“What?” he said now, self-consciously pulling down the sleeves of his suit jacket. It was a little too small for him, though Jordan had opined that if he never buttoned it, no one would notice. “How bad do I look?”
Jordan shrugged. “You won’t crack any mirrors,” he said. “I was just wondering if you were armed. You want anything? Dagger, maybe?” He opened his own suit jacket just a bit, and Simon saw something long and metallic glinting against the inside lining.
“No wonder you and Jace like each other so much. You’re both crazy walking arsenals.” Simon shook his head in weariness and turned to head toward the Ironworks entrance. It was across the street, a wide gold awning shadowing a rectangle of sidewalk that had been decorated with a dark red carpet with the gold image of a wolf stamped into it. Simon couldn’t help being slightly amused.
Leaning against one of the poles holding up the awning was Isabelle. She had her hair up and was wearing a long red dress, slit up the side to show most of her leg. Loops of gold laddered her right arm. They looked like bracelets, but Simon knew they were really her electrum whip. She was covered in Marks. They twined her arms, threaded their way up her thigh, necklaced her throat, and decorated her chest, a great deal of which was visible, thanks to the plunging neckline of her dress. Simon tried not to stare.
“Hey, Isabelle,” he said.
Beside him Jordan was also trying not to stare. “Um,” he said. “Hi. I’m Jordan.”
“We met,” Isabelle said coldly, ignoring his proffered hand. “Maia was trying to rip your face off. Quite rightly, too.”
Jordan looked worried. “Is she here? Is she okay?”
“She’s here,” said Isabelle. “Not that how she feels is any of your business . . .”
“I feel a sense of responsibility,” said Jordan.
“And where is this feeling located? In your pants, perhaps?”
Jordan looked indignant.
Isabelle waved a slim decorated hand. “Look, whatever you did in the past, it’s past. I know you’re Praetor Lupus now, and I told Maia what that means. She’s willing to accept that you’re here and ignore you. But that’s all you get. Don’t bother her, don’t try to talk to her, don’t even look at her, or I’ll fold you in half so many times you’ll look like a tiny little origami werewolf.”
Simon snorted.
“Laugh away.” Isabelle pointed at him. “She doesn’t want to talk to you, either. So despite the fact that she looks totally babelicious tonight—and if I were into chicks I would completely go for her—neither of you are allowed to talk to her. Got it?”
They nodded, looking at their shoes like middle schoolers who’d just been handed detention slips.
Isabelle unpeeled herself from the pole. “Great. Let’s go on in.”
15
BEATI BELLICOSI
The inside of the Ironworks was alive with ropes of shimmering multicolored lights. Quite a few guests were already sitting, but just as many were milling around, carrying champagne glasses full of pale, fizzing liquid. Waiters—who were also werewolves, Simon noted; the whole event seemed to be staffed by members of Luke’s pack—moved among the guests, handing out champagne flutes. Simon declined one. Ever since his experience at Magnus’s party, he hadn’t felt safe drinking anything that he hadn’t prepared himself, and besides, he never knew which non-blood liquids were going to stay down and which would make him sick.
Maia was standing over by one of the brick pillars, talking to two other werewolves and laughing. She wore a brilliant orange satin sheath dress that set off her dark skin, and her hair was a wild halo of brown-gold curls around her face. She caught sight of Simon and Jordan and deliberately turned away. The back of her dress was a low V that showed a lot of bare skin, including a tattoo of a butterfly across her lower spine.
“I don’t think she had that when I knew her,” Jordan said. “That tattoo, I mean.”
Simon looked at Jordan. He was goggling at his ex-girlfriend with the sort of obvious longing that, Simon suspected, was going to get him punched in the face by Isabelle if he wasn’t careful. “Come on,” he said, putting his hand against Jordan’s back and shoving lightly. “Let’s go see where we’re sitting.”
Isabelle, who had been watching them over her shoulder, smiled a catlike smile. “Good idea.”
