6
FORSAKEN
THE WEAPONS ROOM LOOKED EXACTLY THE WAY SOMETHING called “the weapons room” sounded like it would look. Brushed metal walls were hung with every manner of sword, dagger, spike, pike, featherstaff, bayonet, whip, mace, hook, and bow. Soft leather bags filled with arrows dangled from hooks, and there were stacks of boots, leg guards, and gauntlets for wrists and arms. The place smelled of metal and leather and steel polish. Alec and Jace, no longer barefoot, sat at a long table in the center of the room, their heads bent over an object between them. Jace looked up as the door shut behind Clary. “Where’s Hodge?” he said.
“Writing to the Silent Brothers.”
Alec repressed a shudder. “Ugh.”
She approached the table slowly, conscious of Alec’s gaze. “What are you doing?”
“Putting the last touches on these.” Jace moved aside so she could see what lay on the table: three long slim wands of a dully glowing silver. They did not look sharp or particularly dangerous. “Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf. They’re seraph blades.”
“Those don’t look like knives. How did you make them? Magic?”
Alec looked horrified, as if she’d asked him to put on a tutu and execute a perfect pirouette. “The funny thing about mundies,” Jace said, to nobody in particular, “is how obsessed with magic they are for a bunch of people who don’t even know what the word means.”
“I know what it means,” Clary snapped.
“No, you don’t, you just think you do. Magic is a dark and elemental force, not just a lot of sparkly wands and crystal balls and talking goldfish.”
“I never said it was a lot of talking goldfish, you—”
Jace waved a hand, cutting her off. “Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn’t make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie.”
“You’re driveling,” Clary observed.
“I’m not,” said Jace, with great dignity.
“Yes, you are,” said Alec, rather unexpectedly. “Look, we don’t do magic, okay?” he added, not looking at Clary. “That’s all you need to know about it.”
Clary wanted to snap at him, but restrained herself. Alec already didn’t seem to like her; there was no point in aggravating his hostility. She turned to Jace. “Hodge said I can go home.”
Jace nearly dropped the seraph blade he was holding. “He said what?”
“To look through my mother’s things,” she amended. “If you go with me.”
“Jace,” Alec exhaled, but Jace ignored him.
“If you really want to prove that my mom or dad was a Shadowhunter, we should look through my mom’s things. What’s left of them.”
“Down the rabbit hole.” Jace grinned crookedly. “Good idea. If we go right now, we should have another three, four hours of daylight.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Alec asked, as Clary and Jace moved toward the door. Clary glanced back at him. He was half-out of the chair, eyes expectant.
“No.” Jace didn’t turn around. “That’s all right. Clary and I can handle this on our own.”
The look Alec shot Clary was as sour as poison. She was glad when the door shut behind her.
Jace led the way down the hall, Clary half-jogging to keep up with his long-legged stride. “Have you got your house keys?”
Clary glanced down at her shoes. “Yeah.”
“Good. Not that we couldn’t break in, but we’d run a greater chance of disturbing any wards that might be up if we did.”
“If you say so.” The hall widened out into a marble-floored foyer, a black metal gate set into one wall. It was only when Jace pushed a button next to the gate and it lit up that she realized it was an elevator. It creaked and groaned as it rose to meet them. “Jace?”
“Yeah?”
“How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood? Was there some way you could tell?”
The elevator arrived with a final groan. Jace unlatched the gate and slid it open. The inside reminded Clary of a birdcage, all black metal and decorative bits of gilt. “I guessed,” he said, latching the door behind them. “It seemed like the most likely explanation.”
“You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me.”
He pressed a button in the wall, and the elevator lurched into action with a vibrating groan that she felt all through the bones in her feet. “I was ninety percent sure.”
“I see,” Clary said.
There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. “What the hell was that for?”
“The other ten percent,” she said, and they rode the rest of the way down to the street in silence.