"The first one is always the hardest."

"The first?"

"The first one you love who dies," Magnus said. "It gets easier after that" (Clockwork Princess. 555)

Tessa sat in the silence, staring out the window onto a quiet street. It had surprised her to show up at Magnus Bane's door and see him living in such a simple place. She had figured he'd be in the heart of Paris filled with busy streets and a constant hustle and bustle like London. Instead the Warlock had chosen a quiet flat on the edge of the city where he painted. "It helps me think" he had said when Tessa had asked him about it.

She'd woken from a dream drenched in sweat, crying and calling out for Will. Frantically she'd felt the empty space beside her, tearing at the sheets of the mattress her heart pounding in her chest. The tears came harder as realization slapped her in the face. He wasn't there.

Now all her thoughts were on the darkness and the silence, having calmed her racing heart. She didn't notice she was still crying until she felt the weight on her bed shift. The warlock sat across from her and gave her an understanding smile as he brushed tears from her cheek before handing her a mug of something warm and sweet smelling.

She tucked the mug securely between her hands, pulling her knees to her chest. She allowed herself a moment, inhaling the warmth from her mug, the smell of Magnus' apartment and the cool stale air of the night.

Death was a cruel thing she had spent much of her time considering but never realized how much it could truly hurt her. Losing Jem had been one thing but losing Will too, being left utterly alone. Never in a million years would she ever have been able to prepare herself for the loneliness that came with immortality. Silently she cursed the demon blood that ran through her veins and kept her heart beating.

As if reading her thoughts, Magnus smiled. His cat eyes were distant as he considered his words. "It does get easier Tessa." He finally said.

Tessa glanced up at him, her eyes widening and her heart tightening. She carefully tucked her legs under her, impatiently pushing wet strands of hair off her forehead. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do without him." She whispered.

Magnus sighed, pulling the girl to him with an empathy he had not felt in a long time. "Will was one of the brightest beings I have ever come to know. He loved you more than anything." Tessa nodded against him, smelling his strong scent of magic and turpentine. Magnus could feel her tears seeping through his night shirt. "Shh Tessa." Magnus soothed, gently rubbing circles in her back.

Tessa breathed in, trying to calm herself as Magnus released her. "Love is the biggest challenge you will ever face, the most painful but without it we become monsters."

"You speak of Camille?" Tessa asked. Magnus looked past her, his gaze locking on something far away.

"I do. Camille is no longer capable of love."

Tessa nodded, thinking of the vampire who had not crossed her mind in years. "But even she loved once." She recalled after a long moment.

"She did." Magnus agreed, looking out the window.

"But not you." It wasn't a question now.

"No, never me. I was simply a way for her to pass the time." Magnus brought his gaze back to meet Tessa's

"Did you love her?"

Magnus didn't reply for a long moment. "Yes. I loved her once upon a time."

"Are you?" Tessa asked.

"Am I what?"

"Still capable of love?"

"I'd forgotten how curious you are," Magnus smiled. "I am. Though it does not come as easily or even the same as it once did."

"How do you mean?"

"It's no longer the romantic notion of love itself or even physical love. It's through people. People like Will who always surprise me, the ones that are more than a person from the outside sees them. They always seem broken but there's more to it than that."

"You think that you can fix them?" Tessa guessed, looking at her hands.

"No, but I think I can at least try to understand them. And I have a weakness for blue eyes." Magnus winked. Tessa looked up, smiling in response.

"He trusted you." Tessa said, knowing the direction their conversation had turned. Magnus nodded.

"Yes and I did what I thought I could for him but you were the one who ultimately saved him."

Tessa smiled. "He was so intent on his own destruction back then I'm not sure how either of us managed it."

"He was relentless in thinking he was Sydney Carton," Magnus agreed. "He wanted to protect you from himself."

The sound of French trickled into the window as Tessa recalled all that time she had spent with Will and found her mind groping for Jem too. Suddenly she desperately wanted to remember the color of his eyes, the texture of his hair between her fingers. He was all she had left and he wasn't the same anymore. He moved and spoke the way they did. Tessa thought she had long ago accepted her Jem was gone but with Will no longer there as proof her Jem had ever existed to start with, it hit her all over again.

"Woolsey was correct in one sense; you had two loves in one lifetime. That is something not even I can empathize with. You have a long life ahead of you my dear. What you do with it is up to you."

"Lots of girls in books have two loves." Tessa argued. Magnus shook his head.

"Perhaps, but not two loves that have a bond deeper than brothers; that would die for each other without a second thought and who happened to fall in love with the same girl. That is not quite the same as it was in Wuthering Heights."

Tessa shook her head. "The misery they went through for me."

"It's all part of the past. Another aspect of immortality you get used to but if you let your past define who you are you'll never be able to absorb the present and truly live in it and that would be the greatest loss of all."

"And what if the present isn't all that great either?"

"As someone who has lived a very long time, there is always something. "

Tessa nodded, wiping the remaining tears from her face.

"Still so absorbed in words." Magnus noted with a careful smile, pulling the book Tessa had set aside towards him. He had expected to find A Tale of Two Cities but instead found A Pair of Blue Eye. He gently set the book back down and gave a small sigh.

Tessa laughed, shaking her head. "It isn't what you think. I don't really relate to Elfride at all. I just picked it up."

"Not one of the better novels of the time…" Magnus pointed out.

"I just missed it. London isn't the same as it was when I fell in love with it."

"Maybe it's time you move forward." Magnus said. Tessa gave a small sigh, watching her hands clutch the blanket in her lap.

"Maybe it is." Tessa agreed, glancing back out the window. She saw the sun breaking over the horizon. The world she knew had shattered. Now it was time for her to take what was left and build it up again.

"Now you should try getting some sleep." Magnus encouraged. Tessa nodded, laying down and closing her eyes. She dreamed of a pair of blue eyes and then a pair of silver and the soft sound of a boys' laughter and violin music.