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"By the Angel," breathed Charlotte Tessa looked around the table They were all staring at her--Charlotte and Henry with their lass of water frozen halfway to his lips And Jessa at her in abject horror, like sohost For a uilt

It lasted only a h Slowly Jessamine lowered her hand from her mouth, her face still very pale "Goodness, my nose is enormous," she exclaimed "Why didn’t anyone tell me?"

4

WE ARE SHADOWS

Pulvis et umbra sumus

--Horace, Odes

The moment Tessa transfore of questions For people who lived in a shadoorld of ly awed by her ability, which only served to underline what Tessa had already begun to suspect--that her shape-changing talent was exceedingly unusual Even Charlotte, who had known about it before Tessa’s demonstration, see that belongs to the person you’re transfor into?" Charlotte asked for the second time Sophie and the older woman, who Tessa suspected was the cook, had already taken away the dinner plates and had served fancy cake and tea, but none of the diners had touched it yet "You can’t simply look at someone and--"

"I explained that already" Tessa’s head was beginning to hurt "I s to the that’s theirs Otherwise nothing happens"

"Do you think a vial of blood would do the trick?" Will asked, in a tone of academic interest

"Probably--I don’t know I’ve never tried it" Tessa took a sip of her tea, which had grown cold

"And you’re saying that the Dark Sisters knew this was your talent? They knew you had this ability before you did?" Charlotte asked

"Yes It’s why they wanted me in the first place"

Henry shook his head "But how did they know? I don’t quite understand that part"

"I don’t know," Tessa said, not for the first time "They never explained it to me All I knohat I told you--that they seemed to know exactly what it was I could do, and how to train me to do it They spent hours with ainst the bitterness in her mouth Memories of how it had been rose up in her mind--the hours and hours in the cellar room at the Dark House, the way they had screae as they wanted her to, the agony when she finally learned to do it "It hurt, at first," she whispered "As ifinside e two, three, then a dozen times a day, until I would finally lose consciousness And then, the next day, they’d start at it again I was locked in that rooed breath "That last day, they tested irl who had died She hadstabbed Of so her into an alley--"

"Perhaps it was the girl Je "Jeuessed she ht I believe they sent the Shax de her back, but I killed it They irl I changed into was named Emma Bayliss," Tessa said, in a half whisper "She had very fair hair--tied in little pink bows--and she was only a little thing"

Will nodded as if the description were familiar to him

"Then they did wonder what had happened to her That’s why they had e into her When I told them she was dead, they seemed relieved"

"The poor soul," Charlotte e into the dead? Not only the living?"

Tessa nodded "Their voices speak in e too The difference is that many of theh" Jessamine shuddered "How morbid"

Tessa looked over at Will Mr Herondale, she chided herself silently, but it was hard to think of him that way She felt somehow as if she knew him better than she really did But that was foolishness "You foundfor the murderer of Eirl One dead--what do you call it?--mundane Why so much time and effort to find out what happened to her?"

For a moment Will’s eyes ed--only a slight change, but she saw it, though she could not have said what the change meant "Oh, I wouldn’t have bothered, but Charlotte insisted She felt there was soer at work And once Jem and I infiltrated the Pandemonium Club, and heard ru on than the death of one girl Whether or not we like mundanes particularly, we can’t allow thehtered It’s the reason we exist"

Charlotte leaned forward across the table "The Dark Sisters never mentioned what use they intended to make of your abilities, did they?"

"You know about the Magister," Tessa said "They said they were preparing me for him"

"For him to do what?" Will asked "Eat you for dinner?"