ᴛʜᴏʀɴᴇᴅ ʀᴏꜱᴇ ━ will herondale

- chapter twelve

12

[ enticement ]

AS THE COACH RATTLED along the Strand, Will raised a black-gloved hand and drew one of the velvet curtains back from the window, letting a splash of yellow gaslight find its way into the carriage's dark interior. "It rather looks," he said, "as if we might be in for rain tonight." 

Out the window the sky was a cloudy steel gray—the usual for London, he thought. Men in hats and long dark coats hurried along the pavement on either side of the street, their shoulders hunched against a brisk wind that carried coal dust, horse manure, and all sorts of eye-stinging rubbish in its wake. 

"Is that a church directly in the middle of the street?" she wondered aloud.

"It's St. Mary le Strand," said Will, "and there's a long story about it, but I'm not going to tell it to you now. Have you been listening to anything I've been saying?" his tone sounding more and more impatient. 

"I was," Tessa said, "until you started on about rain. Who cares about rain? We're on our way to some sort of—vampire society event, and I've no idea how I'm supposed to behave, and so far you haven't helped me much at all. I'm sure Rosela would've offered consultation if she were here with us." 

The corner of Will's mouth twitched upward. "Ro wouldn't do that, she'd rather watch you fail miserably and mentally curse you in french if you make a mess out of this." 

Tessa gave him a look of disbelief, "Why can't she just go to De Quincey's with us? I haven't seen her since yesterday."

Will shook his head. "Neither have I, but it's completely ordinary. Rosela is very mischievous and quite unpredictable, besides before she left the storage room I asked her to observe and secure the place." 

"You seem to know her very well." Tessa observed. 

"Just be careful." Will ignored her, "when we arrive at the house, you can't look up to me or Ro for any help or instruction. Remember, we're your human subjugates. You keep us about you for blood—blood whenever you want it—and nothing else." 

"So you're not going to speak tonight," Tessa said. "At all."

"Not unless you instruct me to," said Will.

"This evening sounds as if it might be better than I thought."

Will sucked in a breath, with his right hand he was tightening one of the metal knife-bearing cuffs on his left wrist. He was staring off toward the window as he thought of what Tessa said. Did he really know who Rosela was? Of course he does, who was he kidding? They practically grew in the Institute together, he had known her ever since he could remember. He saw her everyday and it was an unpleasant reminder of what he—

"You might be thinking of vampires as feral monsters." Will interrupted his own train of thoughts, "but these vampires are not like that. They are as cultured as they are cruel. Sharpened knives to humanity's dull blade." The line of his jaw was set hard in the dim light, he scolded himself for even thinking of such. "You will have to try to keep up. And for God's sake, if you can't, don't say anything at all. They have a tortuous and opaque sense of etiquette. A serious social gaffe could mean instant death."