Clockwork Princess

Magnus now, getting more blood smeared everywhere. Will was never overconcerned with neatness, and even less so when he was emotional. “I see you’ve begun to be like them, the Shadowhunters you seem to adore so much. Whatever possessed you to engage yourself to one of them? And a dying one at that.”
    Rage flared up in Tessa, and she considered smacking Woolsey with the poker whether he came near her or not. He had moved awfully quickly while fighting Will, though, and she didn’t fancy her chances. “You don’t know James Carstairs. Don’t speak about him.”
    “Love him, do you?” Woolsey managed to make it sound unpleasant. “But you love Will, too.”
    Tessa froze inside. She had known that Magnus knew of Will’s affection for her, but the idea that what she felt for him in return was written across her face was too terrifying to contemplate. “That’s not true.”
    “Liar,” said Woolsey. “Really, what is the difference if one of them dies? You always have a fine secondary option.”
    Tessa thought of Jem, of the shape of his face, his eyes shut in concentration as he played the violin, the curve of his mouth when he smiled, his fingers careful in hers—every line of him inexpressibly dear to her. “If you had two children,” she said, “would you say that it was all right if one of them died, because then you’d still have another?”
    “One can love two children. But your heart can be given in romantic love to only a single other,” said Woolsey. “That is the nature of Eros, is it not? So novels would tell us, though I have no experience of it myself.”
    “I have come to understand something about novels,” Tessa said.
    “And what is that?”
    “That they are not true.”
    Woolsey quirked an eyebrow. “You are a funny thing,” he said. “I would say I could see what those boys see in you, but …” He shrugged. His yellow dressing gown had a long, bloody tear in it now. “Women are not something I have ever understood.”
    “What about them do you find mysterious, sir?”
    “The point of them, mainly.”
    “Well, you must have had a mother,” said Tessa.
    “Someone whelped me, yes,” said Woolsey without much enthusiasm. “I remember her little.”
    “Perhaps, but you would not exist without a woman, would you? However little use you may find us, we are cleverer and more determined and more patient than men. Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.”
    “Is that what you are doing? Enduring? Surely an engaged woman should be happier.” His light eyes raked her. “A heart divided against itself cannot stand, as they say. You love them both, and it tears you apart.”
    “House,” said Tessa.
    He raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”
    “A house divided against itself cannot stand. Not a heart. Perhaps you should not attempt quotations if you cannot get them correct.”
    “And maybe you should stop pitying yourself,” he said. “Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two.”
    “Says the man who has none.”
    “Oh!” Woolsey staggered back with his hand against his heart, mock swooning. “The dove has teeth. Very well, if you don’t wish to discuss personal matters, then perhaps something more general? Your own nature? Magnus seems convinced you are a warlock, but I am not so sure. I think there may be some of the blood of faeries about you, for what is the magic of shape-changing if it is not a magic of illusion? And who are the masters of magic and illusion if not the Fair Folk?”
    Tessa thought of the blue-haired faerie woman at Benedict’s party who had claimed to know her mother, and her breath hitched in her throat. Before she could say another word to Woolsey, though, Magnus and Will came back in through the door—Will, as predicted, just as bloody as before, and scowling. He looked from Tessa to Woolsey and laughed a short laugh. “I suppose you were right, Magnus,” he said. “Tessa is in no danger from him. One cannot say the same in reverse.”
    “Tessa, darling, put the poker down,” Magnus said, holding out his hand. “Woolsey can be dreadful, but there are better ways of handling his moods.”
    With a last glare at Woolsey, Tessa handed the poker to Magnus. She went to retrieve her gloves, and Will his coat, and there was a blur of movement and voices, and she heard Woolsey laugh. She was barely paying attention; she was too focused on Will. She could tell already from the look on