dusty; motes danced in the light from the windows, and Sophie fought the urge to sneeze as she pressed her eye to the crack in the door.

She had been right. It was Jem and Tessa, coming toward her down the hall. They appeared entirely engaged with each other. Jem was carrying something—folded gear, it looked like—and Tessa was laughing at something he had said. She was looking a little down and away from him, and he was gazing at her, the way one did when one felt one was unobserved. He had that look on his face, that look he usually got only when he was playing the violin, as if he were completely caught up and entranced.

Her heart hurt. He was so beautiful. She had always thought so. Most people went on about Will, how handsome he was, but she thought that Jem was a thousand times better-looking. He had the ethereal look of angels in paintings, and though she knew that the silvery color of his hair and skin was a result of the medicine he took for his illness, she couldn’t help finding it lovely too. And he was gentle, firm, and kind. The thought of his hands in her hair, stroking it back from her face, made her feel comforted, whereas usually the thought of a man, even a boy, touching her made her feel vulnerable and ill. He had the most careful, beautifully constructed hands. . . .

“I can’t quite believe they’re coming tomorrow,” Tessa was saying, turning her gaze back to Jem. “I feel as if Sophie and I are being tossed to Benedict Lightwood to appease him, like a dog with a bone. He can’t
really
mind if we’re trained or not. He just wants his sons in the house to bother Charlotte.”

“That’s true,” Jem acknowledged. “But why not take advantage of the training when it’s offered? That’s why Charlotte is trying to encourage Jessamine to take part. As for you, given your talent, even if—I should say, when—Mortmain is no longer a threat, there will be others attracted to your power. You might do well to learn how to fend them off.”

Tessa’s hand went to the angel necklace at her throat, a habitual gesture Sophie suspected she was not even aware of. “I know what Jessie will say. She’ll say the only thing she needs assistance fending off is handsome suitors.”

“Wouldn’t she rather have help fending off the unattractive ones?”

“Not if they’re mundanes.” Tessa grinned. “She’d rather an ugly mundane than a handsome Shadowhunter any day.”

“That does put me right out of the running, doesn’t it?” said Jem with mock chagrin, and Tessa laughed again.

“It is too bad,” she said. “Someone as pretty as Jessamine ought to have her pick, but she’s so determined that a Shadowhunter won’t do—”

“You are much prettier,” said Jem.

Tessa looked at him in surprise, her cheeks coloring. Sophie felt the twist of jealousy in her chest again, though she agreed with Jem. Jessamine was quite traditionally pretty, a pocket Venus if ever there was one, but her habitual sour expression spoiled her charms. Tessa, though, had a warm appeal, with her rich, dark, waving hair and sea gray eyes, that grew on you the longer you knew her. There was intelligence in her face, and humor, which Jessamine did not have, or at least did not display.

Jem paused in front of Miss Jessamine’s door, and knocked upon it. When there was no answer, he shrugged, bent down, and placed a stack of dark fabric—gear—in front of the door.

“She’ll never wear it.” Tessa’s face dimpled.

Jem straightened up. “I never agreed to wrestle her into the clothes, just deliver them.”

He started off down the hallway again, Tessa beside him. “I don’t know how Charlotte can bear to talk to Brother Enoch so often. He gives me the horrors,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t know. I prefer to think that when they’re at home, the Silent Brothers are much like us. Playing practical jokes in the Silent City, making toasted cheese—”

“I hope they play charades,” said Tessa dryly. “It would seem to take advantage of their natural talents.”

Jem burst out laughing, and then they were around the corner and out of sight. Sophie sagged against the door frame. She did not think she had ever made Jem laugh like that; she didn’t think anyone had, except for Will. You had to know someone very well to make them laugh like that. She had loved him for such a long time, she thought. How was it that she did not know him at all?

With a sigh of resignation she made ready to depart her hiding place—when the door to Miss Jessamine’s room opened, and its resident emerged. Sophie shrank bank into the dimness. Miss Jessamine was dressed in a long velvet traveling cloak that concealed most of her body, from her neck to her feet. Her hair was bound tightly behind her head, and she carried a gentleman’s hat in one hand. Sophie froze in surprise as Jessamine looked down, saw the gear at her feet, and made a face. She kicked it swiftly into the room—giving Sophie a view of her foot, which seemed to be clad in a man’s boot—and closed the door soundlessly behind her. Glancing up and down the corridor, she placed the hat on her head, dropped her chin low into the cloak, and slunk off into the shadows, leaving Sophie staring, mystified, after her.

After breakfast the next day Charlotte instructed Tessa and Sophie to return to their rooms, dress in their newly acquired gear, and meet Jem in the training room, where they would wait for the Lightwood brothers. Jessamine had not come to breakfast, claiming a headache, and Will, likewise, was nowhere to be found. Tessa suspected he was hiding, in an attempt to avoid being forced to be polite to Gabriel Lightwood and his brother. She could only partly blame him.

