Chapter 38
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THE MORTAL CUP
JACE WAS LYING ON HIS BED PRETENDING TO
BE ASLEEP—FOR his own benefit, not anyone else’s
—when the banging on the door finally got to be too
much for him. He hauled himself off the bed, wincing.
Much as he’d pretended to be fine up in the
greenhouse, his whole body still ached from the
beating it had takenst night.
He knew who it was going to be before he opened the
door. Maybe Simon had managed to get himself
turned into a rat again. This time Simon could stay a
goddamned rat forever, for all he, Jace Wand, was
prepared to do about it.
She was clutching her sketchpad, her bright hair
escaping out of its braids. He leaned against the door
frame, ignoring the kick of adrenaline the sight of her
produced. He wondered why, not for the first time.
Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but
ry didn’t know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that
was why.
He could think of only one reason for her to be there,
though it made no sense after what he’d said to her.
Words were weapons, his father had taught him that,
and he’d wanted to hurt ry more than he’d ever
wanted to hurt any girl. In fact, he wasn’t sure he had
ever wanted to hurt a girl before. Usually he just
wanted them, and then wanted them to leave him
alone.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, drawing his words out in that
way he knew she hated. “Simon’s turned himself into
an ocelot and you want me to do something about it
before Isabelle makes him into a stole. Well, you’ll
have to wait till tomorrow. I’m out ofmission.” He
pointed at himself—he was wearing blue pajamas
with a hole in the sleeve. “Look. Jammies.”
ry seemed barely to have heard him. He realized
she was clutching something in her hands—her
sketchpad. “Jace,” she said. “This is important.”
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’ve got a drawing
emergency. You need a nude model. Well, I’m not in
the mood. You could ask Hodge,” he added, as an
afterthought. “I hear he’ll do anything for a—”
“JACE!” she interrupted him, her voice rising to a
scream. “JUST SHUT UP FOR A SECOND AND
LISTEN, WILL YOU?”
He blinked.
She took a deep breath and looked up at him. Her
eyes were full of uncertainty. An unfamiliar urge rose
inside him: the urge to put his arms around her and
tell her it was all right. He didn’t. In his experience,
things were rarely all right. “Jace,” she said, so softly
that he had to lean forward to catch her words, “I think
I know where my mother hid the Mortal Cup. It’s
inside a painting.”
“What?” Jace was still staring at her as if she’d told
him she’d found one of the Silent Brothers doing nude
cartwheels in the hallway. “You mean she hid it behind
a painting? All the paintings in your apartment were
torn out of the frames.”
“I know.” ry nced past him into his bedroom. It
didn’t look like there was anyone else in there, to her
relief. “Look, can Ie in? I want to show you
something.”
He slouched back from the door. “If you must.”
She sat down on the bed, bncing her sketchpad on
her knees. The clothes he’d been wearing earlier
were flung across the covers, but the rest of the room
was neat as a monk’s chamber. There were no
pictures on the walls, no posters or photos of friends
or family. The nkets were white and pulled tight
and t across the bed. Not exactly a typical teenage
boy’s bedroom. “Here,” she said, flipping the pages
until she found the coffee cup drawing. “Look at this.”
Jace sat down next to her, shoving his discarded T-
shirt out of the way. “It’s a coffee cup.”
She could hear the irritation in her own voice. “I know
it’s a coffee cup.”
“I can’t wait till you draw something really
complicated, like the Brooklyn Bridge or a lobster.
You’ll probably send me a singing telegram.”
She ignored him. “Look. This is what I wanted you to
see.” She passed her hand over the drawing; then,
with a quick darting motion, reached into the paper.
When she drew her hand back a momentter, there
was the coffee cup, dangling from her fingers.
She had imagined Jace leaping from the bed in
astonishment and gasping something like “Egad!”
This didn’t happenrgely, she suspected, because
Jace had seen much stranger things in his life, and
also because nobody used the word “Egad!” anymore.
His eyes widened, though. “You did that?”
She nodded.
“When?”
“Just now, in my bedroom, after—after Simon left.”
