Chapter 47 – Time for Murder Pt. 1

I was healthy. My demon sting had healed. My fever was gone. My muscles felt like I could easily swing a sword with them. I was healthy. The fact that I was no longer in the Basilias, but in my bed at the Lightwoods' home, confirmed it. My gaze swept sideways and I spotted Jace. I had to purse my lips to keep from smiling. Somehow I had gotten used to his presence next to my bed.

Jace's chest heaved silently, and the way he sat in the armchair his neck would be stiff when he woke up. At least the armchair was an improvement on the puny chair that had been provided for him in the Basilias. I couldn't remember being brought back here from there. Since there was a high probability that one or the other Silent Brother had been involved, I was glad about it.

Another question bothered me. How long had I slept this time? I could feel the morphine in my veins draining away. No sense of indolence remained. I stretched out an arm. My muscles felt rigid, but that had to be from lying around motionless for days. I felt surprisingly fit. My mind, which had been struggling to ramp up to peak performance for the past few days, was back in full force as well. It was refreshing not to get a headache from thinking.

I looked around the room. My things looked untouched. The last time I was here, I had prepared for the trip to my parents' estate. At least one week must have passed since then. Enough time for Valentine and Jonathan to throw the world into chaos. Aside from the Clave meeting and what little information I had from Jace, I had no idea what the state of the world was.

My gaze drifted back to Jace only to meet a pair of golden eyes studying me curiously. Had he really slept at all? He hadn't moved an inch. Nobody said anything for several seconds. We stared into each other's eyes and seemed to wait; I at least didn't know what to say. I searched my mind for the last memory, only to conjure up Adam's angry face. Isabelle was there, as was Alec. In hindsight, the picture seemed strangely pale to me, as if an eternity had passed since then. The thought made my heart beat faster with fear.

"How are you?" Jace asked at that moment and I felt like I'd heard that question a thousand times before. Just looking at him reminded me that not too much time could have passed. He didn't look any different than I remembered.

I hesitated, looking down once more at the blanket that wrapped my body; on my hand that rested on the down. Then I slowly let the air into my lungs and the words formed on my vocal cords; they pressed surprisingly softly against my throat as the vibrations turned into sounds. After days of sleep I would have expected more resistance. "I'm fine," I said softly but firmly, and perhaps the strength of my voice was actually due to my restored health. Speaking was no longer a problem for me. "Better than fine," I continued, sitting up in bed at the same time. "I'm doing great."

"The Silent Brothers did a great job." Jace looked pleased. "They're starting to figure out how much morphine your body need to recover. They took really good care of you."

It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up to think that I was doing well thanks to the Silent Brothers. Of course I was grateful, but knowing that they had been close to me was still an overcoming. At least I hadn't noticed any of it. "How many days has it been since Isabelle and Alec visited?"

Jace narrowed his eyes when I didn't mention Adam's name, but finally nodded. "Brother Shadrach decided last night that you were well enough to be dismissed. You've only been here since this morning, but …" He paused, leaning sideways in his armchair and trying to peer out of the window across from the bed from his position. "... since the sun is setting, it's almost three days."

Almost three days. With the five more days that I had spent in the Basilias since the Clave meeting, more than a week had passed. I was running out of time and all I did was hurt myself and recover. I was too weak to be of any use. How was I supposed to face Jonathan and my father when I couldn't even remember my last workout? The panic that had already seized me in the Basilias crept up my spine again.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Jace's voice cut through the silence and I had to try not to flinch. My unfocused eyes wandered back to his face. It was clear that if I wanted to win this fight, I couldn't show weakness or fear.

So I nodded and pushed the covers aside in one sweeping motion, glad for a second that I was wearing something underneath before turning my back on Jace and jumping off the bed. No dizziness, no pain, just a slight swaying of my slackened limbs. I stretched out my arms and tensed my muscles. Luckily I wasn't too out of shape. With a few days of training, I would be my old self again.

