CITY OF GLASS

Valentine looked as he always had, a big man in modified Shadowhunter gear, his broad, thick shoulders at odds with his sharply planed, fine-featured face. He had the Mortal Sword strapped across his back along with a bulky satchel. He wore a wide belt with numerous weapons thrust through it: thick hunting daggers, narrow dirks, and skinning knives. Staring at Valentine from behind the rock, Jace felt as he always did now when he thought of his father—a persistent familial affection corroded through with bleakness, disappointment, and mistrust.

It was strange seeing his father with Sebastian, who looked—different. He wore gear as well, and a long silver-hilted sword strapped at his waist, but it wasn’t what he was wearing that struck Jace as odd. It was his hair, no longer a cap of dark curls but fair, shining-fair, a sort of white-gold. It suited him, actually, better than the dark hair had; his skin no longer looked so startlingly pale. He must have dyed his hair to resemble the real Sebastian Verlac, and this was what he really looked like. A sour, roiling wave of hatred coursed through Jace, and it was all he could do to stay hidden behind the rock and not lunge forward to wrap his hands around Sebastian’s throat.

Hugo cawed again and swooped down to land on Valentine’s shoulder. An odd pang went through Jace, seeing the raven in the posture that had become so familiar to him over the years he’d known Hodge. Hugo had practically lived on the tutor’s shoulder, and seeing him on Valentine’s felt oddly foreign, even wrong, despite everything Hodge had done.

Valentine reached up and stroked the bird’s glossy feathers, nodding as if the two of them were deep in conversation. Sebastian watched, his pale eyebrows arched. “Any word from Alicante?” he said as Hugo lifted himself from Valentine’s shoulder and soared into the air again, his wings brushing the gemlike tips of the stalactites.

“Nothing as comprehensible as I would like,” Valentine said. The sound of his father’s voice, cool and unruffled as ever, went through Jace like an arrow. His hands twitched involuntarily and he pressed them hard against his sides, grateful for the bulk of the rock hiding him from view. “One thing is certain. The Clave is allying itself with Lucian’s force of Downworlders.”

Sebastian frowned. “But Malachi said—”

“Malachi has failed.” Valentine’s jaw was set.

To Jace’s surprise Sebastian moved forward and put a hand on Valentine’s arm. There was something about that touch—something intimate and confident—that made Jace’s stomach feel as if it had been invaded by a nest of worms. No one touched Valentine like that. Even he would not have touched his father like that. “Are you upset?” Sebastian asked, and the same tone was in his voice, the same grotesque and peculiar assumption of closeness.

“The Clave is further gone than I had thought. I knew the Lightwoods were corrupted beyond hope, and that sort of corruption is contagious. It’s why I tried to keep them from entering Idris. But for the rest to have so easily had their minds filled with Lucian’s poison, when he is not even Nephilim …” Valentine’s disgust was plain, but he didn’t move away from Sebastian, Jace saw with growing disbelief, didn’t move to brush the boy’s hand from his shoulder. “I am disappointed. I thought they would see reason. I would have preferred not to end things this way.”

Sebastian looked amused. “I don’t agree,” he said. “Think of them, ready to do battle, riding out to glory, only to find that none of it matters. That their gesture is futile. Think of the looks on their faces.” His mouth stretched into a grin.

“Jonathan.” Valentine sighed. “This is ugly necessity, nothing to take delight in.”

Jonathan? Jace clutched at the rock, his hands suddenly slippery. Why would Valentine call Sebastian by his name? Was it a mistake? But Sebastian didn’t look surprised.

“Isn’t it better if I enjoy what I’m doing?” Sebastian said. “I certainly enjoyed myself in Alicante. The Lightwoods were better company than you led me to believe, especially that Isabelle. We certainly parted on a high note. And as for Clary—”

Just hearing Sebastian say Clary’s name made Jace’s heart skip a sudden, painful beat.

“She wasn’t at all like I thought she’d be,” Sebastian went on petulantly. “She wasn’t anything like me.”

“There is no one else in the world like you, Jonathan. And as for Clary, she has always been exactly like her mother.”

“She won’t admit what she really wants,” Sebastian said. “Not yet. But she’ll come around.”

Valentine raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, come around?”

Sebastian grinned, a grin that filled Jace with an almost uncontrollable rage. He bit down hard on his lip, tasting blood. “Oh, you know,” Sebastian said. “To our side. I can’t wait. Tricking her was the most fun I’ve had in ages.”