CITY OF ASHES

Luke’s voice was carefully neutral. “You might want to. Just to see if he’s all right. He’s probably having a pretty bad time of it, considering—”

Clary shifted in her seat. “I thought you checked in with Magnus. I heard you talking to him about Valentine and the whole reversing the Soul-Sword thing. I’m sure he’d tell you if Jace wasn’t okay.”

“Magnus can reassure me about Jace’s physical health. His mental health, on the other hand—”

“Forget it. I’m not calling Jace.” Clary heard the coldness in her own voice and was almost shocked at herself. “I have to be there for Simon right now. It’s not like his mental health is so great either.”

Luke sighed. “If he’s having trouble coming to terms with his condition, maybe he should—”

“Of course he’s having trouble!” She shot Luke an accusing look, though he was concentrating on traffic and didn’t notice. “You of all people ought to understand what it’s like to—”

“Wake up a monster one day?” Luke didn’t sound bitter, just weary. “You’re right, I do understand. And if he ever wants to talk to me, I’d be happy to tell him all about it. He will get through this, even if he thinks he won’t.”

Clary frowned. The sun was setting just behind them, making the rearview mirror shine like gold. Her eyes stung from the brightness. “It’s not the same,” she said. “At least you grew up knowing werewolves were real. Before he can tell anyone he’s a vampire, he’ll have to convince them that vampires exist in the first place.”

Luke looked as if he were about to say something, then changed his mind. “I’m sure you’re right.” They were in Williamsburg now, driving down half-empty Kent Avenue, warehouses rising above them on either side. “Still. I got him something. It’s in the glove compartment. Just in case…”

Clary snapped the compartment open and frowned. She took out a shiny folded pamphlet, the kind they kept stacked in clear plastic stands in hospital waiting rooms. “How to Come Out to Your Parents,” she read out loud. “LUKE. Don’t be ridiculous. Simon’s not gay, he’s a vampire.”

“I recognize that, but the pamphlet’s all about telling your parents difficult truths about yourself they may not want to face. Maybe he could adapt one of the speeches, or just listen to the advice in general—”

“Luke!” She spoke so sharply that he pulled the truck to a stop with a loud screech of brakes. They were just in front of his house, the water of the East River glittering darkly on their left, the sky streaked with soot and shadows. Another, darker shadow crouched on Luke’s front porch.

Luke narrowed his eyes. In wolf form, he’d told her, his eyesight was perfect; in human form, he remained nearsighted. “Is that…?”

“Simon. Yes.” She knew him even as an outline. “I’d better go talk to him.”

“Sure. I’ll, ah, run some errands. I have things to pick up.”

“What kind of things?”

He waved her away. “Food things. I’ll be back in a half hour. Don’t stay outside, though. Go in the house and lock up.”

“You know I will.”

She watched as the pickup sped away, then turned toward the house. Her heart was pounding. She’d talked to Simon on the phone a few times but she hadn’t seen him since they’d brought him, groggy and blood-splattered, to Luke’s house in the dark early hours of that horrible morning to clean up before driving him home. She’d thought he ought to go to the Institute, but of course that was impossible. Simon would never see the inside of a church or synagogue again.

She’d watched him walking up the path to his front door, shoulders hunched forward as if he were walking against a heavy wind. When the porch light came on automatically, he flinched away from it, and she knew it was because he had thought it was the light of the sun; and she started to cry, silently, in the backseat of the pickup, the tears splashing down onto the strange black Mark on her forearm.

“Clary,” Jace had whispered, and he’d reached for her hand, but she’d recoiled from him just as Simon had recoiled from the light. She wouldn’t touch him. She’d never touch him again. That was her penance, her payment for what she’d done to Simon.

Now, as she mounted the steps to Luke’s porch, her mouth went dry and her throat swelled with the pressure of tears. She told herself not to cry. Crying would only make him feel worse.

He was sitting in the shadows at the corner of the porch, watching her. She could see the gleam of his eyes in the darkness. She wondered if they’d held that sort of light in them before; she couldn’t remember. “Simon?”

He stood up in one single smooth graceful movement that sent a chill up her spine. There was one thing Simon had never been, and that was graceful. There was something else about him, something different—

“Sorry if I startled you.” He spoke carefully, almost formally, as if they were strangers.