There is something equal parts exhilarating and terrifying about living your life balanced on the sharpened point of a knife, worried that anything could throw off the balance and send you teetering into the empty blackness that threatens to swallow you and the people you love whole.
Sometimes Clary will lay in bed at night, red hair still damp from her shower and splayed across the white of her pillowcase like fire, like a river, like sunlight, and stare out the window at the pale moon nearly drowned out by city lights, and she will worry. The terror and fear will curl low in her gut, not yet trained out of her by learning to swing swords and move fluidly, like a lioness, like the lion Jace was when he fought, shining burning aching gold and the flash of heavenly retribution in his sword.
She never says anything to anybody, not to Simon or Isabelle or Alec or Jace. She knows what the latter three would do, would say. They would make eye contact over her head, that moment of pity for the mundane girl who found out too late, before they would reassure her by reminding her that this was what they were made for. And Clary knew that, she understood, and when they prowled the streets by the artificial light of the streetlamps she felt nothing but rushing adrenaline, the solid feel of her sword in her hand and the burn of runes in her veins. When she is in the moment, gear heavy on her back and runes burning her blood, a heavenly ache, she is exactly what she is meant to be. She does not fear her death, does not shy away from fangs and claws and ichor as it burns her skin, tears the breath from her lungs. Her muscles coil and spring and she moves with a fluidity she would have once called impossible.
No, the worry only comes when she is done, once she has nursed her wounds and washed her pale, freckled skin clean of blood and sweat. When it comes, slithering out of the darkness to wrap spindly fingers around her throat, she does the only thing she knows how to do.
Simon, the only one there who understood her horror, who grew up outside of this life of blood and death and killing. Simon, who was offered the choice that was ripped from Claryās hands when her mother was taken from her. Simon, who made the same choice Clary herself would have made. Simon, who was going to Ascend.
Clary wonders if Jace knew what she and Simon talked about during those late nights, long into the morning. They lay like the did when they were kids, heads together on the cold floor of the recreation room, his glasses glinting in the low light coming in from the window. Clary admits, hidden among those shadows, all of the things she can never tell Jace. How sheās scared to lose her friends. How sheās afraid of losing herself to the blade, to the violence and the intoxicating burn of runes. Sheās afraid of losing Simon, too, to the Mortal Cup that had sparked wars and violence and destruction.Ā
In return, Simon tells her his own fears. How once he is one of them, he still wonāt feel like he belongs. How Isabelle might grow bored of him once she sees how bad he is. How one day Jace will come home from hunting without her. How he wonāt be a good parabatai to her.Ā
Some nights they donāt go to bed until the sun is rising, casting shadows across their forms and amplifying the shadows beneath their eyes, set like bruises in their faces. Only then, when the sun hurts their eyes, do they drag themselves to a spare bedroom and crash, curled together under the covers like children hiding from the shadows.
Clary never explains herself to Jace, and Simon never says a word to Isabelle. Some things are meant to stay between friends, after all.
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