Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (143 page)

“Actually, my aunt collects spell books. Can I see?” Sebastian held his hand out, but before Magnus could refuse, Clary heard someone call her name, and Jace and Alec
descended on them, clearly none too pleased to see Sebastian.

“I thought I told you to stay with Max and Isabelle!” Alec snapped at him. “Did you leave them alone?”

Slowly Sebastian’s eyes moved from Magnus to Alec. “Your parents came home, just like you said they would.” His voice was cold. “They sent me ahead to tell you they were all right, and so are Izzy and Max. They’re on their way.”

“Well,” said Jace, his voice heavy with sarcasm, “thanks for passing on
that
news the second you got here.”

“I didn’t see you the second I got here,” said Sebastian. “I saw Clary.”

“Because you were looking for her.”

“Because I needed to talk to her. Alone.” He caught Clary’s eyes again, and the intensity in them gave her pause. She wanted to tell him not to look at her like that when Jace was there, but that would sound unreasonable and crazy, and besides, maybe he actually had something important to tell her. “Clary?”

She nodded. “All right. Just for a second,” she said, and saw Jace’s expression change: He didn’t scowl, but his face went very still. “I’ll be right back,” she added, but Jace didn’t look at her. He was looking at Sebastian.

Sebastian took her by the wrist and drew her away from the others, pulling her toward the thickest part of the crowd. She glanced back over her shoulder. They were all watching her, even Magnus. She saw him shake his head once, very slightly.

She dug her heels in. “Sebastian.
Stop
. What is it? What do you have to tell me?”

He turned to face her, still holding her wrist. “I thought we could go outside,” he said. “Talk in private—”

“No. I want to stay here,” she said, and heard her own voice waver slightly, as if she weren’t sure. But she
was
sure. She yanked her wrist back, pulling it out of his grasp. “What is going on with you?”

“That book,” he said. “That Fell was holding—the Book of the White—do you know where he got it?”

“
That’s
what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“It’s an extraordinarily powerful spell book,” explained Sebastian. “And one that—well, that a lot of people have been looking for for a long time.”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “All right, Sebastian, look,” she said. “That’s not Ragnor Fell. That’s Magnus Bane.”

“
That’s
Magnus Bane?” Sebastian spun around and stared before turning back to Clary with an accusatory look in his eyes. “And you knew all along, right? You know Bane.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry. But he didn’t want me to tell you. And he was the only one who could help me save my mother. That’s why I gave him the Book of the White. There’s a spell in there that might help her.”

Something flashed behind Sebastian’s eyes, and Clary had the same feeling she’d had after he’d kissed her: a sudden wrench of wrongness, as if she’d taken a step forward expecting to find solid ground under her feet and instead plunged into empty space. His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “You gave the book—the Book of the White—to a
warlock
? A filthy Downworlder?”

Clary went very still. “I can’t believe you just said that.” She looked down at the place where Sebastian’s hand encircled her wrist. “Magnus is my friend.”

Sebastian loosened his grip on her wrist, just a fraction.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just—how well do you know Magnus Bane?”

“Better than I know you,” Clary said coldly. She glanced back toward the place she’d left Magnus standing with Jace and Alec—and a shock of surprise went through her. Magnus was gone. Jace and Alec stood by themselves, watching her and Sebastian. She could sense the heat of Jace’s disapproval like an open oven.

Sebastian followed her gaze, his eyes darkening. “Well enough to know where he went with your book?”

“It’s not my book. I gave it to him,” Clary snapped. “And I don’t see what business it is of yours, either. Look, I appreciate that you offered to help me find Ragnor Fell yesterday, but you’re really freaking me out now. I’m going back to my friends.”

She started to turn away, but he moved to block her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did. It’s just—there’s more to all this than you know.”

“So tell me.”

“Come outside with me. I’ll tell you everything.” His tone was anxious, worried. “Clary, please.”

She shook her head. “I have to stay here. I have to wait for Simon.” It was partly true, and partly an excuse. “Alec told me they’d be bringing the prisoners here—”

Sebastian was shaking his head. “Clary, didn’t anyone tell you? They left the prisoners behind. I heard Malachi say so. The city was attacked, and they evacuated the Gard, but they didn’t get the prisoners out. Malachi said they were both in league with Valentine anyway. That there was no way letting them out wouldn’t be too much of a risk.”

