PHOTOS: New Book Covers for 'Infernal Devices' Series!

Yesterday, Shadowhunters TV revealed the remaining five covers of The Mortal Instruments series and by the angel they were magnificent masterpieces!

If those TMI covers were not enough for the fandom to handle, wait until you see the brand new covers for The Infernal Devices! 

TOR.com shared some exclusive informatiom about the creative process from the designer Russell Gordon and illustrator Cliff Neilsen.

From Russell Gordon, Executive Director of Art, Production, and Design:

The repackaging of Cassandra Clare’s epic Shadowhunter novels has been a rewarding, year-long adventure. Right from the start, when Karen Wojtyla, Justin Chanda, Annie Nybo and I sat down with Cassie to discuss the new direction, I knew it was going to be something truly special. Cassie had a wonderful vision for the new-look: for the characters to be the main focus, to infuse them with a real intensity, and passion, but also keep them a little mysterious. We all wanted to give these new covers as much “heart” as possible. We commissioned the extraordinary Cliff Nielsen (who had worked on the original packaging) as the cover artist. Cliff’s work is not only beautiful in a lyrical way—but it’s edgy and bold and mesmerizing—the perfect match for Cassie’s books. I especially love the details in his work, the way he united a different rune with the featured character on each of the Mortal Instruments covers, and the way the Clockwork Angel is woven into the character on each Infernal Devices cover.

I’ve always thought the best covers were those that will not only draw a new reader in, but also give that reader something else to explore after they’ve finished reading the book; when they go back and pore over all the visual details of the cover they maybe hadn’t understood, or even noticed, before reading the story. There are so many details on every part of the packaging of these books, and I really think it will keep Cassandra Clare’s fans—the new ones and the already-established-ones—engaged long after they’ve closed the books.

From Cliff Neilsen, illustrator:

Creating the cover to a novel is an exciting task. I get to work with really smart people (like Russell Gordon and Karen Wojtyla) that admire beauty and strive for originality. I get a chance to selfishly explore my artistic interests. I get an opportunity to be the first person to investigate and describe visually the world that sprouts from the creative heart of the author.

Cassandra Clare’s stories are special because her heart is special. Her words beautifully interweave the wonder and excitement of youth with myth, cultural history and mysticism. She makes them the popular culture.

So much work went into creating these covers. The process includes combining traditional mixed media painting, digital painting, photography, 3D rendering, found objects, and calligraphy. I’m passionate about these things, but the STORY is the true King. A good illustrator will understand that, above all else. Nevertheless, with this project I found myself asking “What drives the King”? What is the purpose of the story?

Emotion.

Reimagining these covers has been an exercise in trying to capture that emotion through iconography. It has been an attempt to personally connect with these beloved characters and their fictional lives, and share it as a visual parable to the throngs of Cassandra’s fans, past present and future. I hope you experience them with as much wonder and joy as I had creating them.

The Infernal Devices trilogy will be repackaged and available in paperback on September 1 from Simon & Schuster.

Which of these covers do you guys like best?

New Medium for The Infernal Devices?

 Cassandra Clare is so good to her readers! In answering a fan question over twitter, Shadowhunters and Downworlders are updated on The Infernal Devices project. Will we ever see Will Herondale on the big screen? According to Cassie, the series is going to be on television! Check out the tweet yourself:

@BabyGirlColeyXO Last time I talked to them about it they were discussing TV.
— Cassandra Clare (@cassieclare) December 24, 2013

Who do you want to see to bring our favorite book characters to life? Share with us in the comments below! 

My wild 'Infernal Devices' theory: How Will could survive

I have slew of different theories, but this one just came to me while sending an email to Katie at @MundieMoms on my latest moment of literary enlightenment while rereading Clockwork Prince.

Be prepared and indulge me while I slip into my TID madness...

