CITY OF ASHES

“What’s that?” asked Alec.

“Their blood,” said Magnus, and opened the green book. The thin parchment pages had words written on them that glowed like fire. “Ah,” he said, “here.” He looked up, tapping the page with a sharp fingernail. Alec leaned forward. “You won’t be able to read it,” Magnus warned him. “It’s written in a demon language. Purgatic.”

“I can recognize the drawing, though. That’s Maellartach. I’ve seen it before in books.” Alec pointed at an illustration of a silver sword, familiar to Clary—it was the one she’d noticed was missing from the wall of the Silent City.

“The Ritual of Infernal Conversion,” Magnus said. “That’s what Valentine’s trying to do.”

“The what of what?” Clary frowned.

“Every magical object has an alliance,” Magnus explained. “The alliance of the Soul-Sword is seraphic—like those angel knives you Shadowhunters use, but a thousand times more so, because its power was drawn from the Angel himself, not simply from the invocation of an angelic name. What Valentine wants to do is reverse its alliance—make it an object of demonic rather than angelic power.”

“Lawful good to lawful evil!” said Simon, pleased.

“He’s quoting Dungeons and Dragons,” said Clary. “Ignore him.”

“As the Angel’s Sword, Maellartach’s use to Valentine would be limited,” said Magnus. “But as a sword whose demonic power is equal to the angelic power it once possessed—well, there is much it could offer him. Power over demons, for one. Not just the limited protection the Cup might offer, but power to call demons to him, to force them to do his bidding.”

“A demon army?” said Alec.

“This guy is big on armies,” observed Simon.

“Power even to bring them into Idris, perhaps,” Magnus finished.

“I don’t know why he’d want to go there,” Simon said. “That’s where all the demon hunters are, aren’t they? Wouldn’t they just annihilate the demon guys?”

“Demons come from other dimensions,” said Jace. “We don’t know how many of them there are. Their numbers could be infinite. The wardings keep most of them back, but if they all came through at once…”

Infinite, Clary thought. She remembered the Greater Demon, Abbadon, and tried to imagine hundreds more of it. Or thousands. Her skin felt cold and exposed.

“I don’t get it,” said Alec. “What does the ritual have to do with dead Downworlders?”

“To perform the Ritual of Conversion, you need to seethe the Sword until it’s red-hot, then cool it four times, each time in the blood of a Downworld child. Once in the blood of a child of Lilith, once in the blood of a child of the moon, once in the blood of a child of the night, and once in the blood of a child of faerie,” Magnus explained.

“Oh my God,” said Clary. “So he’s not done killing? There’s still one more child to go?”

“Two more. He didn’t succeed with the werewolf child. He was interrupted before he could get all the blood he needed.” Magnus shut the book, dust puffing out from its pages. “Whatever Valentine’s ultimate goal is, he’s already more than halfway to reversing the Sword. He’s probably able to garner some power from it already. He could already be calling on demons—”

“But you’d think if he were doing that, there’d be reports of disturbances, excess demon activity,” Jace said. “But the Inquisitor said the opposite is true—that everything’s been quiet.”

“And so it might be,” said Magnus, “if Valentine were calling all the demons to him. No wonder it’s quiet.”

The group stared at one another. Before anyone could think of a single thing to say, a sharp noise cut through the room, making Clary start. Hot coffee spilled onto her wrist and she gasped at the sudden pain.

“It’s my mother,” said Alec, checking his phone. “I’ll be right back.” He went over to the window, head down, voice too low to overhear.

“Let me see,” said Simon, taking Clary’s hand. There was an angry red blotch on her wrist where the hot liquid had scalded her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “No big deal.”

Simon lifted her hand and kissed the injury. “All better now.”

Clary made a startled noise. He had never done anything like that before. Then again, that was the sort of thing boyfriends did, didn’t they? Drawing her wrist back, she looked across the table and saw Jace staring at them, his golden eyes blazing. “You’re a Shadowhunter,” he said. “You know how to deal with injuries.” He slid his stele across the table toward her. “Use it.”

“No,” Clary said, and pushed the stele back across the table at him.

Jace slammed his hand down on the stele. “Clary—”

“She said she doesn’t want it,” said Simon. “Ha-ha.”

“Ha-ha?” Jace looked incredulous. “That’s your comeback?”