Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series

by Cassandra Clare

  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, don’t.”

  “Sure. Never mind.” He clamped his lips together. “You don’t want to talk about it.”

  “It’s not that. It’s that I feel awful about what I said. It was horrible. It wasn’t true at all—”

  “But it was true,” said Alec. “Every word.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay,” she said. “Not everything that’s true needs to be said. It was mean. And when I said Jace had told me you’d never killed a demon, he said it was because you were always protecting him and Isabelle. It was a good thing he was saying about you. Jace can be a jerk, but he—” Loves you, she was about to say, and stopped. “Never said a bad word about you to me, ever. I swear.”

  “You don’t have to swear,” he said. “I know already.” He sounded calm, even confident in a way she’d never heard him sound before. She looked at him, surprised. “I know I didn’t kill Abbadon either. But I appreciate you telling me I had.”

  She laughed shakily. “You appreciate me lying to you?”

  “You did it out of kindness,” he said. “That means a lot, that you would be kind to me, even after how I treated you.”

  “I think Jace would have been pretty pissed at me for lying if he hadn’t been so upset at the time,” said Clary. “Not as mad as he would be if he knew what I’d said to you before, though.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Alec, his mouth turning up at the corners. “Let’s not tell him. I mean, maybe Jace can behead a Du’sien demon from a distance of fifty feet with just a corkscrew and a rubber band, but sometimes I think he doesn’t know much about people.”

  “I guess so.” Clary grinned.

  They’d reached the bottom of the spiral staircase that led to the roof. “I can’t go up.” Alec tapped his crutch against a metal step. It rang tinnily.

  “It’s okay. I can find my way.”

  He made as if to turn away, then glanced back at her. “I should have guessed you were Jace’s sister,” he said. “You both have the same artistic talent.”

  Clary paused, her foot on the lowest stair. She was taken aback. “Jace can draw?”

  “Nah.” When Alec smiled, his eyes lit like blue lamps, and Clary could see what Magnus had found so captivating about him. “I was just kidding. He can’t draw a straight line.” Chuckling, he swung away on his crutches. Clary watched him go, bemused. An Alec who cracked jokes and poked fun at Jace was something she could get used to, even if his sense of humor was somewhat inexplicable.

  The greenhouse was just as she’d remembered it, though the sky above the glass roof was sapphire now. The clean, soapy smell of the flowers cleared her head. Breathing in deeply, she pushed her way through the tightly woven leaves and branches.

  She found Jace sitting on the marble bench in the middle of the greenhouse. His head was bent, and he seemed to be turning an object over in his hands, idly. He looked up as she ducked under a branch, and quickly closed his hand around the object. “Clary.” He sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you,” she said. “I wanted to know how you were.”

  “I’m fine.” He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She could see his still-fading bruises, like the dark spots on the white flesh of an apple. Of course, she thought, the real injuries were internal, hidden from every eye but his own.

  “What is that?” she asked, pointing to his closed hand.

  He opened his fingers. A jagged shard of silver lay in his palm, glimmering blue and green at the edges. “A piece of the Portal mirror.”

  She sat down on the bench next to him. “Can you see anything in it?”

  He turned it a little, letting the light run over it like water. “Bits of sky. Trees, a path . . . I keep angling it, trying to see the manor house. My father.”

  “Valentine,” she corrected. “Why would you want to see him?”

  “I thought maybe I could see what he was doing with the Mortal Cup,” he said reluctantly. “Where it was.”

  “Jace, that’s not our responsibility anymore. Not our problem. Now that the Clave finally knows what happened, the Lightwoods are rushing back. Let them deal with it.”

  Now he did look at her. She wondered how it was that they could be brother and sister and look so little alike. Couldn’t she at least have gotten the curling dark lashes or the angular cheekbones? It hardly seemed fair. He said, “When I looked through the Portal and saw Idris, I knew exactly what Valentine was trying to do, that he wanted to see if I’d break. And it didn’t matter—I still wanted to go home more badly than I could have imagined.”

