Clockwork Princess

Tatiana’s reluctant footsteps on the gravel behind her.
    They were moving away from the house, toward the formal gardens half-hidden behind their high hedges. In the distance sunlight sparked off a wood-and-glass greenhouse with a cupola on the roof. It was a fine autumn day: There was a brisk wind, the smell of leaves in the air. Tessa heard a rustle and glanced at the house behind her. Its smooth white facade rose high, broken only by the arches of balconies.
    “Will,” she whispered as he reached up and unlocked her hands from around his neck. He drew her gloves off, and they joined her mask and Jessie’s pins on the stone floor of the balcony. He pulled off his own mask next and cast it aside, running his hands through his damp black hair, pushing it back from his forehead. The lower edge of the mask had left marks across his high cheekbones, like light scars, but when she reached to touch them, he gently caught at her hands and pressed them down
.
    “No,” he said. “Let me touch you first. I have wanted …”
    Blushing furiously, Tessa pulled her gaze away from the house and the memories it contained. The group had reached a gap in the hedges on their right. Through it what was clearly “the Italian garden” was visible, ringed round by foliage. Within the circle the garden was lined with rows of statuary depicting classical heroes and figures of myth. Venus poured water from an urn in a central fountain, while statues of great historians and statesmen—Caesar, Herodotus, Thucydides—regarded each other with blank eyes across the walkways that radiated out from the central point. There were also poets and playwrights. Tessa, hurrying along, passed Aristotle, Ovid, Homer—his eyes bound with a stone mask to indicate his blindness—Virgil and Sophocles, before an earsplitting scream rent the air.
    She whirled around. Several feet behind her Tatiana was standing stock-still, her eyes bulging out of her head. Tessa dashed back toward her, the others on her heels; she reached the girl first, and Tatiana caught at her blindly, as if forgetting for the moment who Tessa was. “Rupert,” Tatiana moaned, staring ahead of her, and Tessa, following her gaze, saw a man’s boot protruding from behind a hedge. She thought for a moment that he must have been lying stunned upon the ground, the rest of his body hidden by foliage, but as she leaned forward, she realized that the boot—and the several inches of gnawed-upon, bloody flesh that protruded from the boot’s opening—were all there was to see.
    “A forty-foot worm?” Will muttered to Jem as they moved through the Italian garden, their boots—thanks to a pair of Soundless runes—making no noise on the gravel. “Think of the size of the fish we could catch.”
    Jem’s lips twitched. “It’s not funny, you know.”
    “It is a bit.”
    “You cannot reduce the situation to worm jokes, Will. This is Gabriel and Gideon’s father we’re discussing.”
    “We’re not just discussing him; we’re chasing him through an ornamental sculpture garden because he’s turned into a
worm
.”
    “A demonic worm,” said Jem, pausing to peer cautiously around a hedgerow. “A great serpent. Would that help your inappropriate humor?”
    “There was a time when my inappropriate humor brought you a certain amusement,” sighed Will. “How the worm has turned.”
    “Will—”
    Jem was interrupted by an earsplitting scream. Both boys spun, in time to see Tatiana Blackthorn reel backward into Tessa’s arms. Tessa caught the other girl, supporting her, as Cecily moved toward a gap in the hedges, whipping a seraph blade from her belt with the ease of a practiced Shadowhunter. Will did not hear her speak, but the blade sprang up in her hand, lighting her face and setting a sick blaze of dread alight in Will’s stomach.
    He began to run, Jem at his heels. Tatiana was sagging limply in Tessa’s arms, her face starkly twisted into a wail. “Rupert!
Rupert!
” Tessa was struggling with the other girl’s weight, and Will wanted to pause to help her—but Jem already had, his hand on Tessa’s arm, and it was reasonable. It was his place, as her fiancé.
    Will savagely yanked his attention away, back to his sister, who was moving between the gap in the hedges, her blade held high as she edged around the grisly remains of Rupert Blackthorn.
    “Cecily!”
Will called in exasperation. She began to turn—
    And the world exploded. A fountain of dirt and mud