City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments #5)(22)
Author: Cassandra Clare

She stopped, inhaling sharply. They had reached the top of the ridge, and somehow, in front of them, a fortress had sprung like a fast-blooming flower out of the ground. It was carved of white-silver adamas, reflecting the cloud-streaked sky. Towers topped with electrum reached toward the sky, and the fortress was surrounded by a high wall, also of adamas, in which was set a single gate, formed of two great blades plunged into the ground at angles, so that they resembled a monstrous pair of scissors.

"The Adamant Citadel," said Jocelyn.

"Thanks," Isabelle snapped. "I figured that out."

Jocelyn made the noise that Isabelle was familiar with from her own parents. Isabelle was pretty sure it was parent-speak for "Teenagers." Then Jocelyn started down the hill to the fortress. Isabelle, tired of scrambling, stalked ahead of her. She was taller than Clary’s mother and had longer legs, and saw no reason why she should wait for Jocelyn if the other woman was going to persist in treating her like a child. She stomped down the hill, crushing moss under her boots, ducked through the scissorlike gates-

And froze. She was standing on a small outcropping of rock. In front of her the earth dropped away into a vast chasm, at the bottom of which boiled a river of red-gold lava, encircling the fortress. Across the chasm, much too far to jump-even for a Shadowhunter-was the only visible entrance to the fortress, a closed drawbridge.

"Some things," said Jocelyn at her elbow, "are not as simple as they first appear."

Isabelle jumped, then glared. "So not the place to sneak up on someone."

Jocelyn simply crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. "Surely Hodge taught you the proper method of approaching the Adamant Citadel," she said. "After all, it is open to all female Shadowhunters in good standing with the Clave."

"Of course he did," said Isabelle haughtily, scrambling mentally to remember. Only those with Nephilim blood… She reached up and took one of the metal chopsticks from her hair. When she twisted its base, it popped and clicked and unfolded into a dagger with a Rune of Courage on the blade.

Isabelle raised her hands over the chasm. "Ignis aurum probat," she said, and used the dagger to cut open her left palm; it was a swift searing pain, and blood ran from the cut, a ruby stream that splattered into the chasm below. There was a flash of blue light, and a creaking noise. The drawbridge was slowly lowering.

Isabelle smiled and wiped the blade of her knife on her gear. After another twist, it had become a slim metal chopstick again. She slid it back into her hair.

"Do you know what that means?" asked Jocelyn, her eyes on the lowering bridge.

"What?"

"What you just said. The motto of the Iron Sisters."

The drawbridge was almost flat. "It means ‘Fire tests gold.’"

"Right," said Jocelyn. "They don’t just mean forges and metalwork. They mean that adversity tests one’s strength of character. In difficult times, in dark times, some people shine."

"Oh, yeah?" said Izzy. "Well, I’m sick of dark and difficult times. Maybe I don’t want to shine."

The drawbridge crashed at their feet. "If you’re anything like your mother," said Jocelyn, "you won’t be able to help it."

9 : The Iron Sisters

Alec raised the witchlight rune-stone high in his hand, brilliant light raying out from it, spotlighting now one corner of the City Hall station and then another. He jumped as a mouse squeaked, running across the dusty platform. He was a Shadowhunter; he had been in many dark places, but there was something about the abandoned air of this station that made a cold shiver run up his spine.

Perhaps it was the chill of disloyalty he had felt, slipping away from his guard post on Staten Island and heading down the hill to the ferry the moment Magnus had left. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing; he’d just done it, as if he were on autopilot. If he hurried, he was sure he could be back before Isabelle and Jocelyn returned, before anyone realized he had ever been gone.

Alec raised his voice. "Camille!" he called. "Camille Belcourt!"

He heard a light laugh; it echoed off the walls of the station. Then she was there, at the top of the stairs, the brilliance of his witchlight rendering her a silhouette. "Alexander Lightwood," she said. "Come upstairs."

