In the end Isabelle gave Clary only two Marks, one on the back of each hand. One was
the open eye that decorated the hand of every Shadowhunter. The other was like two crossed
sickles; Isabelle said it was a Rune of Protection. Both runes burned when the stele first touched
skin, but the pain faded as Clary, Isabelle, and Alec headed downtown in a black gypsy cab. By
the time they reached Second Avenue and stepped out onto the pavement, Clary's hands and
arms felt as light as if she were wearing water wings in a swimming pool.
The three of them were silent as they passed under the wrought iron arch and into the Marble
Cemetery. The last time Clary had been in this small courtyard she had been hurrying along after
Brother Jeremiah. Now, for the first time, she noticed the names carved into the walls:
Youngblood, Fairchild, Thrushcross, Nightwine, Ravenscar. There were runes beside them. In
Shadowhunter culture each family had their own symbol: The Waylands' was a blacksmith's
hammer, the Lightwoods' a torch, and Valentine's a star.
The grass grew tangled over the feet of the Angel statue in the courtyard's center. The Angel's
eyes were closed, his slim hands closed over the stem of a stone goblet, a reproduction of the
Mortal Cup. His stone face was impassive, streaked with dirt and grime.
Clary said, "Last time I was here, Brother Jeremiah used a rune on the statue to open the door
to the City."
"I wouldn't want to use one of the Silent Brothers' runes," Alec said. His face was grim. "They
should have sensed our presence before we got this far. Now I'm starting to worry." He took a
dagger from his belt and drew the blade of it across his bare palm. Blood welled from the shallow
gash. Making a fist over the stone Cup, he let the blood drip into it. "Blood of the Nephilim," he
said. "It should work as a key."
The stone Angel's eyelids flew open. For a moment Clary almost expected to see eyes glaring
at her from between the folds of stone, but there was only more granite. A second later, the grass
at the Angel's feet began to split. A crooked black line, rippling like the back of a snake, curved
away from the statue, and Clary jumped back hastily as a dark hole opened at her feet.
She peered down into it. Stairs led away into shadow. Last time she had been here, the
darkness had been lit at intervals by torches, illuminating the steps. Now there was only
blackness.
"Something's wrong," Clary said. Neither Isabelle nor Alec seemed inclined to argue. Clary
took the witchlight stone Jace had given her out of her pocket and raised it overhead. Light burst
from it, raying out through her spread fingers. "Let's go."
Alec stepped in front of her. "I'll go first, then you follow me. Isabelle, bring up the rear."
They clambered down slowly, Clary's damp boots slipping on the age-rounded steps. At the
foot of the stairs was a short tunnel that opened out into an enormous hall, a stone orchard of
white arches inset with semiprecious stones. Rows of mausoleums huddled in the shadows like
toadstool houses in a fairy story. The more distant of them disappeared into shadow; the
witchlight was not strong enough to light the whole hall.
Alec looked somberly down the rows. "I never thought I would enter the Silent City," he said.
"Not even in death."
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"I wouldn't sound so sad about it," Clary said. "Brother Jeremiah told me what they do to
your dead. They burn them up and use most of the ashes to make the City's marble." The blood
and bone of demon slayers is itself a powerful protection against evil. Even in death, the Clave
serves the Cause.
"Hmph," said Isabelle. "It's considered an honor. Besides, it's not like you mundies don't burn
your dead."
That doesn't make it not creepy, Clary thought. The smell of ashes and smoke hung heavy on
the air, familiar to her from the last time she was here—but there was something else underlying
those smells, a heavier, thicker stench, like rotting fruit.
Frowning as if he smelled it too, Alec took one of his angel blades out of his weapons belt.
"Arathiel," he whispered, and its glow joined the illumination of Clary's witchlight as they found
the second staircase and descended into even denser gloom. The witchlight pulsed in Clary's
hand like a dying star—she wondered if they ever ran out of power, witchlight stones, like
flashlights ran out of batteries. She hoped not. The idea of being plunged into sightless darkness
in this creepy place filled her with a visceral terror.