Back in her room, picking up the gear, she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach; it was so very much unlike anything she’d ever worn before. Sophie was not there to help her with the new clothes. Part of the training, of course, was being able to dress and to familiarize oneself with the gear: flat-soled shoes; a loose pair of trousers made of thick black material; and a long, belted tunic that reached nearly to her knees. They were the same clothes she had seen Charlotte fight in before, and had seen illustrated in the
Codex
; she had thought them strange then, but the act of actually wearing them was even stranger. If Aunt Harriet could have seen her now, Tessa thought, she would likely have fainted.

She met Sophie at the foot of the steps that led up to the Institute’s training room. Neither she nor the other girl exchanged a word, just encouraging smiles. After a moment Tessa went first up the steps, a narrow wooden flight with banisters so old that the wood had begun to splinter. It was strange, Tessa thought, going up a flight of stairs and
not
having to worry about pulling in your skirts or tripping on the hem. Though her body was completely covered, she felt peculiarly naked in her training gear.

It helped to have Sophie with her, obviously equally uncomfortable in her own Shadowhunter gear. When they reached the top of the stairs, Sophie swung the door open and they made their way into the training room in silence, together.

They were obviously at the top of the Institute, in a room adjacent to the attic, Tessa thought, and nearly twice the size. The floor was polished wood with various patterns drawn here and there in black ink—circles and squares, some of them numbered. Long, flexible ropes hung from great raftered beams overhead, half-invisible in the shadows. Witchlight torches burned along the walls, interspersed with hanging weapons—maces and axes and all sorts of other deadly-looking objects.

“Ugh,” said Sophie, looking at them with a shudder. “Don’t they look too horrible by half?”

“I actually recognize a few from the
Codex
,” said Tessa, pointing. “That one there’s a longsword, and there’s a rapier, and a fencing foil, and that one that looks like you’d need two hands to hold it is a claymore, I think.”

“Close,” came a voice, very disconcertingly, from above their heads. “It’s an executioner’s sword. Mostly for decapitations. You can tell because it doesn’t have a sharp point.”

Sophie gave a little yelp of surprise and backed up as one of the dangling ropes began to sway and a dark shape appeared over their heads. It was Jem, clambering down the rope with the graceful agility of a bird. He landed lightly in front of them, and smiled. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He was dressed in gear as well, though instead of a tunic he wore a shirt that reached only to his waist. A single leather strap went across his chest, and the hilt of a sword protruded from behind one shoulder. The darkness of the gear made his skin look even paler, his hair and eyes more silver than ever.

“Yes, you did,” said Tessa with a little smile, “but it’s all right. I was beginning to worry Sophie and I were going to be left here to train each other.”

“Oh, the Lightwoods will be here,” said Jem. “They’re simply being late to make a point. They don’t have to do what we say, or what their father says either.”

“I wish you were the one training us,” Tessa said impulsively.

Jem looked surprised. “I couldn’t—I haven’t completed my own training yet.” But their eyes met, and in another moment of wordless communication, Tessa heard what he was really saying:
I’m not well enough often enough to train you reliably.
Her throat hurt suddenly, and she locked eyes with Jem, hoping he could read her silent sympathy in them. She did not want to look away, and found herself wondering if the way that she had scraped her hair back, carefully pinning it into a bun from which no stray strands escaped, looked horribly unflattering. Not that it mattered, of course. It was just
Jem,
after all.

“We won’t be going through a
full
course of training, will we?” Sophie said, her worried voice breaking into Tessa’s thoughts. “The Council only said that we needed to know how to defend ourselves a bit. . . .”

Jem looked away from Tessa; the connection broke with a snap. “There’s nothing to be frightened of, Sophie,” he said in his gentle voice. “And you’ll be glad of it; it’s always useful for a beautiful girl to be able to fend off the unwanted attentions of gentlemen.”

Sophie’s face tightened, the livid scar on her cheek standing out as red as if it had been painted there. “Don’t make fun,” she said. “It isn’t kind.”

Jem looked startled. “Sophie, I wasn’t—”

The door to the training room opened. Tessa turned as Gabriel Lightwood strode into the room, followed by a boy she didn’t know. Where Gabriel was slender and dark-haired, the other boy was muscular, with thick sandy-blond hair. They were both dressed in gear, with expensive-looking dark gloves studded with metal across the knuckles. Each wore silver bands around each wrist—knife sheaths, Tessa knew—and had the same elaborate white pattern of runes woven into their sleeves. It was clear not just from the similarity of their clothes but from the shape of their faces and the pale, luminous green of their eyes that they were related, so Tessa was not in the least surprised when Gabriel said, in his abrupt manner:

“Well, we’re here as we said we would be. James, I assume you remember my brother, Gideon. Miss Gray, Miss Collins—”