“Iz!” Simon put his hand on her shoulder. “Izzy. No.”
“No?” She looked at him incredulously. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t chop him into worthlessbastardthemed confetti.”
Simon’s eyes darted around the room, resting for a moment on Jace, as if he expected him to chime in or add a comment. He didn’t; he didn’t even move. Finally Simon said,
“Look, you understand about the ritual, right?
Because Jace was brought back from the dead, that gave Lilith the power to raise Sebastian. And to do that, she needed Jace there and alive, as—what did she call it—”
“A counterweight,” put in Clary.
“That mark that Jace has on his chest. Lilith’s mark.” In a seemingly unconscious gesture, Simon touched his own chest, just over the heart. “Sebastian has it too. I saw them both flash at the same time when Jace stepped into the circle.”
Isabelle, her whip twitching at her side, her teeth biting into her red bottom lip, said impatiently, “And?”
“I think she was making a tie between them,” said Simon. “If Jace died, Sebastian couldn’t live. So if you cut Sebastian into pieces—”
“It could hurt Jace,” Clary said, the words spilling out of her as she realized. “Oh, my God. Oh, Izzy, you can’t.”
“So we’re just going to let him live?” Isabelle sounded incredulous.
“Cut him to pieces if you like,” Jace said. “You have my permission.”
“Shut up,” said Alec. “Stop acting like your life doesn’t matter. Iz, weren’t you listening?
Sebastian’s not alive.”
“He’s not dead, either. Not dead enough.”
“We need the Clave,” said Alec. “We need to give him over to the Silent Brothers. They can sever his connection to Jace, and then you’ll get all the blood you want, Iz. He’s Valentine’s son. And he’s a murderer. Everyone lost someone in the battle inAlicante, orknows someone who did. Youthink they’ll be kind to him? They’ll take him apart slowly while he’s still living.”
Isabelle stared up at her brother. Very slowly tears welled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks, streaking the dirt and blood on her skin. “I hate it,” she said. “I hate it when you’re right.”
Alec pulled his sister closer and kissed the top of her head. “I know you do.”
She squeezed her brother’s hand briefly, then drew back. “Fine,” she said. “I won’t touch Sebastian. But I can’t stand to be this close to him.” She glanced toward the glass doors, where Jace still stood. “Let’s go downstairs.
We can wait for the Clave in the lobby. And we need to get Maia and Jordan; they’re probably wondering where we went.”
Simon cleared his throat. “Someone should stay up here just to keep an eye on—on things. I’ll do it.”
“No.” It was Jace. “You go downstairs. I’ll stay. All of this is my fault. I should have made sure Sebastian was dead when I had the chance. And as for the rest of it . . .”
His voice trailed off. But Clary remembered him touching her face in a dark hallway in the Institute, remembered him whispering, Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
My fault, my fault, my own most grievous fault.
She turned to look at the others; Isabelle had pushed the call button, which was lit. Clary could hear the distant hum of the rising elevator. Isabelle’s brow creased. “Alec, maybe you should stay up here with Jace.”
“I don’t need help,” Jace said. “There’s nothing to handle. I’ll be fine.”
Isabelle threw her hands up as the elevator arrived with a ping. “Fine. You win. Sulk up here alone if you want.” She stalked into the elevator, Simon and Alec crowding in after her. Clary was the last to follow, turning back to look at Jace as she went. He had gone back to staring at the doors, but she could see his reflection in them. His mouth was compressed into a bloodless line, his eyes dark.
Jace, she thought as the elevator doors began to close. She willed him to turn, to look at her. He didn’t, but she felt strong hands suddenly on her shoulders, shoving her forward.
She heard Isabelle say, “Alec, what on earth are you —” as she stumbled through the elevator doors and righted herself, turning to stare. The doors were closing behind her, but through them she could see Alec. He gave her a rueful little half smile and a shrug, as if to say, What else was I supposed to do? Clary stepped forward, but it was too late; the elevator doors had clanged shut.
She was alone in the room with Jace.
The room was littered with dead bodies—crumpled figures all in gray hooded tracksuits, flung or crumpled or slumped against the wall. Maia stood by the window, breathing hard, looking out across the scene in front of her with disbelief. She had taken part in the battle at Brocelind in Idris, and had thought that was the worst thing she would ever see.
But somehow this was worse. The blood that ran from dead cult members wasn’t demon ichor; it was human blood. And the babies—silent and dead in their cribs, their small taloned hands folded one over the other, like dolls . . .
She looked down at her own hands. Her claws were still out, stained with blood from tip to root; she retracted them, and the blood ran down her palms, staining her wrists. Her feet were bare and bloodstained, and there was a long scratch along one bare shoulder still oozing red, though it had already begun to heal. Despite the swift healing lycanthropy provided, she knew she’d wake up tomorrow covered in bruises. When you were a werewolf, bruises rarely lasted more than a day. She remembered when she had been human, and her brother, Daniel, had made himself an expert in pinching her hard in places where the bruises wouldn’t show.
“Maia.” Jordan came in through one of the unfinished doors, ducking a bundle of dangling wires. He straightened up and moved toward her, picking his way among the bodies. “Are you all right?”
The look of concern on his face knotted her stomach.
“Where are Isabelle and Alec?”
He shook his head. He had sustained much less visible damage than she had. His thick leather jacket had protected him, as had his jeans and boots. There was a long scrape along his cheek, dried blood in his light brown hair and staining the blade of the knife he held. “I’ve searched the whole floor. Haven’t seen them. Couple more bodies in the other rooms. They might have—”
The night lit up like a seraph blade. The windows went white, and bright light seared through the room. For a moment Maia thought the world had caught on fire, and Jordan, moving toward her through the light, seemed almost to disappear, white on white, into a shimmering field of silver. She heard herself scream, and she moved blindly backward, banging her head on the plate glass window. She put her hands up to cover her eyes—
And the light was gone. Maia lowered her hands, the world swinging around her. She reached out blindly, and Jordan was there. She put her arms around him—threw them around him, the way she used to when he came to pick her up from her house, and he would swing her into his arms, winding the curls of her hair through his fingers.
He had been slighter then, narrow-shouldered. Now muscle corded his bones, and holding him was like holding on to something absolutely solid, a pillar of granite in the midst of a blowing desert sandstorm. She clung on to him, and heard the beat of his heart under her ear as his hands smoothed her hair, one rough, soothing stroke at a time, comforting and . . . familiar. “Maia . . . it’s all right . . .”
She raised her head and pressed her mouth to his. He had changed in so many ways, but the feel of kissing him was the same, his mouth as soft as ever. He went rigid for a second with surprise, and then gathered her up against him, his hands stroking slow circles on her bare back. She remembered the first time they had ever kissed. She had handed him her earrings to put in the glove compartment of his car, and his hand had shaken so badly he’d dropped them and then apologized and apologized until she kissed him to shut him up. She’d thought he was the sweetest boy she’d ever known.
And then he was bitten, and everything changed.
She drew away, dizzy and breathing hard. He let her go instantly; he was staring at her, his mouth open, his eyes dazed. Behind him, through the window, she could see the city—she had half expected it to be flattened, a blasted white desert outside the window—but everything was exactly the same. Nothing had changed. Lights blinked on and off in the buildings across the street; she could hear the faint rush of traffic below.
“We should go,” she said.
“We should look for the others.”