My eyes never leave her as she gets up and leaves. After a brief battle between my head and my heart, I quickly stand and follow her. "Clary!" I call. Clary whips around and faces me. Shock dances across her face, but it doesn't stay long. She pauses to let me catch up. But I don't move. I'm already uncomfortable, and standing too close to her is a stretch, even for me. "I need to talk to you," I explain.

Clary's brow furrows, a fiery orange line over her eyes like the sliver of a setting sun over a horizon. "What about?" she asks in confusion.

I bite my lip, hesitating, biding my time. I cast my eyes down, fingering the fraying hem of my sweater. Finally, I speak. "I think you should leave. Go home."

"Alec, the last time I was home, it was infested with Forsaken. And Raveners. With fangs." Clary's voice is steady, but I hear the thread of hurt sewn into it, and the twinge of breathlessness like she'd just been punched in the stomach. "Nobody wants to go home more than I do, but—"

"You must have relatives you can stay with?" I interrupt, searching for a way, any way, to get her out. What she's bringing to our once reasonably safe home, all this new danger to Jace, I can't stand.

"No." Clary's voice loses the vulnerable hurt I'd just heard, and is as hard and smooth and flat as a stone. "Besides," she adds, "Hodge wants me to stay."

"He can't possibly," I disagree. I thought Hodge was on my side. "I mean, not after what you've done—"

Now it's her turn to butt in. "What I've done?" she demands furiously.

I try in vain to swallow the rising lump in my throat before speaking. My voice lacks the strength I intended. "You almost got Jace killed."

"I almost—" Clary cuts herself off. "What are you talking about?"

My words come out in a low rush, racing from my lips in a stream of well-disguised fear. "Running after your friend like that," I remind her. "Do you know how much danger you put him in? Do you know—"

Clary interrupts again. "Him? You mean Jace?" she clarifies tauntingly. "For your information, the whole thing was his idea. He asked Magnus where the lair was. He went to the church to get weapons. If I hadn't come with him, he would have gone anyway."

"You don't understand," I respond desperately. "You don't know him. I know him. He thinks he has to save the world." I shake my head slightly. "He'd be glad to kill himself trying. Sometimes I think he even wants to die, but that doesn't mean you should encourage him to do it."

"I don't get it," Clary admits. "Jace is a Nephilim. This is what you do, you rescue people, you kill demons, you put yourselves in danger. How was last night any different?"

With those words, the cork blows off the bottle I'd been safely storing my emotions in. "Because he left me behind!" I roar. Tears prickle at my eyes, but I fight them back, and continue. "Normally I'd be with him, covering him, watching his back, keeping him safe. But you—you're dead weight, a mundane." I infect the word with as much venom as I can force into my voice.

"No," Clary corrects, her eyes narrowing infinitesimally. "I'm not. I'm Nephilim—just like you."

A humorless smile twitches at the corner of my mouth. "Maybe," I allow. "But with no training, no nothing, you're still not much use, are you? Your mother brought you up in the mundane world, and that's where you belong." I stop to glare at her. "Not here, making Jace act like—like he isn't one of us. Making him break his oath to the Clave, making him break the Law—"

"News flash. I don't make Jace do anything," hisses Clary. "He does what he wants. You ought to know that."

I eye her like she's nothing but dirt under my shoes. "You mundanes are completely selfish, aren't you?" I ask condescendingly, rhetorically. "Have you no idea what he's done for you, what kind of personal risks he's taken? I'm not just talking about his safety. He could lose everything. He already lost his father and mother; do you want to make sure he loses the family he's got left as well?"

Clary stares at me, this time no hurt penetrating her black glare. Her fists clench, and I notice where her nails begin to leave crescent-moon-shaped dents in the meaty part of her palm. "You should talk about selfish," she shoots back in a blistering snarl. "You couldn't care less about anyone in this world except yourself, Alec Lightwood. No wonder you've never killed a single demon, because you're too afraid."

Jace wouldn't. He couldn't have. The words are a slap. "Who told you that?"

I know the answer. But that doesn't stop the wave of pain that threatens to pull me under. "Jace," Clary responds. I can see in her face that she knows full well how much this hurts, and yet she still says it. I hate her for it. I hate that she's right. And I'm afraid. I wish I wasn't afraid.

"He wouldn't," I gasp. "He wouldn't say that."

"He did," counters Clary triumphantly. A slow smile spreads across her face. "You can rant all you want about honor and honesty and how mundanes don't have any of either, but if you were honest, you'd admit this tantrum is just because you're in love with him." She continues on, but I don't hear.

No. No, no, no! How on earth did Clary Fray, of all people, learn the truth? I act out in fear, and throw myself at her, slamming her into the wall. I force her stare into my eyes. "Don't you ever, ever say anything like that to him or I'll kill you," I threaten in a menacing whisper. "I swear on the Angel, I'll kill you."

By the time logic catches up with me, I have already released Clary. I stagger back to the infirmary from where I'd come, trying not to let Clary's words ring in my head. "It's just because you're in love with him." She was right. I hated that she was right.

i read City of Bones by Cassandra Clare last night and FELL IN LOVE. it was awesome. i heart Simon. and i knew i had to write something. so i stole my sister's copy of CoB, sat down at my laptop, and produced this an hour later. do you like it? review it! GO MORTAL INSTRUMENTS!