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Clockwork Princess is the third and final book of the series Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare. As expected, like Clockwork Angel and Clockwork Prince respectively, Clockwork Princess didn’t disappoint me.
If you are not familiar with the Infernal Devices saga, the books focus on the stories of a few fascinating characters who are briefly presented in the series of The Mortal Instruments: Theresa Gray, William Herondale and James Carstairs. Their adventures take place at the end of the nineteenth century, in London, together with their friends and companions.
(CONTAIN SPOILERS)
To begin with, the main narrative continues with our beloved characters bringing us, readers, more emotion than ever. One of the most important scenes of the end of Clockwork Prince, the previous book, was Jem's proposal for marriage to Tessa. With this in mind, we may think that she has everything to be happy: a man that deeply loves her more than his own life, a place where she can call home, with people that are like a family for her, that truly care for her wellbeing. Tessa should be living the dream of every bride. However, Tessa Gray cannot ignore the real life, her fears, her doubts, and the problems that the Shadowhunters have been facing did not vanish from a moment to another. No one is safe, and especially her since Mortmain, the owner of the Pandemonium Club and a malicious man that is willing to do anything to get Tessa into his hands and control the unique power that she possesses, has not given up on his plans yet. Additionally, Tessa still has special feelings for Will as well, and although she accepted to marry Jem, she can't ignore them.
Tessa looked at her reflection in the pier glass in her bedroom. The dress was a deep gold silk, as was the custom for Shadowhunters, who believed white to be the colour of mourning, and would not marry in it, despite Queen Victoria herself having set the fashion for doing just that. Duchesse lace edged the tightly fitted bodice and dripped from the sleeves.
“It’s lovely!” Charlotte clapped her hands together and leaned forward. Her brown eyes shone with delight. “Tessa, the colour looks so fine on you.”
Tessa turned and twisted in front of the mirror. The gold put some much-needed colour into her cheeks. The hourglass corset shaped and curved her everywhere it was supposed to, and the clockwork angel around her throat comforted her with its ticking. Below it dangled the jade pendant that Jem had given her. She had lengthened the chain, so she could wear them both at once, not being willing to part with either.”
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As I said in my review of the previous book – Clockwork Prince - Mortmain wants to avenge the death of his family putting an end to the Nephilim’s. He intends to create an army of ruthless creatures, the infernal devices, to destroy the Shadowhunters. In order to do that he needs the essential key: Tessa. Why is that? Throughout the book, Tessa finally discovers what she is: she is half-Shadowhunter, half-demon. This way, she consists in an entirely new hybrid and immortal species with who Mortmain wants to progenerate with.
““Tessa,” Henry said in an odd voice, and she turned to see him, arrested in the act of applying an iratze to his inner arm. He was staring at the wall across from him—the wall Tessa had thought earlier was oddly mottled and splotched with stains. She saw now that they were no accidental mess. Letters a foot tall each stretched across the wallpaper, written in what looked like dried black blood.
THE INFERNAL DEVICES ARE WITHOUT PITY.
THE INFERNAL DEVICES ARE WITHOUT REGRET.
THE INFERNAL DEVICES ARE WITHOUT NUMBER.
THE INFERNAL DEVICES WILL NEVER STOP COMING.
And there, beneath the scrawls, a last sentence, barely readable, as if whoever had written it had been losing the use of his hands. She pictured Benedict locked in this room, going slowly mad as he transformed, smearing the words on the wall with his own ichor-ridden blood.
And there, beneath the scrawls, a last sentence, barely readable, as if whoever had written it had been losing the use of his hands. She pictured Benedict locked in this room, going slowly mad as he transformed, smearing the words on the wall with his own ichor-ridden blood.
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON OUR SOULS.”
As if it were not bad enough to worry about catching Mortmain and prevent him plus his army from becoming an even more frightening threat to the Shadowhunters, Jem's health gets worse day by day. To me, this is a fundamental focus in this book: I mean, if you were already worried about Jem's fragile situation before, now you will really fear for his life and well-being. The group discovers that the entire stock of the Yin fen (the drug which Jem is dependent since his childhood when a demon attacked the Shanghai Institute, killed his parents, and tortured him by poisoning him with yin fen - a drug that satisfies his body's need for demon blood) is in the hands of Mortmain, so consequently, Jem's life is in the hands of the villain of the story.
“Jem’s eyes opened slowly. Tessa fought to keep the look of shock from her face. His pupils were blown out, his irises a thin ring of silver around the black.
