Little flakes of early snow had begun to fall from the steel-gray sky like feathers as
Clary and her mother hurried along Greenpoint Avenue, their heads bent against the chill
wind coming off the East River.
Jocelyn had not spoken a word since they had left Luke at the disused police station
that served as pack headquarters. The whole thing had been a blur—the pack carrying
their leader in, the healing kit, Clary and her mother struggling to get a glimpse of Luke
as the wolves seemed to close ranks against them. She knew why they couldn’t take him
to a mundane hospital, but it had been hard, beyond hard, to leave him there in the
whitewashed room that served as their infirmary.
It wasn’t that the wolves didn’t like Jocelyn or Clary. It was that Luke’s fiancée and her
daughter weren’t part of the pack. They never would be. Clary had looked around for
Maia, for an ally, but she hadn’t been there. Eventually Jocelyn had sent Clary out to wait
in the corridor since the room had been too crowded, and Clary had slumped on the floor,
cradling her knapsack on her lap. It had been two in the morning, and she had never felt
so alone. If Luke died…
She could barely remember a life without him. Because of him and her mother, she
knew what it was like to be loved unconditionally. Luke swinging her up to perch her in
the fork of an apple tree on his farm upstate was one of her earliest memories. In the
infirmary he had been taking rattling breaths while his third in command, Bat, had
unpacked the healing kit. People were supposed to take rattling breaths when they died,
she’d remembered. She couldn’t remember the last thing she’d said to Luke. Weren’t you
supposed to remember the last thing you said to someone before they died?
When Jocelyn had come out of the infirmary at last, looking exhausted, she’d held out a
hand to Clary and had helped her up off the floor.
“Is he… ,” Clary had begun.
“He’s stabilized,” Jocelyn had said. She’d looked up and down the hallway. “We should
go.”
“Go where?” Clary had been bewildered. “I thought we’d stay here, with Luke. I don’t
want to leave him.”
“Neither do I.” Jocelyn had been firm. Clary had thought of the woman who’d turned
her back on Idris, on everything she’d ever known, and had walked away from it to start a
new life alone. “But we can’t lead Jace and Jonathan here either. It’s not safe for the
pack, or Luke. And this is the first place Jace will look for you.”
“Then where… ,” Clary had started, but she’d realized, even before she’d finished her
own sentence, and had shut her mouth. Where did they ever go when they needed help
these days?
Now there was a sugary dusting of white along the cracked pavement of the avenue.
Jocelyn had put on a long coat before they’d left the house, but beneath it she still wore
the clothes that were stained with Luke’s blood. Her mouth was set, her gaze unwavering
on the road before her. Clary wondered if this was how her mother had looked walking
out of Idris, her boots clogged with ashes, the Mortal Cup hidden in her coat.
Clary shook her head to clear it. She was being fanciful, imagining things she hadn’t
been present to see, her mind skittering away, perhaps, from the awfulness of what she
just had seen.
Unbidden, the image of Sebastian driving the knife into Luke came into her head, and
the sound of Jace’s familiar and beloved voice saying “collateral damage.”
For as is often the happenstance with that which is precious and lost, when you find
him again, he may well not be quite as you left him.
Jocelyn shivered and flipped her hood up to cover her hair. White flakes of snow had
already begun to mix with the bright red strands. She was still silent, and the street, lined
with Polish and Russian restaurants in between barbershops and beauty parlors, was
deserted in the white and yellow night. A memory flashed before the backs of Clary’s
eyelids—a real one this time, not a wisp of imagination. Her mother was hurrying her
down a night-black street between piles of heaped and dirty snow. A lowering sky, gray
and leaden…
She had seen the image before, the first time the Silent Brothers had dug into her
mind. She realized what it was now. Her memory of a time her mother had taken her to
Magnus’s to have her memories altered. It must have been in the dead of winter, but she
recognized Greenpoint Avenue in the memory.
The redbrick warehouse Magnus lived in rose above them. Jocelyn pushed open the
glass doors to the entryway, and they crowded inside, Clary trying to breathe through her
mouth as her mother pushed the buzzer for Magnus one, two, and three times. At last the
door opened and they hurried up the stairs. The door to Magnus’s apartment was open,
and the warlock was leaning against the architrave, waiting for them. He was wearing
canary-yellow pajamas, and on his feet were green slippers with alien faces, complete
with sproingy antennae. His hair was a tangled, curly, spiky mass of black, and his goldgreen
eyes blinked tiredly at them.
“Saint Magnus’s Home for Wayward Shadowhunters,” he said in a deep voice.
“Welcome.” He threw an arm wide. “Spare bedrooms are that way. Wipe your boots on
the mat.” He stepped back into the apartment, letting them pass through in front of him
before shutting the door. Today the place was done up in a sort of faux-Victorian decor,
with high-backed sofas and large gilt mirrors everywhere. The pillars were strung with
lights in the shape of flowers.
There were three spare rooms down a short corridor off the main living room; at
random Clary chose one on the right. It was painted orange, like her old bedroom in Park
Slope, and had a sofa bed and a small window that looked out on the darkened windows
of a closed diner. Chairman Meow was curled up on the bed, nose tucked under his tail.
She sat down beside him and petted his ears, feeling the purring that vibrated through his
small furry body. As she stroked him, she caught sight of the sleeve of her sweater. It
was stained dark and crusted with blood. Luke’s blood.
