“But why? What does he want with me?”
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know. Nor do I care. He told me that if I procured you for him, and you turned out to be all he hoped you would be, he would make me his disciple. After you fled, he gave me to de Quincey in revenge. When you brought me here, to the heart of the Nephilim, it was a second chance to offer the Magister what I’d lost for him before.”
“You contacted him?” Tessa felt sick. She thought of the open window in the drawing room, Nate’s flushed face, his claim that he hadn’t opened it. Somehow, she knew, he had sent Mortmain a message. “You let him know you were here? That you were willing to betray us? But you could have stayed! You would have been safe!”
“Safe, and powerless. Here I’m an ordinary human, weak and contemptible. But as Mortmain’s disciple, I will stand at his right hand when he rules the British Empire.”
“You’re mad,” Tessa said. “The whole thing’s ridiculous.”
“I assure you it isn’t. By this time next year Mortmain will be ensconced in Buckingham Palace. The Empire will bow before his rule.”
“But you won’t be beside him. I see how he looks at you. You’re not a disciple; you’re a tool to be used. When he gets what he wants, he will throw you aside like rubbish.”
Nate’s grip tightened on the knife. “Not true.”
“It is true,” Tessa said. “Aunt always said you were too trusting. It’s why you’re such an awful gambler, Nate. You’re such a liar yourself, but you never can tell when you’re being lied to. Aunt said—”
“Aunt Harriet.” Nate laughed softly. “So unfortunate the way she died.” He grinned. “Didn’t you think it was a bit odd that I’d sent you a box of chocolates? Something I knew you wouldn’t eat? Something I knew she would?”
Nausea gripped Tessa, a pain in her stomach as if Nate’s knife were twisting there. “Nate—you wouldn’t—Aunt Harriet loved you!”
“You have no idea what I would do, Tessie. No idea at all.” He spoke rapidly, almost fevered in his intensity. “You think of me as a fool. Your foolish brother who needs to be protected from the world. So easily duped and taken advantage of. I heard you and Aunt discussing me. I know neither of you ever thought I’d make anything of myself, ever do anything you could be proud of me for. But now I have. Now I have,” he snarled, as if completely unaware of the irony in his words.
“You’ve made a murderer of yourself. And you think I ought to be proud? I’m ashamed to be related to you.”
“Related to me? You’re not even human. You are some thing. You are no part of me. From the moment Mortmain told me what you really are, you were dead to me. I have no sister.”
“Then why,” said Tessa in a voice so quiet she could barely hear it herself, “do you keep calling me Tessie?”
He looked at her for a moment in stark confusion. And as she looked back at her brother—the brother she had thought was all she had left in the world—something moved beyond Nate’s shoulder, and Tessa wondered if she was seeing things, if perhaps she was going to faint.
“I wasn’t calling you Tessie,” he said. He sounded baffled, almost lost.
A feeling of unbearable sadness gripped her. “You’re my brother, Nate. You’ll always be my brother.”
His eyes narrowed. For a moment Tessa thought perhaps he had heard her. Perhaps he would reconsider. “When you belong to Mortmain,” he said, “I shall be bound to him forever. For I am the one who made it possible for him to have you.”
Her heart sank. The thing beyond Nate’s shoulder moved again, a disturbance of the shadows. It was real, Tessa thought. Not her imagination. There was something behind Nate. Something moving toward them both. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Sophie, she thought. She hoped the other girl would have the sense to run away before Nate came for her with the knife.
“Come along, then,” he said to Tessa. “There’s no reason to make a fuss. The Magister isn’t going to hurt you—”
“You cannot be sure of that,” Tessa said. The figure behind Nate was almost upon him. There was something pale and glimmering in its hand. Tessa fought to keep her eyes locked on Nate’s face.
“I am sure.” He sounded impatient. “I am not a fool, Tessa—”
The figure exploded into movement. The pale and glimmering object rose above Nate’s head and came down with a heavy crash. Nate pitched forward, crumpling to the ground. The blade rolled from his hand as he struck the carpet and lay still, blood staining his pale blond hair.
Tessa looked up. In the dim light she could see Jessamine standing over Nate, a furious expression on her face. The remains of a shattered lamp were still clutched in her left hand.
“Not a fool, perhaps.” She prodded Nate’s recumbent form with a disdainful toe. “But not your most shining moment, either.”
Tessa could only stare. “Jessamine?”
Jessamine looked up. The neckline of her dress was torn, her hair had come down out of its pins, and there was a purpling bruise on her right cheek. She dropped the lamp, which narrowly missed hitting Nate once again in the head, and said, “I’m quite all right, if that’s what you’re so pop-eyed about. It wasn’t me they wanted, after all.”
