The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (303 page)

“I’m not,” Jace protested as Alec set the tip of his stele to the bare skin of Jace’s arm. As the dark lines began to spiral out from the
adamas
, Jace couldn’t help but remember another day,
in Alicante, Alec bandaging Jace’s hand, telling him angrily:
You can heal slow and ugly, like a mundane.
Jace had put his hand through a window that day; he’d deserved everything Alec had said to him.

Alec exhaled slowly; he was always very careful with his runes, especially the
iratze
s. He seemed to feel the slight burn, the sting against the skin that Jace felt, though Jace had never minded the pain—the map of white scars that covered his biceps and ran down to his forearm attested to that. There was a special strength to a rune given by your
parabatai
. It was why they had sent the two of them away, while the rest of the Lightwood family met in the Consul’s offices, so that Alec could heal Jace as quickly and efficiently as possible. Jace had been rather startled; he’d half-expected them to make him sit through the meeting with his wrist blue and swelling up.

“I’m not,” Jace said again, as Alec finished and stepped back to examine his handiwork. Already Jace could feel the numbing of the
iratze
spreading through his veins, soothing the pain in his arm, sealing his split lip. “You hit Matthias’s knife from halfway across an amphitheater. Clean shot, didn’t hit Jia at all. And he was moving around, too.”

“I was motivated.” Alec slid his stele back into his belt. His dark hair hung raggedly into his eyes; he hadn’t gotten it properly cut since he and Magnus had broken up.

Magnus.
Jace closed his eyes. “Alec,” he said. “I’ll go. You know I’ll go.”

“You’re saying that like you think it’ll reassure me,” said Alec. “You think I want you to give yourself up to Sebastian? Are you crazy?”

“I think it might be the only way to get Magnus back.” Jace spoke into the darkness behind his eyelids.

“And you’re willing to barter Clary’s life too?” Alec’s tone was acid. Jace’s eyes flew open; Alec was looking at him steadily, but without expression.

“No,” Jace said, hearing the defeat in his own voice. “I couldn’t do that.”

“And I wouldn’t ask it,” said Alec. “This—this is what Sebastian’s trying to do. Drive wedges between all of us, using the people we love as hooks to pull us apart. We shouldn’t let him.”

“When did you get so wise?” Jace said.

Alec laughed, a short, brittle laugh. “The day I’m wise is the day you’re careful.”

“Maybe you’ve always been wise,” Jace said. “I remember when I asked if you wanted to be
parabatai
, and you said you needed a day to think about it. And then you came back and said yes, and when I asked you why you agreed to do it, you said it was because I needed someone to look after me. You were right. I never thought about it again, because I never had to. I had you, and you’ve always looked after me. Always.”

Alec’s expression tightened; Jace could almost see the tension thrumming through his
parabatai
’s veins. “Don’t,” Alec said. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Alec said. “That’s how people talk when they think they’re going to die.”

“If Clary and Jace are delivered to Sebastian, then they will be delivered to their deaths,” said Maryse.

They were in the offices of the Consul, likely the most plushly decorated room in all the Gard. A thick rug was underfoot, the stone walls spread with tapestries, a massive desk standing diagonally across the room. On one side of it was Jia Penhallow, the cut on her throat sealing as her
iratzes
took effect. Behind her chair stood her husband, Patrick, his hand on her shoulder.

Facing them were Maryse and Robert Lightwood; to Clary’s surprise, she, Isabelle, and Simon had been allowed to stay in the room as well. It was her own and Jace’s fate they were discussing, she supposed, but then the Clave had never before seemed to have much in the way of a problem with deciding people’s fates without their input.

“Sebastian says he won’t hurt them,” said Jia.

“His word’s worthless,” Isabelle snapped. “He lies. And it doesn’t mean anything if he swears on the Angel, because he doesn’t care about the Angel. He serves Lilith, if he serves anyone.”

