City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)(55)

“Because I’m a vampire and she’s a Shadowhunter?”

“No. She’s just—how do you say it—out of your league?”

Isabelle was halfway down the street now. Simon gritted his teeth. “Salt my game, and I’ll stake you. I mean it.”

Raphael shrugged innocently but didn’t move. Simon turned away from him and stepped out of the shadows, into the street.

Isabelle halted instantly, her hand going to the whip coiled at her belt. A moment later she blinked in shock, her hand dropping, her voice uncertain: “Simon?”

Simon felt suddenly awkward. Maybe she wouldn’t appreciate his suddenly appearing in Alicante like this—this was her world, not his. “I—” he began, but he got no further, because Isabelle had launched herself at him and thrown her arms around him, nearly knocking him off his feet.

Simon let himself close his eyes and bury his face against her neck. He could feel her heart beating, but violently pushed aside any thoughts of blood. She was soft and strong in his arms, her hair tickling his face, and holding her, he felt normal, wonderfully normal, like any teenage boy in love with a girl.

In love. He jerked back with a start and found himself looking at Izzy from a few inches away, her huge dark eyes shining. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, breathless. “I was wishing you were and thinking about how long it would be before I could see you, and—Oh, my God, what are you wearing?”

Simon looked down at his puffy shirt and leather pants. He was vaguely aware of Raphael, somewhere in the shadows, snickering. “It’s kind of a long story,” he said. “Do you think we could go inside?”



Magnus turned the silver box with the initials on it over in his hands, his cat’s eyes gleaming in the witchlit dimness of Amatis’s cellar.

Jocelyn was gazing at him with a look of curious anxiety. Luke couldn’t help thinking about all the times Jocelyn had taken Clary to Magnus’s loft when Clary had been a child, all the times the three of them had sat together, an unlikely trio, as Clary grew up and older and began to remember what she was supposed to forget. “Anything?” Jocelyn asked.

“You have to give me time,” Magnus said, poking the box with a finger. “Magical booby-traps, curses, the like, they can be pretty subtly hidden.”

“Take your time,” said Luke, leaning back against a table shoved into a cobwebby corner. Long ago it had been his mother’s kitchen table. He recognized the pattern of careless knife marks across the wooden top, even the dent in one of the legs he’d made when he’d kicked it as a teenager.

It had been Amatis’s for years. It had been hers when she’d been married to Stephen and had sometimes hosted dinner parties at the Herondale house. It had been hers after the divorce, after Stephen had moved out to the countryside manor house with his new wife. The whole cellar in fact was stacked with old furniture: items Luke recognized as having belonged to their parents, paintings and knickknacks from the time Amatis had been married. He wondered why she had hidden them away down here. Perhaps she hadn’t been able to bear to look at them.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” Magnus said finally, setting the box back on the shelf where Jocelyn had shoved it, unwilling to have the item in the house but unwilling to throw it away, either. He shivered and rubbed his hands together. He was swathed in a gray and black coat that made him look like a hard-boiled detective; Jocelyn hadn’t given him a chance to hang his coat up when he’d arrived on their doorstep, just grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down to the cellar. “No snares, no traps, no magic at all.”

Jocelyn looked a bit sheepish. “Thanks,” she said. “For looking at it. I can be a bit paranoid. And after what just happened in London—”

“What did happen in London?”

“We don’t know that much,” said Luke. “We got a fire-message about it this afternoon from the Gard, but not a lot of details. London was one of the few Institutes that hadn’t emptied yet. Apparently Sebastian and his forces tried to attack. They were rebuffed by some kind of protection spell, something even the Council didn’t know about. Something that warned the Shadowhunters what was coming and led them to safety.”

“A ghost,” Magnus said. A smile hovered around his mouth. “A spirit, sworn to protect the place. She’s been there for a hundred and thirty years.”

“She?” Jocelyn said, leaning back against a dusty wall. “A ghost? Really? What was her name?”

“You would recognize her last name, if I told it to you, but she wouldn’t like that.” Magnus’s gaze was faraway. “I hope this means she’s found peace.” He snapped back to attention. “Anyway,” he said. “I hadn’t meant to drag the conversation in this direction. It isn’t why I came to you.”

“I guessed as much,” said Luke. “We appreciate the visit, though I admit I was surprised to see you on our doorstep. It’s not where I thought you’d go.”

I thought you’d go to the Lightwoods’ hung in the air between them, unsaid.

“I had a life before Alec,” Magnus snapped. “I’m the High Warlock of Brooklyn. I am here to take a Council seat on behalf of Lilith’s Children.”

“I thought Catarina Loss was the warlock representative,” said Luke, surprised.