[English] City Of Bones

City of Bones
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“Like vampires, werewolves, and …”

“The Fair Folk,” Hodge said. “Faeries. And Lilith’s children, being half-demon, are warlocks.”

“So what are you Shadowhunters?”

“We are sometimes called the Nephilim,” said Hodge. “In the Bible they were the offspring of humans and angels. The legend of the origin of Shadowhunters is that they were created more than a thousand years ago, when humans were being overrun by demon invasions from other worlds. A warlock summoned the Angel Raziel, who mixed some of his own blood with the blood of men in a cup, and gave it to those men to drink. Those who drank the Angel’s blood became Shadowhunters, as did their children and their children’s children. The cup thereafter was known as the Mortal Cup. Though the legend may not be fact, what is true is that through the years, when Shadowhunter ranks were depleted, it was always possible to create more Shadowhunters using the Cup.”

“Was always possible?”

“The Cup is gone,” said Hodge. “Destroyed by Valentine, just before he died. He set a great fire and burned himself to death along with his family, his wife, and his child. Scorched the land black. No one will build there still. They say the land is cursed.”

“Is it?”

“Possibly. The Clave hands down curses on occasion as punishment for breaking the Law. Valentine broke the greatest Law of all—he took up arms against his fellow Shadowhunters and slew them. He and his group, the Circle, killed dozens of their brethren along with hundreds of Downworlders during the last Accords. They were only barely defeated.”

“Why would he want to turn on other Shadowhunters?”

“He didn’t approve of the Accords. He despised Downworlders and felt that they should be slaughtered, wholesale, to keep this world pure for human beings. Though the Downworlders are not demons, not invaders, he felt they were demonic in nature, and that that was enough. The Clave did not agree—they felt the assistance of Downworlders was necessary if we were ever to drive off demonkind for good. And who could argue, really, that the Fair Folk do not belong in this world, when they have been here longer than we have?”

“Did the Accords get signed?”

“Yes, they were signed. When the Downworlders saw the Clave turn on Valentine and his Circle in their defense, they realized Shadowhunters were not their enemies. Ironically, with his insurrection Valentine made the Accords possible.” Hodge sat down in the chair again. “I apologize; this must be a dull history lesson for you. That was Valentine. A firebrand, a visionary, a man of great personal charm and conviction. And a killer. Now someone is invoking his name …”

“But who?” Clary asked. “And what does my mother have to do with it?”

Hodge stood up again. “I don’t know. But I shall do what I can to find out. I will send messages to the Clave and also to the Silent Brothers. They may wish to speak with you.”

Clary didn’t ask who the Silent Brothers were. She was tired of asking questions whose answers only made her more confused. She stood up. “Is there any chance I could go home?”

Hodge looked concerned. “No, I—I wouldn’t think that would be wise.”

“There are things I need there, even if I’m going to stay here. Clothes—”

“We can give you money to purchase new clothes.”

“Please,” Clary said. “I have to see if—I have to see what’s left.”

Hodge hesitated, then offered a short, inverted nod. “If Jace agrees to it, you may both go.” He turned to the desk, rummaging among the papers. He glanced over his shoulder as if realizing she was still there. “He’s in the weapons room.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

Hodge smiled crookedly. “Church will take you.”

She glanced toward the door where the fat blue Persian was curled up like a small ottoman. He rose as she came forward, fur rippling like liquid. With an imperious meow he led her into the hall. When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw Hodge already scribbling on a piece of paper. Sending a message to the mysterious Clave, she guessed. They didn’t sound like very nice people. She wondered what their response would be.

The red ink looked like blood against the white paper. Frowning, Hodge Starkweather rolled the letter, carefully and meticulously, into the shape of a tube, and whistled for Hugo. The bird, cawing softly, settled on his wrist. Hodge winced. Years ago, in the Uprising, he had sustained a wound to that shoulder, and even as light a weight as Hugo’s—or the turn of a season, a change in temperature or humi***y, too sudden a movement of his arm—awakened old twinges and the memories of pains better forgotten.

There were some memories, though, that never faded. Images burst like flashbulbs behind his lids when he closed his eyes. Blood and bodies, trampled earth, a white podium stained with red. The cries of the dying. The green and rolling fields of Idris and its endless blue sky, pierced by the towers of the Glass City. The pain of loss surged up inside him like a wave; he tightened his fist, and Hugo, wings fluttering, pecked angrily at his fingers, drawing blood. Opening his hand, Hodge released the bird, who circled his head as he flew up to the skylight and then vanished.

Shaking off his sense of foreboding, Hodge reached for another piece of paper, not noticing the scarlet drops that smeared the paper as he wrote.

6

FORSAKEN

THE WEAPONS ROOM LOOKED EXACTLY THE WAY SOMETHING called “the weapons room” sounded like it would look. Brushed metal walls were hung with every manner of sword, dagger, spike, pike, featherstaff, bayonet, whip, mace, hook, and bow. Soft leather bags filled with arrows dangled from hooks, and there were stacks of boots, leg guards, and gauntlets for wrists and arms. The place smelled of metal and leather and steel polish. Alec and Jace, no longer barefoot, sat at a long table in the center of the room, their heads bent over an object between them. Jace looked up as the door shut behind Clary. “Where’s Hodge?” he said.

“Writing to the Silent Brothers.”

Alec repressed a shudder. “Ugh.”

She approached the table slowly, conscious of Alec’s gaze. “What are you doing?”

“Putting the last touches on these.” Jace moved aside so she could see what lay on the table: three long slim wands of a dully glowing silver. They did not look sharp or particularly dangerous. “Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf. They’re seraph blades.”

“Those don’t look like knives. How did you make them? Magic?”

Alec looked horrified, as if she’d asked him to put on a tutu and execute a perfect pirouette. “The funny thing about mundies,” Jace said, to nobody in particular, “is how obsessed with magic they are for a bunch of people who don’t even know what the word means.”

“I know what it means,” Clary snapped.

“No, you don’t, you just think you do. Magic is a dark and elemental force, not just a lot of sparkly wands and crystal balls and talking goldfish.”

“I never said it was a lot of talking goldfish, you—”

Jace waved a hand, cutting her off. “Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn’t make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie.”

“You’re driveling,” Clary observed.

“I’m not,” said Jace, with great dignity.

“Yes, you are,” said Alec, rather unexpectedly. “Look, we don’t do magic, okay?” he added, not looking at Clary. “That’s all you need to know about it.”

Clary wanted to snap at him, but restrained herself. Alec already didn’t seem to like her; there was no point in aggravating his hostility. She turned to Jace. “Hodge said I can go home.”

Jace nearly dropped the seraph blade he was holding. “He said what?”

“To look through my mother’s things,” she amended. “If you go with me.”

“Jace,” Alec exhaled, but Jace ignored him.

“If you really want to prove that my mom or dad was a Shadowhunter, we should look through my mom’s things. What’s left of them.”

“Down the rabbit hole.” Jace grinned crookedly. “Good idea. If we go right now, we should have another three, four hours of daylight.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Alec asked, as Clary and Jace moved toward the door. Clary glanced back at him. He was half-out of the chair, eyes expectant.

“No.” Jace didn’t turn around. “That’s all right. Clary and I can handle this on our own.”

The look Alec shot Clary was as sour as poison. She was glad when the door shut behind her.

Jace led the way down the hall, Clary half-jogging to keep up with his long-legged stride. “Have you got your house keys?”

Clary glanced down at her shoes. “Yeah.”

“Good. Not that we couldn’t break...

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But there were no signs of destruction. Bathed in pleasant afternoon light, the brownstone seemed to glow. Bees droned lazily around the rosebushes under Madame Dorothea’s windows.

“It looks the same,” Clary said.

“On the outside.” Jace reached into his jeans pocket and drew out another one of the metal and plastic contraptions she’d mistaken for a cell phone.

“So that’s a Sensor? What does it do?” she asked.

“It picks up frequencies, like a radio does, but these frequencies are demonic in origin.”

“Demon shortwave?”

“Something like that.” Jace held the Sensor out in front of him as he approached the house. It clicked faintly as they climbed the stairs, then stopped. Jace frowned. “It’s picking up trace activity, but that could just be left over from that night. I’m not getting anything strong enough for there to be demons present now.”

Clary let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Good.” She bent to retrieve her keys. When she straightened up, she saw the scratches on the front door. It must have been too dark for her to have seen them last time. They looked like claw marks, long and parallel, raked deeply into the wood.

Jace touched her arm. “I’ll go in first,” he said. Clary wanted to tell him that she didn’t need to hide behind him, but the words wouldn’t come. She could taste the terror she’d felt when she’d first seen the Ravener. The taste was sharp and coppery on her tongue like old pennies.

He pushed the door open with one hand, beckoning her after him with the hand that held the Sensor. Once inside the entryway, Clary blinked, adjusting her eyes to the dimness. The bulb overhead was still out, the skylight too filthy to let in any light, and shadows lay thick across the chipped floor. Madame Dorothea’s door was firmly shut. No light showed through the gap under it. Clary wondered uneasily if anything had happened to her.

Jace raised his hand and ran it along the banister. It came away wet, streaked with something that looked blackish red in the dim light. “Blood.”

“Maybe it’s mine.” Her voice sounded tinny. “From the other night.”

“It’d be dry by now if it were,” Jace said. “Come on.”

