AS ASHES. MAGDALENA

AS ASHES

Clary came back to consciousness slowly, with the dizzy sensation she recalled from that first morning in the Institute, when she had woken with no idea of where she was. Her whole body ached, and her head felt as if someone had smashed an iron barbell into it. She was lying on her side, her head pillowed on something rough, and there was a weight around her shoulder. Glancing down, she saw a slim hand, pressed protectively against her sternum. She recognized the Marks, the faint white scars, even the blue mapping of veins across his forearm. The weight inside her chest eased, and she sat up carefully, slipping out from under Jace’s arm.

They were in his bedroom. She recognized the incredible neatness, the carefully made bed with its hospital corners. It still wasn’t disarranged. Jace was asleep, propped up against the headboard, still in the same clothes he’d worn the night before. He even had his shoes on. He had clearly fallen asleep holding her, though she had no recollection of it. He was still splattered with the odd silvery substance from the club.

He stirred slightly, as if sensing that she was gone, and wrapped his free arm around himself. He didn’t look injured or hurt, she thought, just exhausted, his long dark gold eyelashes curled in the hollow of the shadows beneath his eyes. He looked vulnerable asleep – a little boy. He could have been her Jace.

But he wasn’t. She remembered the nightclub, his hands on her in the dark, the bodies and blood. Her stomach churned, and she put a hand over her mouth, swallowing down nausea. She felt sickened by what she remembered, and underneath the sickness was a nagging prickle, the sense that she was missing something.

Something important.

“Clary. ”

She turned. Jace’s eyes were half‑ open; he was looking at her through his lashes, the gold of his eyes dulled with exhaustion. “Why are you awake? ” he said. “It’s barely dawn. ”

Her hands bunched in the tangle of blankets. “Last night, ” she said, her voice uneven. “The bodies – the blood–”

“The what? ”

“That’s what I saw. ”

“I didn’t. ” He shook his head. “Faerie drugs, ” he said. “You knew…”

“It seemed so real. ”

“I’m sorry. ” His eyes closed. “I wanted to have fun. It’s supposed to make you happy. Make you see pretty things. I thought we would have fun together. ”

“I saw blood, ” she said. “And dead people floating in tanks–”

He shook his head, his lashes fluttering down. “None of it was real…”

“Even what happened with you and me–? ” Clary broke off, because his eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling steadily. He was asleep.

She rose to her feet, not looking at Jace, and went into the bathroom. She stood looking at herself in the mirror, numbness spreading through her bones. She was covered in smears of silvery residue. It reminded her of the time a metallic pen had burst inside her backpack, ruining everything in it. One of her bra straps had snapped, probably where Jace had yanked on it the night before. Her eyes were surrounded with smeared black stripes of mascara, and her skin and hair were sticky with silver.

Feeling faint and sick, she stripped off the slip dress and her underwear, tossing them into the wastebasket before crawling into the hot water.

She washed her hair over and over again, trying to get the dried silver gunk out. It was like trying to wash out oil paint. The scent of it lingered too, like the water from a vase after the flowers have rotted, faint and sweet and spoiled on her skin. No amount of soap seemed to be able to get rid of it.

Finally convinced she was as clean as she was going to get, she dried off and went to the master bedroom to get dressed. It was a relief to climb back into jeans and boots and slip on a comfortable cotton sweater. It was only then, as she pulled on her second boot, that the nagging feeling returned, the feeling that she was missing something. She froze.

Her ring. The gold ring that let her speak to Simon.

It was gone.

Frantically she searched for it, tearing through the wastebasket to see if the ring had gotten caught on her dress, then searching every inch of Jace’s room while he slept peacefully on. She combed through the carpet, the bedclothes, checking the nightstand drawers.

At last she sat back, her heart slamming against her chest, a sick feeling in her stomach.

The ring was gone. Lost, somewhere, somehow. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen it. Surely it had flashed on her hand while she’d wielded that dagger against the Elapid demons. Had it fallen off in the junk store? In the nightclub?

She dug her nails into her blue‑ jeaned thighs until the pain made her gasp. Focus, she told herself. Focus.

Maybe the ring had fallen from her finger somewhere else in the apartment. Probably Jace had carried her upstairs at some point. It was a small chance, but every chance had to be explored.

She rose to her feet and went as soundlessly as she could out into the hallway. She moved toward Sebastian’s room, and hesitated. She couldn’t imagine why the ring would be in there, and waking him up would only be counterproductive. She turned around and made her way down the stairs instead, walking carefully to mask the sound of her boots.

Her mind was racing. With no way to contact Simon, what was she going to do? She needed to tell him about the antiques shop, the adamas. She should have talked to him sooner. She wanted to punch the wall, but she forced her mind to slow down, to consider her options. Sebastian and Jace were beginning to trust her; if she could get away from them briefly, on a busy city street, she could use a pay phone to call Simon. She could duck into an Internet café and e‑ mail him. She knew more about mundane technology than they did. Losing the ring didn’t mean it was over.

She would not give up.

Her mind was so occupied with thoughts of what to do next that at first she didn’t see Sebastian. Fortunately, he had his back to her. He stood in the living room, facing the wall.

Already at the bottom of the staircase, Clary froze, then darted across the floor and flattened herself against the half wall that separated the kitchen from the larger room. There was no reason to panic, she told herself. She lived here. If Sebastian saw her, she could say she had come downstairs for a glass of water.

But the chance to observe him without his knowledge was too tempting. She turned her body slightly, peering over and around the kitchen counter.

Sebastian still had his back to her. He had changed his clothes since the nightclub. The army jacket was gone; he wore a button‑ down shirt and jeans. As he turned, and his shirt lifted, she could see that his weapon belt was slung around his waist. As he raised his right hand, she saw that he held his stele – and there was something about the way he held it, just for a moment, with a careful thoughtfulness, that reminded her of the way her mother held a paintbrush.

She closed her eyes. It felt like fabric snagging on a hook, the jerk inside her heart when she recognized something in Sebastian that reminded her of her mother or herself. That reminded her that however much of his blood was poison, just as much was the same blood that ran in her own veins.

She opened her eyes again, in time to see a doorway form in front of Sebastian. He reached for a scarf that hung on a peg on the wall, and stepped out into darkness.

Clary had a split second to decide. Stay and search the rooms, or follow Sebastian and see where he was going. Her feet made the choice before her mind did. Spinning away from the wall, she darted through the dark opening of the door moments before it closed behind her.

The room Luke was lying in was lit only by the streetlights’ glow, which came through the slatted windows. Jocelyn knew she could have asked for a light, but she preferred it like this. The darkness hid the extent of his injuries, the pallor of his face, the sunken crescents beneath his eyes.

In fact, in the dimness he looked very like the boy she had known in Idris before the Circle had been formed. She remembered him in the school yard, skinny and brown‑ haired, with blue eyes and nervous hands. He’d been Valentine’s best friend, and because of that, no one had ever really looked at him. Even she hadn’t, or she would not have been so enormously blind as to miss his feelings for her.

