───────────────────

CHAPTER TEN:

❝ The Memory Of Whiteness ❞

Fortunately, they did find water. Unfortunately, it did nothing to help Esme's rose-colored vision get back to normal. And even more unfortunately, Nico was stuck with her holding her giggling form up. She pointed at a Seelie's horns and burst out laughing before cutting herself with a hiccup. Her eyes widened as if she were fascinated by this phenomenon of hiccups before she saw the Seelie again, and sputtered a laugh. Nico rubbed his temple and sighed.

As he tugged her along with him, searching for his brothers and sister, he came across a room that looked like it might solve their problem. It was a riot of colors - canary-yellow sheets and bedspread draped over a mattress on the floor, electric-blue vanity table strewn with more pots of paint and makeup than Isabelle's. Rainbow velvet curtains hid the floor to - ceiling windows, and a tangled wool rug covered the floor.

And in the middle were Jace, Clary, and Alec, talking to Magnus. Nico almost gave a relieved sigh. "Guys - " he began, but they seemed to be deep in conversation. Soundlessly, he joined them. Not so soundlessly, so did Esme.

"You were there, that day," Clary said. "I saw you coming out of Dorothea's apartment. I remember your eyes."

Magnus looked as if he might purr. "I'm memorable, it's true," he gloated. Then he shook his head. "You shouldn't remember me," he said. "I threw up a glamour as hard as a wall as soon as I saw you. You should have run right into it face-first - psychically speaking."

Clary said, "If you take the spell off me, will I be able to remember all the things I've forgotten? All the memories you stole?"

"I can't take it off you." Magnus looked uncomfortable.

"What?" Jace sounded furious. "Why not? The Clave requires you - "

Magnus looked at him coldly. "I don't like being told what to do, little Shadowhunter."

Nico could see how much Jace disliked being referred to as "little," but before he could snap out a reply, Alec spoke. His voice was soft, thoughtful. "Don't you know how to reverse it?" he asked. "The spell, I mean."

Magnus sighed. "Undoing a spell is a great deal more difficult than creating it in the first place. The intricacy of this one, the care I put into weaving it - if I made even the smallest mistake in unraveling it, her mind could be damaged forever. Besides," he added, "it's already begun to fade. The effects will vanish overtime on their own."

Clary looked at him sharply. "Will I get all my memories back then? Whatever was taken out of my head?"

"I don't know. They might come back all at once, or in stages. Or you might never remember what you've forgotten over the years. What your mother asked me to do was unique, in my experience. I've no idea what will happen."

"But I don't want to wait." Clary folded her hands tightly in her lap, her fingers clamped together so hard that the tips turned white. "All my life I've felt like there was something wrong with me. Something missing or damaged. Now I know - "

"I didn't damage you." It was Magnus's turn to interrupt, his lips curled back angrily to show sharp white teeth. "Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it's true. You are different. Maybe not better - but different. And it's no picnic being different. You want to know what it's like when your parents are good church-going folk and you happen to be born with the devil's mark?" He pointed at his eyes, fingers splayed. Nico noted Esme had finally stilled and was watching Magnus intently, something behind her gaze that he found difficult to decipher.

 "When your father flinches at the sight of you and your mother hangs herself in the barn, driven mad by what she's done? When I was ten, my father tried to drown me in the creek. I lashed out at him with everything I had - burned him where he stood. I went to the fathers of the church eventually, for sanctuary. They hid me. They say that pity's a bitter thing, but it's better than hate. When I found out what I was really, only half a human being, I hated myself. Anything's better than that."

There was silence when Magnus was done speaking. To Clary's surprise, it was Alec who broke it. "It wasn't your fault," he said. "You can't help how you're born."

The strained moment of seriousness was interrupted when Esme hiccuped loudly. Nico raised his eyebrows, but nobody said anything.

Magnus's expression was closed. "I'm over it," he said. "I think you get my point. Different isn't better, Clarissa. Your mother was trying to protect you. Don't throw it back in her face."

