Again, thanks to amaggiepie and sunshiiine23 for doing the beta work on this chapter. They get all the credit for this being readable.

Warnings: Mature themes including perceived incest, explicit sexual content, and strong language. Immature themes including excessive dash usage and copious amounts of unapologetic relationship angst. Proceed with caution.

Context: This story is set after a City of Glass in which Clary and Jace do NOT figure out that they aren't really brother and sister. They never got the Book of the White to Magnus, so Jocelyn is still comatose. (This ignores City of Fallen Angels entirely.)

Keep the Next Breath

PART THREE

There's a thrill in the secrecy.

It's not so much the prospect of getting caught as it is the prospect of not getting caught; the thrill of being able to really do this for as long as they can keep it to themselves. Secrecy is not as easy as Clary had naively assumed it would be. Because it's not just sex. It's not something that starts when she slips beneath Jace's sheets at night and ends when she blinks awake in the morning. It follows her wherever she goes.

What she feels for Jace isn't something she can flip on and off whenever someone else is in the room. She has no practice masking her emotions; Jace is better at it than she is. So Clary avoids seeing Simon in person for several days until she can manage to think about Jace without blushing and grinning like an idiot. Simon knows her so well—just one look would give her away.

She divides her time among the hospital, training, and art club. Upon returning from Idris, Clary didn't given much thought to her art group at the community center. With Jocelyn comatose and a future as a trained supernatural warrior looming ahead of her, Clary had found the prospect of returning to her "mundane" routine of bi-weekly art classes all too surreal. She couldn't picture herself hunched over the old paint-splattered tables, sketching out a scene for her all-but-forgotten graphic novel.

But after the night Jace had returned to the Institute, injured and saying terrible things that froze her from the inside out, Clary wasn't able to endure the self-exile any longer. Art has always been the one way to express herself without restraint. There's never a lie in the works she produces. No one tells her that the feelings she's invoking are wrong. So the next day, after visiting Jocelyn in the hospital, Clary stopped by the community center and signed up for her old group, which met twice a week in the afternoons. Afterwards, she spent the rest of the day people-watching and penciling rough sketches in her book.

She had returned to the Institute late, when everyone was asleep—as planned—only to find herself knocking on Jace's door an hour later, restless and frayed.

Clary's face heats at the recollection of what happened next. The skin on the back of her neck prickles pleasantly, and the sensation shoots down her arms to her fingers, which quiver with the memory of sliding through soft hair and digging into warm hips. Clary absently touches her lips as she makes her way down the hall of the Institute, heading for the kitchen. It's mid-afternoon but, since she missed lunch, she needs something to snack on to hold her over until dinner.

She's about to turn the final corner when a pair of hands grab her from behind and pull her back through a door she didn't recall passing. Her body tenses. The door closes, and she's plunged into darkness. A defensive move Robert taught her last week springs to her mind; she grasps it with both hands like a lifeline. . Just as she's about to jab her elbow backwards, a familiar voice hums into her ear.

"Where are you going?"

Clary exhales and sags against him. "Jace, you almost gave me a heart attack."

His hold on her waist loosens. "Nonsense. People as young and healthy as you don't have heart attacks."

"It's an expression."

"Mundanes say the strangest things."

Clary turns in his arms, leaning back against the door. "I'm not a Mundane."

"No,"—Jace's fingertips gently touch her cheek—"you're not."

Now that Clary's eyes have had a chance to adjust to the darkness, she's able to make out the character of the room. It's small, not more than four feet wide and six feet deep. Shelves line the walls, making it feel even more cramped, and they're stocked with dark shapes that look like bottles and boxes. Something cold and plastic brushes against her leg. The smell of bleach hangs strongly in the air.

"We're in a cleaning closet."

Clary can feel the heat of Jace's body as he steps forward, pinning her between himself and the door. "Terribly cliché, isn't it?"

She can't help but be surprised. She's never seen any of the Lightwoods lift a finger to clean up—aside from washing their dishes after every meal—and she can't quite picture Maryse, Isabelle, Robert or Jace pushing a mop down the hall. But the Institute is huge. And spotless. So someone has to be keeping it all in order.

"Do you ever have to use any of this stuff?" she wonders aloud.

He ducks his head towards hers, the gold of his eyes faintly visible in their new proximity. "Only when I've been bad."

