But isn't that what love is, Clarissa? Ownership? 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine,' as the Song of Songs goes.""No. And don't quote the Bible at me. I don't think you get it...It's not just that someone belongs to you, it's that you give yourself to them. I doubt you've ever given anything to anyone. Except maybe nightmares.""To give yourself to someone?" The thin smile didn't waver. "As you've given yourself to Jonathan?" "What?""You think I haven't seen the way you two look at each other? The way he says your name? You may not think I can feel, but that doesn't mean I can't see feelings in others.

Don't tell me," Jace said, "Simon's turned himself into an ocelot and you want me to do something about it before Isabelle makes him into a stole. Well, you'll have have to wait till tomorrow. I'm out of commission." He pointed at himself - he was wearing blue pajamas with a hole in the sleeve. "Look. Jammies.""Jace," Clary said, "this is important.""Don't tell me," he said. "You've got a drawing emergency. You need a nude model. Well, I'm not in the mood. You could always ask Hodge," he said as an afterthought. "I hear he'll do anything for a -""JACE!" she interrupted him, her voice rising to a scream. "JUST SHUT UP FOR A SECOND AND LISTEN, WILL YOU?

Suddenly reminded, she clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh—Simon!""No, I'm Jace," said Jace patiently. "Simon is the weaselly little one with the bad haircut and dismal fashion sense.""Oh, shut up," she replied, but it was more automatic than heartfelt. "I meant to call before I went to sleep. See if he got home okay."Shaking his head, Jace regarded the heavens as if they were about to open up and reveal the secrets of the universe. "With everything that's going on, you're worried about Weasel Face?""Don't call him that. He doesn't look like a weasel.""You may be right," said Jace. "I've met an attractive weasel or two in my time. He looks more like a rat.

Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Oh, for the Angel's sake. Look, if there's no other way of getting out of this, I'll kiss Simon. I've done it before, it wasn't that bad.""Thanks," said Simon. "That's very flattering.""Well, I'm not kissing the mundane," said Jace. "I'd rather stay down here and rot.""Forever?" said Simon. "Forever's an awfully long time."Jace raised his eyebrows. "I knew it," he said. "You want to kiss me, don't you?"Simon threw up his hands in exasperation. "Of course not. But if—""I guess it's true what they say," observed Jace. "There are no straight men in the trenches.""That's atheists, jackass," said Simon furiously. "There are no atheists in the trenches.

I’ll tell them,” she said. “I’ll tell them it was my fault.”He looked at her, gold eyes incredulous. “You can’t lie to them.”“I’m not. I brought you back,” she said. “You were dead, and I brought you back. I upset the balance, not you. I opened the door for Lilith and her stupid ritual. I could have asked for anything, and I asked for you.” She tightened her grip on his shirt, her fingers white with cold and pressure. “And I would do it again. I love you, Jace Wayland—Herondale—Lightwood—whatever you want to call yourself. I don’t care. I love you and I wil always love you, and pretending it could be any other way is just a waste of time.

But that's not what you said when she walked into the room," said Simon quietly. "You said, 'Why didn't you ever tell me I had a brother?'""I know." Clary yanked a blade of grass out of the dirt, worrying it between her fingers. "I guess I can't help thinking that if I'd known the truth, I wouldn't have met Jace the way I did. I wouldn't have fallen in love with him."Simon was silent for a moment. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that before.""That I love him?" She laughed, but it sounded dreary even to her ears. "Seems useless to pretend like I don't, at this point. Maybe it doesn't matter. I probably won't ever see him again, anyway.""He'll come back.""Maybe.""He'll come back," Simon said again. "For you.

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar.

Isabelle drifted over, Jace a pace behind her. She was wearing a long black dress with boots and an even longer cutaway coat of soft green velvet, the color of moss. "I can't believe you did it!" she exclaimed. "How did you get Magnus to let Jace leave?""Traded him for Alec," Clary said.Isabelle looked mildly alarmed. "Not permanently?""No," said Jace. "Just for a few hours. Unless I don't come back," he added thoughtfully. "In which case, maybe he does get to keep Alec. Think of it as a lease with an option to buy."Isabelle looked dubious. "Mom and Dad won't be pleased if they find out.""That you freed a possible criminal by trading away your brother to a warlock who looks like a gay Sonic the Hedgehog and dresses like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?" Simon inquired. "No, probably not.

