Cassandra Clare - City of Heavenly Fire

She pointed again, toward what she could now see as a definite shimmer, a cluster of shapes, in the distance. “There’s something there,” she called down. “Simon thinks it’s a city—”

She broke off, because Jace had already started running in the direction she’d pointed.

Isabelle and Alec looked startled before bolting after him; Clary exhaled an exasperated breath and, with Simon at her side, followed.

They started down the slope, which was covered in loose scree, half-running and half-sliding, letting the unmoored pebbles carry them. Not for the first time, Clary truly appreciated her gear: She could only imagine how the flying bits of gravel would have torn normal shoes and pants to shreds.

She hit the bottom of the slope at a run. Jace was some distance ahead, with Alec and Isabelle just behind him, moving fast, clambering over rock cairns, hopping small rivulets of molten slag. As Clary closed in on the three of them, she saw that they were heading toward a place where the desert seemed to drop away—the edge of a plateau? A cliff?

Clary sped up, scrambling over the last of the rock heaps and nearly rolling down the final one. She landed on her feet—Simon, far more graceful, just ahead of her—and saw that Jace was standing at the edge of a massive cliff that fell away before him like the edge of the Grand Canyon. Alec and Isabelle had moved to either side of him. All three were eerily silent, staring ahead in the dim bruised light.

Something in Jace’s posture, the way he stood, told Clary even as she reached his side that there was something not right. Then she caught sight of his expression and mentally amended “not right” to “very wrong indeed.”

He was staring down into the valley below as if he were staring into the grave of someone he had loved. In the valley were the ruins of a city. An old, old city that had once been built around a hillside. The top of the hillside was surrounded by gray clouds and fog. Heaps of rock were all that was left of the houses, and ash had settled over the streets and the jagged ruins of buildings. Tumbled among the ruins, like discarded matchsticks, were broken pillars made of shining pale stone, incongruously beautiful in this ruined land.

“Demon towers,” she whispered.

Jace nodded grimly. “I don’t know how,” he said, “but somehow—this is Alicante.”

“It is a dreadful burden, to have such responsibility visited upon those so young,” said Zachariah as the door of the Council Hall closed behind Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn. Aline and Helen had gone with them, to escort them back to the house where they were staying. Both children had been nearly swaying on their feet with exhaustion by the end of their interrogation by the Council, heavy dark shadows under their eyes.

There were only a few of the Council members still left in the room: Jia and Patrick, Maryse and Robert Lightwood, Kadir Safar, Diana Wrayburn, Tomas Rosales, and a scattering of Silent Brothers and heads of Institutes. Most were chattering among themselves, but Zachariah stood by Jia’s lectern, looking at her with a deep sorrow in his eyes.

“They have endured much loss,” said Jia. “But we are Shadowhunters; many of us endure great loss at a young age.”

“They have Helen, and their uncle,” said Patrick, standing not far away with Robert and Maryse, both of whom looked tense and drawn. “They will be well taken care of, and Emma Carstairs, as well, clearly considers the Blackthorns as family.”

“Often those who raise us, who are our guardians, are not our blood,” said Zachariah.

Jia thought she had seen a special softness in his eyes when they rested on Emma, almost a regret. But perhaps she had imagined it. “Those who love us and who we love. So it was with me. As long as she is not parted from the Blackthorns, or the boy—Julian—that is the most important thing.”

Jia distantly heard her husband reassuring the former Silent Brother, but her mind was on Helen. Down in the depths of her heart, Jia worried sometimes for her daughter, who had given her heart so completely to a girl who was part-faerie, a race known for their untrustworthiness. She knew that Patrick was not happy that Aline had chosen a girl at all rather than a boy, that he mourned—selfishly, she thought—for what he saw as the end of his branch of the Penhallows. She herself worried more that Helen Blackthorn would break her daughter’s heart.

“How much credence do you give the claim of faerie betrayal?” asked Kadir.

“Entire credence,” said Jia. “It explains a great deal. How the faeries were able to enter Alicante and abscond with the prisoners from the house given to the representative of the Fair Folk; how Sebastian was able to conceal troops from us at the Citadel; why he spared Mark Blackthorn—not out of fear of angering the faeries but out of respect for their alliance. Tomorrow I will confront the Faerie Queen and—”

“With all due respect,” said Zachariah in his soft voice. “I don’t think you should do that.”

“Why not?” Patrick demanded.

Because you have information now that the Faerie Queen does not know you have, said Brother Enoch. It is rare that that happens. In war there are advantages of power, but also advantages of knowledge. Do not squander this one.

Jia hesitated. “Things may be worse than you know,” she said, and drew something from the pocket of her coat. It was a fire-message, addressed to her from the Spiral Labyrinth. She handed it to Zachariah.

He seemed to freeze in place. For a moment he simply looked at it; then he brushed a finger over the paper, and she realized he was not reading it but rather tracing the signature of the writer of the letter, a signature that had clearly struck him like an arrow to the heart.

Theresa Gray.

“Tessa says,” he said finally, and then cleared his throat, for his voice had emerged ragged and uneven. “She says that the warlocks of the Spiral Labyrinth have examined the body of Amalric Kriegsmesser. That his heart was shriveled, his organs desiccated. She says they are sorry, but there is absolutely nothing that can be done to cure the Endarkened. Necromancy might make their bodies move again, but their souls are gone forever.”

“Only the power of the Infernal Cup keeps them alive,” said Jia, her voice throbbing with sorrow. “They are dead inside.”

“If the Infernal Cup itself could be destroyed . . . ,” Diana mused.

“Then it might kill them all, yes,” said Jia. “But we do not have the Infernal Cup.

Sebastian does.”

“To kill them all in one sweep, it seems wrong,” said Tomas, looking horrified. “They are Shadowhunters.”

“They are not,” said Zachariah, in a voice much less gentle than Jia had come to associate with him. She looked at him in surprise. “Sebastian counts on us thinking of them as Shadowhunters. He counts upon our hesitation, our inability to kill monsters that wear human faces.”

“On our mercy,” said Kadir.

“If I were Turned, I would want to be put out of my misery,” said Zachariah. “ That is mercy. That is what Edward Longford gave his parabatai , before he turned his sword on himself. That is why I paid my respects to him.” He touched the faded rune at his throat.

“Then do we ask the Spiral Labyrinth to give up?” asked Diana. “To cease searching for a cure?”

“They have already given up. Did you not listen to what Tessa wrote?” said Zachariah.

“A cure cannot always be found. At least, not in time. I know—that is, I have learned—that one cannot rely upon it. It cannot be our only hope. We must mourn the Endarkened as dead, and trust in what we are: Shadowhunters, warriors. We must do what we were made to do. Fight.”