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CHAPTER EIGHT:

❝ Venus Descending ❞

Esme knocked on the door of one of the rooms in the institute then slowly swung it open. "I was told I could find you here," she said, taking in Clary and Isabelle. Where Clary was still in her casual clothes, standing in front of a full-length mirror, Isabelle seemed to shimmer in the lamplight - she was wearing a long silvery skirt and a sequined top, and her nails were painted like glittering coins. Strands of silver beads were caught in her dark hair. She looked like a moon goddess.

Clary gave her a look that said: Save me, but Esme chose to ignore it. They watched Isabelle in as she rifled through her closet. Her room looked as if a disco ball had exploded inside it. The walls were black and shimmered with swirls of sponged-on golden paint.

Clothes were strewn everywhere: on the rumpled black bed, hung over the backs of the wooden chairs, spilling out of the closet, and the tall wardrobe propped against one wall. Her vanity table, its mirror rimmed with spangled pink fur, was covered in glitter, sequins, and pots of blush and powder. 

"Nice room," Clary said, thinking longingly of her orange walls at home. Esme was reminded of her purple ones.

"Thanks. I painted it myself." Isabelle emerged from the closet, holding something black and slinky. She tossed it at Clary. Clary held the cloth up, letting it unfold. "It looks awfully small."

"It's stretchy," said Isabelle. "Now go put it on."

Hastily, Clary retreated to the small bathroom, and Isabelle turned her eyes on Esme. "No," she protested, but the Lightwood girl was already pulling her towards the closet. After rejecting lace and sheer and leather, Isabelle pulled something silk that looked a lot like something you'd wear at night when going to sleep. She shoved the glittering blacktop in Esme's hands just as Clary walked out.

"You're so lucky to have such a flat chest," Isabelle said. "I could never wear that without a bra."

Clary scowled. "It's too short."

Esme strode towards the small bathroom, which was painted bright blue. She tugged the grey sweater over her head and then slid the silk top on - it was tight, with thin spaghetti straps and Esme felt cold. As she shuffled back in, she found Clary pulling on heels. She asked Isabelle, "Do you a jacket?" She wanted a jacket for three reasons: one, it was really breezy outside. Two, to feel less naked. And three, to hide the thin white scars that rang along the length of her, a few bumps where the stitched wound hadn't healed right. Clary caught Esme's skin in her peripheral vision and her heart was stabbed with a terrible sadness.

The Lightwood threw herself back in her closet and emerged with a silver-studded jacket that almost blinded Esme at first glance. Without arguing, she shrugged it on and pulled her hair out from under. A smile tugged and she gave Isabelle a thankful look.

"Your hair," Isabelle said to Clary who had just finished pulling up her boots. "It needs fixing. Desperately. Sit." She pointed imperiously toward the vanity table. Clary sat, and squinched her eyes shut as Isabelle yanked her hair out of its braids - none too kindly - brushed it out and shoved what felt like dozens of bobby pins into it.

Esme hovered closer and drew the earning kept on the vanity. A line of stars joined by a small chain. She wondered if she looked at it right, that she could see a shape, then stuck them on. When she glanced at the mirror, another girl was looking at her. Her eyes were blue like the Atlantic and she was glimmering like a star. Esme blinked and looked away.

"Don't get up yet," Isabelle said to Clary whose hair, Esme noted, she had pulled up into an elegant swirl on the top of her head, held in place with sparkling pins. "We're not done." She seized an eyeliner pen. "Open your eyes."

Clary widened her eyes, which was good for keeping herself from crying. "Isabelle, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Isabelle, wielding the eyeliner expertly. "Is Alec gay?"

Esme's eyebrows raised. Isabelle's wrist jerked. The eyeliner skidded, inking a long line of black from the corner of Clary's eye to her hairline. "Oh, hell," Isabelle said, putting the pen down.

"It's all right," Clary began, putting her hand up to her eye.

"No, it isn't." Isabelle sounded near tears as she scrabbled around among the piles of junk on top of the vanity. Eventually, she came up with a cotton ball, which she handed to Clary. "Here. Use this." She sat down on the edge of the bed, ankle bracelets jingling, and looked from Clary to Esme, then back. "How did you guess?" she said finally. "You absolutely can't tell anyone," said Isabelle.

"Not even Jace?"

"Especially not Jace!"

"All right." Clary heard the stiffness in her own voice. "I guess I didn't realize it was such a big deal."

"It would be to my parents," said Isabelle quietly. "They would disown him and throw him out of the Clave - "

"What, you can't be gay and a Shadowhunter?" Esme asked, leaning against the wall, hand behind her.

"There's no official rule about it. But people don't like it. I mean, less with people our age - I think," she added, uncertainly, and Esme remembered how few other people her age Isabelle had ever really met. "But the older generation, no. If it happens, you don't talk about it."

"Oh," said Clary, wishing she'd never mentioned it.

