Clockwork Angel

Clockwork Angel
Author(s)	Cassandra Clare
Cover artist	Cliff Neilson
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Infernal Devices
Genre(s)	Young adult, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher	Walker Books
Publication date	2010
Media type	Print, e-book, audio book
Pages	448
ISBN	ISBN 978-1-4169-7586-1
Followed by	Clockwork Prince

Clockwork Angel is a young adult novel written by Cassandra Clare. It is written through the perspective of the main character, Tessa Gray, who goes to London to live with her brother. When she gets there she lives with the Dark Sisters for six weeks until Will comes and rescues her.

The book became a Best Seller in the New York Times List, debuting #1 on the children's bestselling list.^[1]

1 Plot
2 Characters
3 Sequel
4 References
5 See also
- 5.1 External links

Plot

London, April 1878. Shadowhunter William Herondale kills a Shax demon and searches for Jem his "hunting buddy" (parabatai). Jem is in an alley and has found the body of fourteen-year-old Emma Bayliss. They find a dagger imprinted with two snakes each biting the other's tail, an ouroboros.

Southampton, May. Tessa is thinking of her clockwork angel necklace when she arrives at Southampton dock aboard the Main, expecting to find her brother Nate waiting for her. Tessa was living in NY with her Aunt Harriet, but her aunt had died recently and her brother asked her to come stay with him in Liverpool. At the port, instead of her brother, Tessa finds the Dark Sisters, Mrs. Dark and Mrs. Black, who have a letter from her brother saying that he could not meet her because of business, but that the sisters will bring her to him. Tessa goes with them.

Six Weeks Later. Tessa has been held prisoner by the Sisters. They have been training her to Change (a process by which she takes on the appearance of someone else, living or dead, by holding something that belongs to them). This time Tessa becomes Emma Bayliss and relives her last few moments alive. The sisters are impressed and tell Tessa that they have been preparing her for an arranged marriage to a mysterious individual known as "the Magister." The expect the marriage to take place that day or the next. The sisters leave and Tessa tries to run away but is caught by the Sister's coachman. Tessa is tied to her bed, she attempts to escape again by using the Change. Just as she escapes her bindings the door opens. It is Will, who followed the trail from Emma's body to an organization called the Pandemonium Club and the Sister's house. Will and his friends proceed to help Tessa escape and when the Dark Sisters catch up a battle begins in which Mrs. Black is killed, and Tessa is knocked unconscious.

Tessa awakens in the London Institute to find herself being examined by Brother Enoch, one of the Silent Brothers, who informs her that she is a shape-changer and a Downworlder. Tessa meets the inhabitants of the Institute. The next morning Jessamine takes Tessa shopping; Charlotte and Henry look for Tessa's brother; and Will and Jem inspect the Sister's house. Will and Jem find a clockwork automaton wrapped in human flesh. A vampire named de Quincey is identified as the Magister and is said to have Tessa's brother. Tessa and Will infiltrate one of de Quincey's parties. At his parties de Quincey slowly drains a human victim; this is against the Accord, which allows the Shadowhunters to attack de Quincey. Things go terribly wrong at the party when de Quincey's victim is revealed to be Tessa's brother Nate.

Tessa and the Shadowhunters kill the vampires at the party, save Nate and bring him to the institute, but de Quincy escapes. Will bites a vampire, while fighting, and accidentally swallows some of the vampires blood. To get the blood out of his system, so he won't turn into a vampire, has to drink holy water. When Tessa brings him a bucket of holy water they kiss. Tessa and Jem go for a walk and are attacked by the Magister's clockwork army. They make it to the institute where the Shadowhunters barely fight the army off. Jem reveals that he is addicted to demon blood and is slowly dying from it. Most of the Shadowhunters leave to kill de Quincy who is hiding out. Mortmain, the mundane who informed the Shadowhunters of de Quincey comes back to the institute and tells Will and Jem the location of the Dark sister who is trying to help the Magister with his army. They rush off to kill her leaving Nate, Jessamine and Tessa alone. Mortmain comes back with the clockwork army and reveals himself as the real Magister. Nate reveals himself as Mortmain's accomplice. The girls lock themselves in a room, but Mortmain tricks them to open the door. Tessa agrees to marry Mortmain if he will leave everyone alone and he agrees. Once the army has left the room Tessa stabs herself in the heart and Mortmain leaves.

