Ghosts of the Shadow Market

by Cassandra Clare

  Or maybe not all on his own.

  There was, in fact, one more piece of business before he could return to the Silent City. He needed to explain himself to the one person who cared as much about the Herondales as he did.

  He needed Tessa.

  * * *

  Céline didn’t go to Valentine’s apartment intending to break in. That would have been madness. And anyway, after a night and day of blindly wandering the city, she was too sleep deprived to form clear intentions of anything. She simply followed a whim. She wanted the certainty that settled over her in Valentine’s presence, the power he had to make her believe. Not just in him but in herself.

  After her strange encounter on the bridge, she’d considered going back to the flat in the Marais. She knew Stephen and Robert should be apprised of the unexpected demon activity, the possibility of a rogue Shadowhunter causing trouble and spreading suspicion about the Circle.

  She couldn’t face them. Let them worry about what had become of her. Or not worry. She no longer cared.

  At least, she was trying very hard not to care.

  She’d spent the day in the Louvre, haunting galleries that none of the tourists cared to see, old Etruscan masks and Mesopotamian coins. She’d spent hours there when she was younger, blending in with the hordes of schoolchildren. It was easy, when you were a child, to go unseen.

  The challenge, Céline understood now, was to be seen—and once seen, to endure judgment.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about the couple on the bridge, the way they’d gazed at each other. The way they’d touched each other, with so much care and so much need. Nor could she stop thinking about the woman’s warning about Valentine. Céline was certain she could trust Valentine with her life.

  But if she’d been so wrong about Stephen, how could she know for sure she was right about anything?

  Valentine was staying in opulent quarters in the sixth arrondissement, down the street from a famous chocolatier and a mercerie where the custom hats cost more than most people spent on rent. She knocked loudly. When no one answered, it was easy enough to pick the lock.

  I am breaking into Valentine Morgenstern’s apartment, she thought, bewildered by herself. It didn’t seem quite real.

  The apartment was elegant, almost regal, walls draped with gold fleurs-de-lis, furniture covered with velvet. Plush rugs dotted the gleaming hardwood floors. Heavy golden curtains dimmed the light. The room’s only anachronism was a large glass case in the center, inside of which lay Dominique du Froid, bound, beaten, and unconscious.

  Before she could decide what to do, there was the sound of a key rattling in the lock. The doorknob turned. Without thinking, Céline dove behind the thick curtains. She held herself very, very still.

  From her hiding spot, she couldn’t see Valentine pacing back and forth across the living room. But she could hear everything she needed to.

  “Wake up,” he snapped.

  There was a pause, a rustling, and then a woman’s yelp of pain.

  “Halphas demons?” he said, sounding halfway between amused and enraged. “Really?”

  “You told me to make it look real,” Dominique whined.

  “Yes, I told you to make it look real—not endanger them.”

  “You also told me you’d pay, but here I am, in some kind of cage. With an empty wallet. And a couple unseemly lumps on my head.”

  Valentine sighed heavily, as if this were all an irritating imposition on his time. “You told them exactly what we agreed upon, yes? And signed the confession?”

  “Isn’t that what the little brats told you when they dumped me here? So how about you pay me for my services, and we can forget this ever happened.”

  “Gladly.”

  There was a strange sound, one that Céline couldn’t place. Then a smell, one that she could: burnt flesh.

  Valentine cleared his throat. “You can come out now, Céline.”

  She froze. Didn’t so much catch her breath as lose the ability to breathe.

  “Not very good at subterfuge lately, are we? Come on now, show yourself.” He clapped his hands together sharply, as if summoning a pet. “No more games.”

  Céline stepped out from behind the curtains, feeling like a fool.

  “You knew I was here? The whole time?”

  “You would be surprised what all I know, Céline.” Valentine smiled coldly. As always, he was dressed in all black, which made his white-blond hair seem to glow with pale fire. Céline supposed that by objective standards, Valentine was just as handsome as Stephen, but it was impossible to think of him that way. He was handsome the way a statue was handsome: perfectly sculpted, unyielding as stone. Sometimes at the Academy, Céline would watch him with Jocelyn, wondering at the way a single touch from her could melt his ice. Once Céline had come upon them in an embrace and had watched from the shadows as they lost themselves in each other. When they broke from the kiss, Valentine had raised a hand to Jocelyn’s cheek in an impossibly tender touch, and his expression, as he gazed at his first and only love, was almost human.

  There was no trace of that in him now. He opened his arms wide, as if welcoming her to make herself at home in the opulent living room. The cage at the center was empty, except for a smoldering pile of black lace and leather. Dominique du Froid was gone.

  Valentine followed her gaze.

  “She was a criminal,” he said. “I simply expedited the inevitable sentence.”

  There were rumors about Valentine, about the change that had come over him when his father was killed. Dark whispers about the cruelties he carried out not just on trespassing Downworlders but on anyone who crossed him. Anyone who questioned him.

  “You look worried, Céline. Even . . . afraid.”

  “No,” she said quickly.

  “It’s almost as if you think breaking into my apartment to spy on me might draw some kind of nasty consequence.”

