City of Ashes mi-2 Page 13

  "Sure," said Jace. "One time—"

  "The faerie courts are dangerous," cut in Isabelle. "Even your skill with the bow won't help you. It's not that kind of danger."

  "I can take care of myself," said Simon. A sharp wind had come up. It blew drying leaves across the gravel at their feet and made Simon shiver. He dug his hands into the wool-lined pockets of his jacket.

  "You don't have to come," Clary said.

  He looked at her, a steady, measured look. She remembered him back at Luke's, calling her my girlfriend with no measure of doubt or indecision. Whatever else you could say about Simon, he knew what he wanted. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

  Jace made a noise under his breath. "Then I suppose we're ready," he said. "Don't expect any special consideration, mundane."

  "Look on the bright side," said Simon. "If they need a human sacrifice, you can always offer me. I'm not sure the rest of you qualify anyway."

  Jace brightened. "It's always nice when someone volunteers to be the first up against the wall."

  "Come on," Isabelle said. "The door is about to open."

  Clary glanced around. The sun had set completely and the moon was up, a wedge of creamy white casting its reflection onto the pond. It wasn't quite full, but shadowed at one edge, giving it the look of a half-lidded eye. Night wind rattled the tree branches, knocking them against one another with a sound like hollow bones.

  "Where do we go?" Clary asked. "Where's the door?"

  Isabelle's smile was like a whispered secret. "Follow me."

  She moved down to the edge of the water, her boots leaving deep impressions in the wet mud. Clary followed, glad she was wearing jeans and not a skirt as Isabelle hiked her coat and dress up over her knees, leaving her slim white legs bare above her boots. Her skin was covered in Marks like licks of black fire.

  Simon, behind her, swore as he slipped in the mud; Jace moved automatically to steady him as they all turned. Simon jerked his arm back. "I don't need your help."

  "Stop it." Isabelle tapped a booted foot in the shallow water at the lake's edge. "Both of you. In fact, all three of you. If we don't stick together in the Seelie Court, we're dead."

  "But I haven't—," Clary started.

  "Maybe you haven't, but the way you let those two act…" Isabelle indicated the boys with a disdainful wave of her hand.

  "I can't tell them what to do!"

  "Why not?" the other girl demanded. "Honestly, Clary, if you don't start utilizing a bit of your natural feminine superiority, I just don't know what I'll do with you." She turned toward the pond, then spun around again. "And lest I forget," she added sternly, "for the love of the Angel, don't eat or drink anything while we're underground, any of you. Okay?"

  "Underground?" said Simon worriedly. "Nobody said anything about underground."

  Isabelle threw up her hands and splashed out into the pond. Her green velvet coat swirled out around her like an enormous lily pad. "Come on. We only have until the moon moves."

  The moon what? Shaking her head, Clary stepped out into the pond. The water was shallow and clear; in the bright starlight, she could see the black shapes of tiny darting fish moving past her ankles. She gritted her teeth as she waded farther out into the pond. The cold was intense.

  Behind her, Jace moved out into the water with a contained grace that barely rippled the surface. Simon, behind him, was splashing and cursing. Isabelle, having reached the center of the pond, paused there, up to her rib cage in water. She held out her hand toward Clary. "Stop."

  Clary stopped. Just in front of her, the reflection of the moon glimmered atop the water like a huge silvery dinner plate. Some part of her knew that it didn't work like this; the moon was supposed to move away from you as you approached, ever receding. But here it was, hovering just on the surface of the water as if it were anchored in place.

  "Jace, you go first," Isabelle said, and beckoned him. "Come on."

  He brushed past Clary, smelling of wet leather and char. She saw him smile as he turned, and then he stepped backward into the reflection of the moon—and vanished.

  "Okay," said Simon unhappily. "Okay, that was weird."

  Clary glanced back at him. He was only hip-deep in water, but he was shivering, his hands hugging his elbows. She smiled at him and took a step backward, feeling a shock of icier cold when she moved into the shimmering silver reflection. She teetered for a moment, as if she'd lost her balance on the highest rung of a ladder—and then fell backward into darkness as the moon swallowed her up.

