Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices 3)

"Hand over that vial there on the shelf, would you, Mr. Bane?" asked Henry.

Magnus did so. He was standing in the center of Henry's laboratory, looking around at the gleaming shapes on tables around him. "What are all these contraptions, if I might ask?"

Henry, who was wearing two pairs of goggles at the same time--one on his head and one over his eyes--looked both pleased and nervous to be asked. (Magnus presumed the two pairs of goggles was a fit of absentmindedness, but in case it was in pursuit of fashion, he decided not to ask.) Henry picked up a square brass object with multiple buttons. "Well, over here, this is a Sensor. It senses when demons are near." He moved toward Magnus, and the Sensor made a loud wailing noise.

"Impressive!" Magnus exclaimed, pleased. He lifted a construction of fabric with a large dead bird perched atop it. "And what is this?"

"The Lethal Bonnet," Henry declared.

"Ah," said Magnus. "In times of need a lady can produce weapons from it with which to slay her enemies."

"Well, no," Henry admitted. "That does sound like a rather better idea. I do wish you had been on the spot when I had the notion. Unfortunately this bonnet wraps about the head of one's enemy and suffocates them, provided that they are wearing it at the time."

"I imagine that it will not be easy to persuade Mortmain into a bonnet," Magnus observed. "Though the color would be fetching on him."

Henry burst into laughter. "Very droll, Mr. Bane."

"Please, call me Magnus."

"I shall!" Henry tossed the bonnet over his shoulder and picked up a round glass jar of a sparkling substance. "This is a powder that when applied to the air causes ghosts to become visible," Henry said.

Magnus tilted the jar of shining grains up to the lamp admiringly, and when Henry beamed in an encouraging fashion, Magnus removed the cork. "It seems very fine to me," he said, and on a whim he poured it upon his hand. It coated his brown skin, gloving one hand in shimmering luminescence. "And in addition to its practical uses, it would seem to work for cosmetic purposes. This powder would make my very skin glimmer for eternity."

Henry frowned. "Not eternity," he said, but then he brightened. "But I could make you up another batch whenever you please!"

"I could shine at will!" Magnus grinned at Henry. "These are fascinating items, Mr. Branwell. You think differently about the world than any other Nephilim I have ever encountered. I confess I thought your people somewhat lacking in imagination, though high on personal drama, but you have given me a completely different opinion! Surely the Shadowhunter community must honor you and hold you in high esteem as a gentleman who has truly advanced their race."

"No," Henry said sadly. "Mostly they wish that I would stop suggesting new inventions and cease setting fire to things."

"But all invention comes with risk!" cried Magnus. "I have seen the transformation wrought on the world by the invention of the steam engine, and the proliferation of printed materials, the factories and mills which have changed the face of England. Mundanes have taken the world into their hands and made of it a marvelous thing. Warlocks throughout the ages have dreamed up and perfected different spells to make themselves a different world. Would the Shadowhunters be the only ones to remain stagnant and changeless, and therefore doomed? How can they turn up their noses at the genius that you have displayed? It is like turning toward shadows and away from light."

Henry blushed a scarlet color. It was clear that no one had ever complimented his inventing before, except perhaps Charlotte. "You humble me, Mr. Bane."

"Magnus," the warlock reminded him. "Now may I see your work upon this portal you were describing? The invention that transports a living being from one spot to another?"

"Of course." Henry drew a heavy pile of notepaper from one corner of his cluttered table, and pushed it toward Magnus. The warlock took it and flicked through the pages with interest. Each page was covered with crabbed, spidery handwriting, and dozens and dozens of equations, blending mathematics and runes in a startling harmony. Magnus felt his heart beating faster as he flipped through the pages--this was genius, real genius. There was only one problem.

"I see what you are trying to do," he said. "And it is almost perfected, but--"

"Yes, almost." Henry ran his hands through his gingery hair, upsetting his goggles. "The portal can be opened, but there is no way to direct it. No way to know if you will step through it to your intended destination in this world or into another world altogether, or even into Hell. It is too risky, and therefore useless."

"You cannot do this with these runes," said Magnus. "You need runes other than the ones you are using."

Henry shook his head. "We can use only the runes from the Gray Book. Anything else is magic. Magic is not the way of the Nephilim. It is something we may not do."

Magnus looked at Henry for a long thoughtful moment. "It is something that I can do," he declared, and drew the stack of papers toward him.

Unseelie Court faeries did not like too much light. The first thing Sallows--whose name was not really that--had done upon returning to his shop had been to put up waxed paper over the window that the Nephilim boy had so heedlessly broken. His spectacles were gone too, lost in the waters of the Limehouse Cut. And no one, it seemed, was going to pay him for the very expensive papers he had ordered for Benedict Lightwood. Altogether it had been a very bad day.

He looked up peevishly as the shop bell tinkled, warning of the opening of the door, and he frowned. He thought he had locked it. "Back again, Nephilim?" he snapped. "Decided to throw me into the river not once but twice? I'll have you know I have powerful friends--"

"I don't doubt you do, trickster." The tall, hooded figure in the entryway reached around and pulled the door shut behind him. "And I am very interested in learning more about them." A cold iron blade flashed in the dimness, and the satyr's eyes widened in fear. "I have some questions to ask you," said the man in the doorway. "And I wouldn't try to run if I were you. Not if you want to keep your fingers attached to your body...."

13

THE MIND HAS MOUNTAINS

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small

Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,

Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all

Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins, "No Worse, There Is None"

Tessa could never remember later if she had screamed as she had fallen. She remembered only a long and silent fall, the river and the rocks hurtling toward her, the sky at her feet. The wind tore at her face and hair as she twisted in the air, and she felt a sharp jerk at her throat.

Her hands flew up. Her angel necklace was lifting over her head, as if an enormous hand had reached down out of the sky to remove it. A metallic blur surrounded her, a pair of great wings opening like gates, and something caught at her, arresting her fall. Her eyes widened--it was impossible, unimaginable--but her angel, her clockwork angel, had grown somehow to the size of a living human being and was hovering over her, its great mechanical wings beating against the wind. She stared up into a blank, beautiful face, the face of a statue made of metal, as expressionless as ever--but the angel had hands, as articulate as her own, and they were holding her, holding her up as the wings beat and beat and beat and she fell slowly now, gently, like a puff of dandelion fluff blown on the wind.