City of Lost Souls

About me.” Simon picked up a stick and threw it. “Look what happened when my mom found out.”

“So set up a meeting with her somewhere public. Where she can’t freak out. Far from your house.”

“Even if she can’t freak out, she can still look at me like my mother did,” Simon said in a low voice. “Like I’m a monster.”

Isabelle touched his wrist lightly. “My mom tossed out Jace when she thought he was Valentine’s son and a spy — then she regretted it horribly. My mom and dad are coming around to Alec’s being with Magnus. Your mom will come around too. Get your sister on your side. That’ll help.” She tilted her head a little. “I think sometimes siblings understand more than parents. There’s not the same weight of expectations. I could never, ever cut Alec off. No matter what he did. Never. Or Jace.” She squeezed his arm, then dropped her hand. “My little brother died. I won’t ever see him again. Don’t put your sister through that.”

“Through what?” It was Alec, coming up the side of the hill, kicking dried leaves out of his path. He was wearing his usual ratty sweater and jeans, but a dark blue scarf that matched his eyes was wrapped around his throat. Now, that had to have been a gift from Magnus, Simon thought. No way would Alec have thought to buy something like that himself. The concept of matching seemed to be beyond him.

Isabelle cleared her throat. “Simon’s sister—”

She got no further than that. There was a blast of cold air, bringing with it a swirl of dead leaves. Isabelle put her hand up to shield her face from the dust as the air began to shimmer with the unmistakeable translucence of an opening Portal, and Clary appeared before them, her stele in one hand and her face wet with tears.

4 AND IMMORTALITY

“And you’re totally sure it was Jace?” Isabelle asked, for what seemed to Clary like the forty-seventh time.

Clary bit down on her already sore lip and counted to ten. “It’s me, Isabelle,” she said. “You honestly think I wouldn’t recognize Jace?” She looked up at Alec standing over them, his blue scarf fluttering like a pennant in the wind. “Could you mistake someone else for Magnus?”

“No. Not ever,” he said without missing a beat. His blue eyes were troubled, dark with worry. “I just — I mean, of course we’re asking. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“He could be a hostage,” said Simon, leaning back against a boulder. The autumn sunlight turned his eyes the color of coffee grounds. “Like, Sebastian is threatening him that if Jace doesn’t go along with his plans, Sebastian will hurt someone he cares about.”

All eyes went to Clary, but she shook her head in frustration. “You didn’t see them together. Nobody acts like that when they’re a hostage. He seemed totally happy to be there.”

“Then he’s possessed,” Alec said. “Like he was by Lilith.”

“That was what I thought at first. But when he was possessed by Lilith, he was like a robot. He just kept saying the same things over and over. But this was Jace. He was making jokes like Jace does. Smiling like him.”

“Maybe he has Stockholm syndrome,” Simon suggested. “You know, when you get brainwashed and start sympathizing with your captor.”

“It takes months to develop Stockholm syndrome,” Alec objected. “How did he look? Hurt, or sick in any way? Can you describe them both?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked. The wind blew dry leaves around their feet as Clary told them again how Jace had looked — vibrant and healthy. Sebastian, too. They had seemed completely calm. Jace’s clothes had been clean, stylish, ordinary. Sebastian had been wearing a long black wool trench coat that had looked expensive.

“Like an evil Burberry ad,” Simon said when she was done.

Isabelle shot him a look. “Maybe Jace has a plan,” she said. “Maybe he’s tricking Sebastian. Trying to get into his good graces, figure out what his plans are.”

“You’d think that if he were doing that, he’d have figured out a way to tell us about it,” Alec said. “Not to leave us panicking. That’s too cruel.”

“Unless he couldn’t risk sending a message. He’d believe we would trust him. We do trust him.” Isabelle’s voice rose, and she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. The trees lining the gravel path they stood on rattled their bare branches.

“Maybe we should tell the Clave,” Clary said, hearing her own voice as if from a distance. “This is — I don’t see how we can handle this on our own.”

“We can’t tell the Clave.” Isabelle’s voice was hard.

“Why not?”

“If they think he’s cooperating with Sebastian, the mandate will be to kill him on sight,” Alec said. “That’s the Law.”

“Even if Isabelle’s right? Even if he’s just playing along with Sebastian?” Simon said, a note of doubt in his voice. “Trying to get on his side to get information?”

“There’s no way to prove it. And if we claimed it was what he’s doing, and that got back to Sebastian, he’d probably kill Jace,” said Alec. “If Jace is possessed, the Clave will kill him themselves. We can’t tell them anything.” His voice was hard. Clary looked at him in surprise; Alec was normally the most rule-abiding of them all.

“This is Sebastian we’re talking about,” said Izzy. “There’s no one the Clave hates more, except Valentine, and he’s dead. But practically everyone knows someone who died in the Mortal War, and Sebastian’s the one who took the wards down.”

Clary scuffed at the gravel underfoot with her sneaker. The whole situation seemed like a dream, like she might wake up at any moment. “Then, what next?”

“We talk to Magnus. See if he has any insight.” Alec tugged on the corner of his scarf. “He won’t go to the Council. Not if I ask him not to.”

“He’d better not,” said Isabelle indignantly. “Otherwise, worst boyfriend ever.”

“I said he wouldn’t—”

“Is there any point now?” Simon said. “In seeing the Seelie Queen? Now that we know Jace is possessed, or maybe hiding out on purpose—”

“You don’t miss an appointment with the Seelie Queen,” Isabelle said firmly. “Not if you value your skin the way it is.”

“But she’ll just take away the rings from Clary and we won’t learn anything,” Simon argued. “We know more now. We have different questions for her now. She won’t answer them, though. She’ll just answer the old ones. That’s how faeries work. They don’t do favors. It’s not like she’s going to let us go talk to Magnus and then come back.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Clary rubbed her hands across her face. They came away dry. At some point her tears had stopped coming, thank God. She hadn’t wanted to face the Queen looking like she’d just been bawling her eyes out. “I never got the rings.”

Isabelle blinked. “What?”

“After I saw Jace and Sebastian, I was too shaken to get them. I just raced out of the Institute and Portaled here.”

“Well, we can’t see the Queen, then,” said Alec. “If you didn’t do what she asked you to, she’ll be furious.”

“She’ll be more than furious,” said Isabelle. “You saw what she did to Alec last time we went to the Court. And that was just a glamour. She’ll probably turn Clary into a lobster or something.”

“She knew,” Clary said. “She said, ‘When you find him again, he may well not be quite as you left him.’” The Seelie Queen’s voice drifted through Clary’s head. She shivered. She could understand why Simon hated faeries so much. They always knew exactly the right words that would lodge like a splinter in your brain, painful and impossible to ignore or remove. “She’s just playing around with us. She wants those rings, but I don’t think there’s any chance she’ll really help us.”