Clockwork Princess
Page 16

Gideon looked at him for a long time. "Was this your plan all along? When you agreed to the Consul's demands, in the Argent Rooms, was this your plan?"
Gabriel looked away from his brother, toward the rain-wet courtyard. In his mind he could see the two of them, much younger, standing where the Thames cut through the edge of the house's property, and Gideon showing him the safe paths through the swampy ground. His brother had always been the one to show him the safe paths. There had been a time when they had trusted each other implicitly, and he did not know when it had ended, but his heart ached for it more than it ached at the loss of his father.
"Would you believe me," he said bitterly, "if I told you it was? Because it is the truth."
Gideon was still for a long moment. Then Gabriel found himself hauled forward, his face mashed into the wet wool of Gideon's overcoat while his brother held him tightly, murmuring, "All right, little brother. It's going to be all right," as he rocked them both back and forth in the rain.
To: Members of the Council
From: Consul Josiah Wayland
Very well, gentlemen. In that case I ask only for your patience and that you not act in haste. If it is proof you want, I will furnish proof.
I shall write again on this subject soon.
In Raziel's name and in defense of his honor,
Consul Josiah Wayland
Chapter 7 Dare to Wish
If the past year were offered me again,
And choice of good and ill before me set
Would I accept the pleasure with the pain
Or dare to wish that we had never met?
-Augusta, Lady Gregory,
"If the Past Year Were Offered Me Again"
To: Consul Wayland
From: Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood
Dear Sir,
We are most thankful that you have assigned us the task of monitoring Mrs. Branwell's behavior. Women, as we know, need to be closely watched so they do not go astray. We are grieved to announce that we have shocking tidings to report.
A woman's management of her household is her most important duty, and one of the most important womanly virtues is frugality. Mrs. Branwell, however, seems addicted to expenditure and cares for nothing save vulgar display.
Though she may be dressed plainly when you pay a visit, we are saddened to report that in her leisure hours she bedecks herself with the finest silks and the most costly jewels imaginable. You asked us to, and loath though we were to invade a lady's privacy, we did so. We would report the exact details of her letter to her modiste, but we fear you would be overcome. Suffice it to say, the money outlaid upon hats rivals the annual income of a large estate or a small country. We fail to see why one small woman needs so many hats. She is unlikely to be concealing additional heads upon her person.
We would be too gentlemanly to comment upon a lady's attire, except for the deleterious effect it has on our duties. She skimps on household necessities to the most horrifying degree. Every night we sit down to a dinner of gruel as she sits at table dripping with gems and gewgaws. This is, you may conceive, hardly fighting fare for your valiant Shadowhunters. We are so weak that we were almost vanquished by a Behemoth demon last Tuesday, and of course those creatures are chiefly composed of a viscous substance. At our peak, and sustained with good victuals, either of us would be capable of crushing beneath our boot heels a dozen Behemoth demons at a time.
We very much hope that you will be able to render us assistance in this matter, and that Mrs. Branwell's outlay upon hats-and other feminine articles of clothing that we hesitate in delicacy to name-will be checked.
Yours truly,
Gideon and Gabriel Lightwood
"What's a gewgaw?" Gabriel asked, blinking owlishly down at the epistle he had just helped compose. Actually, Gideon had dictated most of it; Gabriel had merely moved the pen across the page. He was beginning to suspect that behind his brother's dour facade lay an unsung comic genius.
Gideon waved a dismissive hand. "It doesn't matter. Seal the envelope and let us give it to Cyril that it may go out with the morning post."
It had been several days since the battle with the great worm, and Cecily was in the training room again. She was beginning to wonder if she should simply move her bed and other furnishing into this space, as she seemed to spend most of her time here. The bedroom Charlotte had given her was nearly bare of decoration or anything that might remind her of home. She had brought almost nothing personal with her from Wales, not expecting that she would be staying for a lengthy time.
Here at least in the weapons room she felt secure. Perhaps because there was no room like it where she had grown up; it was purely a Shadowhunter place. Nothing about it could possibly make her homesick. The walls were hung with dozens of weapons. Her first lesson with Will, when he had still been blazing with rage that she was there at all, had involved memorizing all their names and what they did. Katana blades from Japan, double-handed broadswords, thin-bladed misericords, morning stars and maces, curved Turkish blades, crossbows and slingshots and tiny pipes that blew poisoned needles. She remembered him spitting the words out as if they were poison.