She stood up and yanked the sweater off violently. From her backpack she took a clean
pair of jeans and a black V-necked thermal shirt and changed into them. She glanced at
herself briefly in the window, which showed her a pale reflection, her hair hanging limply,
damp with snow, her freckles standing out like paint splotches. Not that it mattered what
she looked like. She thought of Jace kissing her—it felt like days ago instead of hours—
and her stomach hurt as if she’d swallowed tiny knives.
She held on to the edge of the bed for a long moment until the pain subsided. Then she
took a deep breath and went back out into the living room.
Her mother was seated on one of the gilt-backed chairs, her long artist’s fingers
wrapped around a mug of hot water with lemon. Magnus was slumped on a hot-pink sofa,
his green slippers up on the coffee table. “The pack stabilized him,” Jocelyn was saying in
an exhausted voice. “They don’t know for how long, though. They thought there might
have been silver powder on the blade, but it appears to be something else. The tip of the
knife—” She glanced up, saw Clary, and fell silent.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’m old enough to hear what’s wrong with Luke.”
“Well, they don’t know exactly what it is,” Jocelyn said softly. “The tip of the blade
Sebastian used broke off against one of his ribs and lodged in the bone. But they can’t
retrieve it. It… moves.”
“It moves?” Magnus looked puzzled.
“When they tried to dig it out, it burrowed into the bone and nearly snapped it,” Jocelyn
said. “He’s a werewolf, he heals fast, but it’s in there gashing up his internal organs,
keeping the wound from closing.”
“Demon metal,” said Magnus. “Not silver.”
Jocelyn leaned forward. “Do you think you can help him? Whatever it costs, I’ll pay—”
Magnus stood up. His alien slippers and rumpled bed-head seemed extremely
incongruous given the gravity of the situation. “I don’t know.”
“But you healed Alec,” said Clary. “When the Greater Demon wounded him…”
Magnus had begun to pace. “I knew what was wrong with him. I don’t know what kind
of demon metal this is. I could experiment, try different healing spells, but it won’t be the
fastest way to help him.”
“What’s the fastest way?” Jocelyn said.
“The Praetor,” said Magnus. “The Wolf Guard. I knew the man who founded it—
Woolsey Scott. Because of certain… incidents, he was fascinated with minutiae about the
way demon metals and demon drugs act on lycanthropes, the same way the Silent
Brothers keep records of the ways Nephilim can be healed. Over the years the Praetor
have become very closed-off and secretive, unfortunately. But a member of the Praetor
could access their information.”
“Luke’s not a member,” Jocelyn said. “And their roster is secret—”
“But Jordan,” said Clary. “Jordan’s a member. He can find out. I’ll call him—”
“I’ll call him,” said Magnus. “I can’t get into Praetor headquarters, but I can pass on a
message that ought to hold some extra weight. I’ll be back.” He padded off to the
kitchen, the antennae on his slippers waving gently like seaweed in a current.
Clary turned back to her mother, who was staring down at her mug of hot water. It was
one of her favorite restoratives, though Clary could never figure out why anyone would
want to drink warm sour water. The snow had soaked her mother’s hair, and now that it
was drying, it was beginning to curl, like Clary’s did in humid weather.
“Mom,” Clary said, and her mother looked up. “That knife you threw—back at Luke’s—
was it at Jace?”
“It was at Jonathan.” She would never call him Sebastian, Clary knew.
“It’s just…” Clary took a deep breath. “It’s almost the same thing. You saw. When you
stabbed Sebastian, Jace started to bleed. It’s like they’re—mirrored in some way. Cut
Sebastian, Jace bleeds. Kill him, and Jace dies.”
“Clary.” Her mother rubbed her tired eyes. “Can we not discuss this now?”
“But you said you think he’ll come back for me. Jace, I mean. I need to know that you
won’t hurt him—”
“Well, you can’t know that. Because I won’t promise it, Clary. I can’t.” Her mother
looked at her with unflinching eyes. “I saw the two of you come out of your bedroom.”
Clary flushed. “I don’t want to—”
“To what? Talk about it? Well, too bad. You brought it up. You’re lucky I’m not in the
Clave anymore, you know. How long have you known where Jace was?”
“ I don’t know where he is. Tonight is the first time I’ve talked to him since he
disappeared. I saw him in the Institute with Seb—with Jonathan, yesterday. I told Alec
and Isabelle and Simon. But I couldn’t tell anyone else. If the Clave got hold of him—I
can’t let that happen.”
Jocelyn raised her green eyes. “And why not?”
“Because he’s Jace. Because I love him.”
“He’s not Jace. That’s just it, Clary. He’s not who he was. Can’t you see that—”
“Of course I can see it. I’m not stupid. But I have faith. I saw him possessed before,
and I saw him break free of it. I think Jace is still inside there somewhere. I think there’s
a way to save him.”
“What if there isn’t?”
“Prove it.”
“You can’t prove a negative, Clarissa. I understand that you love him. You always have
loved him, too much. You think I didn’t love your father? You think I didn’t give him every
chance? And look what came of that. Jonathan. If I hadn’t stayed with your father, he
wouldn’t exist—”
“Neither would I,” said Clary. “In case you forgot, I came after my brother, not before.”
She looked at her mother, hard. “Are you saying it would be worth it never to have had
me, if you could get rid of Jonathan?”
“No, I—”
There was the grating sound of keys in a lock, and the apartment door swung open. It
was Alec. He wore a long leather duster open over a blue sweater, and there were white
flakes of snow in his black hair. His cheeks were candy-apple red from the cold, but his
face was otherwise pale.