There was a soft click, and the door opened, admitting Alec and Jace. Jace and Alec had tumbled down quite a few stairs, and Jace had gotten the worst of it, with a split lip and a wrist that had either been broken or twisted. It looked back to normal now, though; he tried to smile at Clary as he came in, but his eyes were haunted.

“You have to understand how the Clave will see it,” Jia said. “You fought Sebastian at the Burren. They were told, but they didn’t
see
, not until the Citadel, the difference between Endarkened warriors and Shadowhunters. There has never been a race of warriors more powerful than Nephilim. Now there is.”

“The reason he attacked the Citadel was to gather information,” said Jace. “He wanted to know what the Nephilim were capable of: not just the group we could scramble together at the Burren, but warriors sent to fight by the Clave. He wanted to see how they stood up against his forces.”

“He was taking our measure,” said Clary. “He was weighing us in the balance.”

Jia looked at her. “
Mene mene tekel upharsin
,” she said softly.

“You were right when you said Sebastian doesn’t want to fight a big battle,” said Jace. “His interest is to fight a lot of small battles where he can Turn a bunch of Nephilim. Add to his forces. And it might have worked, to stay in Idris, let him bring the battle here, break the tide of his army on the rocks of Alicante. Except now that he’s taken the Downworld representatives, staying here won’t work. Without us watching, with Downworld turning against us, the Accords will fall apart. The world—will fall apart.”

Jia’s gaze went to Simon. “What do you say, Downworlder? Was Matthias correct? If we refuse to ransom Sebastian’s hostages, will it mean war with Downworld?”

Simon looked startled to be addressed in such an official capacity. Consciously or unconsciously, his hand had gone to Jordan’s medallion at his throat; he held it as he spoke. “I think,” he said with reluctance, “that though there are some Downworlders who would be reasonable, the vampires wouldn’t. They already believe Nephilim set a light price on their lives. Warlocks . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t really understand warlocks. Or faeries—I mean, the Seelie Queen seems to look out for herself. She helped Sebastian with these.” He held up his hand, where his ring glimmered.

“It seems likely that was less about helping Sebastian than about her own insatiable desire to know everything,” Robert said. “It is true, she did spy on you, but Sebastian was not known to be our enemy then. More tellingly, Meliorn has sworn up and down that the Fair Folk’s loyalty is to us and that Sebastian is their enemy, and faeries cannot lie.”

Simon shrugged. “Anyway, my point is that I don’t understand how they think. But the werewolves love Luke. They’ll be desperate to get him back.”

“He used to be a Shadowhunter—” Robert began.

“That makes it worse,” said Simon, and it wasn’t Simon, Clary’s oldest friend, talking but someone else, someone knowledgeable about Downworld politics. “They see the way Nephilim treat Downworlders who were once Nephilim as evidence of the fact that Shadowhunters believe Downworld blood is tainted. Magnus told me once about a dinner he was invited to at an Institute for Downworlders and Shadowhunters alike; afterward the Shadowhunters threw out all the plates. Because Downworlders had touched them.”

“Not all Nephilim are like that,” Maryse said.

Simon shrugged. “The first time I ever came to the Gard, it was because Alec brought me,” he said. “I trusted that the Consul only wanted to talk to me. Instead I was thrown into prison and starved. Luke’s own
parabatai
told him to kill himself when Luke was Turned. The Praetor Lupus has been burned to the ground by someone who, even if he is an enemy of Idris, is a Shadowhunter.”

“So you are saying, yes, it will be war?” asked Jia.

“It’s already war, isn’t it?” said Simon. “Weren’t you just injured in a battle? I’m just saying—Sebastian is using the
cracks in your alliances to break you, and he’s doing it well. Maybe he doesn’t understand humans, I’m not saying he does, but he does understand evil and betrayal and selfishness, and that’s something that applies to everything with a mind and a heart.” He closed his mouth abruptly, as if afraid that he’d said too much.

“So you think that we should do as Sebastian asks, send Jace and Clary to him?” asked Patrick.

