Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series

by Cassandra Clare

  Isabelle was looking after Jace and Hodge, twisting the spoon in her scarred, pale fingers. Clary said, “Is he really?”

  Isabelle didn’t look at her. “Is who really what?”

  “Jace. Is he really a terrible liar?”

  Now Isabelle did turn her eyes on Clary, and they were large and dark and unexpectedly thoughtful. “He’s not a liar at all. Not about important things. He’ll tell you horrible truths, but he won’t lie.” She paused before she added quietly: “That’s why it’s generally better not to ask him anything unless you know you can stand to hear the answer.”

  The kitchen was warm and full of light and the salt-sweet smell of takeout Chinese food. The smell reminded Clary of home; she sat and looked at her glistening plate of noodles, toyed with her fork, and tried not to look at Simon, who was staring at Isabelle with an expression more glazed than the General Tso’s Duckling.

  “Well, I think it’s kind of romantic,” said Isabelle, sucking tapioca pearls through an enormous pink straw.

  “What is?” asked Simon, instantly alert.

  “That whole business about Clary’s mother being married to Valentine,” said Isabelle. Jace and Hodge had filled her in, though Clary noted that both had left out the part about the Lightwoods having been in the Circle, and the curses the Clave had handed down. “So now he’s back from the dead and he’s come looking for her. Maybe he wants to get back together.”

  “I kind of doubt he sent a Ravener demon to her house because he wants to ‘get back together,’” said Alec, who had turned up when the food was served. Nobody had asked him where he’d been, and he hadn’t offered the information. He was sitting next to Jace, across from Clary, and was avoiding looking at her.

  “It wouldn’t be my move,” Jace agreed. “First the candy and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order.”

  “He might have sent her candy and flowers,” Isabelle said. “We don’t know.”

  “Isabelle,” said Hodge patiently, “this is the man who rained down destruction on Idris the like of which it had never seen, who set Shadowhunter against Downworlder and made the streets of the Glass City run with blood.”

  “That’s sort of hot,” Isabelle argued, “that evil thing.”

  Simon tried to look menacing, but gave it up when he saw Clary staring at him. “So why does Valentine want this Cup so bad, and why does he think Clary’s mom has it?” he asked.

  “You said it was so he could make an army,” Clary said, turning to Hodge. “You mean because you can use the Cup to make Shadowhunters?”

  “Yes.”

  “So Valentine could just walk up to any guy on the street and make a Shadowhunter out of him? Just with the Cup?” Simon leaned forward. “Would it work on me?”

  Hodge gave him a long and measured look. “Possibly,” he said. “But most likely, you’re too old. The Cup works on children. An adult would either be unaffected by the process entirely, or killed outright.”

  “A child army,” said Isabelle softly.

  “Only for a few years,” said Jace. “Kids grow fast. It wouldn’t be too long before they were a force to contend with.”

  “I don’t know,” said Simon. “Turning a bunch of kids into warriors, I’ve heard of worse stuff happening. I don’t see the big deal about keeping the Cup away from him.”

  “Leaving out that he would inevitably use this army to launch an attack on the Clave,” Hodge said dryly, “the reason that only a few humans are selected to be turned into Nephilim is that most would never survive the transition. It takes special strength and resilience. Before they can be turned, they must be extensively tested—but Valentine would never bother with that. He would use the Cup on any child he could capture, and cull out the twenty percent who survived to be his army.”

  Alec was looking at Hodge with the same horror Clary felt. “How do you know he’d do that?”

  “Because,” Hodge said, “when he was in the Circle, that was his plan. He said it was the only way to build the kind of force that was needed to defend our world.”

  “But that’s murder,” said Isabelle, who looked a little green. “He was talking about killing children.”

  “He said that we had made the world safe for humans for a thousand years,” said Hodge, “and now was their time to repay us with their own sacrifice.”

