City of Lost Souls

8 FIRE TESTS GOLD

Maia had never been to Long Island, but when she thought of it at all, she’d always thought of it as being a lot like New Jersey — mostly suburban, a place where people who worked in New York or Philly actually lived.

She had dropped her bag into the back of Jordan’s truck — startlingly unfamiliar. He’d driven a beaten-up red Toyota when they’d been dating, and it had always been littered with old, crumpled coffee cups and fast-food bags, the ashtray full of cigarettes smoked down to the filter. The cab of this truck was comparatively clean, the only detritus a stack of papers on the passenger seat. He moved them aside with no comment as she climbed in.

They hadn’t spoken through Manhattan and onto the Long Island Expressway, and eventually Maia had dozed, her cheek against the cool glass of the window. She’d finally woken when they’d gone over a bump in the road, jolting her forward. She’d blinked, rubbing at her eyes.

“Sorry,” Jordan had said ruefully. “I was going to let you sleep until we got there.”

She’d sat up, looking around. They’d been driving down a two-lane blacktop road, the sky around them just beginning to lighten. There were fields on either side of the road, the occasional farmhouse or silo, clapboard houses set far back with picket fences around them.

“It’s pretty,” she’d said in surprise.

“Yeah.” Jordan had changed gears, clearing his throat. “Since you’re up anyway… Before we get to the Praetor House, can I show you something?”

She’d hesitated only a moment before nodding. And now here they were, bumping down a one-lane dirt road, trees on either side. Most were leafless; the road was muddy, and Maia cranked the window down to smell the air. Trees, salt water, softly decaying leaves, small animals running through the high grass. She took another deep breath just as they bumped off the road and onto a small circular turnaround space. In front of them was the beach, stretching down to dark steel-blue water. The sky was almost lilac.

She looked over at Jordan. He was staring straight ahead. “I used to come here while I was training at the Praetor House,” he said. “Sometimes just to look at the water and clear my head. The sunrises here… Every one is different, but they’re all beautiful.”

“Jordan.”

He didn’t look at her. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about before. About running off, you know, in the navy yard.”

“It’s fine.” He let his breath out slowly, but she could tell by the tension in his shoulders, his hand gripping the gearshift, that it wasn’t, not really. She tried not to look at the way the tension shaped the muscles in his arm, accenting the indentation of his bicep. “It was a lot for you to take in; I get that. I just…”

“I think we should take it slow. Work toward being friends.”

“I don’t want to be friends,” he said.

She couldn’t hide her surprise. “You don’t?”

He moved his hands from the gearshift to the steering wheel. Warm air poured from the heater inside the car, mixing with the cooler air outside Maia’s open window. “We shouldn’t talk about this now.”

“I want to,” she said. “I want to talk about it now. I don’t want to be stressing about us when we’re in the Praetor House.”

He slid down in his seat, chewing his lip. His tangled brown hair fell forward over his forehead. “Maia…”

“If you don’t want to be friends, then what are we? Enemies again?”

He turned his head, his cheek against the back of the car seat. Those eyes, they were just as she remembered, hazel with flecks of green and blue and gold. “I don’t want to be friends,” he said, “because I still love you. Maia, you know I haven’t even so much as kissed anyone since we broke up?”

“Isabelle…”

“Wanted to get drunk and talk about Simon.” He took his hands off the steering wheel, reached for her, then dropped them back into his lap, a defeated look on his face. “I’ve only ever loved you. Thinking about you got me through my training. The idea that I might be able to make it up to you someday. And I will, in any way that I can except for one.”

“You won’t be my friend.”

“I won’t be just your friend. I love you, Maia. I’m in love with you. I always have been. I always will be. Just being your friend would kill me.”

She looked out toward the ocean. The rim of the sun was just showing above the water, its rays lighting the sea in shades of purple and gold and blue. “It’s so beautiful here.”

“That’s why I used to come here. I couldn’t sleep, and I’d watch the sun come up.” His voice was soft.

“Can you sleep now?” She turned back to him.

He closed his eyes. “Maia… if you’re going to say no, you don’t want to be anything but friends with me,… just say it. Rip the Band-Aid off, okay?”

He looked braced, as if for a blow. His eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones. There were pale white scars on the olive skin of his throat, scars she had made. She unclipped her seat belt and scooted across the bench seat toward him. She heard his gasp of breath, but he didn’t move as she leaned in and kissed his cheek. She inhaled the scent of him. Same soap, same shampoo, but no lingering scent of cigarettes. Same boy. She kissed across his cheek, to the corner of his mouth, and finally, edging even closer, set her mouth over his.

His lips opened under hers and he growled, low in his throat. Werewolves weren’t gentle with each other, but his hands were light on her as he lifted her and set her on his lap, wrapping his arms around her as their kiss deepened. The feel of him, the warmth of his corduroy-covered arms around her, the beat of his heart, the taste of his mouth, the clash of lips, teeth, and tongue, stole her breath. Her hands slipped around the back of his neck, and she melted against him as she felt the soft thick curls of his hair, exactly the same as it had always been.

When they finally drew apart, his eyes were glassy. “I’ve been waiting for that for years.”

She traced the line of his collarbone with a finger. She could feel her own heart beating. For a few moments they hadn’t been two werewolves on a mission to a deadly secret organization — they’d been two teenagers, making out in a car on the beach. “Did it live up to your expectations?”

“It was much better.” His mouth crooked up at the corner. “Does this mean…”

“Well,” she said. “That’s not the sort of thing you do with your friends, right?”

“Isn’t it? I’ll have to tell Simon. He’s going to be seriously disappointed.”

“Jordan.” She hit him lightly in the shoulder, but she was smiling, and so was he, an uncharacteristically big, goofy grin spreading over his face. She bent close and put her face against the crook of his neck, breathing him in along with the morning.

They were battling across the frozen lake, the icy city glowing like a lamp in the distance. The angel with the golden wings and the angel with the wings like black fire. Clary stood on the ice as blood and feathers fell around her. The golden feathers burned like fire where they touched her skin, but the black feathers were as cold as ice.

Clary awoke with her heart pounding, tangled in a knot of blankets. She sat up, pushing the blankets to her waist. She was in an unfamiliar room. The walls were white plaster, and she was lying in a bed made of black wood, still wearing the clothes she’d worn the night before. She slid out of the bed, her bare feet hitting the cold stone floor, and looked around for her backpack.

She found it easily, propped on a black leather chair. There were no windows in the room; the only light came from a pendant glass light fixture overhead made of cut black glass. She swept her hand through the pack and realized to her annoyance, although without surprise, that someone had already gone through the contents. Her art box was gone, including her stele. All that remained was her hairbrush and a change of jeans and underwear. At least the gold ring was still on her finger.

She touched it lightly and thought at Simon. I’m in.

Nothing.

Simon?

There was no response. She swallowed back her uneasiness. She had no idea where she was, what time it was, or how long she’d been out cold. Simon could be asleep. She couldn’t panic and assume the rings didn’t work. She had to go on autopilot. Check out where she was, learn what she could. She’d try Simon again later.

She took a deep breath and tried to focus on her immediate surroundings. Two doors led off the bedroom. She tried the first, and found that it opened onto a small glass-and-chrome bathroom with a copper claw-footed bathtub. There were no windows in here either. She showered quickly and dried herself with a fluffy white towel, then changed into clean jeans and a sweater before padding back into the bedroom, picking up her shoes, and trying the second door.

Bingo. Here was the rest of the — house? Apartment? She was in a large room, half of which was devoted to a long glass table. More of the black pendant cut-glass lights hung from the ceiling, sending dancing shadows against the walls. Everything was very modern, from the black leather chairs to the large fireplace, framed in washed chrome. There was a fire blazing in it. So someone else must be home, or must have been very recently.

The other half of the room was taken up with a large television screen, a glossy black coffee table on which were scattered games and controllers, and low leather couches. A set of glass stairs led upward in a spiral. After a glance around Clary began to climb them. The glass was perfectly clear, and lent the impression that she was climbing an invisible staircase into the sky.

The second floor was much like the first — pale walls, black floor, a long corridor with doors opening off it. The first door led into what was clearly a master bedroom. A huge rosewood bed, hung with gauzy white curtains, took up most of the space. There were windows in here, tinted a dark blue. Clary went across the room to look out.

She wondered for a moment if she was back in Alicante. She was looking across a canal at another building, its windows covered in closed green shutters. The sky above was gray, the canal a dark greenish-blue, and there was a bridge visible just at her right, crossing the canal. Two people were standing on the bridge. One of them held a camera to his face and was industriously taking photos. Not Alicante, then. Amsterdam? Venice? She looked everywhere for a way to open the window, but there didn’t appear to be one; she banged on the glass and shouted, but the bridge-crossers took no notice. After a few moments they moved on.

Clary turned back into the bedroom and went to one of the wardrobes, and threw it open. Her heart skipped a beat. The wardrobe was full of clothes — women’s clothes. Gorgeous dresses — lace and satin and beads and flowers. The drawers held camisoles and underwear, tops in cotton and silk, skirts but no jeans or pants. There were even shoes lined up, sandals and heels, and folded pairs of stockings. For a moment she just stared, wondering if there were another girl staying here, or if Sebastian had taken to cross-dressing. But the clothes all had the tags on them, and all of them were near her size. Not only that, she realized slowly, staring. They were exactly the shapes and colors that would suit her — blues and greens and yellows, cut for a petite frame. Eventually she drew out one of the simpler tops, a dark green cap-sleeved blouse with silk lacing up the front. After discarding her worn top on the floor, she shrugged the blouse on and glanced at the mirror hanging inside the wardrobe.

It fit perfectly. Made the most of her small figure, clinging to her waist, darkening the green of her eyes. She yanked the tag off, not wanting to see how much it had cost, and hurried out of the room, feeling a shiver run down her spine.

The next room was clearly Jace’s. She knew it the minute she walked in. It smelled like him, like his cologne and soap and the scent of his skin. The bed was ebonized wood with white sheets and blankets, perfectly made. It was as neat as his room at the Institute. Books were stacked by his bed, the titles in Italian and French and Latin. The silver Herondale dagger with its pattern of birds was jammed into the plaster wall. When she looked closer, she could see that it was pinning a photograph in place. A photograph of herself and Jace, taken by Izzy. She remembered it, a clear day in early October, Jace sitting on the front steps of the Institute, a book on his lap. She was sitting a step above him, her hand on his shoulder, leaning forward to see what he was reading. His hand covered hers, almost absently, and he was smiling. She hadn’t been able to see his face that day, hadn’t known he was smiling like that, not until now. Her throat contracted, and she went out of the room, catching her breath.

She couldn’t act like this, she told herself sternly. As if each sight of Jace the way he was now was a sucker punch to the gut. She had to pretend that it didn’t matter, as if she noticed no difference. She went into the next room, another bedroom, much like the one before it, but this one was a mess — the bed a tangle of black silk sheets and comforter, a glass and steel desk covered with books and papers, boy clothes scattered everywhere. Jeans and jackets and T-shirts and gear. Her eye fell on something that gleamed silver, propped on the nightstand near the bed. She moved forward, staring, unable to believe her eyes.

It was the small box of her mother’s, the one with the initials J.C. on it. The one her mother used to take out every year, once a year, and weep over silently, the tears running down her face to splash onto her hands. Clary knew what was in the box — a lock of hair, as fine and white as dandelion fluff; scraps from a child’s shirt; a baby shoe, small enough to fit inside the palm of her hand. Bits and pieces of her brother, a sort of collage of the child her mother had wanted to have, had dreamed of having, before Valentine had done what he had and turned his own son into a monster.

J.C.

Jonathan Christopher.

Her stomach twisted, and she backed up quickly out of the room — directly into a wall of living flesh. Arms came around her, wrapping her tight, and she saw that they were slim and muscular, downed with fine pale hair, and for a moment she thought it was Jace holding her. She began to relax.

“What were you doing in my room?” Sebastian said into her ear.

Isabelle had been trained to wake early every morning, rain or shine, and a slight hangover did nothing to prevent it from happening again. She sat up slowly and blinked down at Simon.

She’d never spent an entire night in a bed with anyone else, unless you counted crawling into her parents’ bed when she was four and afraid of thunderstorms. She couldn’t help staring at Simon as if he were some exotic species of animal. He lay on his back, his mouth slightly open, his hair in his eyes. Ordinary brown hair, ordinary brown eyes. His T-shirt was pulled up slightly. He wasn’t muscular like a Shadowhunter. He had a smooth flat stomach but no six-pack, and there was still a hint of softness to his face. What was it about him that fascinated her? He was plenty cute, but she had dated gorgeous faerie knights, sexy Shadowhunters.…

“Isabelle,” Simon said without opening his eyes. “Quit staring at me.”

Isabelle sighed irritably and swung herself out of bed. She rummaged in her bag for her gear, retrieved it, and headed out to find the bathroom.

It was halfway down the hall, and the door was just opening, Alec emerging in a cloud of steam. He had a towel around his waist and another around his shoulders and was rubbing energetically at his wet black hair. Isabelle supposed she shouldn’t be surprised to see him; he’d been trained to wake up early in the morning just like she had.

“You smell like sandalwood,” she said by way of greeting. She hated the smell of sandalwood. She liked sweet scents — vanilla, cinnamon, gardenia.

Alec looked at her. “We like sandalwood.”

Isabelle made a face. “Either that’s the royal ‘we’ or you and Magnus are turning into one of those couples that think they’re one person. ‘We like sandalwood.’ ‘We adore the symphony.’ ‘We hope you enjoy our Christmas present’—which, if you ask me, is just a cheap way of avoiding having to buy two gifts.”

Alec blinked wet lashes at her. “You’ll understand—”

“If you tell me I’ll understand when I’m in love, I’ll smother you with that towel.”

“And if you keep preventing me from going back to my room and getting dressed, I’ll get Magnus to summon up pixies to tie your hair in knots.”

“Oh, get out of my way.” Isabelle kicked at Alec’s ankle until he moved, unhurriedly, down the hall. She had the feeling if she turned around and looked at him he’d be sticking his tongue out at her, so she didn’t look. Instead she locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the shower, full steam. Then she looked at the rack of shower products and said an unladylike word.

Sandalwood shampoo, conditioner, and soap. Ugh.

When she finally emerged, dressed in her gear and with her hair up, she found Alec, Magnus, and Jocelyn waiting for her in the living room. There were doughnuts, which she didn’t want, and coffee, which she did. She poured a liberal amount of milk into it and sat back, looking at Jocelyn, who was also dressed — to Isabelle’s surprise — in Shadowhunter gear.

It was odd, she mused. People often told her she looked like her mother, though she didn’t see it herself, and she wondered now if it was in the same way that Clary looked like Jocelyn. The same color hair, yes, but also the same cast of features, the same tilt of the head, the same stubborn set to the jaw. The same sense that this person might look like a porcelain doll but was steel underneath. Although, Isabelle wished that, in the same way that Clary had gotten her mother’s green eyes, she’d gotten Maryse and Robert’s blue ones. Blue was so much more interesting than black.

“As with the Silent City, there is only one Adamant Citadel, but there are many doors through which one may find it,” said Magnus. “The closest to us is the old Augustinian Monastery on Grymes Hill, in Staten Island. Alec and I will Portal with you there and wait for you to return, but we can’t go with you all the way.”

“I know,” said Isabelle. “Because you’re boys. Cooties.”

Alec pointed a finger at her. “Take this seriously, Isabelle. The Iron Sisters aren’t like the Silent Brothers. They’re way less friendly and they don’t like being bothered.”

“I promise I’ll be on my best behavior,” Isabelle said, and set her empty coffee mug down on the table. “Let’s go.”

Magnus looked at her suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged. His hair was gelled up today into a million sharp points, and his eyes were smudged with black, making them look more catlike than ever. He moved past her to the wall, already murmuring in Latin; the familiar outline of a Portal, its arcane door shape outlined with glittering symbols, began to take form. Wind rose, cool and sharp, blowing back the tendrils of Isabelle’s hair.

Jocelyn stepped forward first, and walked through the Portal. It was a little like watching someone disappear into the side of a wave of water: A silvery haze seemed to swallow her in, dulling the color of her red hair as she vanished into it with a faint shimmer.

Isabelle went next. She was used to the stomach-dropping feeling of transportation by Portal. There was a soundless roar in her ears and no air in her lungs. She closed her eyes, then opened them again as the whirlwind released her and she fell into dry brush. She rose to her feet, brushing dead grass from her knees, and saw Jocelyn looking at her. Clary’s mother opened her mouth — and closed it again as Alec appeared, dropping into the vegetation beside Isabelle, and then Magnus, the shimmering half-seen Portal closing behind him.

Even the trip through the Portal had not disarranged Magnus’s hair spikes. He tugged on one proudly. “Check it out,” he said to Isabelle.

“Magic?”

“Hair gel. $3.99 at Ricky’s.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes at him and turned to take in her new surroundings. They stood atop a hill, its peak covered in dry brush and withered grass. Lower down were autumn-blackened trees, and in the far distance Isabelle saw cloudless sky and the top of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn. As she turned, Isabelle saw the monastery behind her, rising out of the dull foliage. It was a large building of red brick, most of its windows smashed out or boarded over. It was tagged here and there with graffiti. Turkey vultures, disturbed by the travelers’ arrival, circled the dilapidated bell tower.

Isabelle squinted at it, wondering if there was a glamour to be peeled off. If so, it was a strong one. Try as she might, she couldn’t see anything but the ruinous building before her.

“There’s no glamour,” said Jocelyn, startling Isabelle. “What you see is what you get.”

Jocelyn trudged toward it, her boots crushing down the dry vegetation in front of her. After a moment Magnus shrugged and followed her, and Isabelle and Alec came after. There was no path; branches grew in tangles, dark against the clear air, and the foliage underfoot crackled with dryness. As they neared the building, Isabelle saw that patches of the dry grass were burned away where pentagrams and runic circles had been spray-painted into the grass.

“Mundanes,” said Magnus, lifting a branch out of Isabelle’s way. “Playing their little games with magic, not really understanding it. They’re often drawn to places like this — centers of power — without really knowing why. They drink and hang out and spray-paint the walls, like you could leave a human mark on magic. You can’t.” They had reached a boarded-up door in the brick wall. “We’re here.”

Isabelle looked hard at the door. Again there was no sense that a glamour covered it, although if she concentrated hard, a faint shimmer grew visible, like sunshine glancing off water. A look passed between Jocelyn and Magnus. Jocelyn turned to Isabelle. “You’re ready?”

Isabelle nodded, and without further ado Jocelyn stepped forward and vanished through the boards of the door. Magnus looked expectantly at Isabelle.

Alec leaned closer to her, and she felt the brush of his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be fine, Iz.”

She raised her chin. “I know,” she said, and followed Jocelyn through the door.

Clary sucked in her breath, but before she could reply, there was a step on the stairs, and Jace appeared at the end of the hallway. Sebastian immediately let her go and spun her around. With a smile like a wolf’s, he ruffled her hair. “Good to see you, little sister.”

Clary was speechless. Jace, though, wasn’t; he moved toward them soundlessly. He was wearing a black leather jacket, a white T-shirt and jeans, and was barefoot. “Were you hugging Clary?” He looked at Sebastian in amazement.

Sebastian shrugged. “She’s my sister. I’m pleased to see her.”

“You don’t hug people,” Jace said.

“I ran out of time to bake a casserole.”

“It was nothing,” Clary said, waving a dismissive hand at her brother. “I tripped. He was just keeping me from falling over.”

If Sebastian was surprised to hear her defend him, he didn’t show it. He was expressionless as she moved across the corridor, toward Jace, who kissed her on the cheek, his fingers cool against her skin. “What were you doing up here?” Jace asked.

“Looking for you.” She shrugged. “I woke up and couldn’t find you. I thought maybe you were asleep.”

“I see you discovered the clothes stash.” Sebastian indicated her shirt with a gesture. “Do you like them?”

Jace shot him a look. “We were out getting food,” he said to Clary. “Nothing fancy. Bread and cheese. You want lunch?”

Which was how, several minutes later, Clary found herself installed at the big glass and steel table. From the comestibles spread out over the table, she figured that her second guess had been right. They were in Venice. There was bread, Italian cheeses, salami and prosciutto, grapes and fig jam, and bottles of Italian wine. Jace sat across from her, Sebastian at the head of the table. She was eerily reminded of the night she had met Valentine, at Renwick’s in New York, how he had put himself between Jace and Clary at the head of a table, how he had offered them wine and told them they were brother and sister.

She sneaked a glance at her real brother now. She thought of how her mother had looked when she’d seen him. Valentine. But Sebastian wasn’t a carbon copy of their father. She had seen pictures of Valentine when he was their age. Sebastian’s face tempered her father’s hard features with her mother’s prettiness; he was tall but less broad-shouldered, more lithe and catlike. He had Jocelyn’s cheekbones and fine soft mouth, Valentine’s dark eyes and white-blond hair.

He looked up then, as if he had caught her staring at him. “Wine?” He offered the bottle.

She nodded, though she had never much liked the taste of wine, and since Renwick’s she had hated it. She cleared her throat as Sebastian filled the glass. “So,” she said. “This place — is it yours?”

“It was our father’s,” said Sebastian, setting the bottle down. “Valentine’s. It moves, in and out of worlds — ours and others. He used to use it as a retreat as well as a mode of travel. He brought me here a few times, showed me how to get in and out and how to make it travel.”

“There’s no front door.”

“There is if you know how to find it,” said Sebastian. “Dad was very clever about this place.”

Clary looked at Jace, who shook his head. “He never showed it to me. I wouldn’t have guessed it existed either.”

“It’s very… bachelor pad,” Clary said. “I wouldn’t have thought of Valentine as…”

“Owning a flat-screen TV?” Jace grinned at her. “Not that it gets channels, but you can watch DVDs on it. Back at the manor we had an old icebox powered by witchlight. Here he’s got a Sub-Zero fridge.”

“That was for Jocelyn,” said Sebastian.

Clary looked up. “What?”

“All the modern stuff. The appliances. And the clothes. Like that shirt you’re wearing. They were for our mother. In case she decided to come back.” Sebastian’s dark eyes met hers. She felt a little sick. This is my brother, and we’re talking about our parents. She felt dizzy — too much happening too fast to take in, to process. She had never had time to think about Sebastian as her living, breathing brother. By the time she’d found out who he really was, he’d been dead.

“Sorry if it’s weird,” Jace said apologetically, indicating her shirt. “We can buy you some other clothes.”

Clary touched the sleeve lightly. The fabric was silky, fine, expensive. Well, that explained that — everything close to her size, everything in colors that suited her. Because she looked just like her mother.

She took a deep breath. “It’s fine,” she said. “It’s just — What do you do exactly? Just travel around inside this apartment and…”

“See the world?” Jace said lightly. “There’s worse things.”

“But you can’t do that forever.”

Sebastian hadn’t eaten much, but he’d drunk two glasses of wine. He was on his third, and his eyes were glittering. “Why not?”

“Well, because — because the Clave is looking for both of you, and you can’t spend forever running and hiding…” Clary’s voice trailed off as she looked from one of them to the other. They were sharing a look — the look of two people who knew something, together, that no one else did. It was not a look Jace had shared with someone else in front of her in a very long time.

Sebastian spoke softly and slowly. “Are you asking a question or making an observation?”

“She has a right to know our plans,” Jace said. “She came here knowing she couldn’t go back.”

“A leap of faith,” said Sebastian, running his finger around the rim of his glass. It was something Clary had seen Valentine do. “In you. She loves you. That’s why she’s here. Isn’t it?”

“So what if it is?” Clary said. She supposed she could pretend there was another reason, but Sebastian’s eyes were dark and sharp, and she doubted he’d believe her. “I trust Jace.”

“But not me,” Sebastian said.

Clary chose her next words with extreme care. “If Jace trusts you, then I want to trust you,” she said. “And you’re my brother. That counts for something.” The lie tasted bitter in her mouth. “But I don’t really know you.”

“Then, maybe you should spend a little time getting to know me,” Sebastian said. “And then we’ll tell you our plans.”

We’ll tell you. Our plans. In his mind there was a him and Jace; there was no Jace and Clary.

“I don’t like keeping her in the dark,” Jace said.

“We’ll tell her in a week. What difference does a week make?”

Jace gave him a look. “Two weeks ago you were dead.”

“Well, I wasn’t suggesting two weeks,” said Sebastian. “That would be insane.”

Jace’s mouth quirked up at the corner. He looked at Clary.

“I’m willing to wait for you to trust me,” she said, knowing it was the right, smart thing to say. Hating to say it. “However long it takes.”

“A week,” Jace said.

“A week,” agreed Sebastian. “And that means she stays here in the apartment. No communication with anyone. No unlocking the door for her, no going in and out.”

Jace leaned back. “What if I’m with her?”

Sebastian gave him a long look from under lowered eyelashes. His look was calculating. He was deciding what he was going to allow Jace to do, Clary realized. He was deciding how much leash to give his “brother.” “Fine,” he said at last, his voice rich with condescension. “If you’re with her.”

Clary looked down at her wineglass. She heard Jace reply in a mumur but couldn’t look at him. The idea of a Jace who was allowed to do things — Jace, who always did whatever he wanted — made her sick to her stomach. She wanted to get up and smash the wine bottle over Sebastian’s head, but she knew it was impossible. Cut one, and the other bleeds.

“How’s the wine?” It was Sebastian’s voice, an undercurrent of amusement plain in his tone.

She drained the glass, choking on the bitter flavor. “Delicious.”

Isabelle emerged in an alien landscape. A deep green plain swept out before her under a lowering gray-black sky. Isabelle pulled up the hood of her gear and peered out, fascinated. She had never seen such a great, overarching expanse of sky, or such a vast plain — it was shimmering, jewel-toned, the shade of moss. As Isabelle took a step forward, she realized it was moss, growing on and around the black rocks scattered across the coal-colored earth.

“It’s a volcanic plain,” Jocelyn said. She was standing beside Isabelle, and the wind was pulling red-gold strands of her hair out of its tightly pinned bun. She looked so much like Clary that it was eerie. “These were lava beds once. The whole area is probably volcanic to some degree. Working with adamas, the Sisters need incredible heat for their forges.”

“You’d think it would be a little warmer, then,” Isabelle muttered.

Jocelyn cast her a dry look, and started walking, in what seemed to Isabelle a randomly chosen direction. She scrambled to follow. “Sometimes you’re so much like your mother you astound me a little, Isabelle.”

“I take that as a compliment.” Isabelle narrowed her eyes. No one insulted her family.

“It wasn’t meant as an insult.”

Isabelle kept her eyes on the horizon, where the dark sky met the jewel-green ground. “How well did you know my parents?”

Jocelyn gave her a quick sideways look. “Well enough, when we were all in Idris together. I hadn’t seen them for years until recently.”

“Did you know them when they got married?”

The path Jocelyn was taking had begun to slant uphill, so her reply was slightly breathless. “Yes.”

“Were they… in love?”

Jocelyn stopped short and turned to look at Isabelle. “Isabelle, what is this about?”

“Love?” Isabelle suggested, after a moment’s pause.

“I don’t know why you’d think I’d be an expert on that.”

“Well, you managed to keep Luke hanging around for his whole life, basically, before you agreed to marry him. That’s impressive. I wish I had that kind of power over a guy.”

“You do,” said Jocelyn. “Have it, I mean. And it isn’t something to wish for.” She pushed her hands up through her hair, and Isabelle felt a little jolt. For all that Jocelyn looked like her daughter, her thin long hands, flexible and delicate, were Sebastian’s. Isabelle remembered slicing one of those hands off, in a valley in Idris, her whip cutting through skin and bone. “Your parents aren’t perfect, Isabelle, because no one’s perfect. They’re complicated people. And they just lost a child. So if this is about your father staying in Idris—”

“My father cheated on my mother,” Isabelle blurted out, and nearly covered her own mouth with her hand. She had kept this secret, kept it for years, and to say it out loud to Jocelyn seemed like a betrayal, despite everything.

Jocelyn’s face changed. It held sympathy now. “I know.”

Isabelle took a sharp breath. “Does everyone know?”

Jocelyn shook her head. “No. A few people. I was… in a privileged position to know. I can’t say more than that.”

“Who was it?” Isabelle demanded. “Who did he cheat on her with?”

“It was no one you know, Isabelle—”

“You don’t know who I know!” Isabelle’s voice rose. “And stop saying my name that way, as if I’m a little kid.”

“It’s not my place to tell you,” Jocelyn said flatly, and began to walk again.

Isabelle scrambled after her, even as the path took a steeper turn upward, a wall of green rising to meet the thunderous sky. “I have every right to know. They’re my parents. And if you don’t tell me, I—”

She stopped, inhaling sharply. They had reached the top of the ridge, and somehow, in front of them, a fortress had sprung like a fast-blooming flower out of the ground. It was carved of white-silver adamas, reflecting the cloud-streaked sky. Towers topped with electrum reached toward the sky, and the fortress was surrounded by a high wall, also of adamas, in which was set a single gate, formed of two great blades plunged into the ground at angles, so that they resembled a monstrous pair of scissors.

“The Adamant Citadel,” said Jocelyn.

“Thanks,” Isabelle snapped. “I figured that out.”

Jocelyn made the noise that Isabelle was familiar with from her own parents. Isabelle was pretty sure it was parent-speak for “Teenagers.” Then Jocelyn started down the hill to the fortress. Isabelle, tired of scrambling, stalked ahead of her. She was taller than Clary’s mother and had longer legs, and saw no reason why she should wait for Jocelyn if the other woman was going to persist in treating her like a child. She stomped down the hill, crushing moss under her boots, ducked through the scissorlike gates—

And froze. She was standing on a small outcropping of rock. In front of her the earth dropped away into a vast chasm, at the bottom of which boiled a river of red-gold lava, encircling the fortress. Across the chasm, much too far to jump — even for a Shadowhunter — was the only visible entrance to the fortress, a closed drawbridge.

“Some things,” said Jocelyn at her elbow, “are not as simple as they first appear.”

Isabelle jumped, then glared. “So not the place to sneak up on someone.”

Jocelyn simply crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “Surely Hodge taught you the proper method of approaching the Adamant Citadel,” she said. “After all, it is open to all female Shadowhunters in good standing with the Clave.”

“Of course he did,” said Isabelle haughtily, scrambling mentally to remember. Only those with Nephilim blood… She reached up and took one of the metal chopsticks from her hair. When she twisted its base, it popped and clicked and unfolded into a dagger with a Rune of Courage on the blade.

Isabelle raised her hands over the chasm. “Ignis aurum probat,” she said, and used the dagger to cut open her left palm; it was a swift searing pain, and blood ran from the cut, a ruby stream that splattered into the chasm below. There was a flash of blue light, and a creaking noise. The drawbridge was slowly lowering.

Isabelle smiled and wiped the blade of her knife on her gear. After another twist, it had become a slim metal chopstick again. She slid it back into her hair.

“Do you know what that means?” asked Jocelyn, her eyes on the lowering bridge.

“What?”

“What you just said. The motto of the Iron Sisters.”

The drawbridge was almost flat. “It means ‘Fire tests gold.’”

“Right,” said Jocelyn. “They don’t just mean forges and metalwork. They mean that adversity tests one’s strength of character. In difficult times, in dark times, some people shine.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Izzy. “Well, I’m sick of dark and difficult times. Maybe I don’t want to shine.”

The drawbridge crashed at their feet. “If you’re anything like your mother,” said Jocelyn, “you won’t be able to help it.”

9 THE IRON SISTERS

Alec raised the witchlight rune-stone high in his hand, brilliant light raying out from it, spotlighting now one corner of the City Hall station and then another. He jumped as a mouse squeaked, running across the dusty platform. He was a Shadowhunter; he had been in many dark places, but there was something about the abandoned air of this station that made a cold shiver run up his spine.

Perhaps it was the chill of disloyalty he had felt, slipping away from his guard post on Staten Island and heading down the hill to the ferry the moment Magnus had left. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing; he’d just done it, as if he were on autopilot. If he hurried, he was sure he could be back before Isabelle and Jocelyn returned, before anyone realized he had ever been gone.

Alec raised his voice. “Camille!” he called. “Camille Belcourt!”

He heard a light laugh; it echoed off the walls of the station. Then she was there, at the top of the stairs, the brilliance of his witchlight rendering her a silhouette. “Alexander Lightwood,” she said. “Come upstairs.”

She vanished. Alec followed his darting witchlight up the steps, and found Camille where he had before, in the lobby of the station. She was dressed in the fashion of a bygone era — a long velvet dress nipped in at the waist, her hair dressed high in white-blond curls, her lips dark red. He supposed she was beautiful, though he wasn’t the best judge of feminine appeal, and it didn’t help that he hated her.

“What’s with the costume?” he demanded.

She smiled. Her skin was very smooth and white, without dark lines — she had fed recently. “A masquerade ball downtown. I fed quite well. Why are you here, Alexander? Starved for good conversation?”

If he were Jace, Alec thought, he’d have a smart remark for that, some kind of pun or cleverly disguised put-down. Alec just bit his lip and said, “You told me to come back if I was interested in what you were offering.”

She ran a hand along the back of the divan, the only piece of furniture in the room. “And you’ve decided that you are.”

Alec nodded.

She chuckled. “You understand what you’re asking for?”

Alec’s heart was pounding. He wondered if Camille could hear it. “You said you could make Magnus mortal. Like me.”

Her full lips thinned. “I did,” she said. “I must admit, I doubted your interest. You left rather hastily.”

“Don’t play with me,” he said. “I don’t want what you’re offering that badly.”

“Liar,” she said casually. “Or you wouldn’t be here.” She moved around the divan, coming close to him, her eyes raking his face. “Up close,” she said, “you do not look so much like Will as I had thought. You have his coloring, but a different shape to your face… perhaps a slight weakness to your jaw—”

“Shut up,” he said. Okay, it wasn’t Jace-level wit, but it was something. “I don’t want to hear about Will.”

“Very well.” She stretched, languorously, like a cat. “It was many years ago, when Magnus and I were lovers. We were in bed together, after quite a passionate evening.” She saw him flinch, and grinned. “You know how it is with pillow talk. One reveals one’s weaknesses. Magnus spoke to me of a spell that existed, one that might be undertaken to rid a warlock of their immortality.”

“So why don’t I just find out what the spell is and do it?” Alec’s voice rose and cracked. “Why do I need you?”

“First, because you’re a Shadowhunter; you’ve no idea how to work a spell,” she said calmly. “Second, because if you do it, he’ll know it was you. If I do it, he will assume it is revenge. Spite on my part. And I do not care what Magnus thinks. But you do.”

Alec looked at her steadily. “And you’re going to do this for me as a favor?”

She laughed, like tinkling bells. “Of course not,” she said. “You do a favor for me, and I will do one for you. That is how these matters are conducted.”

Alec’s hand tightened around the witchlight rune-stone until the edges cut into his hand. “And what favor do you want from me?”

“It’s very simple,” she said. “I want you to kill Raphael Santiago.”

The bridge that crossed the crevasse surrounding the Adamant Citadel was lined with knives. They were sunk, point upward, at random intervals along the path, so that it was possible to cross the bridge only very slowly, by picking your way with dexterity. Isabelle had little trouble but was surprised to see how lightly Jocelyn, who hadn’t been an active Shadowhunter in fifteen years, made her way.

By the time Isabelle had reached the opposite side of the bridge, her dexteritas rune had vanished into her skin, leaving a faint white mark behind. Jocelyn was only a step behind her, and as aggravating as Isabelle found Clary’s mother, she was glad in a moment, when Jocelyn raised her hand and a witchlight rune-stone blazed forth, illuminating the space they stood in.

The walls were hewn from white-silver adamas, so that a dim light seemed to glow from within them. The floor was demon-stone as well, and carved into the center of it was a black circle. Inside the circle the symbol of the Iron Sisters was carved — a heart punctured through and through by a blade.

Whispering voices made Isabelle tear her gaze from the floor and look up. A shadow had appeared inside one of the smooth white walls — a shadow growing ever clearer, ever closer. Suddenly a portion of the wall slid back and a woman stepped out.

She wore a long, loose white gown, bound tightly at the wrists and under her breasts with silver-white cord — demon wire. Her face was both unwrinkled and ancient. She could have been any age. Her hair was long and dark, hanging in a thick braid down her back. Across her eyes and temples was an intricately curlicued tattooed mask, encircling both her eyes, which were the orange color of leaping flames.

“Who calls on the Iron Sisters?” she said. “Speak your names.”

Isabelle looked toward Jocelyn, who gestured that she should speak first. She cleared her throat. “I am Isabelle Light-wood, and this is Jocelyn Fr — Fairchild. We have come to ask your help.”

“Jocelyn Morgenstern,” said the woman. “Born Fairchild, but you cannot so easily erase the taint of Valentine from your past. Have you not turned your back on the Clave?”

“It is true,” said Jocelyn. “I am outcast. But Isabelle is a daughter of the Clave. Her mother—”

“Runs the New York Institute,” said the woman. “We are remote here but not without sources of information; I am no fool. My name is Sister Cleophas, and I am a Maker. I shape the adamas for the other sisters to carve. I recognize that whip you wind so cunningly around your wrist.” She indicated Isabelle. “As for that bauble about your throat—”

“If you know so much,” said Jocelyn, as Isabelle’s hand crept to the ruby at her neck, “then do you know why we are here? Why we have come to you?”

Sister Cleophas’s eyelids lowered and she smiled slowly. “Unlike our speechless brethren, we cannot read minds here in the Fortress. Therefore we rely upon a network of information, most of it very reliable. I assume this visit has something to do with the situation involving Jace Lightwood — as his sister is here — and your son, Jonathan Morgenstern.”

“We have a conundrum,” said Jocelyn. “Jonathan Morgenstern plots against the Clave, like his father. The Clave has issued a death warrant against him. But Jace — Jonathan Lightwood — is very much loved by his family, who have done no wrong, and by my daughter. The conundrum is that Jace and Jonathan are bound, by very ancient blood magic.”

“Blood magic? What sort of blood magic?”

Jocelyn took Magnus’s folded notes from the pocket of her gear and handed them over. Cleophas studied them with her intent fiery gaze. Isabelle saw with a start that the fingers of her hands were very long — not elegantly long but grotesquely so, as if the bones had been stretched so that each hand resembled an albino spider. Her nails were filed to points, each tipped with electrum.

She shook her head. “The Sisters have little to do with blood magic.” The flame color of her eyes seemed to leap and then dim, and a moment later another shadow appeared behind the frosted-glass surface of the adamas wall. This time Isabelle watched more closely as a second Iron Sister stepped through. It was like watching someone emerge from a haze of white smoke.

“Sister Dolores,” said Cleophas, handing Magnus’s notes to the new arrival. She looked much like Cleophas — the same tall narrow form, the same white dress, the same long hair, though in this case her hair was gray, and bound at the ends of her two braids with gold wire. Despite her gray hair, her face was lineless, her fire-colored eyes bright. “Can you make sense of this?”

Dolores glanced over the pages briefly. “A twinning spell,” she said. “Much like our own parabatai ceremony, but its alliance is demonic.”

“What makes it demonic?” Isabelle demanded. “If the parabatai spell is harmless—”

“Is it?” said Cleophas, but Dolores shot her a quelling look.

“The parabatai ritual binds two individuals but leaves their wills free,” Dolores explained. “This binds two but makes one subordinate to the other. What the primary of the two believes, the other will believe; what the first one wants, the second will want. It essentially removes the free will of the secondary partner in the spell, and that is why it is demonic. For free will is what makes us Heaven’s creatures.”

“It also seems to mean that when one is wounded, the other is wounded,” said Jocelyn. “Might we presume the same about death?”

“Yes. Neither will survive the death of the other. This again is not part of our parabatai ritual, for it is too cruel.”

“Our question to you is this,” said Jocelyn. “Is there any weapon forged, or that you might create, that could harm one but not the other? Or that might cut them apart?

Sister Dolores looked down at the notes, then handed them to Jocelyn. Her hands, like those of her colleague, were long and thin and as white as floss. “No weapon we have forged or could ever forge might do that.”

Isabelle’s hand tightened at her side, her nails cutting into her palm. “You mean there’s nothing?”

“Nothing in this world,” said Dolores. “A blade of Heaven or Hell might do it. The sword of the Archangel Michael, that Joshua fought with at Jericho, for it is infused with heavenly fire. And there are blades forged in the blackness of the Pit that might aid you, though how one might be obtained, I do not know.”

