Author's Notes: This chapter was written and updated so quickly because unfortunately, I must soon relinquish all my time to studying for six ridiculously time-consuming exams. The next chapter is all worked out, but probably won't be up for some time. Earliest will probably be in the ten day period break I have, which is mid to end May. Enjoy this one!
Clary had often likened Time's sense of humour to Jace's - they both tended to use irony in order to let you know that they had the hold over you. She contemplated this again now as she thought about how quickly the day had gone, and how little had been done. I've drawn a lot, Clary supposed as she tried to find at least one meaning of the day that had nothing to do with the note from Jace.
As if the thought had prompted her to do so, Clary reached over from her position on the end of the bed and grabbed her sketchbook from where she had let it fall earlier. There were still one or two sketches from months ago in there, she realised as she flipped through to the beginning. She caught a glimpse of one of the first times she'd drawn Jace, with angel wings that were feathery to the touch. She saw one where she'd used pastel to portray the small boy sitting in a library reading anime.
Clary stopped flicking through the book when she saw this one. The beginnings of a headache started manifesting as her eyes stung with regret that she'd only ever draw little Max Lightwood from memory again.
But he wasn't little, she reminded herself. If all of us had just realised that then he'd still be … then we'd have caught Sebastian before … then it would have worked out better.
Clary took a deep breath, trying to hold any more sadness at bay, and turned back a few pages to the sketch of Jace as an angel. She lay back on her bed as she stared at his strong features, and stroked the wings continually.
"Oh, Jace," she whispered. "Why is it that every time we think it's going to be okay, something happens to completely change that? Sometimes I think…" Clary looked away from the sketch and closed her eyes against what she felt sure was some kind of betrayal, although she kept running her fingers across the feathery wings. "It's just, sometimes it feels like things would be much easier if I didn't love you and you didn't love me. Doesn't it?" she looked back at the sketch with worried eyes. "I mean, how many times have we both let this cloud our better judgement?"
She didn't know how long she spent just staring, but Clary was sure that her last thought before she slipped into sleep's grasp was that even loving Simon, who had three or four death wishes out for him, would have been easier than loving Jace.
Having been undead for so long, Simon barely thought about how the breeze hitting his face as he ran resembled more of a gale-force wind, or about how anyone who fleetingly glimpsed him would probably head into the next bar to wipe away the fear that they weren't hallucinating.
He turned down an alley that he'd found a few months ago as a shortcut, sprang over a wall twice his height, and kept running the other side. Simon knew Maia wasn't like any other girl in New York, and therefore, where every other girl would yell at their date for being late, he knew Maia wouldn't.
Maia would probably opt for turning into a wolf.
As he faced the street where the police station was, Simon slowed to a walking pace that, whilst still slightly inhuman, definitely negated the idea that he'd had to hurry to get there. Maia was standing outside what proclaimed to be a Chinese takeaway service, looking either side of the street anxiously.
"Simon!" she called as she caught a glimpse of dark hair and pale white skin. Simon grinned uncontrollably. Part of him was still in awe of how for some odd and unknown reason, this stunning werewolf girl was happy to see him.
"Hey, Maia," he said, pulling her into a tight hug as soon as he was within reaching distance. "Good day?"
The girl nodded. The scent of strawberries washed over him as her nearly-black hair brushed against his cheek. Maia looked up from where she'd buried her face in the crook between his shoulder and neck, a habit that Simon found as familiar as he did endearing. "You?"
"Yeah," he smiled at her. "You look great, by the way. Really," he added as she pulled a skeptical expression. Maia rarely wore her hair loose these days, but every time she did, the way it seemed to illuminate her cheekbones and make her eyes shine a little brighter made Simon catch his breath. It didn't particularly matter that today she was wearing an oversized grey t-shirt with jeans.
"Okay, whatever, I'm not going to argue," she blushed. "But let's get out of here before the rest of the pack sees-"
"Why hello, my young Nightly couple," a male voice floated from the depths of the takeaway. Simon caught Maia's eye, and they groaned simultaneously.
