The carriage clattered up to the foot of the stairs and paused. Tessa felt Charlotte move uneasily behind her. "Another carriage?" she said, and Tessa followed her gaze to see that there was indeed a second carriage, all black with no crest, rolling silently in behind the first.
"An escort," said Gabriel. "Perhaps the Silent Brothers are worried she will try to escape."
"No," said Charlotte, bewilderment shading her voice. "She wouldn't--"
The Silent Brother driving the first carriage put away his reins and dismounted, moving to the carriage door. At that moment the second carriage pulled up behind him, and he turned. Tessa could not see his expression, as his face was hidden by his hood, but something in the cast of his body betokened surprise. She narrowed her eyes--there was something strange about the horses drawing the second carriage: their bodies gleamed not like the pelts of animals but like metal, and their movements were unnaturally swift.
The driver of the second carriage leaped down from his seat, landing with a jarring thud, and Tessa saw the gleam of metal as his hand went to the neck of his parchment robes--and pulled the robes away.
Beneath was a shimmering metal body with an ovoid head, eyeless, copper rivets holding together the joints of elbows, knees, and shoulders. Its right arm, if you could call it that, ended it a crude bronze crossbow. It raised that arm now and flexed it. A steel arrow, fletched with black metal, flew through the air and punched into the chest of the first Silent Brother, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying several feet across the courtyard, before he struck the earth, blood soaking the chest of the familiar robes.
9
GRAVEN IN METAL
The liquid ore he drained
Into fit moulds prepared; from which he formed
First his own tools; then, what might else be wrought
Fusil or graven in metal.
--John Milton, Paradise Lost
Silent Brothers, Tessa saw with a frozen shock, bled as red as any mortal man did.
She heard Charlotte shout out orders, and then Henry was tearing down the stairs, racing for the first carriage. He yanked the door open, and Jessamine tumbled out into his arms. Her body was limp, her eyes half-closed. She wore the ragged white dress Tessa had seen her in when she had visited her in the Silent City, and her lovely blond hair was shorn close to her skull like a fever patient's. "Henry," she sobbed audibly, clutching at his lapels. "Help me, Henry. Get me inside the Institute, please--"
Henry rose, turning, with Jessamine in his arms, just as the doors of the second carriage burst open and automatons poured out, joining the first one. They seemed to be unfolding themselves as they stepped out, like children's paper toys--one, two, three, and then Tessa lost count as the Shadowhunters around her seized weapons from their belts. She saw the flash of the metal that shot from the tip of Jem's sword-cane, heard the murmur of Latin as seraph blades blazed up around her like a circle of holy fire.
And the automatons charged. One of them raced toward Henry and Jessamine, while the others darted for the steps. She heard Jem call her name, and realized she had no weapon. She had not planned to train today. She looked around wildly, for anything, for a heavy rock, or even a stick. Inside the entryway there were weapons hung on the walls--as adornment, but a weapon was a weapon. She dashed inside and seized a sword from its peg on the wall before spinning about and racing back outside.
The scene that met her eyes was chaos. Jessamine was on the ground, crouched against a wheel of her carriage, her arms up over her face. Henry stood before her, a seraph blade slashing back and forth in his hands as he fended off the automaton trying to get by him, its spiked hands reaching for Jessamine. The rest of the clockwork creatures had spread out across the steps and were locked in combat with individual Shadowhunters.
As Tessa lifted the sword in her hands, her eyes darted about the courtyard. These automatons were different from those she had seen before. They moved more swiftly, with less jerking to their steps, their copper joints folding and unfolding smoothly.
On the lowest step both Gideon and Gabriel were battling furiously with a ten-foot mechanical monster, its spiked hands swinging down at them like maces. Gabriel already had a wide slash across his shoulder that was pouring blood, but he and his brother were harrying the creature, one from the front, one from the back. Jem rose from a crouch to drive his sword-cane through the head of another automaton. Its arms spasmed and it tried to jerk back, but the sword was buried in its metal skull. Jem tugged his blade free, and when the automaton came at him again, he sliced at its legs, taking one out from under the creature. It lurched to the side, toppling to the cobblestones.
Closer to Tessa, Charlotte's whip flashed through the air like lightning, slicing the crossbow arm from the first automaton. It did not even slow the creature down. As it reached for her with its second, spatulate and taloned arm, Tessa darted between them and swung her sword the way Gideon had taught her to, using her whole body to drive the force and striking from above to add the power of gravity to her strike.
The blade fell, shearing away the creature's second arm. This time blackish fluid jetted from the wound. The automaton kept its course, bending to butt at Charlotte with the crown of its head, from which a short, sharp blade protruded. She cried out as it struck her upper arm. Then she flashed forth with her whip, the silver-gold electrum winding about the creature's throat and pulling tight. Charlotte yanked her wrist back, and the head, sheared away, fell to the side; finally the creature toppled, dark fluid pulsing sluggishly from the gashes in its metal chassis.
Tessa gasped and tossed her head back; sweat was sticking her hair to her forehead and temples, but she needed both hands for the heavy sword and couldn't push it away. Through stinging eyes she saw that Gabriel and Gideon had their automaton on the ground and were hacking at it; behind them Henry ducked just in time to miss a swing from the creature that had him cornered against the carriage. Its clublike hand punched through the carriage window, and glass rained down on Jessamine, who screamed and covered her head. Henry drove his seraph blade up, burying it in the automaton's torso. Tessa was used to seeing seraph blades burn through demons, reducing them to nothing, but the automaton only staggered back and then came on again, the blade buried in its chest burning like a torch.
With a cry Charlotte began to dart down the stairs toward her husband. Tessa glanced around--and did not see Jem. Her heart lurched. She took a step forward--
And a dark figure rose up in front of her, robed all in black. Black gloves covered its hands and black boots its feet. Tessa could see nothing but a snow-white face surrounded by the folds of a black hood, as familiar and horrible as a recu
rring nightmare.
"Hello, Miss Gray," said Mrs. Black.
Despite ducking his head into every room he could think of, Will had not been able to find Cyril. He was irritable about it, and his irritable mood had not been helped by his encounter with Tessa on the stairs. After two months of being so careful around her that it had felt like walking a knife's edge, he had spilled what he was feeling like blood from an open wound, and only Charlotte's call had prevented his foolishness from turning into disaster.
And still, her response nagged at him as he made his way down the corridor and past the kitchen. They say you cannot divide your heart, and yet--
And yet what? What had she been about to say?
Bridget's voice trilled out from the dining room, where she and Sophie were doing the cleaning up.
"'Oh, Mother, Mother, make my bed
Make it soft and narrow.
My William died for love of me,
And I shall die of sorrow.'
"They buried her in the old churchyard.
Sweet William's grave was nigh hers
And from his grave grew a red, red rose
And from her grave a briar.
"They grew and grew up the old church spire
Until they could grow no higher
And there they twined, in a true love knot,
The red, red rose and the briar."
Will was wondering idly how Sophie refrained from hitting Bridget over the head with a plate, when a shock went through him as if he had been struck in the chest. He stumbled back against the wall with a short gasp, his hand going to his throat. He could feel something beating there, like a second heart against his own. The chain of the pendant Magnus had given him was cold to the touch, and he drew it hastily from his shirt and stared as the pendant that dangled there was revealed--deep red and pulsing with a scarlet light like the center of a flame.
Dimly he was aware that Bridget had stopped singing, and that both girls had crowded into the doorway of the dining room, staring at him in owlish astonishment. He released the pendant, letting it fall against his chest.