Page 5 of Better in Black
Tessa blushed. “I was speaking of what happened in the reading room. The séance. Madame Dorothea, and what she said about—about Ella.”
There was a short silence. Will said, “It is strange, isn’t it, that we were speaking of this just the other evening? You asked me if Ella had ever haunted me, and I said that I was comforted by the fact that she had not. That it meant she was at peace.”
“Yes—”
“But what if she is not at peace, Tess? Perhaps she is not a ghost, and thus I have never seen her, but what if she is trapped in some strange in-between place, neither life nor death? A sort of purgatory?”
Tessa knelt down and took Will’s hands. “It is as that warlock saidwhen we left the reading room. That medium was afraud.You are well known throughout the Shadowhunter world, Will, and that means in Downworld too. She knew who you were and tried to use pieces of your history to hurt you.”
Will didn’t move. “I can believe she would know who I was. Even who Ella was. But how would she know about the crowberries we used to pick? The stables in Dolgellau? I never spoke of those small things, not even to Jem, or to you.”
“Then there is some other explanation. But believe me, Will—thereissome other explanation.”
He brushed his dark gaze over her softly. “Perhaps,” he said. “But what could it be?”
—
Tessa fell asleep that night waiting for Will to come to bed. She meant to stay awake, to wait for him, but she had barely slept the night before. She could feel her eyelids drifting shut even as she listened to him pacing back and forth in the other room.
Will,she thought, curling around her pillow.Come to bed. Let me comfort you.
But what could she even say to him? Tessa thought. That she loved him, of course, but this was a pain that belonged to an old wound, the loss of his sister. That she might be somewhere in pain, suffering, adrift where he could not reach her—the idea would be torture to him. She understood why he could not see around it or past it to the good things in his life. And he had only just begun to recover from losing Jem…
Tessa’s eyes closed.But what if he cannot recover from this? At least he knows Jem is not suffering, but Ella…What if Will is never happy again?
The thought was so terrible, it struck her like a weight, sendingher down into the darkness of sleep, as if her consciousness could not bear the pain of it. So she did not hear Will, in the other room, as he stopped his pacing, or hear the sound of breaking glass, or see the green light that blazed momentarily beneath the bedroom door…
—
When Tessa awoke in the morning, there was sunlight streaming through the windows, and she was alone in bed. Without Will.
She sat up, a little groggy. She had not plaited her hair before bed, and it spilled down over her shoulders and back in tangles. Not that her hair mattered at the moment; only Will mattered. He must have fallen asleep in the other room, she thought, starting to push her covers back, or perhaps he had not slept at all—
With a gasp of surprise, she froze. Will was seated in an armchair by the nightstand—he must have brought it in from the other room—fully dressed, and gazing at her with a calm, quizzical expression.
“Will.” Tessa put her hand to her heart. “You nearly gave me a fit.”
Will tilted his head to the side. His gaze roved over her: frank, curious, exploring. It made Tessa want to blush, which was ridiculous. This was her husband, after all.
“If I may ask an impertinent question,” he said, “who exactly are you?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Tessa reached up to brush her hair back. The tangles were getting in her eyes. “Will. Don’t be silly.” She paused, feeling a spark of optimism. A Will who was being silly was surely a Will who was not in despair. She smiled at him hopefully, scooting back on the mattress to make room. “Come to bed,”she said, wishing she had worn something prettier to sleep in than her plain white nightgown.
The familiar spark lit in his eyes, the one that seemed to deepen them to sapphire. “Believe me, I would like to,” he said, his gaze slipping over her again. “But alas, I do have morals. Terribly awkward things, morals. I feel I should at least know your name, since you know mine.”
“Will—”
“That is me,” he said agreeably. “And you are…?”
“Will, this isn’t funny.”
“It isn’t a joke,” he said. “I came into the bedroom, and there you were in the bed. I looked out the window and I realized I was in Paris.” He looked honestly puzzled. “Which is not where I live. I really have to wonder what I got up to last night. I was hoping you would know.”
Tessa’s heart had begun to beat ominously hard in her chest. “What’s the last thing you recall?”
“To be truthful, all I remember is a sense of great melancholy. Something was on my mind, but I don’t know what.” He rose to his feet, running a hand through his tumbled dark hair. “I suppose perhaps I was feeling so morbid I hopped a train to Paris, but I must admit, I don’t know why I’d have done that. And if I’d left the Institute…”
He broke off, looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. His hand went almost automatically to the side of his throat, where his memory rune was printed starkly against his skin.