She vanished. Alec followed his darting witchlight up the steps, and found Camille where he had before, in the lobby of the station. She was dressed in the fashion of a bygone era-a long velvet dress nipped in at the waist, her hair dressed high in white-blond curls, her lips dark red. He supposed she was beautiful, though he wasn’t the best judge of feminine appeal, and it didn’t help that he hated her.

"What’s with the costume?" he demanded.

She smiled. Her skin was very smooth and white, without dark lines-she had fed recently. "A masquerade ball downtown. I fed quite well. Why are you here, Alexander? Starved for good conversation?"

If he were Jace, Alec thought, he’d have a smart remark for that, some kind of pun or cleverly disguised put-down. Alec just bit his lip and said, "You told me to come back if I was interested in what you were offering."

She ran a hand along the back of the divan, the only piece of furniture in the room. "And you’ve decided that you are."

Alec nodded.

She chuckled. "You understand what you’re asking for?"

Alec’s heart was pounding. He wondered if Camille could hear it. "You said you could make Magnus mortal. Like me."

Her full lips thinned. "I did," she said. "I must admit, I doubted your interest. You left rather hastily."

"Don’t play with me," he said. "I don’t want what you’re offering that badly."

"Liar," she said casually. "Or you wouldn’t be here." She moved around the divan, coming close to him, her eyes raking his face. "Up close," she said, "you do not look so much like Will as I had thought. You have his coloring, but a different shape to your face… perhaps a slight weakness to your jaw-"

"Shut up," he said. Okay, it wasn’t Jace-level wit, but it was something. "I don’t want to hear about Will."

"Very well." She stretched, languorously, like a cat. "It was many years ago, when Magnus and I were lovers. We were in bed together, after quite a passionate evening." She saw him flinch, and grinned. "You know how it is with pillow talk. One reveals one’s weaknesses. Magnus spoke to me of a spell that existed, one that might be undertaken to rid a warlock of their immortality."

"So why don’t I just find out what the spell is and do it?" Alec’s voice rose and cracked. "Why do I need you?"

"First, because you’re a Shadowhunter; you’ve no idea how to work a spell," she said calmly. "Second, because if you do it, he’ll know it was you. If I do it, he will assume it is revenge. Spite on my part. And I do not care what Magnus thinks. But you do."

Alec looked at her steadily. "And you’re going to do this for me as a favor?"

She laughed, like tinkling bells. "Of course not," she said. "You do a favor for me, and I will do one for you. That is how these matters are conducted."

Alec’s hand tightened around the witchlight rune-stone until the edges cut into his hand. "And what favor do you want from me?"

"It’s very simple," she said. "I want you to kill Raphael Santiago."

The bridge that crossed the crevasse surrounding the Adamant Citadel was lined with knives. They were sunk, point upward, at random intervals along the path, so that it was possible to cross the bridge only very slowly, by picking your way with dexterity. Isabelle had little trouble but was surprised to see how lightly Jocelyn, who hadn’t been an active Shadowhunter in fifteen years, made her way.

By the time Isabelle had reached the opposite side of the bridge, her dexteritas rune had vanished into her skin, leaving a faint white mark behind. Jocelyn was only a step behind her, and as aggravating as Isabelle found Clary’s mother, she was glad in a moment, when Jocelyn raised her hand and a witchlight rune-stone blazed forth, illuminating the space they stood in.

The walls were hewn from white-silver adamas, so that a dim light seemed to glow from within them. The floor was demon-stone as well, and carved into the center of it was a black circle. Inside the circle the symbol of the Iron Sisters was carved-a heart punctured through and through by a blade.

Whispering voices made Isabelle tear her gaze from the floor and look up. A shadow had appeared inside one of the smooth white walls-a shadow growing ever clearer, ever closer. Suddenly a portion of the wall slid back and a woman stepped out.

