Luke had moved to look at the fireplace, and the photos hanging around it. He reached out to touch one that showed two blue-eyed children. One of them, the younger boy, was drawing, while his sister looked on, her expression fond.
Luke looked exhausted. Their Portal travel had taken them to the Gard, and they had walked down through the city to Amatis’s house. Luke still winced often from the pain of the wound in his side that hadn’t quite healed, but Clary doubted that the injury was what was affecting him. The quiet in Amatis’s house, the homey rag rugs on the floor, the carefully arranged personal mementoes—everything spoke of an ordinary life interrupted in the most terrible way possible.
Jocelyn moved over to put her hand on Luke’s shoulder, murmuring soothingly. He turned in the circle of her arms, putting his head against her shoulder. It was more comforting than in any way romantic, but Clary still felt as if she had stumbled on a private moment. Soundlessly she plucked up her duffel bag and made her way up the stairs.
The spare room hadn’t changed. Small; the walls painted white; the windows, like portholes, circular—there was the window Jace had crawled through one night—and the same colorful quilt on the bed. She dropped her bag onto the floor near the nightstand. The nightstand, where Jace had left a letter in the morning, telling her he was going and he wasn’t coming back.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to shake off the web of memories. She hadn’t realized how hard it would be to be back in Idris. New York was home, normal. Idris was war and devastation. In Idris she had seen death for the first time.
Her blood was humming, pounding hard in her ears. She wanted to see Jace, to see Alec and Isabelle—they would ground her, give her a sense of normalcy. She was able, very faintly, to hear her mother and Luke moving around downstairs, possibly even the clink of cups in the kitchen. She swung herself off the bed and went to the foot, where a square trunk rested. It was the trunk Amatis had brought up for her when she had been here before, telling her to go through it to find clothes.
She knelt down now and opened it. The same clothes, carefully packed away between layers of paper: school uniforms, practical sweaters and jeans, more formal shirts and skirts, and beneath that a dress Clary had first thought was a wedding gown. She drew it out. Now that she was more familiar with Shadowhunters and their world, she recognized it for what it was.
Mourning clothes. A white dress, simple, and a close-fitting jacket, with silver mourning runes worked into the material—and there, at the cuffs, an almost invisible design of birds.
Herons. Clary laid the clothes carefully on the bed. She could see, in her mind’s eye, Amatis wearing these clothes when Stephen Herondale had died. Putting them on carefully, smoothing down the fabric, buttoning the jacket close, all to mourn a man to whom she’d no longer been married. Widow’s clothes for someone who had not been able to call herself a widow.
“Clary?” It was her mother, leaning in the doorway, watching her. “What are those—Oh.” She crossed the room, touched the fabric of the dress, and sighed. “Oh, Amatis.”
“She never did get over Stephen, did she?” asked Clary.
“Sometimes people don’t.” Jocelyn’s hand moved from the dress to Clary’s hair, tucked it back with quick motherly precision. “And Nephilim—we do tend to love very overwhelmingly. To fall in love only once, to die of grief over love—my old tutor used to say that the hearts of Nephilim were like the hearts of angels: They felt every human pain, and never healed.”
“But you did. You loved Valentine, but now you love Luke.”
“I know.” Jocelyn’s look was faraway. “It wasn’t until I spent more time in the mundane world that I started to realize that it wasn’t how most human beings thought of love. I realized that you might have it more than once, that your heart could heal, that you could love over and over again. And I always loved Luke. I might not have known it, but I always did love him.” Jocelyn pointed at the clothes on the bed. “You should wear the mourning jacket,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
Startled, Clary said, “To the meeting?”
“Shadowhunters have died and been turned Dark,” said Jocelyn. “Every Shadowhunter lost is someone’s son, brother, sister, cousin. Nephilim are a family. A dysfunctional family, but . . .” She touched her daughter’s face, her own expression hidden in the shadows. “Get some sleep, Clary,” she said. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”
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)