City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(77)

It was Alec who moved first, pushing Jace ahead of him, making him walk. They were partway to the doors when she realized that her wrist was hurting—stinging as if it had been burned. Looking down, she expected to see a mark on her wrist, where Sebastian had gripped her, but there was nothing there. Just a smear of blood on her sleeve where she had touched the cut on his face. Frowning, with her wrist still stinging, she drew her sleeve down and hurried to catch up with the others.





12

DE PROFUNDIS


SIMON’S HANDS WERE BLACK WITH BLOOD.

He had tried yanking the bars out of the window and the cell door, but touching any of them for very long seared bleeding score marks into his palms. Eventually he collapsed, gasping, on the floor, and stared numbly at his hands as the injuries swiftly healed, the lesions closing up and the blackened skin flaking away like in a video on fast-forward.

On the other side of the cell wall, Samuel was praying. “‘If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help—’”

Simon knew he couldn’t pray. He’d tried it before, and the name of God burned his mouth and choked his throat. He wondered why he could think the words but not say them. And why he could stand in the noonday sun and not die but he couldn’t say his last prayers.

Smoke had begun to drift down the corridor like a purposeful ghost. He could smell burning and hear the crackle of fire spreading out of control, but he felt oddly detached, far from everything. It was strange to become a vampire, to be presented with what could only be described as an eternal life, and then to die anyway when you were sixteen.

“Simon!” The voice was faint, but his hearing caught it over the pop and crackle of growing flames. The smoke in the corridor had presaged heat; the heat was here now, pressing against him like an oppressive wall. “Simon!”

The voice was Clary’s. He would know it anywhere. He wondered if his mind was conjuring it up now, a sense memory of what he’d most loved during life to carry him through the process of death.

“Simon, you stupid idiot! I’m over here! At the window!”

Simon jumped to his feet. He doubted his mind would conjure that up. Through the thickening smoke he saw something white moving against the bars of the window. As he came closer, the white objects evolved into hands gripping the bars. He leaped onto the cot, yelling over the sound of the fire. “Clary?”

“Oh, thank God.” One of the hands reached out, squeezed his shoulder. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“How?” Simon demanded, not unreasonably, but there was the sound of a scuffle and Clary’s hands vanished, replaced a moment later by another pair. These were bigger hands, unquestionably masculine, with scarred knuckles and thin pianist’s fingers.

“Hang on.” Jace’s voice was calm, confident, for all the world as if they were chatting at a party instead of through the bars of a rapidly burning dungeon. “You might want to stand back.”

Startled into obedience, Simon moved aside. Jace’s hands tightened on the bars, his knuckles whitening alarmingly. There was a groaning crack, and the square of bars jerked free of the stone that held it and clattered to the ground beside the bed. Stone dust rained down in a choking white cloud.

Jace’s face appeared at the empty square of window. “Simon. Come ON.” He reached down.

Simon reached up and caught Jace’s hands. He felt himself hauled up, and then he was grabbing at the edge of the window, lifting himself through the narrow square like a snake wriggling through a tunnel. A second later he was sprawled out on damp grass, staring up at a circle of worried faces above his. Jace, Clary, and Alec. They were all looking down at him in concern.

“You look like crap, vampire,” Jace said. “What happened to your hands?”

Simon sat up. The injuries to his hands had healed, but they were still black where he’d grabbed at the bars of his cell. Before he could reply, Clary caught him in a sudden, fierce hug.

“Simon,” she breathed. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t even know you were here. I thought you were in New York until last night—”

“Yeah, well,” Simon said, “I didn’t know you were here either.” He glared at Jace over her shoulder. “In fact, I think I was specifically told that you weren’t.”

“I never said that,” Jace pointed out. “I just didn’t correct you when you were, you know, wrong. Anyway, I just saved you from being burned to death, so I figure you’re not allowed to be mad.”

Burned to death. Simon pulled away from Clary and stared around. They were in a square garden, surrounded on two sides by the walls of the fortress and on the other two sides by a heavy growth of trees. The trees had been cleared where a gravel path led down the hill to the city—it was lined with witchlight torches, but only a few were burning, their light dim and erratic. He looked up at the Gard. Seen from this angle, you could barely even tell there was a fire—black smoke stained the sky overhead, and the light in a few windows seemed unnaturally bright, but the stone walls hid their secret well.

“Samuel,” he said. “We have to get Samuel out.”

Clary looked baffled. “Who?”