My Beautiful One

5. When you fall

"Izzy, what did I tell you about men and pink food!" Jace groaned, slapping a palm to his face in exasperation. Isabelle grinned and flicked a grape at him. It bounced off his forehead, and Jace withdrew his hand to show a very disgruntled face.

"I am currently a rabbit of negative euphoria." He said, slightly melodramatically, as was Jace. He then pushed away the oh-so-pink smoothy Isabelle had given to him and shot it a look of high disdain.

"'A rabbit of negative euphoria'?" I asked, looking up from my toast to raise a quizzical eyebrow at him.

"Not a happy bunny." He responded, grinning at me from under a wild golden halo of messy morning hair. It was sort of endearing, and since confiding in each other during that midnight training session so many nights before, everything that had originally annoyed me about Jace had become either endearing or at least tolerable.

I had warmed up a little to everyone else as well. Clary was nice, and since Jace couldn't train with her because of his heavenly fire, I had been appointed as her trainer. Isabelle and I had bonded a little over fighting and weapons, but I still found her enthusiasm about all things fashionable tedious, considering her job as a Shadowhunter. The only people in the Institute I had met who I had yet to trust to some degree were Maryse (who I frequently caught staring at me like she knew some blasphemous secret about me), and Alec, who just flat out hated me and seemingly everyone else in the Institute.

"When will Clary get here?" Jace asked me, trying to sound casual but obviously eager for the arrival of his little redhead.

"I told her to come in for training at ten am." I replied, and took one last bite of my toast before getting up. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go set up..."

*   *   *

"You're flicking your wrist too much." I commented, walking over to the target and wrenching the knife out of it. I held it out to Clary with arched eyebrows. "Chuck that knife at a Drevak demon and it'll laugh at you."

She took it back without comment and threw again, this time following my suggestion. "Better." I approved, crossing my arms.

"Can we move onto something else?" Clary asked, sounding slightly irritated. "I hit the inner ring. Isn't that enough?"

I gave a mirthless laugh and made my way to the knife rack to retrieve another knife."We can move onto something else when you can do..." I turned my back on the target, and then, quick as a snake strike, spun around and threw the knife. It flew so swiftly in the air that the next time we saw it was when it was stuck firmly in the hilt of the knife Clary had thrown. "This." I turned on Clary and smirked as I saw her impressed expression. "Cool, right?"

"Awesome." She tied her red hair up into a ponytail and looked at me with determination in her eyes. "I want to learn to do that."

"You need to learn how to throw." I agreed. "You're small; close combat isn't your thing, and creating runes - and yes, Clary I do know about that, all of the Downworld does- is great, but won't exactly help you if you're being charged by one of the Infernal Shadowhunters, and yes, I do know about them too."

"You seem very informed." She remarked, frowning. "I thought you were trying to get out of the Shadow World's affairs since... well, you know."

"That's true, but you're not exactly small news." I replied. Then I smiled slightly. "But don't worry about my past; the only thing I regret about it was not getting to kill Valentine myself."

"You don't mind being in the Institute with so many Shadowhunters? I know they can be snobs sometimes, but every one of the Lightwoods has something about them the Clave finds fishy."

"I thought as much. What's going on with Alec? I don't mean to intrude or anything, but I have noticed it's not just me has something against. It's like he's pissed off with the whole world and takes it out on people in the form of being just about the grouchiest guy I have ever met."

Clary bit her lip and hugged her arms around herself. I noticed from previous experience that this was a characteristic of Clary's when she was uncomfortable or upset, and it made me even more intrigued to find out the answer. "His relationship just ended, and he's really upset about it. He won't tell us what happened, but Isabelle thinks it was something to do with the fact that Magnus got stabbed..."

"Stabbed? Well, that's one way to get dumped." I said.

Clary glared at me. "I stabbed Jace a few weeks ago and he forgave me." She said. "If someone loves you that much, they will forgive you. I'm pretty sure Magnus and Alec loved each other like that, so it must have been something worse." Clary walked over to a beam a few metres away, and sat down on it. She then looked at me, a mischievous smile on her face. "What about you, Amari? Have you ever loved?"

I made a face. "No. I've had a few mundane boyfriends to kill time, and I dated a faerie once, but he was the only guy from the Shadow World I ever went out with. His name was Meliorn, and he was a total snob who dumped me when he found out I was part Shadowhunter before proceeding to start dating a Nephilim girl."

"Ouch." Clary laughed. "Did that Shadowhunter happen to be named Isabelle Lightwood?"

"Yes actually, I think-" The realisation hit me, and my eyes flew wide. "No way..."

"Yes way." Clary said, grinning. "But don't worry; she stomped all over his heart in high-heeled boots. That should be enough revenge for him being such a jerk to you, so you needn't add either of them onto your hit-list, Amari."

I grinned back, the smile exaggerated to look comically predatory. "What makes you think I have a hit list?"

Clary laughed so hard at my weird expression that she fell backwards off the beam, and would have landed on the floor if not for the white and gold blur that darted into the room and caught her.

"You caught me." Clary breathed, looking up at Jace adoringly.

"Of course." He said, looking down at her with eyes like liquid gold. "I will always catch you when you fall."

By the time he was leaning down to kiss her and literally heated (because of Jace's heavenly fire) was probably about to take place, I had endured enough third-wheel awkwardness, so I took a throwing star off the wall and chucked it at Jace. Clary saw it coming first and gave a squeak of fear, but Jace, as I had faith he would, blocked the weapon deftly with a flick of his dagger.

All that with a girl in his arms. Classic Jace. I thought to myself, smiling fondly at the pair of teen sweetheart Shadowhunters. If he didn't have Clary...

The weird thought broke me out of my pondering with a start.

Jace did have Clary. Jace loved Clary. Jace would set himself on fire and jump off the Chrysler building if there were no Clary.

And I don't have the time or will for a relationship, especially with a Shadowhunter. I told myself forcefully. They live, they burn bright for a few decades tops, and then they die, leaving you looking at your forever-young faerie body and being anguished until you find another Shadowhunter. And then the cycle repeats...

"Why are you here, Jace?" I blurted out to keep my mind from wandering to stupid places.

"Maryse told me to come get you. She says she has something important to show us, and this is also our first tactics meeting." He replied. I nodded, and we then walked together up to the conference room, where around a table were sat the Lightwood family, looking very grave indeed.

Then my eyes took in the other thing in the room, and my jaw dropped, for in the middle of the table was a pair of severed angel wings.