Cassandra Clare: City of Fallen Angels

Luke turned Simon to face him. “You’re covered in blood,” he said. “And I’m guessing it’s not yours, because . . .” He gestured toward the Mark on Simon’s forehead. “But hey.” His voice was gentle. “Even covered in blood and with the Mark of Cain on you, you’re still Simon. Can you tell me what happened?”

“It’s not my blood, you’re right,” Simon said hoarsely. “But it’s also kind of a long story.” He tilted his head back to look up at Luke; he’d always wondered if maybe he’d have another growth spurt some day, grow a few more inches than the five-ten he was now, be able to look Luke—not to mention Jace—straight in the eye. But that would never happen now. “Luke,” he said. “Do you think it’s possible to do something so bad, even if you didn’t mean to do it, that you can never come back from it? That no one can forgive you?”

Luke looked at him for a long, silent moment. Then he said, “Think of someone you love, Simon. Really love. Is there anything they could ever do that would mean you would stop loving them?”

Images flashed through Simon’s mind, like the pages of a flip-book: Clary, turning to smile at him over her shoulder; his sister, tickling him when he was just a little kid; his mother, asleep on the sofa with the coverlet pulled up to her shoulders; Izzy—

He shut the thoughts off hastily. Clary hadn’t done anything so terrible that he needed to dredge up forgiveness for her; none of the people he was picturing had. He thought of Clary, forgiving her mother for having stolen her memories. He thought of Jace, what he had done on the roof, how he had looked afterward. He had done what he had done without volition of his own, but Simon doubted Jace would be able to forgive himself, regardless. And then he thought of Jordan—not forgiving himself for what he had done to Maia, but forging ahead anyway, joining the Praetor Lupus, making a life out of helping others.

“I bit someone,” he said. The words came out of his mouth, and he wished he could swallow them back. He braced himself for Luke’s look of horror, but it didn’t come.

“Did they live?” Luke said. “This person that you bit. Did they survive?”

“I—” How to explain about Maureen? Lilith had ordered her away, but Simon was sure they hadn’t seen the last of her. “I didn’t kill her.”

Luke nodded once. “You know how werewolves become pack leaders,” he said. “They have to kill the old pack leader. I’ve done that twice. I have the scars to prove it.” He drew the collar of his shirt aside slightly, and Simon saw the edge of a thick white scar that looked ragged, as if his chest had been clawed. “The second time it was a calculated move. Cold-blooded killing. I wanted to become the leader, and that was how I did it.” He shrugged. “You’re a vampire. It’s in your nature to want to drink blood. You’ve held out a long time without doing it. I know you can walk in the sun, Simon, and so you pride yourself on being a normal human boy, but you’re still what you are. Just like I am. The more you try to crush your true nature, the more it will control you. Be what you are. No one who really loves you will stop.”

Simon said hoarsely, “My mom—”

“Clary told me what happened with your mother, and that you’ve been crashing with Jordan Kyle,” said Luke. “Look, your mother will come around, Simon. Like Amatis did, with me. You’re still her son. I’ll talk to her, if you want me to.”

Simon shook his head silently. His mother had always liked Luke. Dealing with the fact that Luke was a werewolf would probably make things worse, not better.

Luke nodded as if he understood. “If you don’t want to go back to Jordan’s, you’re more than welcome to stay on my sofa tonight. I’m sure Clary would be glad to have you around, and we can talk about what to do about your mother tomorrow.”

Simon squared his shoulders. He looked at Isabelle across the room, the gleam of her whip, the shine of the pendant at her throat, the flutter of her hands as she talked. Isabelle, who wasn’t afraid of anything. He thought of his mother, the way she had backed away from him, the fear in her eyes. He’d been hiding from the memory, running from it, ever since. But it was time to stop running. “No,” he said. “Thanks, but I think I don’t need a place to crash tonight. I think . . . that I’m going to go home.”

Jace stood alone on the roof, looking out over the city, the East River a silvery-black snake twining between Brooklyn and Manhattan. His hands, his lips, still felt warm from Clary’s touch, but the wind off the river was icy, and the warmth was fading fast. Without a jacket the air cut through the thin material of his shirt like the blade of a knife.

He took a deep breath, sucking the cold air into his lungs, and let it out slowly. His whole body felt tense. He was waiting for the sound of the elevator, the doors opening, the Shadowhunters flooding out into the garden. They would be sympathetic at first, he thought, worried about him. Then, as they understood what had happened—then would come the shrinking away, the meaningful looks exchanged when they thought he wasn’t watching. He had been possessed—not just by a demon, but by a Greater Demon—had acted against the Clave, had threatened and hurt another Shadowhunter.

He thought about how Jocelyn would look at him when she heard what he’d done to Clary. Luke might understand, forgive. But Jocelyn. He had never been able to bring himself to speak to her honestly, to say the words he thought might reassure her. I love your daughter, more than I ever thought it was possible to love anything. I would never hurt her.

She would just look at him, he thought, with those green eyes that were so like Clary’s. She would want more than that. She would want to hear him say what he wasn’t sure was true.

I am nothing like Valentine.

Aren’t you? The words seemed carried on the cold air, a whisper meant only for his ears. You never knew your mother. You never knew your father. You gave your heart to Valentine when you were a child, as children do, and made yourself a part of him. You cannot cut that away from yourself now with one clean slice of a blade.

His left hand was cold. He looked down and saw, to his shock, that somehow he had picked up the dagger—his real father’s etched silver dagger—and was holding it in his hand. The blade, though eaten away by Lilith’s blood, was whole again, and shining like a promise. A cold that had nothing to do with the weather began to spread through his chest. How many times had he woken up like this, gasping and sweating, the dagger in his hand? And Clary, always Clary, dead at his feet.

But Lilith was dead. It was over. He tried to slide the dagger into his belt, but his hand didn’t seem to want to obey the command his mind was giving it. He felt a sense of stinging heat across his chest, a searing pain. Looking down, he saw that the bloody line that had split Lilith’s mark in half, where Clary had slashed him with the dagger, had healed. The mark gleamed redly against his chest.

Jace stopped trying to shove the dagger into his belt. His knuckles turned white as his grip tightened on the hilt, his wrist twisting, desperately trying to turn the blade on himself. His heart was pounding. He had accepted no iratzes. How had the mark healed so fast? If he could gash it again, disfigure it, even temporarily—

But his hand wouldn’t obey him. His arm stayed stiffly at his side as his body turned, against his own will, toward the pedestal where Sebastian’s body lay.

The coffin had begun to glow, with a cloudy greenish light—almost a witchlight glow, but there was something painful about this light, something that seemed to pierce the eye. Jace tried to take a step back, but his legs wouldn’t move. Icy sweat trickled down his back. A voice whispered at the back of his mind.