CITY OF BONES Read-Along: Chapters 6 & 7

In honor of the movie coming out in theaters on August 21st, I have decided to join the City of Bones Read-Along. If you haven't read this book, now is the perfect opportunity! Especially if you're planning to see the movie. If you would like to join, click here for more info. NOTE: If you haven't read the book, please beware of spoilers in the Read-Along posts. There will be quotes and chapter summaries, as well as my own thoughts on certain events that occur within the story and I don't plan on holding back.

This is another two chapter post! Hope you're not too disappointed ;)

Chapter 6: Forsaken

Summary:

Clary finds Jace and Alec in the weapons room and announces that Hodge said she could go home but only if Jace accompanies here. Alec asks Jace if he wants him to come too and Jace replies "no". On the way out Clary asks:

"How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood? Was there some way you could tell?"
The elevator arrived with a final groan. Jace unlatched the gate and slid it open. The inside reminded Clary of a birdcage, all black metal and decorative bits of gilt. "I guessed," he said, latching the door behind them. "It seemed like the most likely explanation."
"You guess? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."
He pressed a button in the wall, and the elevator lurched into action with a vibrating groan that she felt all through the bones in her feet. "I was ninety percent sure."
"I see," Clary said.
There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?"
"The other ten percent," she said, and they rode the rest of the way down to the street in silence.

On the train ride to Brooklyn, Clary notices two girls staring at Jace, reminding her of just how cute he is. Once they reach Clary's apartment building Jace takes out his seraph blades ready for battle. Before walking in Jace takes out the Sensor and explains to Clary what it is used for: picking up frequencies of demonic origins. He tells her that the activity it is showing isn't strong enough for their to be demons present in that moment and they walk in. After noticing scratches on the front door Jace tells her that he'll go in first. He finds wet blood on the banister. Once upstairs Clary lets Jace into her apartment first and soon realizes that the entire place is empty, everything gone. She walks to her room, noticing the door handle was cold. Too cold. And then the door blows outward, knocking her off her feet. An enormous man with dead-white and grimy skin looms over them. Jace grabs his seraph blade and struck at the man. He and Clary then race out of the apartment with Jace yelling at her to get downstairs. Jace fights the creature and the both topple down the stairs ending in silence. Clary races down the stairs to Jace. He gets his seraph blade and stabs the creature with it. But it doesn't disappear like Clary thought it would. Jace explains that this creature was not a demon. Jace then shows her what an iratze, or healing rune, does. Jace tells her that the creature was Forsaken and that had she not had Shadowhunter blood in her, that's what she could've been turned into by the placement of multiple, powerful runes upon her skin. Jace tells her to wait downstairs while he goes to look for more of them but another voice stops him: Madame Dorothea. After realizing that Madame Dorothea knows more about the Shadow World than she let on, Clary asks her what happened to her mother to which Madame Dorothea tells them that she'll tell what she knows and leads them into her apartment.

Quotes:

"Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn't make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie."

"Those girls on the other side of the car are staring at you."
Jace assumed an air of mellow gratification. "Of course they are," he said. "I am stunningly attractive."

"Still, I think we might as well try talking to her. What have we got to lose?
"Once you've spent a bit more time in our world," Jace said, "you won't ask me that again."

Thoughts:

This chapter has one of my favorite scenes in it, which is displayed above in the summary. I love that Clary just hauled off and hit Jace for placing a rune on her skin after only guessing that she had Shadowhunter blood in her. Clary's world is only continuing to get more and more confusing, and she's learning that nothing in her life is at all what she thought it was. She has a vision of her mother with marks on her back, but she knows that they aren't real. She goes to her apartment and discovers that it's been completely cleared out and that Forsaken have taken it over and that the woman downstairs who she thought was a crazy, psychic fraud is actually the real deal and knows all about the Clave and the Shadowhunters. It's a lot to take in and I think that everything Clary is going through only shows her strength by the fact that she hasn't gone completely crazy and I also believe that a lot of that strength comes from her love for her mother and the need to find her and make sure she's okay.

Chapter 7: The Five-Dimensional Door

Summary:

Clary looks around Madame Dorothea's apartment taking in all the things that were different from her own. Madame Dorothea makes some tea and they sit in the parlor, drinking their tea and eating cucumber sandwiches. After finishing their tea, Madame Dorothea reads their tea leaves, saying that Clary's is neither good nor bad, but confusing and with Jace's she sees violence and blood shed by him and others, he'll fall in love with the wrong person and he has an enemy. She then picks Clary's cup up again but still can't read it, asking if Clary has a block on her mind. Giving up, she grabs the tarot cards and asks Clary to select one. The one Clary draws is The Ace of Cups: the love card. Clary comments that her mother painted the card and Madame Dorothea says that Jocelyn painted the whole deck for her as a gift. They rarely spoke to each other about the Shadow World but Jocelyn asked Dorothea to keep an ear out for a certain name: Valentine. Jace puts the pieces of the puzzle together: the apartment building is a Sanctuary-a place for Downworlders on the run to hide. Jace jumps up and goes to a door demanding to know what it is, believing it to be a Portal. Dorothea explains that it is a five-dimensional door; Jace calls it an escape hatch. Clary realizes that her mother lived there so that she could leave through the door at a moments notice and that the reason she didn't leave the night she was taken is because Clary wasn't with her. Clary blames herself for her mother's disappearance and then strides over to the door wanting to see where her mother would have escaped to. Jace attempts to stop her from opening the door but it's too late. Clary falls forward through the door.

Quotes:

"You may be the only guy my age I've ever met who knows what bergamot is, much less that it's in Earl Grey tea."
"Yes, well," Jace said, with a supercilious look, "I'm not like other guys. Besides," he added, flipping a book off the shelf, "at the Institute we have to take classes in basic medicinal uses for plants. It's required."
"I figured all your classes were stuff like Slaughter 101 and Beheading for Beginners."
Jace flipped a page. "Very funny, Fray."

". . . Stay away from my blades. In fact, don't touch any of my weapons without my permission."
"Well, there goes my plan for selling them all on eBay," Clary muttered.
"Selling them on what?"
Clary smiled blandly at him. "A mythical place of great magical power."
Jace looked confused, then shrugged. "Most myths are true, at least in part."
"I'm starting to get that."

"If you were half as funny as you thought you were, my boy, you'd be twice as funny as you are."

Thoughts:

This chapter is a very important one. Clary finally gets answers about her mother, though not enough to truly satisfy her. Dorothea also reads the leaves of Jace's tea and foreshadows events that will happen later on in this series, but she can't read Clary's which helps to explain why Clary can't remember ever having the Sight before the night at Pandemonium. The tarot cards will also play a very important role in this book, but as of right now it's impossible to know that unless you've read it before. This chapter also has one of my favorite quotes in it in which Madame Dorothea puts Jace in his place. Something he could use a little more of with that snarky attitude of his haha

Do you have any thoughts to add/share about this chapter? Maybe your favorite quote?

Feel free to leave a comment!

Happy Reading!