City of Ashes

14 Fearless

When Clary awoke, light was streaming in through the windows and there was a sharp pain in her left cheek. Rolling over, she saw that she'd fallen asleep on her sketchpad and the corner of it had been digging into her face. She'd also dropped her pen onto the duvet, and there was a black stain spreading across the cloth. With a groan she sat up, rubbed her cheek ruefully, and went in search of a shower.

The bathroom showed telltale signs of the activities of the night before; there were bloody cloths shoved into the trash and a smear of dried blood across the sink. With a shudder Clary ducked into the shower with a bottle of grapefruit body wash, determined to scrub away her lingering feelings of unease.

Afterward, wrapped in one of Luke's robes and with a towel around her damp hair, she pushed the bathroom door open to discover Magnus lurking on the other side, clutching a towel in one hand and his glittery hair in the other. He must have slept on it, she thought, because one side of the glittered spikes looked dented in. "Why does it take girls so long to shower?" he demanded. "Mortal girls, Shadowhunters, female warlocks, you're all the same. I'm not getting any younger waiting out here."

Clary stepped aside to let him pass. "How old are you, anyway?" she asked curiously.

Magnus winked at her. "I was alive when the Dead Sea was just a lake that was feeling a little poorly."

Clary rolled her eyes.

Magnus made a shooing motion. "Now move your petite behind. I need to get in there; my hair is a wreck."

"Don't use up all my body wash, it's expensive," Clary told him, and headed into the kitchen, where she rooted around for some filters and plugged in the Mr. Coffee machine. The familiar burble of the percolator and the smell of coffee damped down her feeling of unease. As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?

She headed back to the bedroom to get dressed. Ten minutes later, in jeans and a blue-and-green striped sweater, she was in the living room shaking Luke awake. He sat up with a groan, his hair rumpled and his face creased with sleep.

"How are you feeling?" Clary asked, handing him a chipped mug full of steaming coffee.

"Better now." Luke glanced down at the torn fabric of his shirt; the edges of the tear were stained with blood. "Where's Maia?"

"She's asleep in your room, remember? You said she could have it." Clary perched on the arm of the sofa.

Luke rubbed at his shadowed eyes. "I don't remember last night all that well," he admitted. "I remember going out to the truck and not much after that."

"There were more demons hiding outside. They attacked you. Jace and I took care of them."

"More Drevak demons?"

"No." Clary spoke with reluctance. "Jace called them Raum demons."

"Raum demons?" Luke sat up straight. "That's serious stuff. Drevak demons are dangerous pests, but the Raum—"

"It's all right," Clary told him. "We got rid of them."

"You got rid of them? Or Jace did? Clary, I don't want you—"

"It wasn't like that." She shook her head. "It was like…"

"Wasn't Magnus around? Why didn't he go with you?" Luke interrupted, clearly upset.

"I was healing you, that's why," Magnus said, coming into the living room smelling strongly of grapefruit. His hair was wrapped in a towel and he was dressed in a blue satin tracksuit with silver stripes down the side. "Where is the gratitude?"

"I am grateful." Luke looked as if he were both angry and trying not to laugh at the same time. "It's just that if anything had happened to Clary—"

"You would have died if I'd gone out there with them," Magnus said, flopping down into a chair. "And then Clary would have been a lot worse off. She and Jace handled the demons just fine on their own, didn't you?" He turned to Clary.

She squirmed. "You see, that's just it—"

"What's just it?" It was Maia, still in the clothes she'd worn the night before, with one of Luke's big flannel shirts thrown over her T-shirt. She moved stiffly across the room and sat down gingerly in a chair. "Is that coffee I smell?" she asked hopefully, wrinkling her nose.

Honestly, Clary thought, it was hardly fair for a werewolf to be curvy and pretty; she ought to be big and hirsute, possibly with hair coming out of her ears. And this, Clary added silently, is exactly why I don't have any female friends and spend all my time with Simon. I've got to get a grip. She rose to her feet. "You want me to get you some?"

"Sure." Maia nodded. "Milk and sugar!" she called as Clary left the room, but by the time she was back from the kitchen, steaming mug in hand, the werewolf girl was frowning. "I don't really remember what happened last night," she said, "but there's something about Simon, something that's bothering me…"

"Well, you did try to kill him," Clary said, settling back onto the arm of the sofa. "Maybe that's it."

Maia paled, staring down into her coffee. "I'd forgotten. He's a vampire now." She looked up at Clary. "I didn't mean to hurt him. I was just…"

"Yes?" Clary raised her eyebrows. "Just what?"

Maia's face went a slow, dark red. She set her coffee down on the table beside her.

"You might want to lie down," Magnus advised. "I find that helps when the crushing sense of horrible realization sets in."

Maia's eyes filled suddenly with tears. Clary looked toward Magnus in horror—he looked equally shocked, she noticed—and then to Luke. "Do something," she hissed at him under her breath. Magnus might be a warlock who could heal fatal injuries with a flash of blue fire, but Luke was hands down the top choice between the two for dealing with crying teenage girls.

Luke began to kick back his blanket in preparation for rising, but before he could get to his feet, the front door banged open and Jace came in, followed by Alec, who was carrying a white box. Magnus hastily pulled the towel off his head and dropped it behind the armchair. Without the gel and glitter, his hair was dark and straight, halfway to his shoulders.

Clary's eyes went immediately to Jace, as they always did; she couldn't help it, but at least no one else seemed to notice. Jace looked strung up, wired and tense, but also exhausted, his eyes ringed with gray. His eyes slid over her without expression and landed on Maia, who was still weeping soundlessly and didn't seem to have heard them come in. "Everyone in a good mood, I see," he observed. "Keeping up morale?"

Maia rubbed at her eyes. "Crap," she muttered. "I hate crying in front of Shadowhunters."

"So go cry in another room," Jace said, his voice devoid of warmth. "We certainly don't need you sniveling in here while we're talking, do we?"

"Jace," Luke began warningly, but Maia had already gotten to her feet and stalked out of the room through the kitchen door.

Clary turned on Jace. "Talking? We weren't talking."

"But we will be," Jace said, flopping down onto the piano bench and stretching out his long legs. "Magnus wants to shout at me, don't you, Magnus?"

"Yes," Magnus said, tearing his eyes away from Alec long enough to scowl. "Where the hell were you? I thought I was clear with you that you were to stay in the house."

"I thought he didn't have a choice," Clary said. "I thought he had to stay where you are. You know, because of magic."

"Normally, yes," Magnus said crossly, "but last night, after everything I did, my magic was—depleted."

"Depleted?"

"Yes." Magnus looked angrier than ever. "Even the High Warlock of Brooklyn doesn't have inexhaustible resources. I'm only human. Well," he amended, "half-human, anyway."

"But you must have known your resources were depleted," Luke said, not unkindly, "didn't you?"

"Yes, and I made the little bastard swear to stay in the house." Magnus glared at Jace. "Now I know what your much-vaunted Shadowhunter vows are worth."

"You need to know how to make me swear properly," Jace said, unfazed. "Only an oath on the Angel has any meaning."

"It's true," Alec said. It was the first thing he'd said since they'd come into the house.

"Of course it's true." Jace picked up Maia's untouched mug of coffee and took a sip. He made a face. "Sugar."

"Where were you all night, anyway?" Magnus asked, his voice sour. "With Alec?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk," Jace said. "When I got back, I bumped into this sad bastard mooning around the porch." He pointed at Alec.

Magnus brightened. "Were you there all night?" he asked Alec.

"No," Alec said. "I went home and then came back. I'm wearing different clothes, aren't I? Look."

Everyone looked. Alec was wearing a dark sweater and jeans, which was exactly what he'd been wearing the day before. Clary decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "What's in the box?" she asked.

"Oh. Ah." Alec looked at the box as if he'd forgotten it. "Doughnuts, actually." He opened the box and set it down on the coffee table. "Does anyone want one?"

Everyone, as it turned out, wanted a doughnut. Jace wanted two. After downing the Boston cream that Clary brought him, Luke seemed moderately revitalized; he kicked the blanket the rest of the way off and sat up against the back of the couch. "There's one thing I don't get," he said.

"Just one thing? You're way ahead of the rest of us," said Jace.

"The two of you went out after me when I didn't come back to the house," Luke said, looking from Clary to Jace.

"Three of us," Clary said. "Simon came with."

Luke looked pained. "Fine. The three of you. There were two demons, but Clary says you killed neither of them. So what happened?"

"I would have killed mine, but it ran off," Jace said. "Otherwise—"

"But why would it do that?" Alec inquired. "Two of them, three of you—maybe it felt outnumbered?"

"No offense to anyone involved, but the only one among you who seems formidable is Jace," Magnus said. "An untrained Shadowhunter and a scared vampire…"

"I think it might have been me," Clary said. "I think maybe I scared it off."

Magnus blinked. "Didn't I just say—"

"I don't mean I scared it off because I'm so terrifying," Clary said. "I think it was this." She raised her hand, turning it so that they could see the Mark on her inner arm.

There was a sudden quiet. Jace looked at her steadily, then away; Alec blinked, and Luke looked astounded. "I've never seen that Mark before," he said finally. "Has anyone else?"

"No," Magnus said. "But I don't like it."

"I'm not sure what it is, or what it means," Clary said, lowering her arm. "But it doesn't come from the Gray Book."

"All runes come from the Gray Book." Jace's voice was firm.

"Not this one," Clary said. "I saw it in a dream."

"In a dream?" Jace looked as furious as if she were personally insulting him. "What are you playing at, Clary?"

"I'm not playing at anything. Don't you remember when we were in the Seelie Court—"

Jace looked as if she had hit him. Clary went on, quickly, before he could say anything:

"—and the Seelie Queen told us we were experiments? That Valentine had done—had done things to us, to make us different, special? She told me that mine was the gift of words that cannot be spoken, and yours was the Angel's own gift?"

"That was faerie nonsense."

"Faeries don't lie, Jace. Words that cannot be spoken—she meant runes. Each has a different meaning, but they're meant to be drawn, not said aloud." She went on, ignoring his doubtful look. "Remember when you asked me how I'd gotten into your cell in the Silent City? I told you I just used a regular Opening rune—"

"Was that all you did?" Alec looked surprised. "I got there just after you did and it looked like someone had ripped that door off its hinges."

"And my rune didn't just unlock the door," Clary said. "It unlocked everything inside the cell, too. It broke Jace's manacles open." She took a breath. "I think the Queen meant I can draw runes that are more powerful than ordinary runes. And maybe even create new ones."

Jace shook his head. "No one can create new runes—"

"Maybe she can, Jace." Alec sounded thoughtful. "It's true, none of us have ever seen that Mark on her arm before."

"Alec's right," Luke said. "Clary, why don't you go and get your sketchbook?"

She looked at him in some surprise. His gray-blue eyes were tired, a little sunken, but held the same steadiness they'd held when she was six years old and he'd promised her that if she climbed the jungle gym in the Prospect Park playground, he'd always be standing underneath it to catch her if she fell. And he always had been.

"Okay," she said. "I'll be right back."

To get to the spare bedroom, Clary had to cross through the kitchen, where she found Maia seated on a stool pulled up to the counter, looking miserable. "Clary," she said, jumping down from the stool. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"I'm just going to my room to get something—"

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened with Simon. I was delirious."

"Oh, yeah? What happened to all that werewolves are destined to hate vampires business?"

Maia blew out an exasperated breath. "We are, but—I guess I don't have to hurry the process along."

"Don't explain it to me; explain it to Simon."

Maia flushed again, her cheeks turning dark red. "I doubt he'll want to talk to me."

"He might. He's pretty forgiving."

Maia looked at her more closely. "Not that I want to pry, but are you two going out?"

Clary felt herself start to flush and thanked her freckles for providing at least some cover-up. "Why do you want to know?"

Maia shrugged. "The first time I met him he referred to you as his best friend, but the second time he called you his girlfriend. I wondered if it was an on-off thing."

"Sort of. We were friends first. It's a long story."

"I see." Maia's blush had vanished and her tough-girl smirk was back on her face. "Well, you're lucky, that's all. Even if he is a vampire now. You must be pretty used to all sorts of weird stuff, being a Shadowhunter, so I bet it doesn't faze you."

"It fazes me," Clary said, more sharply than she'd intended. "I'm not Jace."

The smirk widened. "No one is. And I get the feeling he knows it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know. Jace reminds me of an old boyfriend. Some guys look at you like they want sex. Jace looks at you like you've already had sex, it was great, and now you're just friends—even though you want more. Drives girls crazy. You know what I mean?"

Yes, Clary thought. "No," she said.

"I guess you wouldn't, being his sister. You'll have to take my word on it."

"I have to go." Clary was almost out the kitchen door when something occurred to her and she turned around. "What happened to him?"

Maia blinked. "What happened to who?"

"The old boyfriend. The one Jace reminds you of."

"Oh," Maia said. "He's the one who turned me into a werewolf."

"All right, I got it," Clary said, coming back into the living room with her sketchpad in one hand and a box of Prismacolor pencils in the other. She pulled a chair out from the little-used dining room table—Luke always ate in the kitchen or in his office, and the table was covered in paper and old bills—and sat down, sketchpad in front of her. She felt as if she were taking a test at art school. Draw this apple. "What do you want me to do?"

"What do you think?" Jace was still sitting on the piano bench, his shoulders slumped forward; he looked as if he hadn't slept all night. Alec was leaning against the piano behind him, probably because it was as far away from Magnus as he could get.

"Jace, that's enough." Luke was sitting up straight but looked as if it were something of an effort. "You said you could draw new runes, Clary?"

"I said I thought so."

"Well, I'd like you to try."

"Now?"

Luke smiled faintly. "Unless you've got something else in mind?"

Clary flipped the sketchpad to a blank page and stared down at it. Never had a sheet of paper looked quite so empty to her before. She could sense the stillness in the room, everyone watching her: Magnus with his ancient, tempered curiosity; Alec too preoccupied with his own problems to care much for hers; Luke hopefully; and Jace with a cold, frightening blankness. She remembered him saying that he wished he could hate her and wondered if someday he might succeed.

She threw her pencil down. "I can't just do it on command like that. Not without an idea."

"What kind of idea?" said Luke.

"I mean, I don't even know what runes already exist. I need to know a meaning, a word, before I can draw a rune for it."

"It's hard enough for us to remember every rune—," Alec began, but Jace, to Clary's surprise, cut him off.

"How about," he said quietly, "Fearless?"

"Fearless?" she echoed.

"There are runes for bravery," said Jace. "But never anything to take away fear. But if you, as you say, can create new runes…" He glanced around, and saw Alec's and Luke's surprised expressions. "Look, I just remembered that there isn't one, that's all. And it seems harmless enough."

Clary looked over at Luke, who shrugged. "Fine," he said.

Clary took a dark gray pencil from the box and set the tip of it to the paper. She thought of shapes, lines, curlicues; she thought of the signs in the Gray Book, ancient and perfect, embodiments of a language too faultless for speech. A soft voice spoke inside her head: Who are you, to think you can speak the language of heaven?

The pencil moved. She was almost sure she hadn't moved it, but it slid across the paper, describing a single line. She felt her heart skip. She thought of her mother, sitting dreamily before her canvas, creating her own vision of the world in ink and oil paint. She thought, Who am I? I am Jocelyn Fray's daughter. The pencil moved again, and this time her breath caught; she found she was whispering the word, under her breath: "Fearless. Fearless." The pencil looped back up, and now she was guiding it rather than being guided by it. When she was done, she set the pencil down and gazed for a moment, wonderingly, at the result.

The completed Fearless rune was a matrix of strongly swirling lines: a rune as bold and aerodynamic as an eagle. She tore the page free and held it up so the others could see it. "There," she said, and was rewarded by the startled look on Luke's face—so he hadn't believed her—and the fractional widening of Jace's eyes.

"Cool," Alec said.

Jace got to his feet and crossed the room, taking the sheet of paper out of her hand. "But does it work?"

Clary wondered if he meant the question or if he was just being nasty. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, how do we know it works? Right now it's just a drawing—you can't take fear away from a piece of paper, it doesn't have any to begin with. We have to try it out on one of us before we can be sure it's a real rune."

"I'm not sure that's such a great idea," Luke said.

"It's a fabulous idea." Jace dropped the paper back onto the table, and began to slide off his jacket. "I've got a stele we can use. Who wants to do me?"

"A regrettable choice of words," muttered Magnus.

Luke stood up. "No," he said. "Jace, you already behave as if you've never heard the word 'fear.' I fail to see how we're going to be able to tell the difference if it does work on you."

Alec stifled what sounded like a laugh. Jace simply smiled a tight, unfriendly smile. "I've heard the word 'fear,' " he said. "I simply choose to believe it doesn't apply to me."

"Exactly the problem," said Luke.

"Well, why don't I try it on you, then?" Clary said, but Luke shook his head.

"You can't Mark Downworlders, Clary, not with any real effect. The demon disease that causes lycanthropy prevents the Marks from taking effect."

"Then…"

"Try it on me," Alec said unexpectedly. "I could do with some fearlessness." He slid his jacket off, tossed it over the piano stool, and crossed the room to stand in front of Jace. "Here. Mark my arm."

Jace glanced over at Clary. "Unless you think you should do it?"

She shook her head. "No. You're probably better at actually applying Marks than I am."

Jace shrugged. "Roll up your sleeve, Alec."

Obediently, Alec rolled his sleeve up. There was already a permanent Mark on his upper arm, an elegant scroll of lines meant to give him perfect balance. They all leaned forward, even Magnus, as Jace carefully traced the outlines of the Fearless rune on Alec's arm, just below the existing Mark. Alec winced as the stele traced its burning path across his skin. When Jace was done, he slid his stele back into his pocket and stood a moment admiring his handiwork. "Well, it looks nice at least," he announced. "Whether it works or not…"

Alec touched the new Mark with his fingertips, then glanced up to find everyone else in the room staring at him.

"So?" Clary said.

"So what?" Alec rolled his sleeve down, covering the Mark.

"So, how do you feel? Any different?"

Alec looked considering. "Not really."

Jace threw his hands up. "So it doesn't work."

"Not necessarily," Luke said. "There might simply be nothing going on that might activate it. Perhaps there isn't anything here that Alec is afraid of."

Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. "Boo," he said.

Jace was grinning. "Come on, surely you've got a phobia or two. What scares you?"

Alec thought for a moment. "Spiders," he said.

Clary turned to Luke. "Have you got a spider anywhere?"

Luke looked exasperated. "Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?"

"No offense," Jace said, "but you kind of do."

"You know"—Alec's tone was sour—"maybe this was a stupid experiment."

"What about the dark?" Clary suggested. "We could lock you in the basement."

"I'm a demon hunter," Alec said, with exaggerated patience. "Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark."

"Well, you might be."

"But I'm not."

Clary was spared replying by the buzz of the doorbell. She looked over at Luke, raising her eyebrows. "Simon?"

"Couldn't be. It's daylight."

"Oh, right." She'd forgotten again. "Do you want me to get it?"

"No." He stood up with only a short grunt of pain. "I'm fine. It's probably someone wondering why the bookstore's shut."

He crossed the room and threw the door open. His shoulders went stiff with surprise; Clary heard the bark of a familiar, stridently angry female voice, and a moment later Isabelle and Maryse Lightwood pushed past Luke and strode into the room, followed by the gray, menacing figure of the Inquisitor. Behind them was a tall and burly man, dark-haired and olive-skinned, with a thick black beard. Though it had been taken many years ago, Clary recognized him from the old photo Hodge had showed her: This was Robert Lightwood, Alec and Isabelle's father.

Magnus's head went up with a snap. Jace paled markedly, but showed no other emotion. And Alec—Alec stared from his sister, to his mother, to his father, and then looked at Magnus, his clear, light blue eyes darkened with a hard resolution. He took a step forward, placing himself between his parents and everyone else in the room.

Maryse, on seeing her eldest son in the middle of Luke's living room, did a double take. "Alec, what on earth are you doing here? I thought I made it clear that—"

"Mother." Alec's voice as he interrupted his mother was firm, implacable, and not unkind. "Father. There's something I have to tell you." He smiled at them. "I'm seeing someone."

Robert Lightwood looked at his son with some exasperation. "Alec," he said. "This is hardly the time."

"Yes, it is. This is important. You see, I'm not just seeing anyone." Words seemed to be pouring out of Alec in a torrent, while his parents looked on in confusion. Isabelle and Magnus were staring at him with expressions of nearly identical astonishment. "I'm seeing a Downworlder. In fact, I'm seeing a war—"

Magnus's fingers moved, quick as a flash of light, in Alec's direction. There was a faint shimmer in the air around Alec—his eyes rolled up—and he dropped to the floor, felled like a tree.

"Alec!" Maryse clapped her hand to her mouth. Isabelle, who had been standing closest to her brother, dropped down beside him. But Alec had already begun to stir, his eyelids fluttering open. "Wha—what—why am I on the floor?"

"That's a good question." Isabelle glowered down at her brother. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Alec sat up, holding his head. A look of alarm crossed his face. "Wait—did I say anything? Before I passed out, I mean."

Jace snorted. "You know how we were wondering if that thing Clary did would work or not?" he asked. "It works all right."

Alec looked supremely horrified. "What did I say?"

"You said you were seeing someone," his father told him. "Though you weren't clear as to why that was important."

"It's not," Alec said. "I mean, I'm not seeing anyone. And it's not important. Or it wouldn't be if I was seeing someone, which I'm not."

Magnus looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Alec's been delirious," he said. "Side effect of some demon toxins. Most unfortunate, but he'll be fine soon."

"Demon toxins?" Maryse's voice had become shrill. "No one reported a demon attack to the Institute. What is going on here, Lucian? This is your house, isn't it? You know perfectly well if there's been a demon attack you're supposed to report it—"

"Luke was attacked too," Clary said. "He's been unconscious."

"How convenient. Everyone's either unconscious or apparently delirious," said the Inquisitor. Her knifelike voice cut through the room, silencing everyone. "Downworlder, you know perfectly well that Jonathan Morgenstern should not be in your house. He should have been locked up in the warlock's care."

"I have a name, you know," Magnus said. "Not," he added, seeming to think twice about interrupting the Inquisitor, "that that matters, really. In fact, forget all about it."

"I know your name, Magnus Bane," said the Inquisitor. "You've failed in your duty once; you won't get another chance."

"Failed in my duty?" Magnus frowned. "Just by bringing the boy here? There was nothing in the contract I signed that said I couldn't bring him with me at my own discretion."

"That wasn't your failure," the Inquisitor said. "Letting him see his father last night, that was your failure."

There was a stunned silence. Alec scrambled up off the floor, his eyes seeking out Jace's—but Jace wouldn't look at him. His face was a mask.

"That's ridiculous," Luke said. Clary had rarely seen him look so angry. "Jace doesn't even know where Valentine is. Stop hounding him."

"Hounding is what I do, Downworlder," said the Inquisitor. "It's my job." She turned to Jace. "Tell the truth, now, boy," she said, "and it will all be much easier."

Jace raised his chin. "I don't have to tell you anything."

"If you're innocent, why not exonerate yourself? Tell us where you really were last night. Tell us about Valentine's little pleasure boat."

Clary stared at him. I went for a walk, he'd said. But that didn't mean anything. Maybe he really had gone for a walk. But her heart, her stomach, felt sick. You know what the worst feeling you can have is? Simon had said. Not trusting the person you love more than anything else in the world.

When Jace didn't speak, Robert Lightwood said, in his deep bass voice: "Imogen? You're saying Valentine is—was—"

"On a boat in the middle of the East River," said the Inquisitor. "That's correct."

"That's why I couldn't find him," Magnus said, half to himself. "All that water—it disrupted my spell."

"What's Valentine doing in the middle of the river?" Luke said, bewildered.

"Ask Jonathan," said the Inquisitor. "He borrowed a motorcycle from the head of the city's vampire clan and he flew it to the boat. Isn't that right, Jonathan?"

Jace said nothing. His face was unreadable. The Inquisitor, though, looked hungry, as if she were feeding off the suspense in the room.

"Reach into the pocket of your jacket," she said. "Take out the object you've been carrying with you since you last left the Institute."

Slowly, Jace did as she asked. As he drew his hand out of his pocket, Clary recognized the shimmering blue-gray object he held. The piece of the Portal mirror.

"Give it to me." The Inquisitor snatched it out of his hand. He winced; the edge of the glass had cut him, and blood welled up along his palm. Maryse made a soft noise, but didn't move. "I knew you'd return to the Institute for this," said the Inquisitor, positively gloating now. "I knew your sentimentality wouldn't allow you to leave it behind."

"What is it?" Robert Lightwood sounded bewildered.

"A bit of a Portal in mirror form," said the Inquisitor. "When the Portal was destroyed, the image of its last destination was preserved." She turned the bit of glass over in her long, spidery fingers. "In this case, the Wayland country house."

Jace's eyes followed the movement of the mirror. In the bit of it Clary could see, there seemed to be a trapped piece of blue sky. She wondered if it ever rained in Idris.

With a sudden, violent motion at odds with her calm tone, the Inquisitor dashed the piece of mirror to the ground. It shattered instantly into powdery shards. Clary heard Jace suck his breath in, but he didn't move.

The Inquisitor drew on a pair of gray gloves and knelt among the bits of mirror, sifting them through her fingers until she found what she was looking for—a single sheet of thin paper. She stood, holding it up for everyone in the room to see the thick rune written on it in black ink. "I marked this paper with a tracking rune and slipped it between the bit of mirror and its backing. Then I replaced it in the boy's room. Don't feel bad for not noticing it," she said to Jace. "Older heads and wiser than yours have been fooled by the Clave."

"You've been spying on me," Jace said, and now his voice was colored with anger. "Is that what the Clave does, invade the privacy of its fellow Shadowhunters to—"

"Be careful what you say to me. You are not the only one who's broken the Law." The Inquisitor's chilly gaze slid around the room. "In releasing you from the Silent City, in freeing you from the warlock's control, your friends have done the same."

"Jace isn't our friend," said Isabelle. "He's our brother."

