Clockwork Princess (44 page)

“Tessa,” he said. “I
am
alone.”

The word “alone” came out broken, as if he could taste the bitterness of loss on his tongue and struggled to speak around it.

“Jem?” she said. It was more than a question. Will said nothing; his voice seemed to have fled. He had thought to spirit her from this place before he told her about Jem, had imagined telling her somewhere safe, somewhere where there would be space and time to comfort her. He knew now he had been a fool to think it, to imagine that what he had lost would not be written all over his face. The remaining color drained from her skin; it was like watching a fire flicker and go out. “No,” she whispered.

“Tessa …”

She took a step back from him, shaking her head. “No, it’s not possible. I would have known—it can’t be possible.”

He reached out a hand to her. “Tess—”

She had begun to shake violently. “No,” she said again. “No,
don’t
say it. If you don’t say it, it won’t be true. It can’t be true. It isn’t fair.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Her face crumpled, shattered like a dam under too much pressure. She sank to her knees, folding in on herself. Her arms went around her body. She was holding herself tightly, as if she could keep from breaking apart. Will felt a fresh wave of the helpless agony he had experienced in the courtyard of the Green Man. What had he done? He had come here to save her, but instead of saving her he had only succeeded in inflicting agony. It was as if he were truly cursed—capable only of bringing suffering to those he loved.

“I am sorry,” he said again, with all his heart in the words. “So sorry. I would have died for him if I could.”

At that, she looked up. He braced himself for the accusation in her eyes, but it was not there. Instead she reached up her hand to him silently. In wonder and surprise he took it, and let her draw him down until he was kneeling opposite her.

Her face was streaked with tears, surrounded by the tumble of her hair, outlined in gold by the firelight. “I would have too,” she said. “Oh, Will. This is all my fault. He threw away his life for me. If he had taken the drug more sparingly—if he had allowed himself to rest and be ill instead of pretending good health for my sake—”

“No!” He took her by the shoulders, turning her toward him. “It’s not your fault. No one could imagine that it was—”

She shook her head. “How can you bear to have me near you?” she said in despair. “I took your
parabatai
from you. And now we will both die here. Because of me.”

“Tessa,” he whispered, shocked. He could not remember the last time he had been in this position, the last time he had had to comfort someone whose heart was broken, and had genuinely been
allowed
to, rather than forcing himself to turn away. He felt as clumsy as he had as a child, dropping knives from his hands before Jem had taught him how to use them. He cleared his throat. “Tessa, come here.” He drew her toward him, until he was sitting on the ground and she was leaning against him, her head on his shoulder, his fingers threading through her hair. He could feel her body shaking against him, but she did not pull away. Instead she clung to him, as if truly his presence gave her comfort.

And if he thought of how warm she was in his arms or the feel of her breath on his skin, it was only for a moment, and he could pretend that it wasn’t at all.

Tessa’s grief, like a storm, spent itself slowly over the course of hours. She wept, and Will held her and did not let go, except for once when he rose and built up the fire. He returned swiftly and sat down beside her again, their backs against the invisible wall. She touched the place on his shoulder where her tears had soaked through the fabric.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d told him she was sorry over the past hours, as they’d shared the tales of what had happened to them since their separation at the Institute. He’d spoken to her of his farewell to Jem and Cecily, his ride across the countryside, the moment he had realized Jem was gone. She’d told him of what Mortmain had demanded of her, that she Change into his father, and give him the last bit of the puzzle that would turn his automaton army into an unstoppable force.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Tess,” Will said now. He was looking toward the fire, the only light in the room. It painted him in shades of gold and black. The shadows under his eyes were violet, the angle of his cheekbones and collarbones sharply outlined. “You have suffered, just as I have. Seeing that village destroyed—”

“We were both there at the same time,” she said, wonderingly. “If I had known you were near—”

“If I had known
you
were near, I would have charged Balios directly up the hill to you.”

“And been murdered by Mortmain’s creatures in the process. It is better that you did not know.” She followed his gaze to the fire. “You found me in the end; that is what matters.”

