Sebastian made no reply. They were nearly to the steps when Sebastian called out: "Clary."
She turned around, drawing her hand out of Jace's. "What?"
"My scarf." He held out his hand for it.
"Oh. Right." Taking a few steps toward him, she tugged with nervous fingers at the knotted cloth around her throat. After a moment of watching her, Sebastian made an impatient noise and stalked across the room toward her, his long legs covering the space between them quickly. She stiffened as he put his hand to her throat and deftly undid the knot with a few motions, then unwrapped the scarf. She thought for a moment that he lingered before unwrapping it fully, his fingers brushing her throat-
She remembered him kissing her on the hill by the burned remains of the Fairchild manor, and how she had felt as if she were falling, into a dark and abandoned place, lost and terrified. She backed up hastily, and the scarf fell away from her neck as she turned. "Thanks for lending it to me," she said, and darted back to follow Jace down the stairs, not looking behind to see her brother watch her go, holding the scarf, a quizzical expression on his face.
Simon stood among the dead leaves and looked up the path; once more the human impulse to take a deep breath came on him. He was in Central Park, near the Shakespeare Garden. The trees had lost the last of their autumn luster, the gold and green and red turning to brown and black. Most of the branches were bare.
He touched the ring on his finger again. Clary?
Again there was no reply. His muscles felt as tense as strung wires. It had been too long since he had been able to raise her using the ring. He told himself over and over that she could be sleeping, but nothing could untie the terrible knot of tension in his stomach. The ring was his only connection to her, and right now it felt like nothing more than a hunk of dead metal.
He dropped his hands to his sides and moved forward, up the path, past the statues and the benches inscribed with verses from Shakespeare's plays. The path turned a curving right, and suddenly he could see her, sitting up ahead on a bench, looking away from him, her dark hair in a long braid down her back. She was very still, waiting. Waiting for him.
Simon straightened his back and walked toward her, even though every step felt as if it were weighted with lead.
She heard him as he approached and turned around, her pale face going even paler as he sat down beside her. "Simon," she said on an exhale of breath. "I wasn't sure you'd come."
"Hi, Rebecca," he said.
She held out her hand, and he took it, silently thanking the forethought that had made him put on gloves that morning, so that if he touched her she wouldn't feel the chill of his skin. It hadn't been that long since he'd seen her last-maybe four months-but already she seemed like the photograph of someone he'd known a long time ago, even though everything about her was familiar-her dark hair; her brown eyes, the same shape and color as his own; the spatter of freckles across her nose. She wore jeans, a bright yellow parka, and a green scarf with big yellow cotton flowers. Clary called Becky's style "hippie-chic"; about half her clothes came from vintage stores, and the other half she sewed herself.
As he squeezed her hand, her dark eyes filled with tears. "Si," she said, and put her arms around him and hugged him. He let her, patting her arms, her back, clumsily. When she pulled back, wiping at her eyes, she frowned. "God, your face is cold," she said. "You should wear a scarf." She looked at him accusingly. "Anyway, where have you been?"
"I told you," he said. "I was staying with a friend."
She gave a short bark of laughter. "Okay, Simon, that so doesn't cut it," she said. "What the hell is going on?"
"Becks..."
"I called home about Thanksgiving," Rebecca said, staring straight ahead at the trees. "You know, what train I should take, that sort of thing. And you know what Mom said? She said not to come home, there wasn't going to be any Thanksgiving. So I called you. You didn't pick up. I called Mom to find out where you were. She hung up on me. Just-hung up on me. So I came home. That's when I saw the religious weirdness all over the door. I freaked out on Mom, and she told me you were dead. Dead. My own brother. She said you were dead and a monster took your place."
"What did you do?"
"I got the hell out of there," said Rebecca. Simon could tell she was trying to sound tough, but there was a thin, frightened edge to her voice. "It was pretty clear Mom had lost it."
"Oh," Simon said. Rebecca and his mother had always shared a fraught relationship. Rebecca liked to refer to his mother as "nuts" or "the crazy lady." But it was the first time he'd had the sense she really meant it.
"Damn right, oh," Rebecca snapped. "I was frantic. I texted you every five minutes. Finally I get that crap text from you about staying with a friend. Now you want to meet me here. What the hell, Simon? How long has this been going on?"
"How long has what been going on?"
"What do you think? Mom being totally mental." Rebecca's small fingers picked at her scarf. "We have to do something. Talk to someone. Doctors. Get her on meds or something. I didn't know what to do. Not without you. You're my brother."
"I can't," Simon said. "I mean, I can't help you."
Her voice softened. "I know it sucks and you're just in high school, but, Simon, we have to make these decisions together."
"I mean I can't help you get her on meds," he said. "Or take her to the doctor. Because she's right. I am a monster."
Rebecca's mouth dropped open. "Has she brainwashed you?"
"No-"
Her voice wobbled. "You know, I thought maybe she'd hurt you-the way she was talking-but then I thought, No, she'd never do that, no matter what. But if she did-if she laid a finger on you, Simon, so help me-"
Simon couldn't take it anymore. He stripped off his glove and held his hand out to his sister. His sister, who'd held his hand on the beach when he was too small to toddle into the ocean unassisted. Who'd mopped blood off him after soccer practice, and tears off him after their father had died and their mother was a zombie lying in her room staring at the ceiling. Who'd read to him in his race-car-shaped bed when he still wore footie pajamas. I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. Who once accidentally shrunk all his clothes in the wash so they were doll-size, when she was trying to be domestic. Who packed his lunch when their mother didn't have time. Rebecca, he thought. The last tie he had to cut.
"Take my hand," he said.
She took it, and winced. "You're so cold. Have you been sick?"
"You could say that." He looked at her, willing her to sense something wrong with him, really wrong, but she only looked back at him with trusting brown eyes. He bit back a flare of impatience. It wasn't her fault. She didn't know. "Take my pulse," he said.
"I don't know how to take someone's pulse, Simon. I'm an art history major."
He reached over and moved her fingers up to his wrist. "Press down. Do you feel anything?"