Clockwork Prince Read Free

Robert Burns, and Shakespeare —”
    “He isn’t really buried here,” said Jem quickly. “It’s just a monument. Like Milton’s.”
    “Oh, I know, but—” She looked at him, and felt herself flush. “I can’t explain it. It’s like being among friends, being among these names. Silly, I know . . .”
    “Not silly at all.”
    She smiled at him. “How did you know just what I’d want to see?”
    “How could I not?” he said. “When I think of you, and you are not there, I see you in my mind’s eye always with a book in your hand.” He looked away from her as he said it, but not before she caught the slight flush on his cheekbones. He was so pale, he could never hide even the least blush, she thought—and was surprised how affectionate the thought was.
    She had become very fond of Jem over the past fortnight; Will had been studiously avoiding her, Charlotte and Henry were caught up in issues of Clave and Council and the running of the Institute—and even Jessamine seemed preoccupied. But Jem was always there. He seemed to take his role as her guide to London seriously. They had been to Hyde Park and Kew Gardens, the National Gallery and the British Museum, the Tower of London and Traitors’ Gate. They had gone to see the cows being milked in St. James’s Park, and the fruit and vegetable sellers hawking their wares in Covent Garden. They had watched the boats sailing on the sun-sparked Thames from the Embankment, and had eaten things called “doorstops,” which sounded horrible but turned out to be butter, sugar, and bread. And as the days went on, Tessa felt herself unfolding slowly out of her quiet, huddled unhappiness over Nate and Will and the loss of her old life, like a flower climbing out of frozen ground. She had even found herself laughing. And she had Jem to thank for it.
    “You are a good friend,” she exclaimed. And when to her surprise he said nothing to that, she said, “At least, I hope we are good friends. You do think so too, don’t you, Jem?”
    He turned to look at her, but before he could reply, a sepulchral voice spoke out of the shadows,
    “‘Mortality, behold and fear!
    What a change of flesh is here:
    Think how many royal bones
    Sleep within these heaps of stones.’”
     
    A dark shape stepped out from between two monuments. As Tessa blinked in surprise, Jem said, in a tone of resigned amusement, “Will. Decided to grace us with your presence after all?”
    “I never said I wasn’t coming.” Will moved forward, and the light from the rose windows fell on him, illuminating his face. Even now, Tessa never could look at him without a tightening in her chest, a painful stutter of her heart. Black hair, blue eyes, graceful cheekbones, thick dark lashes, full mouth—he would have been pretty if he had not been so tall and so muscular. She had run her hands over those arms. She knew what they felt like—iron, corded with hard muscles; his hands, when they cupped the back of her head, slim and flexible but rough with calluses . . .
    She tore her mind away from the memories. Memories did one no good, not when one knew the truth in the present. Will was beautiful, but he was not hers; he was not anybody’s. Something in him was broken, and through that break spilled a blind cruelty, a need to hurt and to push away.
    “You’re late for the Council meeting,” said Jem good-naturedly. He was the only one Will’s puckish malice never seemed to touch.
    “I had an errand,” said Will. Up close Tessa could see that he looked tired. His eyes were rimmed with red, the shadows beneath them nearly purple. His clothes looked crumpled, as if he had slept in them, and his hair wanted cutting. But that has nothing to do with you, she told herself sternly, looking away from the soft dark waves that curled around his ears, the back of his neck. It does not matter what you think of how he looks or how he chooses to spend his time. He has made that very clear. “And you are not exactly