Clockwork Princess (38 page)

“I said there were two reasons I created you,” he said. “This is the second. There are shape-shifters in the world: demons and magicians who can take on the appearance of others. But only you can truly
become
someone else. This watch was my father’s. John Thaddeus Shade. I beg of you to take this watch and Change into my father so I may speak with him one more time. If you do that, I will send all the
yin fen
I have in my possession—and it is a considerable amount—to James Carstairs.”

“He will not take it,” Tessa said immediately.

“Why not?” His tone was reasonable. “You are no longer a condition of the drug. It is a gift, freely given. It would be foolish to throw it away, and avail nothing. Whereas by doing this small thing for me, you may well save his life. What do you say to that, Tessa Gray?”

Will. Will, wake up
.

It was Tessa’s voice, unmistakably, and it brought Will bolt upright in the saddle. He caught at Balios’s mane to steady himself and looked around blearily.

Green, gray, blue. The vista of Welsh countryside spread out before him. He had passed Welshpool and the England-Wales border sometime around dawn. He remembered little of his journey, only a continuous, tortuous progression of places: Norton, Atcham, Emstrey, Weeping Cross, diverting himself and his horse around Shrewsbury, and finally, finally the border and Welsh hills in the distance. They had been ghostly in the morning light, everything shrouded in mist that had burned off slowly as the sun had risen overhead.

He guessed he was somewhere near Llangadfan. It was a pretty road, laid over an old Roman byway, but almost empty of habitation apart from the occasional farm, and it seemed endlessly long, longer than the gray sky stretching overhead. At the Cann Office Hotel he had forced himself to stop and take some food, but only for moments. The journey was what mattered.

Now that he was in Wales, he could feel it—the draw in his blood toward the place where he had been born. Despite all Cecily’s words, he had not felt the connection in him until now—breathing Welsh air, seeing the Welsh colors: the green of hills, gray of slate and sky, the pallor of whitewashed stone houses, the ivory dots of sheep against the grass. Pine and oak trees were dark emerald in the distance, higher up, but closer to the road the vegetation grew green-gray and ochre.

As he moved farther into the heart of the country, the soft green rolling hills grew starker, the road steeper, and the sun began to sink toward the rim of the distant mountains. He knew where he was now, knew when he passed into the Dyfi Valley, and the mountains in front of him thrust up, stark and ragged. The peak of Car Afron was on his left, a tumble of gray slate and shingle like broken gray spiderweb across its side. The road was steep and long, and as Will urged Balios up it, he slumped in the saddle and, against his will, drifted out of consciousness. He dreamed of Cecily and Ella running up and down hills not unlike these, calling after him,
Will! Come and run with us, Will!
And he dreamed of Tessa and her hands held out for him, and he knew he could not stop, could not stop until he reached her. Even if she never looked at him like that in waking life, even if that softness in her eyes was for someone else. And sometimes, as now, his hand would slip into his pocket and close around the jade pendant there.

Something struck him hard from the side; he released the pendant as he fell, jarringly, onto the rocky grass by the side of the road. Pain shot up his arm, and he rolled to the side just in time to avoid Balios crumpling to the earth beside him. It took him a moment, gasping, to realize that they had not been attacked. His horse, too exhausted to take another step, had collapsed beneath him.

Will heaved himself up to his knees and crawled to Balios’s side. The black horse lay lathered in foam, his eyes rolling upward pitifully toward Will as Will neared him and flung an arm around his neck. To his relief the horse’s pulse was steady and strong. “Balios, Balios,” he whispered, stroking the animal’s mane. “I am sorry. I should not have ridden you like that.”

He remembered when Henry had bought the horses and was trying to decide what to name them. Will had been the one to suggest their names: Balios and Xanthos, after the immortal horses of Achilles.
We two can fly as swiftly as Zephyrus, who they say is the fleetest of all winds
.

But those horses had been immortal, and Balios was not. Stronger than an ordinary horse, and faster, but every creature had its limits. Will lay down, his head spinning, and stared up at the sky—like a gray sheet pulled tight, touched here and there with streaks of black cloud.

