Clockwork Princess

made quite a showing. I do not think there is anyone there who could challenge your knowledge of literature.”
    “Other than you.”
    “I would be difficult competition indeed. Perhaps we could make ourselves a team of sorts, and divide the winnings.”
    “That seems bad form.” Will spoke absently, tilting back his head. The snow circled whitely about them, as if they stood at the bottom of a whirlpool. “Today, when Sophie Ascended …”
    “Yes?”
    “Is that something that you would have wanted?” He turned to look at her, white snowflakes caught in his dark lashes. “For yourself?”
    “You know that isn’t possible for me, Will. I am a warlock. Or at least, that is the closest approximation of what I am. I cannot ever be fully Nephilim.”
    “I know.” He looked down at his hands, opening his fingers to let snowflakes settle, melting, on his palms. “But in Cadair Idris you said that you had hoped to be a Shadowhunter—that Mortmain had dashed those hopes—”
    “I did feel that way at the time,” she allowed. “But when I became Ithuriel—when I Changed and destroyed Mortmain—how could I hate something that allowed me to protect the ones I care about? It is not easy to be different, and even less so to be unique. But I begin to think I was never meant for an easy road.”
    Will laughed. “The easy road? No, not for you, my Tessa.”
    “Am I your Tessa?” She drew her wrap closer around herself, pretending her shiver was just the cold. “Are
you
bothered by what I am, Will? That I am not like you?”
    The words hung between them, unspoken:
There is no future for a Shadowhunter who dallies with warlocks
.
    Will paled. “Those things I said on the roof, so long ago—you know I did not mean them.”
    “I know—”
    “I do not wish you other than you are, Tessa. You are what you are, and I love you. I do not love just the parts of you that meet with the Clave’s approval—”
    She raised her eyebrows. “You are willing to endure the rest?”
    He raked a hand through his dark, snow-dampened hair. “No. I am misspeaking. There is nothing about you that I can imagine
not
loving. Do you really think it is so important to me that you be Nephilim? My mother isn’t a Shadowhunter. And when I saw you Change into the angel—when I saw you blaze forth with the fire of Heaven—it was glorious, Tess.” He took a step toward her. “What you are, what you can do, it is like some great miracle of the earth, like fire or wildflowers or the breadth of the sea. You are unique in the world, just as you are unique in my heart, and there will never be a time when I do not love you. I would love you if you were not in any part a Shadowhunter at all—”
    She gave him a shaky smile. “But I am glad that I am, if only by half,” she said, “since it means that I may stay with you, here, in the Institute. That the family I have found here can remain my family. Charlotte said that if I chose, I could cease to be a Gray and take the name my mother should have had before she was married. I could be a Starkweather. I could have a true Shadowhunter name.”
    She heard Will exhale a breath. It came out a puff of white in the cold. His eyes were blue and wide and clear, fixed on her face. He wore the expression of a man who had steeled himself to do a terrifying thing, and was carrying it through. “Of course you can have a true Shadowhunter name,” Will said. “You can have mine.”
    Tessa stared at him, all black and white against the black-and-white snow and stone. “Your name?”
    Will took a step toward her, till they stood face-to-face. Then he reached to take her hand and slid off her glove, which he put into his pocket. He held her bare hand in his, his fingers curved around hers. His hand was warm and callused, and his touch made her shiver. His eyes were steady and blue; they were everything Will was: true and tender, sharp and witty, loving and kind. “Marry me,” he said. “Marry me, Tess. Marry me and be Tessa Herondale. Or be Tessa Gray, or be whatever you wish to call yourself, but marry me and stay with me and never leave me, for I cannot bear another day of my life to go by that does not have you in it.”
    The snow was swirling down around them, white and cold and perfect. The clouds above had parted, and through the gaps she could see the stars.
    “Jem told me what Ragnor Fell said about my father,” Will went on. “That for my father there was only ever one woman he loved,