CITY OF ASHES

“You’re insane.” Jace looked down the length of the ship. It looked like a Bosch painting of hell. The darkness was full of demons: lumbering, howling, squawking, and slashing out with claws and teeth. Nephilim darted back and forth, their weapons bright in the shadows. Jace could see already that there weren’t enough Shadowhunters. Not nearly enough. “There’s no way—we’re in the middle of a battle—”

The Inquisitor’s bony grip was surprisingly strong. “Now.” She pushed him, and he took a step back, too surprised to do anything else, and then another, until they were standing in the recess of a wall. She let go of Jace and felt in the folds of her dark cloak, drawing forth two seraph blades. She whispered their names, and then several words Jace didn’t know, and flung them at the deck, one on either side of him. They stuck, points down, and a single blue-white sheet of light sprang up from them, walling Jace and the Inquisitor off from the rest of the ship.

“Are you locking me up again?” Jace demanded, staring at the Inquisitor in disbelief.

“This isn’t a Malachi Configuration. You can get out of it if you want.” Her thin hands clasped each other tightly. “Jonathan—”

“You mean Jace.” He could no longer see the battle past the wall of white light, but he could still hear the sounds of it, the screams and the howling of the demons. If he turned his head, he could just catch a glimpse of a small section of ocean, sparkling with light like diamonds scattered over the surface of a mirror. There were about a dozen boats down there, the sleek, multi-hulled trimarans used on the lakes in Idris. Shadowhunter boats. “What are you doing here, Inquisitor? Why did you come?”

“You were right,” she said. “About Valentine. He wouldn’t make the trade.”

“He told you to let me die.” Jace felt suddenly light-headed.

“The moment he refused, of course, I called the Conclave together and brought them here. I—I owe you and your family an apology.”

“Noted,” said Jace. He hated apologies. “Alec and Isabelle? Are they here? They won’t be punished for helping me?”

“They’re here, and no, they won’t be punished.” She was still staring at him, eyes searching. “I can’t understand Valentine,” she said. “For a father to throw away the life of his child, his only son—”

“Yeah,” said Jace. His head ached and he wished she would shut up, or that a demon would attack them. “It’s a conundrum, all right.”

“Unless…”

Now he looked at her in surprise. “Unless what?”

She jabbed a finger at his shoulder. “When did you get that?”

Jace looked down and saw that the spider demon’s poison had eaten a hole in his shirt, leaving a good deal of his left shoulder bare. “The shirt? At Macy’s. Winter sale.”

“The scar. This scar, here on your shoulder.”

“Oh, that.” Jace wondered at the intensity of her gaze. “I’m not sure. Something that happened when I was very young, my father said. An accident of some kind. Why?”

Breath hissed through the Inquisitor’s teeth. “It can’t be,” she murmured. “You can’t be—”

“I can’t be what?”

There was a note of uncertainty in the Inquisitor’s voice. “All those years,” she said, “when you were growing up—you truly thought you were Michael Wayland’s son—?”

Sharp fury went through Jace, made all the more painful by the tiny stab of disappointment that accompanied it. “By the Angel,” he spat, “you dragged me off here in the middle of battle just to ask me the same goddamned questions again? You didn’t believe me the first time and you still don’t believe me. You’ll never believe me, despite everything that’s happened, even though everything I told you was the truth.” He jabbed a finger toward whatever was happening on the other side of the wall of light. “I should be out there fighting. Why are you keeping me here? So after this is all over, if any of us are still even alive, you can go to the Clave and tell them I wouldn’t fight on your side against my father? Nice try.”

She had gone even paler than he’d thought possible. “Jonathan, that’s not what I—”

“My name is Jace!” he shouted. The Inquisitor flinched, her mouth half-open, as if she were still about to say something. Jace didn’t want to hear it. He stalked past her, nearly knocking her to the side, and kicked at one of the seraph blades in the deck. It toppled over and the wall of light vanished.

Beyond it was chaos. Dark shapes hurtled to and fro on deck, demons clambered over crumpled bodies, and the air was full of smoke and screaming. He strained to see anyone he knew in the melee. Where was Alec? Isabelle?

“Jace!” The Inquisitor hurried after him, her face pulled tight with fear. “Jace, you don’t have a weapon, at least take—”