"I'd be careful what you say, Isabelle Lightwood," said the Inquisitor. "You could be considered complicit."

"Complicit?" To everyone's surprise, it was Robert Lightwood who had spoken. "The girl was just trying to keep you from shattering our family. For God's sake, Imogen, these are all just children—"

"Children?" The Inquisitor turned her icicle gaze on Robert. "Just as you were children when the Circle plotted the destruction of the Clave? Just as my son was a child when he—" She caught herself with a sort of gasp, as if gaining control of herself by main force.

"So this is about Stephen after all," said Luke, with a sort of pity in his voice. "Imogen—"

The Inquisitor's face contorted. "This is not about Stephen! This is about the Law!"

Maryse's thin fingers twisted as her hands worked at each other. "And Jace," she said. "What's going to happen to him?"

"He will return to Idris with me tomorrow," said the Inquisitor. "You've forfeited your right to know any more than that."

"How can you take him back to that place?" Clary demanded. "When will he come back?"

"Clary, don't," Jace said. The words were a plea, but she battled on.

"Jace isn't the problem here! Valentine is the problem!"

"Leave it alone, Clary!" Jace yelled. "For your own good, leave it alone!"

Clary couldn't help herself, she flinched away from him—he'd never shouted at her like that, not even when she'd dragged him to their mother's hospital room. She saw the look on his face as he registered her flinch and wished she could take it back somehow.

Before she could say anything else, Luke's hand descended onto her shoulder. He spoke, sounding as grave as he had the night he'd told her the story of his life. "If the boy went to his father," he said, "knowing the kind of father Valentine was, it is because we failed him, not because he has failed us."

"Save your sophistry, Lucian," said the Inquisitor. "You've gone as soft as a mundane."

"She's right." Alec was sitting on the edge of the sofa, his arms crossed and his jaw set. "Jace lied to us. There's no excuse for that."

Jace's jaw dropped. He'd been sure of Alec's loyalty, at least, and Clary didn't blame him. Even Isabelle was staring at her brother in horror. "Alec, how can you say that?"

"The Law is the Law, Izzy," said Alec, not looking at his sister. "There's no way around that."

At that, Isabelle gave a little gasping cry of rage and astonishment and bolted out the front door, letting it swing open behind her. Maryse made a move as if to follow her, but Robert drew his wife back, saying something in a low voice.

Magnus got to his feet. "I do believe that's my cue to leave as well," he said. Clary noticed he was avoiding looking at Alec. "I'd say it's been nice meeting you all, but, in fact, it hasn't. It's been quite awkward, and frankly, the next time I see a single one of you will be far too soon."

Alec stared at the ground as Magnus stalked out of the living room and through the front door. This time it shut behind him with a bang.

"Two down," said Jace, with ghastly amusement. "Who's next?"

"That's enough from you," said the Inquisitor. "Give me your hands."

Jace held his hands out as the Inquisitor produced a stele from some hidden pocket and proceeded to trace a Mark around the circumference of his wrists. When she took her hands away, Jace's wrists were crossed, one over the other, bound together with what looked like a circlet of burning flames.

Clary cried out. "What are you doing? You'll hurt him—"

"I'm fine, little sister." Jace spoke calmly enough, but she noticed that he couldn't seem to look at her. "The flames won't burn me unless I try to get my hands free."

"And as for you," the Inquisitor added, and turned on Clary, much to Clary's surprise. Up until now the Inquisitor had barely seemed to notice she was alive. "You were lucky enough to be raised by Jocelyn and escape your father's taint. Nevertheless, I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Luke's grip tightened on Clary's shoulder. "Is that a threat?"

"The Clave does not make threats, Lucian Graymark. The Clave makes promises and keeps them." The Inquisitor sounded almost cheerful. She was the only one in the room who could be described that way; everyone else looked shell-shocked, except for Jace. His teeth were bared in a snarl Clary doubted he was even aware of. He looked like a lion in a trap.

"Come, Jonathan," the Inquisitor said. "Walk in front of me. If you make a single move to flee, I'll put a blade between your shoulders."

Jace had to struggle to turn the front doorknob with his bound hands. Clary set her teeth to keep from screaming, and then the door was open and Jace was gone and so was the Inquisitor. The Lightwoods followed in a line, Alec still staring at the ground. The door shut behind them and Clary and Luke were alone in the living room, silent in shared disbelief.

15 The Serpent's Tooth

"Luke," Clary began, the moment the door had shut behind the Lightwoods. "What are we going to do—"

Luke had his hands pressed to either side of his head as if he were keeping it from splitting in half. "Coffee," he declared. "I need coffee."

"I brought you coffee."

He dropped his hands and sighed. "I need more."

Clary followed him into the kitchen, where he helped himself to yet more coffee before sitting down at the kitchen table and running his hands distractedly through his hair. "This is bad," he said. "Very bad."

"You think?" Clary couldn't imagine drinking coffee right now. Her nerves already felt like they were stretched out as thin as wires. "What happens if they take him to Idris?"

"Trial before the Clave. They'll probably find him guilty. Then punishment. He's young, so they might just strip his Marks, not curse him."

"What does that mean?"

Luke didn't meet her eyes. "It means they'll take his Marks away, unmake him as a Shadowhunter, and throw him out of the Clave. He'll be a mundane."

"But that would kill him. It really would. He'd rather die."

"Don't you think I know that?" Luke had finished his coffee and stared morosely at the mug before setting it back down. "But that won't make any difference to the Clave. They can't get their hands on Valentine, so they'll punish his son instead."

"What about me? I'm his daughter."

"But you're not of their world. Jace is. Not that I don't suggest you lie low for a while yourself. I wish we could head up to the farmhouse—"

"We can't just leave Jace with them!" Clary was appalled. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Of course you aren't." Luke waved away her protest. "I said I wish we could, not that I thought we should. There's the question of what Imogen will do now that she knows where Valentine is, of course. We could find ourselves in the middle of a war."

"I don't care if she wants to kill Valentine. She's welcome to Valentine. I just want to get Jace back."

"That may not be so easy," said Luke, "considering that in this case, he actually did what he's accused of doing."

Clary was outraged. "What, you think he killed the Silent Brothers? You think—"

"No. I don't think he killed the Silent Brothers. I think he did exactly what Imogen saw him do: He went to see his father."

Remembering something, Clary asked: "What did you mean when you said we'd failed him, not the other way around? You mean you don't blame him?"

"I do and I don't." Luke looked weary. "It was a stupid thing to do. Valentine isn't to be trusted. But when the Lightwoods turned their backs on him, what did they expect him to do? He's still just a child, he still needs parents. If they won't have him, he'll go looking for someone who will."

"I thought maybe," said Clary, "maybe he was looking to you for that."

Luke looked unutterably sad. "I thought so too, Clary. I thought so too."

Very faintly, Maia could hear the sound of voices coming from the kitchen. They were done with all their shouting in the living room. Time to get out. She folded up the note she'd scribbled hastily, left it on Luke's bed, and crossed the room to the window she'd spent the past twenty minutes forcing open. Cool air spilled through it—it was one of those early fall days when the sky seemed impossibly blue and distant and the air was faintly tinged with the smell of smoke.

She scooted onto the windowsill and looked down. It would have been a worrying jump for her before she'd been Changed; now she spared only a moment's thought for her injured shoulder before leaping. She landed in a crouch on the cracked concrete of Luke's backyard. Straightening up, she glanced back at the house, but no one threw a door open or called out to her to come back.

She fought down an errant stab of disappointment. It wasn't as if they'd paid that much attention to her when she was in the house, she thought, scrambling up the high chain-link fence that separated Luke's backyard from the alley, so why would they notice that she'd left it? She was clearly an afterthought, just as she'd always been. The only one of them who'd treated her as if she were of any importance was Simon.

The thought of Simon made her wince as she dropped down onto the other side of the fence and jogged up the alley to Kent Avenue. She'd said to Clary that she didn't remember the previous night, but it wasn't true. She remembered the look on his face when she'd recoiled from him—as if it were imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. The strangest thing was that in that moment he had still looked human to her, more human than almost anyone she'd ever known.

She crossed the street to avoid passing right in front of Luke's house. The street was nearly deserted, Brooklyners sleeping their late Sunday-morning sleep. She headed toward the Bedford Avenue subway, her mind still on Simon. There was a hollow place in the pit of her stomach that ached when she thought of him. He was the first person she'd wanted to trust in years, and he'd made trusting him impossible.

Of course, if trusting him is impossible, then why are you on your way to see him right now? came the whisper in the back of her mind that always spoke to her in Daniel's voice. Shut up, she told it firmly. Even if we can't befriends, I owe him an apology at least.

Someone laughed. The sound echoed off the high factory walls on her left. Her heart contracting with sudden fear, Maia whirled around, but the street behind her was empty. There was an old woman walking her dogs along the riverside, but Maia doubted she was within shouting distance.

She sped up her pace anyway. She could outwalk most humans, she reminded herself, not to mention outrun them. Even in her present state, with her arm aching like someone had slammed a sledgehammer into her shoulder, it wasn't as if she had anything to fear from a mugger or rapist. Two teenage boys armed with knives had tried to grab her while she was walking through Central Park one night after she'd first come to the city, and only Bat had kept her from killing them both.

So why was she so panicked?

She glanced behind her. The old woman was gone; Kent was empty. The old abandoned Domino sugar factory rose up in front of her. Seized by a sudden urge to get off the street, she ducked down the alley beside it.

She found herself in a narrow space between two buildings, full of garbage, discarded bottles, the skittering of rats. The roofs above her touched, blocking out the sun and making her feel as if she had ducked into a tunnel. The walls were brick, set with small, dirty windows, many of which had been smashed in by vandals. Through them she could see the abandoned factory floor and row after row of metal boilers, furnaces, and vats. The air smelled of burned sugar. She leaned against one of the walls, trying to still the pounding of her heart. She had almost succeeded in calming herself down when an impossibly familiar voice spoke to her out of the shadows:

"Maia?"

She whirled around. He was standing at the entrance to the alley, his hair lit from behind, shining like a halo around his beautiful face. Dark eyes fringed with long lashes regarded her curiously. He was wearing jeans and, despite the chill in the air, a short-sleeved T-shirt. He still looked fifteen.

"Daniel," she whispered.

He moved toward her, his steps making no sound. "It's been a long time, little sister."

She wanted to run, but her legs felt like bags of water. She pressed herself back against the wall as if she could disappear into it. "But—you're dead."

"And you didn't cry at my funeral, did you, Maia? No tears for your big brother?"

"You were a monster," she whispered. "You tried to kill me—"

"Not hard enough." There was something long and sharp in his hand now, something that gleamed like silver fire in the dimness. Maia wasn't sure what it was; her vision was blurred by terror. She slid to the ground as he moved toward her, her legs no longer able to hold her up.

Daniel knelt down beside her. She could see what it was in his hand now: a snapped-off jagged edge of glass from one of the broken windows. Terror rose and broke over her like a wave, but it wasn't fear of the weapon in her brother's hand that was crushing her, it was the emptiness in his eyes. She could look into them and through them and see only darkness. "Do you remember," he said, "when I told you I'd cut out your tongue before I'd let you tattle on me to Mom and Dad?"

Paralyzed with fear, she could only stare at him. Already she could feel the glass cutting into her skin, the choking taste of blood filling her mouth, and she wished she were dead, already dead, anything was better than this horror and this dread—

"Enough, Agramon." A man's voice cut through the fog in her head. Not Daniel's voice—it was soft, cultured, undeniably human. It reminded her of someone—but who?

"As you wish, Lord Valentine." Daniel breathed outward, a soft sigh of disappointment—and then his face began to fade and crumble. In a moment he was gone, and with him the sense of paralyzing, bone-crushing terror that had threatened to choke the life out of her. She sucked in a desperate breath.

"Good. She's breathing." The man's voice again, irritable now. "Really, Agramon. A few more seconds and she'd have been dead."

Maia looked up. The man—Valentine—was standing over her, very tall, dressed all in black, even the gloves on his hands and the thick-soled boots on his feet. He used the tip of a boot now to force her chin up. His voice when he spoke was cool, perfunctory. "How old are you?"

The face gazing down at hers was narrow, sharp-boned, leached of all color, his eyes black and his hair so white he looked like a photograph in negative. On the left side of his throat, just above the collar of his coat, was a spiraling Mark.

"You're Valentine?" she whispered. "But I thought that you—"

The boot came down on her hand, sending a stab of pain shooting up her arm. She screamed.

"I asked you a question," he said. "How old are you?"

"How old am I?" The pain in her hand, mixed with the acrid stench of garbage all around made her stomach turn. "Screw you."

A bar of light seemed to leap between his fingers; he slashed it down and across her face so quickly that she didn't have time to jerk back. A hot line of pain burned its way across her cheek; she slapped a hand to her face and felt blood slick her fingers. "Now," Valentine said, in the same precise and cultured voice. "How old are you?"

"Fifteen. I'm fifteen." She sensed, rather than saw, him smile. "Perfect."

Once back at the Institute, the Inquisitor herded Jace away from the Lightwoods and up the stairs to the training room. Catching sight of himself in the long mirrors that ran along the walls, he stiffened in shock. He hadn't really looked at himself in days, and last night had been a bad one. His eyes were surrounded by black shadows, his shirt smeared with dried blood and filthy mud from the East River. His face looked hollow and drawn.

"Admiring yourself?" The Inquisitor's voice cut through his reverie. "You won't look so pretty when the Clave gets through with you."

"You do seem obsessed with my looks." Jace turned away from the mirror with some relief. "Could it be that all this is because you're attracted to me?"

"Don't be revolting." The Inquisitor had taken four long strips of metal from the gray pouch that hung at her waist. Angel blades. "You could be my son."

"Stephen." Jace remembered what Luke had said back at the house. "That's what he's called, right?"

The Inquisitor whirled on him. The blades she gripped were vibrating with her rage. "Don't you ever say his name."

For a moment Jace wondered if she might really try to kill him. He said nothing as she got herself under control. Without looking at him, she pointed with one of the blades. "Stand there in the center of the room, please."

Jace obeyed. Though he tried not to look at the mirrors, he could see his reflection—and the Inquisitor's—out of the corner of his eye, the mirrors reflecting back at each other until an infinite number of Inquisitors stood there, threatening an infinite number of Jaces.

He glanced down at his bound hands. His wrists and shoulders had gone from aching to a hard, stabbing pain, but he didn't wince as the Inquisitor regarded one of the blades, named it Jophiel, and plunged it into the polished wooden floorboards at her feet. He waited, but nothing happened.

"Boom?" he said eventually. "Was something supposed to happen there?"

"Shut up." The Inquisitor's tone was final. "And stay where you are."

Jace stayed, watching with growing curiosity as she moved to his other side, named a second blade Harahel, and proceeded to drive that one into the floorboards as well.

With the third blade—Sandalphon—he realized what she was doing. The first blade had been driven into the floor just south of him, the next to the east, and the next to the north. She was marking out the points of a compass. He struggled to remember what this might mean, came up with nothing. This was clearly Clave ritual, beyond anything he'd been taught. By the time she reached the last blade, Taharial, his palms were sweating, chafing where they rubbed against each other.

The Inquisitor straightened, looking pleased with herself. "There."

"There what?" Jace demanded, but she held a hand up.

"Not quite yet, Jonathan. There's one more thing." She moved to the southernmost blade and knelt in front of it. With a quick movement she produced a stele and marked a single dark rune into the floor just below the knife. As she rose to her feet, a high sharp sweet chime sounded through the room, the sound of a delicate bell being struck. Light poured from the four angel blades, so blinding that Jace turned his face away, half-closing his eyes. When he turned back, a moment later, he saw that he was standing inside a cage whose walls looked as if they had been woven out of filaments of light. They were not static, but moving, like sheets of illuminated rain.

The Inquisitor was now a blurred figure behind a glowing wall. When Jace called out to her, even his voice sounded wavering and hollow, as if he were calling to her through water. "What is this? What have you done?"

She laughed.

Jace took an angry step forward, and then another; his shoulder brushed a glowing wall. As if he'd touched an electrified fence, the shock that pulsed through him was like a blow, knocking him off his feet. He tumbled awkwardly to the floor, unable to use his hands to break his fall.

The Inquisitor laughed again. "If you try to walk through the wall, you'll get more than a shock. The Clave calls this particular punishment the Malachi Configuration. These walls can't be broken as long as the seraph blades remain where they are. I wouldn't," she added, as Jace, kneeling, made a move toward the blade closest to him. "Touch the blades and you'll die."

"But you can touch them," he said, unable to keep the loathing out of his voice.

"I can, but I won't."

"But what about food? Water?"

"All in good time, Jonathan."

He got to his feet. Through the blurred wall, he saw her turn as if to go.

"But my hands—" He looked down at his bound wrists. The burning metal was eating into his skin like acid. Blood welled around the fiery manacles.

"You should have thought of that before you went to see Valentine."

"You're not exactly making me fear the revenge of the Council. They can't be worse than you."

"Oh, you're not going to the Council," the Inquisitor said. There was a quiet calm in her tone that Jace did not like.

"What do you mean, I'm not going to the Council? I thought you said you were taking me to Idris tomorrow?"

"No. I'm planning to return you to your father."

The shock of her words almost knocked him back off his feet. "My father?"

"Your father. I'm planning to trade you to him for the Mortal Instruments."

Jace stared at her. "You must be joking."

"Not at all. It's simpler than a trial. Of course, you'll be banned from the Clave," she added, as a sort of afterthought, "but I assume you expected that."

Jace was shaking his head. "You have the wrong guy. I hope you realize that."

A look of annoyance flashed across her face. "I thought we'd dispensed with your pretense of innocence, Jonathan."

"I didn't mean me. I meant my father."

For the first time since he'd met her, she looked confused. "I don't understand what you mean."

"My father won't trade the Mortal Instruments for me." The words were bitter, but Jace's tone wasn't. It was matter-of-fact. "He'd let you kill me in front of him before he'd hand you either the Sword or the Cup."

The Inquisitor shook her head. "You don't understand," she said, and there was a puzzling trace of resentment in her voice. "Children never do. The love a parent has for a child, there is nothing else like it. No other love so consuming. No father—not even Valentine—would sacrifice his son for a hunk of metal, no matter how powerful."

"You don't know my father. He'll laugh in your face and offer you some money to mail my body back to Idris."

"Don't be absurd—"

"You're right," Jace said. "Come to think of it, he'll probably make you pay the shipping charges yourself."

"I see that you're still your father's son. You don't want him to lose the Mortal Instruments—it would be a loss of power to you as well. You don't want to live out your life as the disgraced son of a criminal, so you'll say anything to sway my decision. But you don't fool me."

"Listen." Jace's heart was pounding, but he tried to speak calmly. She had to believe him. "I know you hate me. I know you think I'm a liar like my father. But I'm telling you the truth now. My father absolutely believes in what he's doing. You think he's evil. But he thinks he's right. He thinks he's doing God's work. He won't give that up for me. You were tracking me when I went out there, you must have heard what he said—"

"I saw you speak to him," said the Inquisitor. "I heard nothing."

Jace cursed under his breath. "Look, I'll swear any oath you want to prove I'm not lying. He's using the Sword and the Cup to summon demons and control them. The more you waste your time with me, the more he can build up his army. By the time you realize he won't make the trade, you'll have no chance against him—"

The Inquisitor turned away with a noise of disgust. "I'm tired of your lies."

Jace caught his breath in disbelief as she turned her back on him and stalked toward the door.

"Please!" he cried.

She stopped at the door and turned to look at him. Jace could only see the angular shadows of her face, the pointed chin, and dark hollows at her temples. Her gray clothes vanished into the shadows so that she looked like a bodiless floating skull. "Don't think," she said, "that returning you to your father is what I want to do. It's better than Valentine Morgenstern deserves."

"What does he deserve?"

"To hold the dead body of his child in his arms. To see his dead son and know that there is nothing he can do, no spell, no incantation, no bargain with hell that will bring him back—" She broke off. "He should know," she said, in a whisper, and pushed at the door, her hands scrabbling against the wood. It shut behind her with a click, leaving Jace, his wrists burning, staring after her in confusion.

Clary hung up the phone with a frown. "No answer."

"Who is it you were trying to call?" Luke was on his fifth cup of coffee and Clary was starting to worry about him. Surely there was such a thing as caffeine poisoning? He didn't seem on the verge of a fit or anything, but she surreptitiously unplugged the percolator on her way back to the table, just in case. "Simon?"

"No. I feel weird waking him up during the daytime, though he said it doesn't bother him as long as he doesn't have to see daylight." So…

"I was calling Isabelle. I want to know what's going on with Jace."

"She didn't answer?"

"No." Clary's stomach rumbled. She went to the refrigerator, removed a peach yogurt, and ate it mechanically, tasting nothing. She was halfway through the container when she remembered something. "Maia," she said. "We should check and see if she's okay." She set the yogurt down. "I'll go."

"No, I'm her pack leader. She trusts me. I can calm her down if she's upset," Luke said. "I'll be right back."

"Don't say that," Clary begged. "I hate it when people say that."

He smiled at her crookedly and ducked out into the hallway. Within a few minutes he was back, looking stunned. "She's gone."

"Gone? Gone how?"

"I mean she snuck out of the house. She left this." He tossed a folded piece of paper onto the table. Clary picked it up and read the scrawled sentences with a frown:

Sorry about everything. Gone to make amends. Thanks for all you've done. Maia.

"Gone to make amends? What does that mean?"

Luke sighed. "I was hoping you would know."

"Are you worried?"

"Raum demons are retrievers," Luke said. "They find people and bring them back to whoever summoned them. That demon could still be looking for her."

"Oh," Clary said in a small voice. "Well, my guess would be that she means she went to see Simon."

Luke looked surprised. "Does she know where he lives?"

"I don't know," Clary admitted. "They seem kind of close in a way. She might." She fished into her pocket for her phone. "I'll call him."

"I thought calling him made you feel weird."

"Not as weird as everything else that's going on." She scrolled through her address book for Simon's number. It rang three times before he picked up, sounding groggy.

"Hello?"

"It's me." She turned away from Luke as she spoke, more out of habit than from any desire to hide the conversation from him.

"You do know I'm nocturnal now," he said with groan. She could hear him rolling over in bed. "That means I sleep all day."

"Are you at home?"

"Yeah, where else would I be?" His voice sharpened, sleep falling away. "What is it, Clary, what's wrong?"

"Maia ran off. She left a note saying she might be going to your house."

Simon sounded puzzled. "Well, she didn't. Or if she did, she hasn't shown up yet."

"Is anyone else home but you?"

"No, my mom's at work and Rebecca has classes. Why, you really think Maia's going to show up here?"

"Just give us a call if she does—"

Simon cut her off. "Clary." His tone was urgent. "Hang on a second. I think someone's trying to break into my house."

Time passed inside the prison, and Jace watched the shocking silver rain falling all around him with a detached sort of interest. His fingers had started to go numb, which he suspected was a bad sign, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He wondered if the Lightwoods knew he was up here, or if someone entering the training room would get a nasty surprise when they found him locked up in it. But no, the Inquisitor wasn't that sloppy. She would have told them the room was off-limits until she disposed of the prisoner in whatever manner she saw fit. He supposed he ought to be angry, even afraid, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that either. Nothing seemed real anymore: not the Clave, not the Covenant, not the Law, not even his father.

A soft footfall alerted him to the presence of someone else in the room. He'd been lying on his back, staring at the ceiling; now he sat up, his gaze flicking around the room. He could see a dark shape just beyond the shimmering rain-curtain. It must be the Inquisitor, back to sneer at him some more. He braced himself—then saw, with a jolt, the dark hair and familiar face.

Maybe there were still some things he cared about, after all. "Alec?"

"It's me." Alec knelt down on the other side of the glimmering wall. It was like looking at someone through clear water rippled with current; Jace could see Alec clearly now, but occasionally his features would seem to waver and dissolve as the fiery rain shimmered and undulated.

It was enough to make you seasick, Jace thought.

"What in the Angel's name is this stuff?" Alec reached out to touch the wall.

"Don't." Jace reached out, then drew back quickly before he made contact with the wall. "It'll shock you, maybe kill you if you try to pass through it."

Alec drew his hand back with a low whistle. "The Inquisitor meant business."

"Of course she did. I'm a dangerous criminal. Or hadn't you heard?" Jace heard the acid in his own tone, saw Alec flinch, and was meanly, momentarily, glad.

"She didn't call you a criminal, exactly…"

"No, I'm just a very naughty boy. I do all sorts of bad things. I kick kittens. I make rude gestures at nuns."

"Don't joke. This is serious stuff." Alec's eyes were somber. "What the hell were you thinking, going to see Valentine? I mean, seriously, what was going through your head?"

A number of smart remarks occurred to Jace, but he found he didn't want to make any of them. He was too tired. "I was thinking that he's my father."

Alec looked as if he were mentally counting to ten to maintain his patience. "Jace—"

"What if it was your father? What would you do?"

"My father? My father would never do the things that Valentine—"

Jace's head jerked up. "Your father did do those things! He was in the Circle along with my father! Your mother, too! Our parents were all the same. The only difference is that yours got caught and punished, and mine didn't!"

Alec's face tightened. But "The only difference?" was all he said.

Jace looked down at his hands. The burning cuffs weren't meant to be left on so long. The skin underneath them was dotted with beads of blood.

"I just meant," Alec said, "that I don't see how you could want to see him, not after what's he's done in general, but after what he did to you."

Jace said nothing.

"All those years," Alec said. "He let you think he was dead. Maybe you don't remember what it was like when you were ten years old, but I do. Nobody who loved you could do—could do anything like that."

Thin lines of blood were making their way down Jace's hands, like red string unraveling. "Valentine told me," he said quietly, "that if I supported him against the Clave, if I did that, he'd make sure no one I cared about was hurt. Not you or Isabelle or Max. Not Clary. Not your parents. He said—"

"No one would be hurt?" Alec echoed derisively. "You mean he wouldn't hurt them himself. Nice."

