Jace caught up easily with Alec, who had paused where the cave corridor curved away toward the gate. The walls of the corridor were smooth as if worn away by years of water or wind, not chisels, though Jace had no doubt the passages were man-made.
Alec, leaning against the cave wall, clearly waiting for Jace, raised his witchlight. “Is something wrong?”
Jace slowed his pace as he neared his parabatai. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Alec shrugged with one shoulder. “As much as I can be, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” Jace said. “Again. I take stupid risks. I can’t help it.”
“We let you,” said Alec. “Sometimes your risks pay off. We let you because we have to let you. Because if we didn’t let you, nothing would ever get done.” He rubbed at his face with his torn sleeve. “Isabelle would say the same thing.”
“We never got to finish our conversation, before,” Jace said. “I just wanted to say that you don’t always have to be all right. I asked you to be my parabatai because I needed you, but you’re allowed to need me, too. This”—he indicated his own parabatai rune—“means you are the better, other half of me, and I care about you more than I care about myself. Remember that. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how much you were hurting. I didn’t see it then, but I see it now.”
Alec was very still for a moment, barely breathing. Then, to Jace’s surprise, he reached out and ruffled Jace’s hair, the way an older brother might ruffle his younger sibling’s hair. His smile was cautious, but it was full of real affection. “Thanks for seeing me,” he said, and walked off down the tunnel.
“Clary.”
She woke up slowly, out of mellow dreams of warmth and fire, the smell of hay and apples. In the dream she’d been on Luke’s farm, hanging upside-down from a tree branch, laughing as Simon waved from below. Slowly she became aware of the hard stone under her hips and back, her head pillowed on Jace’s legs.
“Clary,” he said again, still whispering. Simon and Isabelle were sprawled together some distance away, a dark heap in the shadows. Jace’s eyes glimmered down at her, pale gold and dancing with reflected firelight. “I want a bath.”
“Yeah, well, I want a million dollars,” she said, rubbing at her eyes. “We all want something.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Come on, think about it,” he said. “That cavern? The one with the lake? We could.”
Clary thought of the cavern, the lovely blue water, as deep as twilight, and felt suddenly as if she were encrusted with a layer of grime—dirt and blood and ichor and sweat, her hair knotted back into a greasy tangle.
Jace’s eyes danced, and Clary felt that familiar surge inside her chest, that pull she had felt since the first time she’d ever seen him. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment she’d fallen in love with Jace, but there had always been something about him that reminded her of a lion, a wild animal unfettered by rules, the promise of a life of freedom. Never “I can’t,” but always “I can.” Always the risk and the surety, never the fear or the question.
She scrambled to her feet as quietly as she could. “All right.”
He was up instantly, taking her hand and tugging her down the west corridor that led away from the central cave. They went in silence, her witchlight lighting the way, a silence Clary felt almost afraid to break, as if she would be shattering the illusory calm of a dream or a spell.
The massive cavern opened in front of them suddenly, and she put her rune-stone away, dousing its light. The bioluminescence of the cave was enough: light shimmering out from the walls, from the glimmering stalactites that hung from the roof like electrified icicles. Knives of light pierced the shadows. Jace let go of her hand and walked the last steps of the path down to the edge of the water, where the small beach was powdery and fine, glittering with mica. He paused a few feet from the water and said, “Thank you.”
She looked over at him in surprise. “For what?”
“Last night,” he said. “You saved me. The heavenly fire would have killed me, I think. What you did—”
“We still can’t tell the others,” she said.
“I didn’t last night, did I?” he asked. It was true. Jace and Clary had maintained the fiction that Clary had simply helped Jace control and dissipate the fire, and that nothing else had changed.
“We can’t risk them giving it away, even by the wrong kind of glance or expression,” she said. “You and I, we’ve had some practice hiding things from Sebastian, but they haven’t. It wouldn’t be fair to them. I almost wish we didn’t know. . . .”
City of Heavenly Fire
Cassandra Clare's books
- City of Ruins
- Invincible (A Centennial City Novel)
- City of Fae
- City of Lost Souls
- CITY OF GLASS
- City of Fallen Angels
- CITY OF BONES
- CITY OF ASHES
- City of Lost Souls
- Velocity
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)