“A little,” said Aline. “Look, I wanted to thank you, Alec.”
Alec looked bewildered. “What for?’
“What you did in the Hall of Accords,” Aline said. “Kissing Magnus like that. It gave me the push I needed to tell my parents… to come out to them. And if I hadn’t done that, I don’t think, when I met Helen, I would have had the nerve to say anything.”
“Oh.” Alec looked startled, as if he’d never considered what impact his actions might have had on anyone outside his immediate family. “And your parents — were they good about it?”
Aline rolled her eyes. “They’re sort of ignoring it, like it might go away if they don’t talk about it.” Clary remembered what Isabelle had said about the Clave’s attitude toward its gay members. If it happens, you don’t talk about it. “But it could be worse.”
“It could definitely be worse,” said Alec, and there was a grim edge to his voice that made Clary look at him sharply.
Aline’s face melted into a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “If your parents aren’t—”
“They’re fine with it,” Isabelle said, a little too sharply.
“Well, either way. I shouldn’t have said anything right now. Not with Jace missing. You must all be so worried.” She took a deep breath. “I know people have probably said all sorts of stupid things to you about him. The way they do when they don’t really know what to say. I just — I wanted to tell you something.” She ducked away from a passer-by with impatience and moved closer to the Lightwoods and Clary, lowering her voice. “Alec, Izzy — I remember once when you guys came to see us in Idris. I was thirteen and Jace was — I think he was twelve. He wanted to see Brocelind Forest, so we borrowed some horses and rode there one day. Of course, we got lost. Brocelind’s impenetrable. It got darker and the woods got thicker and I was terrified. I thought we’d die there. But Jace was never scared. He was never anything but sure we’d find our way out. It took hours, but he did it. He got us out of there. I was so grateful but he just looked at me like I was crazy. Like of course he’d get us out. Failing wasn’t an option. I’m just saying — he’ll find his way back to you. I know it.”
Clary didn’t think she’d ever seen Izzy cry, and she was clearly trying not to now. Her eyes were suspiciously wide and shining. Alec was looking at his shoes. Clary felt a wellspring of misery wanting to leap up inside her but forced it down; she couldn’t think about Jace when he was twelve, couldn’t think about him lost in the darkness, or she’d think about him now, lost somewhere, trapped somewhere, needing her help, expecting her to come, and she’d break. “Aline,” she said, seeing that neither Isabelle nor Alec could speak. “Thank you.”
Aline flashed a shy smile. “I mean it.”
“Aline!” It was Helen, her hand firmly clamped around the wrist of a younger boy whose hands were covered with blue wax. He must have been playing with the tapers in the huge candelabras that decorated the sides of the nave. He looked about twelve, with an impish grin and the same shocking blue-green eyes as his sister, though his hair was dark brown. “We’re back. We should probably go before Jules destroys the whole place. Not to mention that I have no idea where Tibs and Livvy have gone.”
“They were eating wax,” the boy — Jules — supplied helpfully.
“Oh, God,” Helen groaned, and then looked apologetic. “Never mind me. I’ve got six younger brothers and sisters and one older. It’s always a zoo.”
Jules looked from Alec to Isabelle and then at Clary. “How many brothers and sisters have you got?” he asked.
Helen paled. Isabelle said, in a remarkably steady voice, “There are three of us.”
Jules’s eyes stayed on Clary. “You don’t look alike.”
“I’m not related to them,” Clary said. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“None?” Disbelief registered in the boy’s tone, as if she’d told him she had webbed feet. “Is that why you look so sad?”
Clary thought of Sebastian, with his ice-white hair and black eyes. If only, she thought. If only I didn’t have a brother, none of this would have happened. A little throb of hatred went through her, warming her icy blood. “Yes,” she said softly. “That’s why I’m sad.”
2
THORNS
Simon was waiting for Clary, Alec, and Isabelle outside the Institute, under an overhang of stone that only just protected him from the worst of the rain. He turned as they came out through the doors, and Clary saw that his dark hair was pasted to his forehead and neck. He pushed it back and looked at her, a question in his eyes.
