Valentine's Arrow

1: Throne Without Faith

CHAPTER ONE

REBECCA

It had been approximately twenty-four hours since Rebecca had woken up to find herself imprisoned in this bedroom. The room itself was nice enough - it had pale blue walls and gauzy white curtains that fluttered in the slight breeze. But that hadn't stopped her from relentlessly banging on the door, screaming for Jace, for Sebastian, for anyone, to let her out.

And she was furious with herself. Furious with herself for acting like a scared little girl, furious with herself for even giving Sebastian the opportunity to get to her. She clenched her fists, feeling her nails dig into her palms-

Bang!

She leaped to her feet instantly. The door was standing wide open - finally - and Sebastian was leaning casually against the door frame. "Oh, you're up," he said lazily. "How nice." He gave her a charming smile; she noticed that his teeth were very white.

"What do you want?"

"I've come to offer you," - he swept an elaborate bow - "my hospitality."

"Wouldn't it be a lot less trouble just to kill me?"

Sebastian tilted his head as if pondering the question. "Yes, it would. But Jace really doesn't want me to. It's quite annoying." He examined his nails. "He also won't let me starve you to death, so..." He spread his arms. "Here I am."

Rebecca scoffed. "Yeah, right. Well, you can save your breath, Sebastian. The day I accept your 'hospitality', as you so graciously put it, is the day Hell freezes over."

"Which might be sooner than you think." Sebastian smiled. Then, before she could react, he crossed the room in two strides and grabbed her arm, pulling her up until she was face to face with him.

"Listen to me," he spat. His voice was low and steady, but his eyes burned with an intense fury. "My hospitality is not something you turn down, alright? If you know what's good for you, you'll make yourself presentable and join us downstairs."

He let go of her arm and gave her one last charming smile before striding out of the room. Rebecca's heart felt as if it had shrunk down to the size of a walnut. Slowly, almost absent-mindedly, she smoothed down her clothes and followed Sebastian out of the room.

The door from her room-slash-prison led into a long passage, with still more doors leading off into rooms, all of them closed. A sleek glass spiral staircase led downstairs to a large room, half of which was devoted to a long glass table. Black pendant-cut glass lights hung from the ceiling, sending dancing shadows against the walls. Everything was very modern, from the black leather chairs to the large fireplace, framed in washed chrome. There was a fire blazing in it.

The other half of the room was taken up with a large television screen, a glossy black coffee table on which were scattered games and controllers, and low leather couches. Sitting at the glass table were two people - Jace and Clary.

"Clary?" Rebecca gaped in astonishment.

"Jesus, Rebecca... your face." Clary got up and came over to Rebecca, letting her fingers trace the bruise on her cheek. A twinge of pain shot through Rebecca's face and she flinched. She didn't even remember getting the bruise.

Clary turned to Sebastian. "I need a stele."

"Oh, like I'm going to give you one." Sebastian jerked his head at Jace. "Jace, you better give your sister an iratze before she keels over."

Jace obediently came forward, gesturing for his sister to hold out her arm, which she did.

"How did you get here?" Rebecca said to Clary as Jace traced out an iratze on her forearm.

"Jace brought me." Clary was worrying at her lip; it was something she did a lot when she was anxious. The iratze was already working its magic - Rebecca could feel her swollen cheek returning to its normal size, the cut on her lip healing.

"Why?" she demanded, turning to Jace. "Are you just going to keep kidnapping everyone to try and win them over with 'hospitality'?"

Jace remained uncharacteristically silent, absorbed in putting his stele away. Rebecca glanced at Clary, who just shrugged hopelessly. Having finished putting away his stele, Jace turned to his sister again, now being uncharacteristically polite. "You want lunch?"

A heavy feeling settled in Rebecca's heart as she exchanged looks with Clary. "Sure, why not?"

Ten minutes later, Rebecca found herself installed at the big glass and steel table. From the food spread out on the table - bread, Italian cheeses, salami and prosciutto, grapes and fig jam, and bottles of wine - they were obviously somewhere in Italy. And from looking at the view - a canal draped around a low bridge - she guessed they were in Venice.

She sneaked another glance at Sebastian as he offered her a roll. She'd always thought he was extremely good-looking since she had met him for the first time in Idris. And he'd thought she was beautiful - he had said so, at least. The memory was too painful to consider. Rebecca pushed it aside, forcing a smile as Sebastian offered her a roll.

"Thanks," Rebecca said grudgingly. There. She had thanked Sebastian. She waited for a bolt of lightning to shoot out of the sky and turn her into a pile of ashes, but unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened.

The roll was delicious. Or maybe it just seemed that way because she was starving. Either way, she was through with it before she remembered to breathe.

"Wine?" Sebastian offered.

Rebecca declined, but Clary accepted. As Clary took a cautious sip, Rebecca cleared her throat, hoping to make conversation. Maybe she could find out something that could be of help; she had no idea how or when she would relay any information to Alec or Isabelle, but she pushed it aside - she would burn that bridge when she came to it. "So... this apartment, is it yours?"

"It was my father's," Sebastian replied, sipping his wine. "Valentine's. It moves in and out of worlds - ours and others. He used it as a retreat as well as a mode of travel. He brought me here a few times, showed me how to get in and out and how to make it travel."

"There's no front door."

"There is if you know how to find it," Sebastian said. "Dad was very clever about this place." There was so much familiarity in that single word - Dad - it was as if Valentine and Sebastian had shared a real father-son relationship.

Rebecca looked at Jace, who shook his head. "He never showed it to me. I wouldn't have guessed it existed."

"It's very... bachelor pad," Clary said. "I wouldn't have thought of Valentine as..."

"Owning a flat-screen TV?" Jace grinned at her. "Not that it gets channels, but you can watch DVDs on it. Back at the manor, we had an old icebox powered by witchlight. Here, he's got a Sub-Zero fridge!"

"That was for Jocelyn," said Sebastian.

Clary looked up sharply. "What?"

"All the modern stuff. The appliances. The clothes. They were for our mother. In case she decided to come back."

At that, Clary turned a bit green. Feeling sorry for her, Rebecca tried to steer the conversation somewhere else. "So what do you do? Just travel around inside this apartment and..."

"See the world?" Jace said lightly. "There are worse things."

"Yeah, but you can't do this forever."

"Why not?" Sebastian's dark eyes glittered as they fixed on Rebecca's own.

"Because the Clave is going to find you eventually," she said. "You can't hide forever, Sebastian."

Sebastian set down his wine glass. "I'm aware of that," he said coolly. "Which is why I have a new plan. One that involves you to a very great extent."

"What?" Rebecca was astonished. "Why me?"

"All in good time, sweetheart." He drained his wine glass, his eyes glinting mischievously, which only increased the impending sense of doom that Rebecca felt.