Tessa knew she should speak to Jem, should comfort him. Will drugging himself into an opium haze had not been easy for him. Strangely enough, it was Will she was more concerned about. Such vehement disregard for his safety, especially in the absence of demons, was uncharacteristic. She also knew that Jem would like some solitude, with his violin, to regain his composure after the events of that evening. So, she slid on a dressing gown and hurried off to Will's room.

On opening the door, the sight that greeted her was what she had expected; William Herondale swathed in a blanket and fast asleep. She was about to head back to her own chambers when something caught her eye. Will seemed restless, tossing back and forth. She scurried over to his side. His eyes were clenched shut, brow covered in sweat. Seeing Cyril's bloodstained handkerchief on his nightstand, she picked it up and used the clean part of it to wipe away the sweat. He woke up at the contact, a garbled cry leaving his lips, which ended as soon as his eyes focused on Tessa. "Tess," he mumbled before pulling her into a fierce and desperate kiss, as though he needed her to save himself from drowning in the terror of his nightmare. Tessa found herself reacting to him; pushing herself closer to him and winding her fingers into his shirt, feeling the iron corded muscles underneath. She lost her sense of space and time. He made her feel alive and heated, bathed in the glow of the sun, bright in its passage to the other side of the world in a luminous orange sunset. Sunset! Immediately, she relived that incident on the roof and the memory of his words bit her as sharply as they had then: There is no future for a shadowhunter who dallies with warlocks.

Steeling her resolve Tessa pushes him away. "No Will," she said firmly, "This cannot go on. You might be alright with kissing me at one moment and pushing me away in the next, but I am not. And I won't proceed with whatever it is that we have until you explain yourself to me." Will looked at her as though she had tied him to a railway track just as the train was approaching; as though his demise was imminent. He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Couldn't you just go along with it?" His tone was dead, devoid of hope, as though he knew how pathetic his wishful thinking was simply had to try once. Tessa almost felt sorry for him and would have given in if she hadn't steeled herself at the last moment, "No Will, I cannot 'just play along'. I require you to tell me where we're headed, if anywhere at all. I need to know what this means to you. Until you tell me why you do all that you do, I cannot, will not, have these trysts with you." Will looked up at the ceiling, his shoulders hunched, and said, "Ask something else of me, anything else. I cannot answer this question. Do not ask this of me Tessa, for I won't be able to answer you truthfully."

"There is nothing else I wish to know."

"Nothing at all?"

"No Will."

"And there's nothing I can do to convince you to trust me?"

"Besides telling the truth? No."

"I have told you that I can't disclose it."

"I don't see why not."

"I just can't."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Can't and, therefore, won't."

"I see," Tessa rubbed her hands together, "Well, I'll call it a night then." She walked backwards till her back hit the polished wood of the door, her eyes not once leaving Will's. When her back did hit the door, she twisted her arm behind her and twisted the doorknob. She only looked away from the blue eyes pleading with her until there was a thick layer of mahogany between them.