"Maryse makes you clean when you misbehave?" Clary grins, amused at the prospect.

Jace smiles then, too. His grin is slightly dangerous and makes Clary's stomach tighten with anticipation. "Let's just say if she caught me doing this…" he trails off as he cups her face, callused hands simultaneously rough and soft against her jaw. Jace closes the distance between them and kisses her slowly, fiercely, as if he could consume her. This is the way she's become accustomed to being kissed, the kisses she's come to crave every time he touches her, no matter how innocently. Clary has to tip her head back against the door to meet his insistent lips and stands on her toes to return his fervor in kind. Her arms slide up around his neck and she presses her body tightly against his.

Jace breaks away just as Clary begins to feel lightheaded from lack of air. His quick breaths continue to caress her lips as he says, "I would be washing every plane of glass in the greenhouse for the rest of my life."

Clary nearly forgot what they were talking about—that they had been talking at all. "Hm." She pretends to consider the implication. "That sounds terrible. Maybe we should stop." She blindly gropes for the doorknob that she knows must be somewhere at her side, but just as she catches hold of it, her feet are promptly swept out from beneath her, and she doesn't even have time to protest before her back is flush against the door, her legs wrapped around Jace's hips. Clary has to brace her arms against his shoulders to keep from toppling sideways.

Jace grins at her startled expression. "Benefits outweigh the risks," he says by way of explanation and leans forward to press an open-mouthed kiss to her collar bone. His tongue flicks across her skin.

Her hands slide up into the short waves of his hair, caressing the back of his neck. "We're not doing this here."

"I believe we already are," he murmurs and brushes aside the material of her floral-print shrug, exposing the shirt underneath. His fingers skim purposefully along the low neckline as if to give her a chance to say no. As if she would. His fingers make a second pass and this time slip beneath the cotton to seek out her breast.

Jace makes a small, surprised noise in the back of his throat as he comes into direct contact with warm skin.

Impromptu clandestine meetings like this have become necessity over the past week. That first day they'd tried to play the part of brother and sister without slipping. Clary had diligently avoided looking at Jace, had refused to get too close and risk someone—everyone—seeing them for what they were. By nightfall her nails were bitten to the quick and she'd made her escape to Jace's room an hour before she should have. When Jace had pulled her to him then, it was the first time all day she hadn't been afraid to smile. So they'd begun taking advantage of the vast number of empty rooms the Institute had at its disposal, finding a few minutes to be together after training or a spare moment before dinner. Any time they were certain they wouldn't be caught—although Jace is more often certain than not.

These stolen moments have come to mean everything to Clary. To be able to drop all pretenses and just feel and do what she wants with Jace is all she really wants. She begins anticipating their encounters, finds herself restlessly waiting for the chance to be alone with him. It didn't take long for Clary to determine that things like layers of clothing tend to hinder these sporadic encounters. When they have the opportunity to be close, Clary wants to feel the heat of his body and the scars on his skin. So she's taken to wearing skirts and dresses and tops that button. Today she's foregone wearing a bra. She tells herself she's just being practical. It's always the first thing to go anyway.

Now, seeing the way Jace stares at her exposed chest, she can't bring herself to regret the decision.

"What?" she asks innocently.

Of course, Jace sees right through the pretense. "I've corrupted you entirely."

"You're quick to take the credit." She captures his face between her hands and kisses him soundly. In the back of her mind, she knows this is insane. Anyone watching them would have trouble believing that before last week, she'd never been intimate with a boy beyond the tame kisses she had shared with Simon. A girl doesn't give up her virginity and turn into a wanton by the next morning. Jace shouldn't be able to drive her this crazy all of the time.

He smirks against her lips. "Credit and not blame, is it?"

Clary moans in response as he brushes his thumb across her hardened nipple. This time Jace is the one who kisses her, and he does it so well that she nearly forgets this is a bad idea. Then her stomach tightens and rumbles. She groans.

"Jace, I meant it when I said we aren't doing this now."

"You're hardly convincing." He rocks forward against her hips, and she has to bite her lip to keep from gasping.

"I mean it," she says between kisses. "I'm hungry."

"Me too, baby."

"Not for that." She laughs and gently pushes at his chest. He draws back reluctantly. "I skipped breakfast, and I need food."

