Cassandra Clare - City of Ashes

"So he was in the Circle?" Clary asked.

"Not then," Luke said. "He joined the Circle after I—well, after what happened to me. Valentine needed a new second in command and he wanted Stephen. Imogen, who was utterly loyal to the Clave, was hysterical—she begged Stephen to reconsider—but he cut her off. Wouldn't speak to her, or his father. He was absolutely in thrall to Valentine. Went everywhere trailing after him like a shadow." Luke paused. "The thing is, Valentine didn't think Stephen's wife was suitable for him. Not for someone who was going to be second in command of the Circle. She had—undesirable family connections." The pain in Luke's voice surprised Clary. Had he cared that much about these people? "Valentine forced Stephen to divorce Amatis and remarry—his second wife was a very young girl, only eighteen years old, named Céline. She, too, was utterly under Valentine's influence, did everything he told her to, no matter how bizarre. Then Stephen was killed in a Circle raid on a vampire nest. Céline killed herself when she found out. She was eight months pregnant at the time. And Stephen's father died, too, of heartbreak. So that was Imogen's whole family, all gone. They couldn't even bury her daughter-in-law and grandchild's ashes in the Bone City, because Céline was a suicide. She was buried at a crossroads outside Alicante. Imogen survived, but—she turned to ice. When the Inquisitor was killed in the Uprising, Imogen was offered his job. She returned from London to Idris—but never, as far as I heard, spoke about Stephen again. But it does explain why she hates Valentine as much as she does."

"Because my father poisons everything he touches?" Jace said bitterly.

"Because your father, for all his sins, still has a son, and she doesn't. And because she blames him for Stephen's death."

"And she's right," said Jace. "It was his fault."

"Not entirely," said Luke. "He offered Stephen a choice, and Stephen chose. Whatever else his faults were, Valentine never blackmailed or threatened anyone into joining the Circle. He wanted only willing followers. The responsibility for Stephen's choices rests with him."

"Free will," said Clary.

"There's nothing free about it," said Jace. "Valentine—"

"Offered you a choice, didn't he?" Luke said. "When you went to see him. He wanted you to stay, didn't he? Stay and join up with him?"

"Yes." Jace looked out across the water toward Governors Island. "He did." Clary could see the river reflected in his eyes; they looked steely, as if the gray water had drowned all their gold.

"And you said no," said Luke.

Jace glared. "I wish people would stop guessing that. It's making me feel predictable."

Luke turned away as if to hide a smile, and paused. "Someone's coming."

Someone was indeed coming, someone very tall with black hair that blew in the wind. "Magnus," Clary said. "But he looks … different."

As he drew closer, she saw that his hair, normally spiked up and glittered like a disco ball, hung cleanly past his ears like a sheet of black silk. The rainbow leather pants had been replaced by a neat, old-fashioned dark suit and a black frock coat with glimmering silver buttons. His cat's eyes glowed amber and green. "You look surprised to see me," he said.

Jace glanced at his watch. "We did wonder if you were coming."

"I said I would come, so I came. I just needed time to prepare. This isn't some hat trick, Shadowhunter. This is going to take some serious magic." He turned to Luke. "How's the arm?"

"Fine. Thank you." Luke was always polite.

"That's your truck parked up by the factory, isn't it?" Magnus pointed. "It's awfully butch for a bookseller."

"Oh, I don't know," said Luke. "All that lugging around heavy book boxes, climbing stacks, hard-core alphabetizing…"

Magnus laughed. "Can you unlock the truck for me? I mean, I could do it myself"—he wiggled his fingers—"but that seems rude."

"Sure." Luke shrugged and they headed back toward the factory. When Clary made as if to follow them, though, Jace caught her arm. "Wait. I want to talk to you for a second."

Clary watched as Magnus and Luke headed for the truck. They made an odd pair, the tall warlock in a long black coat and the shorter, stockier man in jeans and flannel, but they were both Downworlders, both trapped in the same space between the mundane and the supernatural worlds.

"Clary," Jace said. "Earth to Clary. Where are you?"

She looked back at him. The sun was setting off the water now, behind him, leaving his face in shadow and turning his hair to a halo of gold. "Sorry."

"It's all right." He touched her face, gently, with the back of his hand. "You disappear so completely into your head sometimes," he said. "I wish I could follow you."

You do , she wanted to say. You live in my head all the time . Instead, she said, "What did you want to tell me?"

He dropped his hand. "I want you to put the Fearless rune on me. Before Luke gets back."

"Why before he gets back?"

"Because he's going to say it's a bad idea. But it's the only chance of defeating Agramon. Luke hasn't—encountered it, he doesn't know what it's like. But I do."

She searched his face. "What was it like?"

His eyes were unreadable. "You see what you fear the most in the world."

"I don't even know what that is."

"Trust me. You don't want to." He glanced down. "Do you have your stele?"

"Yeah, I have it." She pulled the woolly glove off her right hand and fished for the stele. Her hand was shaking a little as she drew it out. "Where do you want the Mark?"

"The closer it is to the heart, the more effective." He turned his back on her hand and drew off his jacket, dropping it on the ground. He shrugged his T-shirt up, baring his back. "On the shoulder blade would be good."

Clary placed a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. His skin there was a paler gold than the skin of his hands and face, and smooth where it was not scarred. She traced the tip of the stele along the blade of his shoulder and felt him wince, his muscles tightening. "Don't press so hard—"

"Sorry." She eased up, letting the rune flow from her mind, down through her arm, into the stele. The black line it left behind looked like charring, a line of ash. "There. You're finished."

He turned around, shrugging his shirt back on. "Thanks." The sun was burning down beyond the horizon now, flooding the sky with blood and roses, turning the edge of the river to liquid gold, softening the ugliness of the urban waste all around them. "What about you?"

"What about me what?"

He took a step closer. "Push your sleeves up. I'll Mark you."

"Oh. Right." She did as he asked, pushing up her sleeves, holding her bare arms out to him.

The sting of the stele on her skin was like the light touch of a needle's tip, scraping without puncturing. She watched the black lines appear with a sort of fascination. The Mark she'd gotten in her dream was still visible, faded only a little around the edges.

" ' And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a Mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him .' "

Clary turned around, pulling her sleeves down. Magnus stood watching them, his black coat seeming to float around him in the wind off the river. A small smile played around his mouth.

"You can quote the Bible?" asked Jace, bending to retrieve his jacket.

"I was born in a deeply religious century, my boy," said Magnus. "I always thought Cain's might have been the first recorded Mark. It certainly protected him."

"But he was hardly one of the angels," said Clary. "Didn't he kill his brother?"

"Aren't we planning to kill our father?" said Jace.

"That's different," said Clary, but didn't get a chance to elaborate on how it was different, because at that moment, Luke's truck pulled up onto the beach, spraying gravel from its tires. Luke leaned out the window.