“Of course I found you. I promised Jem I would find you,” he said. “Some promises cannot be broken.”

He took a shallow breath. She felt it against her side: she was curled half against him, and his hands were shaking, almost imperceptibly, as he held her. Distantly she knew that she should not let herself be held like this by any boy who was not her brother or fiancé—but her brother and her fiancé were both dead, and tomorrow Mortmain would find them and punish them both. She could not bring herself, in the face of all that, to care much about propriety.

“What was the point of all that pain?” she asked. “I loved him so much, and I wasn’t even there when he died.”

Will’s hand smoothed down her back—light and quick, as if he were afraid she would draw away. “Neither was I,” he said. “I was in the courtyard of an inn, halfway to Wales, when I knew. I felt it. The bond between us being severed. It was as if a great pair of scissors had cut my heart in half.”

“Will …,” Tessa said. His grief was so palpable, it mixed with her own to create a sharp sadness, lighter for being shared, though it was hard to say who was comforting who now. “You were always half his heart as well.”

“I am the one who asked him to be my
parabatai
,” Will said. “He was reluctant. He wanted me to understand that I was tying myself in what was meant to be a life bond to someone who would not live much of a life. But I wanted it, blindly wanted it, some proof that I wasn’t alone, some way to show him what I owed him. And he gave way gracefully to what I wanted in the end. He always did.”

“Don’t,” said Tessa. “Jem wasn’t a martyr. It was no punishment for him, being your
parabatai
. You were like a brother to him—better than a brother, for you had chosen him. When he spoke of you, it was with loyalty and love, unclouded by any doubt.”

“I confronted him,” Will went on. “When I found he had been taking more of the
yin fen
than he should. I was so angry. I accused him of throwing his life away. He said, ‘I can choose to be as much for her as I can be, to burn as brightly for her as I wish.’”

Tessa made a small sound in her throat.

“It was his choice, Tessa. Not something you forced upon him. He was never as happy as when he was with you.” Will was not looking at her, but at the fire. “Whatever else I have ever said to you, no matter what, I am glad he had that time with you. You should be as well.”

“You do not sound glad.”

Will was still looking into the fire. His black hair had been damp when he had come into the room, and it had dried in loose curls against his temples and forehead. “I disappointed him,” he said. “He entrusted this to me, this one task, to follow you and to find you, to bring you home safely. And now I fail at the final hurdle.” He finally turned to look at her, his blue eyes unseeing. “I would not have left him. I would have stayed with him if he had asked, until he died. I would have stood by my oath. But he asked me to go after you …”

“Then you only did what he asked. You did not disappoint him.”

“But it was also what was in my heart,” Will said. “I cannot separate selfishness from selflessness now. When I dreamed of saving you, the way you would look at me—” His voice dropped off abruptly. “I am well punished for that hubris, at any rate.”

“But I am rewarded.” Tessa slipped her hand into his. His calluses were rough against her palm. She saw his chest hitch with surprised breath. “For I am not alone; I have you with me. And we should not give up all hope. There might still be a chance for us. To overpower Mortmain, or slip past him. If anyone can conjure a way to do it, you can.”

He turned his gaze on her. His lashes shadowed his eyes as he said, “You are a wonder, Tessa Gray. To have such faith in me, though I have done nothing to earn it.”

“Nothing?” Her voice rose. “Nothing to earn it? Will, you saved me from the Dark Sisters, you pushed me away to save me, you’ve saved me over and over again. You are a good man, one of the best I’ve ever known.”

Will looked as stunned as if she had pushed him. He licked his dry lips. “I wish you wouldn’t say that,” he whispered.

She leaned toward him. His face was shadows, angles and planes; she wanted to touch him, touch the curve of his mouth, the arc of his lashes against his cheek. Fire reflected in his eyes, pinpricks of light. “Will,” she said. “The first time I saw you, I thought you looked like a hero from a storybook. You joked that you were Sir Galahad. Remember that? And for so long I tried to understand you that way—as if you were Mr. Darcy, or Lancelot, or poor miserable Sydney Carton—and that was just a disaster. It took me so long to understand, but I did, and I do now—you are not a hero out of a book.”

