City of Lost Souls

TWO WEEKS LATER

1 THE LAST COUNCIL

“How much longer will the verdict take, do you think?” Clary asked. She had no idea how long they’d been waiting, but it felt like ten hours. There were no clocks in Isabelle’s black and hot-pink powder-puff bedroom, just piles of clothes, heaps of books, stacks of weapons, a vanity overflowing with sparkling makeup, used brushes, and open drawers spilling lacy slips, sheer tights, and feather boas. It had a certain backstage-at-La-Cage-aux-Folles design aesthetic, but over the past two weeks Clary had spent enough time among the glittering mess to have begun to find it comforting.

Isabelle, standing over by the window with Church in her arms, stroked the cat’s head absently. Church regarded her with baleful yellow eyes. Outside the window a November storm was in full bloom, rain streaking the windows like clear paint. “Not much longer,” she said slowly. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, which made her look younger, her dark eyes bigger. “Five minutes, probably.”

Clary, sitting on Izzy’s bed between a pile of magazines and a rattling stack of seraph blades, swallowed hard against the bitter taste in her throat. I’ll be back. Five minutes.

That had been the last thing she had said to the boy she loved more than anything else in the world. Now she thought it might be the last thing she would ever get to say to him.

Clary remembered the moment perfectly. The roof garden. The crystalline October night, the stars burning icy white against a cloudless black sky. The paving stones smeared with black runes, spattered with ichor and blood. Jace’s mouth on hers, the only warm thing in a shivering world. Clasping the Morgenstern ring around her neck. The love that moves the sun and all the other stars. Turning to look for him as the elevator took her away, sucking her back down into the shadows of the building. She had joined the others in the lobby, hugging her mother, Luke, Simon, but some part of her, as it always was, had still been with Jace, floating above the city on that rooftop, the two of them alone in the cold and brilliant electric city.

Maryse and Kadir had been the ones to get into the elevator to join Jace on the roof and to see the remains of Lilith’s ritual. It was another ten minutes before Maryse returned, alone. When the doors had opened and Clary had seen her face — white and set and frantic — she had known.

What had happened next had been like a dream. The crowd of Shadowhunters in the lobby had surged toward Maryse; Alec had broken away from Magnus, and Isabelle had leaped to her feet. White bursts of light cut through the darkness like the soft explosions of camera flashes at a crime scene as, one after another, seraph blades lit the shadows. Pushing her way forward, Clary heard the story in broken pieces — the rooftop garden was empty; Jace was gone. The glass coffin that had held Sebastian had been smashed open; glass was lying everywhere in fragments. Blood, still fresh, dripped down the pedestal on which the coffin had sat.

The Shadowhunters were making plans quickly, to spread out in a radius and search the area around the building. Magnus was there, his hands sparking blue, turning to Clary to ask if she had something of Jace’s they could track him with. Numbly, she gave him the Morgenstern ring and retreated into a corner to call Simon. She had only just closed the phone when the voice of a Shadowhunter rang out above the rest. “Tracking? That’ll work only if he’s still alive. With that much blood it’s not very likely—”

Somehow that was the last straw. Prolonged hypothermia, exhaustion, and shock took their toll, and she felt her knees give. Her mother caught her before she hit the ground. There was a dark blur after that. She woke up the next morning in her bed at Luke’s, sitting bolt upright with her heart going like a trip-hammer, sure she had had a nightmare.

As she struggled out of bed, the fading bruises on her arms and legs told a different story, as did the absence of her ring. Throwing on jeans and a hoodie, she staggered out into the living room to find Jocelyn, Luke, and Simon seated there with somber expressions on their faces. She didn’t even need to ask, but she did anyway: “Did they find him? Is he back?”

Jocelyn stood up. “Sweetheart, he’s still missing—”

“But not dead? They haven’t found a body?” She collapsed onto the couch next to Simon. “No — he’s not dead. I’d know.”

She remembered Simon holding her hand while Luke told her what they did know: that Jace was still gone, and so was Sebastian. The bad news was that the blood on the pedestal had been identified as Jace’s. The good news was that there was less of it than they had thought; it had mixed with the water from the coffin to give the impression of a greater volume of blood than there had really been. They now thought it was quite possible he had survived whatever had happened.

“But what happened?” she demanded.

Luke shook his head, blue eyes somber. “Nobody knows, Clary.”

Her veins felt as if her blood had been replaced with ice water. “I want to help. I want to do something. I don’t want to just sit here while Jace is missing.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Jocelyn said grimly. “The Clave wants to see you.”

Invisible ice cracked in Clary’s joints and tendons as she stood up. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll tell them anything they want if they’ll find Jace.”

“You’ll tell them anything they want because they have the Mortal Sword.” There was despair in Jocelyn’s voice. “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”

And now, after two weeks of repetitive testimony, after scores of witnesses had been called, after she had held the Mortal Sword a dozen times, Clary sat in Isabelle’s bedroom and waited for the Council to rule on her fate. She couldn’t help but remember what it had felt like to hold the Mortal Sword. It was like tiny fishhooks embedded in your skin, pulling the truth out of you. She had knelt, holding it, in the circle of the Speaking Stars and had heard her own voice telling the Council everything: how Valentine had raised the Angel Raziel, and how she had taken the power of controlling the Angel from him by erasing his name in the sand and writing hers over it. She had told them how the Angel had offered her one wish, and she had used it to raise Jace from the dead; she told them how Lilith had possessed Jace and Lilith had planned to use Simon’s blood to resurrect Sebastian, Clary’s brother, whom Lilith regarded as a son. How Simon’s Mark of Cain had ended Lilith, and they had thought Sebastian had been ended too, no longer a threat.

Clary sighed and flipped her phone open to check the time. “They’ve been in there for an hour,” she said. “Is that normal? Is it a bad sign?”

Isabelle dropped Church, who let out a yowl. She came over to the bed and sat down beside Clary. Isabelle looked even more slender than usual — like Clary, she’d lost weight in the past two weeks — but elegant as always, in black cigarette pants and a fitted gray velvet top. Mascara was smudged all around Izzy’s eyes, which should have made her look like a racoon but just made her look like a French film star instead. She stretched her arms out, and her electrum bracelets with their rune charms jingled musically. “No, it’s not a bad sign,” she said. “It just means they have a lot to talk over.” She twisted the Lightwood ring on her finger. “You’ll be fine. You didn’t break the Law. That’s the important thing.”

Clary sighed. Even the warmth of Isabelle’s shoulder next to hers couldn’t melt the ice in her veins. She knew that technically she had broken no Laws, but she also knew the Clave was furious at her. It was illegal for a Shadowhunter to raise the dead, but not for the Angel to do it; nevertheless it was such an enormous thing she had done in asking for Jace’s life back that she and Jace had agreed to tell no one about it.

Now it was out, and it had rocked the Clave. Clary knew they wanted to punish her, if only because her choice had had such disastrous consequences. In some way she wished they would punish her. Break her bones, pull her fingernails out, let the Silent Brothers root through her brain with their bladed thoughts. A sort of devil’s bargain — her own pain for Jace’s safe return. It would have helped her guilt over having left Jace behind on that rooftop, even though Isabelle and the others had told her a hundred times she was being ridiculous — that they had all thought he was perfectly safe there, and that if Clary had stayed, she would probably now be missing too.

“Quit it,” Isabelle said. For a moment Clary wasn’t sure if Isabelle was talking to her or to the cat. Church was doing what he often did when dropped — lying on his back with all four legs in the air, pretending to be dead in order to induce guilt in his owners. But then Isabelle swept her black hair aside, glaring, and Clary realized she was the one being told off, not the cat.

“Quit what?”

“Morbidly thinking about all the horrible things that are going to happen to you, or that you wish would happen to you because you’re alive and Jace is… missing.” Isabelle’s voice jumped, like a record skipping a groove. She never spoke of Jace as being dead or even gone — she and Alec refused to entertain the possibility. And Isabelle had never reproached Clary once for keeping such an enormous secret. Throughout everything, in fact, Isabelle had been her staunchest defender. Meeting her every day at the door to the Council Hall, she had held Clary firmly by the arm as she’d marched her past clumps of glaring, muttering Shadowhunters. She had waited through endless Council interrogations, shooting dagger glances at anyone who dared look at Clary sideways. Clary had been astonished. She and Isabelle had never been enormously close, both of them being the sort of girls who were more comfortable with boys than other female companionship. But Isabelle didn’t leave her side. Clary was as bewildered as she was grateful.

“I can’t help it,” Clary said. “If I were allowed to patrol — if I were allowed to do anything—I think it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“I don’t know.” Isabelle sounded weary. For the past two weeks she and Alec had been exhausted and gray-faced from sixteen-hour patrols and searches. When Clary had found out she was banned from patrolling or searching for Jace in any way until the Council decided what to do about the fact that she had brought him back from the dead, she had kicked a hole in her bedroom door. “Sometimes it feels so futile,” Isabelle added.

Ice crackled up and down Clary’s bones. “You mean you think he’s dead?”

“No, I don’t. I mean I think there’s no way they’re still in New York.”

“But they’re patrolling in other cities, right?” Clary put a hand to her throat, forgetting that the Morgenstern ring no longer hung there. Magnus was still trying to track Jace, though no tracking had yet worked.

“Of course they are.” Isabelle reached out curiously and touched the delicate silver bell that hung around Clary’s neck now, in place of the ring. “What’s that?”

Clary hesitated. The bell had been a gift from the Seelie Queen. No, that wasn’t quite right. The Queen of the faeries didn’t give gifts. The bell was meant to signal the Seelie Queen that Clary wanted her help. Clary had found her hand wandering to it more and more often as the days dragged on with no sign of Jace. The only thing that stopped Clary was the knowledge that the Seelie Queen never gave anything without the expectation of something terrible in return.

Before Clary could reply to Isabelle, the door opened. Both girls sat up ramrod straight, Clary clutching one of Izzy’s pink pillows so hard that the rhinestones on it dug into the skin of her palms.

“Hey.” A slim figure stepped into the room and shut the door. Alec, Isabelle’s older brother, was dressed in Council wear — a black robe figured with silver runes, open now over jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. All the black made his pale skin look paler, his crystal-blue eyes bluer. His hair was black and straight like his sister’s, but shorter, cut just above his jawline. His mouth was set in a thin line.

Clary’s heart started to pound. Alec didn’t look happy. Whatever the news was, it couldn’t be good.

It was Isabelle who spoke. “How did it go?” she said quietly. “What’s the verdict?”

Alec sat down at the vanity table, swinging himself around the chair to face Izzy and Clary over the back. At another time it would have been comical — Alec was very tall, with long legs like a dancer, and the way he folded himself awkwardly around the chair made it look like dollhouse furniture.

“Clary,” he said. “Jia Penhallow handed down the verdict. You’re cleared of any wrongdoing. You broke no Laws, and Jia feels that you’ve been punished enough.”

Isabelle exhaled an audible breath and smiled. For just a moment a feeling of relief broke through the layer of ice over all of Clary’s emotions. She wasn’t going to be punished, locked up in the Silent City, trapped somewhere where she couldn’t help Jace. Luke, who as the representative of the werewolves on the Council had been present for the verdict, had promised to call Jocelyn as soon as the meeting ended, but Clary reached for her phone anyway; the prospect of giving her mother good news for a change was too tempting.

“Clary,” Alec said as she flipped her phone open. “Wait.”

She looked at him. His expression was still as serious as an undertaker’s. With a sudden sense of foreboding, Clary put her phone back down on the bed. “Alec — what is it?”

“It wasn’t your verdict that took the Council so long,” said Alec. “There was another matter under discussion.”

The ice was back. Clary shivered. “Jace?”

“Not exactly.” Alec leaned forward, folding his hands along the back of the chair. “A report came in early this morning from the Moscow Institute. The wardings over Wrangel Island were smashed through yesterday. They’ve sent a repair team, but having such important wards down for so long — that’s a Council priority.”

Wards — which served, as Clary understood it, as a sort of magical fence system — surrounded Earth, put there by the first generation of Shadowhunters. They could be bypassed by demons but not easily, and kept out the vast majority of them, preventing the world from being flooded by a massive demon invasion. She remembered something that Jace had said to her, what felt like years ago: There used to be only small demon invasions into this world, easily contained. But even in my lifetime more and more of them have spilled in through the wardings.

“Well, that’s bad,” Clary said. “But I don’t see what it has to do with—”

“The Clave has its priorities,” Alec interrupted. “Searching for Jace and Sebastian has been top priority for the past two weeks. But they’ve scoured everything, and there’s no sign of either of them in any Downworld haunt. None of Magnus’s tracking spells have worked. Elodie, the woman who brought up the real Sebastian Verlac, confirmed that no one’s tried to get in touch with her. That was a long shot, anyway. No spies have reported any unusual activity among the known members of Valentine’s old Circle. And the Silent Brothers haven’t been able to figure out exactly what the ritual Lilith performed was supposed to do, or whether it succeeded. The general consensus is that Sebastian — of course, they call him Jonathan when they talk about him — kidnapped Jace, but that’s not anything we didn’t know.”

“So?” Isabelle said. “What does that mean? More searching? More patrolling?”

Alec shook his head. “They’re not discussing expanding the search,” he said quietly. “They’re de-prioritizing it. It’s been two weeks and they haven’t found anything. The specially commissioned groups brought over from Idris are going to be sent home. The situation with the ward is taking priority now. Not to mention that the Council has been in the middle of delicate negotiations, updating the Laws to allow for the new makeup of the Council, appointing a new Consul and Inquisitor, determining different treatment of Downworlders — they don’t want to be thrown completely off track.”

Clary stared. “They don’t want Jace’s disappearance to throw them off the track of changing a bunch of stupid old Laws? They’re giving up?”

“They’re not giving up—”

“Alec,” Isabelle said sharply.

Alec took a breath and put his hands up to cover his face. He had long fingers, like Jace’s, scarred like Jace’s were as well. The eye Mark of the Shadowhunters decorated the back of his right hand. “Clary, for you — for us—this has always been about searching for Jace. For the Clave it’s about searching for Sebastian. Jace as well, but primarily Sebastian. He’s the danger. He destroyed the wards of Alicante. He’s a mass murderer. Jace is…”

“Just another Shadowhunter,” said Isabelle. “We die and go missing all the time.”

“He gets a little extra for being a hero of the Mortal War,” said Alec. “But in the end the Clave was clear: The search will be kept up, but right now it’s a waiting game. They expect Sebastian to make the next move. In the meantime it’s third priority for the Clave. If that. They expect us to go back to normal life.”

Normal life? Clary couldn’t believe it. A normal life without Jace?

“That’s what they told us after Max died,” said Izzy, her black eyes tearless but burning with anger. “That we’d get over our grief faster if we just went back to normal life.”

“It’s supposed to be good advice,” said Alec from behind his fingers.

“Tell that to Dad. Did he even come back from Idris for the meeting?”

Alec shook his head, dropping his hands. “No. If it’s any consolation, there were a lot of people at the meeting speaking out angrily on behalf of keeping the search for Jace up at full strength. Magnus, obviously, Luke, Consul Penhallow, even Brother Zachariah. But at the end of the day it wasn’t enough.”

Clary looked at him steadily. “Alec,” she said. “Don’t you feel anything?”

Alec’s eyes widened, their blue darkening, and for a moment Clary remembered the boy who had hated her when she’d first arrived at the Institute, the boy with bitten nails and holes in his sweaters and a chip on his shoulder that had seemed immovable. “I know you’re upset, Clary,” he said, his voice sharp, “but if you’re suggesting that Iz and I care less about Jace than you do—”

“I’m not,” Clary said. “I’m talking about your parabatai connection. I was reading about the ceremony in the Codex. I know being parabatai ties the two of you together. You can sense things about Jace. Things that will help you when you’re fighting. So I guess I mean… can you sense if he’s still alive?”

“Clary.” Isabelle sounded worried. “I thought you didn’t…”

“He’s alive,” Alec said cautiously. “You think I’d be this functional if he weren’t alive? There’s definitely something fundamentally wrong. I can feel that much. But he’s still breathing.”

“Could the ‘wrong’ thing be that he’s being held prisoner?” said Clary in a small voice.

Alec looked toward the windows, the sheeting gray rain. “Maybe. I can’t explain it. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

“But he’s alive.”

Alec looked at her directly then. “I’m sure of it.”

“Then screw the Council. We’ll find him ourselves,” Clary said.

“Clary… if that were possible… don’t you think we already would have—,” Alec began.

“We were doing what the Clave wanted us to do before,” said Isabelle. “Patrols, searches. There are other ways.”

“Ways that break the Law, you mean,” said Alec. He sounded hesitant. Clary hoped he wasn’t going to repeat the Shadowhunters’ motto when it came to the Law: Sed lex, dura lex. “The Law is harsh, but it is the Law.” She didn’t think she could take it.

“The Seelie Queen offered me a favor,” Clary said. “At the fireworks party in Idris.” The memory of that night, how happy she’d been, made her heart contract for a moment, and she had to stop and regain her breath. “And a way to contact her.”

“The Queen of the Fair Folk gives nothing for free.”

“I know that. I’ll take whatever debt it is on my shoulders.” Clary remembered the words of the faerie girl who had handed her the bell. You would do anything to save him, whatever it cost you, whatever you might owe to Hell or Heaven, would you not? “I just want one of you to come with me. I’m not good with translating faerie-speak. At least if you’re with me you can limit whatever the damage is. But if there’s anything she can do—”

“I’ll go with you,” Isabelle said immediately.

Alec looked at his sister darkly. “We already talked to the Fair Folk. The Council questioned them extensively. And they can’t lie.”

“The Council asked them if they knew where Jace and Sebastian were,” Clary said. “Not if they’d be willing to look for them. The Seelie Queen knew about my father, knew about the angel he summoned and trapped, knew the truth about my blood and Jace’s. I think there’s not much that happens in this world that she doesn’t know about.”

“It’s true,” said Isabelle, a little animation entering into her voice. “You know you have to ask faeries the exact right things to get useful information out of them, Alec. They’re very hard to question, even if they do have to tell the truth. A favor, though, is different.”

“And its potential for danger is literally unlimited,” said Alec. “If Jace knew I let Clary go to the Seelie Queen, he’d—”

“I don’t care,” Clary said. “He’d do it for me. Tell me he wouldn’t. If I were missing—”

“He’d burn the whole world down till he could dig you out of the ashes. I know,” Alec said, sounding exhausted. “Hell, you think I don’t want to burn down the world right now? I’m just trying to be…”

“An older brother,” said Isabelle. “I get it.”

Alec looked as if he were fighting for control. “If something happened to you, Isabelle — after Max, and Jace—”

Izzy got to her feet, went across the room, and put her arms around Alec. Their dark hair, precisely the same color, mixed together as Isabelle whispered something into her brother’s ear; Clary watched them with not a little envy. She had always wanted a brother. And she had one now. Sebastian. It was like always wanting a puppy for a pet and being handed a hellhound instead. She watched as Alec tugged his sister’s hair affectionately, nodded, and released her. “We should all go,” he said. “But I have to tell Magnus, at least, what we’re doing. It wouldn’t be fair not to.”

“Do you want to use my phone?” Isabelle asked, offering the battered pink object to him.

Alec shook his head. “He’s waiting downstairs with the others. You’ll have to give Luke some kind of excuse too, Clary. I’m sure he’s expecting you to go home with him. And he says your mother’s been pretty sick about this whole thing.”

“She blames herself for Sebastian’s existence.” Clary got to her feet. “Even though she thought he was dead all those years.”

“It’s not her fault.” Isabelle pulled her golden whip down from where it hung on the wall and wrapped it around her wrist so that it looked like a ladder of shining bracelets. “No one blames her.”

“That never matters,” said Alec. “Not when you blame yourself.”

In silence, the three of them made their way through the corridors of the Institute, oddly crowded now with other Shadowhunters, some of whom were part of the special commissions that had been sent out from Idris to deal with the situation. None of them really looked at Isabelle, Alec, or Clary with much curiosity. Initially Clary had felt so much as if she were being stared at — and had heard the whispered words “Valentine’s daughter” so many times — that she’d started to dread coming to the Institute, but she’d stood up in front of the Council enough times now that the novelty had worn off.

They took the elevator downstairs; the nave of the Institute was brightly lit with witchlight as well as the usual tapers and was filled with Council members and their families. Luke and Magnus were sitting in a pew, talking to each other; beside Luke was a tall, blue-eyed woman who looked just like him. She had curled her hair and dyed the gray brown, but Clary still recognized her — Luke’s sister, Amatis.

Magnus got up at the sight of Alec and came over to talk to him; Izzy appeared to recognize someone else across the pews and darted away in her usual manner, without pausing to say where she was going. Clary went to greet Luke and Amatis; both of them looked tired, and Amatis was patting Luke’s shoulder sympathetically. Luke rose to his feet and hugged Clary when he saw her. Amatis congratulated Clary on being cleared by the Council, and she nodded; she felt only half-there, most of her numb and the rest of her responding on autopilot.

She could see Magnus and Alec out of the corner of her eye. They were talking, Alec leaning in close to Magnus, the way couples often seemed to curve into each other when they spoke, in their own contained universe. She was happy to see them happy, but it hurt, too. She wondered if she would ever have that again, or ever even want it again. She remembered Jace’s voice: I don’t even want to want anyone but you.

“Earth to Clary,” said Luke. “Do you want to head home? Your mother is dying to see you, and she’d love to catch up with Amatis before she goes back to Idris tomorrow. I thought we could have dinner. You pick the restaurant.” He was trying to hide the concern in his voice, but Clary could hear it. She hadn’t been eating much lately, and her clothes had started to hang more loosely on her frame.

“I don’t really feel like celebrating,” she said. “Not with the Council de-prioritizing the search for Jace.”

“Clary, it doesn’t mean they’re going to stop,” said Luke.

“I know. It’s just — It’s like when they say a search and rescue mission is now a search for bodies. That’s what it sounds like.” She swallowed. “Anyway, I was thinking of going to Taki’s for dinner with Isabelle and Alec,” she said. “Just… to do something normal.”

Amatis squinted toward the door. “It’s raining pretty hard out there.”

Clary felt her lips stretch into a smile. She wondered if it looked as false as it felt. “I won’t melt.”

Luke folded some money into her hand, clearly relieved she was doing something as normal as going out with friends. “Just promise to eat something.”

“Okay.” Through the twinge of guilt, she managed a real half smile in his direction before she turned away.

Magnus and Alec were no longer where they had been a moment ago. Glancing around, Clary saw Izzy’s familiar long black hair through the crowd. She was standing by the Institute’s large double doors, talking to someone Clary couldn’t see. Clary headed toward Isabelle; as she drew closer, she recognized one of the group, with a slight shock of surprise, as Aline Penhallow. Her glossy black hair had been cut stylishly just above her shoulders. Standing next to Aline was a slim girl with pale white-gold hair that curled in ringlets; it was drawn back from her face, showing that the tips of her ears were slightly pointed. She wore Council robes, and as Clary came closer she saw that the girl’s eyes were a brilliant and unusual blue-green, a color that made Clary’s fingers yearn for her Prismacolor pencils for the first time in two weeks.

“It must be weird, with your mother being the new Consul,” Isabelle was saying to Aline as Clary joined them. “Not that Jia isn’t much better than — Hey, Clary. Aline, you remember Clary.”

The two girls exchanged nods. Clary had once walked in on Aline kissing Jace. It had been awful at the time, but the memory held no sting now. She’d be relieved to walk in on Jace kissing someone else at this point. At least it would mean he was alive.

“And this is Aline’s girlfriend, Helen Blackthorn.” Isabelle said with heavy emphasis. Clary shot her a glare. Did Isabelle think she was an idiot? Besides, she remembered Aline telling her that she’d kissed Jace only as an experiment to see if any guy were her type. Apparently the answer had been no. “Helen’s family runs the Los Angeles Institute. Helen, this is Clary Fray.”

“Valentine’s daughter,” Helen said. She looked surprised and a little impressed.

Clary winced. “I try not to think about that too much.”

“Sorry. I can see why you wouldn’t.” Helen flushed. Her skin was very pale, with a slight sheen to it, like a pearl. “I voted for the Council to keep prioritizing the search for Jace, by the way. I’m sorry we were overruled.”

“Thanks.” Not wanting to talk about it, Clary turned to Aline. “Congratulations on your mother being made Consul. That must be pretty exciting.”

Aline shrugged. “She’s busy a lot more now.” She turned to Isabelle. “Did you know your dad put his name in for the Inquisitor position?”

Clary felt Isabelle freeze beside her. “No. No, I didn’t know that.”

“I was surprised,” Aline added. “I thought he was pretty committed to running the Institute here—” She broke off, looking past Clary. “Helen, I think your brother is trying to make the world’s biggest puddle of melted wax over there. You might want to stop him.”

Helen blew out an exasperated breath, muttered something about twelve-year-old boys, and vanished into the crowd just as Alec pushed his way forward. He greeted Aline with a hug — Clary forgot, sometimes, that the Penhallows and the Lightwoods had known each other for years — and looked at Helen in the crowd. “Is that your girlfriend?”

Aline nodded. “Helen Blackthorn.”

“I heard there’s some faerie blood in that family,” said Alec.

Ah, Clary thought. That explained the pointed ears. Nephilim blood was dominant, and the child of a faerie and a Shadowhunter would be a Shadowhunter as well, but sometimes the faerie blood could express itself in odd ways, even generations down the line.

“A little,” said Aline. “Look, I wanted to thank you, Alec.”

Alec looked bewildered. “What for?’

