Clary flopped down on the bed and pulled the tights and boots on. The shoes were a little loose around the calves, but didn’t slide around on her feet. She laced them to the top and stood up, looking at herself in the mirror. She had to admit that the combination of short black dress, fishnets, and high boots was fairly badass. The only thing that spoiled it was—
“Your hair,” Isabelle said. “It needs fixing. Desperately. Sit.” She pointed imperiously toward the vanity table. Clary sat, and squinched her eyes shut as Isabelle yanked her hair out of its braids—none too kindly—brushed it out, and shoved what felt like bobby pins into it. She opened her eyes just as a powder puff smacked her in the face, releasing a dense cloud of glitter. Clary coughed and glared at Isabelle accusingly.
The other girl laughed. “Don’t look at me. Look at yourself.”
Glancing in the mirror, Clary saw that Isabelle had pulled her hair up into an elegant swirl on the top of her head, held in place with sparkling pins. Clary was reminded suddenly of her dream, the heavy hair weighing her head down, dancing with Simon … She stirred restlessly.
“Don’t get up yet,” Isabelle said. “We’re not done.” She seized an eyeliner pen. “Open your eyes.”
Clary widened her eyes, which was good for keeping herself from crying. “Isabelle, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” said Isabelle, wielding the eyeliner expertly.
“Is Alec gay?”
Isabelle’s wrist jerked. The eyeliner skidded, inking a long line of black from the corner of Clary’s eye to her hairline. “Oh, hell,” Isabelle said, putting the pen down.
“It’s all right,” Clary began, putting her hand up to her eye.
“No, it isn’t.” Isabelle sounded near tears as she scrabbled around among the piles of junk on top of the vanity. Eventually she came up with a cotton ball, which she handed to Clary. “Here. Use this.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, ankle bracelets jingling, and looked at Clary through her hair. “How did you guess?” she said finally.
“I—”
“You absolutely can’t tell anyone,” said Isabelle.
“Not even Jace?”
“Especially not Jace!”
“All right.” Clary heard the stiffness in her own voice. “I guess I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.”
“It would be to my parents,” said Isabelle quietly. “They would disown him and throw him out of the Clave—”
“What, you can’t be gay and a Shadowhunter?”
“There’s no official rule about it. But people don’t like it. I mean, less with people our age—I think,” she added, uncertainly, and Clary remembered how few other people her age Isabelle had ever really met. “But the older generation, no. If it happens, you don’t talk about it.”
“Oh,” said Clary, wishing she’d never mentioned it.
“I love my brother,” said Isabelle. “I’d do anything for him. But there’s nothing I can do.”
“At least he has you,” said Clary awkwardly, and she thought for a moment of Jace, who thought of love as something that broke you into pieces. “Do you really think that Jace would … mind?”
“I don’t know,” said Isabelle, in a tone that indicated she’d had enough of the topic. “But it’s not my choice to make.”
“I guess not,” Clary said. She leaned in to the mirror, using the cotton Isabelle had given her to dab away the excess eye makeup. When she sat back, she nearly dropped the cotton ball in surprise: What had Isabelle done to her? Her cheekbones looked sharp and angular, her eyes deep-set, mysterious, and a luminous green.
“I look like my mom,” she said in surprise.
Isabelle raised her eyebrows. “What? Too middle-aged? Maybe some more glitter—”
“No more glitter,” Clary said hastily. “No, it’s good. I like it.”
“Great.” Isabelle bounced up off the bed, her anklets chiming. “Let’s go.”
“I need to stop by my room and grab something,” Clary said, standing up. “Also—do I need any weapons? Do you?”
“I’ve got plenty.” Isabelle smiled, kicking her feet up so that her anklets jingled like Christmas bells. “These, for instance. The left one is electrum, which is poisonous to demons, and the right one is blessed iron, in case I run across any unfriendly vampires or even faeries—faeries hate iron. They both have strength runes carved into them, so I can pack a hell of a kick.”
“Demon-hunting and fashion,” Clary said. “I never would have thought they went together.”
Isabelle laughed out loud. “You’d be surprised.”
* * *
The boys were waiting for them in the entryway. They were wearing black, even Simon, in a slightly too-big pair of black pants and his own shirt turned inside out to hide the band logo. He was standing uncomfortably to the side while Jace and Alec slouched together against the wall, looking bored. Simon glanced up as Isabelle strode into the entryway, her gold whip coiled around her wrist, her metal ankle chains chiming like bells. Clary expected him to look stunned—Isabelle did look amazing—but his eyes slid past her to Clary, where they rested with a look of astonishment.
“What is that?” he demanded, straightening up. “That you’re wearing, I mean.”
Clary looked down at herself. She’d thrown a light jacket on to make her feel less naked and grabbed her backpack from her room. It was slung over her shoulder, bumping familiarly between her shoulder blades. But Simon wasn’t looking at her backpack; he was looking at her legs as if he’d never seen them before.
“It’s a dress, Simon,” Clary said dryly. “I know I don’t wear them that much, but really.”
“It’s so short,” he said in confusion. Even half in demon hunter clothes, Clary thought, he looked like the sort of boy who’d come over to your house to pick you up for a date and be polite to your parents and nice to your pets.
Jace, on the other hand, looked like the sort of boy who’d come over to your house and burn it down for kicks. “I like the dress,” he said, unhitching himself from the wall. His eyes ran up and down her lazily, like the stroking paws of a cat. “It needs a little something extra, though.”
“So now you’re a fashion expert?” Her voice came out unevenly—he was standing very close to her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, smell the faint burned scent of newly applied Marks.
He took something out of his jacket and handed it to her. It was a long thin dagger in a leather sheath. The hilt of the dagger was set with a single red stone carved in the shape of a rose.
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t even know how to use that—”
He pressed it into her hand, curling her fingers around it. “You’d learn.” He dropped his voice. “It’s in your blood.”
She drew her hand back slowly. “All right.”
“I could give you a thigh sheath to put that in,” Isabelle offered. “I’ve got tons.”
“CERTAINLY NOT,” said Simon.
Clary shot him an irritated look. “Thanks, but I’m not really a thigh sheath kind of girl.” She slid the dagger into the outside pocket on her backpack.
She looked up from closing it to find Jace watching her through hooded eyes. “And one last thing,” he said. He reached over and pulled the sparkling pins out of her hair, so that it fell in warm and heavy curls down her neck. The sensation of hair tickling her bare skin was unfamiliar and oddly pleasant.
“Much better,” he said, and she thought this time that maybe his voice was slightly uneven too.