Clockwork Princess

the
parabatai
rune on Jem’s shoulder; like his own, it had faded to a pale white.
    At last Jem spoke. The cool remoteness had left his voice. Will breathed in hard, remembering how much that voice had shaped the years of his growing up, its steady kindness a lighthouse beacon in the dark. “Have faith in yourself. You can be your own mirror.”
    “What if I can’t?” Will whispered. “I don’t even know how to be a Shadowhunter without you. I have only ever fought with you by my side.”
    Jem stepped forward, and this time Will did not move to discourage him. He came close enough to touch—Will thought distractedly that he had never stood so close to a Silent Brother before, that the fabric of the parchment robes was woven of a strange, tough, pale fabric like the bark of a tree, and that cold seemed to emanate from Jem’s skin the way stone held a chill even on a hot day.
    Jem put his fingers under Will’s chin, forcing Will to look directly at him. His touch was cold.
    Will bit at his lip. This was the last time Jem, as Jem, might ever touch him. The sharp memory went through him like a knife—of years of Jem’s light tap on his shoulder, his hand reaching to help Will up when he fell, Jem holding him back when he was furious, Will’s own hands on Jem’s thin shoulders as Jem coughed blood into his shirt. “Listen to me. I am leaving, but I am
living
. I will not be gone from you entirely, Will. When you fight now, I will be still by you. When you walk in the world, I will be the light at your side, the ground steady under your feet, the force that drives the sword in your hand. We are bound, beyond the oath. The Marks did not change that. The oath did not change that. It merely gave words to something that existed already.”
    “But what of you?” said Will. “Tell me what I can do, for you are my
parabatai
, and I do not wish you to go into the shadows of the Silent City alone.”
    “I have no choice. But if there is one thing I could ask of you, it is that you be happy. I want you to have a family and grow old with those who love you. And if you wish to marry Tessa, then do not let the memory of me keep you apart.”
    “She may not want me, you know,” Will said.
    Jem smiled, fleetingly. “Well, that part is up to you, I think.”
    Will smiled back, and for just that moment they were Jem-and-Will again. Will could see Jem, but also
through
him, to the past. Will remembered the two of them, running through the dark streets of London, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, seraph blades gleaming in their hands; hours in the training room, shoving each other into mud puddles, throwing snowballs at Jessamine from behind an ice fort in the courtyard, asleep like puppies on the rug in front of the fire.
    Ave atque vale
, Will thought.
Hail and farewell
. He had not given much thought to the words before, had never thought about why they were not just a farewell but also a greeting. Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would, as long as life was mortal. In every meeting there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in every parting there was some of the joy of meeting as well.
    He would not forget the joy.
    “We spoke of how to say good-bye,” Jem said. “When Jonathan bid farewell to David, he said, ‘Go in peace, for as much as we have sworn, both of us, saying the Lord be between me and thee, forever.’ They did not see each other again, but they did not forget. So it will be with us. When I am Brother Zachariah, when I no longer see the world with my human eyes, I will still be in some part the Jem you knew, and I will see you with the eyes of my heart.”
    “Wo men shi sheng si ji jiao,”
said Will, and he saw Jem’s eyes widen, fractionally, and the spark of amusement inside them. “Go in peace, James Carstairs.”
    They stayed looking at each other for a long moment, and then Jem drew up his hood, hiding his face in shadow, and turned away.
    Will closed his eyes. He could not hear Jem go, not anymore; he did not want to know the moment when he left and Will was alone, did not want to know when his first day as a Shadowhunter without a
parabatai
truly began. And if the place over his heart, where his
parabatai
rune had been, flared up with a sudden burning pain as the door closed behind Jem, Will told himself it was only a stray ember from the fire.
    He leaned back against the wall, then slowly slid down it until he was sitting on the floor, beside his throwing knife. He did not know