  She hit packed earth, stumbled, and felt a hand on her arm, steadying her. It was Jace. "Easy does it," he said, and let her go.

  She was soaking wet, rivulets of cold water running down the back of her shirt, her damp hair clinging to her face. Her drenched clothes felt as if they weighed a ton.

  They were in a hollowed-out dirt corridor, illuminated by faintly glowing moss. A tangle of dangling vines formed a curtain at one end of the corridor and long, hairy tendrils hung like dead snakes from the ceiling. Tree roots, Clary realized. They were underground. And it was cold down here, cold enough to make her breath puff out in an icy mist when she exhaled.

  "Cold?" Jace was soaking wet too, his light hair almost colorless where it stuck to his cheeks and forehead. Water ran from his wet jeans and jacket, and made the white shirt he was wearing transparent. She could see the dark lines of his permanent Marks through it and the faint scar on his shoulder.

  She looked away quickly. Water clung to her lashes, blurring her vision like tears. "I'm fine."

  "You don't look fine." He moved closer, and she could feel the warmth of him even through his wet clothes and hers, thawing her icy skin.

  A dark shape hurtled by, just out of the corner of her eye, and hit the ground with a thud. It was Simon, also soaking wet. He rolled onto his knees and looked around frantically. "My glasses—"

  "I've got them." Clary was used to retrieving Simon's glasses for him during soccer games. They always seemed to fall just under his feet, where they were inevitably stepped on. "Here you go."

  He slid them on, scraping dirt off the lenses. "Thanks."

  Clary could feel Jace watching them, feel his gaze like a weight on her shoulders. She wondered if Simon could too. He stood up with a frown, just as Isabelle dropped out of the heavens, landing gracefully on her feet. Water ran from her long, streaming hair and weighed down her heavy velvet coat, but she barely seemed to notice. "Oooh, that was fun."

  "That does it," said Jace. "I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."

  "Why?" Isabelle said.

  "So you can look up 'fun.' I'm not sure you know what it means."

  Isabelle pulled the long heavy mass of her wet hair forward and wrung it out as if it were wet washing. "You're raining on my parade."

  "It's a pretty wet parade already, if you hadn't noticed." Jace glanced around. "Now what? Which way do we go?"

  "Neither way," said Isabelle. "We wait here, and they come and get us."

  Clary was not impressed by this suggestion. "How do they know we're here? Is there a doorbell we have to ring or something?"

  "The Court knows all that happens in their lands. Our presence won't go unnoticed."

  Simon looked at her with suspicion. "And how do you know so much about faeries and the Seelie Court, anyway?"

  Isabelle, to everyone's surprise, blushed. A moment later the curtain of vines was drawn aside and a faerie stepped through it, shaking back his long hair. Clary had seen some of the fey before at Magnus's party and had been struck by both their cold beauty and a certain wild unearthliness they possessed even when they were dancing and drinking. This faerie was no exception: His hair fell in blue-black sheets around a cool, sharp, lovely face; his eyes were green as vines or moss and there was the shape of a leaf, either a birthmark or tattoo, across one of his cheekbones. He wore an armor of a silvery brown like the bark of trees in winter, and when he moved, the armor flashed a multitude of colors: peat black,
moss green, ash gray, sky blue.

  Isabelle gave a cry and jumped into his arms. "Meliorn!"

  "Ah," said Simon, quietly and not without amusement, "so that's how she knows."

  The faerie—Meliorn—looked down at her gravely, then detached her and set her gently aside. "This is not a time for affection," he said. "The Queen of the Seelie Court has requested an audience with the three Nephilim among you. Will you come?"

  Clary put a protective hand on Simon's shoulder. "What about our friend?"

  Meliorn looked impassive. "Mundane humans are not permitted in the Court."

  "I wish someone had mentioned that earlier," said Simon, to no one in particular. "I take it I'm just supposed to wait out here until vines start growing on me?"

  Meliorn considered. "That might offer significant amusement."

  "Simon's not an ordinary mundane. He can be trusted," Jace said, startling them all, and Simon more than the rest. Clary could tell Simon was surprised because he stared at Jace without offering a single smart remark. "He has fought many battles with us."

