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CHAPTER ONE:
❝ Valentine's Arrow ❞
"Rule number one of anime," Simon said. He sat propped up against a pile of pillows at the foot of his bed, a bag of potato chips in one hand and the TV remote in the other. He was wearing a black T-shirt that said I BLOGGED YOUR MOM and a pair of jeans with a hole ripped in one knee. "Never screw with a blind monk."
"I know," Clary said, taking a potato chip and dunking it into the can of dip balanced on the TV tray between them. "For some reason, they're always way better fighters than monks who can see."
Esme peered at the screen. "Are those guys dancing?"
"That's not dancing," Simon negated. "They're trying to kill each other. This is the guy who's the mortal enemy of the other guy, remember? He killed his dad. Why would they be dancing?"
Esme stole a chip and stared meditatively at the screen, where animated swirls of pink-and-yellow clouds rippled between the figures of two winged men, who floated around each other, each clutching a glowing spear. Every once in a while one of them would speak, but since it was all in Japanese with Chinese subtitles, it didn't clarify much.
"The guy with the hat," Clary said. "He was the evil guy?"
"No, the hat guy was the dad. He was the magical emperor, and that was his hat of power. The evil guy was the one with the mechanical hand that talks."
The telephone rang. Simon set the bag of chips down and made as if to get up and answer it. Clary put her hand on his wrist. "Don't. Just leave it."
"But it might be Luke. He could be calling from the hospital."
"It's not Luke," Clary said, sounding more sure than she felt. "He'd call my cell, not your house."
Simon looked at her a long moment before sinking back down on the rug beside her. "If you say so." She could hear the doubt in his voice, but also the unspoken assurance, I just want you to be happy. Esme wasn't sure "happy" was anything Clary was likely to be right now, not with her mother in the hospital hooked up to tubes and bleeping machines, and Luke like a zombie, slumped in the hard plastic chair next to her bed. Not with worrying about Jace all the time and picking up the phone a dozen times to call the Institute before setting it back down, the number still undialed. If Jace wanted to talk to her, he could call.
At the thought, her own phone buzzed with a text from her mother: CHINESE OR THAI? She assumed she was asking about what kind of take-out she wanted, and texted back Chinese. Her mother had started to come around in the past weeks. They'd been doing more things together and not just staring at each other sadly. Grief was something that could not be gotten over by sitting idly. You had to work together towards it.