“And we would be prevented from telling you by the Law if we did know,” said Cleophas with asperity. “You understand, of course, that we will also have to tell the Clave about this visit of yours—”

“What about Joshua’s sword?” interrupted Isabelle. “Can you get that? Or can we?”

“Only an angel can gift you that sword,” said Dolores. “And to summon an angel is to be blasted with heavenly fire.”

“But Raziel—,” Isabelle began.

Cleophas’s lips thinned into a straight line. “Raziel left us the Mortal Instruments that he might be called upon in a time of direst need. That one chance was wasted when Valentine summoned him. We shall never be able to compel his might again. It was a crime to use the Instruments in that manner. The only reason that Clarissa Morgenstern escapes culpability is that it was her father who summoned him, not herself.”

“My husband also summoned another angel,” said Jocelyn. Her voice was quiet. “The angel Ithuriel. He kept him imprisoned for many years.”

Both Sisters hesitated before Dolores spoke. “It is the bleakest of crimes to entrap an angel,” she said. “The Clave could never approve it. Even if you could summon one, you could never force it to do your bidding. There is no spell for that. You could never get an angel to give you the archangel’s sword; you can take by force from an angel, but there is no greater crime. Better that your Jonathan die than that an angel be so besmirched.”

At that, Isabelle, whose temper had been rising, exploded. “That’s the problem with you — all of you, the Iron Sisters and the Silent Brothers. Whatever they do to change you from Shadowhunters to what you are, it takes all the feelings out of you. We might be part angel, but we’re part human, too. You don’t understand love, or the things people do for love, or family—”

The flame leaped in Dolores’s orange eyes. “I had a family,” she said. “A husband and children, all murdered by demons. There was nothing left to me. I had always had a skill with shaping things with my hands, so I became an Iron Sister. The peace it has brought me is peace I think I would never have found elsewhere. It is for that reason I chose the name Dolores, “sorrow.” So do not presume to tell us what we do or do not know about pain, or humanity.”

“You don’t know anything,” Isabelle snapped. “You’re as hard as demon-stone. No wonder you surround yourselves with it.”

“Fire tempers gold, Isabelle Lightwood,” said Cleophas.

“Oh, shut up,” Isabelle said. “You’ve been very unhelpful, both of you.”

She turned on the heel of her boot, spun away, and stalked back across the bridge, barely taking note of where the knives turned the path into a death trap, letting her body’s training guide her. She reached the other side and strode through the gates; only when she was outside them did she break down. Kneeling among the moss and volcanic rocks, under the great gray sky, she let herself shake silently, though no tears came.

It seemed ages before she heard a soft step beside her, and Jocelyn knelt and put her arms around her. Oddly, Isabelle found that she didn’t mind. Though she had never much liked Jocelyn, there was something so universally motherly in her touch that Isabelle leaned into it, almost against her own will.

“Do you want to know what they said, after you left?” Jocelyn asked, after Isabelle’s trembling had slowed.

“I’m sure something about how I’m a disgrace to Shadowhunters everywhere, et cetera.”

“Actually, Cleophas said you’d make an excellent Iron Sister, and if you were ever interested to let them know.” Jocelyn’s hand stroked her hair lightly.

Despite everything, Isabelle choked back a laugh. She looked up at Jocelyn. “Tell me,” she said.

Jocelyn’s hand stop moving. “Tell you what?”

“Who it was. That my father had the affair with. You don’t understand. Every time I see a woman my mother’s age, I wonder if it was her. Luke’s sister. The Consul. You—”

Jocelyn sighed. “It was Annamarie Highsmith. She died in Valentine’s attack on Alicante. I doubt you ever knew her.”

Isabelle’s mouth opened, then closed again. “I’ve never even heard her name before.”

“Good.” Jocelyn tucked a lock of Isabelle’s hair back. “Do you feel any better, now that you know?”

“Sure,” Isabelle lied, staring down at the ground. “I feel a lot better.”

After lunch Clary had returned to the downstairs bedroom with the excuse that she was exhausted. With the door firmly closed she had tried contacting Simon again, though she realized, given the time difference between where she was now — Italy — and New York, there was every chance he was asleep. At least she prayed he was asleep. It was far preferable to hope for that than to consider the possibility that the rings might not work.

She had been in the bedroom for only about half an hour when a knock sounded at the door. She called, “Come in,” moving to lean back on her hands, her fingers curled in as if she could hide the ring.

The door swung open slowly, and Jace looked down at her from the doorway. She remembered another night, summer heat, a knock on her door. Jace. Clean, in jeans and a gray shirt, his washed hair a halo of damp gold. The bruises on his face were already fading from purple to faint gray, and his hands were behind his back.

“Hey,” he said. His hands were in plain sight now, and he was wearing a soft-looking sweater the color of bronze that brought out the gold in his eyes. There were no bruises on his face, and the shadows she had almost grown used to seeing under his eyes were gone.

Is he happy like this? Really happy? And if he is, what are you saving him from?

Clary pushed away the tiny voice in her head and forced a smile. “What’s up?”

He grinned. It was a wicked grin, the kind that made the blood in Clary’s veins run a little faster. “You want to go on a date?”

Caught off guard, she stammered. “A wh-what?”

“A date,” Jace repeated. “Often ‘a boring thing you have to memorize in history class,’ but in this case, ‘an offer of an evening of blisteringly white-hot romance with yours truly.’”

“Really?” Clary was not sure what to make of this. “Blisteringly white-hot?”

“It’s me,” said Jace. “Watching me play Scrabble is enough to make most women swoon. Imagine if I actually put in some effort.”

Clary sat up and looked down at herself. Jeans, silky green top. She thought about the cosmetics in that odd shrine-like bedroom. She couldn’t help it; she was wishing for a little lip gloss.

Jace held his hand out. “You look gorgeous,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “I don’t know…”

“Come on.” His voice had that self-mocking, seductive tone she remembered from when they had first been getting to know each other, when he’d brought her up to the greenhouse to show her the flower that bloomed at midnight. “We’re in Italy. Venice. One of the most beautiful cities in the world. Shame not to see it, don’t you think?”

Jace pulled her forward, so she fell against his chest. The material of his shirt was soft under her fingers, and he smelled like his familiar soap and shampoo. Her heart took a sweeping dive inside her chest. “Or we could stay in,” he said, sounding a little breathless.

“So I can swoon watching you make a triple-word score?” With an effort she pulled back from him. “And spare me the jokes about scoring.”

“Dammit, woman, you read my mind,” he said. “Is there no filthy wordplay you can’t foresee?”

“It’s my special magical power. I can read your mind when you’re thinking dirty thoughts.”

“So, ninety-five percent of the time.”

She craned her head back to look up at him. “Ninety-five percent? What’s the other five percent?”

“Oh, you know, the usual — demons I might kill, runes I need to learn, people who’ve annoyed me recently, people who’ve annoyed me not so recently, ducks.”

“Ducks?”

He waved her question away. “All right. Now watch this.” He took her shoulders and turned her gently, so they were both facing the same way. A moment later — she wasn’t sure how — the walls of the room seemed to melt away around them, and she found herself stepping out onto cobblestones. She gasped, turning to look behind her, and saw only a blank wall, windows high up in an old stone building. Rows of similar houses lined the canal they stood beside. If she craned her head to the left, she could see in the distance that the canal opened out into a much larger waterway, lined with grand buildings. Everywhere was the smell of water and stone.

“Cool, huh?” Jace said proudly.

She turned and looked at him. “Ducks?” she said again.

A smile tugged the edge of his mouth. “I hate ducks. Don’t know why. I just always have.”

It was early morning when Maia and Jordan arrived at Praetor House, the headquarters of the Praetor Lupus. The truck clanked and bumped over the long white drive that swept through manicured lawns to the massive house that rose like the prow of a ship in the distance. Behind it Maia could see strips of trees, and behind that, the blue water of the Sound some distance away.

“This is where you did your training?” she demanded. “This place is gorgeous.”

“Don’t be fooled,” Jordan said with a smile. “This place is boot camp, emphasis on the ‘boot.’”

She looked sideways at him. He was still smiling. He had been, pretty much nonstop, since she’d kissed him down by the beach at dawn. Part of Maia felt as if a hand had lifted her up and dropped her back into her past, when she’d loved Jordan beyond anything she’d ever imagined, and part of her felt totally adrift, as if she’d woken up in a completely foreign landscape, far from the familiarity of her everyday life and the warmth of the pack.

It was very peculiar. Not bad, she thought. Just… peculiar.

Jordan came to a stop at a circular drive in front of the house, which, up close, Maia could see was built of blocks of golden stone, the tawny color of a wolf pelt. Black double doors were set at the top of a massive stone staircase. In the center of the circular drive was a massive sundial, its raised face telling her that it was seven in the morning. Around the edge of the sundial, words were carved: I ONLY MARK THE HOURS THAT SHINE.

She unlocked her door and jumped down from the cab just as the doors of the house opened and a voice rang out: “Praetor Kyle!”

Jordan and Maia both looked up. Descending the stairs was a middle-aged man in a charcoal suit, his blond hair streaked with gray. Jordan, smoothing all expression from his face, turned to him. “Praetor Scott,” he said. “This is Maia Roberts, of the Garroway pack. Maia, this is Praetor Scott. He runs the Praetor Lupus, pretty much.”

“Since the 1800s the Scotts have always run the Praetor,” said the man, glancing at Maia, who inclined her head, a sign of submission. “Jordan, I have to admit, we did not expect you back again so soon. The situation with the vampire in Manhattan, the Daylighter—”

“Is in hand,” Jordan said hastily. “That’s not why we’re here. This concerns something quite different.”

Praetor Scott raised his eyebrows. “Now you’ve piqued my curiosity.”

“It’s a matter of some urgency,” said Maia. “Luke Garroway, our pack’s leader—”

Praetor Scott gave her a sharp look, silencing her. Though he might have been packless, he was an alpha, that much was clear from his bearing. His eyes, under his thick eyebrows, were green-gray; around his throat, under the collar of his shirt, sparkled the bronze pendant of the Praetor, with its imprint of a wolf’s paw. “The Praetor chooses what matters it will regard as urgent,” he said. “Nor are we a hotel, open to uninvited guests. Jordan took a chance in bringing you here, and he knows that. If he were not one of our most promising graduates, I might well send you both away.”

Jordan hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and looked at the ground. A moment later Praetor Scott set his hand on Jordan’s shoulder.

“But,” he said, “you are one of our most promising graduates. And you look exhausted; I can see you were up all night. Come, and we’ll discuss this in my office.”

The office turned out to be down a long and winding hallway, elegantly paneled in dark wood. The house was lively with the sound of voices, and a sign saying HOUSE RULES was pinned to the wall beside a staircase leading up.

HOUSE RULES

— No shape-shifting in the hallways.

— No howling.

— No silver.

— Clothes must be worn at all times. ALL TIMES.

— No fighting. No biting.

— Mark all your food before you put it in the communal refrigerator.

The smell of cooking breakfast wafted through the air, making Maia’s stomach grumble. Praetor Scott sounded amused. “I’ll have someone make us up a plate of snacks if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks,” Maia muttered. They had reached the end of a hallway, and Praetor Scott opened a door marked OFFICE.

The older werewolf’s eyebrows drew together. “Rufus,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Maia peered past him. The office was a large room, comfortably messy. There was a rectangular picture window that gave out onto wide lawns, on which groups of mostly young people were executing what looked like drill maneuvers, wearing black warm-up pants and tops. The walls of the room were lined with books about lycanthropy, many in Latin, but Maia recognized the word “lupus.” The desk was a slab of marble set upon the statues of two snarling wolves.

In front of it were two chairs. In one of them sat a large man — a werewolf — hunched over, his hands gripped together. “Praetor,” he said in a grating voice. “I had hoped to speak with you regarding the incident in Boston.”

“The one in which you broke your assigned charge’s leg?” the Praetor said dryly. “I will be speaking to you about it, Rufus, but not this moment. Something more pressing calls me.”

“But, Praetor—”

“That will be all, Rufus,” said Scott in the ringing tone of an alpha wolf whose orders were not to be challenged. “Remember, this is a place of rehabilitation. Part of that is learning to respect authority.”

Muttering under his breath, Rufus rose from the chair. Only when he stood up did Maia realize, and react to, his enormous size. He towered over both her and Jordan, his black T-shirt straining over his chest, the sleeves about to split around his biceps. His head was closely shaved, his face scored with deep claw marks all across one cheek, like furrows dug in soil. He gave her a sour look as he stalked past them and out into the hall.

“Of course some of us,” Jordan muttered, “are easier to rehabilitate than others.”

As Rufus’s heavy tread faded down the hall, Scott threw himself into the high-backed chair behind the desk and buzzed a joltingly modern-looking intercom. After requesting breakfast in a terse voice, he leaned back, hands clasped behind his head.

“I’m all ears,” he said.

As Jordan recounted their story, and their request, to Praetor Scott, Maia couldn’t keep her eyes and mind from wandering. She wondered what it would have been like to have been raised here, in this elegant house of rules and regulations, rather than with the comparatively lawless freedom of the pack. At some point a werewolf dressed all in black — it seemed to be the regulation outfit of the Praetor — came in with sliced roast beef, cheese, and protein drinks on a pewter tray. Maia eyed the breakfast with some dismay. It was true that werewolves needed more protein than normal people, much more, but roast beef for breakfast?

“You’ll find,” Praetor Scott said as Maia drank her protein shake gingerly, “that, in fact, refined sugar is harmful to werewolves. If you cease consuming it for a period of time, you will cease desiring it. Hasn’t your pack leader told you that?”

Maia tried to imagine Luke, who liked to make pancakes in odd and amusing shapes, lecturing her about sugar, and failed. Now was not the time to mention that, though. “No, he has, of course,” she said. “I tend to, ah, backslide in times of stress.”

“I understand your concern for your pack leader,” said Scott. A gold Rolex glinted on his wrist. “Normally we maintain a strict policy of noninterference regarding matters not related to new-fledged Downworlders. We do not, in fact, prioritize werewolves over other Downworlders, though only lycanthropes are allowed into the Praetor.”

“But that’s exactly why we do need your help,” said Jordan. “Packs are by their nature always moving, transitional. They have no opportunity to build up things like libraries of stored knowledge. I’m not saying they don’t have wisdom, but everything is an oral tradition and every pack knows different things. We could go from pack to pack, and maybe someone would know how to cure Luke, but we don’t have time. Here”—he gestured at the books lining the walls—“is the closest thing werewolves have to, say, the archives of the Silent Brothers or the Spiral Labyrinth of the warlocks.”

Scott looked unconvinced. Maia set her protein shake down. “And Luke isn’t just any pack leader,” she said. “He’s the lyncanthrope’s representative on the Council. If you helped cure him, you would know that the Praetor would always have a Council voice in their favor.”

Scott’s eyes glinted. “Interesting,” he said. “Very well. I’ll have a look through the books. It’ll probably take a few hours. Jordan, I suggest that if you’re going to drive back to Manhattan you get some rest. We don’t need you wrapping your truck around a tree.”

“I could drive—,” Maia began.

“You look equally exhausted. Jordan, as you know, there will always be a room for you here at the Praetor House, even though you’ve graduated. And Nick is on assignment, so there’s a bed for Maia. Why don’t you both get some rest, and I’ll call you down when I’m finished.” He swiveled around in his chair to examine the books on the walls.

Jordan gestured to Maia that this was their cue to leave; she stood up, brushing crumbs off her jeans. She was halfway to the door when Praetor Scott spoke again.

“Oh, and Maia Roberts,” he said, and his voice held a note of warning. “I hope you understand that when you make promises in other people’s names, it falls upon your head to make sure they follow through.”

Simon awoke still feeling exhausted, blinking in the darkness. The thick black curtains over the windows let in very little light, but his internal body clock told him it was daytime. That and the fact that Isabelle was gone, her side of the bed rumpled, the covers turned back.

Daytime, and he hadn’t talked to Clary since she’d gone. He drew his hand out from under the covers and looked at the gold ring on his right hand. Delicate, it was etched with what were either designs or words in an alphabet he didn’t know.

Clenching his jaw, he sat up and touched the ring. Clary?

The answer was immediate and clear. He nearly slid off the bed with relief. Simon. Thank God.

Can you talk?

No. He felt rather than heard a tense distraction in the voice of her mind. I’m glad you spoke to me, but now isn’t good. I’m not alone.

But you’re all right?

I’m fine. Nothing’s happened yet. I’m trying to gather information. I promise I’ll talk to you the moment I hear anything.

Okay. Take care of yourself.

You too.

And she was gone. Sliding his legs over the side of the mattress, Simon did his best to flatten his sleep-mussed hair, and went to see if anyone else was awake.

They were. Alec, Magnus, Jocelyn, and Isabelle sat around the table in Magnus’s living room. While Alec and Magnus were in jeans, both Jocelyn and Isabelle wore gear, Isabelle with her whip wrapped around her right arm. She glanced up as he came in but didn’t smile; her shoulders were tense, her mouth a thin line. They all had mugs of coffee in front of them.

“There’s a reason the ritual of the Mortal Instruments was so complicated.” Magnus made the sugar bowl float over to himself and dumped some of the white powder into his coffee. “Angels act at the behest of God, not human beings — not even Shadowhunters. Summon one, and you’re likely to find yourself blasted with divine wrath. The whole point of the Mortal Instruments ritual wasn’t that it allowed someone to summon Raziel. It was that it protected the summoner from the Angel’s wrath once he did appear.”

“Valentine—,” Alec began.

“Yes, Valentine also summoned a very minor angel. And it never spoke to him, did it? Never gave him a sliver of help, though he harvested its blood. And even then he must have been using incredibly powerful spells just to bind it. My understanding is that he tied its life to the Wayland manor, so that when the angel died the manor collapsed to rubble.” He tapped a blue-painted fingernail on his mug. “And he damned himself. Whether you believe in Heaven and Hell or not, he damned himself surely. When he summoned Raziel, Raziel struck him down. Partly in revenge for what Valentine had done to his brother angel.”

“Why are we talking about summoning angels?” Simon asked, perching himself on the end of the long table.

“Isabelle and Jocelyn went to see the Iron Sisters,” said Alec. “Looking for a weapon that could be used on Sebastian that wouldn’t affect Jace.”

“And there isn’t one?”

“Nothing in this world,” said Isabelle. “A Heavenly weapon might do it, or something with a seriously demonic alliance. We were exploring the first option.”

“Summoning up an angel to give you a weapon?”

“It’s happened before,” said Magnus. “Raziel gave the Mortal Sword to Jonathan Shadowhunter. In the old stories, the night before the battle of Jericho, an angel appeared and gave Joshua a sword.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “I would have thought angels would have been all about peace, not weapons.”

Magnus snorted. “Angels are not just messengers. They are soldiers. Michael is said to have routed armies. They are not patient, angels. Certainly not with the vicissitudes of human beings. Anyone who tried to summon Raziel without the Mortal Instruments to protect them would probably be blasted to death on the spot. Demons are easier to summon. There are more of them, and many are weak. But then, a weak demon can help you only so much—”

“We can’t summon a demon,” said Jocelyn, aghast. “The Clave—”

“I thought you stopped caring what the Clave thought of you years ago,” Magnus said.

“It’s not just me,” said Jocelyn. “The rest of you. Luke. My daughter. If the Clave knew—”

“Well, they won’t know, will they?” said Alec, his usually gentle voice edged. “Unless you tell them.”

Jocelyn looked from Isabelle’s still face to Magnus’s inquiring one, to Alec’s stubborn blue eyes. “You’re really considering this? Summoning a demon?”

“Well, not just any demon,” said Magnus. “Azazel.”

Jocelyn’s eyes blazed. “Azazel?” Her eyes scanned the others, as if looking for support, but Izzy and Alec glanced down at their mugs, and Simon just shrugged.

“I don’t know who Azazel is,” he said. “Isn’t he the cat from The Smurfs?” He cast about, but Isabelle just looked up and rolled her eyes at him. Clary? he thought.

Her voice came through, tinged with alarm. What is it? What’s happened? Did my mom find out I’m gone?

Not yet, he thought back. Is Azazel the cat from The Smurfs?

There was a long pause. That’s Azrael, Simon. And no more using the magic rings for Smurf questions.

And she was gone. Simon glanced up from his hand and saw Magnus looking at him quizzically. “He’s not a cat, Sylvester,” he said. “He’s a Greater Demon. Lieutenant of Hell and Forger of Weapons. He was an angel who taught mankind how to make weapons, when before it had been knowledge only angels possessed. That caused him to fall, and now he is a demon. ‘And the whole earth has been corrupted by the works that were taught by Azazel. To him ascribe all sin.’”

Alec looked at Magnus in amazement. “How did you know all that?”

“He’s a friend of mine,” said Magnus, and, noting their expressions, sighed. “Okay, not really. But it is in the Book of Enoch.”

“Seems dangerous.” Alec frowned. “It sounds like he’s beyond a Greater Demon, even. Like Lilith.”

“Fortunately, he is already bound,” said Magnus. “If you summon him, his spirit form will come to you but his corporeal self will remain bound to the jagged rocks of Duduael.”

“The jagged rocks of… Oh, whatever,” Isabelle said, winding her long dark hair into a bun. “He’s the demon of weapons. Fine. I say we give it a go.”

“I can’t believe you’re even considering this,” said Jocelyn. “I learned from watching my husband what dabbling in raising demons can do. Clary—” She broke off then, as if sensing Simon’s gaze on her, and turned. “Simon,” she said, “do you know, is Clary awake yet? We’ve been letting her sleep, but it’s almost eleven.”

Simon hesitated. “I don’t know.” This, he reasoned, was true. Wherever Clary was, she could be asleep. Even though he had just talked to her.

Jocelyn looked puzzled. “But weren’t you in the room with her?”

“No, I wasn’t. I was—” Simon broke off, realizing the hole he’d just dug himself. There were three spare bedrooms. Jocelyn had been in one, Clary the other. Which would obviously mean he must have slept in the third room with—

“Isabelle?” said Alec, his eyebrows raised. “You slept in Isabelle’s room?”

Isabelle waved a hand. “No need to worry, big brother. Nothing happened. Of course,” she added as Alec’s shoulders relaxed, “I was totally passed-out drunk, so he could really have done whatever he wanted and I wouldn’t have woken up.”

“Oh, please,” said Simon. “All I did was tell you the entire plot of Star Wars.”

“I don’t think I remember that,” said Isabelle, taking a cookie from the plate on the table.

“Oh, yeah? Who was Luke Skywalker’s best childhood friend?”

“Biggs Darklighter,” Isabelle said immediately, and then hit the table with the flat of her hand. “That is so cheating!” Still, she grinned at him around her cookie.

“Ah,” said Magnus. “Nerd love. It is a beautiful thing, while also being an object of mockery and hilarity for those of us who are more sophisticated.”

“All right, that’s enough.” Jocelyn stood up. “I’m going to get Clary. If you’re going to raise a demon, I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want my daughter here either.” She headed toward the hallway.

Simon blocked her way. “You can’t do that,” he said.

Jocelyn looked at him with a set face. “I know you’re going to say that this is the safest place for us, Simon, but with a demon being raised, I just—”

“It’s not that.” Simon took a deep breath, which didn’t help, since his blood no longer processed oxygen. He felt slightly sick. “You can’t go wake her up because… because she isn’t here.”

10 THE WILD HUNT

Jordan’s old room at the Praetor House looked like any dormitory room at any college. There were two iron-framed beds, each set against a different wall. Through the window separating them green lawns were visible three floors down. Jordan’s side of the room was fairly bare — it looked as if he had taken most of his photographs and books with him to Manhattan — though there were some tacked-up pictures of beaches and the ocean, and a surfboard leaning against one wall. A little jolt went through Maia as she saw that on the bedside table was a gold-framed photo of her with Jordan, taken at Ocean City, the boardwalk and the beach behind them.

Jordan looked at the photograph and then at her, and blushed. He slung his bag onto his bed and stripped off his jacket, his back to her.

“When will your roommate be back?” she asked into the suddenly uncomfortable silence. She wasn’t sure why they were both embarrassed. They certainly hadn’t been when they’d been in the truck together, but now, here in Jordan’s space, the years they had spent not speaking seemed to press them apart.

“Who knows? Nick’s on assignment. They’re dangerous. He might not come back.” Jordan sounded resigned. He tossed his jacket over the back of a chair. “Why don’t you lie down? I’m going to take a shower.” He headed for the bathroom, which, Maia was relieved to see, was attached to his room. She didn’t feel like dealing with one of those shared-bathroom-down-the-hall things.

“Jordan—,” she began, but he’d already closed the bathroom door behind him. She could hear water running. With a sigh she kicked off her shoes and lay down on the absent Nick’s bed. The blanket was dark blue plaid, and smelled like pinecones. She looked up and saw that the ceiling was wallpapered with photographs. The same laughing blond boy, who looked about seventeen, smiled down at her out of each picture. Nick, she guessed. He looked happy. Had Jordan been happy, here at the Praetor House?

She reached out and flipped the photograph of the two of them toward her. It had been taken years ago, when Jordan was skinny, with big hazel eyes that dominated his face. They had their arms around each other and looked sunburned and happy. Summer had darkened both their skins and put light streaks in Maia’s hair, and Jordan had his head turned slightly toward her, as if he were going to say something or kiss her. She couldn’t remember which. Not anymore.

She thought of the boy whose bed she was sitting on, the boy who might never come back. She thought of Luke, slowly dying, and of Alaric and Gretel and Justine and Theo and all the others of her pack who had lost their lives in the war against Valentine. She thought of Max, and of Jace, two Lightwoods lost — for, she had to admit in her heart, she didn’t think they would ever get Jace back. And lastly and strangely she thought of Daniel, the brother she had never mourned for, and to her surprise she felt tears sting the backs of her eyes.

She sat up abruptly. She felt as if the world were tilting and she was clinging on helplessly, trying to keep from tumbling into a black abyss. She could feel the shadows closing in. With Jace lost and Sebastian out there, things could only get darker. There would only be more loss and more death. She had to admit, the most alive she’d felt in weeks had been those moments at dawn, kissing Jordan in his car.

As if she were in a dream, she found herself getting to her feet. She walked across the room and opened the door to the bathroom. The shower was a square of frosted glass; she could see Jordan’s silhouette through it. She doubted he could hear her over the running water as she pulled off her sweater and shimmied out of her jeans and underwear. With a deep breath she crossed the room, slid the shower door open, and stepped inside.

Jordan spun around, pushing the wet hair out of his eyes. The shower was running hot, and his face was flushed, making his eyes shine as if the water had polished them. Or maybe it wasn’t just the water making the blood rise under his skin as his eyes took her in — all of her. She looked back at him steadily, not embarrassed, watching the way the Praetor Lupus pendant shone in the wet hollow of his throat, and the slide of the soap suds over his shoulders and chest as he stared at her, blinking water out of his eyes. He was beautiful, but then she had always thought so.

“Maia?” he said unsteadily. “Are you…?”

“Shh.” She put her finger against his lips, drawing the shower door closed with her other hand. Then she stepped closer, wrapping both arms around him, letting the water wash both of them clean of the darkness. “Don’t talk. Just kiss me.”

So he did.

“What in the name of the Angel do you mean Clary isn’t there?” Jocelyn demanded, white-faced. “How do you know that, if you just woke up? Where has she gone?”

Simon swallowed. He had grown up with Jocelyn as almost a second mother to him. He was used to her protectiveness of her daughter, but she had always seen him as an ally in that, someone who would stand between Clary and the dangers of the world. Now she was looking at him like the enemy. “She texted me last night…,” Simon began, then stopped as Magnus waved him over to the table.

“You might as well sit down,” he said. Isabelle and Alec were watching wide-eyed from either side of Magnus, but the warlock didn’t look particularly surprised. “Tell us all what’s going on. I have a feeling this is going to take a while.”

It did, though not as long as Simon might have hoped. When he was done explaining, hunched over on his chair and staring down at Magnus’s scratched table, he lifted his head to see Jocelyn fixing him with a green stare as cold as arctic water. “You let my daughter go off… with Jace… to some unfindable, untraceable place where none of us can reach her?”

Simon looked down at his hands. “I can reach her,” he said, holding up his right hand with the gold ring on the finger. “I told you. I heard from her this morning. She said she was fine.”

“You never should have let her leave in the first place!”

“I didn’t let her. She was going to go anyway. I thought she might as well have some kind of a lifeline, since it’s not like I could stop her.”

“To be fair,” said Magnus, “I don’t think anyone could. Clary does what she wants.” He looked at Jocelyn. “You can’t keep her in a cage.”

“I trusted you,” she snapped at Magnus. “How did she get out?”

“She made a Portal.”

“But you said there were wards—”

“To keep threats out, not to keep guests in. Jocelyn, your daughter isn’t stupid, and she does what she thinks is right. You can’t stop her. No one can stop her. She is a great deal like her mother.”

Jocelyn looked at Magnus for a moment, her mouth slightly open, and Simon realized that of course Magnus must have known Clary’s mother when she was young, when she betrayed Valentine and the Circle and nearly died in the Uprising. “She’s a little girl,” she said, and turned to Simon. “You’ve spoken to her? Using these — these rings? Since she left?”

“This morning,” said Simon. “She said she was fine. That everything was fine.”

Instead of seeming reassured, Jocelyn only looked angrier. “I’m sure that’s what she said. Simon, I can’t believe you allowed her to do this. You should have restrained her—”

“What, tied her up?” Simon said in disbelief. “Handcuffed her to the diner table?”

“If that’s what it took. You’re stronger than she is. I’m disappointed in—”

Isabelle stood up. “Okay, that’s enough.” She glared at Jocelyn. “It is totally and completely unfair to yell at Simon over something Clary decided to do on her own. And if Simon had tied her up for you, then what? Were you planning on keeping her tied up forever? You’d have to let her go eventually, and then what? She wouldn’t trust Simon anymore, and she already doesn’t trust you because you stole her memories. And that, if I recall, was because you were trying to protect her. Maybe if you hadn’t protected her so much, she would know more about what is dangerous and what isn’t, and be a little less secretive — and less reckless!”

Everyone stared at Isabelle, and for a moment Simon was reminded of something that Clary had said to him once — that Izzy rarely made speeches, but when she did, she made them count. Jocelyn was white around the lips.

“I’m going to the station to be with Luke,” she said. “Simon, I expect reports from you every twenty-four hours that my daughter is all right. If I don’t hear from you every night, I’m going to the Clave.”

And she stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her so hard that a long crack appeared in the plaster beside it.

Isabelle sat back down, this time beside Simon. He said nothing to her but held out his hand, and she took it, slipping her fingers between his.

“So,” Magnus said finally, breaking the silence. “Who’s up for raising Azazel? Because we’re going to need a whole lot of candles.”

Jace and Clary spent the day wandering — through mazelike tiny streets than ran along canals whose water ranged from deep green to murky blue. They made their way among the tourists in Saint Mark’s Square, and over the Bridge of Sighs, and drank small, powerful cups of espresso at Caffè Florian. The disorienting maze of streets reminded Clary a bit of Alicante, though Alicante lacked Venice’s feeling of elegant decay. There were no roads here, no cars, only twisting little alleys, and bridges arching over canals whose water was as green as malachite. As the sky overhead darkened to the deep blue of late autumn twilight, lights began to go on — in tiny boutiques, in bars and restaurants that seemed to appear out of nowhere and disappear again into shadow as she and Jace passed, leaving light and laughter behind.

When Jace asked Clary if she was ready for dinner, she nodded firmly, yes. She had begun to feel guilty that she had gotten no information out of him and that she was, actually, enjoying herself. As they crossed over a bridge to the Dorsoduro, one of the quieter sections of the city, away from the tourist throng, she determined that she would get something out of him that night, something worth relaying to Simon.

Jace held her hand firmly as they went over a final bridge and the street opened out into a great square on the side of an enormous canal the size of a river. The basilica of a domed church rose on their right. Across the canal more of the city lit the evening, throwing illumination onto the water, which shifted and glimmered with light. Clary’s hands itched for chalk and pencils, to draw the light as it faded out of the sky, the darkening water, the jagged outlines of the buildings, their reflections slowly dimming in the canal. Everything seemed washed with a steely blueness. Somewhere church bells were chiming.

She tightened her hand on Jace’s. She felt very far away here from everything in her life, distant in a way that she had not felt in Idris. Venice shared with Alicante the sense of being a place out of time, torn from the past, as if she had stepped into a painting or the pages of a book. But it was also a real place, one she had grown up knowing about, wanting to visit. She looked sidelong at Jace, who was gazing down the canal. The steely blue light was on him, too, darkening his eyes, the shadows under his cheekbones, the lines of his mouth. When he caught her gaze on him, he looked over and smiled.

He led her around the church and down a flight of mossy steps to a path along the canal. Everything smelled of wet stone and water and dampness and years. As the sky darkened, something broke the surface of the canal water a few feet from Clary. She heard the splash and looked in time to see a green-haired woman rise from the water and grin at her; she had a beautiful face but sharklike teeth and a fish’s yellow eyes. Pearls were wound through her hair. She sank again below the water, without a ripple.

“Mermaid,” said Jace. “There are old families of them that have lived here in Venice a long, long time. They’re a little odd. They do better in clean water, far out to sea, living on fish instead of garbage.” He looked toward the sunset. “The whole city is sinking,” he said. “It’ll all be under water in a hundred years. Imagine swimming down into the ocean and touching the top of Saint Mark’s Basilica.” He pointed across the water.

Clary felt a flicker of sadness at the thought of all this beauty being lost. “Isn’t there anything they can do?”

“To raise a whole city? Or hold back the ocean? Not much,” Jace said. They had come to a set of stairs leading up. The wind came off the water and lifted his dark gold hair off his forehead, his neck. “All things tend toward entropy. The whole universe is moving outward, the stars pulling away from one another, God knows what falling through the cracks between them.” He paused. “Okay, that sounded a little crazy.”

“Maybe it was all the wine at lunch.”

“I can hold my liquor.” They turned a corner, and a fairyland of lights gleamed out at them. Clary blinked, her eyes adjusting. It was a small restaurant with tables set outside and inside, heat lamps wound with Christmas lights like a forest of magical trees between the tables. Jace detached himself from her long enough to get them a table, and soon they were sitting by the side of the canal, listening to the splash of water against stone and the sound of small boats bobbing up and down with the tide.

Tiredness was beginning to wash over Clary in waves, like the lap of water against the sides of the canal. She told Jace what she wanted and let him order in Italian, relieved when the waiter went away so she could lean forward and rest her elbows on the table, her head on her hands.

“I think I have jet lag,” she said. “Interdimensional jet lag.”

“You know, time is a dimension,” Jace said.

“Pedant.” She flicked a bread crumb from the basket on the table at him.

He grinned. “I was trying to remember all the deadly sins the other day,” he said. “Greed, envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry…”

“I’m pretty sure irony isn’t a deadly sin.”

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Lust,” she said. “Lust is a deadly sin.”

“And spanking.”

“I think that falls under lust.”

“I think it should have its own category,” said Jace. “Greed, envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry, lust, and spanking.” The white Christmas lights were reflected in his eyes. He looked more beautiful than he ever had, Clary thought, and correspondingly more distant, more hard to touch. She thought of what he had said about the city sinking, and the spaces between the stars, and remembered the lines of a Leonard Cohen song that Simon’s band used to cover, not very well. “There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” There had to be a crack in Jace’s calm, some way she could reach through to the real him she believed was still in there.

Jace’s amber eyes studied her. He reached out to touch her hand, and it was only after a moment that Clary realized that his fingers were on her gold ring. “What’s that?” he said. “I don’t remember you having a faerie-work ring.”

His tone was neutral, but her heart skipped a beat. Lying straight to Jace’s face wasn’t something she had a lot of practice with. “It was Isabelle’s,” she said with a shrug. “She was throwing out all the stuff that faerie ex-boyfriend of hers gave her — Meliorn — and I thought this was pretty, so she said I could have it.”

“And the Morgenstern ring?”

This seemed like a place to tell the truth. “I gave it to Magnus so he could try to track you with it.”

“Magnus.” Jace said the name as if it were a stranger’s, and exhaled a breath. “Do you still feel like you made the right decision? Coming with me here?”

“Yes. I’m happy to be with you. And — well, I always wanted to see Italy. I’ve never traveled much. Never been out of the country—”

“You were in Alicante,” he reminded her.

“Okay, other than visiting magical lands no one else can see, I haven’t traveled much. Simon and I had plans. We were going to go backpacking around Europe after we graduated high school…” Clary’s voice trailed off. “It sounds silly now.”

“No, it doesn’t.” He reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Stay with me. We can see the whole world.”

“I am with you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Is there anything special you want to see? Paris? Budapest? The Leaning Tower of Pisa?”

Only if it falls on Sebastian’s head, she thought. “Can we travel to Idris? I mean, I guess, can the apartment travel there?”

“It can’t get past the wards.” His hand traced a path down her cheek. “You know, I really missed you.”

“You mean you haven’t been going on romantic dates with Sebastian while you’ve been away from me?”

“I tried,” Jace said, “but no matter how liquored up you get him, he just won’t put out.”

Clary reached for her glass of wine. She was starting to get used to the taste of it. She could feel it burning a path down her throat, heating her veins, adding a dreamlike quality to the night. She was in Italy, with her beautiful boyfriend, on a beautiful night, eating delicious food that melted in her mouth. These were the kinds of moments that you remembered all your life. But it felt like touching only the edge of happiness; every time she looked at Jace, happiness slipped away from her. How could he be Jace and not-Jace, all at once? How could you be heartbroken and happy at the same time?

They lay in the narrow twin bed that was meant for only one person, wrapped together tightly under Jordan’s flannel sheet. Maia lay with her head in the crook of his arm, the sun from the window warming her face and shoulders. Jordan was propped on his arm, leaning over her, his free hand running through her hair, pulling her curls out to their full length and letting them slide back through his fingers.

“I missed your hair,” he said, and dropped a kiss onto her forehead.

Laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her, that sort of laughter that came with the giddiness of infatuation. “Just my hair?”

“No.” He was grinning, his hazel eyes lit with green, his brown hair thoroughly rumpled. “Your eyes.” He kissed them, one after another. “Your mouth.” He kissed that, too, and she hooked her fingers through the chain against his bare chest that held the Praetor Lupus pendant. “Everything about you.”

She twisted the chain around her fingers. “Jordan… I’m sorry about before. About snapping at you about the money, and Stanford. It was just a lot to take in.”

His eyes darkened, and he ducked his head. “It’s not like I don’t know how independent you are. I just… I wanted to do something nice for you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know you worry about me needing you, but I shouldn’t be with you because I need you. I should be with you because I love you.”

His eyes lit up — incredulous, hopeful. “You — I mean, you think it’s possible you could feel that way about me again?”

“I never stopped loving you, Jordan,” she said, and he caught her against him with a kiss so intense it was bruising. She moved closer to him, and things might have proceeded as they had in the shower if a sharp knock hadn’t come at the door.

“Praetor Kyle!” a voice shouted through the door. “Wake up! Praetor Scott wishes to see you downstairs in his office.”

Jordan, his arms around Maia, swore softly. Laughing, Maia ran her hand slowly up his back, tangling her fingers in his hair. “You think Praetor Scott can wait?” she whispered.

“I think he has a key to this room and he’ll use it if he feels like it.”

“That’s all right,” she said, brushing her lips against his ear. “We have lots of time, right? All the time we’ll ever need.”

Chairman Meow lay on the table in front of Simon, completely asleep, his four legs sticking straight into the air. This, Simon felt, was something of an achievement. Since he had become a vampire, animals tended not to like him; they avoided him if they could, and hissed or barked if he came too close. For Simon, who had always been an animal lover, it was a hard loss. But he supposed if you were already the pet of a warlock, perhaps you’d learned to accept weird creatures in your life.

Magnus, as it turned out, hadn’t been joking about the candles. Simon was taking a moment to rest and drink some coffee; it stayed down well, and the caffeine took the edge off the beginning prickles of hunger. All afternoon, they had been helping Magnus set the scene for raising Azazel. They had raided local bodegas for tea lights and prayer candles, which they had placed in a careful circle. Isabelle and Alec were scattering the floorboards outside the circle with a mixture of salt and dried belladonna as Magnus instructed them, reading aloud from Forbidden Rites, A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century.

