CITY OF BONES

HODGE, GASPING, STARED AFTER HIM, HIS FISTS CLENCHING and unclenching at his sides. His left hand was gloved with the wet dark fluid that had seeped from his chest. The look on his face was a mixture of exultation and self-loathing.

“Hodge!” Clary slammed her hand into the invisible wall between them. Pain shot up her arm, but it was nothing compared to the searing pain inside her chest. She felt as if her heart were going to slam its way out of her rib cage. Jace, Jace, Jace—the words echoed in her mind, wanting to be screamed out loud. She bit them back. “Hodge, let me out!”

Hodge turned, shaking his head. “I can’t,” he said, using his immaculately folded handkerchief to rub at his stained hand. He sounded genuinely regretful. “You’ll only try to kill me.”

“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”

“But you were not raised a Shadowhunter,” he said, “and your promises mean nothing.” The edge of his handkerchief was smoking now, as if he’d dipped it in acid, and his hand was no less blackened. Frowning, he abandoned the project.

“But, Hodge,” she said desperately, “didn’t you hear him? He’s going to kill Jace.”

“He didn’t say that.” Hodge was at the desk now, opening a drawer, taking out a piece of paper. He drew a pen from his pocket, tapping it sharply against the edge of the desk to make the ink flow. Clary stared at him. Was he writing a letter?

“Hodge,” she said carefully, “Valentine said Jace would be with his father soon. Jace’s father is dead. What else could he have meant?”

Hodge didn’t look up from the paper he was scribbling on. “It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand enough.” Her bitterness felt like it might burn through her tongue. “I understand that Jace trusted you and you traded him away to a man who hated his father and probably hates Jace, too, just because you’re too cowardly to live with a curse you deserved.”

Hodge’s head jerked up. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I know.”

He laid his pen down, shaking his head. He looked tired, and so old, so much older than Valentine had looked, though they were the same age. “You only know bits and fragments, Clary. And you’re better off that way.” He folded the paper he’d been writing on into a neat square and tossed it into the fire, which flared up a bright acidic green before subsiding.

“What are you doing?” Clary demanded.

“Sending a message.” Hodge turned away from the fire. He was standing close to her, separated only by the invisible wall. She pressed her fingers against it, wishing she could dig them into his eyes—though they were as sad as Valentine’s had been angry. “You are young,” he said. “The past is nothing to you, not even another country as it is to the old, or a nightmare as it is to the guilty. The Clave laid this curse on me because I aided Valentine. But I was hardly the only member of the Circle to serve him—were the Lightwoods not as guilty as I was? Were not the Waylands? Yet I was the only one cursed to live out my life without being able to set so much as a foot outdoors, not so much as a hand through the window.”

“That’s not my fault,” said Clary. “It’s not Jace’s fault. Why punish him for what the Clave did? I can understand giving Valentine the Cup, but Jace? He’ll kill Jace, just like he killed Jace’s father—”

“Valentine,” said Hodge, “did not kill Jace’s father.”

A sob broke free from Clary’s chest. “I don’t believe you! All you do is tell lies! Everything you’ve ever said was a lie!”

“Ah,” he said, “the moral absolutism of the young, which allows for no concessions. Can’t you see, Clary, that in my own way I’m trying to be a good man?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. The good things you do don’t cancel out the bad ones. But—” She bit her lip. “If you told me where Valentine was—”

“No.” He breathed the word. “It is said that the Nephilim are the children of men and angels. All that this angelic heritage has given to us is a longer distance to fall.” He touched the invisible surface of the wall with his fingertips. “You were not raised as one of us. You have no part of this life of scars and killing. You can still get away. Leave the Institute, Clary, as soon as you can. Leave, and never come back.”

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do that.”

“Then you have my condolences,” he said, and walked out of the room.