She wanted to throw herself into his arms and sob at the exact same time that she wanted to pound on him with her fists. Instead, she said, “If it weren’t for what happened in the faerie court, Simon would still be alive.”
He reached down and savagely yanked a hunk of grass out of the ground. Dirt still clung to the roots. He tossed it aside. “We were forced to do what we did. It’s not as if we did it for fun, or to hurt him. Besides,” he said, with the ghost of a smile, “you’re my sister.”
“Don’t say it like that—”
“What, ‘sister’?” He shook his head. “When I was a little kid, I realized that if you say any word over and over fast enough, it loses all its meaning. I’d lie awake saying the words over and over to myself—‘sugar,’ ‘mirror,’ ‘whisper,’ ‘dark.’ ‘Sister,’” he said, softly. “You’re my sister.”
“It doesn’t matter how many times you say it. It’ll still be true.”
“And it doesn’t matter what you won’t let me say, that’ll still be true too.”
“Jace!” Another voice, calling his name. It was Alec, slightly out of breath from running. He was holding a black plastic bag in one hand. Behind him stalked Magnus, impossibly tall and thin and glowering in a long leather coat that flapped in the wind like a bat’s wing. Alec came to a stop in front of Jace and held out the bag. “I brought blood,” he said. “Like you asked.”
Jace opened the top of the bag, peered in, and wrinkled his nose. “Do I want to ask you where you got this?”
“From a butcher shop in Greenpoint,” said Magnus, joining them. “They bleed their meat to make it halal. It’s animal blood.”
“Blood is blood,” said Jace, and stood up. He looked down at Clary and hesitated. “When Raphael said this wouldn’t be pleasant, he wasn’t lying. You can stay here. I’ll send Isabelle down to wait with you.”
She tipped her head back to look up at him. The moonlight cast the shadow of branches across his face. “Have you ever seen a vampire rise?”
“No, but I—”
“Then you don’t really know, do you?” She stood up, and Isabelle’s blue coat fell around her in rustling folds. “I want to be there. I have to be there.”
She could see only part of his face in the shadows, but she thought he looked almost—impressed. “I know better than to tell you there’s anything you can’t do,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Raphael was tamping down a large rectangle of dirt when they came back into the clearing, Jace and Clary a little ahead of Magnus and Alec, who seemed to be arguing about something. Simon’s body was gone. Isabelle was sitting on the ground, her whip coiled at her ankles in a golden circle. She was shivering. “Jesus, it’s cold,” Clary said, pulling Isabelle’s heavy coat close around her. The velvet was warm, at least. She tried to ignore the fact that the hem of it was stained with Simon’s blood. “It’s as if it turned to winter overnight.”
“Be glad it isn’t winter,” said Raphael, setting the spade against the trunk of a nearby tree. “The ground freezes like iron in winter. Sometimes it is impossible to dig and the fledgling must wait months, starving underground, before it can be born.”
“Is that what you call them? Fledglings?” said Clary. The word seemed wrong, too friendly somehow. It reminded her of ducklings.
“Yes,” said Raphael. “It means the not-yet or newly born.” He caught sight of Magnus then, and for a split second looked surprised before he wiped the expression carefully from his features. “High Warlock,” he said. “I hadn’t expected to see you here.”
“I was curious,” said Magnus, his cat eyes glittering. “I’ve never seen one of the Night Children rise.”
Raphael glanced at Jace, who was lounging against a tree trunk. “You keep surprisingly illustrious company, Shadowhunter.”
“Are you talking about yourself again?” asked Jace. He smoothed the churned dirt with the tip of a boot. “That seems boastful.”
“Maybe he meant me,” said Alec. Everyone looked at him in surprise. Alec so rarely made jokes. He smiled nervously. “Sorry,” he said. “Nerves.”
“There’s no need for that,” said Magnus, reaching to touch Alec’s shoulder. Alec moved quickly out of range, and Magnus’s outstretched hand fell to his side.
“So what do we do now?” Clary demanded, hugging herself for warmth. Cold seemed to have seeped into every pore of her body. Surely it was too cold for late summer.
Raphael, noticing her gesture, smiled minutely. “It is always cold at a rising,” he said. “The fledgling draws strength from the living things that surround it, taking from them the energy to rise.”
Clary glared at him resentfully. “You don’t seem cold.”
“I’m not living.” He stepped back a little from the edge of the grave—Clary forced herself to think of it as a grave, since that’s exactly what it was—and gestured to the others to do the same. “Make room,” he said. “Simon can hardly rise if you are all standing on top of him.”
CITY OF ASHES
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 GLASS
- City of Fallen Angels
- CITY OF BONES
- 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)