Chapter Six
~A Dark Discovery~
And here we are. Six chapters through, plus one prologue. ;) Thanks for all the follows, favs and reviews! Hope you like it so far, and I hope that it's not dragging on or anything like that since the end of last chapter was when the action really began…Now, read on if you must…
URGENT!:
Also, anybody who would like to see Jem in anime, just search up in google images 'Hotarubi no Mori e Gin'. The English dubbed anime, called 'Hotarubi no Mori e' is one of the saddest which I have seen, and it goes for only 44 minutes, so if you're interested, search it up! Seriously, if you're into it, you'll wind up bawling your eyes out by the end, quite possibly because the character Gin looks exactly like I would have pictured Jem, with silver Asian-origin eyes, silver hair and not a silver personality, but a golden one!
AND I FINALLY READ THE COMIC ON JEM AND TESSA'S MARRIAGE ON BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE. I feel so teary and emotional. I'll post the link here if you haven't yet read it. So beautiful…
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Review Responses:
DystopianKitKat: Ah, it couldn't have been an automaton? Now, could it…? And sorry, cliffhangers are my specialty… :P Glad you like it!
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Struggling to open her jaws ever so slightly, she managed to bite down on the gloved hand, and the person's grip weakened momentarily, enough for Clary to wriggle her mouth out of the hand's way, and screamed, praying that somebody could hear her, that her mom was coming out of the institute now, "HELP–" but that was all that she managed as she felt something incredibly hard connect with her temple, and her skin felt like it was on fire for the one second that she was still conscious, before she fell, tumbling head-over-heels, into the awaiting darkness, beckoning for her like death itself.
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Hanging back after being 'dismissed' was not something that Tessa usually did, however, the libraries of the shadowhunter institutes had always appealed greatly to her. If she were to be leaving for Los Angeles again, she would skim about the New York books and familiarize herself with the titles a little. Of course, it was no London Institute library, but it was still something.
Great, big and majestic, the library looked as though it could belong to Her Majesty herself. Tessa quietly chuckled to herself as she traced her finger along the faded crimson spine of a book in what appeared to be Italian. Old habits died hard. It would be more appropriate to say that the library looked as though it could belong to the president.
"Tess?" Jem's voice echoed down through the corridor in drifted into the library. "Are you quite finished yet?"
She pivoted on the spot, facing the voice.
"I–" Tessa paused as she began to affirm that she was indeed finished, seeing no purpose to remain any longer, but then she caught sight of a very familiar blue cover. "Not quite," she said lamely, darting across the floor to the book which beckoned her so attentively. Lifting her hands to touch it, her fingers came to a halt, suspended mere centimeters away from it.
It looked so much like the one in London's Great Library. Perhaps it was the very same one. Maybe it had been loaned to New York, however doubtful it seemed. Perhaps, just maybe, when the Herondales and Fairchilds and Lightwoods had migrated to America so long ago, one had carried the book on them, and left it here?
Darn it, Theresa Grey, Tessa chastised herself. Stop mulling around like an old woman and pick it up already! Except that she was an old woman, but she didn't point it out to herself.
Fingers trembling, she watched them scurry along the book's spine of their own accord, providing a fair grip on the book before tugging it out of its nook.
It was the very same.
Except that once the cover had been a rich, deep blue velvet, and now it was faded and the velvet was no longer plush. The symbol, carved into the binding, seemed out-of-date and drab now, and the title which had once been silver now resembled white, with bleached bits of silvery substance clinging to it here and there. But Tessa had never seen anything more beautiful.
The Shadowhunter's Codex, it read. The most common book in the shadowhunter world. But this particular book evoked many loving memories in her mind.
A certain blue-eyed, black-haired boy dropping it carelessly down to a girl, before declaring that it was the only of its kind, six hundred years old, and to lose or damage it would be punishable by death. The young girl whom accompanied him in the library thrusting it away in horror. The boy teasing and accusing her of naivety, before proclaiming that this was how it had 'all begun'. The girl reading, desperate to ignore the boy's arrogant and cheerful manner which was so bewitching and irresistible (not that the girl would ever have admitted to it). And then realizing that the beautiful boy in front of her indeed had angel blood in his veins. Him quoting to her, 'Pulvis et umbra sumus.'
"We are dust and shadows," Tessa recited quietly, touching the cover gently. That conversation, the first true conversation that she had ever had with Will Herondale, continued to live on in her heart. And that book truly was a sight to behold after so long.