“What you did in the Hall of Accords,” Aline said. “Kissing Magnus like that. It gave me the push I needed to tell my parents… to come out to them. And if I hadn’t done that, I don’t think, when I met Helen, I would have had the nerve to say anything.”

“Oh.” Alec looked startled, as if he’d never considered what impact his actions might have had on anyone outside his immediate family. “And your parents — were they good about it?”

Aline rolled her eyes. “They’re sort of ignoring it, like it might go away if they don’t talk about it.” Clary remembered what Isabelle had said about the Clave’s attitude toward its gay members. If it happens, you don’t talk about it. “But it could be worse.”

“It could definitely be worse,” said Alec, and there was a grim edge to his voice that made Clary look at him sharply.

Aline’s face melted into a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “If your parents aren’t—”

“They’re fine with it,” Isabelle said, a little too sharply.

“Well, either way. I shouldn’t have said anything right now. Not with Jace missing. You must all be so worried.” She took a deep breath. “I know people have probably said all sorts of stupid things to you about him. The way they do when they don’t really know what to say. I just — I wanted to tell you something.” She ducked away from a passer-by with impatience and moved closer to the Lightwoods and Clary, lowering her voice. “Alec, Izzy — I remember once when you guys came to see us in Idris. I was thirteen and Jace was — I think he was twelve. He wanted to see Brocelind Forest, so we borrowed some horses and rode there one day. Of course, we got lost. Brocelind’s impenetrable. It got darker and the woods got thicker and I was terrified. I thought we’d die there. But Jace was never scared. He was never anything but sure we’d find our way out. It took hours, but he did it. He got us out of there. I was so grateful but he just looked at me like I was crazy. Like of course he’d get us out. Failing wasn’t an option. I’m just saying — he’ll find his way back to you. I know it.”

Clary didn’t think she’d ever seen Izzy cry, and she was clearly trying not to now. Her eyes were suspiciously wide and shining. Alec was looking at his shoes. Clary felt a wellspring of misery wanting to leap up inside her but forced it down; she couldn’t think about Jace when he was twelve, couldn’t think about him lost in the darkness, or she’d think about him now, lost somewhere, trapped somewhere, needing her help, expecting her to come, and she’d break. “Aline,” she said, seeing that neither Isabelle nor Alec could speak. “Thank you.”

Aline flashed a shy smile. “I mean it.”

“Aline!” It was Helen, her hand firmly clamped around the wrist of a younger boy whose hands were covered with blue wax. He must have been playing with the tapers in the huge candelabras that decorated the sides of the nave. He looked about twelve, with an impish grin and the same shocking blue-green eyes as his sister, though his hair was dark brown. “We’re back. We should probably go before Jules destroys the whole place. Not to mention that I have no idea where Tibs and Livvy have gone.”

“They were eating wax,” the boy — Jules — supplied helpfully.

“Oh, God,” Helen groaned, and then looked apologetic. “Never mind me. I’ve got six younger brothers and sisters and one older. It’s always a zoo.”

Jules looked from Alec to Isabelle and then at Clary. “How many brothers and sisters have you got?” he asked.

Helen paled. Isabelle said, in a remarkably steady voice, “There are three of us.”

Jules’s eyes stayed on Clary. “You don’t look alike.”

“I’m not related to them,” Clary said. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

“None?” Disbelief registered in the boy’s tone, as if she’d told him she had webbed feet. “Is that why you look so sad?”

Clary thought of Sebastian, with his ice-white hair and black eyes. If only, she thought. If only I didn’t have a brother, none of this would have happened. A little throb of hatred went through her, warming her icy blood. “Yes,” she said softly. “That’s why I’m sad.”

2 THORNS

Simon was waiting for Clary, Alec, and Isabelle outside the Institute, under an overhang of stone that only just protected him from the worst of the rain. He turned as they came out through the doors, and Clary saw that his dark hair was pasted to his forehead and neck. He pushed it back and looked at her, a question in his eyes.

“I’m cleared,” she said, and as he started to smile, she shook her head. “But they’re de-prioritizing the search for Jace. I–I’m pretty sure they think he’s dead.”

Simon looked down at his wet jeans and T-shirt (a wrinkled gray ringer tee that said CLEARLY I HAVE MADE SOME BAD DECISIONS on the front in block lettering). He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“The Clave can be like that,” Isabelle said. “I guess we shouldn’t have expected anything else.”

“Basia coquum,” Simon said. “Or whatever their motto is.”

“It’s ‘Descensus Averno facilis est.’ ‘The descent into hell is easy,’” said Alec. “You just said “Kiss the cook.”

“Dammit,” said Simon. “I knew Jace was screwing with me.” His wet brown hair fell back into his eyes; he flicked it away with a gesture impatient enough that Clary caught a flashing glimpse of the silvery Mark of Cain on his forehead. “Now what?”

“Now we go see the Seelie Queen,” said Clary. As she touched the bell at her throat, she explained to Simon about Kaelie’s visit to Luke and Jocelyn’s reception, and her promises to Clary about the Seelie Queen’s help.

Simon looked dubious. “The red-headed lady with the bad attitude who made you kiss Jace? I didn’t like her.”

“That’s what you remember about her? That she made Clary kiss Jace?” Isabelle sounded annoyed. “The Seelie Queen is dangerous. She was just playing around that time. Usually she likes to drive at least a few humans to screaming madness every day before breakfast.”

“I’m not human,” Simon said. “Not anymore.” He looked at Isabelle only briefly, dropped his gaze, and turned to Clary. “You want me with you?”

“I think it would be good to have you there. Daylighter, Mark of Cain — some things have to impress even the Queen.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” said Alec.

Clary glanced past him and asked, “Where’s Magnus?”

“He said it would be better if he didn’t come. Apparently he and the Seelie Queen have some kind of history.”

Isabelle raised her eyebrows.

“Not that kind of history,” said Alec irritably. “Some kind of feud. Though,” he added, half under his breath, “the way he got around before me, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Alec!” Isabelle dropped back to talk to her brother, and Clary opened her umbrella with a snap. It was one Simon had bought her years ago at the Museum of Natural History and had a pattern of dinosaurs on the top. She saw his expression change to one of amusement as he recognized it.

“Shall we walk?” he inquired, and offered his arm.

The rain was coming down steadily, creating small rills out of the gutters and splashing water up from the wheels of passing taxis. It was odd, Simon thought, that although he didn’t feel cold, the sensation of being wet and clammy was still irritating. He shifted his gaze slightly, looking at Alec and Isabelle over his shoulder; Isabelle hadn’t really met his eyes since they’d come out of the Institute, and he wondered what she was thinking. She seemed to want to talk to her brother, and as they paused at the corner of Park Avenue, he heard her say, “So, what do you think? About Dad putting his name in for the Inquisitor position.”

“I think it sounds like a boring job.” Isabelle was holding an umbrella. It was clear plastic, decorated with decals of colorful flowers. It was one of the girliest things Simon had ever seen, and he didn’t blame Alec for ducking out from under it and taking his chances with the rain. “I don’t know why he’d want it.”

“I don’t care if it’s boring,” Isabelle whisper-hissed. “If he takes it, he’ll be in Idris all the time. Like, all the time. He can’t run the Institute and be the Inquisitor. He can’t have two jobs at once.”

“If you’ve noticed, Iz, he’s in Idris all the time anyway.”

“Alec—” The rest of what she said was lost as the light changed and traffic surged forward, spraying icy water up onto the pavement. Clary dodged a geyser of it and nearly knocked into Simon. He took her hand to steady her.

“Sorry,” she said. Her hand felt small and cold in his. “Wasn’t really paying attention.”

“I know.” He tried to keep the worry out of his voice. She hadn’t really been “paying attention” to anything for the past two weeks. At first she’d cried, and then been angry — angry that she couldn’t join the patrols looking for Jace, angry at the Council’s endless grilling, angry that she was being kept virtually a prisoner at home because she was under suspicion from the Clave. Most of all she’d been angry at herself for not being able to come up with a rune that would help. She would sit at her desk at night for hours, her stele clutched so tightly in whitening fingers that Simon was afraid it would snap in half. She’d try to force her mind to present her with a picture that would tell her where Jace was. But night after night nothing happened.

She looked older, he thought as they entered the park through a gap in the stone wall on Fifth Avenue. Not in a bad way, but she was different from the girl she’d been when they had walked into the Pandemonium Club on that night that had changed everything. She was taller, but it was more than that. Her expression was more serious, there was more grace and force in the way she walked, her green eyes were less dancing, more focused. She was starting to look, he realized with a jolt of surprise, like Jocelyn.

Clary paused in a circle of dripping trees; the branches blocked most of the rain here, and Isabelle and Clary leaned their umbrellas against the trunks of nearby trees. Clary unclasped the chain around her neck and let the bell slide into her palm. She looked around at all of them, her expression serious. “This is a risk,” she said, “and I’m pretty sure if I take it, I can’t go back from it. So if any of you don’t want to come with me, it’s all right. I’ll understand.”

Simon reached out and put his hand over hers. There was no need to think. Where Clary went, he went. They had been through too much for it to be any other way. Isabelle followed suit, and lastly Alec; rain dripped off his long black lashes like tears, but his expression was resolute. The four of them held hands tightly.

Clary rang the bell.

There was a sensation as if the world were spinning — not the same sensation as being flung through a Portal, Clary thought, into the heart of a maelstrom, but more as if she were sitting on a merry-go-round that had begun to spin faster and faster. She was dizzy and gasping when the sensation stopped suddenly and she was standing still again, her hand clasped with Isabelle’s, Alec’s, and Simon’s.

They released one another, and Clary glanced around. She had been here before, in this dark brown, shining corridor that looked as if it had been carved out of a tiger’s eye gemstone. The floor was smooth, worn down by the passage of thousands of years’ worth of faerie feet. Light came from glinting chips of gold in the walls, and at the end of the passage was a multicolored curtain that swayed back and forth as if moved by wind, though there was no wind here underground. As Clary drew near to it, she saw that it was sewed out of butterflies. Some of them were still alive, and their struggles made the curtain flutter as if in a stiff breeze.

She swallowed back the acid taste in her throat. “Hello?” she called. “Is anyone there?”

The curtain rustled aside, and the faerie knight Meliorn stepped out into the hallway. He wore the white armor Clary remembered, but there was a sigil over his left breast now — the four Cs that also decorated Luke’s Council robes, marking him as a member. There was a scar, also, on Meliorn’s face that was new, just under his leaf-colored eyes. He regarded her frigidly. “One does not greet the Queen of the Seelie Court with the barbarous human ‘hello,’” he said, “as if you were hailing a servant. The proper address is ‘Well met.’”

“But we haven’t met,” said Clary. “I don’t even know if she’s here.”

Meliorn looked at her with scorn. “If the Queen were not present and ready to receive you, ringing the bell would not have brought you. Now come: follow me, and bring your companions with you.”

Clary turned to gesture at the others, then followed Meliorn through the curtain of tortured butterflies, hunching her shoulders in the hopes that no part of their wings would touch her.

One by one the four of them stepped into the Queen’s chamber. Clary blinked in surprise. It looked entirely different from how it had the last time she’d been here. The Queen reclined on a white and gold divan, and all around her stretched a floor made of alternating squares of black and white, like a great checkerboard. Strings of dangerous-looking thorns hung from the ceiling, and on each thorn was impaled a will-o’-the-wisp, its normally blinding light flickering as it died. The room shimmered in their glow.

Meliorn went to stand beside the Queen; other than him the room was empty of courtiers. Slowly the Queen sat up straight. She was as beautiful as ever, her dress a diaphanous mixture of silver and gold, her hair like rosy copper as she arranged it gently over one white shoulder. Clary wondered why she was bothering. Of all of them there, the only one likely to be moved by her beauty was Simon, and he hated her.

“Well met, Nephilim, Daylighter,” she said, inclining her head in their direction. “Daughter of Valentine, what brings you to me?”

Clary opened her hand. The bell shone there like an accusation. “You sent your handmaiden to tell me to ring this if I ever needed your help.”

“And you told me you wanted nothing from me,” said the Queen. “That you had everything you desired.”

Clary thought back desperately to what Jace had said when they had had an audience with the Queen before, how he had flattered and charmed her. It was as if he had suddenly acquired a whole new vocabulary. She glanced back over her shoulder at Isabelle and Alec, but Isabelle only made an irritable motion at her, indicating that she should keep going.

“Things change,” Clary said.

The Queen stretched her legs out luxuriously. “Very well. What is it you want from me?”

“I want you to find Jace Lightwood.”

In the silence that followed, the sound of the will-o’-the-wisps, crying in their agony, was softly audible. At last the Queen said, “You must think us powerful indeed if you believe the Fair Folk can succeed where the Clave has failed.”

“The Clave wants to find Sebastian. I don’t care about Sebastian. I want Jace,” Clary said. “Besides, I already know you know more than you’re letting on. You predicted this would happen. No one else knew, but I don’t believe you sent me that bell when you did — the same night Jace disappeared — without knowing something was brewing.”

“Perhaps I did,” said the Queen, admiring her shimmering toenails.

“I’ve noticed the Fair Folk often say ‘perhaps’ when there is a truth they want to hide,” Clary said. “It keeps you from having to give a straight answer.”

“Perhaps so,” said the Queen with an amused smile.

“‘Mayhap’ is a good word too,” Alec suggested.

“Also ‘perchance,’” Izzy said.

“I see nothing wrong with ‘maybe,’” said Simon. “A little modern, but the gist of the idea comes across.”

The Queen waved away their words as if they were annoying bees buzzing around her head. “I do not trust you, Valentine’s daughter,” she said. “There was a time I wanted a favor from you, but that time is over. Meliorn has his place on the Council. I am not sure there is anything you can offer me.”

“If you thought that,” said Clary, “you never would have sent the bell.”

For a moment their eyes locked. The Queen was beautiful, but there was something behind her face, something that made Clary think of the bones of a small animal, whitening in the sun. At last the Queen said, “Very well. I may be able to help you. But I will desire recompense.”

“Shocker,” Simon muttered. He had his hands jammed into his pockets and was looking at the Queen with loathing.

Alec laughed.

The Queen’s eyes flashed. A moment later Alec staggered back with a cry. He was holding his hands out before him, gaping, as the skin on them wrinkled and his hands curved inward, bent, the joints swollen. His back hunched, his hair graying, his blue eyes fading and sinking into deep wrinkles. Clary gasped. Where Alec had been, an old man, bent and white-haired, stood trembling.

“How swift mortal loveliness does fade,” the Queen gloated. “Look at yourself, Alexander Lightwood. I give you a glimpse of yourself in a mere threescore years. What will your warlock lover say then of your beauty?”

Alec’s chest was heaving. Isabelle stepped quickly to his side and took his arm. “Alec, it’s nothing. It’s a glamour.” She turned on the Queen. “Take it off him! Take it off!”

“If you and yours will speak to me with more respect, then I might consider it.”

“We will,” Clary said quickly. “We apologize for any rudeness.”

The Queen sniffed. “I rather miss your Jace,” she said. “Of all of you, he was the prettiest and the best-mannered.”

“We miss him too,” said Clary in a low voice. “We didn’t mean to be ill-mannered. We humans can be difficult in our grief.”

“Hmph,” said the Queen, but she snapped her fingers and the glamour fell from Alec. He was himself again, though white-faced and stunned-looking. The Queen shot him a superior look, and turned her attention to Clary.

“There is a set of rings,” said the Queen. “They belonged to my father. I desire the return of these objects, for they are faerie-made and possess great power. They allow us to speak to one another, mind to mind, as your Silent Brothers do. At present I have it on good authority that they are on display in the Institute.”

“I remember seeing something like that,” Izzy said slowly. “Two faerie-work rings in a glass case on the second floor of the library.”

“You want me to steal something from the Institute?” Clary said, surprised. Of all the favors she might have guessed the Queen would ask for, this one wasn’t high on the list.

“It is not theft,” said the Queen, “to return an item to its rightful owners.”

“And then you’ll find Jace for us?” said Clary. “And don’t say ‘perhaps.’ What will you do exactly?”

“I will assist you in finding him,” said the Queen. “I give you my word that my help would be invaluable. I can tell you, for instance, why all of your tracking spells have been for naught. I can tell you in what city he is most likely to be found—”

“But the Clave questioned you,” interrupted Simon. “How did you lie to them?”

“They never asked the correct questions.”

“Why lie to them?” demanded Isabelle. “Where is your allegiance in all this?”

“I have none. Jonathan Morgenstern could be a powerful ally if I do not make him an enemy first. Why endanger him or earn his ire at no benefit to ourselves? The Fair Folk are an old people; we do not make hasty decisions but first wait to see in what direction the wind blows.”

“But these rings mean enough to you that if we get them, you’ll risk making him angry?” Alec asked.

But the Queen only smiled, a lazy smile, ripe with promise. “I think that is quite enough for today,” she said. “Return to me with the rings and we will speak again.”

Clary hesitated, turning to look at Alec, and then Isabelle. “You’re all right with this? Stealing from the Institute?”

“If it means finding Jace,” Isabelle said.

Alec nodded. “Whatever it takes.”

Clary turned back to the Queen, who was watching her with an expectant gaze. “Then, I think we have ourselves a bargain.”

The Queen stretched and gave a contented smile. “Fare thee well, little Shadowhunters. And a word of warning, though you have done nothing to deserve it. You might well consider the wisdom of this hunt for your friend. For as is often the happenstance with that which is precious and lost, when you find him again, he may well not be quite as you left him.”

It was nearly eleven when Alec reached the front door of Magnus’s apartment in Greenpoint. Isabelle had persuaded Alec to come to Taki’s for dinner with Clary and Simon, and though he had protested, he was glad he had. He had needed a few hours to settle his emotions after what had happened in the Seelie Court. He did not want Magnus to see how badly the Queen’s glamour had shaken him.

He no longer had to ring the bell for Magnus to buzz him upstairs. He had a key, a fact he was obscurely proud of. He unlocked the door and headed upstairs, passing Magnus’s first-floor neighbor as he did so. Though Alec had never seen the occupants of the first-floor loft, they seemed to be engaged in a tempestuous romance. Once there had been a bunch of someone’s belongings strewn all over the landing with a note attached to a jacket lapel addressed to “A lying liar who lies.” Right now there was a bouquet of flowers taped to the door with a card tucked among the blooms that read I’M SORRY. That was the thing about New York: you always knew more about your neighbors’ business than you wanted to.

Magnus’s door was cracked slightly open, and the sounds of music playing softly wafted out into the hall. Today it was Tchaikovsky. Alec felt his shoulders relax as the door of the apartment shut behind him. He could never be quite sure how the place was going to look — it was minimalist right now, with white couches, red stacking tables, and stark black-and-white photos of Paris on the walls — but it had begun to feel increasingly familiar, like home. It smelled like the things he associated with Magnus: ink, cologne, Lapsang Souchong tea, the burned-sugar smell of magic. He scooped up Chairman Meow, who was dozing on a windowsill, and made his way into the study.

Magnus looked up as Alec came in. He was wearing what for Magnus was a somber ensemble — jeans and a black T-shirt with rivets around the collar and cuffs. His black hair was down, messy and tangled as if he’d run his hands through it multiple times in annoyance, and his cat’s eyes were heavy-lidded with tiredness. He dropped his pen when Alec appeared, and grinned. “The Chairman likes you.”

“He likes anyone who scratches behind his ears,” Alec said, shifting the dozing cat so that his purring seemed to rumble through Alec’s chest.

Magnus leaned back in his chair, the muscles in his arms flexing as he yawned. The table was strewn with pieces of paper covered in small, cramped handwriting and drawings — the same pattern over and over, variations on the design that had been splattered across the floor of the rooftop from which Jace had disappeared. “How was the Seelie Queen?”

“Same as usual.”

“Raging bitch, then?”

“Pretty much.” Alec gave Magnus the condensed version of what had happened in the faerie court. He was good at that — keeping things short, not a word wasted. He never understood people who chattered on incessantly, or even Jace’s love of overcomplicated wordplay.

“I worry about Clary,” said Magnus. “I worry she’s getting in over her little red head.”

Alec set Chairman Meow down on the table, where he promptly curled up into a ball and went back to sleep. “She wants to find Jace. Can you blame her?”

Magnus’s eyes softened. He hooked a finger into the top of Alec’s jeans and pulled him closer. “Are you saying you’d do the same thing if it were me?”

Alec turned his face away, glancing at the paper Magnus had just set aside. “You looking at these again?”

Looking a little disappointed, Magnus let Alec go. “There’s got to be a key,” he said. “To unlocking them. Some language I haven’t looked at yet. Something ancient. This is old black magic, very dark, not like anything I’ve ever seen before.” He looked at the paper again, his head tilted to the side. “Can you hand me that snuffbox over there? The silver one, on the edge of the table.”

Alec followed the line of Magnus’s gesture and saw a small silver box perched on the opposite side of the big wooden table. He reached over and picked it up. It was like a miniature metal chest set on small feet, with a curved top and the initials W.S. picked out in diamonds across the top.

W, he thought. Will?

Will, Magnus had said when Alec had asked him about the name Camille had taunted him with. Dear God, that was a long time ago.

Alec bit his lip. “What is this?”

“It’s a snuffbox,” said Magnus, not looking up from his papers. “I told you.”

“Snuff? As in snuffing people out?” Alec eyed it.

Magnus looked up and laughed. “As in tobacco. It was very popular around the seventeenth, eighteenth century. Now I use the box to keep odds and ends in.”

He held out his hand, and Alec gave the box up. “Do you ever wonder,” Alec began, and then started again. “Does it bother you that Camille’s out there somewhere? That she got away?” And that it was my fault? Alec thought but didn’t say. There was no need for Magnus to know.

“She’s always been out there somewhere,” said Magnus. “I know the Clave isn’t terribly pleased, but I’m used to imagining her living her life, not contacting me. If it ever bothered me, it hasn’t in a long time.”

“But you did love her. Once.”

Magnus ran his fingers over the diamond insets in the snuffbox. “I thought I did.”

“Does she still love you?”

“I don’t think so,” Magnus said dryly. “She wasn’t very pleasant the last time I saw her. Of course that could be because I’ve got an eighteen-year-old boyfriend with a stamina rune and she doesn’t.”

Alec sputtered. “As the person being objectified, I… object to that description of me.”

“She always was the jealous type.” Magnus grinned. He was awfully good at changing the subject, Alec thought. Magnus had made it clear that he didn’t like talking about his past love life, but somewhere during their conversation, Alec’s sense of familiarity and comfort, his feeling of being at home, had vanished. No matter how young Magnus looked — and right now, barefoot, with his hair sticking up, he looked about eighteen — uncrossable oceans of time divided them.

Magnus opened the box, took out some tacks, and used them to fix the paper he had been looking at to the table. When he glanced up and saw Alec’s expression, he did a double take. “Are you okay?”

Instead of replying, Alec reached down and took Magnus’s hands. Magnus let Alec pull him to his feet, a questioning look in his eyes. Before he could say anything, Alec drew him closer and kissed him. Magnus made a soft, pleased sound, and gripped the back of Alec’s shirt, rucking it up, his fingers cool on Alec’s spine. Alec leaned into him, pinning Magnus between the table and his own body. Not that Magnus seemed to mind.

“Come on,” Alec said against Magnus’s ear. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”

Magnus bit his lip and glanced over his shoulder at the papers on the table, his gaze fixed on ancient syllables in forgotten languages. “Why don’t you go on ahead?” he said. “I’ll join you — five minutes.”

“Sure.” Alec straightened up, knowing that when Magnus was deep in his studies, five minutes could easily become five hours. “I’ll see you there.”

“Shhh.”

Clary put her finger to her lips before motioning for Simon to go before her through the front door of Luke’s house. All the lights were off, and the living room was dark and silent. She shooed Simon toward her room and headed into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Halfway there she froze.

Her mother’s voice was audible down the hall. Clary could hear the strain in it. Just like losing Jace was Clary’s worst nightmare, she knew that her mother was living her worst nightmare too. Knowing that her son was alive and out there in the world, capable of anything, was ripping her apart from the inside out.

“But they cleared her, Jocelyn,” Clary overheard Luke reply, his voice dipping in and out of a whisper. “There won’t be any punishment.”

“All of it is my fault.” Jocelyn sounded muffled, as if she had buried her head against Luke’s shoulder. “If I hadn’t brought that… creature into the world, Clary wouldn’t be going through this now.”

“You couldn’t have known…” Luke’s voice faded off into a murmur, and though Clary knew he was right, she had a brief, guilty flash of rage against her mother. Jocelyn should have killed Sebastian in his crib before he’d ever had a chance to grow up and ruin all their lives, she thought, and was instantly horrified at herself for thinking it. She turned and swung back toward the other end of the house, darting into her bedroom and closing the door behind her as if she were being followed.

Simon, who had been sitting on the bed playing with his DS, looked up at her in surprise. “Everything okay?”

She tried to smile at him. He was a familiar sight in this room — they’d slept over at Luke’s often enough when they were growing up. She’d done what she could to make this room hers instead of a spare room. Photos of herself and Simon, the Lightwoods, herself with Jace and with her family, were stuck haphazardly into the frame of the mirror over the dresser. Luke had given her a drawing board, and her art supplies were sorted neatly into a stack of cubbyholes beside it. She had tacked up posters of her favorite animes: Fullmetal Alchemist, Rurouni Kenshin, Bleach.

Evidence of her Shadowhunter life lay scattered about as well — a fat copy of The Shadowhunter’s Codex with her notes and drawings scribbled into the margins, a shelf of books on the occult and paranormal, her stele atop her desk, and a new globe, given to her by Luke, that showed Idris, bordered in gold, in the center of Europe.

