Cassandra Clare - City of Ashes

Clary was in the middle of helping Luke clean up the remains of dinner when the doorbell rang again. She straightened up, her gaze flicking to Luke. "Expecting someone?"

He frowned, drying his hands on the dish towel. "No. Wait here." She saw him reach up to grab something off one of the shelves as he left the kitchen. Something that glinted.

"Did you see that knife?" Simon whistled, standing up from the table. "Is he expecting trouble?"

"I think he's always expecting trouble," Clary said, "these days." She peered around the side of the kitchen door, saw Luke at the open front door. She could hear his voice, but not what he was saying. He didn't sound upset, though.

Simon's hand on her shoulder pulled her back. "Keep away from the door. What are you, crazy? What if there's some demon thing out there?"

"Then Luke could probably use our help." She looked down at his hand on her shoulder, grinning. "Now you're all protective? That's cute."

"Clary!" Luke called her from the front room. "Come here. I want you to meet someone."

Clary patted Simon's hand and set it aside. "Be right back."

Luke was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed. The knife in his hand had magically disappeared. A girl stood on the front steps of the house, a girl with curling brown hair in multiple braids and a tan corduroy jacket. "This is Maia," Luke said. "Who I was just telling you about."

The girl looked at Clary. Her eyes under the bright porch light were a strange amber green. "You must be Clary."

Clary admitted that this was the case.

"So that kid—the boy with the blond hair who tore up the Hunter's Moon—he's your brother?"

"Jace," Clary said shortly, not liking the girl's intrusive curiosity.

"Maia?" It was Simon, coming up behind Clary, hands thrust into the pockets of his jean jacket.

"Yeah. You're Simon, right? I suck at names, but I remember you." The girl smiled past Clary at him.

"Great," said Clary. "Now we're all friends."

Luke coughed and straightened up. "I wanted you to meet each other because Maia's going to be working around the bookshop for the next few weeks," he said. "If you see her going in and out, don't worry about it. She's got a key."

"And I'll keep an eye out for anything weird," Maia promised. "Demons, vamps, whatever."

"Thanks," said Clary. "I feel so safe now."

Maia blinked. "Are you being sarcastic?"

"We're all a little tense," Simon said. "I for one am happy to know someone will be around here keeping an eye on my girlfriend when no one else is home."

Luke raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Clary said, "Simon's right. Sorry I snapped at you."

"It's all right." Maia looked sympathetic. "I heard about your mom. I'm sorry."

"Me too," Clary said, turned around, and went back to the kitchen. She sat down at the table and put her face in her hands. A moment later Luke followed her.

"Sorry," he said. "I guess you weren't in the mood to meet anyone."

Clary looked at him through splayed fingers. "Where's Simon?"

"Talking to Maia," Luke said, and indeed Clary could hear their voices, soft as murmurs, from the other end of the house. "I just thought it would be good for you to have a friend right now."

"I have Simon."

Luke pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Did I hear him call you his girlfriend?"

She almost laughed at his bewildered expression. "I guess so ."

"Is that something new, or is this something I'm already supposed to know, but forgot?"

"I hadn't heard it before myself." She took her hands away from her face and looked at them. She thought of the rune, the open eye, that decorated the back of the right hand of every Shadowhunter. "Somebody's girlfriend," she said. "Somebody's sister, somebody's daughter. All these things I never knew I was before, and I still don't really know what I am."

"Isn't that always the question," Luke said, and Clary heard the door shut at the other end of the house, and Simon's footsteps approaching the kitchen. The smell of cold night air came in with him.

"Would it be okay if I crashed here tonight?" he asked. "It's a little late to head home."

"You know you're always welcome." Luke glanced at his watch. "I'm going to get some sleep. Have to be up at five a.m. to get to the hospital by six."

"Why six?" Simon asked, after Luke had left the kitchen.

"That's when hospital visiting hours start," Clary said. "You don't have to sleep on the couch. Not if you don't want to."

"I don't mind staying to keep you company tomorrow," he said, shaking dark hair out of his eyes impatiently. "Not at all."

"I know. I meant you don't have to sleep on the couch if you don't want to."

"Then where…" His voice trailed off, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Oh."

"It's a double bed," she said. "In the guest room."

Simon took his hands out of his pockets. There was bright color in his cheeks. Jace would have tried to look cool; Simon didn't even try. "Are you sure ?"

"I'm sure."

He came across the kitchen to her and, bending down, kissed her lightly and clumsily on the mouth. Smiling, she got to her feet. "Enough with the kitchens," she said. "No more kitchens." And taking him firmly by the wrists, she pulled him after her, out of the kitchen, toward the guest room where she slept.

The darkness of the prisons of the Silent City was moreprofound than any darkness Jace had ever known. He couldn't see the shape of his own hand in front of his eyes, couldn't see the floor or ceiling of his cell. What he knew of the cell, he knew from the torchlit first glimpse he'd had, guided down here by a contingent of Silent Brothers, who had opened the barred gate of the cell for him and ushered him inside as if he were a common criminal.

Then again, that's probably exactly what they thought he was.

He knew that the cell had a flagged stone floor, that three of the walls were hewn rock, and that the fourth was made of narrowly spaced electrum bars, each end sunk deeply into stone. He knew there was a door set into those bars. He also knew that a long metal bar ran along the east wall, because the Silent Brothers had attached one loop of a pair of silver cuffs to this bar, and the other cuff to his wrist. He could walk up and down the cell a few steps, rattling like Marley's ghost, but that was as far as he could go. He had already rubbed his right wrist raw yanking thoughtlessly at the cuff. At least he was left-handed—a small bright spot in the impenetrable blackness. Not that it mattered much, but it was reassuring to have his better fighting hand free.

He began another slow promenade along the length of his cell, trailing his fingers along the wall as he walked. It was unnerving not to know what time it was. In Idris his father had taught him to tell time by the angle of the sun, the length of afternoon shadows, the position of the stars in the night sky. But there were no stars here. In fact, he had begun to wonder if he would ever see the sky again.

Jace paused. Now, why had he wondered that? Of course he'd see the sky again. The Clave weren't going to kill him. The penalty of death was reserved for murderers. But the flutter of fear stayed with him, just under his rib cage, strange as an unexpected twinge of pain. Jace wasn't exactly prone to random fits of panic—Alec would have said he could have benefited from a bit more in the way of constructive cowardice. Fear wasn't something that had ever affected him much.

He thought of Maryse saying, You were never afraid of the dark .

It was true. This anxiety was unnatural, not like him at all. There had to be more to it than simple darkness. He took another shallow breath. He just had to get through the night. One night. That was it. He took another step forward, his manacle jingling drearily.