City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(94)

He moved toward her, taking her wrist in his hand. Clary glanced down and saw to her surprise that he was right—there was an irregular scarlet stain on the right sleeve of her coat. What was odd was that it was still bright red. Shouldn’t dried blood be a darker color? She frowned. “That’s not my blood.”

He relaxed slightly, his grip on her wrist loosening. “Is it the Inquisitor’s?”

She shook her head. “I actually think it’s Sebastian’s.”

“Sebastian’s blood?”

“Yes—when he came into the Hall the other night, remember, his face was bleeding. I think Isabelle must have clawed him, but anyway—I touched his face and got his blood on me.” She looked more closely at it. “I thought Amatis washed the coat, but I guess she didn’t.”

She expected him to let go of her then, but instead he held her wrist for a long moment, examining the blood, before returning her arm to her, apparently satisfied. “Thanks.”

She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head. “You’re not going to tell me what that was about, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

She threw her arms up in exasperation. “I’m going inside. I’ll see you later.”

She turned and headed up the steps to Amatis’s front door. There was no way she could have known that the moment she turned her back, the smile vanished from Jace’s face, or that he stood for a long time in the darkness once the door closed behind her, looking after her, and twisting a small piece of thread over and over between his fingers.

“Isabelle,” Simon said. It had taken him a few tries to find her door, but the scream of “Go away!” that had emanated from behind this one convinced him he’d made the right choice. “Isabelle, let me in.”

There was a muffled thump and the door reverberated slightly, as if Isabelle had thrown something at it. Possibly a shoe. “I don’t want to talk to you and Clary. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Leave me alone, Simon.”

“Clary’s not here,” said Simon. “And I’m not going away until you talk to me.”

“Alec!” Isabelle yelled. “Jace! Make him go away!”

Simon waited. There was no sound from downstairs. Either Alec had left or he was lying low. “They’re not here, Isabelle. It’s just me.”

There was a silence. Finally Isabelle spoke again. This time her voice came from much nearer, as if she was standing just on the other side of the door. “You’re alone?”

“I’m alone,” Simon said.

The door cracked open. Isabelle was standing there in a black slip, her hair lying long and tangled over her shoulders. Simon had never seen her like this: barefoot, with her hair unbrushed, and no makeup on. “You can come in.”

He stepped past her into the room. In the light from the door he could see that it looked, as his mother would have said, like a tornado had hit it. Clothes were scattered across the floor in piles, a duffel bag open on the floor as if it had exploded. Isabelle’s bright silver-gold whip hung from one bedpost, a lacy white bra from another. Simon averted his eyes. The curtains were drawn, the lamps extinguished.

Isabelle flopped down on the edge of the bed and looked at him with bitter amusement. “A blushing vampire. Who would have guessed.” She raised her chin. “So, I let you in. What do you want?”

Despite her angry glare, Simon thought she looked younger than usual, her eyes huge and black in her pinched white face. He could see the white scars that traced her light skin, all over her bare arms, her back and collarbones, even her legs. If Clary remains a Shadowhunter, he thought, one day she’ll look like this, scarred all over. The thought didn’t upset him as once it might have done. There was something about the way Isabelle wore her scars, as if she was proud of them.

She had something in her hands, something she was turning over and over between her fingers. It was a small something that glinted dully in the half-light. He thought for a moment it might be a piece of jewelry.

“What happened to Max,” Simon said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

She didn’t look at him. She was staring down at the object in her hands. “Do you know what this is?” she said, and held it up. It seemed to be a small toy soldier, carved out of wood. A toy Shadowhunter, Simon realized, complete with painted-on black gear. The silver glint he’d noticed was the paint on the little sword it held; it was nearly worn away. “It was Jace’s,” she said, without waiting for him to answer. “It was the only toy he had when he came from Idris. I don’t know, maybe it was part of a bigger set once. I think he made it himself, but he never said much about it. He used to take it everywhere with him when he was little, always in a pocket or whatever. Then one day I noticed Max carrying it around. Jace must have been around thirteen then. He just gave it to Max, I guess, when he got too old for it. Anyway, it was in Max’s hand when they found him. It was like he grabbed it to hold on to when Sebastian—when he—” She broke off. The effort she was making not to cry was visible; her mouth was set in a grimace, as if it were twisting itself out of shape. “I should have been there protecting him. I should have been there for him to hold on to, not some stupid little wooden toy.” She flung it down onto the bed, her eyes shining.

“You were unconscious,” Simon protested. “You nearly died, Izzy. There was nothing you could have done.”