And Simon, sitting in the middle of her bed, cross-legged, was one of the few things that belonged both to her old life and her new one. He looked at her with his eyes dark in his pale face, the glimmer of the Mark of Cain barely visible on his forehead.

“My mom,” she said, and leaned against the door. “She’s really not doing well.”

“Isn’t she relieved? I mean about you being cleared?”

“She can’t get past thinking about Sebastian. She can’t get past blaming herself.”

“It wasn’t her fault, the way he turned out. It was Valentine’s.”

Clary said nothing. She was recalling the awful thing she had just thought, that her mother should have killed Sebastian when he was born.

“Both of you,” said Simon, “blame yourselves for things that aren’t your fault. You blame yourself for leaving Jace on the roof—”

She jerked her head up and looked at him sharply. She wasn’t aware she’d ever said she blamed herself for that, though she did. “I never—”

“You do,” he said. “But I left him, Izzy left him, Alec left him — and Alec’s his parabatai. There’s no way we could have known. And it might have been worse if you’d stayed.”

“Maybe.” Clary didn’t want to talk about it. Avoiding Simon’s gaze, she headed into the bathroom to brush her teeth and pull on her fuzzy pajamas. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror. She hated how pale she looked, the shadows under her eyes. She was strong; she wasn’t going to fall apart. She had a plan. Even if it was a little insane, and involved robbing the Institute.

She brushed her teeth and was pulling her wavy hair back into a ponytail as she left the bathroom, just catching Simon slipping back into his messenger bag a bottle of what was almost surely the blood he’d bought at Taki’s.

She came forward and ruffled his hair. “You can keep the bottles in the fridge, you know,” she said. “If you don’t like it room temperature.”

“Ice-cold blood is worse than room temperature, actually. Warm is best, but I think your mom would balk at me heating it up in saucepans.”

“Does Jordan care?” Clary asked, wondering if in fact Jordan even still remembered Simon lived with him. Simon had been at her house every night for the past week. In the first few days after Jace had disappeared, she hadn’t been able to sleep. She had piled five blankets over herself, but she’d been unable to get warm. Shivering, she would lie awake imagining her veins sluggish with frozen blood, ice crystals weaving a coral-like shining net around her heart. Her dreams were full of black seas and ice floes and frozen lakes and Jace, his face always hidden from her by shadows or a breath of cloud or his own shining hair as he turned away from her. She would fall asleep for minutes at a time, always waking up with a sick drowning feeling.

The first day the Council had interrogated her, she’d come home and crawled into bed. She’d lain there wide awake until there’d been a knock on her window and Simon had crawled inside, nearly tumbling onto the floor. He’d climbed onto the bed and stretched out beside her without a word. His skin had been cold from the outside, and he’d smelled like city air and oncoming winter chill.

She had touched her shoulder to his, dissolving a tiny part of the tension that clamped her body like a clenched fist. His hand had been cold, but it had been familiar, like the texture of his corduroy jacket against her arm.

“How long can you stay?” she had whispered into the darkness.

“As long as you want.”

She’d turned on her side to look at him. “Won’t Izzy mind?”

“She’s the one who told me I should come over here. She said you weren’t sleeping, and if having me with you will make you feel better, I can stay. Or I could just stay until you fall asleep.”

Clary had exhaled her relief. “Stay all night,” she’d said. “Please.”

He had. That night she had had no bad dreams.

As long as he was there, her sleep was dreamless and blank, a dark ocean of nothingness. A painless oblivion.

“Jordan doesn’t really care about the blood,” Simon said now. “His whole thing is about me being comfortable with what I am. Get in touch with your inner vampire, blah, blah.”

Clary slid next to him onto the bed and hugged a pillow. “Is your inner vampire different from your… outer vampire?”

“Definitely. He wants me to wear midriff-baring shirts and a fedora. I’m fighting it.”

Clary smiled faintly. “So your inner vampire is Magnus?”

“Wait, that reminds me.” Simon dug around in his messenger bag and produced two volumes of manga. He waved them triumphantly before handing them to Clary. “Magical Love Gentleman volumes fifteen and sixteen,” he said. “Sold out everywhere but Midtown Comics.”

She picked them up, looking at the colorful back-to-front covers. Once upon a time she would have waved her arms in fangirl joy; now it was all she could do to smile at Simon and thank him, but he had done it for her, she reminded herself, the gesture of a good friend. Even if she couldn’t even imagine distracting herself with reading right now. “You’re awesome,” she said, bumping him with her shoulder. She lay down against the pillows, the manga books balanced on her lap. “And thanks for coming with me to the Seelie Court. I know it brings up sucky memories for you, but — I’m always better when you’re there.”

“You did great. Handled the Queen like a pro.” Simon lay down next to her, their shoulders touching, both of them looking up at the ceiling, the familiar cracks in it, the old glow-in-the-dark paste-on stars that no longer shed light. “So you’re going to do it? Steal the rings for the Queen?”

“Yes.” She let out her held breath. “Tomorrow. There’s a local Conclave meeting at noon. Everyone’ll be in it. I’m going in then.”

“I don’t like it, Clary.”

She felt her body tighten. “Don’t like what?”

“You having anything to do with faeries. Faeries are liars.”

“They can’t lie.”

“You know what I mean. ‘Faeries are misleaders’ sounds lame, though.”

She turned her head and looked at him, her chin against his collarbone. His arm came up automatically and circled her shoulders, pulling her against him. His body was cool, his shirt still damp from the rain. His usually stick-straight hair had dried in windblown curls. “Believe me, I don’t like getting mixed up with the Court. But I’d do it for you,” she said. “And you’d do it for me, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would. But it’s still a bad idea.” He turned his head and looked at her. “I know how you feel. When my father died—”

Her body tightened. “Jace isn’t dead.”

“I know. I wasn’t saying that. It’s just — You don’t need to say you’re better when I’m there. I’m always there with you. Grief makes you feel alone, but you’re not. I know you don’t believe in — in religion — the same way I do, but you can believe you’re surrounded by people who love you, can’t you?” His eyes were wide, hopeful. They were the same dark brown they had always been, but different now, as if another layer had been added to their color, the same way his skin seemed both poreless and translucent at the same time.

I believe it, she thought. I’m just not sure it matters. She knocked her shoulder gently against his again. “So, do you mind if I ask you something? It’s personal but important.”

A note of wariness crept into his voice. “What is it?”

“With the whole Mark of Cain thing, does that mean if I accidentally kick you during the night, I get kicked in the shins seven times by an invisible force?”

She felt him laugh. “Go to sleep, Fray.”

3 BAD ANGELS

“Man, I thought you’d forgotten you lived here,” Jordan said the moment Simon walked into the living room of their small apartment, his keys still dangling in his hand. Jordan was usually to be found sprawled out on their futon, his long legs dangling over the side, the controller for their Xbox in his hand. Today he was on the futon, but he was sitting up straight, his broad shoulders hunched forward, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, the controller nowhere to be seen. He sounded relieved to see Simon, and in a moment Simon realized why.

Jordan wasn’t alone in the apartment. Sitting across from him in a nubbly orange velvet armchair — none of Jordan’s furniture matched — was Maia, her wildly curling hair contained in two braids. The last time Simon had seen her, she’d been glamorously dressed for a party. Now she was back in uniform: jeans with frayed cuffs, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a caramel leather jacket. She looked as uncomfortable as Jordan did, her back straight, her gaze straying to the window. When she saw Simon, she clambered gratefully to her feet and gave him a hug. “Hey,” she said. “I just stopped by to see how you were doing.”

“I’m fine. I mean, as fine as I could be with everything going on.”

“I didn’t mean about the whole Jace thing,” she said. “I meant about you. How are you holding up?”

“Me?” Simon was startled. “I’m all right. Worried about Isabelle and Clary. You know the Clave was investigating her—”

“And I heard she got cleared. That’s good.” Maia let him go. “But I was thinking about you. And what happened with your mom.”

“How did you know about that?” Simon shot Jordan a look, but Jordan shook his head, almost imperceptibly. He hadn’t told.

Maia pulled on a braid. “I ran into Eric, of all people. He told me what happened and that you’d backed out of Millenium Lint’s gigs for the past two weeks because of it.”

“Actually, they changed their name,” Jordan said. “They’re Midnight Burrito now.”

Maia shot Jordan an irritated look, and he slid down a little in his seat. Simon wondered what they’d been talking about before he’d gotten home. “Have you talked to anyone else in your family?” Maia asked, her voice soft. Her amber eyes were full of concern. Simon knew it was churlish, but there was something about being looked at like that that he didn’t like. It was as if her concern made the problem real, when otherwise he could pretend it wasn’t happening.

“Yeah,” he said. “Everything’s fine with my family.”

“Really? Because you left your phone here.” Jordan picked it up from the side table. “And your sister’s been calling you about every five minutes all day. And yesterday.”

A cold feeling spread through Simon’s stomach. He took the phone from Jordan and looked at the screen. Seventeen missed calls from Rebecca.

“Crap,” he said. “I was hoping to avoid this.”

“Well, she’s your sister,” said Maia. “She was going to call you eventually.”

“I know, but I’ve been sort of fending her off — leaving messages when I knew she wouldn’t be there, that kind of thing. I just… I guess I was avoiding the inevitable.”

“And now?”

Simon set the phone down on the windowsill. “Keep avoiding it?”

“Don’t.” Jordan took his hands out of his pockets. “You should talk to her.”

“And say what?” The question came out more sharply than Simon had intended.

“Your mother must have told her something,” said Jordan. “She’s probably worried.”

Simon shook his head. “She’ll be coming home for Thanksgiving in a few weeks. I don’t want her to get mixed up in what’s going on with my mom.”

“She’s already mixed up in it. She’s your family,” said Maia. “Besides, this—what’s going on with your mom, all of it — this is your life now.”

“Then, I guess I want her to stay out of it.” Simon knew he was being unreasonable, but he didn’t seem to be able to help it. Rebecca was — special. Different. From a part of his life that had so far remained untouched by all this weirdness. Maybe the only part.

Maia threw her hands up and turned to Jordan. “Say something to him. You’re his Praetorian guard.”

“Oh, come on,” said Simon before Jordan could open his mouth. “Are either of you in touch with your parents? Your families?”

They exchanged quick looks. “No,” Jordan said slowly, “but neither of us had good relationships with them before—”

“I rest my case,” said Simon. “We’re all orphans. Orphans of the storm.”

“You can’t just ignore your sister,” insisted Maia.

“Watch me.”

“And when Rebecca comes home and your house looks like the set of The Exorcist? And your mom has no explanation for where you are?” Jordan leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “Your sister will call the police, and your mom will end up committed.”

“I just don’t think I’m ready to hear her voice,” Simon said, but he knew he’d lost the argument. “I have to head back out, but I promise, I’ll text her.”

“Well,” Jordan said. He was looking at Maia, not Simon, as he said it, as if he hoped she’d notice he’d made progress with Simon and be pleased. Simon wondered if they’d been seeing each other at all during the past two weeks when he’d been largely absent. He would have guessed no from the awkward way they’d been sitting when he’d come in, but with these two it was hard to be sure. “It’s a start.”

The rattling gold elevator stopped at the third floor of the Institute; Clary took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway. The place was, as Alec and Isabelle had promised her it would be, deserted and quiet. The traffic on York Avenue outside was a soft murmur. She imagined she could hear the brush of dust motes against one another as they danced in the window light. Along the wall were the pegs where the residents of the Institute hung their coats when they came inside. One of Jace’s black jackets still dangled from a hook, the sleeves empty and ghostly.

With a shiver she set off down the hallway. She could remember the first time Jace had taken her through these corridors, his careless light voice telling her about Shadowhunters, about Idris, about the whole secret world she had never known existed. She had watched him as he’d talked — covertly, she’d thought, but she knew now that Jace noticed everything — watching the light glint off his pale hair, the quick movements of his graceful hands, the flex of the muscles in his arms as he’d gestured.

She reached the library without encountering another Shadowhunter and pushed the door open. The room still gave her the same shiver it had the first time she’d seen it. Circular because it was built inside a tower, the library had a second floor gallery, railed, that ran along the midpoint of the walls, just above the rows of bookshelves. The desk Clary still thought of as Hodge’s rested in the center of the room, carved from a single slab of oak, the wide surface rested on the backs of two kneeling angels. Clary half-expected Hodge to stand up behind it, his keen-eyed raven, Hugo, perched on his shoulder.

Shaking off the memory, she headed quickly for the circular staircase at the far end of the room. She was wearing jeans and rubber-soled sneakers, and a soundless rune was carved into her ankle; the silence was almost eerie as she bounded up the steps and onto the gallery. There were books up here too, but they were locked away behind glass cases. Some looked very old, their covers frayed, their bindings reduced to a few strings. Others were clearly books of dark or dangerous magic—Unspeakable Cults, The Demon’s Pox, A Practical Guide to Raising the Dead.

Between the locked bookshelves were glass display cases. Each held something of rare and beautiful workmanship — a delicate glass flacon whose stopper was an enormous emerald; a crown with a diamond in the center that did not look as if it would fit any human head; a pendant in the shape of an angel whose wings were clockwork cogs and gears; and in the last case, just as Isabelle had promised, a pair of gleaming golden rings shaped like curling leaves, the faerie work as delicate as baby’s breath.

The case was locked, of course, but the Opening rune — Clary biting her lip as she drew it, careful not to make it too powerful lest the glass case burst apart and bring people running — unsnapped the lock. Carefully she eased the case open. It was only as she slid her stele back into her pocket that she hesitated.

Was this really her? Stealing from the Clave to pay the Queen of the Fair Folk, whose promises, as Jace had told her once, were like scorpions, with a barbed sting in the tail?

She shook her head as if to clear the doubts away — and froze. The door to the library was opening. She could hear the creak of wood, muffled voices, footsteps. Without another thought she dropped to the ground, flattening herself against the cold wooden floor of the gallery.

“You were right, Jace,” came a voice — coolly amused, and horribly familiar — from below. “The place is deserted.”

The ice that had been in Clary’s veins seemed to crystallize, freezing her in place. She could not move, could not breathe. She had not felt a shock this intense since she had seen her father run a sword through Jace’s chest. Very slowly she inched toward the edge of the gallery and looked down.

And bit down on her lip savagely to keep herself from screaming.

The sloping roof above rose to a point and was set with a glass skylight. Sunlight poured down through the skylight, lighting a portion of the floor like a spotlight on a stage. She could see that the chips of glass and marble and bits of semiprecious stone that were inlaid in the floor formed a design — the Angel Raziel, the cup and the sword. Standing directly on one of the Angel’s outspread wings was Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern.

Sebastian.

So this was what her brother looked like. Really looked like, alive and moving and animated. A pale face, all angles and planes, tall and slim in black gear. His hair was silvery white, not dark as it had been when she had first seen him, dyed to match the color of the real Sebastian Verlac’s. His own pale color suited him better. His eyes were black and snapping with life and energy. The last time she’d seen him, floating in a glass coffin like Snow White, one of his hands had been a bandaged stump. Now that hand was whole again, with a silver bracelet glittering on the wrist, but nothing visible showed that it had ever been damaged — and more than damaged, had been missing.

And there beside him, golden hair shimmering in the pale sunlight, was Jace. Not Jace as she had imagined him so often over the past two weeks — beaten or bleeding or suffering or starving, locked away in some dark cell, screaming in pain or calling out for her. This was Jace as she remembered him, when she let herself remember — flushed and healthy and vibrant and beautiful. His hands were careless in the pockets of his jeans, his Marks visible through his white T-shirt. Over it was thrown an unfamiliar tan suede jacket that brought out the gold undertones to his skin. He tipped his head back, as if enjoying the feeling of sun on his face. “I’m always right, Sebastian,” he said. “You ought to know that about me by now.”

Sebastian gave him a measured look, and then a smile. Clary stared. It had every appearance of being a real smile. But what did she know? Sebastian had smiled at her before, and that had turned out to be one big lie. “So where are the books on summoning? Is there any order to the chaos here?”

“Not really. It’s not alphabetized. It follows Hodge’s special system.”

“Isn’t he the one I killed? Inconvenient, that,” said Sebastian. “Perhaps I should take the upstairs level and you the downstairs.”

He moved toward the staircase that led up to the gallery. Clary’s heart began to pound with fear. She associated Sebastian with murder, blood, pain, and terror. She knew that Jace had fought him and won once but had nearly died in the process himself. In a hand-to-hand fight she would never beat her brother. Could she fling herself from the gallery railing to the floor without breaking a leg? And if she did, what would happen then? What would Jace do?

Sebastian had his foot on the lowest step when Jace called out to him, “Wait. They’re here. Filed under ‘Magic, Nonlethal.’”

“Nonlethal? Where’s the fun in that?” Sebastian purred, but he took his foot off the step and moved back toward Jace. “This is quite a library,” he said, reading off titles as he passed them. “The Care and Feeding of Your Pet Imp. Demons Revealed.” He plucked that one off the shelf and let out a long, low chuckle.

“What is it?” Jace looked up, his mouth curving upward. Clary wanted to run downstairs and throw herself at him so badly that she bit down on her lip again. The pain was acid sharp.

“It’s pornography,” said Sebastian. “Look. Demons… revealed.”

Jace came up behind him, resting one hand on Sebastian’s arm for balance as he read over his shoulder. It was like watching Jace with Alec, someone he was so comfortable with, he could touch them without thinking about it — but horrible, backward, inside out. “Okay, how can you tell?”

Sebastian shut the book and hit Jace lightly on the shoulder with it. “Some things I know more about than you. Did you get the books?”

“I got them.” Jace scooped up a stack of heavy-looking tomes from a nearby table. “Do we have time to go by my room? If I could get some of my stuff…”

“What do you want?”

Jace shrugged. “Clothes mostly, some weapons.”

Sebastian shook his head. “Too dangerous. We need to get in and out fast. Only emergency items.”

“My favorite jacket is an emergency item,” Jace said. It was so much like hearing him talk to Alec, to any of his friends. “Much like myself, it is both snuggly and fashionable.”

“Look, we have all the money we could want,” said Sebastian. “Buy clothes. And you’ll be ruling this place in a few weeks. You can run your favorite jacket up the flagpole and fly it like a pennant.”

Jace laughed, that soft rich sound Clary loved. “I’m warning you, that jacket is sexy. The Institute could go up in sexy, sexy flames.”

“Be good for the place. Too dismal right now.” Sebastian grabbed the back of Jace’s current jacket with a fist and pulled him sideways. “Now we’re going. Hold on to the books.” He glanced down at his right hand, where a slim silver ring glittered; with the hand that wasn’t holding on to Jace, he used his thumb to twist the ring.

“Hey,” Jace said. “Do you think—” He broke off, and for a moment Clary thought that it was because he had looked up and seen her — his face was tilted upward — but even as she sucked in her breath, they both vanished, fading like mirages against the air.

Slowly Clary lowered her head onto her arm. Her lip was bleeding where she had bitten it; she could taste the blood in her mouth. She knew she should get up, move, run away. She wasn’t supposed to be here. But the ice in her veins had grown so cold, she was terrified that if she moved, she would shatter.

Alec woke to Magnus’s shaking his shoulder. “Come on, sweet pea,” he said. “Time to rise and face the day.”

Alec unfolded himself groggily out of his nest of pillows and blankets and blinked at his boyfriend. Magnus, despite having gotten very little sleep, looked annoyingly chipper. His hair was wet, dripping onto the shoulders of his white shirt and making it transparent. He wore jeans with holes in them and fraying hems, which usually meant he was planning to spend the day without leaving his apartment.

“‘Sweet pea’?” Alec said.

“I was trying it out.”

Alec shook his head. “No.”

Magnus shrugged. “I’ll keep at it.” He held out a chipped blue mug of coffee fixed the way Alec liked it — black, with sugar. “Wake up.”

Alec sat up, rubbing at his eyes, and took the mug. The first bitter swallow sent a tingle of energy through his nerves. He remembered lying awake the night before and waiting for Magnus to come to bed, but eventually exhaustion had overtaken him and he had fallen asleep at around five a.m. “I’m skipping the Council meeting today.”

“I know, but you’re supposed to meet your sister and the others in the park by Turtle Pond. You told me to remind you.”

Alec swung his legs over the side of the bed. “What time is it?”

Magnus took the mug gently out of his hand before the coffee spilled and set it on the bedside table. “You’re fine. You’ve got an hour.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips against Alec’s; Alec remembered the first time they had ever kissed, here in this apartment, and he wanted to wrap his arms around his boyfriend and pull him close. But something held him back.

He stood up, disentangling himself, and went over to the bureau. He had a drawer where his clothes were. A place for his toothbrush in the bathroom. A key to the front door. A decent amount of real estate to take up in anyone’s life, and yet he couldn’t shake the cold fear in his stomach.

Magnus had rolled onto his back on the bed and was watching Alec, one arm crooked behind his head. “Wear that scarf,” he said, pointing to a blue cashmere scarf hanging on a peg. “It matches your eyes.”

Alec looked at it. Suddenly he was filled with hate — for the scarf, for Magnus, and most of all for himself. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “The scarf’s a hundred years old, and it was given to you by Queen Victoria right before she died, for special services to the Crown or something.”

Magnus sat up. “What’s gotten into you?”

Alec stared at him. “Am I the newest thing in this apartment?”

“I think that honor goes to Chairman Meow. He’s only two.”

“I said newest, not youngest,” Alec snapped. “Who’s W.S.? Is it Will?”

Magnus shook his head like there was water in his ears. “What the hell? You mean the snuffbox? W.S. is Woolsey Scott. He—”

“Founded the Praetor Lupus. I know.” Alec pulled on his jeans and zipped them up. “You mentioned him before, and besides, he’s a historical figure. And his snuffbox is in your junk drawer. What else is in there? Jonathan Shadowhunter’s toenail clippers?”

Magnus’s cat eyes were cold. “Where is all this coming from, Alexander? I don’t lie to you. If there’s anything about me you want to know, you can ask.”

“Bull,” Alec said bluntly, buttoning his shirt. “You’re kind and funny and all those great things, but what you’re not is forthcoming, sweet pea. You can talk all day about other people’s problems, but you won’t talk about yourself or your history, and when I do ask, you wriggle like a worm on a hook.”

“Maybe because you can’t ask me about my past without picking a fight about how I’m going to live forever and you’re not,” Magnus snapped. “Maybe because immortality is rapidly becoming the third person in our relationship, Alec.”

“Our relationship isn’t supposed to have a third person.”

“Exactly.”

Alec’s throat tightened. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, but he had never been good with words like Jace and Magnus were. Instead he grabbed the blue scarf off its peg and wrapped it defiantly around his neck.

“Don’t wait up,” he said. “I might patrol tonight.”

As he slammed out of the apartment, he heard Magnus yell after him, “And that scarf, I’ll have you know, is from the Gap! I got it last year!”

Alec rolled his eyes and jogged down the stairs to the lobby. The single bulb that usually lit the place was out, and the space was so dim that for a moment he didn’t see the hooded figure slipping toward him from the shadows. When he did, he was so startled that he dropped his key chain with a rattling clang.

The figure glided toward him. He could tell nothing about it — not age or gender or even species. The voice that came from beneath the hood was crackling and low. “I have a message for you, Alec Lightwood,” it said. “From Camille Belcourt.”

“Do you want to patrol together tonight?” Jordan asked, somewhat abruptly.

Maia turned to look at him in surprise. He was leaning back against the kitchen counter, his elbows on the surface behind him. There was an unconcern about his posture that was too studied to be sincere. That was the problem with knowing someone so well, she thought. It was very hard to pretend around them, or to ignore it when they were pretending, even when it would be easier.

“Patrol together?” she echoed. Simon was in his room, changing clothes; she’d told him she’d walk to the subway with him, and now she wished she hadn’t. She knew she should have contacted Jordan since the last time she’d seen him, when, rather unwisely, she’d kissed him. But then Jace had vanished and the whole world seemed to have blown into pieces and it had given her just the excuse she’d needed to avoid the whole issue.

Of course, not thinking about the ex-boyfriend who had broken your heart and turned you into a werewolf was a lot easier when he wasn’t standing right in front of you, wearing a green shirt that hugged his leanly muscled body in all the right places and brought out the hazel color of his eyes.

“I thought they were canceling the patrol searches for Jace,” she said, looking away from him.

“Well, not canceling so much as cutting down. But I’m Praetor, not Clave. I can look for Jace on my own time.”

“Right,” she said.

He was playing with something on the counter, arranging it, but his attention was still on her. “Do you, you know… You used to want to go to college at Stanford. Do you still?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “I haven’t thought about college since…” She cleared her throat. “Not since I Changed.”

His cheeks flushed. “You were — I mean, you always wanted to go to California. You were going to study history, and I was going to move out there and surf. Remember?”

Maia shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. She felt as if she ought to be angry, but she wasn’t. For a long time she had blamed Jordan for the fact that she’d stopped dreaming of a human future, with school and a house and a family, maybe, someday. But there were other wolves in the police station pack who still pursued their dreams, their art. Bat, for instance. It had been her own choice to stop her life short. “I remember,” she said.

His cheeks flushed. “About tonight. No one’s searched the Brooklyn Navy Yard, so I thought… but it’s never much fun doing it on my own. But if you don’t want to…”

“No,” she said, hearing her own voice as if it were someone else’s. “I mean, sure. I’ll go with you.”

“Really?” His hazel eyes lit up, and Maia cursed herself inwardly. She shouldn’t get his hopes up, not when she wasn’t sure how she felt. It was just so hard to believe that he cared that much.