Clary’s head seemed to be full of fog; she felt dizzy, and a little sick. “That can’t be true.”

“It is true,” Sebastian said. “I swear it is.” His grip on Clary’s wrist tightened again, and she swayed on her feet. “I can take you up there. Up to the Gard. I can help you get him out. But you have to promise me that you’ll—”

“She doesn’t have to promise you anything,” Jace said. “Let her go, Sebastian.”

Sebastian, startled, loosened his grip on Clary’s wrist. She pulled it free, turning to see Jace and Alec, both scowling. Jace’s hand was resting lightly on the hilt of the seraph blade at his waist.

“Clary can do what she wants,” Sebastian said. He wasn’t scowling, but there was an odd, fixed look about his face that was somehow worse. “And right now she wants to come with me to save her friend. The friend
you
got thrown in prison.”

Alec blanched at that, but Jace only shook his head. “I don’t like you,” he said thoughtfully. “I know everyone else likes you, Sebastian, but I don’t. Maybe it’s that you work so hard to
make
people like you. Maybe I’m just a contrary bastard. But I don’t like you, and I don’t like the way you were grabbing at my sister. If she wants to go up to the Gard and look for Simon, fine. She’ll go with us. Not you.”

Sebastian’s fixed expression didn’t change. “I think that should be her choice,” he said. “Don’t you?”

They both looked at Clary. She looked past them, toward Luke, still arguing with Malachi.

“I want to go with my brother,” she said.

Something flickered behind Sebastian’s eyes—something that was there and gone too quickly for Clary to identify it,
though she felt a chill at the base of her neck, as if a cold hand had touched her there. “Of course you do,” he said, and stepped aside.

It was Alec who moved first, pushing Jace ahead of him, making him walk. They were partway to the doors when she realized that her wrist was hurting—stinging as if it had been burned. Looking down, she expected to see a mark on her wrist, where Sebastian had gripped her, but there was nothing there. Just a smear of blood on her sleeve where she had touched the cut on his face. Frowning, with her wrist still stinging, she drew her sleeve down and hurried to catch up with the others.

Simon’s hands were black with blood.

He had tried yanking the bars out of the window and the cell door, but touching any of them for very long seared bleeding score marks into his palms. Eventually he collapsed, gasping, on the floor, and stared numbly at his hands as the injuries swiftly healed, the lesions closing up and the blackened skin flaking away like in a video on fast-forward.

On the other side of the cell wall, Samuel was praying.
“If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help—”

Simon knew he couldn’t pray. He’d tried it before, and the name of God burned his mouth and choked his throat. He wondered
why he could think the words but not say them. And why he could stand in the noonday sun and not die but he couldn’t say his last prayers.

Smoke had begun to drift down the corridor like a purposeful ghost. He could smell burning and hear the crackle of fire spreading out of control, but he felt oddly detached, far from everything. It was strange to become a vampire, to be presented with what could only be described as an eternal life, and then to die anyway when you were sixteen.

“Simon!” The voice was faint, but his hearing caught it over the pop and crackle of growing flames. The smoke in the corridor had presaged heat; the heat was here now, pressing against him like an oppressive wall. “Simon!”

The voice was Clary’s. He would know it anywhere. He wondered if his mind was conjuring it up now, a sense memory of what he’d most loved during life to carry him through the process of death.

“Simon, you stupid idiot! I’m over here! At the window!”

Simon jumped to his feet. He doubted his mind would conjure
that
up. Through the thickening smoke he saw something white moving against the bars of the window. As he came closer, the white objects evolved into hands gripping the bars. He leaped onto the cot, yelling over the sound of the fire. “Clary?”

“Oh, thank God.” One of the hands reached out, squeezed his shoulder. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“How?” Simon demanded, not unreasonably, but there was the sound of a scuffle and Clary’s hands vanished, replaced a moment later by another pair. These were bigger hands, unquestionably masculine, with scarred knuckles and thin pianist’s fingers.

“Hang on.” Jace’s voice was calm, confident, for all the world as if they were chatting at a party instead of through the bars of a rapidly burning dungeon. “You might want to stand back.”

