City of Lost Souls

“… deadly poison,” he was saying. “What the hell were you thinking, Clarissa?” His voice faded out, and back in again. She struggled to focus. “… to fight off six Dahak demons with an ornamental axe—”

“Poison,” she repeated, and for a moment his face came clear again, the lines of strain around his mouth and eyes pronounced and startling. “So I guess you didn’t save my life after all, did you?”

Her hand spasmed, and the axe slid out of her grip, clattering to the ground. She felt her sweater catch on the rough wall as she began to slide down it, wanting nothing more than to lie on the floor. But Sebastian wouldn’t let her rest. His arms were under hers, lifting her up, and then he was carrying her, her good arm slung around his neck. She wanted to struggle away from him, but her energy had deserted her. She felt a stinging pain on the inside of her elbow, a burn—the touch of a stele. Numbness spread through her veins. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the face of the skull in the archway. She could have sworn its hollow eyes were full of laughter.





15

MAGDALENA



Nausea and pain came and went in ever-tightening whirlpools. Clary could see only a blur of colors around her: she was conscious that her brother was carrying her, every one of his steps slamming into her skull like an ice pick. She was aware that she was clinging to him and the strength of his arms a comfort—that it was bizarre that anything about Sebastian would be a comfort, and that he seemed to be taking care not to jostle her too much as he walked. Very distantly, she knew that she was gasping for breath, and she heard her brother say her name.

Then everything went silent. For a moment she thought that was the end of it: she had died, died battling demons, the way most Shadowhunters did. Then she felt another pricking burn on the inside of her arm, and a surge of what felt like ice spilling through her veins. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, but the cold of whatever Sebastian had done to her was like having a glass of water dashed in her face. Slowly, the world ceased its spinning, the whirlpools of nausea and pain lessening until they were only ripples in the tide of her blood. She could breathe again.

With a gasp, she opened her eyes.

Blue sky.

She was lying on her back, staring up at an endlessly blue sky, touched with cottony clouds, like the painted sky on the ceiling of the infirmary in the Institute. She stretched out her aching arms. The right one still bore the marks of her bracelet of injuries, though they were fading to a light pink. On her left arm was an iratze, paling to invisibility, and there was a mendelin for pain in the crook of her elbow.

She took a deep breath. Autumn air, tinged with the smell of leaves. She could see the tops of trees, hear the murmur of traffic, and—

Sebastian. She heard a low chuckle and realized she wasn’t just lying down, she was lying propped against her brother. Sebastian, who was warm and breathing, and whose arm cradled her head. The rest of her was stretched out along a slightly damp wooden bench.

She jerked upright. Sebastian laughed again; he was sitting at the end of a park bench with elaborate iron armrests. His scarf was folded up in his lap, where she’d been lying, and the arm that hadn’t been cradling her head was stretched out along the back of the bench. He had unbuttoned his white shirt to hide the ichor stains. Beneath it he wore a plain gray T-shirt. The silver bracelet glittered on his wrist. His black eyes studied her with amusement as she scooted as far away from him on the bench as she could get.

“Good thing you’re so short,” he said. “If you were much taller, carrying you would have been extremely inconvenient.”

She kept her voice steady with an effort. “Where are we?”

“The Jardin du Luxembourg,” he said. “The Luxembourg Gardens. It’s a very nice park. I had to take you somewhere you could lie down, and the middle of the street didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“Yeah, there’s a word for leaving someone to die in the middle of the street. Vehicular manslaughter.”

“That’s two words, and I think it’s only vehicular manslaughter, technically, if you run them over yourself.” He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them. “Anyway, why would I leave you to die in the middle of the street after I went through all that effort to save your life?”

She swallowed, and looked down at her arm. The wounds were even more faded now. If she hadn’t known to look for them, she probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all. “Why did you?”

“Why did I what?”

“Save my life.”

“You’re my sister.”