  “I wasn’t spying, I was just—”

  He favored her with a smile then, so warm, so sunny, that she felt ridiculous for having been so afraid. “Would you settle for tea? And maybe some biscuits. You look like you haven’t eaten in a year.”

  He set out a bounty: not just tea and biscuits but a sliced baguette, fresh chèvre and a small pot of honey, and a bowl of blueberries that tasted like they’d just been plucked from the branch. Céline hadn’t known she was hungry until the taste of honey hit her tongue. She realized she was ravenous.

  They made polite Paris small talk: their favorite cafés, their preferred picnic spots, the best crepe stand, the relative merits of the Orsay and the Pompidou. Then Valentine took a hearty bite of cheese-smeared baguette and said, almost cheerfully, “You know, of course, that the others think you’re weak and not particularly bright.”

  Céline almost choked on a blueberry.

  “If it were up to most of the Circle, you wouldn’t be in it. Fortunately, this isn’t a democracy. They think they know you, Céline, but they don’t know the half of it, do they?”

  Slowly, she shook her head. No one knew her, not really.

  “I, on the other hand, believed in you. I trusted you. And you repay this trust with suspicion?”

  “I really didn’t—”

  “Of course you had no suspicions. You just thought you’d pay a social call. Behind my curtains. While I was out.”

  “Okay. Oui. I was suspicious.”

  “See? You are smart.” That smile again, warm and approving, like she’d fulfilled his intentions. “And what is it you’ve discovered about me, with your intrepid investigation?”

  There was no point in pretense. And Céline was almost as curious as she was terrified. So she told the truth, as she’d surmised it. “Dominique du Froid wasn’t in business with two Shadowhunters. She was in business with you. You’re trying to set someone up, and you’re using us to do it.”

  “Us?”

  “Me. Robert. Stephen.”

  “Robert and Stephen, yes. I’m indeed using them. But you
? You’re here, aren’t you? You’re getting the full story.”

  “I am?”

  “If you want it . . .”

  Céline had not had the kind of parents who read her fairy tales. But she’d read enough of them herself to know the cardinal rule of these stories: be careful what you wish for.

  And like every Shadowhunter, she knew: all the stories are true.

  “I want to know,” she said.

  He told her she was right. He was framing two Shadowhunters, innocent of these crimes but guilty of a much larger one—standing in the Circle’s way. “They’re bogged down in tradition, they’re beholden to the Clave’s corruption. And they’re dead set on destroying me. So I acted first.” He’d used the warlock to plant evidence, he admitted. Now he would use Stephen and Robert as witnesses to her confession. “Since she is, unfortunately, no longer able to testify.”

  “What about the Mortal Sword?” Céline asked. “Aren’t you worried what will happen when the accused Shadowhunters are interrogated?”

  Valentine tsked, as if disappointed that she hadn’t jumped to the correct conclusion. “It’s very unfortunate, they’ll never make it that far. I happen to know these two Shadowhunters will make an escape attempt during their transport to the Silent City. They’ll be killed in the ensuing chaos. Tragic.”

  The words sat heavy between them. Céline tried to process it. Valentine wasn’t just setting up two Shadowhunters, two innocent Shadowhunters. He was planning to murder them in cold blood. This was an unthinkable crime, for which the Law would demand death.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “What makes you think I won’t turn you in? Unless . . .”

  Unless he had no intention of letting her leave this apartment alive.

  A man who could kill two Shadowhunters in cold blood could presumably kill a third. Everything in her said that she should leap to her feet, draw her weapon, fight her way out of here, run straight to the Paris Institute, tell them everything. Stop this—stop him—before he went any further. Valentine watched her calmly, palms up on the table, as if to say, Your move.

  She didn’t move.

  The Verlac family, who ran the Paris Institute, were friends with her parents. More than once, a Verlac had sought out her hiding place and dumped her back home. That first time, she’d pleaded for asylum at the Institute, where all Shadowhunters were supposedly guaranteed a safe home. Céline was told she was too young to make such requests, too young to know what “safe” meant. She was told her parents loved her and she should stop causing them so much trouble.

  She owed these people nothing.

  Valentine, on the other hand, had singled her out. Given her a mission, a family. She owed him everything.

  He leaned toward her, reached out his hand. She willed herself not to flinch. He touched her neck, lightly, where the Achaieral demon had scratched her. “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said.

  “And you were limping.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “If you need another iratze—”

  “I’m fine.”

  He nodded, like she’d confirmed a suspicion. “Yes. You prefer it this way, don’t you.”

  “What way?”

  “In pain.”

  Now Céline flinched. “I do not,” she insisted. “That would be sick.”

  “But do you know why you prefer it? Why you chase the pain?”

  She had never understood this about herself. Only knew it, in the deep, wordless way you knew your most essential truth.

  There was something about pain that made her feel more solid, more real. More in control. Sometimes the pain felt like the only thing she could control.

