[English] City Of Bones

City of Bones
City of Bones Page 50



“Well, they haven’t.”

The torch would not come away in Luke’s hand; he frowned. Digging into her pocket, Clary removed the smooth rune-stone Jace had given her for her birthday, and raised it high. Light burst between her fingers, as if she’d cracked a seed of darkness, letting out the illumination trapped inside. Luke let go of the torch.

“Witchlight?” he said.

“Jace gave it to me.” She could feel it pulse in her hand, like the heartbeat of a tiny bird. She wondered where Jace was in this gray stone pile of rooms, if he was frightened, if he had wondered whether he’d see her again.

“It’s been years since I fought by witchlight,” Luke said, and started up the stairs. They creaked loudly under his boots. “Follow me.”

The flaring glow of the witchlight cast their shadows, weirdly elongated, against the smooth granite walls. They paused at a stone landing that curved around in an arc. Above them she could see light. “Is this what the hospital used to look like, hundreds of years ago?” Clary whispered.

“Oh, the bones of what Renwick built are still here,” said Luke. “But I would imagine Valentine, Blackwell, and the others had the place renovated to be a bit more to their taste. Look here.” He scraped a boot along the floor. Clary glanced down and saw a rune carved into the granite beneath their feet: a circle, in the center of which was a Latin motto: In Hoc Signo Vinces.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means ‘By this sign we will conquer.’ It was the motto of the Circle.”

She glanced up, toward the light. “So they’re here.”

“They’re here,” said Luke, and there was anticipation in the narrow edge of his tone. “Come.”

They went up the winding staircase, circling under the light until it was all around them and they were standing at the entrance to a long and narrow corridor. Torches blazed along the passage. Clary closed her hand over the witchlight, and it blinked out like a doused star.

There were doors set at intervals along the corridor, all of them closed tight. She wondered if they had been wards when this had once been a hospital, or perhaps private rooms. As they moved down the corridor, Clary saw the marks of boot-prints, muddy from the grass outside, crisscrossing the passage. Someone had walked here recently.

The first door they tried swung open easily, but the room beyond was empty: only polished wood floor and stone walls, lit to eeriness by the moonlight spilling through the window. The dim roar of the battle outside filled the room, as rhythmic as the sound of the ocean. The second room was full of weapons: swords, maces, and axes. Moonlight ran like silver water over row upon row of cold unsheathed steel. Luke whistled under his breath. “Quite a collection.”

“You think Valentine uses all these?”

“Unlikely. I suspect they’re for his army.” Luke turned away.

The third room was a bedroom. The hangings around the four-poster bed were blue, the Persian carpet patterned in blue, black, and gray, and the furniture was painted white, like the furnishings in a child’s room. A thin and ghostly layer of dust covered it all, glinting faintly in the moonlight.

In the bed lay Jocelyn, asleep.

She was on her back, one hand thrown carelessly across her chest, her hair spread across the pillow. She wore a sort of white nightdress Clary had never seen, and she was breathing regularly and quietly. In the piercing moonlight Clary could see the flutter of her mother’s eyelids as she dreamed.

With a little scream Clary hurled herself forward—but Luke’s outflung arm caught her across the chest like a bar of iron, holding her back. “Wait,” he said, his own voice tense with effort. “We have to be careful.”

Clary glared at him, but he was looking past her, his expression angry and pained. She followed the line of his gaze and saw what she had not wanted to see before. Silver manacles closed around Jocelyn’s wrists and feet, the ends of their chains sunk deep into the stone floor on either side of the bed. The table beside the bed was covered in a weird array of tubes and bottles, glass jars and long, wickedly tipped instruments glinting with surgical steel. A rubberized tube ran from one of the glass jars to a vein in Jocelyn’s left arm.

Clary jerked herself away from Luke’s restraining hand and lunged toward the bed, wrapping her arms around her mother’s unresponsive body. But it was like trying to hug a badly jointed doll. Jocelyn remained motionless and stiff, her slow breathing unaltered.

A week ago Clary would have cried as she had that first terrible night she had discovered her mother missing, cried and called out. But no tears came now, as she let her mother go and straightened up. There was no terror in her now, and no self-pity: only a bitter rage and a need to find the man who’d done this, the one responsible for all of it.

“Valentine,” she said.

“Of course.” Luke was beside her, touching her mother’s face lightly, raising her eyelids. The eyes beneath were as blank as marbles. “She’s not drugged,” he said. “Some kind of spell, I expect.”

Clary let her breath out in a tight half sob. “How do we get her out of here?”

“I can’t touch the manacles,” said Luke. “Silver. Do you have—”

“The weapons room,” Clary said, standing up. “I saw an ax there. Several. We could cut the chains—”

“Those chains are unbreakable.” The voice that spoke from the door was low, gritty, and familiar. Clary spun and saw Blackwell. He was grinning now, wearing the same clotted-blood-colored robes as before, the hood pushed back, muddy boots visible under the hem. “Graymark,” he said. “What a nice surprise.”

Luke stood up. “If you’re surprised, you’re an idiot,” he said. “I didn’t exactly arrive quietly.”

Blackwell’s cheeks flushed a darker purple, but he didn’t move toward Luke. “Clan leader again, are you?” he said, and gave an unpleasant laugh. “Can’t break yourself of the habit of getting Downworlders to do your dirty work? Valentine’s troops are busy strewing pieces of them all over the lawn, and you’re up here safe with your girlfriends.” He sneered in Clary’s direction. “That one looks a little young for you, Lucian.”

Clary flushed angrily, her hands balling into fists, but Luke’s voice, when he replied, was polite. “I wouldn’t exactly call those troops, Blackwell,” he said. “They’re Forsaken. Tormented once-human beings. If I recall properly, the Clave looks pretty darkly on all that—torturing people, performing black magic. I can’t imagine they’ll be too pleased.”

“Damn the Clave,” growled Blackwell. “We don’t need them and their half-breed-tolerating ways. Besides, the Forsaken won’t be Forsaken much longer. Once Valentine uses the Cup on them, they’ll be Shadowhunters as good as the rest of us—better than what the Clave is passing off as warriors these days. Downworlder-loving milksops.” He bared his blunt teeth.

“If that is his plan for the Cup,” said Luke, “why hasn’t he done it already? What’s he waiting for?”

Blackwell’s eyebrows went up. “Didn’t you know? He’s got his—”

A silky laugh interrupted him. Pangborn had appeared at his elbow, all in black with a leather strap across his shoulder. “Enough, Blackwell,” he said. “You talk too much, as usual.” He flashed his pointed teeth at Luke. “Interesting move, Graymark. I didn’t think you’d have the stomach for leading your newest clan on a suicide mission.”

A muscle twitched in Luke’s cheek. “Jocelyn,” he said. “What has he done to her?”

Pangborn chuckled musically. “I thought you didn’t care.”

“I don’t see what he wants with her now,” Luke went on, ignoring the jibe. “He’s got the Cup. She can’t be of further use. Valentine was never one for pointless murder. Murder with a point. Now, that might be a different story.”

Pangborn shrugged indifferently. “It makes no difference to us what he does with her,” he said. “She was his wife. Perhaps he hates her. That’s a point.”

“Let her go,” said Luke, “and we’ll leave with her, call the clan off. I’ll owe you one.”

