Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1)(113)
Author: Cassandra Clare

“I do believe he’s looking at me in a superior manner.”

“Probably. Cats think they’re superior to everyone.” Jem scratched Church behind the ears. “What are you reading?”

Tessa showed him the Codex. “Will gave it to me… .”

Jem reached out and took it from her, with such deftness that Tessa had no time to draw her hand back. It was still open to the page she’d been studying. Jem glanced down at it, and then back up at her, his expression changing. “Did you not know this?”

She shook her head. “It is not so much that I dreamed of having children,” she said. “I had not thought so far ahead in my life. It’s more that this seems yet another thing that separates me from humanity. That makes me a monster. Something set apart.”

Jem was silent for a long moment, his long fingers stroking the gray cat’s fur. “Perhaps,” he said, “it is not such a bad thing to be set apart.” He leaned forward. “Tessa, you know that although it seems you are a warlock, you have an ability we have never seen before. You carry no warlock’s mark. With so much about you uncertain, you cannot allow this one piece of information to drive you to despair.”

“I am not despairing,” Tessa said. “It’s just— I have been lying awake these past few nights. Thinking about my parents. I barely remember them, you see. And yet I cannot help but wonder. Mortmain said my mother did not know that my father was a demon, but was he lying? He said she did not know what she was, but what does that mean? Did she ever know what I was, that I was not human? Is that why they left London as they did, so secretively, under cover of darkness? If I am the result of something—something hideous—that was done to my mother without her knowing, then how could she ever have loved me?”

“They hid you from Mortmain,” said Jem. “They must have known he wanted you. All those years he searched for you, and they kept you safe—first your parents, then your aunt. That is not the act of an unloving family.” His gaze was intent on her face. “Tessa, I do not want to make you promises I cannot keep, but if you truly wish to know the truth about your past, we can seek it out. After all you have done for us, we owe you that much. If there are secrets to be learned about how you came to be what you are, we can learn them, if that is what you desire.”

“Yes. That is what I want.”

“You may not,” said Jem, “like what you discover.”

“It is better to know the truth.” Tessa was surprised by the conviction in her own voice. “I know the truth about Nate, now, and painful as it is, it is better than being lied to. It is better than going on loving someone who cannot love me back. Better than wasting all that feeling.” Her voice shook.

“I think he did,” said Jem, “and does love you, in his way, but you cannot concern yourself with that. It is as great a thing to love as it is to be loved. Love is not something that can be wasted.”

“It is hard. That is all.” Tessa knew she was being self-pitying, but she could not seem to shake it off. “To be so alone.”

Jem leaned forward and looked at her. The red Marks stood out like fire on his pale skin, making her think of the patterns that traced the edges of the Silent Brothers’ robes. “My parents, like yours, are dead. So are Will’s, and Jessie’s, and even Henry’s and Charlotte’s. I am not sure there is anyone in the Institute who is not an orphan. Otherwise we would not be here.”

Tessa opened her mouth, and then closed it again. “I know,” she said. “I am sorry. I was being perfectly selfish not to think—”

He held up a slender hand. “I am not blaming you,” he said. “Perhaps you are here because you are otherwise alone, but so am I. So is Will. So is Jessamine. And even, to an extent, Charlotte and Henry. Where else could Henry have his laboratory? Where else would Charlotte be allowed to put her brilliant mind to work the way she can here? And though Jessamine pretends to hate everything, and Will would never admit to needing anything, they have both made homes for themselves here. In a way, we are not here just because we have nowhere else; we need nowhere else, because we have the Institute, and those who are in it are our family.”

“But not my family.”

“They could be,” said Jem. “When I first came here, I was twelve years old. It most decidedly did not feel like home to me then. I saw only how London was not like Shanghai, and I was homesick. So Will went down to a shop in the East End and bought me this.” He drew out the chain that hung around his neck, and Tessa saw that the flash of green she’d noticed before was a green stone pendant in the shape of a closed hand. “I think he liked it because it reminded him of a fist. But it was jade, and he knew jade came from China, so he brought it back to me and I hung it on a chain to wear it. I still wear it.”

The mention of Will made Tessa’s heart contract. “I suppose it is good to know he can be kind sometimes.”

Jem looked at her with keen silver eyes. “When I came in—that look on your face—it wasn’t just because of what you read in the Codex, was it? It was about Will. What did he say to you?”

Tessa hesitated. “He made it very clear that he didn’t want me here,” she said at last. “That my remaining at the Institute is not the happy chance I thought it was. Not in his view.”

“And after I just finished telling you why you should consider him family,” Jem said, a bit ruefully. “No wonder you looked as if I’d just told you something awful had happened.”

“I’m sorry,” Tessa whispered.

“Don’t be. It’s Will who ought to be sorry.” Jem’s eyes darkened. “We shall throw him out onto the streets,” he proclaimed. “I promise you he’ll be gone by morning.”

Tessa started and sat upright. “Oh—no, you can’t mean that—”

He grinned. “Of course I don’t. But you felt better for a moment there, didn’t you?”

“It was like a beautiful dream,” Tessa said gravely, but she smiled when she said it, which surprised her.

“Will is … difficult,” Jem said. “But family is difficult. If I didn’t think the Institute was the best place for you, Tessa, I would not say that it was. And one can build one’s own family. I know you feel inhuman, and as if you are set apart, away from life and love, but …” His voice cracked a little, the first time Tessa had heard him sound unsure. He cleared his throat. “I promise you, the right man won’t care.”