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CHAPTER SIX:

❝ City Of Bones ❞

Wandering and getting lost a few times, she finally found the kitchen. Simon was already occupying a seat at the dinner table and he informed her that Isabelle had just left to call Jace, Clary, and Hodge. As she settled in a seat, Alec joined them. Simon said something but she didn't even register his words. She was too busy staring at him. Like many only children, she was fascinated by the resemblance between siblings, and now she could see exactly how much Alec looked like his sister and brother. They had the same jet-black hair, the same slender eyebrows winging up at the corners, the same pale, high-colored skin. But where Isabelle was all arrogance, and Nico was disarming, Alec slumped down in the chair as if he hoped nobody would notice him. His lashes were long and dark like his siblings, but where their eyes were black, his were the dark blue of bottle glass. They gazed at her with hostility as pure and concentrated as acid.

Next shuffled in Nico, who, observing the placements at the table opted for the farthest seat available, just beside his brother. Both of them looked so alike, yet completely different. Alec, with his tall and fit build, looked bigger than Nico whose thin, wiry build gave an illusion of defencelessness. They had been two-headed creatures for so long, since birth, that they complemented each other's movements like magnets. Like melodies of a song completing each other, they moved with awfully good synchronization.

Nico, as if sensing her eyes on him looked up with poorly veiled contempt. Anger flared in Esme's chest. Anger that was ugly and hateful. Anger that burned like charcoal and lit up a fire in her veins. Anger like her father. Her eyes darkened at the dawning realization and she looked away, quickly snatching Simon's hand from the table and threading her fingers through his for some sort of comfort. Only another few awkward moments later, Jace strode in followed by Isabelle and Clary, and an old man who Esme safely assumed was Hodge.

The kitchen was warm and full of light and the salt-sweet smell of takeout Chinese food. The smell reminded Esme of home; she sat and looked at her glistening plate of noodles, toyed with her fork, and tried not to look at Nico, afraid she was going to imagine her father.

"Well, I think it's kind of romantic," said Isabelle, sucking tapioca pearls through an enormous pink straw.

"What is?" asked Simon, instantly alert.

"That whole business about Clary's mother being married to Valentine," said Isabelle. Jace and Hodge had filled them in about their discussion. "So now he's back from the dead and he's come looking for her. Maybe he wants to get back together."

"I kind of doubt he sent a Ravener demon to her house because he wants to 'get back together,'" said Alec, who had turned up when the food was served. Nobody had asked him where he'd been, and he hadn't offered the information. He was sitting next to Jace, across from Clary, and was avoiding looking at her. 

"It wouldn't be my move," Jace agreed. "First the candy and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order."

"He might have sent her candy and flowers," Isabelle said. "We don't know."

Esme noted with grudging patience that Nico hadn't said anything yet.

"Isabelle," said Hodge patiently, "this is the man who rained down destruction on Idris the like of which it had never seen, who set Shadowhunter against Downworlder and made the streets of the Glass City run with blood."

"That's sort of hot," Isabelle argued, "that evil thing." Simon tried to look menacing but gave it up when he saw Clary and Esme staring at him.

"Someday, sister ─ " Nico had started mockingly but Esme cut him off.

"So why does Valentine want this Cup so bad?"

The table had stilled, and where Clary and Simon were staring at Esme, the rest were staring at Nico. And the two of them had challenges in their eyes. She had been made to feel less than all her life, no more. He assured himself that there was no place for a girl with seven bracelets chiming at her wrist in this world, his world. Esme continues, "And why does he think Clary's mom has it?" 

"You said it was so he could make an army," Clary said, turning to Hodge. "You mean because you can use the Cup to make Shadowhunters?"

"Yes."

"So Valentine could just walk up to any guy on the street and make a Shadowhunter out of him? Just with the Cup?" Simon leaned forward. "Would it work on me?" 

Hodge gave him a long and measured look. "Possibly," he said. "But most likely, you're too old. The Cup works on children. An adult would either be unaffected by the process entirely or killed outright."

"A child army," said Isabelle softly.

"Only for a few years," said Jace. "Kids grow fast. It wouldn't be too long before they were a force to contend with."

"I don't know," said Simon. "Turning a bunch of kids into warriors, I've heard of worse stuff happening. I don't see the big deal about keeping the Cup away from him."

"Leaving out that he would inevitably use this army to launch an attack on the Clave," Hodge said dryly, "the reason that only a few humans are selected to be turned into Nephilim is that most would never survive the transition." Esme hadn't noticed when she'd stopped eating and was leaning forward with her chin cupped, listening intently as if the greatest story of the world was being told. "It takes special strength and resilience. Before they can be turned, they must be extensively tested ─ but Valentine would never bother with that. He would use the Cup on any child he could capture, and cull out the twenty percent who survived to be his army."

