The City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments 4)(11)

“Come on, Clary,” Jace said. “Jump.” She closed her eyes and jumped. For a moment she felt herself hang suspended, free of everything. Then gravity took over, and she plunged toward the floor. Instinctively she pulled her arms and legs in, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. The cord pulled taut and she rebounded, flying back up before falling again. As her velocity slowed, she opened her eyes and found herself dangling at the end of the cord, about five feet above Jace. He was grinning.

“Nice,” he said. “As graceful as a falling snowflake.”

“Was I screaming?” she asked, genuinely curious. “You know, on the way down.”

He nodded. “Thankfully no one’s home, or they would have assumed I was murdering you.”

“Ha. You can’t even reach me.” She kicked out a leg and spun lazily in midair.

Jace’s eyes glinted. “Want to bet?”

Clary knew that expression. “No,” she said quickly. “Whatever you’re going to do—”

But he’d already done it. When Jace moved fast, his individual movements were almost invisible. She saw his hand go to his belt, and then something flashed in the air. She heard the sound of parting fabric as the cord above her head was sheared through.

Released, she fell freely, too surprised to scream—directly into Jace’s arms. The force knocked him backward, and they sprawled together onto one of the padded floor mats, Clary on top of him.



He grinned up at her.

“Now,” he said, “that was much better. You didn’t scream at all.”

“I didn’t get the chance.” She was breathless, and not just from the impact of the fall.

Being sprawled on top of Jace, feeling his body against hers, made her hands shake and her heart beat faster. She had thought maybe her physical reaction to him—their reactions to each other—would fade with familiarity, but that hadn’t happened. If anything, it had gotten worse the more time she’d spent with him—or better, she supposed, depending on how you thought about it.

He was looking up at her with dark golden eyes; she wondered if their color had intensified since his encounter with Raziel, the Angel, by the shores of Lake Lyn in Idris.

She couldn’t ask anyone: Though everyone knew that Valentine had summoned the Angel, and that the Angel had healed Jace from injuries Valentine had inflicted on him, no one but Clary and Jace knew that Valentine had done more than just injure his adopted son. He had stabbed Jace through the heart as part of the summoning ceremony—stabbed him, and held him while he died. At Clary’s wish Raziel had brought Jace back from death. The enormity of it still shocked Clary, and, she suspected, Jace as well. They had agreed never to tell anyone that Jace had actually died, even for a brief time. It was their secret.

He reached up and pushed her hair back from her face. “I’m joking,” he said. “You’re not so bad. You’ll get there.

Youshould have seenAlec do flips atfirst. Ithink he kicked himself inthe head once.”

“Sure,” said Clary. “But he was probably eleven.” She eyed him. “I suppose you’ve always been amazing at this stuff.”

“I was born amazing.” He stroked her cheek with the tips of his fingers, lightly but enough to make her shiver. She said nothing; he was joking, but in a sense it was true.

Jace had been born to be what he was. “How long can you stay tonight?”

She smiled a little. “Are we done with training?”

“I’d like to think that we’re done with the part of the evening where it’s absolutely required. Although there are a few things I’d like to practice. . . .” He reached up to pull her down, but at that moment the door opened, and Isabelle came stalking in, the high heels of her boots clicking on the polished hardwood floor.

Catching sight of Jace and Clary sprawled on the floor, she raised her eyebrows.

“Canoodling, I see. I thought you were supposed to be training.”

“No one said you had to walk in without knocking, Iz.” Jace didn’t move, just turned his head to the side to look at Isabelle with a mixture of annoyance and affection. Clary, though, scrambled to her feet, straightening her crumpled clothes.

“It’s the training room. It’s public space.” Isabelle was pulling off one of her gloves, which were bright red velvet. “I just got these at Trash and Vaudeville. On sale. Don’t you love them? Don’t you wish you had a pair?” She wiggled her fingers in their direction.

“I don’t know,” said Jace. “I think they’d clash with my gear.”

Isabelle made a face at him. “Did you hear about the dead Shadowhunter they found in Brooklyn? The body was all mangled up, so they don’t know who it is yet. I assume that’s where Mom went.”

“Yeah,” said Jace, sitting up. “Clave meeting. I ran into her on the way out.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” said Clary. “Is that why you took so long getting rope?”

He nodded. “Sorry. I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“He means,” said Isabelle, “he didn’t want to spoil the romantic mood.” She bit her lip. “I just hope it wasn’t anyone we know.”

“I don’t think it could have been. The body was dumped in an abandoned factory—had been there for several days. If it had been someone we knew, we would have noticed they were missing.” Jace pushed his hair back behind his ears. He was looking at Isabelle a little impatiently, Clary thought, as if he were annoyed she’d brought this up. She wished he’d told her earlier, even if it would have spoiled the mood. Much of what he did, what they all did, Clary knew, brought them into frequent contact with the reality of death. All the Lightwoods were, in their own ways, still grieving the loss of the youngest son, Max, who had died simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was strange. Jace had accepted her decision to leave high school and take up training without a murmur, but he shied away from discussing the dangers of a Shadowhunting life with her.