Clary's hands relaxed their grip on each other. "I don't care if I'm different," she said. "I just want to be who I really am."

Magnus swore in a language she didn't know. It sounded like crackling flames. "All right. Listen. I can't undo what I've done, but I can give you something else. A piece of what would have been yours if you'd been raised a true child of the Nephilim." He stalked across the room to the bookcase and dragged down a heavy volume bound in rotting green velvet. He flipped through the pages, shedding dust and bits of blackened cloth. The pages were thin, almost translucent eggshell parchment, each marked with a stark black rune.

Jace's eyebrows went up."Is that a copy of the Gray Book?" Magnus, feverishly flipping pages, said nothing.

"Hodge has one," Alec observed. "He showed it to me once."

"It's not gray," Clary felt compelled to point out. "It's green."

"Olive green," Esme murmured warmly. Nico rolled his eyes.

"If there was such a thing as terminal literalism, you'd have died in childhood," said Jace, brushing dust off the windowsill and eyeing it as if considering whether it was clean enough to sit on. 

"Gray is short for 'Gramarye,'" Nico told. "It means 'magic, hidden wisdom.'"

"In it is copied every rune the Angel Raziel wrote in the original Book of the Covenant," Jace added. "There aren't many copies because each one has to be specially made."

"Some of the runes are so powerful," said Nico, "they'd burn through regular pages."

Alec looked impressed. "I didn't know all that."

Jace hopped up on the windowsill and swung his legs. "Not all of us sleep through history lessons."

"I do not - "

"Oh, yes you do," Nico said, "and drool on the desk besides."

"Shut up," said Magnus, but he said it quite mildly. Esme giggled. Clary finally looked over at her and then at Nico, eyes wide as if asking what had happened to her. He huffed but said nothing. She wondered if he were turning into a horse.

Magnus, his finger between two pages of the book, came over to Clary, setting it carefully in her lap. "Now, when I open the book, I want you to study the page. Look at it until you feel something change inside your mind."

"Will it hurt?" Clary asked nervously.

"All knowledge hurts," he replied, and stood up, letting the book fall open in her lap. Clary stared down at the clean white page with the black rune Mark spilled across it. Nico recognized as easily as he would recognize his own name written in ink. 

To Clary, it looked something like a winged spiral, until she tilted her head, and then it seemed like a staff wound around with vines. The mutable corners of the pattern tickled her mind like feathers brushed against sensitive skin. She felt the shivery flicker of reaction, making her want to close her eyes, but she held them open until they stung and blurred. She was about to blink when she felt it: a click inside her head, like a key turning in a lock. The rune on the page seemed to spring into sharp focus, and she thought, involuntarily, Remember. If the rune were a word, it would have been that one, but there was more meaning to it than any word she could imagine. It was a child's first memory of light falling through crib bars, the recollected scent of rain and city streets, the pain of unforgotten loss, the sting of remembered humiliation, and the cruel forgetfulness of old age, when the most ancient of memories stand out with agonizingly clear precision and the nearest of incidents are lost beyond recall.

With a little sigh she turned to the next page, and the next, letting the images and sensations flow over her. Sorrow. Thought. Strength. Protection. Grace - and then cried out in reproachful surprise as Magnus snatched the book off her lap.

"That's enough," he said, sliding it back onto its shelf. He dusted his hands off on his colorful pants, leaving streaks of gray. "If you read all the runes at once, you'll give yourself a headache."

"But - "

"Most Shadowhunter children grow up learning one rune at a time over a period of years," said Jace. "The Gray Book contains runes even I don't know."

"Imagine that," said Magnus.

Jace ignored him. "Magnus showed you the rune for understanding and remembrance. It opens your mind up to reading and recognizing the rest of the Marks."

"It also may serve as a trigger to activate dormant memories," said Magnus. "They could return to you more quickly than they would otherwise. It's the best I can do."

Clary looked down at her lap. "I still don't remember anything about the Mortal Cup."

"Is that what this is about?" Magnus sounded actually astonished. "You're after the Angel's Cup? Look, I've been through your memories. There was nothing in them about the Mortal Instruments."

