Days later, Jacelyn was in the music room, sitting at the piano, and playing a soft, sweet melody, her fingers skimming over the keys. Clide was leaning into the door frame, watching her in awe, the sweet yet haunting melody drifting in the air. Once the piece ended, she twisted around, looking into the shadows. "Alex. . . Is that you?"
He shifted uncomfortably, looking down at his feet. "No, it's Clide. . Sorry."
"Clide. . ." Jacelyn tastes the name in her mouth before realization sinks in. "Oh, mundie. Aka, our own Sleeping Beauty. Who finally kissed you awake?"
Sighing, Clide rakes his fingers through his tousled hair. "I came to say sorry about however many nights ago, but I suppose you aren't interested in any kindness I have to offer. I'll leave soon so you don't have to see me and whatnot." He shrugs and turns away.
Jacelyn stands, going behind him. Lightly pressing her fingers against his back, she sighs. "It's okay, Clide. I know that I'm not the nicest flower in the bundle."
The light touch she leaves on his back, makes him tense. He doesn't expect the odd lingering feeling they leave. He blinks a few times, evening his breathing. "No one really is, I could hardly blame you. I was being an ass. A curious ass, but still an ass. And I know you won't disagree with me, but I am sorry. I feel bad each time I said something like that, I'm not like that with anyone else." Wincing, he waits for another one of her smartass remarks. Instead she goes back over to the piano, and slides the gleaming black cover close.
"Was there anybody with you when you awoke?"
Clide looks over his shoulder, at her. "No, I was alone."
"Alright, well, Hodge wants to speak with you. So I assume, I will be the lucky person that will escort you to him."
He hesitates, looking away and closing his eyes momentarily. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
Rolling her eyes, she takes him by the arm. "Come on, Clide." She leaves the music room and starts heading down the corridors once more.
He keeps his gaze straight-forward, determined not to look at anything around him, or even her. Finally, he caves in to his own curiosity. "What's with all the doors?"
Letting go of his arm, Jacelyn speaks in a clear, neutral voice. "It's the residential wing. We're pledged to offer safety and lodging to any Shadowhunter who requests it. We can house up to two hundred people here. But people come and go. Nobody stays for long. Usually it's just us-Alex, Issac, Max, their parents- and me and Hodge."
Clide nods solemnly; listening to her with a veiled fascination. "Where's Hodge?"
"Library, I assume."
He only nods curtly, sliding his hands into his pockets, as a response.
Then, not a moment later, they had reached an arch-shaped set of wooden doors, a blue Persian cat with yellow eyes laying curled up in front of them. When they approached, it raised its head and yowled. "Hiya Church," Jacelyn says, leaning down and stroking the cat softly. Standing up she pushed the doors opened," Welcome, to the Library, home of all the Shadowhunters' past."
Clide scans the Library, the look of awe and amazement impossible to conceal as he examines the way each of the books, new and old, have been well-used, and well-loved by those from both the past and the present. His green eyes light up significantly with his bold fascination.
Jacelyn, obviously not having enough patience for it now, rolls her eyes, and grabs his hand. "Follow me." She leads him to the center of the room, to a magnificent desk that was carved from a single slab of wood, a great, heavy piece of oak that gleamed with the dull shine of years.
"A book lover, I see. You didn't tell me that, Jacelyn." Hodge states.
Smiling, she lets go of Clide's hand and slips her own into her pockets. "We haven't done much talking during our short acquaintance. I'm afraid our reading habits didn't come up."
Clide rolls his eyes, still taking in the rest of the room in silence. His cheeks flush a light pink when Hodge acknowledges his reading habits, however. "How can you tell?" He tries to force away the embarrassing color in his skin, "That I like books, I mean."
"The look on your face when you walked in." Hodges stands up, coming around from behind the desk. "Somehow I doubted you were that impressed by me. This is Hugo," he gestures to the medium-sized bird perched on his desk. "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."
Chuckling nervously, Clide shakes his outstretched hand. "Clide Fray."
Later on, Jacelyn opens the greenhouse door, then the scent hits them, soft as the padded blow of a cat's paw: the rich dark smell of earth and the stronger, soapy scent of night-blooming flowers-moonflowers, white angel's trumpet, four-o' clocks- and some she thought Clide wouldn't recognize, like the plant in a dotted pot that had a star-shaped yellow blossom whose petals were metallic with golden pollen. Through the glass walls they could see the lights of Manhattan burning like cold jewels.
Clide follows her closely with sure-footing. He examines their surroundings the way an artist would, watching the brilliant hues, and shades, and shadows aired with the lights of the outside world of Manhattan. He's distracted by these things, but not nearly as much as he is distracted by her. He didn't really like to admit it to himself, but he had fallen subject to her like most guys seem to, only he knows he can see the things they can't. But that doesn't matter, he reminds himself, by the time a minute passed, he can't even remember why they're up here.
Jacelyn grins, as she watches his reaction. "We have the place to ourselves. Alex and Issac hate it up here."
"Can't imagine why," he mutters, making a discreet effort to fix the haphazardness of his slept-on hair.
"Allergies."