"Tessa!" Jem sounded aggravated, and Tessa hurriedly slipped the book back into its perch, before hurrying across to the doorway, right before bumping face-first into Jem. His dark eyes appeared irked, and his face was as agitated as his voice.
"I was…" Tessa broke off, suddenly feeling incredibly silly to have been dwelling over an old book. "… reading," she finished, but Jem was barely paying attention to her as he paced.
"Have you seen Clary?" he asked her, all in a rush, and Tessa's sheepishness immediately raced away, and she stared at him in total bewilderment.
"No, of course not, the last time that I saw her was when my angel–" her hand went to her throat immediately, eyes widening. "When it started ticking." Her hand remained by her throat, however. Jem didn't miss this, and he caught her by the shoulders, looking her directly in the eye.
"What is it?" he asked, tone more than a little troubled, and Tessa shook her head.
"Nothing," she whispered, though she was fairly certain that at the mention of Clary, her clockwork angel had throbbed, like blood dragging behind a bruise.
"I don't understand," Jem gabbled, voice strangled, and completely out of character. "First your angel ticks, and then Clary goes missing… I don't know what to make of it."
"Missing?" Tessa said hoarsely, her arms going limp and falling to her side. "No… I don't understand…"
A horrible thought crossed her mind. What if Mortmain was responsible for Clary's absence? Except that he was dead. Long, long dead. More than dead, really. He was a pulp of jellied flesh, blood and bone.
"Nobody can find her," Jem said, beginning to walk, his pace hurried, and Tessa hastened to not be left behind. "She isn't responding to anything."
"So you have searched everywhere," Tessa clarified, desperate for some sort of explanation that may sooth her horrible suspicion that included Mortmain's resurrection.
"Fairly sure." Jem narrowed his eyes at his feet as he walked. Tessa watched him as they walked, not really seeing anything, rather lost in thought.
She truly hated these disappearances, despised the very thought of one. Disappearances were what had crushed her in her youth, stealing away everything that she had believed in. The one that had affected her the most was the first that she had ever known. Arriving in London, only to discover that her brother was hidden away somewhere, and awaited a terrible fate if she was not to do the deeds of the Dark Sisters. Only, it turned out that Nate was the betrayer. It still shattered her heart if she contemplated it for too long.
"Have you any clue, Tessa?" said an anguished voice, chipping into her thoughts, and Tessa started. She blinked to clear her eyes, and Jocelyn stood in front of her, wild-eyed and very pale.
"I'm sorry," Tessa responded immediately, unsure of what else to say, and her throat tightened. She knew the feeling all too well, of being desperate to find a loved one, except that nobody had any clue what to do. Jem squeezed her hand reassuringly. Jocelyn put her face in her hands, and her skin was very pale.
"She's gone through too much at such a young age," she whispered. "If she's been taken, I don't know what I'll think."
"I doubt that you have any reason to worry, Jocelyn," Jem reassured, ever the gentleman. "Clary has proven to possess the talent to look after herself. As long as she has her stele, she should be fine."
"That's right," Tessa caught on quickly. "She probably decided to go and visit… somebody."
Jocelyn didn't look at all comforted, though she said, "No need to console me. I've dealt with worse. And we were meant to be leaving right now anyway. She said that she'd gone to say goodbye to Jace and Isabelle, but I haven't seen her since."
"You've asked both of them?" Tessa tried, and Jem answered her instead.
"Isabelle hadn't the faintest, and Jace told us that she left to find Jocelyn," he said.
"Gone again," Jocelyn muttered, wiping her brow. "By the angel, why was it me to be given the most rebellious adolescent of them all?"
"Of them all?" said Tessa doubtfully, raising an eyebrow, and was busy recalling the many rebels she had known, so she never heard a response. And then something caught her eye. A quick snippet of bronze, catching the light. Frowning, she crossed over to the window, ignoring the questions thrown after her, and then her eyes widened when she saw what it was. At least, what she thought it was. Having a warlock's sharp sight helped her see what lay amongst the gravel, and she was fairly certain that she knew what it was.
"Tessa?" Jem and Jocelyn asked in unison as she slipped past them, heading down the corridor on fast feet. Tessa didn't respond, her mind caught in several possible scenarios, and she just prayed to angels that the pair were going to follow her. After several moments, she sensed the air currents change ever so slightly behind her, and knew that her prayer had been answered.