He headed up the stairs, Clary close behind him. The landing was dark, and she fumbled her keys three times before she managed to slide the right one into the lock. Jace leaned over her, watching impatiently. “Don’t breathe down my neck,” she hissed; her hand was shaking. Finally the tumblers caught, the lock clicking open.

Jace pulled her back. “I’ll go in first.”

She hesitated, then stepped aside to let him pass. Her palms were sticky, and not from the heat. In fact, it was cool inside the apartment, almost cold—chilly air seeped from the entryway, stinging her skin. She felt goose bumps rising as she followed Jace down the short hallway and into the living room.

It was empty. Startlingly, entirely empty, the way it had been when they’d first moved in—the walls and floor bare, the furniture gone, even the curtains torn down from the windows. Only faint lighter squares of paint on the wall showed where her mother’s paintings had hung. As if in a dream, Clary turned and walked toward the kitchen, Jace pacing her, his light eyes narrowed.

The kitchen was just as empty, even the refrigerator gone, the chairs, the table. The kitchen cabinets stood open, their bare shelves reminding her of a nursery rhyme. She cleared her throat. “What would demons,” she said, “want with our microwave?”

Jace shook his head, mouth curling under at the corners. “I don’t know, but I’m not sensing any demonic presence right now. I’d say they’re long gone.”

She glanced around one more time. Someone had cleaned up the spilled Tabasco sauce, she noticed distantly.

“Are you satisfied?” Jace asked. “There’s nothing here.”

She shook her head. “I want to see my room.”

He looked as if he were about to say something, then thought better of it. “If that’s what it takes,” he said, sliding the seraph blade into his pocket.

The light in the hallway was out, but Clary didn’t need much light to navigate inside her own house. With Jace just behind her, she found the door to her bedroom and reached for the knob. It was cold in her hand—so cold it nearly hurt, like touching an icicle with your bare skin. She saw Jace look at her quickly, but she was already turning the knob, or trying to. It moved slowly, almost stickily, as if the other side of it were embedded in something glutinous and syrupy—

The door blew outward, knocking her off her feet. She skidded across the hallway floor and slammed into the wall, rolling onto her stomach. There was a dull roaring in her ears as she pulled herself up to her knees.

Jace, flat against the wall, was fumbling in his pocket, his face a mask of surprise. Looming over him like a giant in a fairy tale was an enormous man, big around as an oak tree, a broad-bladed ax clutched in one gigantic dead-white hand. Tattered filthy rags hung off his grimy skin, and his hair was a single matted tangle, thick with dirt. He stank of poisonous sweat and rotting flesh. Clary was glad she couldn’t see his face—the back of him was bad enough.

Jace had the seraph blade in his hand. He raised it, calling out: “Sansanvi!”

A blade shot from the tube. Clary thought of old movies where bayonets were hidden inside walking sticks, released at the flick of a switch. But she’d never seen a blade like this before: clear as glass, with a glowing hilt, wickedly sharp and nearly as long as Jace’s forearm. He struck out, slashing at the gigantic man, who staggered back with a bellow.

Jace whirled around, racing toward her. He caught her arm, hauling her to her feet, pushing her ahead of him down the hall. She could hear the thing behind them, following; its footsteps sounded like lead weights being dropped onto the floor, but it was coming on fast.

They sped through the entryway and out onto the landing, Jace whipping around to slam the front door shut. She heard the click of the automatic lock and caught her breath. The door shook on its hinges as a tremendous blow struck against it from inside the apartment. Clary backed away to the stairs. Jace glanced at her. His eyes were glowing with manic excitement. “Get downstairs! Get out of the—”

Another blow came, and this time the hinges gave way and the door flew outward. It would have knocked Jace over if he hadn’t moved so fast that Clary barely saw it; suddenly he was on the top stair, the blade burning in his hand like a fallen star. She saw Jace look at her and shout something, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the gigantic creature that burst from the shattered door, making straight for him. She flattened herself against the wall as it passed in a wave of heat and stink—and then its ax was flying, whipping through the air, slicing toward Jace’s head. He ducked, and it thunked heavily into the banister, biting deep.

Jace laughed. The laugh seemed to enrage the creature; abandoning the ax, he lurched at Jace with his enormous fists raised. Jace brought the seraph blade around in an arcing sweep, burying it to the hilt in the giant’s shoulder. For a moment the giant stood swaying. Then he lurched forward, his hands outstretched and grasping. Jace stepped aside hastily, but not hastily enough: The enormous fists caught hold of him as the giant staggered and fell, dragging Jace in his wake. Jace cried out once; there was a series of heavy and cracking thumps, and then silence.

Clary scrambled to her feet and raced downstairs. Jace lay sprawled at the foot of the steps, his arm bent beneath him at an unnatural angle. Across his legs lay the giant, the hilt of Jace’s blade protruding from his shoulder. He was not quite dead, but flopping weakly, a bloody froth leaking from his mouth. Clary could see his face now—it was dead-white and papery, latticed with a black network of horrible scars that almost obliterated his features. His eye sockets were red suppurating pits. Fighting the urge to gag, Clary stumbled down the last few stairs, stepped over the twitching giant, and knelt down next to Jace.

He was so still. She laid a hand on his shoulder, felt his shirt sticky with blood—his own or the giant’s, she couldn’t tell. “Jace?”

His eyes opened. “Is it dead?”

“Almost,” Clary said grimly.

“Hell.” He winced. “My legs—”

“Hold still.” Crawling around to his head, Clary slipped her hands under his arms and pulled. He grunted with pain as his legs slipped out from under the creature’s spasming carcass. Clary let go, and he struggled to his feet, his left arm across his chest. She stood up. “Is your arm all right?”

“No. Broken,” he said. “Can you reach into my pocket?”

She hesitated, nodded. “Which one?”

“Inside jacket, right side. Take out one of the seraph blades and hand it to me.” He held still as she nervously slipped her fingers into his pocket. She was standing so close that she could smell the scent of him, sweat and soap...

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Jace, who was nearly at the top of the stairs, spun and stared. So did Clary, although she knew immediately who had spoken. That gravelly accent was unmistakable.

“Madame Dorothea?”

The old woman inclined her head regally. She stood in the doorway of her apartment, dressed in what looked like a tent made of raw purple silk. Gold chains glittered on her wrists and roped her throat. Her long badger-striped hair straggled from the bun pinned to the top of her head.

Jace was still staring. “But …”

“More what?” Clary said.

“More Forsaken,” replied Dorothea with a cheerfulness that, Clary felt, didn’t really fit the circumstances. She glanced around the entryway. “You have made a mess, haven’t you? I’m sure you weren’t planning on cleaning up either. Typical.”

“But you’re a mundane,” Jace said, finally finishing his sentence.

“So observant,” said Dorothea, her eyes gleaming. “The Clave really broke the mold with you.”

The bewilderment on Jace’s face was fading, replaced by a dawning anger. “You know about the Clave?” he demanded. “You knew about them, and you knew there were Forsaken in this house, and you didn’t notify them? Just the existence of Forsaken is a crime against the Covenant—”

“Neither Clave nor Covenant have ever done anything for me,” said Madame Dorothea, her eyes flashing angrily. “I owe them nothing.” For a moment her gravelly New York accent vanished, replaced with something else, a thicker, deeper accent that Clary didn’t recognize.

“Jace, stop it,” Clary said. She turned to Madame Dorothea. “If you know about the Clave and the Forsaken,” she said, “then maybe you know what happened to my mother?”

Dorothea shook her head, her earrings swinging. There was something like pity on her face. “My advice to you,” she said, “is to forget about your mother. She’s gone.”

The floor under Clary seemed to tilt. “You mean she’s dead?”

“No.” Dorothea spoke the word almost reluctantly. “I’m sure she’s still alive. For now.”

“Then I have to find her,” Clary said. The world had stopped tilting; Jace was standing behind her, his hand on her elbow as if to brace her, but she barely noticed. “You understand? I have to find her before—”

Madame Dorothea held up a hand. “I don’t want to involve myself in Shadowhunter business.”

“But you knew my mother. She was your neighbor—”

“This is an official Clave investigation.” Jace cut her off. “I can always come back with the Silent Brothers.”

“Oh, for the—” Dorothea glanced at her door, then at Jace and Clary. “I suppose you might as well come in,” she said, finally. “I’ll tell you what I can.” She started toward the door, then halted on the threshold, glaring. “But if you tell anyone I helped you, Shadowhunter, you’ll wake up tomorrow with snakes for hair and an extra pair of arms.”

“That might be nice, an extra pair of arms,” Jace said. “Handy in a fight.”

“Not if they’re growing out of your …” Dorothea paused and smiled at him, not without malice. “Neck.”

“Yikes,” said Jace mildly.

“Yikes is right, Jace Wayland.” Dorothea marched into the apartment, her purple tent flying around her like a gaudy flag.

Clary looked at Jace. “Wayland?”

“It’s my name.” Jace looked shaken. “I can’t say I like that she knows it.”

Clary glanced after Dorothea. The lights were on inside the apartment; already the heavy smell of incense was flooding the entryway, mixing unpleasantly with the stench of blood. “Still, I think we might as well try talking to her. What have we got to lose?”

“Once you’ve spent a bit more time in our world,” Jace said, “you won’t ask me that again.”