“No!” Clary’s furious outburst made Pangborn and Blackwell swing their stares to her. Both looked faintly incredulous, as if she were a talking ****roach. She turned to Luke. “There’s still Jace. He’s here somewhere.”

Blackwell was chuckling. “Jace? Never heard of a Jace,” he said. “Now, I could ask Pangborn to let her out. But I’d rather not. She was always a bitch to me, Jocelyn was. Thought she was better than the rest of us, with her looks and her lineage. Just a pedigreed bitch, that’s all. She only married him so she could turn it around on us all—”

“Disappointed...

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“Jace,” she said. She heard her own voice as if from a distance: astonishment, gratitude, longing so sharp it was painful. He turned, dropping the curtain, and she saw the wondering look on his face.

“Jace!” she said again, and ran toward him. He caught her as she flung herself at him. His arms wrapped tightly around her.

“Clary.” His voice was almost unrecognizable. “Clary, what are you doing here?”

Her voice was muffled against his shirt. “I came for you.”

“You shouldn’t have.” His grip on her loosened suddenly; he stepped back, holding her a little away from him. “My God,” he said, touching her face. “You idiot, what a thing to do.” His voice was angry, but the gaze that swept her face, the fingers that gently brushed her hair back, were tender. She had never seen him look like this; there was a sort of fragility about him, as if he might be not just touched but hurt, even. “Why don’t you ever think?” he whispered.

“I was thinking,” she said. “I was thinking about you.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “If anything had happened to you …” His hands traced the line of her arms gently, down to her wrists, as if to reassure himself that she was really there. “How did you find me?”

“Luke,” she replied. “I came with Luke. To rescue you.”

Still holding her, he glanced from her face to the window, a slight frown curling the edge of his mouth. “So those are—you came with the wolf clan?” he asked, an odd tone in his voice.

“Luke’s,” she said. “He’s a werewolf, and—”

“I know.” Jace cut her off. “I should have guessed—the manacles.” He glanced toward the door. “Where is he?”

“Downstairs,” said Clary slowly. “He killed Blackwell. I came up to look for you—”

“He’s going to have to call them off,” said Jace.

She looked at him uncomprehendingly. “What?”

“Luke,” said Jace. “He’s going to have to call off his pack. There’s been a misunderstanding.”

“What, you kidnapped yourself?” She’d meant to sound teasing, but her voice was too thin. “Come on, Jace.”

She yanked at his wrist, but he resisted. He was looking at her intently, and she realized with a jolt what she had not noticed in her first rush of relief.

The last time she had seen him, he’d been cut and bruised, clothes stained with dirt and blood, his hair filthy with ichor and dust. Now he was dressed in a loose white shirt and dark pants, his scrubbed hair falling all around his face, pale gold and flyaway. He swept a few strands out of his eyes with a slim hand, and she saw that his heavy silver ring was back on his finger.

“Are those your clothes?” she asked, baffled. “And—you’re all bandaged up …” Her voice trailed off. “Valentine seems to be taking awfully good care of you.”

He smiled at her with a weary affection. “If I told you the truth, you’d say I was crazy,” he said.

She felt her heart flutter hard against the inside of her chest, like a hummingbird’s rapid wing beat. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“My father gave me these clothes,” he said.

The flutter became a rapid pounding. “Jace,” she said carefully, “your father is dead.”

“No.” He shook his head. She had the sense that he was holding back some enormous feeling, like horror or delight—or both. “I thought he was, but he isn’t. It’s all been a mistake.”

She remembered what Hodge had said about Valentine and his ability to tell charming and convincing lies. “Is this something Valentine told you? Because he’s a liar, Jace. Remember what Hodge said. If he’s telling you your father is alive, it’s a lie to get you to do what he wants.”

“I’ve seen my father,” said Jace. “I’ve talked to him. He gave me this.” He tugged on the new, clean shirt, as if it were ineluctable proof. “My father isn’t dead. Valentine didn’t kill him. Hodge lied to me. All these years I thought he was dead, but he wasn’t.”

Clary glanced around wildly, at the room with its shining china and guttering torches and empty, glaring mirrors. “Well, if your father’s really in this place, then where is he? Did Valentine kidnap him, too?”

Jace’s eyes were shining. The neck of his shirt was open and she could see the thin white scars that covered his collarbone, like cracks in the smooth golden skin. “My father—”

The door of the room, which Clary had shut behind her, opened with a creak, and a man walked into the room.

It was Valentine. His silvery close-cropped hair gleamed like a polished steel helmet and his mouth was hard. He wore a waist sheath on his thick belt and the hilt of a long sword protruded from the top of it. “So,” he said, resting a hand on the hilt as he spoke, “have you gathered your things? Our Forsaken can hold off the wolf-men for only so—”

Seeing Clary, he broke off midsentence. He was not the sort of man who was ever really caught off guard, but she saw the flicker of astonishment in his eyes. “What is this?” he asked, turning his glance to Jace.

But Clary was already fumbling at her waist for the dagger. She seized it by the hilt, jerking it out of its scabbard, and drew her hand back. Rage pounded behind her eyes like a drumbeat. She could kill this man. She would kill him.

Jace caught at her wrist. “No.”

She could not contain her disbelief. “But, Jace—”

“Clary,” he said firmly. “This is my father.”

23

VALENTINE

“I SEE I’VE INTERRUPTED SOMETHING,” SAID VALENTINE, HIS voice as dry as a desert afternoon. “Son, would you care to tell me who this is? One of the Lightwood children, perhaps?”

“No,” said Jace. He sounded tired and unhappy, but the hand on her wrist didn’t loosen. “This is Clary. Clarissa Fray. She’s a friend of mine. She—”

Valentine’s black eyes raked her slowly, from the top of her disheveled head to the toes of her scuffed sneakers. They fastened on the dagger still gripped in her hand.

An indefinable look passed over his face—part amusement, part irritation. “Where did you come by that blade, young lady?”

Clary answered coldly. “Jace gave it to me.”

“Of course he did,” said Valentine. His tone was mild. “May I see it?”

“No!” Clary took a step back, as if she thought he might lunge at her, and felt the blade plucked neatly out of her fingers. Jace, holding the dagger, looked at her with an apologetic expression. “Jace,” she hissed, putting every ounce of the betrayal she felt into the single syllable of his name.

All he said was, “You still don’t understand, Clary.” With a sort of deferential care that made her feel sick to her stomach, he went to Valentine and handed him the dagger. “Here you go, Father.”

Valentine took the dagger in his big, long-boned hand and examined it. “This is a kindjal, a Circassian dagger. This particular one used to be one of a matched pair. Here, see the star of the Morgensterns, carved into the blade.” He turned it over, showing it to Jace. “I’m surprised the Lightwoods never noticed it.”

“I never showed it to them,” said Jace. “They let me have my own private things. They didn’t pry.”

“Of course they didn’t,” said Valentine. He handed the kindjal back to Jace. “They thought you were Michael Wayland’s son.”

Jace, sliding the red-hilted dagger into his belt, looked up. “So did I,” he said softly, and in that moment Clary saw that this was no joke, that Jace was not just playing along for his own purposes. He really thought Valentine was his father returned to him.

A cold despair was spreading through Clary’s veins. Jace angry, Jace hostile, furious, she could have dealt with, but this new Jace, fragile and shining in the light of his own personal miracle, was a stranger to her.

Valentine looked at her over Jace’s tawny head; his eyes were cool with amusement. “Perhaps,” he said, “it would be a good idea for you to sit down now, Clary?”

She crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest. “No.”

“As you like.” Valentine pulled out a chair and seated himself at the head of the table. After a moment Jace sat down as well, beside a half-filled bottle of wine. “But you are going to be hearing some things that might make you wish you had taken a chair.”

“I’ll let you know,” Clary told him, “if that happens.”

“Very well.” Valentine sat back, his hands behind his head. The neck of his shirt gaped open a little, showing his scarred collarbones. Scarred, like his son’s, like all the Nephilim. A life of scars and killing, Hodge had said. “Clary,” he said again, as if tasting the sound...

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“What?” Jace looked surprised.

Valentine was looking at Clary with amusement, as if he could tell he had her pinned there like a butterfly to a board. “She fears I am taking advantage of you,” he said. “That I have brainwashed you. It isn’t so, of course. If you looked into your own memories, Clary, you would know it.”

“Clary.” Jace started to get to his feet, his eyes on her. She could see the circles beneath them, the strain he was under. “I—”

“Sit down,” said Valentine. “Let her come to it on her own, Jonathan.”

Jace subsided instantly, sinking back into the chair. Through the dizziness of vertigo, Clary groped for understanding. Jonathan? “I thought your name was Jace,” she said. “Did you lie about that, too?”

“No. Jace is a nickname.”

She was very near to the precipice now, so close she could almost look down. “For what?”

He looked at her as if he couldn’t understand why she was making so much of something so small. “It’s my initials,” he said. “J. C.”

The precipice opened before her. She could see the long fall into darkness. “Jonathan,” she said faintly. “Jonathan Christopher.”

Jace’s eyebrows drew together. “How did you’?”

Valentine cut in. His voice was soothing. “Jace, I had thought to spare you. I thought a story of a mother who died would hurt you less than the story of a mother who abandoned you before your first birthday.”

Jace’s slim fingers tightened convulsively around the glass’s stem. Clary thought for a moment that it might shatter. “My mother is alive?”

“She is,” said Valentine. “Alive, and asleep in one of the downstairs rooms at this very moment. Yes,” he said, cutting off Jace before he could speak, “Jocelyn is your mother, Jonathan. And Clary—Clary is your sister.”

Jace jerked his hand back. The wineglass tipped, spilling frothing scarlet liquid across the white tablecloth.

“Jonathan,” said Valentine.

Jace had gone an awful color, a sort of greenish white. “That’s not true,” he said. “There’s been a mistake. It couldn’t possibly be true.”

Valentine looked steadily at his son. “A cause for rejoicing,” he said in a low, contemplative voice, “I would have thought. Yesterday you were an orphan, Jonathan. And now a father, a mother, a sister, you never knew you had.”

“It isn’t possible,” said Jace again. “Clary isn’t my sister. If she were …”

“Then what?” Valentine said.

Jace did not reply, but his sick look of nauseous horror was enough for Clary. Stumbling a little, she came around the table and knelt beside his chair, reaching for his hand. “Jace—”

He jerked away from her, his fingers knotting in the sodden tablecloth. “Don’t.”

Hatred for Valentine burned in her throat like unshed tears. He had held back, and by not saying what he knew—that she was his daughter—made her complicit in his silence. And now, having dropped the truth on them with the weight of a crushing boulder, he sat back to watch the results with a cool consideration. How could Jace not see how hateful he was?

“Tell me it’s not true,” Jace said, staring at the tablecloth.

Clary swallowed against the burning in her throat. “I can’t do that.”

Valentine sounded as if he were smiling. “So you admit now that I’ve been telling the truth all this time?”

“No,” she shot back without looking at him. “You’re telling lies with a little bit of the truth mixed in, is all.”

“This grows tiresome,” said Valentine. “If you want to hear the truth, Clarissa, this is the truth. You have heard stories of the Uprising and so you think I am a villain. Is that correct?”

Clary said nothing. She was looking at Jace, who seemed as if he might be about to throw up. Valentine went on relentlessly. “It is simple, really. The story you heard was true in some of its parts, but not in others—lies mixed in with a little truth, as you said. The fact is that Michael Wayland is not and has never been Jace’s father. Wayland was killed during the Uprising. I assumed Michael’s name and place when I fled the Glass City with my son. It was easy enough; Wayland had no real relations, and his closest friends, the Lightwoods, were in exile. He himself would have been in disgrace for his part in the Uprising, so I lived that disgraced life, quietly enough, alone with Jace on the Waylands’ estate. I read my books. I raised my son. And I bided my time.” He fingered the filigreed edge of a glass thoughtfully. He was left-handed, Clary saw. Like Jace.

“Ten years on, I received a letter. The writer of the letter indicated that he knew my true identity, and if I were not prepared to take certain steps, he would reveal it. I did not know who the letter was from, but it did not matter. I was not prepared to give the writer of it what he wanted. Besides, I knew my safety was compromised, and would be unless he thought me dead, beyond his reach. I staged my death a second time, with the help of Blackwell and Pangborn, and for Jace’s own safety made sure that my son would be sent here, to the protection of the Lightwoods.”

“So you let Jace think you were dead? You just let him think you were dead, all these years? That’s despicable.”

“Don’t,” said Jace again. He had raised his hands to cover his face. He spoke against his own fingers, voice muffled. “Don’t, Clary.”

Valentine looked at his son with a smile Jace couldn’t see. “Jonathan had to think I was dead, yes. He had to think he was Michael Wayland’s son, or the Lightwoods would not have protected him as they did. It was Michael they owed a debt to, not me. It was on Michael’s account that they loved him, not mine.”

“Maybe they loved him on his own account,” said Clary.

“A commendably sentimental interpretation,” said Valentine, “but unlikely. You do not know the Lightwoods as I once did.” He did not seem to see Jace’s flinch, or if he did, he ignored it. “It hardly matters, in the end,” Valentine added. “The Lightwoods were intended as protection for Jace, not as a replacement family, you see. He has a family. He has a father.”

Jace made a noise in his throat, and moved his hands away from his face. “My mother—”

“Fled after the Uprising,” said Valentine. “I was a disgraced man. The Clave would have hunted me down had they thought I lived. She could not bear her association with me, and ran.” The pain in his voice was palpable—and faked, Clary thought bitterly. The manipulative creep. “I did not know she was pregnant at the time. With Clary.” He smiled a little, running his finger slowly down the wineglass. “But blood calls to blood, as they say,” he went on. “Fate has borne us to this convergence. Our family, together again. We can use the Portal,” he said, turning his gaze to Jace. “Go to Idris. Back to the manor house.”

Jace shivered a little but nodded, still staring numbly at his hands.

“We’ll be together there,” said Valentine. “As we should be.”

That sounds terrific, thought Clary. Just you, your comatose wife, your shell-shocked son, and your daughter who hates your guts. Not to mention that your two kids may be in love with each other. Yeah, that sounds like a perfect family reunion. Aloud, she said only, “I am not going anywhere with you, and neither is my mother.”

“He’s right, Clary,” said Jace hoarsely. He flexed his hands; the fingertips were stained red. “It’s the only place for us to go. We can sort things out there.”

“You can’t be serious—”

An enormous crash came from downstairs, so loud that it sounded as if a wall of the hospital had collapsed in on itself. Luke, Clary thought, springing to her feet.

