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"Let hirip "Of course that’s what you think You think everyone who isn’t just like you is better off dead anyway"

Isabelle’s face was the picture of h the clearing, a sound unlike any Clary had ever heard before--a sort of pounding rhythround, as if suddenly the heartbeat of the world had becoht, and then the ground buckled and heaved under her She fell to her knees The grave was roiling like the surface of an unsteady ocean Ripples appeared in its surface Suddenly it burst apart, clods of dirt flying A small mountain of dirt, like an anthill, heaved itself upward At the center of theat the dirt

"Simon!" Clary tried to rush forward, but Raphael yanked her back

"Let rip was like steel "Can’t you see he needs our help?"

"He should do this hi his hold on her "It is better that way"

"It’s your way! It’s not rave, just as it heaved upward, hurling her back to the ground A hunched shape was forcing itself out of the hastily dug grave, fingers like filthy claws sunk deep into the earth Its bare arms were streaked black with dirt and blood It tore itself free of the sucking earth, crawled a few feet, and collapsed onto the ground

"Simon," she whispered Because of course it was Simon, Simon, not an it She scra deep into the churned earth

"Clary!" Jace shouted "What are you doing?"

She stu sank into the dirt She fell onto her knees next to Simon, who lay as still as if he really were dead His hair was filthy and one, his T-shirt torn down the side, blood on the skin that showed under it "Simon," she said, and reached to touch his shoulder "Siers, every , his skin hard as iron

"--all right?" she finished

He turned his head, and she saw his eyes They were blank, lifeless With a sharp cry he rolled over and sprang at her, swift as a striking snake He struck her squarely, knocking her back into the dirt "Simon!" she shouted, but he didn’t seenizable as he loo back, and she saw his sharp canines, the fang-teeth, gleaht like white bone needles Suddenly terrified, she kicked out at hirabbed her shoulders and forced her back down into the dirt His hands were bloody, the nails broken, but he was incredibly strong, stronger even than her own Shadowhunter ether painfully as he bent down over her--

And was plucked away and sent flying as if he weighed no , and aze "I told you to stay away from him," he said, and turned to kneel down by Simon, who had landed a short distance away and was curled, twitching, on the ground

Clary sucked in a breath It sounded like a sob "He doesn’t know me"

"He knows you He doesn’t care" Raphael looked over his shoulder at Jace "He is starving He needs blood"

Jace, who had been standing white-faced and frozen at the grave’s edge, stepped forward and held out the plastic bagRaphael snatched it and tore it open A number of plastic packets of red fluid fell out He seized one,blood down the front of his dirt-stained white shirt

Si the blood, curled up and let out a piteous wail He was still twitching; his broken-nailed hands gouged at the dirt and his eyes were rolled back to the whites Raphael held out the blood packet, letting so the white skin with scarlet "There you go," he said, al Drink"

And Sietarian since he was ten years old, ouldn’t drink ht of needles--Simon snatched the packet of blood out of Raphael’s thin brown hand and tore into it with his teeth He sed the blood in a few gulps and tossed the packet aside with another wail; Raphael was ready with a second one, and pressed it into his hand "Do not drink too fast," he cautioned "You will nored hiet the second packet open without help and was gulping greedily at the contents Blood ran from the corners of his mouth, down his throat, and spattered his hands with fat red drops His eyes were closed

Raphael turned to look at Clary She could feel Jace staring at her too, and the others, all with identical expressions of horror and disgust "Next time he feeds," Raphael said calmly, "it will not be quite so messy"

Messy Clary turned away and stu Jace call out for her but ignoring hi to run when she reached the trees She was halfway down the hill when the pain hit She went to her knees, gagging, as everything in her sto flood When it was over, she crawled a short distance away and collapsed against the ground She knew she was probably lying on soainst the cool dirt and thought, for the first time, that maybe the dead weren’t so unlucky after all

11

SMOKE AND STEEL

THE CRITICAL CARE UNIT OF BETH ISRAEL HOSPITAL ALWAYS reminded Clary of photos she’d seen of Antarctica: It was cold and reray, white, or pale blue The walls of her mother’s room hite, the tubes that snaked around her head and the endless beeping banks of instruray, and the blanket pulled up around her chest was pale blue Her face hite The only color in the roo across the snowy expanse of pillow like a bright, incongruous flag planted at the south pole

Clary wondered how Luke wasto pay for this private roootten it She supposed she could ask hi ly little café on the third floor The coffee from the machine down there looked like tar and tasted like it too, but Luke sees of the bedside chair squeaked across the floor as Clary pulled it out and sat down slowly, ss Whenever she came to see her mother in the hospital she felt nervous and dry- Maybe because the only times she’d ever seen her mother’s face like this, flat and without anie

"Mom," she said She reached out and took her mother’s left hand; there was a puncture mark on the wrist still, where Valentine had shoved one end of a tube The skin of her h and chapped, spattered with paint and turpentine--felt like the dry bark of a tree Clary folded her fingers around Jocelyn’s, feeling a hard lump come into her throat "Mom, I…" She cleared her throat "Luke says you can hear me I don’t know if that’s true or not Anyway, I came because I needed to talk to you It’s okay if you can’t say anything back See, the thing is, it’s…" She sed again and looked toward the , the strip of blue sky visible at the edge of the brick wall that faced the hospital "It’s Si that wasat her mother’s face, the story poured out of her, all of it: how she’d met Jace and the other Shadowhunters, the search for the Mortal Cup, Hodge’s betrayal and the battle at Renwick’s, the realization that Valentine was her father as well as Jace’s More recent events too: the nighttime visit to the Bone City, the Soul-Sword, the Inquisitor’s hatred of Jace, and the woman with the silver hair And then she told her mother about the Seelie Court, about the price the Queen had demanded, and what had happened to Simon afterward She could feel tears burn her throat while she talked, but it was a relief to tell it, to unburden herself to someone, even someone who--probably--couldn’t hear her