  “You covet pain, because you know it makes you strong,” Valentine said. It felt like he had given name to her nameless soul. “You know why I understand you better than the rest of them? Because we’re the same. We learned early, didn’t we? Cruelty, harshness, pain: no one shielded us from the realities of life, and that made us strong. Most people, they’re ruled by fear. They flee the specter of pain, and that makes them weak. You and I, Céline, we know the only way through is to face pain. To invite the cruelty of the world—and master it.”

  Céline had never thought of herself this way, hard and strong. She’d certainly never dared think of herself as anything like Valentine.

  “That’s why I wanted you in the Circle. Robert, Stephen, the others? They’re still just boys. Children playing at adult games. They haven’t yet been tested—they will be, but not yet. You and I, though? We’re special. We haven’t been children for a long time.”

  No one had ever called her strong. No one had called her special.

  “Things are accelerating,” Valentine said. “I need to know who’s with me and who’s not. So you can see why I told you the truth about this”—he gestured to the singed heap of warlock clothes—“situation.”

  “It’s a test,” she guessed. “A loyalty test.”

  “It’s an opportunity,” he corrected her. “To invite you into my confidence, and reward you for yours. My proposal: you stay silent about what you’ve learned here and allow events to proceed as I intend, and I will deliver you Stephen Herondale on a silver platter.”

  “What? I—I don’t—I—”

  “I told you, Céline. I know things. I know you. And I can give you what you want, if you really want it.”

  Be careful what you wish for, she thought again. But oh, she wished for Stephen. Even knowing what he thought of her, even with his mocking laughter ringing in her ears, even believing what Valentine said, that she was strong and Stephen was weak, even knowing what she knew to be true, that Stephen did not love her and never would, she wished for him. Always and forever.

  “Or you can leave this apartment, run to the Clave, tell them whatever story you like. Save these two ‘innocent’ Shadowhunters—and lose the only family who’s ever truly cared about you,” Valentine said. “The choice is yours.”

  * * *

  Tessa Gray breathed in the city that had once, briefly but indelibly, been her home. How many nights had she stood on this same bridge, gazing at the hulking shadow of Notre Dame, the rippling waters of the Seine, the proud scaffolding of the Eiffel Tower—all of it, Paris’s heartbreaking beauty, blurred by her ceaseless tears. How many nights had she searched the river for her ageless reflection, imagining the seconds, days, years, centuries she might live, and every one of them in a world without Will.

  No, not imagining.

  Because it had been unimaginable.

  Unimaginable, but here she was, more than fifty years later, still living. Still without him. Heart forever broken yet still beating, still strong.

  Still capable of love.

  She’d fled to Paris after he died, stayed until she was strong enough to face her future, and hadn’t been back since. On the face of things, the city hadn’t changed. But then, on the face of things, neither had she. You couldn’t trust the face of things to show you their truth. You didn’t have to be a shape-shifter to know that.

  I’m so sorry, Tessa. I had her, and I let her go.

  Even after all these years, she wasn’t used to it, this cold version of Jem’s voice speaking inside her mind, at once so intimate and so far away. His hand rested on the railing bare inches from hers. She could have touched him. He wouldn’t pull away, not from her. But his skin would be so cold, so dry, like stone.

  Everything about him like stone.

  “You found her—that’s what we set out to do, right? This was never about bringing the lost Herondale back to the Shadowhunter world or choosing a path for her.”

  There was comfort in the familiar weight of the jade pendant around her neck, warm against her chest. She still wore it, every day, as she had since the day Jem gave it to her, more than a century before. He didn’t know.

  What you say is true, but still . . . it does not seem right for a Herondale to be in dang
er while we do nothing. I fear I failed you, Tessa. That I have failed him.

  Between her and Jem, there was only ever one him.

  “We found her, for Will. And you know Will would want her to choose for herself. Just like he did.”

  If he had still been wholly Jem, she would have put her arms around him. She would have let him feel, in her embrace, her breath, her heartbeat, how impossible it was for him to fail either her or Will.

  But he was both Jem and not Jem. Both himself and unfathomably other, and she could only stand beside him, assure him with useless words that he had done enough.

  He’d warned her once what would happen, as he became less himself, more Silent Brother—promised her that the transformation would never be complete. When I no longer see the world with my human eyes, I will still be in some part the Jem you knew, he had said. I will see you with the eyes of my heart.

  When she looked at him now, his sealed eyes and lips, his cold face, when she breathed in his inhuman smell, like paper, like stone, like nothing that had ever lived or loved, she tried to remember this. She tried to believe that some part of him was still in there, seeing her, and longing to be seen.

  It got harder every year. There had been moments, over the decades, when the Jem she remembered truly broke through. Once, during one of the mundane world’s innumerable wars, they had even stolen a kiss—and almost more. Jem had pushed her away before things could go too far. After that, he’d held himself more distant from Tessa, almost as if afraid of what might happen if he let himself near the brink. That embrace, which she thought about almost every day, was more than forty years ago now—and every year, he seemed a little less Jem, a little less human. She feared he was forgetting himself, piece by piece.

  She could not lose him. Not him, too.

  She would be his memory.

  I met a girl here, he said, in love with a Herondale.

  She imagined she could hear a faint smile in his voice.