“I’m cleared,” she said, and as he started to smile, she shook her head. “But they’re de-prioritizing the search for Jace. I–I’m pretty sure they think he’s dead.”
Simon looked down at his wet jeans and T-shirt (a wrinkled gray ringer tee that said CLEARLY I HAVE MADE SOME BAD DECISIONS on the front in block lettering). He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“The Clave can be like that,” Isabelle said. “I guess we shouldn’t have expected anything else.”
“Basia coquum,” Simon said. “Or whatever their motto is.”
“It’s ‘Descensus Averno facilis est.’ ‘The descent into hell is easy,’” said Alec. “You just said “Kiss the cook.”
“Dammit,” said Simon. “I knew Jace was screwing with me.” His wet brown hair fell back into his eyes; he flicked it away with a gesture impatient enough that Clary caught a flashing glimpse of the silvery Mark of Cain on his forehead. “Now what?”
“Now we go see the Seelie Queen,” said Clary. As she touched the bell at her throat, she explained to Simon about Kaelie’s visit to Luke and Jocelyn’s reception, and her promises to Clary about the Seelie Queen’s help.
Simon looked dubious. “The red-headed lady with the bad attitude who made you kiss Jace? I didn’t like her.”
“That’s what you remember about her? That she made Clary kiss Jace?” Isabelle sounded annoyed. “The Seelie Queen is dangerous. She was just playing around that time. Usually she likes to drive at least a few humans to screaming madness every day before breakfast.”
“I’m not human,” Simon said. “Not anymore.” He looked at Isabelle only briefly, dropped his gaze, and turned to Clary. “You want me with you?”
“I think it would be good to have you there. Daylighter, Mark of Cain — some things have to impress even the Queen.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” said Alec.
Clary glanced past him and asked, “Where’s Magnus?”
“He said it would be better if he didn’t come. Apparently he and the Seelie Queen have some kind of history.”
Isabelle raised her eyebrows.
“Not that kind of history,” said Alec irritably. “Some kind of feud. Though,” he added, half under his breath, “the way he got around before me, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Alec!” Isabelle dropped back to talk to her brother, and Clary opened her umbrella with a snap. It was one Simon had bought her years ago at the Museum of Natural History and had a pattern of dinosaurs on the top. She saw his expression change to one of amusement as he recognized it.
“Shall we walk?” he inquired, and offered his arm.
The rain was coming down steadily, creating small rills out of the gutters and splashing water up from the wheels of passing taxis. It was odd, Simon thought, that although he didn’t feel cold, the sensation of being wet and clammy was still irritating. He shifted his gaze slightly, looking at Alec and Isabelle over his shoulder; Isabelle hadn’t really met his eyes since they’d come out of the Institute, and he wondered what she was thinking. She seemed to want to talk to her brother, and as they paused at the corner of Park Avenue, he heard her say, “So, what do you think? About Dad putting his name in for the Inquisitor position.”
“I think it sounds like a boring job.” Isabelle was holding an umbrella. It was clear plastic, decorated with decals of colorful flowers. It was one of the girliest things Simo
n had ever seen, and he didn’t blame Alec for ducking out from under it and taking his chances with the rain. “I don’t know why he’d want it.”
“I don’t care if it’s boring,” Isabelle whisper-hissed. “If he takes it, he’ll be in Idris all the time. Like, all the time. He can’t run the Institute and be the Inquisitor. He can’t have two jobs at once.”
“If you’ve noticed, Iz, he’s in Idris all the time anyway.”
“Alec—” The rest of what she said was lost as the light changed and traffic surged forward, spraying icy water up onto the pavement. Clary dodged a geyser of it and nearly knocked into Simon. He took her hand to steady her.
“Sorry,” she said. Her hand felt small and cold in his. “Wasn’t really paying attention.”