The Praetor Lupus medallion gleamed at his throat as he leaned forward, and she smelled the familiar scent of his soap, and under that — wolf. She flicked her eyes up toward him, just as Simon’s door opened and he came out, shrugging on a hoodie. He stopped dead in his doorway, his eyes moving from Jordan to Maia, his eyebrows slowly rising.

“You know, I can make it to the subway on my own,” he said to Maia, a faint smile tugging the corner of his mouth. “If you want to stay here…”

“No.” Maia hastily took her hands out of her pockets, where they had been balled into nervous fists. “No, I’ll come with you. Jordan, I’ll — I’ll see you later.”

“Tonight,” he called after her, but she didn’t turn around to look at him; she was already hurrying after Simon.

Simon trudged alone up the low rise of the hill, hearing the shouts of the Frisbee players in the Sheep Meadow behind him, like distant music. It was a bright November day, crisp and windy, the sun lighting what remained of the leaves on the trees to brilliant shades of scarlet, gold, and amber.

The top of the hill was strewn with boulders. You could see how the park had been hacked out of what had once been a wilderness of trees and stone. Isabelle sat atop one of the boulders, wearing a long dress of bottle-green silk with an embroidered black and silver coat over it. She looked up as Simon strode toward her, pushing her long, dark hair out of her face. “I thought you’d be with Clary,” she said as he drew closer. “Where is she?”

“Leaving the Institute,” he said, sitting down next to Isabelle on the rock and shoving his hands into his Windbreaker pockets. “She texted. She’ll be here soon.”

“Alec’s on his way—,” she began, and broke off as his pocket buzzed. Or, more accurately, the phone in his pocket buzzed. “I think someone’s messaging you.”

He shrugged. “I’ll check it later.”

She gave him a look from under her long eyelashes. “Anyway, I was saying, Alec’s on his way too. He had to come all the way from Brooklyn, so—”

Simon’s phone buzzed again.

“All right, that’s it. If you’re not getting it, I will.” Isabelle leaned forward, against Simon’s protests, and slipped her hand into his pocket. The top of her head brushed his chin. He smelled her perfume — vanilla — and the scent of her skin underneath. When she pulled the phone out and drew back, he was both relieved and disappointed.

She squinted at the screen. “Rebecca? Who’s Rebecca?”

“My sister.”

Isabelle’s body relaxed. “She wants to meet you. She says she hasn’t seen you since—”

Simon swiped the phone out of her hand and flipped it off before shoving it back into his pocket. “I know, I know.”

“Don’t you want to see her?”

“More than — more than almost anything else. But I don’t want her to know. About me.” Simon picked up a stick and threw it. “Look what happened when my mom found out.”

“So set up a meeting with her somewhere public. Where she can’t freak out. Far from your house.”

“Even if she can’t freak out, she can still look at me like my mother did,” Simon said in a low voice. “Like I’m a monster.”

Isabelle touched his wrist lightly. “My mom tossed out Jace when she thought he was Valentine’s son and a spy — then she regretted it horribly. My mom and dad are coming around to Alec’s being with Magnus. Your mom will come around too. Get your sister on your side. That’ll help.” She tilted her head a little. “I think sometimes siblings understand more than parents. There’s not the same weight of expectations. I could never, ever cut Alec off. No matter what he did. Never. Or Jace.” She squeezed his arm, then dropped her hand. “My little brother died. I won’t ever see him again. Don’t put your sister through that.”

“Through what?” It was Alec, coming up the side of the hill, kicking dried leaves out of his path. He was wearing his usual ratty sweater and jeans, but a dark blue scarf that matched his eyes was wrapped around his throat. Now, that had to have been a gift from Magnus, Simon thought. No way would Alec have thought to buy something like that himself. The concept of matching seemed to be beyond him.

Isabelle cleared her throat. “Simon’s sister—”

She got no further than that. There was a blast of cold air, bringing with it a swirl of dead leaves. Isabelle put her hand up to shield her face from the dust as the air began to shimmer with the unmistakeable translucence of an opening Portal, and Clary appeared before them, her stele in one hand and her face wet with tears.

4 AND IMMORTALITY

“And you’re totally sure it was Jace?” Isabelle asked, for what seemed to Clary like the forty-seventh time.

Clary bit down on her already sore lip and counted to ten. “It’s me, Isabelle,” she said. “You honestly think I wouldn’t recognize Jace?” She looked up at Alec standing over them, his blue scarf fluttering like a pennant in the wind. “Could you mistake someone else for Magnus?”

“No. Not ever,” he said without missing a beat. His blue eyes were troubled, dark with worry. “I just — I mean, of course we’re asking. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“He could be a hostage,” said Simon, leaning back against a boulder. The autumn sunlight turned his eyes the color of coffee grounds. “Like, Sebastian is threatening him that if Jace doesn’t go along with his plans, Sebastian will hurt someone he cares about.”

All eyes went to Clary, but she shook her head in frustration. “You didn’t see them together. Nobody acts like that when they’re a hostage. He seemed totally happy to be there.”

“Then he’s possessed,” Alec said. “Like he was by Lilith.”

“That was what I thought at first. But when he was possessed by Lilith, he was like a robot. He just kept saying the same things over and over. But this was Jace. He was making jokes like Jace does. Smiling like him.”

“Maybe he has Stockholm syndrome,” Simon suggested. “You know, when you get brainwashed and start sympathizing with your captor.”

“It takes months to develop Stockholm syndrome,” Alec objected. “How did he look? Hurt, or sick in any way? Can you describe them both?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked. The wind blew dry leaves around their feet as Clary told them again how Jace had looked — vibrant and healthy. Sebastian, too. They had seemed completely calm. Jace’s clothes had been clean, stylish, ordinary. Sebastian had been wearing a long black wool trench coat that had looked expensive.

“Like an evil Burberry ad,” Simon said when she was done.

Isabelle shot him a look. “Maybe Jace has a plan,” she said. “Maybe he’s tricking Sebastian. Trying to get into his good graces, figure out what his plans are.”

“You’d think that if he were doing that, he’d have figured out a way to tell us about it,” Alec said. “Not to leave us panicking. That’s too cruel.”

“Unless he couldn’t risk sending a message. He’d believe we would trust him. We do trust him.” Isabelle’s voice rose, and she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. The trees lining the gravel path they stood on rattled their bare branches.

“Maybe we should tell the Clave,” Clary said, hearing her own voice as if from a distance. “This is — I don’t see how we can handle this on our own.”

“We can’t tell the Clave.” Isabelle’s voice was hard.

“Why not?”

“If they think he’s cooperating with Sebastian, the mandate will be to kill him on sight,” Alec said. “That’s the Law.”

“Even if Isabelle’s right? Even if he’s just playing along with Sebastian?” Simon said, a note of doubt in his voice. “Trying to get on his side to get information?”

“There’s no way to prove it. And if we claimed it was what he’s doing, and that got back to Sebastian, he’d probably kill Jace,” said Alec. “If Jace is possessed, the Clave will kill him themselves. We can’t tell them anything.” His voice was hard. Clary looked at him in surprise; Alec was normally the most rule-abiding of them all.

“This is Sebastian we’re talking about,” said Izzy. “There’s no one the Clave hates more, except Valentine, and he’s dead. But practically everyone knows someone who died in the Mortal War, and Sebastian’s the one who took the wards down.”

Clary scuffed at the gravel underfoot with her sneaker. The whole situation seemed like a dream, like she might wake up at any moment. “Then, what next?”

“We talk to Magnus. See if he has any insight.” Alec tugged on the corner of his scarf. “He won’t go to the Council. Not if I ask him not to.”

“He’d better not,” said Isabelle indignantly. “Otherwise, worst boyfriend ever.”

“I said he wouldn’t—”

“Is there any point now?” Simon said. “In seeing the Seelie Queen? Now that we know Jace is possessed, or maybe hiding out on purpose—”

“You don’t miss an appointment with the Seelie Queen,” Isabelle said firmly. “Not if you value your skin the way it is.”

“But she’ll just take away the rings from Clary and we won’t learn anything,” Simon argued. “We know more now. We have different questions for her now. She won’t answer them, though. She’ll just answer the old ones. That’s how faeries work. They don’t do favors. It’s not like she’s going to let us go talk to Magnus and then come back.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Clary rubbed her hands across her face. They came away dry. At some point her tears had stopped coming, thank God. She hadn’t wanted to face the Queen looking like she’d just been bawling her eyes out. “I never got the rings.”

Isabelle blinked. “What?”

“After I saw Jace and Sebastian, I was too shaken to get them. I just raced out of the Institute and Portaled here.”

“Well, we can’t see the Queen, then,” said Alec. “If you didn’t do what she asked you to, she’ll be furious.”

“She’ll be more than furious,” said Isabelle. “You saw what she did to Alec last time we went to the Court. And that was just a glamour. She’ll probably turn Clary into a lobster or something.”

“She knew,” Clary said. “She said, ‘When you find him again, he may well not be quite as you left him.’” The Seelie Queen’s voice drifted through Clary’s head. She shivered. She could understand why Simon hated faeries so much. They always knew exactly the right words that would lodge like a splinter in your brain, painful and impossible to ignore or remove. “She’s just playing around with us. She wants those rings, but I don’t think there’s any chance she’ll really help us.”

“Okay,” Isabelle said doubtfully. “But if she knew that much, she might know more. And who else is going to be able to help us, since we can’t go to the Clave?”

“Magnus,” Clary said. “He’s been trying to decode Lilith’s spell all this time. Maybe if I tell him what I saw, it’ll help.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “It’s a good thing we know the person who’s dating Magnus,” he said. “Otherwise, I get the feeling we’d all just lie around all the time wondering what the hell to do next. Or try to raise the money to hire Magnus by selling lemonade.”

Alec looked merely irritated by this comment. “The only way you could raise enough money to hire Magnus by selling lemonade is if you put meth in it.”

“It’s an expression. We are all aware that your boyfriend is expensive. I just wish we didn’t have to go running to him with every problem.”

“So does he,” said Alec. “Magnus has another job today, but I’ll talk to him tonight and we can all meet at his loft tomorrow morning.”

Clary nodded. She couldn’t even imagine getting up the next morning. She knew the sooner they talked to Magnus the better, but she felt drained and exhausted, as if she’d left pints of her blood on the library floor in the Institute.

Isabelle had moved closer to Simon. “I guess that leaves us the rest of the afternoon,” she said. “Should we go to Taki’s? They’ll serve you blood.”

Simon glanced over at Clary, clearly worried. “Do you want to come?”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll grab a cab back to Williamsburg. I should spend some time with my mom. All of this stuff with Sebastian has her falling apart already, and now…”

Isabelle’s black hair flew in the wind as she whipped her head back and forth. “You can’t tell her what you saw. Luke’s on the Council. He can’t keep it from them, and you can’t ask her to keep it from him.”

“I know.” Clary looked at the three anxious gazes fixed on her. How had this happened? she thought. She, who had never kept secrets from Jocelyn — not real ones, anyway — was about to go home and hide something enormous from both her mother and Luke. Something she could talk about only with people like Alec and Isabelle Lightwood and Magnus Bane, people that six months ago she hadn’t known existed. It was strange how your world could shift on its axis and everything you trusted could invert itself in what seemed like no time at all.

At least she still had Simon. Constant, permanent Simon. She kissed him on the cheek, waved her good-bye to the others, and turned away, aware that all three of them were watching her worriedly as she strode away across the park, the last of the dead fall leaves crunching under her sneakers as if they were tiny bones.

Alec had lied. It wasn’t Magnus who had something to do that afternoon. It was himself.

He knew what he was doing was a mistake, but he couldn’t help himself: it was like a drug, this needing to know more. And now, here he was, underground, holding his witchlight and wondering just what the hell he was doing.

Like all New York subway stations, this one smelled of rust and water, metal and decay. But unlike any other station Alec had ever been in, it was eerily quiet. Aside from the marks of water damage, the walls and platform were clean. Vaulted ceilings, punctuated by the occasional chandelier, rose above him, the arches patterned in green tile. The nameplate tiles on the wall read CITY HALL in block lettering.

The City Hall subway station had been out of use since 1945, though the city still kept it in order as a landmark; the 6 train ran through it on occasion to make a turnaround, but no one ever stood on this platform. Alec had crawled through a hatch in City Hall Park surrounded by dogwood trees to reach this place, dropping down a distance that would probably have broken a mundane’s legs. Now he stood, breathing in the dusty air, his heart rate quickening.

This was where the letter the vampire subjugate had handed him in Magnus’s entryway had directed him to go. At first he had determined he would never use the information. But he had not been able to bring himself to throw it away. He had balled it up and shoved it into his jeans pocket, and all through the day, even in Central Park, it had eaten at the back of his mind.

It was like the whole situation with Magnus. He couldn’t seem to help worrying at it the way one might worry at a diseased tooth, knowing you were making the situation worse but not being able to stop. Magnus had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t his fault he was hundreds of years old, and that he had been in love before. But it corroded Alec’s peace of mind just the same. And now, knowing both more and less about Jace’s situation than he had yesterday — it was too much. He needed to talk to someone, go somewhere, do something.

So here he was. And here she was, he was sure of it. He moved slowly down the platform. The ceiling vaulted overhead, a central skylight letting in light from the park above, four lines of tiles radiating out from it like a spider’s legs. At the end of a platform was a short staircase, which led up into gloom. Alec could detect the presence of a glamour: any mundane looking up would see a concrete wall, but he saw an open doorway. Silently, he headed up the steps.

He found himself in a gloomy, low-ceilinged room. An amethyst-glass skylight let in a little light. In a shadowy corner of the room sat an elegant velvet sofa with an arched, gilded back, and on the sofa sat Camille.

She was as beautiful as Alec remembered, though she had not been at her best the last time he had seen her, filthy and chained to a pipe in a building under construction. She wore a neat black suit now with high-heeled red shoes, and her hair spilled down her shoulders in waves and curls. She had a book open on her lap—La Place de l’Étoile by Patrick Modiano. He knew enough French to translate the title. “The Place of the Star.”

She looked at Alec as if she had expected to see him.

“Hello, Camille,” he said.

She blinked slowly. “Alexander Lightwood,” she said. “I recognized your footsteps on the stairs.”

She put the back of her hand against her cheek and smiled at him. There was something distant about her smile. It had all the warmth of dust. “I don’t suppose you have a message from Magnus for me.”

Alec said nothing.

“Of course not,” she said. “Silly me. As if he knows where you are.”

“How did you know it was me?” he said. “On the stairway.”

“You’re a Lightwood,” she said. “Your family never gives up. I knew you wouldn’t let well enough alone after what I said to you that night. The message today was just to prod your memory.”

“I didn’t need to be reminded of what you promised me. Or were you lying?”

“I would have said anything to get free that night,” she said. “But I wasn’t lying.” She leaned forward, her eyes bright and dark at the same time. “You are Nephilim, of the Clave and Council. There is a price on my head for murdering Shadowhunters. But I already know you have not come here to bring me to them. You want answers.”

“I want to know where Jace is,” he said.

“You want to know that,” she said. “But you know there’s no reason I’d have the answer, and I don’t. I’d give it to you if I did. I know he was taken by Lilith’s son, and I have no reason to have any loyalty to her. She is gone. I know there have been patrols out looking for me, to discover whatever I might know. I can tell you now, I know nothing. I would tell you where your friend is if I knew. I have no reason to further antagonize the Nephilim.” She ran a hand through her thick blond hair. “But that’s not why you’re here. Admit it, Alexander.”

Alec felt his breath quicken. He had thought of this moment, lying awake at night beside Magnus, listening to the warlock breathing, hearing his own breaths, numbering them out. Each breath a breath closer to aging and dying. Each night spinning him closer to the end of everything.

“You said you knew a way to make me immortal,” said Alec. “You said you knew a way Magnus and I could be together forever.”

“I did, didn’t I? How interesting.”

“I want you to tell it to me now.”

“And I will,” she said, setting down her book. “For a price.”

“No price,” said Alec. “I freed you. Now you’ll tell me what I want to know. Or I’ll give you to the Clave. They’ll chain you on the roof of the Institute and wait for sunrise.”

Her eyes went hard and flat. “I do not care for threats.”

“Then give me what I want.”

She stood up, brushing her hands down the front of her jacket, smoothing the wrinkles. “Come and take it from me, Shadowhunter.”

It was as if all the frustration, panic, and despair of the past weeks exploded out of Alec. He leaped for Camille, just as she started for him, her fang teeth snapping outward.

Alec barely had time to draw his seraph blade from his belt before she was on him. He had fought vampires before; their swiftness and force was stunning. It was like fighting the leading edge of a tornado. He threw himself to the side, rolled onto his feet, and kicked a fallen ladder in her direction; it stopped her briefly enough for him to lift the blade and whisper, “Nuriel.”

The light of the seraph blade shot up like a star, and Camille hesitated — then flung herself at him again. She attacked, ripping her long nails along his cheek and shoulder. He felt the warmth and wetness of blood. Spinning, he slashed at her, but she rose into the air, darting just out of reach, laughing and taunting him.

He ran for the stairs leading down to the platform. She rushed after him; he dodged aside, spun, and pushed off the wall into the air, leaping toward her just as she dived. They collided in midair, her screaming and slashing at him, him keeping a firm hold on her arm, even as they crashed to the ground, almost getting the wind knocked out of him. Keeping her earthbound was the key to winning the fight, and he silently thanked Jace, who had made him practice flips over and over in the training room until he could use almost any surface to get himself airborne for at least a moment or two.

He slashed with the seraph blade as they rolled across the floor, and she deflected his blows easily, moving so fast she was a blur. She kicked at him with her high heels, stabbing his legs with their points. He winced and swore, and she responded with an impressive torrent of filth that involved his sex life with Magnus, her sex life with Magnus, and there might have been more had they not reached the center of the room, where the skylight above beamed a circle of sunshine onto the floor. Seizing her wrist, Alec forced Camille’s hand down, into the light.

She screamed as enormous white blisters appeared on her skin. Alec could feel the heat from her bubbling hand. Fingers laced with hers, he jerked her hand upright, back into the shadows. She snarled and snapped at him. He elbowed her in the mouth, splitting her lip. Vampire blood — shimmering bright red, brighter than human blood — dripped from the corner of her mouth.

“Have you had enough?” he snarled. “Do you want more?” He began to force her hand back toward the sunlight. It had already begun to heal, the red, blistered skin fading to pink.

“No!” She gasped, coughed, and began to tremble, her whole body spasming. After a moment he realized she was laughing—laughing up at him through the blood. “That made me feel alive, little Nephilim. A good fight like that — I should thank you.”

“Thank me by giving me the answer to my question,” Alec said, panting. “Or I’ll ash you. I’m sick of your games.”

Her lips stretched into a smile. Her cuts had healed already, though her face was still bloody. “There is no way to make you immortal. Not without black magic or turning you into a vampire, and you have rejected both options.”

“But you said — you said there was another way we could be together—”

“Oh, there is.” Her eyes danced. “You may not be able to give yourself immortality, little Nephilim, at least not on any terms that would be acceptable to you. But you can take Magnus’s away.”

Clary sat in her bedroom at Luke’s, a pen clutched in her hand, a piece of paper spread out on the desk in front of her. The sun had gone down, and the desk light was on, blazing down on the rune she had just begun.

It had started to come to her on the L train home as she’d stared unseeingly out the window. It was nothing that had ever existed before, and she had rushed home from the station while the image was still fresh in her mind, brushing away her mother’s inquiries, closing herself in her room, putting pen to paper—

A knock came on the door. Quickly Clary slid the paper she was drawing on under a blank sheet as her mother came into the room.

“I know, I know,” Jocelyn said, holding up a hand against Clary’s protest. “You want to be left alone. But Luke made dinner, and you should eat.”

Clary gave her mother a look. “So should you.” Jocelyn, like her daughter, was given to loss of appetite under stress, and her face looked hollow. She should have been preparing for her honeymoon now, getting ready to pack her bags for somewhere beautiful and far away. Instead the wedding was postponed indefinitely, and Clary could hear her crying through the walls at night. Clary knew that kind of crying, born out of anger and guilt, a crying that said This is all my fault.

“I’ll eat if you will,” Jocelyn said, forcing a smile. “Luke made pasta.”

Clary turned her chair around, deliberately angling her body to block her mother’s view of her desk. “Mom,” she said. “There was something I wanted to ask you.”

“What is it?”

Clary bit the end of her pen, a bad habit she’d had since she started to draw. “When I was in the Silent City with Jace, the Brothers told me that there’s a ceremony performed on Shadowhunters at birth, a ceremony that protects them. That the Iron Sisters and the Silent Brothers have to perform it. And I was wondering…”

“If the ceremony was ever performed on you?”

Clary nodded.

Jocelyn exhaled and pushed her hands through her hair. “It was,” she said. “I arranged it through Magnus. A Silent Brother was present, someone sworn to secrecy, and a female warlock who took the place of the Iron Sister. I almost didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to think you could be in danger from the supernatural after I’d hidden you so carefully. But Magnus talked me into it, and he was right.”

Clary looked at her curiously. “Who was the female warlock?”

“Jocelyn!” It was Luke calling from the kitchen. “The water’s boiling over!”

Jocelyn dropped a quick kiss on Clary’s head. “Sorry. Culinary emergency. See you in five?”

Clary nodded as her mother hurried from the room, then turned back to her desk. The rune she had been creating was still there, teasing the edge of her mind. She began to draw again, completing the design she had started. As she finished, she sat back and stared at what she’d made. It looked a little like the Opening rune but wasn’t. It was a pattern as simple as a cross and as new to the world as a just-born baby. It held a sleeping threat, a sense that it had been born out of her rage and guilt and impotent anger.

It was a powerful rune. But though she knew exactly what it meant and how it could be used, she couldn’t think of a single way in which it could possibly be helpful in the current situation. It was like having your car break down on a lonely road, rooting desperately around in the trunk, and triumphantly pulling out an electrical extension cord instead of jumper cables.

She felt as if her own power was laughing at her. With a curse, she dropped her pen onto the desk and put her face in her hands.

The inside of the old hospital had been carefully whitewashed, lending an eerie glow to each of the surfaces. Most of the windows were boarded up, but even in the dim light Maia’s enhanced sight could pick out details — the sifted dusting of plaster along the bare hallway floors, the marks where construction lights had been put in, bits of wiring glued to the walls by clumps of paint, mice scrabbling in the darkened corners.

A voice spoke from behind her. “I’ve searched the east wing. Nothing. What about you?”

Maia turned. Jordan stood behind her, wearing dark jeans and a black sweater half-zipped over a green T-shirt. She shook her head. “Nothing in the west wing either. Some pretty rickety staircases. Nice architectural detailing, if that sort of thing interests you.”

He shook his head. “Let’s get out of here, then. This place gives me the creeps.”

Maia agreed, relieved not to be the one who had to say it. She fell into step beside Jordan as they made their way down a set of stairs whose banister was so flaked with crumbling plaster that it resembled snow. She wasn’t sure why exactly she’d agreed to patrol with him, but she couldn’t deny that they made a decent team.

Jordan was easy to be with. Despite what had happened between them just before Jace had disappeared, he was respectful, keeping his distance without making her feel awkward. The moonlight was bright on both of them as they came out of the hospital and into the open space in front of it. It was a great white marble building whose boarded-over windows looked like blank eyes. A crooked tree, shedding its last leaves, hunched before the front doors.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” said Jordan. Maia looked over at him. He was staring at the old naval hospital, which was how she preferred it. She liked looking at Jordan when he wasn’t looking at her. That way she could watch the angle of his jawline, the way his dark hair curled against the back of his neck, the curve of his collarbone under the V of his T-shirt, without feeling like he expected anything from her for looking.

He’d been a pretty hipster boy when she’d met him, all angles and eyelashes, but he was older-looking now, with scarred knuckles and muscles that moved smoothly under his close-fitting green T-shirt. He still had the olive tone to his skin that echoed his Italian heritage, and the hazel eyes she remembered, though they had the gold-ringed pupils of lycanthropy now. The same pupils she saw when she looked in the mirror every morning. The pupils she had because of him.

“Maia?” He was looking at her quizzically. “What do you think?”

“Oh.” She blinked. “I, ah — No, I don’t think there was much point in searching the hospital. I mean, to be honest, I can’t see why they sent us down here at all. The Brooklyn Navy Yard? Why would Jace be here? It’s not like he had a thing for boats.”

Jordan’s expression went from quizzical to something much darker. “When bodies wind up in the East River, a lot of times they wash up here. The navy yard.”

“You think we’re looking for a body?”

“I don’t know.” With a shrug he turned and started walking. His boots rustled in the dry, choppy grass. “Maybe at this point I’m just searching because it feels wrong to give up.”

His pace was slow, unhurried; they walked shoulder to shoulder, nearly touching. Maia kept her eyes fixed on the Manhattan skyline across the river, a wash of brilliant white light reflecting in the water. As they neared the shallow Wallabout Bay, the arch of the Brooklyn Bridge came into view, and the lit-up rectangle of the South Street Seaport across the water. She could smell the polluted miasma of the water, the dirt and diesel of the navy yard, the scent of small animals moving in the grass.

“I don’t think Jace is dead,” she said finally. “I think he doesn’t want to be found.”

At that, Jordan did look at her. “Are you saying we shouldn’t be looking?”

“No.” She hesitated. They had come out by the river, near a low wall; she trailed her hand along the top of it as they walked. There was a narrow strip of asphalt between them and the water. “When I ran away to New York, I didn’t want to be found. But I would have liked the idea that someone was looking for me as hard as everyone’s looking for Jace Lightwood.”

“Did you like Jace?” Jordan’s voice was neutral.

“Like him? Well, not like that.”

