City of Heavenly Fire

“I couldn’t hate you,” Clary said. “Not possible.”


“It’s almost worse,” Isabelle said. “Than if he were dead. If he were dead, I could grieve, but I don’t know what to think—he’s safe, he’s alive, I should be grateful. He isn’t a vampire anymore, and he hated being a vampire. I should be happy. But I’m not happy. He told me he loved me. He told me he loved me, Clary, and now he doesn’t even know who I am. If I were standing in front of him, he wouldn’t recognize my face. It feels like I never mattered. None of it ever mattered or ever happened. He never loved me at all.” She swiped angrily at her face. “I hate it!” she broke out suddenly. “I hate this feeling, like there’s something sitting on my chest.”

“Missing someone?”

“Yes,” Isabelle said. “I never thought I’d feel it about some boy.”

“Not some boy,” Clary said. “Simon. And he did love you. And it did matter. Maybe he doesn’t remember, but you do. I do. The Simon who’s living in Brooklyn now, that’s Simon the way he used to be six months ago. And that’s not a terrible thing. He was wonderful. But he changed when you knew him: He got stronger, and he got hurt, and he was different. And that Simon was the one you fell in love with and who fell in love with you, so you are grieving, because he’s gone. But you can keep him alive a little by remembering him. We both can.”

Isabelle made a choking sound. “I hate losing people,” she said, and there was a savage edge to her voice: the desperation of someone who had lost too much, too young. “I hate it.”

Clary put her hand out and took Izzy’s—her thin right hand, the one with the Voyance rune stretched across her knuckles. “I know,” Clary said. “But remember the people you’ve gained, too. I’ve gained you. I’m grateful for that.” She pressed Izzy’s hand, hard, and for a moment there was no response. Then Isabelle’s fingers tightened on hers. They sat in silence on the windowsill, their hands locked across the distance between them.



Maia sat on the couch in the apartment—her apartment now. Being pack leader paid a small salary, and she had decided to use it for rent, to keep what once had been Jordan and Simon’s place, keep their things from being thrown into the street by an angry, evicting landlord. Eventually she would go through their belongings, pack up what she could, sort through the memories. Exorcise the ghosts.

For today, though, she was content to sit and look at what had arrived for her from Idris in a small package from Jia Penhallow. The Consul hadn’t thanked her for the warning she’d been given, though she had welcomed her as the new and permanent leader of the New York pack. Her tone had been cool and distant. But wrapped in the letter was a bronze seal, the seal of the head of the Praetor Lupus, the seal with which the Scott family had always signed their letters. It had been retrieved from the ruins on Long Island. There was a small note attached, with two words written on it in Jia’s careful hand.

Begin again.



“You’re going to be all right. I promise.”

It was probably the six hundredth time Helen had said the same thing, Emma thought. It would probably have helped more if she didn’t sound like she was trying to convince herself.

Helen was nearly finished packing the belongings that she had brought with her to Idris. Uncle Arthur (he had told Emma to call him that too) had promised to send on the rest. He was waiting downstairs with Aline to escort Helen to the Gard, where she would take the Portal to Wrangel Island; Aline would follow her the next week, after the last of the treaties and votes in Alicante.

It all sounded boring and complicated and horrible to Emma. All she knew was that she was sorry for ever having thought that Helen and Aline were soppy. Helen didn’t seem soppy to her at all now, just sad, her eyes red-rimmed and her hands shaking as she zipped up her bag and turned to the bed.

It was an enormous bed, big enough for six people. Julian was sitting up against the headboard on one side, and Emma was on the other. You could have fit the rest of the family between them, Emma thought, but Dru, the twins, and Tavvy were asleep in their rooms. Dru and Livvy were cried out; Tiberius had accepted the news of Helen’s departure with wide-eyed confusion, as if he didn’t know what was happening or how he was expected to respond. At the last he’d shaken her hand and solemnly wished her good luck, as if she were a colleague leaving on a business trip. She’d burst into tears. “Oh, Ty,” she’d said, and he’d slunk away, looking horrified.

Helen knelt down now, bringing herself almost eye level with Jules where he sat on the bed. “Remember what I said, okay?”

“We’re going to be all right,” Julian parroted.