Will rushes back when he realizes his mistake. At the Institute he runs into the army and Nate. Nate orders the army to kill Will. Jem makes it back and helps Will and then the rest of the Shadowhunters arrive. The army leaves. Will finds Tessa who is alive; she Changed quickly just before stabbing herself and the blood was from a gunshot victim she had Changed to before with the Sisters. Tessa is asked to stay at the Institute and she happily accepts. Tessa wants to have a serious relationship with Will, but he suggests a strictly sexual relation and tells Tessa that she cannot have children (she is assumed to be a warlock) so it is impossible. Jem comforts her though she will not tell him exactly what Will did to annoy her. Will seeks Magnus Bane's help, but it is not revealed for what reason.

Characters

Major Characters

Theresa 'Tessa' Gray

Species: Eidolon/shape-changer (warlock)
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Gray-Blue
Age: 16

Tessa has spent the first sixteen years of her life being overprotected by her aunt after the death of her parents in a carriage accident. She lives almost all her life in books, dreaming of having the kind of adventures the heroines she reads about do—until she is forced to travel from New York to London when her brother Nathaniel goes missing and only a pair of mysterious—and sinister—women called the Dark Sisters seem to know where he might have gone. The Shadowhunters of the London Institute may be Tessa's only hope of finding Nate, but their mysterious world of demons and Downworlders holds many dangers for her—especially when she realizes she might be more a part of it than she'd thought.

William 'Will' Herondale

Species: Nephilim
Gender: Male
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Blue
Age: 17

Seventeen-year-old Will is the sort of young man nice Victorian girls are warned against. He drinks, gambles, and enjoys the company of ladies of questionable virtue—at least, as much as he enjoys anything. Will hates everyone and everything, with the possible exception of Jem, and even that's in some doubt. Charlotte despairs of keeping him alive past the age of nineteen. When he finds himself oddly drawn to Tessa, his friends begin to hope that the Downworlder girl will prove Will's unlikely salvation—but as Tessa grows closer to the bleak secret that makes his life a prison, danger threatens to destroy them both if she ever finds out the truth

James 'Jem' Carstairs

Species: Nephilim / Shadowhunter
Gender: Male
Hair Color: Silver
Eye Color: Silver
Age: 17

Brought up in the Institute in Shanghai, Jem's parents were killed by a demon who allowed Jem to live—but with a terrible price to be paid. Frail and silver-haired, Jem seems an unlikely demon-killer, but his skills and swift intelligence make him a formidable foe. He finds a kindred spirit in Tessa as both of them feel they are torn between two worlds, neither belonging completely to one or to the other. As Jem's affection for her grows, will Will have to hurt the only person in his life he's ever seemed to care about?

Jessamine 'Jessie' Lovelace

Species: Nephilim
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Brown
Age: 17

Jessamine's parents, like Will's, were Shadowhunters who left the Clave. Their deaths in a fire orphaned her, leaving her to be brought up in the Institute by Charlotte and Henry. Jessamine hates everything about being a Shadowhunter, from the training to the danger to the existence of demons, which she deems "smelly and disgusting." Armed with a razor-edged parasol and an equally sharp tongue, Jessamine can be dangerous if she wants to be—to herself as much as to the supernatural creatures she's sometimes forced to encounter.

Charlotte Branwell

Species: Nephilim
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Bright
Age: 23

Twenty-three-year-old Charlotte runs the entire Institute with a capable hand. Kind and loving, she does her best to care for the orphaned Shadowhunters who live under her roof while hiding her loneliness from the absent-minded husband she loves. It seems as if there's nothing Charlotte can't manage—until Tessa's search for her missing brother begins to uncover a web of corruption and deceit in London's Downworld that threatens to tear London's Enclave of Shadowhunters apart.

