City of Lost Souls

She felt the words like a slap. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said, and her voice came out as almost a whisper. “I’m sorry.”


He sat up straight, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. They were not far from each other, sharing the same bed, but he was holding himself back; she could tell. She could tell that there were secrets at the back of his light eyes, could feel his hesitation. She wanted to reach her hand out, but she kept herself still, kept her voice steady. “I never meant to hurt you. And I don’t just mean at the Burren. I mean from the moment you—the real you—told me what you wanted. I should have listened, but all I thought about was saving you, getting you away. I didn’t listen to you when you said you wanted to turn yourself over to the Clave, and because of it, we both almost wound up like Sebastian. And when I did what I did with Glorious—Alec and Isabelle, they must have told you the blade was meant for Sebastian. But I couldn’t get to him through the crowd. I just couldn’t. And I thought of what you told me, that you’d rather die than live under Sebastian’s influence.” Her voice caught. “The real you, I mean. I couldn’t ask you. I had to guess. You have to know it was awful to hurt you like that. To know that you could have died and it would have been my hand that held the sword that killed you. I would have wanted to die, but I risked your life because I thought it was what you would have asked for, and after I’d betrayed you once, I thought I owed it to you. But if I was wrong…” She paused, but he was silent. Her stomach turned over, a sick, wrenching flip. “Then, I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do to make it up to you. But I wanted you to know. That I’m sorry.”

She halted again, and this time the silence stretched out between them, longer and longer, a thread pulled impossibly tight.

“You can talk now,” she blurted finally. “In fact, it would be really great if you did.”

Jace was looking at her incredulously. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You came here to apologize to me?”

She was taken aback. “Of course I did.”

“Clary,” he said. “You saved my life.”

“I stabbed you. With a massive sword. You caught on fire.”

His lips twitched, almost imperceptibly. “Okay,” he said. “So maybe our problems aren’t like other couples’.” He lifted a hand as if he meant to touch her face, then put it down hastily. “I heard you, you know,” he said more softly. “Telling me I wasn’t dead. Asking me to open my eyes.”

They looked at each other in silence for what was probably moments but felt like hours to Clary. It was so good to see him like this, completely himself, that it almost erased the fear that this was all going to go horribly wrong in the next few minutes. Finally Jace spoke.

“Why do you think I fell in love with you?”

It was the last thing she would have expected him to say. “I don’t—That’s not a fair thing to ask.”

“Seems fair to me,” he said. “Do you think I don’t know you, Clary? The girl who walked into a hotel full of vampires because her best friend was there and needed saving? Who made a Portal and transported herself to Idris because she hated the idea of being left out of the action?”

“You yelled at me for that—”

“I was yelling at myself,” he said. “There are ways in which we’re so alike. We’re reckless. We don’t think before we act. We’ll do anything for the people we love. And I never thought how scary that was for the people who loved me until I saw it in you and it terrified me. How could I protect you if you wouldn’t let me?” He leaned forward. “That, by the way, is a rhetorical question.”

“Good. Because I don’t need protecting.”

“I knew you’d say that. But the thing is, sometimes you do. And sometimes I do. We’re meant to protect each other, but not from everything. Not from the truth. That’s what it means to love someone but let them be themselves.”

Clary looked down at her hands. She wanted to reach out and touch him so badly. It was like visiting someone in jail, where you could see them so clearly and so close, but there was unbreakable glass separating you.

“I fell in love with you,” he said, “because you were one of the bravest people I’d ever known. So how could I ask you to stop being brave just because I loved you?” He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up in loops and curls that Clary ached to smooth down. “You came for me,” he said. “You saved me when almost everyone else had given up, and even the people who hadn’t given up didn’t know what to do. You think I don’t know what you went through?” His eyes darkened. “How do you imagine I could possibly be angry with you?”

“Then, why haven’t you wanted to see me?”

“Because…” Jace exhaled. “Okay, fair point, but there’s something you don’t know. The sword you used, the one Raziel gave to Simon…”