City of Lost Souls

“Simon.” She grabbed his arm, and then she was pulling him toward her, like a fish on a line. He half-fell against her, and she hugged him, her arms around him, and the last time she’d hugged him like this was the day of their father’s funeral, when he’d cried in that way one cried when it didn’t seem like it was ever going to stop. “I don’t want to never see you again.”


“Oh,” Simon said. He sat back in the dirt, so surprised that his mind had gone blank. Rebecca put her arms around him again, and he let himself lean against her, even though she was slighter than he was. She had held him up when they’d been children, and she could do it again. “I thought you wouldn’t.”

“Why?” she said.

“I’m a vampire,” he said. It was weird, hearing it like that, out loud.

“So there are vampires?”

“And werewolves. And other, weirder stuff. This just—happened. I mean, I got attacked. I didn’t choose it, but it doesn’t matter. This is me now.”

“Do you…” Rebecca hesitated, and Simon sensed that this was the big question, the one that really mattered. “Bite people?”

He thought about Isabelle, then pushed the mental image hastily away. And I bit a thirteen-year-old girl. And a dude. It’s not as weird as it sounds. No. Some things were not his sister’s business. “I drink blood out of bottles. Animal blood. I don’t hurt people.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Is it? Okay, I mean?”

“Yeah. I love you,” she said. She rubbed his back awkwardly. He felt something damp on his hand and looked down. She was crying. One of her tears had splashed onto his fingers. Another one followed, and he closed his hand around it. He was shivering, but not from cold; still, she pulled off her scarf and wrapped it around them both. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “You’re my little brother, you dumb idiot. I love you no matter what.”

They sat together, shoulder to shoulder, looking off into the shadowy spaces between the trees.

It was bright in Jace’s bedroom, midday sunlight pouring through the open windows. The moment Clary walked in, the heels of her boots clicking on the hardwood floor, Jace closed the door and locked it behind her. There was a clatter as he dropped the knives onto his bedside table. She began to turn, to ask him if he was all right, when he caught her around the waist and pulled her against him.

The boots gave her extra height, but he still had to bend down to kiss her. His hands, on her waist, lifted her up and against him—a second later his mouth was on hers and she forgot all issues of height and awkwardness. He tasted like salt and fire. She tried to shut out everything but sensation—the familiar smell of his skin and sweat, the chill of his damp hair against her cheek, the shape of his shoulders and back under her hands, the way her body fit to his.

He pulled her sweater over her head. Her T-shirt was short-sleeved, and she felt the heat coming off him against her skin. His lips parted hers, and she felt herself coming apart as his hand slid down to the top button on her jeans.

It took all the self-control she had to catch at his wrist with her hand, and hold it still. “Jace,” she said. “Don’t.”

He drew away, enough for her to see his face. His eyes were glassy, unfocused. His heart pounded against hers. “Why?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Last night—if we hadn’t—if I hadn’t fainted, then I don’t know what would have happened, and we were in the middle of a room full of people. Do you really think I want my first time with you—or any time with you—to be in front of a bunch of strangers?”

“That wasn’t our fault,” he said, pushing his fingers softly through her hair. The scarred palm of his hand scratched her cheek lightly. “That silver stuff was faerie drugs, I told you. We were high. But I’m sober now, and you’re sober now…”

“And Sebastian’s upstairs, and I’m exhausted, and…” And this would be a terrible, terrible idea that both of us would regret. “And I don’t feel like it,” she lied.

“You don’t feel like it?” Disbelief colored his voice.

“I’m sorry if no one’s ever said that to you before, Jace, but, no. I don’t feel like it.” She looked pointedly down at his hand, still at the waistband of her jeans. “And now I feel like it even less.”

He raised both eyebrows, but instead of saying anything he simply let go of her.

“Jace…”

“I’m going to go take a cold shower,” he said, backing away from her. His face was blank, unreadable. When the bathroom door slammed shut behind him, she walked over to the bed—neatly made up, no residual silver on the coverlet—and sank down, putting her head in her hands. It wasn’t as if she and Jace never fought; she’d always thought they argued about as much as normal couples did, usually good-naturedly, and they’d never been angry with each other in any significant way. But there was something about the coldness at the back of this Jace’s eyes that shook her, something far off and unreachable that made it harder than ever to push away the question always at the back of her mind: Is any of the real Jace still in there? Is there anything left to save?

*

Now this is the Law of the Jungle,

as old and as true as the sky,