Alec had lied. It wasn’t Magnus who had something to do that afternoon. It was himself.
He knew what he was doing was a mistake, but he couldn’t help himself: it was like a drug, this needing to know more. And now, here he was, underground, holding his witchlight and wondering just what the hell he was doing.
Like all New York subway stations, this one smelled of rust and water, metal and decay. But unlike any other station Alec had ever been in, it was eerily quiet. Aside from the marks of water damage, the walls and platform were clean. Vaulted ceilings, punctuated by the occasional chandelier, rose above him, the arches patterned in green tile. The nameplate tiles on the wall read CITY HALL in block lettering.
The City Hall subway station had been out of use since 1945, though the city still kept it in order as a landmark; the 6 train ran through it on occasion to make a turnaround, but no one ever stood on this platform. Alec had crawled through a hatch in City Hall Park surrounded by dogwood trees to reach this place, dropping down a distance that would probably have broken a mundane’s legs. Now he stood, breathing in the dusty air, his heart rate quickening.
This was where the letter the vampire subjugate had handed him in Magnus’s entryway had directed him to go. At first he had determined he would never use the information. But he had not been able to bring himself to throw it away. He had balled it up and shoved it into his jeans pocket, and all through the day, even in Central Park, it had eaten at the back of his mind.
It was like the whole situation with Magnus. He couldn’t seem to help worrying at it the way one might worry at a diseased tooth, knowing you were making the situation worse but not being able to stop. Magnus had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t his fault he was hundreds of years old, and that he had been in love before. But it corroded Alec’s peace of mind just the same. And now, knowing both more and less about Jace’s situation than he had yesterday—it was too much. He needed to talk to someone, go somewhere, do something.
So here he was. And here she was, he was sure of it. He moved slowly down the platform. The ceiling vaulted overhead, a central skylight letting in light from the park above, four lines of tiles radiating out from it like a spider’s legs. At the end of a platform was a short staircase, which led up into gloom. Alec could detect the presence of a glamour: any mundane looking up would see a concrete wall, but he saw an open doorway. Silently, he headed up the steps.
He found himself in a gloomy, low-ceilinged room. An amethyst-glass skylight let in a little light. In a shadowy corner of the room sat an elegant velvet sofa with an arched, gilded back, and on the sofa sat Camille.
She was as beautiful as Alec remembered, though she had not been at her best the last time he had seen her, filthy and chained to a pipe in a building under construction. She wore a neat black suit now with high-heeled red shoes, and her hair spilled down her shoulders in waves and curls. She had a book open on her lap—La Place de l’étoile by Patrick Modiano. He knew enough French to translate the title. “The Place of the Star.”
She looked at Alec as if she had expected to see him.
“Hello, Camille,” he said.
She blinked slowly. “Alexander Lightwood,” she said. “I recognized your footsteps on the stairs.”
She put the back of her hand against her cheek and smiled at him. There was something distant about her smile. It had all the warmth of dust. “I don’t suppose you have a message from Magnus for me.”
Alec said nothing.
“Of course not,” she said. “Silly me. As if he knows where you are.”
“How did you know it was me?” he said. “On the stairway.”
“You’re a Lightwood,” she said. “Your family never gives up. I knew you wouldn’t let well enough alone after what I said to you that night. The message today was just to prod your memory.”
“I didn’t need to be reminded of what you promised me. Or were you lying?”
“I would have said anything to get free that night,” she said. “But I wasn’t lying.” She leaned forward, her eyes bright and dark at the same time. “You are Nephilim, of the Clave and Council. There is a price on my head for murdering Shadowhunters. But I already know you have not come here to bring me to them. You want answers.”
“I want to know where Jace is,” he said.
“You want to know that,” she said. “But you know there’s no reason I’d have the answer, and I don’t. I’d give it to you if I did. I know he was taken by Lilith’s son, and I have no reason to have any loyalty to her. She is gone. I know there have been patrols out looking for me, to discover whatever I might know. I can tell you now, I know nothing. I would tell you where your friend is if I knew. I have no reason to further antagonize the Nephilim.” She ran a hand through her thick blond hair. “But that’s not why you’re here. Admit it, Alexander.”