They made their way through the crowd to the area where the tables were, only to find that their table was already half-occupied. Clary sat in one of the seats, looking down into a champagne glass full of what was most likely ginger ale. Next to her were Alec and Magnus, both in the dark suits they’d worn when they’d come from Vienna. Magnus seemed to be playing with the fringed edges of his long white scarf. Alec, his arms crossed over his chest, was staring ferociously into the distance.
Clary, on seeing Simon and Jordan, bounced to her feet, relief evident on her face. She came around the table to greet Simon, and he saw that she was wearing a very plain gold silk dress and low gold sandals. Without heels to give her height, she looked tiny. The Morgenstern ring was around her neck, its silver glinting against the chain that held it. She reached up to hug him and muttered, “I think Alec and Magnus are fighting.”
“Looks like it,” he muttered back. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
At that, she detached her arms from his neck. “He got held up at the Institute.” She turned. “Hey, Kyle.”
He smiled a little awkwardly. “It’s Jordan, actually.”
“So I’ve heard.” Clary gestured toward the table. “Well, we might as well sit. I think pretty soon there’s going to be toasting and stuff. And then, hopefully, food.”
They all sat. There was a long, awkward silence.
“So,” Magnus said finally, running a long white finger around the rim of his champagne glass. “Jordan. I hear you’re in the Praetor Lupus. I see you’re wearing one of their medallions. What does it say on it?”
Jordan nodded. He was flushed, his hazel eyes sparkling, his attention clearly only partly on the conversation. He was following Maia around the room with his eyes, his fingers nervously clenching and unclenching on the edge of the tablecloth. Simon doubted he was even aware of it. “Beati bellicosi: Blessed are the warriors.”
“Good organization,” said Magnus. “I knew the man who founded it, back in the 1800s. Woolsey Scott. Respectable old werewolf family.”
Alec made an ugly sound in the back of his throat. “Did you sleep with him, too?”
Magnus’s cat eyes widened. “Alexander!”
“Well, I don’t know anything about your past, do I?” Alec demanded. “You won’t tell me anything; you just say it doesn’t matter.”
Magnus’s face was expressionless, but there was a dark tinge of anger to his voice. “Does this mean every time I mention anyone I’ve ever met, you’re going to ask me if I had an affair with them?”
Alec’s expression was stubborn, but Simon couldn’t help having a flash of sympathy; the hurt behind his blue eyes was clear. “Maybe.”
“I met Napoleon once,” said Magnus. “We didn’t have an affair, though. He was shockingly prudish for a Frenchman.”
“You met Napoleon?” Jordan, who appeared to be missing most of the conversation, looked impressed. “So it’s true what they say about warlocks, then?”
Alec gave him a very unpleasant look. “What’s true?”
“Alexander,” said Magnus coldly, and Clary met Simon’s eyes across the table. Hers were wide, green, and full of an expression that said Uh-oh. “You can’t be rude to everyone who talks to me.”
Alec made a wide, sweeping gesture. “And why not? Cramping your style, am I? I mean, maybe you were hoping to flirt with werewolf boy here. He’s pretty attractive, if you like the messy-haired, broad-shouldered, chiseled-good-looks type.”
“Hey, now,” said Jordan mildly.
Magnus put his head in his hands.
“Or there are plenty of pretty girls here, since apparently your taste goes both ways. Is there anythi
ng you aren’t into?”
“Mermaids,” said Magnus into his fingers. “They always smell like seaweed.”
“It’s not funny,” Alec said savagely, and kicking back his chair, he got up from the table and stalked off into the crowd.
Magnus still had his head in his hands, the black spikes of his hair sticking out between his fingers. “I just don’t see,” he said to no one in particular, “why the past has to matter.”
To Simon’s surprise it was Jordan who answered. “The past always matters,” he said. “That’s what they tell you when you join the Praetor. You can’t forget the things you did in the past, or you’ll never learn from them.”
Magnus looked up, his gold-green eyes glinting through his fingers. “How old are you?” he demanded. “Sixteen?”
