Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series

by Cassandra Clare

  “Sure.” Jace headed for the door; halfway there, he realized Simon was following him and turned with a glower. “You stay here.”

  “No,” Simon said. “If you’re going to be discussing me, I want to be there for it.”

  For a moment it looked as if Jace’s icy calm were about to snap; he flushed and opened his mouth, his eyes flashing. Just as quickly, the anger vanished, tamped down by an obvious act of will. He gritted his teeth and smiled. “Fine,” he said. “Come on downstairs, vampire. You can meet the whole happy family.”

  The first time Clary had gone through a Portal, there had been a sense of flying, of weightless tumbling. This time it was like being thrust into the heart of a tornado. Howling winds tore at her, ripped her hand from Luke’s and the scream from her mouth. She fell whirling through the heart of a black and gold maelstrom.

  Something flat and hard and silvery like the surface of a mirror rose up in front of her. She plunged toward it, shrieking, throwing her hands up to cover her face. She struck the surface and broke through, into a world of brutal cold and gasping suffocation. She was sinking through a thick blue darkness, trying to breathe, but she couldn’t draw air into her lungs, only more of the freezing coldness—

  Suddenly she was seized by the back of her coat and hauled upward. She kicked feebly but was too weak to break the hold on her. It drew her up, and the indigo darkness around her turned to pale blue and then to gold as she broke the surface of the water—it was water—and sucked in a gasp of air. Or tried to. Instead she choked and gagged, black spots dotting her vision. She was being dragged through the water, fast, weeds catching and tugging at her legs and arms—she twisted around in the grip that held her and caught a terrifying glimpse of something, not quite wolf and not quite human, ears as pointed as daggers and lips drawn back from sharp white teeth. She tried to scream, but only water came up.

  A moment later she was out of the water and being flung onto damp hard-packed earth. There were hands on her shoulders, slamming her facedown against the ground. The hands struck her back, over and over, until her chest spasmed and she coughed up a bitter stream of water.

  She was still choking when the hands rolled her onto her back. She was looking up at Luke, a black shadow against a high blue sky touched with white clouds. The gentleness she was used to seeing in his expression was gone; he was no longer wolflike, but he looked furious. He hauled her into a sitting position, shaking her hard, over and over, until she gasped and struck out at him weakly. “Luke! Stop it! You’re hurting me—”

  His hands left her shoulders. He grabbed her chin in one hand instead, forcing her head up, his eyes searching her face. “The water,” he said. “Did you cough up all the water?”

  “I think so,” she whispered. Her voice came faintly from her swollen throat.

  “Where’s your stele?” he demanded, and when she hesitated, his voice sharpened. “Clary. Your stele. Find it.”

  She pulled away from his grasp and rummaged in her wet pockets, her heart sinking as her fingers scrabbled against nothing but damp material. She turned a miserable face up to Luke. “I think I must have dropped it in the lake.” She sniffled. “My . . . my mother’s stele . . .”

  “Jesus, Clary.” Luke stood up, clasping his hands distractedly behind his head. He was soaking wet too, water running off his jeans and heavy flannel coat in thick rivulets. The spectacles he usually wore halfway down his nose were gone. He looked down at her somberly. “You’re all right,” he said. It wasn’t really a question. “I mean, right now. You feel all right?”

  She nodded. “Luke, what’s wrong? Why do we need my stele?”

  Luke said nothing. He was looking around as if hoping to glean some assistance from their surroundings. Clary followed his gaze. They were on the wide dirt bank of a good-size lake. The water was pale blue, sparked here and there with reflected sunlight. She wondered if it was the source of the gold light she’d seen through the half-open Portal. There was nothing sinister about the lake now that she was next to it instead of in it. It was surrounded by green hills dotted with trees just beginning to turn russet and gold. Beyond the hills rose high mountains, their peaks capped in snow.

  Clary shivered. “Luke, when we were in the water—did you go part wolf? I thought I saw—”

  “My wolf self can swim better than my human self,” Luke said shortly. “And it’s stronger. I had to drag you through the water, and you weren’t offering much help.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. You weren’t—you weren’t supposed to come with me.”

