City of Ashes mi-2

by Cassandra Clare

  "Jace," Luke began warningly, but Maia had already gotten to her feet and stalked out of the room through the kitchen door.

  Clary turned on Jace. "Talking? We weren't talking."

  "But we will be," Jace said, flopping down onto the piano bench and stretching out his long legs. "Magnus wants to shout at me, don't you, Magnus?"

  "Yes," Magnus said, tearing his eyes away from Alec long enough to scowl. "Where the hell were you? I thought I was clear with you that you were to stay in the house."

  "I thought he didn't have a choice," Clary said. "I thought he had to stay where you are. You know, because of magic."

  "Normally, yes," Magnus said crossly, "but last night, after everything I did, my magic was—depleted."

  "Depleted?"

  "Yes." Magnus looked angrier than ever. "Even the High Warlock of Brooklyn doesn't have inexhaustible resources. I'm only human. Well," he amended, "half-human, anyway."

  "But you must have known your resources were depleted," Luke said, not unkindly, "didn't you?"

  "Yes, and I made the little bastard swear to stay in the house." Magnus glared at Jace. "Now I know what your much-vaunted Shadowhunter vows are worth."

  "You need to know how to make me swear properly," Jace said, unfazed. "Only an oath on the Angel has any meaning."

  "It's true," Alec said. It was the first thing he'd said since they'd come into the house.

  "Of course it's true." Jace picked up Maia's untouched mug of coffee and took a sip. He made a face. "Sugar."

  "Where were you all night, anyway?" Magnus asked, his voice sour. "With Alec?"

  "I couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk," Jace said. "When I got back, I bumped into this sad bastard mooning around the porch." He pointed at Alec.

  Magnus brightened. "Were you there all night?" he asked Alec.

  "No," Alec said. "I went home and then came back. I'm wearing different clothes, aren't I? Look."

  Everyone looked. Alec was wearing a dark sweater and jeans, which was exactly what he'd been wearing the day before. Clary decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "What's in the box?" she asked.

  "Oh. Ah." Alec looked at the box as if he'd forgotten it. "Doughnuts, actually." He opened the box and set it down on the coffee table. "Does anyone want one?"

  Everyone, as it turned out, wanted a doughnut. Jace wanted two. After downing the Boston cream that Clary brought him, Luke seemed moderately revitalized; he kicked the blanket the rest of the way off and sat up against the back of the couch. "There's one thing I don't get," he said.

  "Just one thing? You're way ahead of the rest of us," said Jace.

  "The two of you went out after me when I didn't come back to the house," Luke said, looking from Clary to Jace.

  "Three of us," Clary said. "Simon came with."

  Luke looked pained. "Fine. The three of you. There were two demons, but Clary says you killed neither of them. So what happened?"

  "I would have killed mine, but it ran off," Jace said. "Otherwise—"

  "But why would it do that?" Alec inquired. "Two of them, three of you—maybe it felt outnumbered?"

  "No offense to anyone involved, but the only one among you who seems formidable is Jace," Magnus said. "An untrained Shadowhunter and a scared vampire…"

  "I think it might have been me," Clary said. "I think maybe I scared it off."

  Magnus blinked. "Didn't I just say—"

  "I don't mean I scared it off because I'm so terrifying," Clary said. "I think it was this." She raised her hand, turning it so that they could see the Mark on her inner arm.

  There was a sudden quiet. Jace looked at her steadily, then away; Alec blinked, and Luke looked astounded. "I've never seen that Mark before," he said finally. "Has anyone else?"

  "No," Magnus said. "But I don't like it."

  "I'm not sure what it is, or what it means," Clary said, lowering her arm. "But it doesn't come from the Gray Book."

  "All runes come from the Gray Book." Jace's voice was firm.

  "Not this one," Clary said. "I saw it in a dream."

  "In a dream?" Jace looked as furious as if she were personally insulting him. "What are you playing at, Clary?"

  "I'm not playing at anything. Don't you remember when we were in the Seelie Court—"

  Jace looked as if she had hit him. Clary went on, quickly, before he could say anything:

  "—and the Seelie Queen told us we were experiments? That Valentine had done—had done things to us, to make us different, special? She told me that mine was the gift of words that cannot be spoken, and yours was the Angel's own gift?"

