~Chapter One~
Jocelyn
First official chapter up. Let's get this show on the road!
Disclaimer: The original passages from Cassandra Clare's books do not belong to me.
Review Responses:
Guest: Thank you! And, ah, yes, it actually was a coincidence about Will's death date and the Opera House opening. I just felt like opening in Australia, as nobody ever does and I'm an Australian… I was doing a little history research on it, and BOOM, the date of the opening was linked to Will! :)
ink2parchment: Thank you! I'll update as soon as I can, even if there may be several breaks while school's on… -_-
Boingaboo: Hahaha, thanks!
DystopianKitKat: Why, thank you! ^-^ That's quite a compliment!
"Jem," she said, worried. "It's the New York Institute."
Biting her lip, Tessa hesitantly pressed the phone to her ear. The last time that she had heard from the New York Institute, it had been when a megalomaniac had been 'that' close to governing the entire world – no exaggeration. The shadowhunters, the downworlders, hell, even the demons.
"Hello?" Tessa said tentatively, unsure of what to expect. She was greeted by a voice that she knew so well, one that reminded her painfully of Charlotte Branwell. The small brunette woman's face stood out, stark and clear, with her sharp, clever eyes and neat accent. Tessa's heart jolted.
"Tessa!" Jocelyn Fairchild exclaimed, her voice laced with her American accent. "I– where are you at the moment?"
"Sydney," Tessa responded, confused, catching Jem's eye and frowning slightly. "Jocelyn, why have you called at such an odd time?" There was silence at the other end of the line, and Tessa could hear muffled voices on the other end. "Jocelyn?" She repeated, and then Jocelyn's voice, a little too high to be natural, was on the phone again.
"Oh, yes?"
"You just… asked me where I am."
"Oh, that's right." Tessa held the phone at arms length and stared at it.
"What is it?" Jem asked, puzzled, and Tessa cocked her head at him.
"I haven't the faintest idea." With another frown, she put her ear up against the phone once again. "Jocelyn, did you mean to phone me?"
"Yes. I'd just been hoping to catch you in New York or…" Jocelyn's breath tumbled out against the mouthpiece. "No, forget it. I shouldn't disturb you while you're on vacation." A bark of laughter slipped past Tessa's lips.
"If this is vacation, then I'm always on vacation, my dearest Jocelyn," she said. "And do you not remember that merely a few weeks ago, after your wedding, Jem and I left for Los Angeles? I would never be back so soon afterwards. Speaking of which, how are you going, Mrs. Graymark?" Tessa planted humour into her voice, but Jocelyn waved it away.
"Oh, Tessa, no need to be so formal," she said. "Just forget that I called. Take your leisurely time to return home. Goodbye, Tessa."
"I–" Tessa fell silent, before heaving her shoulders into a small shrug, and just as she began to remove the phone from her ear, she heard a hissed voice in the background, addressing Jocelyn.
"Why don't you just tell her?" The voice sounded low and irritated, and for a moment, Tessa's heart jumped. She could have sworn that the voice belonged to… but no. The boy's voice was laced with a somewhat American accent, not at all British.
"Tell me what?" She demanded.
"Tessa," Jocelyn sighed, "you really don't have to worry. It's nothing–"
"Jocelyn." Tessa could hear the dangerous note in her voice now. "Please." A sigh on the other end of the line. Tessa could hear regret in the sound.
"Are you familiar with the name Mortmain?"
"Please," Tessa said. "Turn your hand from them. Your grievances against the Nephilim are just. But if they are all dead, who will be lessoned by your vengeance? Who will atone? If there is no one to learn from the past, there is no one to carry on its lessons. Let them live. Let them carry your teachings into the future. They can be your legacy."
He nodded thoughtfully, as though he were weighing her words. "I will spare them—I will keep them here, as our prisoners. Their captivity will keep you pleasant, and it will keep you obedient"—his voice hardened—"because you love them, and if you ever even try to escape, I will kill them all." He paused. "What do you say, Miss Gray? I have been generous, and now I am owed thanks."
The only sound in the room was the creak of the automatons and Tessa's own blood pounding in her ears. She realized now what Mrs. Black had meant by her words in the carriage. And the more knowledge of them you have, the more your sympathies lie with them, the more effective a weapon you will be to raze them to the ground. Tessa had become one of the Shadowhunters, if not entirely like them. She cared for them and loved them, and Mortmain would use that caring and that love to force her hand. In saving the few she loved, she would doom them all. And yet to condemn Will and Jem, Charlotte and Henry, Cecily and the others to death was unthinkable.
"Yes." She heard Jem—or was it Will—make a muffled sound. "Yes, I will take that bargain." She looked up. "Tell the demon to let me go, and I will come up to you."
"She saw Mortmain's eyes narrow. "No," he said. "Armaros, bring her to me."
"The demon's hands tightened on her arms; Tessa bit her lip with the pain. As if in sympathy, the clockwork angel at her throat twitched.
Few can claim a single angel who guards them. But you can.
"Her hand went to her throat. The angel seemed to thrum under her fingers, as if it were breathing, as if it were trying to communicate something to her. Her hand tightened on it, the points of the wings cutting into her palm. She thought of her dream.
Is this what you look like?
You see here only a fraction of what I am. In my true form I am deadly glory.
Armaros's hands closed on Tessa's arms.
Your clockwork angel contains within it a bit of the spirit of an angel, Mortmain had said. She thought of the white star mark the clockwork angel had left on Will's shoulder. She thought of the smooth, beautiful, unmoving face of the angel, the cool hands that had held her as she had fallen from Mrs. Black's carriage toward the churning water below.
