The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (302 page)

Jace’s expression had gone bleak, but he met her eyes with the same understanding that had lodged like a needle in her heart. They could not stand back and let this happen. They would go to Sebastian. It was the only choice.

She started forward, meaning to call out, but she found herself jerked back by a hard grip on her wrist. She turned, expecting Simon, and saw to her surprise that it was Isabelle. “Don’t,” Isabelle said.

“You are a fool and a follower,” snapped Kadir, his eyes angry as he regarded Matthias. “No Downworlders will hold us accountable for not sacrificing two of our children to Jonathan Morgenstern’s pyre of corpses.”

“Oh, but he will not kill them,” said Matthias with vicious glee. “You have his word on the Angel that no harm will come to the Morgenstern girl or the Lightwood boy. They are his family, and he desires them by his side. So there is no sacrifice.”

Clary felt something brush her cheek—it was Jace. He had
kissed her, quickly, and she remembered Sebastian’s Judas kiss the night before and whirled to catch at him, but he was gone already, away from all of them, striding out onto the aisle of stairs between the benches. “I will go!” he shouted, and his voice rang through the room. “I will go, willingly.” His sword was in his hand. He threw it down, where it clattered on the steps. “I will go with Sebastian,” he said, into the silence that followed. “Just leave Clary out of it. Let her stay. Take me alone.”

“Jace,
no
,” Alec said, but his voice was drowned by the clamor that ran through the room, voices rising like smoke and curling up toward the ceiling, and Jace stood calmly, with his hands out, showing he had no weapons, his hair shining under the light of the runes. A sacrificial angel.

Matthias Gonzales laughed. “There will be no bargain without Clarissa,” he said. “Sebastian demands her, and I deliver what my master demands.”

“You think we’re fools,” Jace said. “Actually, I know better than that. You don’t
think
at all. You’re a mouthpiece for a demon, that’s all you are. You don’t care about anything anymore. Not family or blood or honor. You’re no longer human.”

Matthias sneered. “Why would anyone want to be human?”

“Because your bargain is worthless,” said Jace. “So we give ourselves up, and Sebastian returns his hostages. Then what? You’ve been at such pains to tell us how much better he is than the Nephilim, how much stronger, how much cleverer. How he can strike at us here in Alicante, and all our wards and all our guards can’t keep him out. How he’ll destroy us all. If you want to bargain with someone, you offer them a chance to
win
. If you were human, you’d know that.”

In the silence that followed, Clary thought you could have
heard a drop of blood strike the floor. Matthias was still, his blade still pinned against Jia’s throat, his lips shaping words as if he were whispering something, or reciting something he had heard—

Or listening, she realized, listening to words being whispered into his ear . . .

“You cannot win,” Matthias said finally, and Jace laughed, that sharp acerbic laugh Clary had first fallen in love with. Not a sacrificial angel, she thought, but an avenging one, all gold and blood and fire, confident even in the face of defeat.

“You see what I mean,” Jace said. “Then what does it matter if we die now or die later—”

“You cannot
win
,” said Matthias, “but you can
survive
. Those of you who choose it can be changed by the Infernal Cup; you will become soldiers of the Morning Star, and you will rule the world with Jonathan Morgenstern as your leader. Those who choose to remain the children of Raziel may do so, as long as you remain in Idris. The borders of Idris will be sealed, closing it away from the rest of the world, which will belong to us. This land granted you by the Angel, you will keep, and keeping within its borders, you will be safe. That, you can be promised.”

Jace glared. “Sebastian’s promises mean nothing.”

“His promises are all you have,” said Matthias. “Keep your alliance with Downworlders, stay within the borders of Idris, and you will survive. But this offer stands only so long as you give yourselves willingly up to our master. You and Clarissa both. There is no negotiation.”

Clary looked slowly around the room. Some of the Nephilim looked anxious, others fearful, others full of rage. And others were calculating. She remembered the day when she had stood
up in the Hall of Accords in front of these same people and showed them the Binding rune that could win their war. They had been grateful, then. But this was also the same Council who had voted to cease searching for Jace when Sebastian had taken him, because one boy’s life had not been worth their resources.

Especially when that boy had been Valentine’s adopted son.

She had thought once that there were good people and bad people, that there was a side of light and a side of darkness, but she no longer thought that. She had seen evil, in her brother and her father, the evil of good intentions gone wrong and the evil of sheer desire for power. But in goodness there was also no safety: Virtue could cut like a knife, and the fire of Heaven was blinding.

She moved away from Alec and Isabelle, felt Simon catch at her arm. She turned and looked at him, and shook her head.
You have to let me do this.

His dark eyes pleaded with her. “Don’t,” he whispered.

“He said both of us,” she whispered back. “If Jace goes to Sebastian without me, Sebastian will kill him.”

“He’ll kill you both anyway.” Isabelle was nearly crying with frustration. “You can’t go, and Jace can’t either—
Jace!
”

Jace turned to look at them. Clary saw his expression change as he realized she was struggling to get to him. He shook his head, mouthing the word: “No.”

“Give us time,” Robert Lightwood called. “Give us some time to cast a vote, at least.”

Matthias drew the knife away from Jia’s throat and held it aloft; his other arm circled her, his hand gripping the front of her robes. He raised the knife toward the ceiling, and light
sparked off it at the gesture. “Time,” he sneered. “Why should Sebastian give you time?”