  “Their children?” demanded Jace, his cheeks flushed. “That goes against everything we’re supposed to be about. Protecting the helpless, safeguarding humanity—”

  Hodge pushed his plate away. “Valentine was insane,” he said. “Brilliant, but insane. He cared about nothing but killing demons and Downworlders. Nothing but making the world pure. He would have sacrificed his own son for the cause and could not understand how anyone else would not.”

  “He had a son?” said Alec.

  “I was speaking figuratively,” said Hodge, reaching for his handkerchief. He used it to mop his forehead before returning it to his pocket. His hand, Clary saw, was trembling slightly. “When his land burned, when his home was destroyed, it was assumed that he had burned himself and the Cup to ashes rather than relinquish either to the Clave. His bones were found in the ashes, along with the bones of his wife.”

  “But my mother lived,” said Clary. “She didn’t die in that fire.”

  “And neither, it seems now, did Valentine,” said Hodge. “The Clave will not be pleased to have been fooled. But more importantly, they will want to secure the Cup. And more importantly than that, they will want to make sure Valentine does not.”

  “It seems to me that the first thing we’d better do is find Clary’s mother,” said Jace. “Find her, find the Cup, get it before Valentine does.”

  This sounded fine to Clary, but Hodge looked at Jace as if he’d proposed juggling nitroglycerine as a solution. “Absolutely not.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “Nothing,” Hodge said. “All this is best left to skilled, experienced Shadowhunters.”

  “I am skilled,” protested Jace. “I am experienced.”

  Hodge’s tone was firm, nearly parental. “I know that you are, but you’re still a child, or nearly one.”

  Jace looked at Hodge through slitted eyes. His lashes were long, casting shadows down over his angular cheekbones. In someone else it would have been a shy look, even an apologetic one, but on Jace it looked narrow and menacing. “I am not a child.”

  “Hodge is right,” said Alec. He was looking at Jace, and Clary thought that he must be one of the few people in the world who looked at Jace not as if he were afraid of him, but as if he were afraid for him. “Valentine is dangerous. I know you’re a good Shadowhunter. You’re probably the best our age. But Valentine’s one of the best there ever was. It took a huge battle to bring him down.”

  “And he didn’t exactly stay down,” said Isabelle, examining her fork tines. “Apparently.”

  “But we’re here,” said Jace. “We’re here and because of the Accords, nobody else is. If we don’t do something—”

  “We are going to do something,” said Hodge. “I’ll send the Clave a message tonight. They could have a force of Nephilim here by tomorrow if they wanted. They’ll take care of this. You have done more than enough.”

  Jace subsided, but his eyes were still glittering. “I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it,” said Alec. “You just have to shut up and not do anything stupid.”

  “But what about my mother?” Clary demanded. “She can’t wait for some representative from the Clave to show up. Valentine has her right now—Pangborn and Blackwell said so—and he could be . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word torture, but Clary knew she wasn’t the only one thinking it. Suddenly no one at the table could meet her eyes.

  Except Simon. “Hurting her,” he said, finishing her sentence. “Except, Clary, they also said she was unconscious and that Valentine wasn’t happy about it. He seems to be waiting for her to
wake up.”

  “I’d stay unconscious if I were her,” Isabelle muttered.

  “But that could be any time,” said Clary, ignoring Isabelle. “I thought the Clave was pledged to protect people. Shouldn’t there be Shadowhunters here right now? Shouldn’t they already be searching for her?”

  “That would be easier,” snapped Alec, “if we had the slightest idea where to look.”

  “But we do,” said Jace.

  “You do?” Clary looked at him, startled and eager. “Where?”

  “Here.” Jace leaned forward and touched his fingers to the side of her temple, so gently that a flush crept up her face. “Everything we need to know is locked up in your head, under those pretty red curls.”

  Clary reached up to touch her hair protectively. “I don’t think—”

  “So what are you going to do?” Simon asked sharply. “Cut her head open to get at it?”

  Jace’s eyes sparked, but he said calmly, “Not at all. The Silent Brothers can help her retrieve her memories.”

  “You hate the Silent Brothers,” protested Isabelle.

