19
LOVE AND BLOOD
Methodically and carefully Clary was tearing Jace’s room apart. She was still in her tank top, though she’d pulled on a pair of jeans; her hair was scraped behind her head in a messy bun, and her nails were powdered with dust. She had searched under his bed, in all the drawers and cabinets, crawled under the wardrobe and desk, and looked in the pockets of all his clothes for a second stele, but she had found nothing.
She had told Sebastian she was exhausted, that she needed to go upstairs and lie down; he had seemed distracted and had waved her away. Images of Jace’s face kept flashing behind her eyelids every time she shut her eyes—the way he had looked at her, betrayed, as if he didn’t know her anymore.
But there was no point dwelling on that. She could sit on the edge of the bed and cry into her hands, thinking about what she had done, but it would do no one any good. She owed it to Jace, to herself, to keep moving. Searching. If she could just find a stele—
She was lifting the mattress off the bed, searching the space between it and the box springs, when a knock came on the door.
She dropped the mattress, though not before discerning that there was nothing under it. She tightened her hands into fists, took a deep breath, stalked to the door and threw it open.
Sebastian stood on the threshold. For the first time he was wearing something other than black and white. The same black trousers and boots, admittedly, but he also wore a scarlet leather tunic, intricately worked with gold and silver runes, and held together by a row of metal clasps across the front. There were hammered silver bracelets on each of his wrists, and he wore the Morgenstern ring.
She blinked at him. “Red?”
“Ceremonial,” he replied. “Colors mean different things to Shadowhunters than they do to humans.” He said the word “humans” with contempt. “You know the old Nephilim children’s rhyme, don’t you?
Black for hunting through the night
For death and sorrow, the color’s white.
Gold for a bride in her wedding gown,
And red to call enchantment down.”
“Shadowhunters get married in gold?” Clary said. Not that she cared particularly, but she was trying to wedge her body into the gap between the door and the frame so that he couldn’t look behind her and see the mess she’d made out of Jace’s normally neat room.
“Sorry to crush your dreams of a white wedding.” He grinned at her. “Speaking of which, I brought you something to wear.”
He drew his hand out from behind his back. He was holding a folded item of clothing. She took it from him and let it unroll. It was a long, drifting column of scarlet fabric with an odd golden sheen to the material, like the edge of a flame. The straps were gold.
“Our mother used to wear this to Circle ceremonies before she betrayed our father,” he said. “Put it on. I want you to wear it tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Well, you can hardly go to the ceremony in what you’re wearing now.” His eyes raked her, from her bare feet to the tank top clinging to her body with sweat, to her dusty jeans. “How you look tonight—the impression you make on our new acolytes—is important. Put it on.”
Her mind was whirling. The ceremony tonight. Our new acolytes. “How much time do I have—to get ready?” she asked.
“An hour perhaps,” he said. “We should be at the sacred site by midnight. The others will be gathering there. It wouldn’t do to be late.”
An hour. Heart hammering, Clary threw the garment across the bed, where it glimmered like chain mail. When she turned back, he was still in the doorway, a half smile on his face, as if he intended to wait there while she changed.
She moved to shut the door. He caught her wrist. “Tonight,” he said, “you call me Jonathan. Jonathan Morgenstern. Your brother.”
A shudder ran over her whole body, and she dropped her eyes, hoping he couldn’t see the hatred in them. “Whatever you say.”
The moment he was gone she reached for one of Jace’s leather jackets. She slipped it on, taking comfort in the warmth and the familiar smell of him. She slid her feet into shoes and crept out into the hallway, wishing for a stele and a new Soundless rune. She could hear water running downstairs and Sebastian’s off-key whistling, but her own footsteps still sounded like cannon explosions in her ears. She crept along, keeping close to the wall, until she reached Sebastian’s door and slid inside.
It was dim, the only illumination the ambient city light coming from the windows, whose curtains were pulled back. It was a mess, just as it had been the first time she’d been in it. She started with his closet, stuffed full of expensive clothes—silk shirts, leather jackets, Armani suits, Bruno Magli shoes. On the floor of the closet was a white shirt, wadded up and stained with blood—blood old enough to have dried to brown. Clary looked at it for a long moment and shut the closet door.
