Clockwork Prince (5 page)

Charlotte walked with her back straight, her cheeks red, and her eyes gazing straight ahead as if she couldn’t hear the gossip. Will seemed about to lunge off toward the whisperers to administer rough justice, but Jem had a firm grip on the back of his
parabatai
’s coat. Being Jem, Tessa reflected, must be a great deal like being the owner of a thoroughbred dog that liked to bite your guests. You had to have a hand on his collar constantly. Jessamine merely looked bored again. She wasn’t terribly interested in what the Enclave thought of her, or any of them.

By the time they had reached the doors of the Council chamber, they were nearly running. Charlotte paused a moment to let the rest of their group catch up. Most of the crowd was streaming off to the left, where Tessa, Jem, and Will had come from, but Charlotte turned right, marched several paces down the hall, spun around a corner, and abruptly stopped.

“Charlotte?” Henry, catching up to her, sounded worried. “Darling—”

Without warning Charlotte drew her foot back and kicked the wall, as hard as she could. As the wall was stone, this did little damage, though Charlotte let out a low shriek.

“Oh, my,” said Jessamine, twirling her parasol.

“If I might make a suggestion,” said Will. “About twenty paces behind us, in the Council room, is Benedict. If you’d like to go back in there and try kicking
him
, I recommend aiming upward and a bit to the left—”

“Charlotte.” The deep, gravelly voice was instantly recognizable. Charlotte spun around, her brown eyes widening.

It was the Consul. The runes picked out in silver thread on the hem and sleeves of his cloak glittered as he moved toward the little group from the Institute, his gaze on Charlotte. One hand against the wall, she didn’t move.

“Charlotte,” Consul Wayland said again, “you know what your father always said about losing your temper.”

“He did say that. He also said that he should have had a son,” Charlotte replied bitterly. “If he had—if I were a man—would you have treated me as you just did?”

Henry put his hand on his wife’s shoulder, murmuring something, but she shook it off. Her large, hurt brown eyes were on the Consul.

“And how did I just treat you?” he asked.

“As if I were a child, a little girl who needed scolding.”

“Charlotte, I am the one who named you as head of the Institute and the Enclave.” The Consul sounded exasperated. “I did it not just because I was fond of Granville Fairchild and knew he wanted his daughter to succeed him, but because I thought you would accomplish the job well.”

“You named Henry, too,” she said. “And you even told us when you did it that it was because the Enclave would accept a married couple as their leader, but not a woman alone.”

“Well, congratulations, Charlotte. I do not think any members of the London Enclave are under the impression that they are in any way being led by Henry.”

“It’s true,” Henry said, looking at his shoes. “They all know I’m rather useless. It’s my fault all this happened, Consul—”

“It isn’t,” said Consul Wayland. “It is a combination of a generalized complacency on the part of the Clave, bad luck and bad timing, and some poor decisions on your part, Charlotte. Yes, I am holding you accountable for them—”

“So you agree with Benedict!” Charlotte cried.

“Benedict Lightwood is a blackguard and a hypocrite,” said the Consul wearily. “Everyone knows that. But he is politically powerful, and it is better to placate him with this show than it would be to antagonize him further by ignoring him.”

“A show? Is that what you call this?” Charlotte demanded bitterly. “You have set me an impossible task.”

“I have set you the task of locating the Magister,” said Consul Wayland. “The man who broke into the Institute, killed your servants, took your Pyxis, and plans to build an army of clockwork monsters to destroy us all—in short, a man who must be stopped. As head of the Enclave, Charlotte, stopping him
is
your task. If you consider it impossible, then perhaps you should ask yourself why you want the job so badly in the first place.”

The witchlight that illuminated the Great Library seemed to be flickering low, like a candle guttering down in its holder, though Tessa knew that was just her imagination. Witchlight, unlike fire or gas, never seemed to fade or burn away.