His nce sharpened, but he didn’t pursue it. “You
used runes? Which ones?”
She shook her head, fingering the now nk page. “I
don’t know. They came into my head and I drew them
exactly how I saw them.”
“Ones you saw earlier in the Gray Book?”
“I don’t know.” She was still shaking her head. “I
couldn’t tell you.”
“And no one ever showed you how to do this? Your
mother, for instance?”
“No. I told you before, my mother always told me
there was no such thing as magic—”
“I bet she did teach you,” he interrupted. “And made
you forget it afterward. Magnus did say your
memories woulde back slowly.”
“Maybe.”
“Of course.” Jace got to his feet and started to pace.
“It’s probably against the Law to use runes like that
unless you’ve been licensed. But that doesn’t matter
right now. You think your mother put the Cup into a
painting? Like you just did with that mug?”
ry nodded. “But not one of the paintings in the
apartment.”
“Where else? A gallery? It could be anywhere—”
“Not a painting at all,” ry said. “In a card.”
Jace paused, turning toward her. “A card?”
“You remember that tarot deck of Madame
Dorothea’s? The one my mother painted for her?”
He nodded.
“And remember when I drew the Ace of Cups? Later
when I saw the statue of the Angel, the Cup looked
familiar to me. It was because I’d seen it before, on
the Ace. My mother painted the Mortal Cup into
Madame Dorothea’s tarot deck.”
Jace was a step behind her. “Because she knew that
it would be safe with a Control, and it was a way she
could give it to Dorothea without actually telling her
what it was or why she had to keep it hidden.”
“Or even that she had to keep it hidden at all.
Dorothea never goes out; she’d never give it away—”
“And your mother was ideally ced to keep an eye
on both it and her.” Jace sounded almost impressed.
“Not a bad move.”
“I guess so.” ry fought to control the waver in her
voice. “I wish she hadn’t been so good at hiding it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if they’d found it, maybe they would have left
her alone. If all they wanted was the Cup—”
“They would have killed her, ry,” Jace said. She
knew he was telling the truth. “These are the same
men who killed my father. The only reason she may
still be alive now is that they can’t find the Cup. Be
d she hid it so well.”
“I don’t really see what any of this has to do with us,”
Alec said, looking blearily through his hair. Jace had
woken the rest of the Institute’s residents at the crack
of dawn and dragged them to the library to, as he
said, “devise battle strategies.” Alec was still in his
pajamas, Isabelle in a pink peignoir set. Hodge, in his
usual sharp tweed suit, was drinking coffee out of a
chipped blue ceramic mug. Only Jace, bright-eyed
despite fading bruises, looked really awake. “I thought
the search for the Cup was in the hands of the ve
now.”
“It’s just better if we do this ourselves,” said Jace
impatiently. “Hodge and I already discussed it and
that’s what we decided.”
“Well.” Isabelle tucked a pink-ribboned braid behind
her ear. “I’m game.”
“I’m not,” Alec said. “There are operatives of the ve
in this city right now looking for the Cup. Pass the
information on to them and let them get it.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Jace.
“It is simple.” Alec sat forward, frowning. “This has
nothing to do with us and everything to do with your—
your addiction to danger.”
Jace shook his head, clearly exasperated. “I don’t
understand why you’re fighting me on this.”
Because he doesn’t want you to get hurt, ry
thought, and wondered at his total inability to see
what was really going on with Alec. Then again, she’d
missed the same thing in Simon. Who was she to
talk? “Look, Dorothea—the owner of the Sanctuary—
doesn’t trust the ve. Hates them, in fact. She does
trust us.”
“She trusts me,” said ry. “I don’t know about you.
I’m not sure she likes you at all.”
Jace ignored her. “Come on, Alec. It’ll be fun. And
think of the glory if we bring the Mortal Cup back to
Idris! Our names will never be forgotten.”
“I don’t care about glory,” said Alec, his eyes never
leaving Jace’s face. “I care about not doing anything
stupid.”
