They had another piece of good luck back at the flat. Tessa and Catarina lived in the upstairs of a small house. Their neighbors, it seemed, had gone to the shelters, so there was no one else in the house to see them dragging a bleeding man up the steps.
“The bathroom,” Catarina said as they set Jem down on the dark landing. “Fill the tub with water. Lots of it. Cold. I’ll get my supplies.”
Tessa ran to the bathroom in the hall, praying that the water had not been disrupted by the bombing. Relief washed over her as water flowed from the tap. They were only allowed to have five inches in the bath, which was enforced by a line painted around the inside of the tub. Tessa ignored this. She opened the window wide. There was some cool air coming from the direction away from the fires. She hurried down the hall. Catarina had removed Jem’s tunic, leaving his chest bare. She had taken off the bandages, and the wound was exposed and angry, the black marks tracing along his veins once again.
“Get his other side,” Catarina said. Together, they lifted Jem up. He was dead weight as they maneuvered him down the hall and carefully put him into the tub. Catarina positioned him so that his wounded arm and shoulder hung over the side, then reached into her apron pocket and removed two vials. She poured the contents of one into the water, turning it a light blue. Tessa knew better than to ask if Catarina thought he was going to survive. He was going to survive, because they would make sure of it. Also, you didn’t ask those sorts of questions if you were concerned about the answers.
“Keep sponging him,” Catarina said. “We need to keep him cool.”
Tessa got down on her knees and drenched the sponge, then ran the blue-tinted water over Jem’s head and chest. It smelled of a strange combination of sulfur and jasmine, and it seemed to lower his temperature. Catarina rubbed the contents of the other vial on her hands and began working at the wound and his arm and chest, massaging the spreading darkness back toward the opening. Jem’s head lolled back, his breathing rough. Tessa swabbed his forehead, reassuring him all the while.
They did this for an hour. Tessa soon forgot the sound of the bombs outside, or the smoke or burning debris that drifted in. Everything was the motion of the water and the sponge, Jem’s skin, his face twisted in pain, then going still and slack. Both Catarina and Tessa were drenched, and there was water pooling on the floor around them.
Will, Jem said, and the voice in Tessa’s head was lost but seeking. Will, is that you?
Tessa fought back the lump in her throat as Jem smiled at nothing. If he saw Will, let him see Will. Maybe Will was here, after all, come to help his parabatai.
Will, Tessa thought to herself, if you are here, you must help. I cannot lose him too, Will. Together, we will save him.
Perhaps she imagined it, but Tessa felt something guiding her arm as she worked. She was stronger now.
Jem suddenly lurched in the water and came halfway out of the tub, his back arching into a shape that should not have been possible and sending his head under.
“Grab him,” Catarina said. “Don’t let him hurt himself! This is the worst of it!”
Together, and with whatever force was aiding Tessa, they grabbed Jem as he writhed and screamed. Because he was wet, they had to wrap themselves around his limbs to try to prevent him from flailing, from bashing his head against the tiles. He knocked Catarina loose, and she fell to the floor and smashed her head into the wall, but she came back and got her arms around his chest again. Jem’s screams blended with the chaos of the night—the water splashed and the smoke blew in. Jem begged for yin fen. He kicked so hard that Tessa was thrown back against the sink.
Then, all at once, he stopped moving completely and fell back into the tub. He looked lifeless. Tessa crawled back across the wet floor and reached for him.
“Jem? Catarina . . .”
“He’s alive,” Catarina said, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. She had her fingers on his wrist. “We’ve done all we can do here. Let’s get him into bed. We’ll know soon.”
The All Clear rang out across London just after eleven, but there was nothing clear or safe. The Luftwaffe may have returned home, and the bombs may have stopped falling for a few hours, but the fires only increased. The wind fueled and propelled them. The air was rank with burning soot and flying scraps of debris, and London glowed.
They had moved Jem into the little bedroom. The rest of his wet clothing had to be removed. Tessa had dressed and undressed countless men at this point, and Jem was a Silent Brother, for whom intimacy was impossible. Perhaps she should have been able to do it with calm professionalism, but she could not be a nurse with Jem. She had thought once that she would see him, that they would see each other, naked on their wedding night. This was too intimate and strange—this was not how Jem would want Tessa to see him, like that, for the first time. So she left the task to Catarina, the nurse, who managed it quickly and dried Jem off. They put him in the bed and wrapped him with all the blankets in the flat. The clothes were easy enough to dry—they hung them from the window for the baking hot air of the fires. Then Catarina went into the sitting room, leaving Tessa to stay with Jem and hold his hand. It was so strange to be again in this position of standing by the bed of the man she loved, waiting, hoping. Jem was—Jem. Exactly as he had been all those years ago, except for the marks of the Silent Brothers. He was Jem, the boy with the violin. Her Jem. Age had not consumed him, as it had her Will, but he might be taken from her all the same.
Tessa reached up to her jade pendant, hidden beneath her collar. She sat and waited and listened to the roar and the wail outside as she held his hand.
I am here, James, she said in her mind. I am here, and I will always be here.
Tessa only let go of Jem’s hand to occasionally go to the window to make sure the fires did not come too close. There was a halo of orange all around. The fires were only a few streets away. It was strangely beautiful, this terrible blaze. The city was burning; hundreds of years of history, ancient beams and books were alight.
“They mean to burn us out this time,” Catarina said, coming up behind her friend. Tessa had not heard her enter. “This ring of fire, it goes around St. Paul’s. They want the cathedral to burn. They want to break our spirits.”
“Well,” Tessa said, pulling the curtain closed, “they won’t succeed.”
“Why don’t we go and make a cup of tea?” Catarina said. “He’ll be sleeping for some time.”
“No. I need to be here when he wakes.”
Catarina looked at her friend’s face.
“He means a great deal to you,” she said.
“Jem—Brother Zachariah—and I have always been clo
se.”
“You love him,” Catarina said. It was not a question.
Tessa squeezed a handful of curtain in her fist. They stood in silence for a moment. Catarina rubbed her friend’s arm consolingly.
“I’ll make the tea,” she said. “I’ll even let you have the last biscuits in the tin.”
Biscuits?
Tessa whirled around. Jem was sitting up. She and Catarina hurried to him. Catarina began checking his pulse, his skin. Tessa looked at his face, his dear and familiar face. Jem was back; he was here.
Her Jem.
“It is healing,” Catarina said. “You’ll need to rest, but you will live. It was a narrow escape, though.”
Which is why I came to the best nurses in London, Jem said.
“Perhaps you can explain that wound you have?” Catarina said. “I know where it comes from. Why were you attacked with a faerie weapon?”
I was looking for information, Jem said, shifting himself painfully to sit up a bit higher. My inquiries were not appreciated.
“Clearly, if you were attacked with a cataplasm. That is intended to kill. It does not wound. It is usually not survivable. Your Silent Brother markings gave you some protection, but . . .”
Catarina felt his pulse again.
But? Jem said curiously.
“I did not believe you would make it through the night,” she said simply.
Tessa blinked. She knew it was serious, but the way Catarina said it hit her physically.
“You should perhaps avoid making those inquiries again,” Catarina said, putting the blanket back over Jem. “I’ll go and make the tea.”
She left the room quietly, closing the door behind her, leaving Tessa and Jem together in the darkness.
The raid seems worse than any before tonight, Jem finally said. Sometimes I think the mundanes will do more harm to each other than any demon could ever do to them.
Tessa felt a wave of emotion go through her—everything from the night burst to the surface, and she sank her head into the side of Jem’s bed and wept. Jem sat up and pulled her close, and she rested her head on his chest, now warm, his heart beating strong.