She scooted sideways, making room for him on the bed. There was nothing strange about sitting in bed with Simon; they’d slept over at each other’s houses for years, made tents and forts with the blankets when they were small, stayed up reading comics when they were older.
“You found your glasses,” she said. One lens was cracked.
“They were in my pocket. They came through better than I would have expected. I’ll have to write a nice note to LensCrafters.” He settled beside her gingerly.
“Did Hodge fix you up?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I still feel like I’ve been worked over with a tire iron, but nothing’s broken—not anymore.” He turned to look at her. His eyes behind the ruined glasses were the eyes she remembered: dark and serious, ringed by the kind of lashes boys didn’t care about and girls would kill for. “Clary, that you came for me—that you would risk all that—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand awkwardly. “You would have done it for me.”
“Of course,” he said, without arrogance or pretension, “but I always thought that was the way things were, with us. You know.”
She scrambled around to face him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Simon, as if he were surprised to find himself explaining something that should have been obvious, “I’ve always been the one who needed you more than you needed me.”
“That’s not true.” Clary was appalled.
“It is,” Simon said with the same unnerving calm. “You’ve never seemed to really need anyone, Clary. You’ve always been so . . . contained. All you’ve ever needed is your pencils and your imaginary worlds. So many times I’ve had to say things six, seven times before you’d even respond, you were so far away. And then you’d turn to me and smile that funny smile, and I’d know you’d forgotten all about me and just remembered—but I was never mad at you. Half of your attention is better than all of anyone else’s.”
She tried to catch at his hand, but got his wrist. She could feel the pulse under his skin. “I only ever loved three people in my life,” she said. “My mom and Luke, and you. And I’ve lost all of them except you. Don’t ever imagine you aren’t important to me—don’t even think it.”
“My mom says you only need three people you can rely on in order to achieve self-actualization,” said Simon. His tone was light but his voice cracked halfway through “actualization.”
“She says you seem pretty self-actualized.”
Clary smiled at him ruefully. “Did your mom have any other words of wisdom about me?”
“Yeah.” He returned her smile with one just as crooked. “But I’m not going to tell you what they were.”
“No fair keeping secrets!”
“Who ever said the world was fair?”
In the end, they lay against each other as they had when they were children: shoulder to shoulder, Clary’s leg thrown over Simon’s. Her toes came to just below his knee. Flat on their backs, they stared up at the ceiling as they talked, a habit left over from the time when Clary’s ceiling had been covered with paste-on glow-in-the-dark stars. Where Jace had smelled like soap and limes, Simon smelled like someone who’d been rolling around the parking lot of a supermarket, but Clary didn’t mind.
“The weird thing is”—Simon wound a curl of her hair around his finger—“I was joking with Isabelle about vampires right before it all happened. Just trying to get her to laugh, you know? ‘What freaks out Jewish vampires? Silver stars of David? Chopped liver? Checks for eighteen dollars?’”
Clary laughed.
Simon looked gratified. “Isabelle didn’t laugh.”
Clary thought of a number of things she wanted to say, and didn’t say them. “I’m not sure that’s Isabelle’s kind of humor.”
Simon cut a sideways glance at her under his lashes. “Is she sleeping with Jace?”
Clary’s squeak of surprise turned into a cough. She glared at him. “Ew, no. They’re practically related. They wouldn’t do that.” She paused. “I don’t think so, anyway.”
Simon shrugged. “Not like I care,” he said firmly.
“Sure you don’t.”
“I don’t!” He rolled onto his side. “You know, initially I thought Isabelle seemed, I don’t know—cool. Exciting. Different. Then, at the party, I realized she was actually crazy.”
Clary slit her eyes at him. “Did she tell you to drink the blue cocktail?”
He shook his head. “That was all me. I saw you go off with Jace and Alec, and I don’t know . . . You looked so different from usual. You seemed so different. I couldn’t help thinking you’d changed already, and this new world of yours would leave me out. I wanted to do something that would make me more a part of it. So when the little green guy came by with the tray of drinks . . .”