She remembered the day of her wedding to Valentine, the sun bright and clear through the crystal roof of the Accords Hall. She’d been nineteen and Valentine twenty, and she remembered how unhappy her parents had been that she’d chosen to marry so young. Their disapproval had seemed like nothing to her – they didn’t understand. She’d been so sure there would never be anyone for her but Valentine.

Luke had been his best man. She remembered his face as she walked down the aisle – she had looked at him only briefly before turning her full attention to Valentine. She remembered thinking that he must not have been well, that he looked as if he were in pain. And later, in Angel Square, as the guests milled about – most of the members of the Circle were there, from Maryse and Robert Lightwood, already married, to barely fifteen Jeremy Pontmercy – and she stood with Luke and Valentine, someone made the old joke about how if the groom hadn’t showed up, the bride would have had to marry the best man. Luke had been wearing evening clothes, with the gold runes for good luck in marriage on them, and he had looked very handsome, but while everyone else had laughed, he’d gone terribly white. He must really hate the idea of marrying me, she’d thought. She remembered touching his shoulder with a laugh.

“Don’t look like that, ” she’d teased. “I know we’ve known each other forever, but I promise you’ll never have to marry me! ”

And then Amatis had come up, dragging a laughing Stephen with her, and Jocelyn had forgotten all about Luke, the way he had looked at her – and the odd way Valentine had looked at him.

She glanced over at Luke now and started in her chair. His eyes were open, for the first time in days, and fixed on her.

“Luke, ” she breathed.

He looked puzzled. “How long – have I been asleep? ”

She wanted to throw herself onto him, but the thick bandages still wrapped around his chest held her back. She caught at his hand instead and put it against her cheek, her fingers interlocking with his. She closed her eyes and, as she did, felt tears slip from under her lids. “About three days. ”

“Jocelyn, ” he said, sounding really alarmed now. “Why are we at the station? Where’s Clary? I really don’t remember–”

She lowered their interlaced hands and, in as steady a voice as she could manage, told him what had happened – about Sebastian and Jace, and the demon metal embedded in his side, and the help of the Praetor Lupus.

“Clary, ” he said immediately, when she was finished. “We have to go after her. ”

Drawing his hand from hers, he started to struggle into a sitting position. Even in the dim light she could see his pallor deepen as he winced with pain.

“That’s not possible. Luke, lie back down, please. Don’t you think if there were any way to go after her, I would have? ”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed so he was sitting up; then, with a gasp, he leaned back on his hands. He looked awful. “But the danger–”

“Do you think I haven’t thought about the danger? ” Jocelyn put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him gently back against the pillows. “Simon’s been in contact with me every night. She’s all right. She is. And you’re in no shape to do anything about it. Killing yourself won’t help her. Please trust me, Luke. ”

“Jocelyn, I can’t just lie here. ”

“You can, ” she said, standing up. “And you will, if I have to sit on you myself. What on earth is wrong with you, Lucian? Are you out of your mind? I’m terrified about Clary, and I’ve been terrified about you, too. Please don’t do this – don’t do this to me. If anything happened to you–”

He looked at her with surprise. There was already a red stain on the white bandages that wrapped his chest, where his movements had pulled his wound open. “I…”

“What? ”

“I’m not used to you loving me, ” he said.

There was a meekness to his words that she didn’t associate with Luke, and she stared at him for a moment before she said, “Luke. Lie back down, please. ”

As a sort of compromise he leaned further back against the pillows. He was breathing hard. Jocelyn darted to the nightstand, poured him a glass of water, and, returning, thrust it into his hand. “Drink it, ” she said. “Please. ”

Luke took the glass, his blue eyes following her as she sat back down in the chair beside his bed, from which she had barely moved for so many hours that she was surprised she and the chair hadn’t become one. “You know what I was thinking about? ” she asked. “Just before you woke up? ”

He took a sip of the water. “You looked very far away. ”

“I was thinking about the day I married Valentine. ”

Luke lowered the glass. “The worst day of my life. ”

“Worse than the day you got bitten? ” she asked, folding her legs up under her.

“Worse. ”

“I didn’t know, ” she said. “I didn’t know how you felt. I wish I had. I think things would have been different. ”

He looked at her incredulously. “How? ”

“I wouldn’t have married Valentine, ” she said. “Not if I’d known. ”

“You would–”

“I wouldn’t, ” she said sharply. “I was too stupid to realize how you felt, but I was also too stupid to realize how I felt. I’ve always loved you. Even if I didn’t know it. ” She leaned forward and kissed him gently, not wanting to hurt him; then she put her cheek against his. “Promise me you won’t put yourself in danger. Promise. ”

She felt his free hand in her hair. “I promise. ”

She leaned back, partly satisfied. “I wish I could go back in time. Fix everything. Marry the right guy. ”

“But then we wouldn’t have Clary, ” he reminded her. She loved the way he said “we, ” so casually, as if there were no doubt at all in his mind that Clary was his daughter.

“If you’d been there more while she was growing up…” Jocelyn sighed. “I just feel like I did everything wrong. I was so focused on protecting her that I think I protected her too much. She rushes headlong into danger without thinking. When we were growing up, we saw our friends die in battle. She never has. And I wouldn’t want that for her, but sometimes I worry that she doesn’t believe she can die. ”

“Jocelyn. ” Luke’s voice was soft. “You raised her to be a good person. Someone with values, who believes in good and evil and strives to be good. Like you always have. You can’t raise a child to believe the opposite of what you do. I don’t think she doesn’t believe she can die. I think, just like you always did, she believes there are things worth dying for. ”

Clary crept after Sebastian through a network of narrow streets, keeping to the shadows close beside the buildings. They were no longer in Prague – that much was immediately clear. The roads were dark, the sky above was the hollow blue of very early morning, and the signs hung above the shops and stores she passed were all in French. As were the street signs: RUE DE LA SEINE, RUE JACOB, RUE DE L’ABBAYE.

As they moved through the city, people passed her like ghosts. The occasional car rumbled by, trucks backed up to stores, making early‑ morning deliveries. The air smelled like river water and trash. She was fairly sure where they were already, but then a turn and an alley took them to a wide avenue, and a signpost loomed up out of the misty darkness. Arrows pointed in different directions, showing the way to the Bastille, to Notre Dame, and to the Latin Quarter.

Paris, Clary thought, slipping behind a parked car as Sebastian crossed the street. We’re in Paris.

It was ironic. She’d always wanted to go to Paris with someone who knew the city. Had always wanted to walk its streets, to see the river, to paint the buildings. She’d never imagined this. Never imagined creeping after Sebastian, across the Boulevard Saint Germain, past a bright yellow bureau de poste, up an avenue where the bars were closed but the gutters were full of beer bottles and cigarette butts, and down a narrow street lined with houses. Sebastian stopped before one, and Clary froze as well, flat against a wall.

She watched as he raised a hand and punched a code into a box set beside the door, her eyes following the movements of his fingers. There was a click; the door opened and he slipped through. The moment it closed, she darted after him, pausing to key in the same code – X235–and waiting to hear the soft sound that meant the door was unlocked. When the sound came, she wasn’t sure if she was more relieved or surprised. It shouldn’t be this easy.

