City of Lost Souls

Sebastian grinned at him. “Welcome back.”


Jace blinked, looking momentarily confused—and then his gaze seemed to slide inward, the way it did whenever Clary tried to bring up something that he couldn’t process—Max’s murder, the war in Alicante, the pain he was causing his family.

“Is it time?” he said.

Sebastian made a show of looking at his watch. “Just about. Why don’t you go on ahead and we’ll follow? You can start getting things ready.”

Jace glanced around. “The Cup—where is it?”

Sebastian took it off the kitchen counter. “Right here. Feeling a little absentminded?”

Jace’s mouth curled at the corner, and he grabbed the Cup back. Good-naturedly. There was no sign of the boy who had stood in front of Sebastian moments ago and told him he hated him. “All right. I’ll meet you there.” He turned to Clary, who was still frozen in shock, and kissed her cheek. “And you.”

He drew back and winked at her. There was affection in his eyes, but it didn’t matter. This was not her Jace, very clearly not her Jace, and she watched numbly as he crossed the room. His stele flashed, and a door opened in the wall; she caught a glimpse of sky and rocky plain, and then he stepped through it and was gone.

She dug her nails into her palms.

That thing that looks like me but isn’t? He’ll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he’s doing it. That’s what you’re saving, Clary. That. Don’t you understand? I’d rather be dead.

Tears burned at the back of her throat, and it was all she could do to hold them off as her brother turned to her, his black eyes very bright. “You called for me,” he said.

“He wanted to give himself up to the Clave,” she whispered, not sure who she was defending herself to. She had done what she’d had to, used the only weapon at hand, even if it was one she despised. “They would have killed him.”

“You called for me,” he said again, and took a step toward her. He reached out and lifted a long lock of her hair away from her face, tucking it back behind her ear. “He told you, then? The plan? All of it?”

She fought back a shiver of revulsion. “Not all of it. I don’t know what’s happening tonight. What did Jace mean ‘It’s time’?”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead; she felt the kiss burn, like a brand between her eyes. “You’ll find out,” he said. “You’ve earned the right to be there, Clarissa. You can watch it all from your place at my side, tonight, at the Seventh Sacred Site. Both of Valentine’s children, together… at last.”

Simon kept his eyes on the paper, chanting out the words Magnus had written for him. They had a rhythm to them that was like music, light and sharp and fine. He was reminded of reading aloud his haftarah portion during his bar mitzvah, though he had known what the words meant then, and now he didn’t.

As the chant went on, he felt a tightening around him, as if the air were becoming denser and heavier. It pressed down on his chest and shoulders. The air was growing warmer as well. If he were human, the heat might have been unbearable. As it was, he could feel the burn of it on his skin, singeing his eyelashes, his shirt. He kept his eyes fixed on the paper in front of him as a bead of blood ran from his hairline to drip onto the paper.

And then he was done. The last of the words—“Raziel”—was spoken, and he lifted his head. He could feel blood running down his face. The haze around him had cleared, and in front of him he saw the water of the lake, blue and sparkling, as untroubled as glass.

And then it exploded.

The center of the lake turned gold, then black. Water rushed away from it, pouring toward the edges of the lake, flying into the air until Simon was staring at a ring of water, like a circle of unbroken waterfalls, all shimmering and pouring upward and downward, the effect bizarre and strangely beautiful. Water droplets shivered down onto him, cooling his burning skin. He tipped his head back, just as the sky went black—all the blue of it gone, eaten up in a sudden shock of darkness and clamoring gray clouds. The water splashed back down into the lake, and from its center, the greatest density of its silver, rose a figure all of gold.