Cassandra Clare - City of Heavenly Fire

Magnus pointed his fork at Luke. “That,” he said, “was a beautiful speech.” He paused.

He was definitely slurring his words. How had he gotten so drunk on so little wine? He was usually much more careful than that. He frowned.

“What kind of wine is this?” he asked.

Meliorn leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. There was a glint in his eyes as he replied. “Does the vintage not please you, warlock?”

Jocelyn set her glass down slowly. “When faeries answer questions with questions,” she said, “it’s never a good sign.”

“Jocelyn—” Luke reached to put his hand on her wrist.

He missed.

He stared muzzily at his hand for a moment, before lowering it slowly to the table.

“What,” he said, enunciating each word carefully, “have you done, Meliorn?” The faerie knight laughed. The sound was a musical blur in Magnus’s ears. The warlock went to set his wineglass down, but realized he had already dropped it. The wine had run out across the table like blood. He glanced up and over at Raphael, but Raphael was facedown on the table, still and unmoving. Magnus tried to shape his name through numb lips, but no sound came.

Somehow he managed to struggle to his feet. The room was swaying around him. He saw Luke sink back against his chair; Jocelyn rose to her feet, only to crumple to the ground, her stele rolling from her hand. Magnus lurched to the door, reached to open it—

On the other side stood the Endarkened, dressed all in red gear. Their faces were blank, their arms and throats decorated with runes, but none Magnus was familiar with. These runes were not the runes of the Angel. They spoke of dissonance, of the demonic realms and dark, fell powers.

Magnus turned away from them—and his legs gave out beneath him. He fell to his knees. Something white rose up before him. It was Meliorn, in his snowy armor, bending to one knee to look Magnus in the face. “Demon-fathered one,” he said. “Did you really think we would ever ally with your kind?”

Magnus heaved a breath. The world was darkening at the edges, like a photograph burning, curling in at the sides. “The Fair Folk don’t lie,” he said.

“Child,” said Meliorn, and there was almost sympathy in his voice. “Not to know after all these years that deception can hide in plain sight? Oh, but you are an innocent, after all.”

Magnus tried to raise his voice to protest that he was anything but innocent, but the words would not come. The darkness did, however, and drew him down and away.

Clary’s heart wrenched in her chest. She tried again to move her feet, to kick out, but her legs remained frozen in place. “You think I don’t know what you mean by mercy?” she whispered. “You’ll use the Infernal Cup on me. You’ll make me one of your Endarkened, like Amatis—”

“No,” he said, a strange urgency in his tone. “I won’t change you if you don’t want it. I will forgive you, and Jace as well. You can be together.”

“Together with you,” she said, letting just the edge of the irony of it touch her voice.

But he didn’t appear to register it. “Together, with me. If you swear loyalty, if you promise it in the name of the Angel, I will believe you. When all else changes, you alone I will preserve.”

She moved her hand down another inch, and now she was holding the hilt of Heosphoros. All she needed was to tighten her fist. . . . “And if I don’t?” His expression hardened. “If you refuse me now, I will Turn everyone you love to Endarkened Ones, and then Turn you last, that you might be forced to watch them change when you can still feel the pain of it.”

Clary swallowed against a dry throat. “That’s your mercy?”

“Mercy is a condition of your agreement.”

“I won’t agree.”

His lowered lashes scattered light; his smile was a promise of terrible things. “What’s the difference, Clarissa? You will fight for me regardless. Either you keep your freedom and stand with me, or you lose it and stand with me. Why not be with me?”

“The angel,” she said. “What was its name?”

Taken aback, Sebastian hesitated for a moment before he replied. “The angel?”

“The one whose wings you cut off and sent to the Institute,” she said. “The one you killed.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s the difference?”

“No,” she said, slowly. “You don’t understand. The things you’ve done are too terrible to ever be forgiven, and you don’t even know they’re terrible. And that’s why not. That’s why never . I will never forgive you. I will never love you. Never. ” She saw each word hit him like a slap. As he drew breath to reply, she swung the blade of Heosphoros out at him, up toward his heart.

But he was faster, and the fact that her legs were pinned in place by magic shortened her reach. He whipped away; she reached out, trying to pull him toward her, but he yanked his arm away easily. She heard a rattle and realized distantly that she had pulled his silver bracelet free. It clattered to the ground. She slashed toward him again with her blade; he jerked back, and Heosphoros cut a clean slice across his shirtfront. She saw his lip curl in pain and anger. He caught her by the arm and swung her hand up to slam it against the door, sending a jolt of numbness up to her shoulder. Her fingers went loose, and Heosphoros fell from her grasp.

He glanced down at the fallen blade and then back up at her, breathing hard. Blood edged the fabric where she had cut his shirt; not enough for the wound to slow him down.

Disappointment shot through her, more painful than the ache in her wrist. His body pinned hers to the door; she could feel the tension in every line of him. His voice was knifelike. “That blade is Heosphoros, the Dawn-Bringer. Where did you find it?”

“In a weapons shop,” she gasped. Feeling was coming back to her shoulder; the pain was intense. “The woman who owned the place gave it to me. She said nobody else would ever—would ever want a Morgenstern blade. Our blood is tainted .”

“But it is our blood .” He pounced on the words. “And you took the sword. You wanted it.” She could feel the heat burning off him; it seemed to shimmer around him, like the flame of a dying star. He bent his head until his lips touched her neck, and spoke against her skin, his words matching the tempo of her pulse. She closed her eyes with a shudder as his hands ran up her body. “You lie when you tell me you’ll never love me,” he said.

“That we’re different. You lie just like I do—”

“Stop,” she said. “Get your hands off me.”

“But you’re mine,” he said. “I want you to—I need you to—” He took a gasping breath; his pupils were blown wide; something about it terrified her more than anything else he had ever done. Sebastian in control was frightening; Sebastian out of control was something too horrible to contemplate.

“Let her go,” said a clear, hard voice from across the room. “Let her go and stop touching her, or I will burn you down to ashes.”

Jace.

Over Sebastian’s shoulder she saw him, suddenly, where there had been no one standing a moment ago. He was in front of the window, the curtains blowing behind him in the breeze off the canal, and his eyes were as hard as agate stones. He was wearing gear, his blade in his hand, still with the shadow of fading bruises on his jaw and neck, and his expression as he looked at Sebastian was one of absolute loathing.

Clary felt Sebastian’s whole body tighten against hers; a moment later he had spun away from her, slamming his foot down on her sword, his hand flying to his belt. His smile was a razor slice, but his eyes were wary. “Go ahead and try it,” he said. “You got lucky at the Citadel. I wasn’t expecting you to burn like that when I cut you. My mistake.