The smell of rotting fruit grew stronger as they reached the end of the stairs and found
themselves in another long tunnel. This one opened out into a pavilion surrounded by spires of
carved bone—a pavilion Clary remembered very well. Inlaid silver stars sprinkled the floor like
precious confetti. In the center of the pavilion was a black table. Dark fluid had pooled on its slick
surface and trickled across the floor in rivulets.
When Clary had stood before the Council of Brothers, there had been a heavy silver sword
hanging on the wall behind the table. The Sword was gone now, and in its place, smeared across
the wall, was a great fan of scarlet.
"Is that blood?" Isabelle whispered. She didn't sound afraid, just stunned.
"Looks like it." Alec's eyes scanned the room. The shadows were as thick as paint, and
seemed full of movement. His grip was tight on his seraph blade.
"What could have happened?" Isabelle said. "The Silent Brothers—I thought they were
indestructible…"
Her voice trailed off as Clary turned, the witchlight in her hand catching strange shadows
among the spires. One was more strangely shaped than the others. She willed the witchlight to
burn brighter and it did, sending a lancing bolt of brightness into the distance.
Impaled on one of the spires, like a worm on a hook, was the dead body of a Silent Brother.
Hands, ribboned in blood, dangled just above the marble floor. His neck looked broken. Blood
had pooled beneath him, clotted and black in the witchlight.
Isabelle gasped. "Alec. Do you see—"
"I see." Alec's voice was grim. "And I've seen worse. It's Jace I'm worried about."
Isabelle went forward and touched the black basalt table, her fingers skimming the surface.
"This blood is almost fresh. Whatever happened, it happened not long ago."
Alec moved toward the Brother's impaled corpse. Smeared marks led away from the blood
pool on the floor. "Footprints," he said. "Someone running." Alec indicated with a curled hand
that the girls should follow him. They did, Isabelle pausing only to wipe her bloody hands off on
her soft leather leg guards.
The path of footprints led from the pavilion and down a narrow tunnel, disappearing into
darkness. When Alec stopped, looking around him, Clary pushed past him impatiently, letting the
witchlight blaze a silvery-white path of light ahead of them. She could see a set of double doors at
the end of the tunnel; they were ajar.
Jace. Somehow she sensed him, that he was close. She took off at a half run, her boots
clacking loudly against the hard floor. She heard Isabelle call after her, and then Alec and Isabelle
were also running, hard on her heels. She burst through the doors at the end of the hall and found
herself in a large stone-bound room bisected by a row of metal bars sunk deep into the ground.
Clary could just make out a slumped shape on the other side of the bars. Just outside the cell
sprawled the limp form of a Silent Brother.
Clary knew immediately that he was dead. It was the way he was lying, like a doll whose joints
had been twisted the wrong way until they broke. His parchment-colored robes were half-torn off.
His scarred face, contorted into a look of utter terror, was still recognizable. It was Brother
Jeremiah.
She pushed past his body to the door of the cell. It was made of bars spaced close together
and hinged on one side. There seemed to be no lock or knob that she could pull. She heard Alec,
behind her, say her name, but her attention wasn't on him: It was on the door. Of course there
was no visible way to open it, she realized; the Brothers didn't deal in what was visible, but rather
what wasn't. Holding the witchlight in one hand, she scrabbled for her mother's stele with the
other.
From the other side of the bars came a noise. A sort of muffled gasp or whisper; she wasn't
sure which, but she recognized the source. Jace. She slashed at the cell door with the tip of her
stele, trying to hold the rune for Open in her mind even as it appeared, black and jagged against
the hard metal. The electrum sizzled where the stele touched it. Open, she willed the door, open,
open, OPEN!
