City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(10)

An uneasy flicker passed across Isabelle’s face. “Well … you mean, you don’t remember what happened in the garden?” She tugged nervously at the crochet trim that bordered the chair’s upholstery. “The Forsaken attacked us. There were a lot of them, and the hellmist made it hard to fight them. Magnus opened up the Portal, and we were all running into it when I saw you coming toward us. You tripped over—over Madeleine. And there was a Forsaken just behind you; you must not have seen it, but Jace did. He tried to get to you, but it was too late. The Forsaken stuck its knife into you. You bled—a lot. And Jace killed the Forsaken and picked you up and dragged you through the Portal with him,” she finished, speaking so rapidly that her words blurred together and Simon had to strain to catch them. “And we were already on the other side, and let me tell you, everyone was pretty surprised when Jace came through with you bleeding all over him. The Consul wasn’t at all pleased.”

Simon’s mouth was dry. “The Forsaken stuck its knife into me?” It seemed impossible. But then, he had healed before, after Valentine had cut his throat. Still, he at least ought to remember. Shaking his head, he looked down at himself. “Where?”

“I’ll show you.” Much to his surprise, a moment later Isabelle was seated on the bed beside him, her cool hands on his midriff. She pushed his T-shirt up, baring a strip of pale stomach, bisected by a thin red line. It was barely a scar. “Here,” she said, her fingers gliding over it. “Is there any pain?”

“N-no.” The first time Simon had ever seen Isabelle, he’d found her so striking, so alight with life and vitality and energy, he’d thought he’d finally found a girl who burned bright enough to blot out the image of Clary that always seemed to be printed on the inside of his eyelids. It was right around the time she’d gotten him turned into a rat at Magnus Bane’s loft party that he’d realized maybe Isabelle burned a little too bright for an ordinary guy like him. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“But my eyes do,” said a coolly amused voice from the doorway. Jace. He had come in so quietly that even Simon hadn’t heard him; closing the door behind him, he grinned as Isabelle pulled Simon’s shirt down. “Molesting the vampire while he’s too weak to fight back, Iz?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure that violates at least one of the Accords.”

“I’m just showing him where he got stabbed,” Isabelle protested, but she scooted back to her chair with a certain amount of haste. “What’s going on downstairs?” she asked. “Is everyone still freaking out?”

The smile left Jace’s face. “Maryse has gone up to the Gard with Patrick,” he said. “The Clave’s in session and Malachi thought it would be better if she … explained … in person.”

Malachi. Patrick. Gard. The unfamiliar names whirled through Simon’s head. “Explained what?”

Isabelle and Jace exchanged a look. “Explained you,” Jace said finally. “Explained why we brought a vampire with us to Alicante, which is, by the way, expressly against the Law.”

“To Alicante? We’re in Alicante?” A wave of blank panic washed over Simon, quickly replaced by a pain that shot through his midsection. He doubled over, gasping.

“Simon!” Isabelle reached out her hand, alarm in her dark eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Go away, Isabelle.” Simon, his hands fisted against his stomach, looked up at Jace, pleading in his voice. “Make her go.”

Isabelle recoiled, a hurt look on her face. “Fine. I’ll go. You don’t have to tell me twice.” She flounced to her feet and out of the room, banging the door behind her.

Jace turned to Simon, his amber eyes expressionless. “What’s going on? I thought you were healing.”

Simon threw up a hand to ward the other boy off. A metallic taste burned in the back of his throat. “It’s not Isabelle,” he ground out. “I’m not hurt—I’m just … hungry.” He felt his cheeks burn. “I lost blood, so—I need to replace it.”

“Of course,” Jace said, in the tone of someone who’s just been enlightened by an interesting, if not particularly necessary, scientific fact. The faint concern left his expression, to be replaced by something that looked to Simon like amused contempt. It struck a chord of fury inside him, and if he hadn’t been so debilitated by pain, he would have flung himself off the bed and onto the other boy in a rage. As it was, all he could do was gasp, “Screw you, Wayland.”

“Wayland, is it?” The amused look didn’t leave Jace’s face, but his hands went to his throat and began to unzip his jacket.

“No!” Simon shrank back on the bed. “I don’t care how hungry I am. I’m not … drinking your blood … again.”

Jace’s mouth twisted. “Like I’d let you.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and drew out a glass flask. It was half-full of a thin red-brown liquid. “I thought you might need this,” he said. “I squeezed the juice out of a few pounds of raw meat in the kitchen. It was the best I could do.”

Simon took the flask from Jace with hands that were shaking so badly that the other boy had to unscrew the top for him. The liquid inside was foul—too thin and salty to be proper blood, and with that faint unpleasant taste that Simon knew meant the meat had been a few days old.