“Eighteen,” said Jordan, looking slightly frightened.
Alec’s age, thought Simon, suppressing an interior grin. He didn’t really find Alec and Magnus’s drama funny, but it was hard not to feel a certain bitter amusement at Jordan’s expression. Jordan had to be twice Magnus’s size—despite being tall, Magnus was slender to the point of skinniness—but Jordan was clearly afraid of him. Simon turned to share a glance with Clary, but she was staring off toward the front door, her face gone suddenly bone white. Dropping her napkin onto the table, she murmured, “Excuse me,” and got to her feet, practically fleeing the table.
Magnus threw his hands up. “Well, if there’s going to be a mass exodus . . .,” he said, and got up gracefully, flinging his scarf around his neck. He vanished into the crowd, presumably looking for Alec.
Simon looked at Jordan, who was looking at Maia again. She had her back to them and was talking to Luke and Jocelyn, laughing, flinging her curly hair back. “Don’t even think about it,” Simon said, and got up. He pointed at Jordan. “You stay here.”
“And do what?” Jordan demanded.
“Whatever Praetor Lupus do in this situation. Meditate. Contemplate your Jedi powers. Whatever. I’ll be back in five minutes, and you better still be here.”
Jordan leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest in a clearly mutinous manner, but Simon had already stopped paying attention. He turned and moved into the crowd, following Clary. She was a speck of red and gold among the moving bodies, crowned with her twist of bright hair.
He caught up to her by one of the light-wrapped pillars, and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned with a startled exclamation, eyes wide, hand raised as if to fend him off. She relaxed when she saw who it was. “You scared me!”
“Obviously,” Simon said. “What’s going on? What are you so freaked out about?”
“I . . .” She lowered her hand with a shrug; despite her forced look of casual dismissal, the pulse was going in her neck like a hammer. “I thought I saw Jace.”
“I figured,” Simon said. “But . . .”
“But?”
“You look really frightened.” He wasn’t sure why he’d said it exactly, or what he was hoping she’d say back. She bit her lip, the way she always did when she was nervous. Her gaze for a moment was far away; it was a look familiar to Simon. One of the things he’d always loved about Clary was how easily caught up in her imagination she was, how easily she could wall herself away in illusory worlds of curses and princes and destiny and magic. Once he had been able to do the same, had been able to inhabit imaginary worlds all the more exciting for being safe—for being fictional. Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn’t realize was precious until you lost it.
“He’s having a hard time,” she said in a low voice. “I’m scared for him.”
“I know,” Simon said. “Look, not to pry, but—has he figured out what’s wrong with him? Has anyone?”
“He—” She broke off. “He’s all right. He’s just having a hard time coming to terms with some of the Valentine stuff. You know.” Simon did know. He also knew she was lying. Clary, who hardly ever hid anything from him. He gave her a hard look.
“He’s been having bad dreams,” she said. “He was worried that there was some demon involvement—”
“Demon involvement?” Simon echoed in disbelief. He’d known that Jace was having bad dreams—he’d said as much—but Jace had never mentioned demons.
“Well, apparently there are kinds of demons that try to reach you through your dreams,” Clary said, sounding as if she were sorry she’d brought it up at all, “but I’m sure it’s nothing. Everyone has bad dreams sometimes, don’t they?” She put a hand on Simon’s arm. “I’m just going to see how he is. I’ll come back.” Her gaze was already sliding past him, toward the doors that led onto the terrace; he stood back with a nod and let her go, watching her as she moved off into the crowd.
She looked so small—small the way she had in first grade when he’d walked her to the front door of her house and watched her go up the stairs, tiny and determined, her lunch box banging against her knee as she went. He felt his heart, which no longer beat, contract, and he wondered if there was anything in the world as painful as not being able to protect the people you loved.
“You look sick,” said a voice at his elbow. Husky, familiar. “Thinking about what a horrible person you are?”
