“He cocked his head to the side. "Did he die well?""He died screaming." Charlotte's bluntness startled Tessa."What a beautiful thing to hear.”

“Before Tessa could answer, there was a knock at the door, and a familiar voice. "It's Jem. Tessa, are you there?"Charlotte sat bolt upright. "Oh! He mustn't see you in your dress!"Tessa stood dumbfounded. "Whyever not?""It's a Shadowhunter custom—bad luck!" Charlotte rose to her feet. "Quickly! Hide behind the wardrobe!""The wardrobe? But—" Tessa broke off with a yelp as Charlotte seized her about the waist and frog-marched her behind the wardrobe like a policeman with a particularly resistant criminal. Released, Tessa dusted off her dress and made a face at Charlotte, and they both peeked around the side of the furniture as the seamstress, after a bewildered look, opened the door.Jem's silvery head appeared in the gap. He looked a bit disheveled, his jacket askew. He glanced around in puzzlement before his gaze lighted on Charlotte and Tessa, half-concealed behind the wardrobe.”

“We were just talking about you," Jessamine said as Tessa found a seat. She pushed a sliver toast rack across the table towards Tessa. "Toast?" Tessa, picking up her fork, looked around the table anxiously. "What about me?" "What to do with you, of course Downworlders can't live in the Institute forever," said Will. "I say we sell her to the Gypsies on Hampstead Heath," He added, turning to Charlotte. "I hear they purchase spare women as well as horses." "Will, stop it." Charlotte glanced up from her breakfast. "That's ridiculous." Will leaned back in his chair. "You're right. They'd never buy her. Too scrawny.”

“I am stronger when Tessa is here, you see. I told it to you," said Jem, still in the same soft voice.At that, Will did duck his head so that Tessa could not see his eyes. "I see it," he said.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Will said. “Mortmain has taken Tessa, and I believe now I know where she might be. There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to go after her. But I cannot leave Jem. I swore an oath. And what if he wakes in the night and finds I am not here?” He looked as lost as a child. “He will think I left him willingly, not caring that he was dying. He will not know. And yet if he could speak, would he not tell me to go after Tessa? Is that not what he would want?” Will dropped his face into his hands. “I cannot say, and it is tearing me in half.”

“It was good to be here with Jem and Cecily an Charlotte, to be surrounded by their affection, but without her there would always be something missing, a Tessa-shaped part chiseled out of his heart that he could never get back.”

“But he would understand,” he said dazedly. “If we explained it to him. If we told him…he would understand.”She made her voice as cold as she could. As calm. “Told him what?”Will only looked at her. There had been light in his eyes on the stairs… And it was going now, fading like the last breath of someone dying. She felt as if she were watching the life bleed out of Will Herondale. “Jem would forgive me,” Will said, but there was hopelessness in his face, his voice, already. He had given up, Tessa thought. “He would,” she said, “He would never stay angry at you, Will; he loves you too well for that. I do not even think he would hold anger toward me. But this morning he told me he thought he would die without ever loving anyone as his father loved his mother, without ever being loved like that in return. Do you want me to go down the hallway and knock on his door and take that away from him? And would you love me still, if I did?”“Then…please, Tessa, don’t tell him what I just told you…”“I will tell no one,” she said. “I swear it…”