“What have you done to my cat?” Magnus demanded, returning to the living room carrying a pot of coffee, with a circle of mugs floating around his head like a model of the planets rotating around the sun. “You drank his blood, didn’t you? You said you weren’t hungry!”

Simon was indignant. “I did not drink his blood. He’s fine!” He poked the Chairman in the stomach. The cat yawned. “Second, you asked me if I was hungry when you were ordering pizza, so I said no, because I can’t eat pizza. I was being polite.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to eat my cat.”

“Your cat is fine!” Simon reached to pick up the tabby, who jumped indignantly to his feet and stalked off the table. “See?”

“Whatever.” Magnus threw himself down in the seat at the head of the table; the mugs banged into place as Alec and Izzy straightened up, done with their task. Magnus clapped his hands. “Everyone! Gather around. It’s time for a meeting. I’m going to teach you how to summon a demon.”

Praetor Scott was waiting for them in the library, still in the same swivel chair, a small bronze box on the desk between them. Maia and Jordan sat down across from him, and Maia couldn’t help wondering if it was written all over her face, what she and Jordan had been doing. Not that the Praetor was looking at them with much interest.

He pushed the box toward Jordan. “It’s a salve,” he said. “If applied to Garroway’s wound, it should filter the poison from his blood and allow the demon steel to work its way free. He should heal in a few days.”

Maia’s heart leaped — finally some good news. She reached for the box before Jordan could, and opened it. It was indeed filled with a dark waxy salve that smelled sharply herbal, like crushed bay leaves.

“I—,” Praetor Scott began, his eyes flicking to Jordan.

“She should take it,” said Jordan. “She’s close to Garroway and is part of the pack. They trust her.”

“Are you saying they don’t trust the Praetor?”

“Half of them think the Praetor is a fairy tale,” Maia said, adding “sir” as an afterthought.

Praetor Scott looked annoyed, but before he could say anything, the phone on his desk rang. He seemed to hesitate, then lifted the receiver to his ear. “Scott here,” he said, and then, after a moment, “Yes — yes, I think so.” He hung up, his mouth curving into a not entirely pleasant smile. “Praetor Kyle,” he said. “I’m glad you dropped in on us today of all days. Stay a moment. This matter somewhat concerns you.”

Maia was startled at this pronouncement, but not as startled as she was a moment later when a corner of the room began to shimmer and a figure appeared, slowly developing — it was like watching images appear on film in a darkroom — and the figure of a young boy took shape. His hair was dark brown, short and straight, and a gold necklace gleamed against the brown skin of his throat. He looked slight and ethereal, like a choirboy, but there was something in his eyes that made him seem much older than that.

“Raphael,” she said, recognizing him. He was ever so slightly transparent — a Projection, she realized. She’d heard of them but had never seen one up close.

Praetor Scott looked at her in surprise. “You know the head of the New York vampire clan?”

“We met once, in Brocelind Woods,” said Raphael, looking her over without much interest. “She is a friend of the Daylighter, Simon.”

“Your assignment,” Praetor Scott said to Jordan, as if Jordan could have forgotten.

Jordan’s forehead creased. “Has something happened to him?” he asked. “Is he all right?”

“This is not about him,” said Raphael. “It is about the rogue vampire, Maureen Brown.”

“Maureen?” Maia exclaimed. “But she’s only, what, thirteen?”

“A rogue vampire is a rogue vampire,” said Raphael. “And Maureen has been cutting quite a swath for herself through TriBeCa and the Lower East Side. Multiple injured and at least six kills. We’ve managed to cover them up, but…”

“She’s Nick’s assignment,” said Praetor Scott with a frown. “But he hasn’t been able to find a trace of her. We may need to send in someone with more experience.”

“I urge you to do so,” said Raphael. “If the Shadowhunters were not so concerned with their own… emergency at this juncture, they would surely have involved themselves by now. And the last thing the clan needs after the affair with Camille is a censuring by the Shadowhunters.”

“I take it Camille is still missing as well?” said Jordan. “Simon told us everything that happened the night Jace disappeared, and Maureen seemed to be doing Camille’s bidding.”

“Camille is not new-made and is therefore not our concern,” said Scott.

“I know, but — find her, and you may find Maureen, that’s all I’m saying,” said Jordan.

“If she were with Camille, she would not be killing at the rate she is,” said Raphael. “Camille would prevent her. She is bloodthirsty but she knows the Conclave, and the Law. She would keep Maureen and her activities out of their line of sight. No, Maureen’s behavior has all the hallmarks of a vampire gone feral.”

“Then, I think you’re right.” Jordan sat back. “Nick should have backup in dealing with her, or—”

“Or something might happen to him? If it does, perhaps it will help you focus more in future,” said Praetor Scott. “On your own assignment.”

Jordan’s mouth opened. “Simon wasn’t responsible for Turning Maureen,” he said. “I told you—”

Praetor Scott waved away his words. “Yes, I know,” he said, “or you would have been pulled from your assignment, Kyle. But your subject did bite her, and under your watch as well. And it was her association with the Daylighter, however distant, that led to her eventual Turning.”

“The Daylighter is dangerous,” said Raphael, his eyes shining. “It is what I have been saying all along.”

“He is not dangerous,” Maia said fiercely. “He has a good heart.” She saw Jordan glance at her a little, sidelong, so quickly that she wondered if she’d imagined it.

“Yap, yap, yap,” said Raphael dismissively. “You werewolves cannot focus on the matter at hand. I trusted you, Praetor, for new-fledged Downworlders are your department. But allowing Maureen to run wild reflects badly on my clan. If you do not find her soon, I will call up every vampire at my disposal. After all”—he smiled, and his delicate incisors shone—“in the end she is ours to kill.”

When the meal was over, Clary and Jace walked back to the apartment through a mist-shrouded evening. The streets were deserted and the canal water shone like glass. Rounding a corner, they found themselves beside a quiet canal, lined with shuttered houses. Boats bobbed gently on the curving water, each a half-moon of black.

Jace laughed softly and moved forward, his hand pulling out of Clary’s. His eyes were wide and golden in the lamplight. He knelt by the side of the canal, and she saw a flash of white-silver — a stele — and then one of the boats sprang free of its mooring chain and began to drift toward the center of the canal. Jace slid the stele back into his belt and leaped, landing lightly on the wooden seat at the front of the boat. He held his hand out to Clary. “Come on.”

She looked from him to the boat and shook her head. It was only a little bigger than a canoe, painted black, though the paint was damp and splintering. It looked as light and fragile as a toy. She imagined upending it and both of them being dumped into the ice-green canal. “I can’t. I’ll knock it over.”

Jace shook his head impatiently. “You can do it,” he said. “I trained you.” To demonstrate he took a step back. Now he was standing on the thin edge of the boat, just beside the oarlock. He looked at her, his mouth crooked in a half smile. By all the laws of physics, she thought, the boat, unbalanced, ought to have been toppling sideways into the water. But Jace balanced lightly there, back straight, as if he were made of nothing more than smoke. Behind him was the backdrop of water and stone, canal and bridges, not a single modern edifice in sight. With his bright hair and the way he carried himself, he could have been some Renaissance prince.

He held out a hand to her again. “Remember. You’re as light as you want to be.”

She remembered. Hours of training in how to fall, to balance, how to land like Jace did, as if you were a piece of ash sifting gently downward. She sucked her breath in and leaped, the green water flying by beneath her. She alighted in the bow of the boat, wobbling on the wooden seat, but steady.

She let out her breath in a whoosh of relief and heard Jace laugh as he leaped down to the flat bottom of the boat. It was leaky. A thin layer of water covered the wood. He was also nine inches taller than she was, so that with her standing on the seat in the bow, their heads were on a level.

He put his hands on her waist. “So,” he said. “Where do you want to go now?”

She looked around. They had drifted far away from the bank of the canal. “Are we stealing this boat?”

“‘Stealing’ is such an ugly word,” he mused.

“What do you want to call it?”

He picked her up and swung her around before putting her down. “An extreme case of window-shopping.”

He pulled her closer, and she stiffened. Her feet skidded out from under her, and the two of them slid to the curved floor of the boat, which was flat and damp and smelled like water and wet wood.

Clary found herself resting on top of Jace, her knees on either side of his hips. Water was soaking into his shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind. He threw his hands behind his head, folding them, his shirt pulling up. “You literally knocked me down with the strength of your passion,” he observed. “Nice work, Fray.”

“You only fell because you wanted to. I know you,” she said. The moon shone down on them like a spotlight, like they were the only people under it. “You never slip.”

He touched her face. “I may not slip,” he said, “but I fall.”

Her heart pounded, and she had to swallow before she could reply lightly, as if he were joking. “That may be your worst line of all time.”

“Who says it’s a line?”

The boat rocked, and she leaned forward, balancing her hands on his chest. Her hips pressed against his, and she watched his eyes as they widened, going from wickedly sparkling gold to dark, the pupil swallowing the iris. She could see herself and the night sky in them.

He propped himself up on one elbow, and slipped a hand around the back of her neck. She felt him arch up against her, lips brushing hers, but she drew back, not quite allowing the kiss. She wanted him, wanted him so much she felt hollow on the inside, as if desire had burned her clean through. No matter what her mind said — that this was not Jace, not her Jace, still her body remembered him, the shape and feel of him, the scent of his skin and hair, and wanted him back.

She smiled against his mouth as if she were teasing him, and rolled to the side, curling next to him in the wet bottom of the boat. He didn’t protest. His arm curved around her, and the rocking of the boat beneath them was gentle and lulling. She wanted to put her head on his shoulder, but didn’t.

“We’re drifting,” she said.

“I know. There’s something I want you to see.” Jace was looking up at the sky. The moon was a great white billow, like a sail; Jace’s chest rose and fell steadily. His fingers tangled in her hair. She lay still beside him, waiting and watching as the stars ticked by like an astrological clock, and she wondered what they were waiting for. At last she heard it, a long slow rushing noise, like water pouring through a broken dam. The sky darkened and churned as figures rushed across it. She could barely make them out through the clouds and the distance, but they seemed to be men, with long hair like cirrus clouds, riding horses whose hooves gleamed the color of blood. The sound of a hunting horn echoed across the night, and the stars shivered and the night folded in on itself as the men vanished behind the moon.

She let her breath out in a slow exhalation. “What was that?”

“The Wild Hunt,” said Jace. His voice sounded distant and dreamlike. “Gabriel’s Hounds. The Wild Host. They have many names. They are faeries who disdain the earthly Courts. They ride across the sky, pursuing an eternal hunt. On one night a year a mortal can join them — but once you’ve joined the Hunt, you can never leave it.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?”

Jace rolled and was suddenly on top of Clary, pressing her down into the bottom of the boat. She hardly noticed the damp; she could feel heat rolling off him in waves, and his eyes burned. He had a way of propping himself over her so that she wasn’t crushed but she could feel every part of him against her — the shape of his hips, the rivets in his jeans, the tracings of his scars. “There’s something appealing about the idea,” he said. “Of losing all your control. Don’t you think?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but he was already kissing her. She had kissed him so many times — soft gentle kisses, hard and desperate ones, brief brushes of the lips that said good-bye, and kisses that seemed to go on for hours — and this was no different. The way the memory of someone who had once lived in a house might linger even after they were gone, like a sort of psychic imprint, her body remembered Jace. Remembered the way he tasted, the slant of his mouth over hers, his scars under her fingers, the shape of his body under her hands. She let go of her doubts and reached up to pull him toward her.

He rolled sideways, holding her, the boat rocking underneath them. Clary could hear the splash of water as his hands drifted down her side to her waist, his fingers lightly stroking the sensitive skin at the small of her back. She slid her hands into his hair and closed her eyes, wrapped in mist, the sound and smell of water. Endless ages went by, and there was only Jace’s mouth on hers, the lulling motion of the boat, his hands on her skin. Finally, after what could have been hours or minutes, she heard the sound of someone shouting, an angry Italian voice, rising and cutting through the night.

Jace drew back, his look lazy and regretful. “We’d better go.”

Clary looked up at him, dazed. “Why?”

“Because that’s the guy whose boat we stole.” Jace sat up, tugging his shirt down. “And he’s about to call the police.”

11 ASCRIBE ALL SIN

Magnus said that no electricity could be used during the summoning of Azazel, so the loft apartment was lit only by candlelight. The candles burned in a circle in the center of the room, all different heights and brightness, though they shared a similar blue-white flame.

Inside the circle, a pentagram had been drawn by Magnus, using a rowan stick that had burned the pattern of overlapping triangles into the floor. In between the spaces formed by the pentagram were symbols unlike anything Simon had seen before: not quite letters and not quite runes, they gave off a chilly sense of menace despite the heat of the candle flames.

It was dark outside the windows now, the sort of dark that came with the early sunsets of approaching winter. Isabelle, Alec, Simon, and finally, Magnus — who was chanting aloud from Forbidden Rites—each stood at one cardinal point around the circle. Magnus’s voice rose and fell, the Latin words like a prayer, but one that was inverted and sinister.

The flames rose higher and the symbols carved into the floor began to burn black. Chairman Meow, who had been watching from a corner of the room, hissed and fled into the shadows. The blue-white flames rose, and now Simon could hardly see Magnus through them. The room was getting hotter, the warlock chanting faster, his black hair curling in the humid heat, sweat gleaming on his cheekbones. “Quod tumeraris: per Jehovam, Gehennam, et consecratam aquam quam nunc spargo, signumque crucis quod nunc facio, et per vota nostra, ipse nunc surgat nobis dicatus Azazel!”

There was a burst of fire from the center of the pentagram, and a thick black wave of smoke rose, dissipating slowly through the room, making everyone but Simon cough and choke. It swirled like a whirlpool, coalescing slowly in the center of the pentagram into the figure of a man.

Simon blinked. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. A tall man with auburn hair, neither young nor old — an ageless face, inhuman and cold. Broad-shouldered, dressed in a well-cut black suit and shining black shoes. Around each wrist was a dark red groove, the marks of some sort of binding, rope or metal, that had cut into the skin over many years. In his eyes were leaping red flames.

He spoke. “Who summons Azazel?” His voice was like metal grinding on metal.

“I do.” Magnus firmly shut the book he was holding. “Magnus Bane.”

Azazel craned his head slowly toward Magnus. His head seemed to swivel unnaturally on his neck, like the head of a snake. “Warlock,” he said. “I know who you are.”

Magnus raised his eyebrows. “You do?”

“Summoner. Binder. Destroyer of the demon Marbas. Son of—”

“Now,” said Magnus quickly. “There’s no need to go into all of that.”

“But there is.” Azazel sounded reasonable, even amused. “If it is infernal assistance you require, why not summon your father?”

Alec was looking at Magnus with his mouth open. Simon felt for him. He didn’t think any of them had ever assumed that Magnus even knew who his father was, beyond that he had been a demon who had tricked his mother into believing he was her husband. Alec clearly knew no more about it than the rest of them, which, Simon imagined, was probably something he wasn’t too happy about.

“My father and I are not on the best of terms,” said Magnus. “I would prefer not to involve him.”

Azazel raised his hands. “As you say, Master. You hold me within the seal. What do you demand?”

Magnus said nothing, but it was clear from the expression on Azazel’s face that the warlock was speaking to him silently, mind to mind. The flames leaped and danced in the demon’s eyes, like eager children listening to a story. “Clever Lilith,” the demon said at last. “To raise the boy from death, and secure his life by binding him to someone whom you cannot bear to kill. She was always better at manipulating human emotions than most of the rest of us. Perhaps because she was something close to human once.”

“Is there a way?” Magnus sounded impatient. “To break the bond between them?”

Azazel shook his head. “Not without killing them both.”

“Then, is there a way to harm Sebastian only, without hurting Jace?” It was Isabelle, eager; Magnus shot her a quelling look.

“Not with any weapon I might create, or have at my disposal,” said Azazel. “I can craft only weapons whose alliance is demonic. A bolt of lightning from the hand of an angel, perhaps, might burn away what was evil in Valentine’s son and either break their tie or cause it to become more benevolent in nature. If I might make a suggestion…”

“Oh,” said Magnus, narrowing his cat’s eyes, “please do.”

“I can think of a simple solution that will separate the boys, keep yours alive, and neutralize the danger of the other one. And I will ask very little of you in return.”

“You are my servant,” Magnus said. “If you wish to leave this pentagram, you will do what I ask, and not demand favors in return.”

Azazel hissed, and fire curled from his lips. “If I am not bound here, then I am bound there. It makes little difference to me.”

“‘For this is Hell, nor am I out of it,’” said Magnus, with the air of someone quoting an old saying.

Azazel showed a metallic smile. “You may not be proud like old Faustus, warlock, but you are impatient. I am sure my willingness to remain in this pentagram will outlast your desire to keep watch over me inside it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Magnus said. “I’ve always been fairly bold where decorating is concerned, and having you here does add that little extra touch of something to the room.”

“Magnus,” Alec said, clearly not thrilled at the idea of an immortal demon taking up residence in his boyfriend’s loft.

“Jealous, little Shadowhunter?” Azazel grinned at Alec. “Your warlock is not my type, and besides, I would hardly want to anger his—”

“Enough,” Magnus said. “Tell us what the ‘little’ thing you want in return for your plan is.”

Azazel templed his hands — hard workman’s hands, the color of blood, topped with black nails. “One happy memory,” he said. “From each of you. Something to amuse me while I am bound like Prometheus to his rock.”

“A memory?” said Isabelle in astonishment. “You mean it would vanish out of our heads? We wouldn’t be able to recall it anymore?”

Azazel squinted at her through the flames. “What are you, little one? A Nephilim? Yes, I would take your memory and it would become mine. You would no longer know that it had happened to you. Although, please do avoid giving me memories of demons you’ve slaughtered under the light of the moon. Not the sort of thing I enjoy. No, I want these memories to be… personal.” He grinned, and his teeth gleamed like an iron portcullis.

“I’m old,” Magnus said. “I have many memories. I would give one up, if needed. But I cannot speak for the rest of you. No one should be forced to give up something like this.”

“I’ll do it,” Isabelle said immediately. “For Jace.”

“I will too, of course,” said Alec, and then it was Simon’s turn. He thought suddenly of Jace, cutting his wrist and giving him his blood in the tiny room on Valentine’s boat. Risking his own life for Simon’s. It might have been for Clary’s sake at its heart, but it was still a debt. “I’m in.”

“Good,” Magnus said. “All of you, try to think of happy memories. They must be genuinely happy. Something that gives you pleasure in the recollection.” He shot a sour glance at the smug demon in the pentagram.

“I’m ready,” Isabelle said. She was standing with her eyes closed, her back straight as if braced for pain. Magnus moved toward her and laid his fingers against her forehead, murmuring softly.

Alec watched Magnus with his sister, his mouth tight, then shut his eyes. Simon shut his own too, hastily, and tried to summon up a happy memory — something to do with Clary? But so many of his memories of her were tinged now with his worry over her well-being. Something from when they were very young? An image swam to the forefront of his mind — a hot summer day at Coney Island, him on his father’s shoulders, Rebecca running behind them, trailing a handful of balloons. Looking up at the sky, trying to find shapes in the clouds, and the sound of his mother’s laughter. No, he thought, not that. I don’t want to lose that—

There was a cool touch on his forehead. He opened his eyes and saw Magnus lowering his hand. Simon blinked at him, his mind suddenly blank. “But I wasn’t thinking of anything,” he protested.

Magnus’s cat eyes were sad. “Yes, you were.”

Simon glanced around the room, feeling a little dizzy. The others looked the same, as if they were awakening from a strange dream; he caught Isabelle’s eye, the dark flutter of her lashes, and wondered what she had thought about, what happiness she had given away.

A low rumble from the center of the pentagram drew his gaze from Izzy. Azazel stood, as close to the edge of the pattern as he could, a slow growl of hunger coming from his throat. Magnus turned and looked at him, a look of disgust on his face. His hand was closed into a fist, and something seemed to be shining between his fingers as if he held a witchlight rune-stone. He turned and flung it, fast and sideways, into the center of the pentagram. Simon’s vampire vision tracked it. It was a bead of light that expanded as it flew, expanded into a circle holding multiple images. Simon saw a piece of azure ocean, the corner of a satin dress that belled out as its wearer spun, a glimpse of Magnus’s face, a boy with blue eyes — and then Azazel opened his arms and the circle of images vanished into his body, like a stray piece of trash sucked into the fuselage of a jet plane.

Azazel gasped. His eyes, which had been darting flickers of red flame, blazed like bonfires now, and his voice crackled when he spoke. “Ahhhh. Delicious.”

Magnus spoke sharply. “Now for your side of the bargain.”

The demon licked his lips. “The solution to your problem is this. You release me into the world, and I take Valentine’s son and bring him living into Hell. He will not die, and therefore your Jace will live, but he will have left this world behind, and slowly their connection will burn away. You will have your friend back.”

“And then what?” Magnus said slowly. “We release you into the world, and then you return and let yourself be bound again?”

Azazel laughed. “Of course not, foolish warlock. The price for the favor is my freedom.”

“Freedom?” Alec spoke, sounding incredulous. “A Prince of Hell, set free in the world? We already gave you our memories—”

“The memories were the price you paid to hear my plan,” said Azazel. “My freedom is what you will pay to have my plan enacted.”

“That is a cheat, and you know it,” said Magnus. “You ask for the impossible.”

“So do you,” said Azazel. “By all rights your friend is lost to you forever. ‘For if a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word.’ And by the terms of Lilith’s spell, their souls are bound, and both agreed.”

“Jace would never agree—,” Alec began.

“He said the words,” said Azazel. “Of his own will or under compunction, it does not matter. You are asking me to sever a bond only Heaven can sever. But Heaven will not help you; you know that as well as I. That is why men summon demons and not angels, is it not? This is the price you pay for my intervention. If you do not want to pay it, you must learn to accept what you’ve lost.”

Magnus’s face was pale and tight. “We will converse among ourselves and discuss whether your offer is acceptable. In the meantime I banish you.” He waved his hand, and Azazel vanished, leaving behind the smell of charred wood.

The four people in the room stared at one another incredulously. “What he is asking for,” Alec said finally, “it isn’t possible, is it?”

“Theoretically anything is possible,” said Magnus, staring ahead as if into an abyss. “But to loose a Greater Demon on the world — not just a Greater Demon, a Prince of Hell, second only to Lucifer himself — the destruction he could wreak—”

“Isn’t it possible,” Isabelle said, “that Sebastian could wreak just as much destruction?”

“Like Magnus said,” Simon put in bitterly, “anything’s possible.”

“There could be almost no greater crime in the eyes of the Clave,” said Magnus. “Whoever loosed Azazel upon the world would be a wanted criminal.”

“But if it were to destroy Sebastian…” Isabelle began.

“We don’t have proof Sebastian’s plotting anything,” said Magnus. “For all we know, all he wants is to settle down in a nice country house in Idris.”

“With Clary and Jace?” Alec said incredulously.

Magnus shrugged. “Who knows what he wants with them? Maybe he’s just lonely.”

“No way did he kidnap Jace off that roof because he’s desperately in need of a bromance,” said Isabelle. “He’s planning something.”

They all looked at Simon. “Clary’s trying to find out what. She needs some time. And don’t say ‘We don’t have time,’” he added. “She knows that.”

Alec raked a hand through his dark hair. “Fine, but we just wasted a whole day. A day we didn’t have. No more stupid ideas.” His voice was uncharacteristically sharp.

“Alec,” Magnus said. He put a hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder; Alec was standing still, staring angrily at the floor. “Are you okay?”

Alec looked at him. “Who are you again?”

Magnus gave a little gasp; he looked — for the first time Simon could remember — actually unnerved. It lasted only a moment, but it was there. “Alexander,” he said.

“Too soon to joke about the happy memory thing, I take it,” Alec said.

“You think?” Magnus’s voice soared. Before he could say anything else, the door swung open and Maia and Jordan came in. Their cheeks were red from the cold, and — Simon saw with a small start — Maia was wearing Jordan’s leather jacket.

“We just came from the station,” she said excitedly. “Luke hasn’t woken up yet, but it looks like he’s going to be all right—” She broke off, looking around at the still-glimmering pentagram, the clouds of black smoke, and the scorched patches on the floor. “Okay, what have you guys been doing?”

With the help of a glamour and Jace’s ability to swing himself one-armed up onto a curving old bridge, Clary and Jace escaped the Italian police without being arrested. Once they had stopped running, they collapsed against the side of a building, laughing, side by side, their hands interlinked. Clary felt a moment of pure sharp happiness and had to bury her head against Jace’s shoulder, reminding herself, in a hard internal voice, that this wasn’t him, before her laughter trailed off into silence.

Jace seemed to take her sudden quiet as a sign that she was tired. He held her hand lightly as they made their way back to the street they’d started out from, the narrow canal with bridges on both ends. In between them Clary recognized the blank, featureless townhouse they’d left. A shudder ran over her.

“Cold?” Jace pulled her toward him and kissed her; he was so much taller than she was that he either had to bend down or pick her up; in this case he did the latter, and she suppressed a gasp as he swung her up and through the wall of the house. Setting her down, he kicked a door — which had appeared suddenly behind them — shut with a bang, and was about to shuck off his jacket when there was the sound of a stifled chuckle.

Clary pulled away from Jace as lights blazed up around them. Sebastian sat on the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table. His fair hair was tousled; his eyes were glossy black. He wasn’t alone, either. There were two girls there, one on either side of him. One was fair, a little scantily dressed, in a glittering short skirt and spangled top. She had her hand splayed out across Sebastian’s chest. The other was younger, softer-looking, with black hair cut short, a red velvet band around her head, and a lacy black dress.

Clary felt her nerves tighten. Vampire, she thought. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did — whether it was the waxy white sheen of the dark-haired girl’s skin or the bottomlessness of her eyes, or perhaps Clary was just learning to sense these things, the way Shadowhunters were supposed to. The girl knew she knew; Clary could tell. The girl grinned, showing her little pointed teeth, and then bent to run them over Sebastian’s collarbone. His lids fluttered, fair eyelashes lowering over dark eyes. He looked up at Clary through them, ignoring Jace.

“Did you enjoy your little date?”

Clary wished she could say something rude, but instead she just nodded.

“Well, then, would you like to join us?” he said, indicating himself and the two girls. “For a drink?”

The dark-haired girl laughed and said something in Italian to Sebastian, her voice questioning.

“No,” said Sebastian. “Lei è mia sorella.”

The girl sat back, looking disappointed. Clary’s mouth was dry. Suddenly she felt Jace’s hand against hers, his callused fingertips rough. “I don’t think so,” he said. “We’re going upstairs. We’ll see you in the morning.”

Sebastian wiggled his fingers, and the Morgenstern ring on his hand caught the light, sparking like a signal fire. “Ci vediamo.”

Jace led Clary out of the room and up the glass stairs; only when they were in the corridor did she feel like she had gotten her breath back. This different Jace was one thing. Sebastian was something else. The sense of menace that rose off him was like smoke off a fire. “What did he say?” she asked. “In Italian?”

“He said, ‘No, she is my sister,’” said Jace. He did not say what the girl had asked Sebastian.

“Does he do this much?” she asked. They had stopped in front of Jace’s room, on the threshold. “Bring girls back?”

Jace touched her face. “He does what he wants, and I don’t ask,” he said. “He could bring a six-foot tall pink rabbit in a bikini back home with him if he wanted to. It’s not my business. But if you’re asking me if I’ve brought any girls back here, the answer is no. I don’t want anybody but you.”

It hadn’t been what she was asking, but she nodded anyway, as if reassured. “I don’t want to go back downstairs.”

“You can sleep in my room with me tonight.” His gold eyes were luminous in the dark. “Or you can sleep in the master bedroom. You know I wouldn’t ever ask you—”

“I want to be with you,” she said, surprising herself with her own vehemence. Maybe it was just that the idea of sleeping in that bedroom, where Valentine had once slept, where he had hoped to live again with her mother, was too much. Or maybe it was that she was tired, and she had only ever spent one night in the same bed as Jace, and they had slept with only their hands touching, as if an unsheathed sword had lain between them.

“Give me a second to clean up the room. It’s a mess.”

“Yeah, when I was in there before, I think I might actually have seen a fleck of dust on the windowsill. You’d better get on that.”

He tugged a lock of her hair, running it through his fingers. “Not to actively work against my own interests, but do you need something to sleep in? Pajamas, or…”

She thought of the wardrobe full of clothes in the master bedroom. She was going to have to get used to the idea. Might as well start now. “I’ll get a nightgown.”

Of course, she thought several moments later, standing over an open drawer, the sort of nightgowns men bought because they wanted the women in their lives to wear them were not necessarily the kind of thing you might buy for yourself. Clary usually slept in a tank top and pajama shorts, but everything here was silky or lacy or barely there, or all three. She settled finally on a pale green silk shift that hit her midthigh. She thought of the red nails of the girl downstairs, the one with her hand on Sebastian’s chest. Her own nails were bitten, her toenails never decorated with much more than clear polish. She wondered what it would be like to be more like Isabelle, so aware of your own feminine power you could wield it as a weapon instead of gazing at it mystified, like someone presented with a housewarming gift they had no idea where to display.

She touched the gold ring on her finger for luck before heading into Jace’s bedroom. He was sitting on the bed, shirtless in black pajama bottoms, reading a book in the small pool of yellow light from the bedside lamp. She stood for a moment, watching him. She could see the delicate play of muscles under his skin as he turned the pages — and could see Lilith’s Mark, just over his heart. It didn’t look like the black lacework of the rest of his Marks; it was silvery-red, like blood-tinged mercury. It seemed not to belong on him.

The door slipped closed behind her with a click, and Jace looked up. Clary saw his face change. She might not have been such a big fan of the nightgown, but he definitely was. The look on his face made a shiver run over her skin.

“Are you cold?” He threw the covers back; she crawled in with him as he tossed the book onto the nightstand, and they slid together under the blanket, until they were facing each other. They had lain in the boat for what had seemed like hours, kissing, but this was different. That had been out in public, under the gaze of the city and the stars. This was a sudden intimacy, just the two of them under the blanket, their breath and the heat of their bodies mingling. There was no one to watch them, no one to stop them, no reason to stop. When he reached out and laid his hand against her cheek, she thought the thunder of her own blood in her ears might deafen her.

Their eyes were so close together, she could see the pattern of gold and darker gold in his irises, like a mosaic opal. She had been cold for so long, and now she felt as if she were burning and melting at the same time, dissolving into him — and they were barely touching. She found her gaze drawn to the places he was most vulnerable — his temples, his eyes, the pulse at the base of his throat, wanting to kiss him there, to feel his heartbeat against her lips.

His scarred right hand moved down her cheek, across her shoulder and side, stroking her in a single long caress that ended at her hip. She could see why men liked silk nightclothes so much. There was no friction; it was like sliding your hands across glass. “Tell me what you want,” he said in a whisper that couldn’t quite disguise the hoarseness in his voice.

“I just want you to hold me,” she said. “While I sleep. That’s all I want right now.”

His fingers, which had been stroking slow circles on her hip, stilled. “That’s all?”

It wasn’t what she wanted. What she wanted was to kiss him until she lost track of space and time and location, as she had in the boat — to kiss him until she forgot who she was and why she was here. She wanted to use him like a drug.

But that was a very bad idea.

He watched her, restless, and she remembered the first time she had seen him and how she had thought he seemed deadly as well as beautiful, like a lion. This is a test, she thought. And maybe a dangerous one. “That’s all.”

His chest rose and fell. Lilith’s Mark seemed to pulse against the skin just over his heart. His hand tightened on her hip. She could hear her own breathing, as shallow as low tide.

He pulled her toward him, rolling her over until they lay tucked together like spoons, her back to him. She swallowed a gasp. His skin was hot against hers, as if he were slightly feverish. But his arms as they went around her were familiar. The two of them fit together, as always, her head under his chin, her spine against the hard muscles of his chest and stomach, her legs bent around his. “All right,” he whispered, and the feel of his breath against the back of her neck raised goose bumps over her body. “So we’ll sleep.”

And that was all. Slowly her body relaxed, the thudding of her heart slowing. Jace’s arms around her felt the way they always had. Comfortable. She closed her hands around his and shut her eyes, imagining their bed cut free of this strange prison, floating through space or on the surface of the ocean, just the two of them alone.

She slept like that, her head tucked under Jace’s chin, her spine fitted to his body, their legs entwined. It was the best sleep she had had in weeks.

Simon sat on the edge of the bed in Magnus’s spare room, staring down at the duffel bag in his lap.

He could hear voices from the living room. Magnus was explaining to Maia and Jordan what had happened that night, with Izzy occasionally interjecting a detail. Jordan was saying something about how they should order Chinese food so they wouldn’t starve; Maia laughed and said as long as it wasn’t from the Jade Wolf, that would be fine.

Starving, Simon thought. He was getting hungry — hungry enough to have begun to feel it, like a pull on all his veins. It was a different kind of hunger than human hunger. He felt scraped out, a hollow emptiness inside. If you struck him, he thought, he would ring like a bell.

“Simon.” His door opened, and Isabelle slid inside. Her black hair was down and loose, almost reaching her waist. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She saw the duffel bag on his lap, and her shoulders tensed. “Are you leaving?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning to stay forever,” Simon said. “I mean, last night was — different. You asked…”

“Right,” she said in an unnaturally bright voice. “Well, you can get a ride back with Jordan at least. Did you notice him and Maia, by the way?”

“Notice what about them?”

She lowered her voice. “Something definitely happened between them on their little road trip. They’re all couply now.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Jealous?” he echoed, confused.

“Well, you and Maia…” She waved a hand, looking up at him through her lashes. “You were…”

“Oh. No. No, not at all. I’m glad for Jordan. This will make him really happy.” He meant it too.

“Good.” Isabelle looked up then, and he saw that her cheeks were rosy red, and not just from the cold. “Would you stay here tonight, Simon?”

“With you?”

She nodded, not looking at him. “Alec’s going out to get some more of his clothes from the Institute. He asked if I wanted to go back with him, but I–I’d rather stay here with you.” She raised her chin, looking at him directly. “I don’t want to sleep by myself. If I stay here, will you stay with me?” He could tell how much she hated to ask.

“Of course,” he said, as lightly as he possibly could, pushing the thought of his hunger out of his head, or trying to. The last time he had tried to forget to drink, it had ended with Jordan pulling him off a semiconscious Maureen.

But that was when he hadn’t eaten for days. This was different. He knew his limits. He was sure of it.

“Of course,” he said again. “That would be great.”

Camille smirked up at Alec from her divan. “So where does Magnus think you are now?”

Alec, who had put a plank of wood across two cinderblocks to form a sort of bench, stretched his long legs out and looked at his boots. “At the Institute, picking up clothes. I was going to go up to Spanish Harlem, but I came here instead.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And why is that?”

“Because I can’t do it. I can’t kill Raphael.”

Camille threw up her hands. “And why not? Have you some sort of personal bond with him?”

“I barely know him,” Alec said. “But killing him is deliberately breaking Covenant Law. Not that I haven’t broken Laws before, but there’s a difference between breaking them for good reasons and breaking them for selfish ones.”

“Oh, dear God.” Camille began to pace. “Spare me from Nephilim with consciences.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Sorry? I’ll make you—” She broke off. “Alexander,” she went on in a more composed voice. “What of Magnus? If you continue as you have been, you will lose him.”

Alec watched her as she moved, catlike and composed, her face blank of anything now but a curious sympathy. “Where was Magnus born?”

Camille laughed. “You don’t even know that? My goodness. Batavia, if you must know.” She snorted at his look of incomprehension. “Indonesia. Of course, it was the Dutch East Indies then. His mother was a native, I believe; his father was some dull colonial. Well, not his real father.” Her lips curved into a smile.

“Who was his real father?”

“Magnus’s father? Why, a demon, of course.”

“Yes, but which demon?”

“How could it possibly matter, Alexander?”

“I get the feeling,” Alec went on stubbornly, “that he’s a pretty powerful, high-up demon. But Magnus won’t talk about him.”

Camille collapsed back onto the divan with a sigh. “Well, of course he won’t. One must preserve some mystery in one’s relationship, Alec Lightwood. A book that one has not read yet is always more exciting than a book one has memorized.”

“You mean I tell him too much?” Alec pounced on the morsel of advice. Somewhere here, inside this cold, beautiful shell of a woman, was someone who had shared a unique experience with him — of loving and being loved by Magnus. Surely she must know something, some secret, some key that would keep him from screwing everything up.

“Almost certainly. Although, you’ve been alive for such a short time that I can’t imagine how much there could be to say. Certainly you must be out of anecdotes.”

“Well, it seems clear to me that your policy of not telling him anything didn’t work out either.”

“I was not so invested in keeping him as you are.”

“Well,” Alec asked, knowing it was a bad idea but not being able to help it, “if you had been interested in keeping him, what would you have done differently?”

Camille sighed dramatically. “The thing that you are too young to understand is that we all hide things. We hide them from our lovers because we wish to present our best selves, but also because if it is real love, we expect our loved one to simply understand it, without needing to ask. In a true partnership, the kind that lasts through the ages, there is an unspoken communion.”

“B-but,” Alec stammered, “I would have thought he would have wanted me to open up. I mean, I have a hard time being open even with people I’ve known my whole life — like Isabelle, or Jace…”

Camille snorted. “That’s another thing,” she said. “You no longer need other people in your life once you have found your true love. No wonder Magnus feels he cannot open up to you, when you rely so heavily upon these other people. When love is true, you should meet each other’s every desire, every need — Are you listening, young Alexander? For my advice is precious, and not given often…”

The room was filled with translucent dawn light. Clary sat up, watching Jace as he slept. He was on his side, his hair a pale brass color in the bluish air. His cheek was pillowed on his hand, like a child’s. The star-shaped scar on his shoulder was revealed, and so were the patterns of old runes up and down his arms, back, and sides.

She wondered if other people would find the scars as beautiful as she did, or if she only saw them that way because she loved him and they were part of him. Each one told the story of a moment. Some had even saved his life.

He murmured in his sleep and turned over onto his back. His hand, the Voyance rune clear and black on the back of it, was splayed across his stomach, and above it was the one rune that Clary did not find beautiful: Lilith’s rune, the one that bound him to Sebastian.

It seemed to pulse, like Isabelle’s ruby necklace, like a second heart.

Silent as a cat, she moved up the bed and onto her knees. She reached up and pulled the Herondale dagger from the wall. The photograph of her and Jace together fluttered free, spinning in the air before landing face-down on the floor.

She swallowed and looked back at him. Even now, he was so alive, he seemed to glow from inside, as if lit by inner fire. The scar on his chest pulsed its steady beat.

She lifted the knife.

Clary came awake with a start, her heart slamming against her rib cage. The room swung around her like a carousel: it was still dark, and Jace’s arm was around her, his breath warm on the back of her neck. She could feel his heartbeat against her spine. She closed her eyes, swallowing against the bitter taste in her mouth.

It was a dream. Just a dream.

But there was no way she was getting back to sleep now. She sat up carefully, gently moving Jace’s arm away, and climbed off the bed.

The floor was icy cold, and she winced as her bare feet touched it. She found the knob of the bedroom door in the half-light, and swung it open. And froze.

Though there were no windows in the hallway outside, it was lit by pendant chandeliers. Puddles of something that looked sticky and dark marred the floor. Along one white-painted wall was the clear mark of a bloody handprint. Blood spattered the wall at intervals leading to the stairs, where there was a single long, dark smear.

Clary looked toward Sebastian’s room. It was quiet, the door shut, no light showing beneath it. She thought of the blond girl in the spangled top, looking up at him. She looked at the bloody handprint again. It was like a message, a hand thrust out, saying Stop.

And then Sebastian’s door opened.

He stepped out. He was wearing a thermal shirt over black jeans, and his silver-white hair was rumpled. He was yawning; he did a double take when he saw her, and a look of genuine surprise passed over his face. “What are you doing up?”

Clary sucked in a breath. The air tasted metallic. “What am I doing? What are you doing?”

“Going downstairs to get some towels to clean up this mess,” he said matter-of-factly. “Vampires and their games…”

“This doesn’t look like the outcome of a game,” Clary said. “The girl — the human girl who was with you — what happened to her?”

“She got a little frightened at the sight of fangs. Sometimes they do.” At the look on her face, he laughed. “She came around. Even wanted more. She’s asleep in my bed now, if you want to check and make sure she’s alive.”