A moment later she stood inside a courtyard. It was square, surrounded on all sides by ordinary‑ looking buildings. Three staircases were viewable through open doors. Sebastian, however, had disappeared.

So it wasn’t going to be that easy.

She moved forward into the courtyard, conscious as she did so that she was bringing herself out of sheltering shadow and into the open, where she could be seen. The sky was lightening with every passing moment. The knowledge that she was visible prickled the back of her neck, and she ducked into the shadow of the first stairwell she encountered.

It was plain, with wooden stairs leading up and down, and a cheap mirror on the wall in which she could see her own pale face. There was a distinct smell of rotting garbage, and she wondered for a moment if she were near where the trash bins were stored, before her tired mind clicked over and she realized: The stink was the presence of demons.

Her tired muscles started to shake, but she tightened her hands into fists. She was painfully conscious of her lack of weaponry. She took a deep breath of the stinking air and began to make her way down the steps.

The smell grew stronger and the air darker as she made her way downstairs, and she wished for a stele and a night‑ vision rune. But there was nothing to be done about it. She kept going as the staircase curved around and around, and she was suddenly grateful for the lack of light as she stepped in a patch of something sticky. She clutched for the banister and tried to breathe through her mouth. The darkness thickened, until she was walking blind, her heart pounding so loudly she was sure it must be announcing her presence. The streets of Paris, the ordinary world, seemed eons away. There was only the darkness and herself, going down and down and down.

And then – light flared in the distance, a tiny point, like the tip of a match bursting into flame. She moved closer to the banister, almost crouching, as the light grew. She could see her own hand now, and the outline of the steps below her. There were only a few more. She reached the bottom of the stairs and glanced around.

Any resemblance to an ordinary apartment building was gone. Somewhere along the way the wooden stairs had turned into stone, and she stood now in a small, stone‑ walled room lit by a torch that gave off a sickly greenish light. The floor was rock, polished smooth, and carved with multiple strange symbols. She edged around them as she crossed the room to the only other exit, a curved stone arch, at the apex of which was set a human skull between the V of two enormous ornamental crossed axes.

Through the archway she could hear voices. They were too distant for her to make out what they were saying, but they were voices nonetheless. This way, they seemed to say. Follow us.

She stared up at the skull, and its empty eyes gazed back at her mockingly. She wondered where she was – if Paris was still above her or if she had stepped into another world entirely, the way one did when one entered the Silent City. She thought of Jace, whom she had left sleeping in what now seemed like another life.

She was doing this for him, she reminded herself. To get him back. She stepped through the arch into the corridor beyond, instinctively flattening herself against the wall. Soundlessly she crept along, the voices growing louder and louder. It was dim in the hall but not lightless. Every few feet another greenish torch burned, giving off a charred odor.

A door opened suddenly in the wall to her left, and the voices grew louder.

“… not like his father, ” one said, the words as raspy as sandpaper. “Valentine would not deal with us at all. He would make slaves of us. This one will give us this world. ”

Very slowly Clary peered around the edge of the doorway.

The room was bare, smooth‑ walled, and empty of all furniture. Inside it was a group of demons. They were lizardlike, with hard green‑ brown skin, but each had a set of six octopuslike legs that made a dry, skittering sound as they moved. Their heads were bulbous, alien, set with faceted black eyes.

She swallowed bile. She was reminded of the Ravener that had been one of the first demons she’d ever seen. Something about the grotesque combination of lizard, insect, and alien made her stomach turn. She pressed closer to the wall, listening hard.

“That is, if you trust him. ” It was hard to tell which of them was talking. Their legs clenched and unclenched as they moved, raising and lowering their bulbous bodies. They didn’t seem to have mouths but clusters of small tentacles that vibrated as they spoke.

“The Great Mother trusted him. He is her child. ”

Sebastian. Of course they were talking about Sebastian.

“He is also Nephilim. They are our great enemies. ”

“They are his enemies as well. He bears the blood of Lilith. ”

“But the one he calls his companion bears the blood of our enemies. He is of the angels. ” The word was spat with such hate that Clary felt it like a slap.

“Lilith’s child assures us he has him well in hand, and indeed he seems obedient. ”

A dry, insectile chuckle. “You young ones are too consumed with worry. The Nephilim have long kept this world from us. Its riches are great. We will drink it dry and leave it as ashes. As for the angel boy, he will be the last of his kind to die. We will burn him on a pyre until he is only golden bones. ”

Rage rose in Clary. She sucked in a breath – a tiny sound, but a sound. The demon nearest her jerked its head up. For a moment Clary froze, trapped in the glare of its mirrored black eyes.

Then she turned and ran. Ran, back toward the entryway and the stairs and their path up into darkness. She could hear commotion behind her, the creatures screaming, and then the slithering, skittering noise of them coming after her. She cast one glance over her shoulder and realized she wasn’t going to make it. Despite her head start, they were almost on her.

She could hear her own harsh breathing, sawing in and out, as she reached the archway, spun, and leaped to catch hold of it with her hands. She swung herself forward with all her force, her booted feet driving into the first of the demons, knocking it backward as it shrilled loudly. Still dangling, she caught at the handle of one of the crossed axes below the skull and yanked.

Stuck fast, it didn’t move.

She closed her eyes, gripped it tighter, and with all her strength, pulled.

The axe came away from the wall with a rending sound, showering down rocks and mortar. Unbalanced, Clary fell, and landed in a crouch, the axe held out in front of her. It was heavy, but she barely felt it. It was happening again, what had happened in the junk shop. The slowing of time, the increased intensity of sensation. She could feel every whisper of the air against her skin, every unevenness of the ground under her feet. She braced herself as the first of the demons scuttled through the doorway and reared back like a tarantula, its legs pawing the air above her. Beneath the tentacles on its face were a pair of long, dripping fangs.

The axe in her hand seemed to swing forward of its own accord, sinking deep into the creature’s chest. She immediately remembered Jace telling her not to go for the chest wound but for the decapitation. Not all demons had hearts. But in this case she was lucky. She had struck either the heart or some other vital organ. The creature thrashed and squealed; blood bubbled up around the wound, and then it vanished, leaving her to reel back a step, her ichor‑ slicked weapon in her hand. The demon’s blood was black and stinking, like tar.

As the next one lunged for her, she ducked low, swinging out with the axe and slicing through several of its legs. Howling, it tipped sideways like a broken chair; already the next demon was trampling over its body, trying to get to her. She swung again, her axe burying itself in the creature’s face. Ichor sprayed and she darted backward, pressing herself up against the stairwell. If one of them got around behind her, she was dead.