Jace looks slightly incredulous. "Right now?"

"I can't do this with my stomach growling. It's embarrassing."

"What if I told you it turns me on?"

Clary affectionately swipes his bangs out of his eyes. "I would know you were lying just to get into my pants."

Jace sighs theatrically and lets her down onto her feet. Clary grasps his forearms until she regains her balance. "I can't believe you're choosing last night's lasagna over me."

"If you ever told me to stop taking off your clothes because you needed to eat, I would understand."

"Be careful. I may put that promise to the test someday, when you least expect it."

Clary can't imagine Jace ever telling her to stop undressing him, and she doesn't think he can either.

After she's fixed the neckline of her shirt, Jace leans down to kiss her one last time. "I'll go first," he says. "Give me a minute before you leave. Just in case."

He's out the door without waiting for her response, and Clary is left alone in the darkness. She shakes her head and goes about straightening the rest of her clothes and smoothing down her wild hair. Once she's confident she no longer looks like she's been thrown against a wall in a fit of passion, she stands uncertainly in silence, not sure if it's safe to leave. She places her ear against the door and listens for footsteps. At first there's nothing, but then she hears Jace's muffled voice.

"I was walking by when I heard a noise coming from inside the closet."

Clary tenses and steps back from the door just as it swings open from the outside to reveal Jace, who's looking at her with furrowed eyebrows. Alec is standing behind him, looking equally perplexed.

"Clary? What on Earth are you doing in the broom closet?" Jace asks, looking genuinely surprised.

"I…I was…"

A slow, entertained smile creeps across Jace's face. He raises an eyebrow expectantly.

Clary wants to scream when she realizes this was all his design, but Alec is still there waiting for an explanation. She slips the cell phone from her pocket and holds it up for them to see. "I was having a private conversation."

Jace somehow manages to contain his amusement before asking, "Let me guess. Simon's band has finally turned someone deaf, and he needed your legal advice."

This earns a small smirk from Alec, and Clary rolls her eyes as she steps out into the hallway. "It wasn't Simon. It was Hayden."

Jace's smile falls away. "Hayden?"

"A boy. From my art group. He wants to meet me for a late lunch."

"Why did you have to talk about that in the closet?" Alex asks now that Jace has gone silent.

Clary shrugs. "That's not normally why he calls me."

Alec raises his eyebrows but doesn't comment. Meanwhile Jace, now appearing decidedly less smug, crosses his arms. "So you're leaving to meet him now?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll come with you."

"Jace…" Alec admonishes.

Clary narrows her eyes. "What? Why?"

"I want to meet this boy you're having…private conversations with." Jace's tone is no-nonsense.

"It's not really any of your business."

"It's my business that you're having a secret tete-a-tete with some guy who sounds like an asshat. And his name is Hayden. Very suspicious. I don't like it at all."

This is ridiculous, Clary thinks to herself and tosses her hands in the air. "I'm going to lunch. Whatever you do is up to you."

Jace grins winningly. "I'm going to lunch, too."

"Fine." Then she sees Alec watching them in bemusement. "But you're not sitting with us."

"I'll be staring then."

Clary scowls and stalks down the hall. She doesn't hear Jace pursuing her, but by the time she rounds the next corner the heat of his body is at her back. "I can't believe you just made me jealous of a boy who doesn't exist," he says quietly into her ear.

Clary stops in front of the elevator to hit the call button. "Who says he doesn't exist?"

"Me and the five minutes we spent in the broom closet not talking." Jace leans back against the wall beside the elevator. "That was clever, by the way. The whole phone call excuse. I should be worried that you can lie so convincingly."

"I wouldn't have needed to be clever if you hadn't set me up in the first place. And Hayden really is a boy in my art group. He has very nice eyes."

"I was curious to see how well you could pull it off." Jace frowns. "How do you know how nice his eyes are? Do you look at them often?"

The noisy rattling ceases as the elevator car comes to a halt. Clary pushes aside the grate and steps inside, waiting for Jace to join her. "Only when he holds my hands and recites romantic gothic poetry."

[ - ] [ - ] [ - ]

"What about this?" Clary turns over her sketchbook, holding it out for Magnus to see.

He finishes applying a second coat of lime green nail polish to his pinky finger before looking up. He considers the drawing briefly. "Cute face but too many clothes."