“In this case, however, Jace is right,” said Hodge. “If
the ve were toe to the Sanctuary, it would be
a disaster. Dorothea would flee with the Cup and
would probably never be found. No, Jocelyn clearly
wanted only one person to be able to find the Cup,
and that is ry, and ry alone.”
“Then let her go alone,” said Alec.
Even Isabelle gave a little gasp at that. Jace, who had
been leaning forward with his hands t on the desk,
stood up straight and looked at Alec coolly. Only Jace,
ry thought, could look cool in pajama bottoms and
an old T-shirt, but he pulled it off, probably through
sheer force of will. “If you’re afraid of a few Forsaken,
by all means stay home,” he said softly.
Alec went white. “I’m not afraid,” he said.
“Good,” said Jace. “Then there’s no problem, is
there?” He looked around the room. “We’re all in this
together.”
Alec mumbled an affirmative, while Isabelle shook her
head in a vigorous nod. “Sure,” she said. “It sounds
fun.”
“I don’t know about fun,” said ry. “But I’m in, of
course.”
“But, ry,” Hodge said quickly. “If you are concerned
about the danger, you don’t need to go. We can notify
the ve—”
“No,” ry said, surprising herself. “My mom wanted
me to find it. Not Valentine, and not them, either.” It
wasn’t the monsters she was hiding from, Magnus
had said. “If she really spent her whole life trying to
keep Valentine away from this thing, this is the least I
can do.”
Hodge smiled at her. “I think she knew you would say
that,” he said.
“Don’t worry, anyway,” Isabelle said. “You’ll be fine.
We can handle a couple of Forsaken. They’re crazy,
but they’re not very smart.”
“And a lot easier to deal with than demons,” said
Jace. “Not so tricksy. Oh, and we’re going to need a
car,” he added. “Preferably a big one.”
“Why?” said Isabelle. “We’ve never needed a car
before.”
“We’ve never had to worry about having an
immeasurably precious object with us before. I don’t
want to haul it on the L train,” Jace exined.
“There’s taxis,” said Isabelle. “And rental vans.”
Jace shook his head. “I want an environment we
control. I don’t want to deal with taxi drivers or
mundane rentalpanies when we’re doing
something this important.”
“Don’t you have a driver’s license or a car?” Alec
asked ry, looking at her with veiled loathing. “I
thought all mundanes had those.”
Property ? 2024 N0(v)elDrama.Org.
“Not when they’re fifteen,” ry said crossly. “I was
supposed to get one this year, but not yet.”
“Fat lot of use you are.”
“At least my friends can drive,” she shot back.
“Simon’s got a license.”
She instantly regretted saying it.
“Does he?” said Jace, in an aggravatingly thoughtful
tone.
“But he hasn’t got a car,” she added quickly.
“So does he drive his parents’ car?” Jace asked.
ry sighed, settling back against the desk. “No.
Usually he drives Eric’s van. Like, to gigs and stuff.
Sometimes Eric lets him borrow it for other stuff. Like
if he has a date.”
Jace snorted. “He picks up his dates in a van? No
wonder he’s such a hit with thedies.”
“It’s a car,” ry said. “You’re just mad Simon has
something you haven’t got.”
“He has many things I haven’t got,” said Jace. “Like
nearsightedness, bad posture, and an appallingck
of coordination.”
“You know,” ry said, “most psychologists agree that
hostility is really just sublimated sexual attraction.”
“Ah,” said Jace blithely, “that might exin why I so
often run into people who seem to dislike me.”
“I don’t dislike you,” said Alec quickly.
“That is because we share a brotherly affection,” said
Jace, striding over to the desk. He took the ck
telephone and held it out to ry. “Call him.”
“Call who?” ry said, stalling for time. “Eric? He’d
never lend me his car.”
“Simon,” said Jace. “Call Simon and ask him if he’ll
drive us to your house.”
ry made ast effort. “Don’t you know any
Shadowhunters who have cars?”
“In New York?” Jace’s grin faded. “Look, everyone’s in
Idris for the ords; and anyway, they’d insist on
coming with us. It’s this or nothing.”
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