Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series

by Cassandra Clare

  Their hands moved quickly over each other, and then more slowly, uncovering and unhurried. She dug her fingers into his shoulders when he kissed her throat, her collarbones, the star-shaped mark on her shoulder. She grazed his scar too, with the backs of her knuckles, and kissed the wounded Mark Lilith had made on his chest. She felt him shudder, wanting her, and she knew she was on the very brink of where there was no going back, and she didn’t care. She knew what it was like to lose him now. She knew the black empty days that came after. And she knew that if she lost him again, she wanted this to remember. To hold on to. That she had been as close to him once as you could be to another person. She locked her ankles around the small of his back, and he groaned against her mouth, a soft, low, helpless sound. His fingers dug into her hips.

  “Clary.” He pulled away. He was shaking. “I can’t . . . If we don’t stop now, we won’t be able to.”

  “Don’t you want to?” She looked up at him in surprise. He was flushed, tousled, his fair hair a darker gold where sweat had pasted it to his forehead and temples. She could feel his heart stuttering inside his chest.

  “Yes, it’s just I’ve never—”

  “You haven’t?” She was surprised. “Done this before?”

  He took a deep breath. “I have.” His eyes searched her face, as if he were looking for judgment, disapprobation, even disgust. Clary looked back at him evenly. It was what she had assumed, anyway. “But not when it mattered.” He touched her cheek with his fingers, feather-light. “I don’t even know how . . .”

  Clary laughed softly. “I think it’s just been established that you do.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He caught her hand and brought it to his face. “I want you,” he said, “more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. But I . . .” He swallowed. “Name of the Angel. I’m going to kick myself for this later.”

  “Don’t say you’re trying to protect me,” she said fiercely. “Because I—”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “I’m not being self-sacrificing. I’m . . . jealous.”

  “You’re—jealous? Of who?”

  “Myself.” His face twisted. “I hate the thought of him being with you. Him. That other me. The one Sebastian controls.”

  She felt her face start to burn. “At the club . . . last night . . .”

  He dropped his head to her shoulder. A little bewildered, she stroked his back, feeling the scratches where her fingernails had torn his skin at the nightclub. The specific memory made her blush even harder. So did the knowledge that he could have gotten rid of the scratches with an iratze if he’d wanted to. But he hadn’t. “I remember everything about last night,” he said. “And it makes me crazy, because it was me but it wasn’t. When we’re together, I want it to be the real you. The real me.”

  “Isn’t that what we are now?”

  “Yes.” He raised his head, kissed her mouth. “But for how long? I could turn back into him any minute. I couldn’t do that to you. To us.” His voice was bitter. “I don’t even know how you can stand it, being around this thing that isn’t me—”

  “Even if you go back to being that in five minutes,” she said, “it would have been worth it, just to be with you like this again. Not to have it end on that rooftop. Because this is you, and even that other you—there’s pieces of the real you in there. It’s like I’m looking through a blurred window at you, but it’s not the real you. And at least I know now.”

  “What do you mean?” His hands tightened on her shoulders. “What do you mean at least you know?”

  She took a deep breath. “Jace, when we were first together, like really together, you were so happy for that first month. And everything we did together was funny and fun and amazing. And then it was like it just started draining out of you, all that happiness. You didn’t want to be with me or look at me—”

  “I was afraid I was going to hurt you. I thought I was losing my mind.”

  “You didn’t smile or laugh or joke. And I’m not blaming you. Lilith was creeping into your mind, controlling you. Changing you. But you have to remember—I know how stupid this sounds—I never had a boyfriend before. I thought maybe it was normal. That maybe you were just getting tired of me.”

  “I couldn’t—”

  “I’m not asking for reassurance,” she said. “I’m telling you. When you’re—like you are, controlled—you seem happy. I came here because I wanted to save you.” Her voice dropped. “But I started to wonder what I was saving you from. How I could bring you back to a life you seemed so unhappy with.”

