“Magnus—,” she began.
The Institute door opened, and Maryse stood in the doorway, outlined by the witchlight behind her. Beside her was Alec, his arms crossed over his chest. Magnus wondered if Alec had heard any of the conversation between him and Camille through the door—
surely not?
“Magnus,” said Maryse Lightwood. “Have you come to some agreement?”
Magnus dropped his hand.“I’m not sure I’d call it anagreement,” he said, turning to Maryse.“ButIdo think we have some things to talk about.”
Dressed, Clary went with Jace to his room, where he packed a small canvas bag with things to bring with him to the Silent City, as if, she thought, he were going to some grim sleepover party. Weapons mostly—a few seraph blades; his stele; and almost as an afterthought, the silver-handled knife, its blade now cleaned of blood. He slid on a black leather jacket, and she watched as he zipped it, pulling loose strands of blond hair free of his collar.
When he turned to look at her, slinging his bag across his shoulder, he smiled faintly, and she saw the slight chip in his front left incisor that she had always thought was endearing, a little flaw in looks that would otherwise be too perfect. Her heart contracted, and for a moment she looked away from him, hardly able to breathe.
He held out his hand to her. “Let’s go.”
There was no way to summon the Silent Brothers to come and get them, so Jace and Clary took a taxi heading downtown toward Houston and the Marble Cemetery. Clary supposed they could just have Portaled into the Bone City—she’d been there before; she knew what it looked like—but Jace said there were rules about that sort of thing, and Clary couldn’t shake the feeling that the Silent Brothers might find it rather rude.
Jace sat beside her in the back of the taxi, holding one of her hands and tracing patterns on the back of it with his fingers. This was distracting, but not so distracting that she couldn’t concentrate while he filled her in on what had been going on with Simon, the story of Jordan, their capture of Camille, and her demand to speak to Magnus.
“Simon’s all right?” she said worriedly.“Ididn’t realize. He was inthe Institute, and Ididn’t evensee him—”
“He wasn’t in the Institute; he was in the Sanctuary. And he seems to be holding his own.
Better than I would have thought for someone who was so recently a mundane.”
“But the plan sounds dangerous. I mean Camille, she’s absolutely crazy, isn’t she?”
Jace traced his fingers over her knuckles. “You have to stop thinking of Simon as the mundane boy you used to know. The one who required so much saving. He’s almost beyond being harmed now. You haven’t seen that Mark you gave him in action. I have.
Like the wrath of God being visited upon the world. I suppose you should be proud.”
She shivered. “I don’t know. I did it because I had to do it, but it’s still a curse. And I didn’t know he was going through all this. He didn’t say. I knew Isabelle and Maia had found out about each other, but I didn’t know about Jordan. That he was really Maia’s ex, or—any of it.” Because you haven’t asked. You were too busy worrying about Jace. Not good.
“Well,” Jace said, “have you been telling him what you’re up to? Because it has to go both ways.”
“No. I haven’t really told anyone,” Clary said, and filled Jace in on her trip to the Silent City with Luke and Maryse, what she had found at the morgue at Beth Israel, and her subsequent discovery of the Church of Talto.
“Never heard of it,” Jace said. “But Isabelle’s right, there are all sorts of bizarro demon-worshipping sects out there. Most of them never actually succeed in summoning up a demon. Sounds like this one did.”
“Do you think the demon we killed was the one they were worshipping? Do you think now they might—stop?”
Jace shook his head. “That was just a Hydra demon, a sort of guard dog. Besides, ‘Her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.’ Sounds like a female demon to me. And it’s the cults that worship female demons that often do horrible stuff with babies. They have all sorts of twisted ideas about fertility and infants.” He sat back against the seat, half-closing his eyes. “I’m sure the Conclave will go to the church and check it out, but twenty to one they don’t find anything. You killed their guard demon, so the cult’s going to clear out and ditch the evidence. We might have to wait until they set up shop again somewhere else.”
“But—” Clary’s stomach clenched. “That baby. And the pictures in the book I saw. I think they’re trying to make more children like—like Sebastian.”
“They can’t,” said Jace. “They shot up a human baby with demon blood, which is pretty bad, yes. But you get something like Sebastian only if what you’re doing is using demon blood on Shadowhunter children. Instead the baby died.” He squeezed her hand lightly, as if for reassurance. “They’re not nice people, but I can’t imagine they’d try the same thing again, since it didn’t work.”
The taxi came to a screeching halt at the corner of Houston and Second Avenue. “Meter’s broken,” said the cabbie. “Ten bucks.”
Jace, who under other circumstances would probably have made a sarcastic remark, tossed the cabbie a twenty and got out of the car, holding the door open for Clary to follow. “You ready?” he asked as they headed toward the iron gate that led to the City.
She nodded. “I can’t say my last trip here was much fun, but yes, I’m ready.” She took his hand. “As long as we’re together, I’m ready for anything.”
The Silent Brothers were waiting for them in the entryway of the City, almost as if they had been expecting them.