City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments #6)(38)
Author: Cassandra Clare

“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.”

“Like my mother was,” said Jace. “Because she killed herself. Criminals, suicides, and monsters are buried at the place where all roads cross, right?”

He had his false bright voice on, the one Clary knew covered up anger or pain; she wanted to move closer to him, but the room was too full of people.

“Not always,” said Brother Zachariah in his soft voice. “One of the young Longfords was at the battle at the Citadel. He found himself forced to kill his own parabatai, who had been Turned by Sebastian. Afterward he turned his sword on himself and cut his wrists. He will be burned with the rest of the dead today, with all attendant honors.”

Clary remembered the young man she had seen at the Citadel, standing over a dead Shadowhunter in red gear, weeping as the battle raged around him. She wondered if she should have stopped, spoken to him, if it would have helped, if there was anything she could have done.

Jace looked as if he were going to throw up. “This is why you have to let me go after Sebastian,” he said. “This can’t keep happening. These battles, fighting the Endarkened—he’ll find worse things to do. Sebastian always does. Being Turned is worse than dying.”

“Jace,” Clary said sharply, but Jace shot her a look, half-desperate and half-pleading. A look that begged her not to doubt him. He leaned forward, hands on the Consul’s desk.

“Send me to him,” Jace said. “And I’ll try to kill him. I have the heavenly fire. It’s our best chance.”

“It’s not an issue of sending you anywhere,” said Maryse. “We can’t send you to him; we don’t know where Sebastian is. It’s an issue of letting him take you.”

“Then let him take me—”

“Absolutely not.” Brother Zachariah looked grave, and Clary remembered what he had said to her, once: If the chance comes before me to save the last of the Herondale bloodline, I consider that of higher importance than the fealty I render the Clave. “Jace Herondale,” he said. “The Clave can choose to obey Sebastian or defy him, but either way you cannot be given up to him in the way he will expect. We must surprise him. Otherwise we are simply delivering to him the only weapon that we know he fears.”

“Do you have another suggestion?” asked Jia. “Do we draw him out? Use Jace and Clary to capture him?”

“You can’t use them as bait,” Isabelle protested.

“Maybe we could separate him from his forces?” suggested Maryse.

“You can’t trick Sebastian,” Clary said, feeling exhausted. “He doesn’t care about reasons or excuses. There’s only him and what he wants, and if you get between those two things, he’ll destroy you.”

Jia leaned across the table. “Maybe we can convince him he wants something else. Is there anything else we could offer him as a bargaining chip?”

“No,” Clary whispered. “There’s nothing. Sebastian is . . .” But how did you explain her brother? How could you explain staring into the dark heart of a black hole? Imagine if you were the last Shadowhunter left on earth, imagine if all your family and friends were dead, imagine if there were no one left who even believed in what you were. Imagine if you were on the earth in a billion, billion years, after the sun had scorched away all the life, and you were crying out from inside yourself for just one single living creature to still draw breath alongside you, but there was nothing, only rivers of fire and ashes. Imagine being that lonely, and then imagine there was only one way you could think of to fix it. Then imagine what you would do to make that thing happen. “No. He won’t change his mind. Not ever.”

A murmur of voices broke out. Jia clapped her hands for silence. “Enough,” she said. “We’re going around in circles. It is time for the Clave and Council to discuss the situation.”

“If I might make a suggestion.” Brother Zachariah’s eyes swept the room, thoughtful under dark lashes, before coming to rest on Jia. “The funeral rites for the Citadel dead are about to begin. You will be expected there, Consul, as will you, Inquisitor. I would suggest that Clary and Jace remain at the Inquisitor’s house, considering the contention surrounding them, and that the Council gather after the rites.”

“We have a right to be at the meeting,” said Clary. “This decision concerns us. It’s about us.”

“You will be summoned,” said Jia, her gaze not resting on Clary or Jace, but skipping past them, sweeping over Robert and Maryse, Brother Enoch and Zachariah. “Until then, rest; you will need your energy. It could be a long night.”

12

THE FORMAL NIGHTMARE

The bodies were burning on orderly rows of pyres that had been set up along the road to Brocelind Forest. The sun was beginning to set behind a cloudy white sky, and as each pyre went up, it burst in orange sparks. The effect was oddly beautiful, although Jia Penhallow doubted that any of the mourners gathered on the plain thought so.

