City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)(132)

Clary stumbled away from him, toward the door that led to the landing. Maybe she could run for help, for Alaric—

Then Jace was in front of her, blocking her way to the door. She had forgotten how fast he moved, soft as a cat, quick as water. “Are you insane?” he hissed. “They’ve broken down the front door. This place will be full of Forsaken.”

She shoved at him. “Let me out—”

Jace held her back with a grip like iron. “So they can tear you apart? Not a chance.”

A loud clash of metal sounded behind her. Clary pulled away from Jace and saw that Valentine had struck at Luke, who had met his blow with an ear-shattering parry. Their blades ground apart, and now they were moving across the floor in a blur of feints and slashes. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “They’re going to kill each other.”

Jace’s eyes were nearly black. “You don’t understand,” he said. “This is how it’s done—” He broke off and sucked in a breath as Luke slipped past Valentine’s guard, catching him a blow across the shoulder. Blood flowed freely, staining the cloth of his white shirt.

Valentine threw back his head and laughed. “A true hit,” he said. “I hardly thought you had it in you, Lucian.”

Luke stood very straight, the knife blocking his face from Clary’s view. “You taught me that move yourself.”

“But that was years ago,” said Valentine in a voice like raw silk, “and since then, you’ve hardly had need of a knife, have you? Not when you have claws and fangs at your disposal.”

“All the better to tear your heart out with.”

Valentine shook his head. “You tore my heart out years ago,” he said, and even Clary could not tell if the sorrow in his voice was real or feigned. “When you betrayed and deserted me.” Luke struck at him again, but Valentine was moving swiftly back across the floor. For a big man he moved surprisingly lightly. “It was you who turned my wife against her own kind. You came to her when she was weakest, with your piteousness, your helpless need. I was distant and she thought you loved her. She was a fool.”

Jace was taut as a wire beside Clary. She could feel his tension, like the sparks given off by a downed electrical cable. “That’s your mother Valentine’s talking about,” she said.

“She abandoned me,” said Jace. “Some mother.”

“She thought you were dead. You want to know how I know that? Because she kept a box in her bedroom. It had your initials on it. J. C.”

“So she had a box,” said Jace. “Lots of people have boxes. They keep things in them. It’s a growing trend, I hear.”

“It had a lock of your hair in it. Baby hair. And a photograph, maybe two. She used to take it out every year and cry over it. Awful brokenhearted crying—”

Jace’s hand clenched at his side. “Stop it,” he said between his teeth.

“Stop what? Telling you the truth? She thought you had died—she’d never have left you if she’d known you were alive. You thought your father was dead—”

“I saw him die! Or I thought I did. I didn’t just—just hear about it and choose to believe it!”

“She found your burned bones,” said Clary quietly. “In the ruins of her house. Along with the bones of her mother and father.”

At last Jace looked at her. She saw the disbelief plain in his eyes, and around his eyes, the strain of maintaining that disbelief. She could see, almost as if she saw through a glamour, the fragile construct of his faith in his father that he wore like a transparent armor, protecting him from the truth. Somewhere, she thought, there was a chink in that armor; somewhere, if she could find the right words, it could be breached. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I didn’t die—there weren’t any bones.”

“There were.”

“So it was a glamour,” he said roughly.

“Ask your father what happened to his mother- and father-in-law,” said Clary. She reached to touch his hand. “Ask him if that was a glamour, too—”

“Shut up!” Jace’s control cracked and he turned on her, livid. Clary saw Luke glance toward them, startled by the noise, and in that moment of distraction Valentine dove under his guard and, with a single forward thrust, drove the blade of his sword into Luke’s chest, just below his collarbone.

Luke’s eyes flew open as if in astonishment rather than pain. Valentine jerked his hand back, and the blade slid back, stained red to the hilt. With a sharp laugh Valentine struck again, this time knocking the weapon from Luke’s hand. It hit the floor with a hollow clang and Valentine kicked it hard, sending it skittering under the table as Luke collapsed.

Valentine raised the black sword over Luke’s prone body, ready to deliver the killing stroke. Inlaid silvery stars gleamed along the blade’s length and Clary thought, frozen in a moment of horror, How could anything so deadly be so beautiful?

Jace, as if knowing what Clary was going to do before she did it, whirled on her. “Clary—”

The frozen moment passed. Clary twisted away from Jace, ducking his reaching hands, and raced across the stone floor to Luke. He was on the ground, supporting himself with one arm; Clary threw herself on him just as Valentine’s sword drove downward.

She saw Valentine’s eyes as the sword hurtled toward her; it seemed like eons, though it could only have been a split second. She saw that he could stop the blow if he wanted. Saw that he knew it might well strike her if he didn’t. Saw that he was going to do it anyway.