Clary groaned. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’ve never claimed otherwise.”
“Sorry. Was it awful?”
“Being a rat? No. First it was disorienting. I was suddenly at ankle-level with everyone. I thought I’d drunk a shrinking potion, but I couldn’t figure out why I had this urge to chew used gum wrappers.”
Clary giggled. “No. I mean the vampire hotel—was that awful?”
Something flickered behind his eyes. He looked away. “No. I don’t really remember much between the party and landing in the parking lot.”
“Probably better that way.”
He started to say something but was arrested mid-yawn. The light in the room had slowly faded. Disentangling herself from Simon and the bedsheets, Clary got up and pushed aside the window curtains. Outside, the city was bathed in the reddish glow of sunset. The silvery roof of the Chrysler Building, fifty blocks downtown, glowed like a poker left too long in the fire. “The sun’s setting. Maybe we should look for some dinner.”
There was no response. Turning, she saw that Simon was asleep, his arms folded under his head, legs sprawled. She sighed, went over to the bed, plucked his glasses off, and set them on the night table. She couldn’t count the times he’d fallen asleep with them on and been woken by the sound of cracking lenses.
Now where am I going to sleep? Not that she minded sharing a bed with Simon, but he hadn’t exactly left her any room. She considered poking him awake, but he looked so peaceful. Besides, she wasn’t sleepy. She was just reaching for the sketchpad under the pillow when a knock sounded on the door.
She padded barefoot across the room and turned the doorknob quietly. It was Jace. Clean, in jeans and a gray shirt, his washed hair a halo of damp gold. The bruises on his face were already fading from purple to faint gray, and his hands were behind his back.
“Were you asleep?” he asked. There was no contrition in his voice, only curiosity.
“No.” Clary stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her. “Why would you think that?”
He eyed her baby blue cotton tank top and sleep shorts set. “No reason.”
“I was in bed most of the day,” she said, which was technically true. Seeing him, her jitter level had shot up about a thousand percent, but she saw no reason to share that information. “What about you? Aren’t you exhausted?”
He shook his head. “Much like the postal service, demon hunters never sleep. ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these—’”
“You’d be in major trouble if gloom of night did stay you,” she pointed out.
He grinned. Unlike his hair, his teeth weren’t perfect. An upper incisor was slightly, endearingly chipped.
She gripped her elbows. It was chilly in the hallway and she could feel goose bumps starting up her arms. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“‘Here’ as in your bedroom or ‘here’ as in the great spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet? If you’re asking whether it’s all just a cosmic coincidence or there’s a greater meta-ethical purpose to life, well, that’s a puzzler for the ages. I mean, simple ontological reductionism is clearly a fallacious argument, but
—”
“I’m going back to bed.” Clary reached for the doorknob.
He slid nimbly between her and the door. “I’m here,” he said, “because Hodge reminded me it was your birthday.”
Clary exhaled in exasperation. “Not until tomorrow.”
“That’s no reason not to start celebrating now.”
She eyed him. “You’re avoiding Alec and Isabelle.”
He nodded. “Both of them are trying to pick fights with me.”
“For the same reason?”
“I couldn’t tell.” He glanced furtively up and down the hallway. “Hodge, too. Everyone wants to talk to me. Except you. I bet you don’t want to talk to me.”
“No,” said Clary. “I want to eat. I’m starving.”
He brought his hand out from behind his back. In it was a slightly crumpled paper bag. “I sneaked some food from the kitchen when Isabelle wasn’t looking.”
Clary grinned. “A picnic? It’s a little late for Central Park, don’t you think? It’s full of—”
He waved a hand. “Faeries. I know.”
“I was going to say muggers,” said Clary. “Though I pity the mugger who goes after you.”