7

THE FIVE-DIMENSIONAL DOOR

MADAME DOROTHEA’S APARTMENT SEEMED TO HAVE ROUGHLY the same layout as Clary’s, though she’d made a very different use of the space. The entryway, reeking of incense, was hung with bead curtains and astrological posters. One showed the constellations of the zodiac, another a guide to Chinese magical symbols, and another showed a hand with fingers spread, each line on the palm carefully labeled. Above the hand Latinate script spelled out the words In Manibus Fortuna. Narrow shelves holding stacked books ran along the wall beside the door.

One of the bead curtains rattled, and Madame Dorothea poked her head through. “Interested in chiromancy?” she said, noting Clary’s gaze. “Or just nosy?”

“Neither,” Clary said. “Can you really tell fortunes?”

“My mother had a great talent. She could see a man’s future in his hand or the leaves at the bottom of his teacup. She taught me some of her tricks.” She transferred her gaze to Jace. “Speaking of tea, young man, would you like some?”

“What?” Jace said, looking flustered.

“Tea. I find it both settles the stomach and concentrates the mind. Wonderful drink, tea.”

“I’ll have tea,” Clary said, realizing how long it had been since she had eaten or drunk anything. She felt as if she’d been running on pure adrenaline since she woke up.

Jace succumbed. “All right. As long as it isn’t Earl Grey,” he added, wrinkling his fine-boned nose. “I hate bergamot.”

Madame Dorothea cackled loudly and disappeared back through the bead curtain, leaving it swaying gently behind her.

Clary raised her eyebrows at Jace. “You hate bergamot?”

Jace had wandered over to the narrow bookcase and was examining its contents. “You have a problem with that?”

“You may be the only guy my age I’ve ever met who knows what bergamot is, much less that it’s in Earl Grey tea.”

“Yes, well,” Jace said, with a supercilious look, “I’m not like other guys. Besides,” he added, flipping a book off the shelf, “at the Institute we have to take classes in basic medicinal uses for plants. It’s required.”

“I figured all your classes were stuff like Slaughter 101 and Beheading for Beginners.”

Jace flipped a page. “Very funny, Fray.”

Clary, who had been studying the palmistry poster, whirled on him. “Don’t call me that.”

He glanced up, surprised. “Why not? It’s your last name, isn’t it?”

The image of Simon rose up behind her eyes. Simon the last time she had seen him, staring after her as she ran out of Java Jones. She turned back to the poster, blinking. “No reason.”

“I see,” Jace said, and she could tell from his voice that he did see, more than she wanted him to. She heard him drop the book back onto the shelf. “This must be the trash she keeps up front to impress credible mundanes,” he said, sounding disgusted. “There’s not one serious text here.”

“Just because it’s not the kind of magic you do—” Clary began crossly.

He scowled furiously, silencing her. “I do not do magic,” he said. “Get it through your head: Human beings are not magic users. It’s part of what makes them human. Witches and warlocks can only use magic because they have demon blood.”

Clary took a moment to process this. “But I’ve seen you use magic. You use enchanted weapons—”

“I use tools that are magical. And just to be able to do that, I have to undergo rigorous training. The rune tattoos on my skin protect me too. If you tried to use one of the seraph blades, for instance, it’d probably burn your skin, maybe kill you.”

“What if I got the tattoos?” Clary asked. “Could I use them then?”

“No,” Jace said crossly. “The Marks are only part of it. There are tests, ordeals, levels of training—look, just forget it, okay? Stay away from my blades. In fact, don’t touch any of my weapons without my permission.”

“Well, there goes my plan for selling them all on eBay,” Clary muttered.

“Selling them on what?”

Clary smiled blandly at him. “A mythical place of great magical power.”

Jace looked confused, then shrugged. “Most myths are true, at least in part.”

“I’m starting to get that.”

The bead curtain rattled again, and Madame Dorothea’s head appeared. “Tea’s on the table,” she said. “There’s no need for you two to keep standing there like donkeys. Come into the parlor.”

“There’s a parlor?” Clary said.

“Of course there’s a parlor,” said Dorothea. “Where else would I entertain?”

“I’ll just leave my hat with the footman,” said Jace.

Madame Dorothea shot him a dark look. “If you were half as funny as you thought you were, my boy, you’d...

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“Thanks,” Clary said. She thought of Isabelle’s tiny waist and felt suddenly gigantic. She set her empty teacup down with a clatter.

Instantly, Madame Dorothea pounced on the cup and stared into it intently, a line appearing between her penciled eyebrows.

“What?” Clary said nervously. “Did I crack the cup or something?”

“She’s reading your tea leaves,” Jace said, sounding bored, but he leaned forward along with Clary as Dorothea turned the cup around and around in her thick fingers, scowling.

“Is it bad?” Clary asked.

“It is neither bad nor good. It is confusing.” Dorothea looked at Jace. “Give me your cup,” she commanded.

Jace looked affronted. “But I’m not done with my—”

The old woman snatched the cup out of his hand and splashed the excess tea back into the pot. Frowning, she gazed at what remained. “I see violence in your future, a great deal of blood shed by you and others. You’ll fall in love with the wrong person. Also, you have an enemy.”

“Only one? That’s good news.” Jace leaned back in his chair as Dorothea put down his cup and picked up Clary’s again. She shook her head.

“There is nothing for me to read here. The images are jumbled, meaningless.” She glanced at Clary. “Is there a block in your mind?”

Clary was puzzled. “A what?”

“Like a spell that might conceal a memory, or might have blocked out your Sight.”

Clary shook her head. “No, of course not.”

Jace leaned forward alertly. “Don’t be so hasty,” he said. “It’s true that she claims not to remember ever having had the Sight before this week. Maybe—”

“Maybe I’m just a late developer,” Clary snapped. “And don’t leer at me, just because I said that.”

Jace assumed an injured air. “I wasn’t going to.”

“You were working up to a leer, I could tell.”

“Maybe,” Jace acknowledged, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not right. Something’s blocking your memories, I’m almost sure of it.”

“Very well, let’s try something else.” Dorothea put the cup down, and reached for the silk-wrapped tarot cards. She fanned the cards and held them out to Clary. “Slide your hand over these until you touch one that feels hot or cold, or seems to cling to your fingers. Then draw that one and show it to me.”

Obediently Clary ran her fingers over the cards. They felt cool to the touch, and slippery, but none seemed particularly warm or cold, and none stuck to her fingers. Finally she selected one at random, and held it up.

“The Ace of Cups,” Dorothea said, sounding bemused. “The love card.”

Clary turned it over and looked at it. The card was heavy in her hand, the image on the front thick with real paint. It showed a hand holding up a cup in front of a rayed sun painted with gilt. The cup was made of gold, engraved with a pattern of smaller suns and studded with rubies. The style of the artwork was as familiar to her as her own breath. “This is a good card, right?”

“Not necessarily. The most terrible things men do, they do in the name of love,” said Madame Dorothea, her eyes gleaming. “But it is a powerful card. What does it mean to you?”

“That my mother painted it,” said Clary, and dropped the card onto the table. “She did, didn’t she?”

Dorothea nodded, a look of pleased satisfaction on her face. “She painted the whole pack. A gift for me.”

“So you say.” Jace stood up, his eyes cold. “How well did you know Clary’s mother?”

Clary craned her head to look up at him. “Jace, you don’t have to—”

Dorothea sat back in her chair, the cards fanned out across her wide chest. “Jocelyn knew what I was, and I knew what she was. We didn’t talk about it much. Sometimes she did favors for me—like painting this pack of cards—and in return I’d tell her the occasional piece of Downworld gossip. There was a name she asked me to keep an ear out for, and I did.”

Jace’s expression was unreadable. “What name was that?”

“Valentine.”

Clary sat straight up in her chair. “But that’s—”

“And when you say you knew what Jocelyn was, what do you mean? What was she?” Jace asked.

“Jocelyn was what she was,” said Dorothea. “But in her past she’d been like you. A Shadowhunter. One of the Clave.”

“No,” Clary whispered.

Dorothea looked at her with sad, almost kindly eyes. “It’s true. She chose to live in this house precisely because—”

“Because this is a Sanctuary,” Jace said to Dorothea. “Isn’t it? Your mother was a Control. She made this space, hidden, protected—it’s a perfect spot for Downworlders on the run to hide out. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You hide criminals here.”

“You would call them that,” Dorothea said. “You’re familiar with the motto of the Covenant?”

“Sed lex dura lex,” said Jace automatically. “‘The Law is hard, but it is the Law.’”

“Sometimes the Law is too hard. I know the Clave would have taken me away from my mother if they could. You want me to let them do the same to others?”

“So you’re a philanthropist.” Jace’s lip curled. “I suppose you expect me to believe that Downworlders don’t pay you handsomely for the privilege of your Sanctuary?”

Dorothea grinned, wide enough to show a flash of gold molars. “We can’t all get by on our looks like you.”

Jace looked unmoved by the flattery. “I should tell the Clave about you—”

“You can’t!” Clary was on her feet now. “You promised.”

“I never promised anything.” Jace looked mutinous. He strode to the wall and tore aside one of the velvet hangings. “You want to tell me what this is?” he demanded.

“It’s a door, Jace,” said Clary. It was a door, set strangely in the wall between the two bay windows. Clearly it couldn’t be a door that led anywhere, or it would have been visible from the outside of the house. It looked as if it were made of some softly glowing metal, more buttery than brass but as heavy as iron. The knob had been cast in the shape of an eye.

