Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare Page A

they would wait for the Lightwood brothers. Jessamine had not come to breakfast, claiming a headache, and Will, likewise, was nowhere to be found. Tessa suspected he was hiding, in an attempt to avoid being forced to be polite to Gabriel Lightwood and his brother. She could only partly blame him.
    Back in her room, picking up the gear, she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach; it was so very much unlike anything she’d ever worn before. Sophie was not there to help her with the new clothes. Part of the training, of course, was being able to dress and to familiarize oneself with the gear: flat-soled shoes; a loose pair of trousers made of thick black material; and a long, belted tunic that reached nearly to her knees. They were the same clothes she had seen Charlotte fight in before, and had seen illustrated in the Codex ; she had thought them strange then, but the act of actually wearing them was even stranger. If Aunt Harriet could have seen her now, Tessa thought, she would likely have fainted.
    She met Sophie at the foot of the steps that led up to the Institute’s training room. Neither she nor the other girl exchanged a word, just encouraging smiles. After a moment Tessa went first up the steps, a narrow wooden flight with banisters so old that the wood had begun to splinter. It was strange, Tessa thought, going up a flight of stairs and not having to worry about pulling in your skirts or tripping on the hem. Though her body was completely covered, she felt peculiarly naked in her training gear.
    It helped to have Sophie with her, obviously equally uncomfortable in her own Shadowhunter gear. When they reached the top of the stairs, Sophie swung the door open and they made their way into the training room in silence, together.
    They were obviously at the top of the Institute, in a room adjacent to the attic, Tessa thought, and nearly twice the size. The floor was polished wood with various patterns drawn here and there in black ink—circles and squares, some of them numbered. Long, flexible ropes hung from great raftered beams overhead, half-invisible in the shadows. Witchlight torches burned along the walls, interspersed with hanging weapons—maces and axes and all sorts of other deadly-looking objects.
    “Ugh,” said Sophie, looking at them with a shudder. “Don’t they look too horrible by half?”
    “I actually recognize a few from the Codex ,” said Tessa, pointing. “That one there’s a longsword, and there’s a rapier, and a fencing foil, and that one that looks like you’d need two hands to hold it is a claymore, I think.”
    “Close,” came a voice, very disconcertingly, from above their heads. “It’s an executioner’s sword. Mostly for decapitations. You can tell because it doesn’t have a sharp point.”
    Sophie gave a little yelp of surprise and backed up as one of the dangling ropes began to sway and a dark shape appeared over their heads. It was Jem, clambering down the rope with the graceful agility of a bird. He landed lightly in front of them, and smiled. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    He was dressed in gear as well, though instead of a tunic he wore a shirt that reached only to his waist. A single leather strap went across his chest, and the hilt of a sword protruded from behind one shoulder. The darkness of the gear made his skin look even paler, his hair and eyes more silver than ever.
    “Yes, you did,” said Tessa with a little smile, “but it’s all right. I was beginning to worry Sophie and I were going to be left here to train each other.”
    “Oh, the Lightwoods will be here,” said Jem. “They’re simply being late to make a point. They don’t have to do what we say, or what their father says either.”
    “I wish you were the one training us,” Tessa said impulsively.
    Jem looked surprised. “I couldn’t—I haven’t completed my own training yet.” But their eyes met, and in another moment of wordless communication, Tessa heard what he