Wessa: Will tells Tessa he loves her

The Drawing Room Incident

Note: I do not own the Infernal Devices. All Scenes, sets, characters and anything else belong to Cassandra Clare. I make no profit from this.

1879, London, England

Moments after Tessa turned Will down:

Sophie took the cold cloth off Tessa's hand and gently began to apply a salve to the burn Tessa had made on herself with the fireplace poker. "Thank you, Sophie." Tessa said, in scarcely more a whisper, barely the shell of her husky voice, she was so hoarse from crying.

That's what Tessa had been doing when Sophie found her in the drawing room. She had been a crumpled ball on the ground, skirts splayed around her, the poker lying across the room, dark red and still slightly simmering. Her burnt hand had been clutched to her chest as she sobbed, awful broken hearted sobs of someone who felt like they had nothing left to live for, and as Sophie watched, her whole body shuddered with them so violently, she feared Tessa might break.

Tessa now sat quietly, staring and the fleur- de -lis creme coloured wall, absorbed in her own rivaling emotions, like a endless war with no true victor. 'Master Will' Sophie thought. She always had the same look on her translucent face when thinking of him.

"Miss Tessa," Sophie said. "Miss Tessa!"

"Yes?" Tessa's warm brown eyes flicked up, momentarily perplexed about where she was like someone rousing from a bittersweet dream. "I know it's rude and awfully presumptuous of me asking this," Sophie started. "But what happened between you and Master Will?" Her dark and inquisitive eyes watched Tessa's face carefully.

"Will," Tessa sighed. "How did you know it is the thought of Will that is vexing me?"

"You always get that same look on your face when he's on your mind," Sophie informed her kindly. "You'd make a terrible spy, Miss Tessa. Everything you think shows on your face like it's made of glass."

"Huh, you are to wise, Sophie. But I guess that's what your name means, doesn't it? Wisdom. It's very well given," She sighed. "Yes, it was Will," She confirmed, even though Sophie already knew. "He pulled me into the drawing room- and he, ah- well, he told me not to tell anybody but I know that I can trust you, Sophie." She paused for a second and Sophie waited. Tessa looked up at her.

"Do you remember when you told me Will was like a pretty bit of poison? Well, when I first met him he saved my life, quoting Sir Galahad, none the less. He knew all about magic and everything that went with it and I thought 'Here's someone who can help me', but then he didn't seem to know anything about what I am anymore than I did, than any of you, in fact. And he loved novels and poetry the way I do, he knew exactly how to make me laugh and where to push all of my buttons. But after we returned to the institute he was so hot and cold, his moods perceptually changing. He was kind one minute then unbearably cruel the next. And the day I had to bring him holy water to burn out the vampire blood in his system from when he bit de Quincy."

Sophie thought that maybe, just maybe, she saw a ghost of a smile appear on Tessa's face at the memory. "He showed me a side of him I'd never seen before. And then shoved me away and retreated back to safety of his stone wall just as quickly as he had come out. The same thing happened on the roof after I found out I could stay at the institute, except he was more cruel though, that time. So I tried to hate him, I really did. Sometimes I even convinced myself that I had managed it. But one glimmer of a smile from his strawberry mouth or one wink from his crystal eyes and my knees went weak, the steel around me melting to a puddle at my feet. So I tried, believe me, I did. But I just couldn't. And then there was that night at Benedict's party on the balcony..."

She trailed off, obviously not wanting to speak about that particular memory, so Sophie didn't pry. "And you know what, Sophie?" Tessa asked the servant girl with the brutally long angular scar cutting across her cheek in a crude way. "It would be so much easier if I hated him. Then what he said to me in the drawing room wouldn't matter."

She took a deep breath and then let everything go. She told her how Jem, the beautiful silver haired violin player had proposed to her that morning and presented her with his mothers jade necklace when she said yes. How Will had pulled her by the arm into the drawing room and confessed his love to her on the luxurious mahogany floor right afterwards, and how she hadn't believed him at first.

She spoke to Sophie of how he had finally broken down and admitted that when he was twelve years old he had found a pyxes in his fathers office in the library of his childhood manner house in Wales and how when he opened the box the cobalt blue skinned demon, Marbas had appeared out of it in a ring of smoke. That's when his older sister Ella, the one who had always been his loyal protector bolted in and tried to fend the demon off. It had laughed and knocked her with it's barbed tail to the floor of a similar color to the one of the drawing room before turning to him to hiss "I curse you so that everyone that loves you shall die. It may be instant, it may take years, but whoever looks upon your face with love will perish. And I will start with her." The demon had said pointing towards his sister. She confided in Sophie that Will had told her that Ella had died that night and how her body hadn't even looked remotely human.

She explained  Will had left his family to protect them and was cruel to everyone so nobody would ever love him and put themselves in danger of his horrid curse. Except Jem. She told Sophie how Will had called him his 'Greatest Sin'. Because Jem was already dying, fast and painfully, and he was all Will allowed himself. Because no one could be entirely alone.

Then she finally spoke to Sophie of the real reason she had crumpled to the ground weeping as she forced herself to break the news to him about her and Jem and how the look on his face had very nearly shattered her. But she knew that she couldn't let Will find out she loved him as much as she loved Jem, for then a wedge would be forged between two best friends, that she didn't think could ever be remedied. She cried about how Will had begged her not to let Jem know any of it, about how he felt, and then he had left and she had wanted to die. That's why she inflicted herself with burns by the poker, because any kind of pain would be a distraction from the gut wrenching agony that was gnawing inside of her over loosing Will.

Sophie was shocked by the cruelty with kindness, love and honor Will had shown Tessa. She had never seen or heard of him with anyone like that, except perhaps Jem. But she recalled a moment months before of holding Tessa as she sobbed, pulling the pins out of her hair that were the exact same blue as Will's eyes and contemplated whether maybe that was not the first time Master Herondale had shown Tessa such kindness.

Or of the words Magnus Bane had spoke to Tessa of him. That he felt everything stronger and more deeply than any mortal he had ever met. 'Will felt stronger?' Tessa had asked her. 'He didn't feel emotions stronger that everyone else, he felt madder, perhaps. But that was about it.'

It seemed like Magnus had been right. Jem was a welcoming glow, never waning, whereas Will was a fiery star all passion and no logic, and whether she cared to admit it or not, despite both Jem and Tessa's kind and generous natures, Tessa was a star too. Fiercely loyal, intelligent, curious and spoke her mind no matter what the consequences. She could only hope that Tessa wouldn't break Jem's heart. But she didn't think she would. She had merely shattered her own in two.