Her eyes, on the other hand, were beginning to tire, and from the looks of her companions, she wasn’t the only one. They were all gathered around one of the long tables, Charlotte at its head, Henry at Tessa’s right. Will and Jem sat farther down, beside each other; only Jessamine had retreated to the very far end of the table, separated from the others. The surface of the table was liberally covered with papers of all sorts—old newspaper articles, books, sheets of parchment covered with fine spidery writing. There were genealogies of various Mortmain families, histories of automatons, endless books of spells of summoning and binding, and every bit of research on the Pandemonium Club that the Silent Brothers had managed to scrape out of their archives.

Tessa had been tasked with the job of reading through the newspaper articles, looking for stories about Mortmain and his shipping company, and her eyes were beginning to blur, the words dancing on the pages. She was relieved when Jessamine at last broke the silence, pushing away the book she had been reading—
On the Engines of Sorcery—
and said, “Charlotte, I think we’re wasting our time.”

Charlotte looked up with a pained expression. “Jessamine, there is no need for you to remain if you do not wish to. I must say, I doubt any of us was expecting your help in this matter, and since you have never much applied yourself to your studies, I cannot help but wonder if you even know what it is you are looking for. Could you tell a binding spell from a summoning spell if I set the two before you?”

Tessa couldn’t help being surprised. Charlotte was rarely so sharp with any of them. “I
want
to help,” Jessie said sulkily. “Those mechanical
things
of Mortmain’s nearly killed me. I want him caught and punished.”

“No, you don’t.” Will, unrolling a parchment so old that it crackled, squinted down at the black symbols on the page. “You want Tessa’s brother caught and punished, for making you think he was in love with you when he wasn’t.”

Jessamine flushed. “I do
not.
I mean, I did not. I mean—ugh! Charlotte, Will’s being vexing.”

“And the sun has come up in the east,” said Jem, to no one in particular.

“I don’t want to be thrown out of the Institute if we can’t find the Magister,” Jessamine went on. “Is that so difficult to understand?”

“You won’t be thrown out of the Institute. Charlotte will. I’m sure the Lightwoods will let you stay. And Benedict has two marriageable sons. You ought to be delighted,” said Will.

Jessamine made a face. “Shadowhunters. As if I’d want to marry one of them.”

“Jessamine, you
are
one of them.”

Before Jessamine could reply, the library door opened and Sophie came in, ducking her white-capped head. She spoke quietly to Charlotte, who rose to her feet. “Brother Enoch is here,” Charlotte said to the assembled group. “I must speak with him. Will, Jessamine, do try not to kill each other while I am gone. Henry, if you could . . .”

Her voice trailed off. Henry was gazing down at a book—Al-Jazari’s
Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices—
and paying no attention whatsoever to anything else. Charlotte threw up her hands, and left the room with Sophie.

The moment the door closed behind Charlotte, Jessamine shot Will a poisonous look. “If you think I don’t have the experience to help, then why is
she
here?” She indicated Tessa. “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you think
she
can tell a binding spell from a summoning one?” She looked at Tessa. “Well, can you? And for that matter, Will, you pay so little attention at lessons, can
you
tell a binding spell from a soufflé recipe?”

Will leaned back in his chair and said dreamily, “‘I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.’”

“Jessamine, Tessa has kindly offered to help, and we need all the eyes we can get right now,” said Jem severely. “Will, don’t quote
Hamlet
. Henry . . .” He cleared his throat. “HENRY.”

Henry looked up, blinking. “Yes, darling?” He blinked again, looking around. “Where’s Charlotte?”

“She went to talk to the Silent Brothers,” said Jem, who did not appear put out of temper to have been mistaken by Henry for his wife. “In the meantime I’m afraid . . . that I rather agree with Jessamine.”

“And the sun comes up in the
west
,” said Will, who had apparently heard Jem’s earlier comment.

“But why?” Tessa demanded. “We can’t give up now. It would be just like handing the Institute over to that awful Benedict Lightwood.”

