Hello again!
I couldn't stop writing Eden! #-_- So sorry Hunt fans! I haven't forgotten about you, I swear. :)
P.S. I slightly changed a detail in Chapter 5 of this story to eliminate a plot hole that would have affected some things. ;) You might guess why when you read Chapter 11. (Muahahaha! I am so excited, you have NO idea.) ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own Mortal Instruments.
CHAPTER 10: THE LAW OF FAMILY
"M – My apologies –" Eve began, looking distinctly nervous. "You... prefer to be called 'Clary', isn't that right?"
She slowly set her violin down on the piano bench – in a cautiously steady motion, as if she was in the presence of an aggravated grizzly. Even from the distance between, Jace could see that her delicate body was tense, her movements perfectly controlled, exactly as they had been in her training exercises. The disciplined stance of a warrior.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but her irises were shining a surreal gold as she locked eyes with the Institute's token, stubborn redhead.
Though her level of caution seemed comically undeserved.
Clary, unlike their elegant visitor, looked much like she had been hit over the head with a frying pan. Her green eyes were wide, her jaw dropped behind her messy curtain of red curls, her freckled cheeks paled in shock, as if Eve had just sprouted from the music room floor like a daisy. Seconds later, much to Jace's horror, Clary recovered her composure, squared her narrow shoulders, and focused determinedly on Eve.
For the life of him, Jace couldn't decide whether to smile at his girlfriend for her tenacity or drag her back to the training room like an escaped criminal.
When she set her jaw in Eve's direction, he was starting to think that doing both was sounding like a good option.
"How do you know who I am?" demanded Clary, shaking her wild hair out of her face. "I've never seen you before."
Eve flinched.
As if in habit, she dipped her head in a respectful, lady-like nod and dropped into a curtsy. "O-Of course. Forgive me, I've forgotten my manners." She straightened to formal posture, now – a soldier at attention – and Jace instantly remembered countless years of using the same pose at the Wayland manor house. It was a bittersweet memory – one that he wasn't eager to see Eve share in. "We've met once before, actually. Though I doubt you would remember it…"
"Met?" repeated Clary, jumping into motion. She wiggled against his grip on her arm like a trapped fish, but he refused to let go. "When did we ever meet?"
Eve's mouth decidedly snapped shut; her eyes flicked inquisitively to his. Jace made a mental note to drill her about that comment later, but he was certain that giving Clary any more information, at the moment, was going to send her curiosity over the edge. Eve seemed to guess it as well.
Momentarily, Eve recovered, folded her hands well-manneredly in front of her, and offered a shy smile.
"You... seeing me is quite forbidden, or so I hear," she stated, sensibly. Her eyes were deeply apologetic as she dodged Clary's question. "Perhaps it is best if you leave with Jace, Clary. I wouldn't want to cause you any trouble..."
The response was perfectly reasonable to Jace's ears, but logic seemed to be an afterthought for Clary. "So, is it true, then?" she pushed on, ruthlessly. "That you knew Valentine – and my brother?"
Her words seemed to hit Eve like a bucket of ice water. Grief flickered across her doll-like features, settling like thorns in her sapphire eyes. Warily, Eve darted her attention to Jace again – as if waiting for approval to speak, and it made another wretch of wrongness twist his stomach.
From any other person, he would have found her hesitation odd. But this was Eve. He knew that she had lived with Valentine for a decade, that she had been forced to follow his twisted way of doing things. And Jace remembered all too well what Valentine did to those who spoke out of turn.
When he finally glanced down at Clary, she was glaring at him with a surprisingly electric level of ferocity. He knew there was no hope in Hell that she was going to leave without getting some sort of reply out of Eve.
Impatiently, Jace closed his eyes and sighed.
Through some convenient mental telepathy, Eve registered his gesture as permission without him having to say a word.
Wearing a look of pain, she turned her gaze back to Clary. "It is true," replied Eve, quietly tightening her hands. "I knew Valentine – and Jonathan."
