City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments 6)

“If Clary and Jace are delivered to Sebastian, then they will be delivered to their deaths,” said Maryse.

They were in the offices of the Consul, likely the most plushly decorated room in all the Gard. A thick rug was underfoot, the stone walls spread with tapestries, a massive desk standing diagonally across the room. On one side of it was Jia Penhallow, the cut on her throat sealing as her iratzes took effect. Behind her chair stood her husband, Patrick, his hand on her shoulder.

Facing them were Maryse and Robert Lightwood; to Clary’s surprise, she, Isabelle, and Simon had been allowed to stay in the room as well. It was her own and Jace’s fate they were discussing, she supposed, but then the Clave had never before seemed to have much in the way of a problem with deciding people’s fates without their input.

“Sebastian says he won’t hurt them,” said Jia.

“His word’s worthless,” Isabelle snapped. “He lies. And it doesn’t mean anything if he swears on the Angel, because he doesn’t care about the Angel. He serves Lilith, if he serves anyone.”

There was a soft click, and the door opened, admitting Alec and Jace. Jace and Alec had tumbled down quite a few stairs, and Jace had gotten the worst of it, with a split lip and a wrist that had either been broken or twisted. It looked back to normal now, though; he tried to smile at Clary as he came in, but his eyes were haunted.

“You have to understand how the Clave will see it,” Jia said. “You fought Sebastian at the Burren. They were told, but they didn’t see, not until the Citadel, the difference between Endarkened warriors and Shadowhunters. There has never been a race of warriors more powerful than Nephilim. Now there is.”

“The reason he attacked the Citadel was to gather information,” said Jace. “He wanted to know what the Nephilim were capable of: not just the group we could scramble together at the Burren, but warriors sent to fight by the Clave. He wanted to see how they stood up against his forces.”

“He was taking our measure,” said Clary. “He was weighing us in the balance.”

Jia looked at her. “Mene mene tekel upharsin,” she said softly.

“You were right when you said Sebastian doesn’t want to fight a big battle,” said Jace. “His interest is to fight a lot of small battles where he can Turn a bunch of Nephilim. Add to his forces. And it might have worked, to stay in Idris, let him bring the battle here, break the tide of his army on the rocks of Alicante. Except now that he’s taken the Downworld representatives, staying here won’t work. Without us watching, with Downworld turning against us, the Accords will fall apart. The world—will fall apart.”

Jia’s gaze went to Simon. “What do you say, Downworlder? Was Matthias correct? If we refuse to ransom Sebastian’s hostages, will it mean war with Downworld?”

Simon looked startled to be addressed in such an official capacity. Consciously or unconsciously, his hand had gone to Jordan’s medallion at his throat; he held it as he spoke. “I think,” he said with reluctance, “that though there are some Downworlders who would be reasonable, the vampires wouldn’t. They already believe Nephilim set a light price on their lives. Warlocks . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t really understand warlocks. Or faeries—I mean, the Seelie Queen seems to look out for herself. She helped Sebastian with these.” He held up his hand, where his ring glimmered.

“It seems likely that was less about helping Sebastian than about her own insatiable desire to know everything,” Robert said. “It is true, she did spy on you, but Sebastian was not known to be our enemy then. More tellingly, Meliorn has sworn up and down that the Fair Folk’s loyalty is to us and that Sebastian is their enemy, and faeries cannot lie.”

Simon shrugged. “Anyway, my point is that I don’t understand how they think. But the werewolves love Luke. They’ll be desperate to get him back.”

“He used to be a Shadowhunter—” Robert began.

“That makes it worse,” said Simon, and it wasn’t Simon, Clary’s oldest friend, talking but someone else, someone knowledgeable about Downworld politics. “They see the way Nephilim treat Downworlders who were once Nephilim as evidence of the fact that Shadowhunters believe Downworld blood is tainted. Magnus told me once about a dinner he was invited to at an Institute for Downworlders and Shadowhunters alike; afterward the Shadowhunters threw out all the plates. Because Downworlders had touched them.”

“Not all Nephilim are like that,” Maryse said.

Simon shrugged. “The first time I ever came to the Gard, it was because Alec brought me,” he said. “I trusted that the Consul only wanted to talk to me. Instead I was thrown into prison and starved. Luke’s own parabatai told him to kill himself when Luke was Turned. The Praetor Lupus has been burned to the ground by someone who, even if he is an enemy of Idris, is a Shadowhunter.”

