15
MAGDALENA
Nausea and pain came and went in ever-tightening whirlpools. Clary could see only a blur of colors around her: she was conscious that her brother was carrying her, every one of his steps slamming into her skull like an ice pick. She was aware that she was clinging to him and the strength of his arms a comfort—that it was bizarre that anything about Sebastian would be a comfort, and that he seemed to be taking care not to jostle her too much as he walked. Very distantly, she knew that she was gasping for breath, and she heard her brother say her name.
Then everything went silent. For a moment she thought that was the end of it: she had died, died battling demons, the way most Shadowhunters did. Then she felt another pricking burn on the inside of her arm, and a surge of what felt like ice spilling through her veins. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, but the cold of whatever Sebastian had done to her was like having a glass of water dashed in her face. Slowly, the world ceased its spinning, the whirlpools of nausea and pain lessening until they were only ripples in the tide of her blood. She could breathe again.
With a gasp, she opened her eyes.
Blue sky.
She was lying on her back, staring up at an endlessly blue sky, touched with cottony clouds, like the painted sky on the ceiling of the infirmary in the Institute. She stretched out her aching arms. The right one still bore the marks of her bracelet of injuries, though they were fading to a light pink. On her left arm was an iratze, paling to invisibility, and there was a mendelin for pain in the crook of her elbow.
She took a deep breath. Autumn air, tinged with the smell of leaves. She could see the tops of trees, hear the murmur of traffic, and—
Sebastian. She heard a low chuckle and realized she wasn’t just lying down, she was lying propped against her brother. Sebastian, who was warm and breathing, and whose arm cradled her head. The rest of her was stretched out along a slightly damp wooden bench.
She jerked upright. Sebastian laughed again; he was sitting at the end of a park bench with elaborate iron armrests. His scarf was folded up in his lap, where she’d been lying, and the arm that hadn’t been cradling her head was stretched out along the back of the bench. He had unbuttoned his white shirt to hide the ichor stains. Beneath it he wore a plain gray T-shirt. The silver bracelet glittered on his wrist. His black eyes studied her with amusement as she scooted as far away from him on the bench as she could get.
“Good thing you’re so short,” he said. “If you were much taller, carrying you would have been extremely inconvenient.”
She kept her voice steady with an effort. “Where are we?”
“The Jardin du Luxembourg,” he said. “The Luxembourg Gardens. It’s a very nice park. I had to take you somewhere you could lie down, and the middle of the street didn’t seem like a good idea.”
“Yeah, there’s a word for leaving someone to die in the middle of the street. Vehicular manslaughter.”
“That’s two words, and I think it’s only vehicular manslaughter, technically, if you run them over yourself.” He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them. “Anyway, why would I leave you to die in the middle of the street after I went through all that effort to save your life?”
She swallowed, and looked down at her arm. The wounds were even more faded now. If she hadn’t known to look for them, she probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all. “Why did you?”
“Why did I what?”
“Save my life.”
“You’re my sister.”
She swallowed. In the morning light his face had some color in it. There were faint burns along his neck where demon ichor had splashed him. “You never cared that I was your sister before.”
“Didn’t I?” His black eyes flicked up and down her. She remembered when Jace had come into her house after she’d fought the Ravener demon and she’d been dying of the poison. He’d cured her just as Sebastian had, and carried her out the same way. Maybe they were more alike than she had ever wanted to think, even before the spell that had bound them. “Our father’s dead,” he said. “There are no other relatives. You and I, we are the last. The last of the Morgensterns. You are my only chance for someone whose blood runs in my veins too. Someone like me.”
“You knew I was following you,” she said.
“Of course I did.”
“And you let me.”
“I wanted to see what you would do. And I admit I didn’t think you would follow me down there. You’re braver than I thought.” He picked up the scarf from his lap and drew it around his neck. The park was beginning to fill up, with tourists clutching maps, parents with children in hand, old men sitting on other benches like this one, smoking pipes. “You would never have won that fight.”
“I might have.”
He grinned, a quick sideways grin, as if he couldn’t help it. “Maybe.”