  "By which you mean one battle," muttered Simon. "Two if you count the one where I was a rat."

  "We will not enter the Seelie Court without Simon," Clary said, her hand still on Simon's shoulder. "Your Queen requested this audience with us, remember? It wasn't our idea to come here."

  There was a spark of dark amusement in Meliorn's green eyes. "As you wish," he said. "Let it not be said that the Seelie Court does not respect the desires of its guests." He spun on a perfectly booted heel and began to lead them down the corridor without pausing to see if they were following him. Isabelle hurried to walk alongside him, leaving Jace, Clary, and Simon to follow the two of them in silence.

  "Are you allowed to date faeries?" Clary asked finally. "Would your—would the Lightwoods be cool with Isabelle and whatshisname—"

  "Meliorn," put in Simon.

  "—Meliorn going out?"

  "I'm not sure they're going out," Jace said, weighting the last two words with a heavy irony. "I'd guess they mostly stay in. Or in this case, under."

  "You sound like you disapprove." Simon pushed a tree root aside. They had moved from a dirt-walled corridor to one lined with smooth stones, only the occasional root snaking down between the stones from above. The floor was some kind of polished hard stuff, not marble but stone veined and flaked with lines of shimmering material like powdered jewels.

  "I don't disapprove exactly," said Jace. "The faeries are known to dally with the occasional mortal, but they always end in abandoning them, usually the worse for wear."

  His words sent a shiver down Clary's spine. At that moment Isabelle laughed, and Clary could see now why Jace had dropped his voice, because the stone walls threw Isabelle's voice back to them amplified and echoing so that Isabelle's laughter seemed to bounce off the walls.

  "You're so funny!" She tripped as the heel of her boot caught between two stones, and Meliorn caught and righted her without changing expression.

  "I do not understand how you humans can walk in shoes that are that tall."

  "It's my motto," said Isabelle, with a sultry smile. " 'Nothing less than seven inches.' "

  Meliorn gazed at her stonily.

  "I'm talking about my heels," she said. "It's a pun. You know? A play on—"

  "Come," the faerie knight said. "The Queen will be growing impatient." He headed down the corridor without giving Isabelle a second glance.

  "I forgot," Isabelle muttered as the rest of them caught up to her. "Faeries have no sense of humor."

  "Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Jace. "There's a pixie nightclub downtown called Hot Wings. Not," he added, "that I have ever been there."

  Simon looked at Jace, opened his mouth as if he intended to ask him a question, then seemed to think better of it. He closed his mouth with a snap just as the corridor opened out into a wide room whose floor was packed dirt and whose walls were lined with high stone pillars twined all over with vines and bright flowers bursting with color. Thin cloths were hung between the pillars, dyed a soft blue that was almost the exact hue of the sky. The room was filled with light, though Clary could see no torches, and the overall effect was of a summer pavilion in bright sunshine rather than a dirt and stone room underground.

  Clary's first impression was that she was outside; her second was that the room was full of people. There was a strange sweet music playing, flawed with sweet-sour notes, a sort of aural equivalent of honey mixed with lemon juice, and there was a circle of faeries dancing to the music, their feet barely seeming to skim the floor. Their hair—blue, black, brown and scarlet, metal gold and ice white—flew like banners.

  She could see why they were called the Fair Folk, for they were fair indeed with their pale lovely faces, their wings of lilac and gold and blue—how could she have believed Jace that they meant to harm her? The music that had jarred her ears at first now sounded only sweet. She felt the urge to toss her own hair and to move her own feet in the dance. The music told her that if she did that, she too would be so light that her feet would barely touch the earth. She took a step forward—

  And was jerked back by a hand on her arm. Jace was glaring at her, his golden eyes bright as a cat's. "If you dance with them," he said in a low voice, "you'll dance until you die."

  Clary blinked at him. She felt as if she'd been pulled out of a dream, groggy and half-awake. Her voice slurred when she spoke. "Whaaat?"