Clary drops the sketchbook back on her lap. "If I make him any more naked, people will think you're inviting them to an orgy."

His catlike eyes brighten. "It's been a while since I've hosted a good orgy. The Fair Folk always show up in droves. They bring their own music, too." Seeing Clary's aversion, he adds, "Not that the music is ever any good. All drums and screeching. Kills the mood, if you ask me."

Clary shakes her head. "Do you really want to throw an orgy for your birthday?"

The bottle of nail polish and the table tray it's sitting on both disappear, leaving behind a brief trail of undulating air—like an invisible flame. Magnus stands and stretches his long, lanky arms above his head, bright yellow track jacket rising to expose a shimmering spandex shirt underneath. "I suppose not. Alec would probably refuse to come."

Magnus moves to stand behind the couch, taking a second look at the drawing over Clary's shoulder. The page is turned landscape with a tall rectangular box to one side where the text of the invitation is meant to go. One the other side is a sketch of a man and a woman dancing provocatively together beneath a disco ball and a pink haze smoke. Clary taps her blue colored pencil against the paper as Magnus hums. "He can keep the jacket. Just get rid of his shirt, and we'll call it fair."

"Do you want me to use script or print for the font?"

"Whichever screams—" Magnus cuts off abruptly. His head is tipped almost comically to one side as if he's listening for something faint.

"What is it?" Clary asks.

"Nothing. We're just about to be invaded."

A beat later, the front door flies open, and Jace steps through, arms extended. "Honey, I'm home!"

Immediately, Clary's heart beats a little faster and her grip on the pencil tightens. As he walks into the apartment, her eyes sweep over his unruffled blonde hair and pristine Shadowhunter gear, checking for any signs of injury. Only once she's ascertained his wellbeing does she look to Alec and Isabelle, who trail in after him. The three of them had left the Institute only a couple of hours ago for a night of patrols. They weren't expected back until much later, and Clary wonders at them showing up at Magnus's looking as if they'd gone for a walk instead of a fight. Even their runes are still dark and unused.

"Let me guess. You've discovered my secret stash of gnome porn, and you've come to cart me away?" Magnus remarks dryly.

Jace sighs. "It's no fun when they confess before the torture."

He makes a beeline for where Clary is curled against the arm of the couch. And as she watches him come toward her so casually, she's half-terrified, half-hoping that he's going to forget everyone, forget everything and kiss her right then. But at the last moment he drops down beside her and takes the sketchpad from her lap.

"Would Alec be the one in charge of administering the torture?" Magnus asks brightly. "If so, I rescind my confession. I've never even seen a gnome a day in my life."

Clary looks at Jace looking at the sketch, and she's so engrossed in the way his fingertips skim over the fine, colored lines that she hardly notices Alec coming to stand beside Magnus or Isabelle hopping up onto a barstool. "This is good," Jace says genuinely. "But what on Earth is it for?"

"Yes, our Clary is very gifted," Magnus says, his arm draped around Alec's waist. "Which is why I've commissioned her to design the invitation for my party."

Isabelle visibly perks up. "Ooh. When?"

"Next Friday. 10 pm. Clothing is optional but frowned upon."

Clary rolls her eyes. "Magnus."

Magnus holds up a hand, the stack of rings on each finger glittering as they catch the light. "Just because we'll all be naked doesn't mean there'll be orgies."

Isabelle shrugs. "I'm in."

"What's the party for?" Alec asks, speaking for the first time since the group's arrival. Up until now, he's seemed distracted, looking worried in the way that he often does when he's thinking especially hard about something.

Magnus smiles. "My birthday."

Alec looks at him sharply. "You didn't tell me your birthday is next week."

Magnus redirects his attention to the shinning green of his nails. "That's because whenever we bring up my age, you get defensive and confrontational."

"I do not!" Alec jerks away Magnus's hold.

"You tell him."

"Shut up, Jace"

Jace, not looking at all bothered, relaxes further into the couch cushions, bringing his arm up to rest along the back, just behind Clary. She can sense his fingertips touching her hair. "Fine, but I was taking your side."

"There are no sides because this isn't a fight," Alec says, and everyone looks at him unconvinced.

Sensing that the situation is quickly deteriorating, Clary decides to run interference. "You guys were done with patrol pretty quickly. Slow night?"

