Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (120 page)

Sebastian met his glance with a look of pleasant interest.
“M-ai urm
rit de când ai ajuns aici,”
he replied.
“Nu-mi dau seama dac
nu m
placi ori dac
e
ti atât de b
nuitor cu toat
lumea.”
He got to his feet. “I appreciate the Romanian practice, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to see what’s taking Isabelle so long in the kitchen.” He disappeared through the doorway, leaving Jace staring after him with a puzzled expression.

“What’s wrong? Does he not speak Romanian after all?” Simon asked.

“No,” said Jace. A small frown line had appeared between his eyes. “No, he speaks it all right.”

Before Simon could ask him what he meant by that, Alec entered the room. He was frowning, just as he had been when he’d left. His gaze lingered momentarily on Simon, a look almost of confusion in his blue eyes.

Jace glanced up. “Back so soon?”

“Not for long.” Alec reached down to pluck an apple off the table with a gloved hand. “I just came back to get—him,” he
said, gesturing toward Simon with the apple. “He’s wanted at the Gard.”

Aline looked surprised. “Really?” she said, but Jace was already rising from the couch, disentangling his hand from hers.

“Wanted for what?” he said, with a dangerous calm. “I hope you found that out before you promised to deliver him, at least.”

“Of course I
asked
,” Alec snapped. “I’m not stupid.”

“Oh, come on,” said Isabelle. She had reappeared in the doorway with Sebastian, who was holding a bottle. “Sometimes you are a bit stupid, you know. Just a
bit
,” she repeated as Alec shot her a murderous glare.

“They’re sending Simon back to New York,” he said. “Through the Portal.”

“But he just
got
here!” Isabelle protested with a pout. “That’s no fun.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun, Izzy. Simon coming here was an accident, so the Clave thinks the best thing is for him to go home.”

“Great,” Simon said. “Maybe I’ll even make it back before my mother notices I’m gone. What’s the time difference between here and Manhattan?”

“You have a
mother
?” Aline looked amazed.

Simon chose to ignore this. “Seriously,” he said, as Alec and Jace exchanged glances. “It’s fine. All I want is to get out of this place.”

“You’ll go with him?” Jace said to Alec. “And make sure everything’s all right?”

They were looking at each other in a way that was familiar
to Simon. It was the way he and Clary sometimes looked at each other, exchanging coded glances when they didn’t want their parents to know what they were planning.

“What?” he said, looking from one to the other. “What’s wrong?”

They broke their stare; Alec glanced away, and Jace turned a bland and smiling look on Simon. “Nothing,” he said. “Everything’s fine. Congratulations, vampire—you get to go home.”

Night had fallen over Alicante when Simon and Alec left the
Penhallows’ house and headed uphill toward the Gard. The streets of the city were narrow and twisting, wending upward like pale stone ribbons in the moonlight. The air was cold, though Simon felt it only distantly.

Alec walked along in silence, striding ahead of Simon as if pretending that he were alone. In his previous life Simon would have had to hurry, panting, to keep up; now he discovered he could pace Alec just by speeding up his stride. “Must suck,” Simon said finally, as Alec stared morosely ahead. “Getting stuck with escorting me, I mean.”

Alec shrugged. “I’m eighteen. I’m an adult, so I have to be the responsible one. I’m the only one who can go in and out of
the Gard when the Clave’s in session, and besides, the Consul knows me.”

“What’s a Consul?”

“He’s like a very high officer of the Clave. He counts the votes of the Council, interprets the Law for the Clave, and advises them and the Inquisitor. If you head up an Institute and you run into a problem you don’t know how to deal with, you call the Consul.”

“He advises the Inquisitor? I thought—isn’t the Inquisitor dead?”

Alec snorted. “That’s like saying, ‘Isn’t the president dead?’ Yeah, the Inquisitor died; now there’s a new one. Inquisitor Aldertree.”

Simon glanced down the hill toward the dark water of the canals far below. They’d left the city behind them and were treading a narrow road between shadowy trees. “I’ll tell you, inquisitions haven’t worked out well for my people in the past.” Alec looked blank. “Never mind. Just a mundane history joke. You wouldn’t be interested.”

“You’re not a mundane,” Alec pointed out. “That’s why Aline and Sebastian were so excited to get a look at you. Not that you can tell with Sebastian; he always acts like he’s seen everything already.”

Simon spoke without thinking. “Are he and Isabelle . . . Is there something going on there?”

That startled a laugh out of Alec. “Isabelle and
Sebastian
? Hardly. Sebastian’s a nice guy—Isabelle only likes dating thoroughly inappropriate boys our parents will hate. Mundanes, Downworlders, petty crooks . . .”

“Thanks,” Simon said. “I’m glad to be classed with the criminal element.”

“I think she does it for attention,” Alec said. “She’s the only girl in the family too, so she has to keep proving how tough she is. Or at least, that’s what she thinks.”

“Or maybe she’s trying to take the attention off you,” Simon said, almost absently. “You know, since your parents don’t know you’re gay and all.”

Alec stopped in the middle of the road so suddenly that Simon almost crashed into him. “No,” he said, “but apparently everyone
else
does.”

“Except Jace,” Simon said. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

Alec took a deep breath. He was pale, Simon thought, or it could have just been the moonlight, washing the color out of everything. His eyes looked black in the darkness. “I really don’t see what business it is of yours. Unless you’re trying to threaten me.”

“Trying to
threaten
you?” Simon was taken aback. “I’m not—”

“Then why?” said Alec, and there was a sudden, sharp vulnerability in his voice that took Simon aback. “Why bring it up?”

“Because,” Simon said. “You seem to hate me most of the time. I don’t take it that personally, even if I did save your life. You seem to kind of hate the whole world. And besides, we have practically nothing in common. But I see you looking at Jace, and I see myself looking at Clary, and I figure—maybe we have that one thing in common. And maybe it might make you dislike me a little less.”

“So you’re not going to tell Jace?” Alec said. “I mean—you told Clary how you felt, and . . .”

“And it wasn’t the best idea,” said Simon. “Now I wonder all
the time how you go back after something like that. Whether we can ever be friends again, or if what we had is broken into pieces. Not because of her, but because of me. Maybe if I found someone else . . .”

“Someone else,” Alec repeated. He had started walking again, very quickly, staring at the road ahead of him.

Simon hurried to keep up. “You know what I mean. For instance, I think Magnus Bane really likes you. And he’s pretty cool. He throws great parties, anyway. Even if I did get turned into a rat that time.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Alec’s voice was dry. “But I don’t think he likes me all that much. He barely spoke to me when he came to open the Portal at the Institute.”