“No… That’s not necessary.” Clary dropped her eyes. She wished she’d worn something besides this silk nightgown to bed. She felt undressed. “What about you?”

“Are you asking if I’m all right?” She hadn’t been, but Sebastian looked pleased. He pulled the collar of his shirt aside, and she could see two neat puncture wounds just at his collarbone. “I could use an iratze.”

Clary said nothing.

“Come downstairs,” he said, and gestured for her to follow him as he padded past her, barefoot, and down the glass staircase. After a moment she did as he’d asked. He flicked on the lights as he went, so by the time they reached the kitchen, it was glowing with warm light. “Wine?” he said to her, pulling the refrigerator door open.

She settled herself on one of the counter stools, smoothing down her nightgown. “Just water.”

She watched him as he poured two glasses of mineral water — one for her, one for him. His smooth economical movements were like Jocelyn’s, but the control with which he moved must have been instilled in him by Valentine. It reminded her of the way Jace moved, like a carefully trained dancer.

He pushed her water toward her with one hand, the other tipping his glass toward his lips. When he was done, he slammed the glass back down on the counter. “You probably know this, but fooling around with vampires certainly makes you thirsty.”

“Why would I know that?” Her question came out sharper than intended.

He shrugged. “Figured you were playing some biting games with that Daylighter.”

“Simon and I never played biting games,” she said in a frozen tone. “In fact, I can’t figure out why anyone would want vampires feeding on them on purpose. Don’t you hate and despise Downworlders?”

“No,” he said. “Don’t mix me up with Valentine.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Tough mistake to make.”

“It’s not my fault I look exactly like him and you look like her.” His mouth curled into an expression of distaste at the thought of Jocelyn. Clary scowled at him. “See, there you go. You’re always looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I burn down animal shelters for fun and light my cigarettes with orphans.” He poured another glass of water. As he turned his head from her, she saw that the puncture wounds at his throat were already beginning to heal over.

“You killed a child,” she said sharply, knowing as she said it that she should be keeping her mouth shut, going along with the pretense that she didn’t think Sebastian was a monster. But Max. He was alive in her head as if it were the first time she’d ever seen him, asleep on a sofa at the Institute with a book on his lap and his glasses askew on his small face. “That’s not something you can be forgiven for, ever.”

Sebastian drew in a breath. “So that’s it,” he said. “Cards on the table so soon, little sister?”

“What did you think?” Her voice sounded thin and tired to her own ears, but he flinched as if she’d snapped at him.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was an accident?” he said, setting his glass down on the counter. “I didn’t mean to kill him. Just to knock him out, so he wouldn’t tell—”

Clary silenced him with a look. She knew she couldn’t hide the hatred in her eyes: knew she should, knew it was impossible.

“I mean it. I meant to knock him out, like I did Isabelle. I misjudged my own strength.”

“And Sebastian Verlac? The real one? You killed him, didn’t you?”

Sebastian looked at his own hands as if they were strange to him: there was a silver chain holding a flat metal plate, like an ID bracelet, around his right wrist — hiding the scar where Isabelle had sliced his hand away. “He wasn’t supposed to fight back—”

Disgusted, Clary started to slide off the stool, but Sebastian caught at her wrist, pulling her toward him. His skin was hot against hers and she remembered, in Idris, the time his touch had burned her. “Jonathan Morgenstern killed Max. But what if I’m not the same person? Haven’t you noticed I won’t even use the same name?”

“Let me go.”

“You believe Jace is different,” Sebastian said quietly. “You believe he isn’t the same person, that my blood changed him. Don’t you?”

She nodded without speaking.

“Then, why is it so hard to believe it might go the other way? Maybe his blood changed me. Maybe I’m not the same person I was.”

“You stabbed Luke,” she said. “Someone I care about. Someone I love—”

“He was about to blow me to pieces with a shotgun,” said Sebastian. “You love him; I don’t know him. I was saving my life, and Jace’s. Do you really not understand that?”

“And maybe you’re just saying whatever you think you need to say to get me to trust you.”

“Would the person I used to be care if you trusted me?”

“If you wanted something.”

“Maybe I just want a sister.”

At that, her eyes flicked up to his — involuntary, disbelieving. “You don’t know what a family is,” she said. “Or what you’d do with a sister if you had one.”

“I do have one.” His voice was low. There were bloodstains at the collar of his shirt, just where it touched his skin. “I’m giving you a chance. To see that what Jace and I are doing is the right thing. Can you give me a chance?”

She thought of the Sebastian she had known in Idris. She had heard him sound amused, friendly, detached, ironic, intense, and angry. She had never heard him sound pleading.

“Jace trusts you,” he said. “But I don’t. He believes you love him enough to throw over everything you’ve ever valued or believed in to come and be with him. No matter what.”

Her jaw tightened. “And how do you know I wouldn’t?”

He laughed. “Because you’re my sister.”

“We’re nothing alike,” she spat, and saw the slow smile on his face. She bit back the rest of her words, but it was already too late.

“That’s what I would have said,” he said. “But come on, Clary. You’re here. You can’t go back. You’ve thrown your lot in with Jace. You might as well do it wholeheartedly. Be a part of what’s happening. Then you can make up your own mind about… me.”

Not looking at him but down at the marble floor, she nodded, very slightly.

He reached up and brushed away the hair that had fallen into her eyes, and the kitchen lights sparked off the bracelet he wore, the one she had noticed before, with letters etched into it. Acheronta movebo. Boldly she put her hand on his wrist. “What does this mean?”

He looked at her hand where it touched the silver on his wrist. “It means ‘Thus always to tyrants.’ I wear it to remind me of the Clave. It’s said this was shouted by the Romans who murdered Caesar before he could become a dictator.”

“Traitors,” said Clary, dropping her hand.

Sebastian’s dark eyes flashed. “Or fighters for freedom. History gets written by the winners, little sis.”

“And you intend to write this portion?”

He grinned at her, his dark eyes alight. “You bet I do.”

12 THE STUFF OF HEAVEN

When Alec returned to Magnus’s apartment, all the lights were off, but the living room was glowing with a blue-white flame. It took him several moments to realize it was coming from the pentagram.

He kicked his shoes off by the door and padded as quietly as he could into the master bedroom. The room was dark, a strand of multicolored Christmas lights wrapped around the window frame the only illumination. Magnus was asleep on his back, the covers pulled up to his waist, his hand flat against his belly-button-free stomach.

Alec quickly stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed, hoping not to wake Magnus. Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on Chairman Meow, who had tucked himself under the covers. Alec’s elbow came down squarely on the cat’s tail, and the Chairman yowled and darted off the bed, causing Magnus to sit up, blinking.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Alec said, silently cursing all cats. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you went out?” Magnus rolled onto his side and touched Alec’s bare shoulder. “Your skin’s cold, and you smell like nighttime.”

“I was walking around,” Alec said, glad it was too dim in the room for Magnus to really see his face. He knew he was a terrible liar.

“Around where?”

One must preserve some mystery in one’s relationship, Alec Lightwood.

“Places,” Alec said airily. “You know. Mysterious places.”

“Mysterious places?”

Alec nodded.

Magnus flopped back against the pillows. “I see you went to Crazytown,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “Did you bring me anything back?”

Alec leaned over and kissed Magnus on the mouth. “Just that,” he said softly, drawing back, but Magnus, who had started to smile, already had hold of his arms.

“Well, if you’re going to wake me up,” he said, “you might as well make it worth my time,” and he pulled Alec down on top of him.

Considering they’d already spent one night in bed together, Simon hadn’t expected his second night with Isabelle to be quite so awkward. But then again, this time Isabelle was sober, and awake, and obviously expecting something from him. The problem was, he wasn’t sure exactly what.

He had given her a button-down shirt of his to wear, and he looked away politely while she climbed under the blanket and edged back against the wall, giving him plenty of space.

He didn’t bother changing, just took off his shoes and socks and crawled in next to her in his T-shirt and jeans. They lay side by side for a moment, and then Isabelle rolled against him, draping an arm awkwardly across his side. Their knees bumped together. One of Isabelle’s toenails scratched his ankle. He tried to move forward, and their foreheads knocked.

“Ouch!” Isabelle said indignantly. “Shouldn’t you be better at this?”

Simon was bewildered. “Why?”

“All those nights you’ve spent in Clary’s bed, wrapped in your beautiful platonic embraces,” she said, pressing her face against his shoulder so her voice was muffled. “I figured…”

“We just slept,” said Simon. He didn’t want to say anything about how Clary fit perfectly against him, about how being in a bed with her was as natural as breathing, about the way the scent of her hair reminded him of childhood and sunshine and simplicity and grace. That, he had a feeling, would not be helpful.

“I know. But I don’t just sleep,” Isabelle said irritably. “With anybody. I don’t stay the night usually at all. Like, ever.”

“You said you wanted to—”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, and kissed him. This was marginally more successful. He’d kissed Isabelle before. He loved the texture of her soft lips, the way his hands felt in her long, dark hair. But as she pressed herself against him, he also felt the warmth of her body, her long bare legs against him, the pulse of her blood — and the snap of his fang teeth as they came out.

He pulled back hastily.

“Now what is it? You don’t want to kiss me?”

“I do,” he tried to say, but his fangs were in the way. Isabelle’s eyes widened.

“Oh, you’re hungry,” she said. “When was the last time you had any blood?”

“Yesterday,” he managed to say, with some difficulty.

She lay back against his pillow. Her eyes were impossibly big and black and lustrous. “Maybe you should feed yourself,” she said. “You know what happens if you don’t.”

“I don’t have any blood with me. I’ll have to go back to the apartment,” Simon said. His fangs had already begun to retract.

Isabelle caught him by the arm. “You don’t have to drink cold animal blood. I’m right here.”

The shock of her words was like a pulse of energy zipping through his body, setting his nerves on fire. “You’re not serious.”

“Sure I am.” She started to unbutton the shirt she was wearing, baring her throat, her collarbone, the tracery of faint veins visible beneath her pale skin. The shirt fell open. Her blue bra covered a lot more than many bikinis might, but Simon still felt his mouth go dry. Her ruby flashed like a red stoplight below her collarbone. Isabelle. As if reading his mind, she reached up and drew her hair back, draping it over one shoulder, leaving the side of her throat naked. “Don’t you want…?”

He caught her wrist. “Isabelle, don’t,” he said urgently. “I can’t control myself, can’t control it. I could hurt you, kill you.”

Her eyes shone. “You won’t. You can hold yourself back. You did with Jace.”

“I’m not attracted to Jace.”

“Not even a little?” she said hopefully. “Eensy bit? Because that would be kind of hot. Ah, well. Too bad. Look, attracted or not, you bit him when you were starving and dying, and you still held back.”

“I didn’t hold back with Maureen. Jordan had to pull me off.”

“You would have.” She took her finger and pressed it to his lips, then ran it down his throat, across his chest, coming to a stop where his heart had once beat. “I trust you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“I’m a Shadowhunter. I can fight you off if I have to.”

“Jace didn’t fight me off.”

“Jace is in love with the idea of dying,” said Isabelle. “I’m not.” She slung her legs around his hips — she was amazingly flexible — and slid forward until she could brush her lips against his. He wanted to kiss her, wanted it so badly his whole body ached. He opened his mouth tentatively, touched his tongue to hers, and felt a sharp pain. His tongue had slid along the razor edge of his fang. He tasted his own blood and drew back abruptly, turning his face away from her.

“Isabelle, I can’t.” He closed his eyes. She was warm and soft in his lap, teasing, torturous. His fangs ached painfully; his whole body felt like sharp wires were twisting through his veins. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Simon.” Gently she touched his cheek, turning his face toward her. “This is who you are—”

His fangs had retracted, slowly, but they still ached. He hid his face in his hands and spoke between his fingers. “You can’t possibly want this. You can’t possibly want me. My own mother threw me out of the house. I bit Maureen — she was only a kid. I mean, look at me, look what I am, where I live, what I do. I’m nothing.”

Isabelle stroked his hair lightly. He looked at her between his fingers. Up close he could see that her eyes weren’t black but a very dark brown, flecked with gold. He was sure he could see pity in them. He didn’t know what he expected her to say. Isabelle used boys and threw them away. Isabelle was beautiful and tough and perfect and didn’t need anything. Least of all a vampire who wasn’t even very good at being a vampire.

He could feel her breathing. She smelled sweet — blood, mortality, gardenias. “You’re not nothing,” she said. “Simon. Please. Let me see your face.”

Reluctantly he lowered his hands. He could see her more clearly now. She looked soft and lovely in the moonlight, her skin pale and creamy, her hair like a black waterfall. She unlooped her hands from around his neck. “Look at these,” she said, touching the white scars of healed Marks that snowflaked her silvery skin — on her throat, on her arms, on the curves of her breasts. “Ugly, aren’t they?”

“Nothing about you is ugly, Izzy,” said Simon, honestly shocked.

“Girls aren’t supposed to be covered in scars,” Isabelle said matter-of-factly. “But they don’t bother you.”

“They’re part of you — No, of course they don’t bother me.”

She touched his lips with her fingers. “Being a vampire is part of you. I didn’t ask you to come here last night because I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask. I want to be with you, Simon. It scares the hell out of me, but I do.”

Her eyes shimmered, and before he could wonder for more than a moment whether it was with tears, he had leaned forward and kissed her. This time it wasn’t awkward. This time she leaned into him, and he was suddenly under her, rolling her on top of him. Her long black hair fell down around them both like a curtain. She whispered to him softly as he ran his hands up her back. He could feel her scars under his fingertips, and he wanted to tell her he thought of them as ornaments, testaments to her bravery that only made her more beautiful. But that would have meant stopping kissing her, and he didn’t want to do that. She was moaning and moving in his arms; her fingers were in his hair as the two of them rolled sideways, and now she was under him, and his arms were full of the softness and warmth of her, and his mouth with the taste of her, and the scent of her skin, salt and perfume and… blood.

He stiffened again, all over, and Isabelle felt it. She caught hold of his shoulders. She was luminous in the darkness. “Go ahead,” she whispered. He could feel her heart, slamming against his chest. “I want you to.”

He closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to hers, tried to calm himself. His fangs were back, pushing into his lower lip, hard and painful. “No.”

Her long, perfect legs wrapped around him, her ankles locking, holding him to her. “I want you to.” Her breasts flattened against his chest as she arched up against him, baring her throat. The scent of her blood was everywhere, all over him, filling the room.

“Aren’t you scared?” he whispered.

“Yes. But I still want you to.”

“Isabelle — I can’t—”

He bit her.

His teeth slid, razor-sharp, into the vein at her throat like a knife slicing into the skin of an apple. Blood exploded into his mouth. It was like nothing he had experienced before. With Jace he had been barely alive; with Maureen the guilt had crushed him even as he had drunk from her. He had certainly never had the sense that either of the people he had bitten had liked it.

But Isabelle gasped, her eyes flying open and her body arcing up against him. She purred like a cat, stroking his hair, his back, little urgent movement of her hands saying Don’t stop, Don’t stop. Heat poured out of her, into him, lighting his body; he had never felt, imagined, anything else like it. He could feel the strong, sure beat of her heat, pounding through her veins into his, and for that moment it was as if he lived again, and his heart contracted with pure elation—

He broke away. He wasn’t sure how, but he broke away and rolled onto his back, his fingers digging hard into the mattress at his sides. He was still shuddering as his fangs retracted. The room shimmered all around him, the way things did in the few moments after he drank human, living blood.

“Izzy…,” he whispered. He was afraid to look at her, afraid that now that his teeth were no longer in her throat, she would stare at him with revulsion or horror.

“What?”

“You didn’t stop me,” he said. It was half accusation, half hope.

“I didn’t want to.” He looked at her. She was on her back, her chest rising and falling fast, as if she’d been running. There were two neat puncture wounds in the side of her throat, and two thin lines of blood that ran down her neck to her collarbone. Obeying an instinct that seemed to run deep under the skin, Simon leaned forward and licked the blood from her throat, tasting salt, tasting Isabelle. She shuddered, her fingers fluttering in his hair. “Simon…”

He drew back. She was looking at him with her big dark eyes, very serious, her cheeks flushed. “I…”

“What?” For a wild moment he thought she was going to say ‘I love you,’ but instead she shook her head, yawned, and hooked her finger through one of the belt loops on his jeans. Her fingers played with the bare skin at his waist.

Somewhere Simon had heard that yawning was a sign of blood loss. He panicked. “Are you okay? Did I drink too much? Do you feel tired? Are—”

She scooted closer to him. “I am fine. You made yourself stop. And I’m a Shadowhunter. We replace blood at triple the rate a normal human being does.”

“Did you…” He could barely bring himself to ask. “Did you like it?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was husky. “I liked it.”

“Really?”

She giggled. “You couldn’t tell?”

“I thought maybe you were faking it.”

She raised herself up on one elbow and looked down at him with her glowing dark eyes — how could eyes be dark and bright at the same time? “I don’t fake things, Simon,” she said. “And I don’t lie, and I don’t pretend.”

“You’re a heartbreaker, Isabelle Lightwood,” he said, as lightly as he could with her blood still running through him like fire. “Jace told Clary once you’d walk all over me in high-heeled boots.”

“That was then. You’re different now.” She eyed him. “You’re not scared of me.”

He touched her face. “And you’re not scared of anything.”

“I don’t know.” Her hair fell forward. “Maybe you’ll break my heart.” Before he could say anything, she kissed him, and he wondered if she could taste her own blood. “Now shut up. I want to sleep,” she said, and she curled up against his side and closed her eyes.

Somehow, now, they fit, where they hadn’t before. Nothing was awkward, or poking into him, or banging against his leg. It didn’t feel like childhood and sunlight and gentleness. It felt strange and heated and exciting and powerful and… different. Simon lay awake, his eyes on the ceiling, his hand stroking Isabelle’s silky black hair absently. He felt like he’d been caught up in a tornado and deposited somewhere very far away, where nothing was familiar. Eventually he turned his head and kissed Izzy, very lightly, on the forehead; she stirred and murmured but didn’t open her eyes.

When Clary woke in the morning, Jace was still asleep, curled on his side, his arm outstretched just enough to touch her shoulder. She kissed his cheek and got to her feet. She was about to pad into the bathroom to take a shower when she was overcome by curiosity. She went quietly to the bedroom door and peered out.

The blood on the hallway wall was gone, the plaster unmarked. It was so clean she wondered if the whole thing had been a dream — the blood, the conversation in the kitchen with Sebastian, all of it. She took a step across the corridor, placed her hand against the wall where the bloody handprint had been—

“Good morning.”

She whirled. It was her brother. He had come out of his room soundlessly and was standing in the middle of the hall, regarding her with a crooked smile. He looked freshly showered; damp, his fair hair was the color of silver, almost metallic.

“You planning to wear that all the time?” he asked, eyeing her nightgown.

“No, I was just…” She didn’t want to say she’d been checking to see if there was still blood in the hall. He just looked at her, amused and superior. Clary backed away. “I’m going to get dressed.”

He said something after her, but she didn’t pause to hear what it was, just darted back into Jace’s bedroom and closed the door behind her. A moment later she heard voices in the hallway — Sebastian’s again, and a girl’s, speaking musical Italian. The girl from last night, she thought. The one he’d said was asleep in his room. It was only then that she realized how much she’d suspected he was lying.

But he’d been telling the truth. I’m giving you a chance, he’d said. Can you give me a chance?

Could she? This was Sebastian they were talking about. She mulled it over feverishly while she showered and dressed carefully. The clothes in the wardrobe, having been selected for Jocelyn, were so far from her usual style that it was hard to choose what to wear. She found a pair of jeans — designer, from the price tag still attached — and a dotted silk shirt with a bow at the neck that had a vintage feel she liked. She threw her own velvet jacket on over it and headed back to Jace’s room, but he was gone, and it wasn’t hard to guess where. The rattle of dishes, the sound of laughter, and the smell of cooking floated up from downstairs.

She took the glass stairs two at a time, but paused on the bottom step, looking into the kitchen. Sebastian was leaning against the refrigerator, arms crossed, and Jace was making something in a pan that involved onions and eggs. He was barefoot, his hair messy, his shirt buttoned haphazardly, and the sight of him made her heart turn over. She had never seen him like this, first thing in the morning, still with that warm golden aura of sleep clinging to him, and she felt a piercing sadness that all these firsts were happening with a Jace who wasn’t really her Jace.

Even if he did look happy, eyes shadow-free, laughing as he flipped the eggs in the pan and slid an omelet onto a plate. Sebastian said something to him, and Jace looked over at Clary and smiled. “Scrambled or fried?”

“Scrambled. I didn’t know you could make eggs.” She came down from the steps and over to the kitchen counter. Sun was streaming through the windows — despite the lack of clocks in the house, she guessed it was late morning — and the kitchen glittered in glass and chrome.

“Who can’t make eggs?” Jace wondered aloud.

Clary raised her hand — and at the same time so did Sebastian. She couldn’t help a little jerk of surprise, and put her arm down hastily, but not before Sebastian had seen and grinned. He was always grinning. She wished she could slap it off his face.

She looked away from him and busied herself putting together a breakfast plate from what was on the table — bread, fresh butter, jam, and sliced bacon — the chewy, round kind. There was juice, too, and tea. They ate pretty well here, she thought. Although, if Simon was anything to go by, teenage boys were always hungry. She glanced toward the window — and did a double take. The view was no longer of a canal but of a hill rising in the distance, topped by a castle.

“Where are we now?” she asked.

“Prague,” said Sebastian. “Jace and I have an errand to do here.” He glanced out the window. “We should probably get going soon, in fact.”

She smiled sweetly at him. “Can I come with you?”

Sebastian shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?” Clary crossed her arms over her chest. “Is this some manly bonding thing I can’t be a part of? Are you getting matching haircuts?”

Jace handed her a plate with scrambled eggs on it, but he was looking at Sebastian. “Maybe she could come,” he said. “I mean, this particular errand — it’s not dangerous.”

Sebastian’s eyes were like the woods in the Frost poem, dark and deep. They gave nothing away. “Anything can turn dangerous.”

“Well, it’s your decision.” Jace shrugged, reached for a strawberry, popped it into his mouth, and sucked the juice off his fingers. Now that, Clary thought, was a clear and absolute difference between this Jace and hers. Her Jace had a ferocious and all-consuming curiosity about everything. He would never shrug and go along with someone else’s plan. He was like the ocean ceaselessly throwing itself against a rocky shore, and this Jace was… a calm river, shining in the sun.

Because he’s happy?

Clary’s hand tensed on her fork, her knuckles whitening. She hated that little voice in her head. Like the Seelie Queen, it planted doubts where there shouldn’t be doubts, asked questions that had no answer.

“I’m going to get my stuff.” After grabbing another berry off the plate, Jace popped it into his mouth and shot upstairs. Clary craned her head up. The clear glass steps seemed invisible, making it look like he was flying upward, not running.

“You’re not eating your eggs.” It was Sebastian. He had come around the counter — still noiselessly, dammit — and was looking at her, his eyebrows raised. He had the faintest accent, a mixture of the accent of the people who lived in Idris and something more British. She wondered if he’d been hiding it before or if she just hadn’t noticed.

“I don’t actually like eggs,” she confessed.

“But you didn’t want to tell Jace that, because he seemed so pleased to be making you breakfast.”

Since this was accurate, Clary said nothing.

“Funny, isn’t it?” said Sebastian. “The lies good people tell. He’ll probably make you eggs every day for the rest of your life now, and you’ll choke them down because you can’t tell him you don’t like them.”

Clary thought of the Seelie Queen. “Love makes liars of us all?”

“Exactly. Quick study, aren’t you?” He took a step toward her, and an anxious tingle seared her nerves. He was wearing the same cologne Jace wore. She recognized the citrusy black-pepper scent, but on him it smelled different. Wrong, somehow. “We have that in common,” Sebastian said, and began to unbutton his shirt.

She stood up hastily. “What are you doing?”

“Easy there, little sis.” He popped the last button, and his shirt hung open. He smiled lazily. “You’re the magical rune girl, aren’t you?”

Clary nodded slowly.

“I want a strength rune,” he said. “And if you’re the best, I want it from you. You wouldn’t deny your big brother a rune, would you?” His dark eyes raked her. “Besides, you want me to give you a chance.”

“And you want me to give you a chance,” she said. “So I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you a strength rune if you let me come with you on your errand.”

He stripped the shirt the rest of the way off and dropped it onto the counter. “Deal.”

“I don’t have a stele.” She didn’t want to look at him, but it was hard not to. He seemed to be deliberately invading her personal space. His body was much like Jace’s — hard, without any extra ounce of flesh anywhere, the muscles showing clearly under the skin. He was scarred like Jace too, though he was so pale that the white marks stood out less than they did against Jace’s golden skin. On her brother they were like silver pen on white paper.

He drew a stele from his belt and handed it to her. “Use mine.”

“All right,” she said. “Turn around.”

He did. And she swallowed back a gasp. His bare back was striped with ragged scars, one after the other, too even to be random accident.

Whip marks.

“Who did this to you?” she said.

“Who do you think? Our father,” he said. “He used a whip made of demon metal, so no iratze could heal them. They’re meant to remind me.”

“Remind you of what?”

“Of the perils of obedience.”

She touched one. It felt hot under her fingertips, as if newly made, and rough, where the skin around it was smooth. “Don’t you mean ‘disobedience’?”

“I mean what I said.”

“Do they hurt?”

“All the time.” Impatiently he glanced back over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing.” She set the tip of the stele to his shoulder blade, trying to keep her hand steady. Part of her mind raced, thinking how easy it would be to Mark him with something that would damage him, sicken him, twist his insides — but what would happen to Jace if she did? Shaking her hair out of her face, she carefully drew the Fortis rune at the juncture of shoulder blade and back, just where, if he were an angel, he would have wings.

When she was done, he turned and took the stele from her, then shrugged his shirt back on. She didn’t expect a thank-you — and didn’t get one. He rolled his shoulders back as he buttoned the shirt, and grinned. “You are good,” he said, but that was all.

A moment later the steps rattled, and Jace returned, shrugging on a suede jacket. He had clipped on his weapons belt too, and wore fingerless dark gloves.

Clary smiled at him with a warmth she didn’t feel. “Sebastian says I can come with you.”

Jace raised his eyebrows. “Matching haircuts for everyone?”

“I hope not,” said Sebastian. “I look terrible with curls.”

Clary glanced down at herself. “Do I need to change into gear?”

“Not really. This isn’t the sort of errand where we’re expecting to have to fight. But it’s good to be prepared. I’ll get you something from the weapons room,” said Sebastian, and vanished upstairs. Clary cursed herself silently for not having found the weapons room while she was searching. Surely it had something inside that could provide some sort of clue as to what they were planning—

Jace touched the side of her face, and she jumped. She’d nearly forgotten he was there. “You sure you want to do this?”

“Absolutely. I’m going stir-crazy in the house. Besides, you taught me to fight. I figure you’d want me to use it.”

His lips quirked into a devilish grin; he brushed her hair back and murmured something into her ear about using what she’d learned from him. He leaned away as Sebastian joined them, his own jacket on and a weapons belt in his hand. There was a dagger thrust through it, and a seraph blade. He reached out to draw Clary close to him and pulled the belt around her waist, double-looping it and settling it low on her hips. She was too surprised to push him away and he was done before she had the chance; turning away, he moved toward the wall, where the outline of a doorway had appeared, shimmering like a doorway in a dream.

They stepped through it.

A soft knock on the library door made Maryse raise her head. It was a cloudy day, dim outside the library windows, and the green-shaded lamps cast small pools of light in the circular room. She couldn’t say how long she’d been sitting behind the desk. Empty coffee mugs littered the surface in front of her.

She rose to her feet. “Come in.”

There was a soft click as the door opened, but no sound of footsteps. A moment later a parchment-robed figure glided into the room, his hood raised, shadowing his face. You called on us, Maryse Lightwood?

Maryse rolled her shoulders back. She felt cramped and tired and old. “Brother Zachariah. I was expecting — Well. It doesn’t matter.”

Brother Enoch? He is senior to me, but I thought perhaps that your call might have something to do with the disappearance of your adoptive son. I have a particular interest in his well-being.

She looked at him curiously. Most Silent Brothers didn’t editorialize, or speak of their personal feelings, if they had any. Smoothing her tangled hair back, she stepped out from behind the desk. “Very well. I want to show you something.”

She had never really gotten used to the Silent Brothers, to the soundless way they moved, as if their feet didn’t touch the ground. Zachariah seemed to hover beside her as she led him across the library to a map of the world tacked to the north wall. It was a Shadowhunter map. It showed Idris in the center of Europe and the ward around it as a border of gold.

On a shelf below the map were two objects. One was a shard of glass crusted with dried blood. The other was a worn leather cuff bracelet, decorated with the rune for angelic power.

“These are—”

Jace Herondale’s cuff and Jonathan Morgenstern’s blood. I understood attempts to track them were unsuccessful?

“It isn’t tracking precisely.” Maryse straightened her shoulders. “When I was in the Circle, there was a mechanism Valentine used by which he could locate us all. Unless we were in certain protected places, he knew where we were at all times. I thought there was a chance he might have done the same to Jace when he was a child. He never seemed to have trouble finding him.”

What kind of mechanism do you speak of?

“A mark. Not one from the Gray Book. We all had it. I had nearly forgotten about it; after all, there was no way to get rid of it.”

If Jace had it, would he not know of it, and take steps to prevent you using it to find him?

Maryse shook her head. “It could be as small as a tiny, almost invisible white mark under his hair, as mine is. He would not have known he had it — Valentine wouldn’t have wanted to tell him.”

Brother Zachariah moved apart from her, examining the map. And what has been the result of your experiment?

“Jace has it,” Maryse said, but she did not sound pleased or triumphant. “I’ve seen him on the map. When he appears, the map flares, like a spark of light, in the location where he is; and his cuff flares at the same time. So I know it is him, and not Jonathan Morgenstern. Jonathan never appears on the map.”

And where is he? Where is Jace?

“I’ve seen him appear, just for a few seconds each time, in London, Rome, and Shanghai. Just a little while ago he flickered into existence in Venice, and then vanished again.”

How is he traveling so quickly between cities?

“By Portal?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that every time the map flickers, I know he’s alive… for now. And it’s like I can breathe again, just for a little while.” She shut her mouth decidedly, lest the other words come pouring out — how she missed Alec and Isabelle but could not bear to call them back to the Institute, where Alec at least would be expected to take responsibility in the manhunt for his own brother. How she still thought of Max every day and it was like someone had emptied her lungs of air, and she would catch at her heart, afraid she was dying. She could not lose Jace, too.

I can understand that. Brother Zachariah folded his hands in front of him. His hands looked young, not gnarled or bent, his fingers slender. Maryse often wondered how the Brothers aged and how long they lived, but that information was secret to their order. There is little more powerful than the love of family. But what I do not know is why you chose to show this to me.

Maryse took a shuddering breath. “I know I should show it to the Clave,” she said. “But the Clave knows of his bond with Jonathan now. They are hunting them both. They will kill Jace if they find him. And yet to keep it to myself is surely treason.” She hung her head. “I decided that telling you, the Brothers, was something I could bear. Then it is your choice whether to show it to the Clave. I–I can’t stand that it be mine.”

Zachariah was silent a long moment. Then his voice, gentle in her head, said, Your map tells you that your son is still alive. If you give it to the Clave, I do not think it will help them much, besides telling them that he is traveling fast and is impossible to track. They know that already. You keep the map. I will not speak of it for now.

Maryse looked at him in astonishment. “But… you are a servant of the Clave…”

I was once a Shadowhunter like you. I lived like you do. And like you, there were those I loved enough to put their welfare before anything else — any oath, any debt.

“Did you…” Maryse hesitated. “Did you ever have children?”

No. No children.

“I’m sorry.”

Do not be. And try not to let fear for Jace devour you. He is a Herondale, and they are survivors—

Something snapped inside Maryse. “He is not a Herondale. He is a Lightwood. Jace Lightwood. He’s my son.”

There was a long pause. Then, I did not mean to imply otherwise, said Brother Zachariah. He unclasped his thin hands and stepped back. There is one thing you must be aware of. If Jace appears on the map for more than a few seconds at a time, you will have to tell the Clave. You should brace yourself for the possibility.

“I don’t think I can,” she said. “They’ll send hunters after him. Set a trap for him. He’s just a boy.”

He was never just a boy, said Zachariah, and he turned to glide from the room. Maryse did not watch him go. She had returned to staring at the map.

Simon?

Relief opened like a flower in his chest. Clary’s voice, tentative but familiar, filled his head. He looked sideways. Isabelle was still sleeping. Midday light was visible around the edges of the curtains.

Are you awake?

He rolled onto his back, stared up at the ceiling. Of course I’m awake.

Well, I wasn’t sure. You’re what, six, seven hours behind where I am. It’s twilight here.

Italy?

We’re in Prague now. It’s pretty. There’s a big river and a lot of buildings with spires. Looks a little like Idris from a distance. It’s cold here, though. Colder than at home.

Okay, enough with the weather report. Are you safe? Where are Sebastian and Jace?

They’re with me. I wandered off a little, though. I said I wanted to commune with the view from the bridge.

So I’m the view from the bridge?

She laughed, or at least he felt something that was like laughter in his head — a soft, nervous laughter. I can’t take too long. Though, they don’t really seem to suspect anything. Jace… Jace definitely doesn’t. Sebastian is harder to read. I don’t think he trusts me. I searched his room yesterday, but there’s nothing — I mean, nothing — to indicate what they’re planning. Last night…

Last night?

Nothing. It was odd, how she could be inside his head and he could still sense that she was hiding something. Sebastian has in his room the box my mom used to own. With his baby stuff in it. I can’t figure out why.

Don’t waste your time trying to figure out Sebastian, Simon told her. He’s not worth it. Figure out what they’re going to do.

I’m trying. She sounded irritable. Are you still at Magnus’s?

Yeah. We’ve moved to phase two of our plan.

Oh, yeah? What was phase one?

Phase one was sitting around the table, ordering pizza, and arguing.

What’s phase two? Sitting around the table drinking coffee and arguing?

Not exactly. Simon took a deep breath. We raised the demon Azazel.

Azazel? Her mental voice spiked upward; Simon almost clutched at his ears. So that’s what the stupid Smurf question was about. Tell me you’re kidding.

I’m not. It’s a long story. He filled her in as best he could, watching Isabelle breathe as he did, watching the light outside the window grow brighter. We thought he could help us find a weapon that can hurt Sebastian without hurting Jace.

Yeah, but — demon-raising? Clary didn’t sound convinced. And Azazel is no ordinary demon. I’m the one with Team Evil over here. You’re Team Good. Keep it in mind.

You know nothing’s that simple, Clary.

It was as if he could feel her sigh, a breath of air that passed over his skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. I know.

Cities and rivers, Clary thought as she took her fingers from the gold ring on her right hand and turned away from the view off Charles Bridge, back to Jace and Sebastian. They were on the other side of the old stone bridge, pointing off at something she couldn’t see. The water below was the color of metal, sliding soundlessly around the bridge’s ancient struts; the sky was the same color, pocked with black clouds.

The wind whipped at her hair and coat as she walked over to join Sebastian and Jace. They all set off again, the two boys conversing softly; she could have joined the conversation if she’d wanted to, she supposed, but there was something about the still loveliness of the city, its spires rising into mist in the distance, that made her want to be quiet, to look and to think on her own.

The bridge emptied out into a twisting cobblestone street lined with tourist shops, shops selling blood-red garnets and big chunks of golden Polish amber, heavy Bohemian glass, and wooden toys. Even at this hour, touts stood outside nightclubs, holding free passes or cards that would give you discounts on drinks; Sebastian gestured them aside impatiently, snapping his annoyance in Czech. The press of people was relieved when the street widened into an old medieval square. Despite the cold weather, it was filled with milling pedestrians and kiosks were selling sausages and hot, spiced cider. The three of them stopped for food and ate around a tall rickety table while the huge astronomical clock in the square’s center began to chime the hour. Clanking machinery started up, and a circle of dancing wooden figures appeared from doors on either side of the clock — the twelve apostles, Sebastian explained as the figures whirled around and around.

“There’s a legend,” he said, leaning forward with his hands cupped around a mug of hot cider, “that the king had the eyes of the clock maker put out after this clock was finished, so he could never build anything as beautiful again.”

Clary shuddered and moved a little closer to Jace. He had been quiet since they’d left the bridge, as if lost in thought. People — girls, mainly — stopped to look at him as they passed, his hair bright and startling among the winter-dark colors of the Old Square. “That’s sadistic,” she said.

Sebastian ran his finger around the rim of his mug, and licked the cider off. “The past is another country.”

“Foreign country,” said Jace.

Sebastian looked at him with lazy eyes. “What?”

“‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,’” Jace said. “That’s the whole quote.”

Sebastian shrugged and pushed his mug away. You got a euro for returning them to the stand where you bought the cider, but Clary suspected Sebastian couldn’t be bothered to fake good citizenship for a measly euro. “Let’s go.”

Clary wasn’t finished with her cider, but she set it down anyway and followed as Sebastian led them away from the square, among a maze of narrow, twisting streets. Jace had corrected Sebastian, she thought. Certainly it had been over something minor, but wasn’t Lilith’s blood magic supposed to bind him to her brother in such a way that he thought everything Sebastian did was right? Could this be a sign — even a tiny sign — that the spell that connected them was starting to fade?

It was stupid to hope, she knew. But sometimes hope was all you had.

The streets grew narrower, darker. The clouds overhead had completely blocked out the lowering sun, and old-fashioned gas lamps burned here and there, illuminating the misty dimness. The streets had turned to cobblestones, and the sidewalks were narrowing, forcing them to walk in a line, as if they were picking their way across a narrow bridge. Only the sight of other pedestrians, appearing and disappearing out of the fog, made Clary feel that she had not stepped through some sort of warp in time into a dream city out of her own imagination.

Finally they reached an archway of stone that opened out into a small square. Most of the stores had turned off their lights, though across from them one was lit up. It said ANTIKVARIAT in gold letters, and the window was full of old display bottles of different substances, their peeling labels marked in Latin. Clary was surprised when Sebastian headed toward it. What use could they possibly have for old bottles?

She dismissed the thought when they stepped over the threshold. The store inside was dimly lit and smelled of mothballs, but it was stuffed, every cranny, with an incredible selection of junk — and not-junk. Beautiful celestial maps warred for space with salt and pepper shakers shaped like the figures from the clock in the Old Town Square. There were heaps of old tobacco and cigar tins, stamps mounted in glass, old cameras of East German and Russian design, a gorgeous cut-glass bowl in a deep emerald shade sitting side by side with a stack of water-stained old calendars. An antique Czech flag hung from a mounting pole overhead.

Sebastian moved forward through the stacks toward a counter in the back of the store, and Clary realized that what she had taken for a mannequin was in fact an old man with a face as creased and wrinkled as an old bedsheet, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed. The counter itself was glass-fronted and held heaps of vintage jewelry and sparkling glass beads, small chain purses with gem clasps, and rows of cuff links.

Sebastian said something in Czech, and the man nodded and indicated Clary and Jace with a jerk of his chin and a suspicious look. His eyes were, Clary saw, a dark red color. She narrowed her own eyes, concentrating hard, and began to strip the glamour from him.

It wasn’t easy; it seemed to stick to him like flypaper. In the end she managed to pull it away only enough to see in flashes the real creature standing in front of her — tall and human-shaped, with gray skin and ruby-red eyes, a mouth full of pointed teeth that jutted every which way, and long, serpentine arms that ended in heads like an eel’s — narrow, evil-looking, and toothy.

“A Vetis demon,” Jace muttered in her ear. “They’re like dragons. They like to stockpile sparkly things. Junk, jewels, it’s all the same to them.”

Sebastian was looking back over his shoulder at Jace and Clary. “They’re my brother and sister,” he said after a moment. “They are entirely to be trusted, Mirek.”

A faint shudder ran under Clary’s skin. She didn’t like the idea of posing as Jace’s sister, even for a demon’s benefit.

“I don’t like this,” the Vetis demon said. “You said we would be dealing only with you, Morgenstern. And while I know Valentine had a daughter”—his head dipped toward Clary—“I also know he had only one son.”

“He’s adopted,” said Sebastian breezily, gesturing toward Jace.

“Adopted?”