“Miss Gray! Miss Lovelace!” It was Sophie, out of breath from running up and down stairs. In one hand she held the slender iron Sanctuary key. She looked down at Nate as she reached the end of the corridor, her mouth opening in surprise. “Is he all right?”
“Oh, who cares if he’s all right?” Jessamine said, bending to pick up the knife that Nate had dropped. “After all the lies he told! He lied to me! I really thought—” She flushed dark red. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.” She straightened and whirled on Sophie, her chin held high. “Now, don’t just stand there staring, Sophie, do let us into the Sanctuary before God knows what comes after us all and tries to kill us again.”
Will burst out of the mansion and onto the front steps, Jem just behind him. The lawn ahead of them was stark in the moonlight; their carriage was where they had left it in the center of the drive. Jem was relieved to see that the horses hadn’t spooked despite all the noise, though he supposed that Balios and Xanthos, belonging to Shadowhunters as they did, had probably seen much worse.
“Will.” Jem came to a stop beside his friend, trying to conceal the fact that he needed to catch his breath. “We must get back to the Institute as soon as possible.”
“You will get no disagreement from me on that front.” Will gave Jem a keen look; Jem wondered if his face was as flushed and feverish-looking as he feared. The drug, which he had taken in a great quantity before they’d left the Institute, was wearing off faster than it should have been; at another time the realization would have prickled Jem with anxiety. Now he put it aside.
“Do you think Mortmain expected us to kill Mrs. Dark?” he asked, less because he felt the question was an urgent one than because he needed a few more moments to catch his breath before he climbed into the carriage.
Will had his jacket open and was rummaging in one of the pockets. “I imagine so,” he said, almost absently, “or probably he hoped we’d all kill one another, which would have been ideal for him. Clearly he wants de Quincey dead as well and has decided to use the Nephilim as his own band of personal assassins.” Will drew a folding knife from his inner pocket and looked at it with satisfaction. “A single horse,” he observed, “is much faster than a carriage.”
Jem gripped the cage he was holding tighter. The gray cat, behind its bars, was looking around with wide yellow interested eyes. “Please tell me you aren’t going to do what I suspect you’re going to do, Will.”
Will flipped the knife open and started up the drive. “There’s no time to lose, James. And Xanthos can pull the carriage perfectly well by himself, if you’re the only one in it.”
Jem went after him, but the heavy cage, as well as his own fevered exhaustion, slowed his progress. “What are you doing with that knife? You’re not going to murder the horses, are you?”
“Of course not.” Will raised the blade and began to slash at the harness fastening Balios, his favored of the two animals, to the carriage.
“Ah,” said Jem. “I see. You’re going to ride off on that horse like Dick Turpin and leave me here. Have you gone mad?”
“Someone’s got to look after that cat.” The girth and traces fell away, and Will swung himself up onto Balios.
“But—” Really alarmed now, Jem set the cage down. “Will, you can’t—”
It was too late. Will dug his heels into the horse’s sides. Balios reared and neighed, Will clinging on resolutely—Jem could have sworn he was grinning—and then the horse wheeled and pounded toward the gates. Inside of a moment, horse and rider were out of sight.
19
BOADICEA
Seal’d her mine from her first sweet breath.
Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death
Mine, mine—our fathers have sworn.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Maud”
As the doors of the Sanctuary closed behind them, Tessa looked around apprehensively. The room was darker than it had been when she had come here to meet Camille. There were no candles burning in the great candelabras, only flickering witchlight that emanated from sconces on the walls. The angel statue continued to weep its endless tears into the fountain. The air in the room was bone-chillingly cold, and she shivered.
Sophie, having slipped the key back into her pocket, looked as nervous as Tessa felt. “Here we are, then,” she said. “It’s awful cold in this place.”
“Well, we won’t be here long, I’m sure,” said Jessamine. She was still holding Nate’s knife, which glittered in her hand. “Someone will come back to rescue us. Will, or Charlotte—”
“And find the Institute full of clockwork monsters,” Tessa reminded her. “And Mortmain.” She shuddered. “I’m not sure it’ll be quite so simple as you make it out to be.”
Jessamine looked at Tessa with cold dark eyes. “Well, you needn’t sound as if it’s my fault. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Sophie had moved to stand among the massive pillars, and was looking very small. Her voice echoed off the stone walls. “That’s not very kind, miss.”
Jessamine perched herself on the edge of the fountain, then rose to her feet again, frowning. She brushed at the back of her dress, now stained with damp, in an exasperated manner. “Perhaps not, but it’s true. The only reason the Magister is here is because of Tessa.”
“I told Charlotte all this was my fault.” Tessa spoke quietly. “I told her to send me away. She wouldn’t.”
Jessamine tossed her head. “Charlotte’s softhearted, and so is Henry. And Will—Will thinks he’s Galahad. Wants to save everyone. Jem, too. None of them are practical.”