“Ni shou shang le ma, quin ai de?” he whispered.
Jem had been teaching Tessa Mandarin, at her insistence. She understood “quin ai de,” at least, if not the rest. My dear, my darling. She reached for his hand, squeezed it.
“Jem …”
“Are you hurt, my love?” Will said. His voice was as level as his eyes, and for a moment the blood came up in Tessa’s cheeks and she glanced down at her hand where it held Jem’s; his fingers were paler than hers, like a doll’s hands, made of porcelain. How had she not seen he was so ill?
“Thank you for the translation, Will,” she answered, not looking away from her fiancé. Jem and Will were both splattered with black ichor, but Jem’s chin and throat were also stained with flecks of red blood. His own blood. “I am not hurt,” Tessa whispered, and then she thought, No, this will not do, not at all. Be strong for him. She straightened her shoulders, keeping her grip on Jem’s hand. “Where is his medicine?” she demanded of Will. “Did he not take it before we left the Institute?”
“Do not talk about me as if I am not here,” Jem said, but there was no anger in it. He turned his head to the side and said something, softly, under his breath to Will, who nodded and let go of his shoulder. Tessa could sense the tension in Will’s posture; he was poised, catlike, to seize Jem again if the other boy should slip or fall, but Jem remained standing. “I am stronger when Tessa is here, you see. I told it to you,” said Jem, still in the same soft voice.
At that, Will did duck his head so that Tessa could not see his eyes. “I see it,” he said.”
ーーー
“As if Jem were reading her mind, his finger moved over her wrist, resting lightly on her pulse point.
“Tessa, it is only a passing attack. It will not last. I would rather you told me the truth, all the truth, whether it is bitter or frightening, that I might share it with you. I would never let harm come to you, nor would any in the Institute.” He smiled. “Your pulse is quickening.”
The truth, all the truth, whether it is bitter or frightening.
“I love you,” she said.
He looked at her with a light in his thin face that made it more beautiful.
“Wo xi wang ni ming tian ke yi jia gei wo.”
“You …” She drew her brows together. “You want to get married? But we are already engaged. I do not think one can get engaged twice.”
He laughed, which turned into a cough; Tessa’s whole body tightened, but the cough was slight, and there was no blood.
“I said I would marry you tomorrow if I could.”
Tessa pretended to toss her head.
“Tomorrow is not convenient for me, sir.”
“But you are already appropriately attired,” he said with a smile. Tessa looked down at the ruined gold of her wedding dress.
“If I were getting married in a slaughterhouse,” she allowed. “Ah, well. I did not like this one very much as it was. Much too gaudy.”
“I thought you looked beautiful.” His voice was soft.
Tessa laid her head against his shoulder.
“There will be another time,” she said. “Another day, another dress. A time when you are well and everything is perfect.”
His voice was still gentle, but it held a terrible weariness. “There is no such thing as perfect, Tessa.””
With this in mind, Tessa ends up being kidnapped in an assault on the Institute, being imprisoned by the villain. Mortmain blackmails Tessa (he declares that if she does what he desires he will send yin fen to Jem) and succeeds: he asks her to change to John Thadeus, his adoptive father, so he can get the binding spell he needed to complete his clockwork army, that will allow him to bind demon energies to his automatons.
Jem’s condition plays a huge part at the end of this series. From the previous books, it’s an easy conclusion that Jem is a fundamental piece in both Tessa and Will lives and albeit yes, Tessa loves him very much, in my opinion, his feelings for her are greater than hers. I think that although Tessa is sure that she loves Jem, Will holds a special place in her heart. However, neither Will or Tessa want to hurt Jem's feelings, or him to feel betrayed by the persons that he loves more, and trust with his own life.
““I do not want to live half a life—”
“At this rate you won’t even live a fifth of one!” shouted Will, and he sucked in his breath. Jem’s expression had changed, and Will had to slam the box he was holding back onto the nightstand to keep himself from punching the wall. Jem was sitting up straight, his eyes blazing. “There is more to living than not dying,” he said. “Look at the way you live, Will. You burn as bright as a star. I had been taking only enough of the drug to keep me alive but not enough to keep me well. A little extra of the drug before battles, perhaps, to give me energy, but otherwise, a half-life, a gray twilight of a life—” “But you have changed your dosage now? Has this been since the engagement?” Will demanded. “Is this because of Tessa?” “You cannot blame her for this. This was my decision. She has no knowledge of it.” “She would want you to live, James—” “I am not going to live!” And Jem was on his feet, his cheeks flushed; it was the angriest, Will thought, that he had ever seen him. “I am not going to live, and I can choose to be as much for her as I can be, to burn as brightly for her as I wish, and for a shorter time, than to burden her with someone only half-alive for a longer time. It is my choice, William, and you cannot make it for me.””
