City of Lost Souls

The wind whipped at her hair and coat as she walked over to join Sebastian and Jace. They all set off again, the two boys conversing softly; she could have joined the conversation if she’d wanted to, she supposed, but there was something about the still loveliness of the city, its spires rising into mist in the distance, that made her want to be quiet, to look and to think on her own.

The bridge emptied out into a twisting cobblestone street lined with tourist shops, shops selling blood-red garnets and big chunks of golden Polish amber, heavy Bohemian glass, and wooden toys. Even at this hour, touts stood outside nightclubs, holding free passes or cards that would give you discounts on drinks; Sebastian gestured them aside impatiently, snapping his annoyance in Czech. The press of people was relieved when the street widened into an old medieval square. Despite the cold weather, it was filled with milling pedestrians and kiosks were selling sausages and hot, spiced cider. The three of them stopped for food and ate around a tall rickety table while the huge astronomical clock in the square’s center began to chime the hour. Clanking machinery started up, and a circle of dancing wooden figures appeared from doors on either side of the clock—the twelve apostles, Sebastian explained as the figures whirled around and around.

“There’s a legend,” he said, leaning forward with his hands cupped around a mug of hot cider, “that the king had the eyes of the clock maker put out after this clock was finished, so he could never build anything as beautiful again.”

Clary shuddered and moved a little closer to Jace. He had been quiet since they’d left the bridge, as if lost in thought. People—girls, mainly—stopped to look at him as they passed, his hair bright and startling among the winter-dark colors of the Old Square. “That’s sadistic,” she said.

Sebastian ran his finger around the rim of his mug, and licked the cider off. “The past is another country.”

“Foreign country,” said Jace.

Sebastian looked at him with lazy eyes. “What?”

“‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,’” Jace said. “That’s the whole quote.”

Sebastian shrugged and pushed his mug away. You got a euro for returning them to the stand where you bought the cider, but Clary suspected Sebastian couldn’t be bothered to fake good citizenship for a measly euro. “Let’s go.”

Clary wasn’t finished with her cider, but she set it down anyway and followed as Sebastian led them away from the square, among a maze of narrow, twisting streets. Jace had corrected Sebastian, she thought. Certainly it had been over something minor, but wasn’t Lilith’s blood magic supposed to bind him to her brother in such a way that he thought everything Sebastian did was right? Could this be a sign—even a tiny sign—that the spell that connected them was starting to fade?

It was stupid to hope, she knew. But sometimes hope was all you had.

The streets grew narrower, darker. The clouds overhead had completely blocked out the lowering sun, and old-fashioned gas lamps burned here and there, illuminating the misty dimness. The streets had turned to cobblestones, and the sidewalks were narrowing, forcing them to walk in a line, as if they were picking their way across a narrow bridge. Only the sight of other pedestrians, appearing and disappearing out of the fog, made Clary feel that she had not stepped through some sort of warp in time into a dream city out of her own imagination.

Finally they reached an archway of stone that opened out into a small square. Most of the stores had turned off their lights, though across from them one was lit up. It said ANTIKVARIAT in gold letters, and the window was full of old display bottles of different substances, their peeling labels marked in Latin. Clary was surprised when Sebastian headed toward it. What use could they possibly have for old bottles?

She dismissed the thought when they stepped over the threshold. The store inside was dimly lit and smelled of mothballs, but it was stuffed, every cranny, with an incredible selection of junk—and not-junk. Beautiful celestial maps warred for space with salt and pepper shakers shaped like the figures from the clock in the Old Town Square. There were heaps of old tobacco and cigar tins, stamps mounted in glass, old cameras of East German and Russian design, a gorgeous cut-glass bowl in a deep emerald shade sitting side by side with a stack of water-stained old calendars. An antique Czech flag hung from a mounting pole overhead.

Sebastian moved forward through the stacks toward a counter in the back of the store, and Clary realized that what she had taken for a mannequin was in fact an old man with a face as creased and wrinkled as an old bedsheet, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed. The counter itself was glass-fronted and held heaps of vintage jewelry and sparkling glass beads, small chain purses with gem clasps, and rows of cuff links.