A sharp singing noise cut the air. Clary saw something bright shoot past her, and heard the noise of metal striking metal as an arrow slammed into the knife Matthias held above Jia’s head, knocking it free of his grasp. Clary whipped her head sideways and saw Alec, his bow raised, the string still vibrating.

Matthias let out a roar and staggered back, his hand bleeding. Jia darted away from him as he dived for his fallen blade. Clary heard Jace call out
“Nakir!”
He had drawn a seraph blade from his belt and its light illuminated the hall. “Get out of my
way
!” he shouted, and began to shoulder his way down the steps, toward the dais.

“No!” Alec, dropping his bow, flung himself over the back of the row of benches, and dived on top of Jace, knocking him to the ground just as the dais went up in flames like a bonfire doused with gasoline. Jia cried out and leaped from the platform into the crowd; Kadir caught her and lowered her gently as all the Shadowhunters turned to stare at the rising flames.

“What the hell,” Simon whispered, his fingers still clasped around Clary’s arm. She could see Matthias, a black shadow at the heart of the flames. They were clearly not harming him; he seemed to be laughing, throwing up his arms over and over as if he were a conductor directing an orchestra of fire. The room was full of shrieks and the stink and crackle of burning wood. Aline had run to clutch at her bleeding mother, weeping; Helen was watching helplessly as, along with Julian, she tried to shield the younger Blackthorns from what was happening below.

No one was shielding Emma, though. She was standing apart from the group, her small face white with shock as, over the already horrible sounds filling the room, Matthias’s cries pierced the din: “Two days, Nephilim! You have two days to decide your fate! And then you will all burn! You will burn in the fires of Hell, and the ashes of Edom will cover your bones!”

His voice rose to an unearthly shriek and was suddenly silenced, as the flames dropped away and he disappeared along with them. The last of the embers licked across the floor, their glowing tips barely touching the message still scrawled in ichor across the dais.

Veni.

I HAVE COME.

It had taken Maia two minutes of deep breathing outside the apartment door before she could bring herself to slide the key into the lock.

Everything in the hallway seemed normal, eerily so. Jordan’s coats, and Simon’s, hung on pegs in the narrow entranceway. The walls were decorated with street signs bought from flea markets.

She moved into the living room, which seemed frozen in time: The TV was on, the screen showing dark static, the two game controllers still on the couch. They’d forgotten to turn off the coffeepot. She went and flipped the switch, trying as hard as she could to ignore all the pictures of herself and Jordan stuck to the fridge: them on the Brooklyn Bridge, drinking coffee at the Waverly Place diner, Jordan laughing and showing off his fingernails, which Maia had painted blue and green and red. She hadn’t realized how
many
pictures he’d taken of them,
as if he’d been trying to record every second of their interactions, lest they slip through his memories like water.

She had to steel herself again before she could go into the bedroom. The bed was still mussed and untucked—Jordan had never been particularly neat—his clothes scattered around the room. Maia went across the room to the bureau where she’d kept her own belongings and stripped off Leila’s clothes.

With relief she threw on her own jeans and T-shirt. She was reaching to pull out a coat when the doorbell rang.

Jordan had kept his weapons, issued to him by the Praetor, in the trunk at the foot of the bed. She flung the trunk open and scooped up a heavy iron vial with a cross carved into the front.

She flung on her coat and stalked into the living room, the vial in her pocket, her fingers wrapped around it. She reached out and yanked the front door open.

The girl who stood on the other side had dark hair falling sheer to her shoulders. Against it her skin was dead white, her lips dark red. She wore a severely tailored black suit; she was a modern Snow White in blood, char, and ice. “You called me,” she said. “Jordan Kyle’s girlfriend, am I correct?”

Lily—she’s one of the smartest of the vampire clan. Knows everything. She and Raphael were always thick as thieves.

“Don’t act like you don’t know, Lily,” Maia snapped. “You’ve been here before; I’m pretty sure you grabbed Simon from this apartment for Maureen.”

“And?” Lily crossed her arms, making her expensive suit crackle. “Are you going to invite me in, or not?”

“I’m not,” said Maia. “We’re going to talk here, in the hallway.”

“Dull.” Lily leaned back against the wall with its peeling paint, and made a face. “Why did you summon me here, werewolf?”

“Maureen is crazy,” said Maia. “Raphael and Simon are gone. Sebastian Morgenstern is murdering Downworlders to make a point to the Nephilim. And maybe it’s time for the vampires and lycanthropes to talk. Even to ally.”

“Well, aren’t you as cute as a bug’s ear,” Lily said, and stood up straight. “Look, Maureen’s crazy, but she’s still the clan leader. And I can tell you one thing. She isn’t going to parley with some jumped-up pack member who’s lost the plot because her boyfriend died.”

Maia tightened her grip on the bottle in her hand. She yearned to throw the contents in Lily’s face, so much so that it frightened her.

“Call me when you’re the pack leader.” There was a dark light in the vampire girl’s eyes, as if she were trying to tell Maia something without saying the words. “And we’ll talk then.”

Lily turned and clicked off down the hallway on her high heels. Slowly Maia loosened her grip on the bottle of holy water in her pocket.

“Nice shot,” Jace said.

“You don’t need to make fun of me.” Alec and Jace were in one of the Gard’s dizzying array of meeting rooms—not the same room Jace had been in earlier with Clary, but another more austere room in an older part of the Gard. The walls were stone, and there was one long bench that ran across the west wall. Jace was kneeling on it, his jacket thrown aside, the right sleeve of his shirt rolled up.