Jace, despite his look of nauseous horror, responded automatically, half-rising from his chair, his hand going to his belt. “Father, they’re—”

“They’re on their way.” Valentine rose to his feet. Clary heard footsteps. A moment later the door of the room was flung open, and Luke stood on the threshold.

Clary bit back a cry. He was covered in blood, his jeans and shirt dark and clotted, the lower half of his face bearded with it. His hands were red to the wrists, the blood that coated them still wet and running. She had no idea if any of the blood was his. She heard herself cry out his name, and then she was running across the room to him and nearly tripping over herself in her eagerness to grab at his shirtfront and hang on, the way she hadn’t done since she was eight years old.

For a moment his big hand came up and cupped the back of her head, holding her against him in a one-armed bear hug. Then he pushed her away gently. “I’m covered in blood,” he said. “Don’t worry—it isn’t mine.”

“Then whose is it?” It was Valentine’s...

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She shoved at him. “Let me out—”

Jace held her back with a grip like iron. “So they can tear you apart? Not a chance.”

A loud clash of metal sounded behind her. Clary pulled away from Jace and saw that Valentine had struck at Luke, who had met his blow with an ear-shattering parry. Their blades ground apart, and now they were moving across the floor in a blur of feints and slashes. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “They’re going to kill each other.”

Jace’s eyes were nearly black. “You don’t understand,” he said. “This is how it’s done—” He broke off and sucked in a breath as Luke slipped past Valentine’s guard, catching him a blow across the shoulder. Blood flowed freely, staining the cloth of his white shirt.

Valentine threw back his head and laughed. “A true hit,” he said. “I hardly thought you had it in you, Lucian.”

Luke stood very straight, the knife blocking his face from Clary’s view. “You taught me that move yourself.”

“But that was years ago,” said Valentine in a voice like raw silk, “and since then, you’ve hardly had need of a knife, have you? Not when you have claws and fangs at your disposal.”

“All the better to tear your heart out with.”

Valentine shook his head. “You tore my heart out years ago,” he said, and even Clary could not tell if the sorrow in his voice was real or feigned. “When you betrayed and deserted me.” Luke struck at him again, but Valentine was moving swiftly back across the floor. For a big man he moved surprisingly lightly. “It was you who turned my wife against her own kind. You came to her when she was weakest, with your piteousness, your helpless need. I was distant and she thought you loved her. She was a fool.”

Jace was taut as a wire beside Clary. She could feel his tension, like the sparks given off by a downed electrical cable. “That’s your mother Valentine’s talking about,” she said.

“She abandoned me,” said Jace. “Some mother.”

“She thought you were dead. You want to know how I know that? Because she kept a box in her bedroom. It had your initials on it. J. C.”

“So she had a box,” said Jace. “Lots of people have boxes. They keep things in them. It’s a growing trend, I hear.”

“It had a lock of your hair in it. Baby hair. And a photograph, maybe two. She used to take it out every year and cry over it. Awful brokenhearted crying—”

Jace’s hand clenched at his side. “Stop it,” he said between his teeth.

“Stop what? Telling you the truth? She thought you had died—she’d never have left you if she’d known you were alive. You thought your father was dead—”

“I saw him die! Or I thought I did. I didn’t just—just hear about it and choose to believe it!”

“She found your burned bones,” said Clary quietly. “In the ruins of her house. Along with the bones of her mother and father.”

At last Jace looked at her. She saw the disbelief plain in his eyes, and around his eyes, the strain of maintaining that disbelief. She could see, almost as if she saw through a glamour, the fragile construct of his faith in his father that he wore like a transparent armor, protecting him from the truth. Somewhere, she thought, there was a chink in that armor; somewhere, if she could find the right words, it could be breached. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I didn’t die—there weren’t any bones.”

“There were.”

“So it was a glamour,” he said roughly.

“Ask your father what happened to his mother- and father-in-law,” said Clary. She reached to touch his hand. “Ask him if that was a glamour, too—”

“Shut up!” Jace’s control cracked and he turned on her, livid. Clary saw Luke glance toward them, startled by the noise, and in that moment of distraction Valentine dove under his guard and, with a single forward thrust, drove the blade of his sword into Luke’s chest, just below his collarbone.

Luke’s eyes flew open as if in astonishment rather than pain. Valentine jerked his hand back, and the blade slid back, stained red to the hilt. With a sharp laugh Valentine struck again, this time knocking the weapon from Luke’s hand. It hit the floor with a hollow clang and Valentine kicked it hard, sending it skittering under the table as Luke collapsed.

Valentine raised the black sword over Luke’s prone body, ready to deliver the killing stroke. Inlaid silvery stars gleamed along the blade’s length and Clary thought, frozen in a moment of horror, How could anything so deadly be so beautiful?

Jace, as if knowing what Clary was going to do before she did it, whirled on her. “Clary—”

The frozen moment passed. Clary twisted away from Jace, ducking his reaching hands, and raced across the stone floor to Luke. He was on the ground, supporting himself with one arm; Clary threw herself on him just as Valentine’s sword drove downward.

She saw Valentine’s eyes as the sword hurtled toward her; it seemed like eons, though it could only have been a split second. She saw that he could stop the blow if he wanted. Saw that he knew it might well strike her if he didn’t. Saw that he was going to do it anyway.

She threw her hands up, squeezing her eyes shut—

There was a clang. She heard Valentine cry out, and she looked up to see him holding his empty sword hand, which was bleeding. The red-hilted kindjal lay several feet away on the stone floor, next to the black sword. Turning in astonishment, she saw Jace by the door, his arm still raised, and realized he must have flung the dagger with enough force to knock the black sword out of his father’s hand.

Very pale, he slowly lowered his arm, his eyes on Valentine—wide and pleading. “Father, I …”

Valentine looked at his bleeding hand, and for a moment, Clary saw a spasm of rage cross his face, like a light flickering out. His voice, when he spoke, was mild. “That was an excellent throw, Jace.”

Jace hesitated. “But your hand. I just thought—”

“I would not have hurt your sister,” said Valentine, moving swiftly to retrieve both his sword and the red-hilted kindjal, which he stuck through his belt. “I would have stopped the blow. But your family concern is commendable.”

Liar. But Clary had no time for Valentine’s prevarications. She turned to look at Luke and felt a sharp nauseous pang. Luke was lying on his back, eyes half-closed, his breathing ragged. Blood bubbled up from the hole in his torn shirt. “I need a bandage,” Clary said in a choked voice. “Some cloth, anything.”

“Don’t move, Jonathan,” said Valentine in a steely voice, and Jace froze where he was, hand already reaching toward his pocket. “Clarissa,” her father said, in a voice as oily as steel slicked with butter, “this man is an enemy of our family, an enemy of the Clave. We are hunters, and that means sometimes we are killers. Surely you understand that.”

“Demon hunters,” said Clary. “Demon killers. Not murderers. There’s a difference.”

“He is a demon, Clarissa,” said Valentine, still in the same soft voice. “A demon with a man’s face. I know how deceptive such monsters can be. Remember, I spared him once myself.”

“Monster?” echoed Clary. She thought of Luke, Luke pushing her on the swings when she was five years old, higher, always higher; Luke at her graduation from middle school, camera clicking away like a proud father’s; Luke sorting through each box of books as it arrived at his store, looking for anything she might like and putting it aside. Luke lifting her up to pull apples down from the trees near his farmhouse. Luke, whose place as her father this man was trying to take. “Luke isn’t a monster,” she said in a voice that matched Valentine’s, steel for steel. “Or a murderer. You are.”