Clary jerked back towards the doorway, catching Jace by surprise – so much so that he almost lost his grip on her. The color drained from her cheeks, like a painting time-lapse in reverse. Despite her stubborn desire to get here and talk to Eve, Jace guessed that the realization of Eve's past was only truly just hitting her now. The weight of the knowledge was an anchor; it dragged her bonelessly to the floor, making her balance sway. Worry clenched in Jace's chest like a fist.
"Clary, we can't stay here –" he tried to tell her. Gently, he tugged on her arm, wanting her to follow him back to the training room where she should have been, but, of course, she seemed determined to make his life difficult.
Venomously, Clary shot him a 'like-Hell-I-am' look and ducked expertly out of his grip. She managed to stumble a few paces toward Eve before he could catch her by the wrist and haul her back to his side again. Over the crown of Clary's head, Jace saw Eve tense cautiously – making him wonder exactly what Valentine had told her about his daughter. Eve was treating her some sort of uncaged tiger.
"They were the only family I had –" explained Clary, "the only blood relatives I know of. If you could tell me something about them – anything –!"
"Your family? Is that why you have searched me out?" For a split second, Eve seemed shocked into relaxation. Her eyebrows shot up in an expression of incredulous, angelic wonder. As if remembering who she was talking to, Eve stiffened to attention and studied Clary, her eyes darkening in concentration. "If that was your purpose, then why come to me, of all people?" she warily added. "Your mother is still with you. What could I answer that she could not?"
Clary seemed to be losing her patience at an alarming rate. "My mother won't tell me anything!" she cried. "She wants to pretend like Valentine never existed. I don't know anything about the Morgensterns – I can't even get her to tell me anything about the Fairchilds. I don't even know who I am."
There was something flickering in Eve's eyes, Jace saw. Something… dangerously empathetic. When her gaze finally rested on him, moments later, he felt inexplicably guilty. "Jace," she breathed, her irises dancing, "is… this true?"
Sensing that she was starting to take pity on Clary, Jace tightened his grip on her purple coat and towed her backwards toward the door. "We are going," he growled into his girlfriend's ear. She smelt, as always, like her bright citrusy shampoo. "Now, Clary."
Stubborn as ever, she ducked him again, and he mentally cursed himself for teaching her so well on evasive maneuvers. So far, it was the only real Shadowhunter skill she had been able to master, and it now seemed like the universe was laughing at him for ever instructing her in the first place.
"My mother had my memories taken away," exclaimed Clary, darting forward. She almost tripped on an uneven floorboard, and he fought the urge to laugh at Eve's disbelieving look as Jace caught her by the shoulders to steady her. He doubted that Eve would have ever expected Valentine's daughter to be quite so reckless.
Barely missing a beat, Clary gasped and continued on. "She never told me who my real father was. Never gave me a chance to learn to be a Shadowhunter – to do… this." With a swipe of her tiny hand, she gestured irritably to the black chest plate of her leathery gear. "Valentine destroyed the only chance of a normal mundane life that I had. I need someone to teach me. To show me how things should have been, if I had been raised to be a warrior."
"Teach you?" Now Eve was genuinely perplexed. Her head tipped to the side, pouring a river of golden curls, and Jace silently wondered if she was thinking of the 'Jada' woman she had mentioned before – her teacher from back in Idris. Based on her expression, it was impossible to know whether the association was good or not. "You mean… like a tutor?"
Clary froze mid-step, as if the ground had suddenly opened up into a black hole beneath her.
Jace suspected that she hadn't really known what she was asking herself – that words were just falling out of her mouth like a toppled deck of cards – but there it was.
She'd asked Eve to train her, of all things.
Curiously, Eve met Jace's eyes, searching for answers.
"Has the Clave not provided instructors for you?" she wondered, her eyes darting between his and Clary's. Her expression was thick with concern. "I doubt I am any more qualified than they are to give you lessons, Clary –"
"The instructors aren't training me – at least, not in any way that is working," Clary interjected, before Jace could stop her. "It has been six months and I have barely learned anything."
Eve looked hesitant.
Clary pressed on. "I overheard what the Inquisitor said to my mom. You are like us, aren't you? Valentine experimented on you with angel's blood?"
