City of Lost Souls

“It wasn’t her fault, the way he turned out. It was Valentine’s.”


Clary said nothing. She was recalling the awful thing she had just thought, that her mother should have killed Sebastian when he was born.

“Both of you,” said Simon, “blame yourselves for things that aren’t your fault. You blame yourself for leaving Jace on the roof—”

She jerked her head up and looked at him sharply. She wasn’t aware she’d ever said she blamed herself for that, though she did. “I never—”

“You do,” he said. “But I left him, Izzy left him, Alec left him—and Alec’s his parabatai. There’s no way we could have known. And it might have been worse if you’d stayed.”

“Maybe.” Clary didn’t want to talk about it. Avoiding Simon’s gaze, she headed into the bathroom to brush her teeth and pull on her fuzzy pajamas. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror. She hated how pale she looked, the shadows under her eyes. She was strong; she wasn’t going to fall apart. She had a plan. Even if it was a little insane, and involved robbing the Institute.

She brushed her teeth and was pulling her wavy hair back into a ponytail as she left the bathroom, just catching Simon slipping back into his messenger bag a bottle of what was almost surely the blood he’d bought at Taki’s.

She came forward and ruffled his hair. “You can keep the bottles in the fridge, you know,” she said. “If you don’t like it room temperature.”

“Ice-cold blood is worse than room temperature, actually. Warm is best, but I think your mom would balk at me heating it up in saucepans.”

“Does Jordan care?” Clary asked, wondering if in fact Jordan even still remembered Simon lived with him. Simon had been at her house every night for the past week. In the first few days after Jace had disappeared, she hadn’t been able to sleep. She had piled five blankets over herself, but she’d been unable to get warm. Shivering, she would lie awake imagining her veins sluggish with frozen blood, ice crystals weaving a coral-like shining net around her heart. Her dreams were full of black seas and ice floes and frozen lakes and Jace, his face always hidden from her by shadows or a breath of cloud or his own shining hair as he turned away from her. She would fall asleep for minutes at a time, always waking up with a sick drowning feeling.

The first day the Council had interrogated her, she’d come home and crawled into bed. She’d lain there wide awake until there’d been a knock on her window and Simon had crawled inside, nearly tumbling onto the floor. He’d climbed onto the bed and stretched out beside her without a word. His skin had been cold from the outside, and he’d smelled like city air and oncoming winter chill.

She had touched her shoulder to his, dissolving a tiny part of the tension that clamped her body like a clenched fist. His hand had been cold, but it had been familiar, like the texture of his corduroy jacket against her arm.

“How long can you stay?” she had whispered into the darkness.

“As long as you want.”

She’d turned on her side to look at him. “Won’t Izzy mind?”

“She’s the one who told me I should come over here. She said you weren’t sleeping, and if having me with you will make you feel better, I can stay. Or I could just stay until you fall asleep.”

Clary had exhaled her relief. “Stay all night,” she’d said. “Please.”

He had. That night she had had no bad dreams.

As long as he was there, her sleep was dreamless and blank, a dark ocean of nothingness. A painless oblivion.

“Jordan doesn’t really care about the blood,” Simon said now. “His whole thing is about me being comfortable with what I am. Get in touch with your inner vampire, blah, blah.”

Clary slid next to him onto the bed and hugged a pillow. “Is your inner vampire different from your… outer vampire?”

“Definitely. He wants me to wear midriff-baring shirts and a fedora. I’m fighting it.”

Clary smiled faintly. “So your inner vampire is Magnus?”

“Wait, that reminds me.” Simon dug around in his messenger bag and produced two volumes of manga. He waved them triumphantly before handing them to Clary. “Magical Love Gentleman volumes fifteen and sixteen,” he said. “Sold out everywhere but Midtown Comics.”