  Jace made an impatient noise. He had his stele in his hand; she hadn't seen him take it out. He gripped her wrist and inscribed a quick, stinging Mark onto the skin of her inner arm. "Now look."

  She looked again—and froze. The faces that had seemed so lovely to her were still lovely, yet behind them lurked something vulpine, almost feral. The girl with the pink and blue wings beckoned, and Clary saw that her fingers were made of twigs, budded with closed leaves. Her eyes were entirely black, without iris or pupil. The boy dancing next to her had poison green skin and curling horns twisting from his temples. When he turned in the dance, his coat fell open and Clary saw that beneath it, his chest was an empty rib cage. Ribbons were woven through his bare rib bones, possibly to make him look more festive. Clary's stomach lurched.

  "Come on." Jace pushed her and she stumbled forward. When she regained her balance, she looked around anxiously for Simon. He was up ahead and she saw that Isabelle had a firm grip on him. This once, she didn't mind. She doubted Simon would have made it through the room on his own.

  Skirting the circle of dancers, they made their way to the far end of the room and through a parted curtain of blue silk. It was a relief to be out of the room and into another corridor, this one carved from a glossy brown material like the outside of a nut. Isabelle let go of Simon and he stopped walking immediately; when Clary caught up to him, she saw that this was because Isabelle had tied her scarf across his eyes. He was fiddling with the knot when Clary reached him. "Let me get it," she said, and he went still while she untied him and handed the scarf back to Isabelle with a nod of thanks.

  Simon pushed his hair back; it was damp where the scarf had held it down. "That was some music," he observed. "A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll."

  Meliorn, who had paused to wait for them, frowned. "You didn't care for it?"

  "I cared for it a little too much," Clary said. "What was that supposed to be, some kind of test? Or a joke?"

  He shrugged. "I am used to mortals who are easily swayed by our faerie glamours; not so the Nephilim. I thought you had protections."

  "She does," Jace said, meeting Meliorn's jade green gaze with his own.

  Meliorn only shrugged and began walking again. Simon kept pace beside Clary for a few moments without speaking before he said, "So what did I miss? Naked dancing ladies?"

  Clary thought of the male faerie's torn-open ribs and shuddered. "Nothing that pleasant."

  "There are ways for a human to join the faerie revels," Isabelle, who had been eavesdropping, put in. "If they
give you a token—like a leaf or a flower—to hold on to, and you keep it through the night, you'll be fine in the morning. Or if you go with a faerie for a companion…" She shot a glance at Meliorn, but he had reached a leafy screen set into the wall and paused there.

  "These are the Queen's chambers," he said. "She's come from her Court in the north to see about the child's death. If there's to be war, she wants to be the one declaring it."

  Up close, Clary could see that the screen was made of thickly woven vines, budded with amber droplets. He drew the vines apart and ushered them into the chamber on the other side.

  Jace ducked through first, followed by Clary. She straightened up, looking around her curiously.

  The room itself was plain, the earthen walls hung with pale fabric. Will-o'-the-wisps glowed in glass jars. A lovely woman reclined on a low couch surrounded by what must have been her courtiers—a motley assortment of faeries, from tiny sprites to what looked like lovely human girls with long hair… if you discounted their black, pupil-less eyes.

  "My Queen," said Meliorn, bowing low. "I have brought the Nephilim to you."

  The Queen sat up straight. She had long scarlet hair that seemed to float around her like autumn leaves in a breeze. Her eyes were clear blue as glass, her gaze sharp as a razor. "Three of these are Nephilim," she said. "The other is a mundane."

  Meliorn seemed to shrink back, but the Queen didn't even look at him. Her gaze was on the Shadowhunters. Clary could feel the weight of it, like a touch. Despite her loveliness, there was nothing fragile about the Queen. She was as bright and hard to look at as a burning star.

  "Our apologies, my lady." Jace stepped forward, putting himself between the Queen and his companions. His voice had changed its tone—there was something in the way he spoke now, something careful and delicate. "The mundane is our responsibility. We owe him protection. Therefore we keep him with us."

  The Queen tilted her head to the side, like an interested bird. All her attention was on Jace now. "A blood debt?" she murmured. "To a mundane?"