“So you are saying, yes, it will be war?” asked Jia.

“It’s already war, isn’t it?” said Simon. “Weren’t you just injured in a battle? I’m just saying—Sebastian is using the cracks in your alliances to break you, and he’s doing it well. Maybe he doesn’t understand humans, I’m not saying he does, but he does understand evil and betrayal and selfishness, and that’s something that applies to everything with a mind and a heart.” He closed his mouth abruptly, as if afraid that he’d said too much.

“So you think that we should do as Sebastian asks, send Jace and Clary to him?” asked Patrick.

“No,” Simon said. “I think he always lies, and sending them won’t help anything. Even if he swears, he lies, like Isabelle said.” He looked at Jace, and then Clary. “You know,” he said. “You know him better than anyone; you know he never means what he says. Tell them.”

Clary shook her head, mutely. It was Isabelle who answered for her: “They can’t,” she said. “It would seem like they were begging for their lives, and neither of them are going to do that.”

“I’ve already volunteered,” said Jace. “I said I would go. You know why he wants me.” He threw his arms wide. Clary wasn’t surprised to see that the heavenly fire was visible against the skin of his forearms, like golden wires. “The heavenly fire injured him at the Burren. He’s afraid of it, so he’s afraid of me. I saw it on his face, in Clary’s room.”

There was a long silence. Jia slumped back in her chair. “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t disagree with any of you. But I cannot control the Clave, and there are those among them who will choose what they see as safety, and yet others who hate the idea that we allied with Downworlders in the first place and will welcome a chance to refuse. If Sebastian wished to splinter the Clave into factions, and I am sure he did, he chose a good way to do it.” She looked around at the Lightwoods, at Jace and Clary, the Consul’s steady dark gaze resting on each of them in turn. “I would love to hear suggestions,” she added, a little dryly.

“We could go into hiding,” Isabelle said immediately. “Disappear to a place where Sebastian will never find us; you can report back to him that Jace and Clary fled despite your attempts to keep us. He can’t blame you for that.”

“A reasonable person wouldn’t blame the Clave,” said Jace. “Sebastian’s not reasonable.”

“And there isn’t anywhere we can hide from him,” Clary said. “He found me in Amatis’s house. He can find me anywhere. Maybe Magnus could have helped us, but—”

“There are other warlocks,” said Patrick, and Clary chanced a glimpse at Alec’s face. It looked like it had been carved out of stone.

“You can’t count on them helping us, no matter what you pay them, not now,” Alec said. “That’s the point of the kidnapping. They won’t come to the aid of the Clave, not until they see whether we come to their aid first.”

There was a knock on the door and in came two Silent Brothers, their robes glimmering like parchment in the witchlight. “Brother Enoch,” said Patrick, by way of greeting, “and—”

“Brother Zachariah,” said the second of them, drawing his hood down.

Despite what Jace had hinted at in the Council room, the sight of the now-human Zachariah was a shock. He was barely recognizable, only the dark runes on the arches of his cheekbones a reminder of what he had been. He was slender, almost slight, and tall, with a delicate and very human elegance to the shape of his face, and dark hair. He looked perhaps twenty.

“Is that,” Isabelle said in a low, amazed voice, “Brother Zachariah? When did he get hot?”

“Isabelle!” Clary whispered, but Brother Zachariah either hadn’t heard her or had great self-restraint. He was looking at Jia, and then, to Clary’s surprise, said something in a language she didn’t know.

Jia’s lips trembled for a moment. Then they tightened into a hard line. She turned to the others. “Amalric Kriegsmesser is dead,” she said.

It took Clary, numb from a dozen shocks in as many hours, several seconds to remember who that was: the Endarkened who had been captured in Berlin and brought to the Basilias while the Brothers searched for a cure.

“Nothing we tried on him worked,” said Brother Zachariah. His spoken voice was musical. He sounded British, Clary thought; she’d only ever heard his voice in her mind before, and telepathic communication apparently wiped out accents. “Not a single spell, not a single potion. Finally we had him drink from the Mortal Cup.”

It destroyed him, said Enoch. Death was instantaneous.

