City of Lost Souls

“You don’t know who I know!” Isabelle’s voice rose. “And stop saying my name that way, as if I’m a little kid.”


“It’s not my place to tell you,” Jocelyn said flatly, and began to walk again.

Isabelle scrambled after her, even as the path took a steeper turn upward, a wall of green rising to meet the thunderous sky. “I have every right to know. They’re my parents. And if you don’t tell me, I—”

She stopped, inhaling sharply. They had reached the top of the ridge, and somehow, in front of them, a fortress had sprung like a fast-blooming flower out of the ground. It was carved of white-silver adamas, reflecting the cloud-streaked sky. Towers topped with electrum reached toward the sky, and the fortress was surrounded by a high wall, also of adamas, in which was set a single gate, formed of two great blades plunged into the ground at angles, so that they resembled a monstrous pair of scissors.

“The Adamant Citadel,” said Jocelyn.

“Thanks,” Isabelle snapped. “I figured that out.”

Jocelyn made the noise that Isabelle was familiar with from her own parents. Isabelle was pretty sure it was parent-speak for “Teenagers.” Then Jocelyn started down the hill to the fortress. Isabelle, tired of scrambling, stalked ahead of her. She was taller than Clary’s mother and had longer legs, and saw no reason why she should wait for Jocelyn if the other woman was going to persist in treating her like a child. She stomped down the hill, crushing moss under her boots, ducked through the scissorlike gates—

And froze. She was standing on a small outcropping of rock. In front of her the earth dropped away into a vast chasm, at the bottom of which boiled a river of red-gold lava, encircling the fortress. Across the chasm, much too far to jump—even for a Shadowhunter—was the only visible entrance to the fortress, a closed drawbridge.

“Some things,” said Jocelyn at her elbow, “are not as simple as they first appear.”

Isabelle jumped, then glared. “So not the place to sneak up on someone.”

Jocelyn simply crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “Surely Hodge taught you the proper method of approaching the Adamant Citadel,” she said. “After all, it is open to all female Shadowhunters in good standing with the Clave.”

“Of course he did,” said Isabelle haughtily, scrambling mentally to remember. Only those with Nephilim blood… She reached up and took one of the metal chopsticks from her hair. When she twisted its base, it popped and clicked and unfolded into a dagger with a Rune of Courage on the blade.

Isabelle raised her hands over the chasm. “Ignis aurum probat,” she said, and used the dagger to cut open her left palm; it was a swift searing pain, and blood ran from the cut, a ruby stream that splattered into the chasm below. There was a flash of blue light, and a creaking noise. The drawbridge was slowly lowering.

Isabelle smiled and wiped the blade of her knife on her gear. After another twist, it had become a slim metal chopstick again. She slid it back into her hair.

“Do you know what that means?” asked Jocelyn, her eyes on the lowering bridge.

“What?”

“What you just said. The motto of the Iron Sisters.”

The drawbridge was almost flat. “It means ‘Fire tests gold.’”

“Right,” said Jocelyn. “They don’t just mean forges and metalwork. They mean that adversity tests one’s strength of character. In difficult times, in dark times, some people shine.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Izzy. “Well, I’m sick of dark and difficult times. Maybe I don’t want to shine.”

The drawbridge crashed at their feet. “If you’re anything like your mother,” said Jocelyn, “you won’t be able to help it.”





9

THE IRON SISTERS



Alec raised the witchlight rune-stone high in his hand, brilliant light raying out from it, spotlighting now one corner of the City Hall station and then another. He jumped as a mouse squeaked, running across the dusty platform. He was a Shadowhunter; he had been in many dark places, but there was something about the abandoned air of this station that made a cold shiver run up his spine.

Perhaps it was the chill of disloyalty he had felt, slipping away from his guard post on Staten Island and heading down the hill to the ferry the moment Magnus had left. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing; he’d just done it, as if he were on autopilot. If he hurried, he was sure he could be back before Isabelle and Jocelyn returned, before anyone realized he had ever been gone.

Alec raised his voice. “Camille!” he called. “Camille Belcourt!”