Cassandra Clare - City of Heavenly Fire

Clary rose slowly to her feet. She looked down. Her mother was kneeling, holding Jonathan’s body sprawled across her lap.

“Mom,” Clary whispered, but Jocelyn didn’t look up. A moment later someone brushed by Clary: It was Luke. He gave her hand a squeeze, and then knelt down by Jocelyn, his hand gentle on her shoulder.

Clary turned away; she couldn’t bear it anymore. The sadness felt like a crushing weight. She heard Jonathan’s voice in her head as she descended the stairs: I’ve never felt so light .

She moved forward through the corpses and ichor on the floor, numb and heavy with the knowledge of her failure. After everything she had done, there was still no way to save them. They were waiting for her: Jace and Simon and Isabelle, and Alec and Magnus.

Magnus looked ill and pale and very, very tired.

“Sebastian’s dead,” she said, and they all looked at her, with their tired, dirty faces, as if they were too exhausted and drained to feel anything at the news, even relief. Jace stepped forward and took her hands, lifted them and kissed them quickly; she closed her eyes, feeling as if just a fraction of warmth and light had been returned to her.

“Warrior hands,” he said quietly, and let her go. She stared down at her fingers, trying to see what he saw. Her hands were just her hands, small and callused, stained with dirt and blood.

“Jace was telling us,” said Simon. “What you did, with the Morgenstern sword. That you were faking Sebastian out the whole time.”

“Not there at the end,” she said. “Not when he turned back into Jonathan.”

“I wish you’d told us,” Isabelle said. “About your plan.”

“I’m sorry,” Clary whispered. “I was afraid it wouldn’t work. That you’d just be disappointed. I thought it was better—not to hope too much.”

“Hope is all that keeps us going sometimes, biscuit,” said Magnus, though he didn’t sound resentful.

“I needed him to believe it,” Clary said. “So I needed you to believe it too. He had to see your reactions and think he’d won.”

“Jace knew,” Alec said, looking up at her; he didn’t sound angry either, just dazed.

“And I never looked at her from the time she got up onto the throne to the time she stabbed that bastard in the heart,” Jace said. “I couldn’t. Handing over that bracelet to him, I—” He broke off. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called him a bastard. Sebastian was, but Jonathan isn’t, wasn’t , the same person—and your mother—”

“It is like she lost a child twice,” said Magnus. “I can think of few worse things.”

“How about being trapped in a demon realm with no way to get out?” Isabelle said.

“Clary, we need to get back to Idris. I hate to ask, but did Seb—did Jonathan say anything about how to unseal the borders?”

Clary swallowed. “He said it wasn’t possible. That they’re closed forever.”

“So we’re trapped here,” Isabelle said, her dark eyes shocked. “Forever? That can’t be.

There must be a spell—Magnus—”

“He wasn’t lying,” Magnus said. “There’s no way for us to reopen the paths from here to Idris.”

There was an awful silence. Then Alec, whose gaze had been resting on Magnus, said, “No way for us ?”

“That’s what I said,” Magnus replied. “There’s no way to open the borders.”

“No,” said Alec, and there was a dangerous note in his voice. “You said there was no way for us to do it, meaning there might be someone who could.” Magnus drew away from Alec and looked around at them all. His expression was unguarded, stripped of its usual distance, and he looked both very young and very, very old. His face was a young man’s face, but his eyes had seen centuries pass, and never had Clary been more aware of it. “There are worse things than death,” Magnus said.

“Maybe you should let us be the judge of that,” said Alec, and Magnus scrubbed a despairing hand across his face and said, “Dear God. Alexander, I have gone my whole life without ever taking recourse to this path, save once, when I learned my lesson. It is not a lesson I want the rest of you to learn.”

“But you’re alive,” said Clary. “You lived through the lesson.” Magnus smiled an awful smile. “It wouldn’t be much of a lesson if I hadn’t,” he said.

“But I was duly warned. Playing dice with my own life is one thing; playing with all of yours—”

“We’ll die here anyway,” said Jace. “It’s a rigged game. Let us take our chances.”

“I agree,” Isabelle said, and the others chimed in their agreement as well. Magnus looked toward the dais, where Luke and Jocelyn still knelt, and sighed.

“Majority vote,” he said. “Did you know there’s an old Downworlder saying about mad dogs and Nephilim never heeding a warning?”

“Magnus—” Alec began, but Magnus only shook his head and drew himself weakly to his feet. He still wore the rags of the clothes he must have put on for that long-ago dinner at the Fair Folk’s refuge in Idris: the incongruous shreds of a suit jacket and tie. Rings sparkled on his fingers as he brought his hands together, as if in prayer, and closed his eyes.

“My father,” he said, and Clary heard Alec suck in his breath with a gasp. “My father, who art in Hell, unhallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Edom as it is in Hell. Forgive not my sins, for in that fire of fires there shall be neither loving kindness, nor compassion, nor redemption. My father, who makes war in high places and low, come to me now; I call you as your son, and incur upon myself the responsibility of your summoning.”

Magnus opened his eyes. He was expressionless. Five shocked faces looked back at him.

“By the Angel—” Alec started.

“No,” said a voice just beyond their huddled group. “ Definitely not by your Angel.” Clary stared. At first she saw nothing, just a shifting patch of shadow, and then a figure evolved out of the darkness. A tall man, as pale as bone, in a pure white suit; silver cuff links gleamed at his wrists, carved in the shape of flies. His face was a human face, pale skin pulled tight over bone, cheekbones sharp as blades. He didn’t have hair so much as a sparkling coronet of barbed wires.

His eyes were gold-green, and slit-pupilled like a cat’s.

“Father,” said Magnus, and the word was an exhalation of sorrow. “You came.” The man smiled. His front teeth were sharp, pointed like feline teeth. “My son,” he said. “It has been a long time since you called on me. I was beginning to despair that you ever would again.”

“I hadn’t planned to,” Magnus said dryly. “I called on you once, to determine that you were my father. That once was enough.”

“You wound me,” said the man, and he turned his pointed-tooth smile on the others. “I am Asmodeus,” he said. “One of the Nine Princes of Hell. You may know my name.” Alec made a short sound, quickly muffled.

“I was a seraphim once, one of the angels indeed,” continued Asmodeus, looking pleased with himself. “Part of an innumerable company. Then came the war, and we fell like stars from Heaven. I followed the Light-Bringer down, the Morning Star, for I was one of his chief advisers, and when he fell, I fell with him. He raised me up in Hell and made me one of the nine rulers. In case you were wondering, it is preferable to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven—I’ve done both.”

“You’re—Magnus’s father?” said Alec in a strangled voice. He turned to Magnus.

“When you held the witchlight in the subway tunnel, it flared up in colors—is that because of him ?” He pointed at Asmodeus.

“Yes,” Magnus said. He looked very tired. “I warned you, Alexander, that this was something you would not like.”