This time there was no sound from the assembled crowd. Instead they seemed to go still, the way a pride of lions might go still when it spotted a gazelle.
“Dead?” Maryse repeated. “What do you mean, they’re dead?”
“I think it’s quite clear what he means.” A woman in a long gray coat had appeared suddenly at Maryse’s side. In the flickering light she looked to Clary like a sort of Edward Gorey caricature, all sharp angles and pulled-back hair and eyes like black pits scraped out of her face. She held a glimmering chunk of witchlight on a long silver chain, looped through the skinniest fingers Clary had ever seen. “They are all dead?” she asked, addressing herself to Alec. “You found no one alive in the City?”
Alec shook his head. “Not that we saw, Inquisitor.”
So that was the Inquisitor, Clary realized. She certainly looked like someone capable of tossing teenage boys into dungeon cells for no reason other than that she didn’t like their attitude.
“That you saw,” repeated the Inquisitor, her eyes like hard, glittering beads. She turned to Maryse. “There may yet be survivors. I would send your people into the City for a thorough check.”
Maryse’s lips tightened. From what very little Clary had learned about Maryse, she knew that Jace’s adoptive mother didn’t like being told what to do. “Very well.”
She turned to the rest of the Shadowhunters—there were not as many, Clary was coming to realize, as she had initially thought, closer to twenty than thirty, though the shock of their appearance had made them seem like a teeming crowd.
Maryse spoke to Malik in a low voice. He nodded. Taking the arm of the silver-haired woman, he led the Shadowhunters toward the entrance to the Bone City. As one after another descended the stairs, taking their witchlight with them, the glow in the courtyard began to fade. The last one in line was the woman with the silver hair. Halfway down the stairs she paused, turned, and looked back—directly at Clary. Her eyes were full of a terrible yearning, as if she longed desperately to tell Clary something. After a moment she drew her hood back up over her face and vanished into the shadows.
Maryse broke the silence. “Why would anyone murder the Silent Brothers? They’re not warriors, they don’t carry battle Marks—”
“Don’t be naive, Maryse,” said the Inquisitor. “This was no random attack. The Silent Brothers may not be warriors, but they are primarily guardians, and very good at their jobs. Not to mention hard to kill. Someone wanted something from the Bone City and was willing to kill the Silent Brothers to get it. This was premeditated.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“That wild goose chase that called us all out to Central Park? The dead fey child?”
“I wouldn’t call that a wild goose chase. The fey child was drained of blood, like the warlock. These killings could cause serious trouble between the Night Children and other Downworlders—”
“Distractions,” said the Inquisitor dismissively. “He wanted us gone from the Institute so that no one would respond to the Brothers when they called for aid. Ingenious, really. But then he always was ingenious.”
“He?” It was Isabelle who spoke, her face very pale between the black wings of her hair. “You mean—”
Jace’s next words sent a shock through Clary, as if she’d touched a live current. “Valentine,” he said. “Valentine took the Mortal Sword. That’s why he killed the Silent Brothers.”
A thin, sudden smile curved on the Inquisitor’s face, as if Jace had said something that pleased her very much.
Alec started and turned to stare at Jace. “Valentine? But you didn’t say he was here.”
“Nobody asked.”
“He couldn’t have killed the Brothers. They were torn apart. No one person could have done all that.”
“He probably had demonic help,” said the Inquisitor. “He’s used demons to aid him before. And with the protection of the Cup on him, he could summon some very dangerous creatures. More dangerous than Raveners,” she added with a curl of her lip, and though she didn’t look at Clary when she said it, the words felt somehow like a verbal slap. Clary’s faint hope that the Inquisitor hadn’t noticed or recognized her vanished. “Or the pathetic Forsaken.”
“I don’t know about that.” Jace was very pale, with hectic spots like fever on his cheekbones. “But it was Valentine. I saw him. In fact, he had the Sword with him when he came down to the cells and taunted me through the bars. It was like a bad movie, except he didn’t actually twirl his mustache.”
Clary looked at him worriedly. He was talking too fast, she thought, and looked unsteady on his feet.
The Inquisitor didn’t seem to notice. “So you’re saying that Valentine told you all this? He told you he killed the Silent Brothers because he wanted the Angel’s Sword?”
“What else did he tell you? Did he tell you where he was going? What he plans to do with the two Mortal Instruments?” Maryse asked quickly.
CITY OF ASHES
CASSANDRA CLARE's books
- City of Ruins
- Invincible (A Centennial City Novel)
- City of Fae
- City of Lost Souls
- City of Heavenly Fire
- CITY OF GLASS
- City of Fallen Angels
- CITY OF BONES
- City of Lost Souls
- Velocity
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)