CITY OF ASHES

“But my hands—” He looked down at his bound wrists. The burning metal was eating into his skin like acid. Blood welled around the fiery manacles.

“You should have thought of that before you went to see Valentine.”

“You’re not exactly making me fear the revenge of the Council. They can’t be worse than you.”

“Oh, you’re not going to the Council,” the Inquisitor said. There was a quiet calm in her tone that Jace did not like.

“What do you mean, I’m not going to the Council? I thought you said you were taking me to Idris tomorrow?”

“No. I’m planning to return you to your father.”

The shock of her words almost knocked him back off his feet. “My father?”

“Your father. I’m planning to trade you to him for the Mortal Instruments.”

Jace stared at her. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all. It’s simpler than a trial. Of course, you’ll be banned from the Clave,” she added, as a sort of afterthought, “but I assume you expected that.”

Jace was shaking his head. “You have the wrong guy. I hope you realize that.”

A look of annoyance flashed across her face. “I thought we’d dispensed with your pretense of innocence, Jonathan.”

“I didn’t mean me. I meant my father.”

For the first time since he’d met her, she looked confused. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“My father won’t trade the Mortal Instruments for me.” The words were bitter, but Jace’s tone wasn’t. It was matter-of-fact. “He’d let you kill me in front of him before he’d hand you either the Sword or the Cup.”

The Inquisitor shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said, and there was a puzzling trace of resentment in her voice. “Children never do. The love a parent has for a child, there is nothing else like it. No other love so consuming. No father—not even Valentine—would sacrifice his son for a hunk of metal, no matter how powerful.”

“You don’t know my father. He’ll laugh in your face and offer you some money to mail my body back to Idris.”

“Don’t be absurd—”

“You’re right,” Jace said. “Come to think of it, he’ll probably make you pay the shipping charges yourself.”

“I see that you’re still your father’s son. You don’t want him to lose the Mortal Instruments—it would be a loss of power to you as well. You don’t want to live out your life as the disgraced son of a criminal, so you’ll say anything to sway my decision. But you don’t fool me.”

“Listen.” Jace’s heart was pounding, but he tried to speak calmly. She had to believe him. “I know you hate me. I know you think I’m a liar like my father. But I’m telling you the truth now. My father absolutely believes in what he’s doing. You think he’s evil. But he thinks he’s right. He thinks he’s doing God’s work. He won’t give that up for me. You were tracking me when I went out there, you must have heard what he said—”

“I saw you speak to him,” said the Inquisitor. “I heard nothing.”

Jace cursed under his breath. “Look, I’ll swear any oath you want to prove I’m not lying. He’s using the Sword and the Cup to summon demons and control them. The more you waste your time with me, the more he can build up his army. By the time you realize he won’t make the trade, you’ll have no chance against him—”

The Inquisitor turned away with a noise of disgust. “I’m tired of your lies.”

Jace caught his breath in disbelief as she turned her back on him and stalked toward the door.

“Please!” he cried.

She stopped at the door and turned to look at him. Jace could only see the angular shadows of her face, the pointed chin, and dark hollows at her temples. Her gray clothes vanished into the shadows so that she looked like a bodiless floating skull. “Don’t think,” she said, “that returning you to your father is what I want to do. It’s better than Valentine Morgenstern deserves.”

“What does he deserve?”

“To hold the dead body of his child in his arms. To see his dead son and know that there is nothing he can do, no spell, no incantation, no bargain with hell that will bring him back—” She broke off. “He should know,” she said, in a whisper, and pushed at the door, her hands scrabbling against the wood. It shut behind her with a click, leaving Jace, his wrists burning, staring after her in confusion.

Clary hung up the phone with a frown. “No answer.”

“Who is it you were trying to call?” Luke was on his fifth cup of coffee and Clary was starting to worry about him. Surely there was such a thing as caffeine poisoning? He didn’t seem on the verge of a fit or anything, but she surreptitiously unplugged the percolator on her way back to the table, just in case. “Simon?”

“No. I feel weird waking him up during the daytime, though he said it doesn’t bother him as long as he doesn’t have to see day light.”

“So…”

“I was calling Isabelle. I want to know what’s going on with Jace.”