Cassandra Clare keeps subtly bringing up the topic of reincarnation in the books. Most people may just read it and not really give it a second thought. As an aspiring author myself, I'm learning that there is very, very little that is written in a story that does not serve a purpose. If a concept is mentioned more than once, be prepared for it to be used in a big way.

At first I was sure it was going to be Jem that got reincarnated because of his illness. While that may be (and we can all dream of a Jem appearance in Dark Artifices), the discussion between Will and Magnus in "Reparations" chapter has my mind racing. I keep thinking what if it's Will who is reincarnated? Everyone would be devastated with his death, right? BUT...what could Cassie do to make the fandom happy? How could she fix such a tragedy?

 

First, let's take a look at reincarnation. Here's a wiki definition that explains it rather well:

"Samsara is a Buddhist term that literally means "circle" or "wheel" and is commonly translated as "conditioned existence", "cyclic existence", "cycle of existence", etc. Within Buddhism, samsara is defined as the continual repetitive cycle of birth and death that arises from ordinary beings' grasping and fixating on a self and experiences. Specifically, samsara refers to the process of cycling through one rebirth after another within the six realms of existence, where each realm can be understood as physical realm or a psychological state characterized by a particular type of suffering. Samsara arises out of avidya (ignorance) and is characterized by dukkha (suffering, anxiety, dissatisfaction). In the Buddhist view, liberation from samsara is possible by following the Buddhist path."

In the Clockwork Prince chapter "Reparations", Will and Magnus talk about reincarnation:

 

Magnus: You are a Shadowhunter, you are not afraid of death.

Will: Of course I am. Everyone is afraid of death. We may be born of angels, but we have no more knowledge of what comes after death than you do.

Magnus: You don't know that there is only oblivion after death.

 

Will: You don't know that there isn't, do you? Jem believes we are all reborn, that life is a wheel. We die, we turn, we are reborn as we deserve to be reborn, based on our doings in this world. I will probably be reborn as a slub that someone salts.

Magnus: The Wheel of Transmigration. Well, think of it this way. You must have done something right in your last life, to reborn as you were, Nephilim.

 

Magnus totally crushes on Will from day 1. I got all mushy in that moment. He totally loves Will, but alas, Will has eyes only for Tessa Gray. It wouldn't be so bad if that moment might happen. Could you wrap your mind around the thought of Will and Magnus having more than just a moment?

Let's take a look at a moment from Clockwork Princess to see Will and Jem discuss this exact same issue:

Will rose slowly to his feet. He could not believe he was doing what he was doing, but it was clear that he was, clear as the silver rim around the black of Jem’s eyes. “If there is a life after this one,” he said, “let me meet you in it, James Carstairs.”

“There will be other lives.” Jem held his hand out, and for a moment, they clasped hands, as they had done during their parabatai ritual, reaching across twin rings of fire to interlace their fingers with each other. “The world is a wheel,” he said. “When we rise or fall, we do it together.”

Will tightened his grip on Jem’s hand, which felt thin as twigs in his. “Well, then,” he said, through a tight throat, “since you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one."

 

Another life for me...that's what Will said. Now, I could debate the fact that he said "me" versus saying "us", but I won't go there in this post.

Just thought I would add this picture of the Wheel of Transmigration for a visual. Isn't it lovely in a creeptastic way?

 

I asked what Cassie could do to appease the fandom with the death of Will? My answer is Alec Lightwood. I think Alec is Will reincarnated.

 

Before you throw up your hands in the air or quickly click off this post, think about it for just a few more moments. It makes more and more sense to me. It would be a punishment fitting, almost a delightful sense of irony, for Will to be a Lightwood - the one family he seems to detest. You have to struggle to reach enlightenment, so what better way for Will to become a better person than to walk a mile (or a lifetime) in his enemy's shoes.

Magnus recognizes Will in Alec so many times. How could I not have thought of this before?! Alec, in turn, is so freaked by the thought of Magnus having this eternal experience that it would be a great reveal to know that in this Wheel of Transmigration, this act of samsara, Alec actually was with Magnus before as Will. Those same blue eyes...that same dark hair. To me, this would be the only cure to mend our broken hearts if Will dies.

