City of Clockwork Soldiers

The Cat-Thief's Wife

The knife disconnected from Jace's fingers, spinning in midair and slicing into the wooden target with perfect accuracy. Splinters formed about the blade, creating a frame around the silver. He threw another; the throw's angle was so accurate to his first's that the knife actually clattered to the ground, having hit the hilt of the previous dagger. Muttering a curse under his breath, even though the shot had been perfect, and went to retrieve the two knives.

Having yanked the first knife from its position in the wall and picked the second one up off the floor, Jace, his eyes fixed to the wooden rafters running horizontally across the ceiling, bent his knees and sprung. His feet touched the beam with delicate gracefulness, and within seconds he was stood metres above the floor of the training room. There was always a certain satisfaction of standing so high above the ground, looking down upon the room as if he ruled it, as if he were God.

A movement in Jace's peripheral vision caught his attention, and he turned his head towards the door, where the small figure of a person with unruly flame-coloured hair stepped into the room. He smiled as she looked about the room, her head twisting as her eyes searched the space around her.

"Jace?" Clary called. "Jace, are you here?"

He felt the soles of his heavy gear shoes leave the beam as he leaned forward, falling like a gently drifting snowflake towards the ground. He landed directly beside her on the floorboards; she gave a tiny start and swivelled round to face him.

She glared at him with mock anger, thrusting a finger into his chest in accusation. "One day you're going to do that, and it's not going to scare me anymore."

He grinned at her, knowing his smile turned her into honey. "Sure. Something tells me that one day won't be so soon, though." She rolled her eyes at him. Drawing a knife from his weapons belt, which was fitted tightly around his waist, she raised it, and flung it through the air, the tip sinking in just below where his had previously been.

Giving her a nod of approval, he asked, "So, what's up?"

"Maryse sent me to get you." She tossed her hair over her shoulder, an adorable expression of frustration causing the skin between her eyebrows to crease. "We have visitors. They asked for you."

Jace frowned. "Visitors? For me? Well, that's new."

"No it isn't," she said with an amused smile. "Jace, half the time when people visit the Institute, it is about you. If not shadowhunter business, then it's downworlders trying to demand revenge from you for calling them a bloodsucker, or something of the like. And if it isn't about that, then-"

"Okay, yes, I see your point." He shrugged his shoulders. "It seems to me as if you're a little jealous that everybody's precious attention is directed at me. It's not as if anyone ever comes to see you."

She placed her hands on her hips with an impatient sigh, her eyebrow arching high in her forehead. "My mom and Luke come to the Institute to get me almost every night."

"Yeah," he muttered, "but it's not like it's anybody important..."

Again, Clary gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "Sometimes I don't understand my motives for being with you."

Jace softly took her hand and pressed a dainty kiss to her freckled cheek. "Maybe," he breathed in her ear; she shivered as his voice brushed her skin, "it's because you couldn't handle not being able to touch this body."

She pushed him away, trying to appear severely unamused but failing miserably.

"Or," he added, with an upwards quirk of his lips, "you could have assessed your only two options in a mate: me, or Simon. In that case, I can definitely understand your motives."