City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(52)

His hand was still on her cheek; she reached up and gently but firmly detached it, returning it to his side. “No. Nothing like that. I just—” She hesitated. “It felt wrong.”

“Wrong?” The hurt on his face vanished, replaced by disbelief. “Clary, we have a connection. You know we do. Since the first second I saw you—”

“Sebastian, don’t—”

“I felt like you were someone I’d always been waiting for. I saw you felt it too. Don’t tell me you didn’t.”

But that hadn’t been what she’d felt. She’d felt as if she’d walked around a corner in a strange city and suddenly seen her own brownstone looming up in front of her. A surprising and not entirely pleasant recognition, almost: How can this be here?

“I didn’t,” she said.

The anger that rose in his eyes—sudden, dark, uncontrolled—took her by surprise. He caught her wrists in a painful grasp. “That’s not true.”

She tried to pull away. “Sebastian—”

“It’s not true.” The blackness of his eyes seemed to have swallowed up the pupils. His face was like a white mask, stiff and rigid.

“Sebastian,” she said as calmly as she could. “You’re hurting me.”

He let go of her. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I thought—”

Well, you thought wrong, Clary wanted to say, but she bit the words back. She didn’t want to see that look on his face again. “We should go back,” she said instead. “It’ll be dark soon.”

He nodded numbly, seeming as shocked by his outburst as she was. He turned and headed back toward Wayfarer, who was cropping grass in the long shadow of a tree. Clary hesitated a moment, then followed him—there didn’t seem to be anything else she could do. She glanced down surreptitiously at her wrists as she fell into step behind him—they were ringed with red where his fingers had gripped her, and more strangely, her fingertips were smudged black, as if she had somehow stained them with ink.

Sebastian was silent as he helped her up onto Wayfarer’s back. “I’m sorry if I implied anything about Jace,” he said finally as she settled herself in the saddle. “He would never do anything to hurt you. I know it’s for your sake that he’s been visiting that vampire prisoner in the Gard—”

It was as if everything in the world ground to a sudden halt. Clary could hear her own breath whistling in and out of her ears, saw her hands, frozen like the hands of a statue, lying still against the saddle pommel. “Vampire prisoner?” she whispered.

Sebastian turned a surprised face up to hers. “Yes,” he said, “Simon, that vampire they brought over with them from New York. I thought—I mean, I was sure you knew all about it. Didn’t Jace tell you?”





8

ONE OF THE LIVING


SIMON WOKE TO SUNLIGHT GLINTING BRIGHTLY OFF AN OBJECT that had been shoved through the bars of his window. He got to his feet, his body aching with hunger, and saw that it was a metal flask, about the size of a lunchbox thermos. A rolled-up bit of notepaper had been tied around the neck. Plucking it down, Simon unrolled the paper and read:

Simon: This is cow blood, fresh from the butcher’s. Hope it’s all right. Jace told me what you said, and I want you to know I think it’s really brave. Just hang in there and we’ll figure out a way to get you out.

XOXOXOXOXOXOX Isabelle



Simon smiled at the scribbled Xs and Os that ran along the bottom of the page. Good to know Isabelle’s flamboyant affection hadn’t suffered under the current circumstances. He unscrewed the flask’s top and had swallowed several mouthfuls before a sharp prickling sensation between his shoulder blades made him turn around.

Raphael stood calmly in the center of the room. He had his hands clasped behind his back, his slight shoulders set. He was wearing a sharply pressed white shirt and a dark jacket. A gold chain glittered at his throat.

Simon almost gagged on the blood he was drinking. He swallowed hard, still staring. “You—you can’t be here.”

Raphael’s smile somehow managed to give the impression that his fangs were showing, even though they weren’t. “Don’t panic, Daylighter.”

“I’m not panicking.” This wasn’t strictly true. Simon felt as if he’d swallowed something sharp. He hadn’t seen Raphael since the night he’d clawed himself, bloody and bruised, out of a hastily dug grave in Queens. He still remembered Raphael throwing packets of animal blood at him, and the way he’d torn into them with his teeth as if he were an animal himself. It wasn’t something he liked to remember. He would have been happy never to see the vampire boy again. “The sun’s still up. How are you here?”

“I’m not.” Raphael’s voice was smooth as butter. “I am a Projection. Look.” He swung his hand, passing it through the stone wall beside him. “I am like smoke. I cannot hurt you. Of course, neither can you hurt me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Simon set the flask down on the cot. “I do want to know what you’re doing here.”

“You left New York very suddenly, Daylighter. You do realize that you’re supposed to inform the head vampire of your local area when you’re leaving the city, don’t you?”