Jem cut himself off. Tessa clasped his hand to the point where she might have broken it.
“You are Jem—my Jem. Always my Jem.”
I am Brother Zachariah, Jem returned.
“So be it!” said Tessa. “You are Brother Zachariah, and my Jem. You are a Silent Brother. That does not mean you are not dear to me as you always were, and you always will be. Do you think anything could separate us? Are either of us so weak as that? After all we have seen and all we have done? I spend every day grateful that you exist and are in the world. And as long as you live, we keep Will alive.”
She saw the impact these words had on Jem. Being a Silent Brother meant destroying some parts of you that were human, burning them away, but Jem was still there.
“We have so much time, Jem. You must promise me that we will not spend it apart. Do not keep away from me. Make me a part of this quest as well. I can help. You must be more careful.”
I would not put you in danger, he said.
At this, Tessa laughed—a true, ringing laugh.
“Danger?” she said. “Jem, I am immortal. And look outside. Look at the city burning. The only thing I am frightened of is being without those I love.”
At last, she felt the pressure of his fingers, holding her hand back.
Outside, London burned. Inside, in this moment, all was well.
The morning came, cold and gray, with the smell of the still-burning fires in the air. London woke, shook itself off, picked up its brooms and buckets, and began the daily act of repair. The blackout curtains were opened to the morning air. People went to work. The buses ran, and the kettles boiled, the shops opened. Fear had not won. Death and fire and war had not won.
Tessa had fallen asleep around dawn, sitting by Jem’s side, holding his hand, her head leaning on the wall. When she stirred awake, she found that the bed was empty. The blanket had been neatly pulled back up and the clothes were gone from the sill.
“Jem,” Tessa said, frantic.
Catarina was asleep in their little sitting room, her head basketed in her arms and resting on their kitchen table.
“He is gone,” Tessa said. “Did you see him go?”
“No,” Catarina said, rubbing her eyes.
Tessa returned to the bedroom and looked around. Had it all been a dream? Had the war driven her mad? As she turned, she saw a folded note on the dresser that said TESSA. She opened it:
My Tessa,
There will be no separation between us. Where you are, I am. Where we are, Will is.
Whatever else I may be, I remain always,
Your Jem
Brother Zachariah walked through London. The city was gray with night, its buildings reduced to broken remnants of what they had once been, until it seemed a city made of ash and bone. Perhaps all cities would become the Silent City, one day.
He was able to conceal some things from his Brothers, even though they had ready access to his mind. They did not know all his secrets, but they knew enough. Tonight every voice in his mind was hushed, overwhelmed by what he had felt and what he had almost done.
He was bitterly ashamed of what he had said this night. Tessa was still grieving Will. They shared that grief, and they loved each other. She did still love him. He believed that. But she could not feel what she had felt for him once. She had not, thank the Angel, lived as he had lived, in bones and silence and on memories of love. She’d had Will, and loved him so long, and now Will was lost. He worried that he had taken advantage of her misery. She might well cling to what was familiar in a world gone mad and strange.
But she was so brave, his Tessa, carving out a new life now the old life was lost. She’d done it once already, as a girl coming from America. He had felt it as a bond between them long ago, that they had both come across the seas to find a new home. He had thought they could find a new home with each other.
He knew now that had been a dream, but what had been dreams for him could be real for Tessa. She was immortal and valiant. She would live again in this new world, and build a whole new life. Perhaps she would love again, if she could find a man who would measure up to Will, though in almost a hundred years Zachariah had not known any who could. Tessa deserved the richest life and the greatest love imaginable.
Tessa deserved more than a being who could never truly be a man again, who could not love her with a whole heart. Even though he loved her with all the broken fragments of heart he had left, it was not enough. She deserved more than he had to offer.
He should never have done it.
Nevertheless, there was a selfish joy within him, a warmth that he could carry even into the deathlike coldness of the City of Bones. She had kissed him and clung to him. For one shining night, he had held her in his arms again.
Tessa, Tessa, Tessa, he thought. She could never be his again, but he was hers forever. That was enough to live upon.
That evening, Catarina and Tessa walked in the direction of St. Bart’s.
“A bacon sandwich,” Catarina said. “Piled so high you can barely hold it. And thick with so much butter the bacon slides off the bread. That’s what I’m having first. How about you?”
Tessa smiled and shone her torch down the pavement, stepping over a bit of rubble. Around them, there were shells of buildings. Everything around had been reduced to charred brick and ash. But already London was picking up, pushing the debris back. The dark was like an embrace. All of London was under a blanket together, holding each other close.
“An ice cream,” Tessa said. “With strawberries. Loads and loads of strawberries.”
“Oh, I like that,” Catarina said. “I’m changing mine.”
A man walking toward them tipped his hat.
“Evening, sisters,” he said. “You see that?”
He gestured up at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the great building that had sat guarding over London for hundreds of years.
“They wanted to take it down last night, but they didn’t, did they?” The man smiled. “No, they didn’t. They can’t break us. You have a good evening, sisters. You keep well.”
The man walked on, and Tessa looked up at the cathedral. Everything around it was gone, but it had been saved—impossibly, improbably saved from thousands of bombs. London would not let it die, and it had lived.
She touched the jade pendant around her neck.