Simon turned and saw Maia leaning against the pillar behind him. She had a strand of the small, glowing white lights wound around her neck, and her face was flushed with champagne and the warmth of the room.
“Or maybe I should say,” she went on, “what a horrible vampire you are. Except that makes it sound like you’re bad at being a vampire.”
“I am bad at being a vampire,” Simon said. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t bad at being a boyfriend, too.”
She smiled crookedly. “Bat says I shouldn’t be so hard on you,” she said. “He says guys do stupid things when girls are involved. Especially geeky ones who previously haven’t had much luck with women.”
“It’s like he can see into my soul.”
Maia shook her head. “It’s hard to stay mad at you,” she said. “But I’m working on it.” She turned away.
“Maia,” Simon said. His head had started to ache, and he felt a little dizzy. If he didn’t talk to her now, though, he never would. “Please. Wait.”
She turned back and looked at him, both eyebrows raised questioningly.
“I’m sorry about what I did,” he said. “I know I said that before, but I really do mean it.”
She shrugged, expressionless, giving him nothing.
He swallowed past the pain in his head. “Maybe Bat’s right,” he said. “But I think there’s more to it than that. I wanted to be with you because—and this is going to sound so selfish—you made me feel normal. Like the person I was before.”
“I’m a werewolf, Simon. Not exactly normal.”
“But you—you are,” he said, stumbling over his words a little. “You’re genuine and real—one of the realest people I’ve ever known. You wanted to come over and play Halo. You wanted to talk about comics and check out concerts and go dancing and just do normal things. And you treated me like I was normal. You’ve never called me ‘Daylighter’ or ‘vampire’ or anything but Simon.”
“That’s all friend stuff,” Maia said. She was leaning against the pillar again, her eyes glinting softly as she spoke. “Not girlfriend stuff.”
Simon just looked at her. His headache pulsed like a heartbeat.
“And then you come around,” she added, “bringing Jordan with you. What were you thinking?”
“That’s not fair,” Simon protested. “I had no idea he was your ex—”
“I know. Isabelle told me,” Maia interrupted. “I just feel like giving you hell about it anyway.”
“Oh, yeah?” Simon glanced over at Jordan, who was sitting alone at the round linen-draped table, like a guy whose prom date hadn’t showed up. Simon suddenly felt very tired—tired of worrying about every
one, tired of feeling guilty for the things he’d done and would probably do in the future. “Well, did Izzy tell you that Jordan got himself assigned to me so he could be near you? You should hear the way he asks about you. The way he says your name, even. Man, the way he ripped into me when he thought I was cheating on you—”
“You weren’t cheating. We weren’t exclusively dating. Cheating is different—”
Simon smiled as Maia broke off, blushing. “I guess it’s good that you dislike him so much that you’ll take my side against him no matter what,” he said.
“It’s been years,” she said. “He’s never tried to get in touch with me. Not once.”
“He did try,” Simon said. “Did you know the night he bit you was the first time he ever Turned?”
She shook her head, her curls bouncing, her wide amber eyes very serious. “No. I thought he knew—”
“That he was a werewolf? No. He knew he was losing control in some way, but who guesses they’re turning into a werewolf? The day after he bit you he went looking for you, but the Praetor stopped him. They kept him away from you. Even then he didn’t stop looking. I don’t think a day’s gone by in the past two years that he hasn’t wondered where you were—”
“Why are you defending him?” she whispered.
“Because you should know,” said Simon. “I sucked at being a boyfriend, and I owe you. You should know he didn’t mean to abandon you. He only took me on as an assignment because your name was mentioned in the notes on my case.”
Her lips parted. As she shook her head, the glittering lights of her necklace winked like stars. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that, Simon. What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said. His head felt like nails were being pounded into it. “But I can tell you one thing. I’m the last guy in the world you should be asking for relationship advice from.” He pressed a hand to his forehead. “I’m going to go outside. Get some air. Jordan’s over at that table there if you want to talk to him.”
Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series Page 152