“Where’s Magnus?” he said. As he looked toward the kitchen, Clary saw a bruise on his
jaw, below his ear, about the size of a thumbprint.
“Alec!” Magnus came skidding into the living room and blew a kiss to his boyfriend
across the room. Having discarded his slippers, he was barefoot now. His cat’s eyes shone
as he looked at Alec.
Clary knew that look. That was herself looking at Jace. Alec didn’t return the gaze,
though. He was shucking off his coat and hanging it on a hook on the wall. He was visibly
upset. His hands were trembling, his broad shoulders tightly set.
“You got my text?” Magnus asked.
“Yeah. I was only a few blocks away anyway.” Alec looked at Clary, and then at her
mother, anxiety and uncertainty warring in his expression. Though Alec had been invited
to Jocelyn’s reception party, and had met her several times besides that, they did not by
any measure know each other well. “It’s true, what Magnus said? You saw Jace again?”
“And Sebastian,” said Clary.
“But Jace,” Alec said. “How was—I mean, how did he seem?”
Clary knew exactly what he was asking; for once she and Alec understood each other
better than anyone else in the room. “He’s not playing a trick on Sebastian,” she replied
softly. “He really has changed. He isn’t like himself at all.”
“How?” Alec demanded, with an odd blend of anger and vulnerability. “How is he
different?”
There was a hole in the knee of Clary’s jeans; she picked at it, scraping the skin
underneath. “The way he talks—he believes in Sebastian. Believes in what he’s doing,
whatever that is. I reminded him that Sebastian killed Max, and he didn’t even seem to
care.” Her voice cracked. “He said Sebastian was just as much his brother as Max was.”
Alec whitened, the red spots on his cheeks standing out like bloodstains. “Did he say
anything about me? Or Izzy? Did he ask about us?”
Clary shook her head, hardly able to stand the look on Alec’s face. Out of the corner of
her eye, she could see Magnus watching Alec too, his face almost blank with sadness. She
wondered if he was jealous of Jace still, or just hurt on Alec’s behalf.
“Why did he come to your house?” Alec shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“He wanted me to come with him. To join him and Sebastian. I guess he wants their
evil little duo to be an evil little trio.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’s lonely. Sebastian can’t
be the greatest company.”
“We don’t know that. He could be absolutely fantastic at Scrabble,” said Magnus.
“He’s a murdering psychopath,” said Alec flatly. “And Jace knows it.”
“But Jace isn’t Jace right now—,” Magnus began, and broke off as the phone rang. “I’ll
get that. Who knows who else might be on the run from the Clave and need a place to
stay? It’s not like there are hotels in this city.” He padded off toward the kitchen.
Alec flung himself down on the sofa. “He’s working too hard,” he said, looking worriedly
after his boyfriend. “He’s been up all night every night trying to decipher those runes.”
“Is the Clave employing him?” Jocelyn wanted to know.
“No,” Alec said slowly. “He’s doing it for me. Because of what Jace means to me.” He
raised his sleeve, showing Jocelyn the parabatai rune on his inner forearm.
“You knew Jace wasn’t dead,” Clary said, her mind beginning to tick over thoughts.
“Because you’re parabatai, because of that tie between you. But you said you felt
something wrong.”
“Because he’s possessed,” Jocelyn said. “It’s changed him. Valentine said that when
Luke became a Downworlder, he felt it. That sense of wrongness.”
Alec shook his head. “But when Jace was possessed by Lilith, I didn’t feel it,” he said.
“Now I can feel something… wrong. Something off.” He looked down at his shoes. “You
can feel it when your parabatai dies—like there was a cord tying you to something and it
has snapped, and now you’re falling.” He looked at Clary. “I felt it, once, in Idris, during
the battle. But it was so brief—and when I returned to Alicante, Jace was alive. I
convinced myself I had imagined it.”
Clary shook her head, thinking of Jace and the blood-soaked sand by Lake Lyn. You
didn’t.
“What I feel now is different,” he went on. “I feel like he’s absent from the world but
not dead. Not imprisoned… Just not here.”
“That’s just it,” Clary said. “Both times I’ve seen him and Sebastian, they’ve vanished
into thin air. No Portal, just one minute they were here and the next they were gone.”
“When you talk about there or here,” said Magnus, coming back into the room with a
yawn, “and this world and that world, what you’re talking about are dimensions. There
are only a few warlocks who can do dimensional magic. My old friend Ragnor could.
Dimensions don’t lie side by side—they’re folded together, like paper. Where they
intersect, dimensional pockets can be created that prevent magic from being able to find
you. After all, you’re not here—you’re there.”
“Maybe that’s why we can’t track him? Why Alec can’t feel him?” said Clary.
“Could be.” Magnus sounded almost impressed. “It would mean there’s literally no way
to find them if they don’t want to be found. And no way to get a message back to us if
y o u did find them. That’s complicated, expensive magic. Sebastian must have some
connections—” The door buzzer sounded, and they all jumped. Magnus rolled his eyes.
“Everyone calm down,” he said, and vanished into the entryway. He was back a moment
later with a man wrapped in a long parchment-colored robe, the back and sides inked
with patterns of runes in dark red-brown. Though his hood was up, shadowing his face, he
looked completely dry, as if not a flake of snow had fallen on him. When he pushed the
hood back, Clary was not at all surprised to see the face of Brother Zachariah.
Jocelyn set her mug down suddenly on the coffee table. She was looking at the Silent
Brother. With his hood pushed back, you could see his dark hair, but his face was
shadowed so that Clary could not see his eyes, only his high, rune-scarred cheekbones.