“I think you’ll find the definition of the modern family is really changing at an impressive pace these days,” said Jace.

The demon — Mirek — didn’t look impressed. “I don’t like this,” he said again.

“But you’ll like this,” said Sebastian, taking a pouch, tied at the top, from his pocket. He turned it upside down above the counter, and a clattering pile of bronze coins fell out, clinking together as they rolled across the glass. “Pennies from dead men’s eyes. A hundred of them. Now, do you have what we agreed on?”

One toothed hand felt its way across the counter and bit gently at a coin. The demon’s red eyes flickered over the pile. “That is all very well, but it is not enough to buy what you seek.” He gestured with an undulating arm, and above it appeared what looked to Clary like a hunk of rock crystal — only it was more luminous, more sheer, silvery, and beautiful. She realized with a jolt that it was the stuff seraph blades were made from. “Pure adamas,” Mirek said. “The stuff of Heaven. Priceless.”

Anger crackled across Sebastian’s face like lightning, and for a moment Clary saw the vicious boy underneath, the one who had laughed while Hodge lay dying. Then the look was gone. “But we agreed on a price.”

“We also agreed you would come alone,” said Mirek. His red eyes returned to Clary, and to Jace, who hadn’t moved but whose aspect had taken on the controlled stillness of a crouching cat’s. “I’ll tell you what else you can give me,” he said. “A lock of your sister’s pretty hair.”

“Fine,” Clary said, stepping forward. “You want a snip of my hair—”

“No!” Jace moved to block her. “He’s a dark magician, Clary. You have no idea what he could do with a lock of your hair or a bit of blood.”

“Mirek,” Sebastian said slowly, not looking at Clary. And in that moment she wondered, If Sebastian wanted to trade a lock of her hair for the adamas, what was to stop him? Jace had objected, but he was also compelled to do what Sebastian asked of him. In the crunch, what would win out? The compulsion or Jace’s feelings for her? “Absolutely not.”

The demon blinked a slow lizardlike blink. “Absolutely not?”

“You will not touch a hair on my sister’s head,” said Sebastian. “Nor will you renege on our bargain. No one cheats Valentine Morgenstern’s son. The agreed upon price, or—”

“Or what?” Mirek snarled. “Or I’ll be sorry? You are not Valentine, little boy. Now, that was a man who inspired loyalty—”

“No,” said Sebastian, sliding a seraph blade from the belt at his waist. “I am not Valentine. I do not intend to deal with demons as Valentine did. If I cannot have your loyalty, I will have your fear. Know that I am more powerful than my father ever was, and if you do not deal fairly with me, I will take your life, and have what I have come for.” He raised the blade he held. “Dumah,” he whispered, and the blade shot forth, shimmering like a column of fire.

The demon recoiled, snapping several words in a muddy-sounding language. Jace’s hand already had a dagger in it. He called out to Clary, but not fast enough. Something struck her hard on the shoulder, and she fell forward, sprawling on the cluttered floor. She flipped over onto her back, fast, looked up—

And screamed. Looming over her was a massive snake — or at least it had a thick, scaled body and a head hooded like a cobra’s, but its body was jointed, insectile, with a dozen skittering legs that ended in jagged claws. Clary fumbled for her weapons belt as the creature reared back, yellow venom dripping from its fangs, and struck.

Simon had fallen back asleep after “speaking” with Clary. When he awoke again, the lights were on, and Isabelle knelt on the edge of the bed, wearing jeans and a worn T-shirt she must have borrowed from Alec. It had holes in the sleeves, and the stitching around the hem was coming undone. She had the collar pulled away from her throat and was using the tip of a stele to trace a rune onto the skin of her chest, just below her collarbone.

He raised himself up on his elbows. “What are you doing?”

“Iratze,” she said. “For this.” She tucked her hair back behind her ear, and he saw the two puncture wounds he’d made in the side of her throat. As she finished the rune, they smoothed over, leaving only the faintest white flecks behind.

“Are you… all right?” His voice came out in a whisper. Smooth. He was trying to bite back the other questions he wanted to ask. Did I hurt you? Do you think I’m a monster now? Have I creeped you out completely?

“I’m fine. I slept a lot later than I normally ever do, but I think that’s probably a good thing.” Seeing his expression, Isabelle slid her stele into her belt. She crawled toward Simon with a catlike grace and positioned herself over him, her hair falling down around them. They were so close their noses touched. She looked at him unblinklingly. “Why are you so crazy?” she said, and he could feel her breath against his face, as soft as a whisper.

He wanted to pull her down and kiss her — not bite her, just kiss her — but at that exact moment the apartment door buzzer sounded. A second later, someone knocked on the bedroom door — banged on it, really, making it shake on its hinges.

“Simon. Isabelle.” It was Magnus. “Look, I don’t care if you’re asleep or doing unspeakable things to each other. Get dressed and come out to the living room. Now.”

Simon locked gazes with Isabelle, who looked as puzzled as he did. “What’s going on?”

“Just get out here,” Magnus said, and the sound of his retreating feet was loud as he stalked away from their room.

Isabelle rolled off Simon, much to his disappointment, and sighed. “What do you think it is?”

“No idea,” said Simon. “Emergency meeting of Team Good, I guess.” He’d found the phrase amusing when Clary had used it. Isabelle, though, just shook her head and sighed.

“I’m not sure there is any such thing as Team Good these days,” she said.

13 THE BONE CHANDELIER

As the serpent’s head drove down toward Clary, a shining blur slashed across it, almost blinding her. A seraph blade, its shimmering knife edge slicing the demon’s head cleanly off. The head crumpled, spraying venom and ichor; Clary rolled to one side, but some of the toxic substance splattered onto her torso. The demon vanished before its two halves could strike the floor. Clary bit down on her cry of pain and moved to get to her feet. A hand was suddenly thrust into her field of vision — an offer to pull her to her feet. Jace, she thought, but as she looked up, she realized she was staring at her brother.

“Come on,” said Sebastian, his hand still out. “There are more of them.”

She grabbed his hand and let him lift her to her feet. He was splattered with demon blood too — blackish-green stuff that burned where it touched, leaving scorched patches on his clothing. As she stared at him, one of the snake-headed things — Elapid demons, she realized belatedly, remembering an illustration in a book — reared up behind him, its neck flattening out like a cobra’s. Without thinking, Clary grabbed his shoulder and shoved him out of the way, hard; he staggered back as the demon struck, and Clary rose to meet it with the dagger she had yanked from her belt. She turned her body aside as she drove the dagger home, avoiding the creature’s fangs; its hiss turned to a gurgle as the blade sank in and she dragged it down, gutting the creature open the way someone might gut a fish. Burning demon blood exploded over her hand in a hot torrent. She screamed but kept her grip on the dagger as the Elapid winked out of existence.

She whirled around. Sebastian was fighting another of the Elapids by the door of the shop; Jace was fending off two next to a display of antique ceramics. Shards of pottery littered the floor. Clary swung her arm back and threw the dagger, as Jace had taught her to. It soared through the air and struck one of the creatures in the side, sending it jittering and squeaking away from Jace. Jace whirled around and, seeing her, winked before reaching up to scissor off the head of the remaining Elapid demon. Its body collapsed as it vanished and Jace, splattered in black blood, grinned.

A surge of something went through Clary — a sense of buzzing elation. Both Jace and Isabelle had spoken to her of the high of battle, but she’d never really experienced it before. Now she did. She felt all-powerful, her veins humming, strength uncoiling from the base of her spine. Everything seemed to have slowed down around her. She watched as the injured Elapid demon spun and turned on her, racing toward her on its insectile feet, lips already curling back from its fangs. She stepped back, yanked the antique flag from its mounting place on the wall, and slammed the end of it into the Elapid’s open, gaping mouth. The pole punched out through the back of the creature’s skull, and the Elapid disappeared, taking the flag with it.

Clary laughed out loud. Sebastian, who had just finished off another demon, swung around at the noise, and his eyes widened. “Clary! Stop him!” he shouted, and she spun around to see Mirek, his hands fumbling at a door set into the back of the shop.

She broke into a run, yanking the seraph blade from her belt as she went. “Nakir!” she cried, vaulting up onto the counter, and she flung herself from the top of it as her weapon exploded into brightness. She landed on the Vetis demon, knocking him to the ground. One of his eel-like arms snapped at her, and she sliced it off with a sawing motion of her blade. More black blood sprayed. The demon looked at her with red, frightened eyes.

“Stop,” he wheezed. “I could give you whatever you want—”

“I have everything I want,” she whispered, and drove her seraph blade down. It plunged into the demon’s chest, and Mirek disappeared with a hollow cry. Clary thumped to her knees on the carpet.

A moment later two heads appeared over the side of the counter, staring down at her — one golden-blond and one silver-blond. Jace and Sebastian. Jace was wide-eyed; Sebastian looked pale. “Name of the Angel, Clary,” he breathed. “The adamas—”

“Oh, that stuff you wanted? It’s right here.” It had rolled partly under the counter. Clary held it up now, a luminous chunk of silver, smeared where her bloody hands had touched it.

Sebastian swore with relief and grabbed the adamas out of her hands as Jace vaulted over the counter in a single movement and landed beside Clary. He knelt down and pulled her close, running his hands over her, his eyes dark with concern. She caught at his wrists.

“I’m all right,” she said. Her heart was pounding, her blood still singing in her veins. He opened his mouth to say something, but she leaned forward and put her hands on either side of his face, her nails digging in. “I feel good.” She looked at him, rumpled and sweaty and bloody as he was, and wanted to kiss him. She wanted—

“All right, you two,” said Sebastian. Clary pulled away from Jace and glanced up at her brother. He was grinning down at them, lazily spinning the adamas in one hand. “Tomorrow we use this,” he said, nodding toward it. “But tonight — once we’re cleaned up a little — we celebrate.”

Simon padded barefoot out into the living room, Isabelle behind him, to find a surprising tableau. The circle and the pentagram in the center of the floor were shining with a bright silver light, like mercury. Smoke rose from the center of it, a tall black-red column, tipped with white. The whole room smelled of burning. Magnus and Alec stood outside the circle, and with them Jordan and Maia, who — given the coats and hats they were wearing — looked as if they had just arrived.

“What’s going on?” Isabelle asked, stretching her long limbs with a yawn. “Why is everyone watching the Pentagram Channel?”

“Just hang on a second,” Alec said grimly. “You’ll see.”

Isabelle shrugged and added her gaze to the others’. As everyone watched, the white smoke began to swirl, fast and then faster, a mini-tornado that tore across the center of the pentagram, leaving words behind it spelled out in scorch marks:

HAVE YOU MADE YOUR DECISION YET?

“Huh,” Simon said. “Has it been doing that all morning?”

Magnus threw his arms up. He was wearing leather pants and a shirt with a zigzag metallic lightning bolt on it. “All night, too.”

“Just asking the same question over and over?”

“No, it says different things. Sometimes it swears. Azazel appears to be having some fun.”

“Can it hear us?” Jordan cocked his head to the side. “Hey, there, demon guy.”

The fiery letters rearranged themselves. HELLO, WEREWOLF.

Jordan took a step back and looked at Magnus. “Is this… normal?”

Magnus seemed deeply unhappy. “It is most decidedly not normal. I have never called up a demon as powerful as Azazel, but even so — I’ve been through the literature, and I can’t find an example of this happening before. It’s getting out of control.”

“Azazel must be sent back,” Alec said. “Like, permanently sent back.” He shook his head. “Maybe Jocelyn was right. No good can come from summoning demons.”

“I’m pretty sure I came from someone summoning a demon,” Magnus noted. “Alec, I’ve done this hundreds of times. I don’t know why this time would be different.”

“Azazel can’t get out, can he?” said Isabelle. “Of the pentagram, I mean.”

“No,” said Magnus, “but he shouldn’t be able to be doing any of the other things he’s doing either.”

Jordan leaned forward, his hands on his blue-jeaned knees. “What’s it like being in Hell, dude?” he asked. “Hot or cold? I’ve heard both.”

There was no reply.

“Good job, Jordan,” said Maia. “I think you annoyed him.”

Jordan poked at the edge of the pentagram. “Can it tell the future? So, pentagram, is our band going to make it big?”

“It’s a demon from Hell, not a Magic Eight Ball, Jordan,” said Magnus irritably. “And stay away from the borders of the pentagram. Summon a demon and trap it in a pentagram, and it can’t get out to harm you. But step into the pentagram, and you’ve put yourself in the demon’s range of power—”

At that moment the pillar of smoke began to coalesce. Magnus’s head whipped up, and Alec stood, almost knocking over his chair, as the smoke took on the form of Azazel. His suit formed first — a gray and silver pinstripe, with elegant cuffs — and then he seemed to fill it out, his flame eyes the last thing to appear. He looked around him in evident pleasure. “The gang’s all here, I see,” he said. “So, have you come to a decision?”

“We have,” said Magnus. “I don’t believe we’ll be requiring your services. Thanks anyway.”

There was a silence.

“You can go now.” Magnus wiggled his fingers in a goodbye wave. “Ta.”

“I don’t think so,” Azazel said pleasantly, whipping out his handkerchief and buffing his nails with it. “I think I’ll stay. I like it here.”

Magnus sighed and said something to Alec, who went to the table and returned carrying a book, which he handed to the warlock. Magnus flipped it open and began to read. “Damned spirit, begone. Return thou to the realm of smoke and flame, of ash and—”

“That won’t work on me,” said the demon in a bored voice. “Go ahead and try, if you like. I’ll still be here.”

Magnus looked at him with eyes smoldering with rage. “You can’t force us to bargain with you.”

“I can try. It’s hardly as if I have anything better to occupy—”

Azazel broke off as a familiar shape streaked through the room. It was Chairman Meow, hot on the heels of what looked like a mouse. As everyone watched in surprise and horror, the small cat dashed through the outline of the pentagram — and Simon, acting on instinct rather than rational thought, jumped into the pentagram after him and scooped him up into his arms.

“Simon!” He knew without turning around that it was Isabelle, her cry reflexive. He turned to look at her as she clapped her hand over her mouth and looked at him with wide eyes. They were all staring. Izzy’s face was drained white with horror, and even Magnus looked unsettled.

Summon a demon and trap it in a pentagram, and it can’t get out to harm you. But step into the pentagram, and you’ve put yourself in the demon’s range of power.

Simon felt a tap on his shoulder. He dropped Chairman Meow as he turned, and the small cat streaked out of the pentagram and across the room to hide under a sofa. Simon looked up. The massive face of Azazel loomed over him. This close, he could see the cracks in the demon’s skin, like cracks in marble, and the flames deep in Azazel’s pitted eyes. When Azazel smiled, Simon saw that each of his teeth was tipped with a needle of iron.

Azazel exhaled. A cloud of hot sulfur spread around Simon. He was dimly aware of Magnus’s voice, rising and falling in a chant, and Isabelle screaming something as the demon’s hands clamped around his arms. Azazel lifted Simon off the ground so his feet were dangling in the air — and threw him.

Or tried to. His hands slipped off Simon; Simon dropped to the ground in a crouch as Azazel shot backward and seemed to hit an invisible barrier. There was a sound like stone shattering. Azazel slid to his knees, then painfully rose to his feet. He looked up with a roar, teeth flashing, and stalked toward Simon — who, realizing belatedly what was going on, reached up with a shaking hand and pushed the hair back from his forehead.

Azazel stopped in his tracks. His hands, the nails tipped with the same sharp iron as his teeth, curled in toward his sides. “Wanderer,” he breathed. “Is it you?”

Simon stayed frozen. Magnus was still chanting softly in the background, but everyone else was silent. Simon was afraid to look around, to catch the eye of any of his friends. Clary and Jace, he thought, had already seen the work of the Mark, its blazing fire. No one else had. No wonder they were wordless.

“No,” Azazel said, his fiery eyes narrowing. “No, you are too young, and the world too old. But who would dare place Heaven’s mark on a vampire? And why?”

Simon lowered his hand. “Touch me again and find out,” he said.

Azazel gave a rumbling sound — half laughter, half disgust. “I think not,” he said. “If you have been dabbling in bending the will of Heaven, even my freedom is not worth gambling for by allying my fate with yours.” He glanced around the room. “You are all madmen. Good luck, human children. You will need it.”

And he vanished in a burst of flame, leaving searing black smoke — and the stink of sulfur — behind.

“Hold still,” Jace said, taking the Herondale dagger in his hand and using the tip of it to slice Clary’s shirt open from the collar to the hem. He took the two halves of it and pushed them gingerly off her shoulders, leaving her sitting on the edge of the sink in just her jeans and a camisole. Most of the ichor and venom had gotten on her jeans and coat, but the fragile silk shirt was trashed. Jace dropped it into the sink, where it sizzled in the water, and applied his stele to her shoulder, tracing the outlines of the healing rune lightly.

She closed her eyes, feeling the burn of the rune, and then a rush as the relief from pain spread up her arms and down her back. It was like Novocain, but without making her numb.

“Better?” Jace asked.

She opened her eyes. “Much.” It wasn’t perfect — the irazte didn’t have much effect on burns caused by demon venom, but those tended to heal quickly on Shadowhunter skin. As it was, they stung only a little, and Clary, still feeling the high of the battle, barely noticed it. “Your turn?”

He grinned and offered her the stele. They were in the back of the antiques store. Sebastian had gone to lock up and dim the lights up front, lest they attract mundane attention. He was excited about “celebrating” and when he had left them, had been debating whether to go back to the apartment and change, or straight to the nightclub in the Malá Strana.

If there was a part of Clary that felt the wrongness of it, the idea of celebrating anything, it was lost in the humming of her blood. Amazing that it had taken fighting alongside Sebastian of all people to flip the switch inside her that seemed to turn her Shadowhunter instincts on. She wanted to leap tall buildings in a single bound, do a hundred flips, learn to scissor her blades the way Jace did. Instead she took the stele from him and said, “Take your shirt off, then.”

He pulled it over his head, and she tried to look unaffected. He had a long cut along his side, angry purple-red along the edges, and the burns of demon blood across his collarbone and right shoulder. Still, he was the most beautiful person she had ever known. Pale gold skin, broad shoulders, narrow waist and hips, that thin line of golden hair that ran from his navel to the waistband of his jeans. She pulled her eyes away from him and set the stele to his shoulder, industriously carving into his skin what had to be the millionth healing rune he’d ever gotten.

“Good?” she asked when she was finished.

“Mmm-hmm.” He leaned in, and she could smell the scent of him — blood and charcoal, sweat, and the cheap soap they’d found by the sink. “I liked that,” he said. “Didn’t you? Fighting together like that?”

“It was… intense.” He was standing between her legs already; he moved closer, fingers looping into the waistband of her jeans. Her hands fluttered to his shoulders, and she saw the gleam of the gold leaf-ring on her finger. It sobered her slightly. Don’t get distracted; don’t get lost in this. This isn’t Jace, isn’t Jace, isn’t Jace.

His lips brushed hers. “I thought it was incredible. You were incredible.”

“Jace,” she whispered, and then there was a banging on the door. Jace let go of her in surprise, and she slid backward, knocking into the faucet, which immediately turned on, spraying them both with water. She yelped with surprise, and Jace burst out laughing, turning to throw the door open as Clary twisted around to turn the faucet off.

It was Sebastian, of course. He looked remarkably clean, considering what they’d been through. He’d discarded his stained leather jacket in favor of an antique military coat, which, thrown over his T-shirt, lent him a look of thrift-store chic. He was carrying something in his hands, something black and shiny.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Is there a reason you just threw my sister into the sink?”’

“I was sweeping her off her feet,” said Jace, bending down to grab his shirt. He yanked it back on. Like Sebastian’s, his outerwear had sustained most of the damage, though there was a rip down the side of the shirt where a demon’s claw had slashed through.

“I brought you something to wear,” said Sebastian, handing the shiny black thing to Clary, who had wriggled out of the sink and was now standing, dripping soapy water onto the tiled floor. “It’s vintage. It looks about your size.”

Startled, Clary handed Jace back his stele and took the proffered garment. It was a dress — a slip, really — jet-black, with elaborately beaded straps and a lace hem. The straps were adjustable, and the fabric was stretchy enough that she suspected Sebastian was right, it probably would fit her. Part of her didn’t like the idea of wearing something Sebastian had picked, but she couldn’t exactly go out to a club in an unraveling camisole and a pair of soaking-wet jeans. “Thanks,” she said finally. “All right, both of you get out of here while I change.”

They left, closing the door behind them. She could hear them, raised boys’ voices, and though she couldn’t hear the words, she could tell they were joking with each other. Comfortably. Familiarly. It was so strange, she thought as she shucked off her jeans and cami and slipped the dress over her head. Jace, who hardly ever opened up to anyone, was laughing and joking around with Sebastian.

She turned to look at herself in the mirror. The black washed the color out of her skin, made her eyes look big and dark and her hair redder, her arms and legs long and thin and pale. Her eyes were smudged with dark shadow. The boots she had been wearing under her jeans added a certain toughness to the outfit. She wasn’t sure if she looked pretty exactly, but she sure looked like she was someone who shouldn’t be messed with.

She wondered if Isabelle would approve.

She unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out. She was in the dim back of the store, where all the junk that wasn’t housed up front had been tossed carelessly. A velvet curtain separated it from the rest of the establishment. Jace and Sebastian were on the other side of the curtain, talking, though she still couldn’t make out the words. She pulled the curtain aside and stepped out.

The lights were on, though the metal awning had been lowered over the glass front of the store, rendering the inside invisible to passersby. Sebastian was going through the stuff on the shelves, his long careful hands taking down object after object, subjecting them to a cursory inspection, and placing them back on the shelf.

Jace was the first one to see Clary. She saw his eyes spark, and remembered the first time he had seen her dressed up, wearing Isabelle’s clothes, on her way to Magnus’s party. As they had then, his eyes traveled slowly from the boots, up her legs, hips, waist, chest, and came to rest on her face. He smiled lazily.

“I could point out that that’s not a dress, that’s underwear,” he said, “but I doubt it would be in my best interest.”

“Need I remind you,” said Sebastian, “that that is my sister?”

“Most brothers would be delighted to see such a clean-cut gentleman as myself squiring their sisters about town,” said Jace, grabbing an army jacket off one of the racks and sliding his arms into it.

“Squiring?” Clary echoed. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re a rogue and a rake.”

“And then it’s pistols at dawn,” said Sebastian, striding toward the velvet curtain. “I’ll be right back. I’ve got to wash the blood out of my hair.”

“Fussy, fussy,” Jace called after him with a grin, then reached for Clary and pulled her against him. His voice dropped to a low whisper. “Remember when we went to Magnus’s party? You came out into the lobby with Isabelle, and Simon almost had an apoplectic fit?”

“Funny, I was thinking about the same thing.” She tipped her head back to look up at him. “I don’t remember you saying anything at the time about the way I looked.”

His fingers slid under the straps of her slip dress, the tips brushing her skin. “I didn’t think you liked me much. And I didn’t think a detailed description of all the things I wanted to do to you, delivered in front of an audience, would have been the thing to change your mind.”

“You didn’t think I liked you?” Her voice rose incredulously. “Jace, when has a girl ever not liked you?”

He shrugged. “Doubtless the lunatic asylums of the world are filled with unfortunate women who have failed to see my charms.”

A question hovered on the tip of her tongue, one she had always wanted to ask him but never had. After all, what did it really matter what he’d done before he met her? As if he could read the expression on her face, his golden eyes softened slightly.

“I never cared what girls thought about me,” he said. “Not before you.”

Before you. Clary’s voice shook a little. “Jace, I wondered—”

“Your verbal foreplay is boring and annoying,” said Sebastian, reappearing around the velvet curtain, his silver hair damp and tousled. “Ready to go?”

Clary stepped free of Jace, blushing; Jace looked unruffled. “We’re the ones who’ve been waiting for you.”

“Looks like you found a way to pass the agonizing time. Now come on. Let’s go. I’m telling you, you’re going to love this place.”

“I am never getting my security deposit back,” said Magnus glumly. He sat on top of the table, among the pizza boxes and coffee mugs, watching as the rest of Team Good did their best to clean up the destruction left by Azazel’s appearance — the smoking holes pocked into the walls, the sulfurous black goo dripping from the ceiling pipes, the ash and other grainy black substances ground into the floor. Chairman Meow was stretched across the warlock’s lap, purring. Magnus was off cleaning duty because he’d allowed his apartment to be half-destroyed; Simon was off cleaning duty because after the pentagram incident no one seemed to know quite what to make of him. He’d tried to talk to Isabelle, but she’d only shaken her mop at him in a threatening manner.

“I have an idea,” Simon said. He was sitting next to Magnus, his elbows on his knees. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“I have a feeling you’re right, Sherwin.”

“Simon. My name is Simon.”

“Whatever.” Magnus waved a slender hand. “What’s your idea?”

“I’ve got the Mark of Cain,” said Simon. “That means nothing can kill me, right?”

“You can kill yourself,” Magnus said, somewhat unhelpfully. “As far as I know, inanimate objects can accidentally kill you. So if you were planning on teaching yourself the lambada on a greased platform over a pit full of knives, I wouldn’t.”

“There goes my Saturday.”

“But nothing else can kill you,” Magnus said. His eyes had drifted away from Simon, and he was watching Alec, who appeared to be battling a Swiffer. “Why?”

“What happened in the pentagram, with Azazel, made me think,” said Simon. “You said summoning angels is more dangerous than summoning demons, because they might smite down the person who summoned them, or scorch them with heavenly fire. But if I did it…” His voice trailed off. “Well, I’d be safe, wouldn’t I?”

That snapped Magnus’s attention back. “You? Summon an angel?”

“You could show me how,” said Simon. “I know I’m not a warlock, but Valentine did it. If he did it, shouldn’t I be able to? I mean, there are humans who can do magic.”

“I couldn’t promise you’d live,” Magnus said, but there was a spark of interest in his voice that belied the warning. “The Mark is Heaven’s protection, but does it protect you against Heaven itself? I don’t know the answer.”

“I didn’t think you did. But you agree that out of all of us I probably have the best chance, right?”

Magnus looked over at Maia, who was splashing dirty water at Jordan and laughing as he twisted away, yelping. She pushed her curling hair back, leaving a dark streak of dirt across her forehead. She looked young. “Yes,” Magnus said reluctantly. “Probably you do.”

“Who is your father?” asked Simon.

Magnus’s eyes went back to Alec. They were gold-green, as unreadable as the eyes of the cat he held on his lap. “Not my favorite topic, Smedley.”

“Simon,” said Simon. “If I’m going to die for you all, the least you could do is remember my name.”

“You’re not dying for me,” said Magnus. “If it weren’t for Alec, I’d be…”

“You’d be where?”

“I had a dream,” Magnus said, his eyes distant. “I saw a city all of blood, with towers made of bone, and blood ran in the streets like water. Maybe you can save Jace, Daylighter, but you can’t save the world. The darkness is coming. ‘A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.’ If it weren’t for Alec, I’d be gone from here.”

“Where would you go?”

“Hide. Wait for it to blow over. I’m not a hero.” Magnus picked up Chairman Meow and dumped him onto the floor.

“You love Alec enough to stick around,” said Simon. “That’s kind of heroic.”

“You loved Clary enough to wreck your whole life for her,” said Magnus with a bitterness that was not characteristic of him. “See where that got you.” He raised his voice. “All right, everybody. Get over here. Sheldon’s had an idea.”

“Who’s Sheldon?” said Isabelle.

The streets of Prague were cold and dark, and though Clary kept her ichor-burned coat wrapped around her shoulders, she found the icy air cutting into the buzzing hum in her veins, muting the leftover high from the battle. She bought a cup of hot wine to keep the buzz going, wrapping her hands around it for warmth as she, Jace, and Sebastian lost themselves in a twisting labyrinth of ever narrower, ever darker ancient streets. There were no street signs or names, and no other pedestrians; the only constant was the moon moving through thick clouds overhead. At last a shallow flight of stone steps took them down into a tiny square, one side of which was lit by a flashing neon sign that said KOSTI LUSTR. Below the sign was an open door, a blank spot in the wall that looked like a missing tooth.

“What does that mean, ‘Kosti Lustr’?” Clary asked.

“It means ‘The Bone Chandelier.’ It’s the name of the nightclub,” said Sebastian, sauntering forward. His pale hair reflected the changing neon colors of the sign: hot red, cold blue, metallic gold. “You coming?”

A wall of sound and light hit Clary the moment she entered the club. It was a big, tightly packed space that looked like it had once been the interior of a church. She could still see stained-glass windows high up in the walls. Darting colored spotlights picked out the blissed-out faces of dancers in the churning crowd, lighting them up one at a time: hot pink, neon green, burning violet. There was a DJ booth along one wall, and trance music blasted from the speakers. The music pounded up through her feet, into her blood, vibrating her bones. The room was hot with the press of bodies and the smell of sweat and smoke and beer.

She was about to turn and ask Jace if he wanted to dance, when she felt a hand on her back. It was Sebastian. She tensed but didn’t pull away. “Come on,” he said into her ear. “We’re not staying up here with the hoi polloi.”

His hand was like iron pressing against her spine. She let him propel her forward, through the dancers; the crowd seemed to part to let them through, people looking up to glance at Sebastian, then dropping their gazes, backing away. The heat increased, and Clary was almost gasping by the time they reached the far side of the room. There was an archway there that she hadn’t noticed before. A set of worn stone steps led downward, curving away into darkness.

She glanced up as Sebastian took his hand away from her back. Light blazed around them. Jace had taken out his witchlight rune-stone. He grinned at her, his face all angles and shadows in the harsh, focused light.

“‘Easy is the descent,’” he said.

Clary shivered. She knew the whole phrase. Easy is the descent into Hell.

“Come on.” Sebastian jerked his head, and then he was moving downward, graceful and sure-footed, not worried about slipping on the age-smoothed stones. Clary followed a little more slowly. The air grew cooler as they went down, and the sound of the pounding music faded. She could hear their breathing, and see their shadows thrown, distorted and spindly, against the walls.

She heard the new music before they reached the bottom of the stairs. It had an even more insistent beat than the music in the club upstairs; it shot through her ears and into her veins and spun her around. She was almost dizzy by the time they reached the last of the stairs and stepped out into a massive room that stole her breath.

Everything was stone, the walls bumpy and uneven, the floor smooth beneath their feet. A massive statue of a black-winged angel rose along the far wall, its head lost in shadows far above, its wings dripping strings of garnets that looked like drops of blood. Explosions of color and light burst like cherry bombs throughout the room, nothing like the artificial light upstairs — these were beautiful, sparkling like fireworks, and every time one burst, it rained down a glittering shimmer onto the dancing crowd below. Huge marble fountains sprayed sparkling water; black rose petals drifted onto the surface. And far above everything, dangling down above the packed floor of dancers on a long golden cord, was a massive chandelier made of bones.

It was as intricate as it was gruesome. The main body of the chandelier was formed by spinal columns, fused together; femurs and tibias dripped like decoration from the arms of the fixture, which swooped up to cradle human skulls, each holding a massive taper. Black wax dripped like demon blood to spatter on the dancers below, none of whom seemed to notice. And the dancers themselves — whirling and spinning and clapping — none of them were human.

“Werewolves and vampires,” said Sebastian, answering Clary’s unasked question. “In Prague they’re allies. This is where they… relax.” A hot breeze was blowing through the room, like desert wind; it lifted his silvery hair and blew it across his eyes, hiding their expression.

Clary wriggled out of her coat and held it pressed against her chest almost like a shield. She looked around with wide eyes. She could sense the nonhuman-ness of the others in the room, the vampires with their pallor and their swift and languid grace, the werewolves fierce and fast. Most were young, dancing close, writhing up and down each other’s bodies. “But — won’t they mind us being here? Nephilim?”

“They know me,” said Sebastian. “And they’ll know you’re with me.” He reached out and tugged the coat out of her grip. “I’ll go get that hung up for you.”

“Sebastian—,” But he was gone, into the crowd.

She looked at Jace beside her. He had his thumbs hooked into his belt and was looking around with casual interest. “Vampire coat check?” she said.

“Why not?” Jace smiled. “You’ll notice he didn’t offer to take my coat. Chivalry is dead, I tell you.” He tipped his head to the side at her quizzical expression. “Whatever. There’s probably someone he has to talk to here.”

“So this isn’t just for fun?”

“Sebastian never does anything just for fun.” Jace took her hands and pulled her toward him. “But I do.”

To Simon’s complete lack of surprise, no one was enthusiastic about his plan. There was a loud chorus of disapproval, followed by a clamor of voices trying to talk him out of it, and questions, mostly directed at Magnus, about the safety of the whole enterprise. Simon rested his elbows on his knees and waited it out.

Eventually he felt a soft touch on his arm. He turned, and to his surprise it was Isabelle. She gestured at him to follow her.

They wound up in the shadows near one of the pillars as the argument raged behind them. Since Isabelle had initially been one of the loudest dissenters, he braced himself for her to yell at him. However, she only looked at him with her mouth tight. “Okay,” he said finally, hating the silence. “I guess you’re not pleased with me right now.”

“You guess? I’d kick your butt, vampire, but I don’t want to ruin my expensive new boots.”

“Isabelle—”

“I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Right,” Simon said, though he couldn’t help a twinge of disappointment. “I know that.”

“And I’ve never begrudged you the time you’ve spent with Clary. I even encouraged it. I know how much you care about her. And how much she cares about you. But this — this is an insane risk you’re talking about taking. Are you sure?”

Simon looked around — at Magnus’s messy apartment, the small group in the corner arguing about his fate. “This isn’t just about Clary.”

“Well, it isn’t about your mother, is it?” Isabelle said. “That she called you a monster? You don’t have anything to prove, Simon. That’s her problem, not yours.”

“It’s not like that. Jace saved my life. I owe him.”

Isabelle looked surprised. “You’re not doing this just to pay Jace back, are you? Because I think by now everyone’s pretty even.”

“No, not completely,” he said. “Look, we all know the situation. Sebastian can’t be running around loose. It isn’t safe. The Clave is right about that much. But if he dies, Jace dies. And if Jace dies, Clary…”

“She’ll survive,” Isabelle said, her voice quick and hard. “She’s tough and strong.”

“She’ll hurt. Maybe forever. I don’t want her to hurt like that. I don’t want you to hurt like that.”

Isabelle crossed her arms. “Of course not. But do you think she won’t be hurt, Simon, if something happens to you?”

Simon bit his lip. He actually hadn’t thought about it. Not like that. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Will you be hurt if something happens to me?”

She kept looking at him, her back straight, her chin steady. But her eyes were shining. “Yes.”

“But you want me to help Jace.”

“Yes. I want that, too.”

“You have to let me do this,” he said. “It’s not just for Jace, or for you and Clary, though you’re all a big part of it. It’s because I believe darkness is coming. I believe Magnus when he says it. I believe Raphael is truly afraid of a war. I believe we’re seeing a small piece of Sebastian’s plan, but I don’t think it’s any coincidence he took Jace with him when he went. Or that he and Jace are linked. He knows we need Jace to win a war. He knows what Jace is.”

Isabelle didn’t deny it. “You’re just as brave as Jace.”

“Maybe,” said Simon. “But I’m not Nephilim. I can’t do what he can do. And I don’t mean as much to as many people.”

“Special destinies and special torments,” Isabelle whispered. “Simon — you mean a lot to me.”

He reached out, and lightly cupped her cheek. “You’re a warrior, Iz. It’s what you do. It’s what you are. But if you can’t fight Sebastian because hurting him would hurt Jace, you can’t fight the war. And if you have to kill Jace to win the war, I think it’ll kill part of your soul. And I don’t want to see that, not if I could do something to change it.”

She swallowed. “It’s not fair,” she said. “That it has to be you—”

“This is my choice, to do this. Jace doesn’t have a choice. If he dies, it’s for something he didn’t have anything to do with, not really.”

Isabelle expelled a breath. She uncrossed her arms and took him by the elbow. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She steered him back toward the group, who broke off their argument and stared when she cleared her throat, as if they hadn’t quite realized the two of them had been missing until this moment.

“That’s enough,” she said. “Simon has made his decision, and it’s his decision to make. He’s going to summon Raziel. And we’re going to help him in any way we can.”

They danced. Clary tried to lose herself in the pounding beat of the music, the rush of blood in her veins, the way she had once been able to do at Pandemonium with Simon. Of course Simon had been a fairly terrible dancer, and Jace was an excellent dancer. She supposed it made sense. With all that trained fighting control and careful grace, there wasn’t much he couldn’t make his body do. When he flung his head back, his hair was dark with sweat, pasted to his temples, and the curve of his throat gleamed in the light of the bone chandelier.

She saw the way the other dancers looked at him — appreciation, speculation, predatory hunger. A possessiveness she couldn’t name or control rose up inside her. She moved closer, sliding up his body the way she’d seen girls do on the dance floor before but had never had the nerve to try herself. She’d always been convinced she’d get her hair caught on someone’s belt buckle, but things were different now. Her months of training didn’t pay off just in a fight, but any time she had to use her body. She felt fluid, in control, in a way she never had before. She pressed her body against Jace’s.

His eyes had been closed; he opened them just as an explosion of colored light lit up the darkness above them. Metallic drops rained down on them; droplets were caught in Jace’s hair and shimmering on his skin like mercury. He touched his fingers to a drop of silver liquid on his collarbone and showed it to her, his lips curving. “Do you remember what I told you that first time at Taki’s? About faerie food?”

“I remember you said you ran down Madison Avenue naked with antlers on your head,” said Clary, blinking silver drops off her lashes.

“I don’t think that was ever proved to have actually been me.” Only Jace could talk while he danced and not make it look awkward. “Well, this stuff”—and he flicked at the silvery liquid that mixed with his hair and skin, painting him in metal—“is like that. It’ll get you…”

“High?”

He watched her with darkened eyes. “It can be fun.” Another of the drifting flower-things burst above their head; this spatter was silver-blue, like water. Jace licked a drop off the side of his hand, studying her.

High. Clary had never done drugs, didn’t even drink. Maybe if you counted the bottle of Kahlúa she and Simon had smuggled out of his mom’s liquor cabinet and drunk when they’d been thirteen. They’d been heartily sick afterward; Simon had, in fact, thrown up in a hedge. It hadn’t been worth it, but she did remember the sensation of being dizzy and giggly and happy for no reason.

When Jace lowered his hand, his mouth was stained with silver. He was still watching her, gold eyes dark under his long lashes.

Happy for no reason.

She thought of the way they had been together in the time after the Mortal War before Lilith had begun to possess him. He had been the Jace in the photograph on his wall then: so happy. They both had been happy. There had been no nagging doubt when she looked at him, none of this feeling of tiny knives under her skin, eroding the closeness between them.

She leaned up then, and kissed him, slowly and definitively, on the lips.

Her mouth exploded with a sweet-sour taste, a mixture of wine and candy. More of the silvery liquid rained down on them as she pulled away from him, licking her mouth deliberately. Jace was breathing hard; he reached for her, but she spun away, laughing.

She felt wild and free suddenly, and incredibly light. She knew there was something terribly important she was supposed to be doing, but she couldn’t remember what it was, or why she had cared. The faces of the dancers around her no longer looked vulpine and faintly frightening, but darkly beautiful. She was in a great echoing cavern, and the shadows around her were painted with colors lovelier and brighter than any sunset. The angel statue that loomed above her seemed benevolent, a thousand times more so than Raziel and his cold white light, and a high singing note sounded from it, pure and clear and perfect. She spun, faster and faster, leaving behind grief, memories, loss, until she spun into a pair of arms that snaked around her from behind and held her tight. She looked down and saw scarred hands locked around her waist, slim beautiful fingers, the Voyance rune. Jace. She melted back against him, closing her eyes, letting her head fall into the curve of his shoulder. She could feel his heart beating against her spine.

No one else’s heart beat like Jace’s did, or ever could.

Her eyes flew open, and she spun around, her hands out to push him away. “Sebastian,” she whispered. Her brother grinned down at her, silver and black like the Morgenstern ring.

“Clarissa,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

No. The word came and went, dissolving like sugar into liquid. She couldn’t remember why she was supposed to say no to him. He was her brother; she should love him. He had brought her to this beautiful place. Perhaps he had done bad things, but that was a long time ago and she could no longer remember what they were.

“I can hear angels singing,” she said to him.