Jordan laughed. “I didn’t mean like that. Although, he seems to be generally considered stunningly attractive.”

“Are you going to pull that straight-guy thing where you pretend that you can’t tell whether other guys are attractive or not? Jace, the hairy guy at the deli on Ninth, they all look the same to you?”

“Well, the hairy guy has that mole, so I think Jace comes out slightly ahead. If you like that whole chiseled, blond, Abercrombie-and-Fitch-wishes-they-could-afford-me thing.” He looked at her through his eyelashes.

“I always liked dark-haired boys,” she said in a low voice.

He looked at the river. “Like Simon.”

“Well — yeah.” Maia hadn’t thought about Simon that way in a while. “I guess so.”

“And you like musicians.” He reached up and pulled a leaf off a low-hanging branch overhead. “I mean, I’m a singer, and Bat was a DJ, and Simon—”

“I like music.” Maia pushed her hair back from her face.

“What else do you like?” Jordan tore at the leaf in his fingers. He paused and hoisted himself up to sit on the low wall, swinging around to face her. “I mean, is there anything you like so much you think you might want to do it for, like, a living?”

She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Do you remember when I got these?” He unzipped his sweater and shrugged it off. The shirt he wore underneath was short-sleeved. Wrapped around each of his biceps were the Sanskrit words of the Shanti Mantras. She remembered them well. Their friend Valerie had inked them, after hours, for free, in her tattoo shop in Red Bank. Maia took a step toward him. With him sitting and her standing, they were nearly eye to eye. She reached out and hesitantly ran her fingers around the letters inked on his left arm. His eyes fluttered shut at her touch.

“Lead us from the unreal to the real,” she read aloud. “Lead us from darkness to light. Lead us from death to immortality.” His skin felt smooth under her fingertips. “From the Upanishads.”

“They were your idea. You were the one who was always reading. You were the one who knew everything.…” He opened his eyes and looked at her. His eyes were shades lighter than the water behind him. “Maia, whatever you want to do, I’ll help you. I’ve saved up a lot of my salary from the Praetor. I could give it to you.… It could cover your tuition to Stanford. Well, most of it. If you still wanted to go.”

“I don’t know,” she said, her mind whirling. “When I joined the pack, I thought you couldn’t be a werewolf and anything else. I thought it was just about living in the pack, not really having an identity. I felt safer that way. But Luke, he has a life. He owns a bookstore. And you, you’re in the Praetor. I guess… you can be more than one thing.”

“You always have been.” His voice was low, throaty. “You know, what you said earlier — that when you ran away you would have liked to think someone was looking for you.” He took a deep breath. “I was looking for you. I never stopped.”

She met his hazel eyes. He didn’t move, but his hands, gripping his knees, were white-knuckled. Maia leaned forward, close enough to see the faint stubble along his jaw, to smell the scent of him, wolf-smell and toothpaste and boy. She placed her hands over his. “Well,” she said. “You found me.”

Their faces were only inches away from each other. She felt his breath against her lips before he kissed her, and she leaned into it, her eyes closing. His mouth was as soft as she remembered, his lips brushing hers gently, sending shivers all through her. She raised her arms to wind them around his neck, to slide her fingers under his curling dark hair, to lightly touch the bare skin at the nape of his neck, the edge of the worn collar of his shirt.

He pulled her closer. He was shaking. She felt the heat of his strong body against hers as his hands slid down her back. “Maia,” he whispered. He started to lift the hem of her sweater, his fingers gripping the small of her back. His lips moved against hers. “I love you. I never stopped loving you.”

You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.

Her heart hammering, she jerked away from him, pulling her sweater down. “Jordan — stop.”

He looked at her, his expression dazed and worried. “I’m sorry. Was that not any good? I haven’t kissed anyone but you, not since…” He trailed off.

She shook her head. “No, it’s just — I can’t.”

“All right,” he said. He looked very vulnerable, sitting there, dismay written all over his face. “We don’t have to do anything—”

She groped for words. “It’s just too much.”

“It was only a kiss.”

“You said you loved me.” Her voice shook. “You offered to give me your savings. I can’t take that from you.”

“Which?” he said, hurt sparking in his voice. “My money, or the love part?”

“Either. I just can’t, okay? Not with you, not right now.” She started to back away. He was staring after her, his lips parted. “Don’t follow me, please,” she said, and turned to hurry back the way they had come.

5 VALENTINE’S SON

She was dreaming of icy landscapes again. Bitter tundra that stretched in all directions, ice floes drifting out on the black waters of the Arctic sea, snow-capped mountains, and cities carved out of ice whose towers sparkled like the demon towers of Alicante.

In front of the frozen city was a frozen lake. Clary was skidding down a steep slope, trying to reach the lake, though she was not sure why. Two dark figures stood out in the center of the frozen water. As she neared the lake, skidding on the surface of the slope, her hands burning from contact with the ice, and snow filling her shoes, she saw that one was a boy with black wings that spread out from his back like a crow’s. His hair was as white as the ice all around them. Sebastian. And beside Sebastian was Jace, his gold hair the only color in the frozen landscape that was not black or white.

As Jace turned away from Sebastian and began to walk toward Clary, wings burst from his back, white-gold and shimmering. Clary slid the last few feet to the frozen surface of the lake and collapsed to her knees, exhausted. Her hands were blue and bleeding, her lips cracked, her lungs seared with each icy breath.

“Jace,” she whispered.

And he was there, lifting her to her feet, his wings wrapping around her, and she was warm again, her body thawing from her heart down through her veins, bringing her hands and feet to life with half-painful, half-pleasurable tingles. “Clary,” he said, stroking her hair tenderly. “Can you promise me that you won’t scream?”

Clary’s eyes opened. For a moment she was so disoriented that the world seemed to swing around her like the view from a moving carousel. She was in her bedroom at Luke’s — the familiar futon beneath her, the wardrobe with its cracked mirror, the strip of windows that looked out onto the East River, the radiator spitting and hissing. Dim light spilled through the windows, and a faint red glow came from the smoke alarm over the closet. Clary was lying on her side, under a heap of blankets, and her back was deliciously warm. An arm was draped along her side. For a moment, in the half-conscious dizzy space between waking and sleeping, she wondered if Simon had crawled in the window while she slept and lain down beside her, the way they used to sleep in the same bed together when they were children.

But Simon had no body heat.

Her heart skittered in her chest. Now entirely awake, she twisted around under the covers. Beside her was Jace, lying on his side, looking down at her, his head propped on his hand. Dim moonlight made a halo out of his hair, and his eyes glittered gold like a cat’s. He was fully dressed, still wearing the short-sleeved white T-shirt she had seen him in earlier that day, and his bare arms were twined with runes like climbing vines.

She sucked in a startled breath. Jace, her Jace, had never looked at her like that. He had looked at her with desire, but not with this lazy, predatory, consuming look that made her heart pulse unevenly in her chest.

She opened her mouth — to say his name or to scream, she wasn’t sure, and she never got the chance to find out; Jace moved so fast she didn’t even see it. One moment he was lying beside her, and the next he was on top of her, one hand clamped down over her mouth. His legs straddled her hips; she could feel his lean, muscled body pressed against hers.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I’d never hurt you. But I don’t want you screaming. I need to talk to you.”

She glared at him.

To her surprise he laughed. His familiar laugh, hushed to a whisper. “I can read your expressions, Clary Fray. The minute I take my hand off your mouth, you’re going to yell. Or use your training and break my wrists. Come on, promise me you won’t. Swear on the Angel.”

This time she rolled her eyes.

“Okay, you’re right,” he said. “You can’t exactly swear with my hand over your mouth. I’m going to take it off. And if you yell—” He tilted his head to the side; pale gold hair fell across his eyes. “I’ll disappear.”

He took his hand away. She lay still, breathing hard, the pressure of his body on hers. She knew he was faster than her, that there was no move she could make that he wouldn’t outpace, but for the moment he seemed to be treating their interaction as a game, something playful. He bent closer to her, and she realized her tank top had pulled up, and she could feel the muscles of his flat, hard stomach against her bare skin. Her face flushed.

Despite the heat in her face, it felt as if cold needles of ice were running up and down her veins. “What are you doing here?”

He drew back slightly, looking disappointed. “That isn’t really an answer to my question, you know. I was expecting more of a ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ I mean, it’s not every day your boyfriend comes back from the dead.”

“I already knew you weren’t dead.” She spoke through numb lips. “I saw you in the library. With—”

“Colonel Mustard?”

“Sebastian.”

He let his breath out in a low chuckle. “I knew you were there too. I could feel it.”

She felt her body tighten. “You let me think you were gone,” she said. “Before that. I thought you — I really thought there was a chance you were—” She broke off; she couldn’t say it. Dead. “It’s unforgivable. If I’d done that to you—”

“Clary.” He leaned down over her again; his hands were warm on her wrists, his breath soft in her ear. She could feel everywhere that their bare skin touched. It was horribly distracting. “I had to do it. It was too dangerous. If I’d told you, you would have had to choose between telling the Council I was still alive — and letting them hunt me — and keeping a secret that would make you an accomplice in their eyes. Then, when you saw me in the library, I had to wait. I needed to know if you still loved me, if you would go to the Council or not about what you’d seen. You didn’t. I had to know you cared more about me than the Law. You do, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know. Who are you?”

“I’m still Jace,” he said. “I still love you.”

Hot tears welled up in her eyes. She blinked, and they spilled down her face. Gently he ducked his head and kissed her cheeks, and then her mouth. She tasted her own tears, salty on his lips, and he opened her mouth with his, carefully, gently. The familiar taste and feel of him washed over her, and she leaned into him for a split second, her doubts subsumed in her body’s blind, unreasoning recognition of the need to keep him close, to keep him there—just as the door of her bedroom opened.

Jace let go of her. Clary instantly jerked away from him, scrambling to pull down her tank top. Jace stretched himself into a sitting position with unhurried, lazy grace, and grinned up at the person standing in the doorway. “Well, well,” Jace said. “You may have the worst timing since Napoléon decided the dead of winter was the right moment to invade Russia.”

It was Sebastian.

Close up, Clary could more clearly see the differences in him since she had known him in Idris. His hair was paper white, his eyes black tunnels fringed by lashes as long as spider’s legs. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves pulled up, and she could see a red scar ringing his right wrist, like a ridged bracelet. There was a scar across the palm of his hand, too, looking new and harsh.

“That’s my sister you’re defiling there, you know,” he said, moving his black gaze to Jace. There was amusement in his expression.

“Sorry.” Jace didn’t sound sorry. He was leaning back against the blankets, catlike. “We got carried away.”

Clary sucked in a breath. It sounded harsh in her own ears. “Get out,” she said, to Sebastian.

He leaned against the door frame, elbow and hip, and she was struck by the similarity in movement between him and Jace. They didn’t look alike, but they moved alike. As if—

As if they’d been trained to move by the same person.

“Now,” he said, “is that any way to talk to your big brother?”

“Magnus should have left you a coatrack,” Clary spat.

“Oh, you remember that, do you? I thought we had a pretty good time that day.” He smirked a little, and Clary, with a sick drop in her stomach, remembered how he had taken her to the burned remains of her mother’s house, how he had kissed her among the rubble, knowing all along who they really were to each other and delighting in the fact that she didn’t.

She glanced sideways at Jace. He knew perfectly well that Sebastian had kissed her. Sebastian had taunted him with it, and Jace had nearly killed him. But he didn’t look angry now; he looked amused, and mildly annoyed to have been interrupted.

“We should do it again,” Sebastian said, examining his nails. “Have some family time.”

“I don’t care what you think. You’re not my brother,” Clary said. “You’re a murderer.”

“I really don’t see how those things cancel each other out,” said Sebastian. “It’s not like they did in the case of dear old Dad.” His gaze drifted lazily back to Jace. “Normally I’d hate to get in the way of a friend’s love life, but I really don’t care for standing out here in this hallway indefinitely. Especially since I can’t turn on any lights. It’s boring.”

Jace sat up, tugging his shirt down. “Give us five minutes.”

Sebastian sighed an exaggerated sigh and swung the door shut. Clary stared at Jace. “What the f—”

“Language, Fray.” Jace’s eyes danced. “Relax.”

Clary jabbed her hand toward the door. “You heard what he said. About that day he kissed me. He knew I was his sister. Jace—”

Something flashed in his eyes, darkening their gold, but when he spoke again, it was as if her words had hit a Teflon surface and bounced off, making no impression.

She drew back from him. “Jace, aren’t you listening to anything I’m saying?”

“Look, I understand if you’re uncomfortable with your brother waiting outside in the hallway. I wasn’t planning on kissing you.” He grinned in a way that at another time she would have found adorable. “It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Clary scrambled out of the bed, staring down at him. She reached for the robe that hung on the post of her bed and wrapped it around herself. Jace watched, making no move to stop her, though his eyes shone in the dark. “I–I don’t even understand. First you disappear, and now you come back with him, acting like I’m not even supposed to notice or care or remember—”

“I told you,” he said. “I had to be sure of you. I didn’t want to put you in the position of knowing where I was while the Clave was still investigating you. I thought it would be hard for you—”

“Hard for me?” She was almost breathless with rage. “Tests are hard. Obstacle courses are hard. You disappearing like that practically killed me, Jace. And what do you think you’ve done to Alec? Isabelle? Maryse? Do you know what it’s been like? Can you imagine? Not knowing, the searching—”

That odd look passed over his face again, as if he were hearing her but not hearing her at the same time. “Oh, yes, I was going to ask.” He smiled like an angel. “Is everyone looking for me?”

“Is everyone—” She shook her head, pulling the robe closer. Suddenly she wanted to be covered up in front of him, in front of all that familiarity and beauty and that lovely predatory smile that said he was willing to do whatever with her, to her, no matter who was waiting in the hall.

“I was hoping they’d put up flyers like they do for lost cats,” he said. “Missing, one stunningly attractive teenage boy. Answers to ‘Jace,’ or ‘Hot Stuff.’”

“You did not just say that.”

“You don’t like ‘Hot Stuff’? You think ‘Sweet Cheeks’ might be better? ‘Love Crumpet’? Really, that last one’s stretching it a bit. Though, technically, my family is British—”

“Shut up,” she said savagely. “And get out.”

“I…” He looked taken aback, and she remembered how surprised he’d been outside the Manor, when she’d pushed him away. “All right, fine. I’ll be serious. Clarissa, I’m here because I want you to come with me.”

“Come where with you?”

“Come with me,” he said, and then hesitated, “and Sebastian. And I’ll explain everything.”

For a moment she was frozen, her eyes locked on his. Silvery moonlight outlined the curves of his mouth, the shape of his cheekbones, the shadow of his lashes, the arch of his throat. “The last time I ‘came with you somewhere,’ I wound up knocked unconscious and dragged into the middle of a black magic ceremony.”

“That wasn’t me. That was Lilith.”

“The Jace Lightwood I know wouldn’t be in the same room with Jonathan Morgenstern without killing him.”

“I think you’ll find that would be self-defeating,” Jace said lightly, shoving his feet into his boots. “We are bound, he and I. Cut him and I bleed.”

“Bound? What do you mean, bound?”

He tossed his light hair back, ignoring her question. “This is bigger than you understand, Clary. He has a plan. He’s willing to work, to sacrifice. If you’d give me a chance to explain—”

“He killed Max, Jace,” she said. “Your little brother.”

He flinched, and for a moment of wild hope she thought she’d broken through to him — but his expression smoothed over like a wrinkled sheet pulled tight. “That was — it was an accident. Besides, Sebastian’s just as much my brother.”

“No.” Clary shook her head. “He’s not your brother. He’s mine. God knows, I wish it weren’t true. He should never have been born—”

“How can you say that?” Jace demanded. He swung his legs out of the bed. “Have you ever considered that maybe things aren’t so black and white as you think?” He bent over to grab his weapons belt and buckle it on. “There was a war, Clary, and people got hurt, but — things were different then. Now I know Sebastian would never harm anyone I loved intentionally. He’s serving a greater cause. Sometimes there’s collateral damage—”

“Did you just call your own brother collateral damage?” Her voice rose in an incredulous half shout. She felt as if she could barely breathe.

“Clary, you’re not listening. This is important—”

“Like what Valentine thought he was doing was important?”

“Valentine was wrong,” he said. “He was right that the Clave was corrupt but wrong about how to go about fixing things. But Sebastian is right. If you’d just hear us out—”

“‘Us,’” she said. “God. Jace…” He was staring at her from the bed, and even as she felt her heart breaking, her mind was racing, trying to remember where she had left her stele, wondering if she could get to the X-Acto knife in the drawer of her nightstand. Wondering if she could bring herself to use it if she did.

“Clary?” Jace tilted his head to the side, studying her face. “You do — you still love me, don’t you?”

“I love Jace Lightwood,” she said. “I don’t know who you are.”

His face changed, but before he could speak, a scream shattered the silence. A scream, and the sound of breaking glass.

Clary knew the voice instantly. It was her mother.

Without another glance at Jace, she yanked the bedroom door open and bolted down the hallway, into the living room. The living room in Luke’s house was large, divided from the kitchen by a long counter. Jocelyn, in yoga pants and a frayed T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, stood by the counter. She had clearly come into the kitchen for something to drink. A glass lay shattered at her feet, the water soaking into the gray carpeting.

All the color had drained from her face, leaving her as pale as bleached sand. She was staring across the room, and even before Clary turned her head, she knew what her mother was looking at.

Her son.

Sebastian was leaning against the living room wall, near the door, with no expression on his angular face. He lowered his eyelids and looked at Jocelyn through his lashes. Something about his posture, the look of him, could have stepped out of Hodge’s photograph of Valentine at seventeen years old.

“Jonathan,” Jocelyn whispered. Clary stood frozen, even as Jace burst out of the hallway, took in the scene in front of him in one moment, and came to a halt. His left hand was at his weapons belt; his slim fingers were inches from the hilt of one of his daggers, but Clary knew it would take him less than seconds to free it.

“I go by ‘Sebastian’ now,” said Clary’s brother. “I concluded that I wasn’t interested in keeping the name you and my father gave me. Both of you betrayed me, and I would prefer as little association with you as possible.”

Water spread out from the pool of broken glass at Jocelyn’s feet in a dark ring. She took a step forward, her eyes searching, running up and down Sebastian’s face. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “Dead. I saw your bones turned to ashes.”

Sebastian looked at her, his black eyes quiet and narrow. “If you were a real mother,” he said, “a good mother, you would have known I was alive. There was a man once who said that mothers carry the key of our souls with them all our lives. But you threw mine away.”

Jocelyn made a sound in the back of her throat. She was leaning against the counter for support. Clary wanted to run to her, but her feet felt frozen to the ground. Whatever was happening between her brother and her mother, it was something that had nothing to do with her.

“Don’t tell me you aren’t even a little glad to see me, Mother,” Sebastian said, and though his words were pleading, his voice was flat. “Aren’t I everything you could want in a son?” He spread his arms wide. “Strong, handsome, looks just like dear old Dad.”

Jocelyn shook her head, her face gray. “What do you want, Jonathan?”

“I want what everyone wants,” said Sebastian. “I want what’s owed to me. In this case the Morgenstern legacy.”

“The Morgenstern legacy is blood and devastation,” said Jocelyn. “We are not Morgensterns here. Not me, and not my daughter.” She straightened up. Her hand was still gripping the counter, but Clary could see some of the old fire returning to her mother’s expression. “If you go now, Jonathan, I won’t tell the Clave you were ever here.” Her eyes flicked to Jace. “Or you. If they knew you were cooperating, they would kill you both.”

Clary moved to stand in front of Jace, reflexively. He looked past her, over her shoulder, at her mother. “You care if I die?” Jace said.

“I care about what it would do to my daughter,” said Jocelyn. “And the Law is hard—too hard. What has happened to you — maybe it can be undone.” Her eyes moved back to Sebastian. “But for you — my Jonathan — it’s much too late.”

The hand that had been gripping the counter swept forward, holding Luke’s long-handled kindjal blade. Tears shone on Jocelyn’s face. But her grip on the knife was steady.

“I look just like him, don’t I?” Sebastian said, not moving. He seemed barely to notice the knife. “Valentine. That’s why you’re looking at me like that.”

Jocelyn shook her head. “You look like you always did, from the moment I first saw you. You look like a demon thing.” Her voice was achingly sad. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For not killing you when you were born,” she said, and came out from behind the counter, spinning the kindjal in her hand.

Clary tensed, but Sebastian didn’t move. His dark eyes followed his mother as she came toward him. “Is that what you want?” he said. “For me to die?” He opened his arms, as if he meant to embrace Jocelyn, and took a step forward. “Go ahead. Commit filicide. I won’t stop you.”

“Sebastian,” said Jace. Clary shot him an incredulous look. Did he actually sound concerned?

Jocelyn moved another step forward. The knife was a blur in her hand. When it came to a stop, the tip was pointed directly at Sebastian’s heart.

Still, he didn’t move.

“Do it,” he said softly. He cocked his head to the side. “Or can you bring yourself to? You could have killed me when I was born. But you didn’t.” His voice lowered. “Maybe you know that there is no such thing as conditional love for a child. Maybe if you loved me enough, you could save me.”

For a moment they stared at each other, mother and son, ice-green eyes meeting coal-black ones. There were sharp lines at the corners of Jocelyn’s mouth that Clary could have sworn hadn’t been there two weeks ago. “You’re pretending,” she said, her voice shaking. “You don’t feel anything, Jonathan. Your father taught you to feign human emotion the way one might teach a parrot to repeat words. It doesn’t understand what it’s saying, and neither do you. I wish — oh, God, I wish — that you did. But—”

Jocelyn brought the blade up in a swift, clean, cutting arc. A perfectly placed blow, it should have driven up under Sebastian’s ribs and into his heart. It would have, if he had not moved even faster than Jace; he spun away and back, and the tip of the blade cut only a shallow slash along his chest.

Beside Clary, Jace sucked in his breath. She whirled to look at him. There was a spreading red stain across the front of his shirt. He touched his hand to it; his fingertips came away bloody. We are bound. Cut him and I bleed.

Without another thought Clary darted across the room, throwing herself between Jocelyn and Sebastian. “Mom,” she gasped. “Stop.”

Jocelyn was still holding the knife, her eyes on Sebastian. “Clary, get out of the way.”

Sebastian began to laugh. “Sweet, isn’t it?” he said. “A little sister defending her big brother.”

“I’m not defending you.” Clary kept her eyes fixed on her mother’s face. “Whatever happens to Jonathan happens to Jace. Do you understand, Mom? If you kill him, Jace dies. He’s already bleeding. Mom, please.”

Jocelyn was still gripping the knife, but her expression was uncertain. “Clary…”

“Gracious, how awkward,” Sebastian observed. “I’ll be interested to see how you resolve this. After all, I’ve got no reason to leave.”

“Yes, actually,” came a voice from the hallway, “you do.”

It was Luke, barefoot and in jeans and an old sweater. He looked tousled, and oddly younger without his glasses. He also had a sawed-off shotgun balanced at his shoulder, the barrel trained directly on Sebastian. “This is a Winchester twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. The pack uses it to put down wolves who’ve gone rogue,” he said. “Even if I don’t kill you, I can blow your leg off, Valentine’s son.”

It was as if everyone in the room took a quick gasp of breath all at once — everyone except Luke. And Sebastian, who, a grin splitting his face in half, turned and walked toward Luke, as if oblivious of the gun. “‘Valentine’s son,’” he said. “Is that really how you think of me? Under other circumstances you could have been my godfather.”

“Under other circumstances,” said Luke, sliding his finger onto the trigger, “you could have been human.”

Sebastian stopped in his tracks. “The same could be said of you, werewolf.”

The world seemed to have slowed down. Luke sighted along the barrel of the rifle. Sebastian stood smiling.

“Luke,” Clary said. It was like one of those dreams, a nightmare where she wanted to scream but all that would scrape past her throat was a whisper. “Luke, don’t do it.”

Her stepfather’s finger tightened on the trigger — and then Jace exploded into movement, launching himself from beside Clary, flipping over the sofa, and slamming into Luke just as the shotgun went off.

The shot flew wide; one of the windows shattered outward as the bullet struck it. Luke, knocked off balance, staggered back. Jace yanked the gun from his hands and threw it. It hurtled through the broken window, and Jace turned back toward the older man.

“Luke—,” he began.

Luke hit him.

Even knowing everything she knew, the shock of it, seeing Luke, who had stood up for Jace countless times to her mother, to Maryse, to the Clave — Luke, who was basically gentle and kind — seeing him actually strike Jace across the face was as if he had hit Clary instead. Jace, totally unprepared, was thrown backward into the wall.

And Sebastian, who had so far shown no real emotion beyond mockery and disgust, snarled — snarled and drew from his belt a long, thin dagger. Luke’s eyes widened, and he began to twist away, but Sebastian was faster than him — faster than anyone else Clary had ever seen. Faster than Jace. He drove the dagger into Luke’s chest, twisting it hard before jerking it back out, red to the hilt. Luke fell back against the wall — then slid down it, leaving a smear of blood behind as Clary stared in horror.

Jocelyn screamed. The sound was worse than the sound of the bullet shattering the window, though Clary heard it as if it came from a distance away, or underwater. She was staring at Luke, who had collapsed to the floor, the carpet around him rapidly turning red.

Sebastian raised the dagger again — and Clary flung herself at him, slamming as hard as she could into his shoulder, trying to knock him off balance. She barely moved him, but he did drop the dagger. He turned on her. He was bleeding from a split lip. Clary didn’t know why, not until Jace swung into her field of vision and she saw the blood on his mouth where Luke had hit him.