“You,” Jocelyn said, her voice trailing off. “But Magnus told me that you would never—”
Unexpected events call for unexpected measures. Brother Zachariah’s voice floated out,
touching the inside of Clary’s head; she knew from the expressions on the faces of the
others that they could hear him too. I will say nothing to the Clave or Council of anything
that transpires tonight. If the chance comes before me to save the last of the Herondale
bloodline, I consider that of higher importance than the fealty I render the Clave.
“So that’s settled,” Magnus said. He made a strange pair with the Silent Brother beside
him, one of them pale and blanched in robes, the other in bright yellow pajamas. “Any
new insight into Lilith’s runes?”
I have studied the runes carefully and listened to all the testimony given in the Council,
said Brother Zachariah. I believe that her ritual was twofold. First she used the
Daylighter’s bite to revive Jonathan Morgenstern’s consciousness. His body was still weak,
but his mind and will were alive. I believe that when Jace Herondale was left alone on
the roof with him, Jonathan drew on the power of Lilith’s runes and forced Jace to enter
the enspelled circle that surrounded him. At that point Jace’s will would have been
subject to his. I believe he would have drawn on Jace’s blood for the strength to rise and
escape the roof, taking Jace with him.
“And somehow all that created a connection between them?” Clary said. “Because
when my mother stabbed Sebastian, Jace started to bleed.”
Yes. What Lilith did was a sort of twinning ritual, not unlike our own parabatai
ceremony but much more powerful and dangerous. The two are now bound inextricably.
Should one die, the other will follow. No weapon in this world can wound only one of
them.
“When you say they’re bound inextricably,” Alec said, leaning forward, “does that mean
—I mean, Jace hates Sebastian. Sebastian murdered our brother.”
“And I don’t see how Sebastian can be all that fond of Jace, either. He was horribly
jealous of him all his life. He thought Jace was Valentine’s favorite,” added Clary.
“Not to mention,” Magnus noted, “that Jace killed him. That would put anyone off.”
“It’s like Jace doesn’t remember that any of these things happened,” Clary said in
frustration. “No, not like he doesn’t remember them—like he doesn’t believe them.”
He remembers them. But the power of the binding is such that Jace’s thoughts will pass
over and around those facts, like water passing around rocks in a riverbed. It was like the
spell that Magnus cast upon your mind, Clarissa. When you saw pieces of the Invisible
World, your mind would reject them, turn away from them. There is no point reasoning
with Jace about Jonathan. The truth cannot break their connection.
Clary thought of what had happened when she had reminded Jace that Sebastian had
killed Max, how his face had temporarily furrowed in thought, then smoothed out as if he
had forgotten what she had said as quickly as she’d said it.
Take some small comfort in the fact that Jonathan Morgenstern is as bound as your
Jace is. He cannot harm or hurt Jace, nor would he want to, Zachariah added.
Alec threw his hands up. “So they love each other now? They’re best friends?” The hurt
and jealousy was plain in his tone.
No. They are each other now. They see as the other sees. They know the other is
somehow indispensable to them. Sebastian is the leader, the primary of the two. What he
believes, Jace will believe. What he wants, Jace will do.
“So he’s possessed,” Alec said flatly.
In a possession there is often some part of the person’s original consciousness left
intact. Those who have been possessed speak of watching their own actions from the
outside, crying out but unable to be heard. But Jace is fully inhabiting his body and mind.
He believes himself sane. He believes that this is what he wants.
“So what did he want from me?” Clary demanded in a shaking voice. “Why did he come
to my room tonight?” She hoped her cheeks didn’t burn. She tried to push back the
memory of kissing him, the pressure of his body against hers in the bed.
He still loves you, said Brother Zachariah, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. You are
the central point about which his world spins. That has not changed.
“And that’s why we had to leave,” Jocelyn said tensely. “He’ll come back for her. We
couldn’t stay at the police station. I don’t know where will be safe—”
“Here,” Magnus said. “I can put up wards that will keep Jace and Sebastian out.”
Clary saw relief flood her mother’s eyes. “Thank you,” Jocelyn said.
Magnus waved an arm. “It’s a privilege. I do love fending off angry Shadowhunters,
especially of the possessed variety.”
He is not possessed, Brother Zachariah reminded them.
“Semantics,” said Magnus. “The question is, what are the two of them up to? What are
they planning?”
“Clary said that when she saw them in the library, Sebastian told Jace he’d be running
the Institute soon enough,” said Alec. “So they’re up to something.”
“Carrying on Valentine’s work, probably,” said Magnus. “Down with Downworlders, kill
all recalcitrant Shadowhunters, blah blah.”
“Maybe.” Clary wasn’t sure. “Jace said something about Sebastian serving a greater
cause.”
“The Angel only knows what that indicates,” Jocelyn said. “I was married to a zealot for
years. I know what ‘a greater cause’ means. It means torturing the innocent, brutal
murder, turning your back on your former friends, all in the name of something that you
believe is bigger than yourself but is no more than greed and childishness dressed up in
fanciful language.”
“Mom,” Clary protested, worried to hear Jocelyn sound so bitter.
But Jocelyn was looking at Brother Zachariah. “You said no weapon in this world can
wound only one of them,” she said. “No weapon you know of…”
Magnus’s eyes glowed suddenly, like a cat’s when caught in a beam of light. “You
think…”
“The Iron Sisters,” said Jocelyn. “They are the experts on weapons and weaponry. They
might perhaps have an answer.”
