City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)(87)

“And?” Lily crossed her arms, making her expensive suit crackle. “Are you going to invite me in, or not?”

“I’m not,” said Maia. “We’re going to talk here, in the hallway.”

“Dull.” Lily leaned back against the wall with its peeling paint, and made a face. “Why did you summon me here, werewolf?”

“Maureen is crazy,” said Maia. “Raphael and Simon are gone. Sebastian Morgenstern is murdering Downworlders to make a point to the Nephilim. And maybe it’s time for the vampires and lycanthropes to talk. Even to ally.”

“Well, aren’t you as cute as a bug’s ear,” Lily said, and stood up straight. “Look, Maureen’s crazy, but she’s still the clan leader. And I can tell you one thing. She isn’t going to parley with some jumped-up pack member who’s lost the plot because her boyfriend died.”

Maia tightened her grip on the bottle in her hand. She yearned to throw the contents in Lily’s face, so much so that it frightened her.

“Call me when you’re the pack leader.” There was a dark light in the vampire girl’s eyes, as if she were trying to tell Maia something without saying the words. “And we’ll talk then.”

Lily turned and clicked off down the hallway on her high heels. Slowly Maia loosened her grip on the bottle of holy water in her pocket.



“Nice shot,” Jace said.

“You don’t need to make fun of me.” Alec and Jace were in one of the Gard’s dizzying array of meeting rooms—not the same room Jace had been in earlier with Clary, but another more austere room in an older part of the Gard. The walls were stone, and there was one long bench that ran across the west wall. Jace was kneeling on it, his jacket thrown aside, the right sleeve of his shirt rolled up.

“I’m not,” Jace protested as Alec set the tip of his stele to the bare skin of Jace’s arm. As the dark lines began to spiral out from the adamas, Jace couldn’t help but remember another day, in Alicante, Alec bandaging Jace’s hand, telling him angrily: You can heal slow and ugly, like a mundane. Jace had put his hand through a window that day; he’d deserved everything Alec had said to him.

Alec exhaled slowly; he was always very careful with his runes, especially the iratzes. He seemed to feel the slight burn, the sting against the skin that Jace felt, though Jace had never minded the pain—the map of white scars that covered his biceps and ran down to his forearm attested to that. There was a special strength to a rune given by your parabatai. It was why they had sent the two of them away, while the rest of the Lightwood family met in the Consul’s offices, so that Alec could heal Jace as quickly and efficiently as possible. Jace had been rather startled; he’d half-expected them to make him sit through the meeting with his wrist blue and swelling up.

“I’m not,” Jace said again, as Alec finished and stepped back to examine his handiwork. Already Jace could feel the numbing of the iratze spreading through his veins, soothing the pain in his arm, sealing his split lip. “You hit Matthias’s knife from halfway across an amphitheater. Clean shot, didn’t hit Jia at all. And he was moving around, too.”

“I was motivated.” Alec slid his stele back into his belt. His dark hair hung raggedly into his eyes; he hadn’t gotten it properly cut since he and Magnus had broken up.

Magnus. Jace closed his eyes. “Alec,” he said. “I’ll go. You know I’ll go.”

“You’re saying that like you think it’ll reassure me,” said Alec. “You think I want you to give yourself up to Sebastian? Are you crazy?”

“I think it might be the only way to get Magnus back.” Jace spoke into the darkness behind his eyelids.

“And you’re willing to barter Clary’s life too?” Alec’s tone was acid. Jace’s eyes flew open; Alec was looking at him steadily, but without expression.

“No,” Jace said, hearing the defeat in his own voice. “I couldn’t do that.”

“And I wouldn’t ask it,” said Alec. “This—this is what Sebastian’s trying to do. Drive wedges between all of us, using the people we love as hooks to pull us apart. We shouldn’t let him.”

“When did you get so wise?” Jace said.

Alec laughed, a short, brittle laugh. “The day I’m wise is the day you’re careful.”

“Maybe you’ve always been wise,” Jace said. “I remember when I asked if you wanted to be parabatai, and you said you needed a day to think about it. And then you came back and said yes, and when I asked you why you agreed to do it, you said it was because I needed someone to look after me. You were right. I never thought about it again, because I never had to. I had you, and you’ve always looked after me. Always.”

Alec’s expression tightened; Jace could almost see the tension thrumming through his parabatai’s veins. “Don’t,” Alec said. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Alec said. “That’s how people talk when they think they’re going to die.”



“If Clary and Jace are delivered to Sebastian, then they will be delivered to their deaths,” said Maryse.

They were in the offices of the Consul, likely the most plushly decorated room in all the Gard. A thick rug was underfoot, the stone walls spread with tapestries, a massive desk standing diagonally across the room. On one side of it was Jia Penhallow, the cut on her throat sealing as her iratzes took effect. Behind her chair stood her husband, Patrick, his hand on her shoulder.