“Clary!” It was Jace.

Clary ignored him. Her eyes were fixed on her father’s cold black ones. “You murdered your wife’s parents, not in battle but in cold blood,” she said. “And I bet you murdered Michael Wayland and his little boy, too. Threw their bones in with my grandparents’ so that my mother would think you and Jace were dead. Put your necklace around Michael Wayland’s neck before you burned him so everyone would think those bones were yours. After all your talk about the untainted blood of the Clave—you didn’t care at all about their blood or their innocence when you killed them, did you? Slaughtering old people and children in cold blood, that’s monstrous.”

Another spasm of rage contorted Valentine’s features. “That’s enough !” Valentine roared, raising the black-star sword again, and Clary heard the truth of who he was in his voice, the rage that had propelled him all his life. The unending seething rage. “Jonathan! Drag your sister out of my way, or by the Angel, I’ll knock her down to kill the monster she’s protecting!”

For the briefest moment Jace...

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Valentine’s eyes were still fixed on Jace; he barely seemed to notice the sword at his throat. “Wayland?” he roared. “You have no Wayland blood! Michael Wayland was a stranger to you—”

“So,” said Jace calmly, “are you.” He jerked the sword to the left. “Now move.”

Valentine was shaking his head. “Never. I will not take orders from a child.”

The tip of the sword kissed Valentine’s throat. Clary stared in fascinated horror. “I am a very well-trained child,” Jace said. “You instructed me yourself in the precise art of killing. I only need to move two fingers to cut your throat, did you know that?” His eyes were steely. “I suppose you did.”

“You’re skilled enough,” said Valentine. His tone was dismissive, but, Clary noticed, he was standing very still indeed. “But you could not kill me. You have always been softhearted.”

“Perhaps he couldn’t.” It was Luke, on his feet now, pale and bloody but upright. “But I could. And I’m not entirely sure he could stop me.”

Valentine’s feverish eyes flicked to Luke, and back to his son. Jace hadn’t turned when Luke spoke, but stood still as a statue, the sword unmoving in his hand. “You hear the monster threatening me, Jonathan,” said Valentine. “You side with it?”

“It has a point,” said Jace mildly. “I’m not entirely sure I could stop him if he wanted to do you damage. Werewolves heal so fast.”

Valentine’s lip curled. “So,” he spat, “like your mother, you prefer this creature, this half-breed demon thing, to your own blood, your own family?”

For the first time the sword in Jace’s hand seemed to tremble. “You left me when I was a child,” he said in a measured voice. “You let me think you were dead and you sent me away to live with strangers. You never told me I had a mother, a sister. You left me alone.” The word was a cry.

“I did it for you—to keep you safe,” Valentine protested.

“If you cared about Jace, if you cared about blood, you wouldn’t have killed his grandparents. You murdered innocent people,” Clary cut in, furious.

“Innocent?” snapped Valentine. “No one is innocent in a war! They sided with Jocelyn against me! They would have let her take my son from me!”

Luke let out a hissing breath. “You knew she was going to leave you,” he said. “You knew she was going to run, even before the Uprising?”

“Of course I knew!” roared Valentine. His icy control had cracked and Clary could see the molten rage seething underneath, coiling the tendons in his neck, clenching his hands into fists. “I did what I had to to protect my own, and in the end I gave them more than they ever deserved: the funeral pyre awarded only to the greatest warriors of the Clave!”

“You burned them,” said Clary flatly.

“Yes!” shouted Valentine. “I burned them.”

Jace made a strangled noise. “My grandparents—”

“You never knew them,” said Valentine. “Don’t pretend to a grief you do not feel.”

The point of the sword was trembling more rapidly now. Luke put a hand on Jace’s shoulder. “Steady,” he said.

Jace didn’t look at him. He was breathing as if he had been running. Clary could see the sweat shimmering on the sharp divide of his collarbones, sticking his hair to his temples. The veins were visible along the backs of his hands. He’s going to kill him, she thought. He’s going to kill Valentine.

She stepped forward hastily. “Jace—we need the Cup. Or you know what he’ll do with it.”

Jace licked his dry lips. “The Cup, Father. Where is it?”

“In Idris,” said Valentine calmly. “Where you will never find it.”

Jace’s hand was shaking. “Tell me—”

“Give me the sword, Jonathan.” It was Luke, his voice calm, even kind.

Jace sounded as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. “What?”

Clary took a step forward. “Give Luke the sword. Let him have it, Jace.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

She took another step forward; one more, and she’d be close enough to touch him. “Yes, you can,” she said gently. “Please.”

He didn’t look at her. His eyes were locked on his father’s. The moment stretched out and out, interminable. At last he nodded, curtly, without lowering his hand. But he did let Luke move to stand beside him, and place his hand over Jace’s, on the hilt of the blade. “You can let go now, Jonathan,” Luke said—and then, seeing Clary’s face, amended himself. “Jace.”

Jace seemed not to have heard him. He released the hilt and moved away from his father. Some of Jace’s color had come back, and he was now a shade more like putty, his lip bloody where he’d bitten it. Clary ached to touch him, put her arms around him, knew he’d never let her.

“I have a suggestion,” said Valentine to Luke, in a surprisingly even tone.

“Let me guess,” said Luke. “It’s ‘Don’t kill me,’ isn’t it?”

Valentine laughed, a sound without any humor in it. “I would hardly lower myself to ask you for my life,” he said.

“Good,” said Luke, nudging the other man’s chin with his blade. “I’m not going to kill you unless you force my hand, Valentine. I draw the line at murdering you in front of your own children. What I want is the Cup.”

The roaring downstairs was louder now. Clary could hear what sounded like footsteps in the corridor outside. “Luke—”

“I hear it,” he snapped.

“The Cup’s in Idris, I told you,” said Valentine, his eyes shifting past Luke.

Luke was sweating. “If it’s in Idris, you used the Portal to bring it there. I’ll go with you. Bring it back.” Luke’s eyes were darting. There was more movement in the corridor outside now, sounds of shouting, of something shattering. “Clary, stay with your brother. After we go through, you use the Portal to take you to a safe place.”

“I won’t leave here,” said Jace.

“Yes, you will.” Something thudded against the door. Luke raised his voice. “Valentine, the Portal. Move.”

“Or what?” Valentine’s eyes were fixed on the door with a considering look.

“I’ll kill you if you force my hand,” Luke said. “In front of them, or not. The Portal, Valentine. Now.”

Valentine spread his hands wide. “If you wish.”

He stepped lightly backward, just as the door exploded inward, hinges scattering across the floor. Luke ducked out of the way to avoid being crushed by the falling door, turning as he did so, the sword still in his hand.

A wolf stood in the doorway, a mountain of growling, brindled fur, shoulders hunched forward, lips curled back over snarling teeth. Blood ran from innumerable gashes in his pelt.

Jace was swearing softly, a seraph blade already in his hand. Clary caught at his wrist. “Don’t—he’s a friend.”

Jace shot her an incredulous glance, but lowered his arm.

“Alaric—” Luke shouted something then, in a language Clary didn’t understand. Alaric snarled again, crouching closer to the floor, and for a confused moment she thought he was going to hurl himself at Luke. Then she saw Valentine’s hand at his belt, the flash of red jewels, and realized that she had forgotten that he still had Jace’s dagger.

