The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (291 page)

Maia told him about Simon’s disappearance, the phone call to Jordan from the Praetor, their frantic drive to Long Island, the discovery of the Praetor in ruins.

Bat cleared his throat. “I do have some of Jordan’s things. His keys, his Praetor pendant—”

Maia felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath. “No, I don’t want—I don’t want his things,” she said. “He would have wanted Simon to have the pendant. When we find Simon, he should have it.”

Bat didn’t push the issue. “I do have some good news,” he said. “We heard from Idris: your friend Simon’s all right. He’s there, actually, with the Shadowhunters.”

“Oh.” Maia felt the tight knot around her heart loosen slightly with relief.

“I should have told you right away,” he apologized. “It’s just—I was worried about you. You were in bad shape when we brought you back to headquarters. You’ve been sleeping since then.”

I wanted to sleep forever.

“I know you already told Magnus,” added Bat, his face strained. “But explain it to me again, why Sebastian Morgenstern would target lycanthropes.”

“He said it was a message.” Maia heard the flatness in her own voice as if from a distance. “He wanted us to know that it was because werewolves are allies with the Shadowhunters, and that this was what he planned to do to all the Nephilim’s allies.”

“I’ll never pause again, never stand still, till either death hath closed these eyes of mine, or fortune given me measure of revenge.”

“New York is empty of Shadowhunters now, and Luke is in Idris with them. They’re putting up extra wards. Soon we’ll barely be able to get messages in and out.” Bat shifted in his chair; Maia sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her.

“What is it?” she said.

His eyes darted away.

“Bat . . .”

“Do you know Rufus Hastings?”

Rufus. Maia remembered the first time she’d been to the Praetor Lupus, a scarred face, an angry man exiting Prateor Scott’s office in a rage. “Not really.”

“He survived the massacre. He’s here in the station, with us. He’s been filling us in,” said Bat. “And he’s been talking to the others about Luke. Saying that he’s more of a Shadowhunter than a lycanthrope, that he doesn’t have pack loyalty, that the pack needs a new leader now.”

“
You’re
the leader,” she said. “You’re second in command.”

“Yeah, and I was put in that position by Luke. That means I can’t be trusted either.”

Maia slid to the edge of the bed. Her whole body ached; she felt it as she put her bare feet on the cold stone floor. “No one’s listening to him, are they?”

Bat shrugged.

“That’s ridiculous. After what’s happened, we need to be unified,
not to have someone trying to split us up. Shadowhunters are our allies—”

“Which is why Sebastian targeted us.”

“He’d target us anyway. He’s no friend to Downworlders. He’s Valentine Morgenstern’s
son
.” Her eyes burned. “He might be trying to get us to abandon the Nephilim temporarily, so he can go after them, but if he managed to wipe them off the earth, all he’d do is come for us next.”

Bat clasped and unclasped his hands, then seemed to come to a decision. “I know you’re right,” he said, and went over to a table in the corner of the room. He returned with a jacket for her, socks and boots. He handed them over. “Just—do me a favor and don’t say anything like that this afternoon. Emotions are going to be running pretty high as it is.”

She shrugged the jacket on. “This afternoon? What’s this afternoon?”

He sighed. “The funeral,” he said.

“I’m going to
kill
Maureen,” Isabelle said. She had both doors of Alec’s wardrobe open and was flinging clothes onto the floor in heaps.

Simon was lying barefoot on one of the beds—Jace’s? Alec’s?—having kicked off his alarming buckled boots. Though his skin didn’t really bruise, it felt amazing to be on a soft surface after having spent so many hours on the hard, dirty floor of the Dumort. “You’ll have to fight your way through all the vampires of New York to do it,” he said. “Apparently they love her.”

“No accounting for taste.” Isabelle held up a dark blue sweater Simon recognized as Alec’s, mostly from the holes in
the cuffs. “So Raphael brought you here so you could talk to my dad?”

Simon propped himself up on his elbows to watch her. “Do you think that’ll be okay?”

