Blackfriars Bridge

Blackfriars Bridge

A deleted bit of the conversation between Jem and Tessa on Blackfriars Bridge

"There was a place in China," said Jem, "called the Yuánmíng Yuán. The Gardens of Perfect Brightness. It was an Imperial residence. My mother went there to visit the Emperor once, a sort of ambassadorial visit from the Nephilim. She said it was the most beautiful place she had ever been. There were exquisite gardens, paintings, music, beautiful pavilions. They called it 'the Garden of gardens.'" He looked out over the water. "Fifteen years ago the British tore it to the ground. Reprisals for something that happened during the Arrow War. They killed the guards, stole anything they thought they could sell, and set the palace on fire. It took three days to burn. There's nothing left of all that beauty now but silent stones and scorched earth."

"I'm sorry," Tessa told him, having no idea what else she could possibly say.

"No one here cares, of course," said Jem. "They have never heard of the Gardens. Lord Elgin was the one who ordered the Gardens burned; for that, they made him viceroy of India. He is a celebrated man now. For what he did in my country I should hate him and all the Englishmen like him."

His voice was cool and clear, and sent a shiver up Tessa's spine. Across the bridge from them, the strolling couple had paused at a parapet; the man seemed to be pointing down at something at the water, the woman nodding as he spoke. "And do you? Hate them?"

"It does not matter," said Jem. "I am more than anything else a Shadowhunter. I am a brother to the Nephilim of England more than I am a brother to any mundane of the land where I was born. And when Nephilim look at me, they see only a Shadowhunter. It is the mundanes who look at me and see something they do not understand—a boy who is not quite white and not quite foreign either."

"Just as I am not human, and not demon either," Tessa said softly.

His eyes softened. "You are human," he said. "Never think you are not. I have seen you with your brother; I know how you care for him. If you can feel hope, guilt, sorrow, love—then you are human."