City of Lost Souls

“Dead. I saw your bones turned to ashes.”

Sebastian looked at her, his black eyes quiet and narrow. “If you were a real mother,” he said, “a good mother, you would have known I was alive. There was a man once who said that mothers carry the key of our souls with them all our lives. But you threw mine away.”

Jocelyn made a sound in the back of her throat. She was leaning against the counter for support. Clary wanted to run to her, but her feet felt frozen to the ground. Whatever was happening between her brother and her mother, it was something that had nothing to do with her.

“Don’t tell me you aren’t even a little glad to see me, Mother,” Sebastian said, and though his words were pleading, his voice was flat. “Aren’t I everything you could want in a son?” He spread his arms wide. “Strong, handsome, looks just like dear old Dad.”

Jocelyn shook her head, her face gray. “What do you want, Jonathan?”

“I want what everyone wants,” said Sebastian. “I want what’s owed to me. In this case the Morgenstern legacy.”

“The Morgenstern legacy is blood and devastation,” said Jocelyn. “We are not Morgensterns here. Not me, and not my daughter.” She straightened up. Her hand was still gripping the counter, but Clary could see some of the old fire returning to her mother’s expression. “If you go now, Jonathan, I won’t tell the Clave you were ever here.” Her eyes flicked to Jace. “Or you. If they knew you were cooperating, they would kill you both.”

Clary moved to stand in front of Jace, reflexively. He looked past her, over her shoulder, at her mother. “You care if I die?” Jace said.

“I care about what it would do to my daughter,” said Jocelyn. “And the Law is hard—too hard. What has happened to you — maybe it can be undone.” Her eyes moved back to Sebastian. “But for you — my Jonathan — it’s much too late.”

The hand that had been gripping the counter swept forward, holding Luke’s long-handled kindjal blade. Tears shone on Jocelyn’s face. But her grip on the knife was steady.

“I look just like him, don’t I?” Sebastian said, not moving. He seemed barely to notice the knife. “Valentine. That’s why you’re looking at me like that.”

Jocelyn shook her head. “You look like you always did, from the moment I first saw you. You look like a demon thing.” Her voice was achingly sad. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For not killing you when you were born,” she said, and came out from behind the counter, spinning the kindjal in her hand.

Clary tensed, but Sebastian didn’t move. His dark eyes followed his mother as she came toward him. “Is that what you want?” he said. “For me to die?” He opened his arms, as if he meant to embrace Jocelyn, and took a step forward. “Go ahead. Commit filicide. I won’t stop you.”

“Sebastian,” said Jace. Clary shot him an incredulous look. Did he actually sound concerned?

Jocelyn moved another step forward. The knife was a blur in her hand. When it came to a stop, the tip was pointed directly at Sebastian’s heart.

Still, he didn’t move.

“Do it,” he said softly. He cocked his head to the side. “Or can you bring yourself to? You could have killed me when I was born. But you didn’t.” His voice lowered. “Maybe you know that there is no such thing as conditional love for a child. Maybe if you loved me enough, you could save me.”

For a moment they stared at each other, mother and son, ice-green eyes meeting coal-black ones. There were sharp lines at the corners of Jocelyn’s mouth that Clary could have sworn hadn’t been there two weeks ago. “You’re pretending,” she said, her voice shaking. “You don’t feel anything, Jonathan. Your father taught you to feign human emotion the way one might teach a parrot to repeat words. It doesn’t understand what it’s saying, and neither do you. I wish — oh, God, I wish — that you did. But—”

Jocelyn brought the blade up in a swift, clean, cutting arc. A perfectly placed blow, it should have driven up under Sebastian’s ribs and into his heart. It would have, if he had not moved even faster than Jace; he spun away and back, and the tip of the blade cut only a shallow slash along his chest.

Beside Clary, Jace sucked in his breath. She whirled to look at him. There was a spreading red stain across the front of his shirt. He touched his hand to it; his fingertips came away bloody. We are bound. Cut him and I bleed.

Without another thought Clary darted across the room, throwing herself between Jocelyn and Sebastian. “Mom,” she gasped. “Stop.”

Jocelyn was still holding the knife, her eyes on Sebastian. “Clary, get out of the way.”

Sebastian began to laugh. “Sweet, isn’t it?” he said. “A little sister defending her big brother.”

“I’m not defending you.” Clary kept her eyes fixed on her mother’s face. “Whatever happens to Jonathan happens to Jace. Do you understand, Mom? If you kill him, Jace dies. He’s already bleeding. Mom, please.”

Jocelyn was still gripping the knife, but her expression was uncertain. “Clary…”

“Gracious, how awkward,” Sebastian observed. “I’ll be interested to see how you resolve this. After all, I’ve got no reason to leave.”

“Yes, actually,” came a voice from the hallway, “you do.”

It was Luke, barefoot and in jeans and an old sweater. He looked tousled, and oddly younger without his glasses. He also had a sawed-off shotgun balanced at his shoulder, the barrel trained directly on Sebastian. “This is a Winchester twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. The pack uses it to put down wolves who’ve gone rogue,” he said. “Even if I don’t kill you, I can blow your leg off, Valentine’s son.”

It was as if everyone in the room took a quick gasp of breath all at once — everyone except Luke. And Sebastian, who, a grin splitting his face in half, turned and walked toward Luke, as if oblivious of the gun. “‘Valentine’s son,’” he said. “Is that really how you think of me? Under other circumstances you could have been my godfather.”

“Under other circumstances,” said Luke, sliding his finger onto the trigger, “you could have been human.”

Sebastian stopped in his tracks. “The same could be said of you, werewolf.”

The world seemed to have slowed down. Luke sighted along the barrel of the rifle. Sebastian stood smiling.

“Luke,” Clary said. It was like one of those dreams, a nightmare where she wanted to scream but all that would scrape past her throat was a whisper. “Luke, don’t do it.”

Her stepfather’s finger tightened on the trigger — and then Jace exploded into movement, launching himself from beside Clary, flipping over the sofa, and slamming into Luke just as the shotgun went off.

The shot flew wide; one of the windows shattered outward as the bullet struck it. Luke, knocked off balance, staggered back. Jace yanked the gun from his hands and threw it. It hurtled through the broken window, and Jace turned back toward the older man.

“Luke—,” he began.

Luke hit him.

Even knowing everything she knew, the shock of it, seeing Luke, who had stood up for Jace countless times to her mother, to Maryse, to the Clave — Luke, who was basically gentle and kind — seeing him actually strike Jace across the face was as if he had hit Clary instead. Jace, totally unprepared, was thrown backward into the wall.

And Sebastian, who had so far shown no real emotion beyond mockery and disgust, snarled — snarled and drew from his belt a long, thin dagger. Luke’s eyes widened, and he began to twist away, but Sebastian was faster than him — faster than anyone else Clary had ever seen. Faster than Jace. He drove the dagger into Luke’s chest, twisting it hard before jerking it back out, red to the hilt. Luke fell back against the wall — then slid down it, leaving a smear of blood behind as Clary stared in horror.

Jocelyn screamed. The sound was worse than the sound of the bullet shattering the window, though Clary heard it as if it came from a distance away, or underwater. She was staring at Luke, who had collapsed to the floor, the carpet around him rapidly turning red.

Sebastian raised the dagger again — and Clary flung herself at him, slamming as hard as she could into his