"Slow week." Isabelle throws her hands up in exasperation. "I haven't seen a demon in days."

"Apparently Shadowhunters get cranky when they don't get to kill things," Magnus says as he reclaims his seat in the over-stuffed chair.

Alec eagerly picks up Isabelle's line of discussion. "It's strange. After the battle in Idris, there was a huge rise in demonic activity. Now…nothing."

"Unless,"—Isabelle uncoiles the electrum whip around her arm with a practiced snap—"Jace is sneaking out in the middle of the night to get them all for himself. He has been in a suspiciously good mood lately."

Jace hands Clary back her sketchbook and crosses his arms behind his head. "I can assure you that my good mood stems from far less…chaste activities."

Isabelle makes a face. Magnus props his elbow on the armrest, balancing his chin on the palm of his hand. "Keep talking."

Though no one is looking at her, Clary wants nothing more than to sink into the corner of the couch and disappear. And when she sees Jace open his mouth—to "keep talking" she assumes—Clary rises to her feet. "I have a pretty good idea of what you want the invite to look like, so unless there's anything else…"

Isabelle slides from her stool, landing elegantly on the three-inch heels of her boots. "I don't want to hear about Jace's alone time either. Let's go. You boys have fun, now, and remember that threesomes aren't something you can take back."

Clary lets Isabelle loop her arm through hers and lead them towards the door. With a glance back over her shoulder Clary finds Jace's amused eyes on her.

Outside Magnus's apartment there's a brisk wind, and Clary pulls her sweater tighter across her chest. Sometimes winter feels closer than it actually is.

"I know that it's hard," Isabelle says once they've reached the dark, deserted street. They turn south towards the nearest subway station, and Clary waits for her to elaborate. She doesn't.

"What's hard?"

"Changing the way you feel about someone."

Clary pulls her arm free from Isabelle under the pretense of warming her hands in her pockets. She stares resolutely ahead at the upcoming streetlight, suddenly yearning for the safety of the group dynamic they just left behind. Talking to Isabelle one-on-one in the brashness of night makes her chest tighten with anxiety. "What do you mean?"

Isabelle, always blunt, doesn't shy away. "The feelings you and Jace had for each other before you found out you were siblings were strong. I could see it in the way you looked at each other." A lone car makes its way down the street, and they wait for it to pass before crossing. "He still looks at you," Isabelle continues on the other side, "but not like he's sorry that he's doing it. I think he's finally realized how pointless it is to want you. That's good for him. And for you."

It feels like her heart is pounding in her head instead of her chest, the sound of rushing blood drowning out all other sound. Isabelle's words sound distant, like a fairytale that's nothing more than fiction wrapped around a moral everyone already knows. Meaningless. An alternate universe where what's good for everyone else is what's good for Jace and Clary.

"You see that, too. Don't you?" Isabelle presses.

Clary swallows back the acid flavor in her mouth before responding. "Of course. We're just still getting used to being family, I guess."

Isabelle smiles, and Clary thinks she must be a better liar than she thought she was.

"I know what you need," Isabelle says, sounding excited. "Birth control and a hot date for Magnus's party." Her grin widens into a smirk. "Someone dangerous."

[ - ] [ - ] [ - ]

Clary's hands grip the back of the chair on either side of Jace's head, her fingers digging into the soft upholstery. Jace's eyes are squeezed shut and his lips slightly parted. Clary's knees brace against the seat cushion and she raises her body up and down in a slow, steady rhythm. Each of her quiet pants displaces the damp golden hair at his temple. She watches with languid fascination as a stubborn bead of sweat falls over the sharp cut of his jaw and slides down his neck to disappear beneath the collar of his shirt.

Quietly tucked away in the back of the library, Clary straddles Jace's lap as he fills her and leaves her empty, over and over. The friction of sliding over him makes her body tremble, and she's not sure how she's managed to keep this torturous pace.

Her thighs burn with the exertion, but she doesn't care. It's just so—

"So fucking good," Jace murmurs, opening his eyes slowly.

And it's too much for Clary—his tawny gaze saying things she can almost hear and the tension of his body making her want to scream—so she closes her eyes and just focuses on the feel of him inside of her, the first time without any barrier between them.