"Too late," she sighed. She seemed to steel herself quickly, then turned away from Simon to face the huge figure now emerging onto the street.
"You know," the figure smiled at them. "It could be quite fun if Toby just happened to come up here. He's been waiting for an opportunity to tell his new Night Child joke for weeks."
"And we," snarled Maia, "Have been avoiding the same opportunity for weeks. So you'd better not call him - don't!"
The man, who Simon supposed was probably barely older than himself although his hulking muscle made him appear mid-twenties, turned from where he'd been poised to yell back into the building. He grinned, and Simon felt a slight pressure against his lower lip where his fangs had begun to slide out in response to the palpable wolfish quality to this man.
"Right, Paul," Maia glared. "What do you want?"
Paul nodded at Simon. "First, I want Leech here to give me a fight."
"Not happening," Simon dismissed. "Any other easy ones?"
Paul's expression turned into an annoyed smirk. "Scared, Daylighter?"
Simon considered the six-foot-something massive werewolf in front of him, and slowly raised his hand up to his forehead. "Nope," he said, moving his hair out of the way so the man saw the mark on his forehead.
The smirk faltered, and Paul took a step back. "Whatever. Just get me a burger from Taki's."
"Do you have to freak out everyone in the pack?" Maia demanded as soon as Paul had retreated back inside, and the two of them had set off towards the restaurant hand in hand.
Simon grinned at her. "It's kinda fun," he admitted.
"Yes," she growled playfully. "But pretty soon Luke's going to make you wear make-up to cover that thing."
He scowled. "No way. Not wearing anything that might look remotely like it belongs in a woman's purse."
Maia giggled. Simon took this as a sign that he could safely untangle his hand from hers and plant it around her waist.
As they approached Taki's, a few drops of rain splattered on their faces. She wrinkled her nose.
"I bet it's not raining in Idris," Maia rolled her eyes.
"Does it everrain in Idris?" he asked.
Maia frowned, making her look like she was trying to remember something very important for a geometry quiz. Simon's heart would have skipped if it were beating.
"I'm not sure, actually. Maybe not. I'll ask Luke."
They approached the Ifrit at the door, who held his hand out to inspect Simon briefly. He looked him up and down, and suddenly, Simon was captivated by the glowing cherry-red eyes on the bouncer. They seemed to be filled with a swirling matrix of letters and runes, all the same colour, yet somehow decipherable. As he watched, he realised that he recognised some of the runes from somewhere. One of them, an intricate design of swirling and straight lines contained in a circle caught his eye. Marked. That seemed strange, Simon decided, still looking at it. Why would there be a rune for "marked" when having a rune at all meant that you were marked? The rune transfixed him as he watched it curve new patterns around the Ifrit's eyes and -
"Simon!"
Maia's voice jerked him out of the trance. She was stared at him with worried eyes. He tried to rearrange his smile into a reassuring smile. Her eyes grew wider, and he abandoned the attempt.
"Sorry," he mumbled to the bouncer, who was glaring at him. "Let's go in, Maia."
Inside, Simon sat in the first available booth. He scooted over so Maia could sit next to him, and opened the menu, trying to hide his embarrassed expression.
"Simon."
He looked up to find Maia staring at him questioningly. He set down the menu awkwardly.
"I don't know," he told her. "I don't know what that was. Ifrits don't have powers right?" She nodded. "I'm sorry. I didn't meant to make you worried."
She pushed a strand of hair away from her face, which fell promptly back. "Don't worry. Can't be worse than last year on that boat." She shivered gently at the memory of Simon's blood flowing freely from his neck, wrists.
"Maia," Simon reached over and tucked the disobedient hair behind her ear. "It's okay."
"I know," she smiled. "With you, I feel like it's always going to be okay."
Simon withdrew his hand, suddenly uncomfortable, but Maia caught it.