“Sure, why not. My dad loves talking.” She sounded bitter. Simon leaned forward, but when she raised her head, she was smiling at him and he thought he must have imagined it. “Although, who knows what will happen, with the attack on the Citadel tonight.” She worried at her lower lip. “It could mean they cancel the meeting, or move it earlier. Sebastian’s obviously a bigger problem than they thought. He shouldn’t even be able to get that close to the Citadel.”

“Well,” Simon said. “He is a Shadowhunter.”

“No, he’s not,” Isabelle said fiercely, and yanked a green sweater down from a wooden hanger. “Besides. He’s a man.”

“Sorry,” Simon said. “It must be nerve-racking, waiting to see how the battle turns out. How many people did they let through?”

“Fifty or sixty,” Isabelle said. “I wanted to go, but—they wouldn’t let me.” She had the guarded tone in her voice that meant they were closing in on a subject she didn’t want to talk about.

“I would have worried about you,” he said.

He saw her mouth quirk into a reluctant smile. “Try this on,” she said, and tossed him the green sweater, slightly less frayed than the rest.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to borrow clothes?”

“You can’t go around like
that
,” she said. “You look like you escaped from a romance novel.” Isabelle laid a hand dramatically against her forehead. “Oh, Lord Montgomery, what do
you mean to do with me in this bedroom when you have me all alone? An innocent maiden, and unprotected?” She unzipped her jacket and tossed it to the floor, revealing a white tank top. She gave him a sultry look. “Is my virtue safe?”

“I, ah—what?” Simon said, temporarily deprived of vocabulary.

“I know you are a dangerous man,” Isabelle declared, sashaying toward the bed. She unzipped her trousers and kicked them to the floor. She was wearing black boy shorts underneath. “Some call you a rake. Everybody knows you are a devil with the ladies with your poetically puffed shirt and irresistible pants.” She pounced onto the bed and crawled over to him, eyeing him like a cobra considering making a snack out of a mongoose. “I pray you will consider my innocence,” she breathed. “And my poor, vulnerable heart.”

Simon decided this was a lot like role-playing in D&D, but potentially much more fun. “Lord Montgomery considers nothing but his own desires,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I’ll tell you something else. Lord Montgomery has a very large estate . . . and pretty extensive grounds, too.”

Isabelle giggled, and Simon felt the bed shake under them. “Okay, I didn’t expect you to get
quite
so into this.”

“Lord Montgomery always surpasses expectations,” Simon said, seizing Isabelle around the waist and rolling her over so she was beneath him, her black hair spread out onto the pillow. “Mothers, lock up your daughters, then lock up your maidservants, then lock up yourselves. Lord Montgomery is on the prowl.”

Isabelle framed his face between her hands. “My lord,” she said, her eyes shining. “I fear I can no longer withstand
your manly charms and virile ways. Please do with me as you will.”

Simon wasn’t sure what Lord Montgomery would do, but he knew what
he
wanted to do. He bent down and pressed a lingering kiss to her mouth. Her lips parted under his, and suddenly everything was all sweet dark heat and Isabelle’s lips brushing over his, first teasing, then harder. She smelled, as she always did, dizzyingly of roses and blood. He pressed his lips to the pulse point at her throat, mouthing over it gently, not biting, and Izzy gasped; her hands went to the front of his shirt. He was momentarily concerned about its lack of buttons, but Isabelle grasped the material in her strong hands and ripped the shirt in half, leaving it dangling off his shoulders.

“Goodness, that stuff rips like paper,” she exclaimed, reaching to pull her tank top off. She was halfway through the action when the door opened and Alec walked into the room.

“Izzy, are you—” he began. His eyes flew wide, and he backed up fast enough to smack his head into the wall behind him. “
What
is he doing here?”

Isabelle tugged her tank top back down and glared at her brother. “You don’t knock now?”

“It—It’s
my
bedroom!” Alec spluttered. He seemed to be deliberately trying not to look at Izzy and Simon, who were indeed in a very compromising position. Simon rolled quickly off Isabelle, who sat up, brushing herself off as if for lint. Simon sat up more slowly, trying to hold the torn edges of his shirt together. “Why are all my clothes on the floor?” Alec said.

