Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices 3)

"Oi, but it's a wet evening, sir," said the boy cheerfully as he grew nearer. He looked like an ordinary enough human boy, but there was something mischievous and a bit spritelike about him--faerie blood, sometimes, handed down over generations, could express itself in humans and even Shadowhunters with the curve of an eye or the bright shine of a pupil. Of course the boy had the Sight. The Green Man was a well-known Downworld way station. Will had been hoping to reach it by nightfall. He was tired of pretending in front of mundanes, tired of being glamoured, tired of hiding.

"Wet? You think?" Will muttered as water ran off his hair and into his eyelashes. He had his eyes on the front door of the inn, through which welcoming yellow light poured. Overhead almost all light had drained from the sky. Ponderous black clouds loomed overhead, heavy with the promise of more rain.

The boy took Balios by the bridle. "You've got one of them magic horses," he exclaimed.

"Yes." Will patted the horse's lathered side. "He needs a rubdown, and special care."

The boy nodded. "You a Shadowhunter, then? We don't get many of them around these parts. One a little while ago, but 'e were old an' disagreeable--"

"Listen," Will asked, "are there rooms available?"

"Not sure if there are any private ones, sir."

"Well, I'll be wanting a private one, so there'd better be. And a stable for the horse for the night, and a bath and a meal. Run along and get the horse put away, and I'll see what your landlord says."

The landlord was utterly obliging and, unlike the boy, made no comments on the Marks on Will's hands or at his throat, only asked the very usual sort of questions: "Do you want your meal in a private parlor or to take it in the common room, sir? And will you be wanting a bath before your supper, or after?"

Will, who felt encased in mud, opted for the bath first, though agreed to take dinner in the common room. He had brought a good amount of mundane money with him, but a private parlor for dining in was an unnecessary expense, especially when one did not care what one was eating. Food was fuel for the journey, and that was all.

Though the landlord had taken little notice of the fact that Will was Nephilim, there were others in the common area of the inn who did. As Will leaned against the counter, a group of young werewolves by the large fireplace, who had been indulging in cheap beer for most of the day, muttered among themselves. Will attempted not to notice them as he ordered hot water bottles for himself and a bran mash for his horse, like any high-handed young gentleman, but their sharp eyes on him were avid, taking in every detail from his dripping wet hair and muddy boots to the heavy coat that showed no sign of whether he wore the Nephilim's customary weapons belt beneath.

"Easy, boys," said the tallest of the group. He sat well back toward the fire, casting his face in heavy shadow, though the fire outlined his long fingers as he took out a fine majolica cigar box and tapped thoughtfully at the lock. "I know him."

"You know him?" one of the younger wolves asked in disbelief. "That Nephilim? A friend of yours, Scott?"

"Oh, not a friend. Not exactly." Woolsey Scott lit the tip of his cigar with a match and regarded the boy across the room over the small flame, a smile playing about his mouth. "But it's very interesting that he's here. Very interesting indeed."

"Tessa!" The voice echoed in her ear, a ragged shout. She sat bolt upright on the riverbank, her body trembling.

"Will?" She scrambled to her feet and looked around. The moon had passed behind a cloud. The sky above was like dark gray marble, shot through with veins of black. The river ran before her, dark gray in the poor light, and glancing around, she saw only gnarled trees, the steep cliff down which she had fallen, a broad swatch of countryside stretching away in the other direction--fields and stone fences, the occasionally distant dotting of a farmhouse or habitation. She could see nothing like a city or a town, not even a cluster of lights that might have indicated a tiny hamlet.

"Will," she whispered again, drawing her arms about herself. She was sure it had been his voice she had heard calling her name. No one else's voice sounded like his. But it was ridiculous. He was not here. He could not be. Perhaps, like Jane Eyre, who had heard Rochester's voice calling for her on the moors, she was half-dreaming.

