“Who would do that?”
“Someone who doesn’t like us very much,” said Clary, and pushed away an image of the Seelie Queen.
“Maybe,” Jace said softly, looking down at his hands. “Sebastian—”
So he doesn’t want to call him Jonathan either, Clary thought. She didn’t blame him. It was his own name too.
“Sebastian’s dead,” she said, a little more sharply than she’d intended. “And if he had had this sort of power, he would have used it before.”
Doubt and hope chased each other across Jace’s face. “You really think someone else could be doing this?”
Clary’s heart beat hard against her rib cage. She wasn’t sure; she wanted it so badly to be true, but if it wasn’t, she would have gotten Jace’s hopes up for nothing. Both their hopes.
But then she got the feeling it had been a while since Jace had felt hopeful about anything.
“I think we should go to the Silent City,” she said. “The Brothers can get into your head and find out if someone’s been messing around in there. The way they did with me.”
Jace opened his mouth and closed it again. “When?” he said finally.
“Now,” Clary said. “I don’t want to wait. Do you?”
He didn’t reply, just got up off the floor and picked up his shirt. He looked at Clary, and almost smiled. “If we’re going to the SilentCity, youmight want to getdressed.Imean, Iappreciate the bra-and-panties look, butIdon’t know if the Silent Brothers will. There are only a few of them left, and I don’t want them to die of excitement.”
Clary got up off the bed and threw a pillow at him, mostly out of relief. She reached for her clothes and began to pull her shirt on. Just before it went over her head, she caught sight of the knife lying on the bedspread, gleaming like a fork of silvery flame.
“Camille,” Magnus said. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
She smiled. Her skin looked whiter than he recalled, and dark spidery veins were beginning to show beneath its surface. Her hair was still the color of spun silver, and her eyes were still as green as a cat’s. She was still beautiful. Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec’s. A girl with long brown curls and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.
And then there was Camille.
“I’ve missed you, Magnus,” she said.
“No, you haven’t.” He sat down on the floor of the Sanctuary. He could feel the cold of the stone through his clothes.
He was glad he had worn the scarf. “So why the message for me? Just stalling for time?”
“No.” She leaned forward, the chains rattling. He could almost hear the hissing where the blessed metal touched the skin of her wrists. “I have heard things about you, Magnus. I have heard that you are under the wing of the Shadowhunters these days. I had heard that you have won the love of one of them. That boy you were just talking to, I imagine. But then your tastes were always diverse.”
“You have been listening to rumors about me,” Magnus said. “But you could simply have asked me. All these years I was in Brooklyn, not far away at all, and I never heard from you. Never saw you at one of my parties. There has been a wall of ice between us, Camille.”
“I did not build it.” Her green eyes widened. “I have loved you always.”
“Youleftme,” he said. “Youmade a pet out of me,and thenyouleft me. If love were food, Iwouldhave starved on the bones you gave me.” He spoke matter-of-factly. It had been a long time.
“But we had all of eternity,” she protested. “You must have known I would come back to you—”
“Camille.” Magnus spoke with infinite patience. “What do you want?”
Her chest rose and fell quickly. Since she had no need to breathe, Magnus knew this was mainly for effect. “I know you have the ear of the Shadowhunters,” she said. “I want you to speak to them on my behalf.”
“You want me to cut a deal for you,” Magnus translated.
She cut her eyes at him. “Your diction has always been so regrettably modern.”
“They’re saying you killed three Shadowhunters,” said Magnus. “Did you?”
“They were Circle members,” she said, her lower lip trembling. “They had tortured and killed my kind in the past. . .
.”
“Is that why you did it? Revenge?” When she was silent, Magnus said, “You know what they do to those who kill Nephilim, Camille.”
Her eyes shone. “I need you to intercede for me, Magnus. I want immunity. I want a signed promise from the Clave that if I give them information, they will spare my life and set me free.”
“They’ll never set you free.”
“Then they’ll never know why their colleagues had to die.”
“Had to die?”Magnus mused. “Interesting wording, Camille.Am Icorrect that there is more to this thanmeets the eye? More than blood or revenge?”
She was silent, looking at him, her chest rising and falling artfully. Everything about her was artful—the fall of her silvery hair, the curve of her throat, even the blood on her wrists.
“If you want me to speak to them for you,” Magnus said, “you have to tell me at least some small thing. A show of good faith.”
She smiled brilliantly. “I knew you would speak to them for me, Magnus. I knew the past was not entirely dead for you.”
“Consider it undead if you like,” Magnus said. “The truth, Camille?”
She ran her tongue across her lower lip. “You can tell them,” she said, “that I was under orders when I killed those Shadowhunters. It did not disturb me to do it, for they had killed my kin, and their deaths were deserved. But I would not have done it unless requested to do so by someone else, someone much more powerful than myself.”
Magnus’s heart beat a little faster. He didn’t like the sound of this. “Who?”
But Camille shook her head. “Immunity, Magnus.”
“Camille—”
“They will stake me out in the sun and leave me to die,” she said. “That is what they do to those who slay Nephilim.”
Magnus got to his feet. His scarf was dusty from lying on the ground. He looked at the stains mournfully. “I’ll do what I can, Camille. But I make no promises.”
“You never would,” she murmured, her eyes half-lidded. “Come here, Magnus. Come close to me.”
He did not love her, but she was a dream out of the past, so he moved toward her, until he was standing close enough to touch her. “Remember,” she said softly. “Remember London? The parties at de Quincey’s? Remember Will Herondale? I know you do. That boy of yours, that Lightwood. They even look alike.”
“Do they?” Magnus said, as if he had never thought about it.
“Pretty boys have always been your undoing,” she said. “But what can some mortal child give you? Ten years, twenty, before dissolution begins to claim him. Forty years, fifty, before death takes him. I can give you all of eternity.”
He touched her cheek. It was colder than the floor had been. “You could give me the past,” he said a little sadly.
“But Alec is my future.”