The Brothers of the Silent City do not lie, said Jeremiah. If you want the truth from me, you shall have it, but I shall ask of you the same in return.
Clary lifted her chin. “I’m not a liar either.”
The mind cannot lie. Jeremiah moved toward her. It is your memories I want.
The smell of blood and ink was stifling. Clary felt a wave of panic. “Wait—”
“Clary.” It was Hodge, his tone gentle. “It’s entirely possible that there are memories you have buried or repressed, memories formed when you were too young to have a conscious recollection of them, that Brother Jeremiah can reach. It could help us a great deal.”
She said nothing, biting the inside of her lip. She hated the idea of someone reaching inside her head, touching memories so private and hidden that even she couldn’t reach them.
“She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do,” Jace said suddenly. “Does she?”
Clary interrupted Hodge before he could reply. “It’s all right. I’ll do it.”
Brother Jeremiah nodded curtly, and moved toward her with the soundlessness that sent chills up her spine. “Will it hurt?” she whispered.
He didn’t reply, but his narrow white hands came up to touch her face. The skin of his fingers was thin as parchment paper, inked all over with runes. She could feel the power in them, jumping like static electricity to sting her skin. She closed her eyes, but not before she saw the anxious expression that crossed Hodge’s face.
Colors swirled up against the darkness behind her eyelids. She felt a pressure, a drawing pull in her head and hands and feet. She clenched her hands, straining against the weight, the blackness. She felt as if she were pressed up against something hard and unyielding, being slowly crushed. She heard herself gasp and went suddenly cold all over, cold as winter. In a flash she saw an icy street, gray buildings looming overhead, an explosion of whiteness stinging her face in freezing particles—
“That’s enough.” Jace’s voice cut through the winter chill, and the falling snow vanished, a shower of white sparks. Clary’s eyes sprang open.
Slowly the library came back into focus—the book-lined walls, the anxious faces of Hodge and Jace. Brother Jeremiah stood unmoving, a carved idol of ivory and red ink. Clary became aware of the sharp pains in her hands, and glanced down to see red lines scored across her skin where her nails had dug in.
“Jace,” Hodge said reprovingly.
“Look at her hands.” Jace gestured toward Clary, who curled her fingers in to cover her injured palms.
Hodge put a broad hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Slowly she moved her head in a nod. The crushing weight had gone, but she could feel the sweat that drenched her hair, pasted her shirt to her back like sticky tape.
There is a block in your mind, said Brother Jeremiah. Your memories cannot be reached.
“A block?” asked Jace. “You mean she’s repressed her memories?”
No. I mean they have been blocked from her conscious mind by a spell. I cannot break it here. She will have to come to the Bone City and stand before the Brotherhood.
“A spell?” said Clary incredulously. “Who would have put a spell on me?”
Nobody answered her. Jace looked at his tutor. He was surprisingly pale, Clary thought, considering that this had been his idea. “Hodge, she shouldn’t have to go if she doesn’t—”
“It’s all right.” Clary took a deep breath. Her palms ached where her nails had cut them, and she wanted badly to lie down somewhere dark and rest. “I’ll go. I want to know the truth. I want to know what’s in my head.”
Jace nodded once. “Fine. Then I’ll go with you.”
Leaving the Institute was like climbing into a wet, hot canvas bag. Humid air pressed down on the city, turning the air to grimy soup. “I don’t see why we have to leave separately from Brother Jeremiah,” Clary grumbled. They were standing on the corner outside the Institute. The streets were deserted except for a garbage truck trundling slowly down the block. “What, is he embarrassed to be seen with Shadowhunters or something?”
“The Brotherhood are Shadowhunters,” Jace pointed out. Somehow he managed to look cool despite the heat. It made Clary want to smack him.
“I suppose he went to get his car?” she inquired sarcastically.
Jace grinned. “Something like that.”
She shook her head. “You know, I’d feel a lot better about this if Hodge had come with us.”
“What, I’m not protection enough for you?”
“It’s not protection I need right now—it’s someone who can help me think.” Suddenly reminded, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh—simon!”
“No, I’m Jace,” said Jace patiently. “Simon is the weaselly little one with the bad haircut and dismal fashion sense.”
“Oh, shut up,” she replied, but it was more automatic than heartfelt. “I meant to call before I went to sleep. See if he got home okay.”
Shaking his head, Jace regarded the heavens as if they were about to open up and reveal the secrets of the universe. “With everything that’s going on, you’re worried about Weasel Face?”
“Don’t call him that. He doesn’t look like a weasel.”
“You may be right,” said Jace. “I’ve met an attractive weasel or two in my time. He looks more like a rat.”
“He does not—”
“He’s probably at home lying in a puddle of his own drool. Just wait till Isabelle gets bored with him and you have to pick up the pieces.”
“Is Isabelle likely to get bored with him?” Clary asked.
Jace thought about this. “Yes,” he said.
Clary wondered if perhaps Isabelle was smarter than Jace gave her credit for. Maybe she would realize what an amazing guy Simon was: how funny, how smart, how cool. Maybe they’d start dating. The idea filled her with a nameless horror.
Lost in thought, it took her several moments to realize that Jace had been saying something to her. When she blinked at him, she saw a wry grin spread across his face. “What?” she asked, ungraciously.
“I wish you’d stop desperately trying to get my attention like this,” he said. “It’s become embarrassing.”
“Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt,” she told him.
“I can’t help it. I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain.”
“Your pain will be outer soon if you don’t get out of traffic. Are you trying to get run over by a cab?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood.”
As if on cue, a narrow black car with tinted windows rumbled up to the curb and paused in front of Jace, engine purring. It was long and sleek and low to the ground like a limousine, the windows curved outward.