Clockwork Princess

ways. And I do not think my parents would grudge Will his choice. Above all, what matters to them is that he be happy.”
    “But what of you?” Gabriel said, and they were very close now, almost touching. “It is your choice to make now, to stay or return.”
    “I will stay,” Cecily said. “I choose the war.”
    Gabriel let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You will give up your home?”
    “A drafty old house in Yorkshire?” Cecily said. “This is London.”
    “And give up what is familiar?”
    “Familiar is dull.”
    “And give up seeing your parents? It is against the Law …”
    She smiled, the glimmer of a smile. “Everyone breaks the Law.”
    “Cecy,” he said, and closed the distance between them, though it was not much, and then he was kissing her—his hands awkward around her shoulders at first, slipping on the stiff taffeta of her gown before his fingers slid behind her head, tangling in her soft, warm hair. She stiffened in surprise before softening against him, the seam of her lips parting as he tasted the sweetness of her mouth. When she drew away at last, he felt light-headed. “Cecy?” he said again, his voice hoarse.
    “Five,” she said. Her lips and cheeks were flushed, but her gaze was steady.
    “Five?” he echoed blankly.
    “My rating,” she said, and smiled at him. “Your skill and technique may, perhaps, require work, but the native talent is certainly there. What you require is
practice
.”
    “And you are willing to be my tutor?”
    “I should be very insulted if you chose another,” she said, and leaned up to kiss him again.
    When Will came into Tessa’s room, Sophie was sitting by her bed, murmuring in a soft voice. She swung around as the door closed behind Will. The corners of her mouth looked pinched and worried.
    “How is she?” Will asked, pushing his hands deep into his trouser pockets. It hurt to see Tessa like this, hurt as if a sliver of ice had lodged itself under his ribs and was digging into his heart. Sophie had plaited Tessa’s long brown hair neatly so that it would not tangle when she tossed her head fitfully against the pillows. She breathed quickly, her chest rising and falling fast, her eyes visibly moving beneath her pale eyelids. He wondered what she was dreaming.
    “The same,” Sophie said, rising gracefully to her feet and ceding him the chair beside the bed. “She has been calling out again.”
    “For anyone particular?” Will asked, and then was immediately sorry he had asked. Surely his motives would be ridiculously transparent.
    Sophie’s dark hazel eyes darted away from his. “For her brother,” she said. “If you wish a few moments alone with Miss Tessa …”
    “Yes, please, Sophie.”
    She paused at the door. “Master William,” she said.
    Having just settled himself in the armchair beside the bed, Will glanced over at her.
    “I am sorry I have thought and spoken so ill of you for all these years,” Sophie said. “I understand now that you were only doing what we all try to do. Our best.”
    Will reached out and placed his hand over Tessa’s left one, where it plucked feverishly at the coverlet. “Thank you,” he said, unable to look at Sophie directly; a moment later he heard the door softly close behind her.
    He looked at Tessa. She was momentarily quiet, her lashes fluttering as she breathed. The circles beneath her eyes were dark blue, her veins a delicate filigree at her temples and the insides of her wrists. When he remembered her blazing up in glory, it was impossible to believe her fragile, yet here she was. Her hand felt hot in his, and when he brushed his knuckles against her cheek, her skin was burning.
    “Tess,” he whispered. “Hell is cold. Do you remember when you told me that? We were in the cellars of the Dark House. Anyone else would have been panicking, but you were as calm as a governess, telling me Hell was covered in ice. If it is the fire of Heaven that takes you from me, what a cruel irony that would be.”
    She breathed in sharply, and for a moment his heart leaped—had she heard him? But her eyes remained firmly shut.
    His hand tightened on hers.
    “Come back,” he said. “Come back to me, Tessa. Henry said that perhaps, since you had touched the soul of an angel, that you dream of Heaven now, of fields of angels and flowers of fire. Perhaps you are happy in those dreams. But I ask this out of pure selfishness. Come back to me. For I cannot bear to lose all my