Chapter 10
It was snowing again out there. As if I hadn't gone through enough torture in this dress already. It was white literally everywhere and I couldn't stop shivering when I walked out of the institute. Small flecks of snow got caught in my hair but I couldn't care less. I could practically see my breath every time I exhaled.
Will, on the other hand, wasn't even feeling cold. And if he was, he wasn't really showing it.
"We have two carriages here." Charlotte said, "The both of you can sit in one. I and Henry will sit in the other."
Great. The heat surging through me felt great at the moment.
I walked towards the carriage that Charlotte had pointed towards, Will walking beside me. He had his hands deep into the pockets of his pants, and I envied him at the moment for having those pockets. My gloves didn't really help.
"As much as you rock that dress." Will chuckled, "You're going to catch cold."
"Have to blind the Clave with my beauty, no?" I said dryly and he laughed. Will went into the carriage first and then I reached out to take his hands. He lifted me into the carriage and closed the door behind me.
Bullocks. The carriage was small.
He sat down beside me and after a while the carriage started to move forward. I ran my hands over my arms, but it didn't help with the cold. It was literally crazy cold out here.
"You're miserable, Tessa." Will said quietly.
"Nothing can be done about it." It came out as a whisper. I was trembling badly.
Then he did something totally, totally unexpected.
He moved closer to me, until his body touched mine, and it was more than enough for the heat to travel through my body like fire in my veins. Then his hand came around my waist, and I was certain that I was blushing, but I wasn't sure if I was breathing. Could he hear my heart beating?
"This will help." I liked to think that I imagined his voice being hoarse.
I couldn't help but nuzzle up towards him a little, trying to make sure he didn't notice, but God, it was impossible. He chuckled dryly.
"Don't blame me. You're warm." I said quietly, and he chuckled again.
"Your hair smells great." He said, and I wanted to hide in a hole and die. I was happy to know he couldn't see my face; it would've been totally red.
"Your cologne smells great." It was true. He smelled so good; I breathed him in, trying to be as silent as possible.
"I'm worried about you." He said quietly.
"Not new, not new." I chuckled.
"Really. I'm telling you I'm going to tear the hall down if they harm you in any way, or send you away." He whispered, "I won't be able to help it."
"I'm not going to let you do that." I said, and his hand came forward to hold mine.
"You can't do anything about it either, Tessa." He said. I swear I was on fire. It was all too much, having him so near, holding hands, and listening to him whisper things like that while his words stroked over my skin.
"Don't do anything stupid." I said, "Please, Will. I do really want you to stay alive."
"Ha-ha. Funny." He chuckled and I punched him on his chest. He moved his hand over to my hair and kind of moved them through my hair, "There were flecks of snow in your hair." He clarified.
"I think I'm warm enough." I said, and moved away from him. It felt awful.
None the less, he grinned at me and the carriage slowed down.
"Are we there?" I said, and he nodded. The environment around him suddenly seemed to change.
He got out first and helped me out after him. Charlotte and Henry met us there, and Charlotte encouragingly squeezed my hand, Henry smilingly nodded at me, before we went inside the large building. It was glamoured too, of course. When we entered, there was a very long corridor extending in front of us.
Will stayed reassuringly close to me, looking around us. The corridor was empty, and we made our way through it. Soon, we were facing large wooden doors, and the guard standing in front of it greeted Charlotte and Henry before we entered it.
Awfully bright lights were the first things I noticed when I entered. When my eyes adjusted, the second thing I saw were people hustling around, and I could sense every one of them being shadowhunters.
The third thing I noticed was how everyone stopped whatever they were doing when we entered the hall. Each and every one of them looked at me, and the hall went miserably quiet.
We uncomfortably made our way towards the middle of the hall, where we took our seats together. Will kept my hand firmly in his, and I didn't in a million years want to pull away. His hand held mine in a way that told me that everything was going to be all right.
But then my senses tickled. Oh, My God. There was a warlock nearby. I looked around calmly; they wouldn't have allowed any warlock except for me to come in the conference hall. Then... what was it?