The Iron Sisters, Clary knew, were the sister sect to the Silent Brothers; unlike their
brethren, they did not have their mouths or eyes sewed shut but instead lived in almost
total solitude in a fortress whose location was unknown. They were not fighters—they
were creators, the hands who shaped the weapons, the steles, the seraph blades that
kept the Shadowhunters alive. There were runes only they could carve, and only they
knew the secrets of molding the silvery-white substance called adamas into demon
towers, steles, and witchlight rune-stones. Rarely seen, they did not attend Council
meetings or venture into Alicante.
It is possible, Brother Zachariah said after a long pause.
“If Sebastian could be killed—if there is a weapon that could kill him but leave Jace
alive—does that mean Jace would be free of his influence?” Clary asked.
There was an even longer pause. Then, Yes, said Brother Zachariah. That would be the
most likely outcome.
“Then, we should go to see the Sisters.” Exhaustion hung on Clary like a cloak,
weighting her eyes, souring the taste in her mouth. She rubbed her eyes, trying to scrub
it away. “Now.”
“I can’t go,” said Magnus. “Only female Shadowhunters can enter the Adamant Citadel.”
“And you’re not going,” Jocelyn said to Clary in her sternest No-you-are-not-going-outclubbing-
with-Simon-after-midnight voice. “You’re safer here, where you’re warded.”
“Isabelle,” said Alec. “Isabelle can go.”
“Do you have any idea where she is?” Clary said.
“Home, I’d imagine,” said Alec, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. “I can call her—”
“I’ll take care of it,” Magnus said, smoothly removing his cell phone from his pocket and
punching in a text with the skill of the long-practiced. “It’s late, and we don’t need to
wake her up. Everyone needs rest. If I’m to send any of you through to the Iron Sisters, it
will be tomorrow.”
“I’ll go with Isabelle,” Jocelyn said. “No one’s looking for me specifically, and it’s better
that she not go alone. Even if I’m not technically a Shadowhunter, I was once. It’s only
required that one of us be in good standing.”
“This isn’t fair,” Clary said.
Her mother didn’t even look at her. “Clary…”
Clary rose to her feet. “I’ve been practically a prisoner for the past two weeks,” she
said in a shaking voice. “The Clave wouldn’t let me look for Jace. And now that he came
to me—to me—you won’t even let me come with you to the Iron Sisters—”
“It isn’t safe. Jace is probably tracking you—”
Clary lost it. “Every time you try to keep me safe, you wreck my life!”
“No, the more involved you get with Jace the more you wreck your life!” her mother
snapped back. “Every risk you’ve taken, every danger you’ve been in, is because of him!
He held a knife to your throat, Clarissa—”
“That wasn’t him,” Clary said in the softest, deadliest voice she could imagine. “Do you
think I’d stay for one second with a boy who threatened me with a knife, even if I loved
him? Maybe you’ve been living too long in the mundane world, Mom, but there is magic.
The person who hurt me wasn’t Jace. It was a demon wearing his face. And the person
we’re looking for now isn’t Jace. But if he dies…”
“There’s no chance of getting Jace back,” said Alec.
“There may already be no chance,” said Jocelyn. “God, Clary, look at the evidence. You
thought you and Jace were brother and sister! You sacrificed everything to save his life,
and a Greater Demon used him to get to you! When are you going to face the fact that
the two of you are not meant to be together?”
Clary jerked back as if her mother had hit her. Brother Zachariah stood as still as a
statue, as if no one were shouting at all. Magnus and Alec were staring; Jocelyn was redcheeked,
her eyes glittering with anger. Not trusting herself to speak, Clary spun on her
heel, stalked down the hallway to Magnus’s spare bedroom, and slammed the door
behind her.
“All right, I’m here,” Simon said. A cold wind was blowing across the flat expanse of the
roof garden, and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He didn’t really feel
the cold, but he felt like he ought to. He raised his voice. “I showed up. Where are you?”
The roof garden of the Greenwich Hotel—now closed, and therefore empty of people—
was done up like an English garden, with carefully shaped dwarf box trees, elegantly
scattered wicker and glass furniture, and Lillet umbrellas that flapped in the stiff wind.
The trellises of climbing roses, bare in the cold, spider-webbed the stone walls that
surrounded the roof, above which Simon could see a gleaming view of downtown New
York. “I am here,” said a voice, and a slender shadow detached itself from a wicker
armchair and rose. “I had begun to wonder if you were coming, Daylighter.”
“Raphael,” Simon said in a resigned voice. He walked forward, across the hardwood
planks that wound between the flower borders and artificial pools lined with shining
quartz. “I was wondering myself.”
As he came closer, he could see Raphael clearly. Simon had excellent night vision, and
only Raphael’s skill at blending with the shadows had kept him hidden before. The other
vampire was wearing a black suit, turned up at the cuffs to show the gleam of cuff links in
the shape of chains. He still had the face of a little boy angel, though his gaze as he
regarded Simon was cold. “When the head of the Manhattan vampire clan calls you,
Lewis, you come.”
“And what would you do if I didn’t? Stake me?” Simon spread his arms wide. “Take a
shot. Do whatever you want to me. Go nuts.”
“Dios, but you are boring,” said Raphael. Behind him, by the wall, Simon could see the
chrome gleam of the vampire motorcycle he’d ridden to get here.
Simon lowered his arms. “You’re the one who asked me to meet you.”
“I have a job offer for you,” said Raphael.
“Seriously? You short-staffed at the hotel?”
“I need a bodyguard.”
