Clockwork Princess
Page 37

Though a smaller group of men than it should have been. The absence of Will and Jem felt like a new wound, a clean white slice not yet filled in with blood, the shock almost too fresh for pain.
"What is it?" Henry said anxiously. "Charlotte, dear ..."
Charlotte read the words of the message out with the emotionless beats of a metronome. When she was done, she pushed the letter away, still staring at it. "I simply cannot ..." She began. "I do not understand."
Henry had flushed red beneath his freckles. "How dare he write to you like that," he said, with unexpected ferocity. "How dare he address you in that manner, dismiss your concerns-"
"Perhaps he is correct. Perhaps he is mad. Perhaps we all are," Charlotte said.
"We are not!" Cecily exclaimed, and she saw Gabriel look sideways at her. His expression was difficult to read. He had been pale since he had come into the dining room, and had barely spoken or eaten, staring instead at the tablecloth as if it held the answers to all the questions in the universe. "The Magister is in Cadair Idris. I am sure of it."
Gideon was frowning. "I believe you," he said. "We all do, but without the ear of the Consul, the matter cannot be placed before the Council, and without a Council there can be no assistance for us."
"The portal is nearly ready for use," said Henry. "When it works, we should be able to transport as many Shadowhunters as needed to Cadair Idris in a matter of moments."
"But there will be no Shadowhunters to transport," said Charlotte. "Look, here, the Consul forbids me to speak of this matter to the Enclave. Its authority supersedes mine. To overstep his command like that-we could lose the Institute."
"And?" Cecily demanded heatedly. "Do you care more for your position than you care for Will and Tessa?"
"Miss Herondale," Henry began, but Charlotte silenced him with a gesture. She looked very tired.
"No, Cecily, it is not that, but the Institute provides us protection. Without it our ability to help Will and Tessa is severely compromised. As the head of the Institute, I can provide them assistance that a single Shadowhunter could not-"
"No," Gabriel said. He had pushed away his plate, and his slim fingers were tense and white as he gestured. "You cannot."
"Gabriel?" said Gideon in a questioning tone.
"I will not stay silent," Gabriel said, and rose to his feet, as if he intended to either make a speech or sprint away from the table, Cecily was not sure. He turned a haunted green gaze on Charlotte. "The day that the Consul came here, when he brought me and my brother away for questioning, he threatened us until we promised to spy on you for him."
Charlotte paled. Henry began to stand up from the table. Gideon threw a hand out pleadingly.
"Charlotte," he said. "We never did it. We never told him a word. Nothing that was true, anyway," he amended, looking around as the rest of the occupants of the room stared at him. "Some lies. Misdirection. He stopped asking after only two letters. He knew there was no use in it."
"It's true, ma'am," came a small voice from the corner of the room. Sophie. Cecily almost hadn't noticed her there, pale under her white mobcap.
"Sophie!" Henry sounded utterly shocked. "You knew about this?"
"Yes, but-" Sophie's voice shook. "He threatened Gideon and Gabriel awfully, Mr. Branwell. He told them he would have the Lightwoods stricken off the Shadowhunter records, that he would have Tatiana turned out in the street. And still they didn't tell him anything. When he stopped asking, I thought he'd realized there was nothing to find out and given up. I'm so sorry. I just-"
"She didn't want to hurt you," Gideon said desperately. "Please, Mrs. Branwell. Do not blame Sophie for this."
"I don't," said Charlotte, her eyes dark and quick, moving from Gabriel to Gideon to Sophie, and back again. "But I rather imagine there is more to this story. Isn't there?"
"That is all there is, truly-," Gideon began.
"No," Gabriel said. "It isn't. When I came to you, Gideon, and told you that the Consul no longer wanted us to report to him about Charlotte, that was a lie."
"What?" Gideon looked horrified.
"He brought me aside on my own, the day of the attack on the Institute," Gabriel said. "He told me that if I helped him discover some wrongdoing on Charlotte's part, he would give back the Lightwood estate to us, restore the honor to our name, cover up what our father did ..." He took a deep breath. "And I told him I would do it."
"Gabriel," Gideon groaned, and buried his face in his hands. Gabriel looked as if he were about to be sick, half-wavering on his feet. Cecily was torn between pity and horror, remembering that night in the training room, how she had told him she had faith in him that he would make the right choices.
