The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (236 page)

He could hear voices from the living room. Magnus was explaining to Maia and Jordan what had happened that night, with Izzy occasionally interjecting a detail. Jordan was saying something about how they should order Chinese food so they wouldn’t starve; Maia laughed and said as long as it wasn’t from the Jade Wolf, that would be fine.

Starving,
Simon thought. He was getting hungry—hungry enough to have begun to feel it, like a pull on all his veins. It was a different kind of hunger than human hunger. He felt scraped out, a hollow emptiness inside. If you struck him, he thought, he would ring like a bell.

“Simon.” His door opened, and Isabelle slid inside. Her black hair was down and loose, almost reaching her waist. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She saw the duffel bag on his lap, and her shoulders tensed. “Are you leaving?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning to stay forever,” Simon said. “I mean, last night was—different. You asked…”

“Right,” she said in an unnaturally bright voice. “Well, you can get a ride back with Jordan at least. Did you notice him and Maia, by the way?”

“Notice what about them?”

She lowered her voice. “Something
definitely
happened between them on their little road trip. They’re all couply now.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Jealous?” he echoed, confused.

“Well, you and Maia…” She waved a hand, looking up at him through her lashes. “You were…”

“Oh. No. No, not at all. I’m glad for Jordan. This will make him really happy.” He meant it too.

“Good.” Isabelle looked up then, and he saw that her cheeks were rosy red, and not just from the cold. “Would you stay here tonight, Simon?”

“With you?”

She nodded, not looking at him. “Alec’s going out to get some more of his clothes from the Institute. He asked if I wanted to go back with him, but I—I’d rather stay here with you.” She raised her chin, looking at him directly. “I don’t want to sleep by myself. If I stay here, will you stay with me?” He could tell how much she hated to ask.

“Of course,” he said, as lightly as he possibly could, pushing the thought of his hunger out of his head, or trying to.
The last time he had tried to forget to drink, it had ended with Jordan pulling him off a semiconscious Maureen.

But that was when he hadn’t eaten for days. This was different. He knew his limits. He was sure of it.

“Of course,” he said again. “That would be great.”

Camille smirked up at Alec from her divan. “So where does Magnus think you are now?”

Alec, who had put a plank of wood across two cinderblocks to form a sort of bench, stretched his long legs out and looked at his boots. “At the Institute, picking up clothes. I was going to go up to Spanish Harlem, but I came here instead.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And why is that?”

“Because I can’t do it. I can’t kill Raphael.”

Camille threw up her hands. “And why not? Have you some sort of personal bond with him?”

“I barely know him,” Alec said. “But killing him is deliberately breaking Covenant Law. Not that I haven’t broken Laws before, but there’s a difference between breaking them for good reasons and breaking them for selfish ones.”

“Oh, dear God.” Camille began to pace. “Spare me from Nephilim with consciences.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Sorry? I’ll
make
you—” She broke off. “Alexander,” she went on in a more composed voice. “What of Magnus? If you continue as you have been, you will lose him.”

Alec watched her as she moved, catlike and composed, her face blank of anything now but a curious sympathy. “Where was Magnus born?”

Camille laughed. “You don’t even know that? My goodness.
Batavia, if you must know.” She snorted at his look of incomprehension. “Indonesia. Of course, it was the Dutch East Indies then. His mother was a native, I believe; his father was some dull colonial. Well, not his
real
father.” Her lips curved into a smile.

“Who was his real father?”

“Magnus’s father? Why, a demon, of course.”

“Yes, but
which
demon?”

“How could it possibly matter, Alexander?”

“I get the feeling,” Alec went on stubbornly, “that he’s a pretty powerful, high-up demon. But Magnus won’t talk about him.”

Camille collapsed back onto the divan with a sigh. “Well, of course he won’t. One must preserve some mystery in one’s relationship, Alec Lightwood. A book that one has not read yet is always more exciting than a book one has memorized.”

