City of Lost Souls - Chapter 20

Clary screamed aloud in pure frustration as the shard of glass embedded itself in the
wooden floor, inches from Sebastian’s throat.
She felt him laugh underneath her. “You can’t do it,” he said. “You can’t kill me.”
“To hell with you,” she snarled. “I can’t kill Jace.”
“Same thing,” he said, and, sitting up so fast she barely saw him move, he belted her
across the face with enough force to send her skidding across the glass-strewn floor. Her
slide was arrested when she hit the wall, gagged, and coughed blood. She buried her
head against her forearm, the taste and smell of her own blood everywhere, sickening
and metallic. A moment later Sebastian’s hand was fisted in her jacket and he was
hauling her to her feet.
She didn’t fight him. What was the point? Why fight someone when they were willing to
kill you and they knew you weren’t willing to kill, or even seriously wound, them? They’d
always win. She stood still as he examined her. “Could be worse,” he said. “Looks like the
jacket kept you from any real damage.”
Real damage? Her body felt like it had been sliced all over with thin knives. She glared
at him through her eyelashes as he swung her up into his arms. It was like it had been in
Paris, when he’d carried her away from the Dahak demons, but then she had been—if not
grateful, at least confused, and now she was filled with a boiling hatred. She kept her
body tense while he carried her upstairs, his boots ringing on the glass. She was trying to
forget she was touching him, that his arm was under her thighs, his hands possessive on
her back.
I will kill him, she thought. I will find a way, and I will kill him.
He walked into Jace’s room and dumped her onto the floor. She staggered back a step.
He caught her and ripped the jacket off her. Underneath she was wearing only a T-shirt.
It was shredded as if she’d run a cheese grater over it, and stained everywhere with
blood.
Sebastian whistled.
“You’re a mess, little sister,” he said. “Better get in the bathroom and wash some of
that blood off.”
“No,” she said. “Let them see me like this. Let them see what you had to do to get me
to come with you.”
His hand shot out and grabbed her under the chin, forcing her face up to his. Their
faces were inches apart. She wanted to close her eyes but refused to give him the
satisfaction; she stared back at him, at the loops of silver in his black eyes, the blood on
his lip where she’d bitten him. “You belong to me,” he said again. “And I will have you by
my side, however I have to force you to be there.”
“Why?” she demanded, rage as bitter on her tongue as the taste of blood. “What do
you care? I know you can’t kill Jace, but you could kill me. Why don’t you just do it?”
Just for a moment, his eyes went distant, glassy, as if he were seeing something
invisible to her. “This world will be consumed by hellfire,” he said. “But I will bring you
and Jace safely through the flames if you only do what I ask. It is a grace I extend to no
one else. Do you not see how foolish you are to reject it?”
“Jonathan,” she said. “Don’t you see how impossible it is to ask me to fight by your side
when you want to burn down the world?”
His eyes refocused on her face. “But why?” It was almost plaintive. “Why is this world
so precious to you? You know that there are others.” His own blood was very red against
his stark white skin. “Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me and will fight with me.”
“I’ll never love you. You were wrong when you said we have the same blood. Your
blood is poison. Demon poison.” She spat the last words.
He only smiled, his eyes glowing darkly. She felt something burn on her upper arm, and
she jumped before she realized it was a stele; he was tracing an iratze on her skin. She
hated him even as the pain faded. His bracelet clanked on his wrist as he moved his hand
skillfully, completing the rune.
“I knew you lied,” she said to him suddenly.
“I tell so many lies, sweetheart,” he said. “Which one specifically?”
“Your bracelet,” she said. “‘ Acheronta movebo.’ It doesn’t mean ‘Thus always to
tyrants.’ That’s ‘ sic semper tyrannis.’ This is from Virgil. ‘Flectere si nequeo superos,
Acheronta movebo.’ ‘If I cannot move Heaven, I will raise Hell.’”
“Your Latin’s better that I thought.”
“I learn fast.”
“Not fast enough.” He released his grip on her chin. “Now get into the bathroom and
clean yourself up,” he said, shoving her backward. He grabbed her mother’s ceremonial
dress off the bed and dumped it into her arms. “Time grows short, and my patience wears
thin. If you’re not out in ten minutes, I’ll come in after you. And trust me, you won’t like
that.”
“I’m starving,” Maia said. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.” She pulled the refrigerator
door open and peered in. “Oh, yuck.”
Jordan pulled her back, wrapping his arms around her, and nuzzled the back of her
neck. “We can order food. Pizza, Thai, Mexican, whatever you want. As long as it doesn’t
cost more than twenty-five dollars.”
She turned around in his arms, laughing. She was wearing one of his shirts; it was a
little too big on him, and on her it hung nearly to her knees. Her hair was pulled up in a
knot at the back of her neck. “Big spender,” she said.
“For you, anything.” He lifted her up by the waist and set her on one of the counter
stools. “You can have a taco.” He kissed her. His lips were sweet, slightly minty from
toothpaste. She felt the buzz in her body that came from touching him, that started at the
base of her spine and shot through all her nerves.
She giggled against his mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck. A sharp ringing cut
through the humming in her blood as Jordan pulled away, frowning. “My phone.” Hanging
on to her with one hand, he fumbled behind himself on the counter until he found it. It
had stopped ringing, but he lifted it anyway, frowning. “It’s the Praetor.”
The Praetor never called, or at least rarely. Only when something was of deadly
importance. Maia sighed and leaned back. “Take it.”
He nodded, already lifting the phone to his ear. His voice was a soft murmur in the
back of her consciousness as she jumped down from the counter and went to the
refrigerator, where the take-out menus were pinned. She riffled through them until she
found the menu for the local Thai place she liked, and turned around with it in her hand.
Jordan was now standing in the middle of the living room, white-faced, with his phone
forgotten in his hand. Maia could hear a tinny, distant voice coming from it, saying his
name.
Maia dropped the menu and hurried across the room to him. She took the phone out of
his hand, disconnected the call, and set it on the counter. “Jordan? What happened?”
“My roommate—Nick—you remember?” he said, disbelief in his hazel eyes. “You never
met him but—”
“I saw the photos of him,” she said. “Has something happened?”
“He’s dead.”
“How?”
“Throat torn out, all his blood gone. They think he tracked his assignment down and
she killed him.”
“Maureen?” Maia was shocked. “But she was just a little girl.”
“She’s a vampire now.” He took a ragged breath. “Maia…”
She stared at him. His eyes were glassy, his hair tousled. A sudden panic rose inside
her. Kissing and cuddling and even sex were one thing. Comforting someone when they
were stricken with loss was something else. It meant commitment. It meant caring. It
meant you wanted to ease their pain, and at the same time you were thanking God that
whatever the bad thing was that had happened, it hadn’t happened to them.
“Jordan,” she said softly, and reaching up on her toes, she put her arms around him.
“I’m sorry.”
Jordan’s heart beat hard against hers. “Nick was only seventeen.”
“He was a Praetor, like you,” she said softly. “He knew it was dangerous. You’re only
eighteen.” He tightened his grip on her but said nothing. “Jordan,” she said. “I love you. I
love you and I’m sorry.”
She felt him freeze. It was the first time she’d said the words since a few weeks before
she’d been bitten. He seemed to be holding his breath. Finally he let it out with a gasp.
“Maia,” he croaked. And then, unbelievably, before he could say another word—her
phone rang.
“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll ignore it.”
He let her go, his face soft, bemused with grief and amazement. “No,” he said. “No, it
could be important. You go ahead.”
She sighed and went to the counter. It had stopped ringing by the time she reached it,
but there was a text message blinking on the screen. She felt her stomach muscles
tighten.
“What is it?” Jordan asked, as if he had sensed her sudden tension. Maybe he had.
“A 911. An emergency.” She turned to him, holding the phone. “A call to battle. It went
out to everyone in the pack. From Luke—and Magnus. We have to leave right away.”
Clary sat on the floor of Jace’s bathroom, her back against the tile of the tub, her legs
stretched out in front of her. She had cleaned the blood from her face and body, and
rinsed her bloody hair in the sink. She was wearing her mother’s ceremonial dress, rucked
up to her thighs, and the tiled floor was cold against her bare feet and calves.
She looked down at her hands. They ought to look different, she thought. But they
were the same hands she’d always had, thin fingers, squared-off nails—you didn’t want
long nails when you were an artist—and freckles on the backs of the knuckles. Her face
looked the same too. All of her seemed the same, but she wasn’t. These past few days
had changed her in ways she couldn’t quite yet fully comprehend.
She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. She was pale, between the flame
colors of her hair and the dress. Bruises decorated her shoulders and throat.
“Admiring yourself?” She hadn’t heard Sebastian open the door, but there he was,
smirking intolerably as always, propped against the frame of the doorway. He was
wearing a kind of gear she had never seen before: the usual tough material, but in a
scarlet color like fresh blood. He had also added an accessory to his outfit—a recurved
crossbow. He held it casually in one hand, though it must have been heavy. “You look
lovely, sister. A fitting companion for me.”
She bit back her words with the taste of blood that still lingered in her mouth, and
walked toward him. He caught at her arm as she tried to squeeze past him in the
doorway. His hand ran over her bare shoulder. “Good,” he said. “You’re not Marked here.
I hate it when women ruin their skin with scars. Keep the Marks on your arms and legs.”
“I’d rather you didn’t touch me.”
He snorted, and swung the crossbow up. A bolt was fitted to it, ready to fire. “Walk,” he
said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
It took every ounce of effort she had not to flinch away from him. She turned and
walked toward the door, feeling a burning between her shoulder blades where she
imagined the arrow of the crossbow was trained. They moved like that down the glass
stairs and through the kitchen and living room. He grunted at the sight of Clary’s scrawled
rune on the wall, reached around her, and under his hand a doorway appeared. The door
itself swung open onto a square of darkness.
The crossbow jabbed Clary hard in the back. “Move.”
Taking a deep breath, she stepped out into the shadows.
Alec slammed his hand against the button in the small cage elevator, and slumped back
against the wall. “How much time do we have?”
Isabelle checked the glowing screen of her mobile phone. “About forty minutes.”
The elevator lurched upward. Isabelle cast a covert glance at her brother. He looked
tired—dark circles were under his eyes. Despite his height and strength, Alec, with his
blue eyes and soft black hair almost to his collar, looked more delicate than he was. “I’m
fine,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “You’re the one who’s going to be in
trouble for staying away from home. I’m over eighteen. I can do what I want.”
