Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices 3)

She gave the ghost of a smile. "I thought they might--not want anything to remember me by."

"You are not hated, Jessamine. Whatever world lies beyond this one, do not go to it thinking that."

"Oh, no?" Her eyes were fluttering shut. "Though surely you would all have liked me a bit better if I had told you where Mortmain was. I might not have lost your love then."

"Tell me now," Will urged. "Tell me, if you can, and earn that love back--"

"Idris," she whispered.

"Jessamine, we know that's not true--"

Jessamine's eyes flew open. The whites were tinted scarlet now, like blood in water. "You," she said. "You of all people should have understood." Her fingers tightened suddenly, spasmodically, on his lapel. "You are a terrible Welshman," she said thickly, and then her chest hitched, and did not hitch again. She was dead.

Her eyes were open, fixed on his face. He touched them lightly, closing her eyelids, leaving the bloody prints of his thumb and forefinger behind. "Ave atque vale, Jessamine Lovelace."

"No!" It was Charlotte. Will looked up through a mist of shock to see others gathered about him--Charlotte, slumped in Henry's arms; Cecily with her eyes wide; and Bridget, holding two oil-spattered blades, quite expressionless. Behind them Gideon was sitting on the steps of the Institute with his brother and Sophie on either side of him. He was leaning back, very pale, his jacket off; a torn strip of cloth was tied about one of his legs, and Gabriel was applying what was likely a healing rune to his arm.

Henry nuzzled his face into Charlotte's neck and murmured soothing things as tears ran down his wife's face. Will looked at them, and then at his sister.

"Jem," he said, and the name was a question.

"He went off after Tessa," said Cecily. She was staring down at Jessamine, her expression a mixture of pity and horror.

A white light seemed to flash in front of Will's eyes. "Went off after Tessa? What do you mean?"

"One--one of the automatons seized her and threw her into a carriage." Cecily faltered at the fierceness in his tone. "None of us could follow. The creatures were blocking us. Then Jem ran through the gates. I assumed--"

Will found that his hands had tightened, quite unconsciously, on Jessamine's arms, leaving livid marks in the skin. "Someone take Jessamine from me," he said raggedly. "I must go after them."

"Will, no--," Charlotte began.

"Charlotte." The word tore out of his throat. "I must go--"

There was a clang--the sound of the Institute gates slamming shut. Will's head jerked up, and he saw Jem.

The gates had just closed behind him, and he was walking toward them. He was moving slowly, as if drunk or injured, and as he drew closer, Will saw that he was covered in blood. The coal-black blood of the automatons, but a great deal of red blood as well--on his shirt, streaking his face and hands, and in his hair.

He neared them, and stopped dead. He looked the way Thomas had looked when Will had found him on the steps of the Institute, bleeding out and nearly dead.

"James?" Will said.

There was a world of questions in that one word.

"She's gone," Jem said in a flat, uninflected voice. "I ran after the carriage--but it was gaining speed and I could not run fast enough. I lost them near Temple Bar." His eyes flicked toward Jessamine, but he did not even seem to see her body, or Will holding her, or anything at all. "If I could have run faster--," he said, and then he doubled up as if he had been struck, a cough ripping through him. He hit the ground on his knees and elbows, blood spattering the ground at his feet. His fingers clawed at the stone. Then he rolled onto his back and was still.

10

LIKE WATER UPON SAND

For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I wondered yet more that myself, who was to him a second self, could live, he being dead. Well said one of his friends, "Thou half of my soul"; for I felt that my soul and his soul were "one soul in two bodies": and therefore was my life a horror to me, because I would not live halved. And therefore perchance I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved should die wholly.

--Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book IV

Cecily pushed open the door of Jem's bedroom with the tips of her fingers, and stared inside.

The room was quiet but aflutter with movement. Two Silent Brothers stood by the side of Jem's bed, with Charlotte between them. Her face was grave and tearstained. Will knelt by the side of the bed, still in his bloodstained clothes from the courtyard fight. His head was down on his crossed arms, and he looked as if

he was praying. He seemed young and vulnerable and despairing, and despite her conflicted feelings, some part of Cecily longed to go into the room and comfort him.

The rest of her saw the still, white figure lying in the bed, and quailed. She had been here such a short time; she could feel nothing but that she was intruding on the inhabitants of the Institute--their grief, their sorrow.

But she must talk to Will. She had to. She moved forward--

And felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her away. Her back hit the wall of the corridor, and Gabriel Lightwood immediately released her.

She looked up at him in surprise. He looked exhausted, his green eyes shadowed, flecks of blood in his hair and on the cuffs of his shirt. His collar was damp. He had clearly come from his brother's room. Gideon had been wounded badly in the leg by an automaton's blade, and though the iratzes had helped, it seemed there was a limit to what they could cure. Both Sophie and Gabriel had assisted him to his room, though he had protested the whole way that all available attention should go to Jem.

"Do not go in there," Gabriel said in a low voice. "They are trying to save Jem. Your brother needs to be there for him."

"Be there for him? What can he do? Will is not a doctor."

"Even unconscious, James will draw strength from his parabatai."

"I need to talk to Will for only a moment."

Gabriel ran his hands through his mop of tousled hair. "You have not been with the Shadowhunters very long," he said. "You may not understand. To lose your parabatai--it is no small thing. We take it as seriously as losing a husband or wife, or a brother or sister. It is as if it were you lying in that bed."

"Will would not care so much if I were lying in that bed."

Gabriel snorted. "Your brother would not have taken so much trouble to warn me off you if he did not care about you, Miss Herondale."

"No, he does not like you much. Why is that? And why are you giving me advice about him now? You do not like him, either."

"No," Gabriel said. "It is not quite like that. I do not like Will Herondale. We have disliked each other for years. In fact, he broke my arm once."

"Did he?" Cecily's eyebrows shot up despite herself.