Immediately, Eve's face betrayed the truth. Her eyes dropped guiltily to the floor and Jace half-heartedly wished that she wasn't so transparently honest as she stared at them through her thick eyelashes. But then, it was her unwavering goodness that made her so charmingly enigmatic, Jace supposed. Bathed in the sunny window-light, it would have been hard to pretend that Heaven's blood didn't run through Eve's veins. Between the spill of blonde curls and the porcelain features, she looked more like a tableau from the Sistine Chapel than a real human being.
Her silent admission seemed to inject Clary with a rush of feverish energy.
"I don't really know how this works, and I could be crazy, but…" Biting her lip, Clary paused, looking for words. He couldn't help but think that her concentrated look was unbearably cute, despite the less-than-ideal circumstances. "Valentine may have been a dickhead, but he made us what we are – made us superhuman. What if I need to be taught…. the way my father would have taught me? What if that is the only way that will work, after what he did to us?"
"Clary –" choked Eve. She winced back toward the bright window, and Jace didn't think that the horror on her face was just from Clary calling Valentine unsavory names.
A scatter of images flooded to Jace's mind like a stack of photographs: the back of Valentine's hand cracking across his cheek, the howling nightmares of Runes received too young, the perpetual cycle of injuries from the ruthless training… He met Eve's eyes across the room and saw it there too; the silent understanding that flickered in her expression like blue flames behind a hearth.
These were things that Clary could not – and should not – ever be able to comprehend.
He latched tighter onto her shoulders.
"Absolutely NOT," he snapped, and felt a pang of self-loathing when she winced at his tone. Though he knew that keeping her away from Valentine's influence was the best way to protect her, it still stung to know that he had hurt her in some way. "We are leaving NOW, Clary, and that is FINAL."
Eve was carefully silent.
Adamantly, Clary tried to wiggle away from him, but Jace held on tight. She shot him a look of betrayal over her violet collar. "I'm not a child!" she threw at him, through her tangle of red hair. "You can't keep boxing me away anymore! I'm a Morgenstern – I should learn to fight like one!"
Rolling his eyes, he half-dragged her to the door. "If by 'Morgenstern', you mean 'obstinate pain in the ass', then yes – you are more Morgenstern than both me and Eve combined." Clary threw him a white-hot glare – which he chose to answer with a crooked grin. When she saw it, her temper almost audibly snapped; he knew how much she hated when he did things like that. "If you think for one second that I will let you go through with this," he added deftly, "you are crazier than you seem. You have no idea what you are even asking for."
Realizing that she had lost, Clary and spun around in his grip and locked onto Eve behind him, her green eyes bright and pleading.
"We would have been family, wouldn't we!? We would have been sisters!" she yelled over his shoulder.
Honestly, he wished she hadn't. Jace could only imagine what Clary's comment had done to Eve, and he couldn't bear to turn and look her in the eye to confirm it. There was something about seeing Eve in pain that ate away at his chest like fresh venom.
"Isn't helping each other what families do?!" Clary roared on. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?!"
From behind him, he heard Eve suck in a pained breath. He was starting to curse his superhuman hearing as his mouth flattened to a frown.
"That's it –" he muttered, "you've left me no choice." Without another thought to the consequences, he picked up Clary and heartlessly threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She wasn't heavy; wasn't particularly uncomfortable to carry. Frankly, her five-foot-nothing build weighed little more than some of the basic training equipment, but it wasn't really her weight that he was worried about.
There was a moment – a painfully short moment – where Clary was shocked into frigid stillness. Quickly though, she was flailing and beating his back with just as much passion as he had expected her to from the start. Like an angry chihuahua. He tried to hide the way her stubborn outburst was making him grin, but in his peripheral, he saw her cheeks had flushed a furious red. The smirk curled his lips without him wanting it to.
"I'm not leaving!" she shrieked petulantly. "JACE HERONDALE, LET ME DOWN RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT!"
There was a shuffling sound from the other side of the room, accompanied by a hollow clattering noise and a soft gasp. Jace wondered if the piano bench had been knocked over.