Simon eyed him. “Have you been watching The Bodyguard? Because I am not going to
fall in love with you and carry you around in my burly arms.”
Raphael looked at him sourly. “I would pay you extra money to remain entirely silent
while you worked.”
Simon stared at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I would not bother coming to see you if I were not serious. If I were in a joking mood,
I would spend that time with someone I liked.” Raphael sat back down in the armchair.
“Camille Belcourt is free in the city of New York. The Shadowhunters are entirely caught
up with this stupid business with Valentine’s son and will not be bothered to track her
down. She represents an immediate danger to me, for she wishes to reassert her control
of the Manhattan clan. Most are loyal to me. Killing me would be the fastest way for her
to put herself back at the top of the hierarchy.”
“Okay,” Simon said slowly. “But why me?”
“You are a Daylighter. Others can protect me during the night, but you can protect me
in the day, when most of our kind are helpless. And you carry the Mark of Cain. With you
between me and her, she would not dare to strike at me.”
“That’s all true, but I’m not doing it.”
Raphael looked incredulous. “Why not?”
The words exploded out of Simon. “Are you kidding? Because you have never done one
single thing for me in the entire time since I became a vampire. Instead you have done
your level best to make my life miserable and then end it. So—if you want it in vampire
language—it affords me great pleasure, my liege, to say to you now: Hell, no.”
“It is not wise for you to make an enemy of me, Daylighter. As friends—”
Simon laughed incredulously. “Wait a second. Were we friends? That was friends?”
Raphael’s fang teeth snapped out. He was very angry indeed, Simon realized. “I know
why you refuse me, Daylighter, and it is not out of some pretended sense of rejection.
You are so involved with the Shadowhunters, you think you are one of them. We have
seen you with them. Instead of spending your nights in the hunt, as you should, you
spend them with Valentine’s daughter. You live with a werewolf. You are a disgrace.”
“Do you act like this with every job interview?”
Raphael bared his teeth. “You must decide if you are a vampire or a Shadowhunter,
Daylighter.”
“I’ll take Shadowhunter, then. Because from what I’ve experienced of vampires, you
mostly suck. No pun intended.”
Raphael stood up. “You are making a grave mistake.”
“I already told you—”
The other vampire waved a hand, cutting him off. “There is a great darkness coming. It
will sweep the Earth with fire and shadow, and when it is gone, there will be no more of
your precious Shadowhunters. We, the Night Children, will survive it, for we live in
darkness. But if you persist in denying what you are, you too will be destroyed, and none
shall lift a hand to help you.”
Without thinking, Simon raised his hand to touch the Mark on his forehead.
Raphael laughed soundlessly. “Ah, yes, the Angel’s brand upon you. In the time of
darkness even the angels will be destroyed. Their strength will not aid you. And you had
better pray, Daylighter, that you do not lose that Mark before the war comes. For if you
do, there will be a line of enemies waiting their turn to kill you. And I will be at the head
of it.”
Clary had been lying on her back on Magnus’s sofa bed for a long time. She had heard her
mother come down the hall and go into one of the other spare bedroom, shutting the
door behind her. Through her own door she could hear Magnus and Alec talking in low
voices in the living room. She supposed she could wait for them to go to sleep, but Alec
had said Magnus had been up until all hours lately studying the runes; even though
Brother Zachariah appeared to have interpreted them, she couldn’t trust that Alec and
Magnus would retire soon.
She sat up on the bed next to Chairman Meow, who made a fuzzy noise of protest, and
rummaged in her backpack. She drew out of it a clear plastic box and flipped it open.
There were her Prismacolor pencils, some stumps of chalk—and her stele.
She stood up, slipping the stele into her jacket pocket. Taking her phone off the desk,
she texted MEET ME AT TAKI ’S. She watched as the message went through, then tucked the
phone into her jeans and took a deep breath.
This wasn’t fair to Magnus, she knew. He’d promised her mother he’d look after her,
and that didn’t include her sneaking out of his apartment. But she had kept her mouth
shut. She hadn’t promised anything. And besides, it was Jace.
You would do anything to save him, whatever it cost you, whatever you might owe to
Hell or Heaven, would you not?
She took out her stele, set the tip to the orange paint of the wall, and began to draw a
Portal.
The sharp banging noise woke Jordan out of a sound sleep. He bolted upright instantly
and rolled out of bed to land in a crouch on the floor. Years of training with the Praetor
had left him with fast reflexes and a permanent habit of sleeping lightly. A quick sightscent
scan told him the room was empty—just moonlight pooling on the floor at his feet.
The banging came again, and this time he recognized it. It was the sound of someone
pounding on the front door. He usually slept in just his boxer shorts; yanking on jeans and
a T-shirt, he kicked the door of his room open and strode out into the hallway. If this was
a bunch of drunk college kids amusing themselves by knocking on all the doors in the
building, they were about to get a faceful of angry werewolf.
He reached the door—and paused. The image came to him again, as it had in the hours
it had taken him to fall asleep, of Maia running away from him at the navy yard. The look
on her face when she’d pulled away from him. He’d pushed her too far, he knew, asked
for too much, too fast. Blown it completely, probably. Unless—maybe she’d reconsidered.
There had been a time when their relationship had been all passionate fights and equally
passionate make-up sessions.
His heart pounding, he threw the door open. And blinked. On the doorstep stood
Isabelle Lightwood, her long black glossy hair falling almost to her waist. She wore black
suede knee-high boots, tight jeans, and a red silky top with her familiar red pendant
around her throat, glittering darkly.