“I texted Mom every night and told her I was with you and Magnus,” Isabelle said as
the elevator came to a stop. “It’s not like she didn’t know where I was. And speaking of
Magnus…”
Alec reached across her and pulled the elevator’s inside cage door open. “What?”
“Are you two okay? I mean, getting along all right?”
Alec shot her an incredulous look as he stepped out into the entryway. “Everything’s
going to hell in a handbasket, and you want to know about my relationship with Magnus?”
“I’ve always wondered about that expression,” Isabelle said thoughtfully as she hurried
after her brother down the hallway. Alec had long, long legs and, though she was fast, it
was hard to keep up with him when he wanted it to be. “Why a handbasket? What is a
handbasket, and why is it a particularly good form of transportation?”
Alec, who had been Jace’s parabatai long enough to have learned to ignore
conversational tangents, said, “Magnus and I are okay, I guess.”
“Uh-oh,” Isabelle said. “Okay, you guess? I know what it means when you say that.
What happened? Did you have a fight?”
Alec was tapping his fingers against the wall as they raced along, a sure sign that he
was uncomfortable. “Quit trying to meddle around in my love life, Iz. What about you?
Why aren’t you and Simon a couple? You obviously like him.”
Isabelle let out a squawk. “I am not obvious.”
“You are, actually,” Alec said, sounding as if it surprised him, too, now that he thought
about it. “Gazing at him all moony-eyed. The way you freaked out at the lake when the
Angel appeared—”
“I thought Simon was dead!”
“What, more dead?” said Alec unkindly. Seeing the expression on his sister’s face, he
shrugged. “Look, if you like him, fine. I just don’t see why you’re not dating.”
“Because he doesn’t like me.”
“Of course he does. Guys always like you.”
“Forgive me if I think your opinion is biased.”
“Isabelle,” Alec said, and now there was kindness in his voice, the tone she associated
with her brother—love and exasperation mixed together. “You know you’re gorgeous.
Guys have chased you since… forever. Why would Simon be different?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But he is. I figure the ball is in his court. He knows how I
feel. But I don’t think he’s rushing to do anything about it.”
“To be fair, it’s not like he doesn’t have anything else going on.”
“I know, but—he’s always been like this. Clary—”
“You think he’s still in love with Clary?”
Isabelle chewed her lip. “I—not exactly. I think she’s the one thing he still has from his
human life, and he can’t let her go. And as long as he doesn’t let her go, I don’t know if
there’s room for me.”
They had almost reached the library. Alec looked sideways at Isabelle through his
lashes. “But if they’re just friends—”
“Alec.” She held up her hand, indicating that he should be quiet. Voices were coming
from the library, the first one strident and immediately recognizable as their mother’s:
“What do you mean she’s missing?”
“No one’s seen her in two days,” said another voice—soft, female, and slightly
apologetic. “She lives alone, so people weren’t sure—but we thought, since you know her
brother—”
Without a pause Alec straight-armed the door of the library open. Isabelle ducked past
him to see her mother sitting behind the massive mahogany desk in the center of the
room. In front of her stood two familiar figures: Aline Penhallow, dressed in gear, and
beside her Helen Blackthorn, her curly hair in disarray. Both of them turned, looking
surprised, as the door opened. Helen, beneath her freckles, was pale; she was also in
gear, which drained the color out of her skin even more.
“Isabelle,” said Maryse, rising to her feet. “Alexander. What’s happened?”
Aline reached for Helen’s hand. Silver rings flashed on both their fingers. The Penhallow
ring, with its design of mountains, glinted on Helen’s finger, while the intertwined thorn
pattern of the Blackthorn family ring adorned Aline’s. Isabelle felt her eyebrows go up;
exchanging family rings was serious business. “If we’re intruding, we can go—” Aline
began.
“No, stay,” said Izzy, striding forward. “We might need you.”
Maryse settled back into her chair. “So,” she said. “My children grace me with their
presence. Where have you two been?”
“I told you,” Isabelle said. “We were at Magnus’s.”
“Why?” Maryse demanded. “And I’m not asking you, Alexander. I’m asking my
daughter.”
“Because the Clave stopped looking for Jace,” said Isabelle. “But we didn’t.”
“And Magnus was willing to help,” Alec added. “He’s been up all these nights, searching
through spell books, trying to figure out where Jace might be. He even raised the—”
“No.” Maryse put up a hand to silence him. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” The
black phone on her desk started to ring. They all stared at it. A black phone call was a call
from Idris. No one moved to answer it, and in a moment it was silent. “Why are you
here?” Maryse demanded, turning her attention back to her offspring.
“We were looking for Jace—,” Isabelle began again.
“It’s the Clave’s job to do that,” Maryse snapped. She looked tired, Isabelle noticed, the
skin stretched thin under her eyes. Lines at the corners of her mouth drew her lips into a
frown. She was thin enough that the bones of her wrists seemed to protrude. “Not yours.”
Alec slammed his hand down on the desk, hard enough to make the drawers rattle.
“Would you listen to us? The Clave didn’t find Jace, but we did. And Sebastian right along
with him. And now we know what they’re planning, and we have”—he glanced at the
clock on the wall—“barely any time to stop them. Are you going to help or not?”
The black phone rang again. Again Maryse didn’t even move to answer it. She was
looking at Alec, her face white with shock. “You did what?”
“We know where Jace is, Mom,” said Isabelle. “Or at least, where he’s going to be. And
what he’s going to do. We know Sebastian’s plan, and he has to be stopped. Oh, and we
know how we can kill Sebastian but not Jace—”
“Stop.” Maryse shook her head. “Alexander, explain. Concisely, and without hysteria.
Thank you.”
Alec launched into the story—leaving out, Isabelle thought, all the good parts, which
was how he managed to summarize things so neatly. As abbreviated as his rendition was,
both Aline and Helen were gaping by the end of it. Maryse stood very still, her features
immobile. When Alec was done, she said in a hushed voice:
“Why have you done these things?”
Alec looked taken aback.
“For Jace,” Isabelle said. “To get him back.”
“You realize that by putting me in this position, you give me no choice but to notify the
Clave,” said Maryse, her hand resting on the black phone. “I wish you hadn’t come here.”
Isabelle’s mouth went dry. “Are you seriously mad at us for finally telling you what’s
going on?”
“If I notify the Clave, they will send all their reinforcements. Jia will have no choice but
to give them instructions to kill Jace on sight. Do you have any idea how many
Shadowhunters Valentine’s son has following him?
Alec shook his head. “Maybe forty, it sounds like.”
“Say we brought twice as many as that. We could be fairly confident of defeating his
forces, but what kind of chance would Jace have? There’s almost no certainty he’d make
it through alive. They’ll kill him just to be sure.”
“Then, we can’t tell them,” said Isabelle. “We’ll go ourselves. We’ll do this without the
Clave.”
But Maryse, looking at her, was shaking her head. “The Law says we have to tell
them.”
“I don’t care about the Law—,” Isabelle began angrily. She caught sight of Aline looking
at her, and slammed her mouth shut.
“Don’t worry,” Aline said. “I’m not going to say anything to my mother. I owe you guys.
Especially you, Isabelle.” She tightened her jaw, and Isabelle remembered the darkness
under a bridge in Idris, and her whip tearing into a demon, its claws locked onto Aline.
“And besides, Sebastian killed my cousin. The real Sebastian Verlac. I have my own
reasons to hate him, you know.”
“Regardless,” said Maryse. “If we do not tell them, we will be breaking the Law. We
could be sanctioned, or worse.”
“Worse?” said Alec. “What are we talking about here? Exile?”
“I don’t know, Alexander,” said his mother. “It would be up to Jia Penhallow, and
whoever wins the Inquisitor’s position, to decide our punishment.”
“Maybe it’ll be Dad,” muttered Izzy. “Maybe he’ll go easy on us.”
“If we fail to notify them of this situation, Isabelle, there is no chance your father will
make Inquisitor. None,” said Maryse.
Isabelle took a deep breath. “Could we get our Marks stripped?” she said. “Could we…
lose the Institute?”
“Isabelle,” said Maryse. “We could lose everything.”
Clary blinked, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. She stood on a rocky plain, whipped by
wind, with nothing to break the force of the gale. Patches of grass grew up between slabs
of gray rock. In the far distance bleak, scree-covered karst hills rose, black and iron
against the night sky. There were lights up ahead. Clary recognized the bobbing white
glare of witchlight as the door of the apartment swung shut behind them.
There was the sound of a dull explosion. Clary whirled around to see that the door had
vanished; there was a charred patch of dirt and grass, still smoldering, where it had been.
Sebastian was staring at it in absolute astonishment. “What—”
She laughed. A dark glee rose in her at the look on his face. She had never seen him
shocked like that, his pretenses gone, his expression naked and horrified.
He swung the crossbow back up, inches from her chest. If he fired it at this distance,
the bolt would tear through her heart, killing her instantly. “What have you done?”
Clary gazed at him with dark triumph. “That rune. The one you thought was an
unfinished Opening rune. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t anything you’d ever seen before. It was
a rune I created.”
“A rune for what?”
She remembered putting the stele to the wall, the shape of the rune she had invented
on the night when Jace had come to her at Luke’s house. “Destroying the apartment the
second someone opened the door. The apartment’s gone. You can’t use it again. No one
can.”
“Gone?” The crossbow shook; Sebastian’s lips were twitching, his eyes wild. “You bitch.
You little—”
“Kill me,” she said. “Go ahead. And explain it to Jace afterward. I dare you.”
He looked at her, his chest heaving up and down, his fingers trembling on the trigger.
Slowly he slid his hand away from it. His eyes were small and furious. “There are worse
things than dying,” he said. “And I will do them all to you, little sister, once you’ve drunk
from the Cup. And you will like it.”
She spat at him. He jabbed her hard, agonizingly, in the chest with the tip of the bow.
“Turn around,” he snarled, and she did, dizzy with a mixture of terror and triumph as he
prodded her down a rocky slope. She was wearing thin slippers, and she felt every pebble
and crack in the rocks. As they neared the witchlight, Clary saw the scene laid out before
them.
In front of her, the ground rose to a low hill. Atop the hill, facing north, was a massive
ancient stone tomb. It reminded her slightly of Stonehenge: there were two narrow
standing stones that held up a flat capstone, making the whole assemblage resemble a
doorway. In front of the tomb a flat sill stone, like the floor of a stage, stretched across
the shale and grass. Grouped before the flat stone was a half-circle of about forty
Nephilim, robed in red, carrying witchlight torches. Within their half-circle, against the
dark ground, blazed a blue-white pentagram.