"Fine," I answered Jace's question, trying to sound nonchalant. The tension was not allowed to show on the outside. The anger had to lie dormant deep inside me until the right time to vent it came. If Jace got wind of it, he would delay my first intend as a full recovered for some time or make it impossible at all.

Slowly, and as casually as possible, I turned to Jace, who still gave me a skeptical look. I had the feeling that with each passing day it was getting harder to fake something with my facade. "Have I missed anything in the last few days?"

Jace shrugged. "Not really. My grandmother is still waiting for you to get well so we can travel to the Seelie Queen," he said, crossing his arms over his chest while watching me from below. "If you are as well as you say you are, then we cannot delay the trip any longer."

I nodded and wandered through my room to the closet. "We should get this over with. Too much time has passed anyway."

I saw Jace nod in the mirror next to the closet. He rose from the armchair but didn't move. As if he didn't know whether he wanted to get closer to me or not. "Alec is at the Gard right now. With his new position, he had a lot on his plate over the past few days. If you don't want to wait any longer, I'll notify him and the Inquisitor."

"How much time do I have then?" My tone was casual, but the question was of great interest to me. My plan depended on it. So I could only hope to convince Jace with my indifference.

Jace shrugged and headed for the door. His face showed no scrutiny, but that didn't mean anything. Jace was smart enough to pretend to me if he later hoped to gain an advantage from it. "She'll want us to leave as soon as possible. Count on tomorrow. She certainly won't let us waste another day in Alicante when so much depends on the alliance with the fairies."

"Then you better go."

Jace nodded again, his right hand already on the doorknob. But his feet halted in their stride, not moving forward. His golden eyes darted back to me and something in his stare made my body involuntarily tense. He knows, was the first thought that crossed my mind. He knows what I'm up to. My heart gave an uncomfortable leap. To cover up my nervousness, I opened the closet; in search of my battle gear.

Jace's gaze was intense, serious, maybe a little uncertain; but something sparkled in his pupils. Not suspicious, but knowing. As if he could look down into the last centimeter of my soul at this very second, as if I had somehow betrayed myself; like he knew full well that I was planning to go after Blake as soon as he left the house.

"I shouldn't be gone too long," Jace spoke into the silence that seemed too charged to be harmless. Suddenly everything felt wrong. Like Jace couldn't help but know about my plan. As if I had forgotten even the simplest things of secrecy by now.

My head moved of its own accord in absent acknowledgment as my fingers continued to rummage around in the closet. I hardly owned more than five items of clothing. But Jace couldn't know that, could he?

I almost let out a sigh of relief as Jace turned away from me and pushed open the door. "Don't do anything stupid," he said goodbye and disappeared.

oOo

"You have to promise me you won't tell anyone about this. Especially not Jace."

Isabelle grinned up from her position on her bed, sprawled like a cat. Her dark eyes darted from me to the box of daggers and back to me. "This is the third time you've said that. I'm not deaf, Clary," she giggled, rolling onto her back so her black hair slipped over the edge of the bed and fell down like a curtain. She stretched her arms out from her body as if stretching, then gave me a more sober look. The fact that her head was looking upside down at me and that she otherwise seemed so composed – like she didn't know what I was up to – made it difficult to take her seriously. "If anyone asks why your door is locked, I'll say you've been feeling bad and want to be left alone. If anyone still wants to check on you, I'll say you don't want to be disturbed."

"If someone should nevertheless invade my privacy, you must stop them from opening this door. I'm serious, Izzy. Once that door is open, I'm in big trouble." My fingers ran over the platinum-hued blades, which were so neatly organized in the box that it almost felt like they were collectibles, not intended for combat.

Isabelle made a noise that sounded like a mixture of a snort and a laugh. "Oh please, we both know that someone means none other than Jace. He's hardly left your side for more than a few hours in the past week. I feel like he's your personal bodyguard." She giggled and winked at me like she was finding the whole thing hilarious.

