City of Lost Souls

“I did,” Sebastian said. “And I told Clary the plan. I told her that we were planning to lure Greater Demons here so we could destroy them.”


“But not how you planned to accomplish that,” Clary said. “You never told me that part.”

“I thought it would be better to tell you with Jace here,” said Sebastian. He snapped his wrist forward suddenly, and the throwing star flew toward Jace, who blocked it with a swift flick of his knife. It clattered to the ground. Sebastian whistled. “Fast,” he commented.

Clary whirled on her brother. “You could have hurt him—”

“Anything that injures him injures me,” said Sebastian. “I was showing you how much I trust him. Now I want you to trust us.” His black eyes bored into her. “Adamas,” he said. “The stuff I brought to the Iron Sister today. Do you know what’s made out of it?”

“Of course. Seraph blades. The demon towers of Alicante. Steles…”

“And the Mortal Cup.”

Clary shook her head. “The Mortal Cup is gold. I’ve seen it.”

“Adamas dipped in gold. The Mortal Sword, too, has a hilt of the stuff. They say it’s the material the palaces of Heaven are built from. And it isn’t easy to get hold of. Only the Iron Sisters can work the stuff, and only they’re supposed to have access to it.”

“So why did you give some to Magdalena?”

“So she could make a second Cup,” said Jace.

“A second Mortal Cup?” Clary looked from one of them to the other, incredulous. “But you can’t just do that. Just make another Mortal Cup. If you could, the Clave wouldn’t have panicked so much when the original Mortal Cup went missing. Valentine wouldn’t have needed it so badly—”

“It’s a cup,” said Jace. “However crafted, it will always be a cup until the Angel voluntarily pours his blood into it. That’s what makes it what it is.”

“And you think you can get Raziel to voluntarily pour his blood into a second cup for you?” Clary couldn’t keep the razor edge of disbelief from her voice. “Good luck.”

“It’s a trick, Clary,” said Sebastian. “You know how everything has an alliance? Seraphic or demonic? What the demons believe is that we want the demonic equivalent of Raziel. A demon great in power who will mix his blood with ours and create a new race of Shadowhunters. Ones not bound by the Law, or the Covenant, or the rules of the Clave.”

“You told them you want to make… backward Shadowhunters?”

“Something like that.” Sebastian laughed, raking fingers through his fair hair. “Jace, do you want to help me explain?”

“Valentine was a zealot,” said Jace. “He was wrong about a lot of things. He was wrong to consider killing Shadowhunters. He was wrong about Downworlders. But he wasn’t wrong about the Clave or the Council. Every Inquisitor we’ve had has been corrupt. The Laws handed down by the Angel are arbitrary and nonsensical, and their punishments are worse. ‘The Law is hard, but it is the Law.’ How many times have you heard that? How many times have we had to duck and avoid the Clave and its Laws even when we were trying to save them? Who put me in prison?—the Inquisitor. Who put Simon in prison? The Clave. Who would have let him burn?”

Clary’s heart had started to pound. Jace’s voice, so familiar, saying these words, made her bones feel weak. He was right and also wrong. As Valentine had been. But she wanted to believe him in a way she hadn’t wanted to believe Valentine.

“Fine,” she said. “I understand the Clave is corrupt. But I don’t see what that has to do with making deals with demons.”

“Our mandate is to destroy demons,” said Sebastian. “But the Clave has been pouring all its energy into other tasks. The wards have been weakening, and more and more demons have been spilling into earth, but the Clave turns a blind eye. We have opened a gate in the far north, on Wrangel Island, and we will lure demons through it with the promise of this Cup. Only, when they pour their blood into it, they will be destroyed. I have made deals like this with several Greater Demons. When Jace and I have killed them, the Clave will see we are a power to be reckoned with. They will have to listen to us.”

Clary stared. “Killing Greater Demons isn’t that easy.”

“I did it earlier today,” said Sebastian. “Which is incidentally why neither of us is going to get in trouble for killing all those bodyguard demons. I killed their master.”

Clary looked from Jace to Sebastian and back again. Jace’s eyes were cool, interested; Sebastian’s gaze was more intense. It was as if he were trying to see into her head. “Well,” she said slowly. “That’s a lot to take in. And I don’t like the idea of you putting yourselves in that kind of danger. But I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me.”

“I told you,” Jace said. “I told you she’d understand.”

“I never said she wouldn’t.” Sebastian didn’t take his eyes off Clary’s face.