Jace's hands move from her hips to the hem of the dress bunched around her thighs. Cool air finds damp skin as he gathers the fabric and raises it to her waist. She shivers.

"Look, baby." Jace's throaty plea sends her heart racing, but she doesn't open her eyes. "Look at us."

She tentatively licks the sweat from her lips and obeys, following his hooded eyes to where their bodies are joined. It steals her breath away, the sight of her body taking his in, over and over.

A sudden shift of her hips elicits a low moan from Jace. As his head falls onto her shoulder he breathes faster into her neck. His urging hands return to the now-naked flesh of her hips and Clary lets him guide her into a quicker pace.

She's watching the backs of her eyelids again. Her head becomes so heavy, spilling over with pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, that she lets it lull backward and her body is all nerves and no bones. She feels it, that hot churning deep inside of her, growing, and building and compounding toward—

The click of the library door opening tears into her awareness like a gunshot. She freezes above Jace, her hands now clutching the chair in fear instead of lusty abandon. She can't see past the rows of books, but there are definitely footsteps.

"I just don't see what the big deal is about herbal remedies if they do the exact same thing an iratze can do."

"What if you're in a situation where you don't have your stele?"

"I'd never be that sloppy."

Isabelleand Maryse.

Clary is already looking around frantically for her underwear, but long fingers dig into her skin, keeping her exactly where she is.

"Jace!" she hisses, and his lips immediately close over hers in a searing kiss.

"I know," he mutters quietly after they part. His hold doesn't loosen. He resumes moving against her and his hands attempt to coax her tentative body to move in return.

"They'll find us," Clary whispers vehemently.

She pushes at his chest and attempts to rise, but only succeeds in giving him exactly what he wants: her body moving up his length before completely sheathing him again as she drops back into his lap.

He half-smirks, eyes still smoldering. "Kinda makes it more exciting, right?"

"More exciting? Jace, I—"

His left hand dips between her legs and finds her clit. He brushes her just so with his thumb and her entire body goes taught. Jace presses his lips to her ear. "You can be quiet for me, baby, can't you?"

Clary can't find her voice, so she nods desperately, already moving over him again. He lowers his lips to her chest and sucks on her nipple through the thin cotton of her sundress. Clary's hands move from the upholstery to his mussed hair, holding his mouth against her.

She can still hear Maryse and Isabelle moving through the library, but their voices are distant and muffled by the blood rushing in her ears and the feeling of Jace moaning against her breast. She sucks in a sharp breath just as Jace goes tense and pulses beneath her. He works her clit as she rides his release, and she's coming undone within moments. Her teeth close around his shoulder to keep her from screaming.

Bit-by-bit the orgasm subsides, Clary going soft and pliant against Jace's chest as the rest of the world comes back into focus. First, she hears Jace's slowing breaths and then, beyond that, Maryse and Isabelle's unassuming conversation. Clary sighs in relief. Her nose brushes Jace's as she tips her face down to his. "You're crazy," she whispers against his cheek.

"And it's entirely your fault."

Shaking her head, Clary disentangles herself from his embrace, shivering at the coldness that seeps into her skin at the loss of contact. Her legs are weak and tremble beneath her when she stands, and Jace reaches out to straighten her wrinkled skirt so that it falls to her knees. As he stands and rights his jeans, Clary recalls having lost her panties somewhere in the Ancient History section. Retrieving them would mean risking discovery by Isabelle and Maryse. Clary bites her lip.

Jace's lips graze her ear. "I think I have what you're looking for."

She rounds on him, but he's already slipping the white cotton into his back pocket. Give them to me, she mouths silently.

Jace shakes his head, grinning. He leans down to retrieve his sweatshirt from the floor and holds it out for her to take. Clary shakes her head and leans in close enough to whisper, "That is not a fair trade!"

He shakes his head again and brushes his fingers across her left breast. She shivers and looks down: a dark, wet spot has bloomed across the fabric where Jace's mouth had been moments ago. Clary sighs and accepts the sweatshirt. It's almost comically big on her small frame, but it does its job, and Jace uses the excess material to pull her against him and kiss her deeply.

He tastes salty and almost sweet in a way that's uniquely Jace. And though she should be worried about being discovered, her eyes slip closed, and she thinks nothing could possibly touch her when Jace is holding her like this—like she's the strongest, most precious person in the world.

