City of Fallen Angels

“Don’t stare, Clary,” Jocelyn said under her breath. She put her arm around Clary’s shoulders, turning them both so that they faced the doors that led to the waiting room for the lab where people got their blood taken. Clary could see herself and her mother reflected in the dark glass of the doors. Though she was still half a head shorter than her mother, they really did look alike, didn’t they? In the past she’d always shrugged it off when people said that. Jocelyn was beautiful, and she wasn’t. But the shape of their eyes and mouths were the same, as were their red hair and green eyes and slight hands. How had she gotten so little of Valentine’s looks, Clary wondered, when her brother had gotten them all? He had had their father’s fair hair and startling dark eyes. Though maybe, she thought, if she looked closely, she could see a little of Valentine in the stubborn set of her jaw…


“Jocelyn.” They both turned. The nurse who had been pushing the old man in the wheelchair was standing in front of them. She was slim, young-looking, dark-skinned, and dark-eyed—and then, as Clary looked at her, the glamour peeled away. She was still a slight, youthful-looking woman, but now her skin was dark blue, and her hair, twisted up into a knot at the back of her head, was snowy white. The blue of her skin contrasted shockingly with her pale pink scrubs.

“Clary,” Jocelyn said. “This is Catarina Loss. She took care of me while I was here. She’s also a friend of Magnus’s.”

“You’re a warlock.” The words came out of Clary’s mouth before she could stop them.

“Shhh.” The warlock woman looked horrified. She glared at Jocelyn. “I don’t remember you saying you were going to bring your daughter along. She’s just a kid.”

“Clarissa can behave herself.” Jocelyn looked sternly at Clary. “Can’t you?”

Clary nodded. She’d seen warlocks before, other than Magnus, at the battle in Idris. All warlocks had some feature that marked them out as not human, she’d learned, like Magnus’s cat eyes. Some had wings or webbed toes or taloned fingers. But having entirely blue skin was something it would be hard to hide with contacts or oversize jackets. Catarina Loss must have had to glamour herself every day just to go outside—especially working in a mundane hospital.

The warlock jerked her thumb toward the elevators. “Come on. Come with me. Let’s get this done fast.”

Clary and Jocelyn hurried after her to the bank of elevators and into the first one whose doors opened. As the doors slid shut behind them with a hiss, Catarina pressed a button marked simply M. There was an indentation in the metal beside it that indicated that floor M could be reached only with an access key, but as she touched the button, a blue spark leaped from her finger and the button lit up. The elevator began to move downward.

Catarina was shaking her head. “If you weren’t a friend of Magnus Bane’s, Jocelyn Fairchild—”

“Fray,” Jocelyn said. “I go by Jocelyn Fray now.”

“No more Shadowhunter names for you?” Catarina smirked; her lips were startlingly red against her blue skin. “What about you, little girl? You going to be a Shadowhunter like your dad?”

Clary tried to hide her annoyance. “No,” she said. “I’m going to be a Shadowhunter, but I’m not going to be like my father. And my name’s Clarissa, but you can call me Clary.”

The elevator came to a stop; the doors slid open. The warlock woman’s blue eyes rested on Clary for a moment. “Oh, I know your name,” she said. “Clarissa Morgenstern. Little girl who stopped a big war.”

“I guess so.” Clary walked out of the elevator after Catarina, her mother close behind. “Were you there? I don’t remember seeing you.”

“Catarina was here,” said Jocelyn, a little breathless from hurrying to keep up. They were walking down an almost totally featureless hallway; there were no windows, and no doors along the corridor. The walls were painted a sickly pale green. “She helped Magnus use the Book of the White to wake me up. Then she stayed behind to watch over it while he returned to Idris.”

“To watch over the book?”

“It’s a very important book,” said Catarina, her rubber-soled shoes slapping against the floor as she hurried ahead.

“I thought it was a very important war,” Clary muttered under her breath.

They had finally reached a door. There was a square of frosted glass set in it, and the word “morgue” was painted on it in large black letters. Catarina turned with her hand on the knob, a look of amusement on her face, and gazed at Clary. “I learned early on in my life that I had a healing gift,” she said. “It’s the kind of magic I do. So I work here, for crap pay, at this hospital, and I do what I can to heal mundanes who would scream if they knew what I really looked like. I could make a fortune selling my skills to Shadowhunters and dumb mundanes who think they know what magic is, but I don’t. I work here. So don’t get all high-and-mighty on me, little redheaded girl. You’re no better than me, just because you’re famous.”

Clary’s cheeks flamed. She had never thought of herself as famous before. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

The warlock’s blue eyes flicked to Jocelyn, who looked white and tense. “You ready?”