She heard a voice shout Luke’s name, thought it was her own—then realized that her throat seemed glued shut, and that it was Jace who had shouted.

Luke slewed around, excruciatingly slowly, it seemed, as the knife left Valentine’s hand and flew toward him like a silver butterfly, turning over and over in the air. Luke raised his blade—and something huge and tawny gray hurtled between him and Valentine. She heard Alaric’s howl, rising, suddenly cut off; heard the sound as the blade struck. She gasped and tried to run forward, but Jace pulled her back.

The wolf crumpled at Luke’s feet, blood spattering his fur. Feebly, with his paws, Alaric clawed at the hilt of the knife protruding from his chest.

Valentine laughed. “And this is how you repay the unquestioning loyalty you bought so cheaply, Lucian,” he said. “By letting them die for you.” He was backing up, his eyes still on Luke.

Luke, white-faced, looked at him, and then down at Alaric; shook his head once, and dropped to his knees, leaning over the fallen werewolf. Jace, still holding Clary by the shoulders, hissed, “Stay here, you hear me? Stay here,” and set off after Valentine, who was hurrying, inexplicably, toward the far wall. Did he plan to throw himself out the window? Clary could see his reflection in the big, gold-framed mirror as he neared it, and the expression on his face—a sort of sneering relief—filled her with a murderous rage.

“Like...

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Jace tightened his grip on the angel blade. “I can—”

“No, you can’t.” Valentine reached out, through the Portal, and seized Jace’s wrist in his hand, dragging it forward until the tip of the seraph blade touched his chest. Where Jace’s hand and wrist passed through the Portal, they seemed to shimmer as if they had been cast in water. “Do it, then,” said Valentine. “Drive the blade in. Three inches—maybe four.” He jerked the blade forward, the dagger’s tip slicing the fabric of his shirt. A red circle like a poppy bloomed just over his heart. Jace, with a gasp, yanked his arm free and staggered back.

“As I thought,” said Valentine. “Too softhearted.” And with a shocking suddenness he swung his fist toward Jace. Clary cried out, but the blow never connected; instead it struck the surface of the Portal between them with a sound like a thousand fragile shattering things. Spiderwebbing cracks fissured the glass-that-was-not-glass; the last thing Clary heard before the Portal dissolved into a deluge of ragged shards was Valentine’s derisive laughter.

Glass surged across the floor like a shower of ice, a strangely beautiful cascade of silver shards. Clary stepped back, but Jace stood very still as the glass rained around him, staring at the empty frame of the mirror.

Clary had expected him to swear, to shout or curse at his father, but instead he only waited for the shards to stop falling. When they did, he knelt down silently and carefully in the welter of broken glass and picked up one of the larger pieces, turning it over in his hands.

“Don’t.” Clary knelt down next to him, setting down the knife she’d been holding. Its presence no longer comforted her. “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

“Yes, there was.” He was still looking down at the glass. Broken slivers of it powdered his hair. “I could have killed him.” He turned the shard toward her. “Look,” he said.

She looked. In the bit of glass she could still see a piece of Idris—a bit of blue sky, the shadow of green leaves. She exhaled painfully. “Jace—”

“Are you all right?”

Clary looked up. It was Luke, standing over them. He was weaponless, his eyes sunk into blue circles of exhaustion. “We’re fine,” she said. She could see a crumpled figure on the ground behind him, half-covered in Valentine’s long coat. A hand protruded from beneath the fabric’s edge; it was tipped with claws. “Alaric …?”

“Is dead,” said Luke. There was a wealth of controlled pain in his voice; though he had barely known Alaric, Clary knew the crushing weight of guilt would stay with him forever. And this is how you repay the unquestioning loyalty you bought so cheaply, Lucian. By letting them die for you.

“My father got away,” said Jace. “With the Cup.” His voice was dull. “We delivered it right to him. I failed.”

Luke let one of his hands fall on Jace’s head, brushing the glass from his hair. His claws were still out, his fingers stained with blood, but Jace suffered his touch as if he didn’t mind it, and said nothing at all. “It’s not your fault,” Luke said, looking down at Clary. His blue eyes were steady. They said: Your brother needs you; stay with him.

She nodded, and Luke left them and went to the window. He threw it open, sending a draft of air through the room that guttered the candles. Clary could hear him shouting, calling down to the wolves below.

She knelt down next to Jace. “It’s all right,” she said haltingly, though clearly it wasn’t, and might never be again, and she put her hand on his shoulder. The cloth of his shirt was rough under her fingertips, damp with sweat, strangely comforting. “We have my mom back. We have you. We have everything that matters.”

“He was right. That’s why I couldn’t make myself go through the Portal,” Jace whispered. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill him.”

“The only way you would have failed,” she said, “is if you had.”

He said nothing, only whispered something under his breath. She couldn’t quite hear the words, but she reached out and took the bit of glass out of his hand. He was bleeding where he’d held it, from two fine and narrow gashes. She put the shard down and took his hand, closing his fingers over the injured palm. “Honestly, Jace,” she said, as gently as she’d touched him, “don’t you know better than to play with broken glass?”

He made a sound like a choked laugh before he reached out and pulled her into his arms. She was aware of Luke watching them from the window, but she shut her eyes resolutely and buried her face against Jace’s shoulder. He smelled of salt and blood, and only when his mouth came close to her ear did she understand what he was saying, what he had been whispering before, and it was the simplest litany of all: her name, just her name.

EPILOGUE:

THE ASCENT BECKONS

THE HOSPITAL HALLWAY WAS BLINDINGLY WHITE. AFTER SO many days living by torchlight, gaslight, and eerie witchlight, the fluorescent lighting made things look sallow and unnatural. When Clary signed herself in at the front desk, she noticed that the nurse handing her the clipboard had skin that looked strangely yellowish under the bright lights. Maybe she’s a demon, Clary thought, handing the clipboard back. “Last door at the end of the hall,” said the nurse, flashing a kind smile. Or I could be going crazy.

“I know,” said Clary. “I was here yesterday.” And the day before, and the day before that. It was early evening, and the hallway wasn’t crowded. An old man shuffled along in carpet slippers and a robe, dragging a mobile oxygen unit behind him. Two doctors in green surgical scrubs carried Styrofoam cups of coffee, steam rising from the surface of the liquid into the frigid air. Inside the hospital it was aggressively air-con***ioned, though outside the weather had finally begun to turn toward fall.

Clary found the door at the end of the hall. It was open. She peered inside, not wanting to wake Luke up if he was asleep in the chair by the bed, as he had been the last two times she’d come. But he was up and conferring with a tall man in the parchment-colored robes of the Silent Brothers. He turned, as if sensing Clary’s arrival, and she saw that it was Brother Jeremiah.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s going on?”

Luke looked exhausted, with three days’ worth of scruffy beard growth, his glasses pushed up to the top of his head. She could see the bulk of the bandages that still wrapped his upper chest under his loose flannel shirt. “Brother Jeremiah was just leaving,” he said.

Raising his hood, Jeremiah moved toward the door, but Clary blocked his way. “So?” she challenged him. “Are you going to help my mother?”

Jeremiah came closer to her. She could feel the cold that wafted off his body, like the steam from an iceberg. You cannot save others until you first save yourself, said the voice in her mind.

“This fortune-cookie stuff is getting really old,” Clary said. “What’s wrong with my mother? Do you know? Can the Silent Brothers help her like you helped Alec?”

