After lunch Clary had returned to the downstairs bedroom with the excuse that she was exhausted. With the door firmly closed she had tried contacting Simon again, though she realized, given the time difference between where she was now—Italy—and New York, there was every chance he was asleep. At least she prayed he was asleep. It was far preferable to hope for that than to consider the possibility that the rings might not work.
She had been in the bedroom for only about half an hour when a knock sounded at the door. She called, “Come in,” moving to lean back on her hands, her fingers curled in as if she could hide the ring.
The door swung open slowly, and Jace looked down at her from the doorway. She remembered another night, summer heat, a knock on her door. Jace. Clean, in jeans and a gray shirt, his washed hair a halo of damp gold. The bruises on his face were already fading from purple to faint gray, and his hands were behind his back.
“Hey,” he said. His hands were in plain sight now, and he was wearing a soft-looking sweater the color of bronze that brought out the gold in his eyes. There were no bruises on his face, and the shadows she had almost grown used to seeing under his eyes were gone.
Is he happy like this? Really happy? And if he is, what are you saving him from?
Clary pushed away the tiny voice in her head and forced a smile. “What’s up?”
He grinned. It was a wicked grin, the kind that made the blood in Clary’s veins run a little faster. “You want to go on a date?”
Caught off guard, she stammered. “A wh-what?”
“A date,” Jace repeated. “Often ‘a boring thing you have to memorize in history class,’ but in this case, ‘an offer of an evening of blisteringly white-hot romance with yours truly.’”
“Really?” Clary was not sure what to make of this. “Blisteringly white-hot?”
“It’s me,” said Jace. “Watching me play Scrabble is enough to make most women swoon. Imagine if I actually put in some effort.”
Clary sat up and looked down at herself. Jeans, silky green top. She thought about the cosmetics in that odd shrine-like bedroom. She couldn’t help it; she was wishing for a little lip gloss.
Jace held his hand out. “You look gorgeous,” he said. “Let’s go.”
She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “I don’t know…”
“Come on.” His voice had that self-mocking, seductive tone she remembered from when they had first been getting to know each other, when he’d brought her up to the greenhouse to show her the flower that bloomed at midnight. “We’re in Italy. Venice. One of the most beautiful cities in the world. Shame not to see it, don’t you think?”
Jace pulled her forward, so she fell against his chest. The material of his shirt was soft under her fingers, and he smelled like his familiar soap and shampoo. Her heart took a sweeping dive inside her chest. “Or we could stay in,” he said, sounding a little breathless.
“So I can swoon watching you make a triple-word score?” With an effort she pulled back from him. “And spare me the jokes about scoring.”
“Dammit, woman, you read my mind,” he said. “Is there no filthy wordplay you can’t foresee?”
“It’s my special magical power. I can read your mind when you’re thinking dirty thoughts.”
“So, ninety-five percent of the time.”
She craned her head back to look up at him. “Ninety-five percent? What’s the other five percent?”
“Oh, you know, the usual—demons I might kill, runes I need to learn, people who’ve annoyed me recently, people who’ve annoyed me not so recently, ducks.”
“Ducks?”
He waved her question away. “All right. Now watch this.” He took her shoulders and turned her gently, so they were both facing the same way. A moment later—she wasn’t sure how—the walls of the room seemed to melt away around them, and she found herself stepping out onto cobblestones. She gasped, turning to look behind her, and saw only a blank wall, windows high up in an old stone building. Rows of similar houses lined the canal they stood beside. If she craned her head to the left, she could see in the distance that the canal opened out into a much larger waterway, lined with grand buildings. Everywhere was the smell of water and stone.
“Cool, huh?” Jace said proudly.
She turned and looked at him. “Ducks?” she said again.
A smile tugged the edge of his mouth. “I hate ducks. Don’t know why. I just always have.”
It was early morning when Maia and Jordan arrived at Praetor House, the headquarters of the Praetor Lupus. The truck clanked and bumped over the long white drive that swept through manicured lawns to the massive house that rose like the prow of a ship in the distance. Behind it Maia could see strips of trees, and behind that, the blue water of the Sound some distance away.
“This is where you did your training?” she demanded. “This place is gorgeous.”
“Don’t be fooled,” Jordan said with a smile. “This place is boot camp, emphasis on the ‘boot.’”
She looked sideways at him. He was still smiling. He had been, pretty much nonstop, since she’d kissed him down by the beach at dawn. Part of Maia felt as if a hand had lifted her up and dropped her back into her past, when she’d loved Jordan beyond anything she’d ever imagined, and part of her felt totally adrift, as if she’d woken up in a completely foreign landscape, far from the familiarity of her everyday life and the warmth of the pack.
It was very peculiar. Not bad, she thought. Just… peculiar.
Jordan came to a stop at a circular drive in front of the house, which, up close, Maia could see was built of blocks of golden stone, the tawny color of a wolf pelt. Black double doors were set at the top of a massive stone staircase. In the center of the circular drive was a massive sundial, its raised face telling her that it was seven in the morning. Around the edge of the sundial, words were carved: I ONLY MARK THE HOURS THAT SHINE.
She unlocked her door and jumped down from the cab just as the doors of the house opened and a voice rang out: “Praetor Kyle!”
Jordan and Maia both looked up. Descending the stairs was a middle-aged man in a charcoal suit, his blond hair streaked with gray. Jordan, smoothing all expression from his face, turned to him. “Praetor Scott,” he said. “This is Maia Roberts, of the Garroway pack. Maia, this is Praetor Scott. He runs the Praetor Lupus, pretty much.”
“Since the 1800s the Scotts have always run the Praetor,” said the man, glancing at Maia, who inclined her head, a sign of submission. “Jordan, I have to admit, we did not expect you back again so soon. The situation with the vampire in Manhattan, the Daylighter—”
“Is in hand,” Jordan said hastily. “That’s not why we’re here. This concerns something quite different.”
Praetor Scott raised his eyebrows. “Now you’ve piqued my curiosity.”
“It’s a matter of some urgency,” said Maia. “Luke Garroway, our pack’s leader—”
Praetor Scott gave her a sharp look, silencing her. Though he might have been packless, he was an alpha, that much was clear from his bearing. His eyes, under his thick eyebrows, were green-gray; around his throat, under the collar of his shirt, sparkled the bronze pendant of the Praetor, with its imprint of a wolf’s paw. “The Praetor chooses what matters it will regard as urgent,” he said. “Nor are we a hotel, open to uninvited guests. Jordan took a chance in bringing you here, and he knows that. If he were not one of our most promising graduates, I might well send you both away.”
Jordan hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and looked at the ground. A moment later Praetor Scott set his hand on Jordan’s shoulder.
“But,” he said, “you are one of our most promising graduates. And you look exhausted; I can see you were up all night. Come, and we’ll discuss this in my office.”
The office turned out to be down a long and winding hallway, elegantly paneled in dark wood. The house was lively with the sound of voices, and a sign saying HOUSE RULES was pinned to the wall beside a staircase leading up.