  "That was faerie nonsense."

  "Faeries don't lie, Jace. Words that cannot be spoken—she meant runes. Each has a different meaning, but they're meant to be drawn, not said aloud." She went on, ignoring his doubtful look. "Remember when you asked me how I'd gotten into your cell in the Silent City? I told you I just used a regular Opening rune—"

  "Was that all you did?" Alec looked surprised. "I got there just after you did and it looked like someone had ripped that door off its hinges."

  "And my rune didn't just unlock the door," Clary said. "It unlocked everything inside the cell, too. It broke Jace's manacles open." She took a breath. "I think the Queen meant I can draw runes that are more powerful than ordinary runes. And maybe even create new ones."

  Jace shook his head. "No one can create new runes—"

  "Maybe she can, Jace." Alec sounded thoughtful. "It's true, none of us have ever seen that Mark on her arm before."

  "Alec's right," Luke said. "Clary, why don't you go and get your sketchbook?"

  She looked at him in some surprise. His gray-blue eyes were tired, a little sunken, but held the same steadiness they'd held when she was six years old and he'd promised her that if she climbed the jungle gym in the Prospect Park playground, he'd always be standing underneath it to catch her if she fell. And he always had been.

  "Okay," she said. "I'll be right back."

  To get to the spare bedroom, Clary had to cross through the kitchen, where she found Maia seated on a stool pulled up to the counter, looking miserable. "Clary," she said, jumping down from the stool. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

  "I'm just going to my room to get something—"

  "Look, I'm sorry about what happened with Simon. I was delirious."

  "Oh, yeah? What happened to all that werewolves are destined to hate vampires business?"

  Maia blew out an exasperated breath. "We are, but—I guess I don't have to hurry the process along."

  "Don't explain it to me; explain it to Simon."

  Maia flushed again, her cheeks turning dark red. "I doubt he'll want to talk to me."

  "He might. He's pretty forgiving."

  Maia looked at her more closely. "Not that I want to pry, but are you two going out?"

  Clary felt herself start to flush and thanked her freckles for providing at least some cover-up. "Why do you want to know?"

  Maia shrugged. "The first time I met him he referred to you as his best friend, but the second time he called you his girlfriend. I wondered if it was an on-off thing."

  "Sort of. We were friends first. It's a long story."

  "I see." Maia's blush had vanished and her tough-girl smirk was back on her face. "Well, you're lucky, that's all. Even if he is a vampire now. You must be pretty used to all sorts of weird stuff, being a Shadowhunter, so I bet it doesn't faze you."

  "It fazes me," Clary said, more sharply than she'd intended. "I'm not Jace."

  The smirk widened. "No one is. And I get the feeling he knows it."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Oh, you know. Jace reminds me of an old boyfriend. Some guys look at you like they want sex. Jace looks at you like you've already had sex, it was great, and now you're just friends—even though you want more. Drives girls crazy. You know what I mean?"

  Yes, Clary thought. "No," she said.

  "I guess you wouldn't, being his sister. You'll
have to take my word on it."

  "I have to go." Clary was almost out the kitchen door when something occurred to her and she turned around. "What happened to him?"

  Maia blinked. "What happened to who?"

  "The old boyfriend. The one Jace reminds you of."

  "Oh," Maia said. "He's the one who turned me into a werewolf."

  "All right, I got it," Clary said, coming back into the living room with her sketchpad in one hand and a box of Prismacolor pencils in the other. She pulled a chair out from the little-used dining room table—Luke always ate in the kitchen or in his office, and the table was covered in paper and old bills—and sat down, sketchpad in front of her. She felt as if she were taking a test at art school. Draw this apple. "What do you want me to do?"

  "What do you think?" Jace was still sitting on the piano bench, his shoulders slumped forward; he looked as if he hadn't slept all night. Alec was leaning against the piano behind him, probably because it was as far away from Magnus as he could get.

  "Jace, that's enough." Luke was sitting up straight but looked as if it were something of an effort. "You said you could draw new runes, Clary?"

