She saw Mortmain's eyes narrow. "No," he said. "Armaros, bring her to me."
The demon's hands tightened on her arms; Tessa bit her lip with the pain. As if in sympathy, the clockwork angel at her throat twitched.
Few can claim a single angel who guards them. But you can.
Her hand went to her throat. The angel seemed to thrum under her fingers, as if it were breathing, as if it were trying to communicate something to her. Her hand tightened on it, the points of the wings cutting into her palm. She thought of her dream.
Is this what you look like?
You see here only a fraction of what I am. In my true form I am deadly glory.
Armaros's hands closed on Tessa's arms.
Your clockwork angel contains within it a bit of the spirit of an angel, Mortmain had said. She thought of the white star mark the clockwork angel had left on Will's shoulder. She thought of the smooth, beautiful, unmoving face of the angel, the cool hands that had held her as she had fallen from Mrs. Black's carriage toward the churning water below.
The demon began to lift her.
Tessa thought of her dream.
She took a deep breath. She did not know if what she was about to do was even possible, or simply madness. As Armaros raised her with his hands, she closed her eyes, reaching out with her mind, reaching into the clockwork angel. She tumbled for a moment through dark space, and then a gray limbo, seeking that light, that spark of spirit, that life--
And there it was, a sudden blaze, a bonfire, brighter than any spark she had ever seen before. She reached for it, wrapping it about herself, coils of white fire that burned and scorched her skin. She screamed aloud--
And Changed.
White fire blasted through her veins. She shot upward, her gear ripping and tearing and falling away, light blazing all around her. She was fire. She was a falling star. Armaros's arms were torn from her body--soundlessly he melted and dissolved, scorched by the heavenly fire that blazed through Tessa.
She was flying--flying upward. No, she was rising, growing. Her bones stretched and elongated, a lattice being pulled outward and upward as she grew impossibly. Her skin had turned gold, and it stretched and tore as she hurtled upward like the bean stalk from the old fairy tale, and where her skin tore, golden ichor leaked from the wounds. Curls like shavings of hot white metal sprang from her head, surrounding her face. And from her back burst wings--massive wings, greater than any bird's.
She supposed that she should be terrified. Glancing down, she saw the Shadowhunters staring up at her, their mouths open. The whole room was filled with blinding light, light that poured from her. She had become Ithuriel. The divine fire of angels was blazing through her, scorching her bones, searing her eyes. But she felt only a steely calm.
She stood twenty feet high now. She was eye to eye with Mortmain, who was frozen with terror, his hands gripping the railing of the balcony. The clockwork angel, after all, had been his gift to her mother. He must never have imagined that it would ever be put to this use.
"It's not possible," he said hoarsely. "Not possible--"
You have entrapped an angel of Heaven, Tessa said, though it was not her voice speaking but Ithuriel's speaking through her. His voice echoed through her body like the ringing of a gong. Distantly she wondered if her heart was beating--did angels have hearts? Would this kill her? If it did, it was worth it. You have tried to create life. Life is the province of Heaven. And Heaven does not take kindly to usurpers.
Mortmain turned to run. But he was slow, as all humans were slow. Tessa reached out her hand, Ithuriel's hand, and closed it about him as he ran, lifting him off his feet. He screamed as the angel's grip scorched him. He was writhing, already burning, as Tessa tightened her grip, crushing his body to a jelly of scarlet blood and white bones.
She opened her fingers. Mortmain's crushed body fell, crashing to the ground among his own automatons. There was a shuddering, a great creaking scream of metal as of a building collapsing, and the automatons began to fall, one by one, crumpling to the ground, lifeless without their Magister to animate them. A garden of metal flowers, withering and dying one by one, and the Shadowhunters stood in the center of them, looking about themselves in wonder.
And then Tessa realized that she did still have a heart, for it leaped in joy to see them alive and safe. Yet even as she reached for them with her golden hands--one stained with scarlet now, Mortmain's blood mixing with Ithuriel's golden ichor--they shrank back from the blaze of light around her. No, no, she wanted to say, I would never hurt you, but the words would not come. She could not speak; the burning was too great. She struggled to find her way back to herself, to Change into Tessa again, but she was lost in the blaze of the fire, as if she had fallen into the heart of the sun. An agony of flames exploded through her, and she felt herself begin to fall, the clockwork angel a red-hot lariat about her throat. Please, she thought, but everything was fire and burning, and she fell, senseless, into the light.