  “I don’t hate them,” said Jace candidly. “I’m afraid of them. It’s not the same thing.”

  “I thought you said they were librarians,” said Clary.

  “They are librarians.”

  Simon whistled. “Those must be some killer late fees.”

  “The Silent Brothers are archivists, but that is not all they are,” interrupted Hodge, sounding as if he were running out of patience. “In order to strengthen their minds, they have chosen to take upon themselves some of the most powerful runes ever created. The power of these runes is so great that the use of them—” He broke off and Clary heard Alec’s voice in her head, saying: They mutilate themselves. “Well, it warps and twists their physical forms. They are not warriors in the sense that other Shadowhunters are warriors. Their powers are of the mind, not the body.”

  “They can read minds?” Clary said in a small voice.

  “Among other things. They are among the most feared of all demon hunters.”

  “I don’t know,” said Simon, “it doesn’t sound so bad to me.I’d rather have someone mess around inside my head than chop it off.”

  “Then you’re a bigger idiot than you look,” said Jace, regarding him with scorn.

  “Jace is right,” said Isabelle, ignoring Simon. “The Silent Brothers are really creepy.”

  Hodge’s hand was clenched on the table. “They are very powerful,” he said. “They walk in darkness and do not speak, but they can crack open a man’s mind the way you might crack open a walnut—and leave him screaming alone in the dark if that is what they desire.”

  Clary looked at Jace, appalled. “You want to give me to them?”

  “I want them to help you.” Jace leaned across the table, so close she could see the darker amber flecks in his light eyes. “Maybe we don’t get to look for the Cup,” he said softly. “Maybe the Clave will do that. But what’s in your mind belongs to you. Someone’s hidden secrets there, secrets you can’t see. Don’t you want to know the truth about your own life?”

  “I don’t want someone else inside my head,” she said weakly. She knew he was right, but the idea of turning herself over to beings that even the Shadowhunters thought were creepy sent a chill through her blood.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Jace. “I’ll stay with you while they do it.”

  “That’s enough.” Simon had stood up from the table, red with anger. “Leave her alone.”

  Alec glanced over at Simon as if he’d just noticed him, raking tumbled black hair out of his eyes and blinking. “What are you still doing here, mundane?”

  Simon ignored him. “I said, leave her alone.”

  Jace glanced over at him, a slow, sweetly poisonous glance. “Alec is right,” he said. “The Institute is sworn to shelter Shadowhunters, not their mundane friends. Especially when they’ve worn out their welcome.”

  Isabelle got up and took Simon’s arm. “I’ll show him out.” For a moment it looked like he might resist her, but he caught Clary’s eye across the table as she shook her head slightly. He subsided. Head up, he let Isabelle lead him from the room.

  Clary stood up. “I’m tired,” she said. “I want to go to sleep.”

  “You’ve hardly eaten anything—,” Jace protested.

  She brushed aside his reaching hand. “I’m not hungry.”

  It was cooler in the hallway than it had been in the kitchen. Clary leaned against the wall, pulling at her shirt, which was sticking to the cold sweat on her chest. Far down the hall she could see Isabelle’s and Simon’s retreating figures, swallowed up by shadows. She watched them go silently, a shivery odd feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. When had Simon become Isabelle’s responsibility, instead of hers? If there was one thing she was learning from all this, it was how easy it was to lose everything you had always thought you’d have forever.

  The room was all gold and white, with high walls that gleamed like enamel, and a roof, high above, clear and glittering like diamonds. Clary wore a green velvet dress and carried a gold fan in her hand. Her hair, twisted into a knot that spilled curls, made her head feel strangely heavy every time she turned to look behind her.

  “You see someone more interesting than me?” asked Simon. In the dream he was mysteriously an expert dancer. He steered her through the crowd as if she were a leaf caught in a river current. He was wearing all black, like a Shadowhunter, and it showed his coloring to good advantage: dark hair, lightly browned skin, white teeth. He’s handsome, Clary thought, with a jolt of surprise.