  “If I hadn’t, you’d be dead now,” he pointed out. “Magnus told you, Clary. You can’t use a Portal to get into the Glass City unless you have someone waiting for you on the other side.”

  “He said it was against the Law. He didn’t say if I tried to get there I’d bounce off.”

  “He told you there are wards up around the city that prevent Portaling into it. It’s not his fault you decided to play around with magic you just barely understand. Just because you have power doesn’t mean you know how to use it.” He scowled.

  “I’m sorry,” Clary said in a small voice. “It’s just—where are we now?”

  “Lake Lyn,” said Luke. “I think the Portal took us as close to the city as it could and then dumped us. We’re on the outskirts of Alicante.” He looked around, shaking his head half in amazement and half in weariness. “You did it, Clary. We’re in Idris.”

  “Idris?” Clary said, and stood staring stupidly out across the lake. It twinkled back at her, blue and undisturbed. “But—you said we were on the outskirts of Alicante. I don’t see the city anywhere.”

  “We’re miles away.” Luke pointed. “You see those hills in the distance? We have to cross over those; the city is on the other side. If we had a car, we could get there in an hour, but we’re going to have to walk, which will probably take all afternoon.” He squinted up at the sky. “We’d better get going.”

  Clary looked down at herself in dismay. The prospect of a daylong hike in soaking-wet clothes did not appeal. “Isn’t there anything else . . . ?”

  “Anything else we can do?” Luke said, and there was a sudden sharp edge of anger to his voice. “Do you have any suggestions, Clary, since you’re the one who brought us here?” He pointed away from the lake. “That way lie mountains. Passable on foot only in high summer. We’d freeze to death on the peaks.” He turned, stabbed his finger in another direction. “That way lie miles of woods. They run all the way to the border. They’re uninhabited, at least by human beings. Past Alicante there’s farmland and country houses. Maybe we could get out of Idris, but we’d still have to pass through the city. A city, I may add, where Downworlders like myself are hardly welcome.”

  Clary looked at him with her mouth open. “Luke, I didn’t know—”

  “Of course you didn’t know. You don’t know anything about Idris. You don’t even care about Idris. You were just upset about being left behind, like a child, and you had a tantrum. And now we’re here. Lost and freezing and—” He broke off, his face tight. “Come on. Let’s start walking.”

  Clary followed Luke along the edge of Lake Lyn in a miserable silence. As they walked, the sun dried her hair and skin, but the velvet coat held water like a sponge. It hung on her like a lead curtain as she tripped hastily over rocks and mud, trying to keep up with Luke’s long-legged stride. She made a few further attempts at conversation, but Luke remained stubbornly silent. She’d never done anything so bad before that an apology hadn’t softened Luke’s anger. This time, it seemed, was different.

  The cliffs rose higher around the lake as they progressed, pocked with spots of darkness, like splashes of black paint. As Clary looked more closely, she realized they were caves in the rock. Some looked like they went very deep, twisting away into darkness. She imagined bats and creepy-crawling things hiding in the blackness, and shivered.

  At last a narrow path cutting through the cliffs led them to a wide road
lined with crushed stones. The lake curved away behind them, indigo in the late afternoon sunlight. The road cut through a flat grassy plain that rose to rolling hills in the distance. Clary’s heart sank; the city was nowhere in sight.

  Luke was staring toward the hills with a look of intense dismay on his face. “We’re farther than I thought. It’s been such a long time. . . .”

  “Maybe if we found a bigger road,” Clary suggested, “we could hitchhike, or get a ride to the city, or—”

  “Clary. There are no cars in Idris.” Seeing her shocked expression, Luke laughed without much amusement. “The wards foul up the machinery. Most technology doesn’t work here—mobile phones, computers, the like. Alicante itself is lit—and powered—mostly by witchlight.”

  “Oh,” Clary said in a small voice. “Well—about how far from the city are we?”

  “Far enough.” Without looking at her, Luke raked both his hands back through his short hair. “There’s something I’d better tell you.”

