“Valentine said,” began Stephen, but Magnus heard the uncertainty in his voice. Lucian Graymark might believe they only hunted Downworlders who had broken the Accords, but Stephen at least knew they were acting as vigilantes rather than Law-abiding Shadowhunters. Stephen had been doing it, just the same.
“I do not care what Valentine Morgenstern says. I say that the Law is hard,” Marian Whitelaw replied. She drew her blade, swung, and met Stephen’s.
Their eyes met, glittering, over their blades.
Marian continued softly, “But it is the Law. You will not touch these Downworlders while I or any of my blood live.”
Chaos erupted, but Magnus’s darkest imaginings had been proved wrong. When the fight was joined, there were Shadowhunters on his side, fighting with him against Shadowhunters, fighting for Downworlders and the Accords of peace they had all agreed to.
The first fatality was the youngest Whitelaw. Rachel Whitelaw lunged at the woman called Maryse, and the sheer ferocity of the attack took Maryse aback so much that Rachel almost had her. Maryse stumbled and collected herself, fumbling for a new blade. Then the black-haired man, Robert, who Magnus thought was her husband, lunged at Rachel in his turn, and ran her through.
Rachel sagged, the point of the man’s blade like a pin piercing her, as if she were a butterfly.
“Robert!” said Maryse softly, as if she could not believe this was happening.
Robert unsheathed his sword from Rachel’s chest, and Rachel tumbled to the floor.
“Rachel Whitelaw was just killed by a Shadowhunter,” shouted Magnus, and even then he thought Robert might cry out that he had been defending his wife. Magnus thought that the Whitelaws might put away their blades rather than spill more Nephilim blood.
But Rachel had been the baby of the family, everyone’s special pet. The Whitelaws as one roared a challenge and hurled themselves into the fray with redoubled ferocity. Adam Whitelaw, a stolid white-haired old man who had always seemed to simply follow his wife’s lead, charged at Valentine’s Circle, whirling a shining axe over his head, and cut down all those who stood before him.
Magnus edged toward the werewolves, to the woman who was the only one who remained human, even though her teeth and claws were growing apace.
“Why aren’t you fighting?” he demanded.
The werewolf woman glared at him as if he were impossibly stupid.
“Because Valentine’s here,” she snapped. “Because he has my daughter. He took her through there, and they said if we moved to follow her, they would kill her.”
Magnus did not have an instant to reflect on what Valentine might do to a helpless Downworlder child. He lifted a hand and blasted from his feet the stocky Shadowhunter at the single door at the far end of the room, and then Magnus ran toward the door.
He heard the cries behind him, of the Whitelaws demanding, “Bane, where are you—” and a shout, Magnus thought from Stephen, saying, “He’s going after Valentine! Kill him!”
Behind the door Magnus heard a low, awful sound. He pushed the door open.
On the other side of the door was a small ordinary room, the size of a bedroom, though there was no bed, only two people and a single chair. There was a tall man with a fall of white-blond hair, wearing Shadowhunter black. He was stooped over a girl who looked about twelve. She was fastened to the chair with silver cord, and was making a terrible low sound, a cross between a whine and a moan.
Her eyes were shining, Magnus thought for a moment, the moonlight turning them into mirrors.
His mistake lasted for the briefest of instants. Then Valentine moved slightly and the gleam of the girl’s eyes resolved in Magnus’s vision. The gleam was not her eyes. The moonlit shine was silver coins pressed to the girl’s eyes, tiny wisps of smoke escaping from beneath the bright discs as the tiny sounds escaped from between her lips. She was trying to suppress the sound of her pain, because she was so scared of what Valentine would do to her next.
“Where did your brother go?” demanded Valentine, and the girl’s sobbing continued, but she said nothing.
Magnus felt for a moment as if he had become a storm, black curling clouds, the slam of thunder and slash of lightning, and all the storm wanted was to leap at Valentine’s throat. Magnus’s magic lashed out almost of its own volition, leaped from both hands. It looked like lightning, burning so blue that it was almost white. It knocked Valentine off his feet and into a wall. Valentine hit the wall so hard that a crack rang out, and he slid to the floor.
That one act also used up far too much of Magnus’s power, but he could not think of that now. He ran over to the girl’s chair and wrenched the chain off her, then touched her face with painful gentleness.
She was crying now, more freely, shuddering and sobbing beneath his hands.
“Hush, hush. Your brother sent me. I’m a warlock; you’re safe,” he murmured, and clasped the back of her neck.