We helped no one, said Jeremiah. Nor is it our place to assist those who have willingly separated themselves from the Clave.

She drew back as Jeremiah moved past her into the hallway. She watched him walk away, mingling with the crowd, none of whom gave him a second glance. When she let her own eyes fall half-shut, she saw the shimmering aura of glamour that surrounded him, and wondered what they were seeing: Another patient? A doctor hurrying along in surgical scrubs? A grieving visitor?

“He was telling the truth,” said Luke from behind her. “He didn’t cure Alec; that was Magnus Bane. And he doesn’t know what’s wrong with your mother either.”

“I know,” said Clary, turning back into the room. She approached the bed warily. It was hard to connect the small white figure in the bed, snaked over and under by a nest of tubes, with her vibrant flame-haired mother. Of course, her hair was still red, spread out across the pillow like a shawl of coppery thread, but her skin was so pale that she reminded Clary of the wax Sleeping Beauty in Madame Tussauds, whose chest rose and fell only because it was animated by clockwork.

She took her mother’s thin hand and held it, as she’d done yesterday and the day before. She could feel the pulse beating in Jocelyn’s wrist, steady and insistent. She wants to wake up, Clary thought. I know she does.

“Of course she does,” said Luke, and Clary started in the realization that she had spoken aloud. “She has everything to get better for, even more than she could know.”

Clary laid her mother’s hand gently back down on the bed. “You mean Jace.”

“Of course I mean Jace,” said Luke. “She’s mourned him for seventeen years. If I could tell her that she no longer needed to mourn—” He broke off.

“They say people in comas can sometimes hear you,” Clary offered. Of course, the doctors had also said that this was no ordinary...

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She shook her head. “Luke gave me money for a cab. Want to come over tomorrow, though?” she added. “We could watch some Trigun, pop some corn. I could use some couch time.”

He nodded. “That sounds good.” He leaned forward then, and brushed a kiss along her cheekbone. It was a kiss as light as a blown leaf, but she felt a shiver far down in her bones. She looked at him.

“Do you think that it was a coincidence?” she asked.

“Do I think what was a coincidence?”

“That we wound up in Pandemonium the same night that Jace and the others just happened to be there, pursuing a demon? The night before Valentine came for my mother?”

Simon shook his head. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said.

“Neither do I.”

“But I have to admit,” Simon added, “coincidence or not, it turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence.”

“The Fortuitous Occurrences,” said Clary. “Now there’s a band name for you.”

“It’s better than most of the ones we’ve come up with,” Simon admitted.

“You bet.” She jumped down out of the van, slamming the door behind her. She heard him honk as she ran up the path to the door between the slabs of overgrown grass, and waved without turning around.

The interior of the cathedral was cool and dark, and smelled of rain and damp paper. Her footsteps echoed loudly on the stone floor, and she thought of Jace in the church in Brooklyn: There might be a God, Clary, and there might not. Either way, we’re on our own.

In the elevator she stole a look at herself in the mirror as the door clanged shut behind her. Most of her bruises and scrapes had healed to invisibility. She wondered if Jace had ever seen her looking as prim as she did today—she’d dressed for the hospital in a black pleated skirt, pink lip gloss, and a vintage sailor-collared blouse. She thought she looked about eight.

Not that it mattered what Jace thought about how she looked, she reminded herself, now or ever. She wondered if they’d ever be the way Simon was with his sister: a mixture of boredom and loving irritation. She couldn’t imagine it.

She heard the loud meows before the elevator door even opened. “Hey, Church,” she said, kneeling down by the wriggling gray ball on the floor. “Where is everyone?”

Church, who clearly wanted his stomach rubbed, muttered ominously. With a sigh Clary gave in. “Demented cat,” she said, rubbing with vigor. “Where—”

“Clary!” It was Isabelle, swooping into the foyer in a long red skirt, her hair piled on top of her head with jeweled clips. “It’s so great to see you!”

She descended on Clary with a hug that nearly overbalanced her.

“Isabelle,” Clary gasped. “It’s good to see you, too,” she added, letting Isabelle pull her up to a standing position.

“I was so worried about you,” said Isabelle brightly. “After you guys went off to the library with Hodge, and I was with Alec, I heard the most terrific banging explosion, and when I got to the library, of course, you were gone, and everything was strewn all over the floor. And there was blood and sticky black goo everywhere.” She shuddered. “What was that stuff?”

“A curse,” Clary said quietly. “Hodge’s curse.”

“Oh, right,” Isabelle said. “Jace told me about Hodge.”

“He did?” Clary was surprised.

“That he got the curse taken off him and left? Yeah, he did. I would have thought he’d have stayed to say good-bye.” Isabelle added, “I’m kind of disappointed in him. But I guess he was scared of the Clave. He’ll get in touch eventually, I bet.”

So Jace hadn’t told them that Hodge had betrayed them, Clary thought, not sure how she felt about that. Then again, if Jace was trying to spare Isabelle confusion and disappointment, maybe she shouldn’t interfere.

“Anyway,” Isabelle went on, “it was horrible, and I don’t know what we would have done if Magnus hadn’t showed up and magicked Alec back to health. Is that a word, ‘magicked’?” She crinkled her eyebrows. “Jace told us all about what happened on the island afterward. Actually, we knew about it even before, because Magnus was on the phone about it all night. Everyone in Downworld was buzzing about it. You’re famous, you know.”

“Me?”

“Sure. Valentine’s daughter.”

Clary shuddered. “So I guess Jace is famous too.”

“You’re both famous,” said Isabelle in the same overbright voice. “The famous brother and sister.”

Clary looked at Isabelle curiously. “I didn’t expect you to be this glad to see me, I have to admit.”

The other girl put her hands on her h*ps indignantly. “Why not?”

“I didn’t think you liked me all that much.”

Isabelle’s brightness faded and she looked down at her silvery toes. “I didn’t think I did either,” she admitted. “But when I went to look for you and Jace, and you were gone…” Her voice trailed off. “I wasn’t just worried about him; I was worried about you, too. There’s something so … reassuring about you. And Jace is so much better when you’re around.”

Clary’s eyes widened. “He is?”

“He is, actually. Less sharp-edged, somehow. It’s not so much that he’s kinder, but that he lets you see the kindness in him.” She paused. “And I guess I resented you at first, but I realize now that was stupid. Just because I’ve never had a friend who was a girl doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn how to have one.”

“Me too, actually,” said Clary. “And Isabelle?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to pretend to be nice. I like it better when you just act like yourself.”

“Bitchy, you mean?” Isabelle said, and laughed.

Clary was about to protest when Alec swung into the entryway on a pair of crutches. One of his legs was bandaged, his jeans rolled up to the knee, and there was another bandage on his temple, under the dark hair. Otherwise he looked remarkably healthy for someone who’d nearly died four days before. He waved a crutch in greeting.

“Hi,” Clary said, surprised to see him up and around. “Are you …”

“All right? I’m fine,” Alec said. “I won’t even need these in a few days.”

Guilt swelled her throat. If it hadn’t been for her, Alec wouldn’t be on crutches at all. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Alec,” she said, putting every ounce of sincerity into her voice that she could muster.

Alec blinked. “Thanks.”