I then am reminded of a snippet from City of Lost Souls when Magnus and Isabelle are arguing, and I'm struggling with what it all could be leading to:

“I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, his voice rising in pitch. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left—”

It's crazy...right???? I've been debating Tale of Two Cities, just knowing more and more that Will is going to bite the big one, but maybe, just maybe, that might make it all better...if Will became Alec and we finally get the Will/Magnus ship we've secretly all craved in the form of Malec.

Here's my song for my Will and Magnus ship just in case anyone wants to listen to it!!! :)

 

What are your thoughts on this theory? Do you have crazy TID theories you want to share? Share your comments below or to me on Twitter at @TMI_Institute.

'Infernal Devices' Manga to be published by Orbit UK

Tomorrow November 1, 2012, Orbit UK will publish Cassandra Clare's 'Clockwork Angel' The first book in the bestselling 'Infernal Devices' series in manga. They made a deal with Yen Press, the leading manga publisher in the United States. 

The 'Clockwork Angel' manga will tell the story of Will and Jem. Two shadowhunters living in the London Institute. The book will be £7.99.

"With a script adapted by the author herself and art by the phenomenal manga artist HyeKyung Baek (BRING IT ON! and GOSSIP GIRL), this series will appeal to new and established fans of Clare’s witty series and charm young adults and adults alike! "

Credit: Orbit Books

'Clockwork Prince' will be out in September 2013 and 'Clockwork Princess' in May 2014.

Clockwork Prince and noticing things: answers — and spoilers!

 We've all been rabid for snippets about The Infernal Devices, and we've gotten about four in the last two weeks. But sometimes what I love even more than snippets are the questions and answers that Cassandra Clare posts on Tumblr. As I say all the time, I think that it is NECESSARY if you want to theorize about what will come next to read these answers very carefully. There's no question that is more popular in the fandom than what will happen to Will, Jem and Tessa. Will Jem and Tessa get married? What will Will do? Do you think Jem will die? What are the implications to the mentions of immortality?

Here's a mega post that involves a bit of psychology behind why Will and Jem do not realize that they each love Tessa.

SPOILERS FOR CLOCKWORK PRINCE BELOW.

writingwithink asked you: Obviously everyone has noticed that Jem doesn’t notice Will’s feelings for Tessa. But, why doesn’t Jem notice? It’s not like the way Will looks at Tessa, or vice versa, is the way people who are ‘just friends’ look at each other. And, Jem is Will’s parabatai/brother/best friend. Jem has spent the last five years being Will’s best friend, the only one that Will allowed to love him. Also, why didn’t Will notice Jem’s love? I know Jem was been busy with proposing, and Will with his curse, but…
I’m answering this here with a repost of previous answers I’ve given to this question because 1) most of the question answering I did was just after Clockwork Prince came out, and so a lot of people I think skipped them, because they hadn’t read the books yet and 2) At the time they were all under cut tags. So, on the topic of people not noticing things, some of you may have read this before:
Why doesn’t Jem notice how Will feels about Tessa? What a rat he is.
I think that, when presented with a really painful situation like the one at the end of Clockwork Prince, there is a sort of natural desire to assign blame. It makes it less painful to imagine that what’s going on is someone’s fault — Tessa’s selfish! Will is entitled! Jem is blind! — than to think that these are basically decent people trying hard to be good, and they get screwed anyway. Because one is a moral lesson (always a bit comforting, as it offers the illusion of control) and the other says life is a agonizing lottery of tragedy and chance (not comforting at all.)
A lot of people comment that Jem should have realized Will loved Tessa because in Clockwork Angel he says that he noticed that Will thinks she’s pretty. But  Jem noticing Will noticing a pretty girl is hardly equivalent to Jem noticing Will being in deathless love. Will notices pretty girls all the time. Lasciviousness is in fact, part of his false persona. Jem noting that Will thinks Tessa is pretty in CA is not about him commenting on Will’s feelings so much as it is him getting confirmation for his own. [Sometimes, my husband offers, when you think a girl is a babe, you want confirmation from your buddy that she is, in fact, as babelicious as you believe.]
Jem is an observant guy. But he is under no illusions that he knows everything about Will, and he is frank about that. From Clockwork Angel, when he tells Tessa he has no idea why Will won’t speak to his family:

