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“We’re driving to my house. It’s in my house.” There was a short silence—bewilderment this time. “In your house? I thought your house was full of zombies.” “Forsaken warriors. They’re not zombies.
“Where there is feeling that is not requited,” said Hodge, “there is an imbalance of power. It is an imbalance that is easy to exploit, but it is not a wise course. Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side.”
“When your mother was young, she had a best friend, just as you have Simon. They were as close as siblings. In fact, they were often mistaken for brother and sister. As they grew older, it became clear to everyone around them that he was in love with her, but she never saw it. She always called him a ‘friend.’ ” Clary stared at Hodge. “Do you mean Luke?” “Yes,” said Hodge.
“Nearly killed a werewolf with it. I remember.” Isabelle, who had been standing by the window, rolled her eyes. “I forgot that’s what gets you all hot and bothered, Jace. Girls killing things.”
“Shotgun!” announced Clary as Jace came back around the side of the van. Alec grabbed for his bow, strapped across his back. “Where?” “She means she wants the front seat,” said Jace, pushing wet hair out of his eyes. “That’s a nice bow,” said Simon, with a nod toward Alec.
“Was it—” “Valentine,” Clary confirmed. “Yes.” Dorothea sighed. “I feared as much.”
“Didn’t I read your tea leaves, Shadowhunter? Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?” Jace said, “Unfortunately, my one true love remains myself.” Dorothea roared at that. “At least,” she said, “you don’t have to worry about rejection, Jace Wayland.”
“Why on earth would he think she had it?” Dorothea demanded. “Jocelyn, of all people?” Realization dawned on her face before Clary could speak. “Because she wasn’t Jocelyn Fray at all, of course,” she said. “She was Jocelyn Fairchild, his wife. The one everyone thought had died. She took the Cup and fled, didn’t she?”
Clary looked at the Cup in her hand. It was the size, perhaps, of an ordinary wineglass, only much heavier.
“Give me,” it said, in a voice like the wind blowing trash across empty pavement, “the Mortal Cup. Give it to me, and I will let you live.”
“I am Abbadon. I am the Demon of the Abyss. Mine are the empty places between the worlds. Mine is the wind and the howling darkness. I am as unlike those mewling things you call demons as an eagle is unlike a fly. You cannot hope to defeat me. Give me the Cup or die.” Isabelle’s whip trembled. “It’s a Greater Demon,” she said.
The demon’s empty eyes swung to regard her. “She was a vessel only,” it said. “She opened the Portal and I took possession of her. Her death was swift.” Its gaze moved to the Cup in her hand. “Yours will not be.”
“By the Angel,” Jace said, looking the demon up and down. “I knew Greater Demons were meant to be ugly, but no one ever warned me about the smell.” Abbadon opened its mouth and hissed. Inside its mouth were two rows of jagged glass–sharp teeth. “I’m not so sure about this wind and howling darkness business,” Jace went on. “Smells more like landfill to me. You sure you’re not from Staten Island?”
“They won’t know how to treat him in a hospital,” said Jace. “He’s been cut by a Greater Demon. No mundane doctor would know how to heal those wounds.” Simon nodded. “All right. Let’s get him to the car.”
“Drive fast, mundane,” he said. “Drive like Hell was following you.” Simon drove.
When she turned her head now, she saw Jace kneeling next to his friend as blood seeped through the blanket. She thought of the little boy with the dead falcon. To love is to destroy.
“I know,” Isabelle said. “Simon—what you did, that was incredible. You moved so fast. I wouldn’t have thought a mundane could have thought of something like that.” Simon didn’t seem fazed by praise from such an unexpected quarter; his eyes were on the road. “You mean shooting out the skylight? It hit me after you guys went inside. I was thinking about the skylight and how you’d said demons couldn’t stand direct sun. So, actually, it took me a while to act on it. Don’t feel bad,” he added, “you can’t even see that skylight unless you know it’s there.”
“So, if you don’t mind telling me—that thing, the demon—where did it come from?” “It was Madame Dorothea,” said Clary. “I mean, it was sort of her.” “She was never exactly a pinup, but I don’t remember her looking that bad.”
“It was clever,” said Jace. “The demon possessed her, then hid the majority of its ethereal form just outside the Portal, where the Sensor wouldn’t register it. So we went in expecting to fight a few Forsaken. Instead we found ourselves facing a Greater Demon. Abbadon—one of the Ancients. The Lord of the Fallen.”
We Shadowhunters live by a code, and that code isn’t flexible. Honor, fault, penance, those are real to us, and they have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with who we are. This is who I am, Clary,”
“I am one of the Clave. It’s in my blood and bones. So tell me, if you’re so sure this wasn’t my fault, why is it that the first thought in my mind when I saw Abbadon wasn’t for my fellow warriors but for you?”
“I understand enough.” Her bitterness felt like it might burn through her tongue. “I understand that Jace trusted you and you traded him away to a man who hated his father and probably hates Jace, too, just because you’re too cowardly to live with a curse you deserved.” Hodge’s head jerked up. “Is that what you think?” “It’s what I know.”
“It’s not Jace’s fault. Why punish him for what the Clave did? I can understand giving Valentine the Cup, but Jace? He’ll kill Jace, just like he killed Jace’s father—” “Valentine,” said Hodge, “did not kill Jace’s father.”
