Isabelle’s clothes looked ridiculous. Clary had to roll the legs on the jeans up several times before she stopped tripping on them, and the plunging neckline of the red tank top only emphasized her lack of what Eric would have called a “rack.”
She cleaned up in the small bathroom, using a bar of hard lavender soap. Drying herself with a white hand towel left damp hair straggling around her face in fragrant tangles. She squinted at her reflection in the mirror. There was a purpling bruise high up on her left cheek, and her lips were dry and swollen.
I have to call Luke, she thought. Surely there was a phone around here somewhere. Maybe they’d let her use it after she talked to Hodge.
She found her Skechers placed neatly at the foot of her infirmary bed, her keys tied into the laces. Sliding her feet into them, she took a deep breath and left to find Isabelle.
The corridor outside the infirmary was empty. Clary glanced down it, perplexed. It looked like the sort of hallway she sometimes found herself racing down in nightmares, shadowy and infinite. Glass lamps blown into the shapes of roses hung at intervals on the walls, and the air smelled like dust and candle wax.
In the distance she could hear a faint and delicate noise, like wind chimes shaken by a storm. She set off down the corridor slowly, trailing a hand along the wall. The Victorian-looking wallpaper was faded with age, burgundy and pale gray. Each side of the corridor was lined with closed doors.
The sound she was following grew louder. Now she could identify it as the sound of a piano being played with desultory but undeniable skill, though she couldn’t identify the tune.
Turning the corner, she came to a doorway, the door propped fully open. Peering in she saw what was clearly a music room. A grand piano stood in one corner, and rows of chairs were arranged against the far wall. A covered harp occupied the center of the room.
Jace was seated at the grand piano, his slender hands moving rapidly over the keys. He was barefoot, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, his tawny hair ruffled up around his head as if he’d just woken up. Watching the quick, sure movements of his hands across the keys, Clary remembered how it had felt to be lifted up by those hands, his arms holding her up and the stars hurtling down around her head like a rain of silver tinsel.
She must have made some noise, because he twisted around on the stool, blinking into the shadows. “Alec?” he said. “Is that you?”
“It’s not Alec. It’s me.” She stepped farther into the room. “Clary.”
Piano keys jangled as he got to his feet. “Our own Sleeping Beauty. Who finally kissed you awake?”
“Nobody. I woke up on my own.”
“Was there anyone with you?”
“Isabelle, but she went off to get someone—Hodge, I think. She told me to wait, but—”
“I should have warned her about your habit of never doing what you’re told.” Jace squinted at her. “Are those Isabelle’s clothes? They look ridiculous on you.”
“I could point out that you burned my clothes.”
“It was purely precautionary.” He slid the gleaming black piano cover closed. “Come on, I’ll take you to Hodge.”
The Institute was huge, a vast cavernous space that looked less like it had been designed according to a floor plan and more like it had been naturally hollowed out of rock by the passage of water and years. Through half-open doors Clary glimpsed countless identical small rooms, each with a stripped bed, a nightstand, and a large wooden wardrobe standing open. Pale arches of stone held up the high ceilings, many of the arches intricately carved with small figures. She noticed certain repeating motifs: angels and swords, suns and roses.
“Why does this place have so many bedrooms?” Clary asked. “I thought it was a research institute.”
“This is the residential wing. We’re pledged to offer safety and lodging to any Shadowhunter who requests it. We can house up to two hundred people here.”
“But most of these rooms are empty.”
“People come and go. Nobody stays for long. Usually it’s just us: Alec, Isabelle, Max, their parents—and me and Hodge.”
“Max?”
“You met the beauteous Isabelle? Alec is her elder brother. Max is the youngest, but he’s overseas with his parents.”
“On vacation?”
“Not exactly.” Jace hesitated. “You can think of them as—as foreign diplomats, and of this as an embassy, of sorts. Right now they’re in the Shadowhunter home country, working out some very delicate peace negotiations. They brought Max with them because he’s so young.”
“Shadowhunter home country?” Clary’s head was spinning. “What’s it called?”
“Idris.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have.” That irritating superiority was back in his voice. “Mundanes don’t know about it. There are wardings—protective spells—up all over the borders. If you tried to cross into Idris, you’d simply find yourself transported instantly from one border to the next. You’d never know what happened.”
“So it’s not on any maps?”
“Not mundie ones. For our purposes you can consider it a small country between Germany and France.”
“But there isn’t anything between Germany and France. Except Switzerland.”
“Precisely,” said Jace.
“I take it you’ve been there. To Idris, I mean.”
“I grew up there.” Jace’s voice was neutral, but something in his tone let her know that more questions in that direction would not be welcome. “Most of us do. There are, of course, Shadowhunters all over the world. We have to be everywhere, because demonic activity is everywhere. But to a Shadowhunter, Idris is always ‘home.’”
“Like Mecca or Jerusalem,” said Clary, thoughtfully. “So most of you are brought up there, and then when you grow up—”
“We’re sent where we’re needed,” said Jace shortly. “And there are a few, like Isabelle and Alec, who grow up away from the home country because that’s where their parents are. With all the resources of the Institute here, with Hodge’s training—” He broke off. “This is the library.”
They had reached an arch-shaped set of wooden doors. A blue Persian cat with yellow eyes lay curled in front of them. It raised its head as they approached and yowled. “Hey, Church,” Jace said, stroking the cat’s back with a bare foot. The cat slit its eyes in pleasure.
“Wait,” said Clary. “Alec and Isabelle and Max—they’re the only Shadowhunters your age that you know, that you spend time with?”
Jace stopped stroking the cat. “Yes.”
“That must get kind of lonely.”
“I have everything I need.” He pushed the doors open. After a moment’s hesitation she followed him inside.