"Mortal Instruments?" Clary echoed, bewildered. "I thought - " 

"The Angel gave three items to the first Shadowhunters. A cup, a sword, and a mirror. The Silent Brothers have the sword; the cup and the mirror were in Idris, at least until Valentine came along."

"Nobody knows where the mirror is," said Alec. "Nobody's known for ages."

"It's the Cup that concerns us," said Jace. "Valentine's looking for it."

"And you want to get to it before he does?" Magnus asked, his eyebrows winging upward.

"I thought you said you didn't know who Valentine was?" Clary pointed out.

"I lied," Magnus admitted candidly. "I'm not one of the fey, you know. I'm not required to be truthful. And only a fool would get between Valentine and his revenge."

"Is that what you think he's after? Revenge?" said Nico.

"I would guess so. He suffered a grave defeat, and he hardly seemed - seems - the type of man to suffer defeat gracefully."

Alec looked harder at Magnus. "Were you at the Uprising?"

Magnus's eyes locked with Alec's. "I was. I killed a number of your folk."

"Circle members," said Jace quickly. "Not ours - "

"If you insist on disavowing that which is ugly about what you do," said Magnus, still looking at Alec, "you will never learn from your mistakes." 

Alec, plucking at the coverlet with one hand, flushed an unhappy red. "You don't seem surprised to hear that Valentine's still alive," he said, avoiding Magnus's gaze.

Magnus spread his hands wide. "Are you?"

Jace opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked actually baffled. Eventually, he said, "So you won't help us find the Mortal Cup?"

"I wouldn't if I could," said Magnus, "which, by the way, I can't. I've no idea where it is, and I don't care to know. Only a fool, as I said."

Alec sat up straighter. "But without the Cup, we can't - "

"Make more of you. I know," said Magnus. "Perhaps not everyone regards that as quite the disaster that you do. Mind you," he added, "if I had to choose between the Clave and Valentine, I would choose the Clave. At least they're not actually sworn to wipe out my kind. But nothing the Clave has done has earned my unswerving loyalty either. So no, I'll sit this one out. Now if we're done here, I'd like to get back to my party before any of the guests eat each other."

Jace, who was clenching and unclenching his hands, looked like he was about to say something furious, but Alec, standing up, put a hand on his shoulder. Clary couldn't quite tell in the dimness, but it looked as if Alec was squeezing rather hard. "Is that likely?" he asked.

Magnus was looking at him with some amusement. "It's happened before."

Jace muttered something to Alec, who let go. Detaching himself, he came over to Clary. "Are you all right?" he asked in a low voice.

"I think so. I don't feel any different . . ."

Magnus, standing by the door, snapped his fingers impatiently. "Move it along, teenagers. The only person who gets to canoodle in my bedroom is my magnificent self."

"Canoodle?" repeated Clary, never having heard the word before.

"Magnificent?" repeated Jace, who was just being nasty. 

Magnus growled. The growl sounded like "Get out." Esme giggled. Nico pushed her out the door before Magnus burst in a volcano of colors and glitter. They walked out, Magnus trailing behind them as he paused to lock the bedroom door.

Perhaps it was still her slightly altered vision: Everything seemed as if layered over by rose-colored cellophane. She lifted her hand to look and found two in place on one. Through her double-vision she watched a group of musicians take the small stage at the center of the room. They wore flowing garments in deep colors of gold, purple, and green, and their high voices were sharp and ethereal.

"I hate faerie bands," Magnus muttered as the musicians segued into another haunting song, the melody as delicate and translucent as rock crystal. "All they ever play is mopey ballads."

Jace, glancing around the room, laughed. "Where's Isabelle?" Then, catching Esme's state, "And what happened to her?"

Nico grumbled like an exasperated babysitter. "A vampire kissed her."

Jace seemed to smirk. He said, "Nice."

Clary slapped his arm in annoyance and took Nico's place beside her friend. Esme looked at her as if she were looking at the moon. She touched her carrot hair and said, "Clary, has your hair always been this red?"

