CITY OF GLASS

Jace made an inelegant noise; after a moment Clary realized that he was trying not to laugh, and only semi-succeeding.

Simon grinned. “Got you.”

“Well,” Clary said. “This is a beautiful moment.” She looked around for Isabelle, who would probably be nearly as pleased as she was that Simon and Jace were getting along, albeit in their own peculiar way.

Instead she saw someone else.

Standing at the very edge of the glamoured forest, where shadow blended into light, was a slender woman in a green dress the color of leaves, her long scarlet hair bound back by a golden circlet.

The Seelie Queen. She was looking directly at Clary, and as Clary met her gaze, she lifted up a slender hand and beckoned. Come.

Whether it was her own desire or the strange compulsion of the Fair Folk, Clary wasn’t sure, but with a murmured excuse she stepped away from the others and made her way to the edge of the forest, wending her way through riotous partygoers. She became aware, as she drew close to the Queen, of a preponderance of faeries standing very near them, in a circle around their Lady. Even if she wanted to appear alone, the Queen was not without her courtiers.

The Queen held up an imperious hand. “There,” she said. “And no closer.”

Clary, a few steps from the Queen, paused. “My lady,” she said, remembering the formal way that Jace had addressed the Queen inside her Court. “Why do you call me to your side?”

“I would have a favor from you,” said the Queen without preamble. “And of course, I would promise a favor in return.”

“A favor from me?” Clary said wonderingly. “But—you don’t even like me.”

The Queen touched her lips thoughtfully with a single long white finger. “The Fair Folk, unlike humans, do not concern themselves overmuch with liking. Love, perhaps, and hate. Both are useful emotions. But liking …” She shrugged elegantly. “The Council has not yet chosen which of our folk they would like to sit upon their seat,” she said. “I know that Lucian Graymark is like a father to you. He would listen to what you asked him. I would like you to ask him if they would choose my knight Meliorn for the task.”

Clary thought back to the Accords Hall, and Meliorn saying he did not want to fight in the battle unless the Night Children fought as well. “I don’t think Luke likes him very much.”

“And again,” said the Queen, “you speak of liking.”

“When I saw you before, in the Seelie Court,” Clary said, “you called Jace and me brother and sister. But you knew we weren’t really brother and sister. Didn’t you?”

The Queen smiled. “The same blood runs in your veins,” she said. “The blood of the Angel. All those who bear the Angel’s blood are brother and sister under the skin.”

Clary shivered. “You could have told us the truth, though. And you didn’t.”

“I told you the truth as I saw it. We all tell the truth as we see it, do we not? Did you ever stop to wonder what untruths might have been in the tale your mother told you, that served her purpose in telling it? Do you truly think you know each and every secret of your past?”

Clary hesitated. Without knowing why, she suddenly heard Madame Dorothea’s voice in her head. You’ll fall in love with the wrong person, the hedge-witch had said to Jace. Clary had come to assume that Dorothea had only been referring to how much trouble Jace’s affection for Clary would bring them both. But still, there were blanks, she knew, in her memory—even now, things, events, that had not come back to her. Secrets whose truths she’d never know. She had given them up for lost and unimportant, but perhaps—

No. She felt her hands tighten at her sides. The Queen’s poison was a subtle one, but powerful. Was there anyone in the world who could truly say they knew every secret about themselves? And weren’t some secrets better left alone?

She shook her head. “What you did in the Court,” she said. “Perhaps you didn’t lie. But you were unkind.” She started to turn away. “And I have had enough unkindness.”

“Would you truly refuse a favor from the Queen of the Seelie Court?” the Queen demanded. “Not every mortal is granted such a chance.”

“I don’t need a favor from you,” Clary said. “I have everything I want.”

She turned her back on the Queen and walked away.