"I love my brother," said Isabelle. "I'd do anything for him. But there's nothing I can do."

"At least he has you," said Clary awkwardly, and she thought for a moment of Jace, who thought of love as something that broke you into pieces. "Do you really think that Jace would . . . mind?"

"I don't know," said Isabelle, in a tone that indicated she'd had enough of the topic. "But it's not my choice to make."

"I guess not," Clary said. She leaned into the mirror, using the cotton Isabelle had given her to dab away the excess eye makeup. When she sat back, she nearly dropped the cotton ball in surprise. Her cheekbones looked sharp and angular, her eyes deep-set, mysterious, and luminous green. "I look like my mom," she said in surprise.

Isabelle raised her eyebrows. "What? Too middle-aged? Maybe some more glitter - "

"No more glitter," Clary said hastily. "No, it's good. I like it."

"Great." Isabelle bounced up off the bed, her anklets chiming, and still reached for the glitter. Before Esme could stop her, she was sprinkling some like stardust on her hair. Esme gasped, that would be a headache to wash out. Yet she still stole a last glance in the mirror as Isabelle said, "Let's go."

"I need to stop by my room and grab something," Clary said, standing up. "Also do I need any weapons? Do you?"

"I've got plenty." Isabelle smiled, kicking her feet up so that her anklets jingled like Christmas bells. "These, for instance. The left one is gold, which is poisonous to demons, and the right one is blessed iron, in case I run across any unfriendly vampires or even faeries - faeries hate iron. They both have strength runes carved into them, so I can pack a hell of a kick."

"Demon hunting and fashion," Esme said. "I never would have thought they went together."

Isabelle laughed out loud. "You'd be surprised."

The boys were waiting for them in the entryway. They were wearing black, even Simon, in a slightly too - big pair of black pants, and his own shirt turned inside-out to hide the band logo. He was standing uncomfortably to the side while Jace and Alec slouched together against the wall, looking bored. Nico was standing far off, still not fully on board with this party/mission. Simon glanced up as Isabelle strode into the entryway, her gold whip coiled around her wrist, her metal ankle chains chiming like bells. Clary expected him to look stunned - Isabelle did look amazing - but his eyes slid past her to Clary, where they rested with a look of astonishment.

"What is that?" he demanded, straightening up. "That you're wearing, I mean."

Clary looked down at herself. She'd thrown a light jacket on to make her feel less naked and grabbed her backpack from her room. It was slung over her shoulder, bumping familiarly between her shoulder blades. But Simon wasn't looking at her backpack; he was looking at her legs as if he'd never seen them before. "It's a dress, Simon," Clary said dryly. "I know I don't wear them that much, but really."

"It's so short," he said in confusion. Even half in demon hunter clothes, Clary thought, he looked like the sort of boy who'd come over to your house to pick you up for a date and be polite to your parents and nice to your pets. Jace, on the other hand, looked like the sort of boy who'd come over to your house and burn it down for kicks. 

"I like the dress," Jace said, unhitching himself from the wall. His eyes ran up and down her lazily, like the stroking paws of a cat. "It needs a little something extra, though."

"So now you're a fashion expert?" Her voice came out unevenly - he was standing very close to her. He took something out of his jacket and handed it to her. It was a long thin dagger in a leather sheath. The hilt of the dagger was set with a single red stone carved in the shape of a rose. 

She shook her head. "I wouldn't even know how to use that - " He pressed it into her hand, curling her fingers around it. "You'd learn." He dropped his voice. "It's in your blood."

She drew her hand back slowly. "All right."

"I could give you a thigh sheath to put that in," Isabelle offered. "I've got tons."

"CERTAINLY NOT," said Simon.

Clary shot him an irritated look. "Thanks, but I'm not really a thigh sheath kind of girl." She slid the dagger into the outside pocket of her backpack. She looked up from closing it to find Jace watching her through hooded eyes. "And one last thing," he said. He reached over and pulled the sparkling pins out of her hair so that it fell in warm and heavy curls down her neck. "Much better," he said, and she thought this time that maybe his voice was slightly uneven too.

Clearing his throat, Nico indicated from up ahead that they should leave now if they didn't want to be late. Not wanting to be sandwiched between Jace, Clary, and Simon's awkward affair, Esme kept her pace faster, walking ahead of the rest of them. Even ahead of Nico, who had looked up from his shoes as she had walked past. As she had, the glitter in her hair and her jacket had blinded him for a moment, and now he stared after her. The observation that she was the only one of the girls not opting for a dress stayed with him only a moment before being eclipsed by the thought of the sheath of her knife peeking from under her jacket. She looked like a painting, he thought suddenly, then crushed the thought just as fast. But she did. A painting he'd seen before, he was sure of it. He looked at her the same way he'd looked at her back in her purple stuffy room - conflicted and confused. Lost and dazed. Impressed and awed. He looked at her the same way he looked at the statue of Raziel in Angel Square in Idris.