Maddened, the demon whose face she’d slashed open lurched at her again; she swung out with her axe, severing one of its legs, but another leg wrapped itself around her wrist. Hot agony shot up her arm. She screamed and tried to wrench her hand back, but the demon’s grip was too strong. It felt as if thousands of hot needles were stabbing into her skin. Still screaming, she drove out with her left arm, slamming her fist into the creature’s face, where her axe had already sliced it. The demon gave a hiss and loosed its grip fractionally; she wrenched her hand free just as it reared back–

And out of nowhere a shimmering blade drove down, burying itself in the demon’s skull. As she stared, the demon vanished, and she saw her brother, a blazing seraph blade in his hand, ichor splattered across his white shirtfront. Behind him the room was empty save for the body of one of the demons, still twitching, but with black fluid pouring from its severed leg stumps like oil from a smashed car.

Sebastian. She stared at him in amazement. Had he just saved her life?

“Get away from me, Sebastian, ” she hissed.

He didn’t seem to hear her. “Your arm. ”

She glanced down at her right wrist, still throbbing in agony. A thick band of saucer‑ shaped wounds encircled it where the demon’s suckers had fastened themselves to her skin. Already the wounds were darkening, turning a sickening blue‑ black.

She looked back up at her brother. His white hair looked like a halo in the darkness. Or it might have been the fact that her vision was going. Light was haloing around the green torch on the wall too, and around the seraph blade burning in Sebastian’s hand. He was talking, but his words were blurred, indistinct, as if he were speaking underwater.

“… deadly poison, ” he was saying. “What the hell were you thinking, Clarissa? ” His voice faded out, and back in again. She struggled to focus. “… to fight off six Dahak demons with an ornamental axe–”

“Poison, ” she repeated, and for a moment his face came clear again, the lines of strain around his mouth and eyes pronounced and startling. “So I guess you didn’t save my life after all, did you? ”

Her hand spasmed, and the axe slid out of her grip, clattering to the ground. She felt her sweater catch on the rough wall as she began to slide down it, wanting nothing more than to lie on the floor. But Sebastian wouldn’t let her rest. His arms were under hers, lifting her up, and then he was carrying her, her good arm slung around his neck. She wanted to struggle away from him, but her energy had deserted her. She felt a stinging pain on the inside of her elbow, a burn – the touch of a stele. Numbness spread through her veins. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the face of the skull in the archway. She could have sworn its hollow eyes were full of laughter.

MAGDALENA

Nausea and pain came and went in ever‑ tightening whirlpools. Clary could see only a blur of colors around her: she was conscious that her brother was carrying her, every one of his steps slamming into her skull like an ice pick. She was aware that she was clinging to him and the strength of his arms a comfort – that it was bizarre that anything about Sebastian would be a comfort, and that he seemed to be taking care not to jostle her too much as he walked. Very distantly, she knew that she was gasping for breath, and she heard her brother say her name.

Then everything went silent. For a moment she thought that was the end of it: she had died, died battling demons, the way most Shadowhunters did. Then she felt another pricking burn on the inside of her arm, and a surge of what felt like ice spilling through her veins. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, but the cold of whatever Sebastian had done to her was like having a glass of water dashed in her face. Slowly, the world ceased its spinning, the whirlpools of nausea and pain lessening until they were only ripples in the tide of her blood. She could breathe again.

With a gasp, she opened her eyes.

Blue sky.

She was lying on her back, staring up at an endlessly blue sky, touched with cottony clouds, like the painted sky on the ceiling of the infirmary in the Institute. She stretched out her aching arms. The right one still bore the marks of her bracelet of injuries, though they were fading to a light pink. On her left arm was an iratze, paling to invisibility, and there was a mendelin for pain in the crook of her elbow.

She took a deep breath. Autumn air, tinged with the smell of leaves. She could see the tops of trees, hear the murmur of traffic, and–

Sebastian. She heard a low chuckle and realized she wasn’t just lying down, she was lying propped against her brother. Sebastian, who was warm and breathing, and whose arm cradled her head. The rest of her was stretched out along a slightly damp wooden bench.

She jerked upright. Sebastian laughed again; he was sitting at the end of a park bench with elaborate iron armrests. His scarf was folded up in his lap, where she’d been lying, and the arm that hadn’t been cradling her head was stretched out along the back of the bench. He had unbuttoned his white shirt to hide the ichor stains. Beneath it he wore a plain gray T‑ shirt. The silver bracelet glittered on his wrist. His black eyes studied her with amusement as she scooted as far away from him on the bench as she could get.

“Good thing you’re so short, ” he said. “If you were much taller, carrying you would have been extremely inconvenient. ”

She kept her voice steady with an effort. “Where are we? ”

“The Jardin du Luxembourg, ” he said. “The Luxembourg Gardens. It’s a very nice park. I had to take you somewhere you could lie down, and the middle of the street didn’t seem like a good idea. ”

“Yeah, there’s a word for leaving someone to die in the middle of the street. Vehicular manslaughter. ”

“That’s two words, and I think it’s only vehicular manslaughter, technically, if you run them over yourself. ” He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them. “Anyway, why would I leave you to die in the middle of the street after I went through all that effort to save your life? ”

She swallowed, and looked down at her arm. The wounds were even more faded now. If she hadn’t known to look for them, she probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all. “Why did you? ”

“Why did I what? ”

“Save my life. ”

“You’re my sister. ”

She swallowed. In the morning light his face had some color in it. There were faint burns along his neck where demon ichor had splashed him. “You never cared that I was your sister before. ”

“Didn’t I? ” His black eyes flicked up and down her. She remembered when Jace had come into her house after she’d fought the Ravener demon and she’d been dying of the poison. He’d cured her just as Sebastian had, and carried her out the same way. Maybe they were more alike than she had ever wanted to think, even before the spell that had bound them. “Our father’s dead, ” he said. “There are no other relatives. You and I, we are the last. The last of the Morgensterns. You are my only chance for someone whose blood runs in my veins too. Someone like me. ”

“You knew I was following you, ” she said.

“Of course I did. ”

“And you let me. ”

“I wanted to see what you would do. And I admit I didn’t think you would follow me down there. You’re braver than I thought. ” He picked up the scarf from his lap and drew it around his neck. The park was beginning to fill up, with tourists clutching maps, parents with children in hand, old men sitting on other benches like this one, smoking pipes. “You would never have won that fight. ”

“I might have. ”

He grinned, a quick sideways grin, as if he couldn’t help it. “Maybe. ”

She scuffed her boots in the grass, which was wet with dew. She wasn’t going to thank Sebastian. Not for anything. “Why are you dealing with demons? ” she demanded. “I listened to them talking about you. I know what you’re doing–”

“No, you don’t. ” The grin was gone, the superior tone back. “First, those weren’t the demons I was dealing with. Those were their guards. That’s why they were in a separate room and why I wasn’t there. Dahak demons aren’t that smart, though they are mean and tough and defensive. So it’s not like they were really informed about what was going on. They were just repeating gossip they’d heard from their masters. Greater Demons. That was who I was meeting with. ”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? ”

He leaned toward her across the bench. “I’m not trying to make you feel better. I’m trying to tell you the truth. ”

“No wonder you look like you’re having an allergy attack, ” she said, though it wasn’t precisely true. Sebastian looked annoyingly tranquil, though the set of his jaw and the pulse in his temple told her he wasn’t as calm as he pretended. “The Dahak said you were going to give this world to the demons. ”

“Now, does that sound like something I’d do? ”

She just looked at him.