And, with just a little subtle maneuvering, she's able to get her hand around to his back pocket where she saw him stick her—

"I don't think so," Jace murmurs and pushes her gently into the chair. He reaches for a book on the nearest shelf, tosses it to her, and then grabs one for himself. Settling into the nearest window seat, he begins talking loudly in a conversational tone. "Have you gotten to the part where the colossal glob of sea lettuce battles the giant sea cucumber? That's my favorite part. It ends with them turning into a giant tossed salad."

Clary glances at the upside down book in her lap. The title on the cloth cover is written in a language she doesn't understand—possibly Arabic—and beneath it is an image of ship with a tall mast and wide sails. She draws a finger over the embossed edges, even as she hears the soft click of Maryse's heels drawing closer.

"Jace. Clary," she says in surprise. "What are you doing back here?"

"Rereading the codex addendum." Jace holds up a thick paperback book. "They spelled 'incongruous' wrong on page 114, there's a misplaced modifier on 187, and on page 235 they—"

"Yes, well how astute of you. As long as you're both here, you might as well join Isabelle for her herbal remedy lesson." She waves them along, doing a double take when she sees Clary drowning in Jace's sweatshirt. "Are you cold?"

"I keep telling her to wear more layers," Jace sighs. "She won't see reason."

[ - ] [ - ] [ - ]

It's not what he wants. Not really. Clary is what he wants, and he wants her every minute of every day. At night she's his and no one else's, but when the sun comes up, it's as if they're living on borrowed time. Every moment alone together feels rare and breakable. He grasps those opportunities with both hands and holds them close so that they don't slip away. If it's not wrong to love Clary, then it's wrong to be so selfish with her. Either way, he's not at all sorry. If he can't have her all the time, he'll take her when he can. It's not everything he wants, but it's more than he deserves.

He hears his bedroom door open and close, followed by the sound of sound Clary's bare feet padding across the floor towards the bed. Jace finishes running the towel through his damp hair and then tosses it onto the counter. He leaves the bathroom to find Clary sitting on top of the bed covers, legs crossed beneath her and a book balanced in her hands.

She's still wearing the sweatshirt he gave her earlier, but the dress is gone, replaced with a pair of long flannel pajama pants. Her hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail so that the pink color in her cheeks stands out. There's a brightness in her green eyes that he thinks he may have had a hand in, and the thought lightens the heaviness in his chest.

"I'm not sure I approve of your new choice in pajamas."

"Someone suggested I dress more warmly."

"Well, that someone was an idiot." Jace stops in front of her, brushes his fingers across her cheek because he can't help touching her whenever he has a chance.

"A cute idiot," Clary says. Beneath his thumb Jace feels the curve of her smile. He leans down and kisses it.

"I'm sure,"—his lips trail down to her neck—"what he really wanted to say was...'you are much too pretty for clothes.'"

Clary sighs softly, nuzzling her nose against his jaw. "Such a smooth talker."

"I've always thought so. You know, as a completely objective third-party."

When Clary shivers beneath his touch, Jace's entire body tenses with anticipation. It's a powerful, heady feeling that never diminishes no matter how many times they're alone together like this. He thinks this must be what it's like for his heart to want someone as badly as his body does. It's never less exhilarating or less vital. He could never get enough of her.

"I've been thinking…" Clary trails off as Jace pulls the sweatshirt collar aside to kiss her bare shoulder.

"About me and all of the naughty things I'm going to do to you, I hope."

Clary giggles—she's ticklish right there by her scar—and gently pushes him away. Decidedly not the reaction he was going for. "No. Not about that."

"Ouch."

"About the recent demonic activity—or lack thereof."

"Twist the knife a little deeper, why don't you?" Jace mutters and drops onto bed behind her.

Clary turns to face him. "Don't you think it's strange?"

"That you're thinking about demons while I'm lying half naked in bed with you? Yes."

Clary rolls her eyes, a sign that Jace is pushing his luck. "I'm being serious. You're not worried about it being so quiet?"

Jace shrugs. "Demonic activity is rarely consistent. It ebbs and flows naturally."

Clary looks skeptical. "And how often does it dry up completely?"

