Chapter 56
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“Valentine,” she corrected. “Why would you want to see
him?”
“I thought maybe I could see what he was doing with the
Mortal Cup,” he said reluctantly. “Where it was.”
“Jace, that’s not our responsibility anymore. Not our
problem. Now that the ve finally knows what
happened, the Lightwoods are rushing back. Let them
deal with it.”
Now he did look at her. She wondered how it was that
they could be brother and sister and look so little alike.
Couldn’t she at least have gotten the curling darkshes
or the angr cheekbones? It hardly seemed fair. He
said, “When I looked through the Portal and saw Idris, I
knew exactly what Valentine was trying to do, that he
wanted to see if I’d break. And it didn’t matter—I still
wanted to go home more badly than I could have
imagined.”
She shook her head. “I don’t see what’s so great about
Idris. It’s just a ce. The way you and Hodge talk
about it—” She broke off.
He closed his hand over the shard again. “I was happy
there. It was the only ce I was ever happy like that.”
ry plucked a stem from a nearby bush and began to
denude it of its leaves. “You felt sorry for Hodge. That’s
why you didn’t tell Alec and Isabelle what he really did.”
He shrugged.
“They’ll find out eventually, you know.”
“I know. But I won’t be the one who told them.”
“Jace …” The surface of the pond was green with fallen
leaves. “How could you have been happy there? I know
what you thought, but Valentine was a terrible father. He
killed your pets, lied to you, and I know he hit you—don’t
even try to pretend he didn’t.”
A flicker of a smile ghosted across Jace’s face. “Only on
alternate Thursdays.”
“Then how could—”
“It was the only time I ever felt sure about who I was.
Where I belonged. It sounds stupid, but …” He
shrugged. “I kill demons because it’s what I’m good at
and what I was taught to do, but it isn’t who I am. And
I’m partly good at it because after I thought my father
had died, I was—cut free. No consequences. No one to
grieve. No one who had a stake in my life because
they’d been part of giving it to me.” His face looked as if
it had been carved out of something hard. “I don’t feel
that way anymore.”
The stem was entirely denuded of leaves; ry threw it
aside. “Why not?”
“Because of you,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, I would
have gone with my father through the Portal. If it weren’t
for you, I would go after him right now.”
ry stared down into the clogged pond. Her throat
burned. “I thought I made you feel unsettled.”
“It’s been so long,” he said simply, “that I think I was
unsettled by the idea of feeling like I belonged
anywhere. But you made me feel like I belong.”
“I want you to go somewhere with me,” she said
abruptly.
He looked at her sideways. Something about the way
his light gold hair fell into his eyes made her feel
unbearably sad. “Where?”
“I was hoping you’de to the hospital with me.”
“I knew it.” His eyes narrowed until they looked like the
edges of coins. “ry, that woman—”
“She’s your mother too, Jace.”
“I know,” he said. “But she’s a stranger to me. I only ever
had one parent, and he’s gone. Worse than dead.”
“I know. And I know there’s no point in telling you how
great my mom is, what an amazing, terrific, wonderful
person she is and that you’d be lucky to know her. I’m
not asking this for you, I’m asking for me. I think if she
heard your voice …”
“Then what?”
“She might wake up.” She looked at him steadily.
He held her gaze, then broke it with a smile—crooked
and a little battered, but a real smile. “Fine. I’ll go with
you.” He stood up. “You don’t have to tell me good
things about your mother,” he added. “I already know
them.”
“Do you?”
He shrugged slightly. “She raised you, didn’t she?” He
nced toward the ss roof. “The sun’s almost set.”
ry got to her feet. “We should head out to the
hospital. I’ll pay for the cab,” she added, as an
afterthought. “Luke gave me some cash.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Jace’s smile widened. “Come
on. I’ve got something to show you.”
“But where did you get it?” ry demanded, staring at
the motorcycle perched at the edge of the cathedral’s
roof. It was a shiny poison green, with silver-rimmed
wheels and bright mes painted on the seat.
“Magnus wasining that someone had left it
outside his house thest time he had a party,” said
Jace. “I convinced him to give it to me.”
“And you flew it up here?” She was still staring.
“Uh-huh. I’m getting pretty good at it.” He swung a leg
over the seat, and beckoned her toe and sit behind
him. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
“Well, at least you know it works this time,” she said,
getting on behind him. “If we crash into the parking lot of
a Key Food, I’ll kill you, you know that?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jace. “There are no parking lots on the Upper East Side. Why drive when you
can get your groceries delivered?” The bike started with a roar, drowning out hisugh. Shrieking, ry
grabbed hold of his belt as the bike hurtled down the nted roof of the Institute andunched itself into
space.
The wind tore her hair as they rose up, up over the cathedral, up above the roofs of the nearby high-
rises and apartment buildings. And there it was spread out before her like a carelessly opened jewelry
box, this city more populous and more amazing than she had ever imagined: There was the emerald
square of Central Park, where the faerie courts met on midsummer evenings; there were the lights of
the clubs and bars downtown, where the vampires danced the nights away at Pandemonium; there the
alleys of Chinatown down which the werewolves slunk at night, their coats reflecting the city’s lights.
There walked warlocks in all their bat-winged, cat-eyed glory; and here, as they swung out over the
river, she saw the darting sh of multicolored tails under the silvery skin of the water, the shimmer of
long, pearl-strewn hair, and heard the high, ripplingughter of the mermaids.
Jace turned to look over his shoulder, the wind whipping his hair into tangles. “What are you thinking?”
he called back to her.
“Just how different everything down there is now, you know, now that I can see.”
“Everything down there is exactly the same,” he said, angling the cycle toward the East River. They
were heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge again. “You’re the one that’s different.”
Her hands tightened convulsively on his belt as they dipped lower and lower over the river. “Jace!”
“Don’t worry.” He sounded maddeningly amused. “I know what I’m doing. I won’t drown us.”
She squinted her eyes against the tearing wind. “Are you testing what Alec said about some of these
bikes being able to go underwater?”
“No.” He leveled the bike out carefully as they rose from the river’s surface. “I think that’s just a story.”
“But, Jace,” she said. “All the stories are true.”
She didn’t hear himugh, but she felt it, vibrating through his rib cage and into her fingertips. She held
on tightly as he angled the cycle up, gunning it so that it shot forward and darted up the side of the
bridge like a bird freed from a cage. Her stomach dropped out from under her as the silver river spun
away and the spires of the bridge slid under her feet, but this time ry kept her eyes open, so that she
could see it all.
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