"I saw what he can do, Alec. The kind of demonic force he can summon. If he brings his demon army against the Clave, there will be a war. And people get hurt in wars. They die in wars." He hesitated. "If you had the chance to save everyone you loved—"

"But what kind of chance is it? What's Valentine's word even worth?"

"If he swears on the Angel that he'll do something, he'll do it. I know him."

"If you support him against the Clave."

Jace nodded.

"He must have been pretty pissed when you said no," Alec observed.

Jace looked up from his bleeding wrists and stared. "What?"

"I said—"

"I know what you said. What makes you think I said no?"

"Well, you did. Didn't you?"

Very slowly, Jace nodded.

"I know you," Alec said, with supreme confidence, and stood up. "You told the Inquisitor about Valentine and his plans, didn't you? And she didn't care?"

"I wouldn't say she didn't care. More like she didn't really believe me. She's got a plan she thinks will take care of Valentine. The only problem is, her plan sucks."

Alec nodded. "You can fill me in on that later. First things first: We have to figure out how to get you out of here."

"What?" Disbelief made Jace feel slightly dizzy. "I thought you came down right on the side of go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. 'The Law is the Law, Isabelle.' What was all that you were spouting?"

Alec looked astonished. "You can't have thought I meant that. I just wanted the Inquisitor to trust me so she wouldn't be watching me all the time like she's watching Izzy and Max. She knows they're on your side."

"And you? Are you on my side?" Jace could hear the roughness in his own question and was almost overwhelmed by how much the answer meant to him.

"I'm with you," Alec said, "always. Why do you even have to ask? I may respect the Law, but what the Inquisitor has been doing to you has nothing to do with the Law. I don't know exactly what's going on, but the hatred she has for you is personal. It has nothing to do with the Clave."

"I bait her," said Jace. "I can't help it. Vicious bureaucrats get under my skin."

Alec shook his head. "It's not that either. It's an old hate. I can feel it."

Jace was about to answer when the cathedral bells began to ring. This close to the roof, the sound was echoingly loud. He glanced up—he still half-expected to see Hugo flying among the wooden rafters in his slow, thoughtful circles. The raven had always liked it up there between the rafters and the arched stone ceiling. At the time Jace had thought the bird liked to dig his claws into the soft wood; now he realized the rafters had lent him an excellent vantage point for spying.

An idea began to take shape in the back of Jace's mind, dark and formless. Out loud he said only, "Luke said something about the Inquisitor having a son named Stephen. He said she was trying to get even for him. I asked her about him and she freaked out. I think it might have something to do with why she hates me so much."

The bells had stopped ringing. Alec said, "Maybe. I could ask my parents, but I doubt they'd tell me."

"No, don't ask them. Ask Luke."

"Go all the way back to Brooklyn, you mean? Look, sneaking out of here is going to be all but impossible—"

"Use Isabelle's phone. Text Clary. Tell her to ask Luke."

"Okay." Alec paused. "Do you want me to say anything else to her for you? To Clary, I mean, not Isabelle."

"No," Jace said. "I don't have anything to say to her."

"Simon!" Clutching the phone, Clary whirled toward Luke. "He says someone's trying to break into his house."

"Tell him to get out of there."

"I can't get out of here," Simon said tightly. "Not unless I want to catch on fire."

"Daylight," she said to Luke, but she saw he'd already realized the problem and was searching for something in his pockets. Car keys. He held them up.

"Tell Simon we're coming. Tell him to lock himself in a room until we get there."

"Did you hear that? Lock yourself in a room."

"I heard." Simon's voice sounded tense; Clary could hear a soft scraping sound, then a heavy thump.

"Simon!"

"I'm fine. I'm just piling things against the door."

"What kind of things?" She was out on the porch now, shivering in her thin sweater. Luke, behind her, was locking up the house.

"A desk," Simon said with some satisfaction. "And my bed."

"Your bed?" Clary climbed up into the truck beside Luke, struggling one-handed with her seat belt as Luke peeled out of the driveway and rocketed down Kent. He reached over and buckled it for her. "How did you lift your bed?"

"You forget. Super vampire strength."

"Ask him what he's hearing," Luke said. They were speeding down the street, which would have been fine if the Brooklyn waterfront had been better maintained. Clary gasped every time they hit a pothole.

"What are you hearing?" she asked, catching her breath.

"I heard the front door crash in. I think someone must have kicked it open. Then Yossarian came streaking into my room and hid under the bed. That's how I knew there was definitely someone in the house."

"And now?"

"Now I don't hear anything."

"That's good, right?" Clary turned to Luke. "He says he doesn't hear anything now. Maybe they went away."

"Maybe." Luke sounded doubtful. They were on the expressway now, speeding toward Simon's neighborhood. "Keep him on the phone anyway."

"What are you doing now, Simon?"

"Nothing. I've shoved everything in the room against the door. Now I'm trying to get Yossarian out from behind the heating vent."

"Leave him where he is."

"This is all going to be very hard to explain to my mom," Simon said, and the phone went dead. There was a click and then nothing, call disconnected flashed on the digital display.

"No. No!" Clary hit the redial button, her fingers trembling.

Simon picked up immediately. "Sorry. Yossarian scratched me and I dropped the phone."

Her throat burned with relief. "That's fine, just as long as you're still okay and—"

A noise like a tidal wave crashed through the phone, obliterating Simon's voice. She yanked the phone away from her ear. The display still read call connected.

"Simon!" she screamed into the phone. "Simon, can you hear me?"

The crashing noise stopped. There was the sound of something shattering, and a high, unearthly yowl—Yossarian? Then the sound of something heavy striking the ground.

"Simon?" she whispered.

There was a click and then a drawling, amused voice spoke in her ear. "Clarissa," it said. "I should have known you'd be on the other end of this phone line."

She squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach falling out from under her as if she were on a roller coaster that had just made its first drop. "Valentine."

"You mean 'Father,' " he said, sounding genuinely annoyed. "I deplore this modern habit of calling one's parents by their first names."

"What I actually want to call you is a hell of a lot more unprintable than your name," she snapped. "Where's Simon?"

"You mean the vampire boy? Questionable company for a Shadowhunter girl of good family, don't you think? From now on I'll be expecting to have a say in your choice of friends."

"What did you do to Simon?"

"Nothing," said Valentine, amused. "Yet."

And he hung up.

By the time Alec came back into the training room, Jace was lying on the floor, envisioning lines of dancing girls in an effort to ignore the pain in his wrists. It wasn't working.

"What are you doing?" Alec asked, kneeling down as close to the shimmering wall of the prison as he could get. Jace tried to remind himself that when Alec asked this sort of question, he really meant it, and that it was something he had once found endearing rather than annoying. He failed.

"I thought I'd lie on the floor and writhe in pain for a while," he grunted. "It relaxes me."

"It does? Oh—you're being sarcastic. That's a good sign, probably," Alec said. "If you can sit up, you might want to. I'm going to try to slide something through the wall."

Jace sat up so quickly that his head spun. "Alec, don't—"

But Alec had already moved to push something toward him with both hands, as if he were rolling a ball to a child. A red sphere broke through the shimmering curtain and rolled to Jace, bumping gently against his knee.

"An apple." He picked it up with some difficulty. "How appropriate."

"I thought you might be hungry."

"I am." Jace took a bite of the apple; juice ran down his hands and sizzled in the blue flames that cuffed his wrists. "Did you text Clary?"

"No. Isabelle won't let me into her room. She just throws things against the door and screams. She said if I came in she'd jump out the window. She'd do it too."

"Probably."

"I get the feeling," Alec said, and smiled, "she hasn't forgiven me for betraying you, as she sees it."

"Good girl," said Jace with appreciation.

"I didn't betray you, idiot."

"It's the thought that counts."

"Good, because I brought you something else, too. I don't know if it'll work, but it's worth a try." He slid something small and metallic through the wall. It was a silvery disk about the size of a quarter. Jace set the apple aside and picked the disk up curiously. "What's this?"

"I got it off the desk in the library. I've seen my parents use it before to take off restraints. I think it's an Unlocking rune. It's worth trying—"

He broke off as Jace touched the disk to his wrists, holding it awkwardly between two fingers. The moment it touched the line of blue flame, the cuff flickered and vanished.

"Thanks." Jace rubbed his wrists, each one braceleted with a line of chafed, bleeding skin. He was starting to be able to feel his fingertips again. "It's not a file hidden in a birthday cake, but it'll keep my hands from falling off."

Alec looked at him. The wavering lines of the rain-curtain made his face look elongated, worried—or maybe he was worried. "You know, something occurred to me when I was talking to Isabelle earlier. I told her she couldn't jump out the window—and not to try or she'd get herself killed."

Jace nodded. "Sound big-brotherly advice."

"But then I started wondering if that was true in your case—I mean, I've seen you do things that were practically flying. I've seen you fall three stories and land like a cat, jump from the ground to a roof—"

"Hearing my achievements recited is certainly gratifying, but I'm not sure what your point is, Alec."

"My point is that there are four walls to this prison, not five."

Jace stared at him. "So Hodge wasn't lying when he said we'd actually use geometry in our daily lives. You're right, Alec. There are four walls to this cage. Now if the Inquisitor had gone with two, I might—"

"JACE," Alec said, losing patience. "I mean, there's no top to the cage. Nothing between you and the ceiling."

Jace craned his head back. The rafters seemed to sway dizzily high above him, lost in shadow. "You're crazy."

"Maybe," Alec said. "Maybe I just know what you can do." He shrugged. "You could try, at least."

Jace looked at Alec—at his open, honest face and steady blue eyes. He is crazy, Jace thought. It was true, in the heat of fighting, he'd done some amazing things, but so had they all. Shadowhunter blood, years of training… but he couldn't jump thirty feet straight up into the air.

How do you know you can't, said a soft voice in his head, if you've never tried it?

Clary's voice. He thought of her and her runes, of the Silent City and the handcuff popping off his wrist as if it had cracked under some enormous pressure. He and Clary shared the same blood. If Clary could do things that shouldn't be possible …

He got to his feet, almost reluctantly, and looked around, taking slow stock of the room. He could still see the floor-length mirrors and the multitude of weapons hanging on the walls, their blades glinting dully, through the curtain of silver fire that surrounded him. He bent and retrieved the half-eaten apple off the floor, looked at it for a thoughtful moment—then cocked his arm back and threw it as hard as he could. The apple sailed through the air, hit a shimmering silver wall, and burst into a corona of molten blue flame.

Jace heard Alec gasp. So the Inquisitor hadn't been exaggerating. If he hit one of the prison walls too hard, he'd die.

Alec was on his feet, suddenly wavering. "Jace, I don't know—"

"Shut up, Alec. And don't watch me. It's not helping."

Whatever Alec said in response, Jace didn't hear it. He was doing a slow pivot in place, his eyes focused on the rafters. The runes that gave him excellent long sight kicked in, the rafters coming into better focus: He could see their chipped edges, their whorls and knots, the black stains of age. But they were solid. They'd held up the Institute roof for hundreds of years. They could hold a teenage boy. He flexed his fingers, taking deep, slow, controlled breaths, just as his father had taught him. In his mind's eye he saw himself leaping, soaring, catching hold of a rafter with ease and swinging himself up onto it. He was light, he told himself, light as an arrow, winging its way easily through the air, swift and unstoppable. It would be easy, he told himself. Easy.

"I am Valentine's arrow," Jace whispered. "Whether he knows it or not."

And he jumped.

16 A Stone of the Heart

Clary hit the button to call Simon back, but the phone went straight to voice mail. Hot tears splashed down her cheeks and she threw her own phone at the dashboard. "Damn it, damn it—"

"We're almost there," Luke said. They'd gotten off the expressway and she hadn't even noticed. They pulled up in front of Simon's house, a wooden one-family whose front was painted a cheerful red. Clary was out of the car and running up the front walk before Luke had even yanked on the security brake. She could hear him yelling her name as she dashed up the steps and pounded frantically on the front door.

"Simon!" she shouted. "Simon!"

"Clary, enough." Luke caught up to her on the front porch. "The neighbors—"

"Screw the neighbors." She fumbled for the key ring on her belt, found the right key, and slid it into the lock. She swung the door open and stepped warily into the hallway, Luke just behind her. They peered through the first door on the left into the kitchen. Everything looked exactly as it always had, from the meticulously clean counter to the fridge magnets. There was the sink where she'd kissed Simon just a few days ago. Sunshine streamed in through the windows, filling the room with pale yellow light. Light that was capable of charring Simon away to ashes.

Simon's room was the last one at the end of the hall. The door stood slightly open, though Clary could see nothing but darkness through the crack.

She slid her stele out of her pocket and gripped it tightly. She knew it wasn't really a weapon, but the feel of it in her hand was calming. Inside, the room was dark, black curtains drawn across the windows, the only light coming from the digital clock on the bedside table. Luke was reaching across her to flip on the light when something—something that hissed and spit and snarled like a demon—launched itself at him out of the darkness.

Clary screamed as Luke seized her shoulders and pushed her roughly aside. She stumbled and nearly fell; when she righted herself, she turned to see an astonished-looking Luke holding a yowling, struggling white cat, its fur sticking out all over. It looked like a ball of cotton with claws.

"Yossarian!" Clary exclaimed.

Luke dropped the cat. Yossarian immediately shot between his legs and disappeared down the hall.

"Stupid cat," Clary said.

"It's not his fault. Cats don't like me." Luke reached for the light switch and flipped it on. Clary gasped. The room was completely in order, nothing at all out of place, not even the rug askew. Even the coverlet was folded neatly on the bed.

"Is it a glamour?"

"Probably not. Probably just magic." Luke moved into the center of the room, looking around him thoughtfully. As he moved to pull one of the curtains aside, Clary saw something gleam in the carpet at his feet.

"Luke, wait." She went to where he was standing and knelt to retrieve the object. It was Simon's silver cell phone, badly bent out of shape, the antenna snapped off. Heart pounding, she flipped the phone open. Despite the crack that ran the length of the display screen, a single text message was still visible: Now I have them all.

Clary sank down on the bed in a daze. Distantly, she felt Luke pluck the phone out of her hand. She heard him suck in his breath as he read the message.

"What does that mean? 'Now I have them all'?" asked Clary.

Luke set Simon's phone down on the desk and passed a hand over his face. "I'm afraid it means that now he has Simon and, we might as well face it, Maia, too. It means he has everything he needs for the Ritual of Conversion."

Clary stared at him. "You mean this isn't just about getting at me—and you?"

"I'm sure Valentine regards that as a pleasant side effect. But it's not his main goal. His main goal is to reverse the characteristics of the Soul-Sword. And for that he needs—"

"The blood of Downworlder children. But Maia and Simon aren't children. They're teenagers."

"When that spell was created, the spell to turn the Soul-Sword to darkness, the word 'teenager' hadn't even been invented. In Shadowhunter society, you're an adult when you're eighteen. Before that, you're a child. For Valentine's purposes, Maia and Simon are children. He has the blood of a faerie child already, and the blood of a warlock child. All he needed was a werewolf and a vampire."

Clary felt as if the air had been punched out of her. "Then why didn't we do something? Why didn't we think of protecting them somehow?"

"So far Valentine has done what's convenient. None of his victims were chosen for any other reason than that they were there and available. The warlock was easy to find; all Valentine had to do was hire him under the pretense of wanting a demon raised. It's simple enough to spot faeries in the park if you know where to look. And the Hunter's Moon is exactly where you'd go if you wanted to find a werewolf. Putting himself to this extra danger and trouble just to strike out at us when nothing's changed—"

"Jace," said Clary.

"What do you mean, Jace? What about him?"

"I think it's Jace he's trying to get back at. Jace must have done something last night on the boat, something that really pissed Valentine off. Pissed him off enough to abandon whatever plan he had before and make a new one."

Luke looked baffled. "What makes you think that Valentine's change of plans had anything to do with your brother?"

"Because," Clary said with grim certainty, "only Jace can piss someone off that much."

"Isabelle!" Alec pounded on his sister's door. "Isabelle, open the door. I know you're in there."

The door opened a crack. Alec tried to peer through it, but no one appeared to be on the other side. "She doesn't want to talk to you," said a well-known voice.

Alec glanced down and saw gray eyes glaring at him from behind a bent pair of spectacles. "Max," he said. "Come on, little brother, let me in."

"I don't want to talk to you either." Max started to push the door shut, but Alec, quick as a flick of Isabelle's whip, wedged his foot into the gap.

"Don't make me knock you over, Max."

"You wouldn't." Max pushed back with all his might.

"No, but I might go get our parents, and I have a feeling Isabelle doesn't want that. Do you, Izzy?" he demanded, pitching his voice loud enough for his sister, inside the room, to hear.

"Oh, for God's sake." Isabelle sounded furious. "All right, Max. Let him in."

Max stepped away and Alec pushed his way in, letting the door swing half-shut behind him. Isabelle was kneeling in the embrasure of the window beside her bed, her gold whip coiled around her left arm. She was wearing her hunting gear, the tough black trousers and skintight shirt with their silvery, near-invisible design of runes. Her boots were buckled up to her knees and her black hair whipped in the breeze from the open window. She glared at him, reminding him for a moment of nothing more than Hugo, Hodge's black raven.

"What the hell are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?" he demanded, striding furiously across the room toward his sister. Her whip snaked out, coiling around his ankles. Alec stopped dead, knowing that with a single flick of her wrist Isabelle could jerk him off his feet and land him in a trussed bundle on the hardwood floor. "Don't come any closer to me, Alexander Lightwood," she said in her angriest voice. "I'm not feeling very charitable toward you at the moment."

"Isabelle—"

"How could you just turn on Jace like that? After all he's been through? And you swore that oath to watch out for each other too—"

"Not," he reminded her, "if it meant breaking the Law."

"The Law!" Isabelle snapped in disgust. "There's a higher law than the Clave, Alec. The law of family. Jace is your family."

"The law of family? I've never heard of that before," Alec said, nettled. He knew he ought to be defending himself, but it was hard not to be distracted by the lifelong habit of correcting one's younger siblings when they were wrong. "Could that be because you just made it up?"

Isabelle flicked her wrist. Alec felt his feet go out from under him and twisted to absorb the impact of falling with his hands and wrists. He landed, rolled onto his back, and looked up to see Isabelle looming over him. Max was beside her. "What should we do with him, Maxwell?" Isabelle asked. "Leave him tied up here for the parents to find?"

Alec had had enough. He whipped a blade from the sheath at his wrist, twisted, and slashed it through the whip around his ankles. The electrum wire parted with a snap and he sprang to his feet as Isabelle drew her arm back, the wire hissing around her.

A low chuckle broke the tension. "All right, all right, you've tortured him enough. I'm here."

Isabelle's eyes flew wide. "Jace!"

"The same." Jace ducked into Isabelle's room, shutting the door behind him. "No need for the two of you to fight—" He winced as Max careened into him, yelping his name. "Careful there," he said, gently disentangling the boy. "I'm not in the best shape right now."

"I can see that," Isabelle said, her eyes raking him anxiously. His wrists were bloody, his fair hair was plastered sweatily to his neck and forehead, and his face and hands were stained with dirt and ichor. "Did the Inquisitor hurt you?"

"Not too badly." Jace's eyes met Alec's across the room. "She just locked me up in the weapons gallery. Alec helped me get out."

The whip drooped in Isabelle's hand like a flower. "Alec, is that true?"

"Yes." Alec brushed dust from the floor off his clothes with deliberate ostentation. He couldn't resist adding: "So there."

"Well, you should have said."

"And you should have had some faith in me—"

"Enough. There's no time for bickering," Jace said. "Isabelle, what kind of weapons do you have in here? And bandages, any bandages?"

"Bandages?" Isabelle set her whip down and took her stele out of a drawer. "I can fix you up with an iratze—"

Jace raised his wrists. "An iratze would be good for my bruises, but it won't help these. These are rune burns." They looked even worse in the bright light of Isabelle's room—the circular scars were black and cracked in places, oozing blood and clear fluid. He lowered his hands as Isabelle paled. "And I'll need some weapons, too, before I—"

"Bandages first. Weapons later." She set her whip down on top of the dresser and herded Jace into the bathroom with a basketful of ointments, gauze pads, and bandage strips. Alec watched them through the half-open door, Jace leaning against the sink as his adoptive sister sponged his wrists and wrapped them in white gauze. "Okay, now take your shirt off."

"I knew there was something in this for you." Jace slid off his jacket and drew his T-shirt over his head, wincing. His skin was pale gold, layered over hard muscle. Black ink Marks twined his slim arms. A mundane might have thought the white scars that snowflaked Jace's skin, remnants of old runes, made him less than perfect, but Alec didn't. They all had those scars; they were badges of honor, not flaws.

Jace, seeing Alec watching him through the half-open door, said, "Alec, can you get the phone?"

"It's on the dresser." Isabelle didn't look up. She and Jace were conversing in low tones; Alec couldn't hear them, but suspected this was because they were trying not to scare Max.

Alec looked. "It's not on the dresser."

Isabelle, tracing an iratze on Jace's back, swore in annoyance. "Oh, hell. I left my phone in the kitchen. Crap. I don't want to go looking for it in case the Inquisitor's around."

"I'll get it," Max offered. "She doesn't care about me, I'm too young."

"I suppose." Isabelle sounded reluctant. "What do you need the phone for, Alec?"

"We just need it," Alec said impatiently. "Izzy—"

"If you're texting Magnus to say 'I think u r kewl,' I'm going to kill you."

"Who's Magnus?" Max inquired.

"He's a warlock," said Alec.

"A sexy, sexy warlock," Isabelle told Max, ignoring Alec's look of total fury.

"But warlocks are bad," protested Max, looking baffled.

"Exactly," said Isabelle.

"I don't understand," said Max. "But I'm going to get the phone. I'll be right back."

He slipped out the door as Jace pulled his shirt and jacket back on and came back into the bedroom, where he commenced looking for weapons in the piles of Isabelle's belongings that were strewn around the floor. Isabelle followed him, shaking her head. "What's the plan now? Are we all leaving? The Inquisitor's going to freak when she finds out you're not there anymore."

"Not as much as she'll freak when Valentine turns her down." Tersely, Jace outlined the Inquisitor's plan. "The only problem is, he'll never go for it."

"The—the only problem?" Isabelle was so furious she was almost stuttering, something she hadn't done since she was six. "She can't do that! She can't just trade you away to a psychopath! You're a member of the Clave! You're our brother!"

"The Inquisitor doesn't think so."

"I don't care what she thinks. She's a hideous bitch and she has got to be stopped."

"Once she finds out her plan is seriously flawed, she might be able to be talked down," Jace observed. "But I'm not sticking around to find out. I'm getting out of here."

"It's not going to be easy," Alec said. "The Inquisitor's got this place locked up tighter than a pentagram. You know there are guards downstairs? She's called in half the Conclave."

"She must think highly of me," said Jace, tossing aside a pile of magazines.

"Maybe she's not wrong." Isabelle looked at him thoughtfully. "Did you seriously jump thirty feet out of a Malachi Configuration? Did he, Alec?"

"He did," Alec confirmed. "I've never seen anything like it."

"I've never seen anything like this." Jace lifted a ten-inch dagger from the floor. One of Isabelle's pink brassieres was speared on the wickedly sharp tip.

Isabelle snatched it off, scowling. "That's not the point. How did you do it? Do you know?"

"I jumped." Jace pulled two razor-edged spinning disks out from under the bed. They were covered in gray cat hair. He blew on them, scattering fur. "Chakhrams. Cool. Especially if I meet any demons with serious dander allergies."

Isabelle thwacked him with the bra. "You're not answering me!"

"Because I don't know, Izzy." Jace scrambled to his feet. "Maybe the Seelie Queen was right. Maybe I have powers I don't even know about because I've never tested them. Clary certainly does."

Isabelle wrinkled her forehead. "She does?"

Alec's eyes widened suddenly. "Jace—is that vampire cycle of yours still up on the roof?"

"Possibly. But it's daylight, so it's not much use."

"Besides," Isabelle pointed out, "we can't all fit on it."

Jace slid the chakhrams onto his belt, along with the ten-inch dagger. Several angel blades went into his jacket pockets. "That doesn't matter," he said. "You're not coming with me."

Isabelle spluttered. "What do you mean, we're not—" She broke off as Max returned, out of breath and clutching her battered pink phone. "Max, you're a hero." She snatched the phone from him, shooting a glare at Jace. "I'll get back to you in a minute. Meanwhile, who are we calling? Clary?"

"I'll call her—," Alec began.

"No." Isabelle batted his hand away. "She likes me better." She was already dialing; she stuck her tongue out as she held the phone up to her ear. "Clary? It's Isabelle. I—What?" The color in her face vanished as if it had been wiped away, leaving her gray and staring. "How is that possible? But why—"

"How is what possible?" Jace was at her side in two strides. "Isabelle, what's happened? Is Clary—"

Isabelle drew the phone away from her ear, her knuckles white. "It's Valentine. He's taken Simon and Maia. He's going to use them to perform the Ritual."

In one smooth motion, Jace reached over and plucked the phone out of Isabelle's hand. He put it to his ear. "Drive to the Institute," he said. "Don't come in. Wait for me. I'll meet you outside." He snapped the phone shut and handed it to Alec. "Call Magnus," he said. "Tell him to meet us down by the waterfront in Brooklyn. He can pick the place, but it should be somewhere deserted. We're going to need his help getting to Valentine's ship."

"We?" Isabelle perked up visibly.

"Magnus, Luke, and myself," Jace clarified. "You two are staying here and dealing with the Inquisitor for me. When Valentine doesn't come through with his part of her deal, you're the ones who are going to have to convince her to send all the backup the Conclave has got after Valentine."

"I don't get it," Alec said. "How do you plan to get out of here in the first place?"

Jace grinned. "Watch," he said, and jumped up onto Isabelle's windowsill. Isabelle cried out, but Jace was already ducking through the window opening. He balanced for a moment on the sill outside—and then he was gone.

Alec raced to the window and stared out in horror, but there was nothing to see: just the garden of the Institute far below, brown and empty, and the narrow path that led up to the front door. There were no screaming pedestrians on Ninety-sixth Street, no cars pulled over at the sight of a falling body. It was as if Jace had vanished into thin air.

