City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(35)

Isabelle turned on him. “Sebastian! Shut up.”

Sebastian looked perplexed. “But she’s his sister. Wouldn’t he want to see her?”

Isabelle opened her mouth and then closed it again. Clary could see that Isabelle was weighing the advisability of explaining her complicated relationship with Jace to the completely oblivious Sebastian against the advisability of springing an unpleasant surprise on Jace. Finally she threw her hands up in a gesture of despair. “Fine, Clary,” she said, with an unusual—for Isabelle—amount of anger in her voice. “Go ahead and do whatever you want, regardless of who it hurts. You always do anyway, don’t you?”

Ouch. Clary shot Isabelle a reproachful look before turning back to Sebastian, who stepped silently out of her way. She darted past him and up the stairs, vaguely aware of voices below her as Isabelle shouted at the unfortunate Sebastian. But that was Isabelle—if there was a boy around and blame that needed to be pinned on someone, Isabelle would pin it on him.

The staircase widened into a landing with a bay-windowed alcove that looked out over the city. A boy was sitting in the alcove, reading. He looked up as Clary came up the stairs, and blinked in surprise. “I know you.”

“Hi, Max. It’s Clary—Jace’s sister. Remember?”

Max brightened. “You showed me how to read Naruto,” he said, holding out his book to her. “Look, I got another one. This one’s called—”

“Max, I can’t talk now. I promise I’ll look at your book later, but do you know where Jace is?”

Max’s face fell. “That room,” he said, and pointed to the last door down the hall. “I wanted to go in there with him, but he told me he had to do grown-up stuff. Everyone’s always telling me that.”

“I’m sorry,” Clary said, but her mind was no longer on the conversation. It was racing ahead—what would she say to Jace when she saw him; what would he say to her? Moving down the hall to the door, she thought, It would be better to be friendly, not angry; yelling at him will just make him defensive. He has to understand that I belong here, just like he does. I don’t need to be protected like a piece of delicate china. I’m strong too—

She threw the door open. The room seemed to be a sort of library, the walls lined with books. It was brightly lit, light streaming through a tall picture window. In the middle of the room stood Jace. He wasn’t alone, though—not by a long shot. There was a dark-haired girl with him, a girl Clary had never seen before, and the two of them were locked together in a passionate embrace.





6

BAD BLOOD


DIZZINESS WASHED OVER CLARY, AS IF ALL THE AIR HAD BEEN sucked out of the room. She tried to back away but stumbled and hit the door with her shoulder. It shut with a bang, and Jace and the girl broke apart.

Clary froze. They were both staring at her. She noticed that the girl had dark straight hair to her shoulders and was extremely pretty. The top buttons of her shirt were undone, showing a strip of lacy bra. Clary felt as if she were about to throw up.

The girl’s hands went to her blouse, quickly doing up the buttons. She didn’t look pleased. “Excuse me,” she said with a frown. “Who are you?”

Clary didn’t answer—she was looking at Jace, who was staring at her incredulously. His skin was drained of all color, showing the dark rings around his eyes. He looked at Clary as if he were staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Aline.” Jace’s voice was without warmth or color. “This is my sister, Clary.”

“Oh. Oh.” Aline’s face relaxed into a slightly embarrassed smile. “Sorry! What a way to meet you. Hi, I’m Aline.” She advanced on Clary, still smiling, her hand out.

I don’t think I can touch her, Clary thought with a sinking feeling of horror. She looked at Jace, who seemed to read the expression in her eyes; unsmiling, he took Aline by the shoulders and said something in her ear. She looked surprised, shrugged, and headed for the door without another word.

This left Clary alone with Jace. Alone with someone who was still looking at her as if she were his worst nightmare come to life.

“Jace,” she said, and took a step toward him.

He backed away from her as if she were coated in something poisonous. “What,” he said, “in the name of the Angel, Clary, are you doing here?”

Despite everything, the harshness of his tone hurt.

“You could at least pretend you were glad to see me. Even a little bit.”

“I’m not glad to see you,” he said. Some of his color had come back, but the shadows under his eyes were still gray smudges against his skin. Clary waited for him to say something else, but he seemed content just to stare at her in undisguised horror. She noticed with a distracted clarity that he was wearing a black sweater that hung off his wrists as if he’d lost weight, and that the nails on his hands were bitten down to the quick. “Not even a little bit.”

“This isn’t you,” she said. “I hate it when you act like this—”

“Oh, you hate it, do you? Well, I’d better stop doing it, then, hadn’t I? I mean, you do everything I ask you to do.”

“You had no right to do what you did!” she snapped at him, suddenly furious. “Lying to me like that. You had no right—”