“I thought you said you were going to give me a chance, ” he said. “I’m not who I was when you met me in Alicante. ” His gaze was clear. “Besides, I’m not the only person you’ve ever met who believed in Valentine. He was my father. Our father. It’s not easy to doubt the things you’ve grown up believing. ”

Clary crossed her arms over her chest; the air was fresh but cold, with a wintery snap in it. “Well, that’s true. ”

“Valentine was wrong, ” he said. “He was so obsessed with the wrongs he believed the Clave had done to him that he could see nothing past proving himself right to them. He wanted the Angel to rise and tell them that he was Jonathan Shadowhunter returned, that he was their leader and his way was the right way. ”

“It didn’t exactly happen like that. ”

“I know what happened. Lilith spoke to me of it. ” He said this offhandedly, as if conversations with the mother of all warlocks were something everyone had every once in a while. “Do not fool yourself into thinking that what happened was because the Angel has great compassion, Clary. Angels are as cold as icicles. Raziel was angered because Valentine had forgotten the mission of all Shadowhunters. ”

“Which is? ”

“To kill demons. That is our mandate. Surely you must have heard that more and more demons have been spilling into our world in recent years? That we have no idea how to keep them out? ”

An echo of words came back to her, something Jace had said to her what seemed like a lifetime ago, the first time they had ever visited the Silent City. We might be able to block them from coming here, but nobody’s even been able to figure out how to do that. In fact, more and more of them are coming through. There used to be only small demon invasions into this world, easily contained. But even in my lifetime more and more of them have spilled in through the wardings. The Clave is always having to dispatch Shadowhunters, and a lot of times they don’t come back.

“A great war with demons is coming, and the Clave is woefully unprepared, ” said Sebastian. “That much my father was correct about. They are too set in their ways to hear warnings or to change. I do not wish the destruction of Downworlders as Valentine did, but I worry that the Clave’s blindness will doom this world that Shadowhunters protect. ”

“You want me to believe you care if this world is destroyed? ”

“Well, I do live here, ” Sebastian said, more mildly than she would have expected. “And sometimes extreme situations call for extreme measures. To destroy the enemy it can be necessary to understand him, even to treat with him. If I can make those Greater Demons trust me, then I can lure them here, where they can be destroyed, and their followers as well. That ought to turn back the tide. Demons will know that this world is not as easy pickings as they imagined it. ”

Clary shook her head. “And you’re going to do this with what, just you and Jace? You’re pretty impressive, don’t get me wrong, but even the two of you–”

Sebastian stood up. “You really don’t imagine I could have thought this through, do you? ” He looked down at her, the fall wind blowing his white hair across his face. “Come with me. I want to show you something. ”

She hesitated. “Jace–”

“Is still asleep. Trust me, I know. ” He held out his hand. “Come with me, Clary. If I can’t make you believe I have a plan, maybe I can prove it to you. ”

She stared at him. Images tumbled through her mind like shaken confetti: the junk shop in Prague, her gold leaf‑ ring falling away into darkness, Jace holding her in the alcove in the club, the glass tanks of dead bodies. Sebastian with a seraph blade in his grip.

Prove it to you.

She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

It was decided, though not without a great deal of arguing, that in order for the summoning of Raziel to take place, Team Good would need to find a fairly secluded location. “We can’t summon a sixty‑ foot angel in the middle of Central Park, ” Magnus observed dryly. “People might notice, even in New York. ”

“Raziel’s sixty feet tall? ” Isabelle said. She was slumped down in an armchair she had pulled up to the table. There were rings under her dark eyes; she – like Alec, Magnus, and Simon – was exhausted. They had all been awake for hours, poring through books of Magnus’s so old that their pages were as thin as onionskin. Both Isabelle and Alec could read Greek and Latin, and Alec had a better knowledge of demon languages than Izzy did, but there were still many only Magnus could understand. Maia and Jordan, realizing they could be more help elsewhere, had left for the police station to check on Luke. Meanwhile, Simon had tried to make himself useful in other ways – getting food and coffee, copying down symbols as Magnus instructed, fetching more paper and pencils, and even feeding Chairman Meow, who had thanked him by coughing up a hair ball on the floor of Magnus’s kitchen.

“Actually, he’s only fifty‑ nine feet tall, but he likes to exaggerate, ” said Magnus. Tiredness was not improving his temper. His hair was sticking straight up, and there were smudges of glitter on the backs of his hands where he had rubbed his eyes. “He’s an angel, Isabelle. Haven’t you ever studied anything? ”

Isabelle clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Valentine raised an angel in his cellar. I don’t see why you need all this space–”

“Because Valentine is just WAY MORE AWESOME than me, ” snapped Magnus, dropping his pen. “Look–”

“Don’t shout at my sister, ” said Alec. He said it quietly, but with force behind the words. Magnus looked at him in surprise. Alec continued, “Isabelle, the size of angels, when they appear in the earthly dimension, varies depending on their power. The angel Valentine summoned was of a lower rank than Raziel. And if you were to summon an angel of an even higher rank, Michael, or Gabriel–”

“I couldn’t make a spell that would bind them, even momentarily, ” said Magnus in a subdued voice. “We’re summoning Raziel in part because we’re hoping that as the creator of Shadowhunters, he will have a special compassion – or, really, any compassion – for your situation. He’s also of about the right rank. A less powerful angel might not be able to help us, but a more powerful angel… well, if something went wrong…”

“It might not just be me who dies, ” said Simon.

Magnus looked pained, and Alec glanced down at the papers strewn across the table. Isabelle put her hand on top of Simon’s. “I can’t believe we’re actually sitting here talking about summoning an angel, ” she said. “My whole life we’ve sworn on the Angel’s name. We know our power comes from angels. But the idea of seeing one… I can’t really imagine it. When I try to think about it, it’s too big an idea. ”

A silence fell across the table. There was a darkness in Magnus’s eyes that made Simon wonder if he had ever seen an angel. He wondered whether he ought to ask, but was saved deciding by the buzzing of his cell phone.

“One second, ” he muttered, and got to his feet. He flipped the phone open and leaned against one of the loft’s pillars. It was a text – several – from Maia.

GOOD NEWS! LUKE IS AWAKE AND TALKING. IT LOOKS LIKE HE’S GOING TO BE OKAY.

Relief poured over Simon in a wave. Finally, good news. He flipped the phone shut and reached for the ring on his hand. Clary?

Nothing.

He swallowed his nerves. She was probably asleep. He looked up to find all three of the people at the table staring at him.

“Who called? ” Isabelle asked.

“It was Maia. She says Luke’s up and talking. That he’s going to be okay. ” There was a chatter of relieved voices, but Simon was still staring down at the ring on his hand. “She gave me an idea. ”

Isabelle had been on her feet, heading toward him; at that, she paused, looking worried. Simon supposed he didn’t blame her. His ideas had been downright suicidal of late. “What is it? ” she said.

