Cassandra Clare - Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

Magnus returned with a heavy heart to the room where the Shadowhunters and Downworlders were still fighting a war of words. Neither side seemed inclined to give way. Magnus was inclined to give the matter up as hopeless.

Through the stained-glass windows the curtains of night began to show the signs of drawing down to reveal the day, and the vampires had to leave.

“It seems to me,” said Camille, drawing on her scarlet gloves, “that another meeting will prove just as futile as these have been.”

“If Downworlders continue to be insolent wretches,” said Starkweather.

“If Shadowhunters continue to be sanctimonious murderers,” snapped Scott. Magnus could not quite look at his face, not after Edmund Herondale’s. He did not want to watch as another boy’s dreams died.

“Enough!” said Granville Fairchild. “Madam, do not ask me to believe that you have never harmed a human soul. I am not a fool. And what kills Shadowhunters have made, they have made in the cause of justice and in the defense of the helpless.”

Camille smiled a slow, sweet smile. “If you believe that,” she murmured, “then you are a fool.”

Cue another dreary, wearying burst of outrage from the assembled Shadowhunters. It warmed Magnus to see Camille defending the boy. She was fond of Ralf Scott, he thought. Perhaps more than fond. Magnus might hope that she would choose him, but he found he could not begrudge Scott her affection. He offered her his arm as they left the room, and she took it. They went out into the street together.

And there on the very doorstep of the Institute, the demons descended. Achaieral demons, their teeth razors and their wide wings scorched-black leather like the aprons of blacksmiths. They blanketed the night, blotting out the moon and wiping away the stars, and Camille shuddered at Magnus’s side, her fangs out. At the sign of Camille’s fear, Ralf Scott lunged at the enemy, transforming as he went, and brought one down in a bloody tangle onto the cobbles.

The Shadowhunters rushed out too, weapons sliding out of sheaths and garments alike. Amalia Morgenstern, it emerged, had been hiding a small tasteful axe under her hoop skirt. Roderick Morgenstern ran out into the street and stabbed the demon Ralf Scott was wrestling with.

From the small cart that contained her aquarium, Arabella gave a scream of real fear, and ducked down to the bottom of her woefully inadequate tank.

“To me, Josiah!” thundered Fairchild, and Josiah Waybread—no, Magnus thought it was Wayland, actually—joined him. They ranged themselves in front of Arabella’s cart and stood to defend her, letting no demon past the bright line of their blades.

Silas Pangborn and Eloisa Ravenscar moved to the street, fighting back-to-back, their weapons bright blurs in their hands and their movements in perfect synchronization, as if the pair of them had melded into a single fierce creature. De Quincey followed and fought with them.

The presence at Magnus’s side was gone suddenly. Camille left him and went running to help Ralf Scott. One demon leaped onto her from behind and seized her up in its bladelike talons. Ralf howled despair and grief. Magnus blasted the demon out of the sky. Camille went tumbling onto the ground, and Magnus knelt and gathered her, shaking, into his arms. He was amazed to see the gleam of tears in her green eyes, was amazed at how fragile she felt.

“I beg your pardon. I am not generally so easily overset. A mundane fortune-teller once told me that death would come to me as a surprise,” Camille said, her voice trembling. “A foolish superstition, is it not? Yet I always wish to be warned. I fear nothing, if only I am told that danger is coming.”

“I would be entirely overset myself, if my ensemble had been spoiled by demons who know nothing of fashion,” said Magnus, and Camille laughed.

Her eyes looked like grass under the dew, and she was brave and beautiful and would fight for their kind and yet rest against him. It was in that moment that Magnus felt as if he had stopped searching for love.

Magnus looked up from Camille’s enchanting face to see that the Shadowhunters and Downworlders were, for a wonder, not arguing. Instead they were all observing one another, standing in the suddenly-quiet street with the bodies of their foes around them, vanquished because they had stood together. There was a certain wonder in the air, as if the Nephilim could not see the Downworlders as demonic when they had fought alongside them against true demons. The Shadowhunters were warriors; the bonds of war meant a great deal to them.

Magnus was no warrior, but he remembered how the Shadowhunters had moved to protect a mermaid and a werewolf. That meant something to him, too. Perhaps there was something to be salvaged here this night. Perhaps they could make this wild idea of the Accords work after all.

Then he felt Camille move in his arms, and saw where she was looking. She was gazing at Ralf Scott, and he was looking back at her. There was a world of hurt in his eyes.

The boy climbed to his feet, and vented his ire on the Shadowhunters.

“You people did this,” he raged. “You want us all dead. You lured us here—”

“Are you mad ?” Fairchild demanded. “We are Nephilim. If we wanted you dead, you would be dead. We do not require demons to do our killing for us, and we certainly do not wish for them to befoul our very doorstep. My daughter lives here. I would not put her in danger for anything you care to name, and certainly not for Downworlders.”

Magnus had to admit he had a point.

“It is you people who brought that filth to us!” Starkweather bellowed.

Magnus opened his mouth to argue, and then he recalled how excessively vehement the queen of the faeries had been when she argued against an agreement with Shadowhunters, and yet how strangely curious she had been about the details thereof, such as the time and place of their meetings. He closed his mouth.

Fairchild gave Magnus a condemning glance, as if the Shadowhunter could read the guilt of all Downworlders on his countenance. “If what Starkweather says is true, you have lost any opportunity to forge an agreement between our people.”

It was done, then, and Magnus saw the rage pass from Ralf Scott’s face as he visibly gave up his struggle. Ralf looked up at Fairchild with clear eyes, and spoke in a calm, ringing voice.

“You will not give us aid? Very well. We do not need it. Werewolves will take care of their own. I will see it done.”

The werewolf boy evaded de Quincey’s detaining hand and paid no heed to Fairchild’s sharp reply. The only one he paid attention to was Camille. He looked at her for a moment. Camille lifted her hand, then dropped it, and Ralf whirled and walked away from both Shadowhunters and his fellow Downworlders. Magnus saw him square his thin shoulders as he went, a boy accepting a heavy burden and accepting that he had lost what he loved best. Magnus was reminded of Edmund Herondale.

Magnus did not see Edmund Herondale again, but he heard him once more.

The Shadowhunters decided that Magnus and Camille were the most reasonable among the Downworlders that they had assembled. Given that the other choices were intemperate werewolves and Alexei de Quincey, Magnus could not feel himself noindentattered by the preference.

The Nephilim asked Magnus and Camille to come for a private meeting, to exchange information so that they could continue to correspond, independent of Ralf Scott. Implicit in their request was the promise that the Shadowhunters might offer their protection if Magnus and Camille needed it at some future time. In exchange, of course, for magic or Downworlder information.