The sound of water woke him. It was a heavy repetitive sound—water sloshing against something solid, over and over, as if he were lying in the bottom of a pool that was rapidly draining and refilling itself. There was the taste of metal in his mouth and the smell of metal all around. He was conscious of a nagging, persistent pain in his left hand. With a groan, Simon opened his eyes.

He was lying on a hard, bumpy metal floor painted an ugly gray-green. The walls were the same green metal. There was a single high round window in one wall, letting in only a little sunlight, but it was enough. He'd been lying with his hand in a patch of it and his fingers were red and blistered. With another groan, he rolled away from the light and sat up.

And realized he wasn't alone in the room. Though the shadows were thick, he could see in the dark just fine. Across from him, her hands bound together and chained to a large steam pipe, was Maia. Her clothes were torn and there was a massive bruise across her left cheek. He could see where her braids had been torn away from her scalp on one side, her hair matted with blood. The moment he sat up, she stared at him and burst immediately into tears. "I thought," she hiccupped between sobs, "that you—were dead."

"I am dead," Simon said. He was staring at his hand. As he watched, the blisters faded, the pain lessening, the skin resuming its normal pallor.

"I know, but I meant—really dead." She swiped at her face with her bound hands. Simon tried to move toward her, but something brought him up short. A metal cuff around his ankle was attached to a thick metal chain sunk into the floor. Valentine was taking no chances.

"Don't cry," he said, and immediately regretted it. It wasn't as if the situation didn't warrant tears. "I'm fine."

"For now," said Maia, rubbing her wet face against her sleeve. "That man—the one with the white hair—his name is Valentine?"

"You saw him?" Simon said. "I didn't see anything. Just my front door blowing in and then a massive shape that came at me like a freight train."

"He's the Valentine, right? The one everyone talks about. The one who started the Uprising."

"He's Jace and Clary's father," Simon said. "That's what I know about him."

"I thought his voice sounded familiar. He sounds just like Jace." She looked momentarily rueful. "No wonder Jace is such an ass."

Simon could only agree.

"So you didn't…" Maia's voice trailed off. She tried again. "Look, I know this sounds weird, but when Valentine came for you, did you see someone you recognized with him, someone who's dead? Like a ghost?"

Simon shook his head, bewildered. "No. Why?"

Maia hesitated. "I saw my brother. The ghost of my brother. I think Valentine was making me hallucinate."

"Well, he didn't try anything like that on me. I was on the phone with Clary. I remember dropping it when the shape came at me—" He shrugged. "That's it."

"With Clary?" Maia looked almost hopeful. "Then maybe they'll figure out where we are. Maybe they'll come after us."

"Maybe," Simon said. "Where are we, anyway?"

"On a boat. I was still conscious when he brought me onto it. It's a big black hulking metal thing. There are no lights and there are—things everywhere. One of them jumped out at me and I started screaming. That was when he grabbed my head and banged it into the wall. I passed out for a while after that."

"Things? What do you mean things?"

"Demons," she said, and shuddered. "He has all sorts of demons here. Big ones and little ones and flying ones. They do whatever he tells them."

"But Valentine's a Shadowhunter. And from all I've heard, he hates demons."

"Well, they don't appear to know that," said Maia. "What I don't get is what he wants with us. I know he hates Downworlders, but this seems like a lot of effort just to kill two of them." She had started to shiver, her jaws clicking together like the chattery-teeth toys you could buy in novelty stores. "He must want something from the Shadowhunters. Or Luke."

I know what he wants, Simon thought, but there was no point in telling Maia; she was upset enough already. He shrugged his jacket off. "Here," he said, and tossed it across the room to her.

Twisting around her manacles, she managed to drape it awkwardly around her shoulders. She offered him a wan but grateful smile. "Thanks. But aren't you cold?"

Simon shook his head. The burn on his hand was entirely gone now. "I don't feel the cold. Not anymore."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. A struggle was taking place behind her eyes. "I'm sorry. About the way I reacted to you yesterday." She paused, almost holding her breath. "Vampires scare me to death," she whispered at last. "When I first came to the city, I had a pack I used to hang out with—Bat, and two other boys, Steve and Gregg. We were in the park once and we ran into some vamps sucking on blood bags under a bridge—there was a fight and I mostly remember one of the vamps just picking Gregg up, just picking him up, and ripping him in half—" Her voice rose, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. She was shaking. "In half," she whispered. "All his insides fell out. And then they started eating."

Simon felt a dull pang of nausea roll over him. He was almost glad that the story made him sick to his stomach, rather than something else. Like hungry. "I wouldn't do that," he said. "I like werewolves. I like Luke—"

"I know you do." Her mouth worked. "It's just that when I met you, you seemed so human. You reminded me what I used to be like, before."

"Maia," Simon said. "You're still human."

"No, I'm not."

"In the ways that count, you are. Just like me."

She tried to smile. He could tell she didn't believe him, and he hardly blamed her. He wasn't sure he believed himself.

The sky had turned to gunmetal, weighted with heavy clouds. In the gray light the Institute loomed up, huge as the slabbed side of a mountain. The angled slate roof shone like unpolished silver. Clary thought she had caught the movement of hooded figures in the shadows by the front door, but she wasn't sure. It was hard to tell anything clearly when they were parked over a block away, peering through the smeared windows of Luke's truck.

"How long has it been?" she asked, for either the fourth or fifth time, she wasn't sure.

"Five minutes longer than the last time you asked me," Luke said. He was leaning back in his seat, his head back, looking utterly exhausted. The stubble coating his jaw and cheek was silvery gray and there were black lines of shadow under his eyes. All those nights at the hospital, the demon attack, and now this, Clary thought, suddenly worried. She could see why he and her mother had hidden from this life for so long. She wished she could hide from it herself. "Do you want to go in?"

"No. Jace said to wait outside." She peered out the window again. Now she was sure there were figures in the doorway. As one of them turned, she thought she caught a flash of silvery hair—

"Look." Luke was sitting bolt upright, rolling his window down hastily.

Clary looked. Nothing appeared to have changed. "You mean the people in the doorway?"

"No. The guards were there before. Look on the roof." He pointed.

Clary pressed her face to the truck window. The slate roof of the cathedral was a riot of Gothic turrets and spires, carved angels, and arched embrasures. She was about to say irritably that she didn't notice anything other than some crumbling gargoyles, when a flash of movement caught her eyes. Someone was up on the roof. A slim, dark figure, moving swiftly among the turrets, darting from one overhang to another, now dropping flat, to edge down the impossibly steep roof—someone with pale hair that glinted in the gunmetal light like brass—

Jace.

Clary was out of the truck before she knew what she was doing, pounding down the street toward the church, Luke shouting after her. The huge edifice seemed to sway overhead, hundreds of feet high, a sheer cliff of stone. Jace was at the edge of the roof now, looking down, and Clary thought, It can't be, he wouldn't, he wouldn't do this, not Jace, and then he stepped off the roof into empty air, as calmly as if he were stepping off a porch. Clary screamed out loud as he fell like a stone—

And landed lightly on his feet just in front of her. Clary stared with her mouth open as he rose up out of a shallow crouch and grinned at her. "If I made a joke about just dropping in," he said, "would you write me off as a cliché?"

"How—how did you—how did you do that?" she whispered, feeling as if she were about to throw up. She could see Luke out of the truck, standing with his hands clasped behind his head and staring past her. She whirled around to see the two guards from the front door running toward them. One was Malik; the other was the woman with the silver hair.

"Crap." Jace grabbed her hand and yanked her after him. They raced toward the truck and piled in beside Luke, who gunned the engine and took off while the passenger side door was still hanging open. Jace reached across Clary and jerked it shut. The truck veered around the two Shadowhunters—Malik, Clary saw, had what looked like a flinging knife in his hand. He was aiming at one of the tires. She heard Jace swear as he fumbled in his jacket for a weapon—Malik drew his arm back, the blade shining—and the silvery-haired woman threw herself onto his back, seizing at his arm. He tried to shake her off—Clary twisted around in her seat, gasping—and then the truck hurtled around the corner and lost itself in the traffic on York Avenue, the Institute receding into the distance behind them.

Maia had fallen into a fitful doze against the steam pipe, Simon's jacket draped around her shoulders. Simon watched the light from the porthole move across the room and tried in vain to calculate the hours. Usually he used his cell phone to tell him what time it was, but that was gone—he'd searched his pockets in vain. He must have dropped it when Valentine charged into his room.

He had bigger concerns, though. His mouth was dry and papery, his throat aching. He was thirsty in a way that was like every thirst and hunger he'd ever known blended together to form a sort of exquisite torture. And it was only going to get worse.

Blood was what he needed. He thought of the blood in the refrigerator beside his bed at home, and his veins burned like hot silver wires running just under his skin.

"Simon?" It was Maia, lifting her head groggily. Her cheek was printed with white dents where it had lain against the bumpy pipe. As he watched, the white faded into pink as the blood returned to her face.

Blood. He ran his dry tongue around his lips. "Yeah?"

"How long was I asleep?"

"Three hours. Maybe four. It's probably afternoon by now."

"Oh. Thanks for keeping watch."

He hadn't been. He felt vaguely ashamed as he said, "Of course. No problem."

"Simon…"

"Yes?"

"I hope you know what I mean when I say I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're with me."

He felt his face crack into a smile. His dry lower lip split and he tasted blood in his mouth. His stomach groaned. "Thanks."

She leaned toward him, the jacket slipping from her shoulders. Her eyes were a light amber-gray that changed as she moved. "Can you reach me?" she asked, holding out her hand.

Simon reached for her. The chain that secured his ankle rattled as he stretched his hand as far as it would go. Maia smiled as their fingertips brushed—

"How touching." Simon jerked his hand back, staring. The voice that had spoken out of the shadows was cool, cultured, vaguely foreign in a way he couldn't quite place. Maia dropped her hand and twisted around, the color draining from her face as she stared up at the man in the doorway. The man had come in so quietly neither one of them had heard him. "The children of Moon and Night, getting along at last."

"Valentine," Maia whispered.

Simon said nothing. He couldn't stop staring. So this was Clary and Jace's father. With his cap of white-silver hair and burning black eyes, he didn't look much like either one of them, though there was something of Clary in his sharp bone structure and the shape of his eyes, and something of Jace in the lounging insolence with which he moved. He was a big man, broad-shouldered with a thick frame that didn't resemble either of his children's. He padded into the green metal room like a cat, despite being weighted down with what looked like enough weaponry to outfit a platoon. Thick black leather straps with silver buckles crisscrossed his chest, holding a wide-hilted silver sword across his back. Another thick strap circled his waist, and through it was thrust a butcher's array of knives, daggers, and narrow shimmering blades like enormous needles. "Get up," he said to Simon. "Keep your back against the wall." Simon tilted his chin up. He could see Maia watching him, white-faced and scared, and felt a rush of fierce protectiveness. He would keep Valentine from hurting her if it was the last thing he did. "So you're Clary's father," he said. "No offense, but I can kind of see why she hates you."

Valentine's face was impassive, almost motionless. His lips barely moved as he said, "And why is that?"

"Because," Simon said, "you're obviously psychotic."

Now Valentine smiled. It was a smile that moved no part of his face other than his lips, and those twisted only slightly. Then he brought his fist up. It was clenched; Simon thought for a moment that Valentine was going to swing at him, and he flinched reflexively. But Valentine didn't throw the punch. Instead, he opened his fingers, revealing a shimmering pile of what looked like glitter in the center of his broad palm. Turning toward Maia, he bent his head and blew the powder at her in a grotesque parody of a blown kiss. The powder settled on her like a swarm of shimmering bees.

Maia screamed. Gasping and jerking wildly, she thrashed from side to side as if she could twist away from the powder, her voice rising in a sobbing scream.

"What did you do to her?" Simon shouted, leaping to his feet. He ran at Valentine, but the leg chain jerked him back. "What did you do?"

Valentine's thin smile widened. "Silver powder," he said. "It burns lycanthropes."

Maia had stopped twitching and was curled into a fetal position on the floor, weeping quietly. Blood ran from vicious red scores along her hands and arms. Simon's stomach lurched again and he fell back against the wall, sickened by himself, by all of it. "You bastard," he said as Valentine idly brushed the last of the powder from his fingers. "She's just a girl, she wasn't going to hurt you, she's chained up, for—"

He choked, his throat burning.

Valentine laughed. "For God's sake?" he said. "Is that what you were going to say?"

Simon said nothing. Valentine reached over his shoulder and drew the heavy silver Sword from its sheath. Light played along its blade like water slipping down a sheer silver wall, like sunlight itself refracted. Simon's eyes stung and he turned his face away.

"The Angel blade burns you, just as God's name chokes you," said Valentine, his cool voice sharp as crystal. "They say that those who die upon its point will achieve the gates of heaven. In which case, revenant, I am doing you a favor." He lowered the blade so that the tip touched Simon's throat. Valentine's eyes were the color of black water and there was nothing in them: no anger, no compassion, not even any hate. They were empty as a hollowed-out grave. "Any last words?"

Simon knew what he was supposed to say. Sh'ma Yisrael, adonai elohanu, adonai echod. Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He tried to speak the words, but a searing pain burned his throat. "Clary," he whispered instead.

A look of annoyance passed across Valentine's face, as if the sound of his daughter's name in a vampire's mouth displeased him. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he brought the Sword level and slashed it with a single smooth gesture across Simon's throat.

17 East of Eden

"How did you do that?" Clary demanded as the truck sped uptown, Luke hunched over the wheel.

"You mean how did I get onto the roof?" Jace was leaning back against the seat, his eyes half-closed. There were white bandages tied around his wrists and flecks of dried blood at his hairline. "First I climbed out Isabelle's window and up the wall. There are a number of ornamental gargoyles that make good handholds. Also, I'd like to note for the record that my motorcycle is no longer where I left it. I bet the Inquisitor took it on a joyride around Hoboken."

"I meant," Clary said, "how did you jump off the cathedral roof and not die?"

"I don't know." His arm brushed hers as he raised his hands to rub at his eyes. "How did you create that rune?"

"I don't know either," she whispered. "The Seelie Queen was right, wasn't she? Valentine, he—he did things to us." She glanced over at Luke, who was pretending to be absorbed in turning left. "Didn't he?"

"This isn't the time to talk about that," Luke said. "Jace, did you have a particular destination in mind or did you just want to get away from the Institute?"

"Valentine's taken Maia and Simon to the boat to perform the Ritual. He'll want to do it as soon as possible." Jace tugged at one of the bandages on his wrist. "I've got to get there and stop him."

"No," Luke said sharply.

"Okay, we have to get there and stop him."

"Jace, I'm not having you go back to that ship. It's too dangerous."

"You saw what I just did," Jace said, incredulity rising in his voice, "and you're worried about me?"

"I'm worried about you."

"There's no time for that. After my father kills your friends, he'll call on an army of demons you can't even imagine. After that, he'll be unstoppable."

"Then the Clave—"

"The Inquisitor won't do anything," Jace said. "She's blocked the Lightwoods' access to the Clave. She wouldn't call for reinforcements, even when I told her what Valentine has planned. She's obsessed with this insane plan she has."

"What plan?" Clary said.

Jace's voice was bitter. "She wanted to trade me to my father for the Mortal Instruments. I told her Valentine would never go for it, but she didn't believe me." He laughed, a sharp staccato laugh. "Isabelle and Alec are going to tell her what happened with Simon and Maia. I'm not too optimistic, though. She doesn't believe me about Valentine and she's not going to upset her precious plan just to save a couple of Downworlders."

"We can't just wait to hear from them, anyway," Clary said. "We have to get to the boat now. If you can take us to it—"

"I hate to break it to you, but we need a boat to get to another boat," said Luke. "I'm not sure even Jace can walk on water."

At that moment Clary's phone buzzed. It was a text message from Isabelle. Clary frowned. "It's an address. Down by the waterfront."

Jace looked over her shoulder. "That's where we have to go to meet Magnus." He read the address off to Luke, who executed an irritable U-turn and headed south. "Magnus will get us across the water," Jace explained. "The ship is surrounded by protection wards. I got onto it before because my father wanted me to get onto it. This time he won't. We'll need Magnus to deal with the wardings."

"I don't like this." Luke tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "I think I should go and you two should stay with Magnus."

Jace's eyes flashed. "No. It has to be me who goes."

"Why?" Clary asked.

"Because Valentine's using a fear demon," Jace explained. "That's how he was able to kill the Silent Brothers. It's what slaughtered that warlock, the werewolf in the alley outside the Hunter's Moon, and probably what killed that fey child in the park. And it's why the Brothers had those looks on their faces. Those terrified looks. They were literally scared to death."

"But the blood—"

"He drained the blood later. And in the alley he was interrupted by one of the lycanthropes. That's why he didn't have enough time to get the blood he needed. And that's why he still needs Maia." Jace raked a hand through his hair. "No one can stand up against the fear demon. It gets in your head and destroys your mind."

"Agramon," said Luke. He'd been silent, staring through the windshield. His face looked gray and pinched.

"Yeah, that's what Valentine called it."

"He's not a fear demon. He's the fear demon. The Demon of Fear. How did Valentine get Agramon to do his bidding? Even a warlock would have trouble binding a Greater Demon, and outside the pentagram—" Luke sucked his breath in. "That's how the warlock child died, isn't it? Summoning Agramon?"

Jace nodded assent, and explained quickly the trick that Valentine had played on Elias. "The Mortal Cup," he finished, "lets him control Agramon. Apparently it gives you some power over demons. Not like the Sword does, though."

"Now I'm even less inclined to let you go," Luke said. "It's a Greater Demon, Jace. It would take this city's worth of Shadowhunters to deal with it."

"I know it's a Greater Demon. But its weapon is fear. If Clary can put the Fearless rune on me, I can take it down. Or at least try."

"No!" Clary protested. "I don't want your safety dependent on my stupid rune. What if it doesn't work?"

"It worked before," Jace said as they turned off the bridge and headed back into Brooklyn. They were rolling down narrow Van Brunt Street, between high brick factories whose boarded-up windows and padlocked doors betrayed no hint of what lay inside. In the distance, the waterfront glimmered between buildings.

"What if I mess it up this time?"

Jace turned his head toward her, and for a moment their eyes met. His were the gold of distant sunlight. "You won't," he said.

"Are you sure this is the address?" asked Luke, bringing the truck to a slow stop. "Magnus isn't here."

Clary glanced around. They had drawn up in front of a large factory, which looked as if it had been destroyed by a terrible fire. The hollow brick and plaster walls still stood, but metal struts poked through them, bent and pitted with burns. In the distance Clary could see the financial district of lower Manhattan and the black hump of Governors Island, farther out to sea. "He'll come," she said. "If he told Alec he was coming, he'll do it."

They got out of the truck. Though the factory stood on a street lined with similar buildings, it was quiet, even for a Sunday. There was no one else around and none of the sounds of commerce—trucks backing up, men shouting—that Clary associated with warehouse districts. Instead there was silence, a cool breeze off the river, and the cries of seabirds. Clary drew her hood up, zipped her jacket, and shivered.

Luke slammed the truck door shut and zipped his flannel jacket closed. Silently, he offered Clary a pair of his thick woolly gloves. She slid them on and wiggled her fingers. They were so big for her that it was like wearing paws. She glanced around. "Wait—where's Jace?"

Luke pointed. Jace was kneeling down by the waterline, a dark figure whose bright hair was the only spot of color against the blue-gray sky and brown river.

"You think he wants privacy?" she asked.

"In this situation, privacy is a luxury none of us can afford. Come on." Luke strode off down the driveway, and Clary followed him. The factory itself backed up right onto the water-line, but there was a wide gravelly beach next to it. Shallow waves lapped at the weed-choked rocks. Logs had been placed in a rough square around a black pit where a fire had once burned. There were rusty cans and bottles strewn everywhere. Jace was standing by the edge of the water, his jacket off. As Clary watched, he threw something small and white toward the water; it hit with a splash and vanished.

"What are you doing?" she said.

Jace turned to face them, the wind whipping his fair hair across his face. "Sending a message."

Over his shoulder Clary thought she saw a shimmering tendril—like a living piece of seaweed—emerge from the gray river water, a bit of white caught in its grip. A moment later it vanished and she was left blinking.

"A message to who?"

Jace scowled. "No one." He turned away from the water and stalked across the pebbled beach to where he'd spread his jacket out. There were three long blades laid out on it. As he turned, Clary saw the sharpened metal disks threaded through his belt.

Jace stroked his fingers along the blades—they were flat and gray-white, waiting to be named. "I didn't have a chance to get to the armory, so these are the weapons we have. I thought we might as well get as ready as we can before Magnus gets here." He lifted the first blade. "Abrariel." The seraph knife shimmered and changed color as he named it. He held it out to Luke.

"I'm all right," Luke said, and drew his jacket aside to show the kindjal thrust through his belt.

Jace handed Abrariel to Clary, who took the weapon silently. It was warm in her hand, as if a secret life vibrated inside it.

"Camael," Jace said to the next blade, making it shudder and glow. "Telantes," he said to the third.

"Do you ever use Raziel's name?" Clary asked as Jace slid the blades into his belt and shrugged his jacket back on, getting to his feet.

"Never," Luke said. "That's not done." His gaze scanned the road behind Clary, looking for Magnus. She could sense his anxiety, but before she could say anything else, her phone buzzed. She flipped it open and handed it wordlessly to Jace. He read the text message, his eyebrows lifting.

"It looks like the Inquisitor gave Valentine until sunset to decide whether he wants me or the Mortal Instruments more," he said. "She and Maryse have been fighting for hours, so she hasn't noticed I'm gone yet."

He handed Clary back her phone. Their fingers brushed and Clary jerked her hand back, despite the thick woolly glove that covered her skin. She saw a shadow pass over his features, but he said nothing to her. Instead, he turned to Luke and demanded, with surprising abruptness, "Did the Inquisitor's son die? Is that why she's like this?"

Luke sighed and thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat. "How did you figure that out?"

"The way she reacts when someone says his name. It's the only time I've ever seen her show any human feelings."

Luke expelled a breath. He had pushed his glasses up and his eyes were squinted against the harsh wind off the river. "The Inquisitor is the way she is for many reasons. Stephen is only one of them."

"It's weird," Jace said. "She doesn't seem like someone who even likes kids."

"Not other people's," said Luke. "It was different with her own. Stephen was her golden boy. In fact, he was everyone's… everyone who knew him. He was one of those people who was good at everything, unfailingly nice without being boring, handsome without everyone hating him. Well, maybe we hated him a little."

"He went to school with you?" Clary said. "And my mother—and Valentine? Is that how you knew him?"

"The Herondales were in charge of running the London Institute, and Stephen went to school there. I saw him more after we all graduated, when he moved back to Alicante. And there was a time when I saw him very often indeed." Luke's eyes had gone distant, the same blue-gray as the river. "After he was married."

"So he was in the Circle?" Clary asked.

"Not then," Luke said. "He joined the Circle after I—well, after what happened to me. Valentine needed a new second in command and he wanted Stephen. Imogen, who was utterly loyal to the Clave, was hysterical—she begged Stephen to reconsider—but he cut her off. Wouldn't speak to her, or his father. He was absolutely in thrall to Valentine. Went everywhere trailing after him like a shadow." Luke paused. "The thing is, Valentine didn't think Stephen's wife was suitable for him. Not for someone who was going to be second in command of the Circle. She had—undesirable family connections." The pain in Luke's voice surprised Clary. Had he cared that much about these people? "Valentine forced Stephen to divorce Amatis and remarry—his second wife was a very young girl, only eighteen years old, named Céline. She, too, was utterly under Valentine's influence, did everything he told her to, no matter how bizarre. Then Stephen was killed in a Circle raid on a vampire nest. Céline killed herself when she found out. She was eight months pregnant at the time. And Stephen's father died, too, of heartbreak. So that was Imogen's whole family, all gone. They couldn't even bury her daughter-in-law and grandchild's ashes in the Bone City, because Céline was a suicide. She was buried at a crossroads outside Alicante. Imogen survived, but—she turned to ice. When the Inquisitor was killed in the Uprising, Imogen was offered his job. She returned from London to Idris—but never, as far as I heard, spoke about Stephen again. But it does explain why she hates Valentine as much as she does."

"Because my father poisons everything he touches?" Jace said bitterly.

"Because your father, for all his sins, still has a son, and she doesn't. And because she blames him for Stephen's death."

"And she's right," said Jace. "It was his fault."

"Not entirely," said Luke. "He offered Stephen a choice, and Stephen chose. Whatever else his faults were, Valentine never blackmailed or threatened anyone into joining the Circle. He wanted only willing followers. The responsibility for Stephen's choices rests with him."

"Free will," said Clary.

"There's nothing free about it," said Jace. "Valentine—"

"Offered you a choice, didn't he?" Luke said. "When you went to see him. He wanted you to stay, didn't he? Stay and join up with him?"

"Yes." Jace looked out across the water toward Governors Island. "He did." Clary could see the river reflected in his eyes; they looked steely, as if the gray water had drowned all their gold.

"And you said no," said Luke.

Jace glared. "I wish people would stop guessing that. It's making me feel predictable."

Luke turned away as if to hide a smile, and paused. "Someone's coming."

Someone was indeed coming, someone very tall with black hair that blew in the wind. "Magnus," Clary said. "But he looks … different."

As he drew closer, she saw that his hair, normally spiked up and glittered like a disco ball, hung cleanly past his ears like a sheet of black silk. The rainbow leather pants had been replaced by a neat, old-fashioned dark suit and a black frock coat with glimmering silver buttons. His cat's eyes glowed amber and green. "You look surprised to see me," he said.

Jace glanced at his watch. "We did wonder if you were coming."

"I said I would come, so I came. I just needed time to prepare. This isn't some hat trick, Shadowhunter. This is going to take some serious magic." He turned to Luke. "How's the arm?"

"Fine. Thank you." Luke was always polite.

"That's your truck parked up by the factory, isn't it?" Magnus pointed. "It's awfully butch for a bookseller."