He had thought, once, in the brief moments between the lifting of the “curse” and the knowledge that Jem and Tessa were engaged, of bringing Tessa here to Wales, to show her the places he had been as a child. He had thought to take her down to Pembrokeshire, to walk around Saint David’s Head and see the cliff-top flowers there, to see the blue sea from Tenby and find seashells at the tide lines. These all seemed the distant fancies of a child now. There was only the road ahead, more riding and more exhaustion, and probable death at the end of it.

With another reassuring pat on his horse’s neck, Will heaved himself to his knees and then his feet. Fighting dizziness, he limped to the crest of the hill, and looked down.

A small valley lay below him, and within it was cradled a diminutive stone village, little bigger than a hamlet. He took his stele from his belt and wearily carved a Vision rune into his left wrist. It lent him enough power to see that the village had a square, and a small church. It would almost certainly have some sort of public house where he could rest for the night.

Everything in his heart screamed to go on, to
finish this—
he could not be more than twenty miles from his goal—but to go on would be to kill his horse and, he knew, to arrive at Cadair Idris himself in no fit state to do battle with anyone. He turned back toward Balios and with a measured application of coaxing and handfuls of oats managed to get the horse to its feet. Gathering the reins in his hand and squinting into the sunset, he began to lead Balios down the hill toward the village.

The chair Tessa sat in had a high, carved wooden back, hammered through with massive nails, the dull ends of which poked into her back. In front of her was a wide desk, weighed down by books on one end. Before her on the desk was a clean tablet of paper, a jar of ink, and a quill. Beside the paper sat John Shade’s pocket watch.

On either side of her stood two massive automatons. Little effort had been expended to make them resemble humans. Each was nearly triangular, with thick arms protruding from either side of their bodies, each arm ending in a razor-sharp blade. They were frightening enough, but Tessa could not help but feel that if Will were there, he would have commented that they looked like turnips, and perhaps made up a song about it.

“Take up the watch,” said Mortmain. “And Change.”

He sat across from her, in a chair much like hers, with the same high curving back. They were in another cave room, which she had been led to by automatons; the only light in the room came from an enormous fireplace, large enough to roast an entire cow in. Mortmain’s face was cast into shadows, his fingers steepled below his chin.

Tessa lifted the watch. It felt heavy and cool in her hands. She closed her eyes.

She had only Mortmain’s word that he had sent the
yin fen
, and yet she believed him. He had no reason not to do it, after all. What difference did it make to him whether Jem Carstairs lived a little longer? It had only ever been a bargaining tool to get her into his hands, and here she was,
yin fen
or not.

She heard Mortmain’s breath hiss out between his teeth, and she tightened her fingers’ grip on the watch. It seemed to throb suddenly in her grasp, the way the clockwork angel sometimes did, as if it had its own life within it. She felt her hand jerk, and then suddenly the Change was on her—without her having to will it or reach for it as she usually did. She gave a little gasp as she felt the Change take her like a harsh wind, pushing her down and under. John Shade was suddenly all around her, his presence enveloping hers. Pain drove up her arm, and she let go of the watch. It thumped to the desk, but the Change was unstoppable. Her shoulders broadened under the dressing gown, her fingers turning green, the color spreading up her body like verdigris over copper.

Her head jerked upright. She felt heavy, as if an enormous weight were pressing on her. Looking down, she saw that she had a man’s heavy arms, the skin a dark, textured green, the hands large and curved. A feeling of panic rose in her, but it was tiny, a small spark within an immense gulf of darkness. She had never been so lost inside a Change before.

Mortmain had sat upright. He was staring at her fixedly, his firm lips compressed, his eyes shining with a hard dark light. “Father,” he said.

Tessa did not answer. Could not answer. The voice that rose within her was not hers; it was Shade’s. “My clockwork prince,” Shade said.

The light in Mortmain’s eyes grew. He leaned forward, pushing the papers eagerly across the table toward Tessa. “Father,” he said. “I need your help, and quickly. I have a Pyxis. I have the means to open it. I have the automaton bodies. I need only the spell you created, the binding spell. Write it down for me, and I will have the last piece of the puzzle.”