“You were not raised as one of us. You have no part of this life of scars and killing. You can still get away. Leave the Institute, Clary, as soon as you can. Leave, and never come back.” She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do that.” “Then you have my condolences,” he said, and walked out of the room.
“You’re a werewolf.” He took his hand away from his shirt; his fingers were stained red. “Yep,” he said laconically. He moved to the wall and rapped sharply on it: once, twice, three times. Then he turned back to her. “I am.” “You killed Hodge,” she said, remembering.
“Clary,” said Luke, “meet my second and third, Gretel and Alaric.” Alaric inclined his massive head to her. “We have met.” Clary stared, alarmed. “Have we?” “At the Hotel Dumort,” he said. “You put your knife in my ribs.” She shrank against the wall. “I, ah… I’m sorry?” “Don’t be,” he said. “It was an excellent throw.”
LOL
“She called you ‘sir,’ ” said Clary, the moment the cell door closed behind them. “And what do you mean by your second and your third? Second and third what?” “In command,” said Luke slowly. “I am the leader of this particular wolf pack. That’s why Gretel called me ‘sir.’ Believe me, it took a fair bit of work to break her of the habit of calling me ‘master.’ ”
“That you’re a werewolf.” “Yes. She’s known since it happened.” “Neither of you, of course, thought to mention this to me.” “I would have told you,” said Luke. “But your mother was adamant that you know nothing of Shadowhunters or the Shadow World.
Luke stared at the wall. “I didn’t know where the Cup was,” he said. “She’d never told me.” “You could have tried to bargain—” “Valentine doesn’t bargain. He never has. If the advantage isn’t his, he won’t even come to the table. He’s entirely single-minded and totally without compassion, and though he may have loved your mother once, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. No, I wasn’t going to bargain with Valentine.”
It was there that I met Valentine. He was older than I was by a year. By far the most popular boy in school. He was handsome, clever, rich, dedicated, an incredible warrior.
Jocelyn was a natural Shadowhunter; I was not. I could not bear the lightest Marks or learn the simplest techniques. I thought sometimes about running away, returning home in shame. Even becoming a mundane. I was that miserable.
Robert Lightwood, who was terrified of the Marks—Valentine
When the teachers answered that most humans cannot survive the transition, Valentine claimed they were lying, trying to keep the power of the Nephilim limited to an elite few.
We formed the Circle, with our stated intent being to save the race of Shadowhunters from extinction. Of course, being seventeen, we weren’t quite sure how we would do it, but we were sure we’d eventually accomplish something significant.
Valentine’s father was killed in a routine raid on a werewolf encampment. When Valentine returned to school, after the funeral, he wore the red Marks of mourning. He was different in other ways. His kindness was now interspersed with flashes of rage that bordered on cruelty. I put this new behavior down to grief and tried harder than ever to please him.
We were parabatai, a perfect hunting team of two, warriors who would die for each other.
She had had her child, she said, a boy, and had named him Jonathan Christopher. She cried when she saw me. She was angry that I had not let her know I was still alive.
I remember how she bent to kiss the white-blond head of her son.
It was the first time I had seen her new name: Jocelyn Fray.
“That box,” Clary said, her mind working feverishly. “With the J.C. on it. Jonathan Christopher. That was what she was always crying over, that was his lock of hair—my brother’s, not my father’s.” “Yes.” “And when you said ‘Clary isn’t Jonathan,’ you meant my brother. My mom was so overprotective of me because she’d already had one child who died.”
“Hugin,” Luke said softly. “Hugin and Munin were Valentine’s pet birds. Their names mean ‘Thought’ and ‘Memory.’ ”
NYPD: Fidelis ad Mortem. “Faithful unto death,” said Luke,
“You’re in charge of this.” Clary peered at it suspiciously. “What is it? Weapons?” Luke’s shoulders shook with soundless laughter. “Steamed bao buns, actually,” he said, pulling the truck out into the street. “And coffee.”
thought Jace was one of the Lightwood kids?” “No.” Clary bit into a third bun. “His last name is Wayland. His father was—” “Michael Wayland?” She nodded. “And when Jace was ten years old, Valentine killed him. Michael, I mean.” “That sounds like something he would do,” said Luke. His tone was neutral, but there was something in his voice that made Clary look at him sideways. Did he not believe her?
He knows... This too?
“So when the moon’s only partly full, you only feel a little wolfy?” Clary asked. “You could say that.” “Well, you can go ahead and hang your head out the truck window if you feel like it.” Luke laughed. “I’m a werewolf, not a golden retriever.”
Clary couldn’t tell who was winning, if anyone. The wolves had size and speed on their side, but the Forsaken moved with a grim inevitability and were surprisingly hard to kill.
“Alaric,” Clary said. “Yes?” “I’m sorry I threw a knife at you.” “Don’t be. It was a well-placed blow.”
“You shouldn’t have said that. About Gretel being just a Downworlder. I don’t think that.” “I’m glad to hear it.” He reached for the torch in its metal holder. “I hated the idea of the Lightwoods turning you into a copy of them.” “Well, they haven’t.”
Light burst between her fingers, as if she’d cracked a seed of darkness, letting out the illumination trapped inside. Luke let go of the torch. “Witchlight?” he said. “Jace gave it to me.”
In Hoc Signo Vinces. “What does that mean?” she asked. “It means ‘By this sign we will conquer.’ It was the motto of the Circle.”
