Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices 3)

"A chance for who?"

"Will Herondale. To be happy."

Woolsey sighed gustily and put down his glass. "Is there a chance for you to be happy if he isn't?"

Magnus said nothing.

"Are you in love with him?" Woolsey asked--all curiosity, no jealousy. Magnus wondered what it was like to have a heart like that, or rather to have no heart at all.

"No," Magnus said. "I have wondered that, but no. It is something else. I feel that I owe him. I have heard it said that when you save a life, you are responsible for that life. I feel I am responsible for that boy. If he never finds happiness, I will feel I have failed him. If he cannot have that girl he loves, I will feel I have failed him. If I cannot keep his parabatai by him, I will feel I failed him."

"Then you will fail him," Woolsey said. "In the meantime, while you are moping and seeking yin fen, I think I may take myself traveling. See the countryside. The city depresses me in the winter."

"Do as you like." Magnus let the curtain fall back, blocking the view of Will and Tessa's carriage as it passed out of sight.

To: Consul Josiah Wayland

From: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw

Josiah,

I was deeply concerned to hear of your letter to the Council on the topic of Charlotte Branwell. As old acquaintances, I had hoped you could perhaps speak more freely to me than you have to them. Is there some issue regarding her that concerns you? Her father was a dear friend of ours both, and I have not known her to do a dishonorable thing.

Yours in concern,

Victor Whitelaw

6

LET DARKNESS

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,

Let darkness keep her raven gloss:

Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,

To dance with death, to beat the ground.

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam A.H.H."

To: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw

From: Consul Josiah Wayland

It is with some trepidation that I pen this letter to you, Victor, for all that we have known each other for some years now. I feel a bit like the prophetess Cassandra, doomed to know the truth and to have no one believe her. Perhaps it is my sin of hubris, which put Charlotte Branwell in the place she now occupies and from which she devils me.

Her undermining of my authority is constant, the instability which I fear it will cause in the Clave severe. What should have been a disaster for her--the revelation that she harbored spies under her roof, the Lovelace girl's complicity in the Magister's schemes--has been recast as a triumph. The Enclave hails the inhabitants of the Institute as those who uncovered the Magister and have harried him from London. That he has not been seen or heard from in the past months has been put down to Charlotte's good judgment and is not seen, as I suspect it is, as a tactical retreat and regrouping on his part. Though I am the Consul and lead the Clave, it seems very much to me that this will go down as the time of Charlotte Branwell, and that my legacy will be lost--

To: Inquisitor Victor Whitelaw

From: Consul Josiah Wayland

Victor,

While your concern is much appreciated, I have no anxiety regarding Charlotte Branwell that I did not touch on in my letter to the Council.

May you take heart in the strength of the Angel in these troubled times,

Josiah Wayland

Breakfast was at first a quiet affair. Gideon and Gabriel came down together, both subdued, Gabriel barely saying a word, aside from asking Henry to pass the butter. Cecily had placed herself at the far end of the table and was reading a book as she ate; Tessa longed to see the title, but Cecily had placed the book at such an angle that it was not visible. Will, across from Tessa, had the dark shadows of sleeplessness below his eyes, a memory of their eventful night; Tessa herself poked unenthusiastically at her kedgeree, silent until the door opened and Jem came in.

She looked up with surprise and a lurch of delight. He did not look unusually ill, only tired and pale. He slid gracefully into the seat beside her. "Good morning."

"You look much better, Jemmy," Charlotte observed with delight.

Jemmy? Tessa looked at Jem with amusement; he shrugged and gave her a self-deprecating grin.

She looked across the table and found Will watching them. Her gaze brushed his, just for a moment, a question in her eyes. Was there any chance that somehow Will had found some replacement yin fen in the time between returning home and this morning? But no, he looked as surprised as she felt.

"I am, quite," Jem said. "The Silent Brothers were of great assistance." He reached to pour himself a cup of tea, and Tessa watched the bones and tendons move in his thin wrist, distressingly visible. When he set the pot down, she reached for his hand beneath the table, and he clasped it. His slim fingers wound about hers reassuringly.

Bridget's voice floated out from the kitchen.

"Cold blows the wind tonight, sweetheart,

Cold are the drops of rain;

The very first love that ever I had

In greenwood he was slain.

I'll do as much for my sweetheart

As any young woman may;

I'll sit and mourn at his graveside

A twelve-month and a day."

/> "By the Angel, she's depressing," said Henry, setting down his newspaper directly on his plate and causing the edge to soak through with egg yolk. Charlotte opened her mouth as if to object, and closed it again. "It's all heartbreak, death, and unrequited love."

"Well, that is what most songs are about," said Will. "Requited love is ideal but doesn't make much of a ballad."

Jem looked up, but before he could say anything, a great reverberation sounded through the Institute. Tessa was familiar enough with her London home now to know it as the sound of the doorbell. They all looked down the table at the same time at Charlotte, as if their heads were mounted on springs.

Charlotte, looking startled, put down her fork. "Oh, dear," she said. "There is something I had meant to tell you all, but--"

"Ma'am?" It was Sophie, drifting into the room with a salver in one hand. Tessa could not help but notice that though Gideon was staring at her, she seemed to be deliberately avoiding his gaze, her cheeks pinking slightly. "Consul Wayland is downstairs requesting to speak with you."

Charlotte took the folded paper off the salver, gazed at it, sighed, and said, "Very well. Send him up."

Sophie vanished in a swirl of skirts.

"Charlotte?" Henry sounded puzzled. "What is going on?"

"Indeed." Will let his cutlery clatter onto his plate. "The Consul? Breaking up our breakfast time? Whatever next? The Inquisitor over for tea? Picnics with the Silent Brothers?"

"Duck pies in the park," said Jem under his breath, and he and Will smiled at each other, just a flash, before the door opened and the Consul swept it.

Consul Wayland was a big man, broad-chested and thick-armed, and the robes of the Consul's status always seemed to hang a bit awkwardly from his wide shoulders. He was blond bearded like a Viking, and at the moment his expression was stormy. "Charlotte," he said without preamble. "I am here to talk to you about Benedict Lightwood."

There was a faint rustling; Gabriel's fingers had clenched on the tablecloth. Gideon put a hand lightly over his brother's wrist, stilling him, but the Consul was already looking at them. "Gabriel," he said. "I had rather thought you might go to the Blackthorns' with your sister."