CITY OF ASHES

“No. But I did.”


She sat up straight. “You’re kidding. Is he there? Can I talk to him?” She caught sight of Simon looking at her sharply and dropped her voice. “Is he all right?”

“Mostly.”

“What do you mean, mostly?”

“He picked a fight with a werewolf pack. He’s got some cuts and bruises.”

Clary half-closed her eyes. Why, oh why, had Jace picked a fight with a pack of wolves? What had possessed him? Then again, it was Jace. He’d pick a fight with a Mack truck if the urge took him.

“I think you should come down here,” Luke said. “Someone has to reason with him and I’m not having much luck.”

“Where are you?” Clary asked.

He told her. A bar called the Hunter’s Moon on Hester Street. She wondered if it was glamoured. Flipping her phone shut, she turned to Simon, who was staring at her with raised eyebrows.

“The prodigal returns?”

“Sort of.” She scrambled to her feet and stretched her tired legs, mentally calculating how long it would take them to get to Chinatown on the train and whether it was worth shelling out the pocket money Luke had given her for a cab. Probably not, she decided—if they got stuck in traffic, it would take longer than the subway.

“… come with you?” Simon finished, standing up. He was on the step below her, which made them almost the same height. “What do you think?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again quickly. “Er…”

He sounded resigned. “You haven’t heard a word I said these past two minutes, have you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I was thinking about Jace. It sounded like he was in bad shape. Sorry.”

His brown eyes darkened. “I take it you’re rushing off to bind up his wounds?”

“Luke asked me to come down,” she said. “I was hoping you’d come with me.”

Simon kicked at the step above his with a booted foot. “I will, but—why? Can’t Luke return Jace to the Institute without your help?”

“Probably. But he thinks Jace might be willing to talk to me about what’s going on first.”

“I thought maybe we could do something tonight,” Simon said. “Something fun. See a movie. Get dinner downtown.”

She looked at him. In the distance, she could hear water splashing into a museum fountain. She thought of the kitchen at his house, his damp hands in her hair, but it all seemed very far away, even though she could picture it—the way you might remember the photograph of an incident without really remembering the incident itself any longer.

“He’s my brother,” she said. “I have to go.”

Simon looked as if he were too weary to even sigh. “Then I’ll go with you.”

The back office of Hunter’s Moon was down a narrow corridor strewn with sawdust. Here and there the sawdust was churned up by footsteps and spotted with a dark liquid that didn’t look like beer. The whole place smelled smoky and gamy, a little like—Clary had to admit it, though she wouldn’t have said so to Luke—wet dog.

“He’s not in a very good mood,” said Luke, pausing in front of a closed door. “I shut him up in Freaky Pete’s office after he nearly killed half my pack with his bare hands. He wouldn’t talk to me, so”—Luke shrugged—“I thought of you.” He looked from Clary’s baffled face to Simon’s. “What?”

“I can’t believe he came here,” Clary said.

“I can’t believe you know someone named Freaky Pete,” said Simon.

“I know a lot of people,” said Luke. “Not that Freaky Pete is strictly people, but I’m hardly one to talk.” He swung the office door wide. Inside was a plain room, windowless, the walls hung with sports pennants. There was a paper-strewn desk weighted down with a small TV set, and behind it, in a chair whose leather was so cracked it looked like veined marble, was Jace.

The moment the door opened, Jace seized up a yellow pencil lying on the desk and threw it. It sailed through the air and struck the wall just next to Luke’s head, where it stuck, vibrating. Luke’s eyes widened.

Jace smiled faintly. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it was you.”

Clary felt her heart contract. She hadn’t seen Jace in days, and he looked different somehow—not just the bloody face and bruises, which were clearly new, but the skin on his face seemed tighter, the bones more prominent.

Luke indicated Simon and Clary with a wave of his hand. “I brought some people to see you.”

Jace’s eyes moved to them. They were as blank as if they had been painted on. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I only had the one pencil.”

“Jace—” Luke started.

“I don’t want him in here.” Jace jerked his chin toward Simon.

“That’s hardly fair.” Clary was indignant. Had he forgotten that Simon had saved Alec’s life, possibly all their lives?

“Out, mundane,” said Jace, pointing to the door.