City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments #6)(12)
Author: Cassandra Clare

Emma drew in a shaky breath, just as a rapping noise sounded at the door. Clary half-turned as it opened, letting in light from the hall outside, and Jace. He caught her eye and smiled, leaning in the doorway. His hair was very dark gold, his eyes a shade lighter. Clary sometimes thought she could see the fire inside him, lighting his eyes and skin and veins, moving just under the surface. “Clary,” he said.

Clary thought she heard a small squeak from behind her. Emma was clutching her sword, looking between Clary and Jace with very large eyes.

“The Council’s over,” he said. “And I don’t think Jia’s any too pleased you came running back here.”

“So I’m in trouble,” Clary said.

“As usual,” Jace said, but his smile took any sting out of it. “We’re all leaving. Are you ready to go?”

She shook her head. “I’ll meet you at your house. You guys can fill me in on what happened at the Council then.”

He hesitated. “Get Aline or Helen to come with you,” he said finally. “The Consul’s house is just down the street from the Inquisitor’s.” He zipped his jacket up and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Clary turned back to Emma, who was still staring at her.

“You know Jace Lightwood?” said Emma.

“I— What?”

“He’s famous,” Emma said with obvious amazement. “He’s the best Shadowhunter. The best.”

“He’s my friend,” Clary said, noting that the conversation had taken an unexpected turn.

Emma gave her a superior look. “He’s your boyfriend.”

“How did you—”

“I saw the way he looked at you,” said Emma, “and anyway, everyone knows Jace Lightwood has a girlfriend and she’s Clary Fairchild. Why didn’t you tell me your name?”

“I guess I didn’t think you’d know it,” Clary said, reeling.

“I’m not stupid,” Emma said, with an air of annoyance that had Clary straightening up quickly before she could laugh.

“No, you’re not. You’re really smart,” said Clary. “And I’m glad you know who I am, because I want you to know you can come talk to me anytime. Not just about what happened at the Institute—about whatever you want. And you can talk to Jace, too. Do you need to know where to find us?”

Emma shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice soft again. “I know where the Inquistor’s house is.”

“Okay.” Clary folded her hands, mostly to keep herself from reaching out and hugging the girl. She didn’t think Emma would appreciate it. Clary turned toward the door.

“If you’re Jace Lightwood’s girlfriend, you should have a better sword,” Emma said suddenly, and Clary glanced down at the blade she’d strapped on that morning, an old one she’d packed with her belongings from New York.

She touched the hilt. “This one isn’t good?”

Emma shook her head. “Not good at all.”

She sounded so serious that Clary smiled. “Thanks for the advice.”

4

DARKER THAN GOLD

When Clary knocked on the door of the Inquisitor’s house, it was opened by Robert Lightwood.

For a moment she froze, unsure what to say. She had never had a conversation with Jace’s adoptive father, had never known him well at all. He had been a shadow in the background, usually behind Maryse with his hand on her chair. He was a big, dark-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard. She could not imagine him being friends with her own father, though she knew he had been in Valentine’s Circle. There were too many lines on his face, and there was too hard a set to his jaw, for her to imagine him young.

When he looked at her, she saw that his eyes were a very dark blue, so dark, she had always thought they were black. His expression didn’t change; she could feel disapproval radiating off him. She suspected Jia wasn’t the only one annoyed that she’d run out of the Council meeting after Emma. “If you’re looking for my children, they’re upstairs,” was all he said. “Top floor.”

She passed by him, into the extremely grand front room. The house, the one officially designated to the Inquisitor and his or her family, was grand in its scope, with high ceilings and heavy, expensive-looking furniture. It was a large enough space to have interior archways, a massive grand staircase, and a chandelier that hung down from the ceiling, glowing with dim witchlight. She wondered where Maryse was, and if she liked the house.

“Thanks,” Clary said.

Robert Lightwood shrugged and disappeared into the shadows without another word. Clary took the stairs two at a time, passing several landings before she reached the top floor, which was up a flight of steep attic stairs that led to a corridor. A door down the hall was half-open; she could hear voices from the other side.

With a perfunctory knock she stepped inside. The walls of the attic room were painted white, and there was a massive armoire in the corner, both doors flung open—Alec’s clothes, practical and a little shabby, hanging on one side, and Jace’s, crisp in blacks and grays, on the other. Their gear was neatly folded along the bottom.

Clary almost smiled; she wasn’t entirely sure why. There was something about Alec and Jace’s sharing a room that she found endearing. She wondered if they kept each other up at night talking, the way she and Simon always had.

Alec and Isabelle were perched on the sill of the window. Behind them Clary could see the colors of sunset sparking off the water of the canal below. Jace was sprawled on one of the single beds, his boots rather defiantly planted on the velvet coverlet.

“I think they mean they can’t just wait around for Sebastian to attack more Institutes,” Alec was saying. “That would be hiding. Shadowhunters don’t hide.”

Jace rubbed his cheek against his shoulder; he looked tired, his pale hair rumpled. “Feels like hiding,” he said. “Sebastian’s out there; we’re in here. Double-warded. All the Institutes emptied out. No one to protect the world from demons. Who will watch the watchers?”

Alec sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Hopefully it won’t be for long.”

“Hard to imagine what would happen,” Isabelle said. “A world with no Shadowhunters. Demons everywhere, Downworlders attacking one another.”

“If I were Sebastian—” Jace started.

“But you’re not. You’re not Sebastian,” Clary said.