"Yeah," Clary stretched the word, "she looks definitely high." A rush of guilty concern hit Clary. She'd forgotten about Simon. She spun around, looking for the familiar skinny shoulders and shock of dark hair. "I don't see him. Them, I mean."

"There she is." Alec spotted his sister and waved her over, looking relieved. "Over here. And watch out for the phouka."

"Watch out for the phouka?" Jace repeated, glancing toward a thin brown-skinned man in a green paisley vest who eyed Isabelle thoughtfully as she walked by.

"He pinched me when I passed him earlier," Alec said stiffly. "In a highly personal area."

Nico choked on his laugh.

"I hate to break it to you," Jace commented, "but if he's interested in your highly personal areas, he probably isn't interested in your sister's."

"Not necessarily," said Magnus. "Faeries aren't particular."

Jace curled his lip scornfully in the warlock's direction. "You still here?"

Before Magnus could reply, Isabelle was on top of them, looking pink-faced and blotchy and smelling strongly of alcohol. "Jace! Alec! Nico! Where have you been? I've been looking all over -"

"Where's Simon?" Clary interrupted.

Isabelle wobbled. "He's a rat," she said darkly.

"Did he do something to you?" Alec was full of brotherly concern. Nico shadowed over too, past Clary, to put a hand on his sister's shoulder. "Did he touch you? If he tried anything - " 

"No, Alec," Isabelle said irritably. "Not like that. He's a rat."

"She's drunk," said Jace, beginning to turn away in disgust.

"I'm not," Isabelle said indignantly. "Well, maybe a little, but that's not the point. The point is, Simon drank one of those blue drinks - I told him not to, but he didn't listen - and he turned into a rat."

"A rat?" Clary repeated incredulously. "You don't mean . . ."

"I mean a rat," Isabelle said. "Little. Brown. Scaly tail."

This seemed to have sobered Esme enough. "Oh, my God," she said, her hand over her open mouth.

"The Clave isn't going to like this," said Alec dubiously. "I'm pretty sure turning mundane into rats is against the Law."

"Technically she didn't turn him into a rat," Jace pointed out. "The worst she could be accused of is negligence."

"Who cares about the stupid Law?" Clary screamed, grabbing hold of Isabelle's wrist. Esme wobbled but balanced herself. "My best friend is a rat!"

"Ouch!" Isabelle tried to pull her wrist back. "Let go of me!"

"Not until you tell me where he is." She'd never wanted to smack anyone as much as she wanted to smack Isabelle right at that moment. "I can't believe you just left him - he's probably terrified -"

"If he hasn't been stepped on," Jace pointed out unhelpfully.

"I didn't leave him. He ran under the bar," Isabelle protested, pointing. "Let go! You're denting my bracelet."

"Bitch," Clary said savagely and flung a surprised-looking Isabelle's hand back at her, hard. She didn't stop for a reaction; she was running toward the bar. Esme followed after her, though tried not to run too fast so as not to get her vision dancing again.

Dropping to her knees, Clary peered into the dark space under it. In the moldy-smelling gloom, she thought she could just detect a pair of glinting, beady eyes. "Simon?" she said, her voice choked. "Is that you?"

Simon-the-rat crept forward slightly, his whiskers trembling. She could see the shape of his small rounded ears, flat against his head, and the sharp point of his nose. She fought down a feeling of revulsion - she'd never liked rats, with their yellowy squared-off teeth all ready to bite. She wished he'd been turned into a hamster. "It's me, Clary," she said slowly. 

Esme kneeled beside her, her voice dropping to a quiet whisper. She asked, "Are you okay?"

Jace and the others arrived behind her, Isabelle looking more annoyed now than tearful. "Is he under there?" Jace asked curiously.