Startled into obedience, Simon moved aside. Jace’s hands tightened on the bars, his knuckles whitening alarmingly. There was a groaning crack, and the square of bars jerked free of the stone that held it and clattered to the ground beside the bed. Stone dust rained down in a choking white cloud.

Jace’s face appeared at the empty square of window. “Simon. Come ON.” He reached down.

Simon reached up and caught Jace’s hands. He felt himself hauled up, and then he was grabbing at the edge of the window, lifting himself through the narrow square like a snake wriggling through a tunnel. A second later he was sprawled out on damp grass, staring up at a circle of worried faces above his. Jace, Clary, and Alec. They were all looking down at him in concern.

“You look like crap, vampire,” Jace said. “What happened to your hands?”

Simon sat up. The injuries to his hands had healed, but they were still black where he’d grabbed at the bars of his cell. Before he could reply, Clary caught him in a sudden, fierce hug.

“Simon,” she breathed. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t even know you were here. I thought you were in New York until last night—”

“Yeah, well,” Simon said, “I didn’t know you were here either.” He glared at Jace over her shoulder. “In fact, I think I was specifically told that you weren’t.”

“I never said that,” Jace pointed out. “I just didn’t correct
you when you were, you know, wrong. Anyway, I just saved you from being burned to death, so I figure you’re not allowed to be mad.”

Burned to death. Simon pulled away from Clary and stared around. They were in a square garden, surrounded on two sides by the walls of the fortress and on the other two sides by a heavy growth of trees. The trees had been cleared where a gravel path led down the hill to the city—it was lined with witchlight torches, but only a few were burning, their light dim and erratic. He looked up at the Gard. Seen from this angle, you could barely even tell there was a fire—black smoke stained the sky overhead, and the light in a few windows seemed unnaturally bright, but the stone walls hid their secret well.

“Samuel,” he said. “We have to get Samuel out.”

Clary looked baffled. “Who?”

“I wasn’t the only person down there. Samuel—he was in the next cell.”

“The heap of rags I saw through the window?” Jace recalled.

“Yeah. He’s kind of weird, but he’s a good guy. We can’t leave him down there.” Simon scrambled to his feet. “Samuel? Samuel!”

There was no answer. Simon ran to the low, barred window beside the one he’d just crawled through. Through the bars he could see only swirling smoke. “Samuel! Are you in there?”

Something moved inside the smoke—something hunched and dark. Samuel’s voice, roughened by smoke, rose hoarsely. “Leave me alone! Go away!”

“Samuel! You’ll die down there.” Simon yanked at the bars. Nothing happened.

“No! Leave me alone! I want to stay!”

Simon looked desperately around to see Jace beside him. “Move,” Jace said, and when Simon leaned to the side, he kicked out with a booted foot. It connected with the bars, which tore free violently from their mooring and tumbled into Samuel’s cell. Samuel gave a hoarse shout.

“Samuel! Are you all right?” A vision of Samuel being brained by the falling bars rose up before Simon’s eyes.

Samuel’s voice rose to a scream. “GO AWAY!”

Simon looked sideways at Jace. “I think he means it.”

Jace shook his blond head in exasperation. “You had to make a crazy jail friend, didn’t you? You couldn’t just count ceiling tiles or tame a pet mouse like normal prisoners do?” Without waiting for an answer, Jace got down on the ground and crawled through the window.

“Jace!” Clary yelped, and she and Alec hurried over, but Jace was already through the window, dropping into the cell below. Clary shot Simon an angry look. “How could you let him do that?”

“Well, he couldn’t leave that guy down there to die,” Alec said unexpectedly, though he looked a little anxious himself. “It’s Jace we’re talking about here—”

He broke off as two hands rose up out of the smoke. Alec grabbed one and Simon the other, and together they hauled Samuel like a limp sack of potatoes out of the cell and deposited him on the lawn. A moment later Simon and Clary were grabbing Jace’s hands and pulling him out, though he was considerably less limp and swore when they accidentally banged his head on the ledge. He shook them off, crawling the rest of the way onto the grass himself and then collapsing onto his back. “Ouch,” he said, staring up at the sky. “I think I pulled
something.” He sat up and glanced over at Samuel. “Is he okay?”