City of Lost Souls

She put her hands on his shoulders and flexed them, as if testing his muscles. “Well, you’ve definitely grown…”

He pulled her down from the counter, catching her around the waist and kissing her. Fire sizzled up and down his veins as she kissed him back, her body melting against his. He slid his hands up into her hair, knocking her knitted cap off and letting her curls spring free. He kissed her neck as she pulled his shirt up over his head and ran her hands all over him—shoulders, back, arms, purring in her throat like a cat. He felt like a helium balloon—high from kissing her, and light with relief. So she wasn’t done with him after all.

“Jordy,” she said. “Wait.”

She almost never called him that, unless it was serious. His heartbeat, already wild, speeded up further. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just—if every time we see each other, we fall into bed—and I know I started it, I’m not blaming you or anything—It’s just that maybe we should talk.”

He stared at her, at her big dark eyes, the fluttery pulse in her throat, the flush on her cheeks. With an effort he spoke evenly. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

She just looked at him. After a moment she shook her head and said, “Nothing.” She locked her hands behind his head and pulled him close, kissing him hard, fitting her body against his. “Nothing at all.”



Clary didn’t know how long it was before Jace came out of the bathroom, toweling off his wet hair. She looked up at him from where she was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He was sliding a blue cotton T-shirt on over smooth golden skin marked with white scars.

She darted her eyes away as he came across the room and sat down next to her on the bed, smelling strongly of soap.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Now she did look at him, in surprise. She had wondered if he were capable of being sorry, in his current state. His expression was grave, a little curious, but not insincere.

“Wow,” she said. “That cold shower must have been brutal.”

His lips quirked up at the side, but his expression grew serious again almost immediately. He put his hand under her chin. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. It’s just—ten weeks ago, just holding each other would have been unthinkable.”

“I know.”

He cupped her face in his hands, his long fingers cool against her cheeks, tilting her face up. He was looking down at her, and everything about him was so familiar—the pale gold irises of his eyes, the scar on his cheek, the full lower lip, the slight chip in his tooth that saved his looks from being so perfect that they were annoying—and yet somehow it was like coming back to a house she had lived in as a child, and knowing that though the exterior might look the same, a different family lived there now. “I never cared,” he said. “I wanted you anyway. I always wanted you. Nothing mattered to me but you. Not ever.”

Clary swallowed. Her stomach fluttered, not just with the usual butterflies she felt around Jace but with real uneasiness.

“But Jace. That’s not true. You cared about your family. And—I always thought you were proud of being Nephilim. One of the angels.”

“Proud?” he said. “To be half angel, half human—you’re always conscious of your own inadequacy. You’re not an angel. You’re not beloved of Heaven. Raziel doesn’t care about us. We can’t even pray to him. We pray to nothing. We pray for nothing. Remember when I told you I thought I had demon blood, because it explained why I felt the way I did about you? It was a relief in a way, thinking that. I’ve never been an angel, never even close. Well,” he added. “Maybe the fallen kind.”

“Fallen angels are demons.”

“I don’t want to be Nephilim,” said Jace. “I want to be something else. Stronger, faster, better than human. But different. Not subservient to the Laws of an angel who couldn’t care less about us. Free.” He ran his hand through a curl of her hair. “I’m happy now, Clary. Doesn’t that make a difference?”

“I thought we were happy together,” Clary said.

“I’ve always been happy with you,” he said. “But I never thought I deserved it.”

“And now you do?”

“And now that feeling’s gone,” he said. “All I know is that I love you. And for the first time, that’s good enough.”