Jace's Letter to Clary

Clary,

Despite everything, I can’t bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more than I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other. I’m leaving you our family ring because you have as much right to it as I do.

I’m writing this watching the sun come up. You’re asleep, dreams moving behind your restless eyelids. I wish I knew what you were thinking. I wish I could slip into your head and see the world the way you do. I wish I could see myself the way you do. But maybe I don’t want to see that. Maybe it would make me feel even more than I already do that I’m perpetuating some kind of Great Lie on you, and I couldn’t stand that.

I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and I would let you. You could ask anything of me and I’d break myself trying to make you happy. My heart tells me this is the best and greatest feeling I have ever had. But my mind knows the difference between wanting what you can’t have and wanting what you shouldn’t want. And I shouldn’t want you.

All night I’ve watched you sleeping, watched the moonlight come and go, casting its shadows across your face in black and white. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. I think of the life we could have had if things were different, a life where this night is not a singular event, separate from everything else that’s real, but every night. But things are different, and I can’t look at you without feeling like I’ve tricked you into loving me.

The truth no one is willing to say out loud is that no one has a shot against Valentine but me. I can get close to him like no one else can. I can pretend I want to join him and he’ll believe me, up until that last moment where I end it all, one way or another. I have something of Sebastian’s; I can track him to where my father’s hiding. And that’s what I’m going to do. So I lied to you last night. I said that I just wanted one night with you. But I want every night with you. And that’s why I have to slip out of your window now, like a coward. Because if I had to tell you this to your face, I couldn’t make myself go.

I don’t blame you if you hate me, I wish you would. As long as I can still dream, I will dream of you.

Jace