Luke was still smiling. “You’ll be first on my list to call.”
Pangborn nodded shortly. “I suppose we’ll take our leave. The Angel guard you, Lucian.”
“The Angel does not guard those like me,” said Luke. He picked the duffel bag up off the desk and knotted the top. “On your way, gentlemen?”
Lifting their hoods to cover their faces again, the two men left the room, followed a moment later by Luke. He paused at the door, glancing around as if he wondered if he’d forgotten something. Then he shut it carefully behind him.
Clary stayed where she was, frozen, hearing the front door swing shut and the distant jingle of chain and keys as Luke refastened the padlock. She kept seeing the look on Luke’s face, over and over, as he said he wasn’t interested in what happened to her mother.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Clary?” It was Simon, his voice hesitant, almost gentle. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head, mutely. She felt far from okay. In fact, she felt like she’d never be okay again.
“Of course she isn’t.” It was Jace, his voice sharp and cold as ice shards. He took hold of the screen and moved it aside sharply. “At least now we know who would send a demon after your mother. Those men think she has the Mortal Cup.”
Clary felt her lips thin into a straight line. “That’s totally ridiculous and impossible.”
“Maybe,” said Jace, leaning against Luke’s desk. He fixed her with eyes as opaque as smoked glass. “Have you ever seen those men before?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Never.”
“Lucian seemed to know them. To be friendly with them.”
“I wouldn’t say friendly,” said Simon. “I’d say they were suppressing their hostility.”
“They didn’t kill him outright,” said Jace. “They think he knows more than he’s telling.”
“Maybe,” said Clary, “or maybe they’re just reluctant to kill another Shadowhunter.”
Jace laughed, a harsh, almost vicious noise that raised the hairs up on Clary’s arms. “I doubt that.”
She looked at him hard. “What makes you so sure? Do you know them?”
The laughter had gone from his voice entirely when he replied. “Do I know them?” he echoed. “You might say that. Those are the men who murdered my father.”
9
THE CIRCLE AND THE BROTHERHOOD
CLARY STEPPED FORWARD TO TOUCH JACE’S ARM, SAY something, anything—what did you say to someone who’d just seen his father’s killers? Her hesitation turned out not to matter; Jace shrugged her touch off as if it stung. “We should go,” he said, stalking out of the office and into the living room. Clary and Simon hurried after him. “We don’t know when Luke might come back.”
They left through the back entrance, Jace using his stele to lock up behind them, and made their way out onto the silent street. The moon hung like a locket over the city, casting pearly reflections on the water of the East River. The distant hum of cars going by over the Williamsburg Bridge filled the humid air with a sound like beating wings. Simon said, “Does anyone want to tell me where we’re going?”
“To the L train,” said Jace calmly.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Simon said, blinking. “Demon slayers take the subway?”
“It’s faster than driving.”
“I thought it’d be something cooler, like a van with DEATH TO DEMONS painted on the outside, or …”
Jace didn’t even bother to interrupt. Clary shot Jace a sideways look. Sometimes, when Jocelyn was really angry about something or was in one of her upset moods, she would get what Clary called “scary-calm.” It was a calm that made Clary think of the deceptive hard sheen of ice just before it cracked under your weight. Jace was scary-calm. His face was expressionless, but something burned at the backs of his tawny eyes.
“Simon,” she said. “Enough.”
Simon shot her a look as if to say, Whose side are you on? but Clary ignored him. She was still watching Jace as they turned onto Kent Avenue. The lights of the bridge behind them lit his hair to an unlikely halo. She wondered if it was wrong that she was glad in some way that the men who’d taken her mother were the same men who’d killed Jace’s father all those years ago. For now, at least, he’d have to help her find Jocelyn, whether he wanted to or not. For now, at least, he couldn’t leave her alone.