"Still," he murmurs, the presence of the plants pushing him into a momentary silence. "What kind of flowers are these?" He asks, his hands in his pockets.
Jacelyn shrugs, and sits down, carefully, next to a glossy green shrub, dotted all over with tightly closed flower buds. "No idea. You think I pay attention in botany class? I'm not going to be an archivist. I don't need to know about that stuff."
"You just need to know how to kill things?"
She looks up at him and smiles. Looking like a fair-haired angel from a Rembrandt painting, except for her devilish mouth. "That's right." She takes a napkin-wrapped package out of the bag and offered it to him. "Also," she added," I make a mean cheese sandwich. Try one."
Clide unwraps it, eyeing the sandwich suspiciously.
Jacelyn laughs, "Don't worry, I didn't do anything bad to it." She pulls him down, so he's sitting across from her. Out of the paper bag she drew some apples, a bar of fruit, and nut chocolate, and a bottle of water.
"Nutritious," he muses, biting into the sandwich. Then, he smiles teasingly. "And surprisingly edible."
She hits him lightly on his arm before she started digging inside one of her pockets for something. Finally, she produces a bone-handled knife that looks capable of disemboweling a grizzly bear. She set to work on the apples, carving them into meticulous eights. "Well, it's not birthday cake," she said, handing him a section, "but hopefully it's better than nothing."
"To be fair, I was expecting nothing to begin with." He smiles, taking it.
"Nobody should get nothing on their birthday." She was peeling the second apple, the skin coming away in long curling strips. "Birthdays should be special. My birthday was always the one day my mother said I could do, or have anything I wanted."
"But that's exactly-" A long clanging reverberation interrupted her. Somewhere, a bell was tolling. "Midnight," she said, setting the knife down. She got to her feet, holding her hand out to pull him up beside her. Her fingers were slightly sticky with apple juice. "Now watch." Her gaze was fixed on the green shrub they'd been sitting beside, with its dozen of shiny closed buds. She knew he was about to ask her what he was suppose to be looking at but she held up a hand to forestall him. Her eyes were shining. "Wait." The leaves on the shrub hung still and motionless. Suddenly one of the tightly closed buds began to quiver, and tremble. It swelled twice its size and burst open. It was like watching a sped-up film of a flower blooming: the delicate green sepals opening outward, releasing the clustered petals inside. They were dusted with pale gold pollen as light as talcum.
Clide watches with parted lips and wide eyes, his fingers opening and closing the way they do when he really wants to draw something, to capture its beauty. He's rendered breathless by them, captivated by them.
Jacelyn grins, watching his expression. "They only bloom at midnight. Happy Birthday, Clide Fray."
"Thank you," he mutters, in a breathless whisper.
"I have something for you," she said. She dug into her pocket and brought out something, which she then pressed into his hand. It was a gray stone, slightly uneven, worn to smoothness in spots.
"It's a good thing I'm not the girl here," he smiles playfully, trying not to laugh. "Or else I'd say something about when a girl is saying she wants a big rock, she doesn't mean it literally." He chuckles, holding the stone in his palm.
She smiles without meaning to. Which is unusual in and of itself; usually only Alex or Issac could startle laughter out of her. "Very amusing, my sarcastic friend. Its not a rock, precisely. All Shadowhunters have a witchlight rune-stone. It will bring you light even among the darkest shadows of this world and others." They were the same words her mother had spoken to her upon giving her, her first rune-stone.
Clide nods, slipping it into his pocket. "Thank you," he says, his eyes meeting her's.
"If you share that little bit of personal information with anyone," she was obviously talking about her birthday wish, which she had shared with him earlier in the evening, "I may have to kill you."
"I think I can manage to keep it to myself. Who am I going to tell anyways? My colored pencils?"
"What about your little friend?"
"Sam's almost taller than me," Clide pointed out almost sheepishly, "Besides, it's not really any of her business."
Jacelyn nods slightly, as she tore her eyes away from him. "It's getting late," she said. "We should go back downstairs." She glanced back to see him looking at her curiously, and she couldn't help feeling that those green eyes could see through her.
Clide only nod, as their gaze locks. His own words catch him by surprise, "Have you and Issac ever-dated?"
Her heart was still pounding loudly in her chest, and she was sure he could hear it. "Issac?" she echoed. Issac? What did Issac have to do with anything?
"I thought-Sam was wondering." His heart speeds up, threatening to beat through his rib cage. He can feel his cheeks heating up and he closes his eyes.
She hated the way he said Sam's name. Jacelyn had never felt anything like this before. Nothing unnerved her like Clide did. "The answer is no. I mean, there may have been a time when one or the other of us considered it, but he's almost a brother to me. It would be strange." She couldn't read his face. This felt like it was an accident. That it made her feel like going to the training room and throwing knives, and kicking, and punching, and fighting shadows until she was bloody, and exhausted. She risked another glance at him only for him to look back at her quietly. The training room it was, then. "We should probably go downstairs," she said again.