“What do we need to summon Raziel? How much space? ” Simon asked.

Magnus paused over a book. “A mile around at least. Water would be good. Like Lake Lyn–”

“Luke’s farm, ” Simon said. “Upstate. An hour or two away. It should be shut up now, but I know how to get there. And there’s a lake. Not as big as Lyn, but…”

Magnus closed the book he was holding. “That’s not a bad idea, Seamus. ”

“A few hours? ” Isabelle said, looking up at the clock. “We could be there by–”

“Oh, no, ” said Magnus. He pushed the book away from him. “While your enthusiasm is boundless and impressive, Isabelle, I’m too exhausted to properly cast the summoning spell at the moment. And this isn’t something I want to take risks with. I think we can all agree. ”

“So when? ” Alec asked.

“We need a few hours sleep at least, ” Magnus said. “I say we leave early afternoon. Sherlock – sorry, Simon –call and see if you can borrow Jordan’s truck in the meantime. And now…” He pushed his papers to the side. “I’m going to sleep. Isabelle, Simon, you’re more than welcome to use the spare room again if you like. ”

“Different spare rooms would be better, ” Alec muttered.

Isabelle looked at Simon with questioning dark eyes, but he was already reaching into his pocket for his phone. “Okay, ” he said. “I’ll be back by noon, but for now there’s something important I have to do. ”

In the daylight Paris was a city of narrow, curving streets that opened out into wide avenues, mellow golden buildings with slate‑ colored roofs, and a glittering river that sliced across it like a dueling scar. Sebastian, despite his claim that he was going to prove to Clary that he had a plan, didn’t say much as they made their way up a street lined with art galleries and stores selling dusty old books, to reach the Quai des Grands Augustins by the river’s edge.

There was a cool wind coming off the Seine, and she shivered. Sebastian unwound the scarf from around his neck and handed it to her. It was a heathery black and white tweed, still warm from being wrapped around his neck.

“Don’t be stupid, ” he said. “You’re cold. Put it on. ”

Clary wound it around her neck. “Thanks, ” she said reflexively, and winced.

There. She had thanked Sebastian. She waited for a bolt of lightning to shoot out of the clouds and strike her dead. But nothing happened.

He gave her an odd look. “You all right? You look like you’re going to sneeze. ”

“I’m fine. ” The scarf smelled like citrusy cologne and boy. She wasn’t sure what she’d thought it would smell like. They started to walk again. This time Sebastian slowed his pace, walking alongside her, pausing to explain that neighborhoods in Paris were numbered, and they were crossing from the sixth into the fifth, the Latin Quarter, and that the bridge they could see spanning the river in the distance was the Pont Saint‑ Michel. There were a lot of young people walking past them, Clary noticed; girls her age or older, impossibly stylish in tight‑ fitting pants and sky‑ high heels, long hair blowing in the wind off the Seine. Quite a few of them stopped to give Sebastian appreciative glances, which he didn’t seem to notice.

Jace, she thought, would have noticed. Sebastian was striking, with his icy white hair and black eyes. She had thought he was handsome the first time she’d met him, and he’d had his hair dyed black then; it hadn’t suited him, really. He looked better like this. The pallor of his hair gave his skin some color, drew your eyes to the flush along his high cheekbones, the graceful shape of his face. His eyelashes were incredibly long, a shade darker than his hair, and curled slightly, just like Jocelyn’s–so unfair. Why hadn’t she gotten the curling lashes in the family? And why didn’t he have a single freckle? “So, ” she said abruptly, cutting him off in the middle of a sentence, “what are we? ”

He gave her a sidelong look. “What do you mean, ‘What are we? ’”

“You said we’re the last of the Morgensterns. Morgenstern is a German name, ” said Clary. “So, what are we, German? What’s the story? Why aren’t there any more but us? ”

“You don’t know anything about Valentine’s family? ” Incredulity tinged Sebastian’s voice. He had stopped next to the wall that ran along the Seine, beside the pavement. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you anything? ”

“She’s your mother too, and no, she didn’t. Valentine’s not her favorite topic. ”

“Shadowhunter names are compounded, ” said Sebastian slowly, and he climbed up on top of the wall. He reached a hand down, and after a moment she let him take hers and pull her up onto the wall beside him. The Seine ran gray‑ green below them, fly‑ speck tourist boats chugging by at a leisurely pace. “Fairchild, Light‑ wood, White‑ law. ‘Morgenstern’ means ‘morning star. ’ It’s a German name, but the family was Swiss. ”

“Was? ”

“Valentine was an only child, ” Sebastian said. “His father – our grandfather – was killed by Downworlders, and our great‑ uncle died in a battle. He didn’t have any children. This”–he reached out and touched her hair–“is from the Fairchild side. There’s English blood there. I look more like the Swiss side. Like Valentine. ”

“Do you know anything about our grandparents? ” Clary asked, fascinated despite herself.

Sebastian dropped his hand and leaped down off the wall. He held his hand up for her, and she took it, balancing as she leaped down. For a moment she collided with his chest, hard and warm beneath his shirt. A passing girl shot her an amused, jealous look, and Clary pulled back hastily. She wanted to shout after the girl that Sebastian was her brother, and that she hated him anyway. She didn’t.

“I know nothing about our maternal grandparents, ” he said. “How could I? ” His smile was crooked. “Come. I want to show you a favorite place of mine. ”

Clary hung back. “I thought you were going to prove to me that you had a plan. ”

“All in due time. ” Sebastian started to walk, and after a moment she followed him. Find out his plan. Make nice until you do. “Valentine’s father was a lot like him, ” Sebastian went on. “He put his faith in strength. ‘We are God’s chosen warriors. ’ That’s what he believed. Pain made you strong. Loss made you powerful. When he died…”

“Valentine changed, ” Clary said. “Luke told me. ”

“He loved his father and he hated him. Something you might understand from knowing Jace. Valentine raised us as his father had raised him. You always return to what you know. ”

“But Jace, ” Clary said. “Valentine taught him more than just fighting. He taught him languages, and how to play the piano–”

“That was Jocelyn’s influence. ” Sebastian said her name unwillingly, as if he hated the sound of it. “She thought Valentine ought to be able to talk about books, art, music – not just killing things. He passed that on to Jace. ”

A wrought iron blue gate rose to their left. Sebastian ducked under it and beckoned Clary to follow him. She didn’t have to duck but went after him, her hands stuffed into her pockets. “What about you? ” she asked.

He held up his hands. They were unmistakably her mother’s hands – dexterous, long‑ fingered, meant for holding a brush or a pen. “I learned to play the instruments of war, ” he said, “and paint in blood. I am not like Jace. ”

They were in a narrow alley between two rows of buildings made of the same golden stone as many of the other buildings of Paris, their roofs sparkling copper‑ green in the sunlight. The street underfoot was cobblestone, and there were no cars or motorcycles. To her left was a café, a wooden sign dangling from a wrought iron pole the only clue that there was any commercial business on this winding street.

