The Infernal Devices Rewritten

Chapter 16 - The Clockwork Princess

Tessa took an involuntary step back but Evan knew he wouldn't risk walking in so Evan marched as close as she could to him. "Go to hell." She spat, glaring at him.

Mortmain chuckled once, darkly, but slid his eyes over the little girl to Tessa, who quickly found herself next to Evan on her side of the prison. "You cannot reach me through the wall, but neither can I reach you. Not without dissolving the spell, and that would take time." He paused. "I wished for you to feel safer."

"If you wished me to be safer, you would have left me at the Institute." Tessa's voice was colder than Evan's ever heard - colder than she imagined it able to be.

"My condolences on the death of your brother. I never meant for that to happen." Mortmain said, his head cocked to the side slightly.

Tessa's mouth turned into a terrible scowl. "I don't want your pity. Or your good wishes. You made him a tool of yours, and then he died. It was your fault, as surely as if you had shot him in the street."

"I suppose it would avail little to point out that he was the one who sought me out."

"He was a boy." Tessa said, her dark look deepening. "He was not even twenty."

From there, Mortmain continued to explain his childhood. He explained that Tessa's mother was an unMarked Shadowhunter. He revealed what he had done to switch Elizabeth with Adele. And, he explained the power of Tessa's clockwork necklace. But as he said it, both girls' mouths turned into triumphant smirks. "What, pray tell, is it?" Mortmain asked in a cool voice, one eyebrow raising.

"We know there was an angel in my necklace." Tessa said cooly. "Ithuriel."

Mortmain's calm look turned violent to Evan, who tipped her chin to him superiorly. "I suppose that was your doing, girl?"

"Yes." Evan said. "Don't you know that confining angels to clockwork prisons is risky, Mr. Mortmain? They always become freed eventually."

"And how did you know? Mundane." Mortmain snarled, coming as close as he dared.

Evan didn't respond.

Mortmain's lip curled animalistically. "Have you figured out why you're here, girl?"

"I'm assuming you want me to tell you of the future." Evan said.

"You assumed correctly. So tell me," Mortmain leaned closer, "Gypsy - what do I want to know?"

"Oh," Evan laughed before her face darkened, "Hell no."

Evan realized, that perhaps telling Mortmain no instead of lying to him was probably a horrible mistake. But, Evan would never regret the look on his face - the fact that a young lady had sworn - Evan didn't mind being shackled to the wall. At Tessa's request, Mortmain relieved the spell between the two girls, but his 'kindness' stopped there. He send them radishes to eat and oddly-flavoured water to drink. Tessa was wearing a strange, shapeless, black silk gown but no one bothered to change Evan. There other silk dresses in the wardrobe in Tessa's side of the cave, though, some with more of a figure that Evan had eventually slipped into.

There was no sense of time in the cave. Evan paced, barefoot, in a more form-fitted deep blue silk dress with long sleeves and a plunging neckline. It was the only dress that seemed to be short enough for Evan and both girls cringed to think of how it would look on Tessa. The shackle around Evan's ankle cut into her, but she payed no attention to it. Tessa was just taken out of their cage, led out by two automatons that didn't seem bothered by the spell.

Evan knew that, if the books were followed (which she hoped was not the case), Tessa would be Changing into John Shade now, under the impression that Mortmain had sent the yin fen to Jem. Which he had promised, considering he still had no idea that Jem was cured. But now, Mortmain had another threat hanging over Tessa - Evan's life. Mortmain decided that Evan was useless (and not worth the trouble) and injected her with something that Evan recognized from one of the books she'd checked when trying to find proof that Jem could be cured - a simple warlock's poison. He had the antidote, of course, but if Tessa refused to Change, he wouldn't cure Evan.

The poison hurt. It felt like there was acid slipping through her veins instead of blood. Which was why she kept walking; her feet were bloody from the jagged rocks and the shackle and distracted her from the pain in her body. In a couple hours, Evan knew, her mind would start to disintegrate.

Evan kicked at the wall again hearing a dull crack - she'd dislocated her toe. Again. Evan sighed, rolling on her foot to pop it back into place before she'd began walking again. She was a horrible protector, she decided. It was a wonder Will said he loved her - Evan couldn't seem to do anything right.

Evan kicked the wall again; the last thing she needed was to be selfish and pitiful. Evan raked her hands through her hair and remembered something that Jem had said once 'heros endure because we need them...' if that was the case, Evan was a poor hero. Then she shook her head again; she was hardly a hero. No, she was more like a vague secondary character who was merely there to be there - someone to fill the unspoken void of absence. Every book needed one; for Harry Potter it was Luna (as much as Evan loved Luna), for Percy Jackson it was Rachel Elizabeth Care or even Nico DiAngelo, for The Hunger Games it was Gale and for Divergent it was Christina - Evan shook her head again; she was losing it.

On the brighter side of things, the poison was a dull ache in her body now... or maybe that meant she was dying more quickly now. Evan looked around her - she was sprawled on the floor now - how'd she get there? Oh, Evan remembered meekly, right; I fell in love with Will Herondale.

Her thoughts were a jumbled mess now. Were there people talking around her? Or were those the voices of her family calling out to her? Was she going crazy? She supposed that it didn't matter anymore. Whatever it was, it washed over Evan and she could no longer tell reality from fantasy.