He chuckled. “I see you found out that silvery stuff isn’t just glitter.” He reached forward and stroked his forefinger across her cheekbone; it was silver when it came away, as if he had caught a painted tear. “Come along, angel girl.” He held out his hand.

“But Jace,” she said. “I lost him in the crowd—”

“He’ll find us.” Sebastian’s hand clamped around hers, surprisingly warm and comforting. She let him draw her toward one of the fountains in the middle of the room, and set her down on the wide marble edge. He sat down beside her, her hand still in his. “Look in the water,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”

She leaned over and looked into the smooth dark surface of the pool. She could see her own face reflected back at her, her eyes wide and wild, her eye makeup smudged like bruises, her hair tangled. And then Sebastian leaned over too, and she saw his face beside hers. The silver of his hair reflected in the water made her think of the moon on the river. She reached to touch its brilliance, and the water shivered apart, their reflections distorting, unrecognizable.

“What is it?” Sebastian said, and there was a low urgency in his voice.

Clary shook her head; he was being very silly. “I saw you and me,” she said in a chiding tone. “What else?”

He put his hand under her chin and turned her face toward him. His eyes were black, night-black, with only a ring of silver separating the pupil from the iris. “Don’t you see it? We’re the same, you and me.”

“The same?” She blinked at him. There was something very wrong with what he was saying, though she couldn’t say quite what. “No…”

“You’re my sister,” he said. “We have the same blood.”

“You have demon blood,” she said. “Lilith’s blood.” For some reason this struck her as funny, and she giggled. “You’re all dark, dark, dark. And Jace and I are light.”

“You have a dark heart in you, Valentine’s daughter,” he said. “You just won’t admit it. And if you want Jace, you had better accept it. Because he belongs to me now.”

“Then, who do you belong to?”

Sebastian’s lips parted; he said nothing. For the first time, Clary thought, he looked as if he had nothing to say. She was surprised; his words hadn’t meant much to her, and she’d merely been idly curious. Before she could say anything else, a voice above them said:

“What’s going on?” It was Jace. He looked from one of them to the other, his face unreadable. More of the shimmering stuff had gotten on him, silver drops clinging to the gold of his hair. “Clary.” He sounded annoyed. She pulled away from Sebastian and hopped to her feet.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I got lost in the crowd.”

“I noticed,” he said. “One second I was dancing with you, and the next you were gone and a very persistent werewolf was trying to get the buttons on my jeans undone.”

Sebastian chuckled. “Girl or boy werewolf?”

“Not sure. Either way, they could have used a shave.” He took Clary’s hand, lightly ringing her wrist with his fingers. “Do you want to go home? Or dance some more?”

“Dance some more. Is that all right?”

“Go ahead.” Sebastian leaned back, his hands braced behind him on the fountain’s edge, his smile like the edge of a straight razor. “I don’t mind watching.”

Something flashed across Clary’s vision: the memory of a bloody handprint. It was gone as soon as it had come, and she frowned. The night was too beautiful to think of ugly things. She looked back at her brother only for a moment before she let Jace lead her back through the crowd to its edge, near the shadows, where the press of bodies was lighter. Another ball of colored light burst above their heads as they went, scattering silver, and she tipped her head up, catching the salt-sweet drops on her tongue.

In the center of the room, beneath the bone chandelier, Jace stopped and she swung toward him. Her arms were around him, and she felt the silver liquid trickling down her face like tears. The fabric of his T-shirt was thin and she could feel the burn of his skin underneath. Her hands slid up under the hem, her nails scratching lightly over his ribs. Silver drops of liquid spangled his eyelashes as he lowered his glance to hers, leaned to whisper in her ear. His hands moved over her shoulders, down her arms. Neither of them were really dancing anymore: the hypnotic music went on around them, and the whirl of other dancers, but Clary barely noticed. A couple moving past laughed and made a derisive comment in Czech; Clary couldn’t understand it, but suspected the gist was Get a room.

Jace made an impatient noise, and then he was moving through the crowd again, drawing her after him and into one of the shadowy alcoves that lined the walls.

There were dozens of these circular alcoves, each lined with a stone bench and provided with a velvet curtain that could be pulled closed to provide a modicum of privacy. Jace yanked the curtain shut and they crashed against each other like the sea against the shore. Their mouths collided and slid together; Jace lifted her up so she was pressed against him, his fingers twisting in the slippery material of her dress.

Clary was conscious of heat and softness, hands seeking and finding, yielding and pressure. Her hands under Jace’s T-shirt, her fingernails clawing at his back, savagely pleased when he gasped. He bit down on her bottom lip and she tasted blood in her mouth, salt and hot. It was as if they wanted to cut each other apart, she thought, to climb inside each other’s bodies and share their heartbeats, even if it killed them both.

It was dark in the alcove, so dark that Jace was only an outline of shadows and gold. His body pinned Clary’s to the wall. His hands slid down along her body and reached the end of her dress, drawing it up along her legs.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. “Jace?”

He looked at her. The peculiar light in the club turned his eyes an array of fractured colors. His smile was wicked. “You can tell me to stop whenever you want,” he said. “But you won’t.”

Sebastian drew aside the dusty velvet curtain that closed off the alcove, and smiled.

A bench ran around the inside of the small circular room, and a man sat there, leaning his elbows on a stone table. He had long black hair tied back, a scar or mark in the shape of a leaf on one cheek, and his eyes were as green as grass. He wore a white suit, and a handkerchief with green leaf embroidery peeked from one pocket.

“Jonathan Morgenstern,” Meliorn said.

Sebastian did not correct him. Faeries took great stock in names, and would never call him by anything but the name his father had chosen for him. “I wasn’t sure you would be here at the appointed time, Meliorn.”

“May I remind you that the Fair Folk do not lie,” said the knight. He reached up and twitched the curtain shut behind Sebastian. The pounding music outside was discreetly muffled, though by no means inaudible. “Come in, then, and seat yourself. Wine?”

Sebastian settled himself on the bench. “No, nothing.” Wine, like the faerie liquor, would only cloud his thoughts, and faeries seemed to have a higher tolerance. “I admit I was surprised when I received the message that you wished to meet here.”

“You above all should know that the Lady has a special interest in you. She knows of all your movements.” Meliorn took a sip of wine. “There was a great demonic disturbance here in Prague tonight. The Queen was concerned.”

Sebastian spread his arms out. “As you can see, I am unharmed.”

“A disturbance so great will surely win the attention of the Nephilim. In fact, if I am not mistaken, several of them already disport themselves without.”

“Without what?” Sebastian asked innocently.

Meliorn took another sip of wine and glared.

“Oh, right. I always forget the amusing way faeries talk. You mean there are Shadowhunters in the crowd outside, looking for me. I know that. I noticed them earlier. The Queen does not think much of me if she does not think I can handle a few Nephilim on my own.” Sebastian drew a dagger from his belt and twirled it, the very little light in the alcove sparking off the blade.

“I shall tell her you said so,” muttered Meliorn. “I must admit, I have no idea what attraction you hold for her. I have taken your measure and found it lacking, but I have not my lady’s taste.”

“Weighed in the balance and found wanting?” Amused, Sebastian leaned forward. “Let me break it down for you, faerie knight. I’m young. I’m pretty. And I’m willing to burn the whole world to the ground to get what I want.” His dagger traced a crack in the stone table. “Like myself, the Queen is content to play a long game. But what I desire to know is this: When the twilight of the Nephilim comes, will the Courts stand with or against me?”

Meliorn’s face was blank. “The Lady says she stands with you.”

Sebastian’s mouth curled at the corner. “That is excellent news.”

Meliorn snorted. “I always presumed the race of humans would end themselves,” he said. “Through a thousand years I have prophesied that you would be your own deaths. But I did not expect the end to come like this.”

Sebastian twirled the bright dagger between his fingers. “No one ever does.”

“Jace,” Clary whispered. “Jace, anyone could come in and see us.”

His hands didn’t stop what they were doing. “They won’t.” He trailed a path of kisses down her neck, effectively scattering her thoughts. It was hard to hold on to what was real, with his hands on her, and her mind and memories in a whirl, and her fingers were so tightly bunched in Jace’s shirt that she was sure she was going to rip the material.

The stone wall was cold against her back, but Jace was kissing her shoulder, easing the strap of her dress down. She was hot and cold and shivering. The world had fractured into bits, like the bright pieces inside a kaleidoscope. She was going to come apart under his hands.

“Jace—” She clung to his shirt. It was sticky, viscous. She glanced down at her hands and for a moment didn’t comprehend what she saw there. Silver fluid, mixed with red.

Blood.

She looked up. Hanging upside-down from the ceiling above them, like a grisly piñata, was a human body, rope binding its ankles. Blood dripped from its cut throat.

Clary screamed, but the scream made no sound. She pushed at Jace, who stumbled back; there was blood in his hair, on his shirt, on her bare skin. She pulled up the straps of her dress and stumbled to the curtain that hid the alcove, yanking it open.

The statue of the angel was no longer quite as it had been. The black wings were bat’s wings, the lovely, benevolent face twisted into a sneer. Dangling from the ceiling on twisted ropes were the slaughtered bodies of men, women, animals — slashed open, their blood dripping down like rain. The fountains pulsed blood, and what floated on top of the liquid was not flowers but open severed hands. The writhing, clawing dancers on the floor were drenched in blood. As Clary watched, a couple spun by, the man tall and pale, the woman limp in his arms, her throat torn, obviously dead. The man licked his lips and bent down for another bite, but before he did, he glanced at Clary and grinned, and his face was streaked with blood and silver. She felt Jace’s hand on her arm, tugging her back, but she fought free of him. She was staring at the glass tanks along the wall that she had thought held brilliant fish. The water was not clear but blackish and sludgy, and drowned human bodies floated in it, their hair spinning around them like the filaments of luminous jellyfish. She thought of Sebastian floating in his glass coffin. A scream rose in her throat, but she choked it back as silence and darkness overwhelmed her.

14 AS ASHES

Clary came back to consciousness slowly, with the dizzy sensation she recalled from that first morning in the Institute, when she had woken with no idea of where she was. Her whole body ached, and her head felt as if someone had smashed an iron barbell into it. She was lying on her side, her head pillowed on something rough, and there was a weight around her shoulder. Glancing down, she saw a slim hand, pressed protectively against her sternum. She recognized the Marks, the faint white scars, even the blue mapping of veins across his forearm. The weight inside her chest eased, and she sat up carefully, slipping out from under Jace’s arm.

They were in his bedroom. She recognized the incredible neatness, the carefully made bed with its hospital corners. It still wasn’t disarranged. Jace was asleep, propped up against the headboard, still in the same clothes he’d worn the night before. He even had his shoes on. He had clearly fallen asleep holding her, though she had no recollection of it. He was still splattered with the odd silvery substance from the club.

He stirred slightly, as if sensing that she was gone, and wrapped his free arm around himself. He didn’t look injured or hurt, she thought, just exhausted, his long dark gold eyelashes curled in the hollow of the shadows beneath his eyes. He looked vulnerable asleep — a little boy. He could have been her Jace.

But he wasn’t. She remembered the nightclub, his hands on her in the dark, the bodies and blood. Her stomach churned, and she put a hand over her mouth, swallowing down nausea. She felt sickened by what she remembered, and underneath the sickness was a nagging prickle, the sense that she was missing something.

Something important.

“Clary.”

She turned. Jace’s eyes were half-open; he was looking at her through his lashes, the gold of his eyes dulled with exhaustion. “Why are you awake?” he said. “It’s barely dawn.”

Her hands bunched in the tangle of blankets. “Last night,” she said, her voice uneven. “The bodies — the blood—”

“The what?”

“That’s what I saw.”

“I didn’t.” He shook his head. “Faerie drugs,” he said. “You knew…”

“It seemed so real.”

“I’m sorry.” His eyes closed. “I wanted to have fun. It’s supposed to make you happy. Make you see pretty things. I thought we would have fun together.”

“I saw blood,” she said. “And dead people floating in tanks—”

He shook his head, his lashes fluttering down. “None of it was real…”

“Even what happened with you and me—?” Clary broke off, because his eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling steadily. He was asleep.

She rose to her feet, not looking at Jace, and went into the bathroom. She stood looking at herself in the mirror, numbness spreading through her bones. She was covered in smears of silvery residue. It reminded her of the time a metallic pen had burst inside her backpack, ruining everything in it. One of her bra straps had snapped, probably where Jace had yanked on it the night before. Her eyes were surrounded with smeared black stripes of mascara, and her skin and hair were sticky with silver.

Feeling faint and sick, she stripped off the slip dress and her underwear, tossing them into the wastebasket before crawling into the hot water.

She washed her hair over and over again, trying to get the dried silver gunk out. It was like trying to wash out oil paint. The scent of it lingered too, like the water from a vase after the flowers have rotted, faint and sweet and spoiled on her skin. No amount of soap seemed to be able to get rid of it.

Finally convinced she was as clean as she was going to get, she dried off and went to the master bedroom to get dressed. It was a relief to climb back into jeans and boots and slip on a comfortable cotton sweater. It was only then, as she pulled on her second boot, that the nagging feeling returned, the feeling that she was missing something. She froze.

Her ring. The gold ring that let her speak to Simon.

It was gone.

Frantically she searched for it, tearing through the wastebasket to see if the ring had gotten caught on her dress, then searching every inch of Jace’s room while he slept peacefully on. She combed through the carpet, the bedclothes, checking the nightstand drawers.

At last she sat back, her heart slamming against her chest, a sick feeling in her stomach.

The ring was gone. Lost, somewhere, somehow. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen it. Surely it had flashed on her hand while she’d wielded that dagger against the Elapid demons. Had it fallen off in the junk store? In the nightclub?

She dug her nails into her blue-jeaned thighs until the pain made her gasp. Focus, she told herself. Focus.

Maybe the ring had fallen from her finger somewhere else in the apartment. Probably Jace had carried her upstairs at some point. It was a small chance, but every chance had to be explored.

She rose to her feet and went as soundlessly as she could out into the hallway. She moved toward Sebastian’s room, and hesitated. She couldn’t imagine why the ring would be in there, and waking him up would only be counterproductive. She turned around and made her way down the stairs instead, walking carefully to mask the sound of her boots.

Her mind was racing. With no way to contact Simon, what was she going to do? She needed to tell him about the antiques shop, the adamas. She should have talked to him sooner. She wanted to punch the wall, but she forced her mind to slow down, to consider her options. Sebastian and Jace were beginning to trust her; if she could get away from them briefly, on a busy city street, she could use a pay phone to call Simon. She could duck into an Internet café and e-mail him. She knew more about mundane technology than they did. Losing the ring didn’t mean it was over.

She would not give up.

Her mind was so occupied with thoughts of what to do next that at first she didn’t see Sebastian. Fortunately, he had his back to her. He stood in the living room, facing the wall.

Already at the bottom of the staircase, Clary froze, then darted across the floor and flattened herself against the half wall that separated the kitchen from the larger room. There was no reason to panic, she told herself. She lived here. If Sebastian saw her, she could say she had come downstairs for a glass of water.

But the chance to observe him without his knowledge was too tempting. She turned her body slightly, peering over and around the kitchen counter.

Sebastian still had his back to her. He had changed his clothes since the nightclub. The army jacket was gone; he wore a button-down shirt and jeans. As he turned, and his shirt lifted, she could see that his weapon belt was slung around his waist. As he raised his right hand, she saw that he held his stele — and there was something about the way he held it, just for a moment, with a careful thoughtfulness, that reminded her of the way her mother held a paintbrush.

She closed her eyes. It felt like fabric snagging on a hook, the jerk inside her heart when she recognized something in Sebastian that reminded her of her mother or herself. That reminded her that however much of his blood was poison, just as much was the same blood that ran in her own veins.

She opened her eyes again, in time to see a doorway form in front of Sebastian. He reached for a scarf that hung on a peg on the wall, and stepped out into darkness.

Clary had a split second to decide. Stay and search the rooms, or follow Sebastian and see where he was going. Her feet made the choice before her mind did. Spinning away from the wall, she darted through the dark opening of the door moments before it closed behind her.

The room Luke was lying in was lit only by the streetlights’ glow, which came through the slatted windows. Jocelyn knew she could have asked for a light, but she preferred it like this. The darkness hid the extent of his injuries, the pallor of his face, the sunken crescents beneath his eyes.

In fact, in the dimness he looked very like the boy she had known in Idris before the Circle had been formed. She remembered him in the school yard, skinny and brown-haired, with blue eyes and nervous hands. He’d been Valentine’s best friend, and because of that, no one had ever really looked at him. Even she hadn’t, or she would not have been so enormously blind as to miss his feelings for her.

She remembered the day of her wedding to Valentine, the sun bright and clear through the crystal roof of the Accords Hall. She’d been nineteen and Valentine twenty, and she remembered how unhappy her parents had been that she’d chosen to marry so young. Their disapproval had seemed like nothing to her — they didn’t understand. She’d been so sure there would never be anyone for her but Valentine.

Luke had been his best man. She remembered his face as she walked down the aisle — she had looked at him only briefly before turning her full attention to Valentine. She remembered thinking that he must not have been well, that he looked as if he were in pain. And later, in Angel Square, as the guests milled about — most of the members of the Circle were there, from Maryse and Robert Lightwood, already married, to barely fifteen Jeremy Pontmercy — and she stood with Luke and Valentine, someone made the old joke about how if the groom hadn’t showed up, the bride would have had to marry the best man. Luke had been wearing evening clothes, with the gold runes for good luck in marriage on them, and he had looked very handsome, but while everyone else had laughed, he’d gone terribly white. He must really hate the idea of marrying me, she’d thought. She remembered touching his shoulder with a laugh.

“Don’t look like that,” she’d teased. “I know we’ve known each other forever, but I promise you’ll never have to marry me!”

And then Amatis had come up, dragging a laughing Stephen with her, and Jocelyn had forgotten all about Luke, the way he had looked at her — and the odd way Valentine had looked at him.

She glanced over at Luke now and started in her chair. His eyes were open, for the first time in days, and fixed on her.

“Luke,” she breathed.

He looked puzzled. “How long — have I been asleep?”

She wanted to throw herself onto him, but the thick bandages still wrapped around his chest held her back. She caught at his hand instead and put it against her cheek, her fingers interlocking with his. She closed her eyes and, as she did, felt tears slip from under her lids. “About three days.”

“Jocelyn,” he said, sounding really alarmed now. “Why are we at the station? Where’s Clary? I really don’t remember—”

She lowered their interlaced hands and, in as steady a voice as she could manage, told him what had happened — about Sebastian and Jace, and the demon metal embedded in his side, and the help of the Praetor Lupus.

“Clary,” he said immediately, when she was finished. “We have to go after her.”

Drawing his hand from hers, he started to struggle into a sitting position. Even in the dim light she could see his pallor deepen as he winced with pain.

“That’s not possible. Luke, lie back down, please. Don’t you think if there were any way to go after her, I would have?”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed so he was sitting up; then, with a gasp, he leaned back on his hands. He looked awful. “But the danger—”

“Do you think I haven’t thought about the danger?” Jocelyn put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him gently back against the pillows. “Simon’s been in contact with me every night. She’s all right. She is. And you’re in no shape to do anything about it. Killing yourself won’t help her. Please trust me, Luke.”

“Jocelyn, I can’t just lie here.”

“You can,” she said, standing up. “And you will, if I have to sit on you myself. What on earth is wrong with you, Lucian? Are you out of your mind? I’m terrified about Clary, and I’ve been terrified about you, too. Please don’t do this — don’t do this to me. If anything happened to you—”

He looked at her with surprise. There was already a red stain on the white bandages that wrapped his chest, where his movements had pulled his wound open. “I…”

“What?”

“I’m not used to you loving me,” he said.

There was a meekness to his words that she didn’t associate with Luke, and she stared at him for a moment before she said, “Luke. Lie back down, please.”

As a sort of compromise he leaned further back against the pillows. He was breathing hard. Jocelyn darted to the nightstand, poured him a glass of water, and, returning, thrust it into his hand. “Drink it,” she said. “Please.”

Luke took the glass, his blue eyes following her as she sat back down in the chair beside his bed, from which she had barely moved for so many hours that she was surprised she and the chair hadn’t become one. “You know what I was thinking about?” she asked. “Just before you woke up?”

He took a sip of the water. “You looked very far away.”

“I was thinking about the day I married Valentine.”

Luke lowered the glass. “The worst day of my life.”

“Worse than the day you got bitten?” she asked, folding her legs up under her.

“Worse.”

“I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know how you felt. I wish I had. I think things would have been different.”

He looked at her incredulously. “How?”

“I wouldn’t have married Valentine,” she said. “Not if I’d known.”

“You would—”

“I wouldn’t,” she said sharply. “I was too stupid to realize how you felt, but I was also too stupid to realize how I felt. I’ve always loved you. Even if I didn’t know it.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently, not wanting to hurt him; then she put her cheek against his. “Promise me you won’t put yourself in danger. Promise.”

She felt his free hand in her hair. “I promise.”

She leaned back, partly satisfied. “I wish I could go back in time. Fix everything. Marry the right guy.”

“But then we wouldn’t have Clary,” he reminded her. She loved the way he said “we,” so casually, as if there were no doubt at all in his mind that Clary was his daughter.

“If you’d been there more while she was growing up…” Jocelyn sighed. “I just feel like I did everything wrong. I was so focused on protecting her that I think I protected her too much. She rushes headlong into danger without thinking. When we were growing up, we saw our friends die in battle. She never has. And I wouldn’t want that for her, but sometimes I worry that she doesn’t believe she can die.”

“Jocelyn.” Luke’s voice was soft. “You raised her to be a good person. Someone with values, who believes in good and evil and strives to be good. Like you always have. You can’t raise a child to believe the opposite of what you do. I don’t think she doesn’t believe she can die. I think, just like you always did, she believes there are things worth dying for.”

Clary crept after Sebastian through a network of narrow streets, keeping to the shadows close beside the buildings. They were no longer in Prague — that much was immediately clear. The roads were dark, the sky above was the hollow blue of very early morning, and the signs hung above the shops and stores she passed were all in French. As were the street signs: RUE DE LA SEINE, RUE JACOB, RUE DE L’ABBAYE.

As they moved through the city, people passed her like ghosts. The occasional car rumbled by, trucks backed up to stores, making early-morning deliveries. The air smelled like river water and trash. She was fairly sure where they were already, but then a turn and an alley took them to a wide avenue, and a signpost loomed up out of the misty darkness. Arrows pointed in different directions, showing the way to the Bastille, to Notre Dame, and to the Latin Quarter.

Paris, Clary thought, slipping behind a parked car as Sebastian crossed the street. We’re in Paris.

It was ironic. She’d always wanted to go to Paris with someone who knew the city. Had always wanted to walk its streets, to see the river, to paint the buildings. She’d never imagined this. Never imagined creeping after Sebastian, across the Boulevard Saint Germain, past a bright yellow bureau de poste, up an avenue where the bars were closed but the gutters were full of beer bottles and cigarette butts, and down a narrow street lined with houses. Sebastian stopped before one, and Clary froze as well, flat against a wall.

She watched as he raised a hand and punched a code into a box set beside the door, her eyes following the movements of his fingers. There was a click; the door opened and he slipped through. The moment it closed, she darted after him, pausing to key in the same code — X235—and waiting to hear the soft sound that meant the door was unlocked. When the sound came, she wasn’t sure if she was more relieved or surprised. It shouldn’t be this easy.

A moment later she stood inside a courtyard. It was square, surrounded on all sides by ordinary-looking buildings. Three staircases were viewable through open doors. Sebastian, however, had disappeared.

So it wasn’t going to be that easy.

She moved forward into the courtyard, conscious as she did so that she was bringing herself out of sheltering shadow and into the open, where she could be seen. The sky was lightening with every passing moment. The knowledge that she was visible prickled the back of her neck, and she ducked into the shadow of the first stairwell she encountered.

It was plain, with wooden stairs leading up and down, and a cheap mirror on the wall in which she could see her own pale face. There was a distinct smell of rotting garbage, and she wondered for a moment if she were near where the trash bins were stored, before her tired mind clicked over and she realized: The stink was the presence of demons.

Her tired muscles started to shake, but she tightened her hands into fists. She was painfully conscious of her lack of weaponry. She took a deep breath of the stinking air and began to make her way down the steps.

The smell grew stronger and the air darker as she made her way downstairs, and she wished for a stele and a night-vision rune. But there was nothing to be done about it. She kept going as the staircase curved around and around, and she was suddenly grateful for the lack of light as she stepped in a patch of something sticky. She clutched for the banister and tried to breathe through her mouth. The darkness thickened, until she was walking blind, her heart pounding so loudly she was sure it must be announcing her presence. The streets of Paris, the ordinary world, seemed eons away. There was only the darkness and herself, going down and down and down.

And then — light flared in the distance, a tiny point, like the tip of a match bursting into flame. She moved closer to the banister, almost crouching, as the light grew. She could see her own hand now, and the outline of the steps below her. There were only a few more. She reached the bottom of the stairs and glanced around.

Any resemblance to an ordinary apartment building was gone. Somewhere along the way the wooden stairs had turned into stone, and she stood now in a small, stone-walled room lit by a torch that gave off a sickly greenish light. The floor was rock, polished smooth, and carved with multiple strange symbols. She edged around them as she crossed the room to the only other exit, a curved stone arch, at the apex of which was set a human skull between the V of two enormous ornamental crossed axes.

Through the archway she could hear voices. They were too distant for her to make out what they were saying, but they were voices nonetheless. This way, they seemed to say. Follow us.

She stared up at the skull, and its empty eyes gazed back at her mockingly. She wondered where she was — if Paris was still above her or if she had stepped into another world entirely, the way one did when one entered the Silent City. She thought of Jace, whom she had left sleeping in what now seemed like another life.

She was doing this for him, she reminded herself. To get him back. She stepped through the arch into the corridor beyond, instinctively flattening herself against the wall. Soundlessly she crept along, the voices growing louder and louder. It was dim in the hall but not lightless. Every few feet another greenish torch burned, giving off a charred odor.

A door opened suddenly in the wall to her left, and the voices grew louder.

“… not like his father,” one said, the words as raspy as sandpaper. “Valentine would not deal with us at all. He would make slaves of us. This one will give us this world.”

Very slowly Clary peered around the edge of the doorway.

The room was bare, smooth-walled, and empty of all furniture. Inside it was a group of demons. They were lizardlike, with hard green-brown skin, but each had a set of six octopuslike legs that made a dry, skittering sound as they moved. Their heads were bulbous, alien, set with faceted black eyes.

She swallowed bile. She was reminded of the Ravener that had been one of the first demons she’d ever seen. Something about the grotesque combination of lizard, insect, and alien made her stomach turn. She pressed closer to the wall, listening hard.

“That is, if you trust him.” It was hard to tell which of them was talking. Their legs clenched and unclenched as they moved, raising and lowering their bulbous bodies. They didn’t seem to have mouths but clusters of small tentacles that vibrated as they spoke.

“The Great Mother trusted him. He is her child.”

Sebastian. Of course they were talking about Sebastian.

“He is also Nephilim. They are our great enemies.”

“They are his enemies as well. He bears the blood of Lilith.”

“But the one he calls his companion bears the blood of our enemies. He is of the angels.” The word was spat with such hate that Clary felt it like a slap.

“Lilith’s child assures us he has him well in hand, and indeed he seems obedient.”

A dry, insectile chuckle. “You young ones are too consumed with worry. The Nephilim have long kept this world from us. Its riches are great. We will drink it dry and leave it as ashes. As for the angel boy, he will be the last of his kind to die. We will burn him on a pyre until he is only golden bones.”

Rage rose in Clary. She sucked in a breath — a tiny sound, but a sound. The demon nearest her jerked its head up. For a moment Clary froze, trapped in the glare of its mirrored black eyes.

Then she turned and ran. Ran, back toward the entryway and the stairs and their path up into darkness. She could hear commotion behind her, the creatures screaming, and then the slithering, skittering noise of them coming after her. She cast one glance over her shoulder and realized she wasn’t going to make it. Despite her head start, they were almost on her.

She could hear her own harsh breathing, sawing in and out, as she reached the archway, spun, and leaped to catch hold of it with her hands. She swung herself forward with all her force, her booted feet driving into the first of the demons, knocking it backward as it shrilled loudly. Still dangling, she caught at the handle of one of the crossed axes below the skull and yanked.

Stuck fast, it didn’t move.

She closed her eyes, gripped it tighter, and with all her strength, pulled.

The axe came away from the wall with a rending sound, showering down rocks and mortar. Unbalanced, Clary fell, and landed in a crouch, the axe held out in front of her. It was heavy, but she barely felt it. It was happening again, what had happened in the junk shop. The slowing of time, the increased intensity of sensation. She could feel every whisper of the air against her skin, every unevenness of the ground under her feet. She braced herself as the first of the demons scuttled through the doorway and reared back like a tarantula, its legs pawing the air above her. Beneath the tentacles on its face were a pair of long, dripping fangs.

The axe in her hand seemed to swing forward of its own accord, sinking deep into the creature’s chest. She immediately remembered Jace telling her not to go for the chest wound but for the decapitation. Not all demons had hearts. But in this case she was lucky. She had struck either the heart or some other vital organ. The creature thrashed and squealed; blood bubbled up around the wound, and then it vanished, leaving her to reel back a step, her ichor-slicked weapon in her hand. The demon’s blood was black and stinking, like tar.

As the next one lunged for her, she ducked low, swinging out with the axe and slicing through several of its legs. Howling, it tipped sideways like a broken chair; already the next demon was trampling over its body, trying to get to her. She swung again, her axe burying itself in the creature’s face. Ichor sprayed and she darted backward, pressing herself up against the stairwell. If one of them got around behind her, she was dead.

Maddened, the demon whose face she’d slashed open lurched at her again; she swung out with her axe, severing one of its legs, but another leg wrapped itself around her wrist. Hot agony shot up her arm. She screamed and tried to wrench her hand back, but the demon’s grip was too strong. It felt as if thousands of hot needles were stabbing into her skin. Still screaming, she drove out with her left arm, slamming her fist into the creature’s face, where her axe had already sliced it. The demon gave a hiss and loosed its grip fractionally; she wrenched her hand free just as it reared back—

And out of nowhere a shimmering blade drove down, burying itself in the demon’s skull. As she stared, the demon vanished, and she saw her brother, a blazing seraph blade in his hand, ichor splattered across his white shirtfront. Behind him the room was empty save for the body of one of the demons, still twitching, but with black fluid pouring from its severed leg stumps like oil from a smashed car.

Sebastian. She stared at him in amazement. Had he just saved her life?

“Get away from me, Sebastian,” she hissed.

He didn’t seem to hear her. “Your arm.”

She glanced down at her right wrist, still throbbing in agony. A thick band of saucer-shaped wounds encircled it where the demon’s suckers had fastened themselves to her skin. Already the wounds were darkening, turning a sickening blue-black.

She looked back up at her brother. His white hair looked like a halo in the darkness. Or it might have been the fact that her vision was going. Light was haloing around the green torch on the wall too, and around the seraph blade burning in Sebastian’s hand. He was talking, but his words were blurred, indistinct, as if he were speaking underwater.

“… deadly poison,” he was saying. “What the hell were you thinking, Clarissa?” His voice faded out, and back in again. She struggled to focus. “… to fight off six Dahak demons with an ornamental axe—”

“Poison,” she repeated, and for a moment his face came clear again, the lines of strain around his mouth and eyes pronounced and startling. “So I guess you didn’t save my life after all, did you?”

Her hand spasmed, and the axe slid out of her grip, clattering to the ground. She felt her sweater catch on the rough wall as she began to slide down it, wanting nothing more than to lie on the floor. But Sebastian wouldn’t let her rest. His arms were under hers, lifting her up, and then he was carrying her, her good arm slung around his neck. She wanted to struggle away from him, but her energy had deserted her. She felt a stinging pain on the inside of her elbow, a burn — the touch of a stele. Numbness spread through her veins. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the face of the skull in the archway. She could have sworn its hollow eyes were full of laughter.

15 MAGDALENA

Nausea and pain came and went in ever-tightening whirlpools. Clary could see only a blur of colors around her: she was conscious that her brother was carrying her, every one of his steps slamming into her skull like an ice pick. She was aware that she was clinging to him and the strength of his arms a comfort — that it was bizarre that anything about Sebastian would be a comfort, and that he seemed to be taking care not to jostle her too much as he walked. Very distantly, she knew that she was gasping for breath, and she heard her brother say her name.

Then everything went silent. For a moment she thought that was the end of it: she had died, died battling demons, the way most Shadowhunters did. Then she felt another pricking burn on the inside of her arm, and a surge of what felt like ice spilling through her veins. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, but the cold of whatever Sebastian had done to her was like having a glass of water dashed in her face. Slowly, the world ceased its spinning, the whirlpools of nausea and pain lessening until they were only ripples in the tide of her blood. She could breathe again.

With a gasp, she opened her eyes.

Blue sky.

She was lying on her back, staring up at an endlessly blue sky, touched with cottony clouds, like the painted sky on the ceiling of the infirmary in the Institute. She stretched out her aching arms. The right one still bore the marks of her bracelet of injuries, though they were fading to a light pink. On her left arm was an iratze, paling to invisibility, and there was a mendelin for pain in the crook of her elbow.

She took a deep breath. Autumn air, tinged with the smell of leaves. She could see the tops of trees, hear the murmur of traffic, and—

Sebastian. She heard a low chuckle and realized she wasn’t just lying down, she was lying propped against her brother. Sebastian, who was warm and breathing, and whose arm cradled her head. The rest of her was stretched out along a slightly damp wooden bench.

She jerked upright. Sebastian laughed again; he was sitting at the end of a park bench with elaborate iron armrests. His scarf was folded up in his lap, where she’d been lying, and the arm that hadn’t been cradling her head was stretched out along the back of the bench. He had unbuttoned his white shirt to hide the ichor stains. Beneath it he wore a plain gray T-shirt. The silver bracelet glittered on his wrist. His black eyes studied her with amusement as she scooted as far away from him on the bench as she could get.

“Good thing you’re so short,” he said. “If you were much taller, carrying you would have been extremely inconvenient.”

She kept her voice steady with an effort. “Where are we?”

“The Jardin du Luxembourg,” he said. “The Luxembourg Gardens. It’s a very nice park. I had to take you somewhere you could lie down, and the middle of the street didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“Yeah, there’s a word for leaving someone to die in the middle of the street. Vehicular manslaughter.”

“That’s two words, and I think it’s only vehicular manslaughter, technically, if you run them over yourself.” He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them. “Anyway, why would I leave you to die in the middle of the street after I went through all that effort to save your life?”

She swallowed, and looked down at her arm. The wounds were even more faded now. If she hadn’t known to look for them, she probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all. “Why did you?”

“Why did I what?”

“Save my life.”

“You’re my sister.”

She swallowed. In the morning light his face had some color in it. There were faint burns along his neck where demon ichor had splashed him. “You never cared that I was your sister before.”

“Didn’t I?” His black eyes flicked up and down her. She remembered when Jace had come into her house after she’d fought the Ravener demon and she’d been dying of the poison. He’d cured her just as Sebastian had, and carried her out the same way. Maybe they were more alike than she had ever wanted to think, even before the spell that had bound them. “Our father’s dead,” he said. “There are no other relatives. You and I, we are the last. The last of the Morgensterns. You are my only chance for someone whose blood runs in my veins too. Someone like me.”

“You knew I was following you,” she said.

“Of course I did.”

“And you let me.”

“I wanted to see what you would do. And I admit I didn’t think you would follow me down there. You’re braver than I thought.” He picked up the scarf from his lap and drew it around his neck. The park was beginning to fill up, with tourists clutching maps, parents with children in hand, old men sitting on other benches like this one, smoking pipes. “You would never have won that fight.”

“I might have.”

He grinned, a quick sideways grin, as if he couldn’t help it. “Maybe.”

She scuffed her boots in the grass, which was wet with dew. She wasn’t going to thank Sebastian. Not for anything. “Why are you dealing with demons?” she demanded. “I listened to them talking about you. I know what you’re doing—”

“No, you don’t.” The grin was gone, the superior tone back. “First, those weren’t the demons I was dealing with. Those were their guards. That’s why they were in a separate room and why I wasn’t there. Dahak demons aren’t that smart, though they are mean and tough and defensive. So it’s not like they were really informed about what was going on. They were just repeating gossip they’d heard from their masters. Greater Demons. That was who I was meeting with.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

He leaned toward her across the bench. “I’m not trying to make you feel better. I’m trying to tell you the truth.”

“No wonder you look like you’re having an allergy attack,” she said, though it wasn’t precisely true. Sebastian looked annoyingly tranquil, though the set of his jaw and the pulse in his temple told her he wasn’t as calm as he pretended. “The Dahak said you were going to give this world to the demons.”

“Now, does that sound like something I’d do?”

She just looked at him.

“I thought you said you were going to give me a chance,” he said. “I’m not who I was when you met me in Alicante.” His gaze was clear. “Besides, I’m not the only person you’ve ever met who believed in Valentine. He was my father. Our father. It’s not easy to doubt the things you’ve grown up believing.”

Clary crossed her arms over her chest; the air was fresh but cold, with a wintery snap in it. “Well, that’s true.”

“Valentine was wrong,” he said. “He was so obsessed with the wrongs he believed the Clave had done to him that he could see nothing past proving himself right to them. He wanted the Angel to rise and tell them that he was Jonathan Shadowhunter returned, that he was their leader and his way was the right way.”

“It didn’t exactly happen like that.”

“I know what happened. Lilith spoke to me of it.” He said this offhandedly, as if conversations with the mother of all warlocks were something everyone had every once in a while. “Do not fool yourself into thinking that what happened was because the Angel has great compassion, Clary. Angels are as cold as icicles. Raziel was angered because Valentine had forgotten the mission of all Shadowhunters.”

“Which is?”

“To kill demons. That is our mandate. Surely you must have heard that more and more demons have been spilling into our world in recent years? That we have no idea how to keep them out?”

An echo of words came back to her, something Jace had said to her what seemed like a lifetime ago, the first time they had ever visited the Silent City. We might be able to block them from coming here, but nobody’s even been able to figure out how to do that. In fact, more and more of them are coming through. 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. The Clave is always having to dispatch Shadowhunters, and a lot of times they don’t come back.

“A great war with demons is coming, and the Clave is woefully unprepared,” said Sebastian. “That much my father was correct about. They are too set in their ways to hear warnings or to change. I do not wish the destruction of Downworlders as Valentine did, but I worry that the Clave’s blindness will doom this world that Shadowhunters protect.”

“You want me to believe you care if this world is destroyed?”

“Well, I do live here,” Sebastian said, more mildly than she would have expected. “And sometimes extreme situations call for extreme measures. To destroy the enemy it can be necessary to understand him, even to treat with him. If I can make those Greater Demons trust me, then I can lure them here, where they can be destroyed, and their followers as well. That ought to turn back the tide. Demons will know that this world is not as easy pickings as they imagined it.”

Clary shook her head. “And you’re going to do this with what, just you and Jace? You’re pretty impressive, don’t get me wrong, but even the two of you—”

Sebastian stood up. “You really don’t imagine I could have thought this through, do you?” He looked down at her, the fall wind blowing his white hair across his face. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

She hesitated. “Jace—”

“Is still asleep. Trust me, I know.” He held out his hand. “Come with me, Clary. If I can’t make you believe I have a plan, maybe I can prove it to you.”

She stared at him. Images tumbled through her mind like shaken confetti: the junk shop in Prague, her gold leaf-ring falling away into darkness, Jace holding her in the alcove in the club, the glass tanks of dead bodies. Sebastian with a seraph blade in his grip.

Prove it to you.

She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

It was decided, though not without a great deal of arguing, that in order for the summoning of Raziel to take place, Team Good would need to find a fairly secluded location. “We can’t summon a sixty-foot angel in the middle of Central Park,” Magnus observed dryly. “People might notice, even in New York.”

“Raziel’s sixty feet tall?” Isabelle said. She was slumped down in an armchair she had pulled up to the table. There were rings under her dark eyes; she — like Alec, Magnus, and Simon — was exhausted. They had all been awake for hours, poring through books of Magnus’s so old that their pages were as thin as onionskin. Both Isabelle and Alec could read Greek and Latin, and Alec had a better knowledge of demon languages than Izzy did, but there were still many only Magnus could understand. Maia and Jordan, realizing they could be more help elsewhere, had left for the police station to check on Luke. Meanwhile, Simon had tried to make himself useful in other ways — getting food and coffee, copying down symbols as Magnus instructed, fetching more paper and pencils, and even feeding Chairman Meow, who had thanked him by coughing up a hair ball on the floor of Magnus’s kitchen.

