Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series

by Cassandra Clare

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems . . . wasteful.” She crossed the hall and, after knocking quickly, stuck her head into the master bedroom. “Luke?”

  “Come on in.”

  She went in, Simon beside her. Luke was sitting up in bed. The bulk of the bandage that wrapped his chest was visible as an outline beneath his flannel shirt. There was a stack of magazines on the bed in front of him. Simon picked one up. “Sparkle Like an Ice Princess: The Winter Bride,” he read out loud. “I don’t know, man. I’m not sure a tiara of snowflakes would be the best look for you.”

  Luke glanced around the bed and sighed. “Jocelyn thought wedding planning might be good for us. Return to normalcy and all that.” There were shadows under his blue eyes. Jocelyn had been the one to break the news to him about Amatis, while he was still at the police station. Though Clary had greeted him with hugs when he’d come home, he hadn’t mentioned his sister once, and neither had she. “If it was up to me, I would elope to Vegas and have a fifty-dollar pirate-themed wedding with Elvis presiding.”

  “I could be the wench of honor,” Clary suggested. She looked at Simon expectantly. “And you could be . . .”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I am a hipster. I am too cool for themed weddings.”

  “You play D and D. You’re a geek,” she corrected him fondly.

  “Geek is chic,” Simon declared. “Ladies love nerds.”

  Luke cleared his throat. “I assume you came in here to tell me something?”

  “I’m heading over to the Institute to see Jace,” Clary said. “Do you want me to bring you anything back?”

  He shook his head. “Your mother’s at the store, stocking up.” He leaned over to ruffle her hair, and winced. He was healing, but slowly. “Have fun.”

  Clary thought of what she was probably facing at the Institute—an angry Maryse, a wearied Isabelle, an absent Alec, and a Jace who didn’t want to see her—and sighed. “You bet.”

  The subway tunnel smelled like the winter that had finally come to the city—cold metal, dank, wet dirt, and a faint hint of smoke. Alec, walking along the tracks, saw his breath puff out in front of his face in white clouds, and he jammed his free hand into the pocket of his blue peacoat to keep it warm. The witchlight he held in his other hand illuminated the tunnel—green and cream-colored tiles, discolored with age, and sprung wiring, dangling like spiderwebs from the walls. It had been a long time since this tunnel had seen a moving train.

  Alec had gotten up before Magnus had woken, again. Magnus had been sleeping late; he was resting from the battle at the Burren. He had used a great deal of energy to heal himself, but he wasn’t entirely well yet. Warlocks were immortal but not invulnerable, and “a few inches higher and that would have been it for me,” Magnus had said ruefully, examining the knife wound. “It would have stopped my heart.”

  There had been a few moments—minutes, even—when Alec had truly thought Magnus was dead. And after so much time spent worrying that he would grow old and die before Magnus did. What a bitter irony it would have been. The sort of thing he deserved, for seriously contemplating the offer Camille had made him, even for a second.

  He could see light up ahead—the City Hall station, lit by chandeliers and skylights. He was about to douse his witchlight when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  “Alec,” it said. “Alexander Gideon Lightwood.”

  Alec felt his heart lurch. He turned around slowly. “Magnus?”

  Magnus moved forward, into the circle of illumination cast by Alec’s witchlight. He looked uncharacteristically somber, his eyes shadowed. His spiky hair was rumpled. He wore only a suit jacket over a T-shirt, and Alec couldn’t help wondering if he was cold.

  “Magnus,” Alec said again. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Evidently,” Magnus said.

  Alec swallowed hard. He had never seen Magnus angry, not really. Not like this. Magnus’s cat eyes were remote, impossible to read. “Did you follow me?” Alec asked.

  “You could say that. It helped that I knew where you were going.” Moving stiffly, Magnus took a folded square of paper from his pocket. In the dim light, all Alec could see was that it was covered with a careful, flourishing handwriting. “You know, when she told me you’d been here—told me about the bargain she’d struck with you—I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to believe her. But here you are.”

