Page 6 of Better in Black
“How,” he said, carefully, “er, well, do we know each other?”
Tessa stared at him, her mouth half-open.He froze after he mentioned the Institute. He’s worried about his rune. He’s behaving as if he thinks I don’t know about Shadowhunters.
“Very well,” she said, numbly. “Very, very well.”
Will dropped his hand. “You’d think I’d remember your name.” He closed his eyes. “I recall sorrow, and a flash of green light. A spell, perhaps?” His eyes flew open. “Did you cast a spell upon me?”
A flash of green light. The terrible suspicion that had been growing within Tessa broke over her like a wave. Her heart pounding, she swung her legs out of the bed. Her nightgown slid up, and she saw Will glance at her legs—and blush.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Tessa said, furiously, leaping to her feet. She pushed past Will into the other room, where their traveling trunk lay open, its contents scattered. She knelt down among the tumbled bits of silk and linen, pushing aside a crushed hat.
Will appeared in the doorway. “If you did cast a spell on me, you might as well tell me about it. I’m very forgiving.”
Tessa ignored this. She moved aside a glove. And there it was—the glass globe Ragnor had given them, but it was no longer full of swirling green smoke. The glass had been broken, and the remainder of the globe was empty.
She picked it up, cradling it in her hand, and a flash of what felt like memory burst behind her eyes. But it was not her memory. She saw Will, holding the globe in his hand, his eyes darkly shadowed with tired sadness. She saw him bend his head, and heard him whisper, “I wish to forget about Ella. I wish to forget the pain.”
Oh, dear God.
Tessa dropped the globe and got to her feet. Will was still leaning in the doorway, looking bemused. Everything about him so familiar. Black hair, eyes as blue as the Atlantic, the slim, well-muscled body she knew by touch—
“Take your jacket off,” she said. “And your shirt.”
His eyebrows went up. Then he smiled, that wicked Will smile. “Well,” he said. “Since you asked so nicely.”
He shrugged the jacket off, unbuttoned the shirt under it.Beneath it, he wore a white singlet, and he glanced at her inquiringly, as if to ask,Should I remove this too?
“Look at your left arm,” Tessa said. “That mark, a handspan down from your shoulder.”
He looked—and went still. “I’mmarried?” he said. He tore his eyes from his Wedded Union rune, looking at Tessa in disbelief. “When did I get married? And to who?”
“To me,” Tessa said. “I am Tessa Herondale. Your wife.”
—
When the knock upon the door came, it was already afternoon. Tessa and Will had spent an awkward day, with Will pacing restlessly around the suite of rooms, and Tessa (having gotten properly dressed, as Will said it was too distracting having a strange woman in her nightdress hanging about) alternating between being miserable on the couch and in an armchair. She had been trying to read—The Cloven Foot,by Mary Elizabeth Braddon—but, not surprisingly, found it very hard to concentrate.
She was delighted to toss the book aside and rush to the door. When she swung it open, she felt that pressure against her heart, a combination of grief and love and wonder, that she always did when she saw Jem.
Not Jem, she reminded herself. Brother Zachariah.
He stood quietly in his ivory robes, his dark hair curling against his temples, where runes of Quietude had been inscribed. More runes marked his closed eyes. His lashes lay forever still against his cheeks, individual dark lines like the feathers of a black swan’s wing.
He looked wildly out of place in the corridor of a grand hotel. Tessa rather wondered how he’d made it to their room unseen, but Silent Brothers had their ways.
She heard his voice in her mind, a silent caress.Tessa? You called upon me?
She stepped back. “Please come in,” she said. “It’s Will.”
She led him into the drawing room, where the sofas and armchairs were. Will was there, leaning against the wall near the bookcase, looking mildly curious.
“I didn’t realize you’d ordered up a Silent Brother,” he said, with slight surprise, upon seeing Zachariah. He looked harder, narrowing his eyes. “An unusual one, at that.”
He does not remember me?Zachariah’s voice was soft in Tessa’s mind. If he was distressed, it was difficult to tell.That is troubling.
“Just—wait,” Tessa said to Will, and proceeded to tell Jem all of it: Ragnor’s gift, the séance, Madame Dorothea, Ella, Will’s wish. As she spoke, Will’s expression darkened. What a strange jumble it must seem to him, Tessa thought, of the familiar and the forgotten.
“Iwished for this?” he said, when she was done, and Tessa realized that he had not even known that.
