CITY OF GLASS

“Good idea.” Amatis leaned over and plucked the empty mug out of her hand. “If you want to take a shower, the bathroom’s across the hall. And there’s a trunk of my old clothes at the foot of the bed. You look like you’re about the size I was when I was your age, so they might fit you. Unlike those pajamas,” she added, and smiled, a weak smile that Clary didn’t return. She was too busy fighting the urge to pound her fists against the mattress in frustration.

The moment the door closed behind Amatis, Clary scrambled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, hoping that standing in hot water would help clear her head. To her relief, for all their old-fashionedness, the Shadowhunters seemed to believe in modern plumbing and hot and cold running water. There was even sharply scented citrus soap to rinse the lingering smell of Lake Lyn out of her hair. By the time she emerged, wrapped in two towels, she was feeling much better.

In the bedroom she rummaged through Amatis’s trunk. Her clothes were packed away neatly between layers of crisp paper. There were what looked like school clothes—merino wool sweaters with an insignia that looked like four Cs back to back sewed over the breast pocket, pleated skirts, and button-down shirts with narrow cuffs. There was a white dress swathed in layers of tissue paper—a wedding dress, Clary thought, and laid it aside carefully. Below it was another dress, this one made of silvery silk, with slender bejeweled straps holding up its gossamer weight. Clary couldn’t imagine Amatis in it, but—This is the sort of thing my mother might have worn when she went dancing with Valentine, she couldn’t help thinking, and let the dress slide back into the trunk, its texture soft and cool against her fingers.

And then there was the Shadowhunter gear, packed away at the very bottom.

Clary drew out those clothes and spread them curiously across her lap. The first time she had seen Jace and Alec, they had been wearing their fighting gear: close-fitting tops and pants of tough, dark material. Up close she could see that the material was not stretchy but stiff, a thin leather pounded very flat until it became flexible. There was a jacket-type top that zipped up and pants that had complicated belt loops. Shadowhunter belts were big, sturdy things, meant for hanging weapons on.

She ought, of course, to put on one of the sweaters and maybe a skirt. That was what Amatis had probably meant her to do. But something about the fighting gear called to her; she had always been curious, always wondered what it would be like….

A few minutes later the towels were hanging over the bar at the foot of the bed and Clary was regarding herself in the mirror with surprise and not a little amusement. The gear fit—it was tight but not too tight, and hugged the curves of her legs and chest. In fact, it made her look as if she had curves, which was sort of novel. It couldn’t make her look formidable—she doubted anything could do that—but at least she looked taller, and her hair against the black material was extraordinarily bright. In fact—I look like my mother, Clary thought with a jolt.

And she did. Jocelyn had always had a steely core of toughness under her doll-like looks. Clary had often wondered what had happened in her mother’s past to make her the way she was—strong and unbending, stubborn and unafraid. Does your brother look as much like Valentine as you look like Jocelyn? Amatis had asked, and Clary had wanted to reply that she didn’t look at all like her mother, that her mother was beautiful and she wasn’t. But the Jocelyn that Amatis had known was the girl who’d plotted to bring down Valentine, who’d secretly forged an alliance of Nephilim and Downworlders that had broken the Circle and saved the Accords. That Jocelyn would never have agreed to stay quietly inside this house and wait while everything in her world fell apart.

Without pausing to think, Clary crossed the room and shot home the bolt on the door, locking it. Then she went to the window and pushed it open. The trellis was there, clinging to the side of the stone wall like—Like a ladder, Clary told herself. Just like a ladder—and ladders are perfectly safe.

Taking a deep breath, she crawled out onto the window ledge.

The guards came back for Simon the next morning, shaking him awake out of an already fitful sleep plagued with strange dreams. This time they didn’t blindfold him as they led him back upstairs, and he snuck a quick glance through the barred door of the cell next to his. If he’d hoped to get a look at the owner of the hoarse voice that had spoken to him the night before, he was disappointed. The only thing visible through the bars was what looked like a pile of discarded rags.