"Either I am going utterly mad, or a something is lying outside those gates," she said to no one in particular.
"What did you see?" Jem asked without hesitation, so much faith in his voice that for a moment, Tessa felt as though her heart stuttered. She ploughed on, anyhow.
"We'll see," she said, and even to herself, she sounded uncharacteristically stiff as she marched on. Her bravado was ruined when she stumbled right into Maryse as she rounded a corner, coming to an abrupt stop and flushing. Behind her, Jem and Jocelyn only sharply avoided crashing into the warlock's back, thus causing a domino effect.
"Maryse," said Tessa, flustered, and Maryse looked just as surprised to see her.
"Tessa," said an equally ruffled Maryse. "I thought that you said that you were leaving… not to be impolite, of course…"
"No, I, er," Tessa stammered, uncomfortable as a child being caught doing as they had been told not to do. She glanced around at Jem and Jocelyn both of whom looked almost amused at the exchange. Maryse peered around at the exact moment, and then blinked.
"James and Jocelyn… why, the lot of you! Funny that you had all been planning to leave right then and ended up playing parkour around the corridors." She narrowed her eyes. "Is there anything I should be aware of?"
"Parkour?" questioned Jem.
"Aware of?" mumbled Tessa.
"Yes!" said Jocelyn. "Out of curiosity, have you seen Clary wondering around the place?"
Maryse's dark blue eyes changed from troubled to sheer puzzlement, and it was then that Tessa saw past the older, harder, experienced veil that the head of the New York Institute always wore. For a moment, she looked almost exactly like Isabelle, and then it was gone.
"That girl is always 'around the place'," she said sharply. "Why ever did you ask?"
"She just… vanished, I suppose," Jocelyn claimed, and stepped forwards, in front of Tessa, who folded her arms and tried not to look impatient. The two women in front of her had blocked off her path, and she decided that it would be more than a little rude to push past them. Most likely because she hadn't forgotten her manners from her experience of being one hundred and forty seven years old.
"Where are my children?" Maryse asked, her words almost a jumble as she quite obviously fought to remain calm. Tessa shared a short glance with Jem, obviously just as bemused.
"I… should I know?" Jocelyn asked, her tone suggesting that she felt just as puzzled.
"No, no, of course not," Maryse muttered, waving away her question, and frowning in the opposite direction. "A little worried, that's all…"
"Worried?" Jem put in, eyes darkening. Nobody ever had the chance to hear was Maryse would respond with. A sudden force rattled at the front door violently, and the hinges seemed to moan under the pressure. Tessa flinched, and silence fell over the four of them as they all gazed upwards at the high ceiling, the wind howling all around. The gigantic institute seemed to shake, the walls trembling, and she closed her eyes, willing the sudden storm to die down. After several more moments of this, it did, and it seemed that the weather had calmed.
"Bloody hell, what was that?" Jem said, a little hoarsely, and Tessa opened her mouth, about the assert something, anything, but then a cold wind swept through the entire corridor, sharp and fast as a blade, slicing through the calm air.
The cold bit through Tessa's torso, and she doubled over, gasping for breath as the iciness crept up the walls of her stomach with an unpleasant, trickling sensation. She groaned, her arms going to cover herself, winding around as though trying to put some warmth back into her.
"Tessa?" the voices spun around her, as though they were tangled in a spider's web, vibrating ever so slightly. She looked up groggily, fighting the urge to tear up, because she was almost certain that the tears would freeze on her face, transforming to streams of ice.
A warm, reassuring pressure on her arm drew her out of the pain momentarily, and she tilted her head, still doubled over and clutching her stomach, to find three worried faces hovering over her. She took Jem's proffered hand, and his skin felt warm, striking a realization that she had become frozen, as though she had been thrust into a chiller.
"She has become as cold as ice," Jem observed, not without anxiety, and a great buzzing filled Tessa's ears so that she missed what anybody else said, and her body was wracking with shivers, as though she had returned from none other than the underworld.
Except, why ever would she have visited there, Tessa pondered bitterly, and it hurt to even think too hard. Surely not to have a cup of tea with Hades.
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Watching Tessa, bent over to a point that she was half crouching on the ground, was not Jem's ideal image. He hesitantly extended a hand out to her, a gesture of support, and he barely noticed Jocelyn and Maryse as Tessa latched onto him almost immediately. Her skin was clammy and cold, as though the life had been sucked right out of her.
