Sebastian nodded and took a step back. Clary hesitated. She wanted to seize the woman, ask her what Sebastian had demanded she do, ask her why she would ever have broken Covenant Law to work beside Valentine. Magdalena, as if sensing her hesitation, looked up and smiled thinly.
“The two of you,” she said, and for a moment Clary thought she was going to say that she did not understand why they were together, that she had heard that they hated each other, that Jocelyn’s daughter was a Shadowhunter while Valentine’s son was a criminal. But she only shook her head. “Mon Dieu,” she said, “but you look just like your parents.”
16
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
When Clary and Sebastian returned to the apartment, the living room was empty, but there were dishes in the sink where there hadn’t been before.
“I thought you said Jace was asleep,” she said to Sebastian, a note of accusation in her voice.
Sebastian shrugged. “He was when I said it.” There was light mockery in his voice but no serious unkindness. They had walked back from Magdalena’s together mostly in silence, but not a bad sort of silence. Clary had let her mind wander, only jerked back to reality on occasion by the realization that it was Sebastian she was walking beside. “I’m pretty sure I know where he is.”
“In his room?” Clary started for the stairs.
“No.” He moved in front of her. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
He headed up the stairs at a rapid pace and into the master bedroom, Clary on his heels. As she watched in puzzlement, he tapped the side of the wardrobe. It slid away, revealing a set of stairs behind it. Sebastian cast a smirk over his shoulder at her as she came up behind him. “You’re kidding,” she said. “Secret stairs?”
“Don’t tell me that’s the strangest thing you’ve seen today.” He took the stairs two at a time, and Clary, though bone-weary, followed him. The stairs curved around and opened out into a wide room with a polished wooden floor and high walls. All manner of weapons hung from the walls, just as they did in the training room in the Institute—kindjals and chakhrams, maces and swords and daggers, crossbows and brass knuckles, throwing stars and axes and samurai swords.
Training circles were neatly painted on the floor. In the center of them stood Jace, his back to the door. He was shirtless and barefoot, in black warm-up pants, a knife in each of his hands. An image flashed in her head: Sebastian’s bare back, scarred with unmistakeable whip stripes. Jace’s was smooth, pale gold skin over muscle, marked only with the typical scars of a Shadowhunter—and the scratches her own nails had made last night. She felt herself flush, but her mind was still on the question: why would Valentine have whipped one boy but not the other?
“Jace,” she said.
He turned. He was clean. The silvery fluid was gone, and his gold hair was almost bronze-dark, pasted damply to his head. His skin glistened with sweat. The expression on his face was guarded. “Where were you?”
Sebastian went to the wall and began to examine the weapons there, running his bare hand along the blades. “I thought Clary might want to see Paris.”
“You could have left me a note,” said Jace. “It isn’t as if our situation is the safest, Jonathan. I’d rather not have to worry about Clary—”
“I followed him,” Clary said.
Jace turned and looked at her, and for a moment she caught a glimpse, in his eyes, of the boy in Idris who had shouted at her for spoiling all his careful plans to keep her safe. But this Jace was different. His hands didn’t shake when he looked at her, and the pulse in his throat stayed steady. “You did what?”
“I followed Sebastian,” she said. “I was awake and I wanted to see where he was going.” She put her hands into her jeans pockets and looked at him defiantly. His eyes took her in, from her wind-mussed hair to her boots, and she felt the blood rise up in her face. Sweat shone along his collarbones, and the ridges of his stomach muscles. His workout pants were folded over at the waist, showing the V of his hip bones. She remembered what it had felt like to have his arms around her, to be pressed close enough against him that she could feel every detail of his bones and muscles against her body—
She felt a wave of embarrassment so acute, it was dizzying. What made it worse was that Jace didn’t seem in the least bit awkward, or as if the previous night had affected him as much as it had her. He seemed only… annoyed. Annoyed, and sweaty, and hot.
“Yeah, well,” he said, “the next time you decide to sneak out of our magically warded apartment through a door that shouldn’t really exist, leave a note.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you being sarcastic?”
He threw one of his knives into the air and caught it. “Possibly.”
“I took Clary to see Magdalena,” Sebastian said. He had taken a throwing star down from the wall and was examining it. “We brought the adamas.”
Jace had tossed the second knife into the air; he missed catching it this time, and it stuck point-down into the floor. “You did?”
City of Lost Souls
Cassandra Clare's books
- City of Ruins
- Invincible (A Centennial City Novel)
- City of Fae
- City of Lost Souls
- City of Heavenly Fire
- CITY OF GLASS
- City of Fallen Angels
- CITY OF BONES
- CITY OF ASHES
- 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)