Henry Branwell

Species: Nephilim
Gender: Male
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Hazel

Absent-minded and brilliant, Henry spends his waking hours in the crypt of the Institute, inventing fabulous machines and weapons out of cogs cams and gears. Unfortunately just as many of Henry's inventions don't work as the ones that do, and Henry is as likely to set himself on fire as he is to invent something new and amazing. When Tessa finds herself followed by a silent band of assassins who turn out to be automate—human beings made from clockwork parts—it is Henry who must decipher how they work in order to find the demonic mechanical genius at the heart of the most evil plan London's supernatural world has ever seen.

Downworlders

Alexei de Quincey

Species: Vampire
Gender: Male

Alexei de Quincey is the head of the London vampire clans. Lady Camille Belcourt reports to the Nephilim that he is killing mortals at his parties, which breaks the Law. In the past, de Quincey had killed one of Camille's lovers because he was a lycanthrope. Alexei has been shown to harbor romantic intentions toward Camille. Magnus also suggests the de Quincey would like to be "more than friends" with him, as well.

Lady Camille Belcourt

Species: Vampire
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Green

Lady Belcourt is a vampire baronness. In 1878, she is the lover of Magnus Bane. She is also an informant for the London Institute. Because Alexei de Quincey killed her lycanthrope lover, she tells the Nephilim that de Quincey commits murder at his parties. She does this for a chance to watch Tessa shapeshift into her form.

Magnus Bane

Species: Warlock
Gender: Male
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Green

Magnus Bane is the lover of vampire Lady Camille Belcourt. Tessa uses her shapeshifting ability to take the form of Camille and attends a party at the home of London head vampire Alexei de Quincey along with Will Herondale, who is pretending to be her human pet. Magnus Bane acts as their guide through the house, helping the Nephilim determine that de Quincey has violated the Law. During this, he admires Will's blue eyes and black hair, calling it his favorite combination. This does, of course, match Alec's appearance over a century later.

Brother Enoch

Species: Nephilim/ Silent Brother
Gender: Male

Brother Enoch is a no faced man who has excellent healing powers. Helps Tessa and her brother Nate.

Mrs.Black

Species: Warlock
Gender: Female

Mrs.Dark;

Species: Eidolon demon
Gender: Female

"The Dark Sisters" is Tessa's name for Mrs. Black and Mrs. Dark, the two sisters who abduct her in order to teach her to Change. They claim to be keeping her brother Nate prisoner as well, using this to motivate Tessa. They plan to sell her into marriage to "the Magister" until the interference of the Shadowhunters. Mrs. Dark went missing, but reappeared later on, revealing that though her sister was a warlock, she is an Eidolon demon, a shapeshifter. Unlike Tessa, however, she can not "become" those whose appearances she takes on. The demon that was Mrs. Dark is attempting to use necromancy to bring her sister back to life.

Humans

Nathaniel 'Nate' Gray

Species: Human
Gender: Male
Hair Color: Blonde
Age: 19

Tessa's charming, roguish, and handsome older brother, whom she has journeyed to London to live with following the death of their Aunt Harriet. She is concerned by his mysterious disappearance, and enlists the aid of the Shadowhunters to help find him. However, the truth behind his disappearance may be more than Tessa can handle. Nate is mundane.

Axel Mortmain

Species: Human
Gender: Male
Hair Color: Gray
Eye Color: Green

Axel Mortmain is the son of Dr. Hollingworth Mortmain, who had established a trading company in China dealing in spices, sugar, silk, tea, and likely opium. Axel moved from Shanghai to London a decade or so after his father's death and his subsequent inheritance of the family fortune. A shrewd businessman, he sold his trading company and purchased a company in London that manufactures mechanical equipment used in clocks. He named the business Mortmain and Company, also called Mortmain's. He is actually the Magister, not de Quincy.

Emma Bayliss

Species: Human
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Brown
Age: 14

Miss Emma Bayliss was a fourteen year old girl that Tessa Changes into while holding her pink hair ribbon. While in the form of Emma, Tessa describes her as being born in Cheapside as one of six children. She earned her keep by sewing at night. One night, when she went outside to sew by the light of the gas lamps, she was murdered. Her body is discovered by Will and Jem. Emma Bayliss was presumably murdered by a member the Pandemonium Club, possibly "The Magister" himself. There is evidence of this because Jem finds a knife with two snakes on it. (A double "Ouroboros").