A noise like ripping cloth tore through the room. Clary heard Isabelle cry out as the door blew
off its hinges entirely, crashing into the cell like a drawbridge falling. Clary could hear other
noises, metal coming uncoupled from metal, a loud rattle like a handful of tossed pebbles. She
ducked into the cell, the fallen door wobbling under her feet.
Witchlight filled the small room, lighting it as bright as day. She barely noticed the rows of
manacles—all of different metals: gold, silver, steel, and iron—as they came undone from the
bolts in the walls and clattered to the stone floor. Her eyes were on the slumped figure in the
corner; she could see the bright hair, the hand outstretched, the loose manacle lying a little
distance away. His wrist was bare and bloody, the skin braceleted with ugly bruises.
She went down on her knees, setting her stele aside, and gently turned him over. It was Jace.
There was another bruise on his cheek, and his face was very white, but she could see the darting
movement under his eyelids. A vein pulsed at his throat. He was alive.
Relief went through her like a hot wave, undoing the tight cords of tension that had held her
together this long. The witchlight fell to the floor beside her, where it continued to blaze. She
stroked Jace's hair back from his forehead with a tenderness that felt foreign to her—she'd never
had any brothers or sisters, not even a cousin. She'd never had occasion to bind up wounds or
kiss scraped knees or take care of anyone, really.
But it was all right to feel tenderness toward Jace like this, she thought, unwilling to draw her
hand back even as Jace's eyelids twitched and he groaned. He was her brother; why shouldn't she
care what happened to him?
His eyes opened. The pupils were huge, dilated. Maybe he'd banged his head? His eyes fixed
on her with a look of dazed bemusement. "Clary," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to find you," she said, because it was the truth.
A spasm went across his face. "You're really here? I'm not—I'm not dead, am I?"
"No," she said, gliding her hand down the side of his face. "You passed out, is all. Probably
hit your head too."
His hand came up to cover hers where it lay on his cheek. "Worth it," he said in such a low
voice that she wasn't sure it was what he'd said, after all.
"What's going on?" It was Alec, ducking through the low doorway, Isabelle just behind him.
Clary jerked her hand back, then cursed herself silently. She hadn't been doing anything wrong.
Jace struggled into a sitting position. His face was gray, his shirt spotted with blood. Alec's
look turned to one of concern. "And are you all right?" he demanded, kneeling down. "What
happened? Can you remember?"
Jace held up his uninjured hand. "One question at a time, Alec. My head already feels like it's
going to split open."
"Who did this to you?" Isabelle sounded both bewildered and furious.
"No one did anything to me. I did it to myself trying to get the manacles off." Jace looked
down at his wrist—it looked as if he'd nearly scraped all the skin off it—and winced.
"Here," said both Clary and Alec at the same time, reaching out for his hand. Their eyes met,
and Clary dropped her hand first. Alec took hold of Jace's wrist and drew out his stele; with a
few quick flicks of his wrist, he drew an iratze—a healing rune—just below the bracelet of
bleeding skin.
"Thanks," said Jace, drawing his hand back. The injured part of his wrist was already
beginning to knit back together. "Brother Jeremiah—"
"Is dead," said Clary.
"I know." Disdaining Alec's offered assistance, Jace pulled himself up to a standing position,
using the wall to hold him up. "He was murdered."
"Did the Silent Brothers kill each other?" Isabelle asked. "I don't understand—I don't
understand why they'd do that—"
"They didn't," said Jace. "Something killed them. I don't know what." A spasm of pain
twisted his face. "My head—"
"Maybe we should go," said Clary nervously. "Before whatever killed them…"
"Comes back for us?" said Jace. He looked down at his bloody shirt and bruised hand. "I
think it's gone. But I suppose he could still bring it back."
"Who could bring what back?" Alec demanded, but Jace said nothing. His face had gone
from gray to paper white. Alec caught him as he began to slide down the wall. "Jace—"
"I'm all right," Jace protested, but his hand gripped Alec's sleeve tightly. "I can stand."