Be as angry as you want, big brother, she had thought. I may pretend I wish to be a Shadowhunter now, because it gives you no choice but to keep me here. But I will show you that these people are not your family. I will bring you home.
She lifted a sword down from the wall now and balanced it carefully in her hands. Will had explained to her that the way to hold a two-handed sword was just below the rib cage, pointing straight out. Legs should be balanced with equal weight on them, and the sword should be swung from the shoulders, not the arms, to get the most force into a killing blow.
A killing blow. For so many years she had been angry at her brother for leaving them all to join the Shadowhunters in London, for giving himself up to what her mother had termed a life of mindless murder, of weapons and blood and death. What was so poor to him about the green mountains of Wales? What did their family lack? Why turn your back on the bluest of blue seas, for something as empty as all that?
And yet here she was, choosing to spend her time alone in the training room with the silent collection of weaponry. The weight of the sword in her hand was comforting, almost as if it served as a barrier between herself and her feelings.
She and Will had wandered all over the city a few nights before, from opium dens to gambling hells to ifrit haunts, a blur of color and scents and light. He had not been exactly friendly, but she knew that, for Will, allowing her to accompany him on such a sensitive errand had been a gesture indeed.
She had enjoyed their companionship that night. It had been like having her brother back. But as the evening had worn on, Will had become progressively more silent, and when they'd returned to the Institute, he had stalked away, clearly wishing to be alone, leaving Cecily with nothing to do but return to her room and lie awake staring at the ceiling until dawn came.
She had thought, somehow, when she had planned to come here, that the bonds that held him here could not be that strong. His attachment to these people could not be like his attachment to family. But as the night had gone on and she had seen his hope, and then his disappointment, at each new establishment when he'd asked after yin fen and there was none to be had, she had understood-oh, she had been told it before, had known it before, but that was not the same as understanding-that the ties that bound him here were as strong as any ties of blood.
She was tired now, and though she gripped the sword as Will had taught her-right hand below the guard, left hand on the pommel-it slipped from her grasp and tipped forward, burying itself point-down in the floor.
"Oh, dear," said a voice from the doorway. "I'm afraid I could only give that effort a three. Four perhaps, if I were inclined to give you an extra point for practicing swordplay in an afternoon dress."
Cecily, who indeed had not bothered to change into gear, flung her head back and glared at Gabriel Lightwood, who had appeared in the doorway like some sort of imp of the perverse. "Perhaps I am not interested in your opinion, sir."
"Perhaps." He took a step forward into the room. "The Angel knows your brother never has been."
"In that we are united," Cecily remarked, pulling the sword free of the floor.
"But not in much else." Gabriel moved to stand behind her. They were both reflected in one of the training mirrors; Gabriel was a good head taller than her, and she could see his face clearly over her shoulder. He had one of those odd sharp-boned faces: handsome from some angles, and peculiarly interesting-looking from others. There was a small white scar on his chin, as if he had been nicked there by a thin blade. "Would you like me to show you how to properly hold the sword?"
"If you must."
He did not reply but reached around her, adjusting her grip on the pommel. "You never want to hold your sword point-down," he said. "Hold it like this-point out-so that if your opponent charges you, they will skewer themselves on your blade."
Cecily adjusted her grip accordingly. Her mind was racing. She had thought of Shadowhunters as monsters for such a long time. Monsters who had kidnapped her brother, and she a heroine, riding up to rescue him even if he didn't realize he needed rescuing. It had been strange and gradual, realizing how human they were. She could feel the warmth rising from Gabriel's body, his breath stirring her hair, and oh, it was odd, to be conscious of so many things about someone else: the way they felt, the brush of their skin, the way they smelled-
"I saw the way you fought at Lightwood House," Gabriel Lightwood murmured. His callused hand brushed down over her fingers, and Cecily fought back a small shiver.
"Badly?" she said, attempting a teasing tone.
"With passion. There are those who fight because it is their duty and those who fight because they love it. You love it."
"I don't-," Cecily began, but she was interrupted as the training room door flew open with a loud bang.