"Jace, please –!" Eve called, breathlessly. He could almost see her, in his mind's eye – paint the anxious expression on her face. "Please – let Clary stay for a moment. For me."
'For me'.
The words echoed in his mind like a pin drop in a vacant cathedral.
His body stopped, much to his shock – in a way, almost without his mental permission. Some part of him was physically unable to deny Eve's request, after hearing the pleading in her voice – and the realization didn't really sit well with him. This was Eve, as Alec had mentioned so candidly last night: a stranger that he had only met a few days ago. This was not Clary – not another member of his adoptive family. Even so, he had never been so helpless to any of their requests before…
But the way that this new girl tugged at his soul was magnetic – like the draw of the moon, quietly moving the tides of the ocean. He doubted that he could ignore her even if he wanted to.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clary shoot him a suspicious glare, but the look was short lived. She took his moment of hesitation as her chance to escape – and, after a screech of leathery boots and a gasp, slumped inelegantly to the floor.
From the other side of the room, Eve heaved a short sigh.
"Thank you, Jace," she quietly offered.
Although he could not see her, he sensed, in her strangely warm tone, that she was smiling. When he turned, Eve was bent to the ground, righting the polished piano bench. As he had guessed before, it had somehow toppled over onto its side. Gently, she set it back on its legs, not breaking her eye contact with Clary as she did so.
"I can see him in you, you know – when you scowl like that," Eve straightened and took a cautious step around the bench. She'd clasped her hands politely behind her back, now, as she strode toward them, making her body look deceptively small.
Parked on the floor, Clary stared blankly at her and rubbed her elbow. Jace could only assume that she had hit it on the floor when she fell. "See who?" she wondered.
With an oddly wistful look, Eve softly chuckled. The sound was as sweet as honey and bitter as tears. "Your father." Eve replied with a rueful shake of her head. "It isn't much, just a glimmer, but… he is there."
A sober look fell over Clary's concentrated face, then. Wincing a little, she drew her knees to her chest and scrambled to her feet. She carefully brushed off her dust-streaked knees and met Eve's gaze across the room, her eyes clear and level.
"I…" After clearing her throat, she glanced a bit sheepishly to her feet. Her red hair fell over her narrow shoulders, bright as flame against her black gear. "I'm sorry."
Now it was Eve's turn to blink in confusion.
"Sorry?" she echoed in that pretty voice. "Whatever for?"
Restlessly, Clary traced circles into the hardwood with a booted toe. "You… probably miss them, don't you?" When Eve said nothing, Clary added, "Valentine, that is. And Jonathan."
Eve's lips parted, as if she hadn't expected Clary's reaction. Her eyes were glimmering like oceans of sapphire sorrow – but oddly distant. Memory darkened her expression as she stared past them, until Jace was sure that she was no longer seeing the music room in front of her.
"Yes." Her voice was miles away as she turned her face quickly to the wall. "Yes, I… I miss them very much."
Silence cut through the room like a winter breeze, chilling them to the bone.
Clary swallowed loudly. "I guess I shouldn't have called him a dickhead."
To his surprise, Eve choked in a momentary suppression of laughter. "Don't worry, Clary. Your brother called him worse things." With a bit of effort, Eve politely cleared her throat and forced a melancholy smile. "You have questions, and… And naturally you would, after everything that you have been through… But you should know that your father – he –" A ray of sunlight crossed over her face and her smile brightened. The sight was like a storm clearing over a mountaintop peak – shockingly breathtaking. "There were sides to him that I doubt you had a chance to see. Pieces of him that were… good. Wonderful, even." Hastily, Eve seemed to catch herself. The brightness slightly faded from her eyes – like a rubber band snapping back. "I am sure you may find that hard to believe, but… Valentine wasn't always the way you saw him. There were many times where he was… very kind. Times where I could not have chosen a better father."
Clary may not have said anything in agreement, but she also didn't say anything in protest either. It seemed to be enough affirmation for Eve to continue on.