“That is a wise attitude, and I commend you for it,” said Jace, looking gratified. “But I wasn’t thinking of Central Park. How about the greenhouse?”
“Now? At night? Won’t it be—dark?”
He smiled as if at a secret. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
17
THE MIDNIGHT FLOWER
In the half-light the big empty rooms they passed through on their way to the roof looked as deserted as stage sets, the white-draped furniture looming up out of the dimness like icebergs through fog.
When Jace opened the greenhouse door, the scent hit Clary, soft as the padded blow of a cat’s paw: the rich dark smell of earth and the stronger, soapy scent of night-blooming flowers—moonflowers, white angel’s trumpet, four-o’clocks—and some she didn’t recognize, like a plant bearing a star-shaped yellow blossom whose petals were medallioned with golden pollen. Through the glass walls of the enclosure she could see the lights of Manhattan burning like cold jewels.
“Wow.” She turned slowly, taking it in. “It’s so beautiful here at night.”
Jace grinned. “And we have the place to ourselves. Alec and Isabelle hate it up here. They have allergies.”
Clary shivered, though she wasn’t at all cold. “What kind of flowers are these?”
Jace shrugged and sat down, carefully, next to a glossy green shrub dotted all over with tightly closed flower buds. “No idea. You think I pay attention in botany class? I’m not going to be an archivist. I don’t need to know about that stuff.”
“You just need to know how to kill things?”
He looked up at her and smiled. He looked like a fair-haired angel from a Rembrandt painting, except for that devilish mouth. “That’s right.” He took a napkin-wrapped package out of the bag and offered it to her. “Also,” he added, “I make a mean cheese sandwich. Try one.”
Clary smiled reluctantly and sat down across from him. The stone floor of the greenhouse was cold against her bare legs, but it was pleasant after so many days of relentless heat. Out of the paper bag Jace drew some apples, a bar of fruit and nut chocolate, and a bottle of water. “Not a bad haul,” she said admiringly.
The cheese sandwich was warm and a little limp, but it tasted fine. From one of the innumerable pockets inside his jacket, Jace produced a bone-handled knife that looked capable of disemboweling a grizzly. He set to work on the apples, carving them into meticulous eighths. “Well, it’s not birthday cake,” he said, handing her a section, “but hopefully it’s better than nothing.”
“Nothing is what I was expecting, so thanks.” She took a bite. The apple tasted green and cool.
“Nobody should get nothing on their birthday.” He was peeling the second apple, the skin coming away in long curling strips. “Birthdays should be special. My birthday was always the one day my father said I could do or have anything I wanted.”
“Anything?” She laughed. “Like what kind of anything did you want?”
“Well, when I was five, I wanted to take a bath in spaghetti.”
“But he didn’t let you, right?”
“No, that’s the thing. He did. He said it wasn’t expensive, and why not if that was what I wanted? He had the servants fill a bath with boiling water and pasta, and when it cooled down . . .” He shrugged. “I took a bath in it.”
Servants? Clary thought. Out loud she said, “How was it?”
“Slippery.”
“I’ll bet.” She tried to picture him as a little boy, giggling, up to his ears in pasta. The image wouldn’t form. Surely Jace never giggled, not even at the age of five. “What else did you ask for?”
“Weapons, mostly,” he said, “which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you. Books. I read a lot on my own.”
“You didn’t go to school?”
“No,” he said, and now he spoke slowly, almost as if they were approaching a topic he didn’t want to discuss.
“But your friends—”
“I didn’t have friends,” he said. “Besides my father. He was all I needed.”
She stared at him. “No friends at all?”
He met her look steadily. “The first time I saw Alec,” he said, “when I was ten years old, that was the first time I’d ever met another child my own age. The first time I had a friend.”