The demon began to lift her.
Tessa thought of her dream.
She took a deep breath. She did not know if what she was about to do was even possible, or simply madness. As Armaros raised her with his hands, she closed her eyes, reaching out with her mind, reaching into the clockwork angel. She tumbled for a moment through dark space, and then a gray limbo, seeking that light, that spark of spirit, that life—
And there it was, a sudden blaze, a bonfire, brighter than any spark she had ever seen before. She reached for it, wrapping it about herself, coils of white fire that burned and scorched her skin. She screamed aloud—
And Changed.
White fire blasted through her veins. She shot upward, her gear ripping and tearing and falling away, light blazing all around her. She was fire. She was a falling star. Armaros's arms were torn from her body—soundlessly he melted and dissolved, scorched by the heavenly fire that blazed through Tessa.
She was flying—flying upward. No, she was rising, growing. Her bones stretched and elongated, a lattice being pulled outward and upward as she grew impossibly. Her skin had turned gold, and it stretched and tore as she hurtled upward like the beanstalk from the old fairy tale, and where her skin tore, golden ichor leaked from the wounds. Curls like shavings of hot white metal sprang from her head, surrounding her face. And from her back burst wings—massive wings, greater than any bird's.
She supposed that she should be terrified. Glancing down, she saw the Shadowhunters staring up at her, their mouths open. The whole room was filled with blinding light, light that poured from her. She had become Ithuriel. The divine fire of angels was blazing through her, scorching her bones, searing her eyes. But she felt only a steely calm.
She stood twenty feet high now. She was eye to eye with Mortmain, who was frozen with terror, his hands gripping the railing of the balcony. The clockwork angel, after all, had been his gift to her mother. He must never have imagined that it would ever be put to this use.
"It's not possible," he said hoarsely. "Not possible—"
You have entrapped an angel of Heaven, Tessa said, though it was not her voice speaking but Ithuriel's speaking through her. His voice echoed through her body like the ringing of a gong. Distantly she wondered if her heart was beating—did angels have hearts? Would this kill her? If it did, it was worth it. You have tried to create life. Life is the province of Heaven. And Heaven does not take kindly to usurpers.
Mortmain turned to run. But he was slow, as all humans were slow. Tessa reached out her hand, Ithuriel's hand, and closed it about him as he ran, lifting him off his feet. He screamed as the angel's grip scorched him. He was writhing, already burning, as Tessa tightened her grip, crushing his body to a jelly of scarlet blood and white bones.
She opened her fingers. Mortmain's crushed body fell, crashing to the ground among his own automatons. There was a shuddering, a great creaking scream of metal as of a building collapsing, and the automatons began to fall, one by one, crumpling to the ground, lifeless without their Magister to animate them.
"Tessa? Tessa?" The voice was like an echo, too far away to even have a chance of touching her. She felt as though she stood at the bottom of a deep, dark well. A well so deep that when you looked up, it seemed that the sky was a dark, velvety-blue, a handful of silver stars strewn across it – like breadcrumbs on a table cloth – even in the middle of the day. A well so deep that if anybody was to try to communicate with you, their voice would be caught before it could reach you, the echoes of the words suspending hundreds of feet above you, forever. "Tessa, are you there?" Yet the words reached her, warding away the darkness, the emptiness that eroded her.
"Will? Will, is that you?"
"I… yes, I… am still here." Tessa blinked, and the scene from the past vanished before her eyes, as though it had never happened. Yet, it had. So long ago, back in the days when Will Herondale and Gabriel Lightwood had bickered in the library; back when Gideon Lightwood had enraged Sophie Collins, the servant girl, by calling for numerous numbers of scones that had never been consumed; back when Cecily Herondale had trained alone, mastering the skills of the sword; back when Henry Branwell had run havoc over dinner by turning up with his coat on fire thus scandalizing his wife, Charlotte; back when Jessamine Lovelace had sat in her bedroom, watching over the dolls that she so lovingly called Mama, Papa, and Baby Jessie; back when Jem had filled the Institute with such heart-breaking music on his violin by midnight; back when Tessa hadn't known pain.
"Are you sure…?"
"Am I sure about what?" Tessa snapped, her temper running short when she was once again broken away from the past. Jem cast her a worried look as he took her free hand and began to rub her knuckles soothingly. Tessa closed her eyes when Jocelyn spoke again.
"So, are you back?"
"Back from where?"
"Tessa, you didn't speak for over a minute." Jocelyn sounded more perplexed than petulant. "So, have you ever heard the name Mortmain before?" Tessa opened her eyes lazily, staring at the sky.
"Once, long ago." She did not elaborate. "Why do you bring it up?" Jocelyn must have caught onto the hard edge in Tessa's voice, judging from her next sentence.
"Ah, no matter. The Institute can deal with this by itself."
"What has happened, Jocelyn?" Tessa growled, and she met Jem's eyes. He would have heard the panic in her voice, as he always could, and had now latched onto the conversation a whole lot more sharply.
"The thing is," Jocelyn said, her vowels stretching out, "a boy came by today, asking for a 'Theresa Herondale'." Tessa's ears perked there. Few people knew that name.
"What was his name?" She asked, disappointment reigning when Jocelyn responded, "He never said." Her blood ran cold when Jocelyn clarified her statement. "Only told us to inform you that Axel Mortmain is coming."
How's that for a cliffhanger? Huh? Huh? Now, pleeeeeaaaaase review, favourite, follow! :3 These make me happy! :)
~Black Cat Widow~