Atop the flat stone stood Jace. He wore scarlet gear like Sebastian; they had never
looked so alike.
Clary could see the brightness of his hair even from a distance. He was pacing the edge
of the flat sill stone, and as they grew closer, Clary driven ahead by Sebastian, she could
hear what he was saying.
“… gratitude for your loyalty, even over these last difficult years, and grateful for your
belief in our father, and now in his sons. And his daughter.”
A murmur ran around the square. Sebastian shoved Clary forward, and they moved
through the shadows, and then climbed up onto the stone behind Jace. Jace saw them
and inclined his head before turning back to the crowd; he was smiling. “You are the ones
who will be saved,” he said. “A thousand years ago the Angel gave us his blood, to make
us special, to make us warriors. But it was not enough. A thousand years have passed,
and still we hide in the shadows. We protect mundanes we do not love from forces of
which they remain ignorant, and an ancient, ossified Law prevents us from revealing
ourselves as their saviors. We die in our hundreds, unthanked, unmourned but by our own
kind, and without recourse to the Angel who created us.” He moved closer to the edge of
the rock platform. The Shadowhunters before it were standing in a half-circle. His hair
looked like pale fire. “Yes. I dare to say it. The Angel who created us will not aid us, and
we are alone. More alone even than the mundanes, for as one of their great scientists
once said, they are like children playing with pebbles on the seashore, while all around
them the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered. But we know the truth. We are the
saviors of this earth, and we should be ruling it.”
Jace was a good speaker, Clary thought with a sort of pain at her heart, in the same
way that Valentine had been. She and Sebastian were behind him now, facing the plain
and the crowd on it; she could feel the stares of the gathered Shadowhunters on both of
them.
“Yes. Ruling it.” He smiled, a lovely easy smile, full of charm, edged with darkness.
“Raziel is cruel and indifferent to our sufferings. It is time to turn from him. Turn to Lilith,
Great Mother, who will give us power without punishment, leadership without the Law.
Our birthright is power. It is time to claim it.”
He looked sideways with a smile as Sebastian moved forward. “And now I’ll let you
hear the rest of it from Jonathan, whose dream this is,” said Jace smoothly, and he
retreated, letting Sebastian slide easily into his place. He took another step back, and
now he was beside Clary, his hand reaching down to twine with hers.
“Good speech,” she muttered. Sebastian was speaking; she ignored him, focusing on
Jace. “Very convincing.”
“You think? I was going to start off ‘Friends, Romans, evildoers…’ but I didn’t think
they’d see the humor.”
“You think they’re evildoers?”
He shrugged. “The Clave would.” He looked away from Sebastian, down at her. “You
look beautiful,” he said, but his voice was oddly flat. “What happened?”
She was caught off guard. “What do you mean?”
He opened his jacket. Underneath he was wearing a white shirt. It was stained at the
side and the sleeve with red. She noticed he was careful to turn away from the crowd as
he showed her the blood. “I feel what he feels,” he said. “Or did you forget? I had to
iratze myself without anyone noticing. It felt like someone was slicing my skin with a
razor blade.”
Clary met his gaze. There was no point lying, was there? There was no going back,
literally or figuratively. “Sebastian and I had a fight.”
His eyes searched her face. “Well,” he said, letting his jacket fall closed, “I hope you’ve
worked it out, whatever it was.”
“Jace… ,” she began, but he had given his attention to Sebastian now. His profile was
cold and clear in the moonlight, like a silhouette cut out of dark paper. In front of them
Sebastian, who had set down his crossbow, raised his arms. “Are you with me?” he cried.
A murmur ran around the square, and Clary tensed. One of the group of Nephilim, an
older man, threw his hood back and scowled. “Your father made us many promises. None
were fulfilled. Why should we trust you?”
“Because I will bring you the fulfillment of my promises now. Tonight,” Sebastian said,
and from his tunic he drew the imitation Mortal Cup. It glowed softly white under the
moon.
The murmuring was louder now. Under its cover Jace said, “I hope this goes smoothly.
I feel like I didn’t sleep last night at all.”
He was facing the crowd and the pentagram, a look of keen interest on his face. His
face was delicately angular in the witchlight. She could see the scar on his cheek, the
hollows at his temples, the lovely shape of his mouth. I won’t remember this, he had said.
When I’m back—like I was, under his control, I won’t remember being myself. And it was
true. He had forgotten every detail. Somehow, though she had known it, had seen him
forget, the pain of the reality was acute.
Sebastian stepped down off the rock and moved toward the pentagram. At the edge of
it he began to chant. “Abyssum invoco. Lilith invoco. Mater mea, invoco.”
He drew a thin dagger from his belt. Tucking the Cup into the curve of his arm, he used
the edge of the blade to slice into his palm. Blood welled, black in the moonlight. He slid
the knife back into his belt and held his bleeding hand over the Cup, still chanting in
Latin.
It was now or never. “Jace,” Clary whispered. “I know this isn’t really you. I know
there’s a part of you that can’t be all right with this. Try to remember who you are, Jace
Lightwood.”
His head whipped around, and he looked at her in astonishment. “What are you talking
about?”
“Please try to remember, Jace. I love you. You love me—”
“I do love you, Clary,” he said, an edge to his voice. “But you said you understood. This
is it. The culmination of everything we’ve worked toward.”
Sebastian flung the contents of the Cup into the center of the pentagram. “Hic est enim
calix sanguinis mei.”
“Not we,” Clary whispered. “I’m not part of this. Neither are you—”
Jace inhaled sharply. For a moment Clary thought it was because of what she’d said—
that maybe, somehow, she was breaking through his shell—but she followed his gaze and
saw that a spinning ball of fire had appeared in the center of the pentagram. It was about
the size of a baseball, but as she gazed, it grew, elongating and shaping itself, until at
last it was the outline of a woman, made all of flames.
“Lilith,” Sebastian said in a ringing voice. “As you called me forth, now I call you. As you
gave me life, so I give life to you.”
Slowly the flames darkened. She stood before them all now, Lilith, half again the height
of an ordinary human, stripped naked with her black hair waterfalling down her back to
her ankles. Her body was as gray as ash, fissured with black lines like volcanic lava. She
turned her eyes to Sebastian, and they were writhing black snakes.
“My child,” she breathed.
Sebastian seemed to glow, like witchlight himself—pale skin, pale hair, and his clothes
looked black in the moonlight. “Mother, I have called you up as you wished of me.
Tonight you will not just be my mother but mother to a new race.” He indicated the
waiting Shadowhunters, who were motionless, probably with shock. It was one thing to
know a Greater Demon was going to be called, another to see one in the flesh. “The
Cup,” he said, and held it out to her, its pale white rim stained with his blood.
Lilith chuckled. It sounded like massive stones grinding against one another. She took
the Cup and, as casually as one might pick an insect off a leaf, tore a gash in her ashy
gray wrist with her teeth. Very slowly, sludgy black blood trickled forth, spattering into
the Cup, which seemed to change, darkening under her touch, its clear translucence
turning to mud. “As the Mortal Cup has been to the Shadowhunters, both a talisman and
a means of transformation, so shall this Infernal Cup be to you,” she said in her charred,
windblown voice. She knelt, holding out the Cup to Sebastian. “Take of my blood and
drink.”
Sebastian took the Cup from her hands. It had turned black now, a shimmering black
like hematite.
“As your army grows, so shall my strength,” Lilith hissed. “Soon I will be strong enough
to truly return—and we shall share the fire of power, my son.”
Sebastian inclined his head. “We proclaim you Death, my mother, and profess your
resurrection.”
Lilith laughed, raising her arms. Fire licked up her body, and she launched herself into
the air, exploding into a dozen spinning particles of light that faded like the embers of a
dying fire. When they were gone completely, Sebastian kicked at the pentagram,
breaking its continuity, and raised his head. There was an awful smile on his face.
“Cartwright,” he said. “Bring forth the first.”
The crowd parted, and a robed man pushed forward, a stumbling woman at his side. A
chain bound her to his arm, and long, tangled hair hid her face from view. Clary tensed all
over. “Jace, what is this? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said, looking ahead absently. “No one’s going to be hurt. Just changed.
Watch.”
Cartwright, whose name Clary dimly remembered from her time in Idris, put his hand
on his captive’s head and forced her to their knees. Then he bent and took hold of her
hair, jerking her head up. She looked up at Sebastian, blinking in terror and defiance, her
face clearly outlined by the moon.
Clary sucked in her breath. “Amatis.”

Categories: City of Lost Souls

City of Lost Souls - Chapter 19

Methodically and carefully Clary was tearing Jace’s room apart. She was still in her
tank top, though she’d pulled on a pair of jeans; her hair was scraped behind her head in
a messy bun, and her nails were powdered with dust. She had searched under his bed, in
all the drawers and cabinets, crawled under the wardrobe and desk, and looked in the
pockets of all his clothes for a second stele, but she had found nothing.
She had told Sebastian she was exhausted, that she needed to go upstairs and lie
down; he had seemed distracted and had waved her away. Images of Jace’s face kept
flashing behind her eyelids every time she shut her eyes—the way he had looked at her,
betrayed, as if he didn’t know her anymore.
But there was no point dwelling on that. She could sit on the edge of the bed and cry
into her hands, thinking about what she had done, but it would do no one any good. She
owed it to Jace, to herself, to keep moving. Searching. If she could just find a stele—
She was lifting the mattress off the bed, searching the space between it and the box
springs, when a knock came on the door.
She dropped the mattress, though not before discerning that there was nothing under
it. She tightened her hands into fists, took a deep breath, stalked to the door and threw it
open.
Sebastian stood on the threshold. For the first time he was wearing something other
than black and white. The same black trousers and boots, admittedly, but he also wore a
scarlet leather tunic, intricately worked with gold and silver runes, and held together by a
row of metal clasps across the front. There were hammered silver bracelets on each of his
wrists, and he wore the Morgenstern ring.
She blinked at him. “Red?”
“Ceremonial,” he replied. “Colors mean different things to Shadowhunters than they do
to humans.” He said the word “humans” with contempt. “You know the old Nephilim
children’s rhyme, don’t you?
Black for hunting through the night
For death and sorrow, the color’s white.
Gold for a bride in her wedding gown,
And red to call enchantment down.”
“Shadowhunters get married in gold?” Clary said. Not that she cared particularly, but
she was trying to wedge her body into the gap between the door and the frame so that
he couldn’t look behind her and see the mess she’d made out of Jace’s normally neat
room.
