Chapter Fourteen
"We will try to stay here this time," Max giggled as he sat on the bed,
Clary had given herself the seemingly impossible task of looking after Rafael and Max while the others went to the meeting with Esme. The idea of demons threatening such a beautiful city terrified her, but she had to put on a brave face full of smiles for her favourite boys. She had played stuck-in-the-mud with them which required great use of the stamina rune and then they had a game of monopoly where Rafael became ruthless and was scarily good at it, while Max just enjoyed creating the sound effects for his small silver car whenever he moved it around the board. After all of that and more, Clary thought it was only just that she had a little rest. She somehow got the boys to agree that they'd either have a nap or read quietly so she could catch up on sadly missed sleep.
"It's very dangerous, so you have to stay on this floor," she stressed,
Max nodded, "I don't want to go near the witch,"
"I think her name is Ember," Rafael laughed as he chose a book.
Clary could only reassure the boys and her herself repeatedly that Ember wouldn't lay a finger on them. Just thinking about Ember triggered rage to dart through her body like hot bullets; it sickened her that anyone would want to kidnap two innocent children, unleash hell on Earth and be so confident that their plan would work. She soon recalled Ember having an interest in Max. It made sense that she was interested in Magnus; he was the most powerful warlock, but having an interest in a young warlock boy was worrying.
"Max, did anything out of the ordinary happen when you were in the cage?" she asked as she sat next to him,
He looked up at her with a perplexed face, "That was a big word,"
"Did anything weird happen?" Rafael translated.
In silence, Max climbed onto Clary's lap, looked down at his hands as if they were covered in something fascinating and began to fiddle with the bottom of his top. To assure him that it was okay to tell her, Clary held his hands and kissed the top of his head.
"I show you," Max said as he shuffled around and placed his hands on either side of her face.
A quick surge of energy went through Clay's brain, her vision became full of blue light and swiftly instead of seeing the bedroom, she began to witness the events that happened in the basement of the café as if she was a helpless bystander. Seeing what Ember had done made her bite her tongue so she didn't swear in front of the boys. She was eager to get up and happily smash the witch's head against the wall repeatedly, but the faint blue light that surrounded the scene reminded her that she couldn't do anything. The scene zoomed in on Max in the cage as if Clary was on the other side of the bars and she then saw why there was so much interest in him. There was another flash of blue before Clary's sight was back to normal and she looked down at Max.
"You heard his thoughts," Clary gasped,
Rafael nodded, "He felt what I was feeling as well."
With an adorable little groan, Max curled up into a ball in Clary's arms like a kitten and he made a face as if he had something to be ashamed of. Clary knew that he would feel confused about himself as it was the first time it occurred. She gently took Max's hand, placed it on her cheek and concentrated on all the countries she wanted to visit before she became an official adult. It took Max a short while to realize what she wanted him to do, but soon his hand glowed bright blue along with his eyes and he began to giggle.
"Pigs don't swim in the sea," he smiled,
"In the Bahamas they do," Clary replied,
"And what's a pyramid?"
Max carried on giggling when Clary noticed that he had taken his hands away from her face and had them on his lap, his eyes remained bright blue but his hands were no longer glowing and he continued to say what Clary was thinking as if he were the narrator of her life.
"That's so cool," Rafael said,
"I stop now," Max let his eyes go back to their natural state.
Clary ended up staring at Max with amazement. She thought she had seen everything she possibly could when it came to the shadow world, but even Magnus had to chant a quick spell before being able to read someone's mind. The cogs in her brain began to spin until it all made sense to her why Ember enquired about him as in her twisted plan, it would be useful to have someone who could read the minds of her enemies. Her mind started to go into overdrive as she came up with all the horrible things Ember could possibly do if her plan succeeded and she almost forgot that the boys were there.
"Aunty Clary?" Rafael looked at her,
Clary snapped out of her trance, "Right, you boys read while I take a nap."
When she got up, Max jumped from his bed to Rafael's, curled up into a ball next to him and looked up at him with sparkling eyes. Before opening the book, Rafael showed Max the pictures on the back and front covers and helped him understand what they were. Clary couldn't help but hope that her children would be exactly the same, but she and Jace rarely talked about the possibility of children; they wanted to have as many adventures together before they even consider starting a family, but Clary was beginning to think that maybe they had gone on as many adventures as they possibly could. She curled herself up in the arm chair as she listened to Rafael reading and Max giggling at the illustrations.
"If you need me, wake me up," she yawned as her eyes closed.