I rolled my eyes but sighed and shrugged. "And if it were. You have to stop him from coming into my room."

"I'll do my best, I promise," Isabelle replied, the amusement draining from her tone. What remained was a meaningful, well-founded expression in her brown eyes. A smirk tried to break the edge of her lips. She knew what I was up to, even though I hadn't said a word about it, and a part of her seemed glad about it.

It had been enough to burst into her room with a knock, in Shadowhunter gear ready to go and with Eosphoros on my belt, and she had known what the next item on my agenda was. The fierce look on my own face that I somehow couldn't tear away from and the fact that I wanted to borrow her dagger collection only made my intentions more obvious. In the meantime the sun had disappeared on the horizon. Jace wasn't gone long, I had rushed to get ready. I couldn't tell how long his visit to the Gard would last. If I was unlucky, it would go pretty quickly. And I wanted to take my time.

"Thank you." We stared into each other's eyes for a long moment, both her and I a bit lost in thought. My fingers itched, wanting to shake the weakness off my skin, as if it were so easy to get rid of. My muscles burned with the need to retaliate for the fear I felt. My blood pounded at a rhythm far too fast, knowing that revenge and vigilantism were not the Shadowhunters' way. They weren't dishonourable, but they should be superfluous in a society like this. But this society didn't protect me, it protected those with enough power to buy it. This society despised me because they saw me as that dishonorable, cold-blooded killer. And precisely because I was already lost in their eyes anyway, this act would not change my standing.

Isabelle broke eye contact, rolled onto her stomach and then straightened into a sitting position. The movement stopped my flow of thoughts. Not everyone thought I was lost. Isabelle knew me, she knew I wasn't who they thought I was. She knew I wasn't my father's monster.

"I hope you get him," she said, and now the smile managed to break through to her lips. Something glittered in her eyes as if she were hoping for a very specific outcome tonight. "Get back at him."

I let the air out of my lungs and nodded. I almost felt relieved. I wanted revenge, wanted retribution, but I feared the price I would have to pay. Not the legal consequences. The Clave wouldn't get me, I was too experienced and well trained for that. No. I feared that the opinions of the few people I had won over in the last few weeks would turn negative. A dilemma I've been weighing since the attack on me. The intact, confident part of me wanted me to finally break away from my father's teachings; it wanted me to ditch values like revenge and honor. It would make me a more composed, farsighted fighter. But this part was too small, too much in me was already fragile, tottering and about to fall into darkness. I was on the right side, which didn't mean my methods were right. After all I had lost, my father's lessons were all I could hold on to; the last remnants of my old life. I had no intention of taking them off. I planned to take them to the grave with me when this was all over.

Nonetheless, I was relieved to know that tonight wasn't going to change Isabelle's judgment of me. I had a feeling that it would even encourage it. Unlike Alec, who insisted on the Clave's rules, Isabelle was closer to the dark. Not like me, her life was intact, but she liked to play with fire. The goal was more important to her than the way to get there. She was willing to take matters into her own hands when things got out of hand. I think that was one of the reasons we got along so well.

"I hope so, too," was all I said before leaving Isabelle to her things and sneaking back to my own room with the daggers.

oOo

The night was cold and dark and just as still as the night Blake had ambushed Jace and I on our way back to the Basilias. I exhaled and the warm oxygen formed white puffs in the air. Now that I was completely my old self, I didn't mind the cold. I hadn't bothered to pull a cloak over the outfit. My nonslip boots flew over the bricks of the houses below me, my body tensed and I flew from the edge of one roof to the next. What had seemed like a miracle to me just a few days ago was now child's play again. My muscles burned, they warmed my body from the inside out. No jacket had been the right decision. I wasn't cold, not when I kept moving. The thick fabric would only have been a hindrance. All I wore over the suit was a black cape, the hood of which would cover my face as I approached Blake's house. The thin fabric flapped in the wind but was light enough not to resist my movements.

