The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (292 page)

It was like returning to a dream, or a nightmare.

After the Mortal War, Angel Square had been full of bodies. Shadowhunter bodies, laid out in neat rows, each corpse with its eyes bound in the white silk of death.

There were bodies in the square again, but this time there was also chaos. The demon towers were shining down a brilliant light on the scene that greeted Simon when, having followed
Isabelle and Alec through the winding streets of Alicante, he finally reached the Hall of Accords. The square was full of people. Nephilim in gear lay on the ground, some writhing in pain and calling out, some alarmingly still.

The Accords Hall itself was dark and shut tight. One of the larger stone buildings on the square was open and blazing with lights, double doors thrown wide. A stream of Shadowhunters was going in and out.

Isabelle had risen up on tiptoe and was scanning the crowd anxiously. Simon followed her gaze. He could make out a few familiar figures: the Consul moving anxiously among her people, Kadir from the New York Institute, Silent Brothers in their parchment robes directing people wordlessly toward the lighted building. “The Basilias is open,” Isabelle said to a haggard-looking Alec. “They might have taken Jace in there, if he was hurt—”

“He was hurt,” Alec said shortly.

“The Basilias?” Simon asked.

“The hospital,” Isabelle said, indicating the lighted building. Simon could feel her thrumming with nervous, panicked energy. “I should—we should—”

“I’ll go with you,” Simon said.

She shook her head. “Shadowhunters only.”

Alec said, “Isabelle. Come on.” He was holding the shoulder marked by his
parabatai
rune stiffly. Simon wanted to say something to him, wanted to say that his best friend had also gone into the battle and was also missing, wanted to say that he understood. But maybe you could only understand
parabatai
if you were a Shadowhunter. He doubted Alec would thank him for saying he understood. Rarely had Simon felt so
keenly the divide between Nephilim and those who were not Nephilim.

Isabelle nodded and followed her brother without another word. Simon watched them go across the square, past the statue of the Angel, looking down on the aftermath of the battle with sad marble eyes. They went up the front steps of the Basilias and were lost to even his vampire sight.

“Do you think,” said a soft voice at his shoulder, “that they would mind much if we fed on their dead?”

It was Raphael. His curly hair was a mussed halo around his head, and he wore only a thin T-shirt and jeans. He looked like a child.

“The blood of the recently deceased is not my favorite vintage,” he went on, “but it is better than bottled blood, would you not agree?”

“You have an incredibly charming personality,” said Simon. “I hope someone’s told you that.”

Raphael snorted. “Sarcasm,” he said. “Tedious.”

Simon made an uncontrollable, exasperated noise. “You go ahead then. Feed on the Nephilim dead. I’m sure they’re really in the mood for that. They might let you live five, ten seconds even.”

Raphael chuckled. “It looks worse than it is,” he said. “There are not so many dead. Quite a lot injured. They were overmatched. They will not forget, now, what it means to fight the Endarkened.”

Simon narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about the Endarkened, Raphael?”

“Whispers and shadows,” said Raphael. “But I make it my business to know things.”

“Then if you know things, tell me where Jace and Clary are,” said Simon, without a lot of hope. Raphael was rarely helpful unless it was useful to him.

“Jace is in the Basilias,” said Raphael, to Simon’s surprise. “It appears the heavenly fire in his veins was finally too much for him. He nearly destroyed himself, and one of the Silent Brothers along with him.”

“What?”
Simon’s anxiety sharpened from the general to the specific. “Is he going to live? Where’s Clary?”

Raphael cast him a look out of dark, long-lashed eyes; his smile was lopsided. “It does not do for vampires to fret overmuch for the lives of mortals.”

“I swear to God, Raphael, if you don’t start being more helpful—”

“Very well, then. Come with me.” Raphael moved farther into the shadows, keeping to the inside edge of the square. Simon hurried to catch up with him. He caught sight of a blond head and a dark head bent together—Aline and Helen, tending to one of the wounded—and thought for a moment of Alec and Jace.

