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Will stopped Balios a few feet away from the edge of the lake and jumped off. The impact of landing made him cough, but nothing came up. He straightened up from where he’d been hunched over with one hand on Balios’s saddle and pressed his hand to his chest. His lungs felt like someone was squeezing them as tightly as possible, and it wasn’t a good feeling. The only kind of airway clearance that he’d had since leaving the Institute was riding Balios and coughing. If he wanted to be able to go up against Mortmain, he would have to have Tessa do his physical therapy.
Balios whinnied softly and pushed his nose against Will’s chest. Will reached up and scratched him between the ears. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just wait here for me, alright? If I don’t come out after a while, go home.”
Will gave him a quick pat and turned away. Balios whinnied again from behind him, but Will ignored him and made his way towards the lake. As soon as he stepped in, the shock of the cold made him gasp, which in turn triggered yet another cough. He took a second to get used to the temperature and stop coughing, then continued on his way. He was about to be very cold and very wet for what felt like the hundredth time. If I haven’t caught some sort of infection by now, he thought, this will certainly do it.
Will took the deepest breath he could manage and jumped in fully.
He didn’t know what he had been expecting to find under the lake, but it certainly wasn’t a hard impact with a cold stone floor. He should have expected, however, that it would make him cough. Almost everything seemed to do that these days. He coughed until he felt like he couldn’t breathe and his head was pounding, then realized that he was making a lot of noise that could be heard by any passing automaton or Mortmain himself. After that realization, he buried his mouth in his elbow to try and muffle any coughs and breathed as deeply as possible to stop them.
Once he was sure that that ordeal was over, Will picked himself up from where he had been lying face down on the floor and brushed himself off. His previous position and the very violent coughing fit reminded him of an incident in an attic a few months before that Jem had stopped just in time and he just barely stopped himself from looking around for Jem. Jem wouldn’t be there to stop anything like that again.
Will pushed the thought of Jem from his mind and focused on Tessa. He needed to find her and there was no time to mourn Jem right now. She was somewhere in this maze of tunnels, and he wasn’t leaving until she was found.
When Tessa heard footsteps coming down the hall towards her prison, she assumed it was Mortmain or one of his automatons. She had been sitting on the bed, but she immediately stood up and steeled herself. She couldn’t let herself look weak in front of Mortmain.
Needless to say, she was very surprised when she saw Will open the door. Her relief was instantaneous and she would have run straight to him if not for the invisible wall separating them. Will saved her from having to do that by running to her and wrapping his arms around her. She realized immediately that he was now trapped behind the barrier too, but she was so relieved that she had been found and was no longer alone that she decided to deal with it later and just buried her face in his shoulder.
Tessa thought for a second that the heat on her face was from the tears that she could feel streaming down her cheeks, but she soon realized that she could only feel that heat on the parts of her face that were touching Will’s skin. She immediately pulled back and put her hand on his forehead, then gasped at the heat she could feel.
“You have a fever!” Tessa cried, looking him over.
Now that it was confirmed, she could see things that she really should have noticed earlier. He was pale except for the flush in his cheeks that she only saw on him when he had a fever, and she could tell from the way his chest was moving that he was breathing shallowly. She didn’t know why he was breathing that way, but she had a suspicion that he hadn’t had any physical therapy in a while. Tessa grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down until he was sitting on the bed.
“I’m not surprised,” Will said. His voice sounded weak, which confirmed Tessa’s belief that he needed therapy. “I haven’t had a lot of rest in the past few days.”
Tessa was very tempted to smack him upside the head and would have done so if he hadn’t had a fever. She knew that he was always much healthier when he didn’t exert himself too much and got a good amount of sleep every night. She highly doubted that that had been the case for the last few days.
“Did anyone else come with you?” she asked.
“It’s just me. The others will hopefully be coming soon,” Will answered, hunching forward to cough into his hand.
The temptation to hit him was even stronger now. Tessa waited to see if the single cough turned into a fit, but none came. “Jem didn’t come with you?”