  “Unhappy?” He shook his head. “I was lucky. So, so lucky. And I couldn’t see it.” His eyes met hers. “I love you,” he said. “And you make me happier than I ever thought I could be. And now that I know what it’s like to be someone else—to lose myself—I want my life back. My family. You. All of it.” His eyes darkened. “I want it back.”

  His mouth came down on hers, with bruising pressure, their lips open, hot and hungry, and his hands gripped her waist—and then the sheets on either side of her, almost tearing them. He pulled back, panting. “We can’t—”

  “Then quit kissing me!” she gasped. “In fact—” She ducked out from under his grip, grabbing for her tank top. “I’ll be right back.”

  She pushed past him and darted into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She flicked on the light, and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked wild-eyed, her hair tangled, her lips swollen from kisses. She blushed and pulled her top back on, splashing cold water on her face, twisting her hair back into a knot. When she had convinced herself she no longer looked like the ravished maiden from the cover of a romance novel, she went for the hand towels—nothing romantic about that—grabbing one and wetting it down, then rubbing it with soap.

  She came back out into the bedroom. Jace was sitting on the edge of the bed, in jeans and a clean, unbuttoned shirt, his tousled hair outlined by moonlight. He looked like a statue of an angel. Only, angels weren’t usually streaked with blood.

  She moved to stand in front of him. “All right,” she said. “Take off your shirt.”

  Jace raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m not going to attack you,” she said impatiently. “I can take the sight of your naked chest without swooning.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, obediently sliding the shirt off his shoulders. “Because viewing my naked chest has caused many women to seriously injure themselves stampeding to get to me.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t see anyone here but me. And I just want to clean the blood off you.” He leaned back obediently on his hands. Blood had soaked through the shirt he’d been wearing and streaked his chest and the flat planes of his stomach, but as she ran her fingers carefully over him, she could feel that most of his cuts were shallow. The iratze he’d put on himself earlier was already causing them to fade.

  He turned his face up to her, eyes shut, as she ran the damp washcloth over his skin, blood pinking the white cotton. She scrubbed at the dried streaks on his neck, wrung out the cloth, dunked it in the glass of water on the nightstand, and went to work on his chest. He sat with his head tilted back, watching her as the cloth glided over the muscles of his shoulders, the smooth line of arms, forearms, hard chest scarred with white lines, the black of permanent Marks.

  “Clary,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  The humor had gone from his voice. “I won’t remember this,” he said. “When I’m back—like I was, under his control, I won’t remember being myself. I won’t remember being with you, or talking to you like this. So just tell me—are they all right? My family? Do they know—”

  “What’s happened to you? A little. And no, they’re not all right.” His eyes closed. “I could lie to you,” she said. “But you should know. They love you so much, and they want you back.”

  “Not like this,” he said.

  She touched his shoulder. “Are you going to tell me what happened? How you got these cuts?”

 
He took a deep breath, and the scar on his chest stood out, livid and dark. “I killed someone.”

  She felt the shock of his words go through her body like the recoil of a gun. She dropped the bloody towel, then bent down to retrieve it. When she looked up, he was staring down at her. In the moonlight the lines of his face were fine and sharp and sad. “Who?” she asked.

  “You met her,” Jace went on, each word like a weight. “The woman you went to visit with Sebastian. The Iron Sister. Magdalena.” He twisted away from her and reached back to retrieve something tangled among the blankets of the bed. The muscles in his arms and back moved under the skin as he took hold of it and turned back to Clary, the object gleaming in his hand.

  It was a clear, glassine chalice—an exact replica of the Mortal Cup, except that instead of being gold, it was carved of silvery-white adamas.

