The Mortal Instruments | Shadowhunters

13. Oh Look, He Turned Into a Rat

"My mother did this to me?" Clary demanded, sounding outraged, but mostly hurt. "Why?" Jace looked at her in pity; even Alec had a sympathetic expression on his face.

"I don't know." Magnus spread his long white hands. "It's not my job to ask questions. I do what I get paid to do."

"Within the bounds of the Covenant," Jace reminded him, his voice as soft as cat's fur.

Magnus inclined his head. "Within the bounds of the Covenant, of course."

"So the Covenant's all right with this—this mind-rape?" Clary asked bitterly. When no one answered, she sank down on the edge of Magnus's bed. "Was it only once? Was there something specific she wanted me to forget? Do you know what it was?"

Magnus paced restlessly to the window. "I don't think you understand. The first time I ever saw you, you must have been about two years old. I was watching out this window"—he tapped the glass, freeing a shower of dust and paint and chips. chips—"and I saw her hurrying up the street, holding something wrapped in a blanket. I was surprised when she stopped at my door. She looked so ordinary, so young."

The moonlight touched his hawkish profile with silver. "She unwrapped the blanket when she came in my door. You were inside it. She set you down on the floor and you started ranging around, picking things up, pulling my cat's tail—you screamed like a banshee when the cat scratched you, so I asked your mother if you were part banshee. She didn't laugh." He paused. They were all watching him intently now, even Alec.

"She told me she was a Shadowhunter. There was no point in her lying about it; Marks show up, even when they've faded with time, like faint silver scars against the skin. They flickered when she moved." He rubbed at the glitter makeup around his eyes. "She told me she'd hoped you'd been born with a blind Inner Eye—some Shadowhunters have to be taught to see the Shadow World. But she'd caught you that afternoon, teasing a pixie trapped in a hedge. She knew you could see. So she asked me if it was possible to blind you of the Sight."

Clary made a little noise, a pained exhalation of breath, but Magnus went on remorselessly.

"I told her that crippling that part of your mind might leave you damaged, possibly insane. She didn't cry. She wasn't the sort of woman who weeps easily, your mother. She asked me if there was another way, and I told her you could be made to forget those parts of the Shadow World that you could see, even as you saw them. The only caveat was that she'd have to come to me every two years as the results of the spell began to fade."

"And did she?" asked Clary.

Magnus nodded. "I've seen you every two years since that first time—I've watched you grow up. You're the only child I have ever watched grow up that way, you know. In my business, one isn't generally that welcome around human children."

"So you recognized Clary when we walked in," said Jace. "You must have."

"Of course I did." Magnus sounded exasperated. "And it was a shock, too. But what would you have done? She didn't know me. She wasn't supposed to know me. Just the fact that she was here meant the spell had started to fade—and in fact, we were due for another visit about a month ago. I even came by your house when I got back from Tanzania, but Jocelyn said that you two had had a fight and you'd run off. She said she'd call on me when you came back, but"—an elegant shrug—"she never did."

"You were there, that day," Clary realized. "I saw you coming out of Dorothea's apartment. I remember your eyes."

Magnus looked as if he might purr. "I'm memorable, it's true." He gloated. Then he shook his head. "You shouldn't remember me. I threw up a glamour as hard as a wall as soon as I saw you. You should have run right into it face-first—psychically speaking."