The City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments 4)(84)

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Years previously, when Long Island City had been a center of industry instead of a trendy neighborhood full of art galleries and coffee shops, the Ironworks was a textile factory.

Now it was an enormous brick shell whose inside had been transformed into a spare but beautiful space. The floor was made up of overlapping squares of brushed steel; slender steel beams arced overhead, wrapped with ropes of tiny white lights. Ornate wrought iron staircases spiraled up to catwalks decorated with hanging plants. A massive cantilevered glass ceiling opened onto a view of the night sky. There was even a terrace outside, built out over the East River, with a spectacular view of the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge, which loomed overhead, stretching from Queens to Manhattan like a spear of tinseled ice.

Luke’s pack had outdone themselves making the place look nice. There were artfully placed huge pewter vases holding long-stemmed ivory flowers, and tables covered in white linen arranged in a circle around a raised stage on which a werewolf string quartet provided classical music. Clary couldn’t help wishing Simon were there; she was pretty sure he’d think Werewolf String Quartet was a good name for a band.

Clary wandered from table to table, arranging things that didn’t need arranging, fiddling with flowers and straightening silverware that wasn’t actually crooked. Only a few of the guests had arrived so far, and none of them were people she knew. Her mother and Luke stood near the door, greeting people and smiling, Luke looking uncomfortable ina suit, and Jocelynradiant in a tailored blue dress.After the events of the pastfewdays, itwas good to see her mother looking happy, though Clary wondered how much of it was real and how much was for show. There was a certain tightness about Jocelyn’s mouth that made Clary worry—was she actually happy, or just smiling through the pain?

Not that Clary didn’t know how she felt. Whatever else was going on, she couldn’t put Jace out of her mind. What were the Silent Brothers doing to him? Was he all right?

Were they going to be able to fix what was wrong with him, to block out the demon influence? She had spent a sleepless night the evening before staring into the darkness of her bedroom and worrying until she felt literally sick.

More than anything else, she wished he was here. She had picked out the dress she was wearing tonight—pale gold and more fitted to her body than anything she usually wore—

with the express hope that Jace would like it; now he wasn’t going to see her in it. That was a shallow thing to worry about, she knew; she’d go around dressed in a barrel for the rest of her life if it meant Jace would get better. Besides, he was always telling her she was beautiful, and he never complained about the fact that she mostly wore jeans and sneakers, but she had thought he would like this.

Standing in front of her mirror tonight, she had almost felt beautiful. Her mother had always said that she herself had been a late bloomer, and Clary, looking at her own reflection, had wondered if the same thing might happen to her. She wasn’t flat as a board anymore—she’d had to go up a bra size this past year—and if she squinted, she thought she could see—yes, those were definitely hips. She had curves. Small ones, but you had to start somewhere.

She’d kept her jewelry simple—very simple.

She put her hand up and touched the Morgenstern ring on its chain around her throat. She had put it on again, for the first time in days, that morning. She felt as if it were a silent gesture of confidence in Jace, a way of signaling her loyalty, whether he knew about it or not. She had decided she would wear it until she saw him again.

“Clarissa Morgenstern?” said a soft voice at her shoulder.

Clary turned in surprise. The voice wasn’t familiar. Standing there was a slim tall girl who looked about twenty. Her skin was milk-pale, threaded with veins the clear green of sap, and her blond hair had the same greenish tint. Her eyes were solid blue, like marbles, and she wore a slip of a blue dress, so thin that Clary thought she had to be freezing.

Memory swam up slowly from the depths.

“Kaelie,” Clary said slowly, recognizing the faerie waitress from Taki’s who had served her and the Lightwoods more than once. A flicker reminded her that there had been some intimation that Kaelie and Jace had once had a fling, but the fact seemed so minor in the face of everything else that she couldn’t bring herself to mind it. “I didn’t realize—do you know Luke?”

“Do not mistake me for a guest at this occasion,” said Kaelie, her thin hand tracing a casually indifferent gesture on the air. “My lady sent me here to find you—not to attend the festivities.” She glanced curiously over her shoulder, her all-blue eyes shining.

“Though I had not realized that your mother was marrying a werewolf.”

Clary raised her eyebrows. “And?”

Kaelie looked her up and down with some amusement. “My lady said you were quite flinty, despite your small size.

In the Court you would be looked down on for having such short stature.”

“We’re not in the Court,” said Clary. “And we’re not in Taki’s, which means you came to me, which means you have five seconds to tell me what the Seelie Queenwants. Idon’t like her much, and I’m not inthemood for her games.”

Kaelie pointed a thin green-nailed finger at Clary’s throat. “My lady said to ask you,” she said, “why you wear the Morgenstern ring. Is it to acknowledge your father?”