Outside the Institute, night was falling. The faint red of sunset glowed in through the windows of Jace’s bedroom as he stared at the pile of his belongings on the bed. The pile was much smaller than he thought it would be. Seven whole years of life in this place, and this was all he had to show for it: half a duffel bag’s worth of clothes, a small stack of books, and a few weapons.
He had debated whether he should bring the few things he’d saved from the manor house in Idris with him when he left tonight. Magnus had given him back his father’s silver ring, which he no longer felt comfortable wearing. He had hung it on a loop of chain around his throat. In the end, he had decided to take everything: There was no point leaving anything of himself behind in this place.
He was packing the duffel with clothes when a knock sounded at the door. He went to it, expecting Alec or Isabelle.
It was Maryse. She wore a severe black dress and her hair was pulled back sharply from her face. She looked older than he remembered her. Two deep lines ran from the corners of her mouth to her jaw. Only her eyes had any color. “Jace,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“You can do what you like,” he said, returning to the bed. “It’s your house.” He grabbed up a handful of shirts and stuffed them into the duffel bag with possibly unnecessary force.
“Actually, it’s the Clave’s house,” said Maryse. “We’re only its guardians.”
Jace shoved books into the bag. “Whatever.”
“What are you doing?” If Jace hadn’t known better, he would have thought her voice wavered slightly.
“I’m packing,” he said. “It’s what people generally do when they’re moving out.”
She blanched. “Don’t leave,” she said. “If you want to stay—”
“I don’t want to stay. I don’t belong here.”
“Where will you go?”
“Luke’s,” he said, and saw her flinch. “For a while. After that, I don’t know. Maybe to Idris.”
“Is that where you think you belong?” There was an aching sadness in her voice.
Jace stopped packing for a moment and stared down at his bag. “I don’t know where I belong.”
“With your family.” Maryse took a tentative step forward. “With us.”
“You threw me out.” Jace heard the harshness in his own voice, and tried to soften it. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning to look at her. “About everything that’s happened. But you didn’t want me before, and I can’t imagine you want me now. Robert’s going to be sick awhile; you’ll be needing to take care of him. I’ll just be in the way.”
“In the way?” She sounded incredulous. “Robert wants to see you, Jace—”
“I doubt that.”
“What about Alec? Isabelle, Max—they need you. If you don’t believe me that I want you here—and I couldn’t blame you if you didn’t—you must know that they do. We’ve been through a bad time, Jace. Don’t hurt them more than they’re already hurt.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I don’t blame you if you hate me.” Her voice was wavering. Jace swung around to stare at her in surprise. “But what I did—even throwing you out—treating you as I did, it was to protect you. And because I was afraid.”
“Afraid of me?”
She nodded.
“Well, that makes me feel much better.”
Maryse took a deep breath. “I thought you would break my heart like Valentine did,” she said. “You were the first thing I loved, you see, after him, that wasn’t my own blood. The first living creature. And you were just a child—”
“You thought I was someone else.”
“No. I’ve always known just who you are. Ever since the first time I saw you getting off the ship from Idris, when you were ten years old—you walked into my heart, just as my own children did when they were born.” She shook her head. “You can’t understand. You’ve never been a parent. You never love anything like you love your children. And nothing can make you angrier.”
“I did notice the angry part,” Jace said, after a pause.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” Maryse said. “But if you’d stay for Isabelle and Alec and Max, I’d be so grateful—”
It was the wrong thing to say. “I don’t want your gratitude,” Jace said, and turned back to the duffel bag. There was nothing left to put in it. He tugged at the zipper.
“A la claire fontaine,” Maryse said, “m’en allent promener.”
He turned to look at her. “What?”
“Il y a longtemps que je t’aime. Jamais je ne t’oublierai—it’s the old French ballad I used to sing to Alec and Isabelle. The one you asked me about.”
There was very little light in the room now, and in the dimness Maryse looked to him almost as she had when he was ten years old, as if she had not changed at all in the past seven years. She looked severe and worried, anxious—and hopeful. She looked like the only mother he’d ever known.
“You were wrong that I never sang it to you,” she said. “It’s just that you never heard me.”
Jace said nothing, but he reached out and yanked the zipper open on the duffel bag, letting his belongings spill out onto the bed.
EPILOGUE
“CLARY!” SIMON’S MOTHER BEAMED ALL OVER HER FACE AT the sight of the girl standing on her doorstep. “I haven’t seen you for ages. I was starting to worry you and Simon had had a fight.”
“Oh, no,” Clary said. “I just wasn’t feeling well, that’s all.” Even when you’ve got magic healing runes, apparently you’re not invulnerable. She hadn’t been surprised to wake up the morning after the battle to find she had a pounding headache and a fever; she’d thought she had a cold—who wouldn’t, after freezing in wet clothes on the open water for hours at night?—but Magnus said she had most likely exhausted herself creating the rune that had destroyed Valentine’s ship.
Simon’s mother clucked sympathetically. “The same bug Simon had the week before last, I bet. He could barely get out of bed.”
“He’s better now, though, right?” Clary said. She knew it was true, but she didn’t mind hearing it again.
“He’s fine. He’s out in the back garden, I think. Just go on through the gate.” She smiled. “He’ll be happy to see you.”
The redbrick row houses on Simon’s street were divided by pretty white wrought iron fences, each of which had a gate that led to a tiny patch of garden in the back of the house. The sky was bright blue and the air cool, despite the sunny skies. Clary could taste the tang of future snow on the air.
She fastened the gate shut behind her and went looking for Simon. He was in the back garden, as promised, lying on a plastic lounging chair with a comic open in his lap. He pushed it aside when he saw Clary, sat up, and grinned. “Hey, baby.”
“Baby?” She perched beside him on the chair. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I was trying it out. No?”