  Clary tensed. All she’d wanted before was for Luke to talk to her; now she didn’t want it anymore. “It’s all right—”

  “Did you notice,” Luke said, “that there weren’t any boats on Lake Lyn—no docks—nothing that might suggest the lake is used in any way by the people of Idris?”

  “I just thought that was because it was so remote.”

  “It’s not that remote. A few hours from Alicante on foot. The fact is, the lake—” Luke broke off and sighed. “Did you ever notice the pattern on the library floor at the Institute in New York?”

  Clary blinked. “I did, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.”

  “It was an angel rising out of a lake, holding a cup and a sword. It’s a repeating motif in Nephilim decorations. The legend is that the angel Raziel rose out of Lake Lyn when he first appeared to Jonathan Shadowhunter, the first of the Nephilim, and gave him the Mortal Instruments. Ever since then the lake has been—”

  “Sacred?” Clary suggested.

  “Cursed,” Luke said. “The water of the lake is in some way poisonous to Shadowhunters. It won’t hurt Downworlders—the Fair Folk call it the Mirror of Dreams, and they drink its water because they claim it gives them true visions. But for a Shadowhunter to drink the water is very dangerous. It causes hallucinations, fever—it can drive a person to madness.”

  Clary felt cold all over. “That’s why you tried to make me spit the water out.”

  Luke nodded. “And why I wanted you to find your stele. With a healing rune, we could stave off the water’s effects. Without it, we need to get you to Alicante as quickly as possible. There are medicines, herbs, that will help, and I know someone who will almost certainly have them.”

  “The Lightwoods?”

  “Not the Lightwoods.” Luke’s voice was firm. “Someone else. Someone I know.”

  “Who?”

  He shook his head. “Let’s just pray this person hasn’t moved away in the last fifteen years.”

  “But I thought you said it was against the Law for Downworlders to come into Alicante without permission.”

  His answering smile was a reminder of the Luke who had caught her when she’d fallen off the jungle gym as a child, the Luke who had always protected her. “Some Laws were meant to be broken.”

  The Penhallows’ house reminded Simon of the Institute—it had that same sense of belonging somehow to another era. The halls and stairways were narrow, made of stone and dark wood, and the windows were tall and thin, giving out onto views of the city. There was a distinctly Asian feel to the decorations: a shoji screen stood on the first-floor landing, and there were lacquer-flowered tall Chinese vases on the windowsills. There were also a number of silkscreen prints on the walls, showing what must have been scenes from Shadowhunter mythology, but with an Eastern feel to them—warlords wielding glowing seraph blades were prominently featured, alongside colorful dragonlike creatures and slithering, pop-eyed demons.

  “Mrs. Penhallow—Jia—used to run the Beijing Institute. She splits her time between here and the Forbidden City,” Isabelle said as Simon paused to examine a print. “And the Penhallows are an old family. Wealthy.”

  “I can tell,” Simon muttered, looking up at the chandeliers, dripping cut-glass crystals like teardrops.

  Jace, on the step behind them, grunted. “Move it along. We’re not taking a historical tour here.”

  Simon weighed a rude retort and decided it wasn’t worth bothering. He took the rest of the stairs at a rapid pace; they opened out at the bottom into a large room. It was an odd mixture of the old and the new: A glass picture window looked out onto the canal, and there was music playing from a stereo that Simon couldn’t see. But there was no television, no stack of DVDs or CDs, the sort of detritus Simon associated with modern living rooms. Instead there were a number of overstuffed couches grouped around a large fireplace, in which flames were crackling.

  Alec stood by the fireplace, in dark Shadowhunter gear, drawing on a pair of gloves. He looked up as Simon entered the room and scowled his habitual scowl, but said nothing.

  Seated on the couches were two teenagers Simon had never seen before, a boy and a girl. The girl was slender, with glossy dark hair pulled back from her face, and a mischievous expression. Her delicate chin narrowed into a point. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she was very striking.

  The black-haired boy beside her was more than striking. He was probably Jace’s height, but seemed taller, even sitting down; he was slender and muscular, with a pale, elegant, restless face, all cheekbones and dark eyes. There was something strangely familiar about him, as if Simon had met him before.