"That is why you looked so frightened when I called you to speak with me earlier today," Charlotte said, her gaze steady on Gabriel. "You thought I had found you out."
Henry began to rise to his feet, his pleasant, open face darkening with the first real anger Cecily thought she had ever seen on it. "Gabriel Lightwood," he said. "My wife has shown you nothing but kindness, and this is how you repay it?"
Charlotte put a restraining hand on her husband's arm. "Henry, wait," she said. "Gabriel. What did you do?"
"I listened to your conversation with Aloysius Starkweather," Gabriel said in an empty voice. "I wrote a letter to the Consul afterward, telling him that you were basing your requests that he march on Wales on the words of a madman, that you were credulous, too headstrong ..."
Charlotte's eyes seemed to pierce through Gabriel like nails; Cecily thought she would never want that gaze on her, not in her life. "You wrote it," she said. "Did you send it?"
Gabriel took a long, gasping breath. "No," he said, and reached into his sleeve. He drew out a folded paper and threw it down onto the table. Cecily stared at it. It was smudged with fingerprints and soft at the edges, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times. "I could not do it. I did not tell him anything at all."
Cecily let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Sophie made a soft noise; she started toward Gideon, who was looking as if he were recovering from being punched in the stomach. Charlotte remained as calm as she had been throughout. She reached out, picked up the letter, glanced over it, and then placed it back on the table.
"Why didn't you send it?" she said.
He looked at her, an odd shared look that passed between them, and said, "I had my reasons to reconsider."
"Why didn't you come to me?" Gideon said. "Gabriel, you are my brother...."
"You cannot make all choices for me, Gideon. Sometimes I have to make my own. As Shadowhunters we are meant to be selfless. To die for mundanes, for the Angel, and most of all for each other. Those are our principles. Charlotte lives by them; Father never did. I realized that I had been mistaken before in putting my loyalty to my bloodline above principle, above everything. And I realized the Consul was wrong about Charlotte." Gabriel stopped abruptly; his mouth was set in a thin, white line. "He was wrong." He turned to Charlotte. "I cannot take back what I have done in the past, or what I considered doing. I know of no way to make up to you my doubt in your authority, or my ungratefulness for your kindness. All I can do is tell you what I know: that you cannot wait for an approval from Consul Wayland that will never come. He will never march upon Cadair Idris for you, Charlotte. He does not want to agree to any plan that has your stamp of authority on it. He wishes you out of the Institute. Replaced."
"But he is the one who put me here," Charlotte said. "He supported me-"
"Because he thought you would be weak," said Gabriel. "Because he believes women are weak and easily manipulated, but you have proved not to be, and it has ruined all his planning. He does not just desire you discredited; he needs it. He was clear enough with me that even if I could not discover you engaged in any true wrongdoing, he was granting me the freedom to invent a lie that would convict you. As long as it was a convincing one."
Charlotte pressed her lips together. "Then he never had faith in me," she whispered. "Never."
Henry tightened his grip on her arm. "But he should have," he said. "He underestimated you, and that is not a tragedy. That you have proven to be better, cleverer, and stronger than anyone could have expected, Charlotte-it is a triumph."
Charlotte swallowed, and Cecily wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to have someone look at her as Henry looked at Charlotte-as if she were a wonder on the earth. "What do I do?"
"What you think best, Charlotte darling," said Henry.
"You are the leader of the Enclave, and of the Institute," said Gabriel. "We have faith in you, even if the Consul does not." He ducked his head. "You have my loyalty from this day forward. For whatever it is worth to you."
"It is worth a great deal," Charlotte said, and there was something in her voice, a quiet authority that made Cecily want to rise and proclaim her own loyalty, simply to win the balm of Charlotte's approval. Cecily couldn't imagine feeling that way, she realized, about the Consul. And that is why the Consul hates her, she thought. Because she is a woman, and yet he knows she can command loyalty in a way he never could. "We proceed as if the Consul does not exist," Charlotte went on. "If he is determined to remove me from my place here, then I have nothing to safeguard. It is simply a matter of doing what we must before he has a chance to stop us. Henry, how long before your invention is ready?"