"Uh," he said, not sure how to respond.
"What are you going to eat, then?" she breezed, picking up the menu with the other hand and turning to the back page.
"What?"
"To eat. You know, chew, swallow. Or," she hesitated. "Drink, ingest."
Simon laughed, relaxing. "For me, I think the latter."
They trawled through the menu, Maia laughing at the strange foods on the Vampire menu that Simon was forced to choose from, and he in turn mocking the oddities on the Werewolf menu. They skipped the Fey menu after she noticed how suddenly paler, if possible, Simon had become.
"So, orders for my favourite couple?" Kaelie smiled at them. She had become something of a friend to the two, always favouring them over the other Vampires jeering at the strange nature of their relationship.
"Hi, Kaelie," Maia said brightly. "I think I'll have the usual."
Kaelie turned to Simon, silver pen poised. "And you, Fang?" she teased.
Simon ignored her, gazing instead at the menu. The print seemed to be swirling around, words jumping about the page, he marvelled. Perhaps this was part of the charm at the restaurant, the mind-bending menu hypnotising customers…
"Simon!"
"Uh, the chips from the Vampire menu?" he asked tentatively.
"Red sauce?"
"Er, yes please," he answered, well aware of Maia's queasy expression.
Just before Kaelie left, Maia called her. Simon noticed she was faintly green, and cursed again how annoying it was that he couldn't eat anything without blood.
"You know what, Kaelie? I think I'll take a coffee instead of a shake," she told her, before turning back to him. "It's nothing to do with you," she assured him unconvincingly.
Simon smiled. He was glad that she tried to hide her disgust, even if she didn't do too well. It made him feel like she really wished she didn't care. "That's okay. So, anyway, you wanted to talk to me about something?"
"Right," Maia sat up a little straighter. "Well, I was doing research on your Day -"
"Well well well," came a sneer from behind them. Simon glanced up and cursed as he recognised the voice as one of those from the Vampire colony that lived at Dumort.
"Elliot," he greeted him tensely. "How's things at the Hotel?"
The Vampire slid into the empty booth behind theirs with a few of his companions. Simon recognised them too, although he didn't know their names. Both of them were eyeing Maia the way one might regard a piece of mould growing under the sink.
"They are well, Daylighter." He grimaced slightly. "Although Raphael is feeling the consequences of ever allowing you to be Marked." Elliot's eyes flicked up to where the bit of hair on Simon's forehead covered the Mark of Cain that he'd made Clary draw on him a few months ago.
"Raphael should have known better than to threaten me," said Simon calmly. It was amazing really, he thought, how much he had changed in the last year. If his past self could see him now, well … I'd never believe it.
One of Elliot's companions leant towards Maia. Simon felt a growl reverberating in her chest as her ears flattened.
"Well, Daylighter, we know better than to threaten you. As for your little girlfriend…" the vampire grinned to show his fangs extending from their sheaths.
Before anyone could say anything, Kaelie appeared out of nowhere and thwacked him on the head with her silver Birch pen.
"You pick a fight with them, you pick a fight with me," she warned him dangerously, all-blue eyes flashing. "Don't forget I serve the food."
Clary was in the basement of the Wayland manor again. She could see clearly the runes on the floor that kept Ithuriel captive. She shivered as she snapped her head around anxiously, taking in her surroundings. Not much had changed. Across her was the empty cage where the angel had been, where she had watched him die. A sense of foreboding settled in the pit of her stomach as Clary remembered that day. But she hadn't been alone, she realised. She looked around, expecting to see Jace, but there was no one else. A movement caught her attention. The cage was no longer empty. A tall, chained man was there instead, his white feathery wings protruding massively from his shoulders. He looked up, and Clary's breath caught. "Jace!"
Clary woke, gasping. The dream had shaken her internally, and left a sheen of sweat filming over her skin. She sat up, sending her forgotten sketchbook flying. Bending hastily to retrieve it, she looked around and noticed that the day hadn't seemed to progress anymore from when she'd been sitting outside with Simon.