“I’m not suggesting we do nothing, you understand. But we’re trying to decipher what it is that Mortmain is going to
do.
We’re trying to predict the future instead of trying to understand the past.”

“We know Mortmain’s past,
and
his plans.” Will waved his hand in the direction of the newspapers. “Born in Devon, was a ship’s surgeon, became a wealthy trader, got himself mixed up in dark magic, and now plans to rule the world with his massive army of mechanical creatures by his side. A not atypical story for a determined young man—”

“I don’t think he ever said anything about ruling the world,” interrupted Tessa. “Just the British Empire.”

“Admirably literal,” said Will. “My point is, we do know where Mortmain came from. It’s hardly our fault that it isn’t very interesting . . .” His voice trailed off. “Ah.”

“Ah, what?” Jessamine demanded, looking from Will to Jem in a vexed manner. “I declare, the way you two seem to read each other’s minds gives me the shudders.”

“Ah,” said Will. “Jem was just thinking, and I would tend to agree, that Mortmain’s life story is, quite simply, balderdash. Some lies, some truth, but very likely there isn’t anything in here that will help us. These are just stories he made up to give the newspapers something to print about him. Besides, we don’t care how many ships he owns; we want to know where he learned dark magic, and from whom.”

“And why he hates Shadowhunters,” said Tessa.

Will’s blue eyes slid lazily toward her. “Is it hatred?” he said. “I assumed it was a simple greed for domination. With us out of the way, and a clockwork army on his side, he could take power as he liked.”

Tessa shook her head. “No, it is more than that. It is difficult to explain, but—he
hates
the Nephilim. It is something very personal for him. And it has something to do with that watch. It’s—it’s as if he desires recompense for some wrong or hurt they’ve done him.”

“Reparations,” said Jem very suddenly, setting down the pen he was holding.

Will looked at him in puzzlement. “Is this a game? We just blurt out whatever word comes next to mind? In that case mine’s ‘genuphobia.’ It means an unreasonable fear of knees.”

“What’s the word for a perfectly reasonable fear of annoying idiots?” inquired Jessamine.

“The Reparations section of the archives,” said Jem, ignoring them both. “The Consul mentioned it yesterday, and it’s been in my head since. We haven’t looked there.”

“Reparations?” asked Tessa.

“When a Downworlder, or a mundane, alleges that a Shadowhunter has broken the Law in their dealings with them, the Downworlder lodges a complaint through Reparations. There will be a trial, and the Downworlder will be accorded some sort of payment, based on whether they can prove their case.”

“Well, it seems a bit silly, looking there,” said Will. “It’s not like Mortmain’s going to lodge a complaint against the Shadow-hunters through official channels. ‘Very upset Shadowhunters refused to all die when I wanted them to. Demand recompense. Please mail cheque to A. Mortmain, 18 Kensington Road—’”

“Enough persiflage,” said Jem. “Maybe he hasn’t always hated Shadowhunters. Maybe there was a time when he did attempt to gain compensation through the official system and it failed him. What’s the harm in asking? The worst thing that could happen is that we turn up nothing, which is exactly what we’re turning up right now.” He rose to his feet, pushing his silvery hair back. “I’m off to catch Charlotte before Brother Enoch leaves and ask her to have the Silent Brothers check the archives.”

Tessa rose to her feet. She did not relish the idea of being left alone in the library with Will and Jessamine, who were bound to bicker. Of course Henry was there, but he seemed to be taking a gentle nap on a pile of books, and was not much of a buffer in the best of cases. Being around Will was uncomfortable in most circumstances; only with Jem there was it bearable. Somehow Jem was able to whittle down Will’s sharp edges and make him nearly human. “I’ll go with you, Jem,” she said. “There’s—there was something I wished to speak to Charlotte about anyway.”

Jem seemed surprised but pleased; Will looked from one of them to the other and pushed his chair back. “We’ve been among these moldering old books for days now,” he announced. “Mine beautiful eyes are weary, and I have paper cuts. See?” He spread his fingers wide. “I’m going for a walk.”