The tiny flare of panic inside Tessa was growing and spreading. This was no touching reunion between father and son. This was something Mortmain wanted, needed from the warlock John Shade. She began to struggle, to try to extricate herself from the Change, but it held her with a grip like iron. Not since the Dark Sisters had trained her had she been unable to extricate herself from a Change, but though John Shade was dead, she could feel the steely hold of his will on her, keeping her prisoned in his body and forcing that body into action. In horror she saw her own hand reach for the pen, dip the nib in the ink, and begin to write.

The pen scratched across the paper. Mortmain leaned forward. He was breathing hard, as if running. Behind him the fire crackled, high and orange in the grate. “That is it,” he said, his tongue licking over his bottom lip. “I can see how that would work, yes. Finally. That’s it exactly.”

Tessa stared. What was coming from her pen seemed a stream of gibberish to her: numbers, signs, and symbols she could not comprehend. Again she tried to struggle, succeeding only in blotting the page. There went the pen again—ink, paper, more scratching. The hand that held the pen was shaking violently, but the symbols continued to flow. Tessa began to bite her lip: hard, then harder. She tasted blood in her mouth. Some of the blood dripped onto the page. The pen continued to write through it, smearing scarlet fluid across the page.

“That is it,” Mortmain said. “Father—”

The nib of the pen snapped, as loud as a gunshot, echoing off the walls of the cave. The pen fell broken from Tessa’s hand, and she slumped back against the chair, exhausted. The green was draining from her skin, her body was shrinking, her own brown hair was tumbling loose over her shoulders. She could still taste blood in her mouth. “No,” she gasped, and reached for the papers. “No—”

But her movements were made slow by pain and the Change, and Mortmain was faster. Laughing, he snatched the papers out from under her hand and rose to his feet. “Very good,” he said. “Thank you, my little warlock girl. You have given me everything I need. Automatons, escort Miss Gray back to her room.”

A metal hand closed on the back of Tessa’s gown and lifted her to her feet. The world seemed to swing dizzily in front of her. She saw Mortmain reach down and lift up the gold watch that had fallen on the table.

He smiled at it, a feral, vicious smile. “I will make you proud, Father,” he said. “Never doubt it.”

Tessa, no longer able to bear watching, closed her eyes.
What have I done?
she thought as the automaton began to push her from the room.
My God, what have I done?

Charlotte’s dark head was bent over a letter when Gabriel came into the drawing room. It was chilly in the room, the fire dead in the grate. Gabriel wondered why Sophie had not built it up—too much time spent training. His father wouldn’t have had patience with that. He liked servants who were trained to fight, but he preferred them to acquire that knowledge before they entered his service.

Charlotte looked up. “Gabriel,” she said.

“You wanted to see me?” Gabriel did his best to keep his voice even. He couldn’t help the feeling that Charlotte’s dark eyes could see through him, as if he were made of glass. His eyes flicked toward the paper on her desk. “What is that?”

She hesitated. “A letter from the Consul.” Her mouth was twisted into a tight, unhappy line. She glanced down again and sighed. “All I ever wanted was to run this Institute as my father had. I never thought it would be quite so hard. I shall write to him again, but—” She broke off then, with a tight, false smile. “But I did not ask you here to talk about myself,” she said. “Gabriel, you have looked tired these past few days, and tense. I know we are all distressed, and I fear that in that distress your—situation—may have been forgotten.”

“My situation?”

“Your father,” she clarified, rising from her chair and approaching him. “You must be grieving him.”

“What of Gideon?” he said. “He was his father too.”

“Gideon grieved your father some time ago,” she said, and to his surprise she was standing at his elbow. “For you it must be new and raw. I did not want you to think I had forgotten.”

“After everything that’s happened,” he said, his throat starting to close with bewilderment—and something else, something he did not want to identify too closely—“after Jem, and Will, and Jessamine, and Tessa, after your household has been very nearly cut in
half
, you do not wish me to believe that you have forgotten
me
?”