  “Camille told you—”

  Magnus held up a hand to cut him off. “Just stop,” he said wearily. “Of course she told me. I warned you she was a master at manipulation and politics, but you didn’t listen to me. Who do you think she’d rather have on her side—me or you? You’re eighteen years old, Alexander. You’re not exactly a powerful ally.”

  “I already told her,” Alec said. “I wouldn’t kill Raphael. I came here and told her the bargain was off, I wouldn’t do it—”

  “You had to come all the way here, to this abandoned subway station, to deliver that message?” Magnus raised his eyebrows. “You don’t think you could have delivered essentially the same message by, perhaps, staying away?”

  “It was—”

  “And even if you did come here—unnecessarily—and tell her the deal was off,” Magnus went on in a deadly calm voice, “why are you here now? Social call? Just visiting? Explain it to me, Alexander, if there’s something I’m missing.”

  Alec swallowed. Surely there must be a way to explain. That he had been coming down here, visiting Camille, because she was the only person he could talk to about Magnus. The only person who knew Magnus, as he did, not just as the High Warlock of Brooklyn but as someone who could love and be loved back, who had human frailties and peculiarities and odd, irregular currents of mood that Alec had no idea how to navigate without advice. “Magnus—” Alec took a step toward his boyfriend, and for the first time that he remembered, Magnus moved away from him. His posture was stiff and unfriendly. He was looking at Alec the way he’d look at a stranger, a stranger he didn’t like very much.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alec said. His voice sounded scratchy and uneven to his own ears. “I never meant—”

  “I was thinking about it, you know,” Magnus said. “That’s part of why I wanted the Book of the White. Immortality can be a burden. You think of the days that stretch out before you, when you have been everywhere, seen everything. The one thing I hadn’t experienced was growing old with someone—someone I loved. I thought perhaps it would be you. But that does not give you the right to make the length of my life your choice and not mine.”

  “I know.” Alec’s heart raced. “I know, and I wasn’t going to do it—”

  “I’ll be out all day,” Magnus said. “Come and get your things out of the apartment. Leave your key on the dining room table.” His eyes searched Alec’s face. “It’s over. I don’t want to see you again, Alec. Or any of your friends. I’m tired of being their pet warlock.”

  Alec’s hands had begun to shake, hard enough that he dropped his witchlight. The light winked out, and he fell to his knees, scrabbling on the ground among the trash and the dirt. At last something lit up before his eyes, and he rose to see Magnus standing before him, the witchlight in his hand. It shone and flickered with a strangely colored light.

  “It shouldn’t light up like that,” Alec said automatically. “For anyone but a Shadowhunter.”

  Magnus held it out. The heart of the witchlight was glowing a dark red, like the coal of a fire.

  “Is it because of your father?” Alec asked.

  Magnus didn’t reply, only tipped the rune-stone into Alec’s palm. As their hands touched, Magnus’s face changed. “You’re freezing cold.”

  “I am?”

  “Alexander . . .” Magnus pulled him close, and the witchlight flickered between them, its color changing rapidly. Alec had never seen a witchlight rune-stone do that before. He put his head against Magnus’s shoulder and let Magnus hold him. Magnus’s heart didn’t beat like human hearts did. It was slower, but s
teady. Sometimes Alec thought it was the steadiest thing in his life.

  “Kiss me,” Alec said.

  Magnus put his hand to the side of Alec’s face and gently, almost absently, ran his thumb along Alec’s cheekbone. When he bent to kiss him, he smelled like sandalwood. Alec clutched the sleeve of Magnus’s jacket, and the witchlight, held between their bodies, flared up in colors of rose and blue and green.

  It was a slow kiss, and a sad one. When Magnus drew away, Alec found that somehow he was holding the witchlight alone; Magnus’s hand was gone. The light was a soft white.

  Softly, Magnus said, “Aku cinta kamu.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Magnus disentangled himself from Alec’s grip. “It means I love you. Not that that changes anything.”

  “But if you love me—”

  “Of course I do. More than I thought I would. But we’re still done,” Magnus said. “It doesn’t change what you did.”