“Enough!” Jace grabbed Sebastian by the back of the jacket. He was pale, not looking at Luke, or at Clary, either. “Stop it. This isn’t why we came here.”

“Let me go—”

“No.” Jace reached around Sebastian and grabbed his hand. His eyes met Clary’s. His lips shaped words — there was a flash of silver, the ring on Sebastian’s finger — and then both of them were gone, winking out of existence between one breath and another. Just as they vanished, a streak of something metallic shot through the air where they had been standing, and buried itself in the wall.

Luke’s kindjal.

Clary turned to look at her mother, who had thrown the knife. But Jocelyn wasn’t looking at Clary. She was darting to Luke’s side, dropping to her knees on the bloody carpet, and pulling him up into her lap. His eyes were closed. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. Sebastian’s silver dagger, smeared with more blood, lay a few feet away.

“Mom,” Clary whispered. “Is he—”

“The dagger was silver.” Jocelyn’s voice shook. “He won’t heal fast like he should, not without special treatment.” She touched Luke’s face with her fingertips. His chest was rising and falling, Clary saw with relief, if shallowly. She could taste tears burning in the back of her throat and for a moment was amazed at her mother’s calm. But then this was the woman who had once stood in the ashes of her home, surrounded by the blackened bodies of her family, including her parents and son, and had gone on from that. “Get some towels from the bathroom,” her mother said. “We have to stop the bleeding.”

Clary staggered to her feet and went almost blindly into Luke’s small, tiled bathroom. There was a gray towel hanging from the back of the door. She yanked it down, went back into the living room. Jocelyn was holding Luke in her lap with one hand; the other hand held a cell phone. She dropped it and reached for the towel as Clary came in. Folding it in half, she laid it over the wound in Luke’s chest and pressed down. Clary watched as the edges of the gray towel began to turn scarlet with blood.

“Luke,” Clary whispered. He didn’t move. His face was an awful gray color.

“I just called his pack,” Jocelyn said. She didn’t look at her daughter; Clary realized Jocelyn had not asked her a single question about Jace and Sebastian, or why she and Jace had emerged from her bedroom, or what they had been doing there. She was entirely focused on Luke. “They have some members patrolling the area. As soon as they get here, we have to leave. Jace will come back for you.”

“You don’t know that—,” Clary began, whispering past her dry throat.

“I do,” said Jocelyn. “Valentine came back for me after fifteen years. That’s what the Morgenstern men are like. They don’t ever give up. He’ll come for you again.”

Jace isn’t Valentine. But the words died on Clary’s lips. She wanted to drop to her knees and take Luke’s hand, hold it tightly, tell him she loved him. But she remembered Jace’s hands on her in the bedroom and didn’t. This was her fault. She didn’t deserve to get to comfort Luke, or herself. She deserved the pain, the guilt.

The scrape of footsteps sounded on the porch, the low murmur of voices. Jocelyn’s head jerked up. The pack.

“Clary, go and get your things,” she said. “Take what you think you’ll need but not more than you can carry. We’re not coming back to this house.”

6 NO WEAPON IN THIS WORLD

Little flakes of early snow had begun to fall from the steel-gray sky like feathers as Clary and her mother hurried along Greenpoint Avenue, their heads bent against the chill wind coming off the East River.

Jocelyn had not spoken a word since they had left Luke at the disused police station that served as pack headquarters. The whole thing had been a blur — the pack carrying their leader in, the healing kit, Clary and her mother struggling to get a glimpse of Luke as the wolves seemed to close ranks against them. She knew why they couldn’t take him to a mundane hospital, but it had been hard, beyond hard, to leave him there in the whitewashed room that served as their infirmary.

It wasn’t that the wolves didn’t like Jocelyn or Clary. It was that Luke’s fiancée and her daughter weren’t part of the pack. They never would be. Clary had looked around for Maia, for an ally, but she hadn’t been there. Eventually Jocelyn had sent Clary out to wait in the corridor since the room had been too crowded, and Clary had slumped on the floor, cradling her knapsack on her lap. It had been two in the morning, and she had never felt so alone. If Luke died…

She could barely remember a life without him. Because of him and her mother, she knew what it was like to be loved unconditionally. Luke swinging her up to perch her in the fork of an apple tree on his farm upstate was one of her earliest memories. In the infirmary he had been taking rattling breaths while his third in command, Bat, had unpacked the healing kit. People were supposed to take rattling breaths when they died, she’d remembered. She couldn’t remember the last thing she’d said to Luke. Weren’t you supposed to remember the last thing you said to someone before they died?

When Jocelyn had come out of the infirmary at last, looking exhausted, she’d held out a hand to Clary and had helped her up off the floor.

“Is he…,” Clary had begun.

“He’s stabilized,” Jocelyn had said. She’d looked up and down the hallway. “We should go.”

“Go where?” Clary had been bewildered. “I thought we’d stay here, with Luke. I don’t want to leave him.”

“Neither do I.” Jocelyn had been firm. Clary had thought of the woman who’d turned her back on Idris, on everything she’d ever known, and had walked away from it to start a new life alone. “But we can’t lead Jace and Jonathan here either. It’s not safe for the pack, or Luke. And this is the first place Jace will look for you.”

“Then where…,” Clary had started, but she’d realized, even before she’d finished her own sentence, and had shut her mouth. Where did they ever go when they needed help these days?

Now there was a sugary dusting of white along the cracked pavement of the avenue. Jocelyn had put on a long coat before they’d left the house, but beneath it she still wore the clothes that were stained with Luke’s blood. Her mouth was set, her gaze unwavering on the road before her. Clary wondered if this was how her mother had looked walking out of Idris, her boots clogged with ashes, the Mortal Cup hidden in her coat.

Clary shook her head to clear it. She was being fanciful, imagining things she hadn’t been present to see, her mind skittering away, perhaps, from the awfulness of what she just had seen.

Unbidden, the image of Sebastian driving the knife into Luke came into her head, and the sound of Jace’s familiar and beloved voice saying “collateral damage.”

For as is often the happenstance with that which is precious and lost, when you find him again, he may well not be quite as you left him.

Jocelyn shivered and flipped her hood up to cover her hair. White flakes of snow had already begun to mix with the bright red strands. She was still silent, and the street, lined with Polish and Russian restaurants in between barbershops and beauty parlors, was deserted in the white and yellow night. A memory flashed before the backs of Clary’s eyelids — a real one this time, not a wisp of imagination. Her mother was hurrying her down a night-black street between piles of heaped and dirty snow. A lowering sky, gray and leaden…

She had seen the image before, the first time the Silent Brothers had dug into her mind. She realized what it was now. Her memory of a time her mother had taken her to Magnus’s to have her memories altered. It must have been in the dead of winter, but she recognized Greenpoint Avenue in the memory.

The redbrick warehouse Magnus lived in rose above them. Jocelyn pushed open the glass doors to the entryway, and they crowded inside, Clary trying to breathe through her mouth as her mother pushed the buzzer for Magnus one, two, and three times. At last the door opened and they hurried up the stairs. The door to Magnus’s apartment was open, and the warlock was leaning against the architrave, waiting for them. He was wearing canary-yellow pajamas, and on his feet were green slippers with alien faces, complete with sproingy antennae. His hair was a tangled, curly, spiky mass of black, and his gold-green eyes blinked tiredly at them.

“Saint Magnus’s Home for Wayward Shadowhunters,” he said in a deep voice. “Welcome.” He threw an arm wide. “Spare bedrooms are that way. Wipe your boots on the mat.” He stepped back into the apartment, letting them pass through in front of him before shutting the door. Today the place was done up in a sort of faux-Victorian decor, with high-backed sofas and large gilt mirrors everywhere. The pillars were strung with lights in the shape of flowers.

There were three spare rooms down a short corridor off the main living room; at random Clary chose one on the right. It was painted orange, like her old bedroom in Park Slope, and had a sofa bed and a small window that looked out on the darkened windows of a closed diner. Chairman Meow was curled up on the bed, nose tucked under his tail. She sat down beside him and petted his ears, feeling the purring that vibrated through his small furry body. As she stroked him, she caught sight of the sleeve of her sweater. It was stained dark and crusted with blood. Luke’s blood.

She stood up and yanked the sweater off violently. From her backpack she took a clean pair of jeans and a black V-necked thermal shirt and changed into them. She glanced at herself briefly in the window, which showed her a pale reflection, her hair hanging limply, damp with snow, her freckles standing out like paint splotches. Not that it mattered what she looked like. She thought of Jace kissing her — it felt like days ago instead of hours — and her stomach hurt as if she’d swallowed tiny knives.

She held on to the edge of the bed for a long moment until the pain subsided. Then she took a deep breath and went back out into the living room.

Her mother was seated on one of the gilt-backed chairs, her long artist’s fingers wrapped around a mug of hot water with lemon. Magnus was slumped on a hot-pink sofa, his green slippers up on the coffee table. “The pack stabilized him,” Jocelyn was saying in an exhausted voice. “They don’t know for how long, though. They thought there might have been silver powder on the blade, but it appears to be something else. The tip of the knife—” She glanced up, saw Clary, and fell silent.

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m old enough to hear what’s wrong with Luke.”

“Well, they don’t know exactly what it is,” Jocelyn said softly. “The tip of the blade Sebastian used broke off against one of his ribs and lodged in the bone. But they can’t retrieve it. It… moves.”

“It moves?” Magnus looked puzzled.

“When they tried to dig it out, it burrowed into the bone and nearly snapped it,” Jocelyn said. “He’s a werewolf, he heals fast, but it’s in there gashing up his internal organs, keeping the wound from closing.”

“Demon metal,” said Magnus. “Not silver.”

Jocelyn leaned forward. “Do you think you can help him? Whatever it costs, I’ll pay—”

Magnus stood up. His alien slippers and rumpled bed-head seemed extremely incongruous given the gravity of the situation. “I don’t know.”

“But you healed Alec,” said Clary. “When the Greater Demon wounded him…”

Magnus had begun to pace. “I knew what was wrong with him. I don’t know what kind of demon metal this is. I could experiment, try different healing spells, but it won’t be the fastest way to help him.”

“What’s the fastest way?” Jocelyn said.

“The Praetor,” said Magnus. “The Wolf Guard. I knew the man who founded it — Woolsey Scott. Because of certain… incidents, he was fascinated with minutiae about the way demon metals and demon drugs act on lycanthropes, the same way the Silent Brothers keep records of the ways Nephilim can be healed. Over the years the Praetor have become very closed-off and secretive, unfortunately. But a member of the Praetor could access their information.”

“Luke’s not a member,” Jocelyn said. “And their roster is secret—”

“But Jordan,” said Clary. “Jordan’s a member. He can find out. I’ll call him—”

“I’ll call him,” said Magnus. “I can’t get into Praetor headquarters, but I can pass on a message that ought to hold some extra weight. I’ll be back.” He padded off to the kitchen, the antennae on his slippers waving gently like seaweed in a current.

Clary turned back to her mother, who was staring down at her mug of hot water. It was one of her favorite restoratives, though Clary could never figure out why anyone would want to drink warm sour water. The snow had soaked her mother’s hair, and now that it was drying, it was beginning to curl, like Clary’s did in humid weather.

“Mom,” Clary said, and her mother looked up. “That knife you threw — back at Luke’s — was it at Jace?”

“It was at Jonathan.” She would never call him Sebastian, Clary knew.

“It’s just…” Clary took a deep breath. “It’s almost the same thing. You saw. When you stabbed Sebastian, Jace started to bleed. It’s like they’re — mirrored in some way. Cut Sebastian, Jace bleeds. Kill him, and Jace dies.”

“Clary.” Her mother rubbed her tired eyes. “Can we not discuss this now?”

“But you said you think he’ll come back for me. Jace, I mean. I need to know that you won’t hurt him—”

“Well, you can’t know that. Because I won’t promise it, Clary. I can’t.” Her mother looked at her with unflinching eyes. “I saw the two of you come out of your bedroom.”

Clary flushed. “I don’t want to—”

“To what? Talk about it? Well, too bad. You brought it up. You’re lucky I’m not in the Clave anymore, you know. How long have you known where Jace was?”

“I don’t know where he is. Tonight is the first time I’ve talked to him since he disappeared. I saw him in the Institute with Seb — with Jonathan, yesterday. I told Alec and Isabelle and Simon. But I couldn’t tell anyone else. If the Clave got hold of him — I can’t let that happen.”

Jocelyn raised her green eyes. “And why not?”

“Because he’s Jace. Because I love him.”

“He’s not Jace. That’s just it, Clary. He’s not who he was. Can’t you see that—”

“Of course I can see it. I’m not stupid. But I have faith. I saw him possessed before, and I saw him break free of it. I think Jace is still inside there somewhere. I think there’s a way to save him.”

“What if there isn’t?”

“Prove it.”

“You can’t prove a negative, Clarissa. I understand that you love him. You always have loved him, too much. You think I didn’t love your father? You think I didn’t give him every chance? And look what came of that. Jonathan. If I hadn’t stayed with your father, he wouldn’t exist—”

“Neither would I,” said Clary. “In case you forgot, I came after my brother, not before.” She looked at her mother, hard. “Are you saying it would be worth it never to have had me, if you could get rid of Jonathan?”

“No, I—”

There was the grating sound of keys in a lock, and the apartment door swung open. It was Alec. He wore a long leather duster open over a blue sweater, and there were white flakes of snow in his black hair. His cheeks were candy-apple red from the cold, but his face was otherwise pale.

“Where’s Magnus?” he said. As he looked toward the kitchen, Clary saw a bruise on his jaw, below his ear, about the size of a thumbprint.

“Alec!” Magnus came skidding into the living room and blew a kiss to his boyfriend across the room. Having discarded his slippers, he was barefoot now. His cat’s eyes shone as he looked at Alec.

Clary knew that look. That was herself looking at Jace. Alec didn’t return the gaze, though. He was shucking off his coat and hanging it on a hook on the wall. He was visibly upset. His hands were trembling, his broad shoulders tightly set.

“You got my text?” Magnus asked.

“Yeah. I was only a few blocks away anyway.” Alec looked at Clary, and then at her mother, anxiety and uncertainty warring in his expression. Though Alec had been invited to Jocelyn’s reception party, and had met her several times besides that, they did not by any measure know each other well. “It’s true, what Magnus said? You saw Jace again?”

“And Sebastian,” said Clary.

“But Jace,” Alec said. “How was — I mean, how did he seem?”

Clary knew exactly what he was asking; for once she and Alec understood each other better than anyone else in the room. “He’s not playing a trick on Sebastian,” she replied softly. “He really has changed. He isn’t like himself at all.”

“How?” Alec demanded, with an odd blend of anger and vulnerability. “How is he different?”

There was a hole in the knee of Clary’s jeans; she picked at it, scraping the skin underneath. “The way he talks — he believes in Sebastian. Believes in what he’s doing, whatever that is. I reminded him that Sebastian killed Max, and he didn’t even seem to care.” Her voice cracked. “He said Sebastian was just as much his brother as Max was.”

Alec whitened, the red spots on his cheeks standing out like bloodstains. “Did he say anything about me? Or Izzy? Did he ask about us?”

Clary shook her head, hardly able to stand the look on Alec’s face. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Magnus watching Alec too, his face almost blank with sadness. She wondered if he was jealous of Jace still, or just hurt on Alec’s behalf.

“Why did he come to your house?” Alec shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“He wanted me to come with him. To join him and Sebastian. I guess he wants their evil little duo to be an evil little trio.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’s lonely. Sebastian can’t be the greatest company.”

“We don’t know that. He could be absolutely fantastic at Scrabble,” said Magnus.

“He’s a murdering psychopath,” said Alec flatly. “And Jace knows it.”

“But Jace isn’t Jace right now—,” Magnus began, and broke off as the phone rang. “I’ll get that. Who knows who else might be on the run from the Clave and need a place to stay? It’s not like there are hotels in this city.” He padded off toward the kitchen.

Alec flung himself down on the sofa. “He’s working too hard,” he said, looking worriedly after his boyfriend. “He’s been up all night every night trying to decipher those runes.”

“Is the Clave employing him?” Jocelyn wanted to know.

“No,” Alec said slowly. “He’s doing it for me. Because of what Jace means to me.” He raised his sleeve, showing Jocelyn the parabatai rune on his inner forearm.

“You knew Jace wasn’t dead,” Clary said, her mind beginning to tick over thoughts. “Because you’re parabatai, because of that tie between you. But you said you felt something wrong.”

“Because he’s possessed,” Jocelyn said. “It’s changed him. Valentine said that when Luke became a Downworlder, he felt it. That sense of wrongness.”

Alec shook his head. “But when Jace was possessed by Lilith, I didn’t feel it,” he said. “Now I can feel something… wrong. Something off.” He looked down at his shoes. “You can feel it when your parabatai dies — like there was a cord tying you to something and it has snapped, and now you’re falling.” He looked at Clary. “I felt it, once, in Idris, during the battle. But it was so brief — and when I returned to Alicante, Jace was alive. I convinced myself I had imagined it.”

Clary shook her head, thinking of Jace and the blood-soaked sand by Lake Lyn. You didn’t.

“What I feel now is different,” he went on. “I feel like he’s absent from the world but not dead. Not imprisoned… Just not here.”

“That’s just it,” Clary said. “Both times I’ve seen him and Sebastian, they’ve vanished into thin air. No Portal, just one minute they were here and the next they were gone.”

“When you talk about there or here,” said Magnus, coming back into the room with a yawn, “and this world and that world, what you’re talking about are dimensions. There are only a few warlocks who can do dimensional magic. My old friend Ragnor could. Dimensions don’t lie side by side — they’re folded together, like paper. Where they intersect, dimensional pockets can be created that prevent magic from being able to find you. After all, you’re not here—you’re there.”

“Maybe that’s why we can’t track him? Why Alec can’t feel him?” said Clary.

“Could be.” Magnus sounded almost impressed. “It would mean there’s literally no way to find them if they don’t want to be found. And no way to get a message back to us if you did find them. That’s complicated, expensive magic. Sebastian must have some connections—” The door buzzer sounded, and they all jumped. Magnus rolled his eyes. “Everyone calm down,” he said, and vanished into the entryway. He was back a moment later with a man wrapped in a long parchment-colored robe, the back and sides inked with patterns of runes in dark red-brown. Though his hood was up, shadowing his face, he looked completely dry, as if not a flake of snow had fallen on him. When he pushed the hood back, Clary was not at all surprised to see the face of Brother Zachariah.

Jocelyn set her mug down suddenly on the coffee table. She was looking at the Silent Brother. With his hood pushed back, you could see his dark hair, but his face was shadowed so that Clary could not see his eyes, only his high, rune-scarred cheekbones. “You,” Jocelyn said, her voice trailing off. “But Magnus told me that you would never—”

Unexpected events call for unexpected measures. Brother Zachariah’s voice floated out, touching the inside of Clary’s head; she knew from the expressions on the faces of the others that they could hear him too. I will say nothing to the Clave or Council of anything that transpires tonight. If the chance comes before me to save the last of the Herondale bloodline, I consider that of higher importance than the fealty I render the Clave.

“So that’s settled,” Magnus said. He made a strange pair with the Silent Brother beside him, one of them pale and blanched in robes, the other in bright yellow pajamas. “Any new insight into Lilith’s runes?”

I have studied the runes carefully and listened to all the testimony given in the Council, said Brother Zachariah. I believe that her ritual was twofold. First she used the Daylighter’s bite to revive Jonathan Morgenstern’s consciousness. His body was still weak, but his mind and will were alive. I believe that when Jace Herondale was left alone on the roof with him, Jonathan drew on the power of Lilith’s runes and forced Jace to enter the enspelled circle that surrounded him. At that point Jace’s will would have been subject to his. I believe he would have drawn on Jace’s blood for the strength to rise and escape the roof, taking Jace with him.

“And somehow all that created a connection between them?” Clary said. “Because when my mother stabbed Sebastian, Jace started to bleed.”

Yes. What Lilith did was a sort of twinning ritual, not unlike our own parabatai ceremony but much more powerful and dangerous. The two are now bound inextricably. Should one die, the other will follow. No weapon in this world can wound only one of them.

“When you say they’re bound inextricably,” Alec said, leaning forward, “does that mean — I mean, Jace hates Sebastian. Sebastian murdered our brother.”

“And I don’t see how Sebastian can be all that fond of Jace, either. He was horribly jealous of him all his life. He thought Jace was Valentine’s favorite,” added Clary.

“Not to mention,” Magnus noted, “that Jace killed him. That would put anyone off.”

“It’s like Jace doesn’t remember that any of these things happened,” Clary said in frustration. “No, not like he doesn’t remember them — like he doesn’t believe them.”

He remembers them. But the power of the binding is such that Jace’s thoughts will pass over and around those facts, like water passing around rocks in a riverbed. It was like the spell that Magnus cast upon your mind, Clarissa. When you saw pieces of the Invisible World, your mind would reject them, turn away from them. There is no point reasoning with Jace about Jonathan. The truth cannot break their connection.

Clary thought of what had happened when she had reminded Jace that Sebastian had killed Max, how his face had temporarily furrowed in thought, then smoothed out as if he had forgotten what she had said as quickly as she’d said it.

Take some small comfort in the fact that Jonathan Morgenstern is as bound as your Jace is. He cannot harm or hurt Jace, nor would he want to, Zachariah added.

Alec threw his hands up. “So they love each other now? They’re best friends?” The hurt and jealousy was plain in his tone.

No. They are each other now. They see as the other sees. They know the other is somehow indispensable to them. Sebastian is the leader, the primary of the two. What he believes, Jace will believe. What he wants, Jace will do.

“So he’s possessed,” Alec said flatly.

In a possession there is often some part of the person’s original consciousness left intact. Those who have been possessed speak of watching their own actions from the outside, crying out but unable to be heard. But Jace is fully inhabiting his body and mind. He believes himself sane. He believes that this is what he wants.

“So what did he want from me?” Clary demanded in a shaking voice. “Why did he come to my room tonight?” She hoped her cheeks didn’t burn. She tried to push back the memory of kissing him, the pressure of his body against hers in the bed.

He still loves you, said Brother Zachariah, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. You are the central point about which his world spins. That has not changed.

“And that’s why we had to leave,” Jocelyn said tensely. “He’ll come back for her. We couldn’t stay at the police station. I don’t know where will be safe—”

“Here,” Magnus said. “I can put up wards that will keep Jace and Sebastian out.”

Clary saw relief flood her mother’s eyes. “Thank you,” Jocelyn said.

Magnus waved an arm. “It’s a privilege. I do love fending off angry Shadowhunters, especially of the possessed variety.”

He is not possessed, Brother Zachariah reminded them.

“Semantics,” said Magnus. “The question is, what are the two of them up to? What are they planning?”

“Clary said that when she saw them in the library, Sebastian told Jace he’d be running the Institute soon enough,” said Alec. “So they’re up to something.”

“Carrying on Valentine’s work, probably,” said Magnus. “Down with Downworlders, kill all recalcitrant Shadowhunters, blah blah.”

“Maybe.” Clary wasn’t sure. “Jace said something about Sebastian serving a greater cause.”

“The Angel only knows what that indicates,” Jocelyn said. “I was married to a zealot for years. I know what ‘a greater cause’ means. It means torturing the innocent, brutal murder, turning your back on your former friends, all in the name of something that you believe is bigger than yourself but is no more than greed and childishness dressed up in fanciful language.”

“Mom,” Clary protested, worried to hear Jocelyn sound so bitter.

But Jocelyn was looking at Brother Zachariah. “You said no weapon in this world can wound only one of them,” she said. “No weapon you know of…”

Magnus’s eyes glowed suddenly, like a cat’s when caught in a beam of light. “You think…”

“The Iron Sisters,” said Jocelyn. “They are the experts on weapons and weaponry. They might perhaps have an answer.”

The Iron Sisters, Clary knew, were the sister sect to the Silent Brothers; unlike their brethren, they did not have their mouths or eyes sewed shut but instead lived in almost total solitude in a fortress whose location was unknown. They were not fighters — they were creators, the hands who shaped the weapons, the steles, the seraph blades that kept the Shadowhunters alive. There were runes only they could carve, and only they knew the secrets of molding the silvery-white substance called adamas into demon towers, steles, and witchlight rune-stones. Rarely seen, they did not attend Council meetings or venture into Alicante.

It is possible, Brother Zachariah said after a long pause.

“If Sebastian could be killed — if there is a weapon that could kill him but leave Jace alive — does that mean Jace would be free of his influence?” Clary asked.

There was an even longer pause. Then, Yes, said Brother Zachariah. That would be the most likely outcome.

“Then, we should go to see the Sisters.” Exhaustion hung on Clary like a cloak, weighting her eyes, souring the taste in her mouth. She rubbed her eyes, trying to scrub it away. “Now.”

“I can’t go,” said Magnus. “Only female Shadowhunters can enter the Adamant Citadel.”

“And you’re not going,” Jocelyn said to Clary in her sternest No-you-are-not-going-out-clubbing-with-Simon-after-midnight voice. “You’re safer here, where you’re warded.”

“Isabelle,” said Alec. “Isabelle can go.”

“Do you have any idea where she is?” Clary said.

“Home, I’d imagine,” said Alec, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. “I can call her—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Magnus said, smoothly removing his cell phone from his pocket and punching in a text with the skill of the long-practiced. “It’s late, and we don’t need to wake her up. Everyone needs rest. If I’m to send any of you through to the Iron Sisters, it will be tomorrow.”

“I’ll go with Isabelle,” Jocelyn said. “No one’s looking for me specifically, and it’s better that she not go alone. Even if I’m not technically a Shadowhunter, I was once. It’s only required that one of us be in good standing.”

