The City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments 4)(48)

Kyle shook his head. “I don’t know . . .”

They went a few more rounds, Jace and Simon on one side of the argument and Kyle on the other. Simon felt a little guilty. If Kyle knew about the Mark, he’d be a lot easier to persuade. Eventually he cracked under the pressure and reluctantly agreed to what he continued to insist was “a stupid plan.”



“But,” he said finally, getting to his feet and brushing bagel crumbs off his shirt, “I’m only doing this because I realize that you’ll both just do it whether I agree or not. So I might as well be there.” He looked at Simon. “Who would have thought protecting you from yourself would be so hard?”

“I could have told you that,” Jace said, as Kyle threw a jacket on and headed to the door.

He had to work, he’d explained to them. It appeared he really was a bike messenger; the Praetor Lupus, despite having a badass name, didn’t pay that well. The door closed behind him, and Jace turned back to Simon. “So, the gig’s at nine, right? What do we do with the rest of the day?”

“We?” Simon looked at him in disbelief. “Are you ever going home?”

“What, bored with my company already?”

“Let me ask you something,” Simon said. “Do you find me fascinating to be around?”

“What was that?” Jace said. “Sorry, I think I fell asleep for a moment. Do, continue with whatever mesmerizing thing you were saying.”

“Stop it,” Simon said. “Stop being sarcastic for a second. You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping. You know who else isn’t? Clary. I don’t know what’s going on with you and her, because frankly she hasn’t said anything about it. I assume she doesn’t want to talk about it either. But it’s pretty obvious you’re having a fight. And if you’re going to break up with her—”

“Break up with her?” Jace stared at him. “Are you insane?”

“If you keep avoiding her,” Simon said, “she’s going to break up with you.”

Jace got to his feet. His easy relaxation was gone; he was all tension now, like a prowling cat. He went to the window and twitched the curtain back restlessly; the late-morning light came through the gap, bleaching the color in his eyes. “I have reasons for the things I do,” he said finally.

“Great,” Simon said. “Does Clary know them?”

Jace said nothing.

“All she does is love you and trust you,” said Simon. “You owe her—”

“There are more important things than honesty,”said Jace.“Youthink Ilike hurting her?

Youthink Ilike knowing that I’m making her angry, maybe making her hate me? Why do you think I’m here?” He looked at Simon with a bleak sort of rage. “I can’t be with her,”

he said. “And if I can’t be with her, it doesn’t really matter to me where I am.

I might as well be with you, because at least if she knew I was trying to protect you, that might make her happy.”

“So you’re trying to make her happy despite the fact that the reason she’s unhappy in the first place is you,” said Simon, not very kindly. “That seems contradictory, doesn’t it?”



“Love is a contradiction,” said Jace, and turned back to the window.

8





WALK IN DARKNESS


Clary had forgotten how much she hated the smell of hospitals until they walked through the front doors of Beth Israel. Sterility, metal, old coffee, and not enough bleach to cover up the stench of sickness and misery. The memory of her mother’s illness, of Jocelyn lying unconscious and unresponsive in her nest of tubes and wires, hit her like a slap in the face, and she sucked in a breath, trying not to taste the air.

“Are you all right?” Jocelyn pulled the hood of her coat down and looked at Clary, her green eyes anxious.

Clary nodded, hunching her shoulders into her jacket, and looked around. The lobby was all cold marble, metal, and plastic. There was a big information desk behind which several women, probably nurses, were milling; signs pointed the way to the ICU, Radiation, Surgical Oncology, Pediatrics, and so on. She could probably have found the cafeteria in her sleep; she’d brought Luke enough tepid cups of coffee from there to fill the Central Park reservoir.

“Excuse me.” A slender nurse pushing an old man in a wheelchair went past them, nearly rolling the wheels over Clary’s toes. Clary looked after her—there had been something—

a shimmer—

“Don’t stare, Clary,” Jocelyn said under her breath. She put her arm around Clary’s shoulders, turning them both so that they faced the doors that led to the waiting room for the lab where people got their blood taken. Clary could see herself and her mother reflected in the dark glass of the doors. Though she was still half a head shorter than her mother, they really did look alike, didn’t they? In the past she’d always shrugged it off when people said that.

Jocelyn was beautiful, and she wasn’t. But the shape of their eyes and mouths were the same, as were their red hair and green eyes and slight hands. How had she gotten so little of Valentine’s looks, Clary wondered, when her brother had gotten them all? He had had their father’s fair hair and startling dark eyes. Though maybe, she thought, if she looked closely, she could see a little of Valentine in the stubborn set of her jaw. . . .