“Shut up,” Jace said angrily. “It’s a Portal. Isn’t it?”

“It’s a five-dimensional door,” said Dorothea, laying the tarot cards back on the table. “Dimensions aren’t all straight lines, you know,” she added, in response to Clary’s blank look. “There are dips and folds and nooks and crannies all tucked away. It’s a bit hard to explain when you’ve never studied dimensional theory, but, in essence, that door can take you anywhere in this dimension that you want to go. It’s—”

“An escape hatch,” Jace said. “That’s why your mother wanted to live here. So she could always flee at a moment’s notice.”

“Then why didn’t she—” Clary began, and broke off, suddenly horrified. “Because of me,” she said. “She wouldn’t leave without me that night. So she stayed.”

Jace was shaking his head. “You can’t blame yourself.”

Feeling tears gather under her eyelids, Clary pushed past Jace to the door. “I want to see where she would have gone,” she said, reaching for the door. “I want to see where she was going to escape to—”

“Clary, no!” Jace reached for her, but her fingers had already closed around the knob. It spun rapidly under her hand, the door flying open as if she’d pushed it. Dorothea lumbered to her feet with a cry, but it was too late. Before she could even finish her sentence, Clary found herself flung forward and tumbling through empty space.

8

WEAPON OF CHOICE

SHE WAS TOO SURPRISED TO SCREAM. THE SENSATION OF falling was the worst part; her heart flew up into her throat and her stomach turned to water. She flung her hands out, trying to catch at something, anything, that might slow her descent.

Her hands closed on branches. Leaves tore off in her grip. She thumped to the ground, hard, her hip and shoulder striking packed earth. She rolled over, sucking the air back into her lungs. She was just beginning to sit up when someone landed on top of her.

She was knocked backward. A forehead banged against hers, her knees banging against someone else’s. Tangled up in arms and legs, Clary coughed hair—not her own—out of her mouth and tried to struggle out from under the weight that felt like it was crushing her flat.

“Ouch,” Jace said in her ear, his tone indignant. “You elbowed me.”

“Well, you landed on me.”

He levered himself up on his arms and looked down at her placidly. Clary could see blue sky above his head, a bit of tree branch, and the corner of a gray clapboard house. “Well,...

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“Get the hell off me, you pretentious asshole,” the intruder snarled, shoving at Jace. He struggled halfway into a sitting position, his battered glasses knocked askew.

Clary stopped dead in her tracks. “Simon?”

“Oh, God,” said Jace, sounding resigned. “And here I’d actually hoped I’d got hold of something interesting.”

“But what were you doing hiding in Luke’s bushes?” Clary asked, brushing leaves out of Simon’s hair. He suffered her ministrations with glaring bad grace. Somehow when she’d pictured her reunion with Simon, when all this was over, he’d been in a better mood. “That’s the part I don’t get.”

“All right, that’s enough. I can fix my own hair, Fray,” Simon said, jerking away from her touch. They were sitting on the steps of Luke’s back porch. Jace had propped himself on the porch railing and was assiduously pretending to ignore them, while using the stele to file the edges of his fingernails. Clary wondered if the Clave would approve.

“I mean, did Luke know you were there?” she asked.

“Of course he didn’t know I was there,” Simon said irritably. “I’ve never asked him, but I’m sure he has a fairly stringent policy about random teenagers lurking in his shrubbery.”

“You’re not random; he knows you.” She wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, still bleeding slightly where a branch had scratched it. “The main thing is that you’re all right.”

“That I’m all right?” Simon laughed, a sharp, unhappy sound. “Clary, do you have any idea what I’ve been through this past couple of days? The last time I saw you, you were running out of Java Jones like a bat out of hell, and then you just … disappeared. You never picked up your cell—then your home phone was disconnected—then Luke told me you were off staying with some relatives upstate when I know you don’t have any other relatives. I thought I’d done something to piss you off.”

“What could you possibly have done?” Clary reached for his hand, but he pulled it back without looking at her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Something.”

Jace, still occupied with the stele, chuckled low under his breath.

“You’re my best friend,” Clary said. “I wasn’t mad at you.”

“Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn’t be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-blond wannabe goth you probably met at Pandemonium,” Simon pointed out sourly. “After I spent the past three days wondering if you were dead.”

“I was not shacking up,” Clary said, glad of the darkness as the blood rushed to her face.

“And my hair is naturally blond,” said Jace. “Just for the record.”

“So what have you been doing these past three days, then?” Simon said, his eyes dark with suspicion. “Do you really have a great-aunt Matilda who contracted avian flu and needed to be nursed back to health?”

“Did Luke actually say that?”

“No. He just said you had gone to visit a sick relative, and that your phone probably just didn’t work out in the country. Not that I believed him. After he shooed me off his front porch, I went around the side of the house and looked in the back window. Watched him packing up a green duffel bag like he was going away for the weekend. That was when I decided to stick around and keep an eye on things.”

“Why? Because he was packing a bag?”

“He was packing it full of weapons,” Simon said, scrubbing at the blood on his cheek with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Knives, a couple daggers, even a sword. Funny thing is, some of the weapons looked like they were glowing.” He looked from Clary to Jace, and back again. His tone was edged as sharply as one of Luke’s knives. “Now, are you going to say I was imagining it?”

“No,” Clary said. “I’m not going to say that.” She glanced at Jace. The last light of sunset struck gold sparks from his eyes. She said, “I’m going to tell him the truth.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to try to stop me?”

He looked down at the stele in his hand. “My oath to the Covenant binds me,” he said. “No such oath binds you.”

She turned back to Simon, taking a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “Here’s what you have to know.”

The sun had slipped entirely past the horizon, and the porch was in darkness by the time Clary stopped speaking. Simon had listened to her lengthy explanation with a nearly impassive expression, only wincing a little when she got to the part about the Ravener demon. When she was done speaking, she cleared her dry throat, suddenly dying for a glass of water. “So,” she said, “any questions?”

Simon held up his hand. “Oh, I’ve got questions. Several.”

Clary exhaled warily. “Okay, shoot.”

He pointed at Jace. “Now, he’s a—what do you call people like him again?”

“He’s a Shadowhunter,” Clary said.

“A demon hunter,” Jace clarified. “I kill demons. It’s not that complicated, really.”

Simon looked at Clary again. “For real?” His eyes were narrowed, as if he half-expected her to tell him that none of it was true and Jace was actually a dangerous escaped lunatic she’d decided to befriend on humanitarian grounds.

“For real.”

There was an intent look on Simon’s face. “And there are vampires, too? Werewolves, warlocks, all that stuff?”

Clary gnawed her lower lip. “So I hear.”

“And you kill them, too?” Simon asked, directing the question to Jace, who had put the stele back in his pocket and was examining his flawless nails for defects.

“Only when they’ve been naughty.”

For a moment Simon merely sat and stared down at his feet. Clary wondered if burdening him with this kind of information had been the wrong thing to do. He had a stronger practical streak than almost anyone else she knew; he might hate knowing something like this, something for which there was no logical explanation. She leaned forward anxiously, just as Simon lifted his head. “That is so awesome,” he said.

Jace looked as startled as Clary felt. “Awesome?”

Simon nodded enthusiastically enough to make the dark curls bounce on his forehead. “Totally. It’s like Dungeons and Dragons, but real.”

Jace was looking at Simon as if he were some bizarre species of insect. “It’s like what?”

“It’s a game,” Clary explained. She felt vaguely embarrassed. “People pretend to be wizards and elves, and they kill monsters and stuff.”

Jace looked stupefied.

Simon grinned. “You’ve never heard of Dungeons and Dragons?”

“I’ve heard of dungeons,” Jace said. “Also dragons. Although they’re mostly extinct.”

Simon looked disappointed. “You’ve never killed a dragon?”

“He’s probably never met a six-foot-tall hot elf-woman in a fur bikini, either,” Clary said irritably. “Lay off, Simon.”

“Real elves are about eight inches tall,” Jace pointed out. “Also, they bite.”

“But vampires are hot, right?” Simon said. “I mean, some of the vampires are babes, aren’t they?”

Clary worried for a moment that Jace might lunge across the porch and throttle Simon senseless. Instead, he considered the question. “Some of them, maybe.”

“Awesome,” Simon repeated. Clary decided she had preferred it when they were fighting.

Jace slid off the porch railing. “So are we going to search the house, or not?”

Simon scrambled to his feet. “I’m game. What are we looking for?”

“We?” said Jace, with a sinister delicacy. “I don’t remember inviting you along.”

“Jace,” Clary said angrily.

The left corner of his mouth curled up. “Just joking.” He stepped aside to leave her a clear path to the door. “Shall we?”

Clary fumbled for the doorknob in the dark. It opened, triggering the porch light, which illuminated the entryway. The door that led into the bookstore was closed; Clary jiggled the knob. “It’s locked.”

“Allow me, mundanes,” said Jace, setting her gently aside. He took his stele out of his pocket and put it to the door. Simon watched him with some resentment. No amount of vampire babes, Clary suspected, was ever going to make him like Jace.

“He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” Simon muttered. “How do you stand him?”

“He saved my life.”

Simon glanced at her quickly. “How—”

With a click the door swung open. “Here we go,” said Jace, sliding his stele back into his pocket. Clary saw the Mark on the door—just over his head—fade as they passed through it. The back door...