“I like it here, ” Sebastian said, following her gaze, “because it’s as if you were in a past century. No noise of cars, no neon lights. Just – peaceful. ”

Clary stared at him. He’s lying, she thought. Sebastian doesn’t have thoughts like this. Sebastian, who tried to burn Alicante to the ground, doesn’t care about “peaceful. ”

She thought then of where he’d grown up. She’d never seen it, but Jace had described it to her. A small house – a cottage, really – in a valley outside Alicante. The nights would have been silent there and the sky full of stars at night. But would he miss that? Could he? Was that the sort of emotion you could have when you weren’t really even human?

It doesn’t bother you? she wanted to say. Being in the place the real Sebastian Verlac grew up and lived, until you ended his life? Walking these streets, bearing his name, knowing that somewhere, his aunt is grieving for him? And what did you mean when you said he wasn’t supposed to fight back?

His black eyes regarded her thoughtfully. He had a sense of humor, she knew; there was a streak of mordant wit in him that was sometimes not unlike Jace’s. But he didn’t smile.

“Come on, ” he said then, breaking off her reverie. “This place has the best hot chocolate in Paris. ”

Clary wasn’t sure how she’d know if this were true or not, given that this was the first time she’d ever been to Paris, but once they sat down, she had to admit the hot chocolate was excellent. They made it at your table – which was small and wooden, as were the old‑ fashioned high‑ backed chairs – in a blue ceramic pot, using cream, chocolate powder, and sugar. The result was a cocoa so thick your spoon could stand up in it. They had croissants, too, and dunked them into the chocolate.

“You know, if you want another croissant, they’ll bring you one, ” said Sebastian, leaning back in his chair. They were the youngest people in the place by decades, Clary noticed. “You’re attacking that one like a wolverine. ”

“I’m hungry. ” She shrugged. “Look, if you want to talk to me, talk. Convince me. ”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. She was reminded of looking into his eyes the night before, of noticing the silver ring around the iris of his eye. “I was thinking about what you said last night. ”

“I was hallucinating last night. I don’t remember what I said to you. ”

“You asked me who I belonged to, ” said Sebastian.

Clary paused with her cup of chocolate halfway to her mouth. “I did? ”

“Yeah. ” His eyes studied her face intently. “And I don’t have an answer. ”

She set her cup down, feeling suddenly, intensely uncomfortable. “You don’t have to belong to anyone, ” she said. “It’s just a figure of speech. ”

“Well, let me ask you something now, ” Sebastian said. “Do you think you can forgive me? I mean, do you think forgiveness is possible for someone like me? ”

“I don’t know. ” Clary gripped the edge of the table. “I–I mean, I don’t know much about forgiveness as a religious concept, just your garden‑ variety kind of forgiving people. ” She took a deep breath, knowing she was babbling. It was something in the steadiness of Sebastian’s dark gaze on her, as if he actually expected her to give him the answers to questions no one else could answer. “I know you have to do things, to earn forgiveness. Change yourself. Confess, repent – and make amends. ”

“Amends, ” Sebastian echoed.

“To make up for what you’ve done. ” She looked down at her mug. There was no making up for the things Sebastian had done, not in any way that made sense.

“Ave atque vale, ” Sebastian said, looking down at his mug of chocolate.

Clary recognized the traditional words Shadowhunters spoke over their dead. “Why are you saying that? I’m not dying. ”

“You know it’s from a poem, ” he said. “By Catullus. ‘Frater, ave atque vale. ’ ‘Hail and farewell, my brother. ’ He speaks of ashes, of the rites of the dead, and his own grief for his brother. I was taught the poem young, but I didn’t feel it – either his grief, or his loss, or even the wondering what it would be like to die and to have no one grieve you. ” He looked up at her sharply. “What do you think it would have been like if Valentine had brought you up along with me? Would you have loved me? ”

Clary was very glad she had put her cup down, because if she hadn’t, she would have dropped it. Sebastian was looking at her not with any shyness or the sort of natural awkwardness that might be attendant on such a bizarre question, but as if she were a curious, foreign life‑ form.

“Well, ” she said. “You’re my brother. I would have loved you. I would have… had to. ”

He kept looking at her with the same still, intent gaze. She wondered if she should ask him if he thought that meant he would have loved her, too. Like a sister. But she had a feeling he had no idea what that meant.

“But Valentine didn’t bring me up, ” she said. “In fact, I killed him. ”

She wasn’t sure why she said it. Maybe she wanted to see if it was possible to upset him. After all, Jace had told her once that he thought Valentine might have been the only thing Sebastian had ever cared about.

But he didn’t blanch. “Actually, ” he said, “the Angel killed him. Though it was because of you. ” His fingers traced patterns on the worn tabletop. “You know, when I first met you, in Idris, I had hopes – I had thought you would be like me. And when you were nothing like me, I hated you. And then, when I was brought back, and Jace told me what you did, I realized that I had been wrong. You are like me. ”

“You said that last night, ” Clary said. “But I’m not–”

“You killed our father, ” he said. His voice was soft. “And you don’t care. Never given it a second thought, have you? Valentine beat Jace bloody for the first ten years of his life, and Jace still misses him. Grieved for him, though they share no blood at all. But he was your father and you killed him and you’ve never missed a night of sleep over it. ”

Clary stared at him with her mouth open. It was unfair. So unfair. Valentine had never been a father to her – hadn’t loved her – had been a monster who’d had to die. She had killed him because she’d had no choice.

Unbidden in her mind rose the image of Valentine, driving his blade into Jace’s chest, then holding him as he died. Valentine had wept over the son he’d murdered. But she had never cried for her father. Had never even considered it.

“I’m right, aren’t I? ” said Sebastian. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’re not like me. ”

Clary stared down at her cup of chocolate, now cold. She felt like a vortex had opened up inside her head and was sucking away her thoughts and words. “I thought you thought Jace was like you, ” she said finally in a choked voice. “I thought that’s why you wanted him with you. ”

“I need Jace, ” said Sebastian. “But in his heart he’s not like me. You are. ” He stood up. He must have paid the bill at some point; Clary couldn’t remember. “Come with me. ”

He held his hand out. She stood up without taking it and retied his scarf mechanically; the chocolate she had drunk felt like acid churning in her stomach. She followed Sebastian out of the café and into the alley, where he stood looking up at the blue sky overhead.

“I’m not like Valentine, ” Clary said, stopping next to him. “Our mother–”

“Your mother, ” he said, “hated me. Hates me. You saw her. She tried to kill me. You want to tell me you take after your mother, fine. Jocelyn Fairchild is ruthless. She always has been. She pretended to love our father for months, years maybe, so she could gather enough information on him to betray him. She engineered the Uprising and watched all her husband’s friends slaughtered. She stole your memories. Have you forgiven her? And when she ran from Idris, do you honestly think she ever planned to take me with her? She must have been relieved at the thought that I was dead–”

“She wasn’t! ” Clary snapped. “She had a box that had your baby things in it. She used to take it out and cry over it. Every year on your birthday. I know you have it in your room. ”

Sebastian’s thin, elegant lips twisted. He turned away from her and started walking down the alley. “Sebastian! ” Clary called after him. “Sebastian, wait. ” She wasn’t sure why she wanted him to come back. Admittedly, she had no idea where she was or how to find her way back to the apartment, but it was more than that. She wanted to stand and fight, to prove she wasn’t what he said she was. She raised her voice to a shout: “Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern! ”

He stopped and turned slowly, looking back over his shoulder at her.

