City of Lost Souls

It is possible, Brother Zachariah said after a long pause.

“If Sebastian could be killed—if there is a weapon that could kill him but leave Jace alive—does that mean Jace would be free of his influence?” Clary asked.

There was an even longer pause. Then, Yes, said Brother Zachariah. That would be the most likely outcome.

“Then, we should go to see the Sisters.” Exhaustion hung on Clary like a cloak, weighting her eyes, souring the taste in her mouth. She rubbed her eyes, trying to scrub it away. “Now.”

“I can’t go,” said Magnus. “Only female Shadowhunters can enter the Adamant Citadel.”

“And you’re not going,” Jocelyn said to Clary in her sternest No-you-are-not-going-out-clubbing-with-Simon-after-midnight voice. “You’re safer here, where you’re warded.”

“Isabelle,” said Alec. “Isabelle can go.”

“Do you have any idea where she is?” Clary said.

“Home, I’d imagine,” said Alec, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. “I can call her—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Magnus said, smoothly removing his cell phone from his pocket and punching in a text with the skill of the long-practiced. “It’s late, and we don’t need to wake her up. Everyone needs rest. If I’m to send any of you through to the Iron Sisters, it will be tomorrow.”

“I’ll go with Isabelle,” Jocelyn said. “No one’s looking for me specifically, and it’s better that she not go alone. Even if I’m not technically a Shadowhunter, I was once. It’s only required that one of us be in good standing.”

“This isn’t fair,” Clary said.

Her mother didn’t even look at her. “Clary…”

Clary rose to her feet. “I’ve been practically a prisoner for the past two weeks,” she said in a shaking voice. “The Clave wouldn’t let me look for Jace. And now that he came to me—to me—you won’t even let me come with you to the Iron Sisters—”

“It isn’t safe. Jace is probably tracking you—”

Clary lost it. “Every time you try to keep me safe, you wreck my life!”

“No, the more involved you get with Jace the more you wreck your life!” her mother snapped back. “Every risk you’ve taken, every danger you’ve been in, is because of him! He held a knife to your throat, Clarissa—”

“That wasn’t him,” Clary said in the softest, deadliest voice she could imagine. “Do you think I’d stay for one second with a boy who threatened me with a knife, even if I loved him? Maybe you’ve been living too long in the mundane world, Mom, but there is magic. The person who hurt me wasn’t Jace. It was a demon wearing his face. And the person we’re looking for now isn’t Jace. But if he dies…”

“There’s no chance of getting Jace back,” said Alec.

“There may already be no chance,” said Jocelyn. “God, Clary, look at the evidence. You thought you and Jace were brother and sister! You sacrificed everything to save his life, and a Greater Demon used him to get to you! When are you going to face the fact that the two of you are not meant to be together?”

Clary jerked back as if her mother had hit her. Brother Zachariah stood as still as a statue, as if no one were shouting at all. Magnus and Alec were staring; Jocelyn was red-cheeked, her eyes glittering with anger. Not trusting herself to speak, Clary spun on her heel, stalked down the hallway to Magnus’s spare bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.



“All right, I’m here,” Simon said. A cold wind was blowing across the flat expanse of the roof garden, and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He didn’t really feel the cold, but he felt like he ought to. He raised his voice. “I showed up. Where are you?”

The roof garden of the Greenwich Hotel—now closed, and therefore empty of people—was done up like an English garden, with carefully shaped dwarf box trees, elegantly scattered wicker and glass furniture, and Lillet umbrellas that flapped in the stiff wind. The trellises of climbing roses, bare in the cold, spider-webbed the stone walls that surrounded the roof, above which Simon could see a gleaming view of downtown New York. “I am here,” said a voice, and a slender shadow detached itself from a wicker armchair and rose. “I had begun to wonder if you were coming, Daylighter.”

“Raphael,” Simon said in a resigned voice. He walked forward, across the hardwood planks that wound between the flower borders and artificial pools lined with shining quartz. “I was wondering myself.”