““And you’ve never asked him why?”
“If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me,” Jem said. “You asked why I think he tolerates me better than other people. I’d imagine it’s precisely because I’ve never asked him why.”

Nor does Will think Jem knows everything about him.

“I don’t know,” Tessa said. “I’m not sure anyone does understand you, except possibly Jem.”
“Jem doesn’t understand me,” Will said. “He cares for me— like a brother might. It’s not the same thing.”

What Jem offers Will, what makes their relationship unique and workable, is precisely this: unconditional love without demand, perfect trust without perfect understanding. Will’s statement that Jem doesn’t understand him is not a criticism of Jem. He does not want Jem to understand him, because he doesn’t want his curse understood. He deliberately lies and hides things from Jem, and Jem knows it and accepts it because he loves him, but it’s a far stretch from that to “Jem ought to be able to read Will’s mind.”

Only Professor X can read minds.
Certainly Jem is able to tell that Will is in no good mood, but Will is often in no good mood, and much of Will’s upset during Clockwork Prince can be put down to his awful near-encounter with his family and his panic over their well-being. Because a lot of it is about that, and Jem would not be incorrect in assuming so. There seems to be an assumption here that Jem and Tessa ought to be able to see through Will like glass, even though Will says over and over that he isn’t interested in Tessa. If Jem and Will are really all that close, the assumption seems to be, surely Jem would be able to read Will’s mind and see he loves Tessa? But the flip side of that assumption is: since Jem and Will truly know each other, Will also knows exactly how to lie to Jem and make it stick. As for poor Tessa, we’ve been over this: there is no reason to assume a guy who repeatedly says he isn’t interested in you or commitment is not serious. Tessa made the choice she did with the information she had to hand: you can’t make choices based on things you don’t know.
[Also, if the suggestion is that parabatai ought to be able to read each other’s mind: why is Will so dense as to go off and drug himself up at an opium den and have no idea what that would do to Jem? Why does Will not notice that Jem loves Tessa, given that Will is bending every last atom of his will to concealing his love for Tessa, but Jem isn’t bothering? More on that below.]
And lastly, it’s not like Jem doesn’t have his own stuff going on. He’s dying, and dependent on a drug whose continued availability is limited. He’s in love with a girl, but knows that being a dying man, he doesn’t have a lot to offer. When she unexpectedly accepts his proposal, he’s joyous. Meanwhile, the last time he saw Will, Will was in a terrific mood (as he’d just had the curse lifted.) So Jem’s sitting there, basically overwhelmingly happy for probably the first time in his life since his parents died, and when Will comes in, he’s supposed to flip like a switch and suddenly care about nothing but the possibility that Will might be unhappy despite the fact he hasn’t mentioned it and was just fine an hour ago?
C’mon, let the guy have his moment of happiness. After all, as we know, life is a meaningless lottery of tragedy and chance.
Why doesn’t Will notice how Jem feels about Tessa? What a rat he is.
This is a bit more difficult to explain (in my mind) than why Jem didn’t notice Will loved Tessa (though I get asked that more!) — not because there’s a not a valid reasons but because it isn’t as concrete as “Will was hiding it.” Jem wasn’t hiding it. And yet, Will genuinely didn’t realize. So, why?
I don’t want to say “Will doesn’t think of Jem as a threat” because that implies all sorts of things — that people don’t see Jem as masculine (not true) or that Jem is some sort of beta or sidekick for Will, which isn’t true either. However, what is true is that for five years Jem has been a source for Will of only good things — in some ways, his only source of good things. Jem has protected him. Jem has loved him. Jem has had faith in him when nobody else did.
In a lot of ways Will isn’t capable of imagining that Jem might be the cause of pain for him (in any other way than Jem himself dying.) In his mind, Jem’s a part of him. It would be like him imagining that his own left hand might suddenly start punching him in the face. That’s why when he finds out that Jem has proposed to Tessa, his first reaction is disbelief: “Jem? *My* Jem?” Jem is his, his parabatai, his other half, his blood brother. Jem is not separate enough from him, in Will’s mind, to take independent action that would be shocking or surprising to Will.
Will is also completely caught up with and distracted by his own circumstances — desperately trying to get the curse off himself, protect his family, protect Tessa (from himself) protect Jem (from running out of drugs.) He is stretched about as thin as you could be. Under normal circumstances, he would probably also have noticed Jessamine was sneaking around, but there’s too much going on: he just doesn’t have the room for it.
This doesn’t make him a bad or selfish person. His circumstances are desperate and extreme. They require his full attention. But he himself thinks it, at the end of the book: “Will had never considered  [Jem’s romantic happiness]. He had dwelled on whether Jem was safe, whether he was surviving, but not if he was happy.”
Being too caught up in whether your best friend is going to die to consider whether they’re into the same girl as you doesn’t make you a bad person; in this case, Will’s human frailties are far out of proportion to the level to which he is punished for them. But then, this isn’t a morality tale: it’s the messy story of three good people trying to do right, caught up in an impossible situation. The desire to lay blame on one of them is reasonable, but I think the thing about it that makes it upsetting is precisely that nobody really is to blame.

