“I’d never give up on you,” she said. “Never. What I feel about you—” She stumbled over the words. “It’s the most important thing I’ve ever felt.”
Dammit, she thought. That sounded completely stupid. But Jace didn’t seem to think so; he smiled wistfully and said, “‘L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.’”
“Is that Latin?”
“Italian,” he said. “Dante.”
She ran her fingertips over his lips, and he shivered. “I don’t speak Italian,” she said, very softly.
“It means,” he said, “that love is the most powerful force in the world. That love can do anything.”
She drew her hand out of his, aware as she did that he was watching her through half-lidded eyes. She locked both hands around the back of his neck, leaned forward, and touched his lips with hers—not a kiss this time, just a brush of lips against each other. It was enough; she felt his pulse speed up, and he leaned forward, trying to capture her mouth with his, but she shook her head, shaking her hair around them like a curtain that would hide them from the eyes of everyone else in the park. “If you’re tired, we could go back to the Institute,” she said in a half whisper. “Take a nap. We haven’t slept together in the same bed since—since Idris.”
Their gazes locked, and she knew he was remembering the same thing she was. The pale light filtering in through the window of Amatis’s small spare bedroom, the desperation in his voice. I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life. That whole night, lying side by side, only their hands touching.
They had touched much more since that night, but had never spent the night together. He knew she was offering him more than a nap in one of the Institute’s unused bedrooms, too. She was sure he could see it in her eyes— even if she herself wasn’t exactly sure how much she was offering. But it didn’t matter. Jace would never ask her for anything she didn’t want to give. wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life. That whole night, lying side by side, only their hands touching.
They had touched much more since that night, but had never spent the night together. He knew she was offering him more than a nap in one of the Institute’s unused bedrooms, too. She was sure he could see it in her eyes— even if she herself wasn’t exactly sure how much she was offering. But it didn’t matter. Jace would never ask her for anything she didn’t want to give.
“I want to.” The heat she saw in his eyes, the ragged edge to his voice, told her he wasn’t lying. “But—we can’t.”
He took her wrists firmly, and drew them down, holding their hands between them, making a barrier.
Clary’s eyes widened. “Why not?”
He took a deep breath. “We came here to train, and we should train. If we just spend all the time we’re supposed to be training making out instead, they’ll quit letting me help train you at all.”
“Aren’t they supposed to be hiring someone else to train me full-time anyway?”
“Yes,” he said, getting up and pulling her to her feet along with him, “and I’m worried that if you get into the habit of making out with your instructors, you’ll wind up making out with him, too.”
“Don’t be sexist. They could find me a female instructor.”
“In that case you have my permission to make out with her, as long as I can watch.”
“Nice.” Clary grinned, bending down to fold up the blanket they’d brought to sit on.
“You’re just worried they’ll hire a male instructor and he’ll be hotter than you.”
Jace’s eyebrows went up. “Hotter than me?”
“It could happen,” Clary said. “You know, theoretically.”
“Theoretically the planet could suddenly crack in half, leaving me on one side and you on the other side, forever and tragically parted, but I’m not worried about that, either. Some things,” Jace said, with his customary crooked smile, “are just too unlikely to dwell upon.”
He held out his hand; she took it, and together they crossed the meadow, heading for a copse of trees at the edge of the East Meadow that only Shadowhunters seemed to know about. Clary suspected it was glamoured, since she and Jace trained there fairly often and no one had ever interrupted them there except Isabelle or Maryse.
Central Park in autumn was a riot of color. The trees lining the meadow had put on their brightest colors and circled the green in blazing gold, red, copper, and russet orange. It was a beautiful day to take a romantic walk through the park and kiss on one of the stone bridges. But that wasn’t going to happen. Obviously, as far as Jace was concerned, the park was an outside extension of the Institute’s training room, and they were there to run Clary through various exercises involving terrain navigation, escape and evasion techniques, and killing things with her bare hands.
Normally she would have been excited to learn how to kill things with her bare hands.
But there was still something bothering her about Jace. She couldn’t rid herself of the nagging feeling that something was seriously wrong. If only there were a rune, she thought, that would make him tell her what he was really feeling. But she would never create a rune like that, she reminded herself hastily. It would be unethical to use her power to try to control someone else. And besides, since she’d created the binding rune in Idris, her power had lain seemingly dormant.
She had felt no urge to draw old runes, nor had she had any visions of new runes to create. Maryse had told her that they would be trying to bring in a specialist in runes to tutor her, once training really got underway, but so far that hadn’t materialized. Not that she minded, really. She had to admit she wasn’t sure she would be entirely sorry if her power had vanished forever.
“There are going to be times when you encounter a demon and you don’t have a fighting weapon,” Jace was saying as they passed under a row of trees laden with low-hanging leaves whose colors ran the gamut from green to brilliant gold. “At that point, you can’t panic. First, you have to remember that anything can be a weapon. A tree branch, a handful of coins—they make great brass knuckles—a shoe, anything. And second, keep in mind that you are a weapon. In theory, when you’re done with training, you should be able to kick a hole in a wall or knock out a moose with a single punch.”
“I would never hit a moose,” said Clary. “They’re endangered.”
Jace smiled slightly, and swung to face her. They had reached the copse, a small, cleared area in the center of a stand of trees. There were runes carved into the trunks of the trees that surrounded them, marking it as a Shadowhunter place.
“There’s an ancient fighting style called Muay Thai,” he said. “Have you heard of it?”
She shook her head. The sun was bright and steady, and she was almost too hot in her track pants and warm-up jacket. Jace took off his jacket and turned back to her, flexing his slim pianist’s hands. His eyes were intensely gold in the autumn light. Marks for speed, agility, and strength trailed like a pattern of vines from his wrists up and over the swell of each bicep, disappearing under the sleeves of his T-shirt. She wondered why he’d bothered Marking himself up as if she were a foe to be reckoned with.
“I heard a rumor that the new instructor we’re getting next week is a master of Muay Thai,” he said. “And sambo, lethwei, tomoi, krav maga, jujitsu, and another one that frankly I don’t remember the name of, but it involves killing people with small sticks or something. My point is, he or she isn’t going to be used to working with someone your age who’s as inexperienced as you are, so if we teach you a few of the basics, I’m hoping it’ll make them feel a little more generously toward you.” He reached out to put his hands on her hips. “Now turn and face me.”
Clary did as instructed. Facing each other like this, her head came to the bottom of his chin. She rested her hands lightly on his biceps.
“Muay Thai is called ‘the art of eight limbs.’ That’s because you use not just your fists and feet as strike points, but also your knees and elbows. First you want to pull your opponent in, then pummel him with every one of your strike points until he or she collapses.”
“And that works on demons?” Clary raised her eyebrows.
“The smaller ones.” Jace moved closer to her. “Okay. Reach your hand around and grip the back of my neck.”
It was just possible to do as he instructed without going up on her toes. Not for the first time, Clary cursed the fact that she was so short.
“Now you raise your other hand and do the same thing again, so your hands are looped around the back of my neck.”