City of Heavenly Fire

She smelled like Clary, perfume and chalk, and her fingers were smudged with color. She wound her fingers in his hair as they kissed, tugging him down, laughing against his mouth as he nearly overbalanced.

“You’re going to have to start wearing heels, Fray,” he said, lips against her cheek.

“I hate heels. You’ll either have to deal or buy me a portable ladder,” she said, letting him go. “Unless you want to leave me for a really tall groupie.”

“Never,” he said, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Would a really tall groupie know all my favorite foods? Remember when I had a bed shaped like a race car? Know how to beat me mercilessly at Scrabble? Be willing to put up with Matt and Kirk and Eric?”

“A groupie would more than put up with Matt and Kirk and Eric.”

“Be nice,” he said, and grinned down at her. “You’re stuck with me.”

“I’ll survive,” she said, plucking his glasses off and setting them on the table. The eyes she turned up to him were dark and wide. This time the kiss was more heated. He wound his arms around her, pulling her against him as she whispered, “I love you; I’ve always loved you.”

“I love you too,” he said. “God, I love you, Isabelle.”

He felt her stiffen in his arms, and then the world around him seemed to sprout black lines like shattered glass. He heard a high-pitched whine in his ears and staggered back, tripping, falling, not hitting the ground but spinning forever through the dark.



“Don’t look, don’t look . . .”

Isabelle laughed. “I’m not looking.”

There were hands over her eyes: Simon’s hands, slim and flexible. His arms were around her, and they were shuffling forward together, laughing. He’d grabbed her the moment she’d walked in the front door, wrapping his arms around her as her shopping bags dropped from her hands.

“I have a surprise for you,” he’d said, grinning. “Close your eyes. No looking. No, really. I’m not kidding.”

“I hate surprises,” Isabelle protested now. “You know that.” She could just see the edge of the rug under Simon’s hands. She’d picked it out herself, and it was thick, bright pink, and fuzzy. Their apartment was small and cozy, a hodgepodge of Isabelle and Simon: guitars and katanas, vintage posters and hot-pink bedspreads. Simon had brought his cat, Yossarian, when they’d moved in together, which Isabelle had protested but secretly liked: She’d missed Church after she’d left the Institute.

The pink rug vanished, and now Isabelle’s heels clicked onto the tile floor of the kitchen. “Okay,” Simon said, and withdrew his hands. “Surprise!”

“Surprise!” The kitchen was full of people: her mother and father, Jace and Alec and Max, Clary and Jordan and Maia, Kirk and Matt and Eric. Magnus was holding a silver sparkler and winking, waving it back and forth as the sparkles flew everywhere, landing on the stone counters and Jace’s T-shirt, making him yelp. Clary was holding a clumsily lettered sign: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ISABELLE. She held it up and waved.

Isabelle whirled on Simon accusingly. “You planned this!”

“Of course I did,” he said, pulling her toward him. “Shadowhunters might not care about birthdays, but I do.” He kissed her ear, murmuring, “You should have everything, Izzy,” before he let her go, and her family descended.

There was a whirl of hugs, of presents and cake—baked by Eric, who actually had something of a flair for pastry creation, and decorated by Magnus with luminous frosting that tasted better than it looked. Robert had his arms around Maryse, who was leaning back against him, looking on proudly and contentedly as Magnus, one hand ruffling Alec’s hair, tried to convince Max to put on a party hat. Max, with all the self-possession of a nine-year-old, was having none of it. He waved away Magnus’s hand impatiently and said, “Izzy, I made the sign. Did you see the sign?”

Izzy glanced over at the hand-lettered sign, now liberally smeared with frosting, on the table. Clary winked at her. “It’s awesome, Max; thank you.”

“I was going to put what birthday it was on the sign,” he said, “but Jace said that after twenty, you’re just old, so it doesn’t matter anyway.”

Jace stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “I said that?”

“Way to make us all feel ancient,” said Simon, pushing his hair back to smile at Isabelle. She felt a little twist of pain inside her chest—she loved him that much, for doing this for her, for always thinking of her. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t loved him or trusted him, and he’d never given her a reason not to do either.

Isabelle slid off the stool she’d been sitting on, and knelt down in front of her little brother. She could see their reflection in the steel of the refrigerator: her own dark hair, cut to her shoulders now—she remembered vaguely years ago, when her hair had reached her waist—and Max’s brown curls and glasses. “Do you know how old I am?” she said.