  The girl spoke first. “Is that the vampire?” She looked Simon up and down as if she were taking his measurements. “I’ve never really been this close to a vampire before—not one I wasn’t planning to kill, at least.” She cocked her head to the side. “He’s cute, for a Downworlder.”

  “You’ll have to forgive her; she has the face of an angel and the manners of a Moloch demon,” said the boy with a smile, getting to his feet. He held his hand out to Simon. “I’m Sebastian. Sebastian Verlac. And this is my cousin, Aline Penhallow. Aline—”

  “I don’t shake hands with Downworlders,” Aline said, shrinking back against the couch cushions. “They don’t have souls, you know. Vampires.”

  Sebastian’s smile disappeared. “Aline—”

  “It’s true. That’s why they can’t see themselves in mirrors, or go in the sun.”

  Very deliberately, Simon stepped backward, into the patch of sunlight in front of the window. He felt the sun hot on his back, his hair. His shadow was cast, long and dark, across the floor, almost reaching Jace’s feet.

  Aline took a sharp breath but said nothing. It was Sebastian who spoke, looking at Simon with curious black eyes. “So it’s true. The Lightwoods said, but I didn’t think—”

  “That we were telling the truth?” Jace said, speaking for the first time since they’d come downstairs. “We wouldn’t lie about something like this. Simon’s . . . unique.”

  “I kissed him once,” Isabelle said, to no one in particular.

  Aline’s eyebrows shot up. “They really do let you do whatever you want in New York, don’t they?” she said, sounding half-horrified and half-envious. “The last time I saw you, Izzy, you wouldn’t even have considered—”

  “The last time we all saw each other, Izzy was eight,” Alec said. “Things change. Now, Mom had to leave here in a hurry, so someone has to take her notes and records up to the Gard for her. I’m the only one who’s eighteen, so I’m the only one who can go while the Clave’s in session.”

  “We know,” Isabelle said, flopping down onto a couch. “You’ve already told us that, like, five times.”

  Alec, who was looking important, ignored this. “Jace, you brought the vampire here, so you’re in charge of him. Don’t let him go outside.”

  The vampire, Simon thought. It wasn’t like Alec didn’t know his name. He’d saved Al
ec’s life once. Now he was “the vampire.” Even for Alec, who was prone to the occasional fit of inexplicable sullenness, this was obnoxious. Maybe it had something to do with being in Idris. Maybe Alec felt a greater need to assert his Shadowhunter-ness here.

  “That’s what you brought me down here to tell me? Don’t let the vampire go outside? I wouldn’t have done that anyway.” Jace slid onto the couch beside Aline, who looked pleased. “You’d better hurry up to the Gard and back. God knows what depravity we might get up to here without your guidance.”

  Alec gazed at Jace with calm superiority. “Try to hold it together. I’ll be back in half an hour.” He vanished through an archway that led to a long corridor; somewhere in the distance, a door clicked shut.

  “You shouldn’t bait him,” Isabelle said, shooting Jace a severe look. “They did leave him in charge.”

  Aline, Simon couldn’t help but notice, was sitting very close to Jace, their shoulders touching, even though there was plenty of room around them on the couch. “Did you ever think that in a past life Alec was an old woman with ninety cats who was always yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her lawn? Because I do,” he said, and Aline giggled. “Just because he’s the only one who can go to the Gard—”

  “What’s the Gard?” Simon asked, tired of having no idea what anyone was talking about.

  Jace looked at him. His expression was cool, unfriendly; his hand was atop Aline’s where it rested on her thigh. “Sit down,” he said, jerking his head toward an armchair. “Or did you plan to hover in the corner like a bat?”

  Great. Bat jokes. Simon settled himself uncomfortably in the chair.

  “The Gard is the official meeting place of the Clave,” Sebastian said, apparently taking pity on Simon. “It’s where the Law is made, and where the Consul and Inquisitor reside. Only adult Shadowhunters are allowed onto its grounds when the Clave is in session.”