My Beautiful One

34. The glass city

"Alicante." Jace said, his face a picture of pure elation as he looked out over the city. I think it was the first time since we'd gotten Clary back that he'd taken his eyes off her, but she seemed fine with that because she was also looking pleased.

"Have you been here before?" Alec asked me. The Lightwood family, plus Simon, Jocelyn, Luke, Clary, and me had come through Clary's portal and were now standing on a hill just outside Alicante that looked over the city. It didn't really look like a city, but maybe I was just comparing it to Manhattan. The demon towers, however, made the place majestic. The great white obelisks towered over Alicante's canals, houses, monuments and even the Gothic spires of the Great Hall of the Angel, seeming to reach for the heavens. The early morning sunlight refracted off them, casting rainbows over the city centre and shimmering off the green glacial water in the canals.

I shook my head, tearing my gaze away from the beauty of the glass city and looking at Alec as I thought of an answer to his question. "No." I said eventually. "If I had, I would remember it. I've lived in Idris, but I never got to come here. My mother said that the Shadowhunters wouldn't like it, that they wouldn't like me."

He grinned at me, and a light wind blew strands of inky black hair across his forehead. He looked wild and happy and free: three words I would never thought I would ever associate with Alec. "They like you now; if you hadn't helped us, Beijing would be a smouldering heap of ashes as of yesterday. We're all indebted to you."

I smiled back. "There is no debt, but thanks, Alec." 

We then began making our way towards the city, talking as we walked, and keeping to the lighter topics. Everybody was happy, and it was no secret that this was because of the trial. The only reason nobody brought it up was because of me: they knew that I wouldn't complain, but they were accepting of my feelings for Jonathan Morgenstern (probably because they thought it was just Stockholm syndrome) and knew that it sometimes hurt me when they talked about him.

I could manage Sebastian being brought up when everybody called him Jonathan Morgenstern and referred to him in a neutral sort of way, but whenever anybody called him by the name of the boy who I'd fallen in love with, or somebody would start talking about how he would almost certainly be sentenced to death, it was hard to cope.

But I did, of course. I had to because I'd thrown my lot in with the Shadowhunters and now there was no going back.

It was only a matter of time before somebody brought him up, and Isabelle commented on how damaged the city was from Valentine and Jonathan's assault and how with any luck, from now on there wouldn't be anymore destruction by the Morgenstern family: a subtle remark that showed how she, like almost every Shadowhunter I'd heard talking about it, thought that Sebastian's sentence was going to be death.

"Unless you decide to go rogue, of course." Simon said, his tone joking as he nodded in Clary's direction.

Clary laughed. "That won't be happening any time soon."

Before long, we were into the city and following a canal towards the Penhallow house, which was close to Angel Square in the city centre. The family had let us all stay there because of the Lightwoods' friendship with them, and apparently also because my cousin Helen, who was Aline Penhallow's girlfriend, had asked to see me.

Eventually we came to a halt at the door of a tall town house, and Jace knocked using the dragon-headed knocker. A slim Shadowhunter girl with glossy black hair opened the door and welcomed us all inside, introducing herself to me as Aline as I shook her hand.

Although Idris is multicultural, there was a somewhat Asian feel to the Penhallows' home, and as we walked through the house, I admired the large variety of oriental art that was around every corner. Everybody dropped their things off in the various spare rooms, and it turned out that I was sharing with Isabelle. On each bed was a trial uniform: a deep red tunic with golden runes embroidered around the hem, and a sturdy leather belt that looked like a weapons belt, just more fancy and important-looking.