City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)(139)

“Sleep? Who needs sleep?” he scoffed, but she saw the tiredness in his face as he went back to sit down by her mother’s bed. Gently he reached to brush a strand of hair away from Jocelyn’s face. Clary turned away, her eyes stinging.

Eric’s van was idling at the curb when she walked out of the hospital’s main exit. The sky arced overhead, the perfect blue of a china bowl, darkening to sapphire over the Hudson River, where the sun was going down. Simon leaned over to pop the door for her, and she scrambled up into the seat beside him. “Thanks.”

“Where to? Back home?” he asked, pulling the van out into the traffic on First.

Clary sighed. “I don’t even know where that is anymore.”

Simon glanced at her sideways. “Feeling sorry for yourself, Fray?” His tone was mocking, but gentle. If she looked past him, she could still see the dark stains on the backseat where Alec had lain, bleeding, across Isabelle’s lap.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She sighed again, tugging on a wayward curl of copper hair. “Everything’s changed. Everything’s different. I wish sometimes it could all go back to the way it was before.”

“I don’t,” said Simon, to her surprise. “Where are we going again? Tell me uptown or downtown at least.”

“To the Institute,” said Clary. “Sorry,” she added, as he executed a terrifically illegal U-turn. The van, turning on two wheels, screeched in protest. “I should have told you that before.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “You haven’t been back yet, right? Not since—”

“No, not since,” said Clary. “Jace called me and told me Alec and Isabelle were okay. Apparently their parents are racing back from Idris, now that someone finally actually told them what’s going on. They’ll be here in a couple of days.”

“Was it weird, hearing from Jace?” asked Simon, his voice carefully neutral. “I mean, since you found out …”

His voice trailed off.

“Yes?” said Clary, her voice sharply edged. “Since I found out what? That he’s a killer transvestite who molests cats?”

“No wonder that cat of his hates everyone.”

“Oh, shut up, Simon,” Clary said crossly. “I know what you mean, and no, it wasn’t weird. Nothing ever happened between us anyway.”

“Nothing?” echoed Simon, disbelief plain in his tone.

“Nothing,” Clary repeated firmly, glancing out the window so that he wouldn’t see the blood staining her cheeks. They were passing a row of restaurants, and she could see Taki’s, brightly lit in the gathering twilight.

They turned the corner just as the sun disappeared behind the rose window of the Institute, flooding the street below with seashell light that only they could see. Simon pulled up in front of the door and killed the engine, jittering the keys in his hand. “Do you want me to go up with you?”

She hesitated. “No. I should do this on my own.”

She saw the look of disappointment flicker across his face, but it vanished quickly. Simon, she thought, had grown up a lot in these past two weeks, just as she had. Which was good, since she wouldn’t have wanted to leave him behind. He was part of her, as much as her drawing talent, the dusty air of Brooklyn, her mother’s laughter, and her own Shadowhunter blood. “All right,” he said. “Are you going to need a ride later?”

She shook her head. “Luke gave me money for a cab. Want to come over tomorrow, though?” she added. “We could watch some Trigun, pop some corn. I could use some couch time.”

He nodded. “That sounds good.” He leaned forward then, and brushed a kiss along her cheekbone. It was a kiss as light as a blown leaf, but she felt a shiver far down in her bones. She looked at him.

“Do you think that it was a coincidence?” she asked.

“Do I think what was a coincidence?”

“That we wound up in Pandemonium the same night that Jace and the others just happened to be there, pursuing a demon? The night before Valentine came for my mother?”

Simon shook his head. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said.

“Neither do I.”

“But I have to admit,” Simon added, “coincidence or not, it turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence.”

“The Fortuitous Occurrences,” said Clary. “Now there’s a band name for you.”

“It’s better than most of the ones we’ve come up with,” Simon admitted.

“You bet.” She jumped down out of the van, slamming the door behind her. She heard him honk as she ran up the path to the door between the slabs of overgrown grass, and waved without turning around.

The interior of the cathedral was cool and dark, and smelled of rain and damp paper. Her footsteps echoed loudly on the stone floor, and she thought of Jace in the church in Brooklyn: There might be a God, Clary, and there might not. Either way, we’re on our own.

In the elevator she stole a look at herself in the mirror as the door clanged shut behind her. Most of her bruises and scrapes had healed to invisibility. She wondered if Jace had ever seen her looking as prim as she did today—she’d dressed for the hospital in a black pleated skirt, pink lip gloss, and a vintage sailor-collared blouse. She thought she looked about eight.