Scars of her Blood • Shadowhunters

Chapter 29: Who are you to tell me that?

A/N Over a thousand reads?? I am blown away, you guys are amazing! I am so beyond grateful for this! Thank you all so so much!! 

Celia sobered up quickly, so when she saw Jace in the hallway the next morning, she got straight to the point:

"Jace, what happened yesterday?", Celia asked, completely free of emotion.

"What do you mean? I thought that Alec filled you in on the demon attack..."

"In the City of Bones, Jace!", Celia urged, "what happened there? Why were you even arrested?"

Jace sighed:

"Because they want to prosecute me for the time I spent with Valentine. Aldertree considered me a traitor."

Celia pressed her lips together. Aldertree seemed to make himself more and more enemies. But Celia had already decided not to tell the others about what had happened with Raphael yesterday.

"They had me locked up in a cell until Aldertree came around yesterday to question me with the Soulsword."
"And how did that go?

Jace shrugged:

"He was asking for my unconditional loyalty to the Clave."

Celia sighed. She knew exactly what kind of opinion Jace had about that particular word:

"You could have lied."

"Celia, did you not listen? They questioned me with the Soulsword!", right... not everyone has had training like I did..., "anyways, Valentine ambushed us on the way back to the cells. He had killed Silent Brothers and took the Soulsword. It was my choice to either take it from him or safe Aldertree."

"You saved Aldertree, didn't you?", Celia guessed it from the sour look on Jace's face, "and now he is mad at you for it."

"Yes...", Jace shrugged, "but I will be fine. I actually wanted to ask you something."

Celia nodded:

"Anything for you."

"Clary is not feeling well with everything going on. Could you -"

"No."

Jace opened his mouth again, but Celia cut him off:

"Excuse me? Why would you even ask me that?"

"Celia, listen! She is not herself anymore because of what happened with her mother. And you understand how she feels", Jace said, "you know what it is like to lose your family..."

Celia grimaced:

"I am not exactly a good grief counselor, though."

"I know that. You're not supposed to sit down and braid each other's hair. Clary said to me she is tired of people speaking in silent voices. Just distract her... please."

A few minutes later, Celia approached Clary in the chapel, where the bodies of the fallen were on display and where – as Jace had told Celia - Clary had spent most of the time since the attack. Celia still did not know exactly why she had ended up agreeing to Jace's plan. She did not care if Clary was getting over her mother's death or not. But it seemed that it was important to Jace – and Jocelyn had also been his mother - so Celia would at least try for him.

"Clary!", Celia was aware that her tone was cold, "come on, let's train a bit."

Clary looked confused at first when she turned around to Celia:

"Training - right now?"

Celia nodded:

"You wanted to get out of this dull atmosphere, didn't you?"