 Clary, still on her hands and knees, nodded. "Shh. You'll frighten him off." She pushed her fingers gingerly under the edge of the bar and wiggled them. "Please come out, Simon. We'll get Magnus to reverse the spell. It'll be okay." Esme heard a squeak, and the rat's pink nose poked out from beneath the bar. With an exclamation of relief, Clary seized the rat in her hands. "Simon! You understood me!"

The rat, huddled in the hollow of her palms, squeaked glumly. Delighted, she hugged him to her chest. "Oh, poor baby," she crooned, almost as if he really were a pet. "Poor Simon, it'll be fine, I promise - "

"I wouldn't feel too sorry for him," Jace said. "That's probably the closest he has ever gotten to second base."

Esme, savage, leaped to her feet to strike him across the cheek only to be pushed back by Alec's arm restraining her behind him. She cursed at him - both of them - before Clary inputted her own insights.

"Shut up!" Clary glared at Jace furiously, but she did loosen her grip on the rat. His whiskers were trembling, whether in anger or agitation or simple terror, she couldn't tell. "Get Magnus," she said sharply. "We have to turn him back."

"Let's not be hasty." Jace was actually grinning, the bastard. He reached toward Simon as if he meant to pet him. "He's cute like that. Look at his little pink nose." Simon bared long yellow teeth at Jace and made a snapping motion. Jace pulled his outstretched hand back. "Izzy, go fetch our magnificent host."

"Why me?" Isabelle looked petulant.

"Because it's your fault the mundane's a rat, idiot," Nico said, and Clary was struck by how rarely any of them, other than Isabelle, ever said Simon's actual name. 

Jace added, "And we can't leave him here."

"You'd be happy to leave him if it weren't for her," Isabelle said, managing to inject the single-syllable word with enough venom to poison an elephant. She stalked off, her skirt flouncing around her hips.

"I can't believe she let you drink that blue drink," Clary said to rat-Simon. "Now you see what you get for being so shallow."

Simon squeaked irritably. Clary heard someone chuckle and glanced up to see Magnus leaning over her. Isabelle stood behind him, her expression furious. "Rattus norvegicus," said Magnus, peering at Simon. "A common brown rat, nothing exotic."

"I don't care what kind of rat he is," Esme said crossly. "I want him turned back."

Magnus scratched his head thoughtfully, shedding glitter. "No point," he said.

"That's what I said." Jace looked pleased.

"NO POINT?" Clary shouted, so loudly that Simon hid his head under her thumb. "HOW CAN YOU SAY THERE'S NO POINT?"

"Because he'll turn back on his own in a few hours," said Magnus. "The effect of the cocktails is temporary. No point working up a transformation spell; it'll just traumatize him. Too much magic is hard on mundanes, their systems aren't used to it."

"I doubt his system is used to being a rat, either," Clary pointed out. "You're a warlock, can't you just reverse the spell?"

Magnus considered. "No," he said.

"You mean you won't."

"Not for free, darling, and you can't afford me."

"I can't take a rat home on the subway either," Clary said plaintively. "I'll drop him, or one of the MTA police will arrest me for transporting pests on the transit system." Simon chirped his annoyance. "Not that you're a pest, of course."

Esme said, "Not always." Simon chittered irritably, unhappy that he wasn't able to retort.

A girl who had been shouting by the door was now joined by six or seven others. The sound of angry voices rose above the hum of the party and the strains of the music. Magnus rolled his eyes. "Excuse me," he said, backing into the crowd, which closed behind him instantly.

Isabelle, wobbling on her sandals, expelled a gusty sigh. "So much for his help."

"You know," Alec said, "you could always put the rat in your backpack." Clary looked at him hard, but couldn't find anything wrong with the idea. It wasn't as if she had a pocket she could have tucked him in. Isabelle's clothes didn't allow for pockets; they were too tight. Clary was amazed they allowed for Isabelle.

Shrugging off her pack, she found a hiding place for the small brown rat that had once been Simon, nestled between her rolled-up sweater and her sketchpad. He curled up atop her wallet, looking reproachful. "I'm sorry," she said miserably.

"Don't bother," Jace said. "Why mundanes always insist on taking responsibility for things that aren't their fault is a mystery to me. You didn't force that cocktail down his idiotic throat."

