The drawing room was cold and dark. There was no fire in the grate, and none of the lamps were lit against the cloak of night, which cast the chamber into gloom and shadow. It took Sophie a moment to even realize that one of the shadows was Charlotte, a small silent figure in the chair behind the desk.
"Mrs. Branwell," she said, feeling a great awkwardness come upon her, despite Gideon's encouraging words. Two days ago she and Charlotte had fought side by side at Cadair Idris. Now she was a servant again, here to clean the grate and dust the room for the next day's use. A bucket of coals in one hand, tinderbox in her apron pocket. "I am sorry--I did not mean to interrupt."
"You are not interrupting, Sophie. Not anything important." Charlotte's voice--Sophie had never heard her sound like that before. So small, or so defeated.
Sophie set the coals down by the fire and approached her mistress hesitantly. Charlotte was seated with her elbows on the desk, her face resting in her hands. A letter was on the desk, with the seal of the Council broken open. Sophie's heart sped suddenly, remembering how the Consul had ordered them all out of the Institute before the battle at Cadair Idris. But surely it had been proved that they were correct? Surely their defeat of Mortmain would have canceled out the Consul's edict, especially now that he was dead? "Is--is everything all right, ma'am?"
Charlotte gestured toward the paper, a hopeless flutter of her hand. Her insides turning cold, Sophie hurried to Charlotte's side and took the letter from the desk.
Mrs. Branwell,
Considering the nature of the correspondence you had entered into with my late colleague, Consul Wayland, you may well be surprised to receive this missive. The Clave, however, finds itself in the position of requiring a new Consul, and when put to a vote, the foremost choice among us was yourself.
I can well understand that you may be satisfied with the running of the Institute, and that you may not wish the responsibility of this position, especially considering the injuries sustained by your husband in your brave battle against the Magister. However, I felt it incumbent upon me to offer you this opportunity, not only because you are clearly the desired choice of the Council, but because, given what I have seen of you, I think you would make one of the finer Consuls it has been my privilege to serve beside.
Yours with the highest regard,
Inquisitor Whitelaw
"Consul!" Sophie gasped, and the paper fluttered from her fingers. "They want to make you Consul?"
"So it seems." Charlotte's voice was lifeless.
"I--" Sophie reached for what to say. The idea of a London Institute not run by Charlotte was dreadful. And yet the position of Consul was an honor, the highest the Clave had to give, and to see Charlotte covered in the honor she had so dearly earned ... "There is no one more deserving of this than you," she said at last.
"Oh, Sophie, no. I was the one who chose to send us all to Cadair Idris. It is my fault Henry will never walk again. I did that."
"He cannot blame you. He does not blame you."
"No, he does not, but I blame myself. How can I be the Consul and send Shadowhunters into battle to die? I do not want that responsibility."
Sophie took Charlotte's hand in hers and pressed it. "Charlotte," she said. "It is not just sending Shadowhunters into battle; sometimes it is a matter of holding them back. You have a compassionate heart and a thoughtful mind. You have led the Enclave for years. Of course your heart is broken for Mr. Branwell, but to be the Consul it is not a matter only of taking lives but also of saving them. If it had not been for you, if there had been only Consul Wayland, how many Shadowhunters would have died at the hands of Mortmain's creatures?"
Charlotte looked down at Sophie's red, work-roughened hand clasping hers. "Sophie," she said. "When did you become so wise?"
Sophie blushed. "I learned wisdom from you, ma'am."
"Oh, no," Charlotte said. "A moment ago you called me Charlotte. As a future Shadowhunter, Sophie, you shall be calling me Charlotte from now on. And we shall be bringing on another maid, to take your place, so that your time will be free to prepare for your Ascension."
"Thank you," Sophie whispered. "So will you accept the offer? Become the Consul?"
Charlotte gently freed her hand from Sophie's and took up her pen. "I will," she said. "On three conditions."
"What will those be?"
"The first is that I am allowed to lead the Clave from the Institute, here, and not move myself and my family to Idris, at least for the first few years. For I do not want to leave you all, and besides, I wish to be here to train Will to take over the Institute for me when I do depart."