The relief that had been on Will’s face from finding her disappeared instantly and it was replaced by something Tessa couldn’t name. “He was sick.”
“I’m sure he’s better now, right?”
Will shook his head and turned away from her. She could take that to mean that Jem was still sick, but she instantly knew what it really meant. She knew what was about to happen even before Will pulled down the collar of his shirt to show the faded parabatai rune on his chest.
“He’s…” Tessa muttered. “He’s gone.”
Will was still turned away from her, but she could see tears running down his face. “He’s dead and I wasn’t there with him.”
Tessa wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it felt like forever. By the time they had both calmed down, her throat hurt and she knew that her eyes were red and swollen. She barely remembered Will sliding off the bed to sit next to her when she collapsed to the floor. She did remember that they sat there and held each other as they cried for someone that they had loved in every way.
Tessa wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked over at Will. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to her with his head in his hands. She could tell that he was taking deep breaths to try not to cough and she remembered the multiple coughing fits that had been triggered by the crying. She knew that he was angry with himself for not being there with Jem when he died and for not even being able to mourn his best friend properly without his health getting in the way. Right now, though, they couldn’t focus on their grief. There would be time to grieve after this was all over. At the moment, they needed to make sure they were ready for when Mortmain came back. Tessa was unarmed, and Will was certainly in no condition to fight.
Tessa took a deep breath and asked, “When was the last time you had physical therapy?”
“I made Cyril do it right before I left,” Will said after a minute. “I would have had Charlotte do it but she never hits hard enough.”
“What are we going to do?” Tessa asked. “You need it done soon and we don’t have time to wait for the others to come.”
“You could do it,” Will said.
Tessa froze. She had seen Jem doing Will’s therapy and she knew the basics of it, but she didn’t think she could do it herself. “Me?”
Will nodded. “You’ve seen Jem do it, right?” He waited for her to nod, then continued. “Then you can do it. I know you’re strong enough, and I can tell you everything you need to do.”
“But I don’t want to hurt you.”
“If you don’t do it hard enough, it won’t work. Besides, it would take a lot more than that to actually do damage.”
Tessa looked down at her hands, which were a lot smaller and more delicate than Jem’s were- or had been, she corrected. She doubted that she would be able to even give him a bruise. “Alright. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you,” Will said.
Tessa stood up and helped Will up, then rushed to the chair against the wall and dragged it over. Will turned it so that it was facing the bed, but then sat backwards in it so that he was facing away from the bed. Tessa remembered walking past Will’s room one day and seeing him sitting the same way in a chair with Jem sitting on the bed behind him to do his therapy. She also took the bowl from the washstand and put it on the bed next to where she would be sitting.
“Is there anything else we need?” Tessa asked.
Will turned to look behind him and then shook his head. “You’re ready.”
Tessa sat down on the bed behind him and got herself situated. “You’ll tell me if I’m doing it wrong?”
“I will, but I don’t think I’ll need to.”
Tessa nodded slowly and lifted her hands up. “I cup my hands, right?”
“Correct,” Will said. “See? You know more than you think you do.”
“I guess I do,” Tessa said, although she was still terrified. She cupped her hands and put them on Will’s back in roughly the same spot she had seen Jem do it many times. “What now?”
Tessa handed the bowl to Will for the last time and waited while he coughed. They had just finished his physical therapy after half an hour and Tessa’s hands were sore and her arms were tired. She took the bowl back from him when he was done and tried not to look inside as she replaced it on the washstand. She hopefully wouldn’t have to use it at all, but she could figure something out if the need arose.
Will’s fever wasn’t any better, but he did seem to be breathing somewhat easier than before. They had done all that they could without Charlotte or the Silent Brothers, and now all they could do was rest and wait for Mortmain or to be rescued.
“We should get some sleep,” Tessa said. “You need rest and I’m tired.”
“What if Mortmain comes in while we’re asleep?” Will asked.