“So Magnus fixed you?” Clary said. “Luke said—”

“He did!” said Isabelle. “It was so awesome. He showed up and ordered everyone out of the room and shut the door. Blue and red sparks kept exploding out into the hallway from underneath the floor.”

“I don’t remember any of it,” said Alec.

“Then he sat by Alec’s bed all night and into the morning to make sure he woke up okay,” Isabelle added.

“I don’t remember that, either,” Alec added hastily.

Isabelle’s red lips curved into a smile. “I wonder how Magnus knew to come? I asked him, but he wouldn’t say.”

Clary thought of the folded paper Hodge had thrown into the fire after Valentine had gone. He was a strange man, she thought, who’d taken the time to do what he could to save Alec even while betraying everyone—and everything—he’d ever cared about. “I don’t know,” she said.

Isabelle shrugged. “I guess he heard about it somewhere. He does seem to be hooked into an enormous gossip network. He’s such a girl.”

“He’s the High Warlock of Brooklyn, Isabelle,” Alec reminded her, but not without some amusement. He turned to Clary. “Jace is up in the greenhouse if you want to see him,” he said. “I’ll walk you.”

“You will?”

“Sure.” Alec looked only slightly uncomfortable. “Why not?”

Clary glanced at Isabelle, who shrugged. Whatever Alec was up to, he hadn’t shared it with his sister. “Go on,” said Isabelle. “I’ve got stuff to do anyway.” She waved a hand at them. “Shoo.”

They set off down the hallway together. Alec’s pace was fast, even on crutches. Clary had to jog to keep up. “I have short legs,” she reminded him.

“Sorry.” He slowed down, contrite. “Look,” he began. “Those things you said to me, when I yelled at you about Jace …”

“I remember,” she said in a small voice.

“When you told me that you, you know, that I was just—that it was because—” He seemed to be having trouble forming a complete sentence. He tried again. “When you said I was …”

“Alec,...

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She shook her head. “I don’t see what’s so great about Idris. It’s just a place. The way you and Hodge talk about it—” She broke off.

He closed his hand over the shard again. “I was happy there. It was the only place I was ever happy like that.”

Clary plucked a stem from a nearby bush and began to denude it of its leaves. “You felt sorry for Hodge. That’s why you didn’t tell Alec and Isabelle what he really did.”

He shrugged.

“They’ll find out eventually, you know.”

“I know. But I won’t be the one who told them.”

“Jace …” The surface of the pond was green with fallen leaves. “How could you have been happy there? I know what you thought, but Valentine was a terrible father. He killed your pets, lied to you, and I know he hit you—don’t even try to pretend he didn’t.”

A flicker of a smile ghosted across Jace’s face. “Only on alternate Thursdays.”

“Then how could—”

“It was the only time I ever felt sure about who I was. Where I belonged. It sounds stupid, but …” He shrugged. “I kill demons because it’s what I’m good at and what I was taught to do, but it isn’t who I am. And I’m partly good at it because after I thought my father had died, I was—cut free. No consequences. No one to grieve. No one who had a stake in my life because they’d been part of giving it to me.” His face looked as if it had been carved out of something hard. “I don’t feel that way anymore.”

The stem was entirely denuded of leaves; Clary threw it aside. “Why not?”

“Because of you,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, I would have gone with my father through the Portal. If it weren’t for you, I would go after him right now.”

Clary stared down into the clogged pond. Her throat burned. “I thought I made you feel unsettled.”

“It’s been so long,” he said simply, “that I think I was unsettled by the idea of feeling like I belonged anywhere. But you made me feel like I belong.”

“I want you to go somewhere with me,” she said abruptly.

He looked at her sideways. Something about the way his light gold hair fell into his eyes made her feel unbearably sad. “Where?”

“I was hoping you’d come to the hospital with me.”

“I knew it.” His eyes narrowed until they looked like the edges of coins. “Clary, that woman—”

“She’s your mother too, Jace.”

“I know,” he said. “But she’s a stranger to me. I only ever had one parent, and he’s gone. Worse than dead.”

“I know. And I know there’s no point in telling you how great my mom is, what an amazing, terrific, wonderful person she is and that you’d be lucky to know her. I’m not asking this for you, I’m asking for me. I think if she heard your voice …”

“Then what?”

“She might wake up.” She looked at him steadily.

He held her gaze, then broke it with a smile—crooked and a little battered, but a real smile. “Fine. I’ll go with you.” He stood up. “You don’t have to tell me good things about your mother,” he added. “I already know them.”

“Do you?”

He shrugged slightly. “She raised you, didn’t she?” He glanced toward the glass roof. “The sun’s almost set.”

Clary got to her feet. “We should head out to the hospital. I’ll pay for the cab,” she added, as an afterthought. “Luke gave me some cash.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Jace’s smile widened. “Come on. I’ve got something to show you.”

“But where did you get it?” Clary demanded, staring at the motorcycle perched at the edge of the cathedral’s roof. It was a shiny poison green, with silver-rimmed wheels and bright flames painted on the seat.

“Magnus was complaining that someone had left it outside his house the last time he had a party,” said Jace. “I convinced him to give it to me.”

“And you flew it up here?” She was still staring.

“Uh-huh. I’m getting pretty good at it.” He swung a leg over the seat, and beckoned her to come and sit behind him. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Well, at least you know it works this time,” she said, getting on behind him. “If we crash into the parking lot of a Key Food, I’ll kill you, you know that?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jace. “There are no parking lots on the Upper East Side. Why drive when you can get your groceries delivered?” The bike started with a roar, drowning out his laugh. Shrieking, Clary grabbed hold of his belt as the bike hurtled down the slanted roof of the Institute and launched itself into space.

The wind tore her hair as they rose up, up over the cathedral, up above the roofs of the nearby high-rises and apartment buildings. And there it was spread out before her like a carelessly opened jewelry box, this city more populous and more amazing than she had ever imagined: There was the emerald square of Central Park, where the faerie courts met on midsummer evenings; there were the lights of the clubs and bars downtown, where the vampires danced the nights away at Pandemonium; there the alleys of Chinatown down which the werewolves slunk at night, their coats reflecting the city’s lights. There walked warlocks in all their bat-winged, cat-eyed glory; and here, as they swung out over the river, she saw the darting flash of multicolored tails under the silvery skin of the water, the shimmer of long, pearl-strewn hair, and heard the high, rippling laughter of the mermaids.

Jace turned to look over his shoulder, the wind whipping his hair into tangles. “What are you thinking?” he called back to her.

“Just how different everything down there is now, you know, now that I can see.”

“Everything down there is exactly the same,” he said, angling the cycle toward the East River. They were heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge again. “You’re the one that’s different.”

Her hands tightened convulsively on his belt as they dipped lower and lower over the river. “Jace!”

“Don’t worry.” He sounded maddeningly amused. “I know what I’m doing. I won’t drown us.”

She squinted her eyes against the tearing wind. “Are you testing what Alec said about some of these bikes being able to go underwater?”

“No.” He leveled the bike out carefully as they rose from the river’s surface. “I think that’s just a story.”

“But, Jace,” she said. “All the stories are true.”

She didn’t hear him laugh, but she felt it, vibrating through his rib cage and into her fingertips. She held on tightly as he angled the cycle up, gunning it so that it shot forward and darted up the side of the bridge like a bird freed from a cage. Her stomach dropped out from under her as the silver river spun away and the spires of the bridge slid under her feet, but this time Clary kept her eyes open, so that she could see it all.