Sorry to leave you hangin… but officially flying to China innnnnnnnnnnn 4 hours and I very very very much need to finish packing.. May. I'll update come May! Cheers
She left the room silently, an aching feeling of wanting to stay, of wanting to know the truth left her shaken and distant. In search of Cecily, she imagined asking her what had happened, not only with Will, but what had happened with Jem. It hadn't crossed her mind that it was strange for this girl to show up on the doorstep with him.
In that mix of want, came the jealousy once more. Jem loved her, Tessa, why did he want to see Cecily instead of her?
She pushed open the door to the library, finding no one moved on to the sitting room. Being no one in either room seemed slightly eerie, but she continued her hunt, flinging doors open with a lack of thought or interest to what was behind them. She felt Will's door closed as well as her own, moving on to the next floor.
"Cecily?" she called, listening to her voice echo back with a hollowed tone.
A small hand waved from the end of the hall and Tessa picked up her skirts hurrying to it. Cecily was standing in the doorway staring the floor of the room. Tessa's eyes widened as she realized what it was.
"Is that…"
Cecily didn't need to reply.
"What happened Jem?"
Jem gazed up to his friend, eyes small slits, "What do you mean Will?"
He ran his hands through long dark hair, more exhausted then he dared to admit. "With you and Cecily."
"What about me and Cecily?"
"Why was it her that brought you here?"
Jem nodded slowly with understanding. "She told me everything you know. About you're family and how they took her in, even though she was a downworlder. You loved her though didn't you?" when Will didn't answer, he continued, "That's what I thought. So you were young, and were in love, but one day you show up and she's gone where to? You don't know. You're parents tell you she's dead, and you cannot stand living in a place that reminds you of her. I would have believed this, if I didn't know you better."
Will gave him a warning glare, "What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't mean any harm by this but you aren't the warmest of people. Though, her death could be the reason, I refuse to believe that you would have left your mother and father, and kept her hidden that much if it had been because you simply lost a loved one. No there's more to it then that.
"We shared a cell you know. I thought it would be dorms or something, but I was dragged to a locked cell with her sitting in it. We'd started off not talking, but it built and built until she told me how she'd got there.
"I remember the day my adoptive parents told me I wasn't a shadowhunter like them. They sat me down in the study, smiling at me like they always tended to. Mother told me I was special, she said I could do magical things that they couldn't and that I should be proud of that. I looked at father and read in his face disappointment. Weeks later they took me away. They told me this was where undisierable warlocks go and I've been here ever since…"
"You told him didn't you?"
"Told who what?"
Jem tilted his head to the side, a gesture Will thought was to make him took stupid, "The Warlock, the one I went to see. You told him she was a child of lilth."
"Preposterous," but the distance of his voice gave him away, and his head dropped to his hand. "I didn't know they were going to take her away. I'd been walking to town, when he came to me. He asked me if I knew a secret, and I was so angry that my parents or she hadn't told me – that I only knew because I had been listening through the key hole – and I told him. I came home from my walk and she was gone. My parents didn't know what to tell me, but settled on a lie of their own. She was dead to me until she showed up on the institute steps. I have so much guilt."
"Do you love her?"
"Sorry?"
"Do you love her?" Jem repeated, slower this time.
Will shook his head, striding to the other side of the room, fidgeting. "Not any more, not since Tessa and I-" He stopped. He didn't want to tell Jem, not now.
"You and Tessa what?"
Will was surprised by the harshness of Jem's voice. He was healing, and healing fast. If only the girls arrived faster…