After Tessa's Kidnapping, Will is desperate and asks Magnus Bane to help them find a cure for Jem, who is dying. Magnus asks Will if Jem knows that he is in love with Tessa (believing Jem to be unconscious), but Will tells Magnus that he did not want to hurt Jem. Unfortunately, Jem was awake and overhears the conversation. Notwithstanding being hurt, Jem gives Will his blessing to rescue Tessa, and leave him to die. This action ends up being one of the many that demonstrate Jem's altruism: he always puts the ones he loves before him. Later, before Will leaves to rescue Tessa, he goes to the stables and is found by Cecily, his little sister, who has a crucial paper in this book. They have the talk that they needed since their reunion, and Will promises that, if he survives and returns, he will visit his parents and tell them the truth about the curse.
Will goes through many obstacles to get to Tessa, and meanwhile, feeling iller than ever, Jem tells everyone that they should stop looking for a cure, that it's over. In the way, Will's parabatai rune starts bleeding and he felt their connection die, leading the reader to assume that Jem is dead. To me, that moment was one of the most heart-breaking scenes of the entire The Mortal Instruments series, and Infernal Devices saga.
“Having sealed the letter, Will called over the landlord and confirmed that for half a crown, the boy would bring it to the night coach for delivery. Having made his payment, Will sat back, considering whether he should force down another glass of wine to ensure that he could sleep-when a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his chest. It felt like being shot with an arrow, and Will jerked back. His wineglass crashed to the floor and shattered. He lurched to his feet, leaning both hands on the table. He was vaguely aware of stares, and the landlord's anxious voice in his ear, but the pain was too great to think through, almost too great to breathe through.
The tightness in his chest, the one that he had thought of as one end of a cord tying him to Jem, had pulled so taut that it was strangling his heart. He stumbled away from his table, pushing through a knot of customers near the bar, and passed to the front door of the inn. All he could think of was air, getting air into his lungs to breathe.
He pushed the doors open and half-tumbled out into the night. For a moment the pain in his chest eased, and he fell back against the wall of the inn. Rain was sheeting down, soaking his hair and clothes. He gasped, his heart stuttering with a mixture of terror and desperation. Was this just the distance from Jem affecting him? He had never felt anything like this, even when Jem had been at his worst, even when he'd been injured and Will had ached with sympathetic pain.
The cord snapped.
For a moment everything went white, the courtyard bleaching through as if with acid. Will jack-knifed to his knees, vomiting up his supper into the mud. When the spasms had passed, he staggered to his feet and blindly away from the inn, as if trying to outrace his own pain. He fetched up against the wall of the stables, beside the horse trough. He dropped to his knees to plunge his hands into the icy water-and saw his own reflection. There was his face, as white as death, and his shirt, and a spreading stain of red across the front.
With wet hands he seized at his lapels and jerked the shirt open. In the dim light that spilled from the inn, he could see that his parabatai rune, just over his heart, was bleeding.
His hands were covered in blood, blood mixed with rain, the same rain that was washing the blood away from his chest, showing the rune as it began to fade from black to silver, changing all that had been sense in Will's life into nonsense.
Jem was dead.”
It was truly touching. The two boys truly shared a meaningful connection, they are what we can say brothers from another mother.
"You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever."
In addition, Tessa's reaction to the news of Jem's death - when Will finally found her, ends up getting trapped with her, and tells her - shows how deeply she loved him as well.
“Will did not know what happened then. His expression must have changed at the mention of Jem's name, for he saw some of the colour leave her face. Her hand tightened on his arm.
"Tessa," he said. "I am alone."
The word "alone" came out broken, as if he could taste the bitterness of loss on his tongue and struggled to speak around it.
"Jem?" she said. It was more than a question. Will said nothing; his voice seemed to have fled. He had thought to spirit her from this place before he told her about Jem, had imagined telling her somewhere safe, somewhere where there would be space and time to comfort her. He knew now he had been a fool to think it, to imagine that what he had lost would not be written all over his face. The remaining colour drained from her skin; it was like watching a fire flicker and go out. "No," she whispered.
"Tessa ..."
She took a step back from him, shaking her head. "No, it's not possible. I would have known-it can't be possible."
