City of Lost Souls

“I know.” Clary looked at the three anxious gazes fixed on her. How had this happened? she thought. She, who had never kept secrets from Jocelyn—not real ones, anyway—was about to go home and hide something enormous from both her mother and Luke. Something she could talk about only with people like Alec and Isabelle Lightwood and Magnus Bane, people that six months ago she hadn’t known existed. It was strange how your world could shift on its axis and everything you trusted could invert itself in what seemed like no time at all.

At least she still had Simon. Constant, permanent Simon. She kissed him on the cheek, waved her good-bye to the others, and turned away, aware that all three of them were watching her worriedly as she strode away across the park, the last of the dead fall leaves crunching under her sneakers as if they were tiny bones.



Alec had lied. It wasn’t Magnus who had something to do that afternoon. It was himself.

He knew what he was doing was a mistake, but he couldn’t help himself: it was like a drug, this needing to know more. And now, here he was, underground, holding his witchlight and wondering just what the hell he was doing.

Like all New York subway stations, this one smelled of rust and water, metal and decay. But unlike any other station Alec had ever been in, it was eerily quiet. Aside from the marks of water damage, the walls and platform were clean. Vaulted ceilings, punctuated by the occasional chandelier, rose above him, the arches patterned in green tile. The nameplate tiles on the wall read CITY HALL in block lettering.

The City Hall subway station had been out of use since 1945, though the city still kept it in order as a landmark; the 6 train ran through it on occasion to make a turnaround, but no one ever stood on this platform. Alec had crawled through a hatch in City Hall Park surrounded by dogwood trees to reach this place, dropping down a distance that would probably have broken a mundane’s legs. Now he stood, breathing in the dusty air, his heart rate quickening.

This was where the letter the vampire subjugate had handed him in Magnus’s entryway had directed him to go. At first he had determined he would never use the information. But he had not been able to bring himself to throw it away. He had balled it up and shoved it into his jeans pocket, and all through the day, even in Central Park, it had eaten at the back of his mind.

It was like the whole situation with Magnus. He couldn’t seem to help worrying at it the way one might worry at a diseased tooth, knowing you were making the situation worse but not being able to stop. Magnus had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t his fault he was hundreds of years old, and that he had been in love before. But it corroded Alec’s peace of mind just the same. And now, knowing both more and less about Jace’s situation than he had yesterday—it was too much. He needed to talk to someone, go somewhere, do something.

So here he was. And here she was, he was sure of it. He moved slowly down the platform. The ceiling vaulted overhead, a central skylight letting in light from the park above, four lines of tiles radiating out from it like a spider’s legs. At the end of a platform was a short staircase, which led up into gloom. Alec could detect the presence of a glamour: any mundane looking up would see a concrete wall, but he saw an open doorway. Silently, he headed up the steps.

He found himself in a gloomy, low-ceilinged room. An amethyst-glass skylight let in a little light. In a shadowy corner of the room sat an elegant velvet sofa with an arched, gilded back, and on the sofa sat Camille.

She was as beautiful as Alec remembered, though she had not been at her best the last time he had seen her, filthy and chained to a pipe in a building under construction. She wore a neat black suit now with high-heeled red shoes, and her hair spilled down her shoulders in waves and curls. She had a book open on her lap—La Place de l’étoile by Patrick Modiano. He knew enough French to translate the title. “The Place of the Star.”

She looked at Alec as if she had expected to see him.

“Hello, Camille,” he said.

She blinked slowly. “Alexander Lightwood,” she said. “I recognized your footsteps on the stairs.”

She put the back of her hand against her cheek and smiled at him. There was something distant about her smile. It had all the warmth of dust. “I don’t suppose you have a message from Magnus for me.”

Alec said nothing.

“Of course not,” she said. “Silly me. As if he knows where you are.”

“How did you know it was me?” he said. “On the stairway.”

“You’re a Lightwood,” she said. “Your family never gives up. I knew you wouldn’t let well enough alone after what I said to you that night. The message today was just to prod your memory.”

“I didn’t need to be reminded of what you promised me. Or were you lying?”

“I would have said anything to get free that night,” she said. “But I wasn’t lying.” She leaned forward, her eyes bright and dark at the same time. “You are Nephilim, of the Clave and Council. There is a price on my head for murdering Shadowhunters. But I already know you have not come here to bring me to them. You want answers.”