  “But it was just a mistake,” Alec whispered. “One mistake—”

  Magnus laughed sharply. “One mistake? That’s like calling the maiden voyage of the Titanic a minor boating accident. Alec, you tried to shorten my life.”

  “It was just—She offered, but I thought about it and I couldn’t go through with it—I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “But you had to think about it. And you never mentioned it to me.” Magnus shook his head. “You didn’t trust me. You never have.”

  “I do,” Alec said. “I will—I’ll try. Give me another chance—”

  “No,” Magnus said. “And if I might give you a piece of advice: Avoid Camille. There is a war coming, Alexander, and you don’t want your loyalties to be in question. Do you?”

  And with that he turned and walked away, his hands in his pockets—walking slowly, as if he were injured, and not just from the cut in his side. But he was walking away just the same. Alec watched him until he moved beyond the glow of the witchlight and out of sight.

  The inside of the Institute had been cool in the summer, but now, with winter well and truly here, Clary thought, it was warm. The nave was bright with rows of candelabras, and the stained-glass windows glowed softly. She let the front door swing shut behind her and headed for the elevator. She was halfway up the center aisle when she heard someone laughing.

  She turned. Isabelle was sitting in one of the old pews, her long legs slung over the back of the seats in front of her. She wore boots that hit her midthigh, slim jeans, and a red sweater that left one shoulder bare. Her skin was traced with black designs; Clary remembered what Sebastian had said about not liking it when women disfigured their skin with Marks, and shivered inside. “Didn’t you hear me saying your name?” Izzy demanded. “You really can be astonishingly single-minded.”

  Clary stopped and leaned against a pew. “I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose.”

  Isabelle swung her legs down and stood up. The heels on her boots were high, making her tower over Clary. “Oh, I know. That’s why I said ‘single-minded,’ not ‘rude.’”

  “Are you here to tell me to go away?” Clary was pleased by the fact that her voice didn’t shake. She wanted to see Jace. She wanted to see him more than anything else. But after what she’d been through this past month, she knew that what mattered was that he was alive, and that he was himself. Everything else was secondary.

  “No,” Izzy said, and started moving toward the elevator. Clary fell into step beside her. “I think the whole thing is ridiculous. You saved his life.”

  Clary swallowed against the cold feeling in her throat. “You said there were things I didn’t understand.”

  “There are.” Isabelle punched the elevator button. “Jace can explain them to you. I came down because I thought there were a few other things you should know.”

  Clary listened for the familiar creak, rattle, and groan of the old cage elevator. “Like?”

  “My dad’s back,” Isabelle said, not meeting Clary’s eyes.

  “Back for a visit, or back for good?”

  “For good.” Isabelle sounded calm, but Clary remembered how hurt she had been when they’d found out Robert had been trying for the Inquisitor position. “Basically, Aline and Helen saved us from getting in real trouble for what happened in Ireland. When we came to help you, we did it without telling the Clave. My mom was sure that if we told them they’d send fighters to kill Jace. She couldn’t do it. I mean, this is our family.”

  The elevator arrived with a rattle and a crash before Clary could say anything. She followed the other girl inside, fighting the strange urge to give Isabelle a hug. She doubted Izzy would like it.

  “So Aline told the Consul—who is, after all, her mother—that there hadn’t been any time to notify the Clave, that she’d been left behind with strict orders to call Jia, but there’d been some malfunction with the telephones and it hadn’t worked. Basically, she lied her butt off. Anyway, that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it. I don’t think Jia believed her, but it doesn’t matter; it’s not like Jia wants to punish Mom. She just had to have some kind of story she could grab on to so she didn’t have to sanction us. After all, it’s not like the operation was a disaster. We went in, got Jace out, killed most of the dark Nephilim, and got Sebastian on the run.”

  The elevator stopped rising and came to a crashing halt.

  “Got Sebastian on the run,” Clary repeated. “So we have no idea where he is? I thought maybe since I destroyed his apartment—the dimensional pocket—he could be tracked.”