My .02, anyway!

Based on this info, what do you think will happen to the TID trio? Share your thoughts below!

An Offering of Moonlight: Jem’s Perspective on “Fierce Midnight” in Clockwork Prince

 Here is an alternate version of Jem and Tessa's first kiss from Jem's perspective from Clockwork Prince that Cassie shared on her site. It's swoon worthy indeed and gives us even more reason to love Mr. Carstairs even more!

Give me your thoughts! Happy reading!!!!

An Offering of Moonlight
I wish to offer you moonlight in a handful — Zhang Jiu Ling
[This takes place in Chapter Nine of Clockwork Prince, entitled "Fierce Midnight. The scene in which Tessa and Jem first kiss from his perspective.]

The first thing Jem did the moment he entered his room was stride to the yin fen box on his nightstand.
He usually took the drug in a solution of water, letting it dissolve and drinking it, but he was too impatient now; he took a pinch between his thumb and forefinger, and sucked it from his fingers. It tasted of burned sugar and left the inside of his mouth feeling numb. He slammed the box shut with a feeling of dark satisfaction.
The second thing he did was to retrieve his violin.
The fog was thick against the windows, as if they had been painted over with lead. If it had not been for the witchlight torches burning low, there would not have been enough illumination for him to see what he was doing as he wrenched open the box that held his Guarneri and took the instrument from it. A snatch of one of Bridget’s songs played in his head: It was mirk, mirk night, there was no starlight, and they waded through blood to the knees.
Mirk, mirk night indeed. The sky had had been black as pitch down in Whitechapel. Jem thought of Will, standing on the pavement, dizzy-eyed and grinning. Until Jem had hit him. He had never hit Will before, no matter how maddening his parabatai had been. No matter how destructive to other people, no matter his casual cruelty, no matter his wit that was like the edge of a knife, Jem had never hit him. Until now.
The bow was already rosined; he flexed his fingers before he took hold of it, and drew in several deep breaths. He could feel the yin fen surging through his veins already, lighting his blood like fire lighting gunpowder. He thought of Will again, asleep on the bed in the opium den. He had been flushed, his face smooth and innocent in sleep, like a child with his cheek pillowed on his hand. Jem remembered when Will had been young like that, though never a time when he had been innocent.
He set the bow to the strings and played. He played softly at first. He played Will lost in dreams, finding solace in a drugged haze that muffled his pain. Jem could only envy him that. The yin fen was no balm: he did not find in it whatever opium addicts found in their pipes, or alcoholics in the dregs of a gin bottle. There was only exhaustion and lassitude without it, and with it, energy and fever. But there was no surcease from pain.
Jem’s knees gave out, and he sank to the trunk at the foot of his bed, still playing. He played Will breathing the name Cecily, and he played himself watching the glint of his own ring on Tessa’s hand on the train from York, knowing it was all a charade, knowing, too, that he wished that it wasn’t. He played the sorrow in Tessa’s eyes when she had come into the music room after Will had told her she would never have children. Unforgivable, that, what a thing to do, and yet Jem had forgiven him. Love was forgiveness, he had always believed that, and the things that Will did, he did out of some bottomless well of pain. Jem did not know the source of that pain, but he knew it existed and was real, knew it as he knew of the inevitability of his own death, knew it as he knew that he had fallen in love with Tessa Gray and that there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.
He played that, now, played all their broken hearts, and the sound of the violin wrapped him and lifted him and he closed his eyes —
His door opened. He heard the sound through the music, but for a moment did not credit it, for it was Tessa’s voice he heard, saying his name. “Jem?”
