CITY OF ASHES

“Not trusting someone I love.”


She put her hand on his sleeve. He didn’t move away, but he didn’t respond to her touch, either. “Do you mean—”

“Yes,” he said, knowing what she was about to ask. “I mean you.”

“But you can trust me.”

“I used to think I could,” he said. “But I get the feeling you’d rather pine over someone you can never possibly be with than try being with someone you can.”

There was no point pretending. “Just give me time,” she said. “I just need some time to get over—to get over it all.”

“You’re not going to tell me I’m wrong, are you?” he said. His eyes looked very wide and dark in the dim porch light. “Not this time.”

“Not this time. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He turned away from her and her outstretched hand, heading for the porch steps. “At least it’s the truth.”

For whatever that’s worth. She shoved her hands into her pockets, watching him as he walked away from her until he was swallowed up by the darkness.

It turned out that Magnus and Jace weren’t leaving after all; Magnus wanted to spend a few more hours at the house to make sure that Maia and Luke were recovering as expected. After a few minutes of awkward conversation with a bored Magnus while Jace, sitting on Luke’s piano bench and industriously studying some sheet music, ignored her, Clary decided to go to bed early.

But sleep didn’t come. She could hear Jace’s soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn’t what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace’s voice as he said I want to hate you, and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn’t said them—had let Alec go on lying and pretending—because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar.





13

A HOST OF REBEL ANGELS


THERE ARE THREE DISTINCT SECTIONS TO RAVEL’S GASPARD de la Nuit; Jace had played his way through the first when he got up from the piano, went into the kitchen, picked up Luke’s phone, and made a single call. Then he went back to the piano and the Gaspard.

He was halfway through the third section when he saw a light sweep across Luke’s front lawn. It cut off a moment later, plunging the view from the front window into darkness, but Jace was already on his feet and reaching for his jacket.

He closed Luke’s front door behind him soundlessly and loped down the front steps two at a time. On the lawn by the footpath was a motorcycle, the engine still rumbling. It had a weirdly organic look to it: Pipes like ropy veins wound up and over the chassis, and the single headlight, now dim, resembled a gleaming eye. In a way, it looked as alive as the boy who was leaning against the cycle, looking at Jace curiously. He was wearing a brown leather jacket and his dark hair curled down to the collar of it and fell over his narrowed eyes. He was grinning, exposing pointed white teeth. Of course, Jace thought, neither the boy nor the motorcycle was really alive; they both ran on demon energies, fed by the night.

“Raphael,” Jace said, by way of greeting.

“You see,” Raphael said, “I have brought it, as you asked me to.”

“I see that.”

“Though, I might add, I have been very curious as to why you should want such a thing as a demonic motorcycle. They are not exactly Covenant, for one thing, and for another, it is rumored you already have one.”

“I do have one,” Jace admitted, circling the cycle so as to examine it from all angles. “But it’s on the roof of the Institute, and I can’t get to it right now.”

Raphael chuckled softly. “It seems we’re both unwelcome at the Institute.”

“You bloodsuckers still on the Most Wanted list?”

Raphael leaned to the side and spit, delicately, onto the ground. “They accuse us of murders,” he said angrily. “The death of the were-creature, the faerie, even the warlock, though I have told them we do not drink warlock blood. It is bitter and can work strange changes in those who consume it.”

“You told Maryse this?”

“Maryse.” Raphael’s eyes glittered. “I could not speak with her if I wanted to. All decisions are made through the Inquisitor now, all inquiries and requests routed through her. It is a bad situation, friend, a bad situation.”