"I offered Richard membership in the club—even took him to a meeting or two—but he was uninterested. Shortly after that he moved his family to America." Mortmain spread his hands wide. "The Pandemonium Club is not for everyone. Traveling widely as I have, I heard stories of similar organizations in many cities, groups of men who know of the Shadow World and wish to share their knowledge and advantages, but one pays the heavy price of secrecy for membership."
"One pays a heavier price than that."
"It isn't an evil organization," Mortmain said. He sounded almost wounded. "There were many great advancements, many great inventions. I saw a warlock create a silver ring that could transport the wearer to another location whenever he twisted one around his finger. Or a doorway that could bring you anywhere in the world you wanted to go. I've seen men brought back from the brink of death—"
"I'm aware of magic and what it can do, Mr. Mortmain." Charlotte glanced at Henry, who was examining a blueprint for some sort of mechanical gadget, mounted on a wall. "There is one question that concerns me. The warlocks who appear to have kidnapped Mr. Gray are somehow associated with the club. I have always heard it called a club for mundanes. Why would there be Downworlders in it?"
Mortmain's forehead creased. "Downworlders? You mean the supernatural folk—warlocks and lycanthropes and the like? There are levels and levels of membership, Mrs. Branwell. A mundane such as myself can become a member of the club. But the chairmen—those who run the enterprise—they are Downworlders. Warlocks, lycanthropes, and vampires. The Fair Folk shun us, though. Too many captains of industry—railroads, factories, and the like—for them. They hate such things." He shook his head. "Lovely creatures, faeries, but I do fear progress will be the death of them."
Charlotte was uninterested in Mortmain's thoughts on faeries; her mind was whirling. "Let me guess. You introduced Nathaniel Gray to the club, exactly as you had introduced his father."
Mortmain, who had seemed to be regaining a bit of his old confidence, wilted again. "Nathaniel had worked in my office in London for only a few days before he confronted me. I gathered he had learned of his father's experience at the club, and it had given him a fierce desire to know more. I couldn't refuse. I brought him to a meeting and thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn't." He shook his head. "Nathaniel took to the club like a duck to water. A few weeks after that first meeting, he was gone from his lodging house. He sent a letter for me, terminating his employment and saying he was going to work for another Pandemonium Club member, someone who apparently was willing to pay him enough to sustain his gambling habits." He sighed. "Needless to say, he left no forwarding address."
"And that's all?" Charlotte's voice rose in disbelief. "You didn't try to look for him? Find out where he had gone? Who his new employer was?"
"A man can take employment where he likes," Mortmain said, blustering. "There was no reason to think—"
"And you haven't seen him since?"
"No. I told you—"
Charlotte cut him off. "You say he took to the Pandemonium Club like a duck to water, yet you haven't seen him at a single meeting since he left your employment?"
A look of panic flickered in Mortmain's eyes. "I ... I have not been to a meeting since then myself. Work has kept me extremely busy."
Charlotte looked hard at Axel Mortmain across his massive desk. She was a good judge of character, she had always thought. It wasn't as if she hadn't come across men like Mortmain before. Bluff, genial, confident men, men who believed that their success in business or some other worldly pursuit meant that they would have the same success should they choose to pursue the magical arts. She thought of the barrister again, the walls of his Knightsbridge house painted scarlet with the blood of his family. She thought what his terror might have been like, in those last moments of his life. She could see the beginnings of a similar fear in Axel Mortmain's eyes.
"Mr. Mortmain," she said, "I am not a fool. I know there is something you are concealing from me." She took from her reticule one of the cogs that Will had retrieved from the Dark Sisters' house, and set it on the desk. "This looks like something your factories might produce."
With a distracted look Mortmain glanced down at the small piece of metal on his desk. "Yes—yes, that's one of my cogs. What of it?"
"Two warlocks calling themselves the Dark Sisters—both members of the Pandemonium Club—they've been murdering humans. Young girls. Barely more than children. And we found this in the cellar of their home."
"I've nothing to do with any murders!" Mortmain exclaimed. "I never—I thought—" He had begun to sweat.
