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"I am not able to bear Marks, but I once lived among Shadowhunters--I was a Shadowhunter's wife, and my children were Shadowhunters. I was witness to much that no other Downworlder ever saw, and now I am almost the only person alive who recalls the truth behind the stories mundanes made up to explain away the times their world brushed ours. I am many things. One is a living record of Shadowhunter history. Here is one story you may have heard of--Jack the Ripper. What can you tell me about that name?"
Simon was ready for this one. He'd read From Hell six times. He'd been waiting all his life for someone to ask him an Alan Moore question. His hand shot up.
"He was a murderer," Simon burst out. "He killed prostitutes in London in the late 1800s. He was probably Queen Victoria's doctor, and the whole thing was a royal cover-up to hide the fact that the prince had had an illegitimate child."
Tessa smiled at him. "You are right that Jack the Ripper is the name given to a murderer--or at least, to a series of murders. What you refer to is the royal conspiracy, which has been disproven. I believe it is also the plot of a graphic novel and film called From Hell."
Simon's love life was complicated, but there was a pang, just for a moment, for this woman talking graphic novels with him. Ah, well. Tessa Gray, foxy nerd, was probably dating someone already.
"I will give you the simple facts," Tessa said. "Once, I was not called Tessa Gray but Tessa Herondale. In that time, in 1888, in East London, there was a string of terrible murders . . ."
London, October 1888
"It's not appropriate," Tessa said to her husband, Will.
"He likes it."
"Children like all sorts of things, Will. They like sweets and fire and trying to stick their head up the chimney. Just because he likes the dagger . . ."
"Look how steadily he holds it."
Little James Herondale, age two, was in fact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion, sending out a burst of feathers.
"Ducks," he said, pointing at the feathers.
Tessa swiftly removed the dagger from his tiny hand and replaced it with a wooden spoon. James had recently become very attached to this wooden spoon and carried it with him everywhere, often refusing to go to sleep without it.
"Spoon," James said, tottering off across the parlor.
"Where did he find the dagger?" Tessa asked.
"It's possible I took him to the weapons room," Will said.
"Is it?"
"It is, yes. It's possible."
"And it's possible he somehow got a dagger from where it is secured on the wall, out of his reach," Tessa said.
"We live in a world of possibilities," Will said.
Tessa fixed a gray-eyed stare on her husband.
"He was never out of my sight," Will said quickly.
"If you could manage it," Tessa said, nodding to the sleeping figure of Lucie Herondale in her little basket by the fire, "perhaps you won't give Lucie a broadsword until she's actually able to stand? Or is that asking too much?"
"It seems a reasonable request," Will said, with an extravagant bow. "Anything for you, my pearl beyond price. Even withholding weaponry from my only daughter."
Will knelt down, and James ran to him to show off his spoon. Will admired the spoon as if it were a first edition, his scarred hand large and gentle against James's tiny back.
"Spoon," James said proudly.
"I see, Jamie bach," murmured Will, who Tessa had caught singing Welsh lullabies to the children on their most sleepless nights. To his children, Will showed the same love he had always shown to her, fierce and unyielding. And the same protectiveness he had only ever showed to one other person: the person James had been named after. Will's parabatai, Jem.
"Uncle Jem would be so impressed," she told Jamie with a smile. It was what she and Will called James Carstairs around their children, though between the two of them he was just Jem, and in public he was Brother Zachariah, a feared and respected Silent Brother.
"Jem," echoed James, quite clearly, and her smile grew. Will and James both tilted up their heads as one to look at her, their storm-cloud-black hair framing their faces. Jamie's was small and round, baby fat obscuring the bones and angles of a face that would one day be as like Will's as his hair. Two pairs of eyes, one darkly brilliant blue and one celestial gold, looked up at her with absolute trust and more than a little mischief. Her boys.
The long, long London summer days that Tessa was still getting used to, even after several years, were now starting to shorten rather rapidly. No more sunlight at ten at night--now the night was gathering at six, and the fog was heavy, and faintly yellow, and it pressed against the windows. Bridget had drawn the curtains, and the rooms were dim but cozy.
It was a strange thing, being a Shadowhunter and a parent. She and Will had been living lives that constantly involved danger, and then suddenly, two very small children had joined them. Yes, they were two very small children who occasionally got hold of daggers and would one day start training to become warriors--if they wished to do so. But now they were simply two very small children. Little James, wobbling around the Institute with his spoon. Little Lucie napping in her cradle or basket or in one of many pairs of willing arms.
These days Will was, Tessa was glad to note, a bit more careful about taking risks. (Usually. She would really have to make sure there were no more daggers for the children.) Bridget could usually keep the children well in hand, but Tessa and Will liked to be at home as much as they could. Cecily and Gabriel's little Anna was a year older than James, and had already blazed her way through the Institute. She sometimes made attempts to go for walks on her own in London, but was always blocked by Auntie Jessamine, who stood guard by the door. Whether or not Anna knew that Auntie Jessamine was a ghost was unclear. She was simply the loving, ethereal force by the doorway who shooed her back inside and told her to stop taking her father's hats.
It was a good life. There was a feeling of safety about it that reminded Tessa of a more peaceful time, back when she was in New York, back before she knew all the truths about herself and the world she lived in. Sometimes, when she sat with her
children by the fire, it all felt so . . . normal. Like there were no demons, no creatures in the night.
She allowed herself these moments.
"What are we having this evening?" Will asked, tucking the dagger into a drawer. "It smells a bit like lamb stew."
Before Tessa could answer, she heard the door open and Gabriel Lightwood came hurrying in, the smell of the cold fog trailing in his wake. He didn't bother to remove his coat. From the way he was walking and the look on his face, Tessa could tell that this little moment of domestic tranquility was over.
"Something wrong?" Will asked.
"This," Gabriel said. He held up a broadsheet newspaper called the Star. "It's awful."
"I agree," Will said. "Those halfpenny rags are terrible. But you seem to be more upset about them than is appropriate."
"They may be halfpenny rags, but listen to this."
He stepped under a gaslight, unfolded the paper, and snapped it once to straighten it.
"The terror of Whitechapel," he read.
"Oh," Will said. "That."
Everyone in London knew about the terror in Whitechapel. The murders had been extraordinarily horrible. News of the killings now filled every paper.
". . . has walked again, and this time has marked down two victims, one hacked and disfigured beyond discovery, the other with her throat cut and torn. Again he has got away clear; and again the police, with wonderful frankness, confess that they have not a clue. They are waiting for a seventh and an eighth murder, just as they waited for a fifth, to help them to it. Meanwhile, Whitechapel is half mad with fear. The people are afraid even to talk with a stranger. Notwithstanding the repeated proofs that the murderer has but one aim, and seeks but one class in the community, the spirit of terror has got fairly abroad, and no one knows what steps a practically defenceless community may take to protect itself or avenge itself on any luckless wight who may be taken for the enemy. It is the duty of journalists to keep their heads cool, and not inflame men's passions when what is wanted is cool temper and clear thinking; and we shall try and write calmly about this new atrocity."
"Very lurid," said Will. "But the East End is a violent place for mundanes."
