Cassandra Clare - City of Ashes

Clary cried out. "What are you doing? You'll hurt him—"

"I'm fine, little sister." Jace spoke calmly enough, but she noticed that he couldn't seem to look at her. "The flames won't burn me unless I try to get my hands free."

"And as for you," the Inquisitor added, and turned on Clary, much to Clary's surprise. Up until now the Inquisitor had barely seemed to notice she was alive. "You were lucky enough to be raised by Jocelyn and escape your father's taint. Nevertheless, I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Luke's grip tightened on Clary's shoulder. "Is that a threat?"

"The Clave does not make threats, Lucian Graymark. The Clave makes promises and keeps them." The Inquisitor sounded almost cheerful. She was the only one in the room who could be described that way; everyone else looked shell-shocked, except for Jace. His teeth were bared in a snarl Clary doubted he was even aware of. He looked like a lion in a trap.

"Come, Jonathan," the Inquisitor said. "Walk in front of me. If you make a single move to flee, I'll put a blade between your shoulders."

Jace had to struggle to turn the front doorknob with his bound hands. Clary set her teeth to keep from screaming, and then the door was open and Jace was gone and so was the Inquisitor. The Lightwoods followed in a line, Alec still staring at the ground. The door shut behind them and Clary and Luke were alone in the living room, silent in shared disbelief.

"Luke," Clary began, the moment the door had shut behindthe Lightwoods. "What are we going to do—"

Luke had his hands pressed to either side of his head as if he were keeping it from splitting in half. "Coffee," he declared. "I need coffee."

"I brought you coffee."

He dropped his hands and sighed. "I need more."

Clary followed him into the kitchen, where he helped himself to yet more coffee before sitting down at the kitchen table and running his hands distractedly through his hair. "This is bad," he said. "Very bad."

"You think?" Clary couldn't imagine drinking coffee right now. Her nerves already felt like they were stretched out as thin as wires. "What happens if they take him to Idris?"

"Trial before the Clave. They'll probably find him guilty. Then punishment. He's young, so they might just strip his Marks, not curse him."

"What does that mean?"

Luke didn't meet her eyes. "It means they'll take his Marks away, unmake him as a Shadowhunter, and throw him out of the Clave. He'll be a mundane."

"But that would kill him. It really would. He'd rather die."

"Don't you think I know that?" Luke had finished his coffee and stared morosely at the mug before setting it back down. "But that won't make any difference to the Clave. They can't get their hands on Valentine, so they'll punish his son instead."

"What about me? I'm his daughter."

"But you're not of their world. Jace is. Not that I don't suggest you lie low for a while yourself. I wish we could head up to the farmhouse—"

"We can't just leave Jace with them!" Clary was appalled. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Of course you aren't." Luke waved away her protest. "I said I wish we could, not that I thought we should. There's the question of what Imogen will do now that she knows where Valentine is, of course. We could find ourselves in the middle of a war."

"I don't care if she wants to kill Valentine. She's welcome to Valentine. I just want to get Jace back."

"That may not be so easy," said Luke, "considering that in this case, he actually did what he's accused of doing."

Clary was outraged. "What, you think he killed the Silent Brothers? You think—"

"No. I don't think he killed the Silent Brothers. I think he did exactly what Imogen saw him do: He went to see his father."

Remembering something, Clary asked: "What did you mean when you said we'd failed him, not the other way around? You mean you don't blame him?"

"I do and I don't." Luke looked weary. "It was a stupid thing to do. Valentine isn't to be trusted. But when the Lightwoods turned their backs on him, what did they expect him to do? He's still just a child, he still needs parents. If they won't have him, he'll go looking for someone who will."

"I thought maybe," said Clary, "maybe he was looking to you for that."

Luke looked unutterably sad. "I thought so too, Clary. I thought so too."

Very faintly, Maia could hear the sound of voices coming from the kitchen. They were done with all their shouting in the living room. Time to get out. She folded up the note she'd scribbled hastily, left it on Luke's bed, and crossed the room to the window she'd spent the past twenty minutes forcing open. Cool air spilled through it—it was one of those early fall days when the sky seemed impossibly blue and distant and the air was faintly tinged with the smell of smoke.

She scooted onto the windowsill and looked down. It would have been a worrying jump for her before she'd been Changed; now she spared only a moment's thought for her injured shoulder before leaping. She landed in a crouch on the cracked concrete of Luke's backyard. Straightening up, she glanced back at the house, but no one threw a door open or called out to her to come back.

She fought down an errant stab of disappointment. It wasn't as if they'd paid that much attention to her when she was in the house, she thought, scrambling up the high chain-link fence that separated Luke's backyard from the alley, so why would they notice that she'd left it? She was clearly an afterthought, just as she'd always been. The only one of them who'd treated her as if she were of any importance was Simon.

The thought of Simon made her wince as she dropped down onto the other side of the fence and jogged up the alley to Kent Avenue. She'd said to Clary that she didn't remember the previous night, but it wasn't true. She remembered the look on his face when she'd recoiled from him—as if it were imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. The strangest thing was that in that moment he had still looked human to her, more human than almost anyone she'd ever known.

She crossed the street to avoid passing right in front of Luke's house. The street was nearly deserted, Brooklyners sleeping their late Sunday-morning sleep. She headed toward the Bedford Avenue subway, her mind still on Simon. There was a hollow place in the pit of her stomach that ached when she thought of him. He was the first person she'd wanted to trust in years, and he'd made trusting him impossible.

Of course, if trusting him is impossible, then why are you on your way to see him right now ? came the whisper in the back of her mind that always spoke to her in Daniel's voice. Shut up , she told it firmly. Even if we can't befriends, I owe him an apology at least .

Someone laughed. The sound echoed off the high factory walls on her left. Her heart contracting with sudden fear, Maia whirled around, but the street behind her was empty. There was an old woman walking her dogs along the riverside, but Maia doubted she was within shouting distance.

She sped up her pace anyway. She could outwalk most humans, she reminded herself, not to mention outrun them. Even in her present state, with her arm aching like someone had slammed a sledgehammer into her shoulder, it wasn't as if she had anything to fear from a mugger or rapist. Two teenage boys armed with knives had tried to grab her while she was walking through Central Park one night after she'd first come to the city, and only Bat had kept her from killing them both.

So why was she so panicked ?

She glanced behind her. The old woman was gone; Kent was empty. The old abandoned Domino sugar factory rose up in front of her. Seized by a sudden urge to get off the street, she ducked down the alley beside it.