Surely she was a dream, conjured up by the music and the drug and his own fevered mind. He played on, played his own rage and anger at Will, for however he had always forgiven Will for his cruelty to others, he could not forgive him for endangering himself.
“Jem!” came Tessa’s voice again, and suddenly there were hands on his, wrenching the bow out of his grasp. He let go in shock, staring up at her. “Jem, stop! Your violin — your lovely violin — you’ll ruin it.”
She stood over him, a dressing-gown thrown over her white nightgown. He remembered that nightgown: she had been wearing it the first time he had seen her, when she had come into his room and he had thought for one mad moment that she was an angel. She was breathing hard now, her face flushed, his violin gripped in one hand and the bow in another.
“What does it matter?” he demanded. “What does any of it matter? I’m dying — I won’t outlast the decade, what does it matter if the violin goes before I do?” She stared at him, her lips parting in astonishment. He stood up and turned away from her. He could no longer bear to look her in the face, to see her disappointment with him, his weakness. “You know it is true.”
“Nothing is decided.” Her voice trembled. “Nothing is inevitable. A cure —”
“There’s no cure. I will die and you know it, Tess. Probably within the next year.I am dying, and I have no family in the world, and the one person I trusted more than any other makes sport of what is killing me.”
“But Jem, I don’t think that’s what Will meant to do at all.” She had set down his violin and bow, and was moving toward him. ”He was just trying to escape — he is running from something, something dark and awful, you know he is, Jem. You saw how he was after — after Cecily.”
“He knows what it means to me,” he said. She was just behind him: he could smell the faint perfume of her skin: violet-water and soap. The urge to turn about and touch her was overwhelming, but he held himself still. “To see him even toy with what has destroyed my life — “
“But he wasn’t thinking of you —”
“I know that.” How could he say it? How could he explain? How could he tell her that Will was what he had devoted his life to: Will’s rehabilitation, Will’s innate goodness. Will was the cracked mirror of his own soul that he had spent years trying to repair. He could forgive Will harming anyone but his own self. “I tell myself he’s better than he makes himself out to be, but Tessa, what if he isn’t? I have always thought, if I had nothing else, I had Will — if I have done nothing else that made my life matter, I have always stood by him — but perhaps I shouldn’t.”
“Oh, Jem.” Her voice was so soft that he turned. Her dark hair was unbound: it tumbled around her face and he had the most absurd urge to bury his hands in it, to draw her close, his hands cupping the back of her neck. She reached out a soft hand for him and for a moment, wild hope rose up in him, unstoppable as the tide — but she only laid her hand against his forehead, careful as a nurse. “You’re burning up. You should be resting —”
He jerked away from her before he could stop himself. Her gray eyes widened. “Jem, what it is it? You don’t want me to touch you?”
“Not like that.” The words burst out before he could stop them. The night, Will, the music, the yin fen, all had unlocked something in him — he barely knew his own self, this stranger who spoke the truth and spoke it harshly.
“Like what?” Her confusion was plain on her face. Her pulse beat at the side of her throat; where her nightgown was open he could see the soft curve of her collarbone. He dug his fingers into the palms of his hands. He could not hold back the words any more. It was swim or drown.
“As if you were a nurse and I were your patient,” he told her. “Do you think I do not know that when you take my hand, it is only so that you can feel my pulse? Do you think I do not know that when you look into my eyes it is only to see how much of the drug I have taken? If I were another man, a normal man, I might have hopes, presumptions even; I might —” I might want you. He broke off before he said it. It could not be said. Words of love were one thing: words of desire were dangerous as a rocky shore where a ship could founder. It was hopeless, he knew it was hopeless, and yet —
