Clockwork Princess

how long he sat there, but he could hear the noise of horses in the courtyard, the rattle of the Silent Brothers’ carriage pulling out of the drive. The clang of the gate as it shut.
We are dust and shadows
.
    “Will?” He looked up; he had not noticed the slight figure in the doorway of the training room until she spoke. Charlotte took a step forward and smiled at him. There was kindness in her smile, as there always was, and he fought to not close his eyes against the memories—Charlotte in the doorway of this very room.
Didn’t you recall what I told you yesterday, that we were welcoming a new arrival to the Institute today? … James Carstairs …
    “Will,” she said, again, now. “You were correct.”
    He lifted his head, his hands dangling between his knees. “Correct about what?”
    “About Jem and Tessa,” she said. “Their engagement is ended. And Tessa is awake. She is awake, and well, and asking for you.”
    When I am in the darkness, I will think of it in the light, with you
.
    Tessa sat upright against the pillows Sophie had carefully arranged for her (the two girls had embraced, and Sophie had brushed the tangles from Tessa’s hair and said “bless, bless” so many times that Tessa had had to ask her to stop before she made them both cry) and looked down at the jade pendant in her hands.
    She felt as if she were split into two different people. One was counting her blessings over and over that Jem was alive, that he would survive to see the sun rise again, that the poisonous drug he had suffered from so long would not burn the life out of his veins. The other—
    “Tess?” A soft voice at the door; she looked up and saw Will there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor.
    Will. She thought of the boy who had come into her room at the Dark House and distracted her from her terror by chattering about Tennyson and hedgehogs and dashing fellows who come to rescue one, and how they were never wrong. She had thought him handsome then, but now she thought him something else entirely. He was
Will
, in all his perfect imperfection; Will, whose heart was as easy to break as it was carefully guarded; Will, who loved not wisely but entirely and with everything he had.
    “Tess,” he said again, hesitating at her silence, and came in, half-closing the door behind him. “I—Charlotte said you wished to speak with me—”
    “Will,” she said, and she knew she was too pale, and her skin was blotchy with tears, her eyes still red, but it didn’t matter, because it was Will, and she put her hands out, and he came immediately and took them, closing them in his own warm, scarred fingers.
    “How are you feeling?” he asked, his eyes searching her face. “I must speak with you, but I do not wish to burden you until you are in full health again.”
    “I am well,” she said, returning the pressure of his fingers with her own. “Seeing Jem has eased my mind. Did it ease yours?”
    His eyes darted away from hers, though his grip on her hands did not slacken. “It did,” he said, “and it did not.”
    “Your mind was eased,” she said, “but not your heart.”
    “Yes,” he said. “Yes. That is exactly it. You know me so well, Tess.” He gave a rueful smile. “He is alive, and for that I am grateful. But he has chosen a path of great loneliness. The Brotherhood—they eat alone, and walk alone, rise alone and face the night alone. I would spare him that if I could.”
    “You have spared him everything you could spare him,” Tessa said quietly. “As he spared you, and we all tried so hard to spare one another. In the end we must all make our own choices.”
    “Are you saying I should not grieve?”
    “No. Grieve. We both shall. Grieve, but do not blame yourself, for in this you bear no responsibility.”
    He glanced down at their joined hands. Very gently he stroked the tops of her knuckles with his thumbs. “Perhaps not,” he said. “But there are other things I do bear responsibility for.”
    Tessa took a quick, shallow breath. His voice had lowered, and there was a roughness to it she had not heard since—
    his breath soft and hot against her skin until she was breathing just as hard, her hands smoothing up and over his shoulders, his arms, his sides …
    She blinked hastily and withdrew her hands from his. She was not looking at him now but seeing the firelight against the walls of the cave, and hearing his voice in her ear, and it had all seemed like a dream at the time,