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CHAPTER SIX:
❝ City Of Bones ❞
Wandering and getting lost a few times, she finally found the kitchen. Simon was already occupying a seat at the dinner table and he informed her that Isabelle had just left to call Jace, Clary, and Hodge. As she settled in a seat, Alec joined them. Simon said something but she didn't even register his words. She was too busy staring at him. Like many only children, she was fascinated by the resemblance between siblings, and now she could see exactly how much Alec looked like his sister and brother. They had the same jet-black hair, the same slender eyebrows winging up at the corners, the same pale, high-colored skin. But where Isabelle was all arrogance, and Nico was disarming, Alec slumped down in the chair as if he hoped nobody would notice him. His lashes were long and dark like his siblings, but where their eyes were black, his were the dark blue of bottle glass. They gazed at her with hostility as pure and concentrated as acid.
Next shuffled in Nico, who, observing the placements at the table opted for the farthest seat available, just beside his brother. Both of them looked so alike, yet completely different. Alec, with his tall and fit build, looked bigger than Nico whose thin, wiry build gave an illusion of defencelessness. They had been two-headed creatures for so long, since birth, that they complemented each other's movements like magnets. Like melodies of a song completing each other, they moved with awfully good synchronization.
Nico, as if sensing her eyes on him looked up with poorly veiled contempt. Anger flared in Esme's chest. Anger that was ugly and hateful. Anger that burned like charcoal and lit up a fire in her veins. Anger like her father. Her eyes darkened at the dawning realization and she looked away, quickly snatching Simon's hand from the table and threading her fingers through his for some sort of comfort. Only another few awkward moments later, Jace strode in followed by Isabelle and Clary, and an old man who Esme safely assumed was Hodge.
The kitchen was warm and full of light and the salt-sweet smell of takeout Chinese food. The smell reminded Esme of home; she sat and looked at her glistening plate of noodles, toyed with her fork, and tried not to look at Nico, afraid she was going to imagine her father.
"Well, I think it's kind of romantic," said Isabelle, sucking tapioca pearls through an enormous pink straw.
"What is?" asked Simon, instantly alert.
"That whole business about Clary's mother being married to Valentine," said Isabelle. Jace and Hodge had filled them in about their discussion. "So now he's back from the dead and he's come looking for her. Maybe he wants to get back together."
"I kind of doubt he sent a Ravener demon to her house because he wants to 'get back together,'" said Alec, who had turned up when the food was served. Nobody had asked him where he'd been, and he hadn't offered the information. He was sitting next to Jace, across from Clary, and was avoiding looking at her.
