City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments #4)(10)
Author: Cassandra Clare

Clary did as instructed. Facing each other like this, her head came to the bottom of his chin. She rested her hands lightly on his biceps.

"Muay Thai is called ‘the art of eight limbs.’ That’s because you use not just your fists and feet as strike points, but also your knees and elbows. First you want to pull your opponent in, then pummel him with every one of your strike points until he or she collapses."

"And that works on demons?" Clary raised her eyebrows.

"The smaller ones." Jace moved closer to her. "Okay. Reach your hand around and grip the back of my neck."

It was just possible to do as he instructed without going up on her toes. Not for the first time, Clary cursed the fact that she was so short.

"Now you raise your other hand and do the same thing again, so your hands are looped around the back of my neck."

She did it. The back of his neck was warm from the sun, and his soft hair tickled her fingers. Their bodies were pressed up against each other; she could feel the ring she wore on a chain around her neck pressed between them like a pebble pressed between two palms.

"In a real fight you’d do that move much faster," he said. Unless she was imagining it, his voice was a little unsteady. "Now that grip on me gives you leverage. You’re going to use that leverage to pull yourself forward and add momentum to your upward knee kicks-"

"My, my," said a cool, amused voice. "Only six weeks, and already at each other’s throats? How swiftly mortal love does fade."

Releasing her hold on Jace, Clary whirled, though she already knew who it was. The Queen of the Seelie Court stood in the shadows between two trees. If Clary had not known she was there, she wondered if she would have seen her, even with the Sight. The Queen wore a gown as green as grass, and her hair, falling around her shoulders, was the color of a turning leaf. She was as beautiful and awful as a dying season. Clary had never trusted her.

"What are you doing here?" It was Jace, his eyes narrow. "This is a Shadowhunter place."

"And I have news of interest to Shadowhunters." As the Queen stepped gracefully forward, the sun lanced down through the trees and sparked off the circlet of golden berries she wore around her head. Clary sometimes wondered if the Queen planned these dramatic entrances, and if so, how. "There has been another death."

"What sort of death?"

"Another one of you. Dead Nephilim." There was a certain relish to the way the Queen said it. "The body was found this dawn beneath Oak Bridge. As you know, the park is my domain. A human killing is not of concern to me, but the death did not seem to be one of mundane origins. The body was brought to the Court to be examined by my physicians. They pronounced the dead mortal one of yours."

Clary looked quickly at Jace, remembering the news of the dead Shadowhunter two days before. She could tell Jace was thinking the same thing; he had paled. "Where is the body?" he asked.

"Are you concerned about my hospitality? He bides in my court, and I assure you that we afford his body all the respect we would give a living Shadowhunter. Now that one of my own has a place on the Council beside you and yours, you can hardly doubt our good faith."

"As always, good faith and my Lady go hand in hand." The sarcasm in Jace’s voice was clear, but the Queen just smiled. She liked Jace, Clary had always thought, in that way that faeries liked pretty things because they were pretty. She did not think the Queen liked her, and the feeling was mutual. "And why are you giving this message to us, instead of to Maryse? Custom would indicate-"

"Oh, custom." The Queen waved away convention with a flip of her hand. "You were here. It seemed expedient."

Jace gave her another narrow look and flipped his cell phone open. He gestured at Clary to stay where she was, and walked a little ways away. She could hear him saying, "Maryse?" as the phone was answered, and then his voice was swallowed up by shouts from the playing fields nearby.

With a feeling of cold dread, she looked back at the Queen. She had not seen the Lady of the Seelie Court since her last night in Idris, and then Clary had not exactly been polite to her. She doubted the Queen had forgotten or forgiven her for that. Would you truly refuse a favor from the Queen of the Seelie Court?

"I heard Meliorn got a seat on the Council," Clary said now. "You must be pleased about that."

"Indeed." The Queen looked at her with amusement. "I am sufficiently delighted."

"So," Clary said. "No hard feelings, then?"

The Queen’s smile turned icy around the edges, like frost riming the sides of a pond. "I suppose you refer to my offer, which you so rudely declined," she said. "As you know, my objective was accomplished regardless; the loss there, I imagine most would agree, was yours."

"I didn’t want your deal." Clary tried to keep the sharpness from her voice, and failed. "People can’t do what you want all the time, you know."

"Do not presume to lecture me, child." The Queen’s eyes followed Jace, who was pacing at the edge of the trees, phone in hand. "He is beautiful," she said. "I can see why you love him. But did you ever wonder what draws him to you?"

Clary said nothing to that; there seemed nothing to say.

"The blood of Heaven binds you," said the Queen. "Blood calls to blood, under the skin. But love and blood are not the same."

"Riddles," Clary said angrily. "Do you even mean anything when you talk like that?"

"He is bound to you," said the Queen. "But does he love you?"

Clary felt her hands twitch. She longed to try out on the Queen some of the new fighting moves she’d learned, but she knew how unwise that would be. "Yes, he does."

"And does he want you? For love and desire are not always as one."

"That’s none of your business," Clary said shortly, but she could see that the Queen’s eyes on her were as sharp as pins.

"You want him like you have never wanted anything else. But does he feel the same?" The Queen’s soft voice was inexorable. "He could have anything or anyone he pleases. Do you wonder why he chose you? Do you wonder if he regrets it? Has he changed toward you?"

Clary felt tears sting the backs of her eyes. "No, he hasn’t." But she thought of his face in the elevator that night, and the way he had told her to go home when she’d offered to stay.

"You told me that you did not wish to make a compact with me, for there was nothing I could give you. You said there was nothing in the world you wanted." The Queen’s eyes glittered. "When you imagine your life without him, do you still feel the same?"

