When Clary woke in the morning, Jace was still asleep, curled on his side, his arm outstretched just enough to touch her shoulder. She kissed his cheek and got to her feet. She was about to pad into the bathroom to take a shower when she was overcome by curiosity. She went quietly to the bedroom door and peered out.
The blood on the hallway wall was gone, the plaster unmarked. It was so clean she wondered if the whole thing had been a dream—the blood, the conversation in the kitchen with Sebastian, all of it. She took a step across the corridor, placed her hand against the wall where the bloody handprint had been—
“Good morning.”
She whirled. It was her brother. He had come out of his room soundlessly and was standing in the middle of the hall, regarding her with a crooked smile. He looked freshly showered; damp, his fair hair was the color of silver, almost metallic.
“You planning to wear that all the time?” he asked, eyeing her nightgown.
“No, I was just…” She didn’t want to say she’d been checking to see if there was still blood in the hall. He just looked at her, amused and superior. Clary backed away. “I’m going to get dressed.”
He said something after her, but she didn’t pause to hear what it was, just darted back into Jace’s bedroom and closed the door behind her. A moment later she heard voices in the hallway—Sebastian’s again, and a girl’s, speaking musical Italian. The girl from last night, she thought. The one he’d said was asleep in his room. It was only then that she realized how much she’d suspected he was lying.
But he’d been telling the truth. I’m giving you a chance, he’d said. Can you give me a chance?
Could she? This was Sebastian they were talking about. She mulled it over feverishly while she showered and dressed carefully. The clothes in the wardrobe, having been selected for Jocelyn, were so far from her usual style that it was hard to choose what to wear. She found a pair of jeans—designer, from the price tag still attached—and a dotted silk shirt with a bow at the neck that had a vintage feel she liked. She threw her own velvet jacket on over it and headed back to Jace’s room, but he was gone, and it wasn’t hard to guess where. The rattle of dishes, the sound of laughter, and the smell of cooking floated up from downstairs.
She took the glass stairs two at a time, but paused on the bottom step, looking into the kitchen. Sebastian was leaning against the refrigerator, arms crossed, and Jace was making something in a pan that involved onions and eggs. He was barefoot, his hair messy, his shirt buttoned haphazardly, and the sight of him made her heart turn over. She had never seen him like this, first thing in the morning, still with that warm golden aura of sleep clinging to him, and she felt a piercing sadness that all these firsts were happening with a Jace who wasn’t really her Jace.
Even if he did look happy, eyes shadow-free, laughing as he flipped the eggs in the pan and slid an omelet onto a plate. Sebastian said something to him, and Jace looked over at Clary and smiled. “Scrambled or fried?”
“Scrambled. I didn’t know you could make eggs.” She came down from the steps and over to the kitchen counter. Sun was streaming through the windows—despite the lack of clocks in the house, she guessed it was late morning—and the kitchen glittered in glass and chrome.
“Who can’t make eggs?” Jace wondered aloud.
Clary raised her hand—and at the same time so did Sebastian. She couldn’t help a little jerk of surprise, and put her arm down hastily, but not before Sebastian had seen and grinned. He was always grinning. She wished she could slap it off his face.
She looked away from him and busied herself putting together a breakfast plate from what was on the table—bread, fresh butter, jam, and sliced bacon—the chewy, round kind. There was juice, too, and tea. They ate pretty well here, she thought. Although, if Simon was anything to go by, teenage boys were always hungry. She glanced toward the window—and did a double take. The view was no longer of a canal but of a hill rising in the distance, topped by a castle.
“Where are we now?” she asked.
“Prague,” said Sebastian. “Jace and I have an errand to do here.” He glanced out the window. “We should probably get going soon, in fact.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Can I come with you?”
Sebastian shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?” Clary crossed her arms over her chest. “Is this some manly bonding thing I can’t be a part of? Are you getting matching haircuts?”
Jace handed her a plate with scrambled eggs on it, but he was looking at Sebastian. “Maybe she could come,” he said. “I mean, this particular errand—it’s not dangerous.”
Sebastian’s eyes were like the woods in the Frost poem, dark and deep. They gave nothing away. “Anything can turn dangerous.”
“Well, it’s your decision.” Jace shrugged, reached for a strawberry, popped it into his mouth, and sucked the juice off his fingers. Now that, Clary thought, was a clear and absolute difference between this Jace and hers. Her Jace had a ferocious and all-consuming curiosity about everything. He would never shrug and go along with someone else’s plan. He was like the ocean ceaselessly throwing itself against a rocky shore, and this Jace was… a calm river, shining in the sun.
Because he’s happy?
Clary’s hand tensed on her fork, her knuckles whitening. She hated that little voice in her head. Like the Seelie Queen, it planted doubts where there shouldn’t be doubts, asked questions that had no answer.