“Sorry to crush your dreams of a white wedding.” He grinned at her. “Speaking of
which, I brought you something to wear.”
He drew his hand out from behind his back. He was holding a folded item of clothing.
She took it from him and let it unroll. It was a long, drifting column of scarlet fabric with
an odd golden sheen to the material, like the edge of a flame. The straps were gold.
“Our mother used to wear this to Circle ceremonies before she betrayed our father,” he
said. “Put it on. I want you to wear it tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Well, you can hardly go to the ceremony in what you’re wearing now.” His eyes raked
her, from her bare feet to the tank top clinging to her body with sweat, to her dusty
jeans. “How you look tonight—the impression you make on our new acolytes—is
important. Put it on.”
Her mind was whirling. The ceremony tonight. Our new acolytes. “How much time do I
have—to get ready?” she asked.
“An hour perhaps,” he said. “We should be at the sacred site by midnight. The others
will be gathering there. It wouldn’t do to be late.”
An hour. Heart hammering, Clary threw the garment across the bed, where it
glimmered like chain mail. When she turned back, he was still in the doorway, a half
smile on his face, as if he intended to wait there while she changed.
She moved to shut the door. He caught her wrist. “Tonight,” he said, “you call me
Jonathan. Jonathan Morgenstern. Your brother.”
A shudder ran over her whole body, and she dropped her eyes, hoping he couldn’t see
the hatred in them. “Whatever you say.”
The moment he was gone she reached for one of Jace’s leather jackets. She slipped it
on, taking comfort in the warmth and the familiar smell of him. She slid her feet into
shoes and crept out into the hallway, wishing for a stele and a new Soundless rune. She
could hear water running downstairs and Sebastian’s off-key whistling, but her own
footsteps still sounded like cannon explosions in her ears. She crept along, keeping close
to the wall, until she reached Sebastian’s door and slid inside.
It was dim, the only illumination the ambient city light coming from the windows,
whose curtains were pulled back. It was a mess, just as it had been the first time she’d
been in it. She started with his closet, stuffed full of expensive clothes—silk shirts, leather
jackets, Armani suits, Bruno Magli shoes. On the floor of the closet was a white shirt,
wadded up and stained with blood—blood old enough to have dried to brown. Clary
looked at it for a long moment and shut the closet door.
She set herself to the desk next, pulling out drawers, rifling through papers. She’d
rather hoped for something simple, like a lined piece of notebook paper with MY EVIL PLAN
written across the top, but no luck. There were dozens of papers with complex numerical
and alchemical figuring on them, and even a piece of stationery that began My beautiful
one in Sebastian’s cramped handwriting. She spared a moment to wonder who on earth
Sebastian’s beautiful one could be—she hadn’t thought of him as someone who ever had
romantic feelings about anyone—before turning to the nightstand by his bed.
She pulled open the drawer. Inside was a stack of notes. On top of them, something
glimmered. Something circular and metallic.
Her faerie ring.
Isabelle sat with her arm around Simon as they drove back toward Brooklyn. He was
exhausted, his head throbbing, his body pierced with aches. Though Magnus had given
him back his ring at the lake, he had been unable to reach Clary with it. Worst of all, he
was hungry. He liked how close Isabelle was sitting to him, the way she rested her hand
just above the crook of his elbow, tracing patterns there, sometimes sliding her fingers
down to his wrist. But the scent of her—perfume and blood—made his stomach growl.
It was starting to grow dark outside, the late-autumn sunset coming soon on the heels
of the day, dimming the interior of the truck’s cab. Alec’s and Magnus’s voices were
murmurs in the shadows. Simon let his eyes flutter closed, seeing the Angel printed
against the back of his lids, a burst of white light.
Simon! Clary’s voice exploded inside his head, jerking him instantly awake. Are you
there?
A sharp gasp escaped his lips. Clary? I was so worried—
Sebastian took my ring away from me. Simon, there may not be much time. I have to
tell you. They have a second Mortal Cup. They plan to raise Lilith and create an army of
dark Shadowhunters—ones with the same power as the Nephilim but allied to the demon
world.
“You’re kidding me,” Simon said. It took him a moment to realize he’d spoken aloud;
Isabelle stirred against him, and Magnus looked over curiously.
“You all right there, vampire?”
“It’s Clary,” Simon said. All three of them looked at him with identical astonished
expressions. “She’s trying to talk to me.” He slapped his hands over his ears, slumping
down in his seat and trying to concentrate on her words. When are they going to do it?
Tonight. Soon. I don’t know where we are exactly—but it’s about ten p.m. here.
Then you’re about five hours ahead of us. Are you in Europe?
I can’t even guess. Sebastian mentioned something called the Seventh Sacred Site. I
don’t know what that is, but I’ve found some of his notes and apparently it’s an ancient
tomb. It looks like a sort of doorway, and demons can be summoned through it.
Clary, I’ve never heard of anything like that—
But Magnus or the others might. Please, Simon. Tell them as quickly as you can.
Sebastian’s going to ressurrect Lilith. He wants war, a total war with the Shadowhunters.
He has about forty or fifty Nephilim ready to follow him. They’ll be there. Simon, he wants
to burn the world down. We have to do anything we can to stop him.
If things are that dangerous, you need to get yourself out of there.
She sounded tired. I’m trying. But it might be too late.
Simon was dimly aware that everyone else in the truck was staring at him, concern on
their faces. He didn’t care. Clary’s voice in his mind was like a rope tossed over a chasm,
and if he could grip his end of it, maybe he could pull her to safety, or at least keep her
from slipping away.
Clary, listen. I can’t tell you how, it’s too long a story, but we have a weapon. It can be
used on either Jace or Sebastian without hurting the other, and according to the… person
who gave it to us, it might be able to cut them apart.
Cut them apart? How?
He said it would burn all the evil out of the one we used it on. So if we used it on
Sebastian, I’m guessing, it would burn away the bond between them because the bond is
evil. Simon felt his head throb, and hoped he sounded more confident than he did. I’m not
sure. It’s very powerful, anyway. It’s called Glorious.
And you’d use it on Sebastian? It would burn them apart without killing them?
Well, that’s the idea. I mean, there is some chance it would destroy Sebastian. It would
depend on if there’s any good left in him. “If he’s more Hell’s than Heaven’s” I think is
what the Angel said—
The Angel? Her alarm was palpable. Simon, what have you—
Her voice broke off, and Simon was suddenly filled with a clamor of emotion—surprise,
anger, terror. Pain. He cried out, sitting bolt upright.
Clary?
But there was only silence, ringing in his head.
Clary! he cried out, and then, aloud, he said: “Damn. She’s gone again.”
“What happened?” Isabelle demanded. “Is she all right? What’s going on?”
“I think we have a lot less time than we thought,” Simon said in a voice much calmer
than he felt. “Magnus, pull the truck over. We have to talk.”
“So,” Sebastian said, filling the doorway as he looked down at Clary. “Would it be déjà vu
if I asked you what you were doing in my room, little sister?”
Clary swallowed against her suddenly dry throat. The light in the hallway was bright
behind Sebastian, turning him into a silhouette. She couldn’t see the expression on his
face. “Looking for you?” she hazarded.
“You’re sitting on my bed,” he said. “Did you think I was under it?”
“I…”
He walked into the room—sauntered, really, as if he knew something she didn’t.
Something no one else knew. “So why were you looking for me? And why haven’t you
changed for the ceremony?”
“The dress,” she said. “It—doesn’t fit.”
“Of course it fits,” he said, sitting down on the bed beside her. He turned to face her,
his back to the headboard. “Everything else in that room fits you. This should fit you too.”
“It’s silk and chiffon. It doesn’t stretch.”
“You’re a skinny little thing. It shouldn’t have to.” He took her right wrist, and she
curled her fingers in, desperately trying to hide the ring. “Look, my fingers go right around
your wrist.”
His skin felt hot against hers, sending sharp prickles through her nerves. She
remembered the way, in Idris, his touch had burned her like acid. “The Seventh Sacred
Site,” she said, not looking at him. “Is that where Jace went?”
“Yes. I sent him ahead. He’s readying things for our arrival. We’ll meet him there.”
Her heart dived inside her chest. “He’s not coming back?”
“Not before the ceremony.” She caught the curling edge of Sebastian’s smile. “Which is
good, because he’d be so disappointed when I told him about this.” He slid his hand
swiftly over hers, uncurling her fingers. The gold ring blazed there, like a signal fire. “Did
you think I wouldn’t recognize faerie work? Do you think the Queen is such a fool that she
would send you off to retrieve these for her without knowing you would keep them for
yourself? She wanted you to bring this here, where I would find it.” He jerked the ring off
her finger with a smirk.
“You’ve been in contact with the Queen?” Clary demanded. “How?”
“With this ring,” Sebastian purred, and Clary remembered the Queen saying in her high
sweet voice, Jonathan Morgenstern could be a powerful ally. The Fair Folk are an old
people; we do not make hasty decisions but wait to see in what direction the wind blows
first. “Do you really think she’d let you get your hands on something that would let you
communicate with your little friends without her being able to listen in? Since I took it
from you, I’ve spoken to her, she’s spoken to me—you were a fool to trust her, little
sister. She likes to be on the winning side of things, the Seelie Queen. And that side will
be ours, Clary. Ours.” His voice was low and soft. “Forget them, your Shadowhunter
friends. Your place is with us. With me. Your blood cries out for power, like mine does.
Whatever your mother may have done to twist your conscience, you know who you are.”
His hand caught at her wrist again, pulling her toward him. “Jocelyn made all the wrong
decisions. She sided with the Clave against her family. This is your chance to rectify her
mistake.”
She tried to pull her arm back. “Let me go, Sebastian. I mean it.”
His hand slid up from her wrist, encircling her upper arm with his fingers. “You’re such a
little thing. Who’d think you were such a spitfire? Especially in bed.”
She leaped to her feet, jerking away from him. “What did you just say?”
He rose as well, his lips curving up at the corners. He was so much taller than she was,
almost exactly as much taller as Jace was. He leaned in close to her when he spoke, and
his voice was low and rough. “Everything that marks Jace, marks me,” he said. “Down to
your fingernails.” He was grinning. “Eight parallel scratches on my back, little sister. Are
you saying you didn’t put them there?”