“Actually, he’s only fifty-nine feet tall, but he likes to exaggerate,” said Magnus. Tiredness was not improving his temper. His hair was sticking straight up, and there were smudges of glitter on the backs of his hands where he had rubbed his eyes. “He’s an angel, Isabelle. Haven’t you ever studied anything?”

Isabelle clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Valentine raised an angel in his cellar. I don’t see why you need all this space—”

“Because Valentine is just WAY MORE AWESOME than me,” snapped Magnus, dropping his pen. “Look—”

“Don’t shout at my sister,” said Alec. He said it quietly, but with force behind the words. Magnus looked at him in surprise. Alec continued, “Isabelle, the size of angels, when they appear in the earthly dimension, varies depending on their power. The angel Valentine summoned was of a lower rank than Raziel. And if you were to summon an angel of an even higher rank, Michael, or Gabriel—”

“I couldn’t make a spell that would bind them, even momentarily,” said Magnus in a subdued voice. “We’re summoning Raziel in part because we’re hoping that as the creator of Shadowhunters, he will have a special compassion — or, really, any compassion — for your situation. He’s also of about the right rank. A less powerful angel might not be able to help us, but a more powerful angel… well, if something went wrong…”

“It might not just be me who dies,” said Simon.

Magnus looked pained, and Alec glanced down at the papers strewn across the table. Isabelle put her hand on top of Simon’s. “I can’t believe we’re actually sitting here talking about summoning an angel,” she said. “My whole life we’ve sworn on the Angel’s name. We know our power comes from angels. But the idea of seeing one… I can’t really imagine it. When I try to think about it, it’s too big an idea.”

A silence fell across the table. There was a darkness in Magnus’s eyes that made Simon wonder if he had ever seen an angel. He wondered whether he ought to ask, but was saved deciding by the buzzing of his cell phone.

“One second,” he muttered, and got to his feet. He flipped the phone open and leaned against one of the loft’s pillars. It was a text — several — from Maia.

GOOD NEWS! LUKE IS AWAKE AND TALKING. IT LOOKS LIKE HE’S GOING TO BE OKAY.

Relief poured over Simon in a wave. Finally, good news. He flipped the phone shut and reached for the ring on his hand. Clary?

Nothing.

He swallowed his nerves. She was probably asleep. He looked up to find all three of the people at the table staring at him.

“Who called?” Isabelle asked.

“It was Maia. She says Luke’s up and talking. That he’s going to be okay.” There was a chatter of relieved voices, but Simon was still staring down at the ring on his hand. “She gave me an idea.”

Isabelle had been on her feet, heading toward him; at that, she paused, looking worried. Simon supposed he didn’t blame her. His ideas had been downright suicidal of late. “What is it?” she said.

“What do we need to summon Raziel? How much space?” Simon asked.

Magnus paused over a book. “A mile around at least. Water would be good. Like Lake Lyn—”

“Luke’s farm,” Simon said. “Upstate. An hour or two away. It should be shut up now, but I know how to get there. And there’s a lake. Not as big as Lyn, but…”

Magnus closed the book he was holding. “That’s not a bad idea, Seamus.”

“A few hours?” Isabelle said, looking up at the clock. “We could be there by—”

“Oh, no,” said Magnus. He pushed the book away from him. “While your enthusiasm is boundless and impressive, Isabelle, I’m too exhausted to properly cast the summoning spell at the moment. And this isn’t something I want to take risks with. I think we can all agree.”

“So when?” Alec asked.

“We need a few hours sleep at least,” Magnus said. “I say we leave early afternoon. Sherlock — sorry, Simon—call and see if you can borrow Jordan’s truck in the meantime. And now…” He pushed his papers to the side. “I’m going to sleep. Isabelle, Simon, you’re more than welcome to use the spare room again if you like.”

“Different spare rooms would be better,” Alec muttered.

Isabelle looked at Simon with questioning dark eyes, but he was already reaching into his pocket for his phone. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be back by noon, but for now there’s something important I have to do.”

In the daylight Paris was a city of narrow, curving streets that opened out into wide avenues, mellow golden buildings with slate-colored roofs, and a glittering river that sliced across it like a dueling scar. Sebastian, despite his claim that he was going to prove to Clary that he had a plan, didn’t say much as they made their way up a street lined with art galleries and stores selling dusty old books, to reach the Quai des Grands Augustins by the river’s edge.

There was a cool wind coming off the Seine, and she shivered. Sebastian unwound the scarf from around his neck and handed it to her. It was a heathery black and white tweed, still warm from being wrapped around his neck.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “You’re cold. Put it on.”

Clary wound it around her neck. “Thanks,” she said reflexively, and winced.

There. She had thanked Sebastian. She waited for a bolt of lightning to shoot out of the clouds and strike her dead. But nothing happened.

He gave her an odd look. “You all right? You look like you’re going to sneeze.”

“I’m fine.” The scarf smelled like citrusy cologne and boy. She wasn’t sure what she’d thought it would smell like. They started to walk again. This time Sebastian slowed his pace, walking alongside her, pausing to explain that neighborhoods in Paris were numbered, and they were crossing from the sixth into the fifth, the Latin Quarter, and that the bridge they could see spanning the river in the distance was the Pont Saint-Michel. There were a lot of young people walking past them, Clary noticed; girls her age or older, impossibly stylish in tight-fitting pants and sky-high heels, long hair blowing in the wind off the Seine. Quite a few of them stopped to give Sebastian appreciative glances, which he didn’t seem to notice.

Jace, she thought, would have noticed. Sebastian was striking, with his icy white hair and black eyes. She had thought he was handsome the first time she’d met him, and he’d had his hair dyed black then; it hadn’t suited him, really. He looked better like this. The pallor of his hair gave his skin some color, drew your eyes to the flush along his high cheekbones, the graceful shape of his face. His eyelashes were incredibly long, a shade darker than his hair, and curled slightly, just like Jocelyn’s—so unfair. Why hadn’t she gotten the curling lashes in the family? And why didn’t he have a single freckle? “So,” she said abruptly, cutting him off in the middle of a sentence, “what are we?”

He gave her a sidelong look. “What do you mean, ‘What are we?’”

“You said we’re the last of the Morgensterns. Morgenstern is a German name,” said Clary. “So, what are we, German? What’s the story? Why aren’t there any more but us?”

“You don’t know anything about Valentine’s family?” Incredulity tinged Sebastian’s voice. He had stopped next to the wall that ran along the Seine, beside the pavement. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you anything?”

“She’s your mother too, and no, she didn’t. Valentine’s not her favorite topic.”

“Shadowhunter names are compounded,” said Sebastian slowly, and he climbed up on top of the wall. He reached a hand down, and after a moment she let him take hers and pull her up onto the wall beside him. The Seine ran gray-green below them, fly-speck tourist boats chugging by at a leisurely pace. “Fairchild, Light-wood, White-law. ‘Morgenstern’ means ‘morning star.’ It’s a German name, but the family was Swiss.”

“Was?”

“Valentine was an only child,” Sebastian said. “His father — our grandfather — was killed by Downworlders, and our great-uncle died in a battle. He didn’t have any children. This”—he reached out and touched her hair—“is from the Fairchild side. There’s English blood there. I look more like the Swiss side. Like Valentine.”

“Do you know anything about our grandparents?” Clary asked, fascinated despite herself.

Sebastian dropped his hand and leaped down off the wall. He held his hand up for her, and she took it, balancing as she leaped down. For a moment she collided with his chest, hard and warm beneath his shirt. A passing girl shot her an amused, jealous look, and Clary pulled back hastily. She wanted to shout after the girl that Sebastian was her brother, and that she hated him anyway. She didn’t.

“I know nothing about our maternal grandparents,” he said. “How could I?” His smile was crooked. “Come. I want to show you a favorite place of mine.”

Clary hung back. “I thought you were going to prove to me that you had a plan.”

“All in due time.” Sebastian started to walk, and after a moment she followed him. Find out his plan. Make nice until you do. “Valentine’s father was a lot like him,” Sebastian went on. “He put his faith in strength. ‘We are God’s chosen warriors.’ That’s what he believed. Pain made you strong. Loss made you powerful. When he died…”

“Valentine changed,” Clary said. “Luke told me.”

“He loved his father and he hated him. Something you might understand from knowing Jace. Valentine raised us as his father had raised him. You always return to what you know.”

“But Jace,” Clary said. “Valentine taught him more than just fighting. He taught him languages, and how to play the piano—”

“That was Jocelyn’s influence.” Sebastian said her name unwillingly, as if he hated the sound of it. “She thought Valentine ought to be able to talk about books, art, music — not just killing things. He passed that on to Jace.”

A wrought iron blue gate rose to their left. Sebastian ducked under it and beckoned Clary to follow him. She didn’t have to duck but went after him, her hands stuffed into her pockets. “What about you?” she asked.

He held up his hands. They were unmistakably her mother’s hands — dexterous, long-fingered, meant for holding a brush or a pen. “I learned to play the instruments of war,” he said, “and paint in blood. I am not like Jace.”

They were in a narrow alley between two rows of buildings made of the same golden stone as many of the other buildings of Paris, their roofs sparkling copper-green in the sunlight. The street underfoot was cobblestone, and there were no cars or motorcycles. To her left was a café, a wooden sign dangling from a wrought iron pole the only clue that there was any commercial business on this winding street.

“I like it here,” Sebastian said, following her gaze, “because it’s as if you were in a past century. No noise of cars, no neon lights. Just — peaceful.”

Clary stared at him. He’s lying, she thought. Sebastian doesn’t have thoughts like this. Sebastian, who tried to burn Alicante to the ground, doesn’t care about “peaceful.”

She thought then of where he’d grown up. She’d never seen it, but Jace had described it to her. A small house — a cottage, really — in a valley outside Alicante. The nights would have been silent there and the sky full of stars at night. But would he miss that? Could he? Was that the sort of emotion you could have when you weren’t really even human?

It doesn’t bother you? she wanted to say. Being in the place the real Sebastian Verlac grew up and lived, until you ended his life? Walking these streets, bearing his name, knowing that somewhere, his aunt is grieving for him? And what did you mean when you said he wasn’t supposed to fight back?

His black eyes regarded her thoughtfully. He had a sense of humor, she knew; there was a streak of mordant wit in him that was sometimes not unlike Jace’s. But he didn’t smile.

“Come on,” he said then, breaking off her reverie. “This place has the best hot chocolate in Paris.”

Clary wasn’t sure how she’d know if this were true or not, given that this was the first time she’d ever been to Paris, but once they sat down, she had to admit the hot chocolate was excellent. They made it at your table — which was small and wooden, as were the old-fashioned high-backed chairs — in a blue ceramic pot, using cream, chocolate powder, and sugar. The result was a cocoa so thick your spoon could stand up in it. They had croissants, too, and dunked them into the chocolate.

“You know, if you want another croissant, they’ll bring you one,” said Sebastian, leaning back in his chair. They were the youngest people in the place by decades, Clary noticed. “You’re attacking that one like a wolverine.”

“I’m hungry.” She shrugged. “Look, if you want to talk to me, talk. Convince me.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. She was reminded of looking into his eyes the night before, of noticing the silver ring around the iris of his eye. “I was thinking about what you said last night.”

“I was hallucinating last night. I don’t remember what I said to you.”

“You asked me who I belonged to,” said Sebastian.

Clary paused with her cup of chocolate halfway to her mouth. “I did?”

“Yeah.” His eyes studied her face intently. “And I don’t have an answer.”

She set her cup down, feeling suddenly, intensely uncomfortable. “You don’t have to belong to anyone,” she said. “It’s just a figure of speech.”

“Well, let me ask you something now,” Sebastian said. “Do you think you can forgive me? I mean, do you think forgiveness is possible for someone like me?”

“I don’t know.” Clary gripped the edge of the table. “I–I mean, I don’t know much about forgiveness as a religious concept, just your garden-variety kind of forgiving people.” She took a deep breath, knowing she was babbling. It was something in the steadiness of Sebastian’s dark gaze on her, as if he actually expected her to give him the answers to questions no one else could answer. “I know you have to do things, to earn forgiveness. Change yourself. Confess, repent — and make amends.”

“Amends,” Sebastian echoed.

“To make up for what you’ve done.” She looked down at her mug. There was no making up for the things Sebastian had done, not in any way that made sense.

“Ave atque vale,” Sebastian said, looking down at his mug of chocolate.

Clary recognized the traditional words Shadowhunters spoke over their dead. “Why are you saying that? I’m not dying.”

“You know it’s from a poem,” he said. “By Catullus. ‘Frater, ave atque vale.’ ‘Hail and farewell, my brother.’ He speaks of ashes, of the rites of the dead, and his own grief for his brother. I was taught the poem young, but I didn’t feel it — either his grief, or his loss, or even the wondering what it would be like to die and to have no one grieve you.” He looked up at her sharply. “What do you think it would have been like if Valentine had brought you up along with me? Would you have loved me?”

Clary was very glad she had put her cup down, because if she hadn’t, she would have dropped it. Sebastian was looking at her not with any shyness or the sort of natural awkwardness that might be attendant on such a bizarre question, but as if she were a curious, foreign life-form.

“Well,” she said. “You’re my brother. I would have loved you. I would have… had to.”

He kept looking at her with the same still, intent gaze. She wondered if she should ask him if he thought that meant he would have loved her, too. Like a sister. But she had a feeling he had no idea what that meant.

“But Valentine didn’t bring me up,” she said. “In fact, I killed him.”

She wasn’t sure why she said it. Maybe she wanted to see if it was possible to upset him. After all, Jace had told her once that he thought Valentine might have been the only thing Sebastian had ever cared about.

But he didn’t blanch. “Actually,” he said, “the Angel killed him. Though it was because of you.” His fingers traced patterns on the worn tabletop. “You know, when I first met you, in Idris, I had hopes — I had thought you would be like me. And when you were nothing like me, I hated you. And then, when I was brought back, and Jace told me what you did, I realized that I had been wrong. You are like me.”

“You said that last night,” Clary said. “But I’m not—”

“You killed our father,” he said. His voice was soft. “And you don’t care. Never given it a second thought, have you? Valentine beat Jace bloody for the first ten years of his life, and Jace still misses him. Grieved for him, though they share no blood at all. But he was your father and you killed him and you’ve never missed a night of sleep over it.”

Clary stared at him with her mouth open. It was unfair. So unfair. Valentine had never been a father to her — hadn’t loved her — had been a monster who’d had to die. She had killed him because she’d had no choice.

Unbidden in her mind rose the image of Valentine, driving his blade into Jace’s chest, then holding him as he died. Valentine had wept over the son he’d murdered. But she had never cried for her father. Had never even considered it.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” said Sebastian. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’re not like me.”

Clary stared down at her cup of chocolate, now cold. She felt like a vortex had opened up inside her head and was sucking away her thoughts and words. “I thought you thought Jace was like you,” she said finally in a choked voice. “I thought that’s why you wanted him with you.”

“I need Jace,” said Sebastian. “But in his heart he’s not like me. You are.” He stood up. He must have paid the bill at some point; Clary couldn’t remember. “Come with me.”

He held his hand out. She stood up without taking it and retied his scarf mechanically; the chocolate she had drunk felt like acid churning in her stomach. She followed Sebastian out of the café and into the alley, where he stood looking up at the blue sky overhead.

“I’m not like Valentine,” Clary said, stopping next to him. “Our mother—”

“Your mother,” he said, “hated me. Hates me. You saw her. She tried to kill me. You want to tell me you take after your mother, fine. Jocelyn Fairchild is ruthless. She always has been. She pretended to love our father for months, years maybe, so she could gather enough information on him to betray him. She engineered the Uprising and watched all her husband’s friends slaughtered. She stole your memories. Have you forgiven her? And when she ran from Idris, do you honestly think she ever planned to take me with her? She must have been relieved at the thought that I was dead—”

“She wasn’t!” Clary snapped. “She had a box that had your baby things in it. She used to take it out and cry over it. Every year on your birthday. I know you have it in your room.”

Sebastian’s thin, elegant lips twisted. He turned away from her and started walking down the alley. “Sebastian!” Clary called after him. “Sebastian, wait.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted him to come back. Admittedly, she had no idea where she was or how to find her way back to the apartment, but it was more than that. She wanted to stand and fight, to prove she wasn’t what he said she was. She raised her voice to a shout: “Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern!”

He stopped and turned slowly, looking back over his shoulder at her.

She walked toward him, and he watched her walk, his head cocked to the side, his black eyes narrow. “I bet you don’t even know my middle name,” she said.

“Adele.” There was a musicality to the way he said it, a familiarity that made her uncomfortable. “Clarissa Adele.”

She reached his side. “Why Adele? I never knew.”

“I don’t know myself,” he said. “I know Valentine never wanted you to be called Clarissa Adele. He wanted you to be called Seraphina, after his mother. Our grandmother.” He turned around and started walking again, and this time she kept pace. “After our grandfather was killed, she died — heart attack. Died of grief, Valentine always said.”

Clary thought of Amatis, who had never gotten over her first love, Stephen; of Stephen’s father, who had died of grief; of the Inquisitor, her whole life dedicated to revenge. Of Jace’s mother, cutting her wrists when her husband died. “Before I met the Nephilim, I would have said it was impossible to die of grief.”

Sebastian chuckled dryly. “We don’t form attachments like mundanes do,” he said. “Well, sometimes, surely. Not everyone is the same. But the bonds between us tend to be intense and unbreakable. That’s why we do so badly with others not of our kind. Downworlders, mundanes—”

“My mother’s marrying a Downworlder,” Clary said, stung. They had paused in front of a square stone building with blue painted shutters, almost at the end of the alley.

“He was Nephilim once,” said Sebastian. “And look at our father. Your mother betrayed him and left him, and he still spent the rest of his life waiting to find her again and convince her to come back to him. That whole closet full of clothes—” He shook his head.

“But Valentine told Jace that love is a weakness,” said Clary. “That it would destroy you.”

“Wouldn’t you think that, if you spent half your life chasing a woman even though she hated your guts, because you couldn’t forget about her? If you had to remember that the person you loved best in the world stabbed you in the back and twisted the knife?” He leaned in for a moment, close enough that when he spoke, his breath stirred her hair. “Maybe you are more like your mother than our father. But what difference does it make? You have ruthlessness in your bones and ice in your heart, Clarissa. Don’t tell me any differently.”

He spun away before she could answer him, and mounted the front step of the blue-shuttered house. A strip of electric buzzers ran down the side of the wall beside the door, each with a name hand-scrawled on a placard beside it. He pressed the button beside the name Magdalena, and waited. Eventually a scratchy voice came through the speaker:

“Qui est là?”

“C’est le fils et la fille de Valentine,” he said. “Nous avions rendez-vous?”

There was a pause, and then the buzzer sounded. Sebastian yanked the door open — and held it open, politely letting Clary go before him. The stairs were wooden, as worn and smooth as the side of a ship. They trudged up them in silence to the top floor, where the door was propped slightly open onto the landing. Sebastian went through first, and Clary followed.

She found herself in a large, airy light space. The walls were white, as were the curtains. Through one window she could see the street beyond, lined with restaurants and boutiques. Cars whizzed by, but the sound of them didn’t seem to penetrate inside the apartment. The floor was polished wood, the furniture white-painted wood or upholstered couches with colorful throw pillows. A section of the apartment was set up as a sort of studio. Light poured down from a skylight onto a long wooden table. There were easels, cloths tossed over them to obscure their contents. A paint-stained smock hung from a hook on the wall.

Standing by the table was a woman. Clary would have guessed her age at about Jocelyn’s, if there had not been several factors obscuring her age. She wore a shapeless black smock that hid her body; only her white hands and her face and throat were visible. On each of her cheeks was carved a thick black rune, running from the outside corner of her eye to her lips. Clary had not seen the runes before, but she could sense their meaning — power, skill, workmanship. The woman had thick long auburn hair, falling in waves to her waist, and her eyes, when she raised them, were a peculiar flat orange color, like a dying flame.

The woman clasped her hands in front of her smock loosely. In a nervous, melodic voice, she said, “Tu dois être Jonathan Morgenstern. Et elle, c’est ta sœur? Je pensais que—”

“I am Jonathan Morgenstern,” Sebastian said. “And this is my sister, yes. Clarissa. Please speak English in front of her. She doesn’t understand French.”

The woman cleared her throat. “My English is rusty. It has been years since I used it.”

“It seems good enough to me. Clarissa, this is Sister Magdalena. Of the Iron Sisters.”

Clary was startled into speech. “But I thought the Iron Sisters never left their fortress—”

“They don’t,” said Sebastian. “Unless they are disgraced by having their part in the Uprising discovered. Who do you think armed the Circle?” He smiled at Magdalena mirthlessly. “The Iron Sisters are Makers, not fighters. But Magdalena fled the Fortress before her part in the Uprising could be discovered.”

“I had not seen another Nephilim in fifteen years until your brother contacted me,” said Magdalena. It was hard to tell who she was looking at while she spoke; her featureless eyes seemed to wander, but she was clearly not blind. “Is it true? Do you have the… material?”

Sebastian reached into a pouch hanging from his weapons belt and took from it a chunk of what looked like quartz. He set it down on the long table, and a stray shaft of sunlight, passing across the skylight, lit it seemingly from within. Clary caught her breath. It was the adamas from the junk shop in Prague.

Magdalena drew in a hissing breath.

“Pure adamas,” said Sebastian. “No rune has ever touched it.”

The Iron Sister came around the table and laid her hands upon the adamas. Her hands, also scarred with multiple runes, trembled. “Adamas pur,” she whispered. “It has been years since I touched the holy material.”

“It is all yours to craft with,” said Sebastian. “When you are done, I shall pay you in more of it. That is, if you believe you can create what I asked for.”

Magdalena drew herself up. “Am I not an Iron Sister? Did I not take the vows? Do my hands not shape the stuff of Heaven? I can deliver what I promised, Valentine’s son. Never doubt it.”

“Good to hear.” There was a trace of humor in Sebastian’s voice. “I will return tonight, then. You know how to summon me if you need to.”

Magdalena shook her head. All her attention was back on the glassine substance, the adamas. She stroked it with her fingers. “Yes. You may go.”

Sebastian nodded and took a step back. Clary hesitated. She wanted to seize the woman, ask her what Sebastian had demanded she do, ask her why she would ever have broken Covenant Law to work beside Valentine. Magdalena, as if sensing her hesitation, looked up and smiled thinly.

“The two of you,” she said, and for a moment Clary thought she was going to say that she did not understand why they were together, that she had heard that they hated each other, that Jocelyn’s daughter was a Shadowhunter while Valentine’s son was a criminal. But she only shook her head. “Mon Dieu,” she said, “but you look just like your parents.”

16 BROTHERS AND SISTERS

When Clary and Sebastian returned to the apartment, the living room was empty, but there were dishes in the sink where there hadn’t been before.

“I thought you said Jace was asleep,” she said to Sebastian, a note of accusation in her voice.

Sebastian shrugged. “He was when I said it.” There was light mockery in his voice but no serious unkindness. They had walked back from Magdalena’s together mostly in silence, but not a bad sort of silence. Clary had let her mind wander, only jerked back to reality on occasion by the realization that it was Sebastian she was walking beside. “I’m pretty sure I know where he is.”

“In his room?” Clary started for the stairs.

“No.” He moved in front of her. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

He headed up the stairs at a rapid pace and into the master bedroom, Clary on his heels. As she watched in puzzlement, he tapped the side of the wardrobe. It slid away, revealing a set of stairs behind it. Sebastian cast a smirk over his shoulder at her as she came up behind him. “You’re kidding,” she said. “Secret stairs?”

“Don’t tell me that’s the strangest thing you’ve seen today.” He took the stairs two at a time, and Clary, though bone-weary, followed him. The stairs curved around and opened out into a wide room with a polished wooden floor and high walls. All manner of weapons hung from the walls, just as they did in the training room in the Institute—kindjals and chakhrams, maces and swords and daggers, crossbows and brass knuckles, throwing stars and axes and samurai swords.

Training circles were neatly painted on the floor. In the center of them stood Jace, his back to the door. He was shirtless and barefoot, in black warm-up pants, a knife in each of his hands. An image flashed in her head: Sebastian’s bare back, scarred with unmistakeable whip stripes. Jace’s was smooth, pale gold skin over muscle, marked only with the typical scars of a Shadowhunter — and the scratches her own nails had made last night. She felt herself flush, but her mind was still on the question: why would Valentine have whipped one boy but not the other?

“Jace,” she said.

He turned. He was clean. The silvery fluid was gone, and his gold hair was almost bronze-dark, pasted damply to his head. His skin glistened with sweat. The expression on his face was guarded. “Where were you?”

Sebastian went to the wall and began to examine the weapons there, running his bare hand along the blades. “I thought Clary might want to see Paris.”

“You could have left me a note,” said Jace. “It isn’t as if our situation is the safest, Jonathan. I’d rather not have to worry about Clary—”

“I followed him,” Clary said.

Jace turned and looked at her, and for a moment she caught a glimpse, in his eyes, of the boy in Idris who had shouted at her for spoiling all his careful plans to keep her safe. But this Jace was different. His hands didn’t shake when he looked at her, and the pulse in his throat stayed steady. “You did what?”

“I followed Sebastian,” she said. “I was awake and I wanted to see where he was going.” She put her hands into her jeans pockets and looked at him defiantly. His eyes took her in, from her wind-mussed hair to her boots, and she felt the blood rise up in her face. Sweat shone along his collarbones, and the ridges of his stomach muscles. His workout pants were folded over at the waist, showing the V of his hip bones. She remembered what it had felt like to have his arms around her, to be pressed close enough against him that she could feel every detail of his bones and muscles against her body—

She felt a wave of embarrassment so acute, it was dizzying. What made it worse was that Jace didn’t seem in the least bit awkward, or as if the previous night had affected him as much as it had her. He seemed only… annoyed. Annoyed, and sweaty, and hot.

“Yeah, well,” he said, “the next time you decide to sneak out of our magically warded apartment through a door that shouldn’t really exist, leave a note.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you being sarcastic?”

He threw one of his knives into the air and caught it. “Possibly.”

“I took Clary to see Magdalena,” Sebastian said. He had taken a throwing star down from the wall and was examining it. “We brought the adamas.”

Jace had tossed the second knife into the air; he missed catching it this time, and it stuck point-down into the floor. “You did?”

“I did,” Sebastian said. “And I told Clary the plan. I told her that we were planning to lure Greater Demons here so we could destroy them.”

“But not how you planned to accomplish that,” Clary said. “You never told me that part.”

“I thought it would be better to tell you with Jace here,” said Sebastian. He snapped his wrist forward suddenly, and the throwing star flew toward Jace, who blocked it with a swift flick of his knife. It clattered to the ground. Sebastian whistled. “Fast,” he commented.

Clary whirled on her brother. “You could have hurt him—”

“Anything that injures him injures me,” said Sebastian. “I was showing you how much I trust him. Now I want you to trust us.” His black eyes bored into her. “Adamas,” he said. “The stuff I brought to the Iron Sister today. Do you know what’s made out of it?”

“Of course. Seraph blades. The demon towers of Alicante. Steles…”

“And the Mortal Cup.”

Clary shook her head. “The Mortal Cup is gold. I’ve seen it.”

“Adamas dipped in gold. The Mortal Sword, too, has a hilt of the stuff. They say it’s the material the palaces of Heaven are built from. And it isn’t easy to get hold of. Only the Iron Sisters can work the stuff, and only they’re supposed to have access to it.”

“So why did you give some to Magdalena?”

“So she could make a second Cup,” said Jace.

“A second Mortal Cup?” Clary looked from one of them to the other, incredulous. “But you can’t just do that. Just make another Mortal Cup. If you could, the Clave wouldn’t have panicked so much when the original Mortal Cup went missing. Valentine wouldn’t have needed it so badly—”

“It’s a cup,” said Jace. “However crafted, it will always be a cup until the Angel voluntarily pours his blood into it. That’s what makes it what it is.”

“And you think you can get Raziel to voluntarily pour his blood into a second cup for you?” Clary couldn’t keep the razor edge of disbelief from her voice. “Good luck.”

“It’s a trick, Clary,” said Sebastian. “You know how everything has an alliance? Seraphic or demonic? What the demons believe is that we want the demonic equivalent of Raziel. A demon great in power who will mix his blood with ours and create a new race of Shadowhunters. Ones not bound by the Law, or the Covenant, or the rules of the Clave.”

“You told them you want to make… backward Shadowhunters?”

“Something like that.” Sebastian laughed, raking fingers through his fair hair. “Jace, do you want to help me explain?”

“Valentine was a zealot,” said Jace. “He was wrong about a lot of things. He was wrong to consider killing Shadowhunters. He was wrong about Downworlders. But he wasn’t wrong about the Clave or the Council. Every Inquisitor we’ve had has been corrupt. The Laws handed down by the Angel are arbitrary and nonsensical, and their punishments are worse. ‘The Law is hard, but it is the Law.’ How many times have you heard that? How many times have we had to duck and avoid the Clave and its Laws even when we were trying to save them? Who put me in prison? — the Inquisitor. Who put Simon in prison? The Clave. Who would have let him burn?”

Clary’s heart had started to pound. Jace’s voice, so familiar, saying these words, made her bones feel weak. He was right and also wrong. As Valentine had been. But she wanted to believe him in a way she hadn’t wanted to believe Valentine.

“Fine,” she said. “I understand the Clave is corrupt. But I don’t see what that has to do with making deals with demons.”

“Our mandate is to destroy demons,” said Sebastian. “But the Clave has been pouring all its energy into other tasks. The wards have been weakening, and more and more demons have been spilling into earth, but the Clave turns a blind eye. We have opened a gate in the far north, on Wrangel Island, and we will lure demons through it with the promise of this Cup. Only, when they pour their blood into it, they will be destroyed. I have made deals like this with several Greater Demons. When Jace and I have killed them, the Clave will see we are a power to be reckoned with. They will have to listen to us.”

Clary stared. “Killing Greater Demons isn’t that easy.”

“I did it earlier today,” said Sebastian. “Which is incidentally why neither of us is going to get in trouble for killing all those bodyguard demons. I killed their master.”

Clary looked from Jace to Sebastian and back again. Jace’s eyes were cool, interested; Sebastian’s gaze was more intense. It was as if he were trying to see into her head. “Well,” she said slowly. “That’s a lot to take in. And I don’t like the idea of you putting yourselves in that kind of danger. But I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me.”

“I told you,” Jace said. “I told you she’d understand.”

“I never said she wouldn’t.” Sebastian didn’t take his eyes off Clary’s face.

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t sleep much last night,” she said. “I need to rest.”

“Too bad,” said Sebastian. “I was going to ask if you wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower.” His eyes were dark, unreadable; she couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Before she could say anything in reply, Jace’s hand slid into hers.

“I’ll go with you,” he said. “I didn’t sleep that well myself.” He nodded at Sebastian. “See you for dinner.”

Sebastian made no reply. They were nearly to the steps when Sebastian called out: “Clary.”

She turned around, drawing her hand out of Jace’s. “What?”

“My scarf.” He held out his hand for it.

“Oh. Right.” Taking a few steps toward him, she tugged with nervous fingers at the knotted cloth around her throat. After a moment of watching her, Sebastian made an impatient noise and stalked across the room toward her, his long legs covering the space between them quickly. She stiffened as he put his hand to her throat and deftly undid the knot with a few motions, then unwrapped the scarf. She thought for a moment that he lingered before unwrapping it fully, his fingers brushing her throat—

She remembered him kissing her on the hill by the burned remains of the Fairchild manor, and how she had felt as if she were falling, into a dark and abandoned place, lost and terrified. She backed up hastily, and the scarf fell away from her neck as she turned. “Thanks for lending it to me,” she said, and darted back to follow Jace down the stairs, not looking behind to see her brother watch her go, holding the scarf, a quizzical expression on his face.

Simon stood among the dead leaves and looked up the path; once more the human impulse to take a deep breath came on him. He was in Central Park, near the Shakespeare Garden. The trees had lost the last of their autumn luster, the gold and green and red turning to brown and black. Most of the branches were bare.

He touched the ring on his finger again. Clary?

Again there was no reply. His muscles felt as tense as strung wires. It had been too long since he had been able to raise her using the ring. He told himself over and over that she could be sleeping, but nothing could untie the terrible knot of tension in his stomach. The ring was his only connection to her, and right now it felt like nothing more than a hunk of dead metal.

He dropped his hands to his sides and moved forward, up the path, past the statues and the benches inscribed with verses from Shakespeare’s plays. The path turned a curving right, and suddenly he could see her, sitting up ahead on a bench, looking away from him, her dark hair in a long braid down her back. She was very still, waiting. Waiting for him.

Simon straightened his back and walked toward her, even though every step felt as if it were weighted with lead.

She heard him as he approached and turned around, her pale face going even paler as he sat down beside her. “Simon,” she said on an exhale of breath. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Hi, Rebecca,” he said.

She held out her hand, and he took it, silently thanking the forethought that had made him put on gloves that morning, so that if he touched her she wouldn’t feel the chill of his skin. It hadn’t been that long since he’d seen her last — maybe four months — but already she seemed like the photograph of someone he’d known a long time ago, even though everything about her was familiar — her dark hair; her brown eyes, the same shape and color as his own; the spatter of freckles across her nose. She wore jeans, a bright yellow parka, and a green scarf with big yellow cotton flowers. Clary called Becky’s style “hippie-chic”; about half her clothes came from vintage stores, and the other half she sewed herself.

As he squeezed her hand, her dark eyes filled with tears. “Si,” she said, and put her arms around him and hugged him. He let her, patting her arms, her back, clumsily. When she pulled back, wiping at her eyes, she frowned. “God, your face is cold,” she said. “You should wear a scarf.” She looked at him accusingly. “Anyway, where have you been?”

“I told you,” he said. “I was staying with a friend.”

She gave a short bark of laughter. “Okay, Simon, that so doesn’t cut it,” she said. “What the hell is going on?”

“Becks…”

“I called home about Thanksgiving,” Rebecca said, staring straight ahead at the trees. “You know, what train I should take, that sort of thing. And you know what Mom said? She said not to come home, there wasn’t going to be any Thanksgiving. So I called you. You didn’t pick up. I called Mom to find out where you were. She hung up on me. Just — hung up on me. So I came home. That’s when I saw the religious weirdness all over the door. I freaked out on Mom, and she told me you were dead. Dead. My own brother. She said you were dead and a monster took your place.”

“What did you do?”

“I got the hell out of there,” said Rebecca. Simon could tell she was trying to sound tough, but there was a thin, frightened edge to her voice. “It was pretty clear Mom had lost it.”

“Oh,” Simon said. Rebecca and his mother had always shared a fraught relationship. Rebecca liked to refer to his mother as “nuts” or “the crazy lady.” But it was the first time he’d had the sense she really meant it.

“Damn right, oh,” Rebecca snapped. “I was frantic. I texted you every five minutes. Finally I get that crap text from you about staying with a friend. Now you want to meet me here. What the hell, Simon? How long has this been going on?”

“How long has what been going on?”

“What do you think? Mom being totally mental.” Rebecca’s small fingers picked at her scarf. “We have to do something. Talk to someone. Doctors. Get her on meds or something. I didn’t know what to do. Not without you. You’re my brother.”

“I can’t,” Simon said. “I mean, I can’t help you.”

Her voice softened. “I know it sucks and you’re just in high school, but, Simon, we have to make these decisions together.”

“I mean I can’t help you get her on meds,” he said. “Or take her to the doctor. Because she’s right. I am a monster.”

Rebecca’s mouth dropped open. “Has she brainwashed you?”

“No—”

Her voice wobbled. “You know, I thought maybe she’d hurt you — the way she was talking — but then I thought, No, she’d never do that, no matter what. But if she did — if she laid a finger on you, Simon, so help me—”

Simon couldn’t take it anymore. He stripped off his glove and held his hand out to his sister. His sister, who’d held his hand on the beach when he was too small to toddle into the ocean unassisted. Who’d mopped blood off him after soccer practice, and tears off him after their father had died and their mother was a zombie lying in her room staring at the ceiling. Who’d read to him in his race-car-shaped bed when he still wore footie pajamas. I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. Who once accidentally shrunk all his clothes in the wash so they were doll-size, when she was trying to be domestic. Who packed his lunch when their mother didn’t have time. Rebecca, he thought. The last tie he had to cut.

“Take my hand,” he said.

She took it, and winced. “You’re so cold. Have you been sick?”

“You could say that.” He looked at her, willing her to sense something wrong with him, really wrong, but she only looked back at him with trusting brown eyes. He bit back a flare of impatience. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know. “Take my pulse,” he said.

“I don’t know how to take someone’s pulse, Simon. I’m an art history major.”

He reached over and moved her fingers up to his wrist. “Press down. Do you feel anything?”

For a moment she was still, her bangs swinging over her forehead. “No. Am I supposed to?”

“Becky—” He pulled his wrist back in frustration. There was nothing else for it. There was only one way. “Look at me,” he said, and when her eyes swung up to his face, he let his fangs snap out.

She screamed.

She screamed, and fell off the bench onto the hard-packed dirt and leaves. Several passersby looked at them curiously, but it was New York, and they didn’t stop or stare, just kept moving.

Simon felt wretched. This was what he’d wanted, but it was different actually looking at her crouching there, so pale that her freckles stood out like ink blots, her hand over her mouth. Just like it had been with his mother. He remembered telling Clary there was no worse feeling than not trusting the people you loved; he’d been wrong. Having the people you loved be afraid of you was worse. “Rebecca,” he said, and his voice broke. “Becky—”

She shook her head, her hand still over her mouth. She was sitting in the dirt, her scarf trailing in the leaves. Under other circumstances it might have been funny.

Simon got down off the bench and knelt down next to her. His fangs were gone, but she was looking at him as if they were still there. Very hesitantly he reached out and touched her on the shoulder. “Becks,” he said. “I would never hurt you. I would never hurt Mom, either. I just wanted to see you one last time to tell you I’m going away and you won’t need to see me again. I’ll leave you both alone. You can have Thanksgiving. I won’t show up. I won’t try to stay in touch. I won’t—”

“Simon.” She grabbed his arm, and then she was pulling him toward her, like a fish on a line. He half-fell against her, and she hugged him, her arms around him, and the last time she’d hugged him like this was the day of their father’s funeral, when he’d cried in that way one cried when it didn’t seem like it was ever going to stop. “I don’t want to never see you again.”

“Oh,” Simon said. He sat back in the dirt, so surprised that his mind had gone blank. Rebecca put her arms around him again, and he let himself lean against her, even though she was slighter than he was. She had held him up when they’d been children, and she could do it again. “I thought you wouldn’t.”

“Why?” she said.

“I’m a vampire,” he said. It was weird, hearing it like that, out loud.

“So there are vampires?”

“And werewolves. And other, weirder stuff. This just — happened. I mean, I got attacked. I didn’t choose it, but it doesn’t matter. This is me now.”

“Do you…” Rebecca hesitated, and Simon sensed that this was the big question, the one that really mattered. “Bite people?”

He thought about Isabelle, then pushed the mental image hastily away. And I bit a thirteen-year-old girl. And a dude. It’s not as weird as it sounds. No. Some things were not his sister’s business. “I drink blood out of bottles. Animal blood. I don’t hurt people.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Is it? Okay, I mean?”

“Yeah. I love you,” she said. She rubbed his back awkwardly. He felt something damp on his hand and looked down. She was crying. One of her tears had splashed onto his fingers. Another one followed, and he closed his hand around it. He was shivering, but not from cold; still, she pulled off her scarf and wrapped it around them both. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “You’re my little brother, you dumb idiot. I love you no matter what.”

They sat together, shoulder to shoulder, looking off into the shadowy spaces between the trees.

It was bright in Jace’s bedroom, midday sunlight pouring through the open windows. The moment Clary walked in, the heels of her boots clicking on the hardwood floor, Jace closed the door and locked it behind her. There was a clatter as he dropped the knives onto his bedside table. She began to turn, to ask him if he was all right, when he caught her around the waist and pulled her against him.