We need to talk,” she said. “All of us. About what we‘re going to do now.”“I was going to watch Project Runway,” said Jace. “Its on next.”“No you‘re not,” said Magnus. He snapped his fingers and the TV went off, releasing a small puff of smoke as the picture died. “You need to deal with this.”“Suddenly you‘re interested in solving my problems?”“I‘m interested in getting my apartment back. I‘m tired of you cleaning all the time.” Magnus snapped his fingers again menacingly. “Get up.”“Or you‘ll be the next one to go up in smoke,” said Simon with relish.“There’s no need to clarify my snap,” said Magnus. “The implication was clear in the snap itself.

Isabelle took out her invitation and waved it like a white flag. "I have an invitation. These"—she indicated the rest of the group with a grand wave of her arm—"are my friends."Magnus plucked the invitation out of her hand and looked at it with fastidious distaste. "I must have been drunk," he said. He threw the door open. "Come in. And try not to murder any of my guests."Jace edged into the doorway, sizing up Magnus with his eyes. "Even if one of them spills a drink on my new shoes?""Even then." Magnus's hand shot out, so fast it was barely a blur. He plucked the stele out of Jace's hand—Clary hadn't even realized he was holding it—and held it up. Jace looked faintly abashed. "As for this," Magnus said, sliding it into Jace's jeans pocket, "keep it in your pants, Shadowhunter.

This could be the last night of our lives, certainly the last even barely ordinary one. The last night we go to sleep and get up just as we always have. And all I could think of was that I wanted to spend it with you."Her heart skipped a beat. "Jace-""I don't mean it like that," he said. "I won't touch you, not if you don't want me to. I know it's wrong - God, it's all kinds of wrong - but I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life." There was desperation in his voice. "It's just this one night. In the grand scheme of things, how much can this one night matter?" ...There was nothing she had ever wanted in her life more than she wanted this night with Jace."Close the curtains, then, before you come to bed," she said. "I can't sleep with this much light in the room.

She was looking at Alec instead, watching him as he talked to Jace. There was a kinetic, almost feverish energy to him that hadn’t been there before. Something about Jace sharpened him, brought him into focus. If she were going to draw them together, she thought, she would make Jace a little blurry, while Alec stood out, all sharp, clear planes and angles. Jace was looking down as Alec spoke, smiling a little and tapping his water glass with a fingernail. She sensed he was thinking of other things. She felt a sudden flash of sympathy for Alec. Jace couldn’t be an easy person to care about. I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited. Jace looked up as the waitress passed. “Are we ever going to get any coffee?” he said aloud, interrupting Alec midsentence. Alec subsided, his energy fading.

He reassures her, but he feels her soft laughter travel through their joined hands — how did that happen? — as they make their way downstairs.And he understands. He understands why people hold hands: he’d always thought it was about possessiveness, saying This is mine. But it’s about maintaining contact. It is about speaking without words. It is about I want you with me and don’t go.He wants her in his bedroom. And not in that way — no girl has ever been in his bedroom that way. It is his private space, his sanctuary. But he wants Clary there. He wants her to see him, the reality of him, not the image he shows the world. He wants to lie down on the bed with her and have her curl into him. He wants to hold her as she breathes softly through the night; to see her as no one else sees her: vulnerable and asleep. To see her and to be seen.

Aren't they supposed to be hiring someone else to train me, ANYWAY?""Yes," he said, getting up and pulling her to her feet with him. "and I'm worried that if you get into the habit of making out with your instructors, you'll wind up making out with him, too.""Don't be sexist. They could find me a female instructor.""In that case you have my permission to make out with her, as long as I can watch.""Nice." Clary grinned, bending down to fold up the blanket they'd brought to sit on. "You're just worried they'll hire a male instructor and he'll be hotter than you."Jace's eyebrows went up. "Hotter than ME?""It could happen," Clary said. "You know, theoretically.""Theoretically the planet can crack in half, leaving me on one side and you on the other side, forever and tragically parted, but I'm not worried about that, either. Some things," Jace said, with his customary crooked smile, "are just too unlikely to dwell upon.

Jace?""Yeah?""How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood? Was there some way you could tell?"The elevator arrived with a final groan. Jace unlatched the gate and slid it open. The inside reminded Clary of a birdcage, all black metal and decorative bits of gilt. "I guessed," he said, latching the door behind them. "It seemed like the most likely explanation.""You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."He pressed a button in the wall, and the elevator lurched into action with a vibrating groan that she felt all through the bones in her feet. "I was ninety percent sure.""I see," Clary said.There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put a hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?"The other ten percent," she said, and they rode the rest of the way down to the street in silence.