City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(124)

Clary looked up at her mother, into the green eyes so like her own. “Mom,” she said. “Don’t lie.”

Jocelyn took a sharp breath and stood up, drawing her hand back. Before she could say anything, something caught Clary’s eye—a familiar face in the crowd. A slim, dark figure, moving purposefully toward them, slipping through the thronged Hall with deliberate and surprising ease—as if he could drift through the crowd, like smoke through the gaps in a fence.

And he was, Clary realized, as he neared the dais. It was Raphael, dressed in the same white shirt and black pants she’d first seen him in. She had forgotten how slight he was. He looked barely fourteen as he climbed the stairs, his thin face calm and angelic, like a choirboy mounting the steps to the chancel.

“Raphael.” Luke’s voice held amazement, mixed with relief. “I didn’t think you were coming. Have the Night Children reconsidered joining us in fighting Valentine? There’s still a Council seat open for you, if you’d like to take it.” He held a hand out to Raphael.

Raphael’s clear and lovely eyes regarded him expressionlessly. “I cannot shake hands with you, werewolf.” When Luke looked offended, he smiled, just enough to show the white tips of his fang teeth. “I am a Projection,” he said, raising his hand so that they could all see how the light shone through it. “I can touch nothing.”

“But—” Luke glanced up at the moonlight pouring through the roof. “Why—” He lowered his hand. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. However you choose to appear.”

Raphael shook his head. For a moment his eyes lingered on Clary—a look she really didn’t like—and then he turned his gaze to Jocelyn, and his smile widened. “You,” he said, “Valentine’s wife. Others of my kind, who fought with you at the Uprising, told me of you. I admit I never thought I would see you myself.”

Jocelyn inclined her head. “Many of the Night Children fought very bravely then. Does your presence here indicate that we might fight alongside each other once again?”

It was odd, Clary thought, to hear her mother speak in that cool and formal way, and yet it seemed natural to Jocelyn. As natural in its way as sitting on the ground in ancient overalls, holding a paint-splattered brush.

“I hope so,” Raphael said, and his gaze brushed Clary again, like the touch of a cold hand. “We have only one requirement, one simple—and small—request. If that is honored, the Night Children of many lands will happily go to battle at your side.”

“The Council seat,” said Luke. “Of course—it can be formalized, the documents drawn up within the hour—”

“Not,” said Raphael, “the Council seat. Something else.”

“Something—else?” Luke echoed blankly. “What is it? I assure you, if it’s in our power—”

“Oh, it is.” Raphael’s smile was blinding. “In fact, it is something that is within the walls of this Hall as we speak.” He turned and gestured gracefully toward the crowd. “It is the boy Simon that we want,” he said. “It is the Daylighter.”

The tunnel was long and twisting, switchbacking on itself over and over as if Jace were crawling through the entrails of an enormous monster. It smelled like wet rock and ashes and something else, something dank and odd that reminded Jace ever so slightly of the smell of the Bone City.

At last the tunnel opened out into a circular chamber. Huge stalactites, their surfaces as burnished as gems, hung down from a ridged, stony ceiling high above. The floor was as smooth as if it had been polished, alternating here and there with arcane patterns of gleaming inlaid stone. A series of rough stalagmites circled the chamber. In the very center of the room stood a single massive quartz stalagmite, rearing up from the floor like a gigantic fang, patterned here and there with a reddish design. Peering closer, Jace saw that the sides of the stalagmite were transparent, the reddish pattern the result of something swirling and moving inside it, like a glass test tube full of colored smoke.

High above, light filtered down from a circular hole in the stone, a natural skylight. The chamber had certainly been a product of design rather than accident—the intricate patterns tracing the floor made that much obvious—but who would have hollowed out such an enormous underground chamber, and why?

A sharp caw echoed through the room, sending a shock through Jace’s nerves. He ducked behind a bulky stalagmite, dousing his witchlight, just as two figures emerged from the shadows at the far end of the room and moved toward him, their heads bent together in conversation. It was only when they reached the center of the room and the light struck them that he recognized them.

Sebastian.

And Valentine.

Hoping to avoid the crowd, Simon took the long way back toward the dais, ducking behind the rows of pillars that lined the sides of the Hall. He kept his head down as he went, lost in thought. It seemed strange that Alec, only a year or two older than Isabelle, was heading off to fight in a war, and the rest of them were going to stay behind. And Isabelle seemed calm about it. No crying, no hysterics. It was as if she’d expected it. Maybe she had. Maybe they all had.

He was close to the dais steps when he glanced up and saw, to his surprise, Raphael standing across from Luke, looking his usual near-expressionless self. Luke, on the other hand, looked agitated—he was shaking his head, his hands up in protest, and Jocelyn, beside him, looked outraged. Simon couldn’t see Clary’s face—her back was to him—but he knew her well enough to recognize her tension just from the set of her shoulders.