“I’ll talk to her,” Isabelle said. She sounded a lot more confident than Simon would have felt in her place. “See you there.”
She clicked off. Simon turned to Jordan, who was lying down across the futon, his head propped against one of the woven throw pillows. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough to gather that we’re going to a party tonight,” said Jordan. “I heard about the Ironworks event. I’m not in the Garroway pack, so I wasn’t invited.”
“I guess you’re coming as my date now.” Simon shoved the phone back into his pocket.
“I’m secure enough in my masculinity to accept that,” said Jordan. “We’d better get you something nice to wear, though,” he called as Simon headed back into his room. “I want you to look pretty.”
***
Years previously, when Long Island City had been a center of industry instead of a trendy neighborhood full of art galleries and coffee shops, the Ironworks was a textile factory.
Now it was an enormous brick shell whose inside had been transformed into a spare but beautiful space. The floor was made up of overlapping squares of brushed steel; slender steel beams arced overhead, wrapped with ropes of tiny white lights. Ornate wrought iron staircases spiraled up to catwalks decorated with hanging plants. A massive cantilevered glass ceiling opened onto a view of the night sky. There was even a terrace outside, built out over the East River, with a spectacular view of the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge, which loomed overhead, stretching from Queens to Manhattan like a spear of tinseled ice.
Luke’s pack had outdone themselves making the place look nice. There were artfully placed huge pewter vases holding long-stemmed ivory flowers, and tables covered in white linen arranged in a circle around a raised stage on which a werewolf string quartet provided classical music. Clary couldn’t help wishing Simon were there; she was pretty sure he’d think Werewolf String Quartet was a good name for a band.
Clary wandered from table to table, arranging things that didn’t need arranging, fiddling with flowers and straightening silverware that wasn’t actually crooked. Only a few of the guests had arrived so far, and none of them were people she knew. Her mother and Luke stood near the door, greeting people and smiling, Luke looking uncomfortable ina suit, and Jocelynradiant in a tailored blue dress.After the events of the pastfewdays, itwas good to see her mother looking happy, though Clary wondered how much of it was real and how much was for show. There was a certain tightness about Jocelyn’s mouth that made Clary worry—was she actually happy, or just smiling through the pain?
Not that Clary didn’t know how she felt. Whatever else was going on, she couldn’t put Jace out of her mind. What were the Silent Brothers doing to him? Was he all right?
Were they going to be able to fix what was wrong with him, to block out the demon influence? She had spent a sleepless night the evening before staring into the darkness of her bedroom and worrying until she felt literally sick.
More than anything else, she wished he was here. She had picked out the dress she was wearing tonight—pale gold and more fitted to her body than anything she usually wore—
with the express hope that Jace would like it; now he wasn’t going to see her in it. That was a shallow thing to worry about, she knew; she’d go around dressed in a barrel for the rest of her life if it meant Jace would get better. Besides, he was always telling her she was beautiful, and he never complained about the fact that she mostly wore jeans and sneakers, but she had thought he would like this.
Standing in front of her mirror tonight, she had almost felt beautiful. Her mother had always said that she herself had been a late bloomer, and Clary, looking at her own reflection, had wondered if the same thing might happen to her. She wasn’t flat as a board anymore—she’d had to go up a bra size this past year—and if she squinted, she thought she could see—yes, those were definitely hips. She had curves. Small ones, but you had to start somewhere.
She’d kept her jewelry simple—very simple.
She put her hand up and touched the Morgenstern ring on its chain around her throat. She had put it on again, for the first time in days, that morning. She felt as if it were a silent gesture of confidence in Jace, a way of signaling her loyalty, whether he knew about it or not. She had decided she would wear it until she saw him again.
“Clarissa Morgenstern?” said a soft voice at her shoulder.
Clary turned in surprise. The voice wasn’t familiar. Standing there was a slim tall girl who looked about twenty. Her skin was milk-pale, threaded with veins the clear green of sap, and her blond hair had the same greenish tint. Her eyes were solid blue, like marbles, and she wore a slip of a blue dress, so thin that Clary thought she had to be freezing.
Memory swam up slowly from the depths.
“Kaelie,” Clary said slowly, recognizing the faerie waitress from Taki’s who had served her and the Lightwoods more than once. A flicker reminded her that there had been some intimation that Kaelie and Jace had once had a fling, but the fact seemed so minor in the face of everything else that she couldn’t bring herself to mind it. “I didn’t realize—do you know Luke?”
“Do not mistake me for a guest at this occasion,” said Kaelie, her thin hand tracing a casually indifferent gesture on the air. “My lady sent me here to find you—not to attend the festivities.” She glanced curiously over her shoulder, her all-blue eyes shining.
“Though I had not realized that your mother was marrying a werewolf.”
Clary raised her eyebrows. “And?”
Kaelie looked her up and down with some amusement. “My lady said you were quite flinty, despite your small size.
In the Court you would be looked down on for having such short stature.”
“We’re not in the Court,” said Clary. “And we’re not in Taki’s, which means you came to me, which means you have five seconds to tell me what the Seelie Queenwants. Idon’t like her much, and I’m not inthemood for her games.”
Kaelie pointed a thin green-nailed finger at Clary’s throat. “My lady said to ask you,” she said, “why you wear the Morgenstern ring. Is it to acknowledge your father?”
Clary’s hand stole to her throat. “It’s for Jace—because Jace gave it to me,” she said before she could help herself, and then cursed herself quietly. It wasn’t smart to tell the Seelie Queen more than you had to.
“But he is not a Morgenstern,” said Kaelie, “but a Herondale, and they have their own ring. A pattern of herons, rather than morning stars. And does that not suit him better, a soul that soars like a bird in flight, rather than falling like Lucifer?”
“Kaelie,” Clary ground out between her teeth. “What does the Seelie Queen want?”
The faerie girl laughed. “Why,” she said, “only to give you this.” She held out something in her hand, a tiny silver bell pendant, with a loop at the end of the handle so that it could be strung on a chain. As Kaelie moved her hand forward, the bell chimed, light and as sweet as rain.
Clary shrank back. “I do not want the gifts of your lady,” she said, “for they come freighted with lies and expectations. I will not owe the Queen anything.”
“It is not a gift,” Kaelie said impatiently. “It is a means of summoning. The Queen forgives you for your earlier stubbornness. She expects there is a time soon in which you will want her help. She is willing to offer it to you, should you choose to ask. Simply ring that bell, and a servant of the Court will come and bring you to her.”
Clary shook her head. “I will not ring it.”
Kaelie shrugged. “Then it should cost you nothing to take it.”
As if in a dream Clary saw her own hand reach out, her fingers hover over the bell.
“You would do anything to save him,” said Kaelie, her voice thin and as sweet as the bell’s ring, “whatever it cost you, whatever you might owe to Hell or Heaven, would you not?”
Remembered voices chimed in Clary’s head. Did you ever stop to wonder what untruths might have been in the tale your mother told you, that served her purpose in telling it? Do you truly think you know each and every secret of your past?
Madame Dorothea told Jace he would fall in love with the wrong person.
He is not beyond saving. But it will be difficult.
The bell clanged as Clary took it, folding it into her palm. Kaelie smiled, her blue eyes shining like glass beads. “A wise choice.”
Clary hesitated. But before she could thrust the bell back at the faerie girl, she heard someone call her name, and turned to see her mother making her way through the crowd toward her. She turned back hastily, but was not surprised to see that Kaelie was gone, having melted away into the crowd like mist burning away in the morning sun.
“Clary,” Jocelyn said, reaching her, “I was looking for you, and then Luke pointed you out, just standing over here by yourself. Is everything okay?”