Chapter 55
Font Size:
A
A+
A++
“Nothing?” echoed Simon, disbelief in in his tone.
“Nothing,” ry repeated firmly, ncing out the
window so that he wouldn’t see the blood staining her
cheeks. They were passing a row of restaurants, and
she could see Taki’s, brightly lit in the gathering twilight.
They turned the corner just as the sun disappeared
behind the rose window of the Institute, flooding the
street below with seashell light that only they could see.
Simon pulled up in front of the door and killed the
engine, jittering the keys in his hand. “Do you want me
to go up with you?”
She hesitated. “No. I should do this on my own.”
She saw the look of disappointment flicker across his
face, but it vanished quickly. Simon, she thought, had
grown up a lot in these past two weeks, just as she had.
Which was good, since she wouldn’t have wanted to
leave him behind. He was part of her, as much as her
drawing talent, the dusty air of Brooklyn, her mother’s
laughter, and her own Shadowhunter blood. “All right,”
he said. “Are you going to need a rideter?”
She shook her head. “Luke gave me money for a cab.
Want toe over tomorrow, though?” she added. “We
could watch some Trigun, pop some corn. I could use
some couch time.”
He nodded. “That sounds good.” He leaned forward
then, and brushed a kiss along her cheekbone. It was a
kiss as light as a blown leaf, but she felt a shiver far
down in her bones. She looked at him.
“Do you think that it was a coincidence?” she asked.
“Do I think what was a coincidence?”
“That we wound up in Pandemonium the same night
that Jace and the others just happened to be there,
pursuing a demon? The night before Valentine came for
my mother?”
Simon shook his head. “I don’t believe in coincidences,”
he said.
“Neither do I.”
“But I have to admit,” Simon added, “coincidence or not,
it turned out to be a fortuitous urrence.”
“The Fortuitous urrences,” said ry. “Now there’s a
band name for you.”
“It’s better than most of the ones we’vee up with,”
Simon admitted.
“You bet.” She jumped down out of the van, mming
the door behind her. She heard him honk as she ran up
the path to the door between the bs of overgrown
grass, and waved without turning around.
The interior of the cathedral was cool and dark, and
smelled of rain and damp paper. Her footsteps echoed
loudly on the stone floor, and she thought of Jace in the
church in Brooklyn: There might be a God, ry, and
there might not. Either way, we’re on our own.
In the elevator she stole a look at herself in the mirror as
the door nged shut behind her. Most of her bruises
and scrapes had healed to invisibility. She wondered if
Jace had ever seen her looking as prim as she did
today—she’d dressed for the hospital in a ck pleatedContent ? provided by N?velDrama.Org.
skirt, pink lip gloss, and a vintage sailor-cored blouse.
She thought she looked about eight.
Not that it mattered what Jace thought about how she
looked, she reminded herself, now or ever. She
wondered if they’d ever be the way Simon was with his
sister: a mixture of boredom and loving irritation. She
couldn’t imagine it.
She heard the loud meows before the elevator door
even opened. “Hey, Church,” she said, kneeling down
by the wriggling gray ball on the floor. “Where is
everyone?”
Church, who clearly wanted his stomach rubbed,
muttered ominously. With a sigh ry gave in.
“Demented cat,” she said, rubbing with vigor. “Where—”
“ry!” It was Isabelle, swooping into the foyer in a long
red skirt, her hair piled on top of her head with jeweled
clips. “It’s so great to see you!”
She descended on ry with a hug that nearly
overbnced her.
“Isabelle,” ry gasped. “It’s good to see you, too,” she
added, letting Isabelle pull her up to a standing position.
“I was so worried about you,” said Isabelle brightly.
“After you guys went off to the library with Hodge, and I
was with Alec, I heard the most terrific banging
explosion, and when I got to the library, of course, you
were gone, and everything was strewn all over the floor.
And there was blood and sticky ck goo everywhere.”
She shuddered. “What was that stuff?”
“A curse,” ry said quietly. “Hodge’s curse.”
“Oh, right,” Isabelle said. “Jace told me about Hodge.”
