City of Lost Souls

talk. Just kiss me.”

So he did.

“What in the name of the Angel do you mean Clary isn’t there?” Jocelyn demanded, white-faced. “How do you know that, if you just woke up? Where has she gone?”

Simon swallowed. He had grown up with Jocelyn as almost a second mother to him. He was used to her protectiveness of her daughter, but she had always seen him as an ally in that, someone who would stand between Clary and the dangers of the world. Now she was looking at him like the enemy. “She texted me last night…,” Simon began, then stopped as Magnus waved him over to the table.

“You might as well sit down,” he said. Isabelle and Alec were watching wide-eyed from either side of Magnus, but the warlock didn’t look particularly surprised. “Tell us all what’s going on. I have a feeling this is going to take a while.”

It did, though not as long as Simon might have hoped. When he was done explaining, hunched over on his chair and staring down at Magnus’s scratched table, he lifted his head to see Jocelyn fixing him with a green stare as cold as arctic water. “You let my daughter go off… with Jace… to some unfindable, untraceable place where none of us can reach her?”

Simon looked down at his hands. “I can reach her,” he said, holding up his right hand with the gold ring on the finger. “I told you. I heard from her this morning. She said she was fine.”

“You never should have let her leave in the first place!”

“I didn’t let her. She was going to go anyway. I thought she might as well have some kind of a lifeline, since it’s not like I could stop her.”

“To be fair,” said Magnus, “I don’t think anyone could. Clary does what she wants.” He looked at Jocelyn. “You can’t keep her in a cage.”

“I trusted you,” she snapped at Magnus. “How did she get out?”

“She made a Portal.”

“But you said there were wards—”

“To keep threats out, not to keep guests in. Jocelyn, your daughter isn’t stupid, and she does what she thinks is right. You can’t stop her. No one can stop her. She is a great deal like her mother.”

Jocelyn looked at Magnus for a moment, her mouth slightly open, and Simon realized that of course Magnus must have known Clary’s mother when she was young, when she betrayed Valentine and the Circle and nearly died in the Uprising. “She’s a little girl,” she said, and turned to Simon. “You’ve spoken to her? Using these — these rings? Since she left?”

“This morning,” said Simon. “She said she was fine. That everything was fine.”

Instead of seeming reassured, Jocelyn only looked angrier. “I’m sure that’s what she said. Simon, I can’t believe you allowed her to do this. You should have restrained her —”

“What, tied her up?” Simon said in disbelief. “Handcuffed her to the diner table?”

“If that’s what it took. You’re stronger than she is. I’m disappointed in—”

Isabelle stood up. “Okay, that’s enough.” She glared at Jocelyn. “It is totally and completely unfair to yell at Simon over something Clary decided to do on her own. And if Simon had tied her up for you, then what? Were you planning on keeping her tied up forever? You’d have to let her go eventually, and then what? She wouldn’t trust Simon anymore, and she already doesn’t trust you because you stole her memories. And that, if I recall, was because you were trying to protect her. Maybe if you hadn’t protected her so much, she would know more about what is dangerous and what isn’t, and be a little less secretive — and less reckless!”

Everyone stared at Isabelle, and for a moment Simon was reminded of something that Clary had said to him once — that Izzy rarely made speeches, but when she did, she made them count. Jocelyn was white around the lips.

“I’m going to the station to be with Luke,” she said. “Simon, I expect reports from you every twenty-four hours that my daughter is all right. If I don’t hear from you every night, I’m going to the Clave.”

And she stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her so hard that a long crack appeared in the plaster beside it.

Isabelle sat back down, this time beside Simon. He said nothing to her but held out his hand, and she took it, slipping her fingers between his.

“So,” Magnus said finally, breaking the silence. “Who’s up for raising Azazel? Because we’re going to need a whole lot of candles.”

Jace and Clary spent the day wandering — through mazelike tiny streets than ran along canals whose water ranged from deep green to murky blue. They made their way among the tourists in Saint Mark’s Square, and over the Bridge of Sighs, and drank small, powerful cups of espresso at Caffe Florian. The disorienting maze of streets reminded Clary a bit of Alicante, though Alicante lacked Venice’s feeling of elegant decay. There were no roads here, no cars, only twisting little alleys, and bridges arching over canals whose water was as green as malachite. As the sky overhead darkened to the deep blue of late autumn twilight, lights began to go on — in tiny boutiques, in bars and restaurants that seemed to appear out of nowhere and disappear again into shadow as she and Jace passed, leaving light and laughter behind.

When Jace asked Clary if she was ready for dinner, she nodded firmly, yes. She had begun to feel guilty that she had gotten no information out of him and that she was, actually, enjoying herself. As they crossed over a bridge to the Dorsoduro, one of the quieter sections of the city, away from the tourist throng, she determined that she would get something out of him that night, something worth relaying to Simon.

Jace held her hand firmly as they went over a final bridge and the street opened out into a great square on the side of an enormous canal the size of a river. The basilica of a domed church rose on their right. Across the canal more of the city lit the evening, throwing illumination onto the water, which shifted and glimmered with light. Clary’s hands itched for chalk and pencils, to draw the light as it faded out of the sky, the darkening water, the jagged outlines of the buildings, their reflections slowly dimming in the canal. Everything seemed washed with a steely blueness. Somewhere church bells were chiming.

She tightened her hand on Jace’s. She felt very far away here from everything in her life, distant in a way that she had not felt in Idris. Venice shared with Alicante the sense of being a place out of time, torn from the past, as if she had stepped into a painting or the pages of a book. But it was also a real place, one she had grown up knowing about, wanting to visit. She looked sidelong at Jace, who was gazing down the canal. The steely blue light was on him, too, darkening his eyes, the shadows under his cheekbones, the lines of his mouth. When he caught her gaze on him, he looked over and smiled.

He led her around the church and down a flight of mossy steps to a path along the canal. Everything smelled of wet stone and water and dampness and years. As the sky darkened, something broke the surface of the canal water a few feet from Clary. She heard the splash and looked in time to see a green-haired woman rise from the water and grin at her; she had a beautiful face but sharklike teeth and a fish’s yellow eyes. Pearls were wound through her hair. She sank again below the water, without a ripple.

“Mermaid,” said Jace. “There are old families of them that have lived here in Venice a long, long time. They’re a little odd. They do better in clean water, far out to sea, living on fish instead of garbage.” He looked toward the sunset. “The whole city is sinking,” he said. “It’ll all be under water in a hundred years. Imagine swimming down into the ocean and touching the top of Saint Mark’s Basilica.” He pointed across the water.

Clary felt a flicker of sadness at the thought of all this beauty being lost. “Isn’t there anything they can do?”

“To raise a whole city? Or hold back the ocean? Not much,” Jace said. They had come to a set of stairs leading up. The wind came off the water and lifted his dark gold hair off his forehead, his neck. “All things tend toward entropy. The whole universe is moving outward, the stars pulling away from one another, God knows what falling through the cracks between them.” He paused. “Okay, that sounded a little crazy.”

“Maybe it was all the wine at lunch.”

“I can hold my liquor.” They turned a corner, and a fairyland of lights gleamed out at them. Clary blinked, her eyes adjusting. It was a small restaurant with tables set outside and inside, heat lamps wound with Christmas lights like a forest of magical trees between the tables. Jace detached himself from her long enough to get them a