Clockwork Princess

broke off and sighed. “And I have turned to many books, but if there is guidance in them, I have not found it. You said you were Sydney Carton—”
    Will made a sound, and sank down onto a chair on the opposite side of the table from her. His lashes were lowered, veiling his eyes.
    “And I suppose I know what that makes the rest of us,” she said. “But I do not want to be Lucie Manette, for she did nothing to save Charles; she let Sydney do it all. And she was cruel to him.”
    “To Charles?” Will said.
    “To Sydney,” Tessa said. “He wanted to be a better man, but she would not help him.”
    “She could not. She was engaged to Charles Darney.”
    “Still, it was not kind,” Tessa said.
    Will threw himself out of his chair as quickly as he had thrown himself into it. He leaned forward, his hands on the table. His eyes were very blue in the blue light of the lamp. “Sometimes one must choose whether to be kind or honorable,” he said. “Sometimes one cannot be both.”
    “Which is better?” Tessa whispered.
    Will’s mouth twisted with bitter humor. “I suppose it depends on the book.”
    Tessa craned her head back to look at him. “You know that feeling,” she said, “when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing close around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage, and you cannot let go or turn the course aside.” His blue eyes were dark with understanding—of course Will would understand—and she hurried on. “I feel now as if the same is happening, only not to characters on a page but to my own beloved friends and companions. I do not want to sit by while tragedy comes for us. I would turn it aside, only I struggle to discover how that might be done.”
    “You fear for Jem,” Will said.
    “Yes,” she said. “And I fear for you, too.”
    “No,” Will said hoarsely. “Don’t waste that on me, Tess.”
    Before she could reply, the library door opened. It was Charlotte, looking drained and exhausted. Will turned toward her quickly.
    “How is Jem?” he said.
    “He is awake and talking,” said Charlotte. “He has had some of the
yin fen
, and the Silent Brothers have been able to make his condition stable, and to stop the internal bleeding.”
    At the mention of internal bleeding, Will looked as if he were going to throw up; Tessa imagined she looked much the same.
    “He can have a visitor,” Charlotte went on. “In fact, he has requested it.”
    Will and Tessa exchanged a quick glance. Tessa knew what both were thinking: Which of them should the visitor be? Tessa was Jem’s fiancée, but Will was his
parabatai
, which was sacred in and of itself. Will had begun to step back, when Charlotte spoke again, sounding tired down to her bones:
    “He has asked for you, Will.”
    Will looked startled. He darted a glance at Tessa. “I—”
    Tessa could not deny the little burst of surprise and almost-jealousy she had felt behind her rib cage at Charlotte’s words, but she pushed it down ruthlessly. She loved Jem enough to want whatever he wanted for himself, and he always had his reasons. “You go,” she said gently. “Of course he would want to see you.”
    Will began to move toward the door to join Charlotte. Halfway there he turned back and crossed the room to Tessa. “Tessa,” he said, “while I am with Jem, would you do something for me?”
    Tessa looked up and swallowed. He was too close, too close: All the lines, shapes, angles of Will filled her field of vision as the sound of his voice filled her ears. “Yes, certainly,” she said. “What is it?”
    To: Edmund and Linette Herondale
    Ravenscar Manor
    West Riding, Yorkshire
    Dear Dad and Mam
,
    I know it was cowardly of me to have left as I did, in the early morning before you woke, with only a note to explain my absence. I could not bear to face you, knowing what I had decided to do, and that I was the worst of disobedient daughters
.
    How can I explain the decision I made, how I arrived at it? It seems, even now, like madness. Each day in fact is madder than the one before it. You did not lie, Dad, when you said the life of a Shadowhunter was like a feverish dream—
    Cecily drew the nib of the pen viciously through the lines she had written, then crumpled up the paper in one hand and rested her head on the desk.
    She had started this letter