City of Fallen Angels

Jace did not respond in kind. To Simon’s surprise, Jace had gone rigid all over, his pale yellow eyes narrowing, his whole body displaying that Shadowhunter watchfulness that seemed to transform him from an ordinary teenage boy into something very much other than that.

“Interesting,” he said. “You know, Simon never mentioned that his new roommate was a werewolf.”


Clary and Luke drove most of the way back to Brooklyn in silence. Clary stared out the window as they went, watching Chinatown slide past, and then the Williamsburg Bridge, lit up like a chain of diamonds against the night sky. In the distance, out over the black water of the river, she could see Renwick’s, illuminated as it always was. It looked like a ruin again, empty black windows gaping like the eye holes in a skull. The voice of the dead Shadowhunter whispered in her mind:

The pain… Make the pain stop.

She shuddered and drew her jacket more tightly around her shoulders. Luke glanced at her briefly but said nothing. It wasn’t until he had pulled up in front of his house and killed the engine of the truck that he turned to her and spoke.

“Clary,” he said. “What you just did—”

“It was wrong,” she said. “I know it was wrong. I was there too.” She swiped at her face with the edge of her sleeve. “Go ahead and yell at me.”

Luke stared through the windshield. “I’m not going to yell at you. You didn’t know what was going to happen. Hell, I thought it might work too. I wouldn’t have gone with you if I hadn’t.”

Clary knew this ought to have made her feel better, but it didn’t. “If you hadn’t thrown acid on the rune—”

“But I did.”

“I didn’t even know you could do that. Destroy a rune like that.”

“If you disfigure it enough, you can minimize or destroy its power. Sometimes in battle the enemy will try to burn or slice off a Shadowhunter’s skin, just to deprive them of the power of their runes.” Luke sounded distracted.

Clary felt her lips tremble, and pressed them together, hard, to stop the shaking. Sometimes she forgot the more nightmarish aspects of being a Shadowhunter—This life of scars and killing, as Hodge had said to her once. “Well,” she said, “I won’t do it again.”

“Won’t do what again? Make that particular rune? I have no doubt you won’t, but I’m not sure that addresses the problem.” Luke drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “You have an ability, Clary. A great ability. But you have absolutely no idea what it means. You’re totally untrained. You know almost nothing about the history of runes, or what they have meant to Nephilim through the centuries. You can’t tell a rune designed to do good from one designed to do harm.”

“You were happy enough to let me use my power when it was the binding rune,” she said angrily. “You didn’t tell me not to create runes then.”

“I’m not telling you not to use your power now. In fact, I think the problem is that you so rarely do use it. It’s not as if you’re using your power to change your nail polish color or make the subway come when you want it. You use it only in these occasional life-and-death moments.”

“The runes only come to me in those moments.”

“Maybe that’s because you haven’t yet been trained in how your power works. Think of Magnus; his power is a part of him. You seem to think of yours as separate from you. Something that happens to you. It’s not. It’s a tool you need to learn to use.”

“Jace said Maryse wants to hire a rune expert to work with me, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Yes,” said Luke, “I imagine Maryse has other things on her mind.” He took the key out of the ignition and sat for a moment in silence. “Losing a child the way she lost Max,” he said. “I can’t imagine it. I should be more forgiving of her behavior. If something happened to you, I…”

His voice trailed off.

“I wish Robert would come back from Idris,” said Clary. “I don’t see why she has to deal with all this alone. It must be horrible.”

“Many marriages break up when a child dies. The married couple can’t stop blaming themselves, or each other. I imagine Robert is gone precisely because he needs space, or Maryse does.”

“But they love each other,” Clary said, appalled. “Isn’t that what love means? That you’re supposed to be there for the other person to turn to, no matter what?”

Luke looked toward the river, at the dark water moving slowly under the light of the autumn moon. “Sometimes, Clary,” he said, “love just isn’t enough.”





7

PRAETOR LUPUS


The bottle slid out of Simon’s hand and crashed to the floor, where it shattered, sending shards flying in all directions. “Kyle’s a werewolf?”

“Of course he’s a werewolf, you moron,” said Jace. He looked at Kyle. “Aren’t you?”