"Oh, I don't know," said Luke. "All that lugging around heavy book boxes, climbing stacks, hard-core alphabetizing…"

Magnus laughed. "Can you unlock the truck for me? I mean, I could do it myself"—he wiggled his fingers—"but that seems rude."

"Sure." Luke shrugged and they headed back toward the factory. When Clary made as if to follow them, though, Jace caught her arm. "Wait. I want to talk to you for a second."

Clary watched as Magnus and Luke headed for the truck. They made an odd pair, the tall warlock in a long black coat and the shorter, stockier man in jeans and flannel, but they were both Downworlders, both trapped in the same space between the mundane and the supernatural worlds.

"Clary," Jace said. "Earth to Clary. Where are you?"

She looked back at him. The sun was setting off the water now, behind him, leaving his face in shadow and turning his hair to a halo of gold. "Sorry."

"It's all right." He touched her face, gently, with the back of his hand. "You disappear so completely into your head sometimes," he said. "I wish I could follow you."

You do, she wanted to say. You live in my head all the time. Instead, she said, "What did you want to tell me?"

He dropped his hand. "I want you to put the Fearless rune on me. Before Luke gets back."

"Why before he gets back?"

"Because he's going to say it's a bad idea. But it's the only chance of defeating Agramon. Luke hasn't—encountered it, he doesn't know what it's like. But I do."

She searched his face. "What was it like?"

His eyes were unreadable. "You see what you fear the most in the world."

"I don't even know what that is."

"Trust me. You don't want to." He glanced down. "Do you have your stele?"

"Yeah, I have it." She pulled the woolly glove off her right hand and fished for the stele. Her hand was shaking a little as she drew it out. "Where do you want the Mark?"

"The closer it is to the heart, the more effective." He turned his back on her hand and drew off his jacket, dropping it on the ground. He shrugged his T-shirt up, baring his back. "On the shoulder blade would be good."

Clary placed a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. His skin there was a paler gold than the skin of his hands and face, and smooth where it was not scarred. She traced the tip of the stele along the blade of his shoulder and felt him wince, his muscles tightening. "Don't press so hard—"

"Sorry." She eased up, letting the rune flow from her mind, down through her arm, into the stele. The black line it left behind looked like charring, a line of ash. "There. You're finished."

He turned around, shrugging his shirt back on. "Thanks." The sun was burning down beyond the horizon now, flooding the sky with blood and roses, turning the edge of the river to liquid gold, softening the ugliness of the urban waste all around them. "What about you?"

"What about me what?"

He took a step closer. "Push your sleeves up. I'll Mark you."

"Oh. Right." She did as he asked, pushing up her sleeves, holding her bare arms out to him.

The sting of the stele on her skin was like the light touch of a needle's tip, scraping without puncturing. She watched the black lines appear with a sort of fascination. The Mark she'd gotten in her dream was still visible, faded only a little around the edges.

" 'And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a Mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.' "

Clary turned around, pulling her sleeves down. Magnus stood watching them, his black coat seeming to float around him in the wind off the river. A small smile played around his mouth.

"You can quote the Bible?" asked Jace, bending to retrieve his jacket.

"I was born in a deeply religious century, my boy," said Magnus. "I always thought Cain's might have been the first recorded Mark. It certainly protected him."

"But he was hardly one of the angels," said Clary. "Didn't he kill his brother?"

"Aren't we planning to kill our father?" said Jace.

"That's different," said Clary, but didn't get a chance to elaborate on how it was different, because at that moment, Luke's truck pulled up onto the beach, spraying gravel from its tires. Luke leaned out the window.

"Okay," he said to Magnus. "Here we go. Get in."

"Are we going to drive to the boat?" Clary said, bewildered. "I thought…"

"What boat?" Magnus cackled, as he swung himself up into the cab next to Luke. He jerked a thumb behind him. "You two, get into the back."

Jace climbed up into the back of the truck and leaned down to help Clary up after him. As she settled herself against the spare tire, she saw that a black pentagram inside a circle had been painted onto the metal floor of the truck bed. The arms of the pentagram were decorated with wildly curlicuing symbols. They weren't quite the runes she was familiar with—there was something about looking at them that was like trying to understand a person speaking a language that was close to, but not quite, English.

Luke leaned out the window and looked back at them. "You know I don't like this," he said, the wind muffling his voice. "Clary, you're going to stay in the truck with Magnus. Jace and I will go up onto the ship. You understand?"

Clary nodded and huddled into a corner of the truck bed. Jace sat beside her, bracing his feet. "This is going to be interesting."

"What—," Clary began, but the truck started up again, tires roaring against gravel, drowning her words. It lurched forward into the shallow water at the edge of the river. Clary was flung against the cab's back window as the truck moved forward into the river—was Luke planning to drown them all? She twisted around and saw that the cab was full of dizzying blue columns of light, snaking and twisting. The truck seemed to bump over something bulky, as if it had driven over a log. Then they were moving smoothly forward, almost gliding.

Clary hauled herself to her knees and looked over the side of the truck, already fairly sure what she would see.

They were moving—no, driving—atop the dark water, the bottom of the truck's tires just brushing the river's surface, spreading tiny ripples outward along with the occasional shower of Magnus-created blue sparks. Everything was suddenly very quiet, except for the faint roar of the motor and the call of the seabirds overhead. Clary stared across the truck bed at Jace, who was grinning. "Now this is really going to impress Valentine."

"I don't know," Clary said. "Other crack teams get bat boomerangs and wall-crawling powers; we get the Aquatruck."

"If you don't like it, Nephilim," came Magnus's voice, faintly, from the truck cab, "you're welcome to see if you can walk on the water."

"I think we should go in," said Isabelle, her ear pressed to the library door. She beckoned for Alec to come closer. "Can you hear anything?"

Alec leaned in beside his sister, careful not to drop the phone he was holding. Magnus said he'd call if he had news or if anything happened. So far, he hadn't. "No."

"Exactly. They've stopped yelling at each other." Isabelle's dark eyes gleamed. "They're waiting for Valentine now."

Alec moved away from the door and strode partway down the hall to the nearest window. The sky outside was the color of charcoal half-sunk into ruby ashes. "It's sunset."

Isabelle reached for the door handle. "Let's go."

"Isabelle, wait—"

"I don't want her to be able to lie to us about what Valentine says," Isabelle said. "Or what happens. Besides, I want to see him. Jace's father. Don't you?"

Alec moved back to the library door. "Yes, but this isn't a good idea because—"

Isabelle pushed down on the handle of the library door. It swung wide open. With a half-amused glance over her shoulder at him, she ducked inside; swearing under his breath, Alec followed her.

His mother and the Inquisitor stood at opposite ends of the huge desk, like boxers facing each other across a ring. Maryse's cheeks were bright red, her hair straggling around her face. Isabelle shot Alec a look, as if to say, Maybe we shouldn't have come in here. Mom looks mad.

On the other hand, if Maryse looked angry, the Inquisitor looked positively demented. She whirled around as the library door opened, her mouth twisted into an ugly shape. "What are you two doing here?" she shouted.

"Imogen," said Maryse.

"Maryse!" The Inquisitor's voice rose. "I've had about enough of you and your delinquent children—"

"Imogen," Maryse said again. There was something in her voice—an urgency—that made even the Inquisitor turn and look.

The air just by the freestanding brass globe was shimmering like water. A shape began to coalesce out of it, like black paint being stroked over white canvas, evolving into the figure of a man with broad, plank-like shoulders. The image was wavering, too much for Alec to see more than that the man was tall, with a shock of close-cropped salt-white hair.

"Valentine." The Inquisitor looked caught off guard, Alec thought, though surely she must have been expecting him.

The air by the globe was shimmering more violently now. Isabelle gasped as a man stepped out of the wavering air, as if he were coming up through layers of water. Jace's father was a formidable man, over six feet tall with a wide chest and hard, thick arms corded with ropy muscles. His face was almost triangular, sharpening to a hard, pointed chin. He might have been considered handsome, Alec thought, but he was startlingly unlike Jace, lacking anything of his son's pale-gold looks. The hilt of a sword was visible just over his left shoulder—the Mortal Sword. It wasn't as if he needed to be armed, since he wasn't corporeally present, so he must have worn it to annoy the Inquisitor. Not that she needed to be more annoyed than she was.

"Imogen," Valentine said, his dark eyes grazing the Inquisitor with a look of satisfied amusement. That's Jace all over, that look, Alec thought. "And Maryse, my Maryse—it has been a long time."

Maryse, swallowing hard, said with some difficulty, "I'm not your Maryse, Valentine."

"And these must be your children," Valentine went on as if she hadn't spoken. His eyes came to rest on Isabelle and Alec. A faint shiver went through Alec, as if something had plucked at his nerves. Jace's father's words were perfectly ordinary, even polite, but there was something in his blank and predatory gaze that made Alec want to step in front of his sister and block her from Valentine's view. "They look just like you."

"Leave my children out of this, Valentine," Maryse said, clearly struggling to keep her voice steady.

"Well, that hardly seems fair," Valentine said, "considering you haven't left my child out of this." He turned to the Inquisitor. "I got your message. Surely that's not the best you can do?"

She hadn't moved; now she blinked slowly, like a lizard. "I hope the terms of my offer were perfectly clear."

"My son in return for the Mortal Instruments. That was it, correct? Otherwise you'll kill him."

"Kill him?" Isabelle echoed. "MOM!"

"Isabelle," Maryse said tightly. "Shut up."

The Inquisitor shot Isabelle and Alec a venomous glare between her slitted eyelids. "You have the terms correct, Morgenstern."

"Then my answer is no."

"No?" The Inquisitor looked as if she'd taken a step forward on solid ground and it had collapsed under her feet. "You can't bluff me, Valentine. I will do exactly as I threatened."

"Oh, I have no doubt in you, Imogen. You have always been a woman of single-minded and ruthless focus. I recognize these qualities in you because I possess them myself."

"I am nothing like you. I follow the Law—"

"Even when it instructs you to kill a boy still in his teens just to punish his father? This is not about the Law, Imogen, it is that you hate and blame me for the death of your son and this is your manner of recompensing me. It will make no difference. I will not give up the Mortal Instruments, not even for Jonathan."

The Inquisitor simply stared at him. "But he's your son," she said. "Your child."

"Children make their own choices," said Valentine. "That's something you never understood. I offered Jonathan safety if he stayed with me; he spurned it and returned to you, and you'll exact your revenge on him as I told him you would. You are nothing, Imogen," he finished, "if not predictable."

The Inquisitor didn't seem to notice the insult. "The Clave will insist on his death, should you not give me the Mortal Instruments," she said, like someone caught in a bad dream. "I won't be able to stop them."

"I'm aware of that," said Valentine. "But there is nothing I can do. I offered him a chance. He didn't take it."

"Bastard!" Isabelle shouted suddenly, and made as if to run forward; Alec grabbed her arm and dragged her backward, holding her there. "He's a dickhead," she hissed, then raised her voice, shouting at Valentine: "You're a—"

"Isabelle!" Alec covered his sister's mouth with his hand as Valentine spared them both a single, amused glance.

"You…offered him…" The Inquisitor was starting to remind Alec of a robot whose circuits were shorting out. "And he turned you down?" She shook her head. "But he's your spy—your weapon—"

"Is that what you thought?" he said, with apparently genuine surprise. "I am hardly interested in spying out the secrets of the Clave. I'm only interested in its destruction, and to achieve that end I have far more powerful weapons in my arsenal than a boy."

"But—"

"Believe what you like," Valentine said with a shrug. "You are nothing, Imogen Herondale. The figurehead of a regime whose power is soon to be shattered, its rule ended. There is nothing you have to offer me that I could possibly want."

"Valentine!" The Inquisitor threw herself forward, as if she could stop him, catch at him, but her hands only went through him as if through water. With a look of supreme disgust, he stepped back and vanished.

The sky was licked with the last tongues of a fading fire, the water had turned to iron. Clary drew her jacket closer around her body and shivered.

"Are you cold?" Jace had been standing at the back of the truck bed, looking down at the wake the car left behind it: two white lines of foam cutting the water. Now he came and slid down beside her, his back against the rear window of the cab. The window itself was almost entirely fogged up with bluish smoke.

"Aren't you?"

"No." He shook his head and slid his jacket off, handing it across to her. She put it on, reveling in the softness of the leather. It was too big in that comforting way. "You're going to stay in the truck like Luke told you to, right?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not in the literal sense, no."

She slid her glove off and reached out her hand to him. He took it, gripping it tightly. She looked down at their interlaced fingers, hers so small, squared-off at the tips, his long and thin. "You'll find Simon for me," she said. "I know you will."

"Clary." She could see the water all around them mirrored in his eyes. "He may be—I mean, it may be—"

"No." Her tone left no room for doubt. "He'll be all right. He has to be."

Jace exhaled. His irises rippled with dark blue water—like tears, Clary thought, but they weren't tears, only reflections. "There's something I want to ask you," he said. "I was afraid to ask before. But now I'm not afraid of anything." His hand moved to cup her cheek, his palm warm against her cold skin, and she found that her own fear was gone, as if he could pass the power of the Fearless rune to her through his touch. Her chin went up, her lips parting in expectation—his mouth brushed hers lightly, so lightly it felt like the brush of a feather, the memory of a kiss—and then he pulled back, his eyes widening; she saw the black wall in them, rising up to blot out the incredulous gold: the shadow of the ship.

Jace let go of her with an exclamation and scrambled to his feet. Clary got up awkwardly, Jace's heavy jacket throwing her off balance. Blue sparks were flying from the windows of the cab, and in their light she could see that the side of the ship was corrugated black metal, that there was a thin ladder crawling down one side, and that an iron railing ran around the top. What looked like big, awkwardly shaped birds were perched on the railing. Waves of cold seemed to roll off the boat like freezing air off an iceberg. When Jace called out to her, his breath came out in white puffs, his words lost in the sudden engine roar of the big ship.

She frowned at him. "What? What did you say?"

He grabbed for her, sliding a hand up under her jacket, his fingertips grazing her bare skin. She yelped in surprise. He yanked the seraph blade he'd give her earlier from her belt and pressed it into her hand. "I said"—and he let her go—"to get Abrariel out, because they're coming."

"Who are coming?"

"The demons." He pointed up. At first Clary saw nothing. Then she noticed the huge, awkward birds she'd seen before. They were dropping off the railing one by one, falling like stones down the side of the boat—then leveling out and heading straight for the truck where it floated on top of the waves. As they got closer, she saw that they weren't birds at all, but ugly flying things like pterodactyls, with wide, leathery wings and bony triangular heads. Their mouths were full of serrated shark teeth, row on row of them, and their claws glinted like straight razors.

Jace scrambled up onto the roof of the cab, Telantes blazing in his hand. As the first of the flying things reached them, he flung the blade. It struck the demon, slicing off the top of its skull the way you might slice the top off an egg. With a high windy screech, the thing toppled sideways, wings spasming. When it struck the ocean, the water boiled.

The second demon hit the hood of the truck, its claws raking long furrows in the metal. It flung itself against the windshield, spiderwebbing the glass. Clary shouted for Luke, but another one of them dive-bombed her, hurtling down from the steel sky like an arrow. She yanked the sleeve of Jace's jacket up, flinging her arm out to show the defensive rune. The demon skreeked as the other one had, wings flapping backward—but it had already come too close, within her reach. She saw that it had no eyes, only indentations on each side of its skull, as she smashed Abrariel into its chest. It burst apart, leaving a wisp of black smoke behind.

"Well done," said Jace. He had jumped down from the truck cab to dispatch another one of the screeching flying things. He had a dagger out now, its hilt slicked with black blood.

"What are these things?" Clary panted, swinging Abrariel in a wide arc that slashed across the chest of a flying demon. It cawed and swiped at her with a wing. This close, she could see that the wings ended in blade-sharp ridges of bone. This one caught the sleeve of Jace's jacket and tore it across.

"My jacket," said Jace in a rage, and stabbed down at the thing as it rose, piercing its back. It shrieked and disappeared. "I loved that jacket."

Clary stared at him, then spun around as the rending screech of metal assailed her ears. Two of the flying demons had their claws in the top of the truck cab, ripping it off the frame. The air was filled with the screech of tearing metal. Luke was down on the hood of the truck, slashing at the creatures with his kindjal. One toppled off the side of the truck, vanishing before it hit the water. The other burst into the air, the cab roof clutched in its claws, skreeking triumphantly, and winged back toward the boat.

For the moment the sky was clear. Clary raced up and peered down into the cab. Magnus was slumped down in his seat, his face gray. It was too dark for her to see if he was wounded. "Magnus!" she shouted. "Are you hurt?"

"No." He struggled to sit upright, then fell back against the seat. "I'm just—drained. The protection spells on the ship are strong. Stripping them, keeping them off, is—difficult." His voice faded. "But if I don't do it, anyone who sets foot on that ship, other than Valentine, will die."

"Maybe you should come with us," said Luke.

"I can't work on the wards if I'm on the ship itself. I have to do it from here. That's the way it works." Magnus's grin looked painful. "Besides, I'm no good in a fight. My talents lie elsewhere."

Clary, still hanging down into the cab, began, "But what if we need—"

"Clary!" Luke shouted, but it was too late. None of them had seen the flying creature clinging motionless to the side of the truck. It launched itself upward now, winging sideways, claws sinking deep into the back of Clary's jacket, a blur of shadowy wings and reeking, jagged teeth. With a howling screech of triumph, it took off into the air, Clary dangling helplessly from its claws.

"Clary!" Luke shouted again, and raced to the edge of the truck's hood and stopped there, staring hopelessly upward at the dwindling winged shape with its slackly hanging burden.

"It won't kill her," said Jace, joining him on the hood. "It's retrieving her for Valentine."

There was something about his tone that sent a chill through Luke's blood. He turned to stare at the boy next to him. "But—"

He didn't finish. Jace had already dived from the truck, in a single smooth movement. He splashed down in the filthy river water and struck out toward the boat, his strong kicks churning the water to froth.

Luke turned back to Magnus, whose pale face was just visible through the cracked windshield, a white smudge against the darkness. Luke held a hand up, thought he saw Magnus nod in response.

Sheathing his kindjal at his side, he dived into the river after Jace.

Alec released his hold on Isabelle, half-expecting her to start screaming the moment he took his hand off her mouth. She didn't. She stood beside him and stared as the Inquisitor stood, swaying slightly, her face a chalky gray-white.

"Imogen," Maryse said. There was no feeling in her voice, not even any anger.

The Inquisitor didn't seem to hear her. Her expression didn't change as she sank bonelessly into Hodge's old chair. "My God," she said, staring down at the desk. "What have I done?"

Maryse glanced over at Isabelle. "Get your father."

Isabelle, looking as frightened as Alec had ever seen her, nodded and slipped out of the room.

Maryse crossed the room to the Inquisitor and looked down at her. "What have you done, Imogen?" she said. "You've handed victory to Valentine. That's what you've done."

"No," the Inquisitor breathed.

"You knew exactly what Valentine was planning when you locked Jace up. You refused to allow the Clave to become involved because it would have interfered with your plan. You wanted to make Valentine suffer as he had made you suffer; to show him you had the power to kill his son the way he killed yours. You wanted to humble him."

"Yes…"

"But Valentine will not be humbled," said Maryse. "I could have told you that. You never had a hold over him. He only pretended to consider your offer to make absolutely certain that we would have no time to call for reinforcements from Idris. And now it's too late."

The Inquisitor looked up wildly. Her hair had come loose from its knot and hung in lank strips around her face. It was the most human Alec had seen her look, but he got no pleasure out of it. His mother's words chilled him: too late. "No, Maryse," she said. "We can still—"

"Still what?" Maryse's voice cracked. "Call on the Clave? We don't have the days, the hours, it would take them to get here. If we're going to face Valentine—and God knows we have no choice—"

"We're going to have to do it now," interrupted a deep voice. Behind Alec, glowering darkly, was Robert Lightwood.

Alec stared at his father. It had been years since he'd seen him in hunting gear; his time had been taken up with administrative tasks, with running the Conclave and dealing with Downworlder issues. Something about seeing his father in his heavy, dark armored clothes, his broadsword strapped across his back, reminded Alec of being a child again, when his father had been the biggest, strongest and most terrifying man he could imagine. And he was still terrifying. He hadn't seen his father since he'd embarrassed himself at Luke's. He tried to catch his eye now, but Robert was looking at Maryse. "The Conclave stands ready," Robert said. "The boats are waiting at the dock."

The Inquisitor's hands fluttered around her face. "It's no good," she said. "There aren't enough of us—we can't possibly—"

Robert ignored her. Instead, he looked at Maryse. "We should go very soon," he said, and in his tone there was the respect that had been lacking when he had addressed the Inquisitor.

"But the Clave," the Inquisitor began. "They should be informed."

Maryse shoved the phone on the desk toward the Inquisitor, hard. "You tell them. Tell them what you've done. It's your job, after all."

The Inquisitor said nothing, just stared at the phone, one hand over her mouth.

Before Alec could start to feel sorry for her, the door opened again and Isabelle came in, in her Shadowhunter gear, with her long silver-gold whip in one hand and a wooden-bladed naginata in the other. She frowned at her brother. "Go get ready," she said. "We're sailing for Valentine's ship right away."

Alec couldn't help it; the corner of his mouth twitched upward. Isabelle was always so determined. "Is that for me?" he asked, indicating the naginata.

Isabelle jerked it away from him. "Get your own!"

Some things never change. Alec headed toward the door, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He looked up in surprise.

It was his father. He was looking down at Alec, and though he wasn't smiling, there was a look of pride on his lined and tired face. "If you're in need of a blade, Alexander, my guisarme is in the entryway. If you'd like to use it."

Alec swallowed and nodded, but before he could thank his father, Isabelle spoke from behind him:

"Here you go, Mom," she said. Alec turned and saw his sister in the process of handing the naginata to his mother, who took it and spun it expertly in her grasp.

"Thank you, Isabelle," Maryse said, and with a movement as swift as any of her daughter's, she lowered the blade so that it pointed directly at the Inquisitor's heart.

Imogen Herondale looked up at Maryse with the blank, shattered eyes of a ruined statue. "Are you going to kill me, Maryse?"

Maryse hissed through her teeth. "Not even close," she said. "We need every Shadowhunter in the city, and right now, that includes you. Get up, Imogen, and get yourself ready for battle. From now on, the orders around here are going to come from me." She smiled grimly. "And the first thing you're going to do is free my son from that accursed Malachi Configuration."

She looked magnificent as she spoke, Alec thought with pride, a true Shadowhunter warrior, every line of her blazing with righteous fury.

He hated to spoil the moment—but they were going to find out Jace was gone on their own soon enough. Better that someone cushioned the shock.

He cleared his throat. "Actually," he said, "there's something you should probably know…"

18 Darkness Visible

Clary had always hated roller coasters, hated that feeling of her stomach dropping out through her feet when the coaster hurtled downward. Being snatched from the truck and dragged through the air like a mouse in the claws of an eagle was ten times worse. She screamed out loud as her feet left the truck bed and her body soared upward, unbelievably fast. She screamed and twisted—until she looked down and saw how high she already was above the water and realized what would happen if the flying demon released her.

She went still. The pickup truck looked like a toy below, drifting impossibly on the waves. The city swung around her, blurred walls of glittering light. It might have been beautiful if she weren't so terrified. The demon banked and dived, and suddenly instead of rising she was falling. She thought of the thing dropping her hundreds of feet through the air until she crashed into the icy black water, and shut her eyes—but falling through blind darkness was worse. She opened them again and saw the black deck of the ship rising up from below her like a hand about to swat them both out of the sky. She screamed a second time as they dropped toward the deck—and through a dark square cut into its surface. Now they were inside the ship.

The flying creature slowed its pace. They were dropping through the center of the boat, surrounded by railed metal decks. Clary caught glimpses of dark machinery; none of it looked in working order, and there were gears and tools abandoned in various places. If there had been electrical lights before, they were no longer working, though a faint glow permeated everything. Whatever had powered the ship before, Valentine was now powering it with something else.

Something that had sucked the warmth right out of the atmosphere. Icy air lashed at her face as the demon reached the bottom of the ship and ducked down a long, poorly lit corridor. It wasn't being particularly careful with her. Her knee slammed against a pipe as the creature turned a corner, sending a shock wave of pain up her leg. She cried out and heard its hissing laughter above her. Then it released her and she was falling. Twisting in the air, Clary tried to get her hands and knees under her before she hit the ground. It almost worked. She struck the floor with a jarring impact and rolled to the side, stunned.

She was lying on a hard metal surface, in semidarkness. This had probably been a storage space at one point, because the walls were smooth and doorless. There was a square opening high above her through which the only light filtered. Her whole body felt like one big bruise.

"Clary?" A whispered voice. She rolled onto her side, wincing. A shadow knelt beside her. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the small, curvy figure, braided hair, dark brown eyes. Maia. "Clary, is that you?"

Clary sat up, ignoring the screaming pain in her back. "Maia. Maia, oh my God." She stared at the other girl, then wildly around the room. It was empty but for the two of them. "Maia, where is he? Where's Simon?"

Maia bit her lip. Her wrists were bloody, Clary saw, her face streaked with dried tears. "Clary, I'm so sorry," she said, in her soft and husky voice. "Simon's dead."

Soaked through and half-frozen, Jace collapsed onto the deck of the ship, water streaming from his hair and clothes. He stared up at the cloudy night sky, gasping in breaths. It had been no easy task to climb the rickety iron ladder badly bolted to the ship's metal side, especially with slippery hands and drenched clothes dragging him down.

If it hadn't been for the Fearless rune, he reflected, he probably would have been worried that one of the flying demons would pick him off the ladder like a bird picking a bug off a vine. Fortunately, they seemed to have returned to the ship once they'd seized Clary. Jace couldn't imagine why, but he'd long ago given up trying to fathom why his father did anything.

Above him a head appeared, silhouetted against the sky. It was Luke, having reached the top of the ladder. He clambered laboriously onto the railing and dropped down onto the other side of it. He looked down at Jace. "You all right?"

"Fine." Jace got to his feet. He was shivering. It was cold on the boat, colder than it had been down by the water—and his jacket was gone. He'd given it to Clary.