Alec was looking at Hodge with the same horror she felt. "How do you know he'd do that?"

"Because," Hodge said, "when he was in the Circle, that was his plan. He said it was the only way to build the kind of force that was needed to defend our world."

"But that's murder," said Isabelle, who looked a little green. "He was talking about killing children."

"He said that we had made the world safe for humans for a thousand years," said Hodge, "and now was their time to repay us with their own sacrifice."

"Their children?" demanded Jace, his cheeks flushed. "That goes against everything we're supposed to be about. Protecting the helpless, safeguarding humanity ─ " 

Hodge pushed his plate away. "Valentine was insane," he said. "Brilliant, but insane. He cared about nothing but killing demons and Downworlders. Nothing but making the world pure. He would have sacrificed his own son for the cause and could not understand how anyone else would not."

"He had a son?" said Nico.

"I was speaking figuratively," said Hodge, reaching for his handkerchief. He used it to mop his forehead before returning it to his pocket. His hand, Esme saw, was trembling slightly. "When his land burned, when his home was destroyed, it was assumed that he had burned himself and the Cup to ashes rather than relinquish either to the Clave. His bones were found in the ashes, along with the bones of his wife."

"But my mother lived," said Clary. "She didn't die in that fire."

"And neither, it seems now, did Valentine," said Hodge. "The Clave will not be pleased to have been fooled. But more importantly, they will want to secure the Cup. And more importantly than that, they will want to make sure Valentine does not."

"It seems to me that the first thing we'd better do is find Clary's mother," said Jace. "Find her, find the Cup, get it before Valentine does." 

This sounded fine to Esme, but Hodge looked at Jace as if he'd proposed juggling nitroglycerine as a solution. "Absolutely not."

"Then what do we do?"

"Nothing," Hodge said. "All this is best left to skilled, experienced Shadowhunters."

"I am skilled," protested Jace. "I am experienced."

Hodge's tone was firm, nearly parental. "I know that you are, but you're still a child, or nearly one."

Jace looked at Hodge through slitted eyes. His lashes were long, casting shadows down over his angular cheekbones. In someone else, it would have been a shy look, even an apologetic one, but on Jace, it looked narrow and menacing. "I am not a child."

"Hodge is right," said Alec. He was looking at Jace, and Esme thought that he must be one of the few people in the world who looked at Jace not as if he were afraid of him, but as if he were afraid for him. "Valentine is dangerous. I know you're a good Shadowhunter. You're probably the best our age. But Valentine's one of the best there ever was. It took a huge battle to bring him down."

"And he didn't exactly stay down," said Isabelle, examining her fork tines. "Apparently."

"But we're here," said Jace. "We're here and because of the Accords, nobody else is. If we don't do something - "

"We are going to do something," said Hodge. "I'll send the Clave a message tonight. They could have a force of Nephilim here by tomorrow if they wanted. They'll take care of this. You have done more than enough."

Jace subsided, but his eyes were still glittering. "I don't like it."

Nico made a disapproving sound. "You don't have to like it," he said. "You just have to shut up and not do anything stupid."

"But what about my mother?" Clary demanded. "She can't wait for some representative from the Clave to show up. Valentine has her right now ─ Pangborn and Blackwell said so ─ and he could be . . . " She couldn't bring herself to say the word torture, but Clary knew she wasn't the only one thinking it. Suddenly no one at the table could meet her eyes.

Except for Simon. "Hurting her," he said, finishing her sentence. "Except, Clary, they also said she was unconscious and that Valentine wasn't happy about it. He seems to be waiting for her to wake up."

"I'd stay unconscious if I were her," Isabelle muttered.

"But that could be any time," said Clary, ignoring Isabelle. "I thought the Clave was pledged to protect people. Shouldn't there be Shadowhunters here right now? Shouldn't they already be searching for her?"

"That would be easier," snapped Alec, "if we had the slightest idea where to look."

"But we do," said Jace.

"You do?" Clary looked at him, startled and eager. "Where?"

"Here." Jace leaned forward and touched his fingers to the side of her temple, so gently that a flush crept up her face. "Everything we need to know is locked up in your head, under those pretty red curls." 

Clary reached up to touch her hair protectively. "I don't think ─ "

"So what are you going to do?" Simon asked sharply. "Cut her head open to get it?"

Jace's eyes sparked, but he said calmly, "Not at all. The Silent Brothers can help her retrieve her memories."

"You have got to be joking," Nico said, not joking at all.

"You hate the Silent Brothers," protested Isabelle.

"I don't hate them," said Jace candidly. "I'm afraid of them. It's not the same thing."

"I thought you said they were librarians," said Clary.

"They are librarians."

Simon whistled. "Those must be some killer late fees."