The Ashdowns' estate wasn't too far from the Lightwoods'. Some blocks of houses to cross. The Princewater Canal, which separated central Alicante from the north, was the bigger problem. The canal was too wide for me to jump over. All I was left with was the bridge connecting the two sides, but that was risky even after the sun had set. The evening was young, there were more people on the streets and the chances of not meeting anyone was low. As long as I kept my head down and my face hidden deep in the hood, everything should be fine. As long as nobody got suspicious, which I didn't expect. In this weather I would certainly not be the only one with a headpiece.

It had started snowing again. The few sunny days had once again been replaced by winter. But spring would not be long in coming, at least that was my hope. I felt like this winter had dragged on far too long; that the icy cold had been dormant in everything around me for far too long.

With a jolt that ran up my spine, I landed on the roof of one of the houses in second line of the south front of the Princewater Canal. Here, the house standing right on the waterfront gave me the shelter I needed to get back down to earth unseen. I crouched down and peered over the mantelpiece of the first house to check out the canal. The bridge and waterline were brightly lit under a row of witch-lights, allowing me to see the shape of the river almost to the eastern bridge. Not good, but not the end of the world. There was no one to be seen save for two figures who ran across the pavement and braved the wind by hugging their hoods deeper.

I didn't hesitate as I slid down the gutter of the house to the end of the tiled roof. With a quick sideways glance I assured myself that the house in the front position would indeed give me cover. But I worried unnecessarily. The alley leading from my house out to Princewater Canal wasn't wide and the other building reflected the witch-light of the canal so much that I could hardly be seen from there.

Over the bricks of the windowsills, I climbed my way along the facade of the house, careful not to cover the front of the windows for too long. What I definitely didn't need at that moment was someone in the building noticing my silhouette through the glass. As the snow crunched under my boots, I was thankful for the leather gloves that kept the chill of the stone from penetrating my fingers. For a second, the thought of that cold reminded me back to Blake's attack and how my back had sunk into the icy wall of another house. The feeling sent a wave of heat through my limbs. Resolutely turning my back on the bricks, I pulled my hood up over my head and marched toward the canal.

The raging flow of water to my left was the only sound that stood out against the night. No voices, no footsteps, nothing to suggest any other lifeform out here. I raised my head a little, as far as I could without the hood slipping, and scanned the area in front of the bridge. The two figures I had watched from the roof had quickly gone their separate ways. Now the road and the adjacent bridge were deserted. Good.

Still, the tension didn't leave my limbs until I got across Princewater Canal and back onto the first rooftop I came across over a similar gutter. I was so close to my goal that my fingers were starting to tingle in anticipation. In a calming motion, I ran my right hand over Eosphoros' hilt. The sword hung stiffly from my belt, surrounded by a selection of daggers I had borrowed from Isabelle. Touching the weapon was soothing; it reminded me not to fear.

Once I regained my inner focus, I rose from a crouch, surveyed the dark rooftops, and mentally ran through the last part of the route I had to travel. The knowledge of where the Ashdowns' estate was was pure accident, as the Lightwoods' library was full of books on the history of Idris and Alicante. In one of the more recent manuscripts, there was a map showing the residences of all existing Shadowhunter families. A bit like a Nephilim phone book. I could only hope the Ashdowns hadn't moved since then, but that seemed very unlikely.

One block was all that separated me from Blake Ashdown. For a long moment, breathing in the cold night air, I felt like nothing could stop me now. A dangerous thought that seemed to send my legs faster over the bricks. Focus was all I needed. I pushed off the roof and flew through the air in a controlled maneuver, bending my knees as my boots found footing on the neighboring roof. One less roof that stood between me and Blake.

oOo

"You're unbelievable," Isabelle hissed, her tone rising an octave, the outrage clearly audible. "Don't you dare take another step closer!"