“He did?” ry was surprised.
“That he got the curse taken off him and left? Yeah, he
did. I would have thought he’d have stayed to say good-
bye.” Isabelle added, “I’m kind of disappointed in him.
But I guess he was scared of the ve. He’ll get in
touch eventually, I bet.”
So Jace hadn’t told them that Hodge had betrayed
them, ry thought, not sure how she felt about that.
Then again, if Jace was trying to spare Isabelle
confusion and disappointment, maybe she shouldn’t
interfere.
“Anyway,” Isabelle went on, “it was horrible, and I don’t
know what we would have done if Magnus hadn’t
showed up and magicked Alec back to health. Is that a
word, ‘magicked’?” She crinkled her eyebrows. “Jace
told us all about what happened on the ind afterward.
Actually, we knew about it even before, because
Magnus was on the phone about it all night. Everyone in
Downworld was buzzing about it. You’re famous, you
know.”
“Me?”
“Sure. Valentine’s daughter.”
ry shuddered. “So I guess Jace is famous too.”
“You’re both famous,” said Isabelle in the same
overbright voice. “The famous brother and sister.”
ry looked at Isabelle curiously. “I didn’t expect you to
be this d to see me, I have to admit.”
The other girl put her hands on her hips indignantly.
“Why not?”
“I didn’t think you liked me all that much.”
Isabelle’s brightness faded and she looked down at her
silvery toes. “I didn’t think I did either,” she admitted.
“But when I went to look for you and Jace, and you were
gone…” Her voice trailed off. “I wasn’t just worried about
him; I was worried about you, too. There’s something so
… reassuring about you. And Jace is so much better
when you’re around.”
ry’s eyes widened. “He is?”
“He is, actually. Less sharp-edged, somehow. It’s not so
much that he’s kinder, but that he lets you see the
kindness in him.” She paused. “And I guess I resented
you at first, but I realize now that was stupid. Just
because I’ve never had a friend who was a girl doesn’t
mean I couldn’t learn how to have one.”
“Me too, actually,” said ry. “And Isabelle?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have to pretend to be nice. I like it better
when you just act like yourself.”
“Bitchy, you mean?” Isabelle said, andughed.
ry was about to protest when Alec swung into the
entryway on a pair of crutches. One of his legs was
bandaged, his jeans rolled up to the knee, and there
was another bandage on his temple, under the dark
hair. Otherwise he looked remarkably healthy for
someone who’d nearly died four days before. He waved
a crutch in greeting.
“Hi,” ry said, surprised to see him up and around.
“Are you …”
“All right? I’m fine,” Alec said. “I won’t even need these
in a few days.”
Guilt swelled her throat. If it hadn’t been for her, Alec
wouldn’t be on crutches at all. “I’m really d you’re
okay, Alec,” she said, putting every ounce of sincerity
into her voice that she could muster.
Alec blinked. “Thanks.”
“So Magnus fixed you?” ry said. “Luke said—”
“He did!” said Isabelle. “It was so awesome. He showed
up and ordered everyone out of the room and shut the
door. Blue and red sparks kept exploding out into the
hallway from underneath the floor.”
“I don’t remember any of it,” said Alec.
“Then he sat by Alec’s bed all night and into the morning
to make sure he woke up okay,” Isabelle added.
“I don’t remember that, either,” Alec added hastily.
Isabelle’s red lips curved into a smile. “I wonder how
Magnus knew toe? I asked him, but he wouldn’t
say.”
ry thought of the folded paper Hodge had thrown into
the fire after Valentine had gone. He was a strange man,
she thought, who’d taken the time to do what he could
to save Alec even while betraying everyone—and
everything—he’d ever cared about. “I don’t know,” she
said.
Isabelle shrugged. “I guess he heard about it
somewhere. He does seem to be hooked into an
enormous gossipwork. He’s such a girl.”
“He’s the High Warlock of Brooklyn, Isabelle,” Alec
reminded her, but not without some amusement. He
turned to ry. “Jace is up in the greenhouse if you
want to see him,” he said. “I’ll walk you.”
