Chapter 18 of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: Something is Finally Happening! Well, Sort Of.

Hey hey guys! It’s time to find out what kind of overdramatic makeup Fairy, Simon, and Jace are gonna have!

We last left them after Fairy kissed Jace on a rooftop, and then Simon caught them, and it was all very soap opera, oh... and I think there was something about a plot in there somewhere, but I can’t quite remember it.

This chapter switches and is told from Jace’s point of view... I’m sure the author has a great reason for this, and I hope it’s not so that we can get Fairy’s super Special Beauty described to us over and over:

She was clutching her sketchpad, her bright hair escaping out of its braids. He leaned against the door frame, ignoring the kick of adrenaline the sight of her produced. He wondered why, not for the first time. Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but Clary didn’t know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that was why.

Took two paragraphs. I must say, I’m actually impressed.

Also, Jace, I didn't know you were in One Direction.

Anyway, Fairy has lost it and ran to Jace for advice, and he’s making overly sexual quips, while she gets more and more frantic. Which, honestly, is actually hilarious (not in the way the author intended I think).

She took a deep breath and looked up at him. Her eyes were full of uncertainty. An unfamiliar urge rose inside him: the urge to put his arms around her and tell her it was all right.

Yes yes I fucking get it Jace has never in his life felt any emotion of the sort not even a bit of a tear shed when he didn't get what he wanted for dinner at age four can we move along with the plot please.

It’s so close and I’m still being forced to trudge through sentence upon sentence about how in love these two are.

“Jace,” she said, so softly that he had to lean forward to catch her words, “I think I know where my mother hid the Mortal Cup. It’s inside a painting.”

Wanna know how I know that passage was so we could hear Jace’s inner monologue about how gorgeous Fairy was and how much he wanted her but his man pain wouldn’t let him? It switches back to her point of view less than a page later.

Unbelievable.

So, Fairy can draw things and then use a rune, and then reach into the drawing and grab the object. This is actually really cool! I wish we’d actually developed more of her drawing talent and maybe dropped a few hints along the way, but I guess that’s probably too much to ask.

His glance sharpened, but he didn’t pursue it.

Did he use a pencil sharpener for that?

So it turns out the cup is hidden in the deck of Tarot cards her mother made for Madame Dorothea. Remember her? Professor Trelawney but shorter and plumper and all around more cartoonish for no reason?

It’s been a while, I know.

Jace wakes everyone up and is like, “GET OUTTA BED WE HAVE TO PLAN WAR” which is kinda adorable.

Alec was still in his pajamas, Isabelle in a pink peignoir set.

Peignoir is such an old person word. I literally had to google it, and yet earlier in the chapter Jace referred to his pyjamas as “jammies”.

It’s called tone. Pick one. I’m tired of bringing up this weird mix of posh ‘proper’ English and teenage slang so haphazardly thrown in it looks like someone used a bad version of google translate and urban dictionary.

No, Jocelyn clearly wanted only one person to be able to find the Cup, and that is Clary, and Clary alone.”

This is all a bit “Only someone who wanted to find the Philosopher’s Stone, but not use it, could obtain it from the mirror”, non?

Only Jace, Clary thought, could look cool in pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt, but he pulled it off, probably through sheer force of will.

This is really dumb, but I want to focus on how hilarious the idea of Jace focusing really hard on looking cool in his ‘jammies’ is. I'm starting to imagine him and Fairy as Moody and Sternum from Moody's Point on the Amanda Show.

From now on I'm fully committed to these two and their love.

In the middle of planning to retrieve this immeasurably important object and placing themselves all in danger WE OF COURSE MUST HAVE TIME TO PLACE JACE AND SIMON AGAINST EACH OTHER ONCE AGAIN:

“It’s a car,” Clary said. “You’re just mad Simon has something you haven’t got.”
“He has many things I haven’t got,” said Jace. “Like nearsightedness, bad posture, and an appalling lack of coordination.”

Why don’t they just pee on her for crying out loud.

“You know,” Clary said, “most psychologists agree that hostility is really just sublimated sexual attraction.”

is it weird that I'm jealous of a dog's eyeliner wings

Ah yes, the wonderful middle school comeback, insinuating someone is gay as if it’s an insult. Bravo.

Fairy calls Simon who borrows Eric’s van and agrees to pick them up. I mean, there’s a lot more overwrought detail in there but I thought I would summarise, since we’ve been reading the same thing for nearly 200 pages.

Fairy sits in the library and listens to DumbleHodge talk about love and hate:

“Where there is feeling that is not requited,” said Hodge, “there is an imbalance of power. It is an imbalance that is easy to exploit, but it is not a wise course. Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side.”

And also talks to us about two people who sound remarkably like Snape and Lily but you know... probably just a coincidence:

“No.” Hodge stroked Hugo’s ebony feathers. “When your mother was young, she had a best friend, just as you have Simon. They were as close as siblings. In fact, they were often mistaken for brother and sister. As they grew older, it became clear to everyone around them that he was in love with her, but she never saw it. She always called him a ‘friend.’”

I wonder if Luke used a racial slur against her too or if he was too much of a stand-up guy. Probably just handed her over to his Dark Lord boss when he was mad.

They all trudge out to be chauffeured around to Fairy’s house, and Simon completely ignores her as they pile into the van, and then this stupid dialogue happens:

She thought she saw a muscle twitch in his cheek. “‘Hello’ is girly,” he informed her.
“Real men are terse. Laconic.”

I know it’s a joke, I’m not bitching about this. It’s a dumb joke, but it’s what I’ve come to expect from this novel. I’m annoyed because there is 100 pages left in this novel and we are nowhere near any sort of real climax. This is when the action is supposed to really start moving, when I’m supposed to be flying by the edge of my seat and not want to put the book down, except I’m being treated to stupid exchanges between Simon and Fairy because they’re arguing like children.

“True. I’d always hoped that when I finally said ‘I love you’ to a girl, she’d say ‘I know’ back, like Leia did to Han in Return of the Jedi.”
“That is so geeky,” Clary said, unable to help herself.

I am literally starting to wonder if Fairy has actually been friends with Simon this whole time or if he’s just been trotting around behind her salivating for so long that she’s accepted his presence.

They have a cosy reunion in Dorothea’s living room, I’m sure you can imagine the dialogue on your own because nothing exciting pops out. They literally just recap the whole novel to Dorothea.

What would you know about it?” he said. “Love, I mean.”
Dorothea folded her soft white hands in her lap. “More than you might think,” she said. “Didn’t I read your tea leaves, Shadowhunter? Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?”

Fairy reaches into the tarot card and retrieves the cup, all the while Madame Dorothea does a very good job of acting as suspicious as Bathilda Bagshot in the final Harry Potter novel, so I’m sure there’s something there, but alas, the chapter is finished and so am I.

We’re so close, guys!