CITY OF GLASS

And stared. She was standing at the foot of the broad road on which the Penhallows’ house fronted. She could no longer see Aline—the other girl had disappeared into the churning throng of people crowding the street. And not just people, either. There were things in the street—demons—dozens of them, maybe more, like the taloned lizard-creature Aline had dispatched under the bridge. Two or three bodies lay in the street already, one only a few feet from Isabelle—a man, half his rib cage torn away. Isabelle could see from his gray hair that he’d been elderly. But of course he was, she thought, her brain ticking over slowly, the speed of her thoughts dulled by panic. All the adults are in the Gard. Down in the city are only children, the old, and the sick….

The red-tinged air was full of the smell of burning, the night split by shrieks and screams. Doors were open all up and down the rows of houses—people were darting out of them, then stopping dead as they saw the street filled with monsters.

It was impossible, unimaginable. Never in history had a single demon crossed the wards of the demon towers. And now there were dozens. Hundreds. Maybe more, flooding the streets like a poisonous tide. Isabelle felt as if she were trapped behind a glass wall, able to see everything but unable to move—watching, frozen, as a demon seized a fleeing boy and lifted him bodily off the ground, sinking its serrated teeth into his shoulder.

The boy screamed, but his screams were lost in the clamor that was tearing the night apart. The sound rose and rose in volume: the howling of demons, people calling one another’s names, the sounds of running feet and shattering glass. Someone down the street was shouting words she could barely understand—something about the demon towers. Isabelle looked up. The tall spires stood sentry over the city as they always had, but instead of reflecting the silver light of the stars, or even the red light of the burning city, they were as dead white as the skin of a corpse. Their luminescence had vanished. A chill ran through her. No wonder the streets were full of monsters—somehow, impossibly, the demon towers had lost their magic. The wards that had protected Alicante for a thousand years were gone.

Samuel had fallen silent hours ago, but Simon was still awake, staring sleeplessly into the darkness, when he heard the screaming.

His head jerked up. Silence. He looked around uneasily—had he dreamed the noise? He strained his ears, but even with his newly sensitive hearing, nothing was audible. He was about to lie back down, when the screams came again, driving into his ears like needles. It sounded as if they were coming from outside the Gard.

Rising, he stood on the bed and looked out the window. He saw the green lawn stretching away, the faraway light of the city a faint glow in the distance. He narrowed his eyes. There was something wrong about the city light, something … off. It was dimmer than he remembered it—and there were moving points here and there in the darkness, like needles of fire, weaving through the streets. A pale cloud rose above the towers, and the air was full of the stench of smoke.

“Samuel.” Simon could hear the alarm in his own voice. “There’s something wrong.”

He heard doors slamming open and running feet. Hoarse voices shouted. Simon pressed his face close to the bars as pairs of boots hurtled by outside, kicking up stones as they ran, the Shadowhunters calling to one another as they raced away from the Gard, down toward the city.

“The wards are down! The wards are down!”

“We can’t abandon the Gard!”

“The Gard doesn’t matter! Our children are down there!”

Their voices were already growing fainter. Simon jerked back from the window, gasping. “Samuel! The wards—”

“I know. I heard.” Samuel’s voice came strongly through the wall. He didn’t sound frightened but resigned, and even perhaps a little triumphant at being proved right. “Valentine has attacked while the Clave is in session. Clever.”

“But the Gard—it’s fortified; why don’t they stay up here?”

“You heard them. Because all the children are in the city. Children, aged parents—they can’t just leave them down there.”

The Lightwoods. Simon thought of Jace, and then, with terrible clarity, of Isabelle’s small, pale face under her crown of dark hair, of her determination in a fight, of the little-girl Xs and Os on the note she’d written him. “But you told them—you told the Clave what would happen. Why didn’t they believe you?”

“Because the wards are their religion. Not to believe in the power of the wards is not to believe that they are special, chosen, and protected by the Angel. They might as well believe they’re just ordinary mundanes.”

Simon swung back to stare out the window again, but the smoke had thickened, filling the air with a grayish pallor. He could no longer hear voices shouting outside; there were cries in the distance, but they were very faint. “I think the city is on fire.”

“No.” Samuel’s voice was very quiet. “I think it’s the Gard that’s burning. Probably demon fire. Valentine would go after the Gard, if he could.”

“But—” Simon’s words stumbled over one another. “But someone will come and let us out, won’t they? The Consul, or—or Aldertree. They can’t just leave us down here to die.”

“You’re a Downworlder,” said Samuel. “And I’m a traitor. Do you really think they’re likely to do anything else?”