"What did you think?" Charlotte's voice was soft.
Mortmain picked up the cog in shaking fingers. "You can't imagine ..." His voice trailed off. "A few months ago one of the club's board members—a Downworlder, and very old and powerful—came to me and asked me to sell him some mechanical equipment cheaply. Cogs and cams and the like. I didn't ask what it was for—why would I? There seemed nothing remarkable about the request."
"By any chance," Charlotte said, "was this the same man whose employment Nathaniel joined after he left yours?"
Mortmain dropped the cog. As it rolled across the table, he slammed his hand down on top of it, halting its progress. Though he said nothing, Charlotte could tell by the flicker of fear in his eyes that her guess was correct. A tingle of triumph ran through her nerves.
"His name," she said. "Tell me his name."
Mortmain was staring at the desk. "It would be worth my life to tell you."
"What about Nathaniel Gray's life?" said Charlotte.
Without meeting her eyes Mortmain shook his head. "You've no idea how powerful this man is. How dangerous."
Charlotte straightened up. "Henry," she said. "Henry, bring me the Summoner."
Henry turned away from the wall and blinked at her in confusion. "But, darling—"
"Bring me the device!" Charlotte snapped. She loathed snapping at Henry; it was like kicking a puppy. But sometimes it had to be done.
The look of confusion didn't leave Henry's face as he joined his wife before Mortmain's desk, and drew something from his jacket pocket. It was a dark metal oblong, with a series of peculiar-looking dials across the face of it. Charlotte took it and brandished it at Mortmain.
"This is a Summoner," she told him. "It will allow me to summon the Clave. Inside of three minutes they will surround your house. Nephilim will drag you from this room, screaming and kicking. They will perform upon you the most exquisite tortures until you are forced to speak. Do you know what happens to a man when demon blood is dripped into his eyes?"
Mortmain gave her a ghastly look, but said nothing.
"Please don't test me, Mr. Mortmain." The device in Charlotte's hand was slippery with sweat, but her voice was even. "I would hate to watch you die."
"Good Lord, man, tell her!" Henry burst out. "Really, there's no need for this, Mr. Mortmain. You're only making it harder on yourself."
Mortmain covered his face with his hands. He had always wanted to meet real Shadowhunters, Charlotte thought, looking at him. And now he had.
"De Quincey," he said. "I don't know his first name. Just de Quincey."
By the Angel. Charlotte exhaled slowly, lowering the device to her side. "De Quincey? It can't be ..."
"You know who he is?" Mortmain's voice was dull. "Well, I suppose you would."
"He's the head of a powerful London vampire clan," Charlotte said almost reluctantly, "a very influential Downworlder, and an ally of the Clave. I can't imagine that he would—"
"He's the head of the club," said Mortmain. He looked exhausted, and a little gray. "Everyone else answers to him."
"The head of the club. Has he a title?"
Mortmain looked faintly surprised to be asked. "The Magister."
With a hand that shook only slightly, Charlotte slipped the device she had been holding into her sleeve. "Thank you, Mr. Mortmain. You've been most helpful."
Mo
rtmain looked at her with a sort of drained resentment. "De Quincey will find out that I've told you. He'll have me killed."
"The Clave will see that he does not. And we will keep your name out of this. He shall never know you spoke to us."
"You would do that?" Mortmain said softly. "For what was it—a foolish mundane?"
"I have hopes for you, Mr. Mortmain. You seem to have realized your own folly. The Clave will be watching you—not only for your own protection, but to see that you stay away from the Pandemonium Club and organizations like it. For your own sake, I hope you will regard our meeting as a warning."
Mortmain nodded. Charlotte moved to the door, Henry behind her; she already had it open and was standing on the threshold when Mortmain spoke again. "They were only cogs," he said softly. "Only gears. Harmless."
It was Henry, to Charlotte's surprise, who replied, without turning, "Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them."
Mortmain was silent as the two Shadowhunters left the room. A few moments later they were out in the square, breathing fresh air—as fresh as the air of London ever was. It might be thick with coal smoke and dust, Charlotte thought, but at least it was free of the fear and desperation that had hung like a haze in Mortmain's study.