Alec felt his breath quicken. He had thought of this moment, lying awake at night beside Magnus, listening to the warlock breathing, hearing his own breaths, numbering them out. Each breath a breath closer to aging and dying. Each night spinning him closer to the end of everything.
“You said you knew a way to make me immortal,” said Alec. “You said you knew a way Magnus and I could be together forever.”
“I did, didn’t I? How interesting.”
“I want you to tell it to me now.”
“And I will,” she said, setting down her book. “For a price.”
“No price,” said Alec. “I freed you. Now you’ll tell me what I want to know. Or I’ll give you to the Clave. They’ll chain you on the roof of the Institute and wait for sunrise.”
Her eyes went hard and flat. “I do not care for threats.”
“Then give me what I want.”
She stood up, brushing her hands down the front of her jacket, smoothing the wrinkles. “Come and take it from me, Shadowhunter.”
It was as if all the frustration, panic, and despair of the past weeks exploded out of Alec. He leaped for Camille, just as she started for him, her fang teeth snapping outward.
Alec barely had time to draw his seraph blade from his belt before she was on him. He had fought vampires before; their swiftness and force was stunning. It was like fighting the leading edge of a tornado. He threw himself to the side, rolled onto his feet, and kicked a fallen ladder in her direction; it stopped her briefly enough for him to lift the blade and whisper, “Nuriel.”
The light of the seraph blade shot up like a star, and Camille hesitated—then flung herself at him again. She attacked, ripping her long nails along his cheek and shoulder. He felt the warmth and wetness of blood. Spinning, he slashed at her, but she rose into the air, darting just out of reach, laughing and taunting him.
He ran for the stairs leading down to the platform. She rushed after him; he dodged aside, spun, and pushed off the wall into the air, leaping toward her just as she dived. They collided in midair, her screaming and slashing at him, him keeping a firm hold on her arm, even as they crashed to the ground, almost getting the wind knocked out of him. Keeping her earthbound was the key to winning the fight, and he silently thanked Jace, who had made him practice flips over and over in the training room until he could use almost any surface to get himself airborne for at least a moment or two.
He slashed with the seraph blade as they rolled across the floor, and she deflected his blows easily, moving so fast she was a blur. She kicked at him with her high heels, stabbing his legs with their points. He winced and swore, and she responded with an impressive torrent of filth that involved his sex life with Magnus, her sex life with Magnus, and there might have been more had they not reached the center of the room, where the skylight above beamed a circle of sunshine onto the floor. Seizing her wrist, Alec forced Camille’s hand down, into the light.
She screamed as enormous white blisters appeared on her skin. Alec could feel the heat from her bubbling hand. Fingers laced with hers, he jerked her hand upright, back into the shadows. She snarled and snapped at him. He elbowed her in the mouth, splitting her lip. Vampire blood—shimmering bright red, brighter than human blood—dripped from the corner of her mouth.
“Have you had enough?” he snarled. “Do you want more?” He began to force her hand back toward the sunlight. It had already begun to heal, the red, blistered skin fading to pink.
“No!” She gasped, coughed, and began to tremble, her whole body spasming. After a moment he realized she was laughing—laughing up at him through the blood. “That made me feel alive, little Nephilim. A good fight like that—I should thank you.”
“Thank me by giving me the answer to my question,” Alec said, panting. “Or I’ll ash you. I’m sick of your games.”
Her lips stretched into a smile. Her cuts had healed already, though her face was still bloody. “There is no way to make you immortal. Not without black magic or turning you into a vampire, and you have rejected both options.”
“But you said—you said there was another way we could be together—”
“Oh, there is.” Her eyes danced. “You may not be able to give yourself immortality, little Nephilim, at least not on any terms that would be acceptable to you. But you can take Magnus’s away.”