22
THUNDER IN THE TRUMPET
For till the thunder in the trumpet be,
Soul may divide from body, but not we
One from another
--Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Laus Veneris"
Clockwork creatures clawed at Tessa out of black mists. Fire ran through her veins, and when she looked down, her skin was cracked and blistering, golden ichor running in sheets down her arms. She saw the endless fields of Heaven, saw a sky constantly on fire with a blaze that would have blinded any human. She saw silver clouds with edges like razors, and felt the icy emptiness that hollowed the hearts of angels.
"Tessa." It was Will; she would have known his speech anywhere. "Tessa, wake up, wake up. Tessa, please."
She could hear the pain in his voice and wanted to reach out for him, but as she lifted her arms, the flames rose and charred her fingers. Her hands turned to ash and blew away on the hot wind.
Tessa tossed on her bed in a delirium of fever and nightmares. The sheets, twisted around her, were soaked with sweat, her hair plastered to her temples. Her skin, always pale, was near-translucent, showing the mapping of veins beneath her skin, the shape of her bones. Her clockwork angel was at her throat; every once in a while she would catch at it, and then cry out in a lost voice, as if the touch pained her.
"She's in so much agony." Charlotte dipped a cloth in cool water and pressed it to Tessa's burning forehead. The girl made a soft protesting sound at the touch but didn't move to bat Charlotte's hand away. Charlotte would have liked to think it was because the cool cloths were helping, but she knew that it was more likely that Tessa was simply becoming too exhausted. "Isn't there anything more we can do?"
The angel's fire is leaving her body. Brother Enoch, standing at Charlotte's side, spoke in his eerie omnidirectional whisper. It will take the time it takes. She will be free of pain when it is gone.
"But she will live?"
She has survived thus far. The Silent Brother sounded grim. The fire should have k
illed her. It would have killed any normal human. But she is part Shadowhunter and part demon, and she was protected by the angel whose fire she drew on. It shielded her even in those last moments as it blazed up and burned away its own corporeal form.
Charlotte could not help but remember the circular room under Cadair Idris, Tessa stepping forward and transforming from girl into flame, blazing up like a column of fire, her hair turning to tendrils of sparks, the light of it blinding and terrifying. Crouched on the floor by Henry's body, Charlotte had wondered how even angels could burn like that and live.
When the angel had left Tessa, she had collapsed, her clothes hanging in tatters and her skin covered in marks as if she had been scorched. Several Shadowhunters had rushed to her side between the crumpling automatons, though it had been something of a blur to Charlotte--scenes viewed through the wavering lens of her terror over Henry: Will lifting Tessa in his arms; the Magister's stronghold beginning to close itself up behind them, doors slamming closed as they raced through the corridors, Magnus's blue fire lighting them a path to escape. The creation of a second Portal. More Silent Brothers waiting for them at the Institute, scarred hands and scarred faces, shutting out even Charlotte as they closed themselves in with Henry and Tessa. Will turning to Jem, his expression stricken. He had reached out for his parabatai.
"James," he had said. "You can find out--what they're doing to her--if she'll live--"
But Brother Enoch had stepped between them. His name is not James Carstairs, he had said. It is Zachariah now.
Will's look, the way he had lowered his hand. "Let him speak for himself."
But Jem had only turned, turned and walked away from all of them, out of the Institute, Will watching him go in disbelief, and Charlotte had remembered the first time they had ever met: Are you really dying? I am sorry.
It was Will, still looking stunned and disbelieving, who had explained to them all, haltingly, Tessa's story: the function of the clockwork angel, the tale of the ill-fated Starkweathers, and the unorthodox manner of Tessa's conception. Aloysius had been right, Charlotte reflected. Tessa was his great-granddaughter. A descendant he would never know, for he had been slain in the Council massacre.