Will gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “It’s true,” he said. “I am no hero.”

“No,” Tessa said. “You are a person, just like me.” His eyes searched her face, mystified; she held his hand tighter, lacing her fingers with his. “Don’t you see, Will? You’re a person
like
me. You are
like me
. You say the things I think but never say out loud. You read the books I read. You love the poetry I love. You make me laugh with your ridiculous songs and the way you see the truth of everything. I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way.” With the hand that was not holding his, she touched his cheek, lightly. “We are the same.”

Will’s eyes fluttered closed; she felt his lashes against her fingertips. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged but controlled. “Don’t say those things, Tessa. Don’t say them.”

“Why not?”

“You said I am a good man,” he said. “But I am not
that
good a man. And I am—I am
catastrophically
in love with you.”

“Will—”

“I love you so much, so incredibly much,” he went on, “and when you’re this close to me, I forget who you are. I forget you’re Jem’s. I’d have to be the worst sort of person to think what I’m thinking right now. But I am thinking it.”

“I loved Jem,” she said. “I love him still, and he loved me, but I am not anybody’s, Will. My heart is my own. It is beyond you to control it. It has been beyond
me
to control it.”

Will’s eyes were still closed. His chest was rising and falling swiftly, and she could hear the hard thump of his heart, rapid beneath the solidity of his rib cage. His body was warm against hers, and alive, and she thought of the automatons’ cold hands on her, and Mortmain’s colder eyes. She thought of what would happen if she lived and Mortmain succeeded in what he wanted and she was shackled to him all her life—a man she did not love and in fact despised.

She thought of the feel of his cold hands on her, and if those would be the only hands that would ever touch her again.

“What do you think will happen tomorrow, Will?” she whispered. “When Mortmain finds us. Tell me honestly.”

His hand moved carefully, almost unwillingly, to slide down her hair and come to rest at the juncture of her neck. She wondered if he could feel the pounding of her pulse, answering his. “I think Mortmain will kill me. Or to be precise, he will have those creatures kill me. I am a decent Shadowhunter, Tess, but those automatons—they cannot be stopped. Runed blades serve as no better than ordinary weapons upon them, and seraph blades not at all.”

“But you are not afraid.”

“There are so many worse things than death,” he said. “Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse. And to go down fighting as a Shadowhunter should, there is no dishonor in that. An honorable death—I have always wanted that.”

A shiver passed through Tessa. “There are two things I want,” she said, and was surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. “If you think Mortmain will try to kill you tomorrow, then I wish to be given a weapon. I shall divest myself of my clockwork angel, and I shall fight by your side, and if we go down, we go down together. For, I too, wish an honorable death, like Boadicea.”

“Tess—”

“I would rather die than be the Magister’s tool. Give me a weapon, Will.”

She felt his body shudder against hers. “I can do that for you,” he said at last, subdued. “What was the second thing? That you wanted?”

She swallowed. “I want to kiss you one more time before I die.”

His eyes flew wide. They were blue, blue like the sea and sky in her dream where he had fallen away from her, blue as the flowers Sophie had put in her hair. “Don’t—”

“Say anything I don’t mean,” she finished for him. “I know. I am not. I mean it, Will. And I know it is entirely beyond the bounds of propriety to ask it. I know I must seem a bit mad.” She glanced down, and then up again, gathering her courage. “And if you can tell me that you can die tomorrow without our lips ever touching again, and you will not regret it at all, then tell me, and I will desist in asking, for I know I have no right—”

Her words were cut off, for he had caught hold of her and pulled her against him, and crushed his lips down against hers. For a split second it was almost painful, sharp with desperation and thinly controlled hunger, and she tasted salt and heat in her mouth and the gasp of his breath. And then he gentled, with a force of restraint she could
feel
all through her body, and the slide of lips against lips, the interplay of tongue and teeth, altered from pain to pleasure in the sliver of a moment.