A soft explosion went off in her head, like a dull firework of rage. She looked at his
laughing face, and she thought of Jace, and of Simon, and the words they’d just
exchanged. If the Queen really could eavesdrop on her conversations, then she might
know about Glorious already. But Sebastian didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
She snatched the ring from his hand, and threw it to the ground. She heard him give a
shout, but she’d already brought her foot down on it, feeling it give way, the gold
smashing to powder.
He looked at her incredulously as she drew her foot back. “You—”
She drew back her right hand, the strongest one, and drove her fist into his stomach.
He was taller, broader, and stronger than she was, but she had the element of surprise.
He doubled over, choking, and she snatched the stele from his weapons belt. Then she
ran.
Magnus jerked the wheel to the side so fast that the tires screeched. Isabelle shrieked.
They bumped up onto the shoulder of the road, under the shadow of a copse of partly
leafless trees.
The next thing Simon knew, the doors were open and everyone was tumbling out onto
the blacktop. The sun was going down, and the headlights of the truck were on, lighting
them all with an eerie glow.
“All right, vampire boy,” said Magnus, shaking his head hard enough to shed glitter.
“What the hell is going on?”
Alec leaned against the truck as Simon explained, repeating the conversation with Clary
as accurately as he could before the whole thing flew out of his head.
“Did she say anything about getting her and Jace out of there?” Isabelle asked when he
was done, her face pale in the yellowish glow from the headlights.
“No,” said Simon. “And Iz—I don’t think Jace wants to get out. He wants to be where
he is.”
Isabelle crossed her arms and looked down at her boots, her black hair sweeping
across her face.
“What’s this Seventh Sacred Site business?” said Alec. “I know about the seven
wonders of the world, but seven sacred sites?”
“They’re more in the interest of warlocks than Nephilim,” said Magnus. “Each is a place
where ley lines converge, forming a matrix—a sort of net within which magical spells are
amplified. The seventh is a stone tomb in Ireland, at Poll na mBrón; the name means ‘the
cavern of sorrows.’ It’s in a very bleak, uninhabited area called the Burren. A good place
to raise a demon, if it’s a big one.” He tugged at a spike of hair. “This is bad. Really bad.”
“You think he could do it? Make—dark Shadowhunters?” Simon asked.
“Everything has an alliance, Simon. The alliance of the Nephilim is seraphic, but if it
were demonic, they’d still be as strong, as powerful as they are now. But they would be
dedicated to the eradication of mankind instead of its salvation.”
“We have to get there,” Isabelle said. “We have to stop them.”
“‘Him,’ you mean,” said Alec. “We have to stop him. Sebastian.”
“Jace is his ally now. You have to accept that, Alec,” Magnus said. A light misty drizzle
had begun to fall. The drops gleamed like gold in the headlights’ glow. “Ireland is five
hours ahead. They’re doing the ceremony at midnight. It’s five o’clock here. We have an
hour and a half—two hours, at most—to stop them.”
“Then, we shouldn’t be waiting. We should be going,” Isabelle said, a tinge of panic in
her voice. “If we’re going to stop him—”
“Iz, there are only four of us,” Alec said. “We don’t even know what kind of numbers
we’re up against—”
Simon glanced at Magnus, who was watching Alec and Isabelle argue with a peculiarly
detached expression. “Magnus,” Simon said. “Why didn’t we just Portal to the farm? You
Portaled half of Idris to Brocelind Plain.”
“I wanted to give you enough time to change your mind,” said Magnus, not taking his
eyes off his boyfriend.
“But we can Portal from here,” Simon said. “I mean, you could do that for us.”
“Yeah,” Magnus said. “But like Alec says, we don’t know what we’re up against in terms
of numbers. I’m a pretty powerful warlock, but Jonathan Morgenstern is no ordinary
Shadowhunter, and neither is Jace, for that matter. And if they succeed in raising Lilith—
she’ll be a lot weaker than she was, but she’s still Lilith.”
“But she’s dead,” said Isabelle. “Simon killed her.”
“Greater Demons don’t die,” said Magnus. “Simon… scattered her between worlds. It
will take a long time for her to re-form and she will be weak for years. Unless Sebastian
calls her up again.” He pushed a hand through his wet, spiked hair.
“We have the sword,” Isabelle said. “We can take out Sebastian. We have Magnus, and
Simon—”
“We don’t even know if the sword will work,” said Alec. “And it won’t do us much good
if we can’t get to Sebastian. And Simon isn’t even Mr. Indestructible anymore. He can be
killed just like the rest of us.”
They all looked at Simon. “We have to try,” he said. “Look—we don’t know how many
are going to be there, no. We have a little time. Not a lot, but enough—if we Portal—to
grab some reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements from where?” Isabelle demanded.
“I’ll go to Maia and Jordan back at the apartment,” said Simon, his mind quickly ticking
over possibilities. “See if Jordan can get any assistance from the Praetor Lupus. Magnus,
go to the downtown police station, see about enlisting whatever members of the pack are
around. Isabelle and Alec—”
“You’re splitting us up?” Isabelle demanded, her voice rising. “What about firemessages,
or—”
“No one’s going to trust a fire-message about something like this,” said Magnus. “And
besides, fire-messages are for Shadowhunters. Do you really want to communicate this
information to the Clave via fire-message instead of going to the Institute yourself?”
“Fine.” Isabelle stalked around to the side of the car. She yanked the door open, but
didn’t get inside: instead she reached in, and drew out Glorious. It shone in the dim light
like a bolt of dark lightning, the words carved on the blade flickering in the car light: Quis
ut Deus?
The rain was starting to paste Isabelle’s black hair to her neck. She looked formidable
as she walked back to rejoin the group. “Then we leave the car here. We split up, but we
meet back at the Institute in an hour. That’s when we leave, whoever we have with us.”
She met each of her companion’s eyes, one by one, daring them to challenge her.
“Simon, take this.”
She held out Glorious to him, hilt-forward.
“Me?” Simon was startled. “But I don’t—I haven’t really used a sword before.”
“You called it down,” Isabelle said, her dark eyes glossy in the rain. “The Angel gave it
to you, Simon, and you will be the one who carries it.”
Clary dashed down the hallway and hit the steps with a clatter, racing for the downstairs
and for the spot on the wall that Jace had told her was the only entrance and exit from
the apartment.
She had no illusions that she could escape. She needed only a few moments to do what
had to be done. She heard Sebastian’s boots loud on the glass staircase behind her, and
put on a burst of speed, almost slamming into the wall. She jammed the stele into it
point-first, drawing frantically: a pattern as simple as a cross, new to the world—
Sebastian’s fist closed on the back of her jacket, jerking her backward, the stele flying
out of her hand. She gasped as he swung her up off her feet and slammed her into the
wall, knocking the breath out of her. He glanced at the mark she had made on the wall,
and his lips curled into a sneer.
“The Opening rune?” he said. He leaned forward and hissed into her ear. “And you
didn’t even finish it. Not that it matters. Do you really think there’s a place on this earth
you could go where I couldn’t find you?”
Clary responded with an epithet that would have gotten her kicked out of class at St.
Xavier’s. Just as he started to laugh, she raised her hand and slapped him across the face
so hard, her fingers stung. In his surprise he loosened his grip on her, and she jerked
away from him and flipped herself over the table, making for the downstairs bedroom,
which at least had a lock on the door—
And he was in front of her, grabbing the lapels of her jacket and swinging her around.
Her feet went out from under her, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t pinned her to
the wall with his body, his arms to either side, making a cage around her.
His grin was diabolical. Gone was the stylish boy who’d strolled by the Seine with her
and drunk hot chocolate and talked about belonging. His eyes were all black, no pupil,
like tunnels. “What’s wrong, little sis? You look upset.”
She could barely catch her breath. “Cracked… my… nail polish slapping your… worthless
face. See?” She showed him her finger—just one of them.
“Cute.” He snorted. “You know how I knew you’d betray us? How I knew you wouldn’t
be able to help it? Because you’re too much like me.”
He pressed her back harder against the wall. She could feel his chest rise and fall
against hers. She was at eye level with the straight, sharp line of his collarbone. His body
felt like a prison around hers, pinning her in place. “I’m nothing like you. Let me go—”
“You’re everything like me,” he growled into her ear. “You infiltrated us. You faked
friendship, faked caring.”
“I never had to fake caring about Jace.”
She saw something flash in his eyes then, a dark jealousy, and she wasn’t even sure
who he was jealous of. He put his lips against her cheek, close enough that she felt them
move against her skin when he spoke. “You screwed us over,” he murmured. His hand
was around her left arm like a vise; slowly he began to move it down. “Probably literally
screwed Jace over—”
She couldn’t help it, she flinched. She felt him inhale sharply. “You did,” he said. “You
slept with him.” He sounded almost betrayed.
“It’s none of your business.”
He caught at her face, turning her to look at him, fingers digging into her chin. “You
can’t screw someone into being good. Nicely heartless move, though.” His lovely mouth
curved into a cold smile. “You know he doesn’t remember any of it, right? Did he show
you a good time, at least? Because I would have.”
She tasted bile in her throat. “You’re my brother.”
“Those words don’t mean anything where we’re concerned. We aren’t human. Their
rules don’t apply to us. Stupid laws about what DNA can be mixed with what. Hypocritical,
really, considering. We’re already experiments. The rulers of ancient Egypt used to marry
their siblings, you know. Cleopatra married her brother. Strengthens the bloodline.”
She looked at him with loathing. “I knew you were crazy,” she said. “But I didn’t realize
you were absolutely, spectactularly out of your goddamned mind.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything crazy about it. Who do we belong with but each
other?”
“Jace,” she said. “I belong with Jace.”
He made a dismissive noise. “You can have Jace.”
“I thought you needed him.”
“I do. But not for what you need him for.” His hands were suddenly on her waist. “We
can share him. I don’t care what you do. As long as you know you belong to me.”
She raised her hands, meaning to shove him away. “I don’t belong to you. I belong to
me.”
The look in his eyes froze her in place. “I think you know better than that,” he said, and
brought his mouth down on hers, hard.
For a moment she was back in Idris, standing in front of the burned Fairchild manor,
and Sebastian was kissing her, and she felt as if she were falling into darkness, into a
tunnel that had no end. At the time she’d thought there was something wrong with her.
That she couldn’t kiss anyone but Jace. That she was broken.
Now she knew better. Sebastian’s mouth moved on hers, as hard and cold as a razorslice
in the dark, and she raised herself up on the tips of her toes, and bit down hard on
his lip.
