Clockwork Princess

threw away his life for me. If he had taken the drug more sparingly—if he had allowed himself to rest and be ill instead of pretending good health for my sake—”
    “No!” He took her by the shoulders, turning her toward him. “It’s not your fault. No one could imagine that it was—”
    She shook her head. “How can you bear to have me near you?” she said in despair. “I took your
parabatai
from you. And now we will both die here. Because of me.”
    “Tessa,” he whispered, shocked. He could not remember the last time he had been in this position, the last time he had had to comfort someone whose heart was broken, and had genuinely been
allowed
to, rather than forcing himself to turn away. He felt as clumsy as he had as a child, dropping knives from his hands before Jem had taught him how to use them. He cleared his throat. “Tessa, come here.” He drew her toward him, until he was sitting on the ground and she was leaning against him, her head on his shoulder, his fingers threading through her hair. He could feel her body shaking against him, but she did not pull away. Instead she clung to him, as if truly his presence gave her comfort.
    And if he thought of how warm she was in his arms or the feel of her breath on his skin, it was only for a moment, and he could pretend that it wasn’t at all.
    Tessa’s grief, like a storm, spent itself slowly over the course of hours. She wept, and Will held her and did not let go, except for once when he rose and built up the fire. He returned swiftly and sat down beside her again, their backs against the invisible wall. She touched the place on his shoulder where her tears had soaked through the fabric.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d told him she was sorry over the past hours, as they’d shared the tales of what had happened to them since their separation at the Institute. He’d spoken to her of his farewell to Jem and Cecily, his ride across the countryside, the moment he had realized Jem was gone. She’d told him of what Mortmain had demanded of her, that she Change into his father, and give him the last bit of the puzzle that would turn his automaton army into an unstoppable force.
    “You have nothing to be sorry for, Tess,” Will said now. He was looking toward the fire, the only light in the room. It painted him in shades of gold and black. The shadows under his eyes were violet, the angle of his cheekbones and collarbones sharply outlined. “You have suffered, just as I have. Seeing that village destroyed—”
    “We were both there at the same time,” she said, wonderingly. “If I had known you were near—”
    “If I had known
you
were near, I would have charged Balios directly up the hill to you.”
    “And been murdered by Mortmain’s creatures in the process. It is better that you did not know.” She followed his gaze to the fire. “You found me in the end; that is what matters.”
    “Of course I found you. I promised Jem I would find you,” he said. “Some promises cannot be broken.”
    He took a shallow breath. She felt it against her side: she was curled half against him, and his hands were shaking, almost imperceptibly, as he held her. Distantly she knew that she should not let herself be held like this by any boy who was not her brother or fiancé—but her brother and her fiancé were both dead, and tomorrow Mortmain would find them and punish them both. She could not bring herself, in the face of all that, to care much about propriety.
    “What was the point of all that pain?” she asked. “I loved him so much, and I wasn’t even there when he died.”
    Will’s hand smoothed down her back—light and quick, as if he were afraid she would draw away. “Neither was I,” he said. “I was in the courtyard of an inn, halfway to Wales, when I knew. I felt it. The bond between us being severed. It was as if a great pair of scissors had cut my heart in half.”
    “Will …,” Tessa said. His grief was so palpable, it mixed with her own to create a sharp sadness, lighter for being shared, though it was hard to say who was comforting who now. “You were always half his heart as well.”
    “I am the one who asked him to be my
parabatai
,” Will said. “He was reluctant. He wanted me to understand that I was tying myself in what was meant to be a life bond to someone who would not live much of a life. But I wanted it, blindly wanted it, some proof that I wasn’t alone, some way