I was distracted as the person standing on the dais in the middle of the room cleared his throat in front of the mic.
"Greetings, Everyone." He said in his very deep, manly voice, "For those of you new here,"-mainly me-"I am Josiah Wayland, the Consul."
"The Consul is the head of the Clave. The main Clave meetings are held in Idris, and these people around here aren't all really Clave members. Just some people like me, attending this conference." Will whispered to me quietly, "so the Consul and the inquisitor live there, in Idris. But considering the seriousness of this issue, he's traveling to each and every institute all around the world."
I knew what Idris was, a city where only shadowhunters lived and only shadowhunters entered. To make it even more creepy, it's nowhere on the world map. Of course, I've never been there.
"We all know about how nearly every day, Warlocks are being killed in terrible ways. The issue is quite serious, and we have been investigating on the issue for a while." He then moved his eyes towards where we were sitting, and they were soft and cold at the same time, "But the head of the London Institute, Henry Branwell and Charlotte Branwell seem to present us with a theory that, although seems the least likely thing to be true, but despite that, deserves to be heard."
Theorywas his word to explain the whole thing when that Hybrid almost killed me. I felt an urge to punch the old man in the stomach.
"I request Charlotte and Henry Branwell to come forward and explain it to the people again." Josiah said none too politely.
Charlotte and Henry stood up, and hand in hand made their way to the front of the room. They made a perfect team, I thought. They stood there, and Charlotte explained literally everything from that night, from how and why I was there, to what the creature almost did to me, to how Will saved me. She told them each and every detail about the creature. Her voice was confident and steady, and although Henry didn't speak much, he nodded as an encouragement at nearly every word Charlotte uttered.
"So that's all?" Josiah said.
"Yes. But to prove our statement, we have the warlock with us. The one who survived the attack. She has come here on her own will."
I heard everyone around me suck in a collective breath.
"Well, let's hear from her then." The Consul said, turning around and then facing me, "You may come forward, Warlock."
Will squeezed my hand one more time before leaving it, and I smiled weakly at him before I got up and made my way slowly down the hall. I went forward to stand beside Charlotte, who smiled at me.
"What's your name?" Josiah asked me.
"Samantha Brooklyn." I said, just as it was planned. I would reveal myself to them in hell.
"So, Samantha, what were you doing out there on the street so late at night when you clearly knew that Warlocks were becoming the target of these killers?"
"We can't exactly shut ourselves in our homes now, can we? Besides, they just killed my mother in my own house, I wasn't safe anyway. I went out to find somewhere to go, when the only person I knew in this world was killed." The pain in my voice was not fake, but they'd told me to act a little as well. Pity works sometimes.
Josiah nodded for a while, after which he said, "Very well. Now tell us what happened."
I told them exactly what happened after that. Leaving out the things the creature said to me about me being special and their main target. I did tell them that he was saying something about us getting in their way, and how Will saved me. I tried to keep Will as much out of the discussion as possible. I owed him that much.
Will was looking at me the whole time, and it was all I needed as a boost. It wasn't just an emotion when I said that he made me feel powerful, that he made me feel whole. It was all literal, and when I was done, he smiled at me and I could've melted there.
What washappening to me?
"That's it?" The consul said, "Well isn't that exactly what Charlotte and Henry told us?"
"What else do you want to hear, Consul?" I said, and I couldn't help but snap at him, "What they told you are exactly true."
"Well, Samantha." The Consul said in his dead calm, cold voice, "I still can't see what's the proof in this."
"What do you mean by that?" I said, "What do you even need as a proof? I'm a survivor, I saw the hybrid with my own eyes, closer than anyone else did!"
"We don't know if you're just a warlock whom they caught out there and paid to come here and tell all the things they did so that they could prove their point?"
I was actually so disgusted that all the words that came in my mind were highly inappropriate, and I was having a hard time keeping quite.
"Secondly, it's hard to believe the hybrid situation. Years of research have proved that it's totally impossible, I don't see why you expect us to believe you when you suddenly come out of the blue and prove all of that wrong. We would've considered it if we would've found any trace that would've proved that the killer, or killers, was anything more than a lunatic serial killer."