“If you are wondering what would happen if you drank Jace’s blood now, the answer is that it would kill you,” said Raphael. “Vampires and heavenly fire do not mix. Yes, even you, Daylighter.”

“I wasn’t wondering that.” Simon scowled. “I was wondering what happened at the battle.”

“Sebastian attacked the Adamant Citadel,” said Raphael, moving around a tight knot of Shadowhunters. “Where the weapons of the Shadowhunters are forged. The place of the Iron Sisters. He tricked the Clave into believing he had a force
of only twenty with him, when in fact he had more. He would have killed them all and taken the Citadel most likely, if not for your Jace—”

“He isn’t my Jace.”

“And Clary,” said Raphael, as if Simon hadn’t spoken. “Though I do not know the details. Only what I have overheard, and there seems much confusion among the Nephilim themselves as to what happened.”

“How did Sebastian manage to trick them into thinking he had fewer warriors than he did?”

Raphael shrugged a thin shoulder. “Shadowhunters forget sometimes that not all magic is theirs. The Citadel is built on ley lines. There is old magic, wild magic, that existed before Jonathan Shadowhunter, and will exist again—”

He broke off, and Simon followed his gaze. For a moment Simon saw only a sheet of blue light. Then it subsided and he saw Clary lying on the ground. He heard a roaring sound in his ears, like rushing blood. She was white and still, her fingers and mouth tinged a dark bluish purple. Her hair hung in lank straggles around her face, and her eyes were circled with shadows. She wore torn and bloody gear, and by her hand lay a Morgenstern sword, its blade stamped with stars.

Magnus was leaning over her, his hand on her cheek, the tips of his fingers glowing blue. Jocelyn and Luke knelt on the other side of Clary. Jocelyn looked up and saw Simon. Her lips shaped his name. He couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in his ears. Was Clary dead? She looked dead, or nearly.

He started forward, but Luke was already on his feet, reaching for Simon. He caught at Simon’s arms, pulled him back from where Clary lay on the ground.

Simon’s vampire nature gave him unnatural strength, strength he’d barely learned how to use yet, but Luke was just as strong. His fingers dug into Simon’s upper arms. “What happened?” Simon said, his voice rising. “Raphael—?” He whipped around to look for the vampire, but Raphael was gone; he had melted into the shadows. “Please,” Simon said to Luke, looking from his familiar face to Clary. “Let me—”

“Simon, no,” Magnus barked. He was tracing his fingertips over Clary’s face, leaving blue sparks in their wake. She didn’t move or react. “This is delicate—her energy is extremely low.”

“Shouldn’t she be in the Basilias?” Simon demanded, looking over at the hospital building. Light was still pouring from it, and to his surprise he saw Alec standing on the steps. He was staring at Magnus. Before Simon could move or signal to him, Alec turned abruptly and went back inside the building.

“Magnus—” Simon began.

“Simon,
shut up
,” Magnus said through gritted teeth. Simon twisted out of Luke’s grasp only to trip and fetch up against the side of a stone wall.

“But Clary—” he started.

Luke looked haggard, but his expression was firm. “Clary exhausted herself making a healing rune. But she’s not wounded, her body’s whole, and Magnus can help her better than the Silent Brothers can. The best thing you can do is stay out of the way.”

“Jace,” Simon said. “Alec felt something happen to him through the
parabatai
bond. Something to do with the heavenly fire. And Raphael was babbling about ley lines—”

“Look, the battle was bloodier than the Nephilim expected. Sebastian wounded Jace, but the heavenly fire rebounded on
him, somehow. It nearly destroyed Jace as well. Clary saved Jace’s life, but there’s still work for the Brothers to do, healing him.” Luke looked at Simon with tired blue eyes. “And why were you with Isabelle and Alec? I thought you were going to stay behind in New York. Did you come because of Jordan?”

The name brought Simon up short. “Jordan? What does he have to do with anything?”

For the first time Luke seemed truly taken aback. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Luke hesitated a long moment. Then he said, “I have something for you. Magnus brought it from New York.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a medallion on a chain. The medallion was gold, stamped with a wolf’s paw and the Latin inscription
Beati Bellicosi
.