"The Silent Brothers are archivists, but that is not all they are," interrupted edge, sounding as if he were running out of patience. "In order to strengthen their minds, they have chosen to take upon themselves some of the most powerful runes ever created. The power of these runes is so great that the use of them ─ " He broke off, then continues. "Well, it warps and twists their physical forms. They are not warriors in the sense that other Shadowhunters are warriors. Their powers are of the mind, not the body."

"They can read minds?" Clary said in a small voice.

"Among other things. They are among the most feared of all demon hunters."

"I don't know," said Simon, "it doesn't sound so bad to me. I'd rather have someone mess around inside my head than chop it off."

"I'd never want anyone in my head," Esme confessed quietly. "It's scary." It was easier to admit in front of strangers than anyone else. Nico wondered if the thought of someone messing with her head was scary or if her thoughts were scary.

"Then you're a bigger idiot than you look," said Jace, regarding him with scorn.

"Jace is right," said Isabelle, ignoring Simon. "The Silent Brothers are really creepy."

Hodge's hand was clenched on the table. "They are very powerful," he said. "They walk in darkness and do not speak, but they can crack open a man's mind the way you might crack open a walnut ─ and leave him screaming alone in the dark if that is what they desire."

Clary looked at Jace, appalled. "You want to give me to them?"

"I want them to help you." Jace leaned across the table. "Maybe we don't get to look for the Cup," he said softly. "Maybe the Clave will do that. But what's in your mind belongs to you. Someone's hidden secrets there, secrets you can't see. Don't you want to know the truth about your own life?"

"I don't want someone else inside my head," she said weakly. She knew he was right, but the idea of turning herself over to beings that even the Shadowhunters thought were creepy sent a chill through her blood.

"I'll go with you," said Jace. "I'll stay with you while they do it."

"That's enough." Simon had stood up from the table, red with anger. "Leave her alone."

Alec glanced over at Simon as if he'd just noticed him, raking tumbled black hair out of his eyes and blinking. "What are you still doing here, mundane?"

Simon ignored him. "I said, leave her alone."

Jace glanced over at him, a slow, sweetly poisonous glance. "Alec is right," he said. "The Institute is sworn to shelter Shadowhunters, not their mundane friends. Especially when they've worn out their welcome."

Isabelle got up and took Simon's arm. "I'll show him out." For a moment it looked like he might resist her, but he caught Clary's eye across the table as she shook her head slightly. He subsided. Head up, he let Isabelle lead him from the room. Esme watched them go and the sound of her fork hitting her plate rang in the silence of the room. She pushed her hair back and stood up and with a last lingering look towards Clary ran after her friend.

Esme had kissed her sleeping mother the good night before resigning to bed. The days' events seemed so much like a dream that she wondered as her eyes drooped close that she'd wake up in the morning only to realize none of it had been real. But the desperation had felt real, the grandness of the Institute had felt real, the dread coiling in her stomach at the newly discovered truth of the world had felt real, the news about Valentine and Clary's mother and the worry had felt real. The anger cradling her wilting bones as she had stood her ground against Nico felt real. She tossed and turned in her sleep until a thin sleep took over. She dreamt of fires ─ red and angry and huge. And she dreamt of shining swords in the heat of battle. The hilt twisting in calloused, experienced hands and jamming the blade through ─  

She startled awake. A thin layer of perspiration had gathered on her forehead and neck. She sat up and the covers fell, collecting around her hip. She looked over towards her nightstand. The clock said 6:21 AM and she couldn't move. Her eyes were fixed in the corner of the room where a dark form was crouched low. Her heart leaped in her throat. She tried to swallow but it was too hard. Her eyes darted towards the door but it was locked from the inside. If she weren't fast enough ─ the wind kissed her bare skin. Against the perspiration, it was icy cold. The window. She glanced over her shoulder. It lay propped open. She could squeeze through. The voice in her head stopped her. Mom. 

She looked back at the figure. It seemed to be moving like a water creature ─ the streetlight from outside glinting from its scales. As the dawn was rising, the shadow over her room was being lifted back, but the creature stayed there ─ every second more visible than before. As she stared at it longer, it seemed to become clearer and more grotesque. Its limbs were folded like a lawn chair and in place of nails, there were claws. There was no defined face but she could make out eyes glittering with malice and ill intent. This was the kind of thing she'd been afraid of as a child, things under her bed, monsters. Before learning that the real monster was her father. She had thought that ruled out shadow demons from the equation but apparently not.

She made an executive decision. She pushed herself to her knees. The dark, shadowy form seems to snap and start to grow, his limbs extending outwards. It looked like a human body had grown eight spider legs. It looked barely real or solid, but the acid dripping from its mouth fell on the carpet with a sizzle. Now that she had its attention, she jumped off the bed in one quick motion and darted towards the window. Beneath her lay the metal staircase of the fire escape. She heard it rattling behind it, scuttling as it followed, the carpet sizzling with more acid. Barefoot, she launched down the long winding staircase from the seventh floor.