She shook her head. “This is the fever speaking, not you.”
Hopeless. The despair cut at him like a dull knife, and he said the next words without thinking: “You can’t even believe I could want you. That I am alive enough, healthy enough —”
“No —” She caught at his arm, and it was like having five brands of fire laid across his skin. Desire lanced through him like pain. “James, that isn’t at all what I meant —”
He laid his hand over hers, where she held his arm. He heard her indrawn breath — sharp, surprised. But not horrified. She did not pull away. She did not remove his hand. She let him hold her, and turn her, so that they stood face to face, close enough to breathe each other in.
“Tessa,” he said. She looked up at him. The fever pounded in him like blood, and he no longer knew what was the desire and what was the drug, or if the one simply enhanced the other, and it did not matter, it did not matter because he wanted her, he had wanted her for so long. Her eyes were huge and gray, her pupils dilated, and her lips were parted on a breath as if she were about to speak, but before she could speak he kissed her.
The kiss exploded in his head like fireworks on Guy Fawkes’ Day. He closed his eyes on a whirl of colors and sensations almost to intense to bear: her lips were soft and hot under his and he found himself running his fingers over her face, the curves at her cheekbones, the hammering pulse in her throat, the tender skin at the back of her neck. It took every ounce of control he had to touch her gently, not to crush her against him, and when she raised her arms and twined them around his neck, sighing into his mouth, he had to stifle a gasp and for a moment hold himself very still or they would have been on the floor.
Her own hands on him were gentle, but there was no mistaking their encouragement. Her lips murmured against his, whispering his name, her body soft and strong in his arms. He followed the arch of her back with his hands, feeling the curve of it under her nightgown, and he could not stop himself then: he pulled her so tightly against him that they both stumbled, and collapsed backward onto the bed.
Tessa sank into the cushions and he propped himself over her. Her hair had come out of its plaits and tumbled dark and unbound over the pillows. A flush of blood spread over her face and down to the neckline of her gown, staining her pale skin. The hot press of body to body was dizzying, like nothing he had imagined, more fierce and delicious than the most delirious music. He kissed her again and again, each time harder, savoring the texture of her lips under his, the taste of her mouth, until the intensity of it threatened to tip over from pleasure into pain.
He should stop, he knew. This had gone beyond honor, beyond any bounds of propriety. He had imagined, sometimes, kissing her, carefully cupping her face between his hands, but had never imagined this: that they would be wrapped so tightly around each other that he could hardly tell where he left off and she began. That she would kiss him and stroke him and run her fingers through his hair. That when he hesitated with his fingers on the tie of her dresssing-gown, the reasonable part of his brain commanding his rebellious and unwilling body to stop, that she would neatly solve the dilemma but undoing the fastening herself and lying back as the material fell away around her and she looked up at him in only her thin nightgown.
Her chin was raised, determination and candor in her eyes, and her lifted arms welcomed him back to her, enfolding him, drawing him in. “Jem, my Jem,” she was whispering, and he whispered back, losing his words against her mouth, whispering what was true but what he hoped she wouldn’t understand. He whispered in Chinese, worried that if he spoke in English, he would say something profoundly stupid. Wo ai ni. Ni hen piao liang, Tessa. Zhe shi jie shang, wo shi zui ai ni de.
But he saw her eyes darken; he knew she recalled what he had said to her in the carriage. “What does it mean?” she whispered.