Blessed are the warriors.

Simon knew it instantly. Jordan’s Praetor Lupus pendant. It was flaked and stained with blood. Dark red like rust, it clung to the chain and the medallion’s face. But if anyone knew what was rust and what was blood, it was a vampire. “I don’t understand,” Simon said. The roaring was back in his ears again. “Why do you have this? Why are you giving it to me?”

“Because Jordan wanted you to have it,” said Luke.

“Wanted?” Simon’s voice rose. “Don’t you mean ‘wants’?”

Luke took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Simon. Jordan’s dead.”

Clary woke to the fading
afterimage of a rune against her closed eyelids—a rune like wings connected by a single bar. Her whole body hurt, and for a moment she lay still, afraid of the pain that moving would bring. Memories crept back slowly—the icy lava plain in front of the Citadel, Amatis laughing and daring Clary to hurt her, Jace cutting his way through a field of the Endarkened; Jace on the ground bleeding fire, Brother Zachariah lurching back from the blaze.

Her eyes flew open. She had half-expected to wake up somewhere entirely foreign, but instead she was lying in the small wooden bed in Amatis’s spare room. Pale sunshine poured through the lace curtains, making patterns on the ceiling.

She began to struggle to sit up. Near her someone had been
singing softly—her mother. Jocelyn broke off immediately and leaped up to lean over her. She looked as if she had been up all night: She was wearing an old shirt and jeans, and her hair was scraped back into a bun with a pencil stuck through it. A wash of familiarity and relief went through Clary, quickly followed by panic.

“Mom,” she said as Jocelyn leaned over her, pressing the back of her hand to Clary’s forehead as if checking for fever. “Jace—”

“Jace is fine,” Jocelyn said, taking her hand away. At Clary’s suspicious look Jocelyn shook her head. “He really is. He’s in the Basilias now, along with Brother Zachariah. He’s recovering.”

Clary looked at her mother, hard.

“Clary, I know I’ve given you reason not to trust me in the past, but please believe me, Jace is
perfectly all right
. I know you’d never forgive me if I didn’t tell you the truth about him.”

“When can I see him?”

“Tomorrow.” Jocelyn sat back on the chair beside the bed, revealing Luke, who had been leaning against the wall of the bedroom. He smiled at Clary—a sad, loving, protective smile.

“Luke!” she said, relieved to see him. “Tell Mom I’m fine. I can go to the Basilias—”

Luke shook his head. “Sorry, Clary. No visitors for Jace right now. Besides, today you have to rest. We heard what you did with that
iratze
, at the Citadel.”

“Or at least, what people saw you do. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand it exactly.” The lines at the corners of Jocelyn’s mouth deepened. “You nearly killed yourself healing Jace, Clary. You’re going to have to be careful. You don’t have endless reserves of energy—”

“He was dying,” Clary interrupted. “He was bleeding fire. I had to save him.”

“
You
shouldn’t have had to!” Jocelyn tossed a stray lock of red hair out of her eyes. “What were you doing at that battle?”

“They weren’t sending enough people through,” Clary said in a subdued tone. “And everyone was talking about how when they got there, they were going to rescue the Endarkened, they were going to bring them back, find a cure—but I was at the Burren. You were too, Mom. You know there’s no rescuing the Nephilim that Sebastian’s taken with the Infernal Cup.”

“Did you see my sister?” Luke said, his voice gentle.

Clary swallowed, and nodded. “I’m sorry. She’s—she’s Sebastian’s lieutenant. She’s not herself anymore, not even a little bit.”

“Did she hurt you?” Luke demanded. His voice was still calm, but a muscle jumped in his cheek.

Clary shook her head; she couldn’t bring herself to speak, to lie, but she couldn’t tell Luke the truth, either.

“It’s all right,” he said, misunderstanding her distress. “The Amatis that is serving Sebastian is no more my sister than the Jace who served Sebastian was the boy you loved. No more my sister than Sebastian is the son your mother ought to have had.”