  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 conseque
nces. 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.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue Smoke And Diamonds

  Part 1: A Season in Hell

  Chapter 1: Valentine’s Arrow

  Chapter 2: The Hunter’s Moon

  Chapter 3: The Inquisitor

  Chapter 4: The Cuckoo In The Nest

  Chapter 5: Sins Of The Fathers

  Chapter 6: City Of Ashes

  Chapter 7: The Mortal Sword

  Part 2: The Gates of Hell

  Chapter 8: The Seelie Court

  Chapter 9: And Death Shall Have No Dominion

  Chapter 10: A Fine And Private Place

  Chapter 11: Smoke And Steel

  Chapter 12: The Hostility Of Dreams

  Chapter 13: A Host Of Rebel Angels

  Part 3: Day of Wrath

  Chapter 14: Fearless

  Chapter 15: The Serpent’s Tooth

  Chapter 16: A Stone Of The Heart

  Chapter 17: East Of Eden

  Chapter 18: Darkness Visible

  Chapter 19: Dies Irae

  Epilogue

  For my father,

  who is not evil.

  Well, maybe a little bit.

  Acknowledgments

  The writing of this book would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of my writing group: Holly Black, Kelly Link, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Gavin Grant, and Sarah Smith. I also couldn’t do without the NB Team: Justine Larbalestier, Maureen Johnson, Margaret Crocker, Libba Bray, Cecil Castellucci, Jaida Jones, Diana Peterfreund, and Marissa Edelman. Thanks also go to Eve Sinaiko and Emily Lauer for their help (and snarky commentary), and to Sarah Rees Brennan, for loving Simon more than anyone else on earth. My gratitude goes out to everyone at Simon & Schuster and Walker Books for believing in these books. Special thanks to my editor, Karen Wojtyla, for all the purple pencil marks, Sarah Payne for making changes way past the deadline, Bara MacNeill for keeping track of Jace’s weaponry stash, and my agent, Barry Goldblatt, for telling me I’m being an idiot when I’m being an idiot. To my family as well: my mother, my father, Kate Conner, Jim Hill, my aunt Naomi, and my cousin Joyce for their encouragement. And for Josh, who is less than three.

  This Bitter Language

  I know your streets, sweet city,

  I know the demons and angels that flock

  and roost in your boughs like birds.

  I know you, river, as if you flowed through my heart.

  I am your warrior daughter. />
  There are letters made of your body

  as a fountain is made of water.

  There are languages

  of which you are the blueprint

  and as we speak them

  the city rises.

  — Elka Cloke

  Prologue

  SMOKE AND DIAMONDS

  The formidable glass-and-steel structure rose from its position on Front Street like a glittering needle threading the sky. There were fifty-seven floors to the Metropole, Manhattan’s most expensive new downtown condominium tower. The topmost floor, the fifty-seventh, contained the most luxurious apartment of all: the Metropole penthouse, a masterpiece of sleek black-and-white design. Too new to have gathered dust yet, its bare marble floors reflected back the stars visible through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows. The window glass was perfectly translucent, providing such a complete illusion that there was nothing between the viewer and the view that it had been known to induce vertigo even in those unafraid of heights.

  Far below ran the silver ribbon of the East River, braceleted by shining bridges, flecked by boats as small as flyspecks, splitting the shining banks of light that were Manhattan and Brooklyn on either side. On a clear night the illuminated Statue of Liberty was just visible to the south—but there was fog tonight, and Liberty Island was hidden behind a white bank of mist.

  However spectacular the view, the man standing in front of the window didn’t look particularly impressed by it. There was a frown on his narrow, ascetic face as he turned away from the glass and strode across the floor, the heels of his boots echoing against the marble floor. “Aren’t you ready yet?” he demanded, raking a hand through his salt-white hair. “We’ve been here nearly an hour.”

  The boy kneeling on the floor looked up at him, nervous and petulant. “It’s the marble. It’s more solid than I thought. It’s making it hard to draw the pentagram.”

  “So skip the pentagram.” Up close it was easier to see that despite his white hair, the man wasn’t old. His hard face was severe but unlined, his eyes clear and steady.