  "I said I thought so."

  "Well, I'd like you to try."

  "Now?"

  Luke smiled faintly. "Unless you've got something else in mind?"

  Clary flipped the sketchpad to a blank page and stared down at it. Never had a sheet of paper looked quite so empty to her before. She could sense the stillness in the room, everyone watching her: Magnus with his ancient, tempered curiosity; Alec too preoccupied with his own problems to care much for hers; Luke hopefully; and Jace with a cold, frightening blankness. She remembered him saying that he wished he could hate her and wondered if someday he might succeed.

  She threw her pencil down. "I can't just do it on command like that. Not without an idea."

  "What kind of idea?" said Luke.

  "I mean, I don't even know what runes already exist. I need to know a meaning, a word, before I can draw a rune for it."

  "It's hard enough for us to remember every rune—," Alec began, but Jace, to Clary's surprise, cut him off.

  "How about," he said quietly, "Fearless?"

  "Fearless?" she echoed.

  "There are runes for bravery," said Jace. "But never anything to take away fear. But if you, as you say, can create new runes…" He glanced around, and saw Alec's and Luke's surprised expressions. "Look, I just remembered that there isn't one, that's all. And it seems harmless enough."

  Clary looked over at Luke, who shrugged. "Fine," he said.

  Clary took a dark gray pencil from the box and set the tip of it to the paper. She thought of shapes, lines, curlicues; she thought of the signs in the Gray Book, ancient and perfect, embodiments of a language too faultless for speech. A soft voice spoke inside her head: Who are you, to think you can speak the language of heaven?

  The pencil moved. She was almost sure she hadn't moved it, but it slid across the paper, describing a single line. She felt her heart skip. She thought of her mother, sitting dreamily before her canvas, creating her own vision of the world in ink and oil paint. She thought, Who am I? I am Jocelyn Fray's daughter. The pencil moved again, and this time her breath caught; she found she was whispering the word, under her breath: "Fearless. Fearless." The pencil looped back up, and now she was guiding it rather than being guided by it. When she was done, she set the pencil down and gazed for a moment, wonderingly, at the result.

  The completed Fearless rune was a matrix of strongly swirling lines: a rune as bold and aerodynamic as an eagle. She tore the page free and held it up so the others could see it. "There," she said, and was rewarded by the startled look on Luke's face—so he hadn't believed her—and the fractional widening of Jace's eyes.

  "Cool," Alec said.

  Jace got to his feet and crossed the room, taking the sheet of paper out of her hand. "But does it work?"

  Clary wondered if he meant the question or if he was just being nasty. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, how do we know it works? Right now it's just a drawing—you can't take fear away from a piece of paper, it doesn't have any to begin with. We have to try it out on one of us before we can be sure it's a real rune."

  "I'm not sure that's such a great idea," Luke said.

  "It's a fabulous idea." Jace dropped the paper back onto the table, and began to slide off his jacket. "I've got a stele we can use. Who wants to do me?"

  "A regrettable choice of words," muttered Magnus.

  Luke stood up. "No," he said. "Jace, you already behave as if you've never heard the word 'fear.' I fail to see how we're going to be able to tell the difference if it does work on you."

  Alec stifled what sounded like a laugh. Jace simply smiled a tight, unfriendly smile. "I've heard the word 'fear,' " he said. "I simply choose to believe it doesn't apply to me."

  "Exactly the problem," said Luke.

  "Well, why don't I try it on you, then?" Clary said, but Luke shook his head.

  "You can't Mark Downworlders, Clary, not with any real effect. The demon disease that causes lycanthropy prevents the Marks from taking effect."

  "Then…"

  "Try it on me," Alec said unexpectedly. "I could do with some fearlessness." He slid his jacket off, tossed it over the piano stool, and crossed the room to stand in front of Jace. "Here. Mark my arm."

  Jace glanced over at Clary. "Unless you think you should do it?"

  She shook her head. "No. You're probably better at actually applying Marks than I am."

  Jace shrugged. "Roll up your sleeve, Alec."

