City of Heavenly Fire

“You have to give me time,” Magnus said, poking the box with a finger. “Magical booby-traps, curses, the like, they can be pretty subtly hidden.”


“Take your time,” said Luke, leaning back against a table shoved into a cobwebby corner. Long ago it had been his mother’s kitchen table. He recognized the pattern of careless knife marks across the wooden top, even the dent in one of the legs he’d made when he’d kicked it as a teenager.

It had been Amatis’s for years. It had been hers when she’d been married to Stephen and had sometimes hosted dinner parties at the Herondale house. It had been hers after the divorce, after Stephen had moved out to the countryside manor house with his new wife. The whole cellar in fact was stacked with old furniture: items Luke recognized as having belonged to their parents, paintings and knickknacks from the time Amatis had been married. He wondered why she had hidden them away down here. Perhaps she hadn’t been able to bear to look at them.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” Magnus said finally, setting the box back on the shelf where Jocelyn had shoved it, unwilling to have the item in the house but unwilling to throw it away, either. He shivered and rubbed his hands together. He was swathed in a gray and black coat that made him look like a hard-boiled detective; Jocelyn hadn’t given him a chance to hang his coat up when he’d arrived on their doorstep, just grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down to the cellar. “No snares, no traps, no magic at all.”

Jocelyn looked a bit sheepish. “Thanks,” she said. “For looking at it. I can be a bit paranoid. And after what just happened in London—”

“What did happen in London?”

“We don’t know that much,” said Luke. “We got a fire-message about it this afternoon from the Gard, but not a lot of details. London was one of the few Institutes that hadn’t emptied yet. Apparently Sebastian and his forces tried to attack. They were rebuffed by some kind of protection spell, something even the Council didn’t know about. Something that warned the Shadowhunters what was coming and led them to safety.”

“A ghost,” Magnus said. A smile hovered around his mouth. “A spirit, sworn to protect the place. She’s been there for a hundred and thirty years.”

“She?” Jocelyn said, leaning back against a dusty wall. “A ghost? Really? What was her name?”

“You would recognize her last name, if I told it to you, but she wouldn’t like that.” Magnus’s gaze was faraway. “I hope this means she’s found peace.” He snapped back to attention. “Anyway,” he said. “I hadn’t meant to drag the conversation in this direction. It isn’t why I came to you.”

“I guessed as much,” said Luke. “We appreciate the visit, though I admit I was surprised to see you on our doorstep. It’s not where I thought you’d go.”

I thought you’d go to the Lightwoods’ hung in the air between them, unsaid.

“I had a life before Alec,” Magnus snapped. “I’m the High Warlock of Brooklyn. I am here to take a Council seat on behalf of Lilith’s Children.”

“I thought Catarina Loss was the warlock representative,” said Luke, surprised.

“She was,” Magnus admitted. “She made me take her place so I could come here and see Alec.” He sighed. “She in fact made this particular pitch to me while we were in the Hunter’s Moon. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Luke sat down on the rickety table. “Did you see Bat?” he asked. Bat tended to set up office in the Hunter’s Moon during the days, rather than the police station; it was unofficial, but everyone knew that was where to find him.

“Yes. He’d just gotten a call from Maia.” Magnus ran a hand through his black hair. “Sebastian doesn’t exactly appreciate being rebuffed,” he said slowly, and Luke felt his nerves tighten. Magnus was clearly hesitant to impart bad news. “It looks like after he attempted to attack the London Institute and was unsuccessful, he turned his attention to the Praetor Lupus. Apparently he doesn’t have much use for lycanthropes—can’t turn them into Endarkened—so he burned the place to the ground and murdered them all. He killed Jordan Kyle in front of Maia. He let her live so she could deliver a message.”

Jocelyn hugged her arms around herself. “My God.”

“What was the message?” Luke said, finding his voice.

“It was a message to Downworlders,” said Magnus. “I talked to Maia on the phone. She had me memorize it. Apparently he said, ‘Tell all the Downworlders that I am in pursuit of vengeance, and I will have it. I will deal this way with any who ally themselves with Shadowhunters. I have no argument with your kind, unless you follow the Nephilim into battle, in which case you will be food for my blade and the blades of my army, until the last of you is cut from the surface of this world.’?”

Jocelyn made a ragged sound. “He sounds just like his father, doesn’t he?”