City of Bones (8 page)

They had reached an arch-shaped set of wooden doors. A blue Persian cat with yellow eyes lay curled in front of them. It raised its head as they approached and yowled. “Hey, Church,” Jace said, stroking the cat’s back with a bare foot. The cat slit its eyes in pleasure.

“Wait,” said Clary. “Alec and Isabelle and Max—they’re the only Shadowhunters your age that you know, that you spend time with?”

Jace stopped stroking the cat. “Yes.”

“That must get kind of lonely.”

“I have everything I need.” He pushed the doors open. After a moment’s hesitation she followed him inside.

The library was circular, with a ceiling that tapered to a point, as if it had been built inside a tower. The walls were lined with books, the shelves so high that tall ladders set on casters were placed along them at intervals. These were no ordinary books either—these were books bound in leather and velvet, clasped with sturdy-looking locks and hinges made of brass and silver. Their spines were studded with dully glowing jewels and illuminated with gold script. They looked worn in a way that made it clear that these books were not just old but were well used, and had been loved.

The floor was polished wood, inlaid with chips of glass and marble and bits of semiprecious stone. The inlay formed a pattern that Clary couldn’t quite decipher—it might have been the constellations, or even a map of the world; she suspected she’d have to climb up into the tower and look down in order to see it properly.

In the center of the room sat a magnificent desk. It was carved from a single slab of wood, a great, heavy piece of oak that gleamed with the dull shine of years. The slab rested upon the backs of two angels, carved from the same wood, their wings gilded and their faces engraved with a look of suffering, as if the weight of the slab were breaking their backs. Behind the desk sat a thin man with gray-streaked hair and a long beaky nose.

“A book lover, I see,” he said, smiling at Clary. “You didn’t tell me that, Jace.”

Jace chuckled. Clary could tell that he had come up behind her and was standing there with his hands in his pockets, grinning that infuriating grin of his. “We haven’t done much talking during our short acquaintance,” he said. “I’m afraid our reading habits didn’t come up.”

Clary turned around and shot him a glare.

“How can you tell?” she asked the man behind the desk. “That I like books, I mean.”

“The look on your face when you walked in,” he said, standing up and coming around from behind the desk. “Somehow I doubted you were that impressed by
me.
”

Clary stifled a gasp as he rose. For a moment it seemed to her that he was strangely misshapen, his left shoulder humped and higher than the other. As he approached, she saw that the hunch was actually a bird, perched neatly on his shoulder—a glossy feathered creature with bright black eyes.

“This is Hugo,” the man said, touching the bird on his shoulder. “Hugo is a raven, and, as such, he knows many things. I, meanwhile, am Hodge Starkweather, a professor of history, and, as such, I do not know nearly enough.”

Clary laughed a little, despite herself, and shook his outstretched hand. “Clary Fray.”

“Honored to make your acquaintance,” he said. “I would be honored to make the acquaintance of anyone who could kill a Ravener with her bare hands.”

“It wasn’t my bare hands.” It still felt odd to be congratulated for killing something. “It was Jace’s—well, I don’t remember what it was called, but—”

“She means my Sensor,” Jace said. “She shoved it down the thing’s throat. The runes must have choked it. I guess I’ll need another one,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “I should have mentioned that.”

“There are several extra in the weapons room,” said Hodge. When he smiled at Clary, a thousand small lines rayed out from around his eyes, like the cracks in an old painting. “That was quick thinking. What gave you the idea of using the Sensor as a weapon?”

Before she could reply, a sharp laugh sounded through the room. Clary had been so enraptured by the books and distracted by Hodge that she hadn’t seen Alec sprawled in an overstuffed red armchair by the empty fireplace. “I can’t believe you buy that story, Hodge,” he said.

At first Clary didn’t even register his words. She was too busy staring at him. Like many only children, she was fascinated by the resemblance between siblings, and now, in the full light of day, she could see exactly how much Alec looked like his sister. They had the same jet-black hair, the same slender eyebrows winging up at the corners, the same pale, high-colored skin. But where Isabelle was all arrogance, Alec slumped down in the chair as if he hoped nobody would notice him. His lashes were long and dark like Isabelle’s, but where her eyes were black, his were the dark blue of bottle glass. They gazed at Clary with a hostility as pure and concentrated as acid.