"Maryse and Robert told me you would be coming, you know. They told me how your mother and the Inquisitor had asked for us not to meet… Of course, I wanted to please them, by not breaking the Clave's rules, but… there is a law above the Clave. The Law of Family." Pain flickered in her blue eyes like the glint of a sharpened seraph blade. Jace wondered if she was thinking of the Morgensterns – the only family she had truly ever known. The corners of Eve's mouth worked as she glanced to her toes and added, "As you said, we... would have been sisters, if things had turned out differently. Training and helping you… I think this is what Valentine would have wanted me to do. He would have wanted you to know… where you came from. And about your family."
"So you'll do it?!" Before Jace could catch her, Clary ducked over to Eve, who was beaming tenderly at her. Her sapphire eyes scanned her face, as if trying to find an answer just underneath the thin surface of her freckled skin. "You'll train me?!"
Eve softly chuckled as Clary careened to a stop in front of her. "I can try my best," she offered, modestly shrinking back. "I can't say I've ever taught anyone before, so I not sure how well I'll do, but…"
Jace, frankly, would have rather been hit by a mack truck than let Eve 'train' Clary in any way.
He was just about to say so when the door slammed open and a sunny voice cut through the tension like a hot butter knife.
"Hey, Eve – so, be honest, what looks better: red or blue?" Isabelle shoved through the doorway and flounced in wearing a floor-length, crimson skirt. She was holding up two lacy mini-dresses on wooden hangers and halted mid-step when she saw that she wasn't alone. "Jace?" she wondered, eyeing him over, "And – Clary?!" Her dark eyes moved between them like two misplaced puzzle pieces. "What are you doing here? I thought Clary and Eve weren't supposed to see each other."
"Tenacity seems to run in the family." For the first time, a bit of sarcasm seemed to color Eve's voice. She dropped her gaze from Isabelle to fondly smile down at Clary. "Clary, here, has asked me to tutor her. And… I think she had persuaded me to accept."
Isabelle looked like Christmas came early.
"Ooooh, what kind of tutoring? Like secret Shadowhunter stuff?" she marveled. With an alarming lack of concern, she tossed her dresses to the side and skipped over to the other two girls in bright-eyed curiosity. The thick line of silver bracelets on her arms tinkled like windchimes. "If it can make me kick butt like you do, then count me in! Sounds like fun."
Personally, Jace could not imagine a more inaccurate definition of the word.
"No. This is NOT fun, Isabelle, this is insane." Jace delicately clarified. "If the Clave finds out about this, Clary could be banished from the Institute, Maryse and Robert could send Eve to a cell in the Bone City, not to mention that Jocelyn would probably –" Realizing what he was saying, Jace broke off with a look of belated horror. "Oh God. Look what you've done. You're turning me into Alec."
The door opened again, and when he saw the new figure passing through, he ate his words.
"Hey Jace," Alec greeted, toying with the lapel of his tailored coat. He looked slightly breathless, as if he had been running. "Where's Clary? I just came back to quickly grab something, then I heard someone say my –"
Instantly, he caught sight of Clary cowering next to Eve like a convict at the other end of the room. His normally pale cheeks flared a furious shade of red.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" he demanded, turning on his parabatai. When he didn't seem to get an answer from Jace's carefully blank expression or his sister's, he snapped like a whip to Clary. "DAMMIT CLARY, YOU SWORE YOU WERE GOING TO STAY IN THE TRAINING ROOM."
"Swore?" Eve gasped. She'd instinctively covered her mouth and was looking horrified. "Clary, don't tell me you broke an Angel's oath?!"
Sheepishly, Clary shied away from her. Her green eyes glued guiltily to the floor. "Well," she muttered, aimlessly toeing the polished wood panel. "I didn't say the 'on the Angel' part, so – I guess I can't really break a promise I never fully made."
Alec was suddenly and instantly deflated.
Jace was ready to kick him in the ankle.
"For shame, Alexander... You didn't make her say the whole thing?" Jace shook his head disapprovingly at his parabatai, which felt like a good alternative to throttling him for his naivety. No wonder Clary had run off like she had, Alec had practically done all the work for her. What was worse what the nagging feeling that he had pulled the same trick on Alec more than once through the years. "That is a rookie mistake and you know it."