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“It’s a chakram,” said Jace, looking up as Clary came into the room. “A Sikh weapon. You whirl it around your index finger before releasing it. They’re rare and hard to use. Strange that Luke would have one. They used to be Hodge’s weapon of choice, back in the day. Or so he tells me.”

“Luke collects stuff. Art objects. You know,” Clary said, indicating the shelf behind the desk, which was lined with bronze Indian and Russian idols. Her favorite was a statuette of the Indian goddess of destruction, Kali, brandishing a sword and a severed head as she danced with her head thrown back and her eyes slitted closed. To the side of the desk was an antique Chinese screen, carved out of glowing rosewood. “Pretty things.”

Jace moved the chakram aside gingerly. A handful of clothes spilled out of the untied end of Luke’s duffel bag, as if they had been an afterthought. “I think this is yours, by the way.”

He drew out a rectangular object hidden among the clothes: a wooden-framed photograph with a long vertical crack along the glass. The crack threw a network of spidery lines across the smiling faces of Clary, Luke, and her mother. “That is mine,” Clary said, taking it out of his hand.

“It’s cracked,” Jace observed.

“I know. I did that—I smashed it. When I threw it at the Ravener demon.” She looked at him, seeing the dawning realization on his face. “That means Luke’s been back to the apartment since the attack. Maybe even today—”

“He must have been the last person to come through the Portal,” said Jace. “That’s why it took us here. You weren’t thinking of anything, so it sent us to the last place it had been.”

“Nice of Dorothea to tell us he was there,” said Clary.

“He probably paid her off to be quiet. Either that or she trusts him more than she trusts us. Which means he might not be—”

“Guys!” It was Simon, dashing into the office in a panic. “Someone’s coming.”

Clary dropped the photo. “Is it Luke?”

Simon peered back down the hall, then nodded. “It is. But he’s not by himself—there are two men with him.”

“Men?” Jace crossed the room in a few strides, peered through the door, and spat a curse under his breath. “Warlocks.”

Clary stared. “Warlocks? But—”

Shaking his head, Jace backed away from the door. “Is there some other way out of here? A back door?”

Clary shook her head. The sound of footsteps in the hallway was audible now, striking pangs of fear into her chest.

Jace looked around desperately. His eyes came to rest on the rosewood screen. “Get behind that,” he said, pointing. “Now.”

Clary dropped the fractured photo on the desk and slipped behind the screen, pulling Simon after her. Jace was right behind them, his stele in his hand. He had barely concealed himself when Clary heard the door swing wide open, the sound of people walking into Luke’s office—then voices. Three men speaking. She looked nervously at Simon, who was very pale, and then at Jace, who had raised the stele in his hand and was moving the tip lightly, in a sort of square shape, across the back of the screen. As Clary stared, the square went clear, like a pane of glass. She heard Simon suck in his breath—a tiny sound, barely audible—and Jace shook his head at them both, mouthing words: They can’t see us through it, but we can see them.

Biting her lip, Clary moved to the edge of the square and peered through it, conscious of Simon breathing down her neck. She could see the room beyond perfectly: the bookshelves, the desk with the duffel bag thrown across it—and Luke, ragged-looking and slightly stooped, his glasses pushed up to the top of his head, standing near the door. It was frightening even though she knew he couldn’t see her, that the window Jace had made was like the glass in a police station interrogation room: strictly one-way.

Luke turned, looking back through the doorway. “Yes, feel free to look around,” he said, his tone heavily weighted with sarcasm. “Nice of you to show such an interest.”

A low chuckle sounded from the corner of the office. With an impatient flick of the wrist, Jace tapped the frame of his “window,” and it opened out wider, showing more of the room. There were two men there with Luke, both in long reddish robes, their hoods pushed back. One was thin, with an elegant gray mustache and pointed beard. When he smiled, he showed blindingly white teeth. The other was burly, thickset as a wrestler, with close-cropped reddish hair. His skin was dark purple and looked shiny over the cheekbones, as if it had been stretched too tight.

“Those are warlocks?” Clary whispered softly.

Jace didn’t answer. He had gone rigid all over, stiff as a bar of iron. He’s afraid I’ll make a run for it, try to get to Luke, Clary thought. She wished she could reassure him that she wouldn’t. There was something about those two men, in their thick cloaks the color of arterial blood, that was terrifying.

“Consider this a friendly follow-up, Graymark,” said the man with the gray mustache. His smile showed teeth so sharp they looked as if they’d been filed to cannibal points.

“There’s nothing friendly about you, Pangborn.” Luke sat down on the edge of his desk, angling his body so it blocked the men’s view of his duffel bag and its contents. Now that he was closer, Clary could see that his face and hands were badly bruised, his fingers scraped and bloody. A long cut along his neck disappeared down into his collar. What on earth happened to him?

“Blackwell, don’t touch that—it’s valuable,” Luke said sternly.

The big redheaded man, who had picked up the statue of Kali from the top of the bookcase, ran his beefy fingers over it consideringly. “Nice,” he said.

“Ah,” said Pangborn, taking the statue from his companion. “She who was created to battle a demon who could not be killed by any god or man. ‘Oh, Kali, my mother full of bliss! Enchantress of the almighty Shiva, in thy delirious joy thou dancest, clapping thy hands together. Thou art the Mover of all that moves, and we are but thy helpless toys.’”

“Very nice,” said Luke. “I didn’t know you were a student of the Indian myths.”

“All the myths are true,” said Pangborn, and Clary felt a small shiver go up her spine. “Or have you forgotten even that?”

“I forget nothing,” said Luke. Though he looked relaxed, Clary could see tension in the lines of his shoulders and mouth. “I suppose Valentine sent you?”

“He did,” said Pangborn. “He thought you might have changed your mind.”

“There’s nothing to change my mind about. I already told you I don’t know anything. Nice cloaks, by the way.”

“Thanks,” said Blackwell with a sly grin. “Skinned them off a couple of dead warlocks.”

“Those are official Accord robes, aren’t they?” Luke asked. “Are they from the Uprising?”

Pangborn chuckled softly. “Spoils of battle.”

“Aren’t you afraid someone might mistake you for the real thing?”

“Not,” said Blackwell, “once they got up close.”

Pangborn fondled the edge of his robe. “Do you remember the Uprising, Lucian?” he said softly. “That was a great and terrible day. Do you remember how we trained together for the battle?”

Luke’s face twisted. “The past is the past. I don’t know what to tell you gentlemen. I can’t help you now. I don’t know anything.”

“‘Anything’ is such a general word, so unspecific,” said Pangborn, sounding melancholy. “Surely someone who owns so many books must know something.”

“If you want to know where to find a jog-toed swallow in springtime, I could direct you to the correct reference title. But if you want to know where the Mortal Cup has disappeared to …”

“‘Disappeared’ might not be quite the correct word,” purred Pangborn. “Hidden, more like. Hidden by Jocelyn.”

“That may be,” said Luke. “So hasn’t she told you where it is yet?”

“She has not yet regained consciousness,” said Pangborn, carving the air with a long-fingered hand. “Valentine is disappointed. He was looking forward to their reunion.”

“I’m sure she didn’t reciprocate the sentiment,” muttered Luke.

Pangborn cackled. “Jealous, Graymark? Perhaps you no longer feel about her the way you used to.”

A trembling had started in Clary’s fingers, so pronounced that she knitted her hands together tightly to try to stop them from shaking. Jocelyn? Can they be talking about my mother?

“I never felt any way about her, particularly,” said Luke. “Two Shadowhunters, exiled from their own kind, you can see why we might have banded together. But I’m not going to try to interfere with Valentine’s plans for her, if that’s what he’s worried...

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She shook her head, mutely. She felt far from okay. In fact, she felt like she’d never be okay again.

“Of course she isn’t.” It was Jace, his voice sharp and cold as ice shards. He took hold of the screen and moved it aside sharply. “At least now we know who would send a demon after your mother. Those men think she has the Mortal Cup.”

Clary felt her lips thin into a straight line. “That’s totally ridiculous and impossible.”

“Maybe,” said Jace, leaning against Luke’s desk. He fixed her with eyes as opaque as smoked glass. “Have you ever seen those men before?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Never.”

“Lucian seemed to know them. To be friendly with them.”

“I wouldn’t say friendly,” said Simon. “I’d say they were suppressing their hostility.”

“They didn’t kill him outright,” said Jace. “They think he knows more than he’s telling.”

“Maybe,” said Clary, “or maybe they’re just reluctant to kill another Shadowhunter.”

Jace laughed, a harsh, almost vicious noise that raised the hairs up on Clary’s arms. “I doubt that.”

She looked at him hard. “What makes you so sure? Do you know them?”

The laughter had gone from his voice entirely when he replied. “Do I know them?” he echoed. “You might say that. Those are the men who murdered my father.”

9

THE CIRCLE AND THE BROTHERHOOD

CLARY STEPPED FORWARD TO TOUCH JACE’S ARM, SAY something, anything—what did you say to someone who’d just seen his father’s killers? Her hesitation turned out not to matter; Jace shrugged her touch off as if it stung. “We should go,” he said, stalking out of the office and into the living room. Clary and Simon hurried after him. “We don’t know when Luke might come back.”

