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The difficulty with Robert, Maryse considers while she watches him walk down the path away from her house, is that her parents do not like him. Not in the “he’s a rude bastard” kind of way that most people do not like Robert Lightwood in, but in the much more personal “he visually reminds them of Max,” kind of way. Which is not something any of them can do anything about.
Especially since they are not supposed to think about Max.
“We’re leaving,” her father, Adam, says. His tone is the same as if he was informing her that the store was out of olive oil so he bought sunflower. As if they’re not going to a hunt they might not come back from and leaving her behind. Again.
Maryse swallows down the suggestion that she come with them to help. They’ve never taken her with and they never will. She isn’t entirely certain what kind of hypocrisy leads them to the thought that her mother going out to hunt is perfectly well and respectable, yet Maryse doing so is somehow not proper behavior for young Nephilim girl.
Which is almost as grating as when Adam makes her help him out in the shed in an attempt to replace Max.
“I hope you didn’t tell the Lightwood boy to come back after we leave,” her mother says with a stern glare as if she thinks Maryse might possibly be a whore.
“I hope you didn’t tell anyone to come after we leave,” Adam says with the kind of inflections as if Maryse obviously has ulterior intentions. Which in his mind seem to include cheating on her boyfriend.
She doesn’t dignify them with a response and earns herself a sharp pinch from her mother. Marisa Trueblood’s nails dig into the skin of her arm sharply as if she filed them into points and Maryse yelps, jerking away.
“No, obviously not,” she snaps, rubbing at her arm.
Marisa’s scowl intensifies and she swipes the scabbard of her blade at Maryse, swatting her over the back of her head.
“Watch your tone, young lady.”
Maryse bites the retort back and steps well out of the reach of Marisa’s longsword.
“Don’t break anything,” Adam says as if Maryse is the one in the habit of throwing glasses at people. “And clean the floors.”
“And don’t forget to make dinner,” Marisa adds, putting on her coat. “Real dinner, not bread with beans again.”
“It’s beans on toast and they eat it in England,” Maryse protests.
“I very much doubt that,” Adam dismisses and swipes the house keys off the little shelf by the door. A spider scurries from the shelf into the corner of the ceiling. Adam makes a face. “And get rid of the cobwebs.”
“Should I also smoke out the ants on the porch while I’m at it?” Maryse inquires dryly.
“Don’t get smart,” Marisa snaps and pinches her again, harder. A small bead of blood wells up where her sharp nails pierce the skin. “Angel, I don’t know who you take after. Must be your side of the family, Adam.”
“My side?” Adam gaps, mock-offended. “How dare you!”
“Well my family’s always been well-behaved.”
The door shuts, cutting off their bickering. Maryse stands in the narrow entryway until their voices fade completely, rubbing at her sore arm. Marisa had pinched a bruise and it aches dully, all the way down the bone of her arm. The swat to her head had dislodged her ponytail that’s now shifted to the side of her head, pulling at the strands and sending a sharp stab of pain into her scalp. She undoes it with a sigh and tosses the hair tie on a nearby cupboard.
Maryse is not in the mood for washing the floors of this two-story house nor is she particularly in favor of trying to free the broom from the very back of the storage, probably barricaded by at least one or two boxes of random crap. Her feet, instead, take her up the stairs and down the hall, stopping in front of a door that isn’t there.
It’s stupid. The door is there and it’s a waste of the room to pretend otherwise.
No one is willing to clear out the room.
Maryse listens to the sound of the wind outside, waiting for any indication that the house is not empty, though she knows it is. It’s several long seconds before she pushes the door open.
The curtains are drawn, making the room darker than it should be at this time of day. The wallpaper is bright blue with golden design of nonspecific meaning. When she was younger, she used to pretend it was stars and constellations but its more akin to the kind of shape one would draw into sand when bored.
A loose sock is still on the floor by the chair. The book on the bed has been opened on the same page for three years now and it’s grown a little yellow. The flower on the windowsill has long since dried and rotted. The room smells stale and dusty, with an undertone of expired male cologne.
The stele on the nightstand has not been touched since.