Jace didn't look as if he had even heard what she had explained to him in the last fifteen minutes. The moment Isabelle had informed him that he couldn't see Clary, a switch had seemed to have flipped inside him. His visit to the Gard had been shorter than expected. The Inquisitor had probably agreed fairly quickly with the Consul when they should set out for the Seelie Queen. Jace had barely lost more than a sentence before he'd pushed past her and started up the stairs.

"You're such a bad liar, I can smell the lie," Jace stated, narrowing his eyes when Isabelle didn't move an inch from the door. "If Clary is that bad, someone should check on her."

"I was just checking on her," Isabelle insisted in an indignant voice. "She wants her rest."

Jace snorted and raised his eyebrows in amusement. "Your pupils are so big, it's like you're on drugs, Izzy. I know you're lying."

"I am not lying," she hissed back, crossing her arms angrily across her chest. "Instead of acting like a know-it-all idiot, you should give Clary her privacy."

"Oh yes, privacy." Jace gave Isabelle a piercing look and finally rolled his eyes. "I've spent the last week with her. We're past that point, I think." His voice was sarcastic, but Isabelle felt there was some truth in the words.

"I don't care, I have my orders," she said, shrugging and pressing her feet into the ground to steady herself. If he wanted to get through here, he would have to smash her.

"Are you sure you want to take your chances?" Jace's golden eyes darted between her and the door to Clary's bedroom, but not in deliberation, Isabelle found out. He had already made up his mind. His instincts had to be clear if he wasn't afraid to go on the offensive.

"I'm sure," Isabelle purred and smiled wryly.

Jace nodded once and then, without warning, bolted forward. Isabelle put her hands up to grab his arms, but he sidestepped. She had no choice but to follow his movement if she wanted to keep him from the door. Isabelle gasped as she collided with Jace's shoulder. Her body was pushed back, she felt the door in her back. Jace's hand shot out to grab the handle and Isabelle dug her fingers into his arm to pull him back. Not an easy task when you were at a disadvantage in terms of muscle strength. She could only hope that Clary had locked the door, that would buy her some time.

Isabelle bent her knees and drew back her leg. Jace staggered as she pulled his legs out from under him and he had to step back to keep from falling. That was enough to resume Isabelle's original position in front of the door.

"Sorry, Izzy," Jace murmured, grinning slightly. "You're not going to win this."

Isabelle, knowing he was probably right, pursed her lips in annoyance. Jace charged again, this time targeting her instead of the door. In a maneuver so quick she could barely feel it, he grabbed her forearms and pivoted. Isabelle tried to stand her ground, but in sheer strength she was inferior to Jace. They turned and suddenly it wasn't her with her back to the door, it was him. Jace shoved Isabelle; light enough that she wouldn't actually hurt herself. Then he spun toward the door and pushed against it with all his might.

A metallic creak echoed down the hallway as the lock was ripped from the wooden frame and the door swung inward. Clary had indeed locked it, although it didn't make much of a difference now. The lock's bronze bolt had penetrated the door frame; so simple it was almost laughable.

"Knocking would've been polite," Isabelle stated wryly and pursed her lips.

Jace ignored her and staggered into the room, momentum taking him a few steps before he came to a stop. Isabelle followed him and couldn't hold back a sigh as she saw his shoulders sag in acknowledgment. Clary's bed was empty. On the neatly folded covers lay the open box of platinum daggers she had borrowed from her. Isabelle could see from here that she had chosen exactly which of the knives would accompany her.

Of course there was no trace of Clary. One of the windows, across from the bed and open a crack—the only indication of where she'd gone. Jace cursed under his breath as he turned to Isabelle, but he didn't give her one of his patronizing looks. Instead, his hand went to his weapon-belt, from which hung a seraph blade. Then Jace's eyes bored into her own more intensely and Isabelle had to swallow because she knew what he was going to say even before he opened his mouth. She knew him too well for that.

"Get your coat, we're leaving immediately."