Jace looked around. "Somewhere there's a door that leads into the ship. I found it last time. We just have to walk around the deck until we find it again."

Luke started forward.

"And let me go first," Jace added, stepping in front of him. Luke shot him an extremely puzzled look, seemed as if he were about to say something, and finally fell into step just beside Jace as they approached the curved front of the ship, where Jace had stood with Valentine the night before. He could hear the oily slap of water against the bow, far below.

"Your father," Luke said, "what did he say to you when you saw him? What did he promise you?"

"Oh, you know. The usual. A lifetime's supply of Knicks tickets." Jace spoke lightly but the memory bit into him deeper than the cold. "He said he'd make sure no harm came to me or anyone I cared about if I'd leave the Clave and return to Idris with him."

"Do you think—" Luke hesitated. "Do you think he'd hurt Clary to get back at you?"

They rounded the bow and Jace caught a brief glimpse of the Statue of Liberty off in the distance, a pillar of glowing light. "No. I think he took her to make us come onto the boat like this, to give him a bargaining chip. That's all."

"I'm not sure he needs a bargaining chip." Luke spoke in a low voice as he unsheathed his kindjal. Jace turned to follow Luke's gaze, and for a moment could only stare.

There was a black hole in the deck on the west side of the ship, a hole like a square that had been cut into the metal, and out of its depths poured a dark cloud of monsters. Jace flashed back to the last time he had stood here, with the Mortal Sword in his hand, staring around him in horror as the sky above him and the sea below him turned to roiling masses of nightmares. Only now they stood in front of him, a cacophony of demons: the bone-white Raum that had attacked them at Luke's; Oni demons with their green bodies, wide mouths, and horns; the slinking black Kuri demons, spider demons with their eight pincer-tipped arms and the poison-dripping fangs that protruded from their eye sockets—

Jace couldn't count them all. He felt for Camael and took it from his belt, its white glare lighting the deck. The demons hissed at the sight of it, but none of them backed away. The Fearless rune on Jace's shoulder blade began to burn. He wondered how many demons he could kill before it burned itself away.

"Stop! Stop!" Luke's hand, knotted in the back of Jace's shirt, jerked him backward. "There's too many, Jace. If we can get back to the ladder—"

"We can't." Jace yanked himself out of Luke's grip and pointed. "They've cut us off on both sides." It was true. A phalanx of Moloch demons, flames jetting from their empty eyes, blocked their retreat.

Luke swore, fluently and viciously. "Jump over the side, then. I'll hold them off."

"You jump," Jace said. "I'm fine here."

Luke threw his head back. His ears had gone pointed, and when he snarled at Jace, his lips drew back over canines that were suddenly sharp. "You—" He broke off as a Moloch demon leaped at him, claws outstretched. Jace stabbed it casually in the spine as it went by, and it staggered into Luke, yowling. Luke seized it in clawed hands and hurled it over the railing. "You used that Fearless rune, didn't you?" Luke said, turning back to Jace with eyes that glowed amber.

There was a distant splash.

"You're not wrong," Jace admitted.

"Christ," said Luke. "Did you put it on yourself?"

"No. Clary put it on me." Jace's seraph blade cut the air with white fire; two Drevak demons fell. There were dozens more where it had come from, lurching toward them, their needle-tipped hands outstretched. "She's good at that, you know."

"Teenagers," said Luke, as if it were the filthiest word he knew, and threw himself into the oncoming horde.

"Dead?" Clary stared at Maia as if she'd spoken in Bulgarian. "He can't be dead."

Maia said nothing, just watched her with sad, dark eyes.

"I would know." Clary sat up and pressed her hand, clenched into a fist, against her chest. "I would know it here."

"I thought that myself," Maia said. "Once. But you don't know. You never know."

Clary scrambled to her feet. Jace's jacket hung off her shoulders, the back of it nearly shredded through. She shrugged it off impatiently and dropped it onto the floor. It was ruined, the back scored through with a dozen razored claw marks. Jace will be upset that I wrecked his jacket, she thought. I should buy him a new one. I should—

She drew a long, ragged breath. She could hear her own heart pounding, but that sounded distant too. "What—happened to him?"

Maia was still kneeling on the floor. "Valentine got us both," she said. "He chained us up in a room together. Then he came in with a weapon—a sword, really long and bright, as if it was glowing. He threw silver powder at me so I couldn't fight him, and he—he stabbed Simon in the throat." Her voice faded to a whisper. "He cut his wrists open and he poured the blood into bowls. Some of those demon creatures of his came in and helped him take it. Then he just left Simon lying there, like some toy he'd ripped all the insides out of so he had no use for it anymore. I screamed—but I knew he was dead. Then one of the demons picked me up and brought me down here."

Clary pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, pressed and pressed until she tasted salty blood. The sharp taste of the blood seemed to cut through the fog in her brain. "We have to get out of here."

"No offense, but that's pretty obvious." Maia got to her feet, wincing. "There's no way out of here. Not even for a Shadowhunter. Maybe if you were…"

"If I were what?" Clary demanded, pacing the square of their cell. "Jace? Well, I'm not." She kicked at the wall. It echoed hollowly. She dug into her pocket and pulled out her stele. "But I have my own talents."

She shoved the tip of the stele against the wall and began to draw. The lines seemed to flow out of her, black and charred-looking, hot as her furious anger. She slammed the stele against the wall again and again and the black lines flowed up out of its tip like flames. When she drew back, breathing hard, she saw Maia staring at her in astonishment.

"Girl," she said, "what did you do?"

Clary wasn't sure. It looked as if she had thrown a bucket of acid against the wall. The metal all around the rune was sagging and dripping like ice cream on a hot day. She stepped back, eyeing it warily as a hole the size of a large dog opened in the wall. Clary could see steel struts behind it, more of the ship's metal innards. The edges of the hole still sizzled, though it had stopped spreading outward. Maia took a step forward, pushing Clary's arm away.

"Wait." Clary was suddenly nervous. "The melted metal—it could be, like, toxic sludge or something."

Maia snorted. "I'm from New Jersey. I was born in toxic sludge." She marched up to the hole and peered through it. "There's a metal catwalk on the other side," she announced. "Here—I'm going to pull myself through." She turned around and stuck her feet through the hole, then her legs, moving backward slowly. She grimaced as she wriggled her body through, then froze. "Ouch! My shoulders are stuck. Push me?" She held her hands out.

Clary took her hands and pushed. Maia's face turned white, then red—and she suddenly pulled free, like a champagne cork popped from the bottle. With a shriek, she tumbled backward. There was a crash and Clary stuck her head anxiously through the hole. "Are you all right?"

Maia was lying on a narrow metal catwalk several feet below. She rolled over slowly and pushed herself into a sitting position, wincing. "My ankle—but I'll be fine," she added, seeing Clary's face. "We heal fast too, you know."

"I know. Okay, my turn." Clary's stele poked uncomfortably into her stomach as she bent, prepared to slide through the hole after Maia. The drop to the catwalk was intimidating, but not as intimidating as the idea of waiting in the storage space for whatever came to claim them. She turned over onto her stomach, sliding her feet into the hole—

And something seized her by the back of her shirt, hauling her upward. Her stele fell out of her belt and rattled to the floor. She gasped in sudden shock and pain; the neck band of her sweater cut into her throat, and she choked. A moment later she was released. She crashed to the floor, her knees hitting the metal with a hollow clang. Gagging, she rolled onto her back and looked up, knowing what she would see.

Valentine stood over her. In one hand he held a seraph blade, glittering with a harsh white light. His other hand, which had gripped the back of her shirt, was clenched into a fist. His carved white face was set into a sneer of disdain. "Always your mother's daughter, Clarissa," he said. "What have you done now?"

Clary pulled herself painfully up to her knees. Her mouth was filled with the salty blood from where her lip had torn open. As she looked at Valentine, her simmering rage bloomed like a poisonous flower inside her chest. This man, her father, had killed Simon and left him dead on the floor like so much discarded trash. She had thought she had hated people before in her life; she'd been wrong. This was hatred.

"The werewolf girl," Valentine went on, frowning, "where is she?"

Clary leaned forward and spat her mouthful of blood onto his shoes. With a sharp exclamation of disgust and surprise, he stepped backward, raising the blade in his hand, and for a moment Clary saw the unguarded fury in his eyes and thought he was really going to do it, was really going to kill her right there where she crouched at his feet, for spitting on his shoes.

Slowly, he lowered the blade. Without a word, he walked past Clary, and stared through the hole she had made in the wall. Slowly, she turned, her eyes raking the floor until she saw it. Her mother's stele. She reached for it, her breath catching—

Valentine, turning, saw what she was doing. With a single stride, he was across the room. He kicked the stele out of her reach; it spun across the metal floor and fell through the hole in the wall. She half-closed her eyes, feeling the loss of the stele like the loss of her mother all over again.

"The demons will find your Downworlder friend," said Valentine, in his cold, still voice, sliding his seraph blade into a sheath at his waist. "There is nowhere for her to flee to. Nowhere for any of you to go. Now get up, Clarissa."

Slowly, Clary got to her feet. Her whole body ached from the pummeling it had taken. A moment later she gasped in surprise as Valentine seized her by the shoulders, turning her so that her back was to him. He whistled; a high, sharp, and unpleasant sound. The air stirred overhead and she heard the ugly flap of leathery wings. With a little cry, she tried to break away, but Valentine was too strong. The wings settled around them both and then they were rising into the air together, Valentine holding her in his arms, as if he really were her father.

Jace had thought he and Luke would be dead by now. He wasn't sure why they weren't. The deck of the ship was slippery with blood. He was covered in filth. Even his hair was lank and sticky with ichor, and his eyes stung with blood and sweat. There was a deep cut along the top of his right arm, and no time to carve a Healing rune into the skin. Every time he lifted the arm, a searing pain shot through his side.

They had managed to wedge themselves into a recess in the metal wall of the ship, and they fought from this shelter as the demons lurched at them. Jace had used both his chakhrams and was down to his last seraph blade and the dagger he'd taken from Isabelle. It wasn't much—he wouldn't have gone out to face only a few demons this poorly armed, and now he was facing a horde. He ought to be frightened, he knew, but he felt almost nothing at all—only a disgust for the demons, who did not belong in this world, and rage at Valentine, who had summoned them here. Distantly, he knew his lack of fear wasn't entirely a good thing. He wasn't even afraid of how much blood he was losing from his arm.

A spider demon scuttled toward Jace, chittering and jetting yellow poison. He ducked away, not quite fast enough to keep a few drops of the poison from splattering his shirt. It hissed as it ate through the material; he felt the sting as it burned his skin like a dozen tiny superheated needles.

The spider demon clicked in satisfaction, and sprayed another jet of poison. Jace ducked and the venom hit an Oni demon coming toward him from the side; the Oni screamed in agony and thrashed its way to the spider demon, claws extended. The two grappled together, rolling across the deck.

The surrounding demons surged away from the spilled poison, which made a barrier between them and the Shadowhunter. Jace took advantage of the momentary breather to turn to Luke beside him. Luke was almost unrecognizable. His ears rose to sharp, wolfish points; his lips were pulled back from his snarling muzzle in a permanent rictus, his clawed hands black with demon ichor.

"We should go for the railings." Luke's voice was half a growl. "Get off the ship. We can't kill them all. Maybe Magnus—"

"I don't think we're doing so badly." Jace twirled his seraph blade—which was a bad idea; his hand was wet with blood and the blade almost slipped out of his grasp. "All things considered."

Luke made a noise that might have been a snarl or a laugh, or a combination of both. Then something huge and shapeless fell out of the sky, knocking them both to the ground.

Jace hit the ground hard, his seraph blade flying out of his hand. It struck the deck, skittered across the metal surface, and slid over the edge of the boat, out of sight. Jace swore and staggered to his feet.

The thing that had landed on them was an Oni demon. It was unusually big for its kind—not to mention unusually smart to have thought of climbing up onto the roof and dropping down on them from above. It was sitting on top of Luke now, slashing at him with the sharp tusks that sprouted from its forehead. Luke was defending himself as best he could with his own claws, but he was already drenched in blood; his kindjal lay a foot away from him on the deck. Luke grabbed for it and the Oni seized one of his legs in a spadelike hand, bringing the leg down like a tree branch over its knee. Jace heard the bone break with a snap as Luke cried out.

Jace dived for the kindjal, grabbed it, and rolled to his feet, flinging the dagger hard at the back of the Oni demon's neck. It sliced through with enough force to decapitate the creature, which sagged forward, black blood gushing from its neck stump. A moment later it was gone. The kindjal thumped to the deck beside Luke.

Jace ran to him and knelt down. "Your leg—"

"It's broken." Luke struggled into a sitting position. His face twisted in pain.

"But you heal fast."

Luke looked around, his face grim. The Oni might have been dead, but the other demons had learned from its example. They were swarming up onto the roof. Jace couldn't tell, in the dim moonlight, how many of them there were—dozens? Hundreds? After a certain number it didn't matter anymore.

Luke closed his hand around the hilt of the kindjal. "Not fast enough."

Jace drew Isabelle's dagger from his belt. It was the last of his weapons and it seemed suddenly and pitifully small. A sharp emotion pierced him—not fear, he was still beyond that, but sorrow. He saw Alec and Isabelle as if they were standing in front of him, smiling at him, and then he saw Clary with her arms out as if she were welcoming him home.

He rose to his feet just as they fell from the roof in a wave, a shadow tide blotting out the moon. Jace moved to try to block Luke, but it was no use; the demons were all around. One reared up in front of him. It was a six-foot skeleton, grinning with broken teeth. Scraps of brightly colored Tibetan prayer flags hung from its rotting bones. It gripped a katana sword in a bony hand, which was unusual—most demons didn't arm themselves. The blade, inscribed with demonic runes, was longer than Jace's arm, curling and sharp and deadly.

Jace flung the dagger. It struck the demon's bony rib cage and stuck there. The demon barely seemed to notice; it only kept moving, inexorable as death. The air around it stank of death and graveyards. It raised the katana in a clawed hand—

A gray shadow cut the darkness in front of Jace, a shadow that moved with a whirling, precise, and deadly motion. The downward swing of the katana met with the grinding screech of metal on metal; the shadowy figure thrust the katana back at the demon, stabbing upward with the other hand with a swiftness that Jace's eye could barely follow. The demon fell back, its skull shattering as it crumpled into nothingness. All around him he could hear the shrieks of demons howling in pain and surprise. Whirling, he saw that dozens of shapes—human shapes—were crawling up over the railings, dropping to the ground, and racing to close with the mass of demons that crawled, slithered, hissed, and flew upon the deck. They carried blades of light and wore the dark, tough clothing of—

"Shadowhunters?" Jace said, so startled that he spoke out loud.

"Who else?" A grin flashed in the darkness.

"Malik? Is that you?"

Malik inclined his head. "Sorry about earlier today," he said. "I was under orders."

Jace was about to tell Malik that his having just saved his life more than made up for his earlier attempt to prevent Jace from leaving the Institute, when a group of Raum demons surged toward them, tentacles lashing the air. Malik whirled and charged to meet them with a shout, his seraph blade blazing like a star. Jace was about to follow him when a hand seized him by the arm and pulled him sideways.

It was a Shadowhunter, all in black, a hood shading the face beneath. "Come with me."

The hand tugged insistently at his sleeve.

"I need to get to Luke. He's been hurt." He jerked his arm back. "Let go of me."

"Oh, for the Angel's sake—" The figure released him and reached up to push back the hood of its long cloak, revealing a narrow white face and gray eyes that blazed like chips of diamond. "Now will you do what you're told, Jonathan?"

It was the Inquisitor.

Despite the whirling speed with which they flew through the air, Clary would have kicked out at Valentine if she could. But he held her as if his arms were iron bands. Her feet swung free, but struggle as she might, she didn't seem to be able to connect with anything.

When the demon banked and swerved suddenly, she let out a scream. Valentine laughed. Then they were spinning through a narrow metal tunnel and into a much larger, wider room. Instead of dropping them unceremoniously, the flying demon set them down gently on the floor.

Much to Clary's surprise, Valentine let her go. She jerked away from him and stumbled into the middle of the room, looking around wildly. It was a big space, probably once some kind of machine room. Machinery still lined the walls, shoved out of the way to create a wide square space in the center. The floor was thick black metal, splotched here and there with darker stains. In the middle of the empty space were four basins, big enough to wash a dog in. The interiors of the first two were stained a dark rust brown. The third was full of dark red liquid. The fourth was empty.

A metal footlocker stood behind the bowls. A dark cloth had been thrown over it. As she drew closer, she saw that on top of the cloth rested a silver sword that glowed with a blackish light, almost an absence of illumination: a radiant, visible darkness.

Clary whirled around and stared at Valentine, who was quietly watching her. "How could you do it?" she demanded. "How could you kill Simon? He was just a—he was just a boy, just an ordinary human—"

"He wasn't human," said Valentine, in his silky voice. "He had become a monster. You just couldn't see it, Clarissa, because it wore the face of a friend."

"He wasn't a monster." She moved a little closer to the Sword. It looked huge, heavy. She wondered if she could lift it—and even if she could, could she swing it? "He was still Simon."

"Don't think I'm not sympathetic to your situation," said Valentine. He stood unmoving in the single shaft of light that came down from the trapdoor in the ceiling. "It was the same for me when Lucian was bitten."

"He told me," she spat at him. "You gave him a dagger and told him to kill himself."

"That was a mistake," said Valentine.

"At least you admit it—"

"I should have killed him myself. It would have showed that I cared."

Clary shook her head. "But you didn't. You've never cared about anyone. Not even my mother. Not even Jace. They were just things that belonged to you."

"But isn't that what love is, Clarissa? Ownership? 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine,' as the Song of Songs goes."

"No. And don't quote the Bible at me. I don't think you get it." She was standing very near to the locker now, the hilt of the Sword within reaching distance. Her fingers were wet with sweat and she dried them surreptitiously on her jeans. "It's not just that someone belongs to you, it's that you give yourself to them. I doubt you've ever given anything to anyone. Except maybe nightmares."

"To give yourself to someone?" The thin smile didn't waver. "As you've given yourself to Jonathan?"

Her hand, which had been lifting toward the Sword, spasmed into a fist. She pulled it back against her chest, staring at him unbelievingly. "What?"

"You think I haven't seen the way you two look at each other? The way he says your name? You may not think I can feel, but that doesn't mean I can't see feelings in others." Valentine's tone was cool, every word a sliver of ice stabbing into her ears. "I suppose we have only ourselves to blame, your mother and I; having kept you two apart so long, you never developed the revulsion toward each other that would be more natural between siblings."

"I don't know what you mean." Clary's teeth were chattering.

"I think I make myself plain enough." He had moved out of the light. His face was a study in shadow. "I saw Jonathan after he faced the fear demon, you know. It showed itself to him as you. That told me all I needed to know. The greatest fear in Jonathan's life is the love he feels for his sister."

"I don't do what I'm told," said Jace. "But I might do what you want if you ask me nicely."

The Inquisitor looked as if she wanted to roll her eyes but had forgotten how. "I need to talk to you."

Jace stared at the Inquisitor. "Now?"

She put a hand on his arm. "Now."

"You're insane." Jace looked down the length of the ship. It looked like a Bosch painting of hell. The darkness was full of demons: lumbering, howling, squawking, and slashing out with claws and teeth. Nephilim darted back and forth, their weapons bright in the shadows. Jace could see already that there weren't enough Shadowhunters. Not nearly enough. "There's no way—we're in the middle of a battle—"

The Inquisitor's bony grip was surprisingly strong. "Now." She pushed him, and he took a step back, too surprised to do anything else, and then another, until they were standing in the recess of a wall. She let go of Jace and felt in the folds of her dark cloak, drawing forth two seraph blades. She whispered their names, and then several words Jace didn't know, and flung them at the deck, one on either side of him. They stuck, points down, and a single blue-white sheet of light sprang up from them, walling Jace and the Inquisitor off from the rest of the ship.

"Are you locking me up again?" Jace demanded, staring at the Inquisitor in disbelief.

"This isn't a Malachi Configuration. You can get out of it if you want." Her thin hands clasped each other tightly. "Jonathan—"

"You mean Jace." He could no longer see the battle past the wall of white light, but he could still hear the sounds of it, the screams and the howling of the demons. If he turned his head, he could just catch a glimpse of a small section of ocean, sparkling with light like diamonds scattered over the surface of a mirror. There were about a dozen boats down there, the sleek, multi-hulled trimarans used on the lakes in Idris. Shadowhunter boats. "What are you doing here, Inquisitor? Why did you come?"

"You were right," she said. "About Valentine. He wouldn't make the trade."

"He told you to let me die." Jace felt suddenly light-headed.

"The moment he refused, of course, I called the Conclave together and brought them here. I—I owe you and your family an apology."

"Noted," said Jace. He hated apologies. "Alec and Isabelle? Are they here? They won't be punished for helping me?"

"They're here, and no, they won't be punished." She was still staring at him, eyes searching. "I can't understand Valentine," she said. "For a father to throw away the life of his child, his only son—"

"Yeah," said Jace. His head ached and he wished she would shut up, or that a demon would attack them. "It's a conundrum, all right."

"Unless…"

Now he looked at her in surprise. "Unless what?"

She jabbed a finger at his shoulder. "When did you get that?"

Jace looked down and saw that the spider demon's poison had eaten a hole in his shirt, leaving a good deal of his left shoulder bare. "The shirt? At Macy's Winter sale."

"The scar. This scar, here on your shoulder."

"Oh, that." Jace wondered at the intensity of her gaze. "I'm not sure. Something that happened when I was very young, my father said. An accident of some kind. Why?"

Breath hissed through the Inquisitor's teeth. "It can't be," she murmured. "You can't be—"

"I can't be what?"

There was a note of uncertainty in the Inquisitor's voice. "All those years," she said, "when you were growing up—you truly thought you were Michael Wayland's son—?"

Sharp fury went through Jace, made all the more painful by the tiny stab of disappointment that accompanied it. "By the Angel," he spat, "you dragged me off here in the middle of battle just to ask me the same goddamned questions again? You didn't believe me the first time and you still don't believe me. You'll never believe me, despite everything that's happened, even though everything I told you was the truth." He jabbed a finger toward whatever was happening on the other side of the wall of light. "I should be out there fighting. Why are you keeping me here? So after this is all over, if any of us are still even alive, you can go to the Clave and tell them I wouldn't fight on your side against my father? Nice try."

She had gone even paler than he'd thought possible. "Jonathan, that's not what I—"

"My name is Jace!" he shouted. The Inquisitor flinched, her mouth half-open, as if she were still about to say something. Jace didn't want to hear it. He stalked past her, nearly knocking her to the side, and kicked at one of the seraph blades in the deck. It toppled over and the wall of light vanished.

Beyond it was chaos. Dark shapes hurtled to and fro on deck, demons clambered over crumpled bodies, and the air was full of smoke and screaming. He strained to see anyone he knew in the mêlée. Where was Alec? Isabelle?

"Jace!" The Inquisitor hurried after him, her face pulled tight with fear. "Jace, you don't have a weapon, at least take—"

She broke off as a demon loomed up out of the darkness in front of Jace like an iceberg off the bow of a ship. It wasn't one he'd seen before tonight; this one had the wrinkled face and agile hands of a huge monkey, but the long, barbed tail of a scorpion. Its eyes were rolling and yellow. It hissed at him through broken needle teeth. Before Jace could duck, its tail shot forward with the speed of a striking cobra. He saw the needle tip whipping toward his face—

And for the second time that night, a shadow passed between him and death. Drawing a long-bladed knife, the Inquisitor threw herself in front of him, just in time for the scorpion's sting to bury itself in her chest.

She screamed, but stayed on her feet. The demon's tail whipped back, ready for another strike—but the Inquisitor's knife had already left her hand, flying straight and true. The runes carved on its blade gleamed as it sliced through the demon's throat. With a hiss, as of air escaping from a punctured balloon, it folded inward, its tail spasming as it vanished.

The Inquisitor crumpled to the deck. Jace knelt down beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder, rolling her onto her back. Blood was spreading across the gray front of her blouse. Her face was slack and yellow, and for a moment Jace thought she was already dead.

"Inquisitor?" He couldn't say her first name, not even now.

Her eyes fluttered open. Their whites were already dulling. With a great effort she beckoned him toward her. He bent closer, close enough to hear her whisper in his ear, whisper on a last exhale of breath—

"What?" Jace said, bewildered. "What does that mean?"

There was no answer. The Inquisitor had slumped back against the deck, her eyes wide open and staring, her mouth curved into what almost looked like a smile.

Jace sat back on his heels, numb and staring. She was dead. Dead because of him.

Something seized hold of the back of his jacket and hauled him to his feet. Jace clapped a hand to his belt—realized he was weaponless—and twisted around to see a familiar pair of blue eyes staring into his with utter incredulity.

"You're alive," Alec said—two short words, but there was a wealth of feeling behind them. The relief on his face was plain, as was his exhaustion. Despite the chill in the air, his black hair was plastered to his cheeks and forehead with sweat. His clothes and skin were streaked with blood and there was a long rip in the sleeve of his armored jacket, as if something jagged and sharp had torn it open. He clutched a bloody guisarme in his right hand and Jace's collar in the other.

"I seem to be," Jace admitted. "I won't be for long if you don't give me a weapon, though."

With a quick glance around, Alec let go of Jace, took a seraph blade from his belt, and handed it over. "Here," he said. "It's called Samandiriel."

Jace barely had the blade in his hand when a medium-size Drevak demon scuttled toward them, chittering imperiously. Jace raised Samandiriel, but Alec had already dispatched the creature with a jabbing blow from his guisarme.

"Nice weapon," Jace said, but Alec was looking past him, at the crumpled gray figure on the deck.

"Is that the Inquisitor? Is she …?"

"She's dead," Jace said.

Alec's jaw set. "Good riddance. How'd she get it?"

Jace was about to reply when he was interrupted by a loud cry of "Alec! Jace!" It was Isabelle, hurrying toward them through the stench and smoke. She wore a close-fitting dark jacket, smeared with yellowish blood. Gold chains hung with rune charms circled her wrists and ankles, and her whip curled around her like a net of electrum wire.