She dropped her gaze. Now an image was forming, unwelcome, in her head: She thought of Alec, the way he had looked at her. He wouldn’t say that.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Jace said, as if guessing her thoughts, though it hadn’t been him she’d been feeling sorry for. “He gave me the best education, the best training. He took me all over the world. London. Saint Petersburg. Egypt. We used to love to travel.” His eyes were dark. “I haven’t been anywhere since he died. Nowhere but New York.”
“You’re lucky,” Clary said. “I’ve never been outside this state in my life. My mom wouldn’t even let me go on field trips to D.C. I guess I know why now,” she added ruefully.
“She was afraid you’d freak out? Start seeing demons in the White House?”
She nibbled a piece of chocolate. “There are demons in the White House?”
“I was kidding,” said Jace. “I think.” He shrugged philosophically. “I’m sure someone would have mentioned it.”
“I think she just didn’t want me to get too far away from her. My mom, I mean. After my dad died, she changed a lot.” Luke’s voice echoed in her mind. You’ve never been the same since it happened, but Clary isn’t Jonathan.
Jace cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you remember your father?”
She shook her head. “No. He died before I was born.”
“You’re lucky,” he said. “That way you don’t miss him.”
From anyone else it would have been an appalling thing to say, but there was no bitterness in his voice for a change, only an ache of loneliness for his own father. “Does it go away?” she asked. “Missing him, I mean?”
He looked at her obliquely, but didn’t answer. “Are you thinking of your mother?”
No. She wouldn’t think of her mother that way. “Of Luke, actually.”
“Not that that’s actually his name.” He took a thoughtful bite of apple and said, “I’ve been thinking about him. Something about his behavior doesn’t add up—”
“He’s a coward.” Clary’s voice was bitter. “You heard him. He won’t go against Valentine. Not even for my mother.”
“But that’s exactly—” A long clanging reverberation interrupted him. Somewhere, a bell was tolling. “Midnight,” said Jace, setting the knife down. He got to his feet, holding his hand out to pull her up beside him. His fingers were slightly sticky with apple juice. “Now, watch.”
His gaze was fixed on the green shrub they’d been sitting beside, with its dozens of shiny closed buds. She started to a
sk him what she was supposed to be looking at, but he held up a hand to forestall her. His eyes were shining. “Wait,” he said.
The leaves on the shrub hung still and motionless. Suddenly one of the tightly closed buds began to quiver and tremble. It swelled to twice its size and burst open. It was like watching a speeded-up film of a flower blooming: the delicate green sepals opening outward, releasing the clustered petals inside. They were dusted with pale gold pollen as light as talcum.
“Oh!” said Clary, and looked up to find Jace watching her. “Do they bloom every night?”
“Only at midnight,” he said. “Happy birthday, Clarissa Fray.”
She was oddly touched. “Thank you.”
“I have something for you,” he said. He dug into his pocket and brought out something, which he pressed into her hand. It was a gray stone, slightly uneven, worn to smoothness in spots.
“Huh,” said Clary, turning it over in her fingers. “You know, when most girls say they want a big rock, they don’t mean, you know, literally a big rock.”
“Very amusing, my sarcastic friend. It’s not a rock, precisely. All Shadowhunters have a witchlight rune-stone.”
“Oh.” She looked at it with renewed interest, closing her fingers around it as she’d seen Jace do in the cellar. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see a glint of light peeking out through her fingers.
“It will bring you light,” said Jace, “even among the darkest shadows of this world and others.”
She slipped it into her pocket. “Well, thanks. It was nice of you to give me anything.” The tension between them seemed to press down on her like humid air. “Better than a bath in spaghetti any day.”
He said darkly, “If you share that little bit of personal information with anyone, I may have to kill you.”
“Well, when I was five, I wanted my mother to let me go around and around inside the dryer with the clothes,” Clary said. “The difference is, she didn’t let me.”
“Probably because going around and around inside a dryer can be fatal,” Jace pointed out, “whereas pasta is rarely fatal. Unless Isabelle makes it.”
Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series Page 27