Isabelle, being Isabelle, didn't seem to care much either way. "I don't see what the big deal is," she offered, inspecting her red nail polish. "What the Clave doesn't know can't hurt them, right? Besides, Eve's training could be awesome for us. Think about it! A trio of badass warrior women? We'd be like Charlie's Angels or something."
Alec looked about ready to faint. "T- train you?! Not a chance, Izzy –"
"Wait – You actually watched those movies!?" Clary suspiciously cut in, peeking over at the tallest member of their huddle.
"Well. Sort of," amended Isabelle. She flicked her silky black hair dismissively behind her shoulder and shrugged. "They were mostly just background noise for making out. But I guess it sort of counts."
Clary stared at Isabelle like she'd just admitted to eating garbage.
Eve stared at Isabelle as if she was speaking Klingon.
"'Making-out'?" Eve echoed, scratching her blonde head. She formed the syllables slowly, as if trying to pronounce a foreign word. "'Making out' of what?"
"You're kidding! You don't know what that is?!" Isabelle cried. She gleefully swiveled around and patted Eve's golden head like a poodle's. Her expression was half-patronizing, half-awed as she shook her head and put her hands on her hips. "Damn. You really were sheltered. What did you even do for fun for all those years?"
Jace wanted to tell Isabelle that Valentine probably would've rather run a seraph blade through his neck than explain what 'making-out' was to his precious little girl – much less allow her to participate in any herself – but he doubted Isabelle would have listened either way.
Looking cornered, Eve's eyes darted to each of the girl's faces, trying to wrap her mind around the term. "Is… is this a mundane past-time?" she wondered innocently. "Like… something to do with friends?"
Alec made a choking noise, and Jace turned to grin at his parabatai's gaping look of disbelief.
"'Special' friends, maybe." he offered, clapping Alec's back with a superior look. The gesture seemed to knock the air out of him and he almost fell over.
"Or very attractive warlocks," Isabelle added, sticking her tongue out at her brother.
Clary rolled her eyes.
"Friends and warlocks?" Eve blinked at them all like a deer in headlights, looking completely baffled.
Alec threw his hands up in exasperation.
"I am washing my hands of this," he growled. Narrowing his eyes at them, he spun and stormed through the open music room door. "I am going to see Magnus. When the Clave catches those two together and you need to get out of this mess, don't call me."
With a slam, he was gone, and the polished door was firmly shut behind him.
"Was –" Eve echoed again, when the dust had settled. "Was it something I said?"
Clary dodged Eve's question like a throwing knife. "So…" she wondered, looking up at Eve with warm trust. "When can we start?"
Eve fluttered her eyelashes, phasing back into the moment. She turned back to Clary with a slightly rueful smile.
"Well, that depends," Eve offered, peeking over at Jace as he leant against the closed door. Her voice was a low persuasive purr – Valentine's charming tone. "I feel like we have one more obstacle to pass before we can start with your lessons…"
Though he knew exactly where she was going with that statement, he was still dreading its outcome. Clary seemed to catch Eve's gaze darting over and spun around to face him. As the sun lit the edges of her red hair to copper-gold, he felt his heart skip to see her there – his little Clary, decked out in midnight fighting gear and that silly purple coat. Those bright green eyes that always seemed to see through him. The crease of her worried eyebrows. That charming dusting of freckles across her pale cheekbones.
"Jace… Please," she begged him, her hands balled into decisive fists."I need to do this… I… I need to see if Eve can help me, even if you don't approve."
With a sigh, Jace let his head fall back into the hard wooden door. He had hoped that the impact would hurt a little, that the pain might have stopped him from doing what he knew he was about it do, but in the end it wasn't enough. Part of him knew that he had already made up his mind.
He frowned at Eve with hooded eyes, eyeing her from head to toe. "If you step out of line, I hope you know I will shut this down immediately."