  “Sebastian sent me—sent him—to get this from her tonight,” Jace said. “And he also gave me the order to kill her. She wasn’t expecting it. She wasn’t expecting any violence, just payment and exchange. She thought we were on the same side. I let her hand me the Cup, and then I took my dagger and I—” He inhaled sharply, as if the memory hurt. “I stabbed her. I meant it to be through the heart, but she turned and I missed by inches. She staggered back and grabbed for her worktable—there was powdered adamas on it—she threw it at me. I think she meant to blind me. I turned my head away, and when I looked back she had an aegis in her hand. I think I knew what it was. The light of it seared my eyes. I cried out as she drove it toward my chest—I felt a searing pain in the Mark, and then the blade shattered.” He looked down and gave a mirthless laugh. “The funny thing is, if I’d been wearing gear, this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t because I didn’t think it was worth the bother. I didn’t think she could hurt me. But the aegis burned the Mark—Lilith’s Mark—and suddenly I was back in myself, standing there over this dead woman with a bloody dagger in my hand and the Cup in the other.”

  “I don’t understand. Why did Sebastian tell you to kill her? She was going to give the Cup to you. To Sebastian. She said—”

  Jace expelled a ragged breath. “Do you remember what Sebastian said about that clock in Old Town Square? In Prague?”

  “That the king had the clock maker’s eyes put out after he made it, so he could never make anything as beautiful again,” Clary said. “But I don’t see—”

  “Sebastian wanted Magdalena dead so she could never make anything like this again,” said Jace. “And so she could never tell.”

  “Tell what?” She put her hand up, took hold of Jace’s chin, and drew his face down so that he was looking at her. “Jace, what is Sebastian really planning on doing? The story he told in the training room, about wanting to raise demons so he could destroy them—”

  “Sebastian wants to raise demons all right.” Jace’s voice was grim. “One demon in particular. Lilith.”

  “But Lilith’s dead. Simon destroyed her.”

  “Greater Demons don’t die. Not really. Greater Demons inhabit the spaces between worlds, the great Void, the emptiness. What Simon did was shatter her power, send her in shreds back to the nothingness she came from. But she’ll slowly reform there. Be reborn. It would take centuries, but not if Sebastian helps her.”

  A cold feeling was growing in the pit of Clary’s stomach. “Helps her how?”

  “By summoning her back to this world. He wants to mix her blood and his in a cup and create an army of dark Nephilim. He wants to be Jonathan Shadowhunter reincarnated, but on the side of the demons, not the angels.”

  “An army of dark Nephilim? The two of you are tough, but you’re not exactly an army.”

  “There are about forty or fifty Nephilim who either were once loyal to Valentine, or hate the current direction of the Clave and are open to hearing what Sebastian has to say. He’s been in contact with them. When he raises Lilith, they’ll be there.” Jace took a deep breath. “And after that? With the power of Lilith behind him? Who knows who else will join his cause? He wants a war. He’s convinced he’ll win it, and I’m not sure he won’t. For every dark Nephilim he makes, he will grow in power. Add that to the demons he’s already made allegiances with, and I don’t know if the Clave is prepared to withstand him.”

  Clary dropped her hand. “Sebastian never changed. Your blood never changed him. He’s exactly like he always was.” Her eyes flicked up to Jace’s. “But you. You lied to me, too.”

  “He lied to you.”

  Her mind was whirling. “I know. I know that Jace isn’t you—”

  “He thinks it’s for your good and you’ll be happier in the end, but he did lie to you. And I would never do that.”

  “The aegis,” Clary said. “If it can hurt you but Sebastian can’t feel it, could it kill him but not hurt you?”

  Jace shook his head. “I don’t think so. If I had an aegis, I might be willing to try, but—no. Our life forces are tied together. An injury is one thing. If he were to die . . .” His voice hardened. “You know the easiest way to end this. Put a dagger in my heart. I’m surprised you didn’t do it while I was sleeping.”

  “Could you? If it were me?” Her voice shook. “I believed there was a way to make this right. I still believe it. Give me your stele, and I’ll make a Portal.”