She walked toward him, and he watched her walk, his head cocked to the side, his black eyes narrow. “I bet you don’t even know my middle name, ” she said.

“Adele. ” There was a musicality to the way he said it, a familiarity that made her uncomfortable. “Clarissa Adele. ”

She reached his side. “Why Adele? I never knew. ”

“I don’t know myself, ” he said. “I know Valentine never wanted you to be called Clarissa Adele. He wanted you to be called Seraphina, after his mother. Our grandmother. ” He turned around and started walking again, and this time she kept pace. “After our grandfather was killed, she died – heart attack. Died of grief, Valentine always said. ”

Clary thought of Amatis, who had never gotten over her first love, Stephen; of Stephen’s father, who had died of grief; of the Inquisitor, her whole life dedicated to revenge. Of Jace’s mother, cutting her wrists when her husband died. “Before I met the Nephilim, I would have said it was impossible to die of grief. ”

Sebastian chuckled dryly. “We don’t form attachments like mundanes do, ” he said. “Well, sometimes, surely. Not everyone is the same. But the bonds between us tend to be intense and unbreakable. That’s why we do so badly with others not of our kind. Downworlders, mundanes–”

“My mother’s marrying a Downworlder, ” Clary said, stung. They had paused in front of a square stone building with blue painted shutters, almost at the end of the alley.

“He was Nephilim once, ” said Sebastian. “And look at our father. Your mother betrayed him and left him, and he still spent the rest of his life waiting to find her again and convince her to come back to him. That whole closet full of clothes–” He shook his head.

“But Valentine told Jace that love is a weakness, ” said Clary. “That it would destroy you. ”

“Wouldn’t you think that, if you spent half your life chasing a woman even though she hated your guts, because you couldn’t forget about her? If you had to remember that the person you loved best in the world stabbed you in the back and twisted the knife? ” He leaned in for a moment, close enough that when he spoke, his breath stirred her hair. “Maybe you are more like your mother than our father. But what difference does it make? You have ruthlessness in your bones and ice in your heart, Clarissa. Don’t tell me any differently. ”

He spun away before she could answer him, and mounted the front step of the blue‑ shuttered house. A strip of electric buzzers ran down the side of the wall beside the door, each with a name hand‑ scrawled on a placard beside it. He pressed the button beside the name Magdalena, and waited. Eventually a scratchy voice came through the speaker:

“Qui est là? ”

“C’est le fils et la fille de Valentine, ” he said. “Nous avions rendez‑ vous? ”

There was a pause, and then the buzzer sounded. Sebastian yanked the door open – and held it open, politely letting Clary go before him. The stairs were wooden, as worn and smooth as the side of a ship. They trudged up them in silence to the top floor, where the door was propped slightly open onto the landing. Sebastian went through first, and Clary followed.

She found herself in a large, airy light space. The walls were white, as were the curtains. Through one window she could see the street beyond, lined with restaurants and boutiques. Cars whizzed by, but the sound of them didn’t seem to penetrate inside the apartment. The floor was polished wood, the furniture white‑ painted wood or upholstered couches with colorful throw pillows. A section of the apartment was set up as a sort of studio. Light poured down from a skylight onto a long wooden table. There were easels, cloths tossed over them to obscure their contents. A paint‑ stained smock hung from a hook on the wall.

Standing by the table was a woman. Clary would have guessed her age at about Jocelyn’s, if there had not been several factors obscuring her age. She wore a shapeless black smock that hid her body; only her white hands and her face and throat were visible. On each of her cheeks was carved a thick black rune, running from the outside corner of her eye to her lips. Clary had not seen the runes before, but she could sense their meaning – power, skill, workmanship. The woman had thick long auburn hair, falling in waves to her waist, and her eyes, when she raised them, were a peculiar flat orange color, like a dying flame.

The woman clasped her hands in front of her smock loosely. In a nervous, melodic voice, she said, “Tu dois ê tre Jonathan Morgenstern. Et elle, c’est ta sœ ur? Je pensais que–”

“I am Jonathan Morgenstern, ” Sebastian said. “And this is my sister, yes. Clarissa. Please speak English in front of her. She doesn’t understand French. ”

The woman cleared her throat. “My English is rusty. It has been years since I used it. ”

“It seems good enough to me. Clarissa, this is Sister Magdalena. Of the Iron Sisters. ”

Clary was startled into speech. “But I thought the Iron Sisters never left their fortress–”

“They don’t, ” said Sebastian. “Unless they are disgraced by having their part in the Uprising discovered. Who do you think armed the Circle? ” He smiled at Magdalena mirthlessly. “The Iron Sisters are Makers, not fighters. But Magdalena fled the Fortress before her part in the Uprising could be discovered. ”

“I had not seen another Nephilim in fifteen years until your brother contacted me, ” said Magdalena. It was hard to tell who she was looking at while she spoke; her featureless eyes seemed to wander, but she was clearly not blind. “Is it true? Do you have the… material? ”

Sebastian reached into a pouch hanging from his weapons belt and took from it a chunk of what looked like quartz. He set it down on the long table, and a stray shaft of sunlight, passing across the skylight, lit it seemingly from within. Clary caught her breath. It was the adamas from the junk shop in Prague.

Magdalena drew in a hissing breath.

“Pure adamas, ” said Sebastian. “No rune has ever touched it. ”

The Iron Sister came around the table and laid her hands upon the adamas. Her hands, also scarred with multiple runes, trembled. “Adamas pur, ” she whispered. “It has been years since I touched the holy material. ”

“It is all yours to craft with, ” said Sebastian. “When you are done, I shall pay you in more of it. That is, if you believe you can create what I asked for. ”

Magdalena drew herself up. “Am I not an Iron Sister? Did I not take the vows? Do my hands not shape the stuff of Heaven? I can deliver what I promised, Valentine’s son. Never doubt it. ”

“Good to hear. ” There was a trace of humor in Sebastian’s voice. “I will return tonight, then. You know how to summon me if you need to. ”

Magdalena shook her head. All her attention was back on the glassine substance, the adamas. She stroked it with her fingers. “Yes. You may go. ”

Sebastian nodded and took a step back. Clary hesitated. She wanted to seize the woman, ask her what Sebastian had demanded she do, ask her why she would ever have broken Covenant Law to work beside Valentine. Magdalena, as if sensing her hesitation, looked up and smiled thinly.

“The two of you, ” she said, and for a moment Clary thought she was going to say that she did not understand why they were together, that she had heard that they hated each other, that Jocelyn’s daughter was a Shadowhunter while Valentine’s son was a criminal. But she only shook her head. “Mon Dieu, ” she said, “but you look just like your parents. ”