“I know.” He tried to keep the worry out of his voice. She hadn’t really been “paying attention” to anything for the past two weeks. At first she’d cried, and then been angry — angry that she couldn’t join the patrols looking for Jace, angry at the Council’s endless grilling, angry that she was being kept virtually a prisoner at home because she was under suspicion from the Clave. Most of all she’d been angry at herself for not being able to come up with a rune that would help. She would sit at her desk at night for hours, her stele clutched so tightly in whitening fingers that Simon was afraid it would snap in half. She’d try to force her mind to present her with a picture that would tell her where Jace was. But night after night nothing happened.
She looked older, he thought as they entered the park through a gap in the stone wall on Fifth Avenue. Not in a bad way, but she was different from the girl she’d been when they had walked into the Pandemonium Club on that night that had changed everything. She was taller, but it was more than that. Her expression was more serious, there was more grace and force in the way she walked, her green eyes were less dancing, more focused. She was starting to look, he realized with a jolt of surprise, like Jocelyn.
Clary paused in a circle of dripping trees; the branches blocked most of the rain here, and Isabelle and Clary leaned their umbrellas against the trunks of nearby trees. Clary unclasped the chain around her neck and let the bell slide into her palm. She looked around at all of them, her expression serious. “This is a risk,” she said, “and I’m pretty sure if I take it, I can’t go back from it. So if any of you don’t want to come with me, it’s all right. I’ll understand.”
Simon reached out and put his hand over hers. There was no need to think. Where Clary went, he went. They had been through too much for it to be any other way. Isabelle followed suit, and lastly Alec; rain dripped off his long black lashes like tears, but his expression was resolute. The four of them held hands tightly.
Clary rang the bell.
There was a sensation as if the world were spinning — not the same sensation as being flung through a Portal, Clary thought, into the heart of a maelstrom, but more as if she were sitting on a merry-go-round that had begun to spin faster and faster. She was dizzy and gasping when the sensation stopped suddenly and she was standing still again, her hand clasped with Isabelle’s, Alec’s, and Simon’s.
They released one another, and Clary glanced around. She had been here before, in this dark brown, shining corridor that looked as if it had been carved out of a tiger’s eye gemstone. The floor was smooth, worn down by the passage of thousands of years’ worth of faerie feet. Light came from glinting chips of gold in the walls, and at the end of the passage was a multicolored curtain that swayed back and forth as if moved by wind, though there was no wind here underground. As Clary drew near to it, she saw that it was sewed out of butterflies. Some of them were still alive, and their struggles made the curtain flutter as if in a stiff breeze.
She swallowed back the acid taste in her throat. “Hello?” she called. “Is anyone there?”
The curtain rustled aside, and the faerie knight Meliorn stepped out into the hallway. He wore the white armor Clary remembered, but there was a sigil over his left breast now — the four Cs that also decorated Luke’s Council robes, marking him as a member. There was a scar, also, on Meliorn’s face that was new, just under his leaf-colored eyes. He regarded her frigidly. “One does not greet the Queen of the Seelie Court with the barbarous human ‘hello,’” he said, “as if you were hailing a servant. The proper address is ‘Well met.’”
“But we haven’t met,” said Clary. “I don’t even know if she’s here.”
Meliorn looked at her with scorn. “If the Queen were not present and ready to receive you, ringing the bell would not have brought you. Now come: follow me, and bring your companions with you.”
Clary turned to gesture at the others, then followed Meliorn through the curtain of tortured butterflies, hunching her shoulders in the hopes that no part of their wings would touch her.
One by one the four of them stepped into the Queen’s chamber. Clary blinked in surprise. It looked entirely different from how it had the last time she’d been here. The Queen reclined on a white and gold divan, and all around her stretched a floor made of alternating squares of black and white, like a great checkerboard. Strings of dangerous-looking thorns hung from the ceiling, and on each thorn was impaled a will-o’-the-wisp, its normally blinding light flickering as it died. The room shimmered in their glow.
