So this is my first fanfiction! I have meant to publish a story for a long time but never gotten round to it. I started the idea of this for an English assessment and then I realised i could change it into something very Cassandra Clare like, so here is the clockwork Angel!There are a few differencesin the story of Tessa's background, her father was Ithuriel the angel Valentine killed in the end!
I do not own any of the characters just the storyline
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Prologue
A wordless shriek ripped through the frigid winters night, making me start awake in apprehension. Peering through the gloomy forest, with needle like precision to spot any sort of movement, I winced as tendrils of icy winds reached the inner depths of my soul, tugging at me to see if my spirit wanted to dance with the winds from the four corners of the Earth or cause mischief with puckish delight. The empty night mocked me, as a child would swing a piece of wool in front of a kitten to see its reaction. Should I take the bait and go and see if here is anybody out there?
"Is there anybody there? Come out!" My voice sounded much braver than my insides were: a mush of worms and butterfly's. "Come on Tessa!" The internal voice sounded horribly like my governess,
"By the angel, is it really that hard to practise a speech in front of a mirror? No, I thought to myself, jolting back to the present, no it isn't hard to talk to a spectre. The forest glittered dangerously in the light of the little button moon, making the landscape look pale and ghostly; a destroyed land from times gone by, like the ones in my storybooks at home.
Carefully I untangled my limbs and got to my feet, shaking of the light dusting of snow. Looking down at myself I chuckled without mirth, what would the governess say if she saw me? Two black hobnailed boots peeped out from the bottom of the dark blue evening dress, the bodice of which had lost too many pearls. I smoothed my raven coloured hair back from my face, which felt sticky, suddenly scared witless. My left hand flew unconsciously to my neck, from which hung my mothers clockwork angel, as it always did when I was scared or overwhelmed. Knees knocking and heart pounding out of my chest, I stumbled warily through the thick copse of trees. Tripping ungainly over a hidden tree trunk, I tried to regain my balance, but was teetering on the edge of a sudden precipice, then I fell.
I rolled over and over down a step hill, into thickets and brambles. A rose bush tore out a clump of my tangled hair, making me cry out in agony. I landed with a thump, my ankle gave way beneath me and I landed in a dazed crumpled heap of torn skirts. My vision blackened at the edges as I began to lose consciousness; the last thing I heard was the familiar, rhythmic ticking of the clockwork angel.
My eyes flew open as a numbing coldness fell over me, stifling my breathing. My chest constricted, I was suffocating! This could not be happening, this must be some sort of absurd dream and I WILL wake any second now.
It is needless to say, I did not wake up. Scrambling out of the deep snowdrift was no easy feat and when I emerged, panting and frozen, I found myself in a humble clearing, with what looked like a pile of food on a log. I jumped up, my ankle protesting at the sudden movement, but something crucial was missing... Something more important than my possibly broken ankle and I couldn't figure out what it was.
Without warning a dark figure with a cowl hiding his face appeared. I bit back a curse; how could someone have crept up on me so easily? He (I knew it was a man as he was wearing breaches) was very tall, dwarfing my four and a half feet. He wore a thick coat and large black gloves, but as he shuffled closer to me, his movements were far too fluid and not natural for a human of any age.
"I think..." He creaked out "you are missing something." This creature was so unlike anyone I had clapped my eyes upon before, his movements to smooth, his voice not quite right, I reached for my angel, feeling threatened by this stranger, and- it was not there! I gave a cry of dismay and horror. That was my one possession left from my late mother! "H, how do you know? Have you taken it? It was my mother's!" He silently held out a large gloved hand, and in it was my clockwork angel. I snatched it back, horrified at the thought of anyone touching my necklace, and looped it back around my neck, feeling the familiar weight against the hollow of my throat.
"I have come to warn you, daughter of the Angel Ithuriel, that your existence has become known to the magister, and he will not stop until he has you, for you are the key to his everlasting glory, and the bane of our kind" I was stunned. Quite literally stunned into silence. Daughter? Of an angel? This was as laughable as me being the next in line to the throne of England! Anyway I think I would have known if my father was an angel. And then I stopped and thought.
There had always been a cloud of mystery haunting my father's past. I had never been to his childhood home, never heard him speak of his parents, let alone seen my own grandparents. But when I had asked my mother (as I had done on multiple occasions) she had always said the past was best left alone, and then gently reminded me that proper young girls in our social standing were supposed to be seen and not heard. Thinking of my parents know made me shudder.
Something must have changed in my expression as the mans voice voice sounded almost pitying.
"I am sorry, but now you know your true heritage there is no going back to your old life." The next words he spoke have haunted me day and night, in nightmares and reality, " I would move quicker, constantly look over my shoulder if I were you, for the Dead travel fast!"
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