CITY OF BONES

In the end, they lay against each other as they had when they were children: shoulder to shoulder, Clary’s leg thrown over Simon’s. Her toes came to just below his knee. Flat on their backs, they stared up at the ceiling as they talked, a habit left over from the time when Clary’s ceiling had been covered with paste-on glow-in-the-dark stars. Where Jace had smelled like soap and limes, Simon smelled like someone who’d been rolling around the parking lot of a supermarket, but Clary didn’t mind.


“The weird thing is”—simon wound a curl of her hair around his finger—“I was joking with Isabelle about vampires right before it all happened. Just trying to get her to laugh, you know? ‘What freaks out Jewish vampires? Silver stars of David? Chopped liver? Checks for eighteen dollars?’”

Clary laughed.

Simon looked gratified. “Isabelle didn’t laugh.”

Clary thought of a number of things she wanted to say, and didn’t say them. “I’m not sure that’s Isabelle’s kind of humor.”

Simon cut a sideways glance at her under his lashes. “Is she sleeping with Jace?”

Clary’s squeak of surprise turned into a cough. She glared at him. “Ew, no. They’re practically related. They wouldn’t do that.” She paused. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

Simon shrugged. “Not like I care,” he said firmly.

“Sure you don’t.”

“I don’t!” He rolled onto his side. “You know, initially I thought Isabelle seemed, I don’t know—cool. Exciting. Different. Then, at the party, I realized she was actually crazy.”

Clary slit her eyes at him. “Did she tell you to drink the blue cocktail?”

He shook his head. “That was all me. I saw you go off with Jace and Alec, and I don’t know … You looked so different from usual. You seemed so different. I couldn’t help thinking you’d changed already, and this new world of yours would leave me out. I wanted to do something that would make me more a part of it. So when the little green guy came by with the tray of drinks …”

Clary groaned. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’ve never claimed otherwise.”

“Sorry. Was it awful?”

“Being a rat? No. First it was disorienting. I was suddenly at ankle-level with everyone. I thought I’d drunk a shrinking potion, but I couldn’t figure out why I had this urge to chew used gum wrappers.”

Clary giggled. “No. I mean the vampire hotel—was that awful?”

Something flickered behind his eyes. He looked away. “No. I don’t really remember much between the party and landing in the parking lot.”

“Probably better that way.”

He started to say something but was arrested mid-yawn. The light in the room had slowly faded. Disentangling herself from Simon and the bedsheets, Clary got up and pushed aside the window curtains. Outside, the city was bathed in the reddish glow of sunset. The silvery roof of the Chrysler Building, fifty blocks downtown, glowed like a poker left too long in the fire. “The sun’s setting. Maybe we should look for some dinner.”

There was no response. Turning, she saw that Simon was asleep, his arms folded under his head, legs sprawled. She sighed, went over to the bed, plucked his glasses off, and set them on the night table. She couldn’t count the times he’d fallen asleep with them on and been woken by the sound of cracking lenses.

Now where am I going to sleep? Not that she minded sharing a bed with Simon, but he hadn’t exactly left her any room. She considered poking him awake, but he looked so peaceful. Besides, she wasn’t sleepy. She was just reaching for the sketchpad under the pillow when a knock sounded on the door.

She padded barefoot across the room and turned the doorknob quietly. It was Jace. Clean, in jeans and a gray shirt, his washed hair a halo of damp gold. The bruises on his face were already fading from purple to faint gray, and his hands were behind his back.

“Were you asleep?” he asked. There was no contrition in his voice, only curiosity.

“No.” Clary stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her. “Why would you think that?”

He eyed her baby-blue cotton tank top and sleep shorts set. “No reason.”

“I was in bed most of the day,” she said, which was technically true. Seeing him, her jitter level had shot up about a thousand percent, but she saw no reason to share that information. “What about you? Aren’t you exhausted?”

He shook his head. “Much like the postal service, demon hunters never sleep. ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these—’”

“You’d be in major trouble if gloom of night did stay you,” she pointed out.

He grinned. Unlike his hair, his teeth weren’t perfect. An upper incisor was slightly, endearingly chipped.

She gripped her elbows. It was chilly in the hallway and she could feel goose bumps starting up her arms. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“‘Here’ as in your bedroom or ‘here’ as in the great spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet? If you’re asking whether it’s all just a cosmic coincidence or there’s a greater metaethical purpose to life, well, that’s a puzzler for the ages. I mean, simple ontological reductionism is clearly a fallacious argument, but—”

“I’m going back to bed.” Clary reached for the doorknob.

He slid nimbly between her and the door. “I’m here,” he said, “because Hodge reminded me it was your birthday.”