The boots gave her extra height, but he still had to bend down to kiss her. His hands, on her waist, lifted her up and against him — a second later his mouth was on hers and she forgot all issues of height and awkwardness. He tasted like salt and fire. She tried to shut out everything but sensation — the familiar smell of his skin and sweat, the chill of his damp hair against her cheek, the shape of his shoulders and back under her hands, the way her body fit to his.

He pulled her sweater over her head. Her T-shirt was short-sleeved, and she felt the heat coming off him against her skin. His lips parted hers, and she felt herself coming apart as his hand slid down to the top button on her jeans.

It took all the self-control she had to catch at his wrist with her hand, and hold it still. “Jace,” she said. “Don’t.”

He drew away, enough for her to see his face. His eyes were glassy, unfocused. His heart pounded against hers. “Why?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Last night — if we hadn’t — if I hadn’t fainted, then I don’t know what would have happened, and we were in the middle of a room full of people. Do you really think I want my first time with you — or any time with you — to be in front of a bunch of strangers?”

“That wasn’t our fault,” he said, pushing his fingers softly through her hair. The scarred palm of his hand scratched her cheek lightly. “That silver stuff was faerie drugs, I told you. We were high. But I’m sober now, and you’re sober now…”

“And Sebastian’s upstairs, and I’m exhausted, and…” And this would be a terrible, terrible idea that both of us would regret. “And I don’t feel like it,” she lied.

“You don’t feel like it?” Disbelief colored his voice.

“I’m sorry if no one’s ever said that to you before, Jace, but, no. I don’t feel like it.” She looked pointedly down at his hand, still at the waistband of her jeans. “And now I feel like it even less.”

He raised both eyebrows, but instead of saying anything he simply let go of her.

“Jace…”

“I’m going to go take a cold shower,” he said, backing away from her. His face was blank, unreadable. When the bathroom door slammed shut behind him, she walked over to the bed — neatly made up, no residual silver on the coverlet — and sank down, putting her head in her hands. It wasn’t as if she and Jace never fought; she’d always thought they argued about as much as normal couples did, usually good-naturedly, and they’d never been angry with each other in any significant way. But there was something about the coldness at the back of this Jace’s eyes that shook her, something far off and unreachable that made it harder than ever to push away the question always at the back of her mind: Is any of the real Jace still in there? Is there anything left to save?

Now this is the Law of the Jungle,

as old and as true as the sky,

And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,

but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk,

the Law runneth forward and back;

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,

and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Jordan stared blindly at the poem tacked to the wall of his bedroom. It was an old print that he’d found in a used-book store, the words surrounded by an elaborate border of leaves. The poem was by Rudyard Kipling, and it so neatly encapsulated the rules by which werewolves lived, the Law that bound their actions, that he wondered if Kipling hadn’t been a Downworlder himself, or at least known about the Accords. Jordan had felt compelled to buy the print and stick it up on his wall, though he’d never been one for poetry.

He’d been pacing his apartment for the last hour, sometimes taking his phone out to see if Maia had texted, in between bouts of opening the refrigerator and staring into it to see if anything worth eating had appeared. It hadn’t, but he didn’t want to go out to get food in case she came to the apartment while he was out. He also took a shower, cleaned up the kitchen, tried to watch TV and failed, and started the process of organizing all his DVDs by color.

He was restless. Restless in the way he sometimes got before the full moon, knowing the Change was coming, feeling the pull of the tides in his blood. But the moon was waning, not waxing, and it wasn’t the Change making him feel like crawling out of his skin. It was Maia. It was being without her, after almost two solid days in her company, never more than a few feet away from her.

She’d gone without him to the police station, saying that now wasn’t the time to upset the pack with a nonmember, even though Luke was healing. There was no need for Jordan to come, she’d argued, since all she had to do was ask Luke if it was all right for Simon and Magnus to visit the farm tomorrow, and then she’d call up to the farm and warn any of the pack who might be staying up there to clear off the property. She was right, Jordan knew. There was no reason for him to go with her, but the moment she was gone, the restlessness kicked up inside him. Was she leaving because she was sick of being with him? Had she rethought and decided she’d been right about him before? And what was going on between them? Were they dating? Maybe you should have asked her before you slept together, genius, he told himself, and realized he was standing in front of the refrigerator again. Its contents hadn’t changed — bottles of blood, a defrosting pound of ground beef, and a dented apple.

The key turned in the front door lock, and he jumped away from the refrigerator, spinning around. He looked down at himself. He was barefoot, in jeans and an old T-shirt. Why hadn’t he taken the time while she’d been away to shave, look better, put on some cologne or something? He ran his hands quickly through his hair as Maia came into the living room, dropping his spare set of keys onto the coffee table. She had changed clothes, into a soft pink sweater and jeans. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, her lips red and her eyes bright. He wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt.

Instead he swallowed. “So — how did it go?”

“Fine. Magnus can use the farm. I already texted him.” She strolled over to him and leaned her elbows on the counter. “I also told Luke what Raphael said about Maureen. I hope that’s okay.”

Jordan was puzzled. “Why’d you think he needed to know?”

She seemed to deflate. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me I was supposed to keep it a secret.”

“No — I was just wondering—”

“Well, if there really is a rogue vampire cutting her way through Lower Manhattan, the pack should know. It’s their territory. Besides, I wanted his advice about whether we should tell Simon or not.”

“What about my advice?” He was playing at sounding hurt, but there was a little part of him that meant it. They’d discussed it before, whether Jordan should tell his assignment that Maureen was out there and killing, or whether it would just be another burden to add to everything Simon was dealing with now. Jordan had come down on the side of not telling him — what could he do about it, anyway? — but Maia hadn’t been so sure.

She jumped up on top of the counter and swung around to face him. Even sitting down, she was taller than him this way, her brown eyes sparkling down into his. “I wanted grown-up advice.”

He grabbed hold of her swinging legs and ran his hands up the seams of her jeans. “I’m eighteen — not grown-up enough for you?”

She put her hands on his shoulders and flexed them, as if testing his muscles. “Well, you’ve definitely grown…”

He pulled her down from the counter, catching her around the waist and kissing her. Fire sizzled up and down his veins as she kissed him back, her body melting against his. He slid his hands up into her hair, knocking her knitted cap off and letting her curls spring free. He kissed her neck as she pulled his shirt up over his head and ran her hands all over him — shoulders, back, arms, purring in her throat like a cat. He felt like a helium balloon — high from kissing her, and light with relief. So she wasn’t done with him after all.

“Jordy,” she said. “Wait.”

She almost never called him that, unless it was serious. His heartbeat, already wild, speeded up further. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just — if every time we see each other, we fall into bed — and I know I started it, I’m not blaming you or anything — It’s just that maybe we should talk.”

He stared at her, at her big dark eyes, the fluttery pulse in her throat, the flush on her cheeks. With an effort he spoke evenly. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

She just looked at him. After a moment she shook her head and said, “Nothing.” She locked her hands behind his head and pulled him close, kissing him hard, fitting her body against his. “Nothing at all.”

Clary didn’t know how long it was before Jace came out of the bathroom, toweling off his wet hair. She looked up at him from where she was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He was sliding a blue cotton T-shirt on over smooth golden skin marked with white scars.

She darted her eyes away as he came across the room and sat down next to her on the bed, smelling strongly of soap.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Now she did look at him, in surprise. She had wondered if he were capable of being sorry, in his current state. His expression was grave, a little curious, but not insincere.

“Wow,” she said. “That cold shower must have been brutal.”

His lips quirked up at the side, but his expression grew serious again almost immediately. He put his hand under her chin. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. It’s just — ten weeks ago, just holding each other would have been unthinkable.”

“I know.”

He cupped her face in his hands, his long fingers cool against her cheeks, tilting her face up. He was looking down at her, and everything about him was so familiar — the pale gold irises of his eyes, the scar on his cheek, the full lower lip, the slight chip in his tooth that saved his looks from being so perfect that they were annoying — and yet somehow it was like coming back to a house she had lived in as a child, and knowing that though the exterior might look the same, a different family lived there now. “I never cared,” he said. “I wanted you anyway. I always wanted you. Nothing mattered to me but you. Not ever.”

Clary swallowed. Her stomach fluttered, not just with the usual butterflies she felt around Jace but with real uneasiness.

“But Jace. That’s not true. You cared about your family. And — I always thought you were proud of being Nephilim. One of the angels.”

“Proud?” he said. “To be half angel, half human — you’re always conscious of your own inadequacy. You’re not an angel. You’re not beloved of Heaven. Raziel doesn’t care about us. We can’t even pray to him. We pray to nothing. We pray for nothing. Remember when I told you I thought I had demon blood, because it explained why I felt the way I did about you? It was a relief in a way, thinking that. I’ve never been an angel, never even close. Well,” he added. “Maybe the fallen kind.”

“Fallen angels are demons.”

“I don’t want to be Nephilim,” said Jace. “I want to be something else. Stronger, faster, better than human. But different. Not subservient to the Laws of an angel who couldn’t care less about us. Free.” He ran his hand through a curl of her hair. “I’m happy now, Clary. Doesn’t that make a difference?”

“I thought we were happy together,” Clary said.

“I’ve always been happy with you,” he said. “But I never thought I deserved it.”

“And now you do?”

“And now that feeling’s gone,” he said. “All I know is that I love you. And for the first time, that’s good enough.”

She closed her eyes. A moment later he was kissing her again, very softly this time, his mouth tracing the shape of hers. She felt herself go pliant under his hands. She sensed it as his breathing quickened and her own pulse jumped. His hands stroked down through her hair, over her back, to her waist. His touch was comforting — the feel of his heartbeat against hers like familiar music — and if the key was slightly different, with her eyes closed, she couldn’t tell. Their blood was the same, under the skin, she thought, as the Seelie Queen had said; her heart raced when his did, had nearly stopped when his had. If she had to do it all again, she thought, under the pitiless gaze of Raziel, she would have done the same thing.

This time he drew back, letting his fingers linger on her cheek, her lips. “I want what you want,” he said. “Whenever you want it.”

Clary felt a shudder go down her spine. The words were simple, but there was a dangerous and seductive invitation to the fall of his voice: Whatever you want, whenever you want it. His hand smoothed down her hair, to her back, lingering at her waist. She swallowed. There was only so much that she was going to be able to hold back.

“Read to me,” she said suddenly.

He blinked down at her. “What?”

She was looking past him, at the books on his nightstand. “It’s a lot to process,” she said. “What Sebastian said, what happened last night, everything. I need to sleep, but I’m too keyed up. When I was young and I couldn’t sleep, my mother used to read to me to relax me.”

“And I remind you of your mother now? I have got to look into a manlier cologne.”

“No, it’s just — I thought it would be nice.”

He scooted back against the pillows, reaching for the stack of books by the bed. “Anything particular you want to hear?” With a flourish he picked up the book on top of the stack. It looked old, leather-bound, the title stamped in gold on the front. A Tale of Two Cities. “Dickens is always promising…”

“I’ve read that before. For school,” Clary recalled. She scooted up on the pillows beside Jace. “But I don’t remember any of it, so I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”

“Excellent. I’ve been told I have a lovely, melodic reading voice.” He flipped the book open to the front page, where the title was printed in ornate script. Across from it was a long dedication, the ink faded now and barely legible, though Clary could make out the signature: With hope at last, William Herondale.

“Some ancestor of yours,” Clary said, brushing her finger against the page.

“Yes. Odd that Valentine had it. My father must have given it to him.” Jace opened to a random page and began to read:

“He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. ‘Don’t be afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life might have been.’

“‘No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.’”

“Oh, I do remember this story now,” Clary said. “Love triangle. She picks the boring guy.”

Jace chuckled softly. “Boring to you. Who can say what got Victorian ladies hot beneath the petticoats?”

“It’s true, you know.”

“What, about the petticoats?”

“No. That you have a lovely reading voice.” Clary turned her face against his shoulder. It was times like this, more than when he was kissing her, that hurt — times when he could have been her Jace. As long as she kept her eyes closed.

“All that, and abs of steel,” Jace said, turning another page. “What more could you ask for?”

17 VALEDICTION

As I strolled down along the quay

All in the lateness of the day

I heard a lovely maiden say:

“Alack, for I can get no play.”

A minstrel boy heard what she said

And straight he rushed to her aid…

“Do we have to keep listening to this wail-ey music?” Isabelle demanded, her booted foot tapping against the dashboard of Jordan’s truck.

“I happen to like this wail-ey music, my girl, and since I’m driving, I get to choose,” Magnus said loftily. He was indeed driving. Simon had been surprised that he knew how, though he wasn’t sure why. Magnus had been alive for ages. Surely he had found time to squeeze in a few weeks of driver’s ed. Although Simon couldn’t help wondering what birth date was on his license.

Isabelle rolled her eyes, probably because there wasn’t enough room to do much else in the cab of the truck, with all four of them crammed together on the bench seat. Simon honestly hadn’t expected her to come. He hadn’t expected anyone to come to the farm with him but Magnus, though Alec had insisted on coming as well (much to Magnus’s annoyance, as he considered the whole enterprise “too dangerous”), and then, just as Magnus had revved up the engine on the truck, Isabelle had come banging down the stairs of his apartment building and thrown herself through the front door, panting and out of breath. “I’m coming too,” she’d announced.

And that was that. No one could budge or dissuade her. She wouldn’t look at Simon as she insisted, or explain why she wanted to come, but she did, and here she was. She was wearing jeans and a purple suede jacket she must have stolen out of Magnus’s closet. Her weapons belt was slung around her slim hips. She was mashed up against Simon, whose other side was crushed against the car door. A strand of her hair was flying free and tickling his face.

“What is this, anyway?” Alec said, frowning at the CD player, which was playing music, although without a CD in it. Magnus had simply tapped the sound system with a blue-flashing finger, and it had started playing. “Some faerie band?”

Magnus didn’t answer, but the music swelled louder.

To mirror went she straightaway

And did her ebon hair array

And for her gown she much did pay.

Then down she walked along the street,

A handsome lad she chanced to meet,

And sore by dawn were her dainty feet,

But all the boys were gay.

Isabelle snorted. “All the boys are gay. In this truck, anyway. Well, not you, Simon.”

“You noticed,” said Simon.

“I think of myself as a freewheeling bisexual,” added Magnus.

“Please never say those words in front of my parents,” said Alec. “Especially my father.”

“I thought your parents were okay with you, you know, coming out,” Simon said, leaning around Isabelle to look at Alec, who was — as he often was — scowling, and pushing his floppy dark hair out of his eyes. Aside from the occasional exchange, Simon had never talked to Alec much. He wasn’t an easy person to get to know. But, Simon admitted to himself, his own recent estrangement from his mother made him more curious about Alec’s answer than he would have been otherwise.

“My mother seems to have accepted it,” Alec said. “But my father — no, not really. Once he asked me what I thought had turned me gay.”

Simon felt Isabelle tense next to him. “Turned you gay?” She sounded incredulous. “Alec, you didn’t tell me that.”

“I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider,” said Simon.

Magnus snorted; Isabelle looked confused. “I’ve read Magnus’s stash of comics,” said Alec, “so I actually know what you’re talking about.” A small smile played around his mouth. “So would that give me the proportional gayness of a spider?”

“Only if it was a really gay spider,” said Magnus, and he yelled as Alec punched him in the arm. “Ow, okay, never mind.”

“Well, whatever,” said Isabelle, obviously annoyed not to get the joke. “It’s not like Dad’s ever coming back from Idris, anyway.”

Alec sighed. “Sorry to wreck your vision of our happy family. I know you want to think Dad’s fine with me being gay, but he’s not.”

“But if you don’t tell me when people say things like that to you, or do things to hurt you, then how can I help you?” Simon could feel Isabelle’s agitation vibrating through her body. “How can I—”

“Iz,” Alec said tiredly. “It’s not like it’s one big bad thing. It’s a lot of little invisible things. When Magnus and I were traveling, and I’d call from the road, Dad never asked how he was. When I get up to talk in Clave meetings, no one listens, and I don’t know if that’s because I’m young or if it’s because of something else. I saw Mom talking to a friend about her grandchildren and the second I walked into the room they shut up. Irina Cartwright told me it was a pity no one would ever inherit my blue eyes now.” He shrugged and looked toward Magnus, who took a hand off the wheel for a moment to place it on Alec’s. “It’s not like a stab wound you can protect me from. It’s a million little paper cuts every day.”

“Alec,” Isabelle began, but before she could say anything more, the sign for the turnoff loomed up ahead: a wooden placard in the shape of an arrow with the words THREE ARROWS FARM painted on it in block lettering. Simon remembered Luke kneeling on the farmhouse floor, painstakingly spelling out the words in black paint, while Clary added the — now weather-faded and almost invisible — pattern of flowers along the bottom.

“Turn left,” he said, flinging his arm out and nearly hitting Alec. “Magnus, we’re here.”

It had taken several chapters of Dickens before Clary had finally succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep against Jace’s shoulder. Half in dream and half in reality, she recalled him carrying her downstairs and laying her down in the bedroom she’d woken up in her first day in the apartment. He had drawn the curtains and closed the door after him as he left, shutting the room into darkness, and she had fallen asleep to the sound of his voice in the hallway, calling for Sebastian.

She dreamed of the frozen lake again, and of Simon crying out for her, and of a city like Alicante, but the demon towers were made of human bones and the canals ran with blood. She woke twisted in her sheets, her hair a mass of tangles and the light outside the window dimmed to a twilight darkness. At first she thought that the voices outside her door were part of the dream, but as they grew louder, she raised her head to listen, still groggy and half-tangled in the webbing of sleep.

“Hey, little brother.” It was Sebastian’s voice, floating under her door from the living room. “Is it done?”

There was a long silence. Then Jace’s voice, oddly flat and colorless. “It’s done.”

Sebastian’s breath drew in sharply. “And the old lady — she did as we asked? Made the Cup?”

“Yes.”

“Show it to me.”

A rustle. Silence. Jace said, “Look, take it if you want it.”

“No.” There was a curious thoughtfulness in Sebastian’s tone. “You hold on to it for the moment. You did the work of getting it back, after all. Didn’t you?”

“But it was your plan.” There was something in Jace’s voice, something that made Clary lean forward and press her ear to the wall, suddenly desperate to hear more. “And I executed it, just as you wanted. Now, if you don’t mind—”

“I do mind.” There was a rustle. Clary imagined Sebastian standing up, looking down at Jace from the inch or so that divided them in height. “There’s something wrong. I can tell. I can read you, you know.”

“I’m tired. And there was a lot of blood. Look, I just need to clean myself off, and to sleep. And…” Jace’s voice died.

“And to see my sister.”

“I’d like to see her, yes.”

“She’s asleep. Has been for hours.”

“Do I need to ask your permission?” There was a razored edge to Jace’s voice, something that reminded Clary of the way he had once spoken to Valentine. Something she had not heard in the way he spoke to Sebastian in a long time.

“No.” Sebastian sounded surprised, almost caught off guard. “I suppose if you want to barge in there and gaze wistfully at her sleeping face, go right ahead. I’ll never understand why—”

“No,” Jace said. “You never will.”

There was silence. Clary could so clearly picture Sebastian staring after Jace, a quizzical look on his face, that it took her a moment before she realized that Jace must be coming to her room. She had only time to throw herself flat on the bed and shut her eyes before the door opened, letting in a slice of yellow-white light that momentarily blinded her. She made what she hoped was a realistic waking-up noise and rolled over, her hand over her face. “What…?”

The door shut. The room was in darkness again. She could see Jace only as a shape that moved slowly toward her bed, until he was standing over her, and she couldn’t help remembering another night when he had come to her room while she slept. Jace standing by the head of her bed, still wearing his white mourning clothes, and there was nothing light or sarcastic or distant in the way he was looking down at her. “I’ve been wandering around all night — I couldn’t sleep — and I kept finding myself walking here. To you.”

He was only an outline now, an outline with bright hair that shone in the faint light that filtered from beneath the door. “Clary,” he whispered. There was a thump, and she realized he had fallen to his knees by the side of her bed. She didn’t move, but her body tightened. His voice was a whisper. “Clary, it’s me. It’s me.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, wide, and their gazes met. She was staring at Jace. Kneeling beside her bed, his eyes were level with hers. He wore a long dark woolen coat, buttoned all the way to the throat, where she could see black Marks — Soundless, Agility, Accuracy — like a sort of necklace against his skin. His eyes were very gold and very wide, and as if she could see through them, she saw Jace—her Jace. The Jace who had lifted her in his arms when she was dying of Ravener poison; the Jace who had watched her hold Simon against the rising daylight over the East River; the Jace who had told her about a little boy and the falcon his father had killed. The Jace she loved.

Her heart seemed to stop altogether. She couldn’t even gasp.

His eyes were full of urgency and pain. “Please,” he murmured. “Please believe me.”

She believed him. They carried the same blood, loved the same way; this was her Jace, as much as her hands were her own hands, her heart her own heart. But—“How?”

“Clary, shh—”

She began to struggle into a sitting position, but he reached out and pushed her back against the bed by her shoulders. “We can’t talk now. I have to go.”

She grabbed for his sleeve, felt him wince. “Don’t leave me.”

He dropped his head for just a moment; when he looked up again, his eyes were dry but the expression in them silenced her. “Wait a few moments after I go,” he whispered. “Then slip out and up to my room. Sebastian can’t know we’re together. Not tonight.” He dragged himself to his feet, his eyes pleading. “Don’t let him hear you.”

She sat up. “Your stele. Leave me your stele.”

Doubt flickered in his eyes; she held his gaze steadily, then put her hand out. After a moment he reached into his pocket and took out the dully glowing implement; he laid it in her palm. For a moment their skin touched, and she shuddered — just a brush of the hand from this Jace was almost as powerful as all the kissing and tearing at each other they had done in the club the other night. She knew he felt it too, for he jerked his hand away and began to back toward the door. She could hear his breath, ragged and swift. He fumbled behind himself for the knob and let himself out, his eyes on her face until the very last moment, when the door closed between them with a decided click.

Clary sat in the darkness, stunned. Her blood felt as if it had thickened in her veins and her heart was having to work double time to keep beating. Jace. My Jace.

Her hand tightened on the stele. Something about it, its cold hardness, seemed to focus and sharpen her thoughts. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a tank top and pajama shorts; there were goose bumps on her arms, but not because it was cold. She set the tip of the stele to her inner arm and drew it slowly down the skin, watching as a Soundless rune spiraled across her pale, blue-veined skin.

She opened the door just a crack. Sebastian was gone, off to sleep most likely. There was music playing faintly from the television set — something classical, the sort of piano music Jace liked. She wondered if Sebastian appreciated music, or any sort of art. It seemed such a human capacity.

Despite her concern about where he’d gone, her feet were carrying her toward the passage that led to the kitchen — and then she was through the living room and dashing up the glass steps, her feet making no noise as she reached the top and sprinted down the hall to Jace’s room. Then she was jerking open the door and sliding inside, the door clicking shut behind her.

The windows were open, and through them she could see rooftops and a curving slice of moon, a perfect Paris night. Jace’s witchlight rune-stone sat on the nightstand beside his bed. It glowed with a dull energy that cast further illumination through the room. It was enough light for Clary to see Jace, standing between the two long windows. He had shrugged off the long black coat, which lay in a crumpled heap at his feet. She realized immediately why he had not taken it off when he’d come into the house, why he had kept it buttoned all the way to his throat. Because beneath it he wore only a gray button-down shirt, and jeans — and they were sticky and soaked with blood. Parts of the shirt were in ribbons, as if they had been slashed with a very sharp blade. His left sleeve was rolled up, and there was a white bandage wrapped around his forearm — he must have just done it — already darkening at the edges with blood. His feet were bare, his shoes kicked off, and the floor where he stood was splattered with blood, like scarlet tears. She set the stele down on his bedside table with a click.

“Jace,” she said softly.

It suddenly seemed insane that there was this much space between them, that she was standing across the room from Jace, and that they weren’t touching. She started toward him, but he held up a hand to ward her off.

“Don’t.” His voice cracked. Then his fingers went to the buttons on his shirt, undoing them, one by one. He shrugged the bloodstained garment off his shoulders and let it fall to the ground.

Clary stared. Lilith’s rune was still in place, over his heart, but instead of shimmering red-silver it looked as if the hot tip of a poker had been dragged across the skin, charring it. She put her hand up to her own chest involuntarily, her fingers splaying over her heart. She could feel its beating, hard and fast. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh,” Jace said flatly. “This won’t last, Clary. Me being myself again, I mean. Only as long as this hasn’t healed.”

“I–I wondered,” Clary stammered. “Before — while you were sleeping — I thought about cutting the rune like I did when we fought Lilith. But I was afraid Sebastian would feel it.”

“He would have.” Jace’s golden eyes were as flat as his voice. “He didn’t feel this because it was made with a pugio—a dagger seethed in angel blood. They’re incredibly rare; I’ve never even seen one in real life before.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “The blade turned to hot ash after it touched me, but it did the damage it needed to do.”

“You were in a fight. Was it a demon? Why didn’t Sebastian go with—”

“Clary.” Jace’s voice was barely a whisper. “This — it’ll take longer than an ordinary cut to heal… but not forever. And then I’ll be him again.”

“How much time? Before you go back to the way you were?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. But I wanted — I needed to be with you, like this, like myself, for as long as I could.” He held out a hand to her stiffly, as if unsure of its reception. “Do you think you could—”

She was already running across the room to him. She threw her arms around his neck. He caught her and swung her up, burying his face in the crook of her neck. She breathed him in like air. He smelled of blood and sweat and ashes and Marks.

“It’s you,” she whispered. “It’s really you.”

He drew back to look at her. With his free hand he traced her cheekbone gently. She had missed that, his gentleness. It was one of the things that had made her fall in love with him in the first place — realizing that this scarred, sarcastic boy was gentle with the things he loved.

“I missed you,” she said. “I missed you so much.”

He closed his eyes as if the words hurt. She put her hand to his cheek. He leaned his head into her palm, his hair tickling her knuckles, and she realized his face was wet too.

The boy never cried again.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. She kissed his cheek with the same tenderness he had showed her. She tasted salt — blood and tears. He still hadn’t spoken, but she could feel the wild beat of his heart against her chest. His arms were tight around her, as if he never meant to let go. She kissed his cheekbone, his jaw, and finally his mouth, a light press of lips on lips.

There was none of the frenzy there had been in the nightclub. It was a kiss meant to give solace, to say everything there was no time to say. He kissed her back, hesitant at first, then with greater urgency, his hand stealing up into her hair, winding the tresses between his fingers. Their kisses deepened slowly, softly, the intensity growing between them as it always did, like a blaze that started with a single match and flared into wildfire.

She knew how strong he was, but she still felt a shock as he carried her to the bed and laid her down gently among the scattered pillows, sliding his body over hers, one smooth gesture that reminded her what all those Marks on his body were for. Strength. Grace. Lightness of touch. She breathed his breath as they kissed, each kiss drawn out now, lingering, exploratory. Her hands drifted over him, his shoulders, the muscles of his arms, his back. His bare skin felt like hot silk under her palms.

When his hands found the hem of her tank top, she stretched her arms out, arching her back, wanting every barrier between them gone. The moment it was off, she pulled him back against her, their kisses fiercer now, as if they were struggling to reach some hidden place inside each other. She wouldn’t have thought they could get any closer, but somehow as they kissed, they wound themselves into each other like intricate thread, each kiss hungrier, deeper than the last.

Their hands moved quickly over each other, and then more slowly, uncovering and unhurried. She dug her fingers into his shoulders when he kissed her throat, her collarbones, the star-shaped mark on her shoulder. She grazed his scar too, with the backs of her knuckles, and kissed the wounded Mark Lilith had made on his chest. She felt him shudder, wanting her, and she knew she was on the very brink of where there was no going back, and she didn’t care. She knew what it was like to lose him now. She knew the black empty days that came after. And she knew that if she lost him again, she wanted this to remember. To hold on to. That she had been as close to him once as you could be to another person. She locked her ankles around the small of his back, and he groaned against her mouth, a soft, low, helpless sound. His fingers dug into her hips.

“Clary.” He pulled away. He was shaking. “I can’t… If we don’t stop now, we won’t be able to.”

“Don’t you want to?” She looked up at him in surprise. He was flushed, tousled, his fair hair a darker gold where sweat had pasted it to his forehead and temples. She could feel his heart stuttering inside his chest.

“Yes, it’s just I’ve never—”

“You haven’t?” She was surprised. “Done this before?”

He took a deep breath. “I have.” His eyes searched her face, as if he were looking for judgment, disapprobation, even disgust. Clary looked back at him evenly. It was what she had assumed, anyway. “But not when it mattered.” He touched her cheek with his fingers, feather-light. “I don’t even know how…”

Clary laughed softly. “I think it’s just been established that you do.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He caught her hand and brought it to his face. “I want you,” he said, “more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. But I…” He swallowed. “Name of the Angel. I’m going to kick myself for this later.”

“Don’t say you’re trying to protect me,” she said fiercely. “Because I—”

“It’s not that,” he said. “I’m not being self-sacrificing. I’m… jealous.”

“You’re — jealous? Of who?”

“Myself.” His face twisted. “I hate the thought of him being with you. Him. That other me. The one Sebastian controls.”

She felt her face start to burn. “At the club… last night…”

He dropped his head to her shoulder. A little bewildered, she stroked his back, feeling the scratches where her fingernails had torn his skin at the nightclub. The specific memory made her blush even harder. So did the knowledge that he could have gotten rid of the scratches with an iratze if he’d wanted to. But he hadn’t. “I remember everything about last night,” he said. “And it makes me crazy, because it was me but it wasn’t. When we’re together, I want it to be the real you. The real me.”

“Isn’t that what we are now?”

“Yes.” He raised his head, kissed her mouth. “But for how long? I could turn back into him any minute. I couldn’t do that to you. To us.” His voice was bitter. “I don’t even know how you can stand it, being around this thing that isn’t me—”

“Even if you go back to being that in five minutes,” she said, “it would have been worth it, just to be with you like this again. Not to have it end on that rooftop. Because this is you, and even that other you — there’s pieces of the real you in there. It’s like I’m looking through a blurred window at you, but it’s not the real you. And at least I know now.”

“What do you mean?” His hands tightened on her shoulders. “What do you mean at least you know?”

She took a deep breath. “Jace, when we were first together, like really together, you were so happy for that first month. And everything we did together was funny and fun and amazing. And then it was like it just started draining out of you, all that happiness. You didn’t want to be with me or look at me—”

“I was afraid I was going to hurt you. I thought I was losing my mind.”

“You didn’t smile or laugh or joke. And I’m not blaming you. Lilith was creeping into your mind, controlling you. Changing you. But you have to remember — I know how stupid this sounds — I never had a boyfriend before. I thought maybe it was normal. That maybe you were just getting tired of me.”

“I couldn’t—”

“I’m not asking for reassurance,” she said. “I’m telling you. When you’re — like you are, controlled — you seem happy. I came here because I wanted to save you.” Her voice dropped. “But I started to wonder what I was saving you from. How I could bring you back to a life you seemed so unhappy with.”

“Unhappy?” He shook his head. “I was lucky. So, so lucky. And I couldn’t see it.” His eyes met hers. “I love you,” he said. “And you make me happier than I ever thought I could be. And now that I know what it’s like to be someone else — to lose myself — I want my life back. My family. You. All of it.” His eyes darkened. “I want it back.”

His mouth came down on hers, with bruising pressure, their lips open, hot and hungry, and his hands gripped her waist — and then the sheets on either side of her, almost tearing them. He pulled back, panting. “We can’t—”

“Then quit kissing me!” she gasped. “In fact—” She ducked out from under his grip, grabbing for her tank top. “I’ll be right back.”

She pushed past him and darted into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She flicked on the light, and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked wild-eyed, her hair tangled, her lips swollen from kisses. She blushed and pulled her top back on, splashing cold water on her face, twisting her hair back into a knot. When she had convinced herself she no longer looked like the ravished maiden from the cover of a romance novel, she went for the hand towels — nothing romantic about that—grabbing one and wetting it down, then rubbing it with soap.

She came back out into the bedroom. Jace was sitting on the edge of the bed, in jeans and a clean, unbuttoned shirt, his tousled hair outlined by moonlight. He looked like a statue of an angel. Only, angels weren’t usually streaked with blood.

She moved to stand in front of him. “All right,” she said. “Take off your shirt.”

Jace raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not going to attack you,” she said impatiently. “I can take the sight of your naked chest without swooning.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, obediently sliding the shirt off his shoulders. “Because viewing my naked chest has caused many women to seriously injure themselves stampeding to get to me.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see anyone here but me. And I just want to clean the blood off you.” He leaned back obediently on his hands. Blood had soaked through the shirt he’d been wearing and streaked his chest and the flat planes of his stomach, but as she ran her fingers carefully over him, she could feel that most of his cuts were shallow. The iratze he’d put on himself earlier was already causing them to fade.

He turned his face up to her, eyes shut, as she ran the damp washcloth over his skin, blood pinking the white cotton. She scrubbed at the dried streaks on his neck, wrung out the cloth, dunked it in the glass of water on the nightstand, and went to work on his chest. He sat with his head tilted back, watching her as the cloth glided over the muscles of his shoulders, the smooth line of arms, forearms, hard chest scarred with white lines, the black of permanent Marks.

“Clary,” he said.

“Yes?”

The humor had gone from his voice. “I won’t remember this,” he said. “When I’m back — like I was, under his control, I won’t remember being myself. I won’t remember being with you, or talking to you like this. So just tell me — are they all right? My family? Do they know—”

“What’s happened to you? A little. And no, they’re not all right.” His eyes closed. “I could lie to you,” she said. “But you should know. They love you so much, and they want you back.”

“Not like this,” he said.

She touched his shoulder. “Are you going to tell me what happened? How you got these cuts?”

He took a deep breath, and the scar on his chest stood out, livid and dark. “I killed someone.”

She felt the shock of his words go through her body like the recoil of a gun. She dropped the bloody towel, then bent down to retrieve it. When she looked up, he was staring down at her. In the moonlight the lines of his face were fine and sharp and sad. “Who?” she asked.

“You met her,” Jace went on, each word like a weight. “The woman you went to visit with Sebastian. The Iron Sister. Magdalena.” He twisted away from her and reached back to retrieve something tangled among the blankets of the bed. The muscles in his arms and back moved under the skin as he took hold of it and turned back to Clary, the object gleaming in his hand.

It was a clear, glassine chalice — an exact replica of the Mortal Cup, except that instead of being gold, it was carved of silvery-white adamas.

“Sebastian sent me — sent him—to get this from her tonight,” Jace said. “And he also gave me the order to kill her. She wasn’t expecting it. She wasn’t expecting any violence, just payment and exchange. She thought we were on the same side. I let her hand me the Cup, and then I took my dagger and I—” He inhaled sharply, as if the memory hurt. “I stabbed her. I meant it to be through the heart, but she turned and I missed by inches. She staggered back and grabbed for her worktable — there was powdered adamas on it — she threw it at me. I think she meant to blind me. I turned my head away, and when I looked back she had an aegis in her hand. I think I knew what it was. The light of it seared my eyes. I cried out as she drove it toward my chest — I felt a searing pain in the Mark, and then the blade shattered.” He looked down and gave a mirthless laugh. “The funny thing is, if I’d been wearing gear, this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t because I didn’t think it was worth the bother. I didn’t think she could hurt me. But the aegis burned the Mark — Lilith’s Mark — and suddenly I was back in myself, standing there over this dead woman with a bloody dagger in my hand and the Cup in the other.”

“I don’t understand. Why did Sebastian tell you to kill her? She was going to give the Cup to you. To Sebastian. She said—”

Jace expelled a ragged breath. “Do you remember what Sebastian said about that clock in Old Town Square? In Prague?”

“That the king had the clock maker’s eyes put out after he made it, so he could never make anything as beautiful again,” Clary said. “But I don’t see—”

“Sebastian wanted Magdalena dead so she could never make anything like this again,” said Jace. “And so she could never tell.”

“Tell what?” She put her hand up, took hold of Jace’s chin, and drew his face down so that he was looking at her. “Jace, what is Sebastian really planning on doing? The story he told in the training room, about wanting to raise demons so he could destroy them—”

“Sebastian wants to raise demons all right.” Jace’s voice was grim. “One demon in particular. Lilith.”

“But Lilith’s dead. Simon destroyed her.”

“Greater Demons don’t die. Not really. Greater Demons inhabit the spaces between worlds, the great Void, the emptiness. What Simon did was shatter her power, send her in shreds back to the nothingness she came from. But she’ll slowly reform there. Be reborn. It would take centuries, but not if Sebastian helps her.”

A cold feeling was growing in the pit of Clary’s stomach. “Helps her how?”

“By summoning her back to this world. He wants to mix her blood and his in a cup and create an army of dark Nephilim. He wants to be Jonathan Shadowhunter reincarnated, but on the side of the demons, not the angels.”

“An army of dark Nephilim? The two of you are tough, but you’re not exactly an army.”

“There are about forty or fifty Nephilim who either were once loyal to Valentine, or hate the current direction of the Clave and are open to hearing what Sebastian has to say. He’s been in contact with them. When he raises Lilith, they’ll be there.” Jace took a deep breath. “And after that? With the power of Lilith behind him? Who knows who else will join his cause? He wants a war. He’s convinced he’ll win it, and I’m not sure he won’t. For every dark Nephilim he makes, he will grow in power. Add that to the demons he’s already made allegiances with, and I don’t know if the Clave is prepared to withstand him.”

Clary dropped her hand. “Sebastian never changed. Your blood never changed him. He’s exactly like he always was.” Her eyes flicked up to Jace’s. “But you. You lied to me, too.”

“He lied to you.”

Her mind was whirling. “I know. I know that Jace isn’t you—”

“He thinks it’s for your good and you’ll be happier in the end, but he did lie to you. And I would never do that.”

“The aegis,” Clary said. “If it can hurt you but Sebastian can’t feel it, could it kill him but not hurt you?”

Jace shook his head. “I don’t think so. If I had an aegis, I might be willing to try, but — no. Our life forces are tied together. An injury is one thing. If he were to die…” His voice hardened. “You know the easiest way to end this. Put a dagger in my heart. I’m surprised you didn’t do it while I was sleeping.”

“Could you? If it were me?” Her voice shook. “I believed there was a way to make this right. I still believe it. Give me your stele, and I’ll make a Portal.”

“You can’t make a Portal from inside here,” said Jace. “It won’t work. The only way in and out of this apartment is through the wall downstairs, by the kitchen. It’s the only place you can move the apartment from, too.”

“Can you move us to the Silent City? If we go back, the Silent Brothers can figure out a way to separate you from Sebastian. We’ll tell the Clave his plan so they’ll be prepared—”

“I could move us to one of the entrances,” Jace said. “And I will. I’ll go. We’ll go together. But just so there won’t be any untruth between us, Clary, you have to know that they’ll kill me. After I tell them what I know, they’ll kill me.”

“Kill you? No, they wouldn’t—”

“Clary.” His voice was gentle. “As a good Shadowhunter I ought to volunteer to die to stop what Sebastian is going to do. As a good Shadowhunter, I would.”

“But none of this is your fault.” Her voice rose, and she forced it back down, not wanting Sebastian, downstairs, to hear. “You can’t help what’s been done to you. You’re a victim in this. It’s not you, Jace; it’s someone else, someone wearing your face. You shouldn’t be punished—”

“It’s not a matter of punishment. It’s practicality. Kill me, Sebastian dies. It’s no different from sacrificing myself in battle. It’s all well and good to say I didn’t choose this. It has happened. And what I am now, myself, will be gone again soon enough. And, Clary, I know it doesn’t make sense, but I remember it — I remember all of it. I remember walking with you in Venice, and that night at the club, and sleeping in this bed with you, and don’t you get it? I wanted this. This is all I ever wanted, to live with you like this, be with you like this. What am I supposed to think, when the worst thing that has ever happened to me gives me exactly what I want? Maybe Jace Lightwood can see all the ways this is wrong and messed-up, but Jace Wayland, Valentine’s son… loves this life.” His eyes were wide and gold as he looked at her, and she was reminded of Raziel, of his gaze that seemed to hold all the wisdom and all the sadness in the world. “And that’s why I have to go,” he said. “Before this wears off. Before I’m him again.”

“Go where?”

“To the Silent City. I have to turn myself in — and the Cup, too.”