Drawing the device from her sleeve, Charlotte offered it to her husband. "I suppose I ought to ask you," she said as he received it with a grave expression, "what is that object, Henry?"
"Something I've been working on." Henry looked at it fondly. "A device that can sense demon energies. I was going to call it a Sensor. I haven't got it working yet, but when I do!"
"I'm sure it will be splendid."
Henry transferred his fond expression from the device to his wife, a rare occurrence. "What pure genius, Charlotte. Pretending you could summon the Clave on the spot, just to frighten that man! But how did you know I'd have a device you could put to your uses?"
"Well, you did, darling," said Charlotte. "Didn't you?"
Henry looked sheepish. "You are as terrifying as you are wonderful, my dear."
"Thank you, Henry."
The ride back to the Institute was a silent one; Jessamine stared out the window of the cab at the snarling London traffic and refused to say a word. She held her parasol across her lap, seemingly indifferent to the fact that the blood on its edges was staining her taffeta jacket. When they reached the churchyard, she let Thomas help her down from the carriage before reaching to grip Tessa's hand.
Surprised at the contact, Tessa could only stare. Jessamine's fingers in hers were icy. "Come along," Jessamine snapped impatiently, and pulled her companion toward the Institute doors, leaving Thomas staring after them.
Tessa let the other girl draw her up the stairs, into the Institute proper, and down a long corridor, this one almost identical to the one outside Tessa's bedroom. Jessamine located a door, pushed Tessa through it, and followed, shutting the door behind them. "I want to show you something," she said.
Tessa looked around. It was another of the large bedrooms of which the Institute seemed to have an infinite number. Jessamine's, though, had been decorated somewhat to her taste. Above the wooden wainscoting the walls were papered in rose silk, and the coverlet on the bed was printed with flowers. There was a white vanity table too, its surface covered with an expensive-looking dressing table set: a ring stand, a bottle of flower water, and a silver-backed hairbrush and mirror.
"Your room is lovely," Tessa said, more in hopes of calming Jessamine's evident hysteria than because she meant it.
"It's much too small," Jessamine said. "But come—over here." And flinging the bloodied parasol down onto her bed, she marched across the room to a corner by the window. Tessa followed with some puzzlement. There was nothing in the corner but a high table, and on the table was a dollhouse. Not the sort of two-room cardboard Dolly's Playhouse that Tessa had had as a child. This was a beautiful miniature reproduction of a real London town house, and when Jessamine touched it, Tessa saw that the front of it swung open on tiny hinges.
Tessa caught her breath. There were beautiful tiny rooms perfectly decorated with miniature furniture, everything built to scale, from the little wooden chairs with needlepoint cushions to the cast-iron stove in the kitchen. There were small dolls, too, with china heads, and real little oil paintings on the walls.
"This was my house." Jessamine knelt down, bringing herself to eye level with the dollhouse rooms, and gestured for Tessa to do the same.
Awkwardly, Tessa did, trying not to kneel on Jessamine's skirts. "You mean this was the dollhouse you had when you were a little girl?"
"No." Jessamine sounded irritated. "This was my house. My father had this made for me when I was six. It's modeled exactly on the house we lived in, on Curzon Street. This was the wallpaper we had in the dining room"—she pointed—"and those are exactly the chairs in my father's study. You see?"
She looked at Tessa intently, so intently that Tessa felt sure she was supposed to be seeing something here, something beyond an extremely expensive toy that Jessamine should have long ago grown out of. She simply didn't know what that could be. "It's very pretty," she said finally.
"See, here in the parlor is Mama," said Jessamine, touching one of the tiny dolls with her finger. The doll wobbled in its plush armchair. "And here in the study, reading a book, is Papa." Her hand glided over the little porcelain figure. "And upstairs in the nursery is Baby Jessie." Inside the little crib there was indeed another doll, only its head visible above tiny coverlets. "Later they'll have dinner here, in the dining room. And then Mama and Papa will sit in the drawing room by the fire. Some nights they go to the theater, or to a ball or a dinner." Her voice had grown hushed, as if she were reciting a well-remembered litany. "And then Mama will kiss Papa good night, and they will go to their rooms, and they will sleep all night long. There will be no calls from the Clave that drive them out in the middle of the night to fight demons in the dark. There will be no one tracking blood into the house. No one will lose an arm or an eye to a werewolf, or have to choke down holy water because a vampire attacked them."
