CITY OF GLASS

And in some way, Clary thought, he meant it, meant his gratitude. He had long ago lost the ability to distinguish between force and cooperation, between fear and willingness, between love and torture. And with that realization came a rush of numbness—what was the point of hating Valentine for being a monster when he didn’t even know he was one?

“And now,” Valentine said, “I just need a bit more,” and Clary thought, A bit more what?—just as he swung the Sword back and the starlight exploded off it, and she thought, Of course. It’s not just blood he wants, but death. The Sword had fed itself on enough blood by now; it probably had a taste for it, just like Valentine himself. Her eyes followed Maellartach’s black light as it sliced toward her—

And went flying. Knocked out of Valentine’s hand, it hurtled into the darkness. Valentine’s eyes went wide; his gaze flicked down, fastening first on his bleeding sword hand—and then he looked up and saw, at the same moment that Clary did, what had struck the Mortal Sword from his grasp.

Jace, a familiar-looking sword gripped in his left hand, stood at the edge of a rise of sand, barely a foot from Valentine. Clary could see from the older man’s expression that he hadn’t heard Jace approach any more than she had.

Clary’s heart caught at the sight of him. Dried blood crusted the side of his face, and there was a livid red mark at his throat. His eyes shone like mirrors, and in the witchlight they looked black—black as Sebastian’s. “Clary,” he said, not taking his eyes off his father. “Clary, are you all right?”

Jace! She struggled to say his name, but nothing could pass the blockage in her throat. She felt as if she were choking.

“She can’t answer you,” said Valentine. “She can’t speak.”

Jace’s eyes flashed. “What have you done to her?” He jabbed the sword toward Valentine, who took a step back. The look on Valentine’s face was wary but not frightened. There was a calculation to his expression that Clary didn’t like. She knew she ought to feel triumphant, but she didn’t—if anything, she felt more panicked than she had a moment ago. She’d realized that Valentine was going to kill her—had accepted it—and now Jace was here, and her fear had expanded to encompass him as well. And he looked so … destroyed. His gear was ripped halfway open down one arm, and the skin beneath was crisscrossed with white lines. His shirt was torn across the front, and there was a fading iratze over his heart that had not quite managed to erase the angry red scar beneath it. Dirt stained his clothes, as if he’d been rolling around on the ground. But it was his expression that frightened her the most. It was so—bleak.

“A Rune of Quietude. She won’t be hurt by it.” Valentine’s eyes fastened on Jace—hungrily, Clary thought, as if he were drinking in the sight of him. “I don’t suppose,” Valentine asked, “that you’ve come to join me? To be blessed by the Angel beside me?”

Jace’s expression didn’t change. His eyes were fixed on his adoptive father, and there was nothing in them—no lingering shred of affection or love or memory. There wasn’t even any hatred. Just … disdain, Clary thought. A cold disdain. “I know what you’re planning to do,” Jace said. “I know why you’re summoning the Angel. And I won’t let you do it. I’ve already sent Isabelle to warn the army—”

“Warnings will do them little good. This is not the sort of danger you can run from.” Valentine’s gaze flicked down to Jace’s sword. “Put that down,” he began, “and we can talk—” He broke off then. “That’s not your sword. That’s a Morgenstern sword.”

Jace smiled, a dark, sweet smile. “It was Jonathan’s. He’s dead now.”

Valentine looked stunned. “You mean—”

“I took it from the ground where he’d dropped it,” Jace said, without emotion, “after I killed him.”

Valentine seemed dumbfounded. “You killed Jonathan? How could you have?”

“He would have killed me,” said Jace. “I had no choice.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Valentine shook his head; he still looked stunned, like a boxer who’d been hit too hard in the moment before he collapsed to the mat. “I raised Jonathan—I trained him myself. There was no better warrior.”

“Apparently,” Jace said, “there was.”

“But—” And Valentine’s voice cracked, the first time Clary had ever heard a flaw in the smooth, unruffled facade of that voice. “But he was your brother.”

“No. He wasn’t.” Jace took a step forward, nudging the blade an inch closer to Valentine’s heart. “What happened to my real father? Isabelle said he died in a raid, but did he really? Did you kill him like you killed my mother?”