“I was trying to find something for Simon to wear,” Isabelle explained. “Maureen put him in leather pants and a puffy shirt
because he was being her romance-novel slave.”

“He was being her
what
?”

“Her romance-novel slave,” Isabelle repeated, as if Alec were being particularly dense.

Alec shook his head as if he were having a bad dream. “You know what? Don’t explain. Just—put your clothes on, both of you.”

“You’re not going to leave—are you?” Isabelle said in a sulky tone, sliding off the bed. She picked up her jacket and shrugged it on, then tossed Simon the green sweater. He happily swapped it for the poet shirt, which was in ribbons anyway.

“No. It’s my room, and besides, I need to talk to you,
Isabelle
.” Alec’s voice was terse. Simon grabbed up jeans and shoes from the floor and went into the bathroom to change, deliberately taking plenty of time with it. When he came back out, Isabelle was sitting on the rumpled bed, looking strained and tense.

“So they’re opening the Portal back up to bring everyone through? Good.”

“It is good, but what I felt”—Alec put his hand unconsciously over his upper arm, near his
parabatai
rune—“that isn’t good. Jace isn’t dead,” he hastened to add as Isabelle paled. “I would know if he were. But something happened. Something with the heavenly fire, I think.”

“Do you know if he’s okay now? And Clary?” Isabelle demanded.

“Wait, back up,” Simon interrupted. “What’s this about Clary? And Jace?”

“They went through the Portal,” Isabelle said grimly. “To the battle at the Citadel.”

Simon realized he had unconsciously reached for the gold
ring on his right hand and was gripping it with his fingers. “Aren’t they too young?”

“They didn’t exactly have permission.” Alec was leaning back against the wall. He looked tired, the shadows under his eyes bruise-blue. “The Consul tried to stop them, but she didn’t have time.”

Simon turned on Isabelle. “And you didn’t tell me?”

Isabelle wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I knew you’d freak out.”

Alec was looking from Isabelle to Simon. “You didn’t tell him?” he said. “About what happened at the Gard?”

Isabelle crossed her arms over her chest and looked defiant. “No. I bumped into him in the street, and we came upstairs, and—and it’s none of your business.”

“It is if you do it in my bedroom,” said Alec. “If you’re going to use Simon to make yourself forget you’re angry and upset, fine, but do it in your own room.”

“I wasn’t using him—”

Simon thought about Isabelle’s eyes, shining when she’d seen him standing in the street. He’d thought it was happiness, but he realized now it had more likely been unshed tears. The way she’d been walking toward him, her head down, her shoulders curved in, as if she’d been holding herself together.

“You were, though,” he said. “Or you would have told me what happened. You didn’t even mention Clary or Jace, or that you were worried, or
anything
.” He felt his stomach clench as he realized how deftly Isabelle had deflected his questions and distracted him with kissing, and he felt stupid. He’d thought she was glad to see him specifically, but maybe he could have been anyone.

Isabelle’s face had gone very still. “Please,” she said. “It’s not like you
asked
.” She had been fiddling with her hair; now she reached up and began twisting it, almost savagely, into a knot on the back of her head. “If you’re both going to stand there blaming me, maybe you should just go—”

“I’m not blaming you,” Simon began, but Isabelle was already on her feet. She snatched the ruby pendant, pulled it none too gently over his head, and dropped it back around her own neck. “I never should have given it to you,” she said, her eyes bright.

“It saved my life,” Simon said.

That made her pause. “Simon . . . ,” she whispered.

She broke off as Alec suddenly clutched at his shoulder with a gasp. He slid to the floor. Isabelle ran to him and knelt down by his side. “Alec?
Alec!
” Her voice rose, tinged with panic.

Alec pushed aside his jacket, shoved down the collar of his shirt, and craned to see the mark on his shoulder. Simon recognized the outlines of the
parabatai
rune. Alec pressed his fingers to it; they came away smudged with something dark that looked like a smear of ash. “They’ve come back through the Portal,” he said. “And there’s something wrong with Jace.”