Unfortunately for her, it had rained last night. Puddles of water lay collected on the metal steps which she tried her best to avoid so as not to slip. She could hear the thump as it followed after her, crawling down the stairs. Her arm on the banister, she curled around one flight to the next and fell. She felt the metal tear through the flesh of her shoulder and registered it starting to burn before hauling herself up. The scuttling was closer now. She spared a glance but saw it nowhere.

Behind her leg, it hissed.

She flung herself, skipping a few stairs, and turned to take the next flight down. There was nothing. She stared straight. She would have to pull the ladder down to reach the bottom. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ear, it was the only sound she could hear. Fear gripped her like a fist gripping a flower bud ─ disintegrating it. Shallow breaths had forced to inhale through her mouth and sweat beaded down her nightclothes, rolling down in straight lines through the valleys in her figure. Her hands trembled and her knees were weak, she could hardly feel her feet with blood staining her shirt from where her skin had slashed open at her shoulder and calf.

The scuttling drew close and Esme leaned forward. She gripped the rungs tightly and pulled. Nothing. She pulled again. It didn't budge. It hissed just behind her and she threw herself at the ladder. Scrambling, she wound her fingers around the steps before the wound in her shoulder weakened her hold, her right arm slipping. She hung like that between at least a five-foot drop and a shadow monster that seemed to be eyeing her with great hunger. 

She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing then reminded herself of her mother, sleeping peacefully in her bed. Of Rose who must've woken up and would be getting ready to come over. Of her classmates at St. Xavier, waking up to snooze their alarms and curling for five more minutes as they slept in during their summer vacation. With a ragged breath, she threw her right arm over her head and hooked her elbow around the rung. The ladder rattled and before she knew it, it was sliding down with her on it. She closed her eyes and tried not to scream.

Her heart jumped as with a jerk the ladder came to a stop. She opened her eyes and looked down, the jumping distance now looked safer than earlier. Before she could even untangle her limbs twisted around the ladder, she heard pincers clicking against metal and scuttling. She looked up to see the monster coming right at her, its huge mouth open lines with sets of razor-sharp teeth, dripping with electric blue translucent acid. Her palms gave in and she fell in white fear.

She landed on her back, though her head was cradled in her arms. She didn't wait to her hear if it followed her or turn to see it jump. She was up on her feet and running in the next breath. Sweat and blood mixed ran down her arm and leg as limbs burning she continued her run across New York. Rocks and gravel and asphalt pinched and prodded her bare feet but she continued her running religiously. It was only when she felt cold lines of water over her ear that she realized she'd been crying. Fast wind blowing against her face was sending the tears tumbling backward.

Then came the crosswalk and the red light. Esme crashed against the pole with the momentum of her run. She left bloody handprints but she didn't care. Every nerve in her body was supercharged with adrenaline. She thought how she might have looked. Dressed in nightclothes and hair all floating up in a mess, bloody and sweaty and tired and gasping for breath. But no one cared. It was 6:30 AM in New York and there were more important things than a girl running from an invisible mutant human-spider half-naked and covered in blood. The red light overhead cast a mean shadow on her face, the left half twisted in some sick caricature of the right as she looked over her shoulder. There, she spotted it, scuttling and crawling forwards merrily as it turned the corner.

Her heart leaped in her throat. She had managed to get it out of the house and away from her mother. She had not thought this plant through. What did she plan on doing now? She was about the find out. The spider demon found its way through the maze of legs waiting for the green light. Esme counted. One; it snapped its heads upwards as if something had caught its attention. Two; it looked right at her with its shapeless mouth wide open and she realized with a suddenness that it had been tracking her through smell. Three; its pace was faster than she had seen before, weaving through the people as if they were nothing but pillars. Four; she twisted her body away as it neared, baring its teeth and dropping the acid where it burned through asphalt. Five ─ The light turned green. The crowd surged.

Esme was thrown into that tumble, not fighting as the wave carried her across, losing the spider demon in the crowd. As soon as she reached the other side, she took off again. She had no idea where she was going but her limbs had a mind of their own. On instinct, they had carried her to the one place where she'd be understood. She had never been more thankful to see the swirling spires of a church. As she stumbled her way through the metal gates, not reading the brass plate fixed to the stone wall beside the door declaring its name. The steps were wide and her legs gave out from under her before she could wholly mount them. She crawled. Up the cement stairs and slapped her hand against the door. With exhaustion it slid out, leaving in its wake a track of blood. She heard the door sang on its hinges as it opened before exhaustion took over and the world turned black.