"Tomorrow," Henry said promptly. "I shall work through the night-"
"It will be the first time it is ever used," said Gideon. "Does that not seem a bit risky?"
"We have no other way of getting to Wales in time," said Charlotte. "Once I send my message, we will have only a short time before the Consul comes to relieve me of my place."
"What message?" Cecily asked, bewildered.
"I am going to send a message to all the members of the Clave," Charlotte said. "At once. Not the Enclave. The Clave."
"But only the Consul is allowed-," Henry began, then shut his mouth like a box. "Ah."
"I will tell them the situation as it stands and ask for their assistance," said Charlotte. "I am not sure what response we can count on, but surely some will stand with us."
"I will stand with you," said Cecily.
"And I, of course," Gabriel said. His expression was resigned, nervous, considering, determined. Never had Cecily liked him more.
"And I," said Gideon, "though"-and his gaze, as it passed over his brother, was worried-"a mere six of us, one only barely trained, against whatever force Mortmain has mustered ..." Cecily was caught between pleasure that he had counted her as one of them and annoyance that he had said she was barely trained. "It could be a suicide mission."
Sophie's soft voice spoke again. "You may have only six Shadowhunters on your side, but you have at least nine fighters. I am trained as well, and I would like to fight alongside you. So will Bridget and Cyril."
Charlotte looked half-pleased, half-startled. "But, Sophie, you have only just begun to be trained-"
"I have been trained longer than Miss Herondale," said Sophie.
"Cecily is a Shadowhunter-"
"Miss Collins has a natural talent," said Gideon. He spoke slowly, the conflict clear on his face. He did not want Sophie in the fighting, in danger, and yet would not lie about her abilities. "She should be allowed to Ascend and become a Shadowhunter."
"Gideon-," Sophie began, startled, but Charlotte was already looking at her with a keen dark gaze.
"Is that what you want, Sophie, dear? To Ascend?"
Sophie stammered. "I-it is what I have always wanted, Mrs. Branwell, but not if it meant I had to leave your service. You have been so kind to me, I would not wish to repay that by abandoning you-"
"Nonsense," Charlotte said. "I can find another maid; I cannot find another Sophie. If being a Shadowhunter was what you wanted, my girl, I wish you had spoken. I could have gone to the Consul before I was at odds with him. Still, when we return-"
She broke off, and Cecily heard the words beneath the words: If we return.
"When we return, I will put you forward for Ascension," Charlotte finished.
"I will speak out for her case as well," Gideon said. "After all, I have my father's place on the Council-his friends will listen to me; they still owe loyalty to our family-and besides, how else can we be married?"
"What?" said Gabriel with a wild hand gesture that accidentally flipped the nearest plate onto the floor, where it shattered.
"Married?" said Henry. "You're marrying your father's friends on the Council? Which of them?"
Gideon had gone an odd sort of greenish color; clearly he had not meant those words to escape him, and he did not know what to do now that they had. He was staring at Sophie in horror, but it didn't seem she was likely to be much help either. She looked as shocked as a fish that had been stranded unexpectedly on land.
Cecily stood up and dropped her serviette onto her plate. "All right," she said, doing her best to approximate the commanding tones her mother used when she needed something done about the house. "Everyone out of the room."
Charlotte, Henry, and Gideon began to rise to their feet. Cecily threw her hands up. "Not you, Gideon Lightwood," she said. "Honestly! But you"-she pointed at Gabriel-"do stop staring. And come along." And taking him by the back of the jacket, she half-dragged him from the room, Henry and Charlotte hard on their heels.
The moment they had left the dining room, Charlotte strode off toward the drawing room with the announced purpose of composing a message for the Clave, Henry by her side. (She paused at the turn of the corridor to look back at Gabriel with an amused quirk of her mouth, but Cecily suspected he did not see it.) Cecily put it out of her mind quickly, regardless. She was too busy pressing her ear up against the dining room door, trying to hear what was going on inside.
Gabriel, after a moment's pause, leaned back against the wall beside the door. He was in equal parts pale and flushed, his pupils dilated with shock. "You shouldn't do that," he said finally. "Eavesdropping is most incorrect behavior, Miss Herondale."