Why are you doing this to me? Clary wanted to scream, but she said nothing, for the Faerie Queen glanced past her, and smiled, saying, "Wipe your tears, for he returns. It will do you no good for him to see you cry."

Clary rubbed hastily at her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned; Jace was walking toward them, frowning. "Maryse is on her way to the Court," he said. "Where did the Queen go?"

Clary looked at him, surprised. "She’s right here," she began, turning-and broke off. Jace was right. The Queen was gone, only a swirl of leaves at Clary’s feet to show where she had stood.

Simon, his jacket wadded up under his head, was lying on his back, staring up at the hole-filled ceiling of Eric’s garage with a sense of grim fatality. His duffel bag was at his feet, his phone pressed against his ear. Right now the familiarity of Clary’s voice on the other end of it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.

"Simon, I’m so sorry." He could tell she was somewhere in the city. The loud blare of traffic sounded behind her, muffling her voice. "Are you seriously in Eric’s garage? Does he know you’re there?"

"No," Simon said. "No one’s home at the moment, and I’ve got the garage key. It seemed like a place to go. Where are you, anyway?"

"In the city." To Brooklynites, Manhattan was always "the city." No other metropolis existed. "I was training with Jace, but then he had to go back to the Institute for some kind of Clave business. I’m headed back to Luke’s now." A car honked loudly in the background. "Look, do you want to stay with us? You could sleep on Luke’s couch."

Simon hesitated. He had good memories of Luke’s. In all the years he’d known Clary, Luke had lived in the same ratty but pleasant old row house over the bookstore. Clary had a key, and she and Simon had whiled away a lot of pleasant hours there, reading books they’d "borrowed" from the store downstairs, or watching old movies on the TV.

Things were different now, though.

"Maybe my mom could talk to your mom," Clary said, sounding worried by his silence. "Make her understand."

"Make her understand that I’m a vampire? Clary, I think she does understand that, in a weird kind of way. That doesn’t mean she’s going to accept it or ever be okay with it."

"Well, you can’t just keep making her forget it, either, Simon," Clary said. "It’s not going to work forever."

"Why not?" He knew he was being unreasonable, but lying on the hard floor, surrounded by the smell of gasoline and the whisper of spiders spinning their webs in the corners of the garage, feeling lonelier than he ever had, reasonable seemed very far away.

"Because then your whole relationship with her is a lie. You can’t never go home-"

"So what?" Simon interrupted harshly. "That’s part of the curse, isn’t it? ‘A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be.’"

Despite the traffic noises and the sound of chatter in the background, he could hear Clary’s sudden indrawn breath.

"You think I should tell her about that, too?" he said. "How you put the Mark of Cain on me? How I’m basically a walking curse? You think she’s going to want that in her house?"

The background sounds quieted; Clary must have ducked into a doorway. He could hear her struggling to hold back tears as she said, "Simon, I’m so sorry. You know I’m sorry-"

"It’s not your fault." He suddenly felt bone-tired. That’s right, terrify your mother and then make your best friend cry. A banner day for you, Simon. "Look, obviously I shouldn’t be around people right now. I’m just going to stay here, and I’ll crash with Eric when he gets home."

She made a snuffling laughing-through-tears sound. "What, doesn’t Eric count as people?"

"I’ll get back to you on that later," he said, and hesitated. "I’ll call you tomorrow, all right?"

"You’ll see me tomorrow. You promised to come to that dress fitting with me, remember?"

"Wow," he said. "I must really love you."

"I know," she said. "I love you, too."

Simon clicked off the phone and lay back, holding it against his chest. It was funny, he thought. Now he could say "I love you" to Clary, when for years he’d struggled to say those words and had not been able to get them out of his mouth. Now that he no longer meant them the same way, it was easy.

Sometimes he did wonder what would have happened if there had never been a Jace Wayland. If Clary had never found out she was a Shadowhunter. But he pushed the thought away-pointless, don’t go down that road. You couldn’t change the past. You could only go forward. Not that he had any idea what forward entailed. He couldn’t stay in Eric’s garage forever. Even in his current mood, he had to admit it was a miserable place to stay. He wasn’t cold-he no longer felt either cold or heat in any real way-but the floor was hard, and he was having trouble sleeping. He wished he could dull his senses. The loud noise of traffic outside was keeping him from resting, as was the unpleasant stench of gasoline. But it was the gnawing worry about what to do next that was the worst.

He’d thrown away most of his blood supply and stashed the rest in his knapsack; he had about enough for a few more days, and then he’d be in trouble. Eric, wherever he was, would certainly let Simon stay in the house if he wanted, but that might result in Eric’s parents calling Simon’s mom. And since she thought he was on a school field trip, that would do him no good at all.

Days, he thought. That was the amount of time he had. Before he ran out of blood, before his mother started to wonder where he was and called the school looking for him. Before she started to remember. He was a vampire now. He was supposed to have eternity. But what he had was days.

He had been so careful. Tried so hard for what he thought of as a normal life-school, friends, his own house, his own bedroom. It had been strained, but that was what life was. Other options seemed so bleak and lonely that they didn’t bear thinking about. And yet Camille’s voice rang in his head. What about in ten years, when you are supposed to be twenty-six? In twenty years? Thirty? Do you think no one will notice that as they age and change, you do not?

The situation he had created for himself, had carved so carefully in the shape of his old life, had never been permanent, he thought now, with a sinking in his chest. It never could have been. He’d been clinging to shadows and memories. He thought again of Camille, of her offer. It sounded better now than it had before. An offer of a community, even if it wasn’t the community he wanted. He had only about three more days before she’d come looking for his answer. And what would he tell her when she did? He’d thought he knew, but now he wasn’t so sure.