She set herself to the desk next, pulling out drawers, rifling through papers. She’d rather hoped for something simple, like a lined piece of notebook paper with MY EVIL PLAN written across the top, but no luck. There were dozens of papers with complex numerical and alchemical figuring on them, and even a piece of stationery that began My beautiful one in Sebastian’s cramped handwriting. She spared a moment to wonder who on earth Sebastian’s beautiful one could be—she hadn’t thought of him as someone who ever had romantic feelings about anyone—before turning to the nightstand by his bed.
She pulled open the drawer. Inside was a stack of notes. On top of them, something glimmered. Something circular and metallic.
Her faerie ring.
Isabelle sat with her arm around Simon as they drove back toward Brooklyn. He was exhausted, his head throbbing, his body pierced with aches. Though Magnus had given him back his ring at the lake, he had been unable to reach Clary with it. Worst of all, he was hungry. He liked how close Isabelle was sitting to him, the way she rested her hand just above the crook of his elbow, tracing patterns there, sometimes sliding her fingers down to his wrist. But the scent of her—perfume and blood—made his stomach growl.
It was starting to grow dark outside, the late-autumn sunset coming soon on the heels of the day, dimming the interior of the truck’s cab. Alec’s and Magnus’s voices were murmurs in the shadows. Simon let his eyes flutter closed, seeing the Angel printed against the back of his lids, a burst of white light.
Simon! Clary’s voice exploded inside his head, jerking him instantly awake. Are you there?
A sharp gasp escaped his lips. Clary? I was so worried—
Sebastian took my ring away from me. Simon, there may not be much time. I have to tell you. They have a second Mortal Cup. They plan to raise Lilith and create an army of dark Shadowhunters—ones with the same power as the Nephilim but allied to the demon world.
“You’re kidding me,” Simon said. It took him a moment to realize he’d spoken aloud; Isabelle stirred against him, and Magnus looked over curiously.
“You all right there, vampire?”
“It’s Clary,” Simon said. All three of them looked at him with identical astonished expressions. “She’s trying to talk to me.” He slapped his hands over his ears, slumping down in his seat and trying to concentrate on her words. When are they going to do it?
Tonight. Soon. I don’t know where we are exactly—but it’s about ten p.m. here.
Then you’re about five hours ahead of us. Are you in Europe?
I can’t even guess. Sebastian mentioned something called the Seventh Sacred Site. I don’t know what that is, but I’ve found some of his notes and apparently it’s an ancient tomb. It looks like a sort of doorway, and demons can be summoned through it.
Clary, I’ve never heard of anything like that—
But Magnus or the others might. Please, Simon. Tell them as quickly as you can. Sebastian’s going to ressurrect Lilith. He wants war, a total war with the Shadowhunters. He has about forty or fifty Nephilim ready to follow him. They’ll be there. Simon, he wants to burn the world down. We have to do anything we can to stop him.
If things are that dangerous, you need to get yourself out of there.
She sounded tired. I’m trying. But it might be too late.
Simon was dimly aware that everyone else in the truck was staring at him, concern on their faces. He didn’t care. Clary’s voice in his mind was like a rope tossed over a chasm, and if he could grip his end of it, maybe he could pull her to safety, or at least keep her from slipping away.
Clary, listen. I can’t tell you how, it’s too long a story, but we have a weapon. It can be used on either Jace or Sebastian without hurting the other, and according to the… person who gave it to us, it might be able to cut them apart.
Cut them apart? How?
He said it would burn all the evil out of the one we used it on. So if we used it on Sebastian, I’m guessing, it would burn away the bond between them because the bond is evil. Simon felt his head throb, and hoped he sounded more confident than he did. I’m not sure. It’s very powerful, anyway. It’s called Glorious.
And you’d use it on Sebastian? It would burn them apart without killing them?
Well, that’s the idea. I mean, there is some chance it would destroy Sebastian. It would depend on if there’s any good left in him. “If he’s more Hell’s than Heaven’s” I think is what the Angel said—
The Angel? Her alarm was palpable. Simon, what have you—
Her voice broke off, and Simon was suddenly filled with a clamor of emotion—surprise, anger, terror. Pain. He cried out, sitting bolt upright.
Clary?
But there was only silence, ringing in his head.
Clary! he cried out, and then, aloud, he said: “Damn. She’s gone again.”
