A/N: Hey guys! As promised, here is the second chapter! Again, the 10 vocabulary words are underlined and their definitions are given at the bottom. I also wanted to thank everyone who read it for taking the time to do so, and I want to especially thank the people who reviewed the previous chapter. I can't tell you guys how happy those reviews, and seeing how many people had read it, made me. I know this chapter is short, so to make up for that I put more fluff in, and hopefully the next few chapters will be longer and updated earlier :)
Disclaimer: Cassandra Clare owns the Mortal Instruments series, ideas, and characters. I only own the actions and words that were not explicitly described in the books.
Painting
The 'pain' in 'painting' is there for a reason.
With painstaking effort, Clary dabbed the last blotch of gold onto her painting. Chewing her lip, she regarded it critically. She thought that perhaps she could have painted the delicate wings with a bit more finesse.
"Drawing me again, I see," an all-too-familiar voice said, startling her. "You're getting quite adept at it; this is the – what, fifth time?" Jace smirked, snatching her sketchbook out of her hand and eyeing himself. "My hair is more of a magnificent tawny gold than this dandelion yellow, by the way," he added.
Clary flushed, unsuccessfully trying to reclaim her sketchbook. "That's not dandelion yellow. It's a mixture of marigold and saffron yellow, infused with -"
"How very… astute of you," he interrupted, as if he was thinking of another, less complimentary, adjective. He moved on quickly, still holding the sketchbook out of her reach, at a height where she, sitting, could not reach it, but he could inspect the painting. "I appreciate the angel wings. You know, this painting could quite possibly be the acme of your artistic career. Finally, someone understands the divineness that is me."
"You should hang it in your room so you can always be reminded of what you aspire to be, but will never reach," Clary suggested drily.
Jace raised an eyebrow. "If I wanted to see an image of rapturous perfection, I could just look in a mirror. I wouldn't need a painting to show me anything. The good Lord hath dealt me with a chiseled Hand."
"The good Lord should have dealt you with a hammer and wrecking ball," Clary muttered crankily, giving up on getting her sketchbook back from Jace.
"Nonsense," Jace replied jovially. "Why would our most resourceful Lord and Father destroy His greatest creation?"
"To save mankind."
"As if. Maybe I should be referred to as 'nature's crowning glory'? That has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" Jace set down the sketchbook and grabbed her dictionary, which she kept in a pile of other useful books on her desk. He flipped through it, stealing a piece of paper from her desk and started scribbling titles down. "Precocious, hm, that's a nice word. Prodigy." He looked at Clary, who had seized her sketchbook and was now meticulously avoiding looking at him and studying a suddenly fascinating scribble on the opposite side of her desk. "Do you think I'm a prodigy?"
"Not in the slightest," she replied swiftly.
"I think I am," he continued unconcernedly, writing it down as if he hadn't heard her. "I'm the best Shadowhunter you've ever seen, and you know it." He tapped her chin with the end of the pencil.
Swatting at the pencil, Clary scooted her chair away from him. "I haven't seen many Shadowhunters, so that's not a good point of comparison."
"Quibbling. What other words describe me?" He turned to the last few pages, skimming for a word that adequately praised him.
"Annoying?" Clary offered. "Irritating? Vexatious?"
Jace's eyes lit up. "What about a virtuoso?"
Clary scoffed. "Can you even draw?" she asked skeptically.
"Sure I can. I have a natural aptitude for it, as with just about everything," Jace replied, sounding miffed that she could even doubt his artistic ability.
"How about you draw a straight line for me, then we'll see?" Clary suggested. Accepting the challenge eagerly, Jace started drawing one, his brow creased in concentration. Clary sighed, glancing down at his line.
"It's crooked," she commented off-handedly. "Like your soul."
As if pleased that she had the last word, she clutched her sketchbook and her pencils and retreated in a dignified manner to some other part of the Institute, so that Jace couldn't see how mortified she felt that he had seen her drawing of him.
In her haste to leave, she didn't realize that Jace had ripped the drawing of him as an angel out of her sketchbook, and that he was looking at it now, his sarcastic smirk replaced with a tender smile.
The words and their meanings:
Acme (n) - the highest point of achievement
Adept (adj) - very skillful
Aptitude (n) - natural ability; talent
Astute (adj) - observant; clever; cunning
Finesse (n) - subtle; skillful handling of a potentially difficult situation
Painstaking (adj) - demanding extreme effort and care
Precocious (adj) - showing unusually early development
Prodigy (n) - a person, especially young, with exceptional talents
Resourceful (adj) - effective; imaginative; practical in solving problems
Virtuoso (n) - a very skilled artist
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