At least it was a dream that had driven her out of her unconsciousness. The wind was like a knife of cold, cutting through her clothes--she wore only a thin dress, meant for indoors, and no coat or hat--and into her skin. Her skirts were still wet with river water, her dress and stocking ripped and stained with blood. The angel had saved her life, it seemed, but it had not protected her from injury.

She touched it now, hoping for guidance, but it was as still and mute as ever. As she took her hand away from her throat, though, she heard Will's voice in her head: Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.

A character from a book, Tessa thought, a good, sensible one, would follow the stream. A character from a book would know that human habitations and towns are often built by water, and would seek out help, rather than blundering into the woods. Resolutely she wrapped her arms about herself and began to trudge downstream.

By the time Will--well-bathed, shaved, and wearing a clean shirt and collar--returned to the common room for supper, the room was half-full of people.

Well, not exactly people. As he was shown to a table, he passed tables where trolls sat hunched together over pints of beer, looking like gnarled old men save for the tusks that protruded from their lower jaws. A thin warlock with a mop of brown hair and a third eye in the center of his forehead was sawing into a veal cutlet. A group sat huddled at a table by the fire--werewolves, Will sensed, from their packlike demeanor. The room smelled of damp and embers and cooking, and Will's stomach rumbled; he hadn't realized how hungry he was.

Will studied a map of Wales as he drank his wine (sour, vinegary) and ate the food he was brought (a tough cut of venison with potatoes) and did his best to try to ignore the stares of the other customers. He supposed the stable-boy had been right; they didn't get many Nephilim here. He felt as if his Marks were glowing like brands. When the plates were cleared away, he took out paper and composed a letter:

Charlotte:

I am sorry for leaving the Institute without your permission. I ask for your forgiveness; I felt I had no other choice.

That, however, is not why I am sending this letter. By the side of the road I have found evidence of Tessa's passage. Somehow she had managed to cast her jade necklace from the carriage window, I believe so that we might trace her by it. I have it with me now. It is proof undeniable that we were correct in our supposition about Mortmain's whereabouts. He must be in Cadair Idris. You must write to the Consul and demand that he send a full force to the mountain.

Will Herondale

Having sealed the letter, Will called over the landlord and confirmed that for half a crown, the boy would bring it to the night coach for delivery. Having made his payment, Will sat back, considering whether he should force down another glass of wine to ensure that he could sleep--when a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his chest. It felt like being shot with an arrow, and Will jerked back. His wineglass crashed to the floor and shattered. He lurched to his feet, leaning both hands on the table. He was vaguely aware of stares, and the landlord's anxious voice in his ear, but the pain was too great to think through, almost too great to breathe through.

The tightness in his chest, the one that he had thought of as one end of a cord tying him to Jem, had pulled so taut that it was strangling his heart. He stumbled away from his table, pushing through a knot of customers near the bar, and passed to the front door of the inn. All he could think of was air, getting air into his lungs to breathe.

He pushed the doors open and half-tumbled out into the night. For a moment the pain in his chest eased, and he fell back against the wall of the inn. Rain was sheeting down, soaking his hair and clothes. He gasped, his heart stuttering wit

h a mixture of terror and desperation. Was this just the distance from Jem affecting him? He had never felt anything like this, even when Jem had been at his worst, even when he'd been injured and Will had ached with sympathetic pain.

The cord snapped.

For a moment everything went white, the courtyard bleaching through as if with acid. Will jackknifed to his knees, vomiting up his supper into the mud. When the spasms had passed, he staggered to his feet and blindly away from the inn, as if trying to outrace his own pain. He fetched up against the wall of the stables, beside the horse trough. He dropped to his knees to plunge his hands into the icy water--and saw his own reflection. There was his face, as white as death, and his shirt, and a spreading stain of red across the front.

With wet hands he seized at his lapels and jerked the shirt open. In the dim light that spilled from the inn, he could see that his parabatai rune, just over his heart, was bleeding.

His hands were covered in blood, blood mixed with rain, the same rain that was washing the blood away from his chest, showing the rune as it began to fade from black to silver, changing all that had been sense in Will's life into nonsense.

Jem was dead.