He yelled and spun away from her, his hand to his mouth. She could taste his blood,
bitter copper; it dripped down his chin as he stared at her with incredulous eyes. “You—”
She whirled and kicked him, hard, in the stomach, hoping it was still sore from where
she’d punched him before. As he doubled up, she shot by him, running for the stairs. She
was halfway there when she felt him grab her by the back of her collar. He swung her
around as if he were swinging a baseball bat, and flung her at the wall. She hit it hard
and sank to her knees, the breath knocked out of her.
Sebastian started toward her, his hands flexing at his sides, his eyes shimmering black
like a shark’s. He looked terrifying; Clary knew she ought to be frightened, but a cold,
glassy detachment had come over her. Time seemed to have slowed. She remembered
the fight in the junk shop in Prague, how she had disappeared into her own world where
each movement was as precise as the movement of a watch. Sebastian reached down
toward her, and she pushed up, off the ground, sweeping her legs sideways, knocking his
feet out from under him.
He fell forward, and she rolled out of the way, bouncing to her feet. She didn’t bother
trying to run this time. Instead she grabbed the porcelain vase off the table and, as
Sebastian rose to his feet, swung it at his head. It shattered, spraying water and leaves,
and he staggered back, blood blooming against his white-silver hair.
He snarled and sprang at her. It was like being slammed by a wrecking ball. Clary flew
backward, smashing through the glass tabletop, and hit the ground in an explosion of
shards and agony. She screamed as Sebastian landed on top of her, driving her body
down into the shattered glass, his lips drawn back in a snarl. He brought his arm down
backhanded and cracked her across the face. Blood blinded her; she choked on the taste
of it in her mouth, and its salt stung her eyes. She jerked up her knee, catching him in the
stomach, but it was like kicking a wall. He grabbed her hands, forcing them down by her
sides.
“Clary, Clary, Clary,” he said. He was gasping. At least she’d winded him. Blood ran in a
slow trickle from a gash on the side of his head, staining his hair scarlet. “Not bad. You
weren’t much of a fighter back in Idris.”
“Get off me—”
He moved his face close to hers. His tongue darted out. She tried to jerk away but
couldn’t move fast enough as he licked the blood off the side of her face, and grinned.
The grin split his lip, and more blood ran in a trickle down his chin. “You asked me who I
belong to,” he whispered. “I belong to you. Your blood is my blood, your bones my bones.
The first time you saw me, I looked familiar, didn’t I? Just like you looked familiar to me.”
She gaped at him. “You’re out of your mind.”
“It’s in the Bible,” he said. “The Song of Solomon. ‘Thou hast ravished my heart, my
sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of
thy neck.’” His fingers brushed her throat, looping into the chain there, the chain that had
held the Morgenstern ring. She wondered if he would crush her windpipe. “‘I sleep, but
my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my
sister, my love.’” His blood dripped onto her face. She held herself still, her body
humming with the effort, as his hand slipped from her throat, along her side, to her waist.
His fingers slid inside the waistband of her jeans. His skin was hot, burning; she could feel
that he wanted her.
“You don’t love me,” she said. Her voice was thin; he was crushing the air from her
lungs. She remembered what her mother had said, that every emotion Sebastian showed
was a pretense. Her thoughts were clear as crystal; she silently thanked the battle
euphoria for doing what it had to do and keeping her focused while Sebastian sickened
her with his touch.
“And you don’t care that I’m your brother,” he said. “I know how you felt about Jace,
even when you thought he was your brother. You can’t lie to me.”
“Jace is better than you.”
“No one’s better than me.” He grinned, all white teeth and blood. “‘A garden enclosed
is my sister,’” he said. “‘A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.’ But not anymore, right? Jace
took care of that.” He fumbled at the button on her jeans, and she took advantage of his
distraction to seize up a good-size triangular piece of glass from the ground and slam the
jagged edge of it into his shoulder.
The glass slid along her fingers, slicing them open. He yelled, jerking back, but more in
surprise than pain; the gear protected him. She slashed the glass down harder, this time
into his thigh, and when he reared back, she drove her other elbow into his throat. He
went sideways, choking, and she rolled, pinning him under her as she yanked the bloody
glass free of his leg. She drove the shard down toward the pulsing vein in his neck—and
stopped.
He was laughing. He lay under her, and he was laughing, his laughter vibrating up
through her own body. His skin was spattered with blood—her blood, dripping down on
him, his own blood where she had cut him, his silver-white hair matted with it. He let his
arms fall to either side of him, outstretched like wings, a broken angel, fallen out of the
sky.
He said, “Kill me, little sister. Kill me, and you kill Jace, too.”
She brought the glass shard down.

Categories: City of Lost Souls

City of Lost Souls - Chapter 18

“Clary?”
Simon sat on the back porch steps of the farmhouse, looking down the path that led
through the apple orchard and down to the lake. Isabelle and Magnus were on the path,
Magnus glancing toward the lake and then up at the low mountains ringing the area. He
was making notes in a small book with a pen whose end glowed a sparkling blue-green.
Alec stood a little distance away, looking up at the trees lining the ridge of hills that
separated the farmhouse from the road. He seemed to be standing as far from Magnus as
he could while remaining in earshot. It seemed to Simon—the first to admit that he was
not that observant about these things—that despite the joking around in the car, a
perceptible distance had come between Magnus and Alec recently, one he couldn’t quite
put a finger on, but he knew it was there.
Simon’s right hand was cradled in his left, his fingers circling the gold ring on his finger.
Clary, please.
He’d been trying to reach her every hour since he’d gotten the message from Maia
about Luke. He’d gotten nothing. Not a flicker of response.
Clary, I’m at the farmhouse. I’m remembering you here, with me.
It was an unseasonably warm day, and a faint wind rustled the last of the leaves in the
tree branches. After spending too long wondering what sort of clothes you were supposed
to wear to meet angels in—a suit seemed excessive, even if he did have one left over
from Jocelyn and Luke’s engagement party—he was in jeans and a T-shirt, his arms bare
in the sunlight. He had so many happy sunlit memories attached to this place, this house.
He and Clary had come up here with Jocelyn almost every summer for as long as he could
remember. They would swim in the lake. Simon would tan brown, and Clary’s fair skin
would burn over and over. She’d get a million more freckles on her shoulders and arms.
They’d play “apple baseball” in the orchard, which was messy and fun, and Scrabble and
poker in the farmhouse, which Luke always won.
Clary, I’m about to do something stupid and dangerous and maybe suicidal. Is it so bad
I want to talk to you one last time? I’m doing this to keep you safe, and I don’t even
know if you’re alive for me to help you. But if you were dead, I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d feel
it.
“All right. Let’s go,” Magnus said, appearing at the foot of the steps. He eyed the ring
on Simon’s hand, but made no comment.
Simon stood up and brushed off his jeans, then led the way down the wandering path
through the orchard. The lake sparkled up ahead like a cold blue coin. As they neared it,
Simon could see the old dock sticking out into the water, where once they had tied up
kayaks before a big piece of the dock had broken off and drifted away. He thought he
could almost hear the lazy hum of bees and feel the weight of summer on his shoulders.
As they reached the lake’s edge, he twisted around and looked up at the farmhouse,
white-painted clapboard with green shutters and an old covered sunporch with tired white
wicker furniture on it.
“You really liked it here, huh?” Isabelle said. Her black hair snapped like a banner in
the breeze off the lake.
“How can you tell?”
“Your expression,” she said. “Like you’re remembering something good.”
“It was good,” Simon said. He reached up to push his glasses up his nose, remembered
he no longer wore them, and lowered his hand. “I was lucky.”
She looked down at the lake. She was wearing small gold hoop earrings; one was
tangled in a bit of her hair, and Simon wanted to reach over and free it, to touch the side
of her face with his fingers. “And now you’re not?”
He shrugged. He was watching Magnus, who was holding what looked like a long,
flexible rod and drawing in the wet sand at the lake’s edge. He had the spell book open
and was chanting as he drew. Alec was watching him, with the expression of someone
watching a stranger.
“Are you scared?” Isabelle asked, moving slightly closer to Simon. He could feel the
warmth of her arm against his.
“I don’t know. So much of being scared is the physical feeling of it. Your heart speeding
up, sweating, your pulse racing. I don’t get any of that.”
“That’s too bad,” Isabelle murmured, looking at the water. “Guys getting all sweaty is
hot.”
He shot her a half smile; it was harder than he thought it would be. Maybe he was
scared. “That’s enough of your sass and back talk, missy.”
Isabelle’s lip quivered as if she were about to smile. Then she sighed. “You know what
it never even crossed my mind I wanted?” she said. “A guy who could make me laugh.”
Simon turned toward her, reaching for her hand, not caring for the moment that her
brother was watching. “Izzy…”
“All right,” Magnus called out. “I’m done. Simon, over here.”
They turned. Magnus was standing inside the circle, which was glowing with a faint
white light. It was really two circles, a slightly smaller one inside a larger one, and in the
space between the circles, dozens of symbols had been scrawled. They, too, glowed, a
steely blue-white like the reflection off the lake.
Simon heard Isabelle’s soft intake of breath, and he stepped away before he could look
at her. It would just make it all harder. He moved forward, over the border of the circle,
into its center, beside Magnus. Looking out from the center of the circle was like looking
through water. The rest of the world seemed wavering and indistinct.
“Here.” Magnus shoved the book into his hands. The paper was thin, covered in
scrawled runes, but Magnus had taped a printout of the words, spelled out phonetically,
over the incantation itself. “Just sound these out,” he muttered. “It should work.”
Holding the book against his chest, Simon slipped off the gold ring that connected him
to Clary, and handed it to Magnus. “If it doesn’t,” he said, wondering where his strange
calm was coming from, “someone should take this. It’s our only link to Clary, and what
she knows.”
Magnus nodded and slid the ring onto his finger. “Ready, Simon?”
“Hey,” said Simon. “You remembered my name.”
Magnus shot him an unreadable glance from his green-gold eyes, and stepped outside
the circle. Immediately he was blurry and indistinct too. Alec joined him on one side,
Isabelle on the other; Isabelle was hugging her elbows, and even through the wavering
air Simon could tell how unhappy she looked.
Simon cleared his throat. “I guess you guys had better go.”
But they didn’t move. They seemed to be waiting for him to say something else.
“Thanks for coming here with me,” he said finally, having racked his brain for
something meaningful to say; they seemed to be expecting it. He wasn’t the sort who
made big farewell speeches or bid people dramatic good-byes. He looked at Alec first.