She scuffed her boots in the grass, which was wet with dew. She wasn’t going to thank Sebastian. Not for anything. “Why are you dealing with demons?” she demanded. “I listened to them talking about you. I know what you’re doing—”
“No, you don’t.” The grin was gone, the superior tone back. “First, those weren’t the demons I was dealing with. Those were their guards. That’s why they were in a separate room and why I wasn’t there. Dahak demons aren’t that smart, though they are mean and tough and defensive. So it’s not like they were really informed about what was going on. They were just repeating gossip they’d heard from their masters. Greater Demons. That was who I was meeting with.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
He leaned toward her across the bench. “I’m not trying to make you feel better. I’m trying to tell you the truth.”
“No wonder you look like you’re having an allergy attack,” she said, though it wasn’t precisely true. Sebastian looked annoyingly tranquil, though the set of his jaw and the pulse in his temple told her he wasn’t as calm as he pretended. “The Dahak said you were going to give this world to the demons.”
“Now, does that sound like something I’d do?”
She just looked at him.
“I thought you said you were going to give me a chance,” he said. “I’m not who I was when you met me in Alicante.” His gaze was clear. “Besides, I’m not the only person you’ve ever met who believed in Valentine. He was my father. Our father. It’s not easy to doubt the things you’ve grown up believing.”
Clary crossed her arms over her chest; the air was fresh but cold, with a wintery snap in it. “Well, that’s true.”
“Valentine was wrong,” he said. “He was so obsessed with the wrongs he believed the Clave had done to him that he could see nothing past proving himself right to them. He wanted the Angel to rise and tell them that he was Jonathan Shadowhunter returned, that he was their leader and his way was the right way.”
“It didn’t exactly happen like that.”
“I know what happened. Lilith spoke to me of it.” He said this offhandedly, as if conversations with the mother of all warlocks were something everyone had every once in a while. “Do not fool yourself into thinking that what happened was because the Angel has great compassion, Clary. Angels are as cold as icicles. Raziel was angered because Valentine had forgotten the mission of all Shadowhunters.”
“Which is?”
“To kill demons. That is our mandate. Surely you must have heard that more and more demons have been spilling into our world in recent years? That we have no idea how to keep them out?”
An echo of words came back to her, something Jace had said to her what seemed like a lifetime ago, the first time they had ever visited the Silent City. We might be able to block them from coming here, but nobody’s even been able to figure out how to do that. In fact, more and more of them are coming through. There used to be only small demon invasions into this world, easily contained. But even in my lifetime more and more of them have spilled in through the wardings. The Clave is always having to dispatch Shadowhunters, and a lot of times they don’t come back.
“A great war with demons is coming, and the Clave is woefully unprepared,” said Sebastian. “That much my father was correct about. They are too set in their ways to hear warnings or to change. I do not wish the destruction of Downworlders as Valentine did, but I worry that the Clave’s blindness will doom this world that Shadowhunters protect.”
“You want me to believe you care if this world is destroyed?”
“Well, I do live here,” Sebastian said, more mildly than she would have expected. “And sometimes extreme situations call for extreme measures. To destroy the enemy it can be necessary to understand him, even to treat with him. If I can make those Greater Demons trust me, then I can lure them here, where they can be destroyed, and their followers as well. That ought to turn back the tide. Demons will know that this world is not as easy pickings as they imagined it.”
Clary shook her head. “And you’re going to do this with what, just you and Jace? You’re pretty impressive, don’t get me wrong, but even the two of you—”
Sebastian stood up. “You really don’t imagine I could have thought this through, do you?” He looked down at her, the fall wind blowing his white hair across his face. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
She hesitated. “Jace—”
“Is still asleep. Trust me, I know.” He held out his hand. “Come with me, Clary. If I can’t make you believe I have a plan, maybe I can prove it to you.”
She stared at him. Images tumbled through her mind like shaken confetti: the junk shop in Prague, her gold leaf-ring falling away into darkness, Jace holding her in the alcove in the club, the glass tanks of dead bodies. Sebastian with a seraph blade in his grip.
Prove it to you.
She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.