"It looks to me like you're using a wall to prop you up. That's not my definition of 'standing.' "
"It's leaning," Jace told him. "Leaning comes right before standing."
"Stop bickering," said Isabelle, kicking a doused torch out of her way. "We need to get out of
here. If there's something out there nasty enough to kill the Silent Brothers, it'll make short work
of us."
"Izzy's right. We should go." Clary retrieved the witchlight and stood up. "Jace—are you okay
to walk?"
"He can lean on me." Alec drew Jace's arm across his shoulders. Jace leaned heavily against
him. "Come on," Alec said gently. "We'll fix you up when we get outside."
Slowly they moved toward the cell door, where Jace paused, staring down at the figure of
Brother Jeremiah lying twisted on the paving stones. Isabelle knelt down and drew the Silent
Brother's brown wool hood down to cover his contorted face. When she straightened up, all their
faces were grave.
"I've never seen a Silent Brother afraid," Alec said. "I didn't think it was possible for them to
feel fear."
"Everyone feels fear." Jace was still very pale, and though he was cradling his injured hand
against his chest, Clary didn't think it was because of physical pain. He looked distant, as if he
had withdrawn into himself, hiding from something.
They retraced their steps through the dark corridors and up the narrow steps that led to the
pavilion of the Speaking Stars. When they reached it, Clary noticed the thick scent of blood and
burning as she hadn't when she'd passed through it before. Jace, leaning on Alec, looked around
with a sort of mingled horror and confusion on his face. Clary saw that he was staring at the far
wall where it was splattered thickly with blood, and she said, "Jace. Don't look." Then she felt
stupid; he was a demon hunter, after all, he'd seen worse.
He shook his head. "Something feels wrong—"
"Everything feels wrong here." Alec tilted his head toward the forest of arches that led away
from the pavilion. "That's the fastest way out of here. Let's go."
They didn't talk much as they made their way back through the Bone City. Every shadow
seemed to surge with movement, as if the darkness concealed creatures waiting to jump out at
them. Isabelle was whispering something under her breath. Though Clary couldn't hear the words
themselves, it sounded like another language, something old—Latin, maybe.
When they reached the stairs that led up out of the City, Clary breathed a silent sigh of relief.
The Bone City might have been beautiful once, but it was terrifying now. As they reached the last
flight of steps, light stabbed into her eyes, making her cry out in surprise. She could faintly see the
Angel statue that stood at the head of the stairs, backlit with brilliant golden light, bright as day.
She glanced around at the others; they looked as confused as she felt.
"The sun couldn't have risen yet—could it?" Isabelle murmured. "How long were we down
here?"
Alec checked his watch. "Not that long."
Jace muttered something, too low for anyone else to hear him. Alec craned his ear down.
"What did you say?"
"Witchlight," Jace said, more loudly this time.
Isabelle hurried up the stairs, Clary behind her, Alec just behind them, struggling to half-carry
Jace up the steps. At the head of the stairs Isabelle stopped suddenly as if frozen. Clary called out
to her, but she didn't move. A moment later Clary was standing beside her and it was her turn to
stare around in amazement.
The garden was full of Shadowhunters—twenty, maybe thirty, of them in dark hunting regalia,
inked with Marks, each holding a blazing witchlight stone.
At the front of the group stood Maryse, in black Shadowhunter armor and a cloak, her hood
thrown back. Behind her ranged dozens of strangers, men and women Clary had never seen, but
who bore the Marks of the Nephilim on their arms and faces. One of them, a handsome ebonyskinned
man, turned to stare at Clary and Isabelle—and beside her, at Jace and Alec, who had
come up from the steps and stood blinking in the unexpected light.
"By the Angel," the man said. "Maryse—there was already someone down there."
Maryse's mouth opened in a silent gasp when she saw Isabelle. Then she closed it, her lips
tightening into a thin white line, like a slash drawn in chalk across her face.
"I know, Malik," she said. "These are my children."
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