They all looked over at her. Alec and Jace looked absolutely nothing alike, Clary thought, but every once in a while there was a similarity in the way they glanced or gestured that reminded her that they’d been raised together. They both looked curious, a little concerned. Isabelle seemed more tired, and upset.

“You all right?” Jace said by way of greeting, giving her a lopsided smile. “How’s Emma?”

“Wrecked,” Clary said. “What happened after I left the meeting?”

“The interrogation was mostly over,” said Jace. “Sebastian’s obviously behind the attacks, and he has a sizeable force of Endarkened warriors backing him up. Nobody knows exactly how many, but we have to assume all of the missing have been Turned.”

“Still, we have greater numbers by far,” said Alec. “He has his original forces, and the six Conclaves he Turned; we have everyone else.”

There was something in Jace’s eyes that turned them darker than gold. “Sebastian knows that,” he murmured. “He’ll know his forces, down to the last warrior. He’ll know exactly what he can match and what he can’t.”

“We have the Downworlders on our side,” said Alec. “That’s the whole point of tomorrow’s meeting, isn’t it? Talk to the representatives, strengthen our alliances. Now that we know what Sebastian’s doing, we can strategize around it, hit him with the Night’s Children, the Courts, the warlocks. . . .”

Clary’s eyes met Jace’s in silent communication. Now that we know what Sebastian’s doing, he’ll do something else. Something we don’t expect yet.

“And then everyone talked about Jace,” said Isabelle. “So, you know, the usual.”

“About Jace?” Clary leaned against the footboard of Jace’s bed. “What about him?”

“There was a lot of back-and-forth about whether Sebastian’s basically invulnerable now, and if there are ways to wound and kill him. Glorious could have done it because of the heavenly fire, but currently the only source of heavenly fire is . . .”

“Jace,” Clary said grimly. “But the Silent Brothers have tried everything to separate Jace from the heavenly fire, and they can’t do it. It’s in his soul. So what’s their plan, hitting Sebastian over the head with Jace until he passes out?”

“Brother Zachariah said pretty much the same thing,” Jace said. “Maybe with less sarcasm.”

“Anyway, they wound up talking about ways to capture Sebastian without killing him—if they can destroy all the Endarkened, if he can be trapped somewhere or somehow, it might not matter as much if he can’t be killed,” Alec said.

“Put him in an adamas coffin and drop it into the sea,” Isabelle said. “That’s my suggestion.”

“Anyway, when they were done talking about me, which was of course the best part,” Jace said, “they went back pretty quickly to talking about ways to cure the Endarkened. They’re paying the Spiral Labyrinth a fortune to try to unravel the spell Sebastian used to create the Infernal Cup and enact the ritual.”

“They need to stop obsessing about curing the Endarkened and start thinking about how to defeat them,” Isabelle said in a hard voice.

“A lot of them know people who were Turned, Isabelle,” said Alec. “Of course they want them back.”

“Well, I want my little brother back,” said Isabelle, her voice rising. “Don’t they understand what Sebastian did? He killed them. He killed what was human about them, and he left demons walking around in skin-suits that look like people we used to know, that’s all—”

“Keep it down,” Alec said, in his determined-older-brother tone. “You know Mom and Dad are in the house, right? They’ll come up.”

“Oh, they’re here,” said Isabelle. “About as far away from each other, bedroom-wise, as you could possibly be, but they’re here.”

“It’s not our business where they sleep, Isabelle.”

“They’re our parents.”

“But they have their own lives,” said Alec. “And we have to respect that and stay out of it.” His expression darkened. “A lot of people split up when they have a child who dies.”

Isabelle gave a little gasp.

“Izzy?” Alec seemed to realize he’d gone too far. Mentions of Max seemed to devastate Isabelle more than they did any of the other Lightwoods, even Maryse.

Isabelle turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Alec shoved his fingers into his hair, causing it to stick up like duck fluff. “Goddammit,” he swore, and then flushed—Alec hardly ever swore, and usually when he did, he muttered. He shot Jace an almost apologetic look and went after his sister.

Jace sighed, swung his long legs off the bed, and stood up. He stretched like a cat, cracking his shoulders. “Guess that’s my cue to walk you home.”

“I can find my way back—”

He shook his head, grabbing his jacket off the bedpost. There was something impatient about his movements, something prowling and watchful that made Clary’s own skin prickle. “I want to get out of here anyway. Come on. Let’s go.”

“It’s been an hour. At least an hour. I swear,” Maia said. She was lying on the couch in Jordan and Simon’s apartment, her bare feet in Jordan’s lap.

“Shouldn’t have ordered Thai,” said Simon absently. He was sitting on the floor, fiddling with the Xbox controller. It hadn’t been working for several days. There was a Duraflame log in the fireplace. Like everything else in the apartment the fireplace was poorly maintained, and half the time the room would fill with smoke when they used it. Jordan was always complaining of the cold, the cracks in the windows and walls, and the landlord’s disinterest in fixing anything. “They never come on time.”

Jordan grinned good-naturedly. “What do you care? You don’t eat.”

“I can drink now,” Simon pointed out. It was true. He’d trained his stomach to accept most liquids—milk, coffee, tea—though solid food still made him retch. He doubted the drinks did anything much for him in the way of nutrition; only blood seemed to do that, but it made him feel more human to be able to consume something in public that wouldn’t send everyone screaming. With a sigh he dropped the controller. “I think this thing is broken. Permanently. Which is great, because I have no money to replace it.”