  Obediently, Alec rolled his sleeve up. There was already a permanent Mark on his upper arm, an elegant scroll of lines meant to give him perfect balance. They all leaned forward, even Magnus, as Jace carefully traced the outlines of the Fearless rune on Alec's arm, just below the existing Mark. Alec winced as the stele traced its burning path across his skin. When Jace was done, he slid his stele back into his pocket and stood a moment admiring his handiwork. "Well, it looks nice at least," he announced. "Whether it works or not…"

  Alec touched the new Mark with his fingertips, then glanced up to find everyone else in the room staring at him.

  "So?" Clary said.

  "So what?" Alec rolled his sleeve down, covering the Mark.

  "So, how do you feel? Any different?"

  Alec looked considering. "Not really."

  Jace threw his hands up. "So it doesn't work."

  "Not necessarily," Luke said. "There might simply be nothing going on that might activate it. Perhaps there isn't anything here that Alec is afraid of."

  Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. "Boo," he said.

  Jace was grinning. "Come on, surely you've got a phobia or two. What scares you?"

  Alec thought for a moment. "Spiders," he said.

  Clary turned to Luke. "Have you got a spider anywhere?"

  Luke looked exasperated. "Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?"

  "No offense," Jace said, "but you kind of do."

  "You know"—Alec's tone was sour—"maybe this was a stupid experiment."

  "What about the dark?" Clary suggested. "We could lock you in the basement."

  "I'm a demon hunter," Alec said, with exaggerated patience. "Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark."

  "Well, you might be."

  "But I'm not."

  Clary was spared replying by the buzz of the doorbell. She looked over at Luke, raising her eyebrows. "Simon?"

  "Couldn't be. It's daylight."

  "Oh, right." She'd forgotten again. "Do you want me to get it?"

  "No." He stood up with only a short grunt of pain. "I'm fine. It's probably someone wondering why the bookstore's shut."

  He crossed the room and threw the door open. His shoulders went stiff with surprise; Clary heard the bark of a familiar, stridently angry female voice, and a moment later Isabelle and Maryse Lightwood pushed past Luke and strode into
the room, followed by the gray, menacing figure of the Inquisitor. Behind them was a tall and burly man, dark-haired and olive-skinned, with a thick black beard. Though it had been taken many years ago, Clary recognized him from the old photo Hodge had showed her: This was Robert Lightwood, Alec and Isabelle's father.

  Magnus's head went up with a snap. Jace paled markedly, but showed no other emotion. And Alec—Alec stared from his sister, to his mother, to his father, and then looked at Magnus, his clear, light blue eyes darkened with a hard resolution. He took a step forward, placing himself between his parents and everyone else in the room.

  Maryse, on seeing her eldest son in the middle of Luke's living room, did a double take. "Alec, what on earth are you doing here? I thought I made it clear that—"

  "Mother." Alec's voice as he interrupted his mother was firm, implacable, and not unkind. "Father. There's something I have to tell you." He smiled at them. "I'm seeing someone."

  Robert Lightwood looked at his son with some exasperation. "Alec," he said. "This is hardly the time."

  "Yes, it is. This is important. You see, I'm not just seeing anyone." Words seemed to be pouring out of Alec in a torrent, while his parents looked on in confusion. Isabelle and Magnus were staring at him with expressions of nearly identical astonishment. "I'm seeing a Downworlder. In fact, I'm seeing a war—"

  Magnus's fingers moved, quick as a flash of light, in Alec's direction. There was a faint shimmer in the air around Alec—his eyes rolled up—and he dropped to the floor, felled like a tree.

  "Alec!" Maryse clapped her hand to her mouth. Isabelle, who had been standing closest to her brother, dropped down beside him. But Alec had already begun to stir, his eyelids fluttering open. "Wha—what—why am I on the floor?"

  "That's a good question." Isabelle glowered down at her brother. "What was that?"

  "What was what?" Alec sat up, holding his head. A look of alarm crossed his face. "Wait—did I say anything? Before I passed out, I mean."

  Jace snorted. "You know how we were wondering if that thing Clary did would work or not?" he asked. "It works all right."

  Alec looked supremely horrified. "What did I say?"