I did? With an acute shock she realized that what she had taken for a dream had been no dream after all. Or was he lying? But no. There was no manner in which he could have known what she had dreamed.
"I . . . " Her words stumbled over themselves. "I thought I was dreaming . . . "
The hazy look of desire was fast vanishing from his eyes, replaced by hurt and confusion. He almost stammered: "But even today. I thought you-you said you were as eager to be alone with me as I was-"
"I imagined you wanted an apology! You saved my life at the tea warehouse, and I am grateful, Will. I thought you wanted me to tell you that-"
Will looked as if she had slapped him. "I didnt save your life so youd be grateful!"
"Then, what?" Her voice rose. "You did it because its your mandate? Because the Law says-"
"I did it because I love you!" he half-shouted, and then, as if registering the shocked look on her face, he said in a more subdued voice, "I love you, Tessa, and I have loved you, almost since the moment I met you. "
Tessa laced her hands together. They were icy cold. "I thought you couldnt be crueler than you were on the roof that day. I was wrong. This is crueler. "
Will stood motionless. Then he shook his head slowly, from side to side, like a patient denying the deadly diagnosis of a physician. "You . . . dont believe me?"
"Of course I dont believe you. After the things you said, the way youve treated me-"
" I had to," he said. "I had no choice. T
essa, listen. " She began to move toward the door; he scrambled to block her way, his blue eyes burning.
"Please listen. Please. "
Tessa hesitated. The way he said "please" -the catch in his voice-this was not like it had been on the roof. Then he had barely been able to look at her. Now he was staring at her desperately, as if he could Will her to remain with desire alone. The voice that cried within her that he would hurt her, that he was not sincere, grew softer, buried under an ever loudening treacherous voice that told her to stay. To hear him out.
"Tessa. " Will pushed his hands through his black hair, his slim fingers trembling with agitation. Tessa remembered what it was like to touch that hair, to have her fingers wound through it, like rough silk against her skin.
"What I am going to tell you I have never told another living soul but Magnus, and that was only because I needed his help. I have not even told Jem. " Will took a deep breath. "When I was twelve, living with my parents in Wales, I found a Pyxis in my fathers office. "
She was not sure what she had expected Will to say, but this was not it. "A Pyxis? But why would your father keep a Pyxis?"
"A memento from his Shadowhunting days? Who can guess? But do you recal the Codex discussing curses and how they can be cast? Well, when I opened the box, I released a demon-Marbas-who cursed me. He swore that anyone who loved me was doomed to die. I might not have believed it-I was not well schooled in magic-but my elder sister died that night, horribly. I thought it was the beginning of the curse. I fled my family and came here. It seemed to me the only way to keep them safe, not to bring them death on death. I did not realize at first that I was walking into a second family. Henry, Charlotte, even bloody Jessamine-I had to make sure that no one here could ever love me. To do so, I thought, would be to put them into deadly danger. For years I have held everyone at arms length-everyone I could not push away entirely. "
Tessa stared at him. The words echoed in her head. Held everyone at arms length-pushed everyone away- She thought of his lies, his hiding, the unpleasantness to Charlotte and Henry, the cruelties that seemed forced, even the story of Tatiana, who had only loved him the way little girls did, and whose affections he had crushed. And then there was . . . "Jem," she whispered.
He looked at her miserably. "Jem is different," he whispered.
"Jem is dying. You let Jem in because he was already near death? You thought the curse wouldnt affect him?"
"And with every year that passed, and he survived, that seemed more likely. I thought I could learn to live like this. I thought when Jem was gone, after I turned eighteen, Id go live by myself, not inflict myself or my curse on anyone-and then everything changed. Because of you. "
"Me?" said Tessa in a quiet, stunned voice.
The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. "When I first met you, I thought you were unlike anyone else I had ever known. You made me laugh. No one but Jem has made me laugh in, good God, five years. And you did it like it was nothing, like breathing. "
"You did not even know me. Will -"
"Ask Magnus. Hel tell you. After that night on the roof, I went to him. I had pushed you away because I thought you had begun to realize how I felt about you. In the Sanctuary that day, when I thought you were dead, I realized you must have been able to read it on my face. I was terrified. I had to make you hate me, Tessa. So I tried. And then I wanted to die. I had thought I could bear it if you hated me, but I could not. I realized you would be staying in the Institute, and that every time I saw you it would be like standing on that roof all over again, making you despise me and feeling as if I were choking down poison. I went to Magnus and demanded that he help me find the demon who had cursed me in the first place, that the curse might be lifted. If it was, I thought, I could try again. It might be slow and painful and nearly impossible, but I thought I could make you care for me again, if only I could tell you the truth. That I could gain your trust back-build something with you, slowly. "
"Are-are you saying the curse is lifted? That its gone?"
"There is no curse on me, Tessa. The demon tricked me. There never was a curse. all these years, Ive been a fool. But not so much a fool that I didnt know that the first thing I needed to do once I had learned the truth was tel you how I really felt. " He took another step forward, and this time she did not move back. She was staring at him, at the pale, almost translucent skin under his eyes, at the dark hair curling at his temples, the nape of his neck, at the blue of his eyes and the curve of his mouth. Staring at him the way she might stare at a beloved place she was not sure she would ever see again, trying to commit the details to memory, to paint them on the backs of her eyelids that she might see it when she shut her eyes to sleep.
She heard her own voice as if from very far away. "Why me?" she whispered. "Why me, Will ?"
He hesitated. "After we brought you back here, after Charlotte found your letters to your brother, I-I read them. "
Tessa heard herself say, very calmly, "I know you did. I found them in your room when I was there with Jem. "
He looked startled. "You said nothing to me about it. "
"At first I was angry," she admitted. "But that was the night we found you in the ifrit den. I felt for you, I suppose. I told myself you had only been curious, or Charlotte had asked you to read them. "
"She didnt," he said. "I pulled them out of the fire myself. I read them all.
Every word you wrote. You and I, Tess, were alike. We live and breathe words. It was books that kept me from taking my own life after I thought I could never love anyone, never be loved by anyone again. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt-I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamed. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted-and then I realized that truly I just wanted you. The girl behind the scrawled letters. I loved you from the moment I read them. I love you still. "