Clary stared at him with her mouth open. It was unfair. So unfair. Valentine had never been a father to her—hadn’t loved her—had been a monster who’d had to die. She had killed him because she’d had no choice.
Unbidden in her mind rose the image of Valentine, driving his blade into Jace’s chest, then holding him as he died. Valentine had wept over the son he’d murdered. But she had never cried for her father. Had never even considered it.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” said Sebastian. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’re not like me.”
Clary stared down at her cup of chocolate, now cold. She felt like a vortex had opened up inside her head and was sucking away her thoughts and words. “I thought you thought Jace was like you,” she said finally in a choked voice. “I thought that’s why you wanted him with you.”
“I need Jace,” said Sebastian. “But in his heart he’s not like me. You are.” He stood up. He must have paid the bill at some point; Clary couldn’t remember. “Come with me.”
He held his hand out. She stood up without taking it and retied his scarf mechanically; the chocolate she had drunk felt like acid churning in her stomach. She followed Sebastian out of the café and into the alley, where he stood looking up at the blue sky overhead.
“I’m not like Valentine,” Clary said, stopping next to him. “Our mother—”
“Your mother,” he said, “hated me. Hates me. You saw her. She tried to kill me. You want to tell me you take after your mother, fine. Jocelyn Fairchild is ruthless. She always has been. She pretended to love our father for months, years maybe, so she could gather enough information on him to betray him. She engineered the Uprising and watched all her husband’s friends slaughtered. She stole your memories. Have you forgiven her? And when she ran from Idris, do you honestly think she ever planned to take me with her? She must have been relieved at the thought that I was dead—”
“She wasn’t!” Clary snapped. “She had a box that had your baby things in it. She used to take it out and cry over it. Every year on your birthday. I know you have it in your room.”
Sebastian’s thin, elegant lips twisted. He turned away from her and started walking down the alley. “Sebastian!” Clary called after him. “Sebastian, wait.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted him to come back. Admittedly, she had no idea where she was or how to find her way back to the apartment, but it was more than that. She wanted to stand and fight, to prove she wasn’t what he said she was. She raised her voice to a shout: “Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern!”
He stopped and turned slowly, looking back over his shoulder at her.
She walked toward him, and he watched her walk, his head cocked to the side, his black eyes narrow. “I bet you don’t even know my middle name,” she said.
“Adele.” There was a musicality to the way he said it, a familiarity that made her uncomfortable. “Clarissa Adele.”
She reached his side. “Why Adele? I never knew.”
“I don’t know myself,” he said. “I know Valentine never wanted you to be called Clarissa Adele. He wanted you to be called Seraphina, after his mother. Our grandmother.” He turned around and started walking again, and this time she kept pace. “After our grandfather was killed, she died—heart attack. Died of grief, Valentine always said.”
Clary thought of Amatis, who had never gotten over her first love, Stephen; of Stephen’s father, who had died of grief; of the Inquisitor, her whole life dedicated to revenge. Of Jace’s mother, cutting her wrists when her husband died. “Before I met the Nephilim, I would have said it was impossible to die of grief.”
Sebastian chuckled dryly. “We don’t form attachments like mundanes do,” he said. “Well, sometimes, surely. Not everyone is the same. But the bonds between us tend to be intense and unbreakable. That’s why we do so badly with others not of our kind. Downworlders, mundanes—”
“My mother’s marrying a Downworlder,” Clary said, stung. They had paused in front of a square stone building with blue painted shutters, almost at the end of the alley.
“He was Nephilim once,” said Sebastian. “And look at our father. Your mother betrayed him and left him, and he still spent the rest of his life waiting to find her again and convince her to come back to him. That whole closet full of clothes—” He shook his head.
“But Valentine told Jace that love is a weakness,” said Clary. “That it would destroy you.”
City of Lost Souls
Cassandra Clare's books
- City of Ruins
- Invincible (A Centennial City Novel)
- City of Fae
- City of Heavenly Fire
- 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)