"Will?" said Sophie in astonishment. "Take over the Institute?"
Charlotte smiled. "Of course," she said. "That is the second condition."
"And the third?"
Charlotte's smile faded, replaced by a look of determination. "That, you shall see the result of as soon as tomorrow, if it is accepted," she said, and bent her head to begin writing.
23
THAN ANY EVIL
Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale;
But half my life I leave behind:
Methinks my friend is richly shrined;
But I shall pass; my work will fail....
I hear it now, and o'er and o'er,
Eternal greetings to the dead;
And "Ave, Ave, Ave," said,
"Adieu, adieu," for evermore.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam A.H.H."
Tessa shivered; the cold water rushed around her in the darkness. She thought she might be lying at the bottom of the universe, where the river of forgetfulness split the world in two, or perhaps she was still in the stream where she had collapsed after falling from the Dark Sister's carriage, and everything that had happened since had been a dream. Cadair Idris, Mortmain, the clockwork army, Will's arms about her--
Guilt and sorrow drove through her like a spear, and she arched backward, her hands scrabbling for purchase in the darkness. Fire ran through her veins, a thousand branching streams of agony. She gasped for breath, and suddenly there was something cold against her teeth, parting her lips, and her mouth was full of a freezing sourness. She swallowed hard, choking--
And felt the fire in her veins subside. Ice shuddered through her. Her eyes flew open as the world spun and righted itself. The first thing she saw was pale, slim hands withdrawing a vial--the coldness in her mouth, the bitter taste on her tongue--and then the contours of her bedroom at the Institute.
"Tessa," said a familiar voice. "This will keep you lucid for a time, but you must not let yourself fall back into darkness and dreams."
She froze, not daring to look.
"Jem?" she whispered.
The sound of the vial being set down on the bedside table. A sigh. "Yes," he said. "Tessa. Will you look at me?"
She turned, and looked. And drew
in her breath.
It was Jem, and not Jem.
He wore the parchment robes of a Silent Brother, open at the throat to show the collar of an ordinary shirt. His hood was thrown back, revealing his face. She could see the changes in him, where she had only barely seen them in the noise and confusion of the battle at Cadair Idris. His delicate cheekbones were scarred with the runes she had noticed before, one on each, long slashes of scars that did not look like ordinary Shadowhunter runes. His hair was no longer pure silver--streaks of it had darkened to black-brown, no doubt the color he had been born with. His eyelashes, too, had darkened to black. They looked like fine strands of silk against his pale skin--though he was no longer as pale as he had been.
"How is it possible?" she whispered. "That you are here?"
"I was called from the Silent City by the Council." His voice was not the same either. There was an undertone of something cool to it, something that had not been there before. "Charlotte's influence, I was given to understand. I am allowed an hour with you, no more."
"An hour," Tessa echoed, stunned. She put a hand up to push her hair from her face. What a fright she must look, in her crumpled nightgown, her hair hanging in tangled plaits, her lips dry and cracked. She reached for the clockwork angel at her neck--a familiar, habitual gesture, meant to comfort, but the angel was no longer there. "Jem. I thought you were dead."
"Yes," he said, and there was that remoteness in his voice still, a distance that reminded her of the icebergs she had seen off the side of the Main, floes drifting far out in icy water. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't somehow--that I couldn't tell you."
"I thought you were dead," Tessa said again. "I can't believe you're real, now. I dreamed of you, over and over. There was a dark corridor and you were walking away from me, and however I called out, you could not, would not, turn to see me. Perhaps this is only another dream."
"This is no dream." He rose to his feet and stood in front of her, his pale hands interlaced in front of him, and she could not forget that this was how he had proposed to her--standing, as she sat upon the bed, looking up at him, incredulous, as she was now.
He opened his hands slowly, and on the palms, as on his cheeks, she saw great black runes scored. She was not familiar enough with the Codex to recognize them, but she knew instinctively that they were not the runes of an ordinary Shadowhunter. They spoke of a power beyond that.