City of Lost Souls

She giggled against his mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck. A sharp ringing cut through the humming in her blood as Jordan pulled away, frowning. “My phone.” Hanging on to her with one hand, he fumbled behind himself on the counter until he found it. It had stopped ringing, but he lifted it anyway, frowning. “It’s the Praetor.”


The Praetor never called, or at least rarely. Only when something was of deadly importance. Maia sighed and leaned back. “Take it.”

He nodded, already lifting the phone to his ear. His voice was a soft murmur in the back of her consciousness as she jumped down from the counter and went to the refrigerator, where the take-out menus were pinned. She riffled through them until she found the menu for the local Thai place she liked, and turned around with it in her hand.

Jordan was now standing in the middle of the living room, white-faced, with his phone forgotten in his hand. Maia could hear a tinny, distant voice coming from it, saying his name.

Maia dropped the menu and hurried across the room to him. She took the phone out of his hand, disconnected the call, and set it on the counter. “Jordan? What happened?”

“My roommate—Nick—you remember?” he said, disbelief in his hazel eyes. “You never met him but—”

“I saw the photos of him,” she said. “Has something happened?”

“He’s dead.”

“How?”

“Throat torn out, all his blood gone. They think he tracked his assignment down and she killed him.”

“Maureen?” Maia was shocked. “But she was just a little girl.”

“She’s a vampire now.” He took a ragged breath. “Maia…”

She stared at him. His eyes were glassy, his hair tousled. A sudden panic rose inside her. Kissing and cuddling and even sex were one thing. Comforting someone when they were stricken with loss was something else. It meant commitment. It meant caring. It meant you wanted to ease their pain, and at the same time you were thanking God that whatever the bad thing was that had happened, it hadn’t happened to them.

“Jordan,” she said softly, and reaching up on her toes, she put her arms around him. “I’m sorry.”

Jordan’s heart beat hard against hers. “Nick was only seventeen.”

“He was a Praetor, like you,” she said softly. “He knew it was dangerous. You’re only eighteen.” He tightened his grip on her but said nothing. “Jordan,” she said. “I love you. I love you and I’m sorry.”

She felt him freeze. It was the first time she’d said the words since a few weeks before she’d been bitten. He seemed to be holding his breath. Finally he let it out with a gasp.

“Maia,” he croaked. And then, unbelievably, before he could say another word—her phone rang.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll ignore it.”

He let her go, his face soft, bemused with grief and amazement. “No,” he said. “No, it could be important. You go ahead.”

She sighed and went to the counter. It had stopped ringing by the time she reached it, but there was a text message blinking on the screen. She felt her stomach muscles tighten.

“What is it?” Jordan asked, as if he had sensed her sudden tension. Maybe he had.

“A 911. An emergency.” She turned to him, holding the phone. “A call to battle. It went out to everyone in the pack. From Luke—and Magnus. We have to leave right away.”

Clary sat on the floor of Jace’s bathroom, her back against the tile of the tub, her legs stretched out in front of her. She had cleaned the blood from her face and body, and rinsed her bloody hair in the sink. She was wearing her mother’s ceremonial dress, rucked up to her thighs, and the tiled floor was cold against her bare feet and calves.

She looked down at her hands. They ought to look different, she thought. But they were the same hands she’d always had, thin fingers, squared-off nails—you didn’t want long nails when you were an artist—and freckles on the backs of the knuckles. Her face looked the same too. All of her seemed the same, but she wasn’t. These past few days had changed her in ways she couldn’t quite yet fully comprehend.

She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. She was pale, between the flame colors of her hair and the dress. Bruises decorated her shoulders and throat.

“Admiring yourself?” She hadn’t heard Sebastian open the door, but there he was, smirking intolerably as always, propped against the frame of the doorway. He was wearing a kind of gear she had never seen before: the usual tough material, but in a scarlet color like fresh blood. He had also added an accessory to his outfit—a recurved crossbow. He held it casually in one hand, though it must have been heavy. “You look lovely, sister. A fitting companion for me.”

She bit back her words with the taste of blood that still lingered in her mouth, and walked toward him. He caught at her arm as she tried to squeeze past him in the doorway. His hand ran over her bare shoulder. “Good,” he said. “You’re not Marked here. I hate it when women ruin their skin with scars. Keep the Marks on your arms and legs.”

“I’d rather you didn’t touch me.”