Clary didn’t know how long it was before Jace came out of the bathroom, toweling off his wet hair. She looked up at him from where she was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He was sliding a blue cotton T-shirt on over smooth golden skin marked with white scars.
She darted her eyes away as he came across the room and sat down next to her on the bed, smelling strongly of soap.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Now she did look at him, in surprise. She had wondered if he were capable of being sorry, in his current state. His expression was grave, a little curious, but not insincere.
“Wow,” she said. “That cold shower must have been brutal.”
His lips quirked up at the side, but his expression grew serious again almost immediately. He put his hand under her chin. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. It’s just—ten weeks ago, just holding each other would have been unthinkable.”
“I know.”
He cupped her face in his hands, his long fingers cool against her cheeks, tilting her face up. He was looking down at her, and everything about him was so familiar—the pale gold irises of his eyes, the scar on his cheek, the full lower lip, the slight chip in his tooth that saved his looks from being so perfect that they were annoying—and yet somehow it was like coming back to a house she had lived in as a child, and knowing that though the exterior might look the same, a different family lived there now. “I never cared,” he said. “I wanted you anyway. I always wanted you. Nothing mattered to me but you. Not ever.”
Clary swallowed. Her stomach fluttered, not just with the usual butterflies she felt around Jace but with real uneasiness.
“But Jace. That’s not true. You cared about your family. And—I always thought you were proud of being Nephilim. One of the angels.”
“Proud?” he said. “To be half angel, half human—you’re always conscious of your own inadequacy. You’re not an angel. You’re not beloved of Heaven. Raziel doesn’t care about us. We can’t even pray to him. We pray to nothing. We pray for nothing. Remember when I told you I thought I had demon blood, because it explained why I felt the way I did about you? It was a relief in a way, thinking that. I’ve never been an angel, never even close. Well,” he added. “Maybe the fallen kind.”
“Fallen angels are demons.”
“I don’t want to be Nephilim,” said Jace. “I want to be something else. Stronger, faster, better than human. But different. Not subservient to the Laws of an angel who couldn’t care less about us. Free.” He ran his hand through a curl of her hair. “I’m happy now, Clary. Doesn’t that make a difference?”
“I thought we were happy together,” Clary said.
“I’ve always been happy with you,” he said. “But I never thought I deserved it.”
“And now you do?”
“And now that feeling’s gone,” he said. “All I know is that I love you. And for the first time, that’s good enough.”
She closed her eyes. A moment later he was kissing her again, very softly this time, his mouth tracing the shape of hers. She felt herself go pliant under his hands. She sensed it as his breathing quickened and her own pulse jumped. His hands stroked down through her hair, over her back, to her waist. His touch was comforting—the feel of his heartbeat against hers like familiar music—and if the key was slightly different, with her eyes closed, she couldn’t tell. Their blood was the same, under the skin, she thought, as the Seelie Queen had said; her heart raced when his did, had nearly stopped when his had. If she had to do it all again, she thought, under the pitiless gaze of Raziel, she would have done the same thing.
This time he drew back, letting his fingers linger on her cheek, her lips. “I want what you want,” he said. “Whenever you want it.”
Clary felt a shudder go down her spine. The words were simple, but there was a dangerous and seductive invitation to the fall of his voice: Whatever you want, whenever you want it. His hand smoothed down her hair, to her back, lingering at her waist. She swallowed. There was only so much that she was going to be able to hold back.
“Read to me,” she said suddenly.
He blinked down at her. “What?”
She was looking past him, at the books on his nightstand. “It’s a lot to process,” she said. “What Sebastian said, what happened last night, everything. I need to sleep, but I’m too keyed up. When I was young and I couldn’t sleep, my mother used to read to me to relax me.”
“And I remind you of your mother now? I have got to look into a manlier cologne.”
“No, it’s just—I thought it would be nice.”
He scooted back against the pillows, reaching for the stack of books by the bed. “Anything particular you want to hear?” With a flourish he picked up the book on top of the stack. It looked old, leather-bound, the title stamped in gold on the front. A Tale of Two Cities. “Dickens is always promising…”
“I’ve read that before. For school,” Clary recalled. She scooted up on the pillows beside Jace. “But I don’t remember any of it, so I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”
“Excellent. I’ve been told I have a lovely, melodic reading voice.” He flipped the book open to the front page, where the title was printed in ornate script. Across from it was a long dedication, the ink faded now and barely legible, though Clary could make out the signature: With hope at last, William Herondale.
“Some ancestor of yours,” Clary said, brushing her finger against the page.
“Yes. Odd that Valentine had it. My father must have given it to him.” Jace opened to a random page and began to read:
“He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. ‘Don’t be afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life might have been.’
“‘No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.’”
“Oh, I do remember this story now,” Clary said. “Love triangle. She picks the boring guy.”
Jace chuckled softly. “Boring to you. Who can say what got Victorian ladies hot beneath the petticoats?”
“It’s true, you know.”
“What, about the petticoats?”
“No. That you have a lovely reading voice.” Clary turned her face against his shoulder. It was times like this, more than when he was kissing her, that hurt—times when he could have been her Jace. As long as she kept her eyes closed.
“All that, and abs of steel,” Jace said, turning another page. “What more could you ask for?”