“No,” Simon said. “I think he always lies, and sending them won’t help anything. Even if he swears, he lies, like Isabelle said.” He looked at Jace, and then Clary. “
You
know,” he said. “You know him better than anyone; you know he never means what he says. Tell them.”

Clary shook her head, mutely. It was Isabelle who answered for her: “They can’t,” she said. “It would seem like they were begging for their lives, and neither of them are going to do that.”

“I’ve already volunteered,” said Jace. “I said I would go. You
know
why he wants me.” He threw his arms wide. Clary wasn’t surprised to see that the heavenly fire was visible against the skin of his forearms, like golden wires. “The heavenly fire injured him at the Burren. He’s afraid of it, so he’s afraid of me. I saw it on his face, in Clary’s room.”

There was a long silence. Jia slumped back in her chair. “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t disagree with any of you. But I cannot control the Clave, and there are those among them who will choose what they see as safety, and yet others who hate the idea that we allied with Downworlders in the first place and will welcome a chance to refuse. If Sebastian wished to splinter the Clave into factions, and I am sure he did, he chose a good
way to do it.” She looked around at the Lightwoods, at Jace and Clary, the Consul’s steady dark gaze resting on each of them in turn. “I would love to hear suggestions,” she added, a little dryly.

“We could go into hiding,” Isabelle said immediately. “Disappear to a place where Sebastian will never find us; you can report back to him that Jace and Clary fled despite your attempts to keep us. He can’t blame you for that.”

“A reasonable person wouldn’t blame the Clave,” said Jace. “Sebastian’s not reasonable.”

“And there isn’t anywhere we can hide from him,” Clary said. “He found me in Amatis’s house. He can find me anywhere. Maybe Magnus could have helped us, but—”

“There are other warlocks,” said Patrick, and Clary chanced a glimpse at Alec’s face. It looked like it had been carved out of stone.

“You can’t count on them helping us, no matter what you pay them, not now,” Alec said. “That’s the point of the kidnapping. They won’t come to the aid of the Clave, not until they see whether we come to their aid first.”

There was a knock on the door and in came two Silent Brothers, their robes glimmering like parchment in the witchlight. “Brother Enoch,” said Patrick, by way of greeting, “and—”

“Brother Zachariah,” said the second of them, drawing his hood down.

Despite what Jace had hinted at in the Council room, the sight of the now-human Zachariah was a shock. He was barely recognizable, only the dark runes on the arches of his cheekbones a reminder of what he had been. He was slender, almost slight, and tall, with a delicate and very human
elegance to the shape of his face, and dark hair. He looked perhaps twenty.

“Is that,” Isabelle said in a low, amazed voice, “
Brother Zachariah
? When did he get hot?”

“Isabelle!” Clary whispered, but Brother Zachariah either hadn’t heard her or had great self-restraint. He was looking at Jia, and then, to Clary’s surprise, said something in a language she didn’t know.

Jia’s lips trembled for a moment. Then they tightened into a hard line. She turned to the others. “Amalric Kriegsmesser is dead,” she said.

It took Clary, numb from a dozen shocks in as many hours, several seconds to remember who that was: the Endarkened who had been captured in Berlin and brought to the Basilias while the Brothers searched for a cure.

“Nothing we tried on him worked,” said Brother Zachariah. His spoken voice was musical. He sounded British, Clary thought; she’d only ever heard his voice in her mind before, and telepathic communication apparently wiped out accents. “Not a single spell, not a single potion. Finally we had him drink from the Mortal Cup.”

It destroyed him,
said Enoch.
Death was instantaneous.

“Amalric’s body must be sent through a Portal to the warlocks in the Spiral Labyrinth, to study,” Jia said. “Perhaps if we act quickly enough, she—
they
can learn something from his death. Some clue to a cure.”

“His poor family,” said Maryse. “They will not even see him burned and buried in the Silent City.”

“He is not Nephilim anymore,” said Patrick. “If he were to be buried, it would be at the crossroads outside Brocelind Forest.”