City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)(92)

“Weapons, mostly,” he said, “which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you. Books. I read a lot on my own.”

“You didn’t go to school?”

“No,” he said, and now he spoke slowly, almost as if they were approaching a topic he didn’t want to discuss.

“But your friends—”

“I didn’t have friends,” he said. “Besides my father. He was all I needed.”

She stared at him. “No friends at all?”

He met her look steadily. “The first time I saw Alec,” he said, “when I was ten years old, that was the first time I’d ever met another child my own age. The first time I had a friend.”

She dropped her gaze. Now an image was forming, unwelcome, in her head: She thought of Alec, the way he had looked at her. He wouldn’t say that.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Jace said, as if guessing her thoughts, though it hadn’t been him she’d been feeling sorry for. “He gave me the best education, the best training. He took me all over the world. London. Saint Petersburg. Egypt. We used to love to travel.” His eyes were dark. “I haven’t been anywhere since he died. Nowhere but New York.”

“You’re lucky,” Clary said. “I’ve never been outside this state in my life. My mom wouldn’t even let me go on field trips to D.C. I guess I know why now,” she added ruefully.

“She was afraid you’d freak out? Start seeing demons in the White House?”

She nibbled a piece of chocolate. “There are demons in the White House?”

“I was kidding,” said Jace. “I think.” He shrugged philosophically. “I’m sure someone would have mentioned it.”

“I think she just didn’t want me to get too far away from her. My mom, I mean. After my dad died, she changed a lot.” Luke’s voice echoed in her mind. You’ve never been the same since it happened, but Clary isn’t Jonathan.

Jace cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you remember your father?”

She shook her head. “No. He died before I was born.”

“You’re lucky,” he said. “That way you don’t miss him.”

From anyone else it would have been an appalling thing to say, but there was no bitterness in his voice for a change, only an ache of loneliness for his own father. “Does it go away?” she asked. “Missing him, I mean?”

He looked at her obliquely, but didn’t answer. “Are you thinking of your mother?”

No. She wouldn’t think of her mother that way. “Of Luke, actually.”

“Not that that’s actually his name.” He took a thoughtful bite of apple and said, “I’ve been thinking about him. Something about his behavior doesn’t add up—”

“He’s a coward.” Clary’s voice was bitter. “You heard him. He won’t go against Valentine. Not even for my mother.”

“But that’s exactly—” A long clanging reverberation interrupted him. Somewhere, a bell was tolling. “Midnight,” said Jace, setting the knife down. He got to his feet, holding his hand out to pull her up beside him. His fingers were slightly sticky with apple juice. “Now, watch.”

His gaze was fixed on the green shrub they’d been sitting beside, with its dozens of shiny closed buds. She started to ask him what she was supposed to be looking at, but he held up a hand to forestall her. His eyes were shining. “Wait,” he said.

The leaves on the shrub hung still and motionless. Suddenly one of the tightly closed buds began to quiver and tremble. It swelled to twice its size and burst open. It was like watching a speeded-up film of a flower blooming: the delicate green sepals opening outward, releasing the clustered petals inside. They were dusted with pale gold pollen as light as talcum.

“Oh!” said Clary, and looked up to find Jace watching her. “Do they bloom every night?”

“Only at midnight,” he said. “Happy birthday, Clarissa Fray.”

She was oddly touched. “Thank you.”

“I have something for you,” he said. He dug into his pocket and brought out something, which he pressed into her hand. It was a gray stone, slightly uneven, worn to smoothness in spots.

“Huh,” said Clary, turning it over in her fingers. “You know, when most girls say they want a big rock, they don’t mean, you know, literally a big rock.”

“Very amusing, my sarcastic friend. It’s not a rock, precisely. All Shadowhunters have a witchlight rune-stone.”

“Oh.” She looked at it with renewed interest, closing her fingers around it as she’d seen Jace do in the cellar. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see a glint of light peeking out through her fingers.

“It will bring you light,” said Jace, “even among the darkest shadows of this world and others.”

She slipped it into her pocket. “Well, thanks. It was nice of you to give me anything.” The tension between them seemed to press down on her like humid air. “Better than a bath in spaghetti any day.”

He said darkly, “If you share that little bit of personal information with anyone, I may have to kill you.”

“Well, when I was five, I wanted my mother to let me go around and around inside the dryer with the clothes,” Clary said. “The difference is, she didn’t let me.”