City of Fallen Angels

“More than a hundred?” Alec asked. Magnus looked blank. “Two hundred?”


“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation now,” Magnus said, to no one in particular. Simon was inclined to agree, and wished they weren’t having it in front of him.

“Why so many?” Alec’s blue eyes were very bright in the dimness. Simon couldn’t tell if he was angry. He didn’t sound angry, just very intense, but Alec was a shut-down person, and perhaps this was as angry as he ever got. “Do you get bored with people fast?”

“I live forever,” Magnus said quietly. “But not everyone does.”

Alec looked as if someone had hit him. “So you just stay with them as long as they live, and then you find someone else?”

Magnus didn’t say anything. He looked at Alec, his eyes shining like a cat’s. “Would you rather I spent all of eternity alone?”

Alec’s mouth twitched. “I’m going to find Isabelle,” he said, and without another word he turned and walked back into the Institute.

Magnus watched him go with sad eyes. Not a human sort of sad, Simon thought. His eyes seemed to contain the sadness of great ages, as if the sharp edges of human sadness had been worn down to something softer by the passing of years, the way sea water wore away the sharp edges of glass.

As if he could tell Simon was thinking about him, Magnus looked at him sideways. “Eavesdropping, vampire?”

“I really don’t love it when people call me that,” Simon said. “I have a name.”

“I suppose I’d better remember it. After all, in a hundred, two hundred, years, it’ll be just you and me.” Magnus regarded Simon thoughtfully. “We’ll be all that’s left.”

The thought made Simon feel as if he were in an elevator that had suddenly broken free of its moorings and started plunging toward the ground, a thousand stories down. The thought had passed through his mind before, of course, but he had always pushed it away. The thought that he would stay sixteen while Clary got older, Jace got older, everyone he knew got older, grew up, had children, and nothing ever changed for him was too enormous and horrible to contemplate.

Being sixteen forever sounded good until you really thought about it. Then it didn’t seem like such a great prospect anymore.

Magnus’s cat eyes were a clear gold-green. “Staring eternity in the face,” he said. “Not so much fun, is it?”

Before Simon could reply, Maryse had returned. “Where’s Alec?” she asked, looking around in puzzlement.

“He went to see Isabelle,” said Simon, before Magnus had to say anything.

“Very well.” Maryse smoothed the front of her jacket down, though it wasn’t wrinkled. “If you wouldn’t mind…”

“I’ll talk to Camille,” said Magnus. “But I want to do it alone. If you’d like to wait for me in the Institute, I’ll join you there when I’m finished.”

Maryse hesitated. “You know what to ask her?”

Magnus’s gaze was unwavering. “I know how to talk to her, yes. If she is willing to say anything, she’ll say it to me.”

Both of them seemed to have forgotten that Simon was there. “Should I go too?” he asked, interrupting their staring contest.

Maryse looked at him, half-distracted. “Oh, yes. Thank you for your help, Simon, but you’re no longer needed. Go home if you like.”

Magnus said nothing at all. With a shrug Simon turned and went toward the door that led to the vestry and the exit that would take him outside. At the door he paused and looked back. Maryse and Magnus were still talking, though the guard was already holding open the Institute door, ready to leave. Only Camille seemed to remember that Simon was there at all. She was smiling at him from her pillar, her lips curved up at the corners, her eyes shining like a promise.

Simon went out, and closed the door behind him.


“It happens every night.” Jace was sitting on the floor, his legs drawn up, his hands dangling between his knees. He had put the knife on the bed next to Clary; she kept one hand on it while he talked—more to reassure him than because she needed it to defend herself. All the energy seemed to have drained out of Jace; even his voice sounded empty and far away while he talked, as if he were speaking to her from a great distance. “I dream that you come into my room and we … start doing what we were just doing. And then I hurt you. I cut you or strangle or stab you, and you die, looking up at me with those green eyes of yours while your life bleeds away between my hands.”

“They’re only dreams,” Clary said gently.

“You just saw that they aren’t,” said Jace. “I was wide awake when I picked up that knife.”