Tessa helped him stand again and said, “Then we’ll figure something out.” She pulled the covers of the bed down and gestured to it. “Get in.”
Will rolled his eyes and did as she said after taking off his shirt and his shoes. Once he was all settled in, Tessa laid down next to him and pulled the covers over both of them. “No matter what happens tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll do what Jem would have wanted me to and do my best to keep you safe.”
Will laughed next to her and said, “And I’ll do the same for you.”
Tessa woke up before Will did. She had no idea what time it was, but that didn’t really matter when it didn’t seem like Mortmain had come in and they were both still alive. She turned her head to make sure that Will was alright and saw her angel sitting on his bare shoulder. She carefully pulled it away and was surprised to see a pale star-shaped mark where it had been resting on his skin. She was sure he would ask about it later, but it was unimportant for now.
Tessa was about to get out of bed when the door slammed open. Expecting it to be Mortmain, she instinctively moved closer to Will, who had been woken up by the noise and now looked very confused.
“I must say,” the person in the doorway said, “I wasn’t expecting to find both of you in here.”
Tessa blinked in confusion. That wasn’t Mortmain, it was… “Magnus? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to rescue you, of course!” Magnus said. He picked up a bag from the floor and opened it to show gear and weapons. “I also brought supplies.”
“Are the others here too?” Tessa asked. She felt the bed move and looked over to see that Will had turned away from her and propped himself up on one elbow. She got up and got the bowl from the washstand again, then brought it back over to the bed and put it down in front of Will.
“They’re around here somewhere,” Magnus said. “Now get dressed. We have a Magister to defeat.” He dropped the bag on the floor and turned towards the door.
“Wait!” Tessa cried before he could go too far. “There’s some sort of barrier here.” She put her hand on it to show him where it was. “Can you do something about it?”
Magnus nodded proudly. “Of course.” As he started doing some sort of magic on the barrier separating them, Tessa turned back towards Will. He had started coughing a minute or two ago and it sounded like he needed physical therapy again, but there was no time for it. After Mortmain was dead or captured, she would have someone else do his therapy and then tuck him into bed and make him stay there for at least a few years.
“There,” she heard Magnus say. “You should find that no such wall exists now.”
Tessa turned around again and put her hand where the wall used to be. It was, as Magnus said, gone. “Thank you,” she said. “Wait for us in the hallway. We’ll be a few minutes.”
Magnus nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. Tessa picked up the bag he had left and pulled out the gear that was meant for her. She changed into it quickly while Will’s back was turned and then went through the weapons that were also in the bag. As she was doing so, she heard Will stop coughing and then heard him swear quietly. She didn’t know what he was swearing about, but she knew that it was nothing good, so she stood up and turned towards him.
“Is everything alright?” she asked.
“It's fine,” Will said, although it clearly wasn’t fine as he pulled the covers over the bowl to hide its contents and got out of bed as quickly as possible. Tessa didn’t want to sound like she was interrogating him so she stopped the questioning there and decided that she would get an answer out of him later.
Tessa turned away as he changed into his gear and then turned back towards him when she heard the sound of blades being slid into holsters. He might have been better than he was when he first came into the room, but he still didn’t look good. He was pale and Tessa doubted that he could run even a few feet without having to stop or coughing.
“Are you sure you should be doing this? We could wait here until it’s over,” Tessa said. She was hoping that Will would agree with her, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t.
“We don’t really have much of a choice,” Will said. “We’re going to need everyone with the number of automatons he has.”
She had been right. Tessa knew there was no point in trying to convince him, so she gave up on that and tried a different route instead. “If you need to, take yourself out of the fight and find somewhere safe. We can manage without you.”
Will shook his head and sheathed one last knife. “We’ll see about that.”
Will went over to the door and opened it, then went back to hand Tessa a few knives and one very dangerous looking sword. Magnus walked in a second later. Magnus clapped his hands together almost gleefully and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to deal with some pesky automatons.”
Will turned to Tessa and asked, “Ready?”
Tessa nodded. “Ready.”