So when I want to just sleep all evening, I'm not allowed, she thought, frustrated. Clary looked at the clock stood on her bedside table. About half an hour had passed since Simon had left her on Luke's porch steps. Great.
She sighed, and hopped off her bed. She headed across the room to the door, when something distracted her. A piece of paper was flapping in the gentle breeze from her open window, attached to the wall just above her bedside table.
"How have I not seen that before," she muttered, going to rip it off the wall. It came off easily in her hand. It was a piece of pale pink paper with a few nonsense words on it. She flipped it over to find a drawing of a rune, and a message.
In case you decide to do us all a favour and forgive your arrogant little boyfriend after all.
A few stray particles of glitter floated off the piece of paper. "Magnus," she realised. A small voice in the back of her mind wondered if she could really trust what looked suspiciously like a spell from a warlock who'd -
"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped at herself. A slow smile spread across her face as she realised that Magnus had probably given her a way to talk to Jace without anyone else being aware of it. That means no interruptions, she thought happily. Recently, Isabelle had decided to take it upon herself to monitor how long Jace spent on the phone to Clary when he was out of town hunting some demon or other, and unfortunately, that usually meant their communication at all was slim.
A sense of anticipation began to fester in the pit of her stomach, and Clary, suddenly all too eager to talk to Jace, went and grabbed her stele.
Carefully, she traced the rune that Magnus had drawn for her next to the seemingly gibberish words, which she now supposed was a demon language. As soon as she finished tracing the last line of the curve, she looked back at it. Activate.
The rune glowed brightly for a moment, then disappeared along with the other words. For a moment, she thought it was simply a blank piece of paper again, but she peered closer, and Clary saw that what she was in fact looking at was a ceiling of some kind. As she watched, the room seemed to turn ninety degrees, and she found herself staring at a wardrobe with mirrors in it. In the mirrors, a very surprised Jace was staring back at her.
"Clary?" he asked, evidently astounded. She watched as the reflection of Jace walked to the mirror, and noticed that the scene itself seemed to be getting nearer to the reflection. I'm seeing from his eyes, she observed.
"Jace," she began, but Jace cut her off.
"Are you mad that I didn't tell you face to face?"
Clary thought about this. "Yes," she realised. "You were with me the entire day yesterday! Couldn't you have told me then? Why didn't you?" she continued, ignoring his attempts to talk. "Instead, I find a note this morning when I wake up - which, by the way, seems to be happening a lot - and suddenly you live half the world away from me! Did you think that it might make it easier? Finding out after you've gone that I didn't get to say goodbye?" Clary took a deep breath. It seemed to serve only to fuel her anger rather than to douse it.
"Clary," Jace interrupted before she could carry on. "I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you."
"What?" she screeched. "Jace, you wrote me a letter to tell me you're leaving!"
"Well what was I supposed to do?" Jace demanded, a flash of anger shadowing his face. "Just drop it into the conversation? 'Oh, Clary, before I forget, I may just stay with my family over you and move to Idris'?"
Clary felt like she'd been slapped. The reality had been there, but Jace saying it like that made it frighteningly poignant.
He seemed to register what he'd said, and the anger in his face was replaced by a wave of horror. "Clary," he said, stepping back. The image moved back with him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I-"
"Yes, you did," she said quietly. "It's the truth."
"No it's not," Jace told her. His amber eyes shone with regret. "I still have a choice." He moved back towards the mirror and put his hand up to it. Despite her anger, Clary put her hand to his as it came to the surface of the paper. A hand appeared in the image, which she recognised as her own. I'm not seeing through his eyes, she realised. I'm his reflection.
"You can't say that there's no chance you won't go to with the Lightwoods. Idris is your home."
"Idris was my home. It hasn't been for nearly eight years."
"Jace," Clary reasoned. "Idris is every Shadowhunter's home. That doesn't just change."