Dear God, Tessa thought.
As if Jessamine could read Tessa's mind, her face twisted. "When our house burned, I had nowhere else to go. It wasn't as if there were relations that could take me in; all of Mama and Papa's relations were Shadowhunters and hadn't spoken to them since they'd broken with the Clave. Henry is the one who made me that parasol. Did you know that? I thought it was quite pretty until he told me that the fabric is edged with electrum, as sharp as a razor. It was always meant to be a weapon."
"You saved us," Tessa said. "In the park today. I can't fight at all. If you hadn't done what you did—"
"I shouldn't have done it." Jessamine stared into the dollhouse with empty eyes. "I will not have this life, Tessa. I will not have it. I don't care what I have to do. I won't live like this. I'd rather die."
Alarmed, Tessa was about to tell her not to talk like that, when the door opened behind them. It was Sophie, in her white cap and neat dark dress. Her eyes, when they rested on Jessamine, were wary. She said, "Miss Tessa, Mr. Branwell very much wants to see you in his study. He says it's important."
Tessa turned to Jessamine to ask her if she would be all right, but Jessamine's face had closed like a door. The vulnerability and anger were gone; the cold mask was back. "Go along, then, if Henry wants you," she said. "I'm quite tired of you already, and I think I'm getting a headache. Sophie, when you return, I'll need you to massage my temples with eau de cologne."
Sophie's eyes met Tessa's across the room with something like amusement. "As you like, Miss Jessamine."
7
THE CLOCKWORK GIRL
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days
Hither and thither moves, and checks and slays.
—"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,"
translated by Edward FitzGer
ald, 1859
It had grown dark outside the Institute, and Sophie's lantern cast strange dancing shadows on the walls as she led Tessa down one flight of stone stairs after another. The steps were old, concave in the centers, where generations of feet had worn them down. The walls were roughly textured stone, the tiny windows set into them at intervals giving way eventually to blankness that seemed to indicate that they had passed belowground.
"Sophie," Tessa said finally, her nerves rubbed raw by the darkness and silence, "are we going down into the church crypt, by any chance?"
Sophie chuckled, and the lights of the lantern flickered on the walls. "It used to be the crypt, before Mr. Branwell had it fixed up into a laboratory for himself. He's always down there, tinkering with his toys and his experiments. It doesn't half drive Mrs. Branwell wild."
"What's he making?" Tessa nearly tripped over an uneven stair, and had to grab for the wall to right herself. Sophie didn't appear to notice.
"All sorts of things," Sophie said, her voice echoing strangely off the walls. "Inventing new weapons, protective gear for the Shadowhunters. He loves clockwork and mechanisms and that sort of thing. Mrs. Branwell sometimes says she thinks he'd love her better if she ticked like a clock." She laughed.
"It sounds," Tessa said, "as if you're fond of them. Mr. and Mrs. Branwell, I mean."
Sophie said nothing, but the already proud set of her back seemed to harden slightly.
"Fonder of them than you are of Will, anyway," Tessa said, hoping to soften the other girl's mood with humor.
"Him." The disgust was plain in Sophie's voice. "He's— Well, he's a bad sort, isn't he? Reminds me of the son of my last employer. He was proud just like Mr. Herondale. And whatever he wanted, he got, from the day he was born. And if he didn't get it, well ..." She reached up then, almost unconsciously, and touched the side of her face, where the scar ran from mouth to temple.
"Then what?"
But Sophie's brusque manner was back. "Then he'd be like to pitch a fit, that's all." Transferring her glowing lantern from one hand to the other, she peered down into the shadowy darkness. "Be careful here, miss. The stairs can get awfully damp and slippery toward the bottom."
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