She wore a long, loose white gown, bound tightly at the wrists and under her br**sts with silver-white cord-demon wire. Her face was both unwrinkled and ancient. She could have been any age. Her hair was long and dark, hanging in a thick braid down her back. Across her eyes and temples was an intricately curlicued tattooed mask, encircling both her eyes, which were the orange color of leaping flames.

"Who calls on the Iron Sisters?" she said. "Speak your names."

Isabelle looked toward Jocelyn, who gestured that she should speak first. She cleared her throat. "I am Isabelle Light-wood, and this is Jocelyn Fr-Fairchild. We have come to ask your help."

"Jocelyn Morgenstern," said the woman. "Born Fairchild, but you cannot so easily erase the taint of Valentine from your past. Have you not turned your back on the Clave?"

"It is true," said Jocelyn. "I am outcast. But Isabelle is a daughter of the Clave. Her mother-"

"Runs the New York Institute," said the woman. "We are remote here but not without sources of information; I am no fool. My name is Sister Cleophas, and I am a Maker. I shape the adamas for the other sisters to carve. I recognize that whip you wind so cunningly around your wrist." She indicated Isabelle. "As for that bauble about your throat-"

"If you know so much," said Jocelyn, as Isabelle’s hand crept to the ruby at her neck, "then do you know why we are here? Why we have come to you?"

Sister Cleophas’s eyelids lowered and she smiled slowly. "Unlike our speechless brethren, we cannot read minds here in the Fortress. Therefore we rely upon a network of information, most of it very reliable. I assume this visit has something to do with the situation involving Jace Lightwood-as his sister is here-and your son, Jonathan Morgenstern."

"We have a conundrum," said Jocelyn. "Jonathan Morgenstern plots against the Clave, like his father. The Clave has issued a death warrant against him. But Jace-Jonathan Lightwood-is very much loved by his family, who have done no wrong, and by my daughter. The conundrum is that Jace and Jonathan are bound, by very ancient blood magic."

"Blood magic? What sort of blood magic?"

Jocelyn took Magnus’s folded notes from the pocket of her gear and handed them over. Cleophas studied them with her intent fiery gaze. Isabelle saw with a start that the fingers of her hands were very long-not elegantly long but grotesquely so, as if the bones had been stretched so that each hand resembled an albino spider. Her nails were filed to points, each tipped with electrum.

She shook her head. "The Sisters have little to do with blood magic." The flame color of her eyes seemed to leap and then dim, and a moment later another shadow appeared behind the frosted-glass surface of the adamas wall. This time Isabelle watched more closely as a second Iron Sister stepped through. It was like watching someone emerge from a haze of white smoke.

"Sister Dolores," said Cleophas, handing Magnus’s notes to the new arrival. She looked much like Cleophas-the same tall narrow form, the same white dress, the same long hair, though in this case her hair was gray, and bound at the ends of her two braids with gold wire. Despite her gray hair, her face was lineless, her fire-colored eyes bright. "Can you make sense of this?"

Dolores glanced over the pages briefly. "A twinning spell," she said. "Much like our own parabatai ceremony, but its alliance is demonic."

"What makes it demonic?" Isabelle demanded. "If the parabatai spell is harmless-"

"Is it?" said Cleophas, but Dolores shot her a quelling look.

"The parabatai ritual binds two individuals but leaves their wills free," Dolores explained. "This binds two but makes one subordinate to the other. What the primary of the two believes, the other will believe; what the first one wants, the second will want. It essentially removes the free will of the secondary partner in the spell, and that is why it is demonic. For free will is what makes us Heaven’s creatures."

"It also seems to mean that when one is wounded, the other is wounded," said Jocelyn. "Might we presume the same about death?"

"Yes. Neither will survive the death of the other. This again is not part of our parabatai ritual, for it is too cruel."

"Our question to you is this," said Jocelyn. "Is there any weapon forged, or that you might create, that could harm one but not the other? Or that might cut them apart?