Her ability to read people seemed to have deserted her, and she didn't understand why. Moonlight speared down through the glass panes of the greenhouse as they made their way out, Clide slightly in front of her. Something moved ahead of them-a white spark of light- and suddenly he stopped short, and half-turned to her, already in the circle of her arm, and he was warm, and soft, and delicate, and she was kissing him. And she was astonished. She didn't work like this; her body didn't do things without her permission. It was her instrument as much as the piano, and she had always been in perfect command of it. But he tasted sweet, like apples, and sugar.
Clide's body responds to her's involuntarily, his heart managed to flutter even faster, and he can feel the faint flush creeping over his cheeks. She makes him forget about everything that's been worrying him; his father, his idiocy, all of it. She makes his head swim with no hope of recovering. The taste of apple, and sugar lingers on his lips when their lips part, mixing with an electrifying feel more intoxicating than the smells, and hues of the greenhouse.
The rush of wind was audible to her first, trained as she was to hear it. She drew back from him, and saw Hugo perched in the crook of a nearby dwarf cypress. Her arms were still around Clide, his slight weight against her. His eyes were half-closed. "Don't panic, but we've got an audience," she whispers to him. "If he's here, Hodge won't be far behind. We should go." His green eyes fluttered all the way open, and he looked amused. It pricked her ego slightly. After that kiss, shouldn't he be fainting at her feet? But he was grinning. He wanted to know if Hodge was spying on them. She reassured him, but she felt his soft laughter travel through their joined hands-how did that happen?-as they made their way downstairs. And she understood. She understood why people held hands: she'd always thought it was about possessiveness, saying This is mine. But it wasn't. It was about maintaining contact. It was about speaking without words. It was about I want you with me and Don't go. She wanted him in her bedroom. And not in that way-no guy had ever been in her bedroom that way. It was her private space, her sanctuary. But she wanted Clide there. She wanted him to see her the reality of her, not the image she showed the world. She wanted to lie down on the bed with him, and curl into him. She wanted him to hold her as she breathed softly through the night; to let him see her as no one else saw her; vulnerable and asleep. To see him and be seen.
Together they walked down the steps back to the hall, pausing in front of his room. He glanced at her every so often, wondering what's going on behind those golden eyes of her's, but knowing it wouldn't be right to say anything. He faced her again, unable to find a single coherent thought. He grinned at her and- before she could object, or even register his movements- leaned down to kiss her. This time, his arms went around her, drawing her towards him. He wasn't sure where the spark of courage came from, but it doesn't matter, he was kissing her like nothing else mattered. And nothing did. Just her and him in their own little world. The world that was shattered the moment his door opened with a slight creak and someone whispered, "Clide?"
When the small voice had spoken she felt Clide pull away from her hastily, turning his head aside, and she felt it with the sharp pain of a bandage ripped off of her skin. Samantha was saying something-a jumble of angry words-and Jacelyn thought of all the times that she'd been in this situation before. Kissing some guy in the alley behind a bar, or pressed against the wall of a club. And his girlfriend, or the poor girl who'd thought she had a chance, staring at them like someone had just reached into her chest and ripped out her heart. "In future, Clide," she said," it might be wise to mention that you already have a girl in your bed, to avoid such tedious situations."
"You invited her into bed?"
"Ridiculous, isn't it? We would have never have all fit." After Clide had corrected her she mocked him with its false hurt. "Just kissing? How swiftly you dismiss our love." Jacelyn had always felt sorry for that girl, but in a distant sort of way, like the girl was a character in a play acting out being heartbroken. Now, looking at Samantha, she realized she'd never feel that way again. Because the way Clide was looking at Samantha, his whole attention caught up by her, his regret plain on his face, made her realize Samantha wasn't the girl in the play who was about to get her heart shattered into pieces. Jacelyn was. So, she just plastered on a fake smiled that was bland as buttered toast, after the door had shut, leaving her and Clide to themselves. "Go on, go after her. Pat her head and tell her she's still your super special little girl. Isn't that what you want to do?"
His stomach churns, and he shoots a cross between a death, and an apologetic glare at Jacelyn, not even sure how that could be accomplished. He sighs, lingering a moment too long, and looking like he wants to say something. "Fine." He studies her for a brief moment, then, with a shake of his head, went to go do just that.
As Jacelyn walked away, she felt the mingled urge to burst into tears, and to run back to him for the express purpose of kicking him where most people would consider it to be frowned upon. Knowing either action would fill him with satisfaction, she did neither, just went back warily into her bedroom. When the door clicked shut behind her, she discarded her clothes, the clothes that smelt like the evening, that smelt like him, and changed into soft blue pajamas. Tears slowly trailed down her face, but she quickly wiped them away. "Stop it," she scowled herself. She was stupid in letting herself think that even if she could manage to love, he would love her back. Crawling into her bed, she buried her face into her pillow, and laid there for hours, waiting for the darkness to come, and capture her, taking her away from the place she no longer wanted to know. However, the darkness never did come. And instead of waiting for the sleep to come, and suck her in, she went and changed back into regular clothes, leaving her room, and heading up to the training room, where she spent hours, and hours, throwing knives, kicking, punching the shadows, until her knuckles were bloody, and she could barely stand.