  “You can’t make a Portal from inside here,” said Jace. “It won’t work. The only way in and out of this apartment is through the wall downstairs, by the kitchen. It’s the only place you can move the apartment from, too.”

  “Can you move us to the Silent City? If we go back, the Silent Brothers can figure out a way to separate you from Sebastian. We’ll tell the Clave his plan so they’ll be prepared—”

  “I could move us to one of the entrances,” Jace said. “And I will. I’ll go. We’ll go together. But just so there won’t be any untruth between us, Clary, you have to know that they’ll kill me. After I tell them what I know, they’ll kill me.”

  “Kill you? No, they wouldn’t—”

  “Clary.” His voice was gentle. “As a good Shadowhunter I ought to volunteer to die to stop what Sebastian is going to do. As a good Shadowhunter, I would.”

  “But none of this is your fault.” Her voice rose, and she forced it back down, not wanting Sebastian, downstairs, to hear. “You can’t help what’s been done to you. You’re a victim in this. It’s not you, Jace; it’s someone else, someone wearing your face. You shouldn’t be punished—”

  “It’s not a matter of punishment. It’s practicality. Kill me, Sebastian dies. It’s no different from sacrificing myself in battle. It’s all well and good to say I didn’t choose this. It has happened. And what I am now, myself, will be gone again soon enough. And, Clary, I know it doesn’t make sense, but I remember it—I remember all of it. I remember walking with you in Venice, and that night at the club, and sleeping in this bed with you, and don’t you get it? I wanted this. This is all I ever wanted, to live with you like this, be with you like this. What am I supposed to think, when the worst thing that has ever happened to me gives me exactly what I want? Maybe Jace Lightwood can see all the ways this is wrong and messed-up, but Jace Wayland, Valentine’s son . . . loves this life.” His eyes were wide and gold as he looked at her, and she was reminded of Raziel, of his gaze that seemed to hold all the wisdom and all the sadness in the world. “And that’s why I have to go,” he said. “Before this wears off. Before I’m him again.”

  “Go where?”

  “To the Silent City. I have to turn myself in—and the Cup, too.”

  Part Three

  All Is Changed

  All changed, changed utterly:

  A terrible beauty is born.

  —William Butler Yeats, “Easter, 1916”

  18

  RAZIEL

  “Clary?”

  Simon sat on the back porch steps of the farmhouse, looking down the path that led through the apple orchard and down to the lake. Isabelle and Magnus were on the path, Magnus glancing toward the lak
e and then up at the low mountains ringing the area. He was making notes in a small book with a pen whose end glowed a sparkling blue-green. Alec stood a little distance away, looking up at the trees lining the ridge of hills that separated the farmhouse from the road. He seemed to be standing as far from Magnus as he could while remaining in earshot. It seemed to Simon—the first to admit that he was not that observant about these things—that despite the joking around in the car, a perceptible distance had come between Magnus and Alec recently, one he couldn’t quite put a finger on, but he knew it was there.

  Simon’s right hand was cradled in his left, his fingers circling the gold ring on his finger.

  Clary, please.

  He’d been trying to reach her every hour since he’d gotten the message from Maia about Luke. He’d gotten nothing. Not a flicker of response.

  Clary, I’m at the farmhouse. I’m remembering you here, with me.

  It was an unseasonably warm day, and a faint wind rustled the last of the leaves in the tree branches. After spending too long wondering what sort of clothes you were supposed to wear to meet angels in—a suit seemed excessive, even if he did have one left over from Jocelyn and Luke’s engagement party—he was in jeans and a T-shirt, his arms bare in the sunlight. He had so many happy sunlit memories attached to this place, this house. He and Clary had come up here with Jocelyn almost every summer for as long as he could remember. They would swim in the lake. Simon would tan brown, and Clary’s fair skin would burn over and over. She’d get a million more freckles on her shoulders and arms. They’d play “apple baseball” in the orchard, which was messy and fun, and Scrabble and poker in the farmhouse, which Luke always won.