“I’m not quite sure what you mean, Alec.” Hodge raised an eyebrow. Clary wondered how old he was; there was a sort of agelessness to him, despite the gray in his hair. He wore a neat gray tweed suit, perfectly pressed. He would have looked like a kindly college professor if it hadn’t been for the thick scar that drew up the right side of his face. She wondered how he had gotten it. “Are you suggesting that she didn’t kill that demon after all?”

“Of course she didn’t. Look at her—she’s a mundie, Hodge, and a little kid, at that. There’s no way she took on a Ravener.”

“I’m not a little kid,” Clary interrupted. “I’m sixteen years old—well, I will be on Sunday.”

“The same age as Isabelle,” Hodge said. “Would you call her a child?”

“Isabelle hails from one of the greatest Shadowhunter dynasties in history,” Alec said dryly. “This girl, on the other hand, hails from New Jersey.”

“I’m from Brooklyn!” Clary was outraged. “And so what? I just killed a demon in my own house, and you’re going to be a dickhead about it because I’m not some spoiled-rotten rich brat like you and your sister?”

Alec looked astonished. “
What
did you call me?”

Jace sounded as if he could barely contain his laughter. “She has a point, Alec. Plenty of Downworld activity going on in the boroughs, you know. It’s those bridge-and-tunnel demons you really have to watch out for—”

“It’s not
funny
, Jace,” Alec interrupted, starting to his feet. “Are you just going to let her stand there and call me names?”

“Yes,” Jace said kindly. “It’ll do you good—try to think of it as endurance training.”

“We may be
parabatai
,” Alec said tightly. “But your flippancy is wearing on my patience.”

“And your obstinacy is wearing on mine. When I found her, she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a dying demon practically on top of her. I watched as it vanished. If she didn’t kill it, who did?”

“Raveners are stupid. Maybe it got itself in the neck with its stinger. It’s happened before—”

“Now you’re suggesting it committed suicide?”

Alec’s mouth tightened. “It isn’t right for her to be here. Mundies aren’t allowed in the Institute, and there are good reasons for that. If anyone knew about this, we could be reported to the Clave.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Hodge said. “The Law does allow us to offer sanctuary to mundanes in certain circumstances. A Ravener has already attacked Clary’s mother—she could well have been next.”

Attacked
. Clary wondered if this was a euphemism for “murdered.” The raven on Hodge’s shoulder cawed softly.

“Raveners are search-and-destroy machines,” Alec said. “They act under orders from warlocks or powerful demon lords. Now, what interest would a warlock or demon lord have in an ordinary mundane household?” His eyes when he looked at Clary were bright with dislike. “Any thoughts?”

Clary said, “It must have been a mistake.”

“Demons don’t make those kinds of mistakes. If they went after your mother, there must have been a reason. If she were innocent—”

“What do you mean, ‘innocent’?” Clary’s voice was quiet.

Alec looked taken aback. “I—”

“What he means,” said Hodge, “is that it is extremely unusual for a powerful demon, the kind who might command a host of lesser demons, to interest himself in the affairs of human beings. No mundane may summon a demon—they lack that power—but there have been some, desperate and foolish, who have found a witch or warlock to do it for them.”

“My mother doesn’t know any warlocks. She doesn’t believe in magic.” A thought occurred to Clary. “Madame Dorothea—she lives downstairs—she’s a witch. Maybe the demons were after her and got my mom by mistake?”

Hodge’s eyebrows shot up into his hair. “A witch lives downstairs from you?”

“She’s a hedge-witch—a fake,” Jace said. “I already looked into it. There’s no reason for any warlock to be interested in her unless he’s in the market for nonfunctional crystal balls.”

“And we’re back where we began.” Hodge reached up to stroke the bird on his shoulder. “It seems the time has come to notify the Clave.”

“No!” Jace said. “We can’t—”

“It made sense to keep Clary’s presence here a secret while we were not sure she would recover,” Hodge said. “But now she has, and she is the first mundane to pass through the doors of the Institute in over a hundred years. You know the rules about mundane knowledge of Shadowhunters, Jace. The Clave must be informed.”

“Absolutely,” Alec agreed. “I could get a message to my father—”

“She’s not a mundane,” Jace said quietly.

