Clockwork Princess

it turned: gears and mechanisms and clear tubes pumping brackish fluid. Jem stood behind and above it, breathing hard, splattered with the automaton’s oily black blood. His face was white and set. He glanced at her quickly, a swift check to assess that she was all right, and sprang down the stairs, slicing again at the automaton, severing one of its legs from its torso. It spasmed like a dying snake, and its remaining arm shot out and seized Jem by the ankle and yanked hard.
    Jem’s feet went out from under him, and he clattered to the ground, rolling over and over down the steps, clutched in an awful embrace with the metal monster. The noise as the automaton skidded down, of metal being dragged along stone, was awful. As they hit the ground together, the force of the fall knocked them apart. Tessa stared in horror as Jem staggered dizzily to his feet, his own red blood mixing with the black fluid staining his clothes. His sword-cane was gone—lying on one of the stone steps where he had dropped it as he’d fallen.
    “Jem,”
she whispered, and hauled herself to her knees. She tried to crawl forward, but her wrist gave way; she dropped to her elbows and reached for the cane—
    Just as arms came around her, jerking her upright, and she heard Mrs. Black’s hissing voice in her ear. “Don’t struggle, Miss Gray, or it’ll go very badly for you, very badly indeed.” Tessa tried to twist away, but something soft came down over her mouth and nose. She smelled a sickly sweet stench, and then blackness came down over her vision and carried her away into unconsciousness.
    Seraph blade in hand, Will bolted out of the open door of the Institute and into a scene of chaos.
    He looked automatically for Tessa first, but she was nowhere to be seen—thank God. She must have had the sense to hide herself away. A black carriage was drawn up at the foot of the steps. Slumped against one of the wheels, amid a pile of broken glass, was Jessamine. On either side of her were Henry and Charlotte: Henry with his sword and Charlotte with her whip, fending off three long-legged metal automatons with bladed arms and smooth, blank heads. Jem’s sword-cane lay on the steps, which were everywhere slippery with oily black fluid. Near the doors Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood were fighting another two automatons with the practiced competence of two warriors who had trained together for years. Cecily was kneeling by the body of a Silent Brother, his robes stained scarlet with blood.
    The Institute gates were open, and through them was pounding a second black carriage, hurtling away from the Institute at top speed. But Will barely spared it a thought, for at the foot of the stairs was Jem. As pale as paper but upright, he was backing away as another automaton advanced on him. It was staggering, almost drunkenly, half its side and an arm sheared away, but Jem was unarmed.
    The cold sharpness of battle came over Will, and everything seemed to slow down around him. He was aware that Sophie and Bridget, both armed, had fanned out on either side of him—that Sophie had run to Cecily’s side, and that Bridget, a whirl of red hair and slashing blades, was busy reducing a surprisingly enormous automaton to scrap metal with a ferocity that would in other cases have astonished him. But his world had narrowed, narrowed to the automatons and to Jem, who, looking up, saw him and reached out a hand.
    Leaping down four steps and skidding sideways, Will seized up Jem’s sword-cane and threw it. Jem caught it out of the air just as the automaton lunged for him, and Jem carved it cleanly in two. The top half fell away, though the legs and lower torso, now pumping an excess of disgusting black and greenish fluids, continued lurching toward him. Jem whirled to the side and swung his sword again, cutting the thing off at the knees. It fell finally, its disparate bits still twitching.
    Jem turned his head and looked up at Will. Their eyes met for a moment, and Will offered a smile—but Jem did not smile back; he was as white as salt, and Will could not read his eyes. Was he injured? He was covered in so much oil and fluid that Will could not tell if he was bleeding. Anxiety spearing through him, Will began to move down the stairs toward Jem—but before he could go more than a few steps, Jem had whirled around and run for the gates. As Will stared, Jem disappeared through them, vanishing into the streets of London beyond.
    Will broke into a run—and was