“This isn’t fair,” Clary said.

Her mother didn’t even look at her. “Clary…”

Clary rose to her feet. “I’ve been practically a prisoner for the past two weeks,” she said in a shaking voice. “The Clave wouldn’t let me look for Jace. And now that he came to me—to me—you won’t even let me come with you to the Iron Sisters—”

“It isn’t safe. Jace is probably tracking you—”

Clary lost it. “Every time you try to keep me safe, you wreck my life!”

“No, the more involved you get with Jace the more you wreck your life!” her mother snapped back. “Every risk you’ve taken, every danger you’ve been in, is because of him! He held a knife to your throat, Clarissa—”

“That wasn’t him,” Clary said in the softest, deadliest voice she could imagine. “Do you think I’d stay for one second with a boy who threatened me with a knife, even if I loved him? Maybe you’ve been living too long in the mundane world, Mom, but there is magic. The person who hurt me wasn’t Jace. It was a demon wearing his face. And the person we’re looking for now isn’t Jace. But if he dies…”

“There’s no chance of getting Jace back,” said Alec.

“There may already be no chance,” said Jocelyn. “God, Clary, look at the evidence. You thought you and Jace were brother and sister! You sacrificed everything to save his life, and a Greater Demon used him to get to you! When are you going to face the fact that the two of you are not meant to be together?”

Clary jerked back as if her mother had hit her. Brother Zachariah stood as still as a statue, as if no one were shouting at all. Magnus and Alec were staring; Jocelyn was red-cheeked, her eyes glittering with anger. Not trusting herself to speak, Clary spun on her heel, stalked down the hallway to Magnus’s spare bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.

“All right, I’m here,” Simon said. A cold wind was blowing across the flat expanse of the roof garden, and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He didn’t really feel the cold, but he felt like he ought to. He raised his voice. “I showed up. Where are you?”

The roof garden of the Greenwich Hotel — now closed, and therefore empty of people — was done up like an English garden, with carefully shaped dwarf box trees, elegantly scattered wicker and glass furniture, and Lillet umbrellas that flapped in the stiff wind. The trellises of climbing roses, bare in the cold, spider-webbed the stone walls that surrounded the roof, above which Simon could see a gleaming view of downtown New York. “I am here,” said a voice, and a slender shadow detached itself from a wicker armchair and rose. “I had begun to wonder if you were coming, Daylighter.”

“Raphael,” Simon said in a resigned voice. He walked forward, across the hardwood planks that wound between the flower borders and artificial pools lined with shining quartz. “I was wondering myself.”

As he came closer, he could see Raphael clearly. Simon had excellent night vision, and only Raphael’s skill at blending with the shadows had kept him hidden before. The other vampire was wearing a black suit, turned up at the cuffs to show the gleam of cuff links in the shape of chains. He still had the face of a little boy angel, though his gaze as he regarded Simon was cold. “When the head of the Manhattan vampire clan calls you, Lewis, you come.”

“And what would you do if I didn’t? Stake me?” Simon spread his arms wide. “Take a shot. Do whatever you want to me. Go nuts.”

“Dios, but you are boring,” said Raphael. Behind him, by the wall, Simon could see the chrome gleam of the vampire motorcycle he’d ridden to get here.

Simon lowered his arms. “You’re the one who asked me to meet you.”

“I have a job offer for you,” said Raphael.

“Seriously? You short-staffed at the hotel?”

“I need a bodyguard.”

Simon eyed him. “Have you been watching The Bodyguard? Because I am not going to fall in love with you and carry you around in my burly arms.”

Raphael looked at him sourly. “I would pay you extra money to remain entirely silent while you worked.”

Simon stared at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I would not bother coming to see you if I were not serious. If I were in a joking mood, I would spend that time with someone I liked.” Raphael sat back down in the armchair. “Camille Belcourt is free in the city of New York. The Shadowhunters are entirely caught up with this stupid business with Valentine’s son and will not be bothered to track her down. She represents an immediate danger to me, for she wishes to reassert her control of the Manhattan clan. Most are loyal to me. Killing me would be the fastest way for her to put herself back at the top of the hierarchy.”

“Okay,” Simon said slowly. “But why me?”

“You are a Daylighter. Others can protect me during the night, but you can protect me in the day, when most of our kind are helpless. And you carry the Mark of Cain. With you between me and her, she would not dare to strike at me.”

“That’s all true, but I’m not doing it.”

Raphael looked incredulous. “Why not?”

The words exploded out of Simon. “Are you kidding? Because you have never done one single thing for me in the entire time since I became a vampire. Instead you have done your level best to make my life miserable and then end it. So — if you want it in vampire language — it affords me great pleasure, my liege, to say to you now: Hell, no.”

“It is not wise for you to make an enemy of me, Daylighter. As friends—”

Simon laughed incredulously. “Wait a second. Were we friends? That was friends?”

Raphael’s fang teeth snapped out. He was very angry indeed, Simon realized. “I know why you refuse me, Daylighter, and it is not out of some pretended sense of rejection. You are so involved with the Shadowhunters, you think you are one of them. We have seen you with them. Instead of spending your nights in the hunt, as you should, you spend them with Valentine’s daughter. You live with a werewolf. You are a disgrace.”

“Do you act like this with every job interview?”

Raphael bared his teeth. “You must decide if you are a vampire or a Shadowhunter, Daylighter.”

“I’ll take Shadowhunter, then. Because from what I’ve experienced of vampires, you mostly suck. No pun intended.”

Raphael stood up. “You are making a grave mistake.”

“I already told you—”

The other vampire waved a hand, cutting him off. “There is a great darkness coming. It will sweep the Earth with fire and shadow, and when it is gone, there will be no more of your precious Shadowhunters. We, the Night Children, will survive it, for we live in darkness. But if you persist in denying what you are, you too will be destroyed, and none shall lift a hand to help you.”

Without thinking, Simon raised his hand to touch the Mark on his forehead.

Raphael laughed soundlessly. “Ah, yes, the Angel’s brand upon you. In the time of darkness even the angels will be destroyed. Their strength will not aid you. And you had better pray, Daylighter, that you do not lose that Mark before the war comes. For if you do, there will be a line of enemies waiting their turn to kill you. And I will be at the head of it.”

Clary had been lying on her back on Magnus’s sofa bed for a long time. She had heard her mother come down the hall and go into one of the other spare bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Through her own door she could hear Magnus and Alec talking in low voices in the living room. She supposed she could wait for them to go to sleep, but Alec had said Magnus had been up until all hours lately studying the runes; even though Brother Zachariah appeared to have interpreted them, she couldn’t trust that Alec and Magnus would retire soon.

She sat up on the bed next to Chairman Meow, who made a fuzzy noise of protest, and rummaged in her backpack. She drew out of it a clear plastic box and flipped it open. There were her Prismacolor pencils, some stumps of chalk — and her stele.

She stood up, slipping the stele into her jacket pocket. Taking her phone off the desk, she texted MEET ME AT TAKI’S. She watched as the message went through, then tucked the phone into her jeans and took a deep breath.

This wasn’t fair to Magnus, she knew. He’d promised her mother he’d look after her, and that didn’t include her sneaking out of his apartment. But she had kept her mouth shut. She hadn’t promised anything. And besides, it was Jace.

You would do anything to save him, whatever it cost you, whatever you might owe to Hell or Heaven, would you not?

She took out her stele, set the tip to the orange paint of the wall, and began to draw a Portal.

The sharp banging noise woke Jordan out of a sound sleep. He bolted upright instantly and rolled out of bed to land in a crouch on the floor. Years of training with the Praetor had left him with fast reflexes and a permanent habit of sleeping lightly. A quick sight-scent scan told him the room was empty — just moonlight pooling on the floor at his feet.

The banging came again, and this time he recognized it. It was the sound of someone pounding on the front door. He usually slept in just his boxer shorts; yanking on jeans and a T-shirt, he kicked the door of his room open and strode out into the hallway. If this was a bunch of drunk college kids amusing themselves by knocking on all the doors in the building, they were about to get a faceful of angry werewolf.

He reached the door — and paused. The image came to him again, as it had in the hours it had taken him to fall asleep, of Maia running away from him at the navy yard. The look on her face when she’d pulled away from him. He’d pushed her too far, he knew, asked for too much, too fast. Blown it completely, probably. Unless — maybe she’d reconsidered. There had been a time when their relationship had been all passionate fights and equally passionate make-up sessions.

His heart pounding, he threw the door open. And blinked. On the doorstep stood Isabelle Lightwood, her long black glossy hair falling almost to her waist. She wore black suede knee-high boots, tight jeans, and a red silky top with her familiar red pendant around her throat, glittering darkly.

“Isabelle?” He couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice, or, he suspected, the disappointment.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t looking for you, either,” she said, pushing past him into the apartment. She smelled of Shadowhunter — a smell like sun-warmed glass — and underneath that, a rosy perfume. “I was looking for Simon.”

Jordan squinted at her. “It’s two in the morning.”

She shrugged. “He’s a vampire.”

“But I’m not.”

“Ohhhhh?” Her red lips curled up at the corners. “Did I wake you up?” She reached out and flicked the top button on his jeans, the tip of her fingernail scraping across his flat stomach. He felt his muscles jump. Izzy was gorgeous, there was no denying that. She was also a little terrifying. He wondered how unassuming Simon managed to handle her at all. “You might want to button these all the way up. Nice boxers, by the by.” She moved past him, toward Simon’s bedroom. Jordan followed, buttoning his jeans and muttering about how there was nothing strange about having a pattern of dancing penguins on your underwear.

Isabelle ducked her head into Simon’s room. “He’s not here.” She slammed the door behind her and leaned back against the wall, looking at Jordan. “You did say it was two in the morning?”

“Yeah. He’s probably at Clary’s. He’s been sleeping there a lot lately.”

Isabelle bit her lip. “Right. Of course.”

Jordan was beginning to get that feeling he got sometimes, that he was saying something unfortunate, without knowing exactly what that thing was. “Is there a reason you came over here? I mean, did something happen? Is something wrong?”

“Wrong?” Isabelle threw up her hands. “You mean other than the fact that my brother has disappeared and has probably been brainwashed by the evil demon who murdered my other brother, and my parents are getting divorced and Simon is off with Clary—”

She stopped abruptly and stalked past him into the living room. He hurried after her. By the time he caught up, she was in the kitchen, rifling through the pantry shelves. “Do you have anything to drink? A nice Barolo? Sagrantino?”

Jordan took her by the shoulders and moved her gently out of the kitchen. “Sit,” he said. “I’ll get you some tequila.”

“Tequila?”

“Tequila’s what we have. That and cough syrup.”

Sitting down at one of the stools that lined the kitchen counter, she waved a hand at him. He would have expected her to have long red or pink fingernails, buffed to perfection, to match the rest of her, but no — she was a Shadowhunter. Her hands were scarred, the nails squared off and filed down. The Voyance rune shone blackly on her right hand. “Fine.”

Jordan grabbed the bottle of Cuervo, uncapped it, and poured her a shot. He pushed the glass across the counter. She downed it instantly, frowned, and slammed the glass down.

“Not enough,” she said, reached across the counter, and took the bottle out of his hand. She tilted her head back and swallowed once, twice, three times. When she set the bottle back down, her cheeks were flushed.

“Where’d you learn to drink like that?” He wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or frightened.

“The drinking age in Idris is fifteen. Not that anyone pays attention. I’ve been drinking wine mixed with water along with my parents since I was a kid.” Isabelle shrugged. The gesture lacked a little of her usual fluid coordination.

“Okay. Well, is there a message you want me to give Simon, or anything I can say or—”

“No.” She took another swig out of the bottle. “I got all liquored up and came over to talk to him, and of course he’s at Clary’s. Figures.”

“I thought you were the one who told him he ought to go over there in the first place.”

“Yeah.” Isabelle fiddled with the label on the tequila bottle. “I did.”

“So,” Jordan said, in what he thought was a reasonable tone. “Tell him to stop.”

“I can’t do that.” She sounded exhausted. “I owe her.”

Jordan leaned on the counter. He felt a little like a bartender in a TV show, dispensing sage advice. “What do you owe her?”

“Life,” Isabelle said.

Jordan blinked. This was a little beyond his bartending and advice-offering skills. “She saved your life?”

“She saved Jace’s life. She could have had anything from the Angel Raziel, and she saved my brother. I’ve only ever trusted a few people in my life. Really trusted. My mother, Alec, Jace, and Max. I lost one of them already. Clary’s the only reason I didn’t lose another.”

“Do you think you’ll ever be able to really trust someone you aren’t related to?”

“I’m not related to Jace. Not really.” Isabelle avoided his gaze.

“You know what I mean,” said Jordan, with a meaningful glance at Simon’s room.

Izzy frowned. “Shadowhunters live by an honor code, werewolf,” she said, and for a moment she was all arrogant Nephilim, and Jordan remembered why so many Downworlders disliked them. “Clary saved a Lightwood. I owe her my life. If I can’t give her that — and I don’t see how she has any use for it — I can give her whatever will make her less unhappy.”

“You can’t give her Simon. Simon’s a person, Isabelle. He goes where he wants.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, he doesn’t seem to mind going where she is, does he?”

Jordan hesitated. There was something about what Isabelle was saying that seemed off, but she wasn’t completely wrong either. Simon had with Clary an ease that he never seemed to show with anyone else. Having been in love with only one girl in his life, and having stayed in love with her, Jordan didn’t feel he was qualified to hand out advice on that front — though he remembered Simon warning him, with wryness, that Clary had “the nuclear bomb of boyfriends.” Whether there had been jealousy under that wryness, Jordan wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure whether you could ever completely forget the first girl you loved either. Especially when she was right there in front of you, every day.

Isabelle snapped her fingers. “Hey, you. Are you even paying attention?” She tilted her head to the side, blowing dark strands of hair out of her face, and looked at him hard. “What’s going on with you and Maia, anyway?”

“Nothing.” The single word held volumes. “I’m not sure she’s ever going to stop hating me.”

“She might not, at that,” Isabelle said. “She’s got good reason.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t do false reassurances,” Izzy said, and pushed the tequila bottle away from her. Her eyes, on Jordan, were lively and dark. “Come here, werewolf boy.”

She’d dropped her voice. It was soft, seductive. Jordan swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. He remembered seeing Isabelle in her red dress outside the Ironworks and thinking, That’s the girl Simon was messing around on Maia with? Neither of them was the sort of girl who gave the impression you could cheat on her and survive it.

And neither one of them was the sort of girl you said no to. Warily he moved around the counter toward Isabelle. He was a few steps away when she reached out and pulled him toward her by the wrists. Her hands slid up his arms, over the swell of his biceps, the muscles of his shoulders. His heartbeat quickened. He could feel the warmth coming off her and could smell her perfume and sweet tequila. “You’re gorgeous,” she said. Her hands slid around to flatten themselves against his chest. “You know that, right?”

Jordan wondered if she could feel his heart beating through his shirt. He knew the way girls looked at him on the street — boys, too, sometimes — knew what he saw in the mirror every day, but he never thought about it much. He had been so focused on Maia for so long that it never seemed to matter beyond whether she would still find him attractive if they ever saw each other again. He’d been chatted up plenty, but not often by girls who looked like Isabelle, and never by anyone so blunt. He wondered if she was going to kiss him. He hadn’t kissed anyone but Maia since he was fifteen. But Isabelle was looking up at him, and her eyes were big and dark, and her lips were slightly parted and the color of strawberries. He wondered if they would taste like strawberries if he kissed her.

“And I just don’t care,” she said.

“Isabelle, I don’t think — Wait. What?”

“I should care,” she said. “I mean, there’s Maia to think about, so I probably wouldn’t just rip your clothes off blithely anyway, but the thing is, I don’t want to. Normally I would want to.”

“Ah,” Jordan said. He felt relief, and also the tiniest twinge of disappointment. “Well… that’s good?”

“I think about him all the time,” she said. “It’s awful. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

“You mean Simon?”

“Scrawny little mundane bastard,” she said, and took her hands off Jordan’s chest. “Except he isn’t. Scrawny, anymore. Or a mundane. And I like spending time with him. He makes me laugh. And I like the way he smiles. You know, one side of his mouth goes up before the other one — Well, you live with him. You must have noticed.”

“Not really,” said Jordan.

“I miss him when he’s not around,” Isabelle confessed. “I thought… I don’t know, after what happened that night with Lilith, things changed between us. But now he’s with Clary all the time. And I can’t even be angry with her.”

“You lost your brother.”

Isabelle looked up at him. “What?”

“Well, he’s knocking himself out to make Clary feel better because she lost Jace,” said Jordan. “But Jace is your brother. Shouldn’t Simon be knocking himself out to make you feel better too? Maybe you’re not mad at her, but you could be mad at him.”

Isabelle looked at him for a long moment. “But we’re not anything,” she said. “He’s not my boyfriend. I just like him.” She frowned. “Crap. I can’t believe I said that. I must be drunker than I thought.”

“I kind of figured it out from what you were saying before.” He smiled at her.

She didn’t smile back, but she lowered her lashes and looked up at him through them. “You’re not so bad,” she said. “If you want, I can say nice things to Maia about you.”

“No, thanks,” said Jordan, who wasn’t sure what Izzy’s version of nice things was, and feared finding out. “You know, it’s normal, when you’re going through a tough time, to want to be with the person you—” He was about to say “love,” realized she had never used the word, and switched gears. “Care about. But I don’t think Simon knows you feel that way about him.”

Her lashes fluttered back up. “Does he ever say anything about me?”

“He thinks you’re really strong,” Jordan said. “And that you don’t need him at all. I think he feels… superfluous to your life. Like, what can he give you when you’re already perfect? Why would you want a guy like him?” Jordan blinked; he hadn’t meant to run on like that, and he wasn’t sure how much of what he’d said applied to Simon, and how much to himself and Maia.

“So you mean I should tell him how I feel?” said Isabelle in a small voice.

“Yes. Definitely. Tell him how you feel.”

“Okay.” She grabbed for the tequila bottle and took a swig. “I’ll go over to Clary’s right now and I’ll tell him.”

A small flower of alarm blossomed in his chest. “You can’t. It’s practically three in the morning—”

“If I wait, I’ll lose my nerve,” she said, in that reasonable tone that only very drunk people ever employed. She took another swig out of the bottle. “I’ll just go over there, and I’ll knock on the window, and I’ll tell him how I feel.”

“Do you even know which window is Clary’s?”

She squinted. “Nooo.”

The horrible vision of a drunk Isabelle waking up Jocelyn and Luke floated through Jordan’s head. “Isabelle, no.” He reached up to take the tequila bottle from her, and she jerked it away from him.

“I think I’m changing my mind about you,” she said in a semi-threatening tone that would have been more frightening if she’d been able to focus her eyes on him directly. “I don’t think I like you so much after all.” She stood up, looked down at her feet with a surprised expression — and fell over backward. Only Jordan’s quick reflexes allowed him to catch her before she hit the floor.

7 A SEA CHANGE

Clary was on her third cup of coffee at Taki’s when Simon finally walked in. He was in jeans, a red zip-up sweatshirt (why bother with wool coats when you didn’t feel the cold?), and engineer boots. People turned to look at him as he wove his way through the tables toward her. Simon had cleaned up nicely since Isabelle had started getting on his case about his clothes, Clary thought as he headed toward her among the tables. There were flakes of snow caught in his dark hair, but where Alec’s cheeks had been scarlet from the cold, Simon’s remained colorless and pale. He slid into the booth across from her and looked at her, his dark eyes reflective and shining.

“You called?” he asked, making his voice deep and resonant so that he sounded like Count Dracula.

“Technically, I texted.” She slid the menu across the table toward him, flipping it to the page for vampires. She’d glanced at it before, but the thought of blood pudding and blood milk shakes made her shudder. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe where I was…” His voice trailed off as he saw the expression on her face. “Hey.” His fingers were suddenly under her chin, lifting her head. The laughter was gone from his eyes, replaced by concern. “What happened? Is there more news about Jace?”

“Do you know what you want?” It was Kaelie, the blue-eyed faerie waitress who had given Clary the Queen’s bell. She looked at Clary now and grinned, a superior grin that made Clary grit her teeth.

Clary ordered a piece of apple pie; Simon ordered a mix of hot chocolate and blood. Kaelie took the menus away, and Simon looked at Clary with concern. She took a deep breath and told him about the night, every gritty detail — Jace’s appearance, what he had said to her, the confrontation in the living room, and what had happened to Luke. She told him what Magnus had said about dimensional pockets and other worlds, and how there was no way to track someone hidden in a dimensional pocket or get a message through to them. Simon’s eyes grew darker as she spoke, and by the end of the story, he had his head in his hands.

“Simon?” Kaelie had come and gone, leaving their food, which was untouched. Clary touched his shoulder. “What is it? Is it Luke—”

“It’s my fault.” He looked up at her, eyes dry. Vampires cried tears mixed with blood, she thought; she had read that somewhere. “If I hadn’t bitten Sebastian…”

“You did it for me. So I’d live.” Her voice was gentle. “You saved my life.”

“You’ve saved mine six or seven times. It seemed fair.” His voice cracked; she recalled him retching up Sebastian’s black blood, on his knees in the roof garden.

“Assigning blame doesn’t get us anywhere,” Clary said. “And this isn’t why I dragged you here, just to tell you what happened. I mean, I would have told you anyway, but I would have waited for tomorrow if it weren’t that…”

He looked at her warily and took a sip from his mug. “Weren’t that what?”

“I have a plan.”

He groaned. “I was afraid of that.”

“My plans are not terrible.”

“Isabelle’s plans are terrible.” He pointed a finger at her. “Your plans are suicidal. At best.”

She sat back, her arms crossed over her chest. “Do you want to hear it or not? You have to keep it a secret.”

“I would pluck out my own eyes with a fork before I would give away your secrets,” Simon said, then looked anxious. “Wait a second. Do you think that’s likely to be required?”

“I don’t know.” Clary covered her face with her hands.

“Just tell me.” He sounded resigned.

With a sigh she reached into her pocket and drew out a small velvet bag, which she upended on the table. Two gold rings fell out, landing with a soft clink.

Simon looked at them, puzzled. “You want to get married?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” She leaned forward, dropping her voice. “Simon, these are the rings. The ones the Seelie Queen wanted.”

“I thought you said you never got them—” He broke off, raising his eyes to her face.

“I lied. I did take them. But after I saw Jace in the library, I didn’t want to give them to the Queen anymore. I had a feeling we might need them sometime. And I realized she was never going to give us any useful information. The rings seemed more valuable than another round with the Queen.”

Simon caught them up in his hand, hiding them from sight as Kaelie passed by. “Clary, you can’t just take things the Seelie Queen wants and keep them for yourself. She’s a very dangerous enemy to have.”

She looked at him pleadingly. “Can we at least see if they work?”

He sighed and handed her one of the rings; it felt light but was as soft as real gold. She worried for a moment that it wouldn’t fit, but as soon as she slipped it onto her right index finger, it seemed to mold to the shape of her finger, until it sat perfectly in the space below her knuckle. She saw Simon glancing down at his right hand, and realized the same thing had happened to him.

“Now we talk, I guess,” he said. “Say something to me. You know, mentally.”

Clary turned to Simon, feeling absurdly as if she were being asked to perform in a play whose lines she hadn’t memorized. Simon?

Simon blinked. “I think — Could you do that again?”

This time Clary concentrated, trying to focus her mind on Simon — the Simon-ness of him, the shape of the way he thought, the feeling of hearing his voice, the sense of him close. His whispers, his secrets, the way he made her laugh. So, she thought conversationally, now that I’m in your mind, want to see some naked mental pictures of Jace?

Simon jumped. “I heard that! And, no.”

Excitement fizzed in Clary’s veins; it was working. “Think something back to me.”

It took less than a second. She heard Simon, the way she heard Brother Zachariah, a voice without sound inside her mind. You’ve seen him naked?

Well, not entirely. But I—

“Enough,” he said out loud, and though his voice was caught between amusement and anxiety, his eyes sparked. “They work. Holy crap. They really work.”

She leaned forward. “So can I tell you my idea?”

He touched the ring on his finger, feeling its delicate tracery, the leaf-veins carved under his fingertips. Sure.

She began to explain, but she hadn’t yet reached the end of her description when Simon interrupted, out loud this time. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Simon,” she said. “It’s a perfectly fine plan.”

“The plan where you follow Jace and Sebastian off to some unknown dimensional pocket and we use these rings to communicate so those of us over here in the regular dimension of Earth can track you down? That plan?”

“Yes.”

“No,” he said. “No, it isn’t.”

Clary sat back. “You don’t just get to say no.”

“This plan involves me! I get to say no! No.”

“Simon—”

Simon patted the seat beside him as if someone were sitting there. “Let me introduce you to my good friend No.”

“Maybe we can compromise,” she suggested, taking a bite of pie.

“No.”

“SIMON.”

“‘No’ is a magical word,” he told her. “Here’s how it goes. You say, ‘Simon, I have an insane, suicidal plan. Would you like to help me carry it out?’ And I say, ‘Why, no.’”

“I’ll do it anyway,” she said.

He stared at her across the table. “What?”

“I’ll do it whether you help me or not,” she said. “If I can’t use the rings, I’ll still follow Jace to wherever he is and try to get word back to you guys by sneaking away, finding telephones, whatever. If it’s possible. I’m going to do it, Simon. I just have a better chance of surviving if you help me. And there’s no risk to you.”

“I don’t care about risk to me,” he hissed, leaning forward across the table. “I care about what happens to you! Dammit, I’m practically indestructible. Let me go. You stay behind.”

