City of Lost Souls

“‘Us,’” she said. “God. Jace…” He was staring at her from the bed, and even as she felt her heart breaking, her mind was racing, trying to remember where she had left her stele, wondering if she could get to the X-Acto knife in the drawer of her nightstand. Wondering if she could bring herself to use it if she did.

“Clary?” Jace tilted his head to the side, studying her face. “You do—you still love me, don’t you?”

“I love Jace Lightwood,” she said. “I don’t know who you are.”

His face changed, but before he could speak, a scream shattered the silence. A scream, and the sound of breaking glass.

Clary knew the voice instantly. It was her mother.

Without another glance at Jace, she yanked the bedroom door open and bolted down the hallway, into the living room. The living room in Luke’s house was large, divided from the kitchen by a long counter. Jocelyn, in yoga pants and a frayed T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, stood by the counter. She had clearly come into the kitchen for something to drink. A glass lay shattered at her feet, the water soaking into the gray carpeting.

All the color had drained from her face, leaving her as pale as bleached sand. She was staring across the room, and even before Clary turned her head, she knew what her mother was looking at.

Her son.

Sebastian was leaning against the living room wall, near the door, with no expression on his angular face. He lowered his eyelids and looked at Jocelyn through his lashes. Something about his posture, the look of him, could have stepped out of Hodge’s photograph of Valentine at seventeen years old.

“Jonathan,” Jocelyn whispered. Clary stood frozen, even as Jace burst out of the hallway, took in the scene in front of him in one moment, and came to a halt. His left hand was at his weapons belt; his slim fingers were inches from the hilt of one of his daggers, but Clary knew it would take him less than seconds to free it.

“I go by ‘Sebastian’ now,” said Clary’s brother. “I concluded that I wasn’t interested in keeping the name you and my father gave me. Both of you betrayed me, and I would prefer as little association with you as possible.”

Water spread out from the pool of broken glass at Jocelyn’s feet in a dark ring. She took a step forward, her eyes searching, running up and down Sebastian’s face. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “Dead. I saw your bones turned to ashes.”

Sebastian looked at her, his black eyes quiet and narrow. “If you were a real mother,” he said, “a good mother, you would have known I was alive. There was a man once who said that mothers carry the key of our souls with them all our lives. But you threw mine away.”

Jocelyn made a sound in the back of her throat. She was leaning against the counter for support. Clary wanted to run to her, but her feet felt frozen to the ground. Whatever was happening between her brother and her mother, it was something that had nothing to do with her.

“Don’t tell me you aren’t even a little glad to see me, Mother,” Sebastian said, and though his words were pleading, his voice was flat. “Aren’t I everything you could want in a son?” He spread his arms wide. “Strong, handsome, looks just like dear old Dad.”

Jocelyn shook her head, her face gray. “What do you want, Jonathan?”

“I want what everyone wants,” said Sebastian. “I want what’s owed to me. In this case the Morgenstern legacy.”

“The Morgenstern legacy is blood and devastation,” said Jocelyn. “We are not Morgensterns here. Not me, and not my daughter.” She straightened up. Her hand was still gripping the counter, but Clary could see some of the old fire returning to her mother’s expression. “If you go now, Jonathan, I won’t tell the Clave you were ever here.” Her eyes flicked to Jace. “Or you. If they knew you were cooperating, they would kill you both.”

Clary moved to stand in front of Jace, reflexively. He looked past her, over her shoulder, at her mother. “You care if I die?” Jace said.

“I care about what it would do to my daughter,” said Jocelyn. “And the Law is hard—too hard. What has happened to you—maybe it can be undone.” Her eyes moved back to Sebastian. “But for you—my Jonathan—it’s much too late.”

The hand that had been gripping the counter swept forward, holding Luke’s long-handled kindjal blade. Tears shone on Jocelyn’s face. But her grip on the knife was steady.

“I look just like him, don’t I?” Sebastian said, not moving. He seemed barely to notice the knife. “Valentine. That’s why you’re looking at me like that.”

Jocelyn shook her head. “You look like you always did, from the moment I first saw you. You look like a demon thing.” Her voice was achingly sad. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For not killing you when you were born,” she said, and came out from behind the counter, spinning the kindjal in her hand.