  “We’ve tried,” said Isabelle. “Wherever he is, he’s still beyond or outside tracking capabilities. And according to the Silent Brothers, the magic that Lilith worked—Well, he’s strong, Clary. Really strong. We have to assume he’s out there, with the Infernal Cup, planning his next move.” She pulled the cage door of the elevator open and stepped out. “Do you think he’ll come back for you—or Jace?”

  Clary hesitated. “Not right away,” she said finally. “For him we’re the last parts of the puzzle. He’ll want everything set up first. He’ll want an army. He’ll want to be ready. We’re like . . . the prizes he gets for winning. And so he doesn’t have to be alone.”

  “He must be really lonely,” Isabelle said. There was no sympathy in her voice; it was only an observation.

  Clary thought of him, of the face that she’d been trying to forget, that haunted her nightmares and waking dreams. You asked me who I belonged to. “You have no idea.”

  They reached the stairs that led to the infirmary. Isabelle paused, her hand at her throat. Clary could see the square outline of her ruby necklace beneath the material of her sweater. “Clary . . .”

  Clary suddenly felt awkward. She straightened the hem of her sweater, not wanting to look at Isabelle.

  “What’s it like?” Isabelle said abruptly.

  “What’s what like?”

  “Being in love,” Isabelle said. “How do you know you are? And how do you know someone else is in love with you?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Like Simon,” Isabelle said. “How could you tell he was in love with you?”

  “Well,” said Clary. “He said so.”

  “He said so.”

  Clary shrugged.

  “And before that, you had no idea?”

  “No, I really didn’t,” said Clary, recalling the moment. “Izzy . . . if you have feelings for Simon, or if you want to know if he has feelings for you . . . maybe you should just tell him.”

  Isabelle fiddled with some nonexistent lint on her cuff. “Tell him what?”

  “How you feel about him.”

  Isabelle looked mutinous. “I shouldn’t have to.”

  Clary shook her head. “God. You and Alec, you’re so alike—”

  Isabelle’s eyes widened. “We are not! We are totally not alike. I date around; he’s never dated before Magnus. He gets jealous; I don’t—”

  “Everyone gets jealous.” Clary spoke with finality. “And you’re both so stoic. I
t’s love, not the Battle of Thermopylae. You don’t have to treat everything like it’s a last stand. You don’t have to keep everything inside.”

  Isabelle threw her hands up. “Suddenly you’re an expert?”

  “I’m not an expert,” Clary said. “But I do know Simon. If you don’t say something to him, he’s going to assume it’s because you’re not interested, and he’ll give up. He needs you, Iz, and you need him. He just also needs you to be the one to say it.”

  Isabelle sighed and whirled to begin mounting the steps. Clary could hear her muttering as she went. “This is your fault, you know. If you hadn’t broken his heart—”

  “Isabelle!”

  “Well, you did.”

  “Yeah, and I seem to remember that when he got turned into a rat, you were the one who suggested we leave him in rat form. Permanently.”

  “I did not.”

  “You did—” Clary broke off. They had reached the next floor, where a long corridor stretched in both directions. Before the double doors of the infirmary stood the parchment-robed figure of a Silent Brother, hands folded, face cast down in a meditative stance.

  Isabelle indicated him with an exaggerated wave. “There you go,” she said. “Good luck getting past him to see Jace.” And she walked off down the corridor, her boots clicking on the wooden floor.

  Clary sighed inwardly and reached for the stele in her belt. She doubted there was a glamour rune that could fool a Silent Brother, but perhaps, if she could get close enough to use a sleep rune on his skin . . .

  Clary Fray. The voice in her head was amused, and also familiar. It had no sound, but she recognized the shape of the thoughts, the way you might recognize the way someone laughed or breathed.

  “Brother Zachariah.” Resignedly she slid the stele back in place and moved closer to him, wishing Isabelle had stayed with her.

  I presume you are here to see Jonathan, he said, lifting his head from the meditative stance. His face was still in shadow beneath the hood, though she could see the shape of an angular cheekbone. Despite the orders of the Brotherhood.