Jace doesn't have an answer. Honestly he's never seen the sort of quiet that they've experienced the last couple weeks. After the fight with Valentine, the demonic activity in New York had flared and then slowed to a trickle. But the Clave couldn't afford to look a gift horse in the mouth Not now, while they were still recovering and regrouping. "It could just be residual effects from when Valentine summoned the demons to Idris."

"Or…"

"Or it's not something for us to worry about," Jace says definitively. "We've filled our save-the-entirety-of-mankind quota. If something particularly nefarious is behind the lack of demonic activity, let the rest of the Clave deal with it. We've got more pressing matters."

Clary smiles when he says 'nefarious,' and he falls a little bit more in love with her. "Like what?" she asks.

"Like your clothing and how there is far too much of it."

"Actually,"—she reaches behind her back to retrieve a book—"we'll need clothes for what I have in mind."

Jace blinks back at her. "I don't understand."

"I want you to read to me." The pirate ship embossed on cover of the book shines gold in the dim light of the room, and Jace recognizes it as the book he handed her in the library, a book he hadn't chosen on whim alone. "From the illustrations it looks like a fantasy book," Clary continues, "but I can't read it, obviously. I think it's written in—"

"Arabic." Jace nods toward the lettering on the spine. "It's a collection of fairytales. Maryse used to read it to me when I first arrived here. It made her feel more useful, I think." And it had helped banish the nightmares he'd been plagued with at the time, replacing them with fanciful dreams of heroic huntsmen and malevolent soothsayers.

"And you can read Arabic?" Clary asks hopefully.

Jace shrugs his shoulders. "When the mood strikes."

"Then you'll read some to me now."

Jace eyes the book reluctantly. "I don't know…."

"Yes, you do," Clary assures him. "Because every time you finish a chapter,"—she lifts her chin—"I'll kiss you."

It's the purposeful lilt of the last three words that gets him. It sounds as if she's promising him something he'd be foolish to decline. He swallows. "What kind of kiss?"

She leans in and brushes her lips softy—teasingly—against his before pulling away.

"Hmmm," Jace hums thoughtfully as he scoots back against the headboard, arms crossed over his chest. "I accept the proposition, but on one condition."

Clary eyes him suspiciously. "What?"

"You don't wear any pants."

He expects an amused eye roll and a half-hearted comment about him being a shameless sex fiend, but she doesn't do either of those things. Instead, she reaches up beneath the bottom hem of the sweatshirt, hooks her thumbs into the waistband of the pants and shimmies them down her legs, kicking them off onto the floor. For a moment, he's so distracted by Clary crawling toward him in nothing but his sweatshirt and a pair of brightly striped underwear that he forgets everything about the book until she presses it into his hands.

"I think I might need a kiss to get me started."

She laughs but complies, kissing him much too sweetly before lying down at his side, head against his shoulder and hands wrapped around his bicep. Even though reading is the farthest thing from his mind, he opens the book—the one that had so quickly become his favorite after arriving at the Institute—and turns to the story he'd read most often. The words come rushing back to him the moment his fingers touch the page, and only Clary's warm breath against his skin keeps him in the here and now.

"What's this one about?" she asks.

"An angel who was stripped of his wings and barred from heaven to lead a tortured half-life on earth."

Clary's lips purse in a small frown. "These all have happy endings, right?"

"That is the ending."

"But that's terrible!" Clary rises up onto her elbows and peeks at the page as if to decipher a different meaning from the Arabic words. "I thought these were fairytales. They're supposed to have 'happily-ever-after's."

"Not the ones Shadowhunters read." Jace reaches out to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. "And you've met the faeries. They're not exactly sunshine and rainbows. Or when they are, they're sunshine that burns your retinas and rainbows that clash with your shoes."

"But what did he do that was so terrible?"

"Am I reading this or not?"

Clary sighs and drops her head back onto his shoulder. "Yes, please."

Jace smiles and returns to the book in his hands. "No one in heaven knew that the Angel Haldien had a secret. Each night, when he was meant to be comforting those in need of prayers, he descended to Earth to watch the young mortal girl he had fallen in love with against God's Law…"

AN: Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter, especially those of you who I couldn't thank individually because you weren't signed in (or because you have PMs disabled). I appreciate you taking the time to drop me a line. If you have questions about the story, feel free to ask. I'll answer as long as I don't think it will give too much away about the plot.

Next chapter might take a little bit longer to get out. Just so you know. :)