City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(129)

“I can feel it,” he said. “Like a burn.”

“I don’t know what’ll happen,” she whispered. “I don’t know what long-term side effects it’ll have.”

With a twisted half smile, he raised his hand to touch her cheek. “Let’s hope we get the chance to find out.”





19

PENIEL


MAIA WAS SILENT MOST OF THE WAY TO THE FOREST, KEEPING her head down and glancing from side to side only occasionally, her nose wrinkled in concentration. Simon wondered if she was smelling their way, and he decided that although that might be a little weird, it certainly counted as a useful talent. He also found that he didn’t have to hurry to keep up with her, no matter how fast she moved. Even when they reached the beaten-down path that led into the forest and Maia started to run—swiftly, quietly, and staying low to the ground—he had no trouble matching her pace. It was one thing about being a vampire that he could honestly say he enjoyed.

It was over too soon; the woods thickened and they were running among the trees, over scuffed, thick-rooted ground dense with fallen leaves. The branches overhead made lacelike patterns against the starlit sky. They emerged from the trees in a clearing strewn with large boulders that gleamed like square white teeth. There were heaped piles of leaves here and there, as if someone had been over the place with a gigantic rake.

“Raphael!” Maia had cupped her hands around her mouth and was calling out in a voice loud enough to startle the birds out of the treetops high overhead. “Raphael, show yourself!”

Silence. Then the shadows rustled; there was a soft pattering sound, like rain hitting a tin roof. The piled leaves on the ground blew up into the air in tiny cyclones. Simon heard Maia cough; she had her hands up, as if to brush the leaves away from her face, her eyes.

As suddenly as the wind had come up, it settled. Raphael stood there, only a few feet from Simon. Surrounding him was a group of vampires, pale and still as trees in the moonlight. Their expressions were cold, stripped down to a bare hostility. He recognized some of them from the Hotel Dumort: the petite Lily and the blond Jacob, his eyes as narrow as knives. But just as many of them he had never seen before.

Raphael stepped forward. His skin was sallow, his eyes ringed with black shadow, but he smiled when he saw Simon.

“Daylighter,” he breathed. “You came.”

“I came,” Simon said. “I’m here, so—it’s done.”

“It’s far from done, Daylighter.” Raphael looked toward Maia. “Lycanthrope,” he said. “Return to your pack leader and thank him for changing his mind. Tell him that the Night Children will fight beside his people on Brocelind Plain.”

Maia’s face was tight. “Luke didn’t change—”

Simon interrupted her hastily. “It’s fine, Maia. Go.”

Her eyes were luminous and sad. “Simon, think,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” His tone was firm. “Maia, thank you so much for bringing me here. Now go.”

“Simon—”

He dropped his voice. “If you don’t go, they’ll kill us both, and all this will have been for nothing. Go. Please.”

She nodded and turned away, Changing as she turned, so that one moment she was a slight human girl, her bead-tied braids bouncing on her shoulders, and the next she had hit the ground running on all fours, a swift and silent wolf. She darted from the clearing and vanished into the shadows.

Simon turned back to the vampires—and almost shouted out loud; Raphael was standing directly in front of him, inches away. Up close his skin bore the telltale dark traceries of hunger. Simon thought of that night in the Hotel Dumort—faces appearing out of shadow, fleeting laughter, the smell of blood—and shivered.

Raphael reached out to Simon and took hold of his shoulders, the grip of his deceptively slight hands like iron. “Turn your head,” he said, “and look at the stars; it will be easier that way.”

“So you are going to kill me,” Simon said. To his surprise he didn’t feel afraid, or even particularly agitated; everything seemed to have slowed down to a perfect clarity. He was simultaneously aware of every leaf on the branches above him, every tiny pebble on the ground, every pair of eyes that rested on him.

“What did you think?” Raphael said—a little sadly, Simon thought. “It’s not personal, I assure you. It’s as I said before—you are too dangerous to be allowed to continue as you are. If I had known what you’d become—”

“You’d never have let me crawl out of that grave. I know,” said Simon.

Raphael met his eyes. “Everyone does what they must to survive. In that way even we are just like humans.” His needle teeth slid from their sheaths like delicate razors. “Hold still,” he said. “This will be quick.” He leaned forward.

“Wait,” Simon said, and when Raphael drew back with a scowl, he said it again, with more force: “Wait. There’s something I have to show you.”

Raphael made a low hissing sound. “You had better be doing more than trying to delay me, Daylighter.”

“I am. There’s something I thought you should see.” Simon reached up and brushed the hair back from his forehead. It felt like a foolish, even theatrical, gesture, but as he did it, he saw Clary’s desperate white face as she stared up at him, the stele in her hand, and thought, Well, for her sake, at least I’ve tried.