All business, Eve dipped her head in agreement. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
"Out of line?" Isabelle piped in. She glanced around at them suspiciously. "Wait – what are we doing here, exactly? I thought Eve was just showing us how to fight."
Eve didn't break Jace's gaze.
"Clary asked to be trained like a Morgenstern – the way her father would have trained her… Jace, understandably, has some aversions to it."
"Aversions? What kind of aversions?"
His eyes narrowed into slits. "The 'not-wanting-Clary-to-get-beaten-to-a-pulp' kind. Call me overprotective."
Isabelled scoffed. "Come on. I think even Valentine Morgenstern was above hitting a young girl. I'm sure Clary is safe –"
"Isabelle –" Clary snapped, but it was too late to stop her words from leaving her mouth.
A shadow fell like twilight over Eve's expression. She tried to lower her face to the floor, to hide her expression in her golden hair – but everyone knew the truth that she wasn't saying out loud. Pity gleamed wetly in Clary's eyes.
"Woah." Isabelle started to backpedal. "You aren't saying that Valentine actually –?"
Eve moved her gaze to some safe point on the far wall.
"It was only once," Eve murmured, as if it would somehow make it better. At Clary's horrified look, Eve bit her lip and added, "Don't think poorly of him – I only ever deserved it once… He was… trying to protect me, in his own way, I think."
"Eve, I –"
But Eve didn't seem interested in dwelling on it.
"We can't waste any more time, Clary." Dodging the subject, Eve glided halfway across the room, her gait smooth and determined. Jace tried to keep his murderous rage from showing on his face, even though it wasn't Eve who he was mad at. She tossed a look over her shoulder at the other girls, making a single curl falling over her face as she added, "If the Clave finds you here, they will banish you from the Institute until I leave… If you want your training, then we need to act now."
Clary still seemed a little astonished as she reigned in her expression and nodded at Eve. He could see the questions churning behind her peridot eyes, dancing with a fresh wave of sympathy, begging to be answered.
"Alright," she said, stepping to follow them to the training room. "Let's start."
The air up here was cold.
Too cold.
He was laid out over the end of the stone rooftop, one leg dangling absently over the open edge. The city was growling in the early morning sun – cars streaming through the streets like metallic blood in concrete veins, the sidewalks dotted here and there with leaf-bare trees… From this height, he could see a dozen smoke stacks scattered across the adjacent buildings, puffing filthy twists of smoke into the biting air. He could imagine the way it was choking the oxygen from the cloudless blue sky… slowly… purposefully…
Squinting, Jonathan threw a robed arm over his face, shielding his black eyes from the unforgiving sunlight.
All of this waiting was starting to become tedious.
As much as he had wanted to surprise Her, he had not expected it to take this long to get her attention. So far, it had been three whole days of nothing but biding time – feeling the city's pulse, watching for Her to leave the Institute long enough for him to act. The only thing that had broken up the waiting was his trip to Idris – but he doubted that anything was going to come of that pointless little 'adventure'…
Thinking about that brain-dead Inquisitor made him scoff into his elbow. Apparently, that scrawny imbecile didn't even have enough common sense to understand the truth, even when he had been literally thrown it at him…
Not that it really mattered, in the end.
Giving Silverspear that necklace wasn't supposed to help him find the truth: it was about getting Mother's attention.
He could only assume that the Inquisitor was with Her now – scuttling around like a brainless puppet – too distracted by the mystery of the necklace to really guess what was going on.
But Mother would know.
She would come for him; She always had.
A sudden sound filled the air – interrupting his thoughts with the approach of flapping wings.
Seconds later, he felt talons digging through his clothes to his skin, the nearly imperceptible weight of the bird, landing on his chest. It beat its wings with an irritable screetch, as if trying to get his attention, sending an icy ripple of displaced air over his face.
"What is it now, Hugin?" he snarled at it.
It cawed again, louder this time.
His patience ran out.
With a leer, he swatted it off of him. To his amusement, he nicked the corner of its shadowy body with the back of his hand, making the bird shriek in pain. The impact made a few black feathers flutter through the air as the raven launched into the sky again. After circling him irritably, it glided to a nearby antenna where the other raven, Munin, was preening itself.