She held her arms out. "Jace, we thought—"

"No." Something made Jace step back, shying away from her touch. "I'm all covered in blood, Isabelle. Don't."

A hurt expression crossed her face. "But we've all been looking for you—Mom and Dad, they—"

"Isabelle!" Jace shouted, but it was too late: A massive spider demon reared up behind her, jetting yellow poison from its fangs. Isabelle screamed as the poison struck her, but her whip shot out with blinding speed, slicing the demon in half. It thudded to the deck in two pieces, then vanished.

Jace darted toward Isabelle just as she slumped forward. Her whip slipped from her hand as he caught her, cradling her awkwardly against him. He could see how much of the poison had gotten on her: It had splashed mostly onto her jacket, but some of it spattered her throat, and where it touched, the skin burned and sizzled. Barely audibly, she whimpered—Isabelle, who never showed pain.

"Give her to me." It was Alec, dropping his weapon as he hurried to help his sister. He took Isabelle from Jace's arms and lowered her gently to the deck. Kneeling beside her, stele in hand, he looked up at Jace. "Hold off whatever comes while I heal her."

Jace couldn't drag his eyes away from Isabelle. Blood streamed from her neck down onto her jacket, soaking her hair. "We have to get her off this boat," he said roughly. "If she stays here—"

"She'll die?" Alec was tracing the tip of his stele as gently as he could over his sister's throat. "We're all going to die. There are too many of them. We're being slaughtered. The Inquisitor deserved to die for this—this is all her fault."

"A Scorpios demon tried to kill me," Jace said, wondering why he was saying it, why he was defending someone he hated. "The Inquisitor got in its way. Saved my life."

"She did?" Astonishment was clear in Alec's tone. "Why?"

"I guess she decided I was worth saving."

"But she always—" Alec broke off, his expression changing to one of alarm. "Jace, behind you—two of them—"

Jace whirled. Two demons were approaching: a Ravener, with its alligator-like body and serrated teeth, its scorpion tail curling forward over its back, and a Drevak, its pale white maggot-flesh gleaming in the moonlight. Jace heard Alec, behind him, suck in an alarmed breath; then Samandiriel left his hand, cutting a silvery path through the air. It sliced through the Ravener's tail, just below the pendulous poison sac at the end of its long stinger.

The Ravener howled. The Drevak turned, confused—and got the poison sac full in the face. The sac broke open, drenching the Drevak in venom. It emitted a single garbled scream and crumpled, its head eaten away to the bone. Blood and poison splattered the deck as the Drevak vanished. The Ravener, blood gushing from its tail stump, dragged itself a few more paces forward before it, too, disappeared.

Jace bent and picked up Samandiriel gingerly. The metal deck was still sizzling where the Ravener's poison had spilled on it, pocking it with tiny spreading holes like cheesecloth.

"Jace." Alec was on his feet, holding a pale but upright Isabelle by the arm. "We need to get Isabelle out of here."

"Fine," Jace said. "You get her out of here. I'm going to deal with that."

"With what?" Alec said, bewildered.

"With that," Jace said again, and pointed. Something was coming toward them through the smoke and flames, something huge, humped, and massive. Easily five times the size of any other demon on the ship, it had an armored body, many-limbed, each appendage ending in a spiked chitinous talon. Its feet were elephant feet, huge and splayed. It had the head of a giant mosquito, Jace saw as it came closer, complete with insectile eyes and a dangling blood-red feeding tube.

Alec sucked in his breath. "What the hell is it?"

Jace thought for a moment. "Big," he said finally. "Very."

"Jace—"

Jace turned and looked at Alec, and then at Isabelle. Something inside him told him that this might very well be the last time he ever saw them, and yet he still wasn't afraid, not for himself. He wanted to say something to them, maybe that he loved them, that either one of them was worth more to him than a thousand Mortal Instruments and the power they could bring. But the words wouldn't come.

"Alec," he heard himself say. "Get Isabelle to the ladder, now, or we'll all die."

Alec met his gaze and held it for a moment. Then he nodded and pushed Isabelle, still protesting, toward the railing. He helped her up onto it and then over, and with immense relief Jace saw her dark head disappearing as she began to descend the ladder. And now you, Alec, he thought. Go.

But Alec wasn't going. Isabelle, now out of view, cried out sharply as her brother jumped back down from the railing, onto the deck of the ship. His guisarme lay on the deck where he'd dropped it; he seized it now and moved to stand next to Jace and face the demon as it came.

He never got that far. The demon, bearing down on Jace, made a sudden swerve and rushed toward Alec, its bloody feeding tube whipping back and forth hungrily. Jace spun to block Alec, but the metal deck he was standing on, rotted with poison, crumbled underneath him. His foot plunged through and he fell hard against the deck.

Alec had time to shout Jace's name, and then the demon was on him. He stabbed at it with his guisarme, plunging the sharp end of it deep into the demon's flesh. The creature reared back, screaming a weirdly human scream, black blood spraying from the wound. Alec retreated, reaching for another weapon, just as the demon's talon whipped around, knocking him to the deck. Then its feeding tube wrapped around him.

Somewhere, Isabelle was screaming. Jace struggled desperately to pull his leg from the deck; sharp edges of metal stabbed into him as he jerked himself free and staggered to his feet.

He raised Samandiriel. Light blazed forth from the seraph blade, bright as a falling star. The demon flinched back, making a low hissing sound. It relaxed its grip on Alec and for a moment Jace thought it might be going to let him go. Then it whipped its head back with a sudden, startling speed and flung Alec with immense force. Alec hit the blood-slippery deck hard, skidded across it—and fell, with a single hoarse cry, over the side of the ship.

Isabelle was screaming Alec's name; her screams were like spikes being driven into Jace's ears. Samandiriel was still blazing in his hand. Its light illuminated the demon stalking toward him, its insectile gaze bright and predatory, but all he could see was Alec; Alec falling over the side of the ship, Alec drowning in the black water far below. He thought he tasted seawater in his own mouth, or it might have been blood. The demon was almost on him; he raised Samandiriel in his hand and flung it—the demon squealed, a high, agonized sound—and then the deck gave way beneath Jace with a screech of crumbling metal and he fell into darkness.

19 Dies Irae

"You're wrong," Clary said, but her voice held no conviction. "You don't know anything about me or Jace. You're just trying to—"

"To what? I'm trying to reach you, Clarissa. To make you understand." There was no feeling in Valentine's voice that Clary could detect beyond a faint amusement.

"You're laughing at us. You think you can use me to hurt Jace, so you're laughing at us. You're not even angry anymore," she added. "A real father would be angry."

"I am a real father. The same blood that runs in my veins runs in yours."

"You're not my father. Luke is," said Clary, almost wearily. "We've been over this."

"You only look to Luke as your father because of his relationship with your mother—"

"Their relationship?" Clary laughed out loud. "Luke and my mother are friends."

For a moment she was sure she saw a look of surprise pass over his face. But "Is that so," was all he said. And then, "You really think he endured all this—Lucian, I mean—this life of silence and hiding and running, this devotion to the protection of a secret even he didn't fully understand, just for friendship? You know very little about people, Clary, at your age, and less about men."

"You can make all the innuendoes about Luke you want. It won't make any difference. You're wrong about him, just like you're wrong about Jace. You have to give everyone ugly motives for everything they do, because ugly motives are all you understand."

"Is that what it would be if he loved your mother? Ugly?" said Valentine. "What's so ugly about love, Clarissa? Or is it that you sense, deep down, that your precious Lucian is neither truly human nor truly capable of feelings as we would understand them—"

"Luke's as human as I am," Clary flung at him. "You're just a bigot."

"Oh, no," Valentine said. "I'm anything but that." He moved a little closer to her, and she stepped in front of the Sword, blocking it from his view. "You think of me that way because you look at me and at what I do through the lens of your mundane understanding of the world. Mundane humans create distinctions between themselves, distinctions that seem ridiculous to any Shadowhunter. Their distinctions are based on race, religion, national identity, any of a dozen minor and irrelevant markers. To mundanes these seem logical, for though mundanes cannot see, understand, or acknowledge the demon worlds, still somewhere buried in their ancient memories, they know that there are those that walk this earth that are other. That do not belong, that mean only harm and destruction. Since the demon threat is invisible to mundanes, they must assign the threat to others of their own kind. They place the face of their enemy onto the face of their neighbor, and thus are generations of misery assured." He took another step toward her, and Clary instinctively moved backward; she was pressed up against the footlocker now. "I'm not like that," he went on. "I can see the truth of it. Mundanes see as through a glass, darkly, but Shadowhunters—we see face-to-face. We know the truth of evil, and know that while it walks among us, it is not of us. What does not belong to our world must not be allowed to take root here, to grow like a poisonous flower and extinguish all life."

Clary had meant to go for the Sword and then for Valentine, but his words shook her. His voice was so soft, so persuasive, and it wasn't as if she thought demons should be allowed to stay on earth, to drain it away to ashes as they'd drained away so many other worlds… It almost made sense, what he said, but—

"Luke isn't a demon," she said.

"It seems to me, Clarissa," said Valentine, "that you've had very little experience of what a demon is and what it is not. You have met a few Downworlders who seemed to you to be kind enough, and it is through the lens of their kindness that you view the world. Demons, to you, are hideous creatures that leap out from the shadows to rend and attack. And there are such creatures. But there are also demons of deep subtlety and secrecy, demons who walk among humans unrecognized and unhindered. Yet I have seen them do such dreadful things that their more bestial colleagues seem gentle in comparison. There was a demon in London that I once knew, who posed as a very powerful financier. He was never alone, so it was difficult for me to get close enough to kill him, though I knew what he was. He would have his servants bring him animals and young children—anything that was small and helpless—"

"Stop." Clary put her hands up to her ears. "I don't want to hear this."

But Valentine's voice droned on, inexorable, muffled but not inaudible. "He would eat them slowly, over the course of many days. He had his tricks, his ways of keeping them alive through the worst imaginable tortures. If you can imagine a child trying to crawl to you with half its body torn away—"

"Stop!" Clary tore her hands away from her ears. "That's enough, enough!"

"Demons feed on death and pain and madness," Valentine said. "When I kill, it is because I must. You grew up in a falsely beautiful paradise surrounded by fragile glass walls, my daughter. Your mother created the world she wanted to live in and she brought you up in it, but she never told you it was an illusion. And all the time the demons waited with their weapons of blood and terror to smash the glass and pull you free of the lie."

"You smashed the walls," Clary whispered. "You dragged me into all this. No one but you."

"And the glass that cut you, the pain you felt, the blood? Do you blame me for that as well? I was not the one who put you into the prison."

"Stop it. Just stop talking." Clary's head was ringing. She wanted to scream at him, You kidnapped my mother, you did this, it's your fault! But she had begun to see what Luke had meant when he'd said you couldn't argue with Valentine. Somehow he'd made it impossible for her to disagree with him without feeling as if she were standing up for demons who bit children in half. She wondered how Jace had stood it all those years, living in the shadow of that demanding, overwhelming personality. She began to see where Jace's arrogance came from, his arrogance and his carefully controlled emotions.

The edge of the locker behind her was biting into the back of her legs. She could feel the cold coming off the Sword, making the hair on the back of her neck prickle. "What is it you want from me?" she asked Valentine.

"What makes you think I want anything from you?"

"You wouldn't be talking to me otherwise. You'd have whacked me on the head and be waiting around for—for whatever the next step is after this."

"The next step," said Valentine, "is for your Shadowhunter friends to track you down and for me to tell them that if they want to retrieve you alive, they'll trade the werewolf girl for you. I still need her blood."

"They'll never trade Maia for me!"

"That's where you're wrong," said Valentine. "They know the value of a Downworlder as compared to that of a Shadowhunter child. They'll make the trade. The Clave requires it."

"The Clave? You mean—that's part of the Law?"

"Codified into its very being," said Valentine. "Now do you see? We are not so very different, the Clave and I, or Jonathan and I, or even you and I, Clarissa. We merely have a small disagreement as to method." He smiled, and stepped forward to close the space between them.

Moving more quickly that she would have thought she could, Clary reached behind her and snatched up the Soul-Sword. It was as heavy as she'd thought it would be, so heavy she nearly overbalanced. Putting out a hand to steady herself, she lifted it, pointing the blade directly at Valentine.

Jace's fall ended abruptly when he struck a hard metal surface with enough force to rattle his teeth. He coughed, tasting blood in his mouth, and staggered painfully to his feet.

He was standing on a bare metal catwalk painted a dull green. The inside of the ship was hollow, a great echoing chamber of metal with dark outward-curving walls. Looking up, Jace could see a tiny patch of starry sky through the smoking hole in the hull far above.

The belly of the ship was a maze of catwalks and ladders that seemed to lead nowhere, twisting in on each other like the guts of a giant snake. It was freezing cold. Jace could see his breath puffing out in white clouds when he exhaled. There was very little light. He squinted into the shadows, then reached into his pocket to retrieve his witchlight rune-stone.

Its white glow lit the dimness. The catwalk was long, with a ladder at the far end leading down to a lower level. As Jace moved toward it, something glinted at his feet.

He bent down. It was a stele. He couldn't help but stare around him, as if half-expecting someone to materialize out of the shadows; how the hell had a Shadowhunter stele gotten down here? He picked it up carefully. All steles had a sort of aura to them, a ghostly imprint of their owner's personality. This one sent a shot of painful recognition through him. Clary.

A sudden, soft laugh broke the silence. Jace spun around, shoving the stele through his belt. In the glare of the witchlight, Jace could see a dark figure standing at the end of the catwalk. The face was hidden in shadow.

"Who's there?" he called.

There was no answer, only a sense that someone was laughing at him. Jace's hand went automatically to his belt, but he had dropped the seraph blade when he fell. He was out of weapons.

But what had his father always taught him? Used correctly, almost anything could be a weapon. He moved slowly toward the figure, his eyes taking in the various details around him—a strut he could catch hold of and swing from, kicking out with his feet; an exposed bit of broken metal he could throw an opponent against, puncturing their spine. All these thoughts went through his head in a split second, the single split second before the figure at the end of the catwalk turned, his white hair shining in the witchlight, and Jace recognized him.

Jace stopped dead in his tracks. "Father? Is that you?"

The first thing Alec was aware of was freezing cold. The second was that he couldn't breathe. He tried to suck in air and his body spasmed. He sat upright, expelling dirty river water from his lungs in a bitter flood that made him gag and choke.

Finally he could breathe, though his lungs felt like they were on fire. Gasping, he looked around. He was sitting on a corrugated metal platform—no, it was the back of a truck. A pickup truck, floating in the middle of the river. His hair and clothes were streaming cold water. And Magnus Bane was sitting opposite him, regarding him with amber cat's eyes that glowed in the dark.

His teeth began to chatter. "What—what happened?"

"You tried to drink the East River," Magnus said, and Alec saw, as if for the first time, that Magnus's clothes were soaking wet too, sticking to his body like a dark second skin. "I pulled you out."

Alec's head was pounding. He felt at his belt for his stele, but it was gone. He tried to think back—the ship, overrun with demons; Isabelle falling and Jace catching her; blood, everywhere underfoot, the demon attacking—

"Isabelle! She was climbing down when I fell—"

"She's fine. She made it to a boat. I saw her." Magnus reached out to touch Alec's head. "You, on the other hand, might have a concussion."

"I need to get back to the battle." Alec pushed his hand away. "You're a warlock. Can't you, I don't know, fly me back to the boat or something? And fix my concussion while you're at it?"

Magnus, his hand still outstretched, sank back against the side of the truck bed. In the starlight his eyes were chips of green and gold, hard and flat as jewels.

"Sorry," Alec said, realizing how he had sounded, though he still felt that Magnus ought to see that getting to the ship was the most important thing. "I know you don't have to help us out—it's a favor—"

"Stop. I don't do you favors, Alec. I do things for you because—well, why do you think I do them?"

Something rose up in Alec's throat, cutting off his response. It was always like this when he was with Magnus. It was as if there were a bubble of pain or regret that lived inside his heart, and when he wanted to say something, anything, that seemed meaningful or true, it rose up and choked off his words. "I need to get back to the ship," he said, finally.

Magnus sounded too tired to even be angry. "I would help you," he said. "But I can't. Stripping the protection wards off the ship was bad enough—it's a strong, strong enchantment, demon-based—but when you fell, I had to put a fast spell on the truck so it wouldn't sink when I lost consciousness. And I will lose consciousness, Alec. It's just a matter of time." He passed a hand across his eyes. "I didn't want you to drown," he said. "The enchantment should hold enough for you to get the truck back to land."

"I—didn't realize." Alec looked at Magnus, who was three hundred years old but had always looked timeless, as if he had stopped getting older around the age of nineteen. Now there were sharp lines cut into the skin around his eyes and mouth. His hair hung lankly over his forehead, and the slump in his shoulders was not his usual careless posture but true exhaustion.

Alec put his hands out. They were pale in the moonlight, wrinkled from water and dotted with dozens of silver scars. Magnus looked down at them, and then back at Alec, confusion darkening his gaze.

"Take my hands," Alec said. "And take my strength too. Whatever of it you can use to—to keep yourself going."

Magnus didn't move. "I thought you had to get back to the ship."

"I have to fight," said Alec. "But that's what you're doing, isn't it? You're part of the fight just as much as the Shadowhunters on the ship—and I know you can take some of my strength, I've heard of warlocks doing that—so I'm offering. Take it. It's yours."

Valentine smiled. He was wearing his black armor, and gauntlet gloves that shone like the carapaces of black insects. "My son."

"Don't call me that," Jace said, and then, feeling a tremor begin in his hands, "Where's Clary?"

Valentine was still smiling. "She defied me," he said. "I had to teach her a lesson."

"What have you done to her?"

"Nothing." Valentine came closer to Jace, close enough to touch him if he had chosen to extend his hand. He didn't. "Nothing she won't recover from."

Jace closed his hand into a fist so his father wouldn't see it shaking. "I want to see her."

"Really? With all this going on?" Valentine glanced up, as if he could see through the hull of the ship to the carnage on deck. "I would have thought you'd want to be fighting with the rest of your Shadowhunter friends. Pity their efforts are for nothing."

"You don't know that."

"I do know it. For every one of them, I can summon a thousand demons. Even the best Nephilim can't hold out against those odds. As in the case," Valentine added, "of poor Imogen."

"How do you—"

"I see everything that happens on my ship." Valentine's eyes narrowed. "You do know it's your fault she died, don't you?"

Jace sucked in a breath. He could feel his heart pounding as if it wanted to tear its way out of his chest.

"If it weren't for you, none of them would have come to the ship. They thought they were rescuing you, you know. If it had just been about the two Downworlders, they wouldn't have bothered."

Jace had almost forgotten. "Simon and Maia—"

"Oh, they're dead. Both of them." Valentine's tone was casual, even soft. "How many have to die, Jace, before you see the truth?"

Jace's head felt as if it were full of swirling smoke. His shoulder burned with pain. "We've had this conversation. You're wrong, Father. You might be right about demons, you might even be right about the Clave, but this is not the way—"

"I meant," said Valentine, "when will you see that you're just like me?"

Despite the cold, Jace had begun to sweat. "What?"

"You and I, we're alike," said Valentine. "As you said to me before, you are what I made you to be, and I made you as a copy of myself. You have my arrogance. You have my courage. And you have that quality that causes others to give their lives for you without question."

Something hammered at the back of Jace's mind. Something he ought to know, or had forgotten—his shoulder burned—"I don't want people giving their lives for me," he cried.

"No. You do. You like knowing that Alec and Isabelle would die for you. That your sister would. The Inquisitor did die for you, didn't she, Jonathan? And you stood by and let her—"

"No!"

"You're just like me—it isn't surprising, is it? We're father and son, why shouldn't we be alike?"

"No!" Jace's hand shot out and seized the twisted metal strut. It came off in his hand with an explosive snap, its broken edge jagged and wickedly sharp. "I am not like you!" he cried, and drove the strut directly into his father's chest.

Valentine's mouth opened. He staggered back, the end of the strut protruding from his chest. For a moment Jace could only stare, thinking, I was wrong—it's really him—and then Valentine seemed to collapse in on himself, his body crumbling away like sand. The air was full of the smell of burning as Valentine's body turned to ash that blew away on the cold air.

Jace put a hand to his shoulder. The skin where the Fearless rune had burned itself away felt hot to the touch. A great sense of weakness overwhelmed him. "Agramon," he whispered, and fell to his knees on the catwalk.

It was only a few moments that he knelt on the ground as his hammering pulse slowed, but to Jace it felt like forever. When he finally stood up, his legs were stiff with cold. His fingertips were blue. The air still stank of something burned, though there was no sign of Agramon.

Still gripping the piece of metal strut, Jace made for the ladder at the end of the catwalk. The effort of clambering down one-handed cleared his head. He dropped from the last rung to find himself on a second narrow catwalk that ran along the side of a vast metal chamber. There were dozens of other catwalks laddering the walls and a variety of pipes and machinery. Banging sounds came from inside the pipes, and every once in a while one of the pipes would give off a blast of what looked like steam, though the air remained bitterly cold.

Quite a place you've got for yourself here, Father, Jace thought. The bare industrial interior of the ship didn't fit with the Valentine he knew, who was particular about the type of cut crystal his decanters were made out of. Jace glanced around. It was a labyrinth down here; there was no way to know which direction he should go. He turned to climb down the next ladder and noticed a dark red smear on the metal floor.

Blood. He scraped the toe of his boot through it. It was still damp, slightly tacky. Fresh blood. His pulse quickened. Partway down the catwalk, he saw another spot of red, and then another a farther distance away, like a trail of bread crumbs in a fairy tale.

Jace followed the blood, his boots echoing loudly on the metal catwalk. The pattern of the blood splatters was peculiar, not as if there had been a fight, but more as if someone had been carried, bleeding, along the catwalk—

He reached a door. It was made of black metal, silvered here and there with dents and chips. There was a bloody handprint around the knob. Gripping the jagged strut more tightly, Jace pushed the door open.

A wave of even colder air hit him and he sucked in a breath. The room was empty except for a metal pipe that ran along one wall, and what looked like a heap of sacking in the corner. A little light came in through a porthole high up in the wall. As Jace stepped gingerly forward, the light from the porthole fell on the heap in the corner and he realized that it wasn't a pile of trash after all, but a body.

Jace's heart started to bang like an unlocked door in a windstorm.

The metal floor was sticky with blood. His boots pulled away from it with an ugly suctioning sound as he crossed the room and bent down beside the crumpled figure in the corner. A boy, dark-haired and dressed in jeans and a blood-soaked blue T-shirt.

Jace took the body by the shoulder and heaved. It flipped over, limp and boneless, brown eyes staring sightlessly upward. Jace's breath caught in his throat. It was Simon. He was white as paper. There was an ugly gash at the base of his throat, and both wrists had been slashed, leaving gaping, ragged-edged wounds.

Jace sank to his knees, still holding Simon's shoulder. He thought hopelessly of Clary, of her pain when she found out, of the way she'd crushed his hands in hers, so much strength in those small fingers. Find Simon. I know you will.

And he had. But it was too late.

When Jace was ten, his father had explained to him all the ways to kill vampires. Stake them. Cut their heads off and set them to burning like eerie jack-o'-lanterns. Let the sun scorch them to ashes. Or drain their blood. They needed blood to live, they ran on it, like cars ran on gasoline. Looking at the ragged wound in Simon's throat, it wasn't hard to see what Valentine had done.

Jace reached out to close Simon's staring eyes. If Clary had to see him dead, better she not see him like this. He moved his hand down to the collar of Simon's shirt, meaning to tug it up, to cover the gash.

Simon moved. His eyelids twitched and opened, his eyes rolled back to the whites. He gurgled then, a faint sound, lips curling back, showing the points of vampire fangs. The breath rattled in his slashed throat.

Nausea rose in the back of Jace's throat, his hand tightening on Simon's collar. He wasn't dead. But God, the pain, it must be incredible. He couldn't heal, couldn't regenerate, not without—

Not without blood. Jace let go of Simon's shirt and dragged his right sleeve up with his teeth. Using the jagged tip of the broken strut, he slashed a deep cut lengthwise down his wrist. Blood gushed to the surface of the skin. He dropped the strut; it hit the metal floor with a clang. He could smell his own blood in the air, sharp and coppery.

He looked down at Simon, who hadn't moved. The blood was running down Jace's hand now, his wrist stinging. He held it out over Simon's face, letting the blood drip down his fingers, spill onto Simon's mouth. There was no reaction. Simon wasn't moving. Jace moved closer; he was kneeling over Simon now, his breath making white puffs in the icy air. He leaned down, pressed his bleeding wrist against Simon's mouth. "Drink my blood, idiot," he whispered. "Drink it."

For a moment nothing happened. Then Simon's eyes fluttered shut. Jace felt a sharp sting in his wrist, a sort of pull, a hard pressure—and Simon's right hand flew up and clamped onto Jace's arm, just above the elbow. Simon's back arched off the floor, the pressure on Jace's wrist increasing as Simon's fangs sank deeper. Pain shot up Jace's arm. "Okay," Jace said. "Okay, enough." Simon's eyes opened. The whites were gone, the dark brown irises focused on Jace. There was color in his cheeks, a hectic flush like a fever. His lips were slightly parted, the white fangs stained with blood. "Simon?" Jace said.

Simon rose up. He moved with incredible speed, knocking Jace sideways and rolling on top of him. Jace's head hit the metal floor, his ears ringing as Simon's teeth sank into his neck. He tried to twist away, but the other boy's arms were like iron bars, pinning him to the ground, fingers digging into his shoulders.

But Simon wasn't hurting him—not really—the pain that had started out sharp faded to a sort of dull burn, pleasant the way the burn of the stele was sometimes pleasant. A drowsy sense of peace stole through Jace's veins and he felt his muscles relax; the hands that had been trying to push Simon away a moment ago now pressed him closer. He could feel the beat of his own heart, feel it slowing, its hammering fading to a softer echo. A shimmering darkness crept in at the corners of his vision, beautiful and strange. Jace closed his eyes—

Pain lanced through his neck. He gasped and his eyes flew open; Simon was sitting up on him, staring down with wide eyes, his hand across his own mouth. Simon's wounds were gone, though fresh blood stained the front of his shirt.