He stilled against her body.  “It means that you are beautiful. I did not want to tell you before. I did not want you to think I was taking liberties.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. He could feel his heart beating against hers. It felt as if it might beat out of his chest entirely.
“Take them,” she whispered.
He heart soared, and he gathered her up against him, something he had never done before, but she did not seem to mind his clumsiness. Her hands were traveling gently over him, learning his body. Her fingers stroked the bone of his hip, the cup of his collar. They tangled in his shirt and it was up and over his head, and he was leaning into her, shaking silvery hair out of his face. He saw her eyes go wide and felt his insides tighten.
“I know,” he said, looking down at himself — skin like papier-mache, ribs like violin strings. “I am not — I mean, I look —”
“Beautiful,” she said, and the word was a pronouncement. “You are beautiful, James Carstairs.”
Breath eased back into his lungs and they were kissing again, her hands warm and smooth against his bare skin. She touched him with hesitant, curious strokes, mapping a body that seemed to flower under her ministrations into something perfect, healthy: no longer a fragile device of swiftly diminishing flesh lashed to a framework of breakable bones. It was only now, that this was happening, that he realized how sincerely he had believed it never would.
He could feel the soft, nervous puffs of her breath against the sensitive skin of his throat as he drew his hands up and over her body. He touched her as he would touch his violin: it was how he knew to touch something that was precious and loved. He had carried the violin in his arms from Shanghai to London and he had carried Tessa, too, in his heart, for longer than he thought he remembered. When had it happened? His hands touched her through the nightgown, the curve and dip of her waist and hips like the curve of the Guarneri, but the violin did not give gratifying gasps when he touched it, did not seek his mouth out for kisses or have fascinating eyelids that fluttered shut just so when he stroked the sensitive skin at the backs of her knees.
Maybe it had been the day he’d run up the stairs to her and kissed her hand. Mizpah. May the Lord watch between me and thee when we are parted. It was the first time he had thought that there was something more to his regard than the ordinary regard for a pretty girl he could not have; that it had the aspect to it of something holy.
The pearl buttons of her nightdress were smooth under his fingertips. Her body bowed backward, her throat arched, as the material slipped aside, leaving her shoulder bare. Her breath was quick in her throat, the curls of her brown hair stuck to her flushed cheeks and forehead, the material of her dress crushed between them. He was shaking himself as he bent to kiss her bare skin, skin that most likely no one but herself and perhaps Sophie had ever seen, and her hand came up to cup his head, threading through the hair at the back of his neck . . .
There was the sound of a crash. And a choking fog of yin fen filled the room.
It was as if Jem had swallowed fire; he jerked back and away from Tessa with such force that he nearly overbalanced them both. Tessa sat up as well, pulling the front of her night-dress together, her expression suddenly self-conscious. All Jem’s heat was gone; his skin was suddenly freezing — with shame, and with fear for Tessa — he had never dreamed of her being this close to the poisonous stuff that had destroyed his life. But the laquer box was broken: a thick layer of shining powder lay across the floor; and even as Jem drew in a breath to tell her she must go, that she must leave him if she were to be safe, he did not think of the loss of the precious drug, or of the danger to him if it could not be retrieved. He thought only:
No more.
The yin fen has taken so much from me: my family, the years of my life, the strength in my body, the breath in my lungs. It will not take from me this too: the most precious thing we are given by the Angel. The ability to love. I love Tessa Gray.
And I will make sure that she knows it.