“You mean I tell him too much?” Alec pounced on the morsel of advice. Somewhere here, inside this cold, beautiful shell of a woman, was someone who had shared a unique experience with him—of loving and being loved by Magnus. Surely she must know something, some secret, some key that would keep him from screwing everything up.

“Almost certainly. Although, you’ve been alive for such a short time that I can’t imagine how much there could be to say. Certainly you must be out of anecdotes.”

“Well, it seems clear to me that your policy of not telling him anything didn’t work out either.”

“I was not so invested in keeping him as you are.”

“Well,” Alec asked, knowing it was a bad idea but not being able to help it, “if you
had been
interested in keeping him, what would you have done differently?”

Camille sighed dramatically. “The thing that you are too young to understand is that we all hide things. We hide them from our lovers because we wish to present our best selves, but also because if it is real love, we expect our loved one to simply understand it, without needing to ask. In a true partnership, the kind that lasts through the ages, there is an unspoken communion.”

“B-but,” Alec stammered, “I would have thought he would have wanted me to open up. I mean, I have a hard time being open even with people I’ve known my whole life—like Isabelle, or Jace…”

Camille snorted. “That’s another thing,” she said. “You no longer need other people in your life once you have found your true love. No wonder Magnus feels he cannot open up to you, when you rely so heavily upon these other people. When love is true, you should meet each other’s every desire, every need—Are you listening, young Alexander? For my advice is precious, and not given often…”

The room was filled with translucent dawn light. Clary sat up, watching Jace as he slept. He was on his side, his hair a pale brass color in the bluish air. His cheek was pillowed on his hand, like a child’s. The star-shaped scar on his shoulder was revealed, and so were the patterns of old runes up and down his arms, back, and sides.

She wondered if other people would find the scars as beautiful as she did, or if she only saw them that way because she loved him and they were part of him. Each one told the story of a moment. Some had even saved his life.

He murmured in his sleep and turned over onto his back. His hand, the Voyance rune clear and black on the back of it, was splayed
across his stomach, and above it was the one rune that Clary did not find beautiful: Lilith’s rune, the one that bound him to Sebastian.

It seemed to pulse, like Isabelle’s ruby necklace, like a second heart.

Silent as a cat, she moved up the bed and onto her knees. She reached up and pulled the Herondale dagger from the wall. The photograph of her and Jace together fluttered free, spinning in the air before landing face-down on the floor.

She swallowed and looked back at him. Even now, he was so alive, he seemed to glow from inside, as if lit by inner fire. The scar on his chest pulsed its steady beat.

She lifted the knife.

Clary came awake with a start, her heart slamming against her rib cage. The room swung around her like a carousel: it was still dark, and Jace’s arm was around her, his breath warm on the back of her neck. She could feel his heartbeat against her spine. She closed her eyes, swallowing against the bitter taste in her mouth.

It was a dream. Just a dream.

But there was no way she was getting back to sleep now. She sat up carefully, gently moving Jace’s arm away, and climbed off the bed.

The floor was icy cold, and she winced as her bare feet touched it. She found the knob of the bedroom door in the half-light, and swung it open. And froze.

Though there were no windows in the hallway outside, it was lit by pendant chandeliers. Puddles of something that looked sticky and dark marred the floor. Along one white-painted wall was the clear mark of a bloody handprint. Blood
spattered the wall at intervals leading to the stairs, where there was a single long, dark smear.

Clary looked toward Sebastian’s room. It was quiet, the door shut, no light showing beneath it. She thought of the blond girl in the spangled top, looking up at him. She looked at the bloody handprint again. It was like a message, a hand thrust out, saying
Stop
.

And then Sebastian’s door opened.

He stepped out. He was wearing a thermal shirt over black jeans, and his silver-white hair was rumpled. He was yawning; he did a double take when he saw her, and a look of genuine surprise passed over his face. “What are you doing up?”

Clary sucked in a breath. The air tasted metallic. “What am I doing? What are
you
doing?”

“Going downstairs to get some towels to clean up this mess,” he said matter-of-factly. “Vampires and their games…”

“This doesn’t look like the outcome of a
game
,” Clary said. “The girl—the human girl who was with you—what happened to her?”