They left through the back entrance, Jace using his stele to lock up behind them, and made their way out onto the silent street. The moon hung like a locket over the city, casting pearly reflections on the water of the East River. The distant hum of cars going by over the Williamsburg Bridge filled the humid air with a sound like beating wings. Simon said, “Does anyone want to tell me where we’re going?”

“To the L train,” said Jace calmly.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Simon said, blinking. “Demon slayers take the subway?”

“It’s faster than driving.”

“I thought it’d be something cooler, like a van with DEATH TO DEMONS painted on the outside, or …”

Jace didn’t even bother to interrupt. Clary shot Jace a sideways look. Sometimes, when Jocelyn was really angry about something or was in one of her upset moods, she would get what Clary called “scary-calm.” It was a calm that made Clary think of the deceptive hard sheen of ice just before it cracked under your weight. Jace was scary-calm. His face was expressionless, but something burned at the backs of his tawny eyes.

“Simon,” she said. “Enough.”

Simon shot her a look as if to say, Whose side are you on? but Clary ignored him. She was still watching Jace as they turned onto Kent Avenue. The lights of the bridge behind them lit his hair to an unlikely halo. She wondered if it was wrong that she was glad in some way that the men who’d taken her mother were the same men who’d killed Jace’s father all those years ago. For now, at least, he’d have to help her find Jocelyn, whether he wanted to or not. For now, at least, he couldn’t leave her alone.

“You live here?” Simon stood staring up at the old cathedral, with its broken-in windows and doors sealed with yellow police tape. “But it’s a church.”

Jace reached into the neck of his shirt and pulled out a brass key on the end of a chain. It looked like the sort of key one might use to open an old chest in an attic. Clary watched him curiously—he hadn’t locked the door behind him when they’d left the Institute before, just let it slam shut. “We find it useful to inhabit hallowed ground.”

“I get that but, no offense, this place is a dump,” Simon said, looking dubiously at the bent iron fence that surrounded the ancient building, the trash piled up beside the steps.

Clary let her mind relax. She imagined herself taking one of her mother’s turpentine rags and dabbing at the view in front of her, cleaning away the glamour as if it were old paint.

There it was: the true vision, glowing through the false one like light through dark glass. She saw the soaring spires of the cathedral, the dull gleam of the leaded windows, the brass plate fixed to the stone wall beside the door, the Institute’s name etched into it. She held the vision for a moment before letting it go almost with a sigh.

“It’s a glamour, Simon,” she said. “It doesn’t really look like this.”

“If this is your idea of glamour, I’m having second thoughts about letting you make me over.”

Jace fitted the key into the lock, glancing over his shoulder at Simon. “I’m not sure you’re quite sensible of the honor I’m doing you,” he said. “You’ll be the first mundane who has ever been inside the Institute.”

“Probably the smell keeps the rest of them away.”

“Ignore him,” Clary said to Jace, and elbowed Simon in the side. “He always says exactly what comes into his head. No filters.”

“Filters are for cigarettes and coffee,” Simon muttered under his breath as they went inside. “Two things I could use right now, incidentally.”

Clary thought longingly of coffee as they made their way up a winding set of stone stairs, each one carved with a glyph. She was beginning to recognize some of them—they tantalized her sight the way half-heard words in a foreign language sometimes tantalized her hearing, as if by just concentrating harder she could force some meaning out of them.

Clary and the two boys reached the elevator and rode up in silence. She was still thinking about coffee, big mugs of coffee that were half milk the way her mother would make them in the morning. Sometimes Luke would bring them bags of sweet rolls from the Golden Carriage Bakery in Chinatown. At the thought of Luke, Clary’s stomach tightened, her appetite vanishing.

The elevator came to a hissing stop, and they were again in the entryway Clary remembered. Jace shrugged off his jacket, threw it over the back of a nearby chair, and whistled through his teeth. In a few seconds Church appeared, slinking low to the ground, his yellow eyes gleaming in the dusty air. “Church,” Jace said, kneeling down to stroke the cat’s gray head. “Where’s Alec, Church? Where’s Hodge?”

Church arched his back and meowed. Jace crinkled his nose, which Clary might have found cute in other circumstances. “Are they in the library?” He stood up, and Church shook himself, trotted a little way down the corridor, and glanced back over his shoulder. Jace followed the cat as if this were the most natural thing in the world, indicating with a wave of his hand that Clary and Simon were to fall into step behind him.

“I don’t like cats,” Simon said, his shoulder bumping Clary’s as they maneuvered the narrow hallway.

“It’s unlikely,” Jace said, “knowing Church, that he likes you, either.”

They were passing through one of the corridors that were lined with bedrooms. Simon’s eyebrows rose. “How many people live here, exactly?”

“It’s an institute,” Clary said. “A place where Shadowhunters can stay when they’re in the city. Like a sort of combination safe haven and research facility.”

“I thought it was a church.”

“It’s inside a church.”

“Because that’s not confusing.” She could hear the nerves under his flippant tone. Instead of shushing him, Clary reached down and took his hand, winding her fingers through his cold ones. His hand was clammy, but he returned the pressure with a grateful squeeze.

“I know it’s weird,” she said quietly, “but you just have to go along with it. Trust me.”

Simon’s dark eyes were serious. “I trust you,” he said. “I don’t trust him.” He cut his glance toward Jace, who was walking a few paces ahead of them, apparently conversing with the cat. Clary wondered what they were talking about. Politics? Opera? The high price of tuna?

“Well, try,” she said. “Right now he’s the best chance I’m going to have of finding my mom.”

A little shudder passed over Simon. “This place feels not right to me,” he whispered.

Clary remembered how she’d felt waking up here this morning—as if everything were both alien and familiar at the same time. For Simon, clearly, there was nothing of that familiarity, only the sense of the strange, the alien and inimical. “You don’t have to stay with me,” she said, though she’d fought Jace on the train for the right to keep Simon with her, pointing out that...

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“I do.”

“Fine.”

He seemed awfully calm, she thought, not scary-calm as he had been before, but more contained than he ought to be. She wondered how often he let glimpses of his real self peek through the facade that was as hard and shiny as the coat of lacquer on one of her mother’s Japanese boxes.

“Where are you going?” Simon looked up as they reached the door. Jagged bits of dark hair fell into his eyes; he looked stupidly dazed, Clary thought unkindly, as if someone had hit him across the back of the head with a two-by-four.

“To find Hodge,” she said. “I need to tell him about what happened at Luke’s.”

Isabelle looked up. “Are you going to tell him that you saw those men, Jace? The ones that—”

“I don’t know.” He cut her off. “So keep it to yourself for now.”

She shrugged. “All right. Are you going to come back? Do you want any soup?”

“No,” said Jace.

“Do you think Hodge will want any soup?”

“No one wants any soup.”

“I want some soup,” Simon said.

“No, you don’t,” said Jace. “You just want to sleep with Isabelle.”

Simon was appalled. “That is not true.”

“How flattering,” Isabelle murmured into the soup, but she was smirking.

“Oh, yes it is,” said Jace. “Go ahead and ask her—then she can turn you down and the rest of us can get on with our lives while you fester in miserable humiliation.” He snapped his fingers. “Hurry up, mundie boy, we’ve got work to do.”

Simon looked away, flushed with embarrassment. Clary, who a moment ago would have been meanly pleased, felt a rush of anger toward Jace. “Leave him alone,” she snapped. “There’s no need to be sadistic just because he isn’t one of you.”

“One of us,” said Jace, but the sharp look had gone out of his eyes. “I’m going to find Hodge. Come along or not, it’s your choice.” The kitchen door swung shut behind him, leaving Clary alone with Simon and Isabelle.

Isabelle ladled some of the soup into a bowl and pushed it across the counter toward Simon without looking at him. She was still smirking, though—Clary could feel it. The soup was a dark green color, studded with floating brown things.

“I’m going with Jace,” Clary said. “Simon …?”

“Mmgnstayhr,” he mumbled, looking at his feet.

“What?”

“I’m going to stay here.” Simon parked himself on a stool. “I’m hungry.”

“Fine.” Clary’s throat felt tight, as if she’d swallowed something either very hot or very cold. She stalked out of the kitchen, Church slinking at her feet like a cloudy gray shadow.

In the hallway Jace was twirling one of the seraph blades between his fingers. He pocketed it when he saw her. “Kind of you to leave the lovebirds to it.”

Clary frowned at him. “Why are you always such an asshat?”

“An asshat?” Jace looked as if he were about to laugh.

“What you said to Simon—”

“I was trying to save him some pain. Isabelle will cut out his heart and walk all over it in high-heeled boots. That’s what she does to boys like that.”

“Is that what she did to you?” Clary said, but Jace only shook his head before turning to Church.

“Hodge,” he said. “And really Hodge this time. Bring us anywhere else, and I’ll make you into a tennis racket.”

The Persian snorted and slunk down the hall ahead of them. Clary, trailing a little behind Jace, could see the stress and tiredness in the line of Jace’s shoulders. She wondered if the tension ever really left him. “Jace.”

He looked at her. “What?”

“I’m sorry. For snapping at you.”

He chuckled. “Which time?”

“You snap at me, too, you know.”

“I know,” he said, surprising her. “There’s something about you that’s so—”

“Irritating?”

“Unsettling.”

She wanted to ask if he meant that in a good or a bad way, but didn’t. She was too afraid he’d make a joke out of the answer. She cast about for something else to say. “Does Isabelle always make dinner for you?” she asked.

