CITY OF BONES

“I can’t believe you’re eating,” she hissed.

“What should I be doing instead?” he inquired with maddening calm. The inside of the fridge was filled with milk cartons whose expiration dates reached back several weeks, and plastic Tupperware containers labeled with masking tape lettered in red ink: HODGE’S. DO NOT EAT.

“Wow, he’s like a crazy roommate,” Clary observed, momentarily diverted.

“What, Hodge? He just likes things in order.” Jace took one of the containers out of the fridge and opened it. “Hmm. Spaghetti.”

“Don’t ruin your appetite,” Isabelle called.

“That,” said Jace, kicking the fridge door shut and seizing a fork from a drawer, “is exactly what I intend to do.” He looked at Clary. “Want some?”

She shook her head.

“Of course not,” he said around a mouthful, “you ate all those sandwiches.”

“It wasn’t that many sandwiches.” She glanced over at Simon, who appeared to have succeeded in engaging Isabelle in conversation. “Can we go find Hodge now?”

“You seem awfully eager to get out of here.”

“Don’t you want to tell him what we saw?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Jace set the container down and thoughtfully licked spaghetti sauce off his knuckle. “But if you want to go so badly—”

“I do.”

“Fine.”

He seemed awfully calm, she thought, not scary-calm as he had been before, but more contained than he ought to be. She wondered how often he let glimpses of his real self peek through the facade that was as hard and shiny as the coat of lacquer on one of her mother’s Japanese boxes.

“Where are you going?” Simon looked up as they reached the door. Jagged bits of dark hair fell into his eyes; he looked stupidly dazed, Clary thought unkindly, as if someone had hit him across the back of the head with a two-by-four.

“To find Hodge,” she said. “I need to tell him about what happened at Luke’s.”

Isabelle looked up. “Are you going to tell him that you saw those men, Jace? The ones that—”

“I don’t know.” He cut her off. “So keep it to yourself for now.”

She shrugged. “All right. Are you going to come back? Do you want any soup?”

“No,” said Jace.

“Do you think Hodge will want any soup?”

“No one wants any soup.”

“I want some soup,” Simon said.

“No, you don’t,” said Jace. “You just want to sleep with Isabelle.”

Simon was appalled. “That is not true.”

“How flattering,” Isabelle murmured into the soup, but she was smirking.

“Oh, yes it is,” said Jace. “Go ahead and ask her—then she can turn you down and the rest of us can get on with our lives while you fester in miserable humiliation.” He snapped his fingers. “Hurry up, mundie boy, we’ve got work to do.”

Simon looked away, flushed with embarrassment. Clary, who a moment ago would have been meanly pleased, felt a rush of anger toward Jace. “Leave him alone,” she snapped. “There’s no need to be sadistic just because he isn’t one of you.”

“One of us,” said Jace, but the sharp look had gone out of his eyes. “I’m going to find Hodge. Come along or not, it’s your choice.” The kitchen door swung shut behind him, leaving Clary alone with Simon and Isabelle.

Isabelle ladled some of the soup into a bowl and pushed it across the counter toward Simon without looking at him. She was still smirking, though—Clary could feel it. The soup was a dark green color, studded with floating brown things.

“I’m going with Jace,” Clary said. “Simon …?”

“Mmgnstayhr,” he mumbled, looking at his feet.

“What?”

“I’m going to stay here.” Simon parked himself on a stool. “I’m hungry.”

“Fine.” Clary’s throat felt tight, as if she’d swallowed something either very hot or very cold. She stalked out of the kitchen, Church slinking at her feet like a cloudy gray shadow.

In the hallway Jace was twirling one of the seraph blades between his fingers. He pocketed it when he saw her. “Kind of you to leave the lovebirds to it.”

Clary frowned at him. “Why are you always such an asshat?”

“An asshat?” Jace looked as if he were about to laugh.

“What you said to Simon—”

“I was trying to save him some pain. Isabelle will cut out his heart and walk all over it in high-heeled boots. That’s what she does to boys like that.”

“Is that what she did to you?” Clary said, but Jace only shook his head before turning to Church.

“Hodge,” he said. “And really Hodge this time. Bring us anywhere else, and I’ll make you into a tennis racket.”

The Persian snorted and slunk down the hall ahead of them. Clary, trailing a little behind Jace, could see the stress and tiredness in the line of Jace’s shoulders. She wondered if the tension ever really left him. “Jace.”

He looked at her. “What?”

“I’m sorry. For snapping at you.”

He chuckled. “Which time?”

“You snap at me, too, you know.”