The Mortal Instruments (Book 1-3)

05. Suicidal Princess

The weapons room looked exactly like what one might assume a weapons room looked like. Brushed metal walls were hung with every manner of sword, dagger, spike, pike, feather-staff, bayonet, whip, mace, hook, and bow. Soft leather bags filled with arrows dangled from hooks, and there were stacks of boots, leg guards, and gauntlets for wrists and arms. The place smelled of metal and leather and steel polish. Alec, Daphne and Jace, no longer barefoot, sat at a long table in the center of the room, their heads bent over the objects between them. 

Jace looked up when the door opened, Clary entering and closing it shut. "Where's Hodge?" he said.

"Writing to the Silent Brothers," she responded.

Alec repressed a shudder. "Ugh."

Clary approached the table slowly, warily eyeing Alec's gaze. "What're you guys doing?"

"Polishing these." Jace moved aside so she could see what lay on the table: three long slim wands of a dully glowing silver. They did not look sharp or particularly dangerous. "Made by the Iron Sisters, our weapon makers. They're seraph blades."

"Those don't look like knives." Clary said curiously. "How did you make them? Magic?"

Alec looked horrified, as if she'd asked him to put on a tutu and execute a perfect pirouette. Daphne laughed, both at his expression and Clary's ridiculous comment. "The funny thing about mundies," Jace said, to nobody in particular, "is how obsessed with magic they are for a bunch of people who don't even know what the word means."

"I know what it means." Clary snapped.

"No, you don't," Jace said. "You just think you do. Magic is a dark and elemental force, not just a lot of sparkly wands and crystal balls and talking goldfish."

"I never said it was a lot of talking goldfish, you—" She stopped herself, an angry puff of air leaving her.

Jace waved his hands. "Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn't make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie."

"You're driveling." Daphne observed. "You and your ducks again."

"Am not." said Jace, with great dignity. "And don't call them my ducks, for the Angel's sake—"

"Look, we don't do magic, okay?" Alec rolled his eyes at Clary. "That's all you need to know about it."

Clary turned to Jace and Daphne. "Hodge said I can go home."

Jace nearly dropped the seraph blade he was holding. "He said what?"

"To look through my mother's things." She amended. "If you and Daphne go with me." Her eyes flitted over to the taller, black-haired girl, who's eyes sparkled with delight. 

"If you really want to prove that my mom or dad was a Shadowhunter, we should look through my mom's things." Clary said. "Well, what's left of them."

"Down the rabbit hole." Jace grinned crookedly. "Good idea. If we go right now, we should have another three, four hours of daylight."

"Are you coming with?" Daphne asked Alec.

The Lightwood boy shot Clary a look as sour as poison. "No thanks," he said distastefully. "I think I'll stay here."

Jace shrugged. "Have it your way."

The rest of them left, Jace and Daphne leading the way down the hall. Clary half-jogged to keep up with the both of them. "Have you got your house keys?" Daphne asked.

Clary glanced down at her shoes. "Yeah."

"That's good." Daphne said. "Not that we couldn't break in, but we'd run a greater chance of disturbing any wards that might be up if we did."