Are you still mad?"Alec, leaning ag

Are you still mad?"
Alec, leaning against the wall of the elevator, glared across the small space at Jace. "I'm not mad."
"Oh, yes you are." Jace gestured accusingly at his stepbrother, then yelped as pain shot up his arm.
Every part of him hurt from the thumping he'd taken that afternoon when he'd dropped three floors
through rotted wood onto a pile of scrap metal. Even his fingers were bruised. Alec, who'd only
recently put away the crutches he'd had to use after his fight with Abbadon, didn't look much better
than Jace felt. His clothes were covered in mud and his hair hung down in lank, sweaty strips. There
was a long cut down the side of his cheek.
"I am not," Alec said, through his teeth. "Just because you said dragon demons were extinct—"
"I said mostly extinct."
Alec jabbed a finger toward him. "Mostly extinct," he said, his voice trembling with rage, "is NOT
EXTINCT ENOUGH."
"I see," said Jace. "I'll just have them change the entry in the demonology textbook from 'almost
extinct' to 'not extinct enough for Alec. He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.' Will that make
you happy?"
"Boys, boys," said Isabelle, who'd been examining her face in the elevator's mirrored wall. "Don't
fight." She turned away from the glass with a sunny smile. "All right, so it was a little more action
than we were expecting, but I thought it was fun."
Alec looked at her and shook his head. "How do you manage never to get mud on you?"
Isabelle shrugged philosophically. "I'm pure at heart. It repels the dirt."
Jace snorted so loudly that she turned on him with a frown. He wiggled his mud-caked fingers at
her. His nails were black crescents. "Filthy inside and out.