“Oh,” Clary said in a small voice. She remembered Luke saying, She was carrying another child, and had known it for weeks. “But didn’t that make you want to run away even more?”
“Yes,” Jocelyn said. “But I knew I couldn’t. If I’d run away from Valentine, he would have moved heaven and hell to get me back. He would have followed me to the ends of the earth, because I belonged to him and he would never have let me go. And maybe I would have let him come after me, and taken my chances, but I would never have let him come after you.” She pushed her hair back from her tired-looking face. “There was only one way I could make sure he never did. And that was for him to die.”
Clary looked at her mother in surprise. Jocelyn still looked tired, but her face was shining with a fierce light.
“I thought he’d be killed during the Uprising,” she said. “I couldn’t have killed him myself. I couldn’t have brought myself to, somehow. But I never thought he’d survive the battle. And later, when the house burned, I wanted to believe he was dead. I told myself over and over that he and Jonathan had burned to death in the fire. But I knew …” Her voice trailed off. “It was why I did what I did. I thought it was the only way to protect you—taking your memories, making you into as much of a mundane as I could. Hiding you in the mundane world. It was stupid, I realize that now, stupid and wrong. And I’m sorry, Clary. I just hope you can forgive me—if not now, then in the future.”
“Mom.” Clary cleared her throat. She’d felt like she was about to cry for pretty much the last ten minutes. “It’s okay. It’s just—there’s one thing I don’t get.” She knotted her fingers into the material of her coat. “I mean, I knew already a little of what Valentine did to Jace—I mean, to Jonathan. But the way you describe Jonathan, it’s like he was a monster. And, Mom, Jace isn’t like that. He’s nothing like that. If you knew him—if you could just meet him—”
“Clary.” Jocelyn reached out and took Clary’s hand in hers. “There’s more that I have to tell you. There’s nothing more that I hid from you, or lied about. But there are things I never knew, things I only just discovered. And they may be very hard to hear.”
Worse than what you’ve already told me? Clary thought. She bit her lip and nodded. “Go ahead and tell me. I’d rather know.”
“When Dorothea told me that Valentine had been sighted in the city, I knew he was there for me—for the Cup. I wanted to flee, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you why. I don’t blame you at all for running from me that awful night, Clary. I was just glad you weren’t there when your father—when Valentine and his demons broke into our apartment. I just had time to swallow the potion—I could hear them breaking the door down …” She trailed off, her voice tight. “I hoped Valentine would leave me for dead, but he didn’t. He brought me to Renwick’s with him. He tried various methods to wake me up, but nothing worked. I was in a sort of dream state; I was half-conscious that he was there, but I couldn’t move or respond to him. I doubt he thought I could hear or understand him. And yet he would sit by the bed while I slept and talk to me.”
“Talk to you? About what?”
“About our past. Our marriage. How he had loved me and I had betrayed him. How he hadn’t loved anyone since. I think he meant it too, as much as he could mean these things. I had always been the one he’d talked to about the doubts he had, the guilt he felt, and in the years since I’d left him I don’t think there’d ever been anyone else. I think he couldn’t stop himself from talking to me, even though he knew he shouldn’t. I think he just wanted to talk to someone. You’d have thought that what was on his mind would be what he’d done to those poor people, making them Forsaken, and what he was planning to do to the Clave. But it wasn’t. What he wanted to talk about was Jonathan.”
“What about him?”
Jocelyn’s mouth tightened. “He wanted to tell me he was sorry for what he’d done to Jonathan before he’d been born, because he knew it had nearly destroyed me. He’d known I was close to suicide over Jonathan—though he didn’t know I was also despairing over what I’d discovered about him. He’d somehow gotten hold of angel blood. It’s an almost legendary substance for Shadowhunters. Drinking it is supposed to give you incredible strength. Valentine had tried it on himself and discovered that it gave him not just increased strength but a feeling of euphoria and happiness every time he injected it into his blood. So he took some, dried it to powder, and mixed it into my food, hoping it would help my despair.”
CITY OF GLASS
CASSANDRA CLARE's books
- City of Ruins
- Invincible (A Centennial City Novel)
- City of Fae
- City of Lost Souls
- City of Heavenly Fire
- City of Fallen Angels
- CITY OF BONES
- CITY OF ASHES
- City of Lost Souls
- Velocity
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)