"If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have been here at all," Clary said in a small voice.

"Don't flatter yourself. He came because of Isabelle."

Angrily Clary jerked the top of the bag closed and stood up. "Let's get out of here. I'm sick of this place."

The tight knot of shouting people by the door turned out to be more vampires, easily recognizable by the pallor of their skin and the dead blackness of their hair. They must dye it, Esme thought, they couldn't possibly all be naturally dark-haired, and besides, some of them had blond eyebrows. They were loudly complaining about their vandalized motorbikes and the fact that some of their friends were missing and unaccounted for. 

"They're probably drunk and passed out somewhere," Magnus said, waving long white fingers in a bored manner. "You know how you lot tend to turn into bats and piles of dust when you've downed a few too many Bloody Marys."

"We can't go around picking up every pile of dust in the place just in case it turns out to be Gregor in the morning," said a girl with a sulky mouth and painted-on eyebrows.

"Gregor will be fine. I rarely sweep," soothed Magnus. "I'm happy to send any stragglers back to the hotel come tomorrow - in a car with blacked-out windows, of course."

"But what about our motorbikes?" said a thin boy whose blond roots showed under his bad dye job. A gold earring in the shape of a stake hung from his left earlobe. "It'll take hours to fix them."

"You've got until sunrise," said Magnus, temper visibly fraying. "I suggest you get started." He raised his voice. "All right, that's IT! Party's over! Everybody out!" 

Esme leaned closer to whoever was beside her, "He's cranky."

Nico's nose scrunched as he leaned away. "And you're still high."

She muttered curses at him as she watched Magnus wave his arms, shedding glitter. With a single loud twang, the band ceased playing. A drone of loud complaint rose from the partygoers, but they moved obediently toward the doorway. None of them stopped to thank Magnus for the party.

"Come on." Nico pulled Esme toward the exit. The crowd was dense. She held the corner of his shirt as if it gave her some sort of protection. Something brushed against the back of her neck, tickling like a feather and she reached her hand reflexively. She glanced behind her, but there was nobody there, just her hair left fluttering in their wake. In the distance, she saw the vampire who had kissed her. She let go of Nico's shirt, her eyes following the vampire's silver striped dark hair with wide eyes. Her throat felt parched and burning, flames licking under her tongue. She swiped her tongue over her dried lips and without realizing it, started forward towards him. Weaving through the crowd, she grabbed for him as if he were water and she was dying of thirst. A guiding arm turned her around and pushed her through the crowd to the doorway.

It was when the cold air hit her face that she realized she was covered in a sheen of perspiration and breathing through her mouth. She looked around, gaze wild, searching for the vampire again but someone seized her face. It was Isabelle, forcing her blue eyes to stay locked with her black ones. She was squeezing so hard, Esme was sure there were half-moon shaped imprints from her nails on her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and hungry as she stared at the black-haired girl. "Don't lose her again," she said to someone who grumbled his apology begrudgingly.

Arms were on her shoulders then, pushing her away and out. A voice said in her ear quietly, as if embarrassed, "Sorry."

"Why, I wanna go back!" she protested, throwing a fit but the arms restrained her.

Nico said, "You can't. You're withdrawing from the high, you just want more." When she didn't listen he added. "What that vamp did to you back there . . .  it's called Encanto. That was just the first step. It's kind of like what a cobra does to a mouse right before it strikes." She was listening intently, letting his voice distract her from the wanting. Her eyes stayed turned up, counting the streetlights. They stopped a few feet away from the doorway, leaning against the wall, waiting for Clary outside the warehouse. 

Jace, hands in pockets, was leaning against the stairway railing and watching as the vampires stalked around their broken motorcycles, cursing and swearing. He had a faint smile on his face.

Alec and Isabelle stood a little way off and beside them Nico holding onto Esme as though if he let go, she might disappear. Isabelle was wiping at her eyes. Jace unhitched himself from the railing as Clary emerged. He fell into step beside her, not speaking. He seemed lost in thought.