“No, thank God. Most of the time the Lightwoods are here and Maryse—that’s Isabelle’s mother—she cooks for us. She’s an amazing cook.” He looked dreamy, the way Simon had looked gazing at Isabelle over the soup.

“Then how come she never taught Isabelle?” They were passing through the music room now, where she’d found Jace playing the piano that morning. Shadows had gathered thickly in the corners.

“Because,” Jace said slowly, “it’s only been recently that women have been Shadowhunters along with men. I mean, there have always been women in the Clave—mastering the runes, creating weaponry, teaching the Killing Arts—but only a few were warriors, ones with exceptional abilities. They had to fight to be trained. Maryse was a part of the first generation of Clave women who were trained as a matter of course—and I think she never taught Isabelle how to cook because she was afraid that if she did, Isabelle would be relegated to the kitchen permanently.”

“Would she have been?” Clary asked curiously. She thought of Isabelle in Pandemonium, how confident she’d been and how assuredly she’d used her blood-spattering whip.

Jace laughed softly. “Not Isabelle. She’s one of the best Shadowhunters I’ve ever known.”

“Better than Alec?”

Church, streaking soundlessly ahead of them through the gloom, came to a sudden halt and meowed. He was crouched at the foot of a metal spiral staircase that spun up into a hazy half-light overhead. “So he’s in the greenhouse,” Jace said. It took Clary a moment before she realized he was speaking to the cat. “No surprise there.”

“The greenhouse?” Clary said.

Jace swung himself onto the first step. “Hodge likes it up there. He grows medicinal plants, things we can use. Most of them only grow in Idris. I think it reminds him of home.”

Clary followed him. Her shoes clattered on the metal steps; Jace’s didn’t. “Is he better than Isabelle?” she asked again. “Alec, I mean.”

He paused and looked down at her, leaning down from the steps as if he were poised to fall. She remembered her dream: angels, falling and burning. “Better?” he said. “At demon-slaying? No, not really. He’s never killed a demon.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know why not. Maybe because he’s always protecting Izzy and me.” They had reached the top of the stairs. A set of double doors greeted them, carved with patterns of leaves and vines. Jace shouldered them open.

The smell struck Clary the moment she passed through the doors: a green, sharp smell, the smell of living and growing things, of dirt and the roots that grew in dirt. She had been expecting something much smaller, something the size of the little greenhouse out behind St. Xavier’s, where the AP biology students cloned pea pods, or whatever it was they did. This was a huge glass-walled enclosure, lined with trees whose thickly leaved branches breathed out cool green-scented air. There were bushes hung with glossy berries, red and purple and black, and small trees hung with oddly shaped fruits she’d never seen before.

Clary exhaled. “It smells like …” Springtime, she thought, before the heat comes and crushes the leaves into pulp and withers the petals off the flowers.

“Home,” said Jace, “to me.” He pushed aside a hanging frond and ducked past it. Clary followed.

The greenhouse was laid out in what seemed to Clary’s untrained eye no particular pattern, but everywhere she looked was a riot of color: blue-purple blossoms spilling down the side of a shining green hedge, a trailing vine studded with jewel-toned orange buds. They emerged into a cleared space where a low granite bench rested against the bole of a drooping tree with silvery-green leaves. Water glimmered in a stone-bound rock pool. Hodge sat on the bench, his black bird perched on his shoulder. He had been staring thoughtfully down at the water, but looked skyward at their approach. Clary followed his gaze upward and saw the glass roof of the greenhouse shining above them like the surface of an inverted lake.

“You look like you’re waiting for something,” Jace observed, breaking a leaf off a nearby bough and twirling it between his fingers. For someone who seemed so contained, he had a lot of nervous habits. Perhaps he just liked to be constantly in motion.

“I was lost in thought.” Hodge rose from the bench, stretching out his arm for Hugo. The smile faded from his face as he looked at them. “What happened? You look as if—”

“We were attacked,” Jace said shortly. “Forsaken.”

“Forsaken warriors? Here?”

...

City of Bones
City of Bones Page 18



EASY IS THE DESCENT

Facilis descensus Averno:

Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua ***is;

Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,

Hoc opus, hic labor est.

—Virgil, The Aeneid

10

CITY OF BONES

THERE WAS A MOMENT OF ASTONISHED SILENCE BEFORE BOTH Clary and Jace began speaking at once.

“Valentine had a wife? He was married? I thought—”

“That’s impossible! My mother would never—she was only ever married to my father! She didn’t have an ex-husband!”

Hodge raised his hands wearily. “Children—”

“I’m not a child.” Clary spun away from the desk. “And I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Clary,” said Hodge. The kindness in his voice hurt; she turned slowly, and looked at him across the room. She thought how odd it was that, with his gray hair and scarred face, he looked so much older than her mother. And yet they had been “young people” together, had joined the Circle together, had known Valentine together. “My mother wouldn’t …” she began, and trailed off. She was no longer sure how well she knew Jocelyn. Her mother had become a stranger to her, a liar, a hider of secrets. What wouldn’t she have done?

“Your mother left the Circle,” said Hodge. He didn’t move toward her but watched her across the room with a bird’s bright-eyed stillness. “Once we realized how extreme Valentine’s views had become—once we knew what he was prepared to do—many of us left. Lucian was the first to leave. That was a blow to Valentine. They had been very close.” Hodge shook his head. “Then Michael Wayland. Your father, Jace.”

Jace raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

“There were those who stayed loyal. Pangborn. Blackwell. The Lightwoods—”

“The Lightwoods? You mean Robert and Maryse?” Jace looked thunderstruck. “What about you? When did you leave?”

“I didn’t,” said Hodge softly. “Neither did they …. We were afraid, too afraid of what he might do. After the Uprising the loyalists like Blackwell and Pangborn fled. We stayed and cooperated with the Clave. Gave them names. Helped them track down the ones who had run away. For that we received clemency.”

“Clemency?” Jace’s look was quick, but Hodge saw it.

He said, “You are thinking of the curse that binds me here, aren’t you? You always assumed it was a vengeance spell cast by an angry demon or warlock. I let you think it. But it is not the truth. The curse that binds me was cast by the Clave.”

“For being in the Circle?” Jace asked, his face a mask of astonishment.

“For not leaving it before the Uprising.”

“But the Lightwoods weren’t punished,” Clary said. “Why not? They’d done the same thing you’d done.”

“There were extenuating circumstances in their case—they were married; they had a child. Although it is not as if they reside in this outpost, far from home, by their own choice. We were banished here, the three of us—the four of us, I should say; Alec was a squalling baby when we left the Glass City. They can return to Idris on official business only, and then only for short times. I can never return. I will never see the Glass City again.”

Jace stared. It was as if he were looking at his tutor with new eyes, Clary thought, though it wasn’t Jace who had changed. He said, “‘The Law is hard, but it is the Law.’”

“I taught you that,” said Hodge, dry amusement in his voice. “And now you turn my lessons back at me. Rightly too.” He looked as if he wanted to sink down into a nearby chair, but held himself upright nevertheless. In his rigid posture there was something of the soldier he had once been, Clary thought.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she said. “That my mother was married to Valentine. You knew her name—”

“I knew her as Jocelyn Fairchild, not Jocelyn Fray,” said Hodge. “And you were so insistent on her ignorance of the Shadow World, you convinced me it could not be the Jocelyn I knew—and perhaps I did not want to believe it. No one would wish for Valentine’s return.” He shook his head again. “When I sent for the Brothers of the Bone City this morning, I had no idea just what news we would have for them,” he said. “When the Clave finds out Valentine may have returned, that he is seeking the Cup, there will be an uproar. I can only hope it does not disrupt the Accords.”

“I bet Valentine would like that,” Jace said. “But why does he want the Cup so badly?”

Hodge’s face was gray. “Isn’t that obvious?” he said. “So he can build himself an army.”

Jace looked startled. “But that would never—”

“Dinnertime!” It was Isabelle, standing framed in the door of the library. She still had the spoon in her hand, though her hair had escaped from its bun and was straggling down her neck. “Sorry if I’m interrupting,” she added, as an afterthought.

“Dear God,” said Jace, “the dread hour is nigh.”

Hodge looked alarmed. “I—I—I had a very filling breakfast,” he stammered. “I mean lunch. A filling lunch. I couldn’t possibly eat—”

“I threw out the soup,” Isabelle said. “And ordered Chinese from that place downtown.”

Jace unhitched himself from the desk and stretched. “Great. I’m starved.”

“I might be able to eat a bite,” admitted Hodge meekly.

“You two are terrible liars,” said Isabelle darkly. “Look, I know you don’t like my cooking—”

“So stop doing it,” Jace advised her reasonably. “Did you order mu shu pork? You know I love mu shu pork.”

Isabelle cast her eyes skyward. “Yes. It’s in the kitchen.”

“Awesome.” Jace ducked by her with an affectionate ruffle of her hair. Hodge went after him, pausing only to pat Isabelle on the shoulder—then he was gone, with a funny apologetic duck of the head. Had Clary really only a few minutes before been able to see the ghost in him of his old warrior self?

Isabelle was looking after Jace and Hodge, twisting the spoon in her scarred, pale fingers. Clary said, “Is he really?”

Isabelle didn’t look at her. “Is who really what?”

“Jace. Is he really a terrible liar?”

