Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (148 page)

“Hodge said Valentine had figured out how to do it,” said Simon. “He said that you need demon blood to take the wards down, but that there was no way to get demon blood into the city. Except that Valentine had figured out a way.”

“Someone painted a rune in demon blood on the apex of one of the towers,” Luke said with a sigh, “so, clearly, Hodge was right. Unfortunately, the Clave has always trusted too much in their wards. But even the cleverest puzzle has a solution.”

“It seems to me like the sort of clever that gets your butt kicked in gaming,” Simon said. “The second you protect your fortress with a Spell of Total Invincibility, someone comes along and figures out how to trash the place.”

“Simon,” Clary said. “Shut up.”

“He’s not so far off,” said Luke. “We just don’t know how they got demon blood into the city without setting the wards off in the first place.” He shrugged. “It’s the least of our problems at the moment. The wards are back up, but we already know they’re not foolproof. Valentine could return at any moment with an even bigger force of arms, and I doubt we could fight him off. There aren’t enough Nephilim, and those who are here are utterly demoralized.”

“But what about the Downworlders?” Clary said. “You
told
the Consul that the Clave had to fight with the Downworlders.”

“I can tell Malachi and Aldertree that until I’m blue in the face, but it doesn’t mean they’ll listen,” Luke said wearily. “The only reason they’re even letting me stay here is because the Clave voted to keep me on as an adviser. And they only did
that
because quite a few of them had their lives saved by my pack. But that doesn’t mean they want more Downworlders in Idris—”

Someone screamed.

Amatis was on her feet, her hand over her mouth, staring toward the front of the Hall. A man stood in the doorway, framed in the glow of the sunlight outside. He was only a silhouette,
until he took a step forward, into the Hall, and Clary could see his face for the first time.

Valentine.

For some reason the first thing Clary noticed was that he was clean shaven. It made him look younger, more like the angry boy in the memories Ithuriel had showed her. Instead of battle dress, he wore an elegantly cut pin-striped suit and a tie. He was unarmed. He could have been any man walking down the streets of Manhattan. He could have been anyone’s father.

He didn’t look toward Clary, didn’t acknowledge her presence at all. His eyes were on Luke as he walked up the narrow aisle between the benches.

How could he come in here like this without any weapons?
Clary wondered, and had her question answered a moment later: Inquisitor Aldertree made a noise like a wounded bear; tore himself away from Malachi, who was trying to hold him back; staggered down the dais steps; and hurled himself at Valentine.

He passed through Valentine’s body like a knife tearing through paper. Valentine turned to watch Aldertree with an expression of bland interest as the Inquisitor staggered, collided with a pillar, and sprawled awkwardly to the ground. The Consul, following, bent to help him to his feet—there was a look of barely concealed disgust on his face as he did it, and Clary wondered if the disgust was directed at Valentine or at Aldertree for acting such a fool.

Another faint murmur carried around the room. The Inquisitor squeaked and struggled like a rat in a trap, Malachi holding him firmly by the arms as Valentine proceeded into the room without another glance at either of them. The Shadowhunters who had been clustered around the benches drew
back, like the waves of the Red Sea parting for Moses, leaving a clear path down the center of the room. Clary shivered as he drew closer to where she stood with Luke and Simon.
He’s only a Projection,
she told herself.
Not really here. He can’t hurt you.

Beside her Simon shuddered. Clary took his hand just as Valentine paused at the steps of the dais and turned to look directly at her. His eyes raked her once, casually, as if taking her measure; passed over Simon entirely; and came to rest on Luke.

“Lucian,” he said.

Luke returned his gaze, steady and level, saying nothing. It was the first time they had been together in the same room since Renwick’s, Clary thought, and then Luke had been half-dead from fighting and covered in blood. It was easier now to mark both the differences and the similarities between the two men—Luke in his ragged flannel and jeans, and Valentine in his beautiful and expensive-looking suit; Luke with a day’s worth of stubble and gray in his hair, and Valentine looking much as he had when he was twenty-five—only colder, somehow, and harder, as if the passing years were in the process of turning him slowly to stone.

“I hear the Clave has brought you onto the Council now,” Valentine said. “It would only be fitting for a Clave diluted by corruption and pandering to find itself infiltrated by half-breed degenerates.” His voice was placid, even cheerful—so much so that it was hard to feel the poison in his words, or to really believe that he meant them. His gaze moved back to Clary. “Clarissa,” he said, “here with the vampire, I see. When things have settled a bit, we really must discuss your choice of pets.”

A low growling noise came from Simon’s throat. Clary gripped his hand, hard—hard enough that there would have been a time he’d have jerked away in pain. Now he didn’t seem to feel it. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Just don’t.”

Valentine had already turned his attention away from them. He climbed the dais steps and turned to gaze down at the crowd. “So many familiar faces,” he observed. “Patrick. Malachi. Amatis.”

Amatis stood rigid, her eyes bright with hatred.

The Inquisitor was still struggling in Malachi’s grasp. Valentine’s gaze flicked over him, half-amused. “Even you, Aldertree. I hear you were indirectly responsible for the death of my old friend Hodge Starkweather. A pity, that.”

Luke found his voice. “You admit it, then,” he said. “You brought the wards down. You sent the demons.”

“I sent them,” said Valentine. “I can send more. Surely the Clave—even the Clave, stupid as they are—must have expected this?
You
expected it, didn’t you, Lucian?”

Luke’s eyes were gravely blue. “I did. But I know you, Valentine. So have you come to bargain, or to gloat?”

“Neither.” Valentine regarded the silent crowd. “I have no need to bargain,” he said, and though his tone was calm, his voice carried as if amplified. “And no desire to gloat. I don’t
enjoy
causing the deaths of Shadowhunters; there are precious few of us already, in a world that needs us desperately. But that’s how the Clave likes it, isn’