City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(106)

“Yeah.”

“They’ll agree,” said Clary. “They have to.” She hugged her knees. “They’d never pick Valentine. No one would.”

“Glad to see your idealism hasn’t been damaged,” said Simon, and though his voice was light, Clary heard another voice through it. Jace’s, saying he wasn’t an idealist, and she shivered, despite the coat she was wearing.

“Simon?” she said. “I have a stupid question.”

“What is it?”

“Did you sleep with Isabelle?”

Simon made a choking sound. Clary swiveled slowly around to look at him.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” he said, recovering his poise with apparent effort. “Are you serious?”

“Well, you were gone all night.”

Simon was silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “I’m not sure it’s your business, but no.”

“Well,” said Clary, after a judicious pause, “I guess you wouldn’t have taken advantage of her when she’s so grief-stricken and all.”

Simon snorted. “If you ever meet the man who could take advantage of Isabelle, you’ll have to let me know. I’d like to shake his hand. Or run away from him very fast, I’m not sure which.”

“So you’re not dating Isabelle.”

“Clary,” Simon said, “why are you asking me about Isabelle? Don’t you want to talk about your mom? Or about Jace? Izzy told me that he left. I know how you must be feeling.”

“No,” Clary said. “No, I don’t think you do.”

“You’re not the only person who’s ever felt abandoned.” There was an edge of impatience to Simon’s voice. “I guess I just thought—I mean, I’ve never seen you so angry. And at your mom. I thought you missed her.”

“Of course I missed her!” Clary said, realizing even as she said it how the scene in the kitchen must have looked. Especially to her mother. She pushed the thought away. “It’s just that I’ve been so focused on rescuing her—saving her from Valentine, then figuring out a way to cure her—that I never even stopped to think about how angry I was that she lied to me all these years. That she kept all of this from me, kept the truth from me. Never let me know who I really was.”

“But that’s not what you said when she walked into the room,” said Simon quietly. “You said, ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me I had a brother?’”

“I know.” Clary yanked a blade of grass out of the dirt, worrying it between her fingers. “I guess I can’t help thinking that if I’d known the truth, I wouldn’t have met Jace the way I did. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him.”

Simon was silent for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before.”

“That I love him?” She laughed, but it sounded dreary even to her ears. “Seems useless to pretend like I don’t, at this point. Maybe it doesn’t matter. I probably won’t ever see him again, anyway.”

“He’ll come back.”

“Maybe.”

“He’ll come back,” Simon said again. “For you.”

“I don’t know.” Clary shook her head. It was getting colder as the sun dipped to touch the edge of the horizon. She narrowed her eyes, leaning forward, staring. “Simon. Look.”

He followed her gaze. Beyond the wards, at the North Gate of the city, hundreds of dark figures were gathering, some huddled together, some standing apart: the Downworlders Luke had called to the city’s aid, waiting patiently for word from the Clave to let them in. A shiver sizzled down Clary’s spine. She was poised not just on the crest of this hill, looking down over a steep drop to the city below, but at the edge of a crisis, an event that would change the workings of the whole Shadowhunting world.

“They’re here,” Simon said, half to himself. “I wonder if that means the Clave’s decided?”

“I hope so.” The grass blade Clary had been worrying at was a mangled green mess; she tossed it aside and yanked up another one. “I don’t know what I’ll do if they decide to give in to Valentine. Maybe I can create a Portal that’ll take us all away to somewhere Valentine will never find us. A deserted island, or something.”

“Okay, I have a stupid question myself,” Simon said. “You can create new runes, right? Why can’t you just create one to destroy every demon in the world? Or kill Valentine?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Clary said. “I can only create runes I can visualize. The whole image has to come into my head, like a picture. When I try to visualize kill Valentine or rule the world or something, I don’t get any images. Just white noise.”

“But where do the images of the runes come from, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Clary said. “All the runes the Shadowhunters know come from the Gray Book. That’s why they can only be put on Nephilim; that’s what they’re for. But there are other, older runes. Magnus told me that. Like the Mark of Cain. It was a protection Mark, but not one from the Gray Book. So when I think of these runes, like the Fearless rune, I don’t know if it’s something I’m inventing, or something I’m remembering—runes older than Shadowhunters. Runes as old as angels themselves.” She thought of the rune Ithuriel had showed her, the one as simple as a knot. Had it come from her own mind, or the angel’s? Or was it just something that had always existed, like the sea or the sky? The thought made her shiver.