could see two dark specks standing in front of the sunporch, watching them. Alec and Magnus. “It’s the Archangel Michael’s sword. It’s called Glorious.”
“Simon…” She kissed his cheek. “You did it. You got the Angel. You got the sword.”
Magnus and Alec had started down the path to the lake. Simon closed his eyes, exhausted. Isabelle leaned over him, her hair brushing the sides of his face. “Don’t try to talk.” She smelled like tears. “You’re not cursed anymore,” she whispered. “You’re not cursed.”
Simon linked his fingers with hers. He felt as if he were floating on a dark river, the shadows closing in around him. Only her hand anchored him to earth. “I know.”
19
LOVE AND BLOOD
Methodically and carefully Clary was tearing Jace’s room apart. She was still in her tank top, though she’d pulled on a pair of jeans; her hair was scraped behind her head in a messy bun, and her nails were powdered with dust. She had searched under his bed, in all the drawers and cabinets, crawled under the wardrobe and desk, and looked in the pockets of all his clothes for a second stele, but she had found nothing.
She had told Sebastian she was exhausted, that she needed to go upstairs and lie down; he had seemed distracted and had waved her away. Images of Jace’s face kept flashing behind her eyelids every time she shut her eyes — the way he had looked at her, betrayed, as if he didn’t know her anymore.
But there was no point dwelling on that. She could sit on the edge of the bed and cry into her hands, thinking about what she had done, but it would do no one any good. She owed it to Jace, to herself, to keep moving. Searching. If she could just find a stele—
She was lifting the mattress off the bed, searching the space between it and the box springs, when a knock came on the door.
She dropped the mattress, though not before discerning that there was nothing under it. She tightened her hands into fists, took a deep breath, stalked to the door and threw it open.
Sebastian stood on the threshold. For the first time he was wearing something other than black and white. The same black trousers and boots, admittedly, but he also wore a scarlet leather tunic, intricately worked with gold and silver runes, and held together by a row of metal clasps across the front. There were hammered silver bracelets on each of his wrists, and he wore the Morgenstern ring.
She blinked at him. “Red?”
“Ceremonial,” he replied. “Colors mean different things to Shadowhunters than they do to humans.” He said the word “humans” with contempt. “You know the old Nephilim children’s rhyme, don’t you?
“Shadowhunters get married in gold?” Clary said. Not that she cared particularly, but she was trying to wedge her body into the gap between the door and the frame so that he couldn’t look behind her and see the mess she’d made out of Jace’s normally neat room.
“Sorry to crush your dreams of a white wedding.” He grinned at her. “Speaking of which, I brought you something to wear.”
He drew his hand out from behind his back. He was holding a folded item of clothing. She took it from him and let it unroll. It was a long, drifting column of scarlet fabric with an odd golden sheen to the material, like the edge of a flame. The straps were gold.
“Our mother used to wear this to Circle ceremonies before she betrayed our father,” he said. “Put it on. I want you to wear it tonight.”
“Well, you can hardly go to the ceremony in what you’re wearing now.” His eyes raked her, from her bare feet to the tank top clinging to her body with sweat, to her dusty jeans. “How you look tonight — the impression you make on our new acolytes — is important. Put it on.”
Her mind was whirling.
“An hour perhaps,” he said. “We should be at the sacred site by midnight. The others will be gathering there. It wouldn’t do to be late.”
She moved to shut the door. He caught her wrist. “Tonight,” he said, “you call me Jonathan. Jonathan Morgenstern. Your brother.”
A shudder ran over her whole body, and she dropped her eyes, hoping he couldn’t see the hatred in them. “Whatever you say.”
The moment he was gone she reached for one of Jace’s leather jackets. She slipped it on, taking comfort in the warmth and the familiar smell of him. She slid her feet into shoes and crept out into the hallway, wishing for a stele and a new Soundless rune. She could hear water running downstairs and Sebastian’s off-key whistling, but her own footsteps still sounded like cannon explosions in her ears. She crept along, keeping close to the wall, until she reached Sebastian’s door and slid inside.
It was dim, the only illumination the ambient city light coming from the windows, whose curtains were pulled back. It was a mess, just as it had been the first time she’d been in it. She started with his closet, stuffed full of expensive clothes — silk shirts, leather jackets, Armani suits, Bruno Magli shoes. On the floor of the closet was a white shirt, wadded up and stained with blood — blood old enough to have dried to brown. Clary looked at it for a long moment and shut the closet door.
She set herself to the desk next, pulling out drawers, rifling through papers. She’d rather hoped for something simple, like a lined piece of notebook paper with MY EVIL PLAN written across the top, but no luck. There were dozens of papers with complex numerical and alchemical figuring on them, and even a piece of stationery that began
She pulled open the drawer. Inside was a stack of notes. On top of them, something glimmered. Something circular and metallic.
Her faerie ring.
Isabelle sat with her arm around Simon as they drove back toward Brooklyn. He was exhausted, his head throbbing, his body pierced with aches. Though Magnus had given him back his ring at the lake, he had been unable to reach Clary with it. Worst of all, he was hungry. He liked how close Isabelle was sitting to him, the way she rested her hand just above the crook of his elbow, tracing patterns there, sometimes sliding her fingers down to his wrist. But the scent of her — perfume and blood — made his stomach growl.
It was starting to grow dark outside, the late-autumn sunset coming soon on the heels of the day, dimming the interior of the truck’s cab. Alec’s and Magnus’s voices were murmurs in the shadows. Simon let his eyes flutter closed, seeing the Angel printed against the back of his lids, a burst of white light.
A sharp gasp escaped his lips.
