Clockwork Princess

Charlotte,” he said. “Utter madness, and based on the fancy of a child.”
    “I am not a child,” Cecily snapped. She was seated in a chair by the fireplace, the same one Will had fallen asleep in the night before—had it been such a short time ago? Will stood beside her, glowering. He had not changed his clothes. Henry was in Jem’s room with the Silent Brothers; Jem had still not regained consciousness, and only the arrival of the Consul had dragged Charlotte and Will from his side. “And my parents knew Mortmain, as you well know. He befriended my family, my father. He gave us Ravenscar Manor when my father had—when we lost our house near Dolgellau.”
    “It is true,” said Charlotte, who stood behind her desk, papers spread out before her on the surface. “I spoke to you of it this summer, of what Ragnor Fell had reported to me about the Herondales.”
    Will pulled his fists from his trouser pockets and faced the Consul angrily. “It was a joke to Mortmain, giving my family that house! He toyed with us. Why would he not extend the joke in this manner?”
    “Here, Josiah,” said Charlotte, indicating one of the papers on the desk in front of her. A map of Wales. “There is a Lake Lyn in Idris—and here, Tal-y-Llyn lake, at the foot of Cadair Idris—”
    “‘Llyn’
means
‘lake,’” said Cecily in an exasperated tone. “And we call it Llyn Mwyngil, though some call it Tal-y-Llyn—”
    “And there are probably other locations in the world with the name of Idris,” snapped the Consul, before he seemed to realize that he was arguing with a fifteen-year-old girl, and subsided.
    “But this one
means something
,” Will said. “They say the lakes around the mountain are bottomless—that the mountain itself is hollow, and inside it sleep the Cwn Annwn, the Hounds of the Underworld.”
    “The Wild Hunt,” said Charlotte.
    “Yes.” Will raked his dark hair back. “We are Nephilim. We believe in legends, in myths.
All the stories are true
. Where better than a hollow mountain already associated with dark magic and portents of death to hide himself and his contraptions? No one would find it odd if strange noises came from the mountain, and no locals would investigate. Why else would he even be in the area? I always wondered why he took a particular interest in my family. Maybe it was simple proximity—the opportunity to devil a Nephilim family. He would have been unable to resist it.”
    The Consul was leaning against the desk, his eyes on the map beneath Charlotte’s hands. “It is not enough.”
    “Not enough? Not enough for what?” Cecily cried.
    “To convince the Clave.” The Consul stood. “Charlotte,
you
will understand. To launch a force against Mortmain on the assumption that he is in Wales, we will have to convene a Council meeting. We cannot take a small force and risk being outnumbered, especially by those creatures—how many of them were here this morning when you were attacked?”
    “Six or seven, not counting the creature that seized Tessa,” said Charlotte. “We believe they can fold in upon themselves and were therefore able to fit within the small confines of a brougham.”
    “And I believe that Mortmain did not realize that Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood would be with you, and thus underestimated the numbers he would need. Otherwise I suspect you might all be dead.”
    “Hang the Lightwoods,” muttered Will. “I believe he underestimated Bridget. She carved those creatures up like a Christmas turkey.”
    The Consul threw his hands up. “We have read Benedict Lightwood’s papers. In them he states that Mortmain’s stronghold is just outside London, and that Mortmain intends to send a force against the London Enclave—”
    “Benedict Lightwood was going rapidly insane when he wrote that,” Charlotte interrupted. “Does it seem likely Mortmain would have shared with him his true plans?”
    “What next and next?” The Consul’s voice was snappish, but also deadly cold. “Benedict had no reason to lie in his own journals, Charlotte, which
you
should not have read. If you were not so convinced that you should know more than the Council, you would have given them over immediately. Such displays of disobedience do not incline me to trust you. If you must, you can bring this issue of Wales up with the Council when we meet in a fortnight—”
    “A fortnight?” Will’s voice rose; he was pale, with splotches of red standing out on his cheekbones.