“What happened?” Isabelle demanded. “Is she all right? What’s going on?”
“I think we have a lot less time than we thought,” Simon said in a voice much calmer than he felt. “Magnus, pull the truck over. We have to talk.”
“So,” Sebastian said, filling the doorway as he looked down at Clary. “Would it be déjà vu if I asked you what you were doing in my room, little sister?”
Clary swallowed against her suddenly dry throat. The light in the hallway was bright behind Sebastian, turning him into a silhouette. She couldn’t see the expression on his face. “Looking for you?” she hazarded.
“You’re sitting on my bed,” he said. “Did you think I was under it?”
“I…”
He walked into the room—sauntered, really, as if he knew something she didn’t. Something no one else knew. “So why were you looking for me? And why haven’t you changed for the ceremony?”
“The dress,” she said. “It—doesn’t fit.”
“Of course it fits,” he said, sitting down on the bed beside her. He turned to face her, his back to the headboard. “Everything else in that room fits you. This should fit you too.”
“It’s silk and chiffon. It doesn’t stretch.”
“You’re a skinny little thing. It shouldn’t have to.” He took her right wrist, and she curled her fingers in, desperately trying to hide the ring. “Look, my fingers go right around your wrist.”
His skin felt hot against hers, sending sharp prickles through her nerves. She remembered the way, in Idris, his touch had burned her like acid. “The Seventh Sacred Site,” she said, not looking at him. “Is that where Jace went?”
“Yes. I sent him ahead. He’s readying things for our arrival. We’ll meet him there.”
Her heart dived inside her chest. “He’s not coming back?”
“Not before the ceremony.” She caught the curling edge of Sebastian’s smile. “Which is good, because he’d be so disappointed when I told him about this.” He slid his hand swiftly over hers, uncurling her fingers. The gold ring blazed there, like a signal fire. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize faerie work? Do you think the Queen is such a fool that she would send you off to retrieve these for her without knowing you would keep them for yourself? She wanted you to bring this here, where I would find it.” He jerked the ring off her finger with a smirk.
“You’ve been in contact with the Queen?” Clary demanded. “How?”
“With this ring,” Sebastian purred, and Clary remembered the Queen saying in her high sweet voice, Jonathan Morgenstern could be a powerful ally. The Fair Folk are an old people; we do not make hasty decisions but wait to see in what direction the wind blows first. “Do you really think she’d let you get your hands on something that would let you communicate with your little friends without her being able to listen in? Since I took it from you, I’ve spoken to her, she’s spoken to me—you were a fool to trust her, little sister. She likes to be on the winning side of things, the Seelie Queen. And that side will be ours, Clary. Ours.” His voice was low and soft. “Forget them, your Shadowhunter friends. Your place is with us. With me. Your blood cries out for power, like mine does. Whatever your mother may have done to twist your conscience, you know who you are.” His hand caught at her wrist again, pulling her toward him. “Jocelyn made all the wrong decisions. She sided with the Clave against her family. This is your chance to rectify her mistake.”
She tried to pull her arm back. “Let me go, Sebastian. I mean it.”
His hand slid up from her wrist, encircling her upper arm with his fingers. “You’re such a little thing. Who’d think you were such a spitfire? Especially in bed.”
She leaped to her feet, jerking away from him. “What did you just say?”
He rose as well, his lips curving up at the corners. He was so much taller than she was, almost exactly as much taller as Jace was. He leaned in close to her when he spoke, and his voice was low and rough. “Everything that marks Jace, marks me,” he said. “Down to your fingernails.” He was grinning. “Eight parallel scratches on my back, little sister. Are you saying you didn’t put them there?”
A soft explosion went off in her head, like a dull firework of rage. She looked at his laughing face, and she thought of Jace, and of Simon, and the words they’d just exchanged. If the Queen really could eavesdrop on her conversations, then she might know about Glorious already. But Sebastian didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
She snatched the ring from his hand, and threw it to the ground. She heard him give a shout, but she’d already brought her foot down on it, feeling it give way, the gold smashing to powder.
He looked at her incredulously as she drew her foot back. “You—”
She drew back her right hand, the strongest one, and drove her fist into his stomach.
He was taller, broader, and stronger than she was, but she had the element of surprise. He doubled over, choking, and she snatched the stele from his weapons belt. Then she ran.