“Amalric’s body must be sent through a Portal to the warlocks in the Spiral Labyrinth, to study,” Jia said. “Perhaps if we act quickly enough, she—they can learn something from his death. Some clue to a cure.”

“His poor family,” said Maryse. “They will not even see him burned and buried in the Silent City.”

“He is not Nephilim anymore,” said Patrick. “If he were to be buried, it would be at the crossroads outside Brocelind Forest.”

“Like my mother was,” said Jace. “Because she killed herself. Criminals, suicides, and monsters are buried at the place where all roads cross, right?”

He had his false bright voice on, the one Clary knew covered up anger or pain; she wanted to move closer to him, but the room was too full of people.

“Not always,” said Brother Zachariah in his soft voice. “One of the young Longfords was at the battle at the Citadel. He found himself forced to kill his own parabatai, who had been Turned by Sebastian. Afterward he turned his sword on himself and cut his wrists. He will be burned with the rest of the dead today, with all attendant honors.”

Clary remembered the young man she had seen at the Citadel, standing over a dead Shadowhunter in red gear, weeping as the battle raged around him. She wondered if she should have stopped, spoken to him, if it would have helped, if there was anything she could have done.

Jace looked as if he were going to throw up. “This is why you have to let me go after Sebastian,” he said. “This can’t keep happening. These battles, fighting the Endarkened—he’ll find worse things to do. Sebastian always does. Being Turned is worse than dying.”

“Jace,” Clary said sharply, but Jace shot her a look, half-desperate and half-pleading. A look that begged her not to doubt him. He leaned forward, hands on the Consul’s desk.

“Send me to him,” Jace said. “And I’ll try to kill him. I have the heavenly fire. It’s our best chance.”

“It’s not an issue of sending you anywhere,” said Maryse. “We can’t send you to him; we don’t know where Sebastian is. It’s an issue of letting him take you.”

“Then let him take me—”

“Absolutely not.” Brother Zachariah looked grave, and Clary remembered what he had said to her, once: If the chance comes before me to save the last of the Herondale bloodline, I consider that of higher importance than the fealty I render the Clave. “Jace Herondale,” he said. “The Clave can choose to obey Sebastian or defy him, but either way you cannot be given up to him in the way he will expect. We must surprise him. Otherwise we are simply delivering to him the only weapon that we know he fears.”

“Do you have another suggestion?” asked Jia. “Do we draw him out? Use Jace and Clary to capture him?”

“You can’t use them as bait,” Isabelle protested.

“Maybe we could separate him from his forces?” suggested Maryse.

“You can’t trick Sebastian,” Clary said, feeling exhausted. “He doesn’t care about reasons or excuses. There’s only him and what he wants, and if you get between those two things, he’ll destroy you.”

Jia leaned across the table. “Maybe we can convince him he wants something else. Is there anything else we could offer him as a bargaining chip?”

“No,” Clary whispered. “There’s nothing. Sebastian is . . .” But how did you explain her brother? How could you explain staring into the dark heart of a black hole? Imagine if you were the last Shadowhunter left on earth, imagine if all your family and friends were dead, imagine if there were no one left who even believed in what you were. Imagine if you were on the earth in a billion, billion years, after the sun had scorched away all the life, and you were crying out from inside yourself for just one single living creature to still draw breath alongside you, but there was nothing, only rivers of fire and ashes. Imagine being that lonely, and then imagine there was only one way you could think of to fix it. Then imagine what you would do to make that thing happen. “No. He won’t change his mind. Not ever.”

A murmur of voices broke out. Jia clapped her hands for silence. “Enough,” she said. “We’re going around in circles. It is time for the Clave and Council to discuss the situation.”

“If I might make a suggestion.” Brother Zachariah’s eyes swept the room, thoughtful under dark lashes, before coming to rest on Jia. “The funeral rites for the Citadel dead are about to begin. You will be expected there, Consul, as will you, Inquisitor. I would suggest that Clary and Jace remain at the Inquisitor’s house, considering the contention surrounding them, and that the Council gather after the rites.”

“We have a right to be at the meeting,” said Clary. “This decision concerns us. It’s about us.”

“You will be summoned,” said Jia, her gaze not resting on Clary or Jace, but skipping past them, sweeping over Robert and Maryse, Brother Enoch and Zachariah. “Until then, rest; you will need your energy. It could be a long night.”