  “There’s no one more interesting than you,” Clary said. “It’s just this place. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She turned again as they passed a champagne fountain: an enormous silver dish, the centerpiece a mermaid with a jar pouring sparkling wine down her bare back. People were filling their glasses from the dish, laughing and talking. The mermaid turned her head as Clary passed, and smiled. The smile showed white teeth as sharp as a vampire’s.

  “Welcome to the Glass City,” said a voice that wasn’t Simon’s. Clary found that Simon had disappeared and she was now dancing with Jace, who was wearing white, the material of his shirt a thin cotton; she could see the black Marks through it. There was a bronze chain around his throat, and his hair and eyes looked more gold than ever; she thought about how she would like to paint his portrait with the dull gold paint one sometimes saw in Russian icons.

  “Where’s Simon?” she asked as they spun again around the champagne fountain. Clary saw Isabelle there, with Alec, both of them in royal blue. They were holding hands like Hansel and Gretel in the dark forest.

  “This place is for the living,” said Jace. His hands were cool on hers, and she was aware of them in a way she had not been of Simon’s.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

  He leaned close. She could feel his lips against her ear. They were not cool at all. “Wake up, Clary,” he whispered. “Wake up. Wake up.”

  She bolted upright in bed, gasping, hair plastered to her neck with cold sweat. Her wrists were held in a hard grip; she tried to pull away, then realized who was restraining her. “Jace?”

  “Yeah.” He was sitting on the edge of the bed—how had she gotten into a bed?—looking tousled and half-awake, with early-morning hair and sleepy eyes.

  “Let go of me.”

  “Sorry.” His fingers slipped from her wrists. “You tried to hit me the second I said your name.”

  “I’m a little jumpy, I guess.” She glanced around. She was in a small bedroom furnished in dark wood. By the quality of the faint light coming in through the half-open window, she guessed it was dawn, or just after. Her backpack was propped against one wall. “How did I get here? I don’t remember . . .”

  “I found you asleep on the floor in the hallway.” Jace sounded amused. “Hodge helped me get you into bed. Thought you’d be more comfortable in a guest room than in the
infirmary.”

  “Wow. I don’t remember anything.” She ran her hands through her hair, pushing draggled curls out of her eyes. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “About five.”

  “In the morning?” She glared at him. “You’d better have a good reason for waking me up.”

  “Why, were you having a good dream?”

  She could still hear music in her ears, feel the heavy jewels brushing her cheeks. “I don’t remember.”

  He stood up. “One of the Silent Brothers is here to see you. Hodge sent me to wake you up. Actually, he offered to wake you up himself, but since it’s five a.m., I figured you’d be less cranky if you had something nice to look at.”

  “Meaning you?”

  “What else?”

  “I didn’t agree to this, you know,” she snapped. “This Silent Brother thing.”

  “Do you want to find your mother,” he said, “or not?”

  She stared at him.

  “You just have to meet Brother Jeremiah. That’s all. You might even like him. He’s got a great sense of humor for a guy who never says anything.”

  She put her head in her hands. “Get out. Get out so I can change.”

  She swung her legs out of bed the moment the door shut behind him. Though it was barely dawn, humid heat was already beginning to gather in the room. She pushed the window shut and went into the bathroom to wash her face and rinse her mouth, which tasted like old paper.

  Five minutes later she was sliding her feet into her green sneakers. She’d changed into cutoffs and a plain black T-shirt. If only her thin freckled legs looked more like Isabelle’s lanky smooth limbs. But it couldn’t be helped. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and went to join Jace in the hallway.

  Church was there with him, muttering and circling restlessly.

  “What’s with the cat?” Clary asked.

  “The Silent Brothers make him nervous.”

  “Sounds like they make everyone nervous.”

  Jace smiled thinly. Church meowed as they set off down the hall, but didn’t follow them. At least the thick stones of the cathedral walls still held some of the night’s chill: The corridors were dark and cool.