City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)(153)

Isabelle shrugged. “I have no idea what that means.”

Simon hid the fact that he was inordinately pleased by this. “Are we officially boyfriend and girlfriend? Is there a Shadowhunter ritual? Should I change my Facebook status from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘in a relationship’?”

Isabelle screwed up her nose adorably. “You have a book that’s also a face?”

Simon laughed, and Isabelle bent down and kissed him again. This time he reached up to draw her down, and they wrapped themselves around each other, tangled in blankets, kissing and whispering. He lost himself in the pleasure of the taste of her mouth, the curve of her hip under his hand, the warm skin of her back. He forgot that they were in a demon realm, that they were going into battle the next day, that they might never see home again: Everything faded away and was Isabelle.

“WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?” There was a sound of shattering glass, and they both sat up to see Alec glaring at them. He had dropped the empty bottle of wine he had been carrying, and there were bits of sparkly glass all over the cave floor. “WHY CAN’T YOU GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO DO THESE HORRIBLE THINGS? MY EYES.”

“It’s a demon realm, Alec,” Isabelle said. “There’s nowhere for us to go.”

“And you said I should look after her—” Simon began, then realized that would not be a productive line of conversation, and shut up.

Alec flopped down on the opposite side of the fire and glared at them both. “And where have Jace and Clary gone?”

“Ah,” said Simon delicately. “Who can say . . .”

“Straight people,” Alec declared. “Why can’t they control themselves?”

“It’s a mystery,” Simon agreed, and lay back down to sleep.



Jia Penhallow sat on the desk in her office. It felt so casual, she couldn’t help but wonder if it would be frowned on, the Consul sitting irreverently on the ancient desk of power—but she was alone in the room, and tired beyond all measures of tired.

In her hand she gripped a note that had come from New York: a warlock’s fire-message, powerful enough to bypass the wards around the city. She recognized the handwriting as Catarina Loss’s, but the words were not Catarina’s.

Consul Penhallow,

This is Maia Roberts, temporary leader of the New York pack. We understand you are doing what you can to bring our Luke and the other prisoners back. We appreciate that. As a sign of our good faith, I wish to pass on a message to you. Sebastian and his forces will attack Alicante tomorrow night. Please do what you can to be ready. I wish we could be there, fighting by your side, but I know that isn’t possible. Sometimes it is only possible to warn, and wait, and hope.

Remember that the Clave and the Council—Shadowhunters and Downworlders together—are the light of the world.

With hope,

Maia Roberts

With hope. Jia folded the letter again and slipped it into her pocket. She thought of the city out there, under the night sky, the pale silver of the demon towers soon to turn to the red of war. She thought of her husband and her daughter. She thought of the boxes and boxes that had arrived from Theresa Gray only a short while ago, rising up through the earth in Angel Square, each box stamped with the spiral symbol of the Labyrinth. She felt a stirring in her heart—some fear, but also some relief, that finally the time was coming, finally the waiting would be over, finally they would have their chance. She knew that the Shadowhunters of Alicante would fight to the last: with determination, with bravery, with stubbornness, with vengeance, with glory.

With hope.





21

THE KEYS OF DEATH AND HELL


“God, my head,” Alec said as he and Jace knelt beside a ridge of rock that crowned the top of a gray, scree-covered hill. The rock gave them cover, and past it, using Farsighted runes, they could see the half-ruined fortress, and all around it, Dark Shadowhunters clustered like ants.

It was like a warped mirror of Alicante’s Gard Hill. The structure atop it resembled the Gard they knew, but with a massive wall around it, the fortress enclosed within like a garden in a cloister.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have drunk so much last night,” Jace said, leaning forward and narrowing his eyes. All around the wall the Endarkened stood in concentric rings, a tight group in front of the gates that led inside. There were smaller groups of them at strategic points up and down the hill. Alec could see Jace computing the numbers of the enemy, considering and discarding strategies in his head.

“Maybe you should try looking a little less smug about what you did last night,” said Alec.

Jace nearly fell off the ridge. “I do not look smug. Well,” he amended, “no more than usual.”

“Please,” Alec said, pulling out his stele. “I can read your face like a very open, very pornographic book. I wish I couldn’t.”

“Is this your way of telling me to shut my face?” Jace inquired.

“Remember when you mocked me for sneaking around with Magnus and asked me if I’d fallen on my neck?” Alec asked, placing the tip of the stele against his forearm and starting to draw an iratze. “This is payback.”

Jace snorted and grabbed the stele from Alec. “Give me that,” he said, and finished off the iratze for him, with his usual messy flourish. Alec felt the numbing kick as his headache started to recede. Jace turned his attention back to the hill.