City of Shattered Glass

Part 3: Valentine

Clary woke in darkness, the only light filtering in through a crack at the bottom of a door on the other side of whatever room she was in. Everything came rushing back to her in torrents. Sebastian, the arrow, Jace. Her leg was stiff and throbbing. She glanced down at it, crying out when she tried to move. Clary's own jeans and T-shirt were gone, instead they were replaced with a thin black shift held up by two thin straps, falling to her mid-thigh. She moved to rub at her face with her hands but found them stuck fast to the wall above her head. She assumed she was in some kind of cell or dungeon because it smelled like human waste and mold. She could hear rats skittering across the floor in the corners as fear struck her in the stomach so hard that she gasped. She was alone and not only that, but she had no idea where she was. Despair mixed in with her fear, Jace, oh Jace. Not her brother, Jace wasn't her brother, and she knew exactly what he'd be feeling now that Clary wasn't there. He'd be blaming himself when it was really her fault, and then he'd be heartbroken. They both knew what they'd been feeling was wrong, but it didn't stop the fact that they had felt it. Only hours before, well as far as she knew it had been hours, they had been kissing in the field next to the Wayland manor, while knowing they were brother and sister. Yet, it had all been a lie.

Clary's rear was aching from sitting on the cold stone floor for who-knows-how-long, but the ache in her chest was much worse. His name repeated over and over in her head, even as she tried to push it away. She had to get out of there, and the only way she could do that was if she focused. She tugged roughly on the chain above her head, but she only succeeded in making the metal around her wrists cut into her skin, painfully chaffing. She tugged harder anyway. Clary finally resorted to trying to struggle to her feet but instead she hissed in pain as her leg refused to hold her weight and collapsed beneath her. She couldn't give up, not before she had the opportunity to talk to Jace again, at least once.

Just as she was about to try and stand again, the door opened. She knew it was Sebastian—Jonathan—before he opened the door fully. He was still in his black shadowhunter gear but the black from his hair was now a bleached-out blonde. So, his hair had been dyed. He eyed her smugly, but she just glared back at him, trying not to show how afraid she was. She didn't know what he wanted with her. She assumed he was working with Valentine, he was his father after all, but Valentine didn't care about her. If it was Jace it would've been a different story, but Clary? She had a feeling she didn't want to know what her brother and father had in store for her.

"I have to admit, you woke up quite a bit sooner than I would have expected." Jonathan said. Somehow, he carried himself differently than when he was posing as Sebastian, he seemed prouder than he had been before. Clary hadn't really looked at his eyes before but now, she realized they were black, solid black with no pinch of color to show he was even remotely human. Then again, she realized that everything she and Jace had thought was wrong with Jace, the demon blood and experiments, that was actually this boy in front of her. He had demon blood in him, "you lost quite a bit of blood."

"I wonder why," Clary said, her voice heavily sarcastic.

He walked closer to her, "You know, it wasn't technically my fault. If the Lightwood boy hadn't loosed that arrow, I wouldn't have had to resort to such—harmful—measures."

"Well that's reassuring," she struggled to keep her voice even, willing her fear not to best her.

Jonathan stalked closer, his face wide with a grin, "It wasn't supposed to be," he crouched down in front of her and Clary pushed up against the wall, putting as much space between them as was possible, "I can smell your fear, sister. Don't try and hide it."

"I'm not afraid of you Jonathan," this time her voice betrayed her and came out unevenly.

He raised his hand and rested it on her throat, as if he was preparing himself to snap it, "Oh, but you are. You're scared because you know what I want from you Clarissa Fairchild." His thumb dug into the side of her neck and Clary turned her head, trying to free herself of his touch.