“Um, Alec. I always liked you better than I liked Jace.” He turned to Magnus. “Magnus, I
wish I had the nerve to wear the kind of pants you do.”
And last, Izzy. He could see her watching him through the haze, her eyes as black as
obsidian.
“Isabelle,” Simon said. He looked at her. He saw the question in her eyes, but there
seemed nothing he could say in front of Alec and Magnus, nothing that would encompass
what he felt. He moved back, toward the center of the circle, bowing his head. “Goodbye,
I guess.”
He thought they spoke back to him, but the wavering haze between them blurred their
words. He watched as they turned, retreating up the path through the orchard, back
toward the house, until they had become dark specks. Until he could no longer see them
at all.
He couldn’t quite fathom not talking to Clary one last time before he died—he couldn’t
even remember the last words they’d exchanged. And yet if he closed his eyes, he could
hear her laughter drifting over the orchard; he could remember what it had been like,
before they had grown up and everything had changed. If he died here, perhaps it would
be appropriate. Some of his best memories were here, after all. If the Angel struck him
down with fire, his ashes could sift through the apple orchard and over the lake.
Something about the idea seemed peaceful.
He thought of Isabelle. Then of his family—his mother, his father, and Becky. Clary, he
thought lastly. Wherever you are, you’re my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend.
He raised the spell book and began to chant.
“No!” Clary stood up, dropping the wet towel. “Jace, you can’t. They’ll kill you.”
He reached for a fresh shirt and shrugged it on, not looking at her as he did up the
buttons. “They’ll try to separate me from Sebastian first,” he said, though he didn’t sound
as if he quite believed it. “If that doesn’t work, then they’ll kill me.”
“Not good enough.” She reached for him, but he turned away from her, jamming his
feet into boots. When he turned back, his expression was grim.
“I don’t have a choice, Clary. This is the right thing to do.”
“It’s insane. You’re safe here. You can’t throw away your life—”
“Saving myself is treason. It’s putting a weapon into the hands of the enemy.”
“Who cares about treason? Or the Law?” she demanded. “I care about you. We’ll figure
this out together—”
“We can’t figure this out.” Jace pocketed the stele on the nightstand, then caught up
the Mortal Cup. “Because I’m only going to be me for a little while longer. I love you,
Clary.” He tilted her face up and kissed her, lingeringly. “Do this for me,” he whispered.
“I absolutely will not,” she said. “I will not try to help you get yourself killed.”
But he was already striding toward the door. He drew her with him, and they stumbled
down the corridor, speaking in whispers.
“This is crazy,” Clary hissed. “Putting yourself in the path of danger—”
He blew out an exasperated breath. “As if you don’t.”
“Right, and it makes you furious,” she whispered as she raced after him down the
staircase. “Remember what you said to me in Alicante—”
They had reached the kitchen. He put the Cup down on the counter, reaching for his
stele. “I had no right to say that,” he told her. “Clary, this is what we are. We’re
Shadowhunters. This is what we do. There are risks we take that aren’t just the risks you
find in battle.”
Clary shook her head, clutching both his wrists. “I won’t let you.”
A look of pain crossed his face. “Clarissa—”
She drew a deep breath, barely able to believe what she was about to do. But in her
mind was the image of the morgue in the Silent City, of Shadowhunter bodies stretched
out on marble slabs, and she could not bear for Jace to be one of them. Everything she
had done—coming here, enduring everything she had endured, had been to save his life,
and not just for herself. She thought of Alec and Isabelle, who had helped her, and
Maryse, who loved him, and almost without knowing she was about to do it, she raised
her voice and called out:
“Jonathan!” she screamed. “Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern!”
Jace’s eyes widened into circles. “Clary—” he began, but it was too late already. She
had let go of him and was backing away. Sebastian might already be coming; there was
no way to tell Jace that it wasn’t that she trusted Sebastian but that Sebastian was the
only weapon she had at her disposal that could possibly make him stay.
There was a flash of movement, and Sebastian was there. He hadn’t bothered with
running down the stairs, just flipped himself over the side and landed between them. His
hair was sleep-mussed; he wore a dark T-shirt and black pants, and Clary wondered
distractedly if he slept in his clothes. He glanced between Clary and Jace, his black eyes
taking in the situation. “Lovers’ spat?” he inquired. Something glinted in his hand. A knife?
Clary’s voice shook. “His rune’s damaged. Here.” She put her hand over her heart. “He’s
trying to go back, to give himself up to the Clave—”
Sebastian’s hand shot out and grabbed the Cup out of Jace’s hand. He slammed it down
on the kitchen counter. Jace, still white with shock, watched him; he didn’t move a
muscle as Sebastian stepped close and took Jace by the front of the shirt. The top
buttons on the shirt popped open, baring his collar, and Sebastian slashed the point of his
stele across it, gashing an iratze into the skin. Jace bit down on his lip, his eyes full of
hatred as Sebastian released him and took a step back, stele in hand.
“Honestly, Jace,” he said. “The idea that you thought you could get away with
something like this just knocks me out.”
Jace’s hands tightened into fists as the iratze, black as charcoal, began to sink into his
skin. His words were eked out, breathless: “Next time… you want to be knocked out… I’d
be happy to help you. Maybe with a brick.”
Sebastian made a tsk noise. “You’ll thank me later. Even you have to admit this death
wish of yours is a little extreme.”
Clary expected Jace to snap back at him again. But he didn’t. His gaze traveled slowly
across Sebastian’s face. For that moment there was only the two of them in the room,
and when Jace spoke, his words came cold and clear. “I won’t remember this later,” he
said. “But you will. That person who acts like your friend—” He took a step forward,
closing the space between himself and Sebastian. “That person who acts like they like
you. That person isn’t real. This is real. This is me. And I hate you. I will always hate you.
And there is no magic and no spell in this world or any other that will ever change that.”
For a moment the grin on Sebastian’s face wavered. But Jace didn’t. Instead, he tore
his gaze from Sebastian and looked at Clary. “I need you to know,” he said, “the truth—I
didn’t tell you all the truth.”
“The truth is dangerous,” said Sebastian, holding the stele before him like a knife. “Be
careful what you say.”
Jace winced. His chest was rising and falling rapidly; it was clear that the healing of the
rune on his chest was causing him physical pain. “The plan,” he said. “To raise Lilith, to
make a new Cup, to create a dark army—that wasn’t Sebastian’s plan. It was mine.”
Clary froze. “What?”
“Sebastian knew what he wanted,” said Jace. “But I figured out how he could do it. A
new Mortal Cup—I gave him that idea.” He jerked in pain; she could imagine what was
happening under the cloth of his shirt: the skin knitting together, healing, Lilith’s rune
whole and shining once again. “Or, should I say, he did. That thing that looks like me but
isn’t? He’ll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he’s doing it.
That’s what you’re saving, Clary. That. Don’t you understand? I’d rather be dead—”
His voice choked off as he doubled over. The muscles in his shoulders tightened as
ripples of what looked like pain went through him. Clary remembered holding him in the
Silent City as the Brothers rooted through his mind for answers—Now he looked up, his
expression bewildered.
His eyes shifted first not to her but to Sebastian. She felt her heart plummet, though
she knew this was only her own doing.
“What’s going on?” Jace said.
Sebastian grinned at him. “Welcome back.”
Jace blinked, looking momentarily confused—and then his gaze seemed to slide inward,
the way it did whenever Clary tried to bring up something that he couldn’t process—Max’s
murder, the war in Alicante, the pain he was causing his family.
“Is it time?” he said.
Sebastian made a show of looking at his watch. “Just about. Why don’t you go on
ahead and we’ll follow? You can start getting things ready.”
Jace glanced around. “The Cup—where is it?”
Sebastian took it off the kitchen counter. “Right here. Feeling a little absentminded?”
Jace’s mouth curled at the corner, and he grabbed the Cup back. Good-naturedly. There
was no sign of the boy who had stood in front of Sebastian moments ago and told him he
hated him. “All right. I’ll meet you there.” He turned to Clary, who was still frozen in
shock, and kissed her cheek. “And you.”
He drew back and winked at her. There was affection in his eyes, but it didn’t matter.
This was not her Jace, very clearly not her Jace, and she watched numbly as he crossed
the room. His stele flashed, and a door opened in the wall; she caught a glimpse of sky
and rocky plain, and then he stepped through it and was gone.
She dug her nails into her palms.
That thing that looks like me but isn’t? He’ll burn down the world if Sebastian wants
him to, and laugh while he’s doing it. That’s what you’re saving, Clary. That. Don’t you
understand? I’d rather be dead.
Tears burned at the back of her throat, and it was all she could do to hold them off as
her brother turned to her, his black eyes very bright. “You called for me,” he said.
“He wanted to give himself up to the Clave,” she whispered, not sure who she was
defending herself to. She had done what she’d had to, used the only weapon at hand,
even if it was one she despised. “They would have killed him.”
“You called for me,” he said again, and took a step toward her. He reached out and
lifted a long lock of her hair away from her face, tucking it back behind her ear. “He told
you, then? The plan? All of it?”
She fought back a shiver of revulsion. “Not all of it. I don’t know what’s happening
tonight. What did Jace mean ‘It’s time’?”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead; she felt the kiss burn, like a brand between
her eyes. “You’ll find out,” he said. “You’ve earned the right to be there, Clarissa. You can
watch it all from your place at my side, tonight, at the Seventh Sacred Site. Both of
Valentine’s children, together… at last.”
Simon kept his eyes on the paper, chanting out the words Magnus had written for him.
They had a rhythm to them that was like music, light and sharp and fine. He was
reminded of reading aloud his haftarah portion during his bar mitzvah, though he had
known what the words meant then, and now he didn’t.
As the chant went on, he felt a tightening around him, as if the air were becoming
denser and heavier. It pressed down on his chest and shoulders. The air was growing
warmer as well. If he were human, the heat might have been unbearable. As it was, he
could feel the burn of it on his skin, singeing his eyelashes, his shirt. He kept his eyes
fixed on the paper in front of him as a bead of blood ran from his hairline to drip onto the
paper.
And then he was done. The last of the words—“Raziel”—was spoken, and he lifted his
head. He could feel blood running down his face. The haze around him had cleared, and
in front of him he saw the water of the lake, blue and sparkling, as untroubled as glass.
And then it exploded.