Not that he seemed really welcome there either.
Like a territorial silver dagger, Munin hissed and darted for Hugin, snapping at him with his pearly beak. Apparently defeated, Hugin let out another sharp squawk and fluttered over to the far corner of the building's concrete ledge, safely out of both of their reach.
Jonathan smirked.
With a flick of his snowy hair, he folded his arms behind his head and let his face fall to the side – exactly where it had been resting all morning.
There, framed by the elegant stone facing and ornate spires of New York's Institute, was the mesmerizing view that had kept him here all these miserable hours.
She was sitting behind a giant-paned window on the upper floor, where the rich, emerald curtains had been pulled aside to let in the city view. At some point, she had found a violin in the abandoned-looking room and was playing it now with raptured focus, regarding the metropolitan scene below. Although he knew how good of a soldier she was, how expert she was at discerning her surroundings, Jonathan was certain that he was hidden. From the height of the building he was on now, he doubted that she could have detected him even if she wanted to.
But he could see Her…
She still wore the same clothes as when she had gone to the Silent City – that tiny black number that clung high on her legs and left her arms bare. Her golden curls were falling loose to her waist now, just the way he liked it; a bit longer than they used to be, after all the months of not cutting them. Every inch of her exposed skin was perfect and ivory-smooth. Her face was still as exquisite as an archangel's.
Memory overtook him as he watched her play – chasing away the bite of the early spring air.
Even though it had been six months since, his body could remember that night with Her in Alicante's Hall like a living memory: his fingers felt the phantom rush of that forbidden skin gliding smooth under his palms, his tongue tasted those pretty lips desperately sweet against his mouth, his spine still shuddered at the thought of her golden curls whispering like silk across his bare chest... Although there were walls between them now, his lungs were filled with her natural spring fragrance like a cigarette. Although he knew he was laying on the roof alone, he could see the passion-gleam in her sapphire eyes on replay... feel the rise and fall of her chest as if she was pinned beneath him...
Hugin cawed as he launched into the sky, again, shattering the fantasy with cold reality.
The memory dispelled slowly, like waking from a dream. Gradually, the chugging smokestacks chased away the sweet smell of her skin, the frozen concrete numbed the heat of her touch, the sun burnt away the vision of her memory.
He'd spent months trying to replicate it. Sifted through endless replacements and substandard look-alikes, struggling to feel the same high. The women always came to him so effortlessly: a buffet of charming dolls that broke far too easily.
But in the end, there was only ever Her – like a seal, burnt into the back of his eyelids.
It was her constant memory, ringing through his veins like poison, which had made him start searching for her. Not that she had been easy to pinpoint – it had taken time and effort to finally uncover her location. But as soon as he found her here in New York, walking into that dingy werewolf bar alone, he knew that there would never be another substitute. Knew that no amount of pretty fakes could imitate it –
She was the only one worthy of him. She belonged to him.
She'd been bred and raised to be his. Every part of Her, every inch of that lovely body, was his to do with as he pleased. And if he couldn't forget Her, then he would bind Her to him forever. Make Her his Queen until the day she let out her final dying gasp. Now that he knew he would never be satisfied with anything less, it was only a matter of time before she came to his side.
Having her in front of him now, both temptingly close and impossibly far away, was a sublime form of physical torture.
With one last look at her , Jonathan rolled to a crouch on the concrete roof, tugging the cowl of his cloak up over his head. Shadows sharpened his cheekbones and jaw, blending in with the dark netted scrawl of Runes on his neck.
"Just a little longer, Angel-girl," he muttered – mostly to himself. "I promise we'll be together again soon."
So... what do you think? :) I love writing Izzy and Eve together for some reason, haha. They are such complete opposites. That mini-flashback from MG was also pretty fun to add in. (Does that little snippet from Jon count as a flashback? Sort of? Maybe? :P)
Next chapter is going to be a long one - you will get to see some other MG characters resurfacing, and the plot is also going to pick up. ;) Stay tunnnnneeeeddd ~~~~ :)
Love, Fishie.