“You really did have to leave, huh?” Maryse says to the spider that hangs out on the witchlight over the table. “You were so in love.”
The spider, predictably, does not respond.
Maryse glowers at it and steps over the discarded seraph blade on the floor. He’d never been particularly neat.
The table is the only thing that’s changed since then. It’s covered in pictures, photos of Max that can no longer be kept in the family album. Adam had shoved them here, out of sight, like a shameful secret. In a way, it was.
Shameful, not a secret. It’s never been secret, not with the whole show the Clave had made of his deruning. The sight, the screams, the smell of the runes being cut out and burned off his skin is branded into her mind the same way the Enkeli rune is burned just over her collar bone. She had not wanted to see her brother like that.
She’d thought she might get to say goodbye afterwards. Instead they dragged him away, unconscious and bloody, never to be seen again. He didn’t get to take his things or any money, they just dragged him off and kicked him out into the Mundane World.
If Maryse is to trusts the Clave’s word.
She’s not entirely sure he survived the deruning.
“I hate you,” she informs a photo of him, nine and tiny, standing victoriously but covered in demon guts. There’s no particular inflection in her voice so she tries again. “I hate you, I really do.”
As far as emotions go, she could play a rock. Or an iceberg.
Maybe the theaters are hiring.
She could join a circus.
Though the way the Clave is going…
“Everyone’s awful because of you, remember?” she reminds the photo where he’s eating ice cream in...possibly France. She doesn’t know, they left her home for that trip too. There hadn’t even been any demons.
“My tea was oregano flavored last week at the Academy,” she updates him. “Not the worst. Still not good.”
The spider chooses that moment to fuck off behind a bookshelf. She watches it go with dispassionate gaze.
“I’m dating Robert Lightwood,” she says just to fill the silence. “He’s great. He wants me to come with him and his parabatai to hunts and stuff.”
She pauses.
“Seems to annoy Michael, I don’t think he likes me much and he likes everyone. Even Rosewain. No one likes Rosewain.”
Maryse genuinely doesn’t know if she’s ever seen Elisa Rosewain talk to someone in any way that did not include preaching about like...Downworlder stuff or something.
“Mum’s making me cook,” she complains. The photo of Max in Recife laughs at her and she contends with the urge to burn it. “I don’t want to cook, it’s boring and it takes too long.”
She pauses.
“Robert can cook, anyway.”
For a given definition of cook.
“I made a friend though! I think,” Maryse says with slightly more emotion. “His name’s Valentine, you’d hate him.”
Max would, because Valentine is the kind of effortlessly smart douche that never puts effort into anything that would drive Max up the wall. A waste of potential, Max would say.
“Kind of ironic now, isn’t it, Max?” Maryse finishes the thought out loud.
She doesn’t need Max to be there to know he’d tell her Valentine and Robert with their dismissive attitude and habit of not giving a shit about anything are a bad influence. Unfortunately for Max, he’s the reason why no one he’d consider a good influence wants to talk to her.
Which has got to say something about their character too and Maryse would much rather take someone who’s talking to her now when there’s a stain on the Trueblood family than any of the pricks that dropped her like a hot potato the moment Max was deruned.
Still, Max could’ve found someone who’d drink from the stupid Cup and join them. Or better yet, a Shadowhunter.
“I hate you,” she reminds the family picture taken in front of the new garden in the yard. Max is the only one sitting on a high-backed chair, dressed up in his gear. Adam has a hand on his shoulder and Marisa is holding his upper arm lightly. Maryse is mostly covered by the chair, peaking out from behind it with her hair ironed straighter than the straight it already is.
At least now their parents pay attention to her.
She wishes they didn’t.
The bruise still hurts.
“I hate all of you.” If Max is dead, he might even hear her.
She closes the door without a sound, letting her feet lead her where they may. Maybe she’ll find the broom. Maybe she won’t come back.
Amatis managed to keep two people alive when she was much younger so how hard can it possibly be? She rather doesn’t think about the things Amatis might have done. The moral fiber of the people in Idris are an illusion maintained outwards, not so much inwards.
Maybe setting fire to Alicante wouldn’t be too bad of a solution. She bets she can persuade Valentine.