City of Lost Souls

anymore. Or a mundane. And I like spending time with him. He makes me laugh. And I like the way he smiles. You know, one side of his mouth goes up before the other one — Well, you live with him. You must have noticed.”

“Not really,” said Jordan.

“I miss him when he’s not around,” Isabelle confessed. “I thought… I don’t know, after what happened that night with Lilith, things changed between us. But now he’s with Clary all the time. And I can’t even be angry with her.”

“You lost your brother.”

Isabelle looked up at him. “What?”

“Well, he’s knocking himself out to make Clary feel better because she lost Jace,” said Jordan. “But Jace is your brother. Shouldn’t Simon be knocking himself out to make you feel better too? Maybe you’re not mad at her, but you could be mad at him.”

Isabelle looked at him for a long moment. “But we’re not anything,” she said. “He’s not my boyfriend. I just like him.” She frowned. “Crap. I can’t believe I said that. I must be drunker than I thought.”

“I kind of figured it out from what you were saying before.” He smiled at her.

She didn’t smile back, but she lowered her lashes and looked up at him through them. “You’re not so bad,” she said. “If you want, I can say nice things to Maia about you.”

“No, thanks,” said Jordan, who wasn’t sure what Izzy’s version of nice things was, and feared finding out. “You know, it’s normal, when you’re going through a tough time, to want to be with the person you—” He was about to say “love,” realized she had never used the word, and switched gears. “Care about. But I don’t think Simon knows you feel that way about him.”

Her lashes fluttered back up. “Does he ever say anything about me?”

“He thinks you’re really strong,” Jordan said. “And that you don’t need him at all. I think he feels… superfluous to your life. Like, what can he give you when you’re already perfect? Why would you want a guy like him?” Jordan blinked; he hadn’t meant to run on like that, and he wasn’t sure how much of what he’d said applied to Simon, and how much to himself and Maia.

“So you mean I should tell him how I feel?” said Isabelle in a small voice.

“Yes. Definitely. Tell him how you feel.”

“Okay.” She grabbed for the tequila bottle and took a swig. “I’ll go over to Clary’s right now and I’ll tell him.”

A small flower of alarm blossomed in his chest. “You can’t. It’s practically three in the morning—”

“If I wait, I’ll lose my nerve,” she said, in that reasonable tone that only very drunk people ever employed. She took another swig out of the bottle. “I’ll just go over there, and I’ll knock on the window, and I’ll tell him how I feel.”

“Do you even know which window is Clary’s?”

She squinted. “Nooo.”

The horrible vision of a drunk Isabelle waking up Jocelyn and Luke floated through Jordan’s head. “Isabelle, no.” He reached up to take the tequila bottle from her, and she jerked it away from him.

“I think I’m changing my mind about you,” she said in a semi-threatening tone that would have been more frightening if she’d been able to focus her eyes on him directly. “I don’t think I like you so much after all.” She stood up, looked down at her feet with a surprised expression — and fell over backward. Only Jordan’s quick reflexes allowed him to catch her before she hit the floor.

7 A SEA CHANGE

Clary was on her third cup of coffee at Taki’s when Simon finally walked in. He was in jeans, a red zip-up sweatshirt (why bother with wool coats when you didn’t feel the cold?), and engineer boots. People turned to look at him as he wove his way through the tables toward her. Simon had cleaned up nicely since Isabelle had started getting on his case about his clothes, Clary thought as he headed toward her among the tables. There were flakes of snow caught in his dark hair, but where Alec’s cheeks had been scarlet from the cold, Simon’s remained colorless and pale. He slid into the booth across from her and looked at her, his dark eyes reflective and shining.

“You called?” he asked, making his voice deep and resonant so that he sounded like Count Dracula.

“Technically, I texted.” She slid the menu across the table toward him, flipping it to the page for vampires. She’d glanced at it before, but the thought of blood pudding and blood milk shakes made her shudder. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe where I was…” His voice trailed off as he saw the expression on her face. “Hey.” His fingers were suddenly under her chin, lifting her head. The laughter was gone from his eyes, replaced by concern. “What happened? Is there more news about Jace?”

“Do you know what you want?” It was Kaelie, the blue-eyed faerie waitress who had given Clary the Queen’s bell. She looked at Clary now and grinned, a superior grin that made Clary grit her teeth.

Clary ordered a piece of apple pie; Simon ordered a mix of hot chocolate and blood. Kaelie took the menus away, and Simon looked at Clary with concern. She took a deep breath and told him about the night, every gritty detail — Jace’s appearance, what he had said to her, the confrontation in the living room, and what had happened to Luke. She told him what Magnus had said about dimensional pockets and other worlds, and how there was no way to track someone hidden in a dimensional pocket or get a message through to them. Simon’s eyes grew darker as she spoke, and by the end of the story, he had his head in his hands.

“Simon?” Kaelie had come and gone, leaving their food, which was untouched. Clary touched his shoulder. “What is it? Is it Luke—”

“It’s my fault.” He looked up at her, eyes dry. Vampires cried tears mixed with blood, she thought; she had read that somewhere. “If I hadn’t bitten Sebastian…”

“You did it for me. So I’d live.” Her voice was gentle. “You saved my life.”

“You’ve saved mine six or seven times. It seemed fair.” His voice cracked; she recalled him retching up Sebastian’s black blood, on his knees in the roof garden.

“Assigning blame doesn’t get us anywhere,” Clary said. “And this isn’t why I dragged you here, just to tell you what happened. I mean, I would have told you anyway, but I would have waited for tomorrow if it weren’t that…”

He looked at her warily and took a sip from his mug. “Weren’t that what?”

“I have a plan.”

He groaned. “I was afraid of that.”

“My plans are not terrible.”

“Isabelle’s plans are terrible.” He pointed a finger at her. “Your plans are suicidal. At best.”

She sat back, her arms crossed over her chest. “Do you want to hear it or not? You have to keep it a secret.”

“I would pluck out my own eyes with a fork before I would give away your secrets,” Simon said, then looked anxious. “Wait a second. Do you think that’s likely to be required?”

“I don’t know.” Clary covered her face with her hands.

“Just tell me.” He sounded resigned.

With a sigh she reached into her pocket and drew out a small velvet bag, which she upended on the table. Two gold rings fell out, landing with a soft clink.

Simon looked at them, puzzled. “You want to get married?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” She leaned forward, dropping her voice. “Simon, these are the rings. The ones the Seelie Queen wanted.”

“I thought you said you never got them—” He broke off, raising his eyes to her face.

“I lied. I did take them. But after I saw Jace in the library, I didn’t want to give them to the Queen anymore.