"What are you saying," Jace demanded, drawing his hand back sharply as frustration crept back into his tone. "That you want me to leave you? What is it? Are you tired of -"
"How can you say that?" Clary asked, horrified. "How can you even think it?"
Jace turned around, and the image turned so she only saw the rest of the room. Clary let out a growl of frustration.
"You know what," she called into the room. "Forget it."
Hurt and enraged, Clary grabbed her stele from where she'd set it down, and scribbled a rune between blinding tears. End. End, she thought. End.
She blinked a few times and saw that the paper had turned blank. She stared down at it for a minute. Suddenly, Clary jumped as a flame flicked up from the centre of the page, spreading quickly to the edges and reducing it to ash.
"Overdid it a bit," came a voice from the doorway. Luke was standing there with a small smile on his face. Clary nodded without meeting his eyes. She stared at the small mound of ash on her desk that had so recently been Jace's face.
"Were you looking for something?" she asked Luke, turning to him. He shook his head.
"I heard you shouting at someone. And besides, Maia's here. She wanted to talk to you about Simon."
"About Simon!"
"I don't imagine it will be dating tips," he smiled. "She wants to talk to Jocelyn and I as well."
"Oh," Clary said. "Um, okay then. Is she downstairs?"
Luke nodded. Clary got up heavily, and followed him downstairs where Maia was sitting on the couch across Jocelyn, who was occupying the chair that Clary had left earlier.
"Hey, Maia," she greeted the girl. She looked up with worried eyes. "What's going on? Is Simon alright?"
Maia nodded. "Yes, but I think the whole Daylighter thing is worse than just being able to walk in the light," she told them, eyes flitting between the three of them.
"What makes you say that?" Jocelyn asked her. She had her hands folded in her lap, but Clary noticed that they were grasping each other in a gesture she recognised as Jocelyn trying to stop herself interrupting more than necessary. Clary would have smiled if not for Maia's words.
"Well, today, he just froze. Twice," she added in response to Luke's questioning look. Clary felt her heart skip.
"Froze?" she asked. "He was paralysed? What happened?"
Maia nodded, still fixed on Luke, and Clary saw tears sparkling in her eyes. A flash of annoyance struck her. She still wasn't used to Maia having equitable reason to worry about Simon. But she's his girlfriend now, she reminded herself.
"Yes," Maia whispered. "He didn't move or blink or anything. I called him four or five times the first time before he'd snap out of it."
Clary suddenly felt nauseous, and moved to sit next to Maia in order to stop herself passing out. Could his Daylighter powers be turning on Simon? She felt her ears rush and block out what Luke was saying. What would she do if something happened to Simon? She was the one who brought him into the Shadow World, it was her fault if something did happen to him. He'd escaped death so many times before - was this time one too many? Was it all catching up?
"You can go upstairs, honey," Clary heard. She looked up and saw Jocelyn observing her with concerned eyes.
"No." Her voice broke, and she realised she was breathing deep and fast. "No," she said again. "I want to know what's happening." I have to know.
"Okay," Jocelyn said, and turned her attention back to Maia. "So describe it exactly, please?"
Maia took a breath and a sip of water from the glass on the table beside her. "Okay," the werewolf girl began. "He just … He went rigid all over, as if he was paralysed, and didn't notice anything. The first time, I waved my hand in front of his eyes and he didn't seem to see at all. It was like he was in some sort of trace or something."
Clary steadied her breathing during Maia's explanation, and looked at Luke. He was looking at Jocelyn, who was reaching for an old volume off the bookshelf next to where she was sitting. There was silence as she flicked through the book until she apparently found what she was looking for.
"It's not his Daylighter abilities," she said.
Maia looked up, astonished. "It's not? Is he alright?"
Jocelyn ignored her last question and looked at Luke, panic rooted deep in her bright eyes. What she said cut through Clary like a blade of ice. "It's the Mark of Cain."
