Clockwork Princess

shattered.
    “Married?” said Henry. “You’re marrying your father’s friends on the Council? Which of them?”
    Gideon had gone an odd sort of greenish color; clearly he had not meant those words to escape him, and he did not know what to do now that they had. He was staring at Sophie in horror, but it didn’t seem she was likely to be much help either. She looked as shocked as a fish that had been stranded unexpectedly on land.
    Cecily stood up and dropped her serviette onto her plate. “All right,” she said, doing her best to approximate the commanding tones her mother used when she needed something done about the house. “Everyone out of the room.”
    Charlotte, Henry, and Gideon began to rise to their feet. Cecily threw her hands up. “Not
you
, Gideon Lightwood,” she said. “Honestly! But you”—she pointed at Gabriel—“do stop staring. And come along.” And taking him by the back of the jacket, she half-dragged him from the room, Henry and Charlotte hard on their heels.
    The moment they had left the dining room, Charlotte strode off toward the drawing room with the announced purpose of composing a message for the Clave, Henry by her side. (She paused at the turn of the corridor to look back at Gabriel with an amused quirk of her mouth, but Cecily suspected he did not see it.) Cecily put it out of her mind quickly, regardless. She was too busy pressing her ear up against the dining room door, trying to hear what was going on inside.
    Gabriel, after a moment’s pause, leaned back against the wall beside the door. He was in equal parts pale and flushed, his pupils dilated with shock. “You shouldn’t do that,” he said finally. “Eavesdropping is most incorrect behavior, Miss Herondale.”
    “It’s
your
brother,” Cecily whispered, ear against the wood. She could hear murmurs inside but nothing definite. “I should think you’d want to know.”
    He ran both his hands through his hair and exhaled like someone who’d been running a long distance. Then he turned to her and took a stele from his waistcoat pocket. He carved a rune quickly into his wrist, then placed his hand flat against the door. “I do, at that.”
    Cecily’s gaze darted from his hand to the thoughtful expression on his face. “Can you
hear
them?” she demanded. “Oh, that is not at all fair!”
    “It’s all very romantic,” Gabriel said, and then frowned. “Or it would be, if my brother could get a word out without sounding like a choking frog. I fear he will not go down in history as one of the world’s great wooers of women.”
    Cecily crossed her arms in vexation. “I do not see why you are being so difficult,” she said. “Or are you bothered that your brother wishes to marry a servant girl?”
    The expression Gabriel turned on her was fierce, and Cecily suddenly regretted tweaking him after what he had just been through. “Nothing I can think of him doing would be worse than what my father did. At least his taste runs to human women.”
    And yet it was so difficult
not
to tweak him. He was so
aggravating
. “That is hardly a great endorsement for a woman as fine as Sophie.”
    Gabriel looked as if he were about to deliver a sharp retort, but then he thought better of it. “I did not mean it like that. She is a fine girl and will be a fine Shadowhunter when she Ascends. She will bring honor to our family, and the Angel knows we need it.”
    “I believe you will bring honor to your family too,” Cecily said quietly. “What you just did, what you confessed to Charlotte—that took courage.”
    Gabriel was still for a moment. Then he reached out his hand toward her. “Take my hand,” he said. “You will be able to hear what is going on in the dining room, through me, if you desire.”
    After a moment’s hesitation Cecily took Gabriel’s hand. It was warm and rough in hers. She could feel the thrum of his blood through his skin, oddly comforting—and indeed, through him, as if she had her own ear pressed to the door, she could hear the low rumble of spoken words: Gideon’s soft hesitant voice, and Sophie’s delicate one. She closed her eyes and listened.
    “Oh,” said Sophie faintly, and sat down in one of the chairs. “Oh, my.”
    She could not help but sit; her legs felt wobbly and uneasy. Gideon, meanwhile, was standing by the sideboard, looking panicked. His blond-brown hair was tousled wildly as if he had been running his hands through it. “My dear Miss Collins—,” he