Hodge’s eyebrows shot back up to his hairline and stayed there. Alec, caught in the middle of a sentence, choked with surprise. In the sudden silence Clary could hear the sound of Hugo’s wings rustling. “But I am,” she said.

“No,” said Jace. “You aren’t.” He turned to Hodge, and Clary saw the slight movement of his throat as he swallowed. She found this glimpse of his nervousness oddly reassuring. “That night—there were Du’sien demons, dressed like police officers. We had to get past them. Clary was too weak to run, and there wasn’t time to hide—she would have died. So I used my stele—put a
mendelin
rune on the inside of her arm. I thought—”

“Are you out of your
mind
?” Hodge slammed his hand down on top of the desk so hard that Clary thought the wood might crack. “You know what the Law says about placing Marks on mundanes! You—you of all people ought to know better!”

“But it worked,” said Jace. “Clary, show them your arm.”

With a baffled glance in Jace’s direction, she held out her bare arm. She remembered looking down at it that night in the alley, thinking how vulnerable it seemed. Now, just below the crease of her wrist, she could see three faint overlapping circles, the lines as faint as the memory of a scar that had faded with the passage of years. “See, it’s almost gone,” Jace said. “It didn’t hurt her at all.”

“That’s not the point.” Hodge could barely control his anger. “You could have turned her into a Forsaken.”

Two bright spots of color burned high up on Alec’s cheekbones. “I can’t believe you, Jace. Only Shadowhunters can receive Covenant Marks—they
kill
mundanes—”

“She’s not a mundane. Haven’t you been listening? It explains why she could see us. She must have Clave blood.”

Clary lowered her arm, feeling suddenly cold. “But I don’t. I couldn’t.”

“You must,” Jace said, without looking at her. “If you didn’t, that Mark I made on your arm …”

“That’s enough, Jace,” said Hodge, the displeasure clear in his voice. “There’s no need to frighten her further.”

“But I was right, wasn’t I? It explains what happened to her mother, too. If she was a Shadowhunter in exile, she might well have Downworld enemies.”

“My mother wasn’t a Shadowhunter!”

“Your father, then,” Jace said. “What about him?”

Clary returned his gaze with a flat stare. “He died. Before I was born.”

Jace flinched, almost imperceptibly. It was Alec who spoke. “It’s possible,” he said uncertainly. “If her father were a Shadowhunter, and her mother a mundane—well, we all know it’s against the Law to marry a mundie. Maybe they were in hiding.”

“My mother would have told me,” Clary said, although she thought of the lack of more than one photo of her father, the way her mother never spoke of him, and knew that it wasn’t true.

“Not necessarily,” said Jace. “We all have secrets.”

“Luke,” Clary said. “Our friend. He would know.” With the thought of Luke came a flash of guilt and horror. “It’s been three days—he must be frantic. Can I call him? Is there a phone?” She turned to Jace. “Please.”

Jace hesitated, looking at Hodge, who nodded and moved aside from the desk. Behind him was a globe, made of beaten brass, that didn’t look quite like other globes she had seen; there was something subtly strange about the shape of the countries and continents. Next to the globe was an old-fashioned black telephone with a silver rotary dial. Clary lifted it to her ear, the familiar dial tone washing over her like soothing water.

Luke picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Luke!” She sagged against the desk. “It’s me. It’s Clary.”

“Clary.” She could hear the relief in his voice, along with something else she couldn’t quite identify. “You’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you before. Luke, my mom—”

“I know. The police were here.”

“Then you haven’t heard from her.” Any vestigial hope that her mother had fled the house and hidden somewhere disappeared. There was no way she wouldn’t have contacted Luke. “What did the police say?”

“Just that she was missing.” Clary thought of the policewoman with her skeletal hand, and shivered. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the city,” Clary said. “I don’t know where exactly. With some friends. My wallet’s gone, though. If you’ve got some cash, I could take a cab to your place—”

“No,” he said shortly.

The phone slipped in her sweaty hand. She caught it. “What?”

“No,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. You can’t come here.”

“We could call—”

“Look.” His voice was hard. “Whatever your mother’s gotten herself mixed up in, it’s nothing to do with me. You’re better off where you are.”

“But I don’t want to stay here.” She heard the whine in her voice, like a child’s. “I don’t know these people. You—”