“I’m going to get my stuff.” After grabbing another berry off the plate, Jace popped it into his mouth and shot upstairs. Clary craned her head up. The clear glass steps seemed invisible, making it look like he was flying upward, not running.
“You’re not eating your eggs.” It was Sebastian. He had come around the counter—still noiselessly, dammit—and was looking at her, his eyebrows raised. He had the faintest accent, a mixture of the accent of the people who lived in Idris and something more British. She wondered if he’d been hiding it before or if she just hadn’t noticed.
“I don’t actually like eggs,” she confessed.
“But you didn’t want to tell Jace that, because he seemed so pleased to be making you breakfast.”
Since this was accurate, Clary said nothing.
“Funny, isn’t it?” said Sebastian. “The lies good people tell. He’ll probably make you eggs every day for the rest of your life now, and you’ll choke them down because you can’t tell him you don’t like them.”
Clary thought of the Seelie Queen. “Love makes liars of us all?”
“Exactly. Quick study, aren’t you?” He took a step toward her, and an anxious tingle seared her nerves. He was wearing the same cologne Jace wore. She recognized the citrusy black-pepper scent, but on him it smelled different. Wrong, somehow. “We have that in common,” Sebastian said, and began to unbutton his shirt.
She stood up hastily. “What are you doing?”
“Easy there, little sis.” He popped the last button, and his shirt hung open. He smiled lazily. “You’re the magical rune girl, aren’t you?”
Clary nodded slowly.
“I want a strength rune,” he said. “And if you’re the best, I want it from you. You wouldn’t deny your big brother a rune, would you?” His dark eyes raked her. “Besides, you want me to give you a chance.”
“And you want me to give you a chance,” she said. “So I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you a strength rune if you let me come with you on your errand.”
He stripped the shirt the rest of the way off and dropped it onto the counter. “Deal.”
“I don’t have a stele.” She didn’t want to look at him, but it was hard not to. He seemed to be deliberately invading her personal space. His body was much like Jace’s—hard, without any extra ounce of flesh anywhere, the muscles showing clearly under the skin. He was scarred like Jace too, though he was so pale that the white marks stood out less than they did against Jace’s golden skin. On her brother they were like silver pen on white paper.
He drew a stele from his belt and handed it to her. “Use mine.”
“All right,” she said. “Turn around.”
He did. And she swallowed back a gasp. His bare back was striped with ragged scars, one after the other, too even to be random accident.
Whip marks.
“Who did this to you?” she said.
“Who do you think? Our father,” he said. “He used a whip made of demon metal, so no iratze could heal them. They’re meant to remind me.”
“Remind you of what?”
“Of the perils of obedience.”
She touched one. It felt hot under her fingertips, as if newly made, and rough, where the skin around it was smooth. “Don’t you mean ‘disobedience’?”
“I mean what I said.”
“Do they hurt?”
“All the time.” Impatiently he glanced back over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”
“Nothing.” She set the tip of the stele to his shoulder blade, trying to keep her hand steady. Part of her mind raced, thinking how easy it would be to Mark him with something that would damage him, sicken him, twist his insides—but what would happen to Jace if she did? Shaking her hair out of her face, she carefully drew the Fortis rune at the juncture of shoulder blade and back, just where, if he were an angel, he would have wings.
When she was done, he turned and took the stele from her, then shrugged his shirt back on. She didn’t expect a thank-you—and didn’t get one. He rolled his shoulders back as he buttoned the shirt, and grinned. “You are good,” he said, but that was all.
A moment later the steps rattled, and Jace returned, shrugging on a suede jacket. He had clipped on his weapons belt too, and wore fingerless dark gloves.
Clary smiled at him with a warmth she didn’t feel. “Sebastian says I can come with you.”
Jace raised his eyebrows. “Matching haircuts for everyone?”
“I hope not,” said Sebastian. “I look terrible with curls.”
Clary glanced down at herself. “Do I need to change into gear?”
“Not really. This isn’t the sort of errand where we’re expecting to have to fight. But it’s good to be prepared. I’ll get you something from the weapons room,” said Sebastian, and vanished upstairs. Clary cursed herself silently for not having found the weapons room while she was searching. Surely it had something inside that could provide some sort of clue as to what they were planning—
Jace touched the side of her face, and she jumped. She’d nearly forgotten he was there. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Absolutely. I’m going stir-crazy in the house. Besides, you taught me to fight. I figure you’d want me to use it.”
His lips quirked into a devilish grin; he brushed her hair back and murmured something into her ear about using what she’d learned from him. He leaned away as Sebastian joined them, his own jacket on and a weapons belt in his hand. There was a dagger thrust through it, and a seraph blade. He reached out to draw Clary close to him and pulled the belt around her waist, double-looping it and settling it low on her hips. She was too surprised to push him away and he was done before she had the chance; turning away, he moved toward the wall, where the outline of a doorway had appeared, shimmering like a doorway in a dream.
They stepped through it.