Read Online The Infernal Devices 01 - Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare - Free Book Online

tattoos! Her marks were like the ones Will bore: visible on her wrists below the tight cuffs of her dress, with one like an eye on the back of her left hand. “Second, let me tell you what I already know about you, Theresa Gray.” She spoke in the same calm tone she’d had before, but her eyes, though still kind, were sharp as pins. “You’re American. You came here from New York City becauseyou were following your brother, who had sent you a steamship ticket. His name is Nathaniel.”
    Tessa sat frozen. “How do you know all this?”
    “I know that Will found you in the Dark Sisters’ house,” Charlotte said. “I know that you claimed someone named the Magister was coming for you. I know that you have no idea who the Magister is. And I know that in a battle with the Dark Sisters, you were rendered unconscious and brought here.”
    Charlotte’s words were like a key unlocking a door. Suddenly Tessa remembered. Remembered running with Will down the corridor; remembered the metal doors and the room full of blood on the other side; remembered Mrs. Black, her head severed; remembered Will flinging his knife—
    “Mrs. Black,” she whispered.
    “Dead,” said Charlotte. “Very.” She settled her shoulders against the back of the chair; she was so slight that the chair rose up high above her, as if she were a child sitting in a parent’s chair.
    “And Mrs. Dark?”
    “Gone. We searched the whole house, and the nearby area, but found no trace of her.”
    “The whole house?” Tessa’s voice shook, very slightly. “And there was no one in it? No one else alive, or … or dead?”
    “We did not find your brother, Miss Gray,” Charlotte said. Her tone was gentle. “Not in the house, nor in any of the surrounding buildings.”
    “You—were looking for him?” Tessa was bewildered.
    “We did not find him,” Charlotte said again. “But we did find your letters.”
    “My letters?”
    “The letters you wrote to your brother and never sent,” said Charlotte. “Folded under your mattress.”
    “You
read
them?”
    “We had to read them,” said Charlotte in the same gentle tone. “I apologize for that. It is not often that we bring a Downworlder into the Institute, or anyone who is not a Shadowhunter. It represents a great risk to us. We had to know that you were not a danger.”
    Tessa turned her head to the side. There was something horribly violating about this stranger having read her inmost thoughts, all the dreams and hopes and fears she’d poured forth, not thinking anyone would ever see them. The backs of her eyes stung; tears were threatening, and she willed them back, furious with herself, with everything.
    “You’re trying not to cry,” Charlotte said. “I know that when I do that myself, it sometimes helps to look at a bright light directly. Try the witchlight.”
    Tessa moved her gaze to the stone in Charlotte’s hand and gazed at it fixedly. The glow of it swelled up in front of her eyes like an expanding sun. “So,” she said, fighting past the tightness in her throat, “you have decided I am not a danger, then?”
    “Perhaps only to yourself,” said Charlotte. “A power such as yours, the power of shape-shifting—it is no wonder the Dark Sisters wanted to get their hands on you. Others will as well.”
    “Like you do?” Tessa said. “Or are you going to pretend that you’ve let me into your precious Institute simply out of charity?”
    A look of hurt flashed across Charlotte’s face. It was brief, but it was real, and it did more to convince Tessa that she might have been wrong about Charlotte than anything theother woman could have said. “It is not charity,” she said. “It is my vocation. Our vocation.”
    Tessa simply looked at her blankly.
    “Perhaps,” Charlotte said, “it would be better if I explained to you what we are—and what we do.”
    “
Nephilim,
” said Tessa. “That’s what the Dark Sisters called Mr. Herondale.” She pointed at the dark markings