He reached out a hand to her. "Tess-"
She had begun to shake violently. "No," she said again. "No, don't say it. If you don't say it, it won't be true. It can't be true. It isn't fair."
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Her face crumpled, shattered like a dam under too much pressure. She sank to her knees, folding in on herself. Her arms went around her body. She was holding herself tightly, as if she could keep from breaking apart. Will felt a fresh wave of the helpless agony he had experienced in the courtyard of the Green Man. What had he done? He had come here to save her, but instead of saving her he had only succeeded in inflicting agony. It was as if he were truly cursed-capable only of bringing suffering to those he loved.
"I am sorry," he said again, with all his heart in the words. "So sorry. I would have died for him if I could."”
It's before the final battle with Mortmain when the pair is still in the villain domain, that Will confess his love for Tessa. They talk about Jem, share their feelings and the climate warms up... if I can make myself understood...
“Will gave a short, disbelieving laugh. "It's true," he said. "I am no hero."
"No," Tessa said. "You are a person, just like me." His eyes searched her face, mystified; she held his hand tighter, lacing her fingers with his. "Don't you see, Will? You're a person like me. You are like me. You say the things I think but never say out loud. You read the books I read. You love the poetry I love. You make me laugh with your ridiculous songs and the way you see the truth of everything. I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way." With the hand that was not holding his, she touched his cheek, lightly. "We are the same."
Will's eyes fluttered closed; she felt his lashes against her fingertips. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged but controlled. "Don't say those things, Tessa. Don't say them."
"Why not?"
"You said I am a good man," he said. "But I am not that good a man. And I am-I am catastrophically in love with you."
"Will-"
"I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and when you're this close to me, I forget who you are. I forget you're Jem's. I'd have to be the worst sort of person to think what I'm thinking right now. But I am thinking it."
"I loved Jem," she said. "I love him still, and he loved me, but I am not anybody's, Will. My heart is my own. It is beyond you to control it. It has been beyond me to control it."”
When the big finale takes place a choking revelation is made: Mortmain reveals that he is the one who had "made" Tessa by disguising a Greater Demon as Richard Gray to conceive Tessa with her mother. Tessa takes profit of her transcendent power and changes to an Angel defeating Mortmain, saving everyone at the end. We also get to know that Jem didn't die, instead, he has become a Silent Brother: Brother Zachariah. That transformation was the only way to save his life.
Since Jem was now a Silent Brother he couldn't be with the love of his life, Will and his friends at the Institute. That way, the characters bid their farewell to him with great sadness, yet as Brother Zachariah, he and Tessa agreed to meet once a year in the Blackfriars Bridge. Tessa marries with Will and they live a long and happy live in love, having two children. Will also fulfils his promise and gets reunited with his family. That was an emotional encounter. His sister, Cecily, marries Gabriel Lightwood, and, in turn, his brother Gideon Lightwood marries Sophie. Charlotte and Henry also have two children. However, if you remember Tessa is immortal, but not her loved ones. Will dies of old age in 1937 with his friends and family on his side. Jem also visits him. Will never forgot his Parabatai during his life. After the death of her husband, Tessa gets very depressed and then she decides to travel with Magnus Bane.
The book ends after the events of the main series of The Mortal Instruments. Tessa reunites with Jem, that is again a mortal, in London. He reveals that after so many years he still has feelings for her, and they kiss passionately. Tessa affirms that there is so much of the World that she did not see and asks Jem to travel with her. He accepts.
To sum up, in my point of view Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare had the perfect ending. Tessa lived her love story with Will, and in the end, life gave her the chance to start again with Jem, in the ideal time. Our main character found indeed two great loves in her life. Personally, I don't like love triangles in stories: usually, in the beginning, I envision the couple that I want to be endgame and that's it, if that doesn’t occur, I can be entertained at first but the constant changes or indecision by the characters bores me eventually. Tessa, Will, and Jem were an exception. The love story is so well done that it's surprising: the plot is addicting, the characters are interesting and easy to like and the final was sublime. I loved the books, in fact, I liked Infernal Devices even more than the main series The Mortal Instruments.
Here is the Genealogy of the three main families in the series. I think it's amusing to see the descendants and ancestors of our favourite characters:
Lastly here are the reviews of the previous books of the Infernal Devices saga, if you are interested in checking those out:
Clockwork Angel – Click here
Clockwork Prince – Click here
I do not own any of these images and I am not trying to infringe copyright.
I hope you are having a beautiful day!
Mariana Nunes
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