The rest of them hurried ahead, where listening to the Lightwoods argue was a better distraction for Esme than the streetlights. 

"It's not your fault," Alec said wearily as if he'd been through this sort of thing with his sister before. "But it ought to teach you not to go to so many Downworld parties," he added. "They're always more trouble than they're worth."

Isabelle sniffed loudly. "If anything had happened to him, I - I don't know what I would have done."

"Probably whatever it is you did before," said Nico in a bored voice. "It's not like you knew him all that well."

"That doesn't mean that I don't - "

"What? Love him?" Alec scoffed, raising his voice. "You need to know someone to love them."

"But that's not all it is." Isabelle sounded almost sad. "Didn't you have any fun at the party, Alec?"

"No."

"I thought you might like Magnus. He's nice, isn't he?"

"Nice?" Alec looked at her as if she were insane. "Kittens are nice. Warlocks are -" He hesitated. "Not," he finished, lamely.

"I thought you might hit it off." Isabelle's eye makeup glittered as bright as tears as she glanced over at her brother. "Get to be friends."

"I have friends," Alec said, and looked over his shoulder, almost as if he couldn't help it, at Jace. But Jace, his golden head down, lost in thought, didn't notice. On impulse, Esme tugged on Nico's sleeve and he glanced down at her, eyebrows raised in question. But she wasn't looking at him, she was staring sadly at Alec, her bottom lip jutted out. The realization came like a train hitting him. She knew.

He slowed his pace, both of them falling back from his brother and sister and he hissed, "Who told you?"

She blinked as if astonished at his tone and looked up at him. "No one. Well, Clary and I asked Isabelle." Her lashes were glinting under the streetlights. "Is it true?"

Nico looked at his brother with so much pain that she physically felt it herself. It twisted her inside and cut open her organs. "Yes," he said and the sadness behind it engulfed him like a crashing wave of the ocean.

She considered. "But, it's not a bad thing."

"No," he said decidedly after a moment, "it isn't. He's my brother. Nothing he does or is will make me . . . " he stopped short. Hate him, the words burned his tongue. He couldn't even imagine it. He remembered feeling every pain the same, if not more, whenever Alec had gotten hurt - physically or emotionally. "But - it makes me so sad, that I can't do anything about it. Sometimes I think," he hesitated, for a moment remembering who he was talking to but then the words poured out without consent, "I think it will break him. And - and I can't imagine my life without him."

Esme could hear her heart cry in her ear. She thought of her mother - I think it will break her and I can't imagine my life without her. She felt guilt bury it's fangs in her skin for ruining his mood with this question. He looked so sad. There was no way she knew how else to describe this kind of sadness other than shattering and quivering and all-consuming. For a moment he wasn't an angel child with purpose in his veins and reaching for glory with his glimmering sword - he was a kid who was hurting because he felt helpless because he couldn't understand why such a small thing defined his goodness and badness. She shook her head and shuddered as the wind blew. She changed the subject. "Why aren't you and him para - what'stheword?" Her nose was scrunched endearingly in confusion and he almost smiled.

"Parabatai?" he suggested and she nodded. "I don't know. It's an extraordinary thing, finding someone like that. Who has the same warrior soul as yours. Him and Jace - it felt right. And besides," a crooked smile slipped over his face, "I'd always felt better fighting alone - no one to worry about or protect other than myself."He looked back ahead, at Alec. "But I love him, he's my brother."

Esme was reminded suddenly of this afternoon's happenings. Before she could overthink it, she sputtered out, "What did you think? When my mother asked me if I loved her?"

He shrugged. "That I shouldn't have been there?"

Her eyes were big and expectant, "But you were."

"I - "

"Alec! Nico! Isabelle!" It was Jace's voice. They paused and turned to find the figures of Jace and Clary huddled together far behind. "You go on ahead! We'll catch up." Esme hesitated, almost walked back towards her friend, but Nico caught hold of her arm and led her gently towards the subway entrance.