The clockwork princess snippet

“Will.” Tessa caught at his wrist. “You would not abandon me now — not leave me the only one who still hopes? I cannot do it without you.”

He took a deep breath, half-closing his shadowed blue eyes. “Of course not. I will help. I will continue. It is only —”

He broke off, turning his face away. The light that came down through the window high above illuminated cheek and chin and the curve of his jaw. 

“Only what?”

“You remember what else I said to you that day — that day in the drawing-room?”