A deleted
(rewritten, really) Clace scene from City of Lost Souls, after Jace
becomes eevil.
From the
archives of Things That Never Happened:
Clary didn’t know how long she’d
been sitting on Luke’s front steps when the sun began to come up. It rose
behind his house, the sky turning a dark pinkish-rose, the river a strip of
steely blue. She was shivering—had been shivering so long that her whole body
seemed to have contracted into a single hard shudder of cold. She had used two
warming runes, but they hadn’t helped; she had a feeling the shivering was
psychological as much as anything else. Would he come? If he was still
as much Jace inside as she thought he was, he would; when he said he would come
back for her, he would have meant as soon as possible. Jace was impatient. And
he didn’t play games.
But there was only so long she could
wait. Eventually Magnus would wake up, and look for her; her mother would
return from the Iron Fortress with Brother Zachariah. She would have to give up
on Jace, for at least another day, if not longer.
She shut her eyes against the
brightness of the sunrise, resting her elbows on the step above her. For just a
moment, she let herself float in the fantasy that everything was as it had
been, that nothing had changed, that she would meet Jace this afternoon for
practice, or that night for dinner, and he would hold her and make her laugh
the way he always did. Warm tendrils of sunlight touched her face. Reluctantly,
her eyes fluttered open.
And he was there, walking toward her
up the steps, soundless as a cat as always. He wore boots, black pants, a dark
blue sweater that made his hair look like sunlight. She sat up straight, her
heart pounding. The brilliant sunshine seemed to outline him in light, and his
eyes shone like polished shields. She thought of that night in Idris, watching
the fireworks, how they had streaked across the sky and she had thought of
angels, falling in fire.
He reached her and held his hands
out; she took them, and let him pull her to her feet. His pale gold eyes
searched her face. “I want you with me,” he said. “But I want it to be your
choice. Once we go, there’s no coming back.”
“And if I say no?” she said, in a
whisper.
“Then I’ll come back and ask you
again later. And again after that. But it’ll always be your choice.”
“I love you,” she said. “There never
has been, never will be anyone for me but you.”
He shook his head. “Love is too small
a word,” he said. “You’re in my bones and my blood and my heart. I’d have to
tear myself open to let you go, and even then . . .” He pulled her against him,
against his heart. “Come with me, Clary. Come with me.”
“I hate the idea of living without
you,” she said, and thought, and now the lying begins. “I want to
come with you. I don’t care where we go, or what you’re doing, or about
anything but being with you.”
He smiled, brilliant as the sun
coming out from behind the clouds. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He leaned forward and kissed her.
Reaching up to hold him, she tasted something bitter on his lips; then darkness
came down like a curtain signaling the end of the act of a play.