For some reason a rhyme she had learned as a child was repeating itself in her head.

Black for hunting through the night

For death and mourning the color’s white

Gold for a bride in her wedding gown

And red to call enchantment down.

White silk when our bodies burn,

Blue banners when the lost return.

Flame for the birth of a Nephilim,

And to wash away our sins.

Gray for knowledge best untold,

Bone for those who don’t grow old.

Saffron lights the victory march,

Green will mend our broken hearts.

Silver for the demon towers,

And bronze to summon wicked powers.

Bone for those who don’t grow old. Brother Enoch, in his bone-colored robes, was striding up and down the line of pyres. Shadowhunters stood or knelt or cast into the orange flames handfuls of the pale white Alicante flowers that grew even in the winter.

“Consul.” The voice at her shoulder was soft. She turned to see Brother Zachariah—the boy who had once been Brother Zachariah, at least—standing at her shoulder. “Brother Enoch said you wished to speak to me.”

“Brother Zachariah,” she began, and then paused. “Is there another name by which you wish to be called? The name you had before you became a Silent Brother?”

“ ‘Zachariah’ will do fine for now,” he said. “I am not yet ready to reclaim my old name.”

“I have heard,” she said, and paused, for the next bit was awkward, “that one of the warlocks of the Spiral Labyrinth, Theresa Gray, is someone whom you knew and cared for during your mortal life. And for someone who has been a Silent Brother as long as you have, that must be a rare thing.”

“She is all I have left from that time,” said Zachariah. “She and Magnus. I would have wished to talk to Magnus, if I could have, before he—”

“Would you like to go to the Spiral Labyrinth?” Jia interrupted.

Zachariah looked down at her with startled eyes. He looked about the same age as her daughter, Jia thought, his lashes impossibly long, his eyes both young and old at the same time. “You’re releasing me from Alicante? Aren’t all warriors needed?”

“You have served the Clave for more than a hundred and thirty years. We can ask no more of you.”

He looked back at the pyres, at the black smoke smearing the air. “How much does the Spiral Labyrinth know? Of the attacks on the Institutes, the Citadel, the representatives?”

“They are students of lore,” said Jia. “Not warriors or politicians. They know of what happened at the Burren. We have discussed Sebastian’s magic, possible cures for the Endarkened, ways to strengthen the wards. They do not ask beyond that—”

“And you do not tell,” said Zachariah. “So they do not know of the Citadel, the representatives?”

Jia set her jaw. “I suppose you will say I must tell them.”

“No,” he said. He had his hands in his pockets; his breath was visible on the cold clear air. “I will not say that.”

They stood side by side, in the snow and silence, until, to her surprise, he spoke again:

“I will not go to the Spiral Labyrinth. I will stay in Idris.”

“But don’t you want to see her?”

“I want to see Tessa more than I want anything else in the world,” said Zachariah. “But if she knew more of what was happening here, she would want to be here and fight beside us, and I find that I do not want that.” His dark hair fell forward as he shook his head. “I find that as I waken from being a Silent Brother, I am capable of not wanting that. Perhaps it is selfishness. I am not sure. But I am sure that the warlocks in the Spiral Labyrinth are safe. Tessa is safe. If I go to her, I will be safe as well, but I will also be hiding. I am not a warlock; I cannot be a help to the Labyrinth. I can be a help here.”

“You could go to the Labyrinth and return. It would be complicated, but I could request—”

“No,” he said quietly. “I cannot see Tessa face-to-face and keep from telling her the truth about what is happening here. And more than that, I cannot go to Tessa and present myself to her as a mortal man, as a Shadowhunter, and not tell her the feelings I had for her when I was—” He broke off. “That my feelings are unchanged. I cannot offer her that, and then return to a place where I might be killed. Better she thinks there never was a chance for us.”

“Better you think it as well,” said Jia, looking at his face, at the hope and longing that was painted there clearly for anyone to see. She looked over at Robert and Maryse Lightwood, standing a distance apart from each other in the snow. Not far away was her own daughter, Aline, leaning her head against Helen Blackthorn’s curly blond one. “We Shadowhunters, we put ourselves in danger, every hour, every day. I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece. And if we do not get what we so desperately need, how do we live?”