City of Heavenly Fire

“It’s hard to believe that if you haven’t seen it,” Alec said. “And Sebastian has only so many of them. A small force, scattered—they don’t want to believe he’s really a threat. Or if he is a threat, they’d rather believe it was more a threat to us, to New York, than to Shadowhunters at large.”


“They’re not wrong that if Sebastian cares about anything, it’s about Clary,” Jace said, and Clary felt a cold shiver at her spine, a mixture of disgust and apprehension. “He doesn’t really have emotions. Not like we do. But if he did, he’d have them about her. And he has them about Jocelyn. He hates her.” He paused, thoughtful. “But I don’t think he’d be likely to strike directly here. Too . . . obvious.”

“I hope you told the Clave this,” Simon said.

“About a thousand times,” said Jace. “I don’t think they hold my insights in particularly high regard.”

Clary looked down at her hands. She had been deposed by the Clave, just like the rest of them; she’d given answers to all their questions. There were still things about Sebastian she hadn’t told them, hadn’t told anyone. The things he’d said he wanted from her.

She hadn’t dreamed much since they’d come back from the Burren with Jace’s veins full of fire, but when she did have nightmares, they were about her brother.

“It’s like trying to fight a ghost,” Jace said. “They can’t track Sebastian, they can’t find him, they can’t find the Shadowhunters he’s turned.”

“They’re doing what they can,” Alec said. “They’re shoring up the wards around Idris and Alicante. All the wards, in fact. They’ve sent dozens of experts to Wrangel Island.”

Wrangel Island was the seat of all the world’s wards, the spells that protected the globe, and Idris in particular, from demons and demon invasion. The network of wards wasn’t perfect, and demons slipped through sometimes anyway, but Clary could only imagine how bad the situation would get if the wards didn’t exist.

“I heard Mom say that the warlocks of the Spiral Labyrinth have been looking for a way to reverse the effects of the Infernal Cup,” said Isabelle. “Of course it would be easier if they had bodies to study. . . .”

She trailed off; Clary knew why. The bodies of the Dark Shadowhunters killed at the Burren had been brought back to the Bone City for the Silent Brothers to examine. The Brothers had never gotten the chance. Overnight the bodies had rotted away to the equivalent of decade-old corpses. There had been nothing to do but burn the remains.

Isabelle found her voice again: “And the Iron Sisters are churning out weapons. We’re getting thousands more seraph blades, swords, chakhrams, everything . . . forged in heavenly fire.” She looked at Jace. In the days immediately following the battle at the Burren, when the fire had raged through Jace’s veins violently enough to make him scream sometimes with the pain, the Silent Brothers had examined him over and over, had tested him with ice and flame, with blessed metal and cold iron, trying to see if there was some way to draw the fire out of him, to contain it.

They hadn’t found one. The fire of Glorious, having once been captured in a blade, seemed in no hurry to inhabit another, or indeed to leave Jace’s body for any kind of vessel. Brother Zachariah had told Clary that in the earliest days of Shadowhunters, the Nephilim had sought to capture heavenly fire in a weapon, something that could be wielded against demons. They had never managed it, and eventually seraph blades had become their weapons of choice. In the end, again, the Silent Brothers had given up. Glorious’s fire lay curled in Jace’s veins like a serpent, and the best he could hope for was to control it so that it didn’t destroy him.

The loud beep of a text message sounded; Isabelle had flicked on her phone again. “Mom says to get back to the Institute now,” she said. “There’s some meeting. We have to be at it.” She stood up, brushing dirt from her dress. “I’d invite you back,” she said to Simon, “but you know, banned for being undead and all.”

“I did remember that,” Simon said, getting to his feet. Clary scrambled up and reached a hand down to Jace. He took it and stood.

“Simon and I are going Christmas shopping,” she said. “And none of you can come, because we have to get you presents.”

Alec looked horrified. “Oh, God. Does that mean I have to get you guys presents?”

Clary shook her head. “Don’t Shadowhunters do . . . you know, Christmas?” She thought back suddenly to the rather distressing Thanksgiving dinner at Luke’s when Jace, on being asked to carve the turkey, had laid into the bird with a sword until there had been little left but turkey flakes. Maybe not?