"Enough, Consul." I heard Will say from where he was sitting and my head jerked up towards him. He stood up and walked down the hall to stand beside me.
"Oh, so we have the Herondale child here as well." The Consul said.
"Don't you think you have humiliated her enough?" He snapped at the Consul, "She almost got killed by that creature, and you're here arguing with her like she didn't just lose her mother to the creature you're not ready to believe in. What, exactly, are you trying to prove here?"
"I'm afraid you're in no position to argue with me, William." Josiah said with quiet calm.
"So that's it. It's all about your useless ego, isn't it?" Will laughed sarcastically.
"It's not about ego. We see no reason to believe you when you have no proof of it. Bringing a random Warlock with you over here won't fool us, why not try something more convincing?"
I slowly held his hand in mine and squeezed it tightly.
"Will," I whispered, "Don't."
"The only proof you'd be satisfied with would be when the hybrid comes into your house and separates your head from your fat body." Will said.
The hall filled with gasps.
I looked up at Will, who was raging so hard I thought he'd burst because of it. The Consul was red in the face as he stared Will down. Still, he spoke calmly.
"Well, your spoiled behavior is not new to us." He said, "I think the conference is over. I would like the inquisitor to come forward and say something about it."
Will was so tense, there was practically heat radiation off of him. I didn't know from where did he get the strength to stay silent and keep the retort, that I somehow knew would've formed within him, back. Josiah quietly stepped away from the dais, and another old looking man came forward.
"I am Victor Whitelaw, the inquisitor." The man said in his husky voice, "I've been examining this argument for a while, and I've come to see that the Branwell family is losing it, I'm afraid."
The hall was quiet for a while, I couldn't help but think that Victor seemed much more intense and cold than Josiah.
"But, it is our concern, how we're being so lenient." Victor said, "We've been getting reports that the warlock, Samantha as you say, has been staying at the London institute. For no apparent reason."
"She's in danger!" Will retorted, and his hand fiercely closed over mine. He pulled me behind him, "She won't survive out there if we leave her."
"Well, certainly there are many more warlocks living out there. Under the same threat that she is. I don't think you're going to give refuge to every warlock you see out there."
"For Jesus' sake!" Will said, and then the hall went so quiet the only sound I could hear was my heart thundering in my chest. Will then seemed to take in a long breath, then began, "She's here just for as long as she can't find refuge. As soon as we get her safe somewhere else, we're keeping her here."
"And for how long is that supposed to be, child?" The inquisitor said sternly.
"That's none of your business." Will muttered, but the inquisitor didn't hear it. The Inquisitor leaned forward a little.
"What did you say?" He said.
"Will. Please, or else I'm surrendering to them." As soon as the words left my mouth, he went so still and quiet that I doubted he would catch back his voice. Then he moved a little closer to me.
"Please," His voice broke, "Please. Just some time, and she'll go."
"Can I ask you something, William?" The inquisitor said, and Will stayed still. He went on anyway, "What does the warlock mean to you?"
Silence.
"She's a poor girl who lost her mother less than a week ago, and now has nowhere else to live, and probably has an army of creatures trying to kill her. Any sane man with a heart would do what I'm doing; protect her." I tried to push the useless disappointment down.
Silence again. The inquisitor stood there for a while, probably thinking. I could feel the blood pounding through my veins, feel Will's closeness sooth me, as if he was giving off some waves that made me believe that everything was going to be okay.
"I'm afraid I have no other choice." The man sighed, "She can live in the institute, but only for a little while. She'll have to leave after that, no matter what."
"Thank you, Victor." Charlotte said, truly sounding thankful.
"As long as the Hybrid theory is concerned," Victor went on, "I'm afraid, we'll have to leave it aside for a while. Investigate into things we think are much more possible." He then turned to us four, standing together, "And you're welcome to come here when you have a better proof for your statements."
He turned to the crowd then, not waiting for a response, and waved a hand forward. "The conference is dismissed."