“She got a little frightened at the sight of fangs. Sometimes they do.” At the look on her face, he laughed. “She came around. Even wanted more. She’s asleep in my bed now, if you want to check and make sure she’s alive.”

“No… That’s not necessary.” Clary dropped her eyes. She wished she’d worn something besides this silk nightgown to bed. She felt undressed. “What about you?”

“Are you asking if I’m all right?” She hadn’t been, but Sebastian looked pleased. He pulled the collar of his shirt aside, and she could see two neat puncture wounds just at his collarbone. “I could use an
iratze
.”

Clary said nothing.

“Come downstairs,” he said, and gestured for her to follow him as he padded past her, barefoot, and down the glass staircase. After a moment she did as he’d asked. He flicked on the lights as he went, so by the time they reached the kitchen, it was glowing with warm light. “Wine?” he said to her, pulling the refrigerator door open.

She settled herself on one of the counter stools, smoothing down her nightgown. “Just water.”

She watched him as he poured two glasses of mineral water—one for her, one for him. His smooth economical movements were like Jocelyn’s, but the control with which he moved must have been instilled in him by Valentine. It reminded her of the way Jace moved, like a carefully trained dancer.

He pushed her water toward her with one hand, the other tipping his glass toward his lips. When he was done, he slammed the glass back down on the counter. “You probably know this, but fooling around with vampires certainly makes you thirsty.”

“Why would I know that?” Her question came out sharper than intended.

He shrugged. “Figured you were playing some biting games with that Daylighter.”

“Simon and I never played
biting games
,” she said in a frozen tone. “In fact, I can’t figure out why anyone would want vampires feeding on them on purpose. Don’t you hate and despise Downworlders?”

“No,” he said. “Don’t mix me up with Valentine.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Tough mistake to make.”

“It’s not my fault I look exactly like him and you look like
her
.” His mouth curled into an expression of distaste at the
thought of Jocelyn. Clary scowled at him. “See, there you go. You’re always looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I burn down animal shelters for fun and light my cigarettes with orphans.” He poured another glass of water. As he turned his head from her, she saw that the puncture wounds at his throat were already beginning to heal over.

“You killed a child,” she said sharply, knowing as she said it that she should be keeping her mouth shut, going along with the pretense that she didn’t think Sebastian was a monster. But
Max
. He was alive in her head as if it were the first time she’d ever seen him, asleep on a sofa at the Institute with a book on his lap and his glasses askew on his small face. “That’s not something you can be forgiven for, ever.”

Sebastian drew in a breath. “So that’s it,” he said. “Cards on the table so soon, little sister?”

“What did you think?” Her voice sounded thin and tired to her own ears, but he flinched as if she’d snapped at him.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was an accident?” he said, setting his glass down on the counter. “I didn’t mean to kill him. Just to knock him out, so he wouldn’t tell—”

Clary silenced him with a look. She knew she couldn’t hide the hatred in her eyes: knew she should, knew it was impossible.

“I mean it. I meant to knock him out, like I did Isabelle. I misjudged my own strength.”

“And Sebastian Verlac? The real one? You killed him, didn’t you?”

Sebastian looked at his own hands as if they were strange to him: there was a silver chain holding a flat metal plate, like an ID bracelet, around his right wrist—hiding the scar where
Isabelle had sliced his hand away. “He wasn’t supposed to fight back—”

Disgusted, Clary started to slide off the stool, but Sebastian caught at her wrist, pulling her toward him. His skin was hot against hers and she remembered, in Idris, the time his touch had burned her. “Jonathan Morgenstern killed Max. But what if I’m not the same person? Haven’t you noticed I won’t even use the same name?”

“Let me go.”

“You believe Jace is different,” Sebastian said quietly. “You believe he isn’t the same person, that my blood changed him. Don’t you?”

She nodded without speaking.

“Then, why is it so hard to believe it might go the other way? Maybe his blood changed me. Maybe I’m not the same person I was.”