Jace could feel the pain of his bruised shoulders again, the slash across his wrist, his punctured throat. He could no longer hear his heart beating, but knew it was slamming away inside his chest.

Simon took his hand away from his mouth. The fangs were gone. "I could have killed you," he said. There was a sort of pleading in his voice.

"I would have let you," said Jace.

Simon stared down at him, then made a noise in the back of his throat. He rolled off Jace and hit the floor on his knees, hugging his elbows. Jace could see the dark tracery of Simon's veins through the pale skin of his throat, branching blue and purple lines. Veins full of blood.

My blood. Jace sat up. He fumbled for his stele. Dragging it across his arm felt like hauling a lead pipe across a football field. His head throbbed. When he finished the iratze, he leaned his head back against the wall behind him, breathing hard, the pain leaving him as the healing rune took effect. My blood in his veins.

"I'm sorry," Simon said. "I'm so sorry."

The healing rune was having its effect. Jace's head started to clear and the banging in his chest slowed. He got to his feet, carefully, expecting a wave of dizziness, but he felt only a little weak and tired. Simon was still on his knees, staring down at his hands. Jace reached down and grabbed the back of his shirt, hauling him to his feet. "Don't apologize," he said, letting Simon go. "Just get moving. Valentine has Clary and we haven't got much time."

The second her fingers closed around the hilt of Maellartach, a searing blast of cold shot up Clary's arm. Valentine watched with an expression of mild interest as she gasped with pain, her fingers going numb. She clutched desperately at the Sword, but it slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground at her feet.

She barely saw Valentine move. A moment later he was standing in front of her with the Sword in his grasp. Clary's hand was stinging. She glanced down and saw that a red, burning weal was rising along her palm.

"Did you really think," Valentine said, a tinge of disgust coloring his voice, "that I'd let you near a weapon I thought you could use?" He shook his head. "You didn't understand a word I said, did you? It appears that of my two children, only one seems capable of understanding the truth."

Clary closed her injured hand into a fist, almost welcoming the pain. "If you mean Jace, he hates you too."

Valentine swung the Sword up, bringing the tip of it level with Clary's collarbone. "That is enough," he said, "out of you."

The tip of the Sword was sharp; when she breathed, it pricked her throat, and a trickle of blood threaded its way down her chest. The Sword's touch seemed to spill cold through her veins, sending sizzling ice particles through her arms and legs, numbing her hands.

"Ruined by your upbringing," Valentine said. "Your mother was always a stubborn woman. It was one of the things I loved about her in the beginning. I thought she would stand by her ideals."

It was strange, Clary thought with a detached sort of horror, that when she had seen her father before at Renwick's, his considerable personal charisma had been on display for Jace's benefit. Now he wasn't bothering, and without the surface patina of charm, he seemed—empty. Like a hollow statue, eyes cut out to show only darkness inside.

"Tell me, Clarissa—did your mother ever talk about me?"

"She told me my father was dead." Don't say anything else, she warned herself, but she was sure he could read the rest of the words in her eyes. And I wish she had been telling the truth.

"And she never told you you were different? Special?"

Clary swallowed, and the tip of the blade cut a little deeper. More blood trickled down her chest. "She never told me I was a Shadowhunter."

"Do you know why," Valentine said, looking down the length of the Sword at her, "your mother left me?"

Tears burned the back of Clary's throat. She made a choking noise. "You mean there was only one reason?"

"She told me," he went on, as if Clary hadn't spoken, "that I had turned her first child into a monster. She left me before I could do the same to her second. You. But she was too late."

The cold at her throat, in her limbs, was so intense that she was beyond shivering. It was as if the Sword was turning her to ice. "She'd never say that," Clary whispered. "Jace isn't a monster. Neither am I."

"I wasn't talking about—"

The trapdoor over their heads slammed open and two shadowy figures dropped from the hole, landing just behind Valentine. The first, Clary saw with a bright shock of relief, was Jace, falling through the air like an arrow shot from a bow, sure of its target. He hit the floor with an assured lightness. He was clutching a bloodstained steel strut in one hand, its end broken off to a wicked point.

The second figure landed beside Jace with the same lightness if not the same grace. Clary saw the outline of a slender boy with dark hair and thought, Alec. It was only when he straightened and she recognized the familiar face that she realized who it was.

She forgot the Sword, the cold, the pain in her throat, forgot everything. "Simon!"

Simon looked across the room at her. Their eyes met for just a moment and Clary hoped he could read in her face her full and overwhelming relief. The tears that had been threatening came, and spilled down her face. She didn't move to wipe them away.

Valentine turned his head to look behind him, and his mouth sagged in the first expression of honest surprise Clary had ever seen on his face. He whirled to face Jace and Simon.

The moment the point of the Sword left Clary's throat, the ice drained from her, taking all her strength with it. She sank to her knees, shivering uncontrollably. When she raised her hands to wipe the tears away from her face, she saw that the tips of her fingers were white with the beginnings of frostbite.

Jace stared at her in horror, then at his father. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing," Valentine said, regaining control of himself. "Yet."

To Clary's surprise, Jace paled, as if his father's words had shocked him.

"I'm the one who should be asking you what you've done, Jonathan," Valentine said, and though he spoke to Jace, his eyes were on Simon. "Why is it still alive? Revenants can regenerate, but not with such little blood in them."

"You mean me?" Simon demanded. Clary stared. Simon sounded different. He didn't sound like a kid smarting off to an adult; he sounded like someone who felt like he could face Valentine Morgenstern on equal footing. Like someone who deserved to face him on equal footing. "Oh, that's right, you left me for dead. Well, dead-er."

"Shut up." Jace shot a glare at Simon; his eyes were very dark. "Let me answer this." He turned to his father. "I let Simon drink my blood," he said. "So he wouldn't die."

Valentine's already severe face settled into harder lines, as if the bones were pushing out through the skin. "You willingly let a vampire drink your blood?"

Jace seemed to hesitate for a moment—he glanced over at Simon, who was staring fixedly at Valentine with a look of intense hatred. Then he said, carefully, "Yes."

"You have no idea what you've done, Jonathan," said Valentine in a terrible voice. "No idea."

"I saved a life," said Jace. "One you tried to take. I know that much."

"Not a human life," said Valentine. "You resurrected a monster that will only kill to feed again. His kind are always hungry—"

"I'm hungry right now," Simon said, and smiled to reveal that his fang teeth had slid from their sheaths. They glittered white and pointed against his lower lip. "I wouldn't mind a little more blood. Of course your blood would probably choke me, you poisonous piece of—"

Valentine laughed. "I'd like to see you try it, revenant," he said. "When the Soul-Sword cuts you, you will burn as you die."

Clary saw Jace's eyes go to the Sword, and then to her. There was an unspoken question in them. Quickly, she said, "The Sword isn't turned. Not quite. He didn't get Maia's blood, so he didn't finish the ceremony—"

Valentine turned toward her, Sword in hand, and she saw him smile. The Sword seemed to flick in his grasp, and then something hit her—it was like being knocked over by a wave, thrown down and then lifted against your will and tossed through the air. She rolled across the floor, helpless to stop herself, until she struck the bulkhead with bruising force. She crumpled at the base of it, gasping with breathlessness and pain.

Simon started toward her at a run. Valentine swung the Soul-Sword and a sheet of sheer, blazing fire rose up, sending him stumbling backward with its surging heat.

Clary struggled to raise herself onto her elbows. Her mouth was full of blood. The world swayed around her and she wondered how hard she'd hit her head and if she was going to pass out. She willed herself to stay conscious.

The fire had receded, but Simon was still crouched on the floor, looking dazed. Valentine glanced briefly at him, and then at Jace. "If you kill the revenant now," he said, "you can still undo what you've done."

"No," Jace whispered.

"Just take the weapon you hold in your hand and drive it through his heart." Valentine's voice was soft. "One simple motion. Nothing you haven't done before."

Jace met his father's stare with a level gaze. "I saw Agramon," he said. "It had your face."

"You saw Agramon?" The Soul-Sword glittered as Valentine moved toward his son. "And you lived?"

"I killed it."

"You killed the Demon of Fear, but you won't kill a single vampire, not even at my order?"

Jace stood watching Valentine without expression. "He's a vampire, that's true," he said. "But his name is Simon."

Valentine stopped in front of Jace, the Soul-Sword in his hand, burning with a harsh black light. Clary wondered for a terrified moment if Valentine meant to stab Jace where he stood, and if Jace meant to let him. "I take it, then," Valentine said, "that you haven't changed your mind? What you told me when you came to me before, that was your final word, or do you regret having disobeyed me?"

Jace shook his head slowly. One hand still clutched the broken strut, but his other hand—his right—was at his waist, drawing something from his belt. His eyes, though, never left Valentine's, and Clary wasn't sure Valentine saw what he was doing. She hoped not.

"Yes," Jace said, "I regret having disobeyed you."

No! Clary thought, but her heart sank. Was he giving up, did he think it was the only way to save her and Simon?

Valentine's face softened. "Jonathan—"

"Especially," Jace said, "since I plan to do it again. Right now." His hand moved, quick as a flash of light, and something hurtled through the air toward Clary. It fell a few inches from her, hitting the metal with a clang and rolling. Her eyes widened.

It was her mother's stele.

Valentine began to laugh. "A stele? Jace, is this some sort of joke? Or have you finally—"

Clary didn't hear the rest of what he said; she heaved herself up, gasping as pain lanced through her head. Her eyes watered, her vision blurred; she reached out a shaking hand for the stele—and as her fingers touched it, she heard a voice, as clear inside her head as if her mother stood beside her. Take the stele, Clary. Use it. You know what to do.

Her fingers closed spasmodically around it. She sat up, ignoring the wave of pain that went through her head and down her spine. She was a Shadowhunter, and pain was something you lived with. Dimly, she could hear Valentine call her name, hear his footsteps, coming nearer—and she flung herself at the bulkhead, thrusting the stele forward with such force that when its tip touched the metal, she thought she heard the sizzle of something burning.

She began to draw. As always happened when she drew, the world fell away and there was only herself and the stele and the metal she drew on. She remembered standing outside Jace's cell whispering to herself, Open, open, open, and knew that she had drawn on all her strength to create the rune that had broken Jace's bonds. And she knew that the strength she had put into that rune was not a tenth, not a hundredth, of the strength she was putting into this. Her hands burned and she cried out as she dragged the stele down the metal wall, leaving a thick black line like char behind it. Open.

All her frustration, all her disappointment, all her rage went through her fingers and into the stele and into the rune. Open. All her love, all her relief at seeing Simon alive, all her hope that they still might survive. Open!

Her hand, still holding the stele, dropped to her lap. For a moment there was utter silence as all of them—Jace, Valentine, even Simon—stared along with her at the rune that burned on the ship's bulkhead.

It was Simon who spoke, turning to Jace. "What does it say?"

But it was Valentine who answered, not taking his eyes from the wall. There was a look on his face—not at all the look Clary had expected, a look that mixed triumph and horror, despair and delight. "It says," he said, " 'Mene mene tekel upharsin.' "

Clary staggered to her feet. "That's not what it says," she whispered. "It says open."

Valentine met her eyes with his own. "Clary—"

The scream of metal drowned out his words. The wall Clary had drawn on, a wall made of sheets of solid steel, warped and shuddered. Rivets tore free of their housings and jets of water sprayed into the room.

She could hear Valentine calling, but his voice was drowned out by the deafening sounds of metal being wrenched from metal as every nail, every screw, and every rivet that held together the enormous ship began tearing free from its moorings.

She tried to run toward Jace and Simon, but fell to her knees as another surge of water came through the widening hole in the wall. This time the wave knocked her down, icy water drawing her under. Somewhere Jace was calling her name, his voice loud and desperate over the screaming of the ship. She shouted his name only once before she was sucked out the jagged hole in the bulkhead and into the river.

She spun and kicked in the black water. Terror gripped her, terror of the blind darkness and of the depths of the river, the millions of tons of water all around her, pressing in on her, choking out the air in her lungs. She couldn't tell which way was up or which direction to swim. She could no longer hold her breath. She sucked in a lungful of filthy water, her chest bursting with the pain, stars exploding behind her eyes. In her ears the sound of rushing water was replaced by a high, sweet, impossible singing. I'm dying, she thought in wonder. A pair of pale hands reached out of the black water and drew her close. Long hair drifted around her. Mom, Clary thought, but before she could clearly see her mother's face, the darkness closed her eyes.

Clary came back to consciousness with voices all around her and lights shining in her eyes. She was flat on her back on the corrugated steel of Luke's truck bed. The gray-black sky swam overhead. She could smell river water all around her, mixed with the smell of smoke and blood. White faces hovered over her like balloons on strings. They swam into focus as she blinked her eyes.

Luke. And Simon. They were both looking down at her with expressions of anxious concern. For a moment she thought Luke's hair had gone white; then, blinking, she realized it was full of ashes. In fact, so was the air—it tasted of ashes—and their clothes and skin were streaked with blackish grime.

She coughed, tasting ash in her mouth. "Where's Jace?"

"He's…" Simon's eyes went to Luke, and Clary felt her heart contract.

"He's all right, isn't he?" she demanded. She struggled to sit up and a hard pain shot through her head. "Where is he? Where is he?"

"I'm here." Jace appeared at the edge of her vision, his face in shadow. He knelt down next to her. "I'm sorry. I should have been here when you woke up. It's just…"

His voice cracked.

"It's just what?" She stared at him; backlit by starlight, his hair was more silver than gold, his eyes bleached of color. His skin was streaked with black and gray.

"He thought you were dead too," Luke said, and stood up abruptly. He was staring out at the river, at something Clary couldn't see. The sky was full of swirls of black and scarlet smoke, as if it were on fire.

"Dead too? Who else—?" She broke off as a nauseating pain gripped her. Jace saw her expression and reached into his jacket, bringing out his stele.

"Hold still, Clary." There was a burning pain in her forearm, and then her head began to clear. She sat up and saw that she was sitting on a wet plank shoved up against the back of the truck cab. The bed was full of several inches of sloshing water, mixed with swirls of the ash that was sifting down from the sky in a fine black rain.

She glanced at the place where Jace had drawn a healing Mark on the inside of her arm. Her weakness was already receding, as if he'd shot a jolt of strength into her veins.

He traced the line of the iratze he'd drawn on her arm with his fingers before he drew back. His hand felt as cold and wet as her skin did. The rest of him was wet too; his hair damp and his soaked clothes sticking to his body.

There was an acrid taste in her mouth, as if she'd licked the bottom of an ashtray. "What happened? Was there a fire?"

Jace glanced toward Luke, who was staring out at the heaving black-gray river. The water was dotted here and there with small boats, but there was no sign of Valentine's ship. "Yes," he said. "Valentine's ship burned down to the waterline. There's nothing left."

"Where is everyone?" Clary moved her gaze to Simon, who was the only one of them who was dry. There was a faint greenish cast to his already pale skin, as if he were sick or feverish. "Where are Isabelle and Alec?"

"They're on one of the other Shadowhunter boats. They're fine."

"And Magnus?" She twisted around to look into the truck cab, but it was empty.

"He was needed to tend to some of the more badly wounded Shadowhunters," said Luke.

"But everyone's all right? Alec, Isabelle, Maia—they are all right, aren't they?" Clary's voice sounded small and thin in her own ears.

"Isabelle was injured," said Luke. "So was Robert Lightwood. He'll be needing a good amount of time to heal. Many of the other Shadowhunters, including Malik and Imogen, are dead. This was a very hard battle, Clary, and it didn't go well for us. Valentine is gone. So is the Sword. The Conclave is in tatters. I don't know—"

He broke off. Clary stared at him. There was something in his voice that frightened her. "I'm sorry," she said. "This was my fault. If I hadn't—"

"If you hadn't done what you did, Valentine would have killed everyone on the ship," said Jace fiercely. "You're the only thing that kept this from being a massacre."

Clary stared at him. "You mean what I did with the rune?"

"You tore that ship to fragments," Luke said. "Every bolt, every rivet, anything that might have held it together, just snapped apart. The whole thing shuddered into pieces. The oil tanks came apart too. Most of us barely had time to jump into the water before it all started to burn. What you did—no one's ever seen anything like it."

"Oh," Clary said in a small voice. "Was anyone—did I hurt anyone?"

"Quite a few of the demons drowned when the ship sank," said Jace. "But none of the Shadowhunters were hurt, no."

"Because they can swim?"

"Because they were rescued. Nixies pulled us all out of the water."

Clary thought of the hands in the water, the impossible sweet singing that had surrounded her. So it hadn't been her mother after all. "You mean water faeries?"

"The Queen of the Seelie Court came through, in her way," said Jace. "She did promise us what aid was in her power."

"But how did she…" How did she know? Clary was going to say, but she thought of the Queen's wise and cunning eyes, and of Jace throwing that bit of white paper into the water by the beach in Red Hook, and decided not to ask.

"The Shadowhunter boats are starting to move," said Simon, looking out at the river. "I guess they've picked up everyone they could."

"Right." Luke squared his shoulders. "Time to get going." He moved slowly toward the truck cab—he was limping, though he seemed otherwise mostly uninjured.

Luke swung himself into the driver's seat, and in a moment the truck's engine was roiling again. They took off, skimming the water, the drops splashed up by the wheels catching the gray-silver of the lightening sky.

"This is so weird," said Simon. "I keep expecting the truck to start sinking."

"I can't believe you just went through what we went through and you think this is weird," said Jace, but there was no malice in his tone and no annoyance. He sounded only very, very tired.

"What will happen to the Lightwoods?" Clary asked. "After everything that's happened—the Clave—"

Jace shrugged. "The Clave works in mysterious ways. I don't know what they'll do. They'll be very interested in you, though. And in what you can do."

Simon made a noise. Clary thought at first that it was a noise of protest, but when she looked closely at him, she saw he was greener than ever. "What's wrong, Simon?"

"It's the river," he said. "Running water isn't good for vampires. It's pure, and—we're not."

"The East River's hardly pure," said Clary, but she reached out and touched his arm gently anyway. He smiled at her. "Didn't you fall into the water when the ship came apart?"

"No. There was a piece of metal floating in the water and Jace tossed me onto it. I stayed out of the river."

Clary looked over her shoulder at Jace. She could see him a little more clearly now; the darkness was fading. "Thank you," she said. "Do you think…"

He raised his eyebrows. "Do I think what?"

"That Valentine might have drowned?"

"Never believe the bad guy is dead until you see a body," said Simon. "That just leads to unhappiness and surprise ambushes."

"You're not wrong," said Jace. "My guess is he isn't dead. Otherwise we would have found the Mortal Instruments."

"Can the Clave go on without them? Whether Valentine's alive or not?" Clary wondered.

"The Clave always goes on," said Jace. "That's all it knows how to do." He turned his face toward the eastern horizon. "The sun's coming up."

Simon went rigid. Clary stared at him in surprise for a moment, and then in shocked horror. She whirled to follow Jace's gaze. He was right—the eastern horizon was a blood-red stain spreading out from a golden disc. Clary could see the first edge of the sun staining the water around them unearthly hues of green and scarlet and gold.

"No!" she whispered.

Jace looked at her in surprise, and then at Simon, who sat motionless, staring at the rising sun like a trapped mouse staring at a cat. Jace got quickly to his feet and walked over to the truck cab. He spoke in a low voice. Clary saw Luke turn to look at her and Simon, and then back at Jace. He shook his head.

The truck lurched forward. Luke must have pressed his foot to the gas. Clary grabbed for the side of the truck bed to steady herself. Up front, Jace was shouting at Luke that there had to be some way to make the damn thing go faster, but Clary knew they'd never outrun the dawn.

"There must be something," she said to Simon. She couldn't believe that in less than five minutes she'd gone from incredulous relief to incredulous horror. "We could cover you, maybe, with our clothes—"

Simon was still staring at the sun, white-faced. "A pile of rags won't work," he said. "Raphael explained—it takes walls to protect us from sunlight. It'll burn through cloth."

"But there must be something—"

"Clary." She could see him clearly now, in the gray predawn light, his eyes huge and dark in his white face. He held out his hands to her. "Come here."

She fell against him, trying to cover as much of his body as she could with her own. She knew it was useless. When the sun touched him, he'd fall away to ashes.

They sat for a moment in perfect stillness, arms wrapped around each other. Clary could feel the rise and fall of his chest—habit, she reminded herself, not necessity. He might not breathe, but he could still die.

"I won't let you die," she said.

"I don't think you get a choice." She felt him smile. "I didn't think I'd get to see the sun again," he said. "I guess I was wrong."

"Simon—"

Jace shouted something. Clary looked up. The sky was flooded with rose-colored light, like dye poured into clear water. Simon tensed under her. "I love you," he said. "I have never loved anyone else but you."

Gold threads shot through the rosy sky like the gold veining in expensive marble. The water around them blazed with light and Simon went rigid, his head falling back, his open eyes filling with gold as if molten liquid were rising inside of him. Black lines appeared on his skin like cracks in a shattered statue.

"Simon!" Clary screamed. She reached for him but felt herself hauled suddenly backward; it was Jace, his hands gripping her shoulders. She tried to pull away but he held her tightly; he was saying something in her ear, over and over, and only after a few moments did she even begin to understand him:

"Clary, look. Look."

"No!" Her hands flew to her face. She could taste the brackish water from the bottom of the truck bed on her palms. It was salty, like tears. "I don't want to look. I don't want to—"

"Clary." Jace's hands were at her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face. The dawn light stung her eyes. "Look."

She looked. And heard her own breath whistle harshly in her lungs as she gasped. Simon was sitting up at the back of the truck, in a patch of sunlight, openmouthed and staring down at himself. The sun danced on the water behind him and the edges of his hair glinted like gold. He had not burned away to ash, but sat unscorched in the sunlight, and the pale skin of his face and arms and hands was entirely unmarked.

Outside the Institute, night was falling. The faint red of sunset glowed in through the windows of Jace's bedroom as he stared at the pile of his belongings on the bed. The pile was much smaller than he thought it would be. Seven whole years of life in this place, and this was all he had to show for it: half a duffel bag's worth of clothes, a small stack of books, and a few weapons.

He had debated whether he should bring the few things he'd saved from the manor house in Idris with him when he left tonight. Magnus had given him back his father's silver ring, which he no longer felt comfortable wearing. He had hung it on a loop of chain around his throat. In the end, he had decided to take everything: There was no point leaving anything of himself behind in this place.

He was packing the duffel with clothes when a knock sounded at the door. He went to it, expecting Alec or Isabelle.

It was Maryse. She wore a severe black dress and her hair was pulled back sharply from her face. She looked older than he remembered her. Two deep lines ran from the corners of her mouth to her jaw. Only her eyes had any color. "Jace," she said. "Can I come in?"

"You can do what you like," he said, returning to the bed. "It's your house." He grabbed up a handful of shirts and stuffed them into the duffel bag with possibly unnecessary force.

"Actually, it's the Clave's house," said Maryse. "We're only its guardians."

Jace shoved books into the bag. "Whatever."

"What are you doing?" If Jace hadn't known better, he would have thought her voice wavered slightly.

"I'm packing," he said. "It's what people generally do when they're moving out."

She blanched. "Don't leave," she said. "If you want to stay—"

"I don't want to stay. I don't belong here."

"Where will you go?"

"Luke's," he said, and saw her flinch. "For a while. After that, I don't know. Maybe to Idris."

"Is that where you think you belong?" There was an aching sadness in her voice.

Jace stopped packing for a moment and stared down at his bag. "I don't know where I belong."

"With your family." Maryse took a tentative step forward. "With us."

"You threw me out." Jace heard the harshness in his own voice, and tried to soften it. "I'm sorry," he said, turning to look at her. "About everything that's happened. But you didn't want me before, and I can't imagine you want me now. Robert's going to be sick awhile; you'll be needing to take care of him. I'll just be in the way."

"In the way?" She sounded incredulous. "Robert wants to see you, Jace—"

"I doubt that."

"What about Alec? Isabelle, Max—they need you. If you don't believe me that I want you here—and I couldn't blame you if you didn't—you must know that they do. We've been through a bad time, Jace. Don't hurt them more than they're already hurt."

"That's not fair."

"I don't blame you if you hate me." Her voice was wavering. Jace swung around to stare at her in surprise. "But what I did—even throwing you out—treating you as I did, it was to protect you. And because I was afraid."

"Afraid of me?"

She nodded.

"Well, that makes me feel much better."

Maryse took a deep breath. "I thought you would break my heart like Valentine did," she said. "You were the first thing I loved, you see, after him, that wasn't my own blood. The first living creature. And you were just a child—"

"You thought I was someone else."

"No. I've always known just who you are. Ever since the first time I saw you getting off the ship from Idris, when you were ten years old—you walked into my heart, just as my own children did when they were born." She shook her head. "You can't understand. You've never been a parent. You never love anything like you love your children. And nothing can make you angrier."

"I did notice the angry part," Jace said, after a pause.

"I don't expect you to forgive me," Maryse said. "But if you'd stay for Isabelle and Alec and Max, I'd be so grateful—"

It was the wrong thing to say. "I don't want your gratitude," Jace said, and turned back to the duffel bag. There was nothing left to put in it. He tugged at the zipper.

"A la claire fontaine," Maryse said, "m'en allent promener."

He turned to look at her. "What?"

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. Jamais je ne t'oublierai—it's the old French ballad I used to sing to Alec and Isabelle. The one you asked me about."

There was very little light in the room now, and in the dimness Maryse looked to him almost as she had when he was ten years old, as if she had not changed at all in the past seven years. She looked severe and worried, anxious—and hopeful. She looked like the only mother he'd ever known.

"You were wrong that I never sang it to you," she said. "It's just that you never heard me."

Jace said nothing, but he reached out and yanked the zipper open on the duffel bag, letting his belongings spill out onto the bed.