“You will?”
“Sure.” Alec looked only slightly ufortable. “Why
not?”
ry nced at Isabelle, who shrugged. Whatever Alec
was up to, he hadn’t shared it with his sister. “Go on,”
said Isabelle. “I’ve got stuff to do anyway.” She waved a
hand at them. “Shoo.”
They set off down the hallway together. Alec’s pace was
fast, even on crutches. ry had to jog to keep up. “I
have short legs,” she reminded him.
“Sorry.” He slowed down, contrite. “Look,” he began.
“Those things you said to me, when I yelled at you
about Jace …”
“I remember,” she said in a small voice.
“When you told me that you, you know, that I was just—
that it was because—” He seemed to be having trouble
forming aplete sentence. He tried again. “When
you said I was …”
“Alec, don’t.”
“Sure. Never mind.” He mped his lips together. “You
don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s not that. It’s that I feel awful about what I said. It was horrible. It wasn’t true at all—”
“But it was true,” said Alec. “Every word.”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” she said. “Not everything that’s true needs to be said. It was mean. And
when I said Jace had told me you’d never killed a demon, he said it was because you were always
protecting him and Isabelle. It was a good thing he was saying about you. Jace can be a jerk, but he—”
Loves you, she was about to say, and stopped. “Never said a bad word about you to me, ever. I swear.”
“You don’t have to swear,” he said. “I know already.” He sounded calm, even confident in a way she’d
never heard him sound before. She looked at him, surprised. “I know I didn’t kill Abbadon either. But I
appreciate you telling me I had.”
Sheughed shakily. “You appreciate me lying to you?”
“You did it out of kindness,” he said. “That means a lot, that you would be kind to me, even after how I
treated you.”
“I think Jace would have been pretty pissed at me for lying if he hadn’t been so upset at the time,” said
ry. “Not as mad as he would be if he knew what I’d said to you before, though.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Alec, his mouth turning up at the corners. “Let’s not tell him. I mean, maybe Jace
can behead a Du’sien demon from a distance of fifty feet with just a corkscrew and a rubber band, but
sometimes I think he doesn’t know much about people.”
“I guess so.” ry grinned.
They’d reached the bottom of the spiral staircase that led to the roof. “I can’t go up.” Alec tapped his
crutch against a metal step. It rang tinnily.
“It’s okay. I can find my way.”
He made as if to turn away, then nced back at her. “I should have guessed you were Jace’s sister,”
he said. “You both have the same artistic talent.”
ry paused, her foot on the lowest stair. She was taken aback. “Jace can draw?”
“Nah.” When Alec smiled, his eyes lit like bluemps, and ry could see what Magnus had found so
captivating about him. “I was just kidding. He can’t draw a straight line.” Chuckling, he swung away on
his crutches. ry watched him go, bemused. An Alec who cracked jokes and poked fun at Jace was
something she could get used to, even if his sense of humor was somewhat inexplicable.
The greenhouse was just as she’d remembered it, though the sky above the ss roof was sapphire
now. The clean, soapy smell of the flowers cleared her head. Breathing in deeply, she pushed her way
through the tightly woven leaves and branches.
She found Jace sitting on the marble bench in the middle of the greenhouse. His head was bent, and he
seemed to be turning an object over in his hands, idly. He looked up as she ducked under a branch, and
quickly closed his hand around the object. “ry.” He sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you,” she said. “I wanted to know how you were.”
“I’m fine.” He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She could see his still-fading bruises, like the dark
spots on the white flesh of an apple. Of course, she thought, the real injuries were internal, hidden from
every eye but his own.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing to his closed hand.
He opened his fingers. A jagged shard of silvery in his palm, glimmering blue and green at the edges.
“A piece of the Portal mirror.”
She sat down on the bench next to him. “Can you see anything in it?”
He turned it a little, letting the light run over it like water. “Bits of sky. Trees, a path … I keep angling it,
trying to see the manor house. My father.”
Source:
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
? by
Articles you may like
?
?
?
?
? Ads by