City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)(99)

“Why do you have to get the Cup?” He sounded alarmed.

“Because I’m the only one who can,” she said. “Pick us up at the corner as soon as you can.”

He muttered something nearly inaudible, then: “Fine.”

She opened her eyes. The world swam before her in a blur of tears. “Thanks, Simon,” she said. “You’re a—”

But he had hung up.


“It occurs to me,” said Hodge, “that the dilemmas of power are always the same.”

Clary glanced at him sideways. “What do you mean?”

She sat on the window seat in the library, Hodge in his chair with Hugo on the armrest. The remains of breakfast—sticky jam, toast crumbs, and smears of butter—clung to a stack of plates on the low table that no one had seemed inclined to clear away. After breakfast they had scattered to prepare themselves, and Clary had been the first one back. This was hardly surprising, considering that all she had to do was pull on jeans and a shirt and run a brush through her hair, while everyone else had to arm themselves heavily. Having lost Jace’s dagger in the hotel, the only remotely supernatural object she had on her was the witchlight stone in her pocket.

“I was thinking of your Simon,” Hodge said, “and of Alec and Jace, among others.”

She glanced out the window. It was raining, thick fat drops spattering against the panes. The sky was an impenetrable gray. “What do they have to do with each other?”

“Where there is feeling that is not requited,” said Hodge, “there is an imbalance of power. It is an imbalance that is easy to exploit, but it is not a wise course. Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side.”

“Simon doesn’t hate me.”

“He might grow to, over time, if he felt you were using him.” Hodge held up a hand. “I know you do not intend to, and in some cases necessity trumps nicety of feeling. But the situation has put me in mind of another. Do you still have that photograph I gave you?”

Clary shook her head. “Not on me. It’s back in my room. I could go get it—”

“No.” Hodge stroked Hugo’s ebony feathers. “When your mother was young, she had a best friend, just as you have Simon. They were as close as siblings. In fact, they were often mistaken for brother and sister. As they grew older, it became clear to everyone around them that he was in love with her, but she never saw it. She always called him a ‘friend.’”

Clary stared at Hodge. “Do you mean Luke?”

“Yes,” said Hodge. “Lucian always thought he and Jocelyn would be together. When she met and loved Valentine, he could not bear it. After they were married, he left the Circle, disappeared—and let us all think that he was dead.”

“He never said—never even hinted at anything like that,” Clary said. “All these years, he could have asked her—”

“He knew what the answer would be,” said Hodge, looking past her toward the rain-spattered skylight. “Lucian was never the sort of man who would have deluded himself. No, he contented himself with being near her—assuming, perhaps, that over time her feelings might change.”

“But if he loved her, why did he tell those men he didn’t care what happened to her? Why did he refuse to let them tell him where she was?”

“As I said before, where there is love, there is also hatred,” said Hodge. “She hurt him badly all those years ago. She turned her back on him. And yet he has played her faithful lapdog ever since, never remonstrating, never accusing, never confronting her with his feelings. Perhaps he saw an opportunity to turn the tables. To hurt her as he’d been hurt.”

“Luke wouldn’t do that.” But Clary was remembering his icy tone as he told her not to ask him for favors. She saw the hard look in his eyes as he faced Valentine’s men. That wasn’t the Luke she’d known, the Luke she’d grown up with. That Luke would never have wanted to punish her mother for not loving him enough or in the right way. “But she did love him,” Clary said, speaking aloud without realizing it. “It just wasn’t the same way he loved her. Isn’t that enough?”

“Perhaps he didn’t think so.”

“What will happen after we get the Cup?” she said. “How will we reach Valentine to let him know we have it?”

“Hugo will find him.”

The rain smashed against the windows. Clary shivered. “I’m going to get a jacket,” she said, slipping off the window seat.

She found her green and pink hoodie stuffed down at the bottom of her backpack. When she pulled it out, she heard something crinkle. It was the photograph of the Circle, her mother and Valentine. She looked at it for a long moment before slipping it back into the bag.

When she returned to the library, the others were all gathered there: Hodge sitting watchfully on the desk with Hugo on his shoulder, Jace all in black, Isabelle with her demon-stomping boots and gold whip, and Alec with a quiver of arrows strapped across his shoulder and a leather bracer sheathing his right arm from wrist to elbow. Everyone but Hodge was covered in freshly applied Marks, every inch of bare skin inked with swirling patterns. Jace had his left sleeve pulled up, chin on his shoulder, and was frowning as he scrawled an octagonal Mark on the skin of his upper arm.