City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)(14)

“What is it?” Magnus’s voice cut through Jace’s thoughts. He realized he was already at the door, the phone back in his pocket. He turned. Magnus was behind him, his expression stark. “Is it Alec? Is he all right?”

“What do you care?” said Jace, and Magnus flinched. Jace didn’t think he’d ever seen Magnus flinch before. It was the only thing that kept Jace from slamming the door on the way out.



There were dozens of unfamiliar coats and jackets hanging in the entryway of the Institute. Clary felt the tight buzzing of tension in her shoulders as she unzipped her own wool coat and hung it on one of the hooks that lined the walls.

“And Maryse didn’t say what this was about?” Clary demanded. The edges of her voice had been rubbed thin by anxiety.

Jocelyn had unwound a long gray scarf from around her neck, and barely looked as Luke took it from her to drape it on a hook. Her green eyes were darting around the room, taking in the gate of the elevator, the arched ceiling overhead, the faded murals of men and angels.

Luke shook his head. “Just that there’d been an attack on the Clave, and we needed to get here as quickly as possible.”

“It’s the ‘we’ part that concerns me.” Jocelyn wound her hair up into a knot at the back of her head, and secured it with her fingers. “I haven’t been in an Institute in years. Why do they want me here?”

Luke squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. Clary knew what Jocelyn feared, what they all feared. The only reason the Clave would want Jocelyn here was if there was news of her son.

“Maryse said they’d be in the library,” Jocelyn said. Clary led the way. She could hear Luke and her mother talking behind her, and the soft sound of their footsteps, Luke’s slower than they had once been. He hadn’t entirely recovered from the injury that had nearly killed him in November.

You know why you’re here, don’t you, breathed a soft voice in the back of her head. She knew it wasn’t really there, but that didn’t help. She hadn’t seen her brother since the fight at the Burren, but she carried him in some small part of her mind, an intrusive, unwelcome ghost. Because of me. You always knew I hadn’t gone away forever. I told you what would happen. I spelled it out for you.

Erchomai.

I am coming.

They had reached the library. The door was half-open, and a babble of voices spilled through. Jocelyn paused for a moment, her expression tight.

Clary put her hand on the doorknob. “Are you ready?” She hadn’t noticed till then what her mother was wearing: black jeans, boots, and a black turtleneck. As if, without thinking of it, she had put on the closest thing she had to fighting gear.

Jocelyn nodded at her daughter.

Someone had pushed back all the furniture in the library, clearing a large space in the middle of the room, just atop the mosaic of the Angel. A massive table had been placed there, a huge slab of marble balanced on top of two kneeling stone angels. Around the table were seated the Conclave. Some members, like Kadir and Maryse, Clary knew by name. Others were just familiar faces. Maryse was standing, ticking off names on her fingers as she chanted aloud. “Berlin,” she said. “No survivors. Bangkok. No survivors. Moscow. No survivors. Los Angeles—”

“Los Angeles?” said Jocelyn. “That was the Blackthorns. Are they—”

Maryse looked startled, as if she hadn’t realized Jocelyn had come in. Her blue eyes swept over Luke and Clary. She looked drawn and exhausted, her hair scraped back severely, a stain—red wine or blood?—on the sleeve of her tailored jacket. “There were survivors,” she said. “Children. They’re in Idris now.”

“Helen,” said Alec, and Clary thought of the girl who had fought with them against Sebastian at the Burren. She remembered her in the nave of the Institute, a dark-haired boy clinging to her wrist. My brother, Julian.

“Aline’s girlfriend,” Clary blurted out, and saw the Conclave look at her with thinly veiled hostility. They always did, as if who she was and what she represented made them almost unable to see her. Valentine’s daughter. Valentine’s daughter. “Is she all right?”

“She was in Idris, with Aline,” said Maryse. “Her younger brothers and sisters survived, although there seems to have been an issue with the eldest brother, Mark.”

“An issue?” said Luke. “What’s going on, exactly, Maryse?”

“I don’t think we’ll know the whole story until we get to Idris,” said Maryse, smoothing back her already smooth hair. “But there have been attacks, several in the course of two nights, on six Institutes. We’re not sure yet how the Institutes were breached, but we know—”

“Sebastian,” said Clary’s mother. She had her hands jammed into the pockets of her black trousers, but Clary suspected that if she hadn’t, Clary would have been able to see that her mother’s hands were tightened into fists. “Cut to the point, Maryse. My son. You wouldn’t have called me here if he wasn’t responsible. Would you?” Jocelyn’s eyes met Maryse’s, and Clary wondered if this was how it had been when they’d both been in the Circle, the sharp edges of their personalities rubbing up against each other, causing sparks.

Before Maryse could speak, the door opened and Jace came in. He was flushed with the cold, bareheaded, fair hair tousled by the wind. His hands were gloveless, red at the tips from the weather, scarred with Marks new and old. He saw Clary and gave her a quick smile before settling into a chair propped against the wall.