The City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments 4)(73)

His fingers found the clasp of her bra. She tensed. His eyes were large and luminous in the darkness, his smile slow. “Is this all right?”

She nodded. Her breath was coming fast. No one in her entire life had ever seen her topless—no boy, anyway. As if sensing her nervousness, he cupped her face gently with one hand, his lips teasing hers, brushing gently across them until her whole body felt as if it were shattering with tension. His long-fingered, callused right hand stroked along her cheek, then her shoulder, soothing her. She was still on edge, though, waiting for his other hand to move back to her bra clasp, to touch her again, but he seemed to be reaching for something behind him—What was he doing?

Clary thought suddenly of what Isabelle had said about being careful. Oh, she thought.

She stiffened a little and drew back. “Jace, I’m not sure I—”

There was a flash of silver in the darkness, and something cold and sharp lanced across the side of her arm. All she felt for a moment was surprise—then pain. She drew her hands back, blinking, and saw a line of dark blood beading on her skin where a shallow cut ran from her elbow to her wrist. “Ouch,” she said, more in annoyance and surprise than hurt. “What—”

Jace launched himself off her, off the bed, in a single motion. Suddenly he was standing in the middle of the room, shirtless, his face as white as bone.

Hand clasped across her injured arm, Clary started to sit up. “Jace, what—”

She broke off. In his left hand he was clutching a knife—the silver-handled knife she had seen in the box that had belonged to his father. There was a thin smear of blood across the blade.



She looked down at her hand, and then up again, at him. “I don’t understand. . . .”

He opened his hand, and the knife clattered to the floor. For a moment he looked as if he might run again, the way he had outside the bar. Then he sank to the ground and put his head in his hands.

“I like her,” said Camille as the doors shut behind Isabelle. “She rather reminds me of me.”

Simon turned to look at her. It was very dim in the Sanctuary, but he could see her clearly, her back against the pillar, her hands bound behind her. There was a Shadowhunter guard stationed near the doors to the Institute, but either he hadn’t heard Camille or he wasn’t interested.

Simon moved a bit closer to Camille. The bonds that constrained her held an odd fascination for him. Blessed metal. The chain seemed to gleam softly against her pale skin, and he thought he could see a few threads of blood seeping around the manacles at her wrists. “She isn’t at all like you.”

“So you think.” Camille tilted her head to the side; her blond hair seemed artfully arranged around her face, though he knew she couldn’t have touched it. “You love them so,” she said, “your Shadowhunter friends. As the falcon loves the master who binds and blinds it.”

“Things aren’t like that,” Simon said. “Shadowhunters and Downworlders aren’t enemies.”

“You can’t even go with them into their home,” she said. “You are shut out. Yet so eager to serve them. You would stand on their side against your own kind.”

“I have no kind,” Simon said. “I’m not one of them. But I’m not one of you, either. And I’d rather be like them than like you.”

“You are one of us.” She moved impatiently, rattling her chains, and gave a little gasp of pain. “There is something Ididn’tsayto you, back at the bank. But it is true.” She smiled tightlythroughthe pain.“Icansmell humanblood on you. You fed recently. On a mundane.”

Simon felt something inside him jump. “I . . .”

“It was wonderful, wasn’t it?” Her red lips curved. “The first time since you’ve been a vampire that you haven’t been hungry.”

“No,” Simon said.

“You’re lying.” There was conviction in her voice. “They try to make us fight against our natures, the Nephilim. They will accept us only if we pretend to be other than we are—

not hunters, not predators. Your friends will never accept what you are, only what you pretend to be. What you do for them, they would never do for you.”

“I don’t know why you’re bothering with this,” said Simon. “What’s done is done. I’m not going to let you go. I made my choice. I don’t want what you offered me.”



“Maybe not now,” Camille said softly. “But you will. You will.”

The Shadowhunter guard stepped back as the door opened, and Maryse came into the room. She was followed by two figures immediately familiar to Simon: Isabelle’s brother Alec, and his boyfriend, the warlock Magnus Bane.

Alec was dressed in a sober black suit; Magnus, to Simon’s surprise, was similarly dressed, with the addition of a long white silk scarf with tasseled ends and a pair of white gloves. His hair stood up like it always did, but for a change he was devoid of glitter.

Camille, upon seeing him, went very still.

Magnus didn’t seem to see her yet; he was listening to Maryse, who was saying, rather awkwardly, that it was good of them to come so quickly. “We really didn’t expect you until tomorrow, at the earliest.”

Alec made a muffled noise of annoyance and gazed off into space. He seemed as if he wasn’t happy to be there at all. Beyond that, Simon thought, he looked much the same as he always had—same black hair, same steady blue eyes—although there was something more relaxed about him than there had been before, as if he had grown into himself somehow.