Now Isabelle did turn her eyes on Clary, and they were large and dark and unexpectedly thoughtful. “He’s not a liar at all. Not about important things. He’ll tell you horrible truths, but he won’t lie.” She paused before she added quietly, “That’s why it’s generally better not to ask him anything unless you know you can stand to hear the answer.”

The kitchen was warm and full of light and the salt-sweet smell of takeout Chinese food. The smell reminded Clary of home; she sat and looked at her glistening plate of noodles, toyed with her fork, and tried not to look at Simon, who was staring at Isabelle with an expression more glazed than the General Tso’s Duckling.

“Well, I think it’s kind of romantic,” said Isabelle, sucking tapioca pearls through an enormous pink straw.

“What is?” asked Simon, instantly alert.

“That whole business about Clary’s mother being married to Valentine,” said Isabelle. Jace and Hodge had filled her in, though Clary noted that both had left out the part about the Lightwoods having been in the Circle, and the curses the Clave had handed down. “So now he’s back from the dead and he’s come looking for her. Maybe he wants to get back together.”

“I kind of doubt he sent a Ravener demon to her house because he wants to ‘get back together,’” said Alec, who had turned up when the food was served. Nobody had asked him where he’d been, and he hadn’t offered the information. He was sitting next to Jace, across from Clary, and was avoiding looking at her.

“It wouldn’t be my move,” Jace agreed. “First the candy and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order.”

“He might have sent her candy and flowers,” Isabelle said. “We don’t know.”

“Isabelle,” said Hodge patiently, “this is the man who rained down destruction on Idris the like of which it had never seen, who set Shadowhunter against Downworlder and made the streets of the Glass City run with blood.”

“That’s sort of hot,” Isabelle argued, “that evil thing.”

Simon tried to look menacing, but gave it up when he saw Clary staring at him. “So why does Valentine want this Cup so bad, and why does he think Clary’s mom has it?” he asked.

“You said it was so he could make an army,” Clary said, turning to Hodge. “You mean because you can use the Cup to make Shadowhunters?”

“Yes.”

“So Valentine could just walk up to any guy on the street...

City of Bones
City of Bones Page 19



Jace subsided, but his eyes were still glittering. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it,” said Alec. “You just have to shut up and not do anything stupid.”

“But what about my mother?” Clary demanded. “She can’t wait for some representative from the Clave to show up. Valentine has her right now—Pangborn and Blackwell said so—and he could be …” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “torture,” but Clary knew she wasn’t the only one thinking it. Suddenly no one at the table could meet her eyes.

Except Simon. “Hurting her,” he said, finishing her sentence. “Except, Clary, they also said she was unconscious and that Valentine wasn’t happy about it. He seems to be waiting for her to wake up.”

“I’d stay unconscious if I were her,” Isabelle muttered.

“But that could be any time,” said Clary, ignoring Isabelle. “I thought the Clave was pledged to protect people. Shouldn’t there be Shadowhunters here right now? Shouldn’t they already be searching for her?”

“That would be easier,” snapped Alec, “if we had the slightest idea where to look.”

“But we do,” said Jace.

“You do?” Clary looked at him, startled and eager. “Where?”

“Here.” Jace leaned forward and touched his fingers to the side of her temple, so gently that a flush crept up her face. “Everything we need to know is locked up in your head, under those pretty red curls.”

Clary reached up to touch her hair protectively. “I don’t think—”

“So what are you going to do?” Simon asked sharply. “Cut her head open to get at it?”

Jace’s eyes sparked, but he said calmly, “Not at all. The Silent Brothers can help her retrieve her memories.”

“You hate the Silent Brothers,” protested Isabelle.

“I don’t hate them,” said Jace candidly. “I’m afraid of them. It’s not the same thing.”

“I thought you said they were librarians,” said Clary.

“They are librarians.”

Simon whistled. “Those must be some killer late fees.”

“The Silent Brothers are archivists, but that is not all they are,” interrupted Hodge, sounding as if he were running out of patience. “In order to strengthen their minds, they have chosen to take upon themselves some of the most powerful runes ever created. The power of these runes is so great that the use of them—” He broke off and Clary heard Isabelle’s voice in her head, saying: They mutilate themselves. “Well, it warps and twists their physical forms. They are not warriors in the sense that other Shadowhunters are warriors. Their powers are of the mind, not the body.”

“They can read minds?” Clary said in a small voice.

“Among other things. They are among the most feared of all demon hunters.”

“I don’t know,” said Simon, “it doesn’t sound so bad to me. I’d rather have someone mess around inside my head than chop it off.”

“Then you’re a bigger idiot than you look,” said Jace, regarding him with scorn.

“Jace is right,” said Isabelle, ignoring Simon. “The Silent Brothers are really creepy.”

Hodge’s hand was clenched on the table. “They are very powerful,” he said. “They walk in darkness and do not speak, but they can crack open a man’s mind the way you might crack open a walnut—and leave him screaming alone in the dark if that is what they desire.”

Clary looked at Jace, appalled. “You want to give me to them?”

“I want them to help you.” Jace leaned across the table, so close she could see the darker amber flecks in his light eyes. “Maybe we don’t get to look for the Cup,” he said softly. “Maybe the Clave will do that. But what’s in your mind belongs to you. Someone’s hidden secrets there, secrets you can’t see. Don’t you want to know the truth about your own life?”

“I don’t want someone else inside my head,” she said weakly. She knew he was right, but the idea of turning herself over to beings that even the Shadowhunters thought were creepy sent a chill through her blood.

“I’ll go with you,” said Jace. “I’ll stay with you while they do it.”

“That’s enough.” Simon had stood up from the table, red with anger. “Leave her alone.”

Alec glanced over at Simon as if he’d just noticed him, raking tumbled black hair out of his eyes and blinking. “What are you still doing here, mundane?”

Simon ignored him. “I said, leave her alone.”

Jace glanced over at him, a slow, sweetly poisonous glance. “Alec is right,” he said. “The Institute is sworn to shelter Shadowhunters, not their mundane friends. Especially when they’ve worn out their welcome.”

Isabelle got up and took Simon’s arm. “I’ll show him out.” For a moment it looked like he might resist her, but he caught Clary’s eye across the table as she shook her head slightly. He subsided. Head up, he let Isabelle lead him from the room.

Clary stood up. “I’m tired,” she said. “I want to go to sleep.”

“You’ve hardly eaten anything—” Jace protested.

She brushed aside his reaching hand. “I’m not hungry.”

It was cooler in the hallway than it had been in the kitchen. Clary leaned against the wall, pulling at her shirt, which was sticking to the cold sweat on her chest. Far down the hall she could see Isabelle’s and Simon’s retreating figures, swallowed up by shadows. She watched them go silently, a shivery odd feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. When had Simon become Isabelle’s responsibility, instead of hers? If there was one thing she was learning from all this, it was how easy it was to lose everything you had always thought you’d have forever.

The room was all gold and white, with high walls that gleamed like enamel, and a roof, high above, clear and glittering like diamonds. Clary wore a green velvet dress and carried a gold fan in her hand. Her hair, twisted into a knot that spilled curls, made her head feel strangely heavy every time she turned to look behind her.

“You see someone more interesting than me?” asked Simon. In the dream he was mysteriously an expert dancer. He steered her through the crowd as if she were a leaf caught in a river current. He was wearing all black, like a Shadowhunter, and it showed his coloring to good advantage: dark hair, lightly browned skin, white teeth. He’s handsome, Clary thought, with a jolt of surprise.

“There’s no one more interesting than you,” Clary said. “It’s just this place. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She turned again as they passed a champagne fountain: an enormous silver dish, the centerpiece a mermaid with a jar pouring sparkling wine down her bare back. People were filling their glasses from the dish, laughing and talking. The mermaid turned her head as Clary passed, and smiled. The smile showed white teeth as sharp as a vampire’s.

“Welcome to the Glass City,” said a voice that wasn’t Simon’s. Clary found that Simon had disappeared and she was now dancing with Jace, who was wearing white, the material of his shirt a thin cotton; she could see the black Marks through it. There was a bronze chain around his throat, and his hair and eyes looked more gold than ever; she thought about how she would like to paint his portrait with the dull gold paint one sometimes saw in Russian icons.

“Where’s Simon?” she asked as they spun again around the champagne fountain. Clary saw Isabelle there, with Alec, both of them in royal blue. They were holding hands like Hansel and Gretel in the dark forest.

“This place is for the living,” said Jace. His hands were cool on hers, and she was aware of them in a way she had not been of Simon’s.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

He leaned close. She could feel his lips against her ear. They were not cool at all. “Wake up, Clary,” he whispered. “Wake up. Wake up.”

She bolted upright in bed, gasping, hair plastered to her neck with cold sweat. Her wrists were held in a hard grip; she tried to pull away, then realized who was restraining her. “Jace?”

“Yeah.” He was sitting on the edge of the bed—how had she gotten into a bed?—looking tousled and half-awake, with early morning hair and sleepy eyes.

“Let go of me.”

“Sorry.” His fingers slipped from her wrists. “You tried to hit me the second I said your name.”

“I’m a little jumpy, I guess.” She glanced around. She was in a small bedroom furnished in dark wood. By the quality of the faint light coming in through the half-open window, she guessed it was dawn, or just after. Her backpack was propped against one wall. “How did I get here? I don’t remember …”

“I found you asleep...