The center of the lake turned gold, then black. Water rushed away from it, pouring
toward the edges of the lake, flying into the air until Simon was staring at a ring of water,
like a circle of unbroken waterfalls, all shimmering and pouring upward and downward,
the effect bizarre and strangely beautiful. Water droplets shivered down onto him, cooling
his burning skin. He tipped his head back, just as the sky went black—all the blue of it
gone, eaten up in a sudden shock of darkness and clamoring gray clouds. The water
splashed back down into the lake, and from its center, the greatest density of its silver,
rose a figure all of gold.
Simon’s mouth went dry. He had seen countless paintings of angels, believed in them,
had heard Magnus’s warning. And still he felt as if he had been struck through with a
spear as before him a pair of wings unfolded. They seemed to span the sky. They were
vast, white and gold and silver, the feathers of them set with burning golden eyes. The
eyes regarded him with scorn. Then the wings lifted, scattering clouds before them, and
folded back, and a man—or the shape of a man, towering and many stories tall, unfolded
itself and rose.
Simon’s teeth had started to chatter. He wasn’t sure why. But waves of power, of
something more than power—of the elemental force of the universe—seemed to roll off
the Angel as he rose to his full height. Simon’s first and rather bizarre thought was that it
looked as if someone had taken Jace and blown him up to the size of a billboard. Only he
didn’t quite look like Jace at all. He was gold all over, from his wings to his skin to his
eyes, which had no whites at all, only a sheen of gold like a membrane. His hair was gold
and looked cut from pieces of metal that curled like wrought ironwork. He was alien and
terrifying. Too much of anything could destroy you, Simon thought. Too much darkness
could kill, but too much light could blind.
Who dares to summon me? The Angel spoke in Simon’s mind, in a voice like great bells
sounding.
Tricky question, Simon thought. If he were Jace, he could say “one of the Nephilim,”
and if he were Magnus, he could say he was one of Lilith’s children and a High Warlock.
Clary and the Angel had already met, so he supposed they’d just chum it up. But he was
Simon, without any titles to his name or any great deeds in his past. “Simon Lewis,” he
said finally, setting the spell book down and straightening up. “Night’s Child, and… your
servant.”
My servant? Raziel’s voice was frozen with icy disapproval. You summon me like a dog
and dare to call yourself my servant? You shall be blasted from this world, that your fate
may serve as a warning to others not to do likewise. It is forbidden for my own Nephilim
to summon me. Why should it be different for you, Daylighter?
Simon supposed he should not be shocked that the Angel knew what he was, but it was
startling nevertheless, as startling as the Angel’s size. Somehow he had thought Raziel
would be more human. “I—”
Do you think because you carry the blood of one of my descendants, I must show you
mercy? If so, you have gambled and lost. The mercy of Heaven is for the deserving. Not
for those who break our Covenant Laws.
The Angel raised a hand, his finger pointed directly at Simon.
Simon braced himself. This time he did not try to say the words, only thought them.
Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one—
What Mark is that? Raziel’s voice was confounded. On your forehead, child.
“It is the Mark,” Simon stammered. “The first Mark. The Mark of Cain.”
Raziel’s great arm lowered slowly. I would kill you, but the Mark prevents it. That Mark
was meant to be set between your brows by Heaven’s hand, yet I know it was not. How
can this be?
The Angel’s obvious bafflement emboldened Simon. “One of your children, the
Nephilim,” he said. “One especially gifted. She set it there, to protect me.” He took a step
closer to the edge of the circle. “Raziel, I came to ask a favor of you, in the name of those
Nephilim. They face a grave danger. One of their own has—has been turned to darkness,
and he threatens all the rest. They need your help.”
I do not intervene.
“But you did intervene,” Simon said. “When Jace was dead, you brought him back. Not
that we’re not all really happy about that, but if you hadn’t, none of this would be
happening. So in a way it rests on you to set it right.”
I may not be able to kill you, Raziel mused. But there is no reason I should give you
what you want.
“I haven’t even said what I want,” said Simon.
You want a weapon. Something that can sever Jonathan Morgenstern from Jonathan
Herondale. You would kill the one and preserve the other. Easiest of course to simply kill
both. Your Jonathan was dead, and perhaps death longs for him still, and he for it. Has
that ever crossed your mind?
“No,” said Simon. “I know we’re not much compared to you, but we don’t kill our
friends. We try to save them. If Heaven didn’t want it that way, we ought never have
been given the ability to love.” He shoved his hair back, baring the Mark more fully. “No,
you don’t need to help me. But if you don’t, there’s nothing stopping me from calling you
up again and again, now that I know you can’t kill me. Think of it as me leaning against
your Heavenly doorbell… forever.”
Raziel, incredibly, seemed to chuckle at that. You are stubborn, he said. A veritable
warrior of your people, like him whose name you bear, Simon Maccabeus. And as he gave
everything for his brother Jonathan, so shall you give everything for your Jonathan. Or are
you not willing?
“It’s not just for him,” said Simon, a little dazed. “But, yes, whatever you want. I will
give it to you.”
If I give you what you want, will you also vow never to bother me again?
“I don’t think,” said Simon, “that that will be a problem.”
Very well, said the Angel. I will tell you what I desire. I desire that blasphemous Mark
on your forehead. I would take the Mark of Cain from you, for it was never your place to
carry it.
“I—but if you take the Mark, then you can kill me,” Simon said. “Isn’t it the only thing
standing between me and your Heavenly wrath?”
The Angel paused to consider for a moment. I shall swear not to harm you. Whether
you bear the Mark or not.
Simon hesitated. The Angel’s expression turned thunderous. The vow of an Angel of
Heaven is the most sacred there is. Do you dare to distrust me, Downworlder?
“I…” Simon paused for an excruciating moment. His eyes were filled with the memory
of Clary standing on her tiptoes as she pressed the stele to his forehead; the first time he
had seen the Mark work, when he had felt like the conductor for a lightning bolt, sheer
energy passing through him with deadly force. It was a curse, one that had terrified him
and made him an object of desire and fear. He had hated it. And yet now, faced with
giving it up, the thing that made him special…
He swallowed hard. “Fine. Yes. I agree.”
The Angel smiled, and his smile was terrible, like looking directly into the sun. Then I
swear not to harm you, Simon Maccabeus.
“Lewis,” Simon said. “My last name is Lewis.”
But you are of the blood and faith of the Maccabees. Some say the Maccabees were
Marked by the hand of God. In either case you are a warrior of Heaven, Daylighter,
whether you like it or not.
The Angel moved. Simon’s eyes watered, for Raziel seemed to draw the sky with him
like a cloth, in swirls of black and silver and cloud-white. The air around him shuddered.
Something flashed overhead like the glint of light off metal, and an object struck the sand
and rocks beside Simon with a metallic clatter.
It was a sword—nothing special to look at either, a beaten-up-looking old iron sword
with a blackened hilt. The edges were ragged, as if acid had eaten at them, though the
tip was sharp. It looked like something that an archeological dig might have turned up,
that hadn’t been properly cleaned yet.
The Angel spoke. Once when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man
standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said, “Are
you one of us, or one of our adversaries?” He replied, “Neither, but as commander of the
army of the Lord, I have now come.”
Simon glanced down at the unprepossesing object at his feet. “And that’s this sword?”
It is the sword of the Archangel Michael, commander of the armies of Heaven. It
possesses the power of Heaven’s fire. Strike your enemy with this, and it will burn the evil
out of him. If he is more evil than good, more Hell’s than Heaven’s, it will also burn the
life from him. It will most certainly sever his bond with your friend—and it can harm only
one of them at a time.
Simon bent down and picked the sword up. It sent a shock through his hand, up his
arm, into his motionless heart. Instinctively he raised it, and the clouds above seemed to
part for a moment, a ray of light arcing down to strike the dull metal of the sword and
make it sing.
The Angel looked down upon him with cold eyes. The name of the sword cannot be
spoken by your meager human tongue. You may call it Glorious.
“I… ,” Simon began. “Thank you.”
Do not thank me. I would have killed you, Daylighter, but your Mark, and now my vow,
prevent it. The Mark of Cain was meant to be placed upon you by God, and it was not. It
shall be wiped from your brow, its protection removed. And if you call upon me again, I
will not help you.
Instantly the beam of light shining down from the clouds intensified, striking the sword
like a whip of fire, surrounding Simon in a cage of brilliant light and heat. The sword
burned; he cried out and fell to the ground, pain lancing through his head. It felt as if
someone were jabbing a red hot needle between his eyes. He covered his face, burying
his head in his arms, letting the pain wash over him. It was the worst agony he had felt
since the night he had died.
It faded slowly, ebbing like the tide. He rolled onto his back, staring up, his head still
aching. The black clouds were beginning to roll back, showing a widening strip of blue;
the Angel was gone, the lake surging under the growing light as if the water were boiling.
Simon began to sit up slowly, his eyes squinted painfully against the sun. He could see
someone racing down the path from the farmhouse to the lake. Someone with long black
hair, and a purple jacket that flew out behind her like wings. She hit the end of the path
and leaped onto the lakeside, her boots kicking up puffs of sand behind her. She reached
him and threw herself down, wrapping her arms around him. “Simon,” she whispered.
He could feel the strong, steady beat of Isabelle’s heart.
“I thought you were dead,” she went on. “I saw you fall down, and—I thought you were
dead.”
Simon let her hold him, propping himself up on his hands. He realized he was listing
like a ship with a hole in the side, and tried not to move. He was afraid that if he did, he
would fall over. “I am dead.”
“I know,” Izzy snapped. “I mean more dead than usual.”
“Iz.” He raised his face to hers. She was kneeling over him, her legs around his, her
arms around his neck. It looked uncomfortable. He let himself fall back into the sand,
taking her with him. He thumped down onto his back in the cold sand with her on top of
him and stared up into her black eyes. They seemed to take up the whole sky.
She touched his forehead in wonder. “Your Mark’s gone.”
“Raziel took it away. In exchange for the sword.” He gestured toward the blade. Up at
the farmhouse, he could see two dark specks standing in front of the sunporch, watching
them. Alec and Magnus. “It’s the Archangel Michael’s sword. It’s called Glorious.”
“Simon…” She kissed his cheek. “You did it. You got the Angel. You got the sword.”
Magnus and Alec had started down the path to the lake. Simon closed his eyes,
exhausted. Isabelle leaned over him, her hair brushing the sides of his face. “Don’t try to
talk.” She smelled like tears. “You’re not cursed anymore,” she whispered. “You’re not
cursed.”
Simon linked his fingers with hers. He felt as if he were floating on a dark river, the
shadows closing in around him. Only her hand anchored him to earth. “I know.”

Categories: City of Lost Souls