“Yes,” Clary said, “Jace won’t find that odd at all. You can just tell him you’ve always been secretly in love with him and you can’t stand being parted.”

“I could tell him I’ve given it thought and I completely agree with his and Sebastian’s philosophy and decided to throw in my lot with theirs.”

“You don’t even know what their philosophy is.”

“There is that. I might have better luck telling him I’m in love with him. Jace thinks everyone’s in love with him anyway.”

“But I,” said Clary, “actually am.”

Simon looked at her for a long time over the table, silently. “You’re serious,” he said finally. “You’d actually do this. Without me — without any safety net.”

“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Jace.”

Simon leaned his head back against the plastic booth seat. The Mark of Cain glowed a gentle silver against his skin. “Don’t say that,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you do anything for the people you love?”

“I’d do almost anything for you,” Simon said quietly. “I’d die for you. You know that. But would I kill someone else, someone innocent? What about a lot of innocent lives? What about the whole world? Is it really love to tell someone that if it came down to picking between them and every other life on the planet, you’d pick them? Is that — I don’t know, is that a moral sort of love at all?”

“Love isn’t moral or immoral,” said Clary. “It just is.”

“I know,” Simon said. “But the actions we take in the name of love, those are moral or immoral. And normally it wouldn’t matter. Normally — whatever I think of Jace being annoying — he’d never ask you to do anything that went against your nature. Not for him, not for anyone. But he isn’t exactly Jace anymore, is he? And I just don’t know, Clary. I don’t know what he might ask you to do.”

Clary leaned her elbow on the table, suddenly very tired. “Maybe he isn’t Jace. But he’s the closest thing to Jace I’ve got. There’s no way back to Jace without him.” She raised her eyes to Simon’s. “Or are you telling me it’s hopeless?”

There was a long silence. Clary could see Simon’s innate honesty warring with his desire to protect his best friend. Finally he said, “I’d never say that. I’m still Jewish, you know, even if I am a vampire. In my heart I remember and believe, even the words I can’t say. G—” He choked and swallowed. “He made a covenant with us, just like the Shadowhunters believe Raziel made a covenant with them. And we believe in his promises. Therefore you can never lose hope—hatikva—because if you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive.” He looked faintly embarrassed. “My rabbi used to say that.”

Clary slid her hand across the table and laid it atop Simon’s. He rarely talked about his religion with her or anyone, though she knew he believed. “Does that mean you agree?”

He groaned. “I think it means you crushed my spirit and beat me down.”

“Fantastic.”

“Of course you realize you’re leaving me in the position of being the one to tell everyone — your mother, Luke, Alec, Izzy, Magnus…”

“I guess I shouldn’t have said there would be no risk to you,” Clary said meekly.

“That’s right,” said Simon. “Just remember, when your mother’s gnawing my ankle like a furious mama bear separated from her cub, I did it for you.”

Jordan had only just fallen back asleep when the banging on the front door came again. He rolled over and groaned. The clock by the bed said 4:00 a.m. in blinking yellow numbers.

More banging. Jordan rolled reluctantly to his feet, dragged on his jeans, and staggered out into the hallway. Blearily he jerked the door open. “Look—”

The words died on his lips. Standing in the hallway was Maia. She was wearing jeans and a caramel-colored leather jacket, and her hair was pulled up behind her head with bronze chopsticks. A single loose curl fell against her temple. Jordan’s fingers itched to reach out and tuck it behind her ear. Instead he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“Nice shirt,” she said with a dry glance at his bare chest. There was a backpack slung over one of her shoulders. For a moment his heart jumped. Was she leaving town? Was she leaving town to get away from him? “Look, Jordan—”

“Who is it?” The voice behind Jordan was husky, as rumpled as the bed she’d probably just climbed out of. He saw Maia’s mouth drop open, and he looked back over his shoulder to see Isabelle, wearing only one of Simon’s T-shirts, standing behind him and rubbing at her eyes.

Maia’s mouth snapped shut. “It’s me,” she said in a not particularly friendly tone. “Are you… visiting Simon?”

“What? No, Simon’s not here.” Shut up, Isabelle, Jordan thought frantically. “He’s…” She gestured vaguely. “Out.”

Maia’s cheeks reddened. “It smells like a bar in here.”

“Jordan’s cheap tequila,” said Isabelle with a wave of her hand. “You know…”

“Is that his shirt, too?” Maia inquired.

Isabelle glanced down at herself, and then back up at Maia. Belatedly she seemed to realize what the other girl was thinking. “Oh. No. Maia—”

“So first Simon cheated on me with you, and now you and Jordan—”

“Simon,” Isabelle said, “also cheated on me with you. Anyway, nothing’s going on with me and Jordan. I came over to see Simon, but he wasn’t here so I decided to crash in his room. And I’m going back in there now.”

“No,” Maia said sharply. “Don’t. Forget about Simon and Jordan. What I have to say, it’s something you need to hear too.”

Isabelle froze, one hand on Simon’s door, her sleep-flushed face slowly paling. “Jace,” she said. “Is that why you’re here?”

Maia nodded.

Isabelle sagged against the door. “Is he—” Her voice cracked. She started again. “Have they found—”

“He came back,” said Maia. “For Clary.” She paused. “He had Sebastian with him. There was a fight, and Luke was injured. He’s dying.”

Isabelle made a dry little sound in her throat. “Jace? Jace hurt Luke?”

Maia avoided her eyes. “I don’t know what happened exactly. Only that Jace and Sebastian came for Clary, and there was a fight. Luke was hurt.”

“Clary—”

“Is all right. She’s at Magnus’s with her mother.” Maia turned to Jordan. “Magnus called me and asked me to come and see you. He tried to reach you, but he couldn’t. He wants you to put him in touch with the Praetor Lupus.”

“Put him in touch with…” Jordan shook his head. “You can’t just call the Praetor. It’s not like 1-800-WEREWOLF.”

Maia crossed her arms. “Well, how do you reach them, then?”

“I have a supervisor. He reaches me when he wants to, or I can call on him in an emergency—”

“This is an emergency.” Maia hooked her thumbs through the belt loops on her jeans. “Luke could die, and Magnus says the Praetor might have information that could help.” She looked at Jordan, her eyes big and dark. He ought to tell her, he thought. That the Praetor didn’t like getting mixed up in affairs of the Clave; that they kept to themselves and their mission — to help new Downworlders. That there was no guarantee they would agree to help, and every likelihood that they would resent the request.

But Maia was asking him. This was something he could do for her that might be a step down the long road of making it up to her for what he’d done before.

“Okay,” he said. “Then, we go to their headquarters and present ourselves in person. They’re out on the North Fork of Long Island. Pretty far from anywhere. We can take my truck.”

“Fine.” Maia hoisted her backpack higher. “I thought we might have to go somewhere; that’s why I brought my stuff.”

“Maia.” It was Isabelle. She hadn’t said anything in so long that Jordan had almost forgotten she was there; he turned and saw her leaning against the wall by Simon’s door. She was hugging herself as if she were cold. “Is he all right?”

Maia winced. “Luke? No, he—”

“Jace.” Isabelle’s voice was an indrawn breath. “Is Jace all right? Did they hurt him or catch him or—”

“He’s fine,” Maia said flatly. “And he’s gone. He disappeared with Sebastian.”

“And Simon?” Isabelle’s gaze flicked to Jordan. “You said he was with Clary—”

Maia shook her head. “He wasn’t. He wasn’t there.” Her hand was tight on the strap of her backpack. “But there’s one thing we know now, and you’re not going to like it. Jace and Sebastian are connected somehow. Hurt Jace, you hurt Sebastian. Kill him, and Sebastian dies. And vice versa. Straight from Magnus.”

“Does the Clave know?” Isabelle demanded instantly. “They didn’t tell the Clave, did they?”

Maia shook her head. “Not yet.”

“They’ll find out,” said Isabelle. “The whole pack knows. Someone will tell. Then it’ll be a manhunt. They’ll kill him just to kill Sebastian. They’ll kill him anyway.” She reached up and pushed her hands through her thick black hair. “I want my brother,” she said. “I want to see Alec.”

“Well, that’s good,” Maia said. “Because after Magnus called me, he sent a follow-up text. He said he had a feeling you’d be here, and he had a message for you. He wants you to go to his apartment in Brooklyn, right away.”

It was freezing out, so cold that even the thermis rune she’d put on herself — and the thin parka she’d swiped from Simon’s closet — weren’t doing much to keep Isabelle from shivering as she pushed open the door of Magnus’s apartment building and ducked inside.

After being buzzed up, she headed up the stairs, trailing her hand along the splintering banister. Part of her wanted to rush up the steps, knowing Alec was there and would understand what she was feeling. The other part of her, the part that had hidden her parents’ secret from her brothers all her life, wanted to curl up on the landing and be alone with her misery. The part that hated relying on anyone else — because wouldn’t they just let you down? — and was proud to say that Isabelle Lightwood didn’t need anyone reminded herself that she was here because they had asked for her. They needed her.

Isabelle didn’t mind being needed. Liked it, in fact. It was why it had taken her longer to warm up to Jace when he had first stepped through the Portal from Idris, a thin ten-year-old boy with haunted pale gold eyes. Alec had been delighted with him immediately, but Isabelle had resented his self-possession. When her mother had told her that Jace’s father had been murdered in front of him, she’d imagined him coming to her tearfully, for comfort and even advice. But he hadn’t seemed to need anyone. Even at ten years old he’d had a sharp, defensive wit and an acidic temperament. In fact, Isabelle had thought, dismayed, that he was just like her.

In the end it was Shadowhunting they had bonded over — a shared love of sharp-edged weapons, gleaming seraph blades, the painful pleasure of burning Marks, the thought-numbing swiftness of battle. When Alec had wanted to go out hunting alone with Jace, leaving Izzy behind, Jace had spoken up for her: “We need her with us; she’s the best there is. Aside from me, of course.”

She had loved him just for that.

She was at the front door of Magnus’s apartment now. Light poured through the crack under the door, and she heard murmuring voices. She pushed the door open, and a wave of warmth enveloped her. She stepped gratefully forward.

The warmth came from a fire leaping in the grated fireplace — though there were no chimneys in the building, and the fire had the blue-green tinge of enchanted flame. Magnus and Alec sat on one of the couches grouped near the fireplace. As she came in, Alec looked up and saw her, and sprang to his feet, hurrying barefoot across the room — he was wearing black sweatpants and a white T-shirt with a torn collar — to put his arms around her.

For a moment she stood still in the circle of his arms, hearing his heartbeat, his hands patting half-awkwardly up and down her back, her hair. “Iz,” he said. “It’s going to be okay, Izzy.”

She pushed away from him, wiping at her eyes. God, she hated crying. “How can you say that?” she snapped. “How can anything possibly be okay after this?”

“Izzy.” Alec drew his sister’s hair over one shoulder and tugged gently at it. It reminded her of the years when she used to wear her hair in braids and Alec would yank on them, with considerably less gentleness than he was showing now. “Don’t go to pieces. We need you.” He dropped his voice. “Also, did you know you smell like tequila?”

She looked over at Magnus, who was watching them from the sofa with his unreadable cat’s eyes. “Where’s Clary?” she said. “And her mother? I thought they were here.”

“Asleep,” said Alec. “We thought they needed a rest.”

“And I don’t?”

“Did you just see your fiancé or your stepfather nearly murdered in front of your eyes?” Magnus inquired dryly. He was wearing striped pajamas with a black silk dressing gown thrown over them. “Isabelle Lightwood,” he said, sitting up and loosely clasping his hands in front of him. “As Alec said, we need you.”

Isabelle straightened up, putting her shoulders back. “Need me for what?”

“To go to the Iron Sisters,” said Alec. “We need a weapon that will divide Jace and Sebastian so that they can be hurt separately — Well, you know what I mean. So Sebastian can be killed without hurting Jace. And it’s a matter of time before the Clave knows that Jace isn’t Sebastian’s prisoner, that he’s working with him—”

“It’s not Jace,” Isabelle protested.

“It may not be Jace,” said Magnus, “but if he dies, your Jace dies right along with him.”

“As you know, the Iron Sisters will speak only to women,” said Alec. “And Jocelyn can’t go alone because she isn’t a Shadowhunter anymore.”

“What about Clary?”

“She’s still in training. She won’t know the right questions to ask or the way to address them. But you and Jocelyn will. And Jocelyn says she’s been there before; she can help guide you once we Portal you to the edge of the wards around the Adamant Citadel. You’ll be going, both of you, in the morning.”

Isabelle considered it. The idea of finally having something to do, something definite and active and important, was a relief. She would have preferred a task that had something to do with killing demons or chopping off Sebastian’s legs, but this was better than nothing. The legends surrounding the Adamant Citadel made it sound like a forbidding, distant place, and the Iron Sisters were seen far more rarely than the Silent Brothers. Isabelle had never met one.

“When do we leave?” she said.

Alec smiled for the first time since she’d arrived, and reached to ruffle her hair. “That’s my Isabelle.”

“Quit it.” She ducked out from his reach and saw Magnus grinning at them from the sofa. He levered himself up and ran a hand through his already explosively spiky black hair.

“I’ve got three spare rooms,” he said. “Clary’s in one; her mother’s in the other. I’ll show you the third.”

The rooms all branched off a narrow, windowless hallway that led from the living room. Two of the doors were closed; Magnus drew Isabelle through the third, into a room whose walls were painted hot-pink. Black curtains hung from silver bars over the windows, secured by handcuffs. The bedspread had a print of dark red hearts on it.

Isabelle glanced around. She felt jittery and nervous and not in the least like going to sleep. “Nice handcuffs. I can see why you didn’t put Jocelyn in here.”

“I needed something to hold the curtains back.” Magnus shrugged. “Do you have anything to sleep in?”

Isabelle just nodded, not wanting to admit she’d brought Simon’s shirt with her from his apartment. Vampires didn’t really smell like anything, but the shirt still carried with it the faint, reassuring scent of his laundry soap. “It’s kind of weird,” she said. “You demanding I come over right away, only to put me to bed and tell me we’re getting started tomorrow.”

Magnus leaned against the wall by the door, his arms over his chest, and looked at her through slitted cat eyes. For a moment he reminded her of Church, only less likely to bite. “I love your brother,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“If you want my permission to marry him, go right ahead,” said Isabelle. “Autumn’s a nice time for it too. You could wear an orange tux.”

“He isn’t happy,” said Magnus, as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Of course he isn’t,” Isabelle snapped. “Jace—”

“Jace,” said Magnus, and his hands made fists at his sides. Isabelle stared at him. She had always thought that he didn’t mind Jace; liked him, even, once the question of Alec’s affections had been settled.

Out loud, she said, “I thought you and Jace were friends.”

“It’s not that,” said Magnus. “There are some people — people the universe seems to have singled out for special destinies. Special favors and special torments. God knows we’re all drawn toward what’s beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it’s only by love and sacrifice so great that it destroys the giver.”

Isabelle shook her head slowly. “You’ve lost me. Jace is our brother, but for Alec — He’s Jace’s parabatai, too.”

“I know about parabatai,” said Magnus. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person. Do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one who’s left—”

“Stop it!” Isabelle clapped her hands over her ears, then lowered them slowly. “How dare you, Magnus Bane?” she said. “How dare you make this worse than it is.”

“Isabelle.” Magnus’s hands loosened; he looked a little wide-eyed, as if his outburst had startled even him. “I am sorry. I forget, sometimes… that with all your self-control and strength, you possess the same vulnerability that Alec does.”

“There is nothing weak about Alec,” said Isabelle.

“No,” said Magnus. “To love as you choose, that takes strength. The thing is, I wanted you here for him. There are things I can’t do for him, can’t give him.” For a moment Magnus looked oddly vulnerable himself. “You have known Jace as long as he has. You can give him understanding I can’t. And he loves you.”

“Of course he loves me. I’m his sister.”

“Blood isn’t love,” said Magnus, and his voice was bitter. “Just ask Clary.”

Clary shot through the Portal as if through the barrel of a rifle and flew out the other end. She tumbled toward the ground and struck hard on her feet, sticking the landing at first. The pose lasted only a moment before, too dizzy from the Portal to concentrate, she overbalanced and hit the ground, her backpack cushioning her fall. She sighed—someday all the training really would kick in — and got to her feet, brushing dust from the seat of her jeans.

She was standing in front of Luke’s house. The river sparkled over her shoulder, the city rising behind it like a forest of lights. Luke’s house was just as they had left it, hours ago, locked and dark. Clary, standing on the dirt and stone path that led up to the front steps, swallowed hard.

Slowly she touched the ring on her right hand with the fingers of her left. Simon?

The reply came immediately. Yeah?

Where are you?

Walking toward the subway. Did you Portal home?

Luke’s. If Jace comes like I think he will, this is where he’ll come to.

A silence. Then, Well, I guess you know how to get me if you need me.

I guess I do. Clary took a deep breath. Simon?

Yeah?

I love you.

A pause. I love you, too.

And that was all. There was no click, as when you hung up a phone; Clary just sensed a severing of their connection, as if a cord had been cut inside her head. She wondered if this was what Alec meant when he talked about the breaking of the parabatai bond.

She moved toward Luke’s house and slowly mounted the stairs. This was her home. If Jace was going to come back for her, as he had mouthed to her that he would, this is where he would come. She sat down on the top step, pulled her backpack onto her lap, and waited.

Simon stood in front of the refrigerator in his apartment and took a last swallow of cold blood as the memory of Clary’s silent voice faded out of his mind. He had just gotten home, and the apartment was dark, the hum of the refrigerator loud, and the place smelled oddly of — tequila? Maybe Jordan had been drinking. His bedroom door was closed, anyway, not that Simon blamed him for being asleep; it was after four in the morning.

He shoved the bottle back into the fridge and headed for his room. It would be the first night he’d slept at home in a week. He’d grown used to having someone to share a bed with, a body to roll against in the middle of the night. He liked the way Clary fit against him, curled asleep with her head on her hand; and, if he had to admit it to himself, he liked that she couldn’t sleep unless he was with her. It made him feel indispensable and needed — even if the fact that Jocelyn didn’t appear to care whether he slept in her daughter’s bed or not did underscore that Clary’s mother apparently regarded him as about as sexually threatening as a goldfish.

Of course, he and Clary had shared beds often, from the time they were five until they were about twelve. That might have had something to do with it, he mused, pushing his bedroom door open. Most of those nights they’d spent engaged in torrid activities, like having contests to see who could take the longest to eat a single Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Or they’d sneaked in a portable DVD player and—

He blinked. His room looked the same — bare walls, stacked plastic shelves with his clothes on them, his guitar hanging on the wall, and a mattress on the floor. But on the bed was a single piece of paper — a white square against the frayed black blanket. The scrawled, looping hand was familiar. Isabelle’s.

He picked it up and read:

Simon, I’ve been trying to call you, but it seems like your phone is turned off. I don’t know where you are right now. I don’t know if Clary’s already told you what happened tonight. But I have to go to Magnus’s and I’d really like you to be there.

I’m never scared, but I’m scared for Jace. I’m scared for my brother. I never ask you for anything, Simon, but I’m asking you now. Please come.

Isabelle.

Simon let the letter fall from his hand. He was out of the apartment and on his way down the steps before it had even hit the floor.

When Simon came into Magnus’s apartment, it was quiet. There was a fire flickering in the grate, and Magnus sat in front of it on an overstuffed sofa, his feet up on the coffee table. Alec was asleep, his head in Magnus’s lap, and Magnus was twirling strands of Alec’s black hair between his fingers. The warlock’s gaze, on the flames, was remote and distant, as if he were looking back into the past. Simon couldn’t help but remember what Magnus had said to him once, about living forever:

Someday you and I will be the only two left.

Simon shuddered, and Magnus looked up. “Isabelle called you over, I know.” he said, speaking in a low voice so as not to wake Alec. “She’s down the hall that way — the first bedroom on the left.”

Simon nodded and, with a salute in Magnus’s direction, headed off down the hall. He felt unusually nervous, as if he were prepping for a first date. Isabelle, to his recollection, had never demanded his help or his presence before, had never acknowledged that she needed him in any way.

He pushed open the door to the first bedroom on the left and stepped inside. It was dark, the lights off; if Simon hadn’t had vampire sight, he probably would have seen only blackness. As it was, he saw the outlines of a wardrobe, chairs with clothes thrown over them, and a bed, covers thrown back. Isabelle was asleep on her side, her black hair fanning out across the pillow.

Simon stared. He’d never seen Isabelle sleeping before. She looked younger than she usually did, her face relaxed, her long eyelashes brushing the tops of her cheekbones. Her mouth was slightly open, her feet curled up under her. She was wearing only a T-shirt—his T-shirt, a worn blue tee that said THE LOCH NESS MONSTER ADVENTURE CLUB: FINDING ANSWERS, IGNORING FACTS across the front.

Simon closed the door behind him, feeling more disappointed than he had expected. It hadn’t occurred to him that she’d already be asleep. He’d been wanting to talk to her, to hear her voice. He kicked his shoes off and lay down beside her. She certainly took up more real estate on the bed than Clary did. Isabelle was tall, almost his height, although when he put his hand on her shoulder, her bones felt delicate under his touch. He ran his hand down her arm. “Iz?” he said. “Isabelle?”

She murmured and turned her face into the pillow. He leaned closer — she smelled like alcohol and rose perfume. Well, that answered that. He had been thinking about pulling her into his arms and kissing her gently, but “Simon Lewis, Molester of Passed-Out Women” wasn’t really the epitaph by which he wanted to be remembered.

He lay down flat on his back and stared at the ceiling. Cracked plaster, marked by water stains. Magnus really ought to get someone in here to do something about that. As if sensing his presence, Isabelle rolled sideways against him, her soft cheek against his shoulder. “Simon?” she said groggily.

“Yeah.” He touched her face lightly.

“You came.” She stretched her arm across his chest, moving so that her head fit against his shoulder. “I didn’t think you would.”

His fingers traced patterns on her arm. “Of course I came.”

Her next words were muffled against his neck. “Sorry I’m asleep.”

He smiled to himself, a little, in the dark. “It’s okay. Even if all you wanted was for me to come here and hold you while you sleep, I would have done it.”

He felt her stiffen, and then relax. “Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell me a story?”

He blinked. “What kind of story?”

“Something where the good guys win and the bad guys lose. And stay dead.”

“So, like a fairy tale?” he said. He racked his brain. He knew only the Disney versions of fairy tales, and the first image that came to mind was Ariel in her seashell bra. He’d had a crush on her when he was eight. Not that this seemed like the time to mention it.

“No.” The word was an exhaled breath. “We study fairy tales in school. A lot of that magic is real — but, anyway. No, I want something I haven’t heard yet.”

“Okay. I’ve got a good one.” Simon stroked Isabelle’s hair, feeling her lashes flutter against his neck as she closed her eyes. “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Clary didn’t know how long she’d been sitting on Luke’s front steps when the sun began to come up. It rose behind his house, the sky turning a dark pinkish-rose, the river a strip of steely blue. She was shivering, had been shivering so long that her whole body seemed to have contracted into a single hard shudder of cold. She had used two warming runes, but they hadn’t helped; she had a feeling the shivering was psychological as much as anything else.

Would he come? If he was still as much Jace inside as she thought he was, he would; when he had mouthed that he would come back for her, she had known that he had meant as soon as possible. Jace was not patient. And he didn’t play games.

But there was only so long she could wait. Eventually the sun would rise. The next day would begin, and her mother would be watching her again. She would have to give up on Jace, for at least another day, if not longer.

She shut her eyes against the brightness of the sunrise, resting her elbows on the step above and behind her. For just a moment she let herself float in the fantasy that everything was as it had been, that nothing had changed, that she would meet Jace this afternoon for practice, or tonight for dinner, and he would hold her and make her laugh the way he always did.

Warm tendrils of sunlight touched her face. Reluctantly her eyes fluttered open.

And he was there, walking toward her up the steps, as soundless as a cat, as always. He wore a dark blue sweater that made his hair look like sunlight. She sat up straight, her heart pounding. The brilliant sunshine seemed to outline him in light. She thought of that night in Idris, how the fireworks had streaked across the sky and she had thought of angels, falling in fire.

He reached her and held his hands out; she took them, and let him pull her to her feet. His pale gold eyes searched her face. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”

“Since when have you not been sure of me?”

“You were pretty angry before.” He cupped the side of her face in his hand. There was a rough scar across his palm; she could feel it against her skin.

“So if I hadn’t been here, what would you have done?”

He drew her close. He was shivering too, and the wind was blowing his curling hair, messy and bright. “How is Luke?”

At the sound of Luke’s name, another shudder went through her. Jace, thinking she was cold, pulled her more tightly against him. “He’ll be all right,” she said guardedly. It’s your fault, your fault, your fault.

“I never meant for him to get hurt.” Jace’s arms were around her, his fingers tracing a slow line up and down her spine. “Do you believe me?”

“Jace…,” Clary said. “Why are you here?”

“To ask you again. To come with me.”

She closed her eyes. “And you won’t tell me where that is?”

“Faith,” he said softly. “You have to have faith. But you also have to know — once you come with me, there’s no going back. Not for a long time.”

She thought of the moment when she’d stepped outside of Java Jones and seen him waiting for her there. Her life had changed in that moment in a way that could never be undone.

“There never has been any going back,” she said. “Not with you.” She opened her eyes. “We should go.”

He smiled, as brilliant as the sun coming out from behind the clouds, and she felt his body relax. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. Reaching up to hold him, she tasted something bitter on his lips; then darkness came down like a curtain signaling the end of the act of a play.