City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3)(98)

“He has been.” Amatis sat with her legs drawn under her like a young girl, but her expression was firm. “It’s not Lucian’s fault that we’ve been going around in circles for the past hour.”

“And we’ll keep going around and around until we figure out a solution,” said Patrick Penhallow, an edge to his voice.

“With all due respect, Patrick,” said Nasreen, in her clipped accent, “there may be no solution to this problem. The best we can hope for is a plan.”

“A plan that doesn’t involve either mass slavery or—” began Jia, Patrick’s wife, and then she broke off, biting her lip. She was a pretty, slender woman who looked very like her daughter, Aline. Luke remembered when Patrick had run off to the Beijing Institute and married her. It had been something of a scandal, as he’d been supposed to marry a girl his parents had already picked out for him in Idris. But Patrick never had liked to do what he was told, a quality for which Luke was now grateful.

“Or allying ourselves with Downworlders?” said Luke. “I’m afraid there’s no way around that.”

“That’s not the problem, and you know it,” said Maryse. “It’s the whole business about seats on the Council. The Clave will never agree to it. You know that. Four whole seats—”

“Not four,” Luke said. “One each for the Fair Folk, the Moon’s Children, and the children of Lilith.”

“The warlocks, the fey, and the lycanthropes,” said soft-voiced Senhor Monteverde, his eyebrows arched. “And what of the vampires?”

“They haven’t promised me anything,” Luke admitted. “And I haven’t promised them anything either. They may not be eager to join the Council; they’re none too fond of my kind, and none too fond of meetings and rules. But the door is open to them should they change their minds.”

“Malachi and his lot will never agree to it, and we may not have enough Council votes without them,” muttered Patrick. “Besides, without the vampires, what chance do we have?”

“A very good one,” snapped Amatis, who seemed to believe in Luke’s plan even more than he did. “There are many Downworlders who will fight with us, and they are powerful indeed. The warlocks alone—”

With a shake of her head Senhora Monteverde turned to her husband. “This plan is mad. It will never work. Downworlders cannot be trusted.”

“It worked during the Uprising,” said Luke.

The Portuguese woman’s lips curled back. “Only because Valentine was fighting with fools for an army,” she said. “Not demons. And how are we to know his old Circle members will not go back to him the moment he calls them to his side?”

“Be careful what you say, Senhora,” rumbled Robert Lightwood. It was the first time he had spoken in more than an hour; he’d spent most of the evening motionless, immobilized by sorrow. There were lines in his face Luke could have sworn hadn’t been there three days ago. His torment was plain in his taut shoulders and clenched fists; Luke could hardly blame him. He had never much liked Robert, but there was something about the sight of such a big man made helpless by grief that was painful to witness. “If you think I would join with Valentine after Max’s death—he had my boy murdered—”

“Robert,” Maryse murmured. She put her hand on his arm.

“If we do not join with him,” said Senhor Monteverde, “all our children may die.”

“If you think that, then why are you here?” Amatis rose to her feet. “I thought we had agreed—”

So did I. Luke’s head ached. It was always like this with them, he thought, two steps forward and a step back. They were as bad as warring Downworlders themselves, if only they could see it. Maybe they’d all be better off if they solved their problems with combat, the way the pack did—

A flash of movement at the doors of the Hall caught his eye. It was momentary, and if it had not been so close to the full moon, he might not have seen it, or recognized the figure who passed quickly before the doors. He wondered for a moment if he was imagining things. Sometimes, when he was very tired, he thought he saw Jocelyn—in the flicker of a shadow, in the play of light on a wall.

But this wasn’t Jocelyn. Luke rose to his feet. “I’m taking five minutes for some air. I’ll be back.” He felt them watching him as he made his way to the front doors—all of them, even Amatis. Senhor Monteverde whispered something to his wife in Portuguese; Luke caught “lobo,” the word for “wolf,” in the stream of words. They probably think I’m going outside to run in circles and bark at the moon.

The air outside was fresh and cold, the sky a slate-steel gray. Dawn reddened the sky in the east and gave a pale pink cast to the white marble steps leading down from the Hall doors. Jace was waiting for him, halfway down the stairs. The white mourning clothes he wore hit Luke like a slap in the face, a reminder of all the death they’d just endured here, and were about to endure again.

Luke paused several steps above Jace. “What are you doing here, Jonathan?”

Jace said nothing, and Luke mentally cursed his forgetfulness—Jace didn’t like being called Jonathan and usually responded to the name with a sharp objection. This time, though, he didn’t seem to care. The face he raised to Luke was as grimly set as the faces of any of the adults in the Hall. Though Jace was still a year away from being an adult under Clave Law, he’d already seen worse things in his short life than most adults could even imagine.