“Isabelle?” He couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice, or, he suspected, the
disappointment.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t looking for you, either,” she said, pushing past him into the
apartment. She smelled of Shadowhunter—a smell like sun-warmed glass—and
underneath that, a rosy perfume. “I was looking for Simon.”
Jordan squinted at her. “It’s two in the morning.”
She shrugged. “He’s a vampire.”
“But I’m not.”
“Ohhhhh?” Her red lips curled up at the corners. “Did I wake you up?” She reached out
and flicked the top button on his jeans, the tip of her fingernail scraping across his flat
stomach. He felt his muscles jump. Izzy was gorgeous, there was no denying that. She
was also a little terrifying. He wondered how unassuming Simon managed to handle her
at all. “You might want to button these all the way up. Nice boxers, by the by.” She
moved past him, toward Simon’s bedroom. Jordan followed, buttoning his jeans and
muttering about how there was nothing strange about having a pattern of dancing
penguins on your underwear.
Isabelle ducked her head into Simon’s room. “He’s not here.” She slammed the door
behind her and leaned back against the wall, looking at Jordan. “You did say it was two in
the morning?”
“Yeah. He’s probably at Clary’s. He’s been sleeping there a lot lately.”
Isabelle bit her lip. “Right. Of course.”
Jordan was beginning to get that feeling he got sometimes, that he was saying
something unfortunate, without knowing exactly what that thing was. “Is there a reason
you came over here? I mean, did something happen? Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” Isabelle threw up her hands. “You mean other than the fact that my brother
has disappeared and has probably been brainwashed by the evil demon who murdered
my other brother, and my parents are getting divorced and Simon is off with Clary—”
She stopped abruptly and stalked past him into the living room. He hurried after her. By
the time he caught up, she was in the kitchen, rifling through the pantry shelves. “Do you
have anything to drink? A nice Barolo? Sagrantino?”
Jordan took her by the shoulders and moved her gently out of the kitchen. “Sit,” he
said. “I’ll get you some tequila.”
“Tequila?”
“Tequila’s what we have. That and cough syrup.”
Sitting down at one of the stools that lined the kitchen counter, she waved a hand at
him. He would have expected her to have long red or pink fingernails, buffed to
perfection, to match the rest of her, but no—she was a Shadowhunter. Her hands were
scarred, the nails squared off and filed down. The Voyance rune shone blackly on her
right hand. “Fine.”
Jordan grabbed the bottle of Cuervo, uncapped it, and poured her a shot. He pushed
the glass across the counter. She downed it instantly, frowned, and slammed the glass
down.
“Not enough,” she said, reached across the counter, and took the bottle out of his
hand. She tilted her head back and swallowed once, twice, three times. When she set the
bottle back down, her cheeks were flushed.
“Where’d you learn to drink like that?” He wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or
frightened.
“The drinking age in Idris is fifteen. Not that anyone pays attention. I’ve been drinking
wine mixed with water along with my parents since I was a kid.” Isabelle shrugged. The
gesture lacked a little of her usual fluid coordination.
“Okay. Well, is there a message you want me to give Simon, or anything I can say or—”
“No.” She took another swig out of the bottle. “I got all liquored up and came over to
talk to him, and of course he’s at Clary’s. Figures.”
“I thought you were the one who told him he ought to go over there in the first place.”
“Yeah.” Isabelle fiddled with the label on the tequila bottle. “I did.”
“So,” Jordan said, in what he thought was a reasonable tone. “Tell him to stop.”
“I can’t do that.” She sounded exhausted. “I owe her.”
Jordan leaned on the counter. He felt a little like a bartender in a TV show, dispensing
sage advice. “What do you owe her?”
“Life,” Isabelle said.
Jordan blinked. This was a little beyond his bartending and advice-offering skills. “She
saved your life?”
“She saved Jace’s life. She could have had anything from the Angel Raziel, and she
saved my brother. I’ve only ever trusted a few people in my life. Really trusted. My
mother, Alec, Jace, and Max. I lost one of them already. Clary’s the only reason I didn’t
lose another.”
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to really trust someone you aren’t related to?”
“I’m not related to Jace. Not really.” Isabelle avoided his gaze.
“You know what I mean,” said Jordan, with a meaningful glance at Simon’s room.
Izzy frowned. “Shadowhunters live by an honor code, werewolf,” she said, and for a
moment she was all arrogant Nephilim, and Jordan remembered why so many
Downworlders disliked them. “Clary saved a Lightwood. I owe her my life. If I can’t give
her that—and I don’t see how she has any use for it—I can give her whatever will make
her less unhappy.”
“You can’t give her Simon. Simon’s a person, Isabelle. He goes where he wants.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, he doesn’t seem to mind going where she is, does he?”
Jordan hesitated. There was something about what Isabelle was saying that seemed
off, but she wasn’t completely wrong either. Simon had with Clary an ease that he never
seemed to show with anyone else. Having been in love with only one girl in his life, and
having stayed in love with her, Jordan didn’t feel he was qualified to hand out advice on
that front—though he remembered Simon warning him, with wryness, that Clary had “the
nuclear bomb of boyfriends.” Whether there had been jealousy under that wryness,
Jordan wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure whether you could ever completely forget the first girl
you loved either. Especially when she was right there in front of you, every day.
Isabelle snapped her fingers. “Hey, you. Are you even paying attention?” She tilted her
head to the side, blowing dark strands of hair out of her face, and looked at him hard.
