Brother Zachariah went on. When Jace died and then was raised, he was born a second time, with those protections and rituals stripped away. It would have left him as open as an unlocked door—open to any kind of demonic influence or malevolence.
Clary licked her dry lips. “Possession, you mean?”
Not possession. Influence. I suspect that a powerful demonic power whispers into your ears, Jonathan Herondale.
You are strong, you fight it, but it wears you down as the sea wears down the sand.
“Jace,” he whispered through white lips. “Jace Lightwood, not Herondale.”
Clary, clinging to practicalities, said, “How can you be sure it’s a demon? And what can we do to get it to leave him alone?”
Enoch, sounding thoughtful, said, The ritual must be performed again, the protections laid upon him a second time, as if he had just been born.
“Can you do it?” Clary asked.
Zachariah inclined his head. It can be done. The preparations must be made, one of the Iron Sisters called on, an amulet crafted. . . . He trailed off. Jonathan must remain with us until the ritual is finished. This is the safest place for him.
Clary looked at Jace again, searching for an expression—any expression—of hope, relief, delight, anything. But his face was impassive. “For how long?” he said.
Zachariah spread his thin hands wide. A day, perhaps two. The ritual is meant for infants; we will have to change it, alter it to fit an adult. If he were older than eighteen, it would be impossible. As it is, it will be difficult. But he is not beyond saving.
Not beyond saving. It was not what Clary had hoped for; she had wanted to be told that the problem was simple, easily solved. She looked at Jace. His head was bowed, his hair falling forward; the back of his neck looked so vulnerable to her, it made her heart ache.
“It’s fine,” she said softly. “I’ll stay here with you—”
No. The Brothers spoke as a group, their voices inexorable. He must remain here alone.
For what we must do, he cannot afford to be distracted.
She felt Jace’s body tighten. The last time he had been alone in the Silent City, he had been unfairly imprisoned, present for the horrible deaths of most of the Silent Brothers, and tormented by Valentine. She could not imagine that the idea of another night alone in the City would be anything but awful for him.
“Jace,” she whispered. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do. If you want to go . . .”
“I’ll stay,” he said. He had raised his head, and his voice was strong and clear. “I’ll stay.
I’ll do whatever I have to do to fix this. I just need you to call Izzy and Alec. Tell them—
tell them I’m staying at Simon’s to keep an eye on him.
Tell them I’ll see them tomorrow or the next day.”
“But .. .”
“Clary.” Gently he took both her hands and held them between his. “You were right. This isn’t coming from inside me. Something is doing this to me. To us. You know what that means? If I can be . . . cured . . . then I don’t have to be afraid of myself when I’m around you anymore. I’d spend a thousand nights in the Silent City for that.”
She leaned forward, heedless of the presence of the Silent Brothers, and kissed him, a quick press of her lips against his. “I’ll be back,” she whispered. “Tomorrow night, after the Ironworks party, I’ll come back and see you.”
The hopefulness in his eyes was enough to break her heart. “Maybe I’ll be cured by then.”
She touched his face with her fingertips. “Maybe you will be.”
Simon woke still feeling exhausted after a long night of bad dreams. He rolled onto his back and stared at the light coming in the single window in his bedroom.
He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d sleep better if he did what other vampires did, and slept during the day.
Despite the fact that the sun didn’t harm him, he could feel the pull of the nights, the desire to be out under the dark sky and the glimmering stars. There was something in him that wanted to live in shadows, that felt the sunlight like a thin, knifelike pain—just like there was something in him that wanted blood. And look how fighting that had turned out for him.
He staggered upright and threw on some clothes, then made his way out into the living room. The place smelled like toast and coffee. Jordan was sitting on one of the counter stools, his hair sticking out every which way as usual, his shoulders hunched.
“Hey,” Simon said. “What’s up?”
Jordan looked over at him. He was pale under his tan. “We have a problem,” he said.
Simon blinked. He hadn’t seen his werewolf roommate since the day before. He’d come home from the Institute last night and collapsed in exhaustion. Jordan hadn’t been here, and Simon had figured he was out working. But maybe something had happened.
“What’s wrong?”
“This was shoved under our door.” Jordan pushed a folded newspaper toward Simon. It was the New York Morning Chronicle, folded open to one of the pages. There was a grisly picture up toward the top, a grainy image of a body sprawled on some pavement, stick-skinny limbs bent at odd angles. It hardly looked human, the way dead bodies sometimes didn’t. Simon was about to ask Jordan why he had to look at this, when the text under the photo jumped out at him.
GIRL FOUND DEAD
Police say they are pursuing leads in the death of fourteen-year-old Maureen Brown, whose body was discovered Sunday night at eleven p.m. stuffed into a trash can outside the Big Apple Deli on Third Avenue. Though no official cause of death has been released by the coroner’s office, the deli owner who found the body, Michael Garza, says her throat was cut open. Police have not yet located a weapon . . .
Unable to read on, Simon sat down heavily in a chair. Now that he knew, the photo was unmistakably Maureen. He recognized her rainbow arm warmers, the stupid pink hat she’d been wearing when he’d seen her last. My God, he wanted to say. Oh, God. But no words came out.
“Didn’t that note say,” Jordan said in a bleak voice, “that if you didn’t go to that address, they’d cut your girlfriend’s throat?”
“No,” Simon whispered. “It’s not possible. No.”
But he remembered.
Eric’s little cousin’s friend. What’s her name? The one who has a crush on Simon. She comes to all our gigs and tells everyone she’s his girlfriend.
Simon remembered her phone, her little pink phone with the stickers on it, the way she’d held it up to take a photo of them. The feeling of her hand on his shoulder, as light as a butterfly. Fourteen years old. He curled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his chest, as if he could make himself small enough to vanish completely.