Looking up wildly to meet Jocelyn's deep green eyes, he said, "She has become as cold as ice."
"Diabolic winds," Maryse said, her tone baffled. "Said to be conjured up by none other than Satan's spawn." She gazed overhead, up at the high ceiling of the entrance hall. Looking directly above you caused the sensation of dizziness, Jem knew from experience. It felt as though all of the walls were pressing in on you, circling around like a high tower-cage. "There must be one close by."
"A demon near the institute?" said Jocelyn sharply. "Whoever would have thought of it?" Tessa made an indistinct noise, something which sounded vaguely like a 'blood-thirsty ducks in Hyde Park', but Jem passed it off as delirium. Nobody said that ducks were blood-thirsty. Nobody except for Will. The corner of his mouth quirked up ever so slightly, before he quickly pushed it away. He shouldn't be smiling at the moment. Nobody normal smiled when diabolic winds had be conjured by a Shadowhunter's institute. It was unheard of. But then again, Jem was anything but normal.
"Xǐng lái," he whispered, in a voice so low that he wasn't sure that Tessa could even hear. Not that she even appeared to be conscious. Wake up. "This doesn't sit right in my bones," Jocelyn continued, shaking her head slowly. "Clary disappeared, and next a demon's near by? I don't know, Maryse…" "Surely the two can't be related…" Maryse attempted to say reassuringly, but she didn't sound at all comforting, rather hard. It was at that moment that the sound of racing feet, hard soles against the floorboards, could be heard, echoing down the long, empty corridors. "There you go," Jem was tempted to say to Jocelyn. "That's probably Clary with everybody else." Except that he didn't believe himself, so that that white lie would be pretty hard to pull off. Barely five seconds later, Jace and Isabelle came around the corner, both wearing traditional black gear and if looks could have killed… Jem was stabbed in the heart when he remembered the lives of the many which were merged with his, and saw the resemblance between them, and their descendants. "What–" Maryse began, but Isabelle jumped in before the question could be completed. "Demon," she said breathlessly. "Where?" Jem demanded, his grip on Tessa's hand tightening fractionally. Tessa made a vague noise, somewhat between a groan and a hiss (if that was even humanly possible), and both Jace and Isabelle's eyes flicked down to her temporarily, obviously wondering what on earth the old warlock was doing, slumped over as though she was having a heart attack. "Haven't the faintest bloody clue," Jace announced in his usual American drawl. "Ugly little fiends are too slippery for their own good." Everybody pointedly ignored him except for Maryse. "If you haven't anything useful to share," she growled, but not without her usual maternal affection, "then please choose not to open your mouth. Izzy?" "Towards the west of the gates," Isabelle said, a whole lot more useful than Jace and his silly commentary. "It was too quick to tell what type it was, it was wicked fast, haven't the faintest idea where it headed towards. But it most certainly was a demon. I'd bet my whip on it." "Clary?" Jocelyn tried, her voice lilting on the edge of hopefulness, and nobody had to respond to that for Jocelyn to know the answer. Her face crumpled, and Jem shot her a sympathetic glance. "A demon approaching the institute one day was inevitable," Jace asserted stately, his voice deadly solemn. Jem, who had been attempted to help Tessa straighten, who had been weakly battering his help away, whipping his head around to look at his former parabatai's great-great-great-grandson. Everyone else did so too, Isabelle the most disbelieving. "You know about it?" she asked dubiously, echoing what Jem thought was what everyone else was most likely thinking. Jace merely looked offended. "So you are declining, Isabelle Sophia Lightwood, that a demon would never come near our home?" "I never said that–" said an overly-defensive Isabelle, and Maryse interrupted, her tone chilly. "How did you know that a demon would come near?" she said fiercely, and Jace's whole expression paused temporarily, his intense ochre eyes brightening as though he had been offered a particularly juicy treat. "Because," he said, "I live here. Nobody, not even a demon, can resist chasing after me for my irresistible charm." "Oh, for the love of God," Jocelyn muttered, throwing her hands up in resignation. "Alright, I give up. In the name of the Herondale family, can you please give us a serious word now and then?" At the name 'Herondale', Tessa bolted upright, her face strangely alert, and Jem could almost hear her whole build protesting as she moved so swiftly, putting so much strain on her spine. "Tessa?" Jem asked quietly, noting everything about her: her steely grey eyes, too wide to be bearing a neutral expression; her face, so chalky pale that she might have been green if she were any paler; her whole face, absolutely empty and deprived of emotion. It was almost frightening. Without a word to anybody, she took off with quick, short strides, her hand still in Jem's, thus towing him after her. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the other four were looking after them with pure bewilderment in their eyes, and he responded with a look of his own: a mirror image of theirs. "Tess," he said, unsure of whether she was even listening to him through her strangely hypnotic phase. "Tessa, what's wrong?" He was almost surprised when she stopped short by the main doors. Nobody had followed them. Yet. Jem could sense the confusion mingling among the four, and could also sense that they would be pursuing the pair any second now, curious about the secrecy… "Something is out there, James," Tessa said in a low voice, her eyes glued to the floor. Jem was startled. Addressing him by his forename could only mean that something was certainly troubling her, and what troubled Tessa Gray could certainly call for no good fortune upon the rest of them. "What is it?" he tried, but Tessa merely shook her head, and she looked so small and frightened all of a sudden, causing his heart to tense. "Tessa?" And then it was as though that moment had been no more than a black cloud settling over them temporarily, for the very next second, Tessa looked up, her face no longer as pale as it had been. "But surely it is only a figment of my imagination," she said, though her voice could not fool Jem. It still held the cold, hard dread from before. "I shall… I shall take a look, anyway." Without another word, she removed her hand from his and took the door handle in her right hand, and Jem could still see it shaking, and wondered, not for the first time, what she was torturing herself over. "I–" he began, but then Tessa stopped quaking, and she seized the handle with more force than necessary, wrenching it open and scurrying clumsily down the steps. Torn between curiosity and alarm, he followed her out, the door falling shut behind them. Tessa was already halfway down the path, her mane of dark hair waving behind her as she went. Jem followed pointlessly, and heard the door open once again behind him, hearing Jace say, "By the Angel, is she making a break for it?" which sounded exactly like something that Will might have said under the same circumstances. "James–" Jocelyn called after him, but Jem refused to look around, keeping his eyes trained on Tessa who was now prying at the gates feverishly, finally managing to pull herself through. It was almost as though he was frightened that if he took his eyes off her for one second, she would be stolen away from him, just as all of the other lives that had been united with his long ago had been. Even from where he was, chasing her down to the street, Jem could tell that Tessa had gone rigid all over once again, from the stiffness of her back to her lack of movement. When he reached the gate, who opened if far more swiftly than Tessa had done, and came over to stand by her side, hunting with his eyes for whatever it was that had glued her to the spot. He had no idea that it would be him to be claimed by the past this time.(^0^) (^0^)
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Her knees felt weak as she stared, unable to stop staring. It wasn't fundamentally possible for there to be two. Yet there were two. Bright as day. Tessa could sense when Jem came and stood by her side, and heard when he sucked in a short, shallow breath, before freezing all over. As though time itself had stopped. The world slowed down, and Tessa suddenly became completely aware of everything and everyone, what was happening, what everybody was doing, how the whole human race was linked together. And it all revolved around that tiny piece of jewellery. The clockwork angel. Suddenly, running away and never returning seemed like a completely sensible idea. Why couldn't she, though? It was as they she was chained to the moment and all the hell that broke loose in her head; her thoughts ran awry, and all of the memories that she had stored away suddenly came barrelling back out, slapping her directly in the face. Hard. The Dark Sisters; her brother, his death; Charlotte and her kindness; Henry and his bizarreness; Jessamine and her curt comments about the angel being worthless compared to jewels; Mortmain, scarring her for life; Sophie; Cecily; Gabriel; Gideon. Will. All of the people who she had come to trust, to believe in. And the others. The ones who had come to pass, years finally claiming them as they hadn't her. Magnus, her oldest and most trusted counselor; Jem. The ones who were still with her. They all came rolling into her head at once, becoming a muddled mess, and she was only vaguely aware of what was happening, because suddenly she couldn't support herself, and she fell to her knees, jack-knifing on the ground, the other clockwork angel lying in front of her as though it was her master, and Tessa was bowing before it. Her body wracked with dry sobs, horror from all of her past years finally chasing her down. Nobody approached her. Nobody tried to help her. She remained in her own little bubble of remorse, and for once in her entire life, she was not willing to leave it.
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Oh joy. That chapter was hilariously long to write, because I kept on being interrupted, losing track of what I was doing… ugh. I hope it was fine, and… yup. Some Jem POV should have done you people some good, because it certainly did me. ~Black Cat Widow~