“What’s going on with you and Maia, anyway?”
“Nothing.” The single word held volumes. “I’m not sure she’s ever going to stop hating
me.”
“She might not, at that,” Isabelle said. “She’s got good reason.”
“Thanks.”
“I don’t do false reassurances,” Izzy said, and pushed the tequila bottle away from her.
Her eyes, on Jordan, were lively and dark. “Come here, werewolf boy.”
She’d dropped her voice. It was soft, seductive. Jordan swallowed against a suddenly
dry throat. He remembered seeing Isabelle in her red dress outside the Ironworks and
thinking, That’s the girl Simon was messing around on Maia with? Neither of them was
the sort of girl who gave the impression you could cheat on her and survive it.
And neither one of them was the sort of girl you said no to. Warily he moved around
the counter toward Isabelle. He was a few steps away when she reached out and pulled
him toward her by the wrists. Her hands slid up his arms, over the swell of his biceps, the
muscles of his shoulders. His heartbeat quickened. He could feel the warmth coming off
her and could smell her perfume and sweet tequila. “You’re gorgeous,” she said. Her
hands slid around to flatten themselves against his chest. “You know that, right?”
Jordan wondered if she could feel his heart beating through his shirt. He knew the way
girls looked at him on the street—boys, too, sometimes—knew what he saw in the mirror
every day, but he never thought about it much. He had been so focused on Maia for so
long that it never seemed to matter beyond whether she would still find him attractive if
they ever saw each other again. He’d been chatted up plenty, but not often by girls who
looked like Isabelle, and never by anyone so blunt. He wondered if she was going to kiss
him. He hadn’t kissed anyone but Maia since he was fifteen. But Isabelle was looking up
at him, and her eyes were big and dark, and her lips were slightly parted and the color of
strawberries. He wondered if they would taste like strawberries if he kissed her.
“And I just don’t care,” she said.
“Isabelle, I don’t think—Wait. What?”
“I should care,” she said. “I mean, there’s Maia to think about, so I probably wouldn’t
just rip your clothes off blithely anyway, but the thing is, I don’t want to. Normally I would
want to.”
“Ah,” Jordan said. He felt relief, and also the tiniest twinge of disappointment. “Well…
that’s good?”
“I think about him all the time,” she said. “It’s awful. Nothing like this has ever
happened to me before.”
“You mean Simon?”
“Scrawny little mundane bastard,” she said, and took her hands off Jordan’s chest.
“Except he isn’t. Scrawny, anymore. Or a mundane. And I like spending time with him. He
makes me laugh. And I like the way he smiles. You know, one side of his mouth goes up
before the other one—Well, you live with him. You must have noticed.”
“Not really,” said Jordan.
“I miss him when he’s not around,” Isabelle confessed. “I thought… I don’t know, after
what happened that night with Lilith, things changed between us. But now he’s with Clary
all the time. And I can’t even be angry with her.”
“You lost your brother.”
Isabelle looked up at him. “What?”
“Well, he’s knocking himself out to make Clary feel better because she lost Jace,” said
Jordan. “But Jace is your brother. Shouldn’t Simon be knocking himself out to make you
feel better too? Maybe you’re not mad at her, but you could be mad at him.”
Isabelle looked at him for a long moment. “But we’re not anything,” she said. “He’s not
my boyfriend. I just like him.” She frowned. “Crap. I can’t believe I said that. I must be
drunker than I thought.”
“I kind of figured it out from what you were saying before.” He smiled at her.
She didn’t smile back, but she lowered her lashes and looked up at him through them.
“You’re not so bad,” she said. “If you want, I can say nice things to Maia about you.”
“No, thanks,” said Jordan, who wasn’t sure what Izzy’s version of nice things was, and
feared finding out. “You know, it’s normal, when you’re going through a tough time, to
want to be with the person you—” He was about to say “love,” realized she had never
used the word, and switched gears. “Care about. But I don’t think Simon knows you feel
that way about him.”
Her lashes fluttered back up. “Does he ever say anything about me?”
“He thinks you’re really strong,” Jordan said. “And that you don’t need him at all. I think
he feels… superfluous to your life. Like, what can he give you when you’re already
perfect? Why would you want a guy like him?” Jordan blinked; he hadn’t meant to run on
like that, and he wasn’t sure how much of what he’d said applied to Simon, and how
much to himself and Maia.
“So you mean I should tell him how I feel?” said Isabelle in a small voice.
“Yes. Definitely. Tell him how you feel.”
“Okay.” She grabbed for the tequila bottle and took a swig. “I’ll go over to Clary’s right
now and I’ll tell him.”
A small flower of alarm blossomed in his chest. “You can’t. It’s practically three in the
morning—”
“If I wait, I’ll lose my nerve,” she said, in that reasonable tone that only very drunk
people ever employed. She took another swig out of the bottle. “I’ll just go over there,
and I’ll knock on the window, and I’ll tell him how I feel.”
“Do you even know which window is Clary’s?”
She squinted. “Nooo.”
The horrible vision of a drunk Isabelle waking up Jocelyn and Luke floated through
Jordan’s head. “Isabelle, no.” He reached up to take the tequila bottle from her, and she
jerked it away from him.
“I think I’m changing my mind about you,” she said in a semi-threatening tone that
would have been more frightening if she’d been able to focus her eyes on him directly. “I
don’t think I like you so much after all.” She stood up, looked down at her feet with a
surprised expression—and fell over backward. Only Jordan’s quick reflexes allowed him to
catch her before she hit the floor.
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