1
No More Secrets
"No," Jace said plainly as he went over to grab the knife stuck in the wooden target on the wall of the Institute's training room. His face was calm, but his words held thinly-veiled contempt.
"Jace—" Clary began.
"No. This is not up for discussion." Jace thrust the knife toward Clary hilt-first. "Now try it again."
Clary sighed, but took the knife up anyway, squaring her shoulders and preparing to throw it again. Quickly, she snuck a glance over at Jace, who had leaned himself up against a wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her.
He always seemed to be watching her. Ever since Jace had healed from the battle in the Burren, he had watched her, never letting her out of his sight. She wouldn't have cared, particularly, had he not taken this "guardian" position of his beyond the point of insanity. Instead of staying with her mother and Luke at Luke's row house near the East River, Jace had insisted to Jocelyn that Clary move into her own room at the Institute, a protected place where he didn't have to be that far away from her at any given moment. Jace and Jocelyn had argued fiercely over the issue, both asserting their ability to take care of Clary—a fact that annoyed Clary immensely. As if she didn't know how to protect herself. Ultimately, after a conversation with Maryse and Robert Lightwood, Jocelyn had finally conceded, but only on the condition that Maryse, Robert and Jace would swear on the Angel that nothing would happen to Clary there.
Jace hadn't wasted any time in continuing Clary's Shadowhunter training. Though Clary was happy that she was getting to spend more time with Jace, she was very irked that this time was usually spent with him trying to teach her how to decapitate something or how to land on her feet when she fell from four stories up. She was even more irked on days like this, when it was beautiful outside, and she wanted to go for a walk alone or wanted to go to the park to draw the gorgeous new-fallen snow on the ground around the frozen duck pond. Jace, however, had made it very clear that such activities were not to be tolerated under his military-like watchful eye.
"You're joking, right?" he'd asked. "There's no way I'm letting you go off by yourself without protection." When Clary had insisted, Jace, instead of being a grown up and talking about it, had decided that they should spend the day holed up in the training room in heavy gear, practicing all kinds of battle tactics. That had been three hours ago. Now, Clary was growing agitated; she had hit the center of the target each of the past six times she'd thrown the knife, and yet Jace was always finding at least one more thing she could improve on. This time, that one thing happened to be her focus.
"You know," Jace grumbled, "if you'd stop talking about these ridiculous fantasies of yours and actually focused on the sharp, deadly knife you were throwing, we could be done with all of this in no time."
"That's it," Clary hissed, and she turned to Jace, throwing the knife without looking. The dagger flew through the air, landing dead center in the painted bull's eye. "Jace, why? Why are you so opposed to me leaving the Institute for even just a second?"
"You are entirely welcome to leave the Institute any time you'd like." He gracefully straightened up, waving a hand toward her. "Let's take a break from the knife for a while. How about something that actually requires your entire focus? Get in your fighting stance."
Clary, though crossly, did as she was told.
"Now, come at me. We aren't ending this lesson unless and until you can take me down in hand to hand combat." Jace brought his fisted hands up to block his face and bounced on the balls of his feet, awaiting the first attack.