It was Will, filling the doorway with his lanky, broad-shouldered frame. His blue eyes were thunderous. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.
So much for the brief peace they had achieved the night before. "I am practicing," Cecily said. "You told me I would get no better without practice."
"Not you. Gabriel Lightworm over here." Will jerked his chin toward the other boy. "Sorry. Lightwood."
Gabriel slowly unhitched his arms from around Cecily. "Whoever has been tutoring your sister in swordplay has imparted many bad habits. I was merely endeavoring to help."
"I told him it was all right," Cecily said, having no idea why she was defending Gabriel, except that she suspected it would annoy Will.
It did. His eyes narrowed. "And did he tell you he has been looking for years for a way to get back at me for what he perceives as an insult to his sister? And what better way to do it than through you?"
Cecily whipped her head around to stare at Gabriel, who wore an expression of mixed annoyance and defiance. "Is that true?"
He did not reply to her but to Will. "If we are going to live in the same house, Herondale, then we shall have to learn to treat each other cordially. Don't you agree?"
"As long as I can still break your arm as easily as look at you, I agree to no such thing." Will reached up and plucked a rapier off the wall. "Now get out of here, Gabriel. And leave my sister alone."
With a single scornful look, Gabriel pushed his way past Will and out of the room. "Was that absolutely necessary, Will?" Cecily demanded as soon as the door had shut behind him.
"I know Gabriel Lightwood and you do not. I suggest you leave it to me to be the best judge of his character. He wishes to use you to hurt me-"
"Really, you cannot imagine a motivation he might have that is not yourself?"
"I know him," Will said again. "He has shown himself to be a liar and a traitor-"
"People change."
"Not that much."
"You have," Cecily said, striding across the room and dropping her sword onto a bench with a clatter.
"So have you," Will said, surprising her. She turned on him.
"I have changed? How have I changed?"
"When you came here," he said, "you spoke over and over of getting me to come home with you. You disliked your training. You pretended otherwise, but I could tell. Then it ceased to be 'Will, you must go home,' and became 'Write a letter, Will.' And you began to enjoy your training. Gabriel Lightwood is a bounder, but he was right about one thing: You did enjoy fighting the great worm at Lightwood House. Shadowhunter blood is like gunpowder in your veins, Cecy. Once it is lit, it is not so easily extinguished. Remain much longer here, and there is every likelihood you will be like me-too entwined to leave."
Cecily squinted at her brother. His shirt was open at the collar, showing something scarlet winking in the hollow of his throat. "Are you wearing a woman's necklace, Will?"
Will put a hand to his neck with a startled look, but before he could respond, the door to the training room opened once more and Sophie stood there, an anxious expression upon her scarred face.
"Master Will, Miss Herondale," she said. "I have been looking for you. Charlotte has requested that everyone come to the drawing room right away; it is a matter of some urgency."
Cecily had always been something of a lonely child. It was difficult not to be when your elder siblings were dead or missing and there were no young people your age nearby whom your parents considered suitable companions. She had learned early to amuse herself with her own observations of people, unshared with others but kept close that she might take them out later and examine them when she was in solitude.
The habits of a lifetime were not broken quickly, and though Cecily was no longer lonely, since she had come to the Institute eight weeks ago, she had made its inhabitants the subject of her close study. They were Shadowhunters, after all-the enemy at first, and then, as that had become less and less her view, simply the subject of fascination.
She examined them now as she walked into the drawing room beside Will. First was Charlotte, seated behind her desk. Cecily had not known Charlotte long, and yet she knew that Charlotte was the sort of woman who kept her calm even under pressure. She was tiny but strong, a bit like Cecily's own mother, although with less of a penchant for muttering in Welsh.
Then there was Henry. He might have been the first of them all to convince Cecily that though Shadowhunters were different, they were not dangerously alien. There was nothing frightening about Henry, all lanky legs and angles as he leaned against Charlotte's desk.
Her eyes slid over Gideon Lightwood next, shorter and stockier than his brother-Gideon, whose green-gray eyes usually followed Sophie about the Institute like a hopeful puppy's. She wondered if the others in the Institute had noticed his attachment to their maid, and what Sophie thought about it herself.