Meliorn went to stand beside the Queen; other than him the room was empty of courtiers. Slowly the Queen sat up straight. She was as beautiful as ever, her dress a diaphanous mixture of silver and gold, her hair like rosy copper as she arranged it gently over one white shoulder. Clary wondered why she was bothering. Of all of them there, the only one likely to be moved by her beauty was Simon, and he hated her.
“Well met, Nephilim, Daylighter,” she said, inclining her head in their direction. “Daughter of Valentine, what brings you to me?”
Clary opened her hand. The bell shone there like an accusation. “You sent your handmaiden to tell me to ring this if I ever needed your help.”
“And you told me you wanted nothing from me,” said the Queen. “That you had everything you desired.”
Clary thought back desperately to what Jace had said when they had had an audience with the Queen before, how he had flattered and charmed her. It was as if he had suddenly acquired a whole new vocabulary. She glanced back over her shoulder at Isabelle and Alec, but Isabelle only made an irritable motion at her, indicating that she should keep going.
“Things change,” Clary said.
The Queen stretched her legs out luxuriously. “Very well. What is it you want from me?”
“I want you to find Jace Lightwood.”
In the silence that followed, the sound of the will-o’-the-wisps, crying in their agony, was softly audible. At last the Queen said, “You must think us powerful indeed if you believe the Fair Folk can succeed where the Clave has failed.”
“The Clave wants to find Sebastian. I don’t care about Sebastian. I want Jace,” Clary said. “Besides, I already know you know more than you’re letting on. You predicted this would happen. No one else knew, but I don’t believe you sent me that bell when you did — the same night Jace disappeared — without knowing something was brewing.”
“Perhaps I did,” said the Queen, admiring her shimmering toenails.
“I’ve noticed the Fair Folk often say ‘perhaps’ when there is a truth they want to hide,” Clary said. “It keeps you from having to give a straight answer.”
“Perhaps so,” said the Queen with an amused smile.
“‘Mayhap’ is a good word too,” Alec suggested.
“Also ‘perchance,’” Izzy said.
“I see nothing wrong with ‘maybe,’” said Simon. “A little modern, but the gist of the idea comes across.”
The Queen waved away their words as if they were annoying bees buzzing around her head. “I do not trust you, Valentine’s daughter,” she said. “There was a time I wanted a favor from you, but that time is over. Meliorn has his place on the Council. I am not sure there is anything you can off
er me.”
“If you thought that,” said Clary, “you never would have sent the bell.”
For a moment their eyes locked. The Queen was beautiful, but there was something behind her face, something that made Clary think of the bones of a small animal, whitening in the sun. At last the Queen said, “Very well. I may be able to help you. But I will desire recompense.”
“Shocker,” Simon muttered. He had his hands jammed into his pockets and was looking at the Queen with loathing.
Alec laughed.
The Queen’s eyes flashed. A moment later Alec staggered back with a cry. He was holding his hands out before him, gaping, as the skin on them wrinkled and his hands curved inward, bent, the joints swollen. His back hunched, his hair graying, his blue eyes fading and sinking into deep wrinkles. Clary gasped. Where Alec had been, an old man, bent and white-haired, stood trembling.
“How swift mortal loveliness does fade,” the Queen gloated. “Look at yourself, Alexander Lightwood. I give you a glimpse of yourself in a mere threescore years. What will your warlock lover say then of your beauty?”
Alec’s chest was heaving. Isabelle stepped quickly to his side and took his arm. “Alec, it’s nothing. It’s a glamour.” She turned on the Queen. “Take it off him! Take it off!”
“If you and yours will speak to me with more respect, then I might consider it.”
“We will,” Clary said quickly. “We apologize for any rudeness.”
The Queen sniffed. “I rather miss your Jace,” she said. “Of all of you, he was the prettiest and the best-mannered.”
“We miss him too,” said Clary in a low voice. “We didn’t mean to be ill-mannered. We humans can be difficult in our grief.”
“Hmph,” said the Queen, but she snapped her fingers and the glamour fell from Alec. He was himself again, though white-faced and stunned-looking. The Queen shot him a superior look, and turned her attention to Clary.
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