Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (289 page)

“And I’m here if
you
do. Whatever happens with you and Jace at the Institute . . . you know you can always come over to my place if you want to talk.”

“How’s Jordan?”

“Pretty good,” said Simon. “He and Maia are definitely together now. They’re in that ooky stage where I feel like I should be giving them space all the time.” He crinkled up his nose. “When she’s not there, he frets about how he feels insecure because she’s dated a bunch of dudes and he’s spent the past three years doing military-style training for the Praetor and pretending he was asexual.”

“Oh, come on. I doubt she cares about that.”

“You know men. We have delicate egos.”

“I wouldn’t describe Jace’s ego as delicate.”

“No, Jace’s is sort of the antiaircraft artillery tank of male egos,” Simon admitted. He was lying with his right hand splayed across his stomach, and the gold faerie ring glittered on his finger. Since the other had been destroyed, it no longer seemed to have any powers, but Simon wore it anyway. Impulsively Clary bent down and kissed his forehead.

“You’re the best friend anyone could ever have, you know that?” she said.

“I did know that, but it’s always nice to hear it again.”

Clary laughed and stood up. “Well, we might as well walk to the subway together. Unless you want to hang around here with the ’rents instead of in your cool downtown bachelor pad.”

“Right. With my lovelorn roommate and my sister.” He slid off the bed and followed her as she walked out into the living room. “You’re not just going to Portal?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems . . . wasteful.” She crossed the hall and, after knocking quickly, stuck her head into the master bedroom. “Luke?”

“Come on in.”

She went in, Simon beside her. Luke was sitting up in bed.
The bulk of the bandage that wrapped his chest was visible as an outline beneath his flannel shirt. There was a stack of magazines on the bed in front of him. Simon picked one up.
“Sparkle Like an Ice Princess: The Winter Bride,”
he read out loud. “I don’t know, man. I’m not sure a tiara of snowflakes would be the best look for you.”

Luke glanced around the bed and sighed. “Jocelyn thought wedding planning might be good for us. Return to normalcy and all that.” There were shadows under his blue eyes. Jocelyn had been the one to break the news to him about Amatis, while he was still at the police station. Though Clary had greeted him with hugs when he’d come home, he hadn’t mentioned his sister once, and neither had she. “If it was up to me, I would elope to Vegas and have a fifty-dollar pirate-themed wedding with Elvis presiding.”

“I could be the wench of honor,” Clary suggested. She looked at Simon expectantly. “And you could be . . .”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I am a hipster. I am too cool for themed weddings.”

“You play D and D. You’re a geek,” she corrected him fondly.

“Geek is chic,” Simon declared. “Ladies love nerds.”

Luke cleared his throat. “I assume you came in here to tell me something?”

“I’m heading over to the Institute to see Jace,” Clary said. “Do you want me to bring you anything back?”

He shook his head. “Your mother’s at the store, stocking up.” He leaned over to ruffle her hair, and winced. He was healing, but slowly. “Have fun.”

Clary thought of what she was probably facing at the
Institute—an angry Maryse, a wearied Isabelle, an absent Alec, and a Jace who didn’t want to see her—and sighed. “You bet.”

The subway tunnel smelled like the winter that had finally come to the city—cold metal, dank, wet dirt, and a faint hint of smoke. Alec, walking along the tracks, saw his breath puff out in front of his face in white clouds, and he jammed his free hand into the pocket of his blue peacoat to keep it warm. The witchlight he held in his other hand illuminated the tunnel—green and cream-colored tiles, discolored with age, and sprung wiring, dangling like spiderwebs from the walls. It had been a long time since this tunnel had seen a moving train.

Alec had gotten up before Magnus had woken, again. Magnus had been sleeping late; he was resting from the battle at the Burren. He had used a great deal of energy to heal himself, but he wasn’t entirely well yet. Warlocks were immortal but not invulnerable, and “a few inches higher and that would have been it for me,” Magnus had said ruefully, examining the knife wound. “It would have stopped my heart.”

There had been a few moments—minutes, even—when Alec had truly thought Magnus was dead. And after so much time spent worrying that he would grow old and die before Magnus did. What a bitter irony it would have been. The sort of thing he deserved, for seriously contemplating the offer Camille had made him, even for a second.

He could see light up ahead—the City Hall station, lit by chandeliers and skylights. He was about to douse his witchlight when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Alec,” it said. “Alexander Gideon Lightwood.”

Alec felt his heart lurch. He turned around slowly. “Magnus?”

Magnus moved forward, into the circle of illumination cast by Alec’s witchlight. He looked uncharacteristically somber, his eyes shadowed. His spiky hair was rumpled. He wore only a suit jacket over a T-shirt, and Alec couldn’t help wondering if he was cold.

“Magnus,” Alec said again. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Evidently,” Magnus said.

Alec swallowed hard. He had never seen Magnus angry, not really. Not like this. Magnus’s cat eyes were remote, impossible to read. “Did you follow me?” Alec asked.

“You could say that. It helped that I knew where you were going.” Moving stiffly, Magnus took a folded square of paper from his pocket. In the dim light, all Alec could see was that it was covered with a careful, flourishing handwriting. “You know, when she told me you’d been here—told me about the bargain she’d struck with you—I didn’t believe her. I didn’t
want
to believe her. But here you are.”

“Camille
told
you—”

Magnus held up a hand to cut him off. “Just stop,” he said wearily. “Of course she told me. I warned you she was a master at manipulation and politics, but you didn’t listen to me. Who do you think she’d rather have on her side—me or you? You’re eighteen years old, Alexander. You’re not exactly a powerful ally.”

“I already told her,” Alec said. “I wouldn’t kill Raphael. I came here and told her the bargain was off, I wouldn’t do it—”

“You had to come all the way here, to this abandoned subway station, to deliver that message?” Magnus raised his eyebrows. “You don’t think you could have delivered essentially the same message by, perhaps, staying away?”

“It was—”

“And even if you did come here—unnecessarily—and tell her the deal was off,” Magnus went on in a deadly calm voice, “why are you here
now
? Social call? Just visiting? Explain it to me, Alexander, if there’s something I’m missing.”

Alec swallowed. Surely there must be a way to explain. That he had been coming down here, visiting Camille, because she was the only person he could talk to about Magnus. The only person who knew Magnus, as he did, not just as the High Warlock of Brooklyn but as someone who could love and be loved back, who had human frailties and peculiarities and odd, irregular currents of mood that Alec had no idea how to navigate without advice. “Magnus—” Alec took a step toward his boyfriend, and for the first time that he remembered, Magnus moved away from him. His posture was stiff and unfriendly. He was looking at Alec the way he’d look at a stranger, a stranger he didn’t like very much.

“I’m so sorry,” Alec said. His voice sounded scratchy and uneven to his own ears. “I never meant—”

“I was thinking about it, you know,” Magnus said. “That’s part of why I wanted the Book of the White. Immortality can be a burden. You think of the days that stretch out before you, when you have been everywhere, seen everything. The one thing I hadn’t experienced was growing old with someone—someone I loved. I thought perhaps it would be you. But that does not give you the right to make the length of my life
your choice
and not mine.”

“I know.” Alec’s heart raced. “I know, and I wasn’t going to do it—”

“I’ll be out all day,” Magnus said. “Come and get your things
out of the apartment. Leave your key on the dining room table.” His eyes searched Alec’s face. “It’s over. I don’t want to see you again, Alec. Or any of your friends. I’m tired of being their pet warlock.”

Alec’s hands had begun to shake, hard enough that he dropped his witchlight. The light winked out, and he fell to his knees, scrabbling on the ground among the trash and the dirt. At last something lit up before his eyes, and he rose to see Magnus standing before him, the witchlight in his hand. It shone and flickered with a strangely colored light.

“It shouldn’t light up like that,” Alec said automatically. “For anyone but a Shadowhunter.”

Magnus held it out. The heart of the witchlight was glowing a dark red, like the coal of a fire.

“Is it because of your father?” Alec asked.

Magnus didn’t reply, only tipped the rune-stone into Alec’s palm. As their hands touched, Magnus’s face changed. “You’re freezing cold.”

“I am?”

“Alexander . . .” Magnus pulled him close, and the witchlight flickered between them, its color changing rapidly. Alec had never seen a witchlight rune-stone do that before. He put his head against Magnus’s shoulder and let Magnus hold him. Magnus’s heart didn’t beat like human hearts did. It was slower, but steady. Sometimes Alec thought it was the steadiest thing in his life.

“Kiss me,” Alec said.

Magnus put his hand to the side of Alec’s face and gently, almost absently, ran his thumb along Alec’s cheekbone. When he bent to kiss him, he smelled like sandalwood. Alec clutched
the sleeve of Magnus’s jacket, and the witchlight, held between their bodies, flared up in colors of rose and blue and green.

It was a slow kiss, and a sad one. When Magnus drew away, Alec found that somehow he was holding the witchlight alone; Magnus’s hand was gone. The light was a soft white.

Softly, Magnus said,
“Aku cinta kamu.”

“What does that mean?”

Magnus disentangled himself from Alec’s grip. “It means I love you. Not that that changes anything.”

“But if you love me—”

“Of course I do. More than I thought I would. But we’re still done,” Magnus said. “It doesn’t change what you did.”

“But it was just a mistake,” Alec whispered. “One mistake—”

Magnus laughed sharply. “One mistake? That’s like calling the maiden voyage of the
Titanic
a minor boating accident. Alec, you tried to shorten my life.”

“It was just—She offered, but I thought about it and I couldn’t go through with it—I couldn’t do that to you.”

“But you had to think about it. And you never mentioned it to me.” Magnus shook his head. “You didn’t trust me. You never have.”

“I do,” Alec said. “I will—I’ll try. Give me another chance—”

“No,” Magnus said. “And if I might give you a piece of advice: Avoid Camille. There is a war coming, Alexander, and you don’t want your loyalties to be in question. Do you?”

And with that he turned and walked away, his hands in his pockets—walking slowly, as if he were injured, and not just from the cut in his side. But he was walking away just the same. Alec watched him until he moved beyond the glow of the witchlight and out of sight.

The inside of the Institute had been cool in the summer, but now, with winter well and truly here, Clary thought, it was warm. The nave was bright with rows of candelabras, and the stained-glass windows glowed softly. She let the front door swing shut behind her and headed for the elevator. She was halfway up the center aisle when she heard someone laughing.

She turned. Isabelle was sitting in one of the old pews, her long legs slung over the back of the seats in front of her. She wore boots that hit her midthigh, slim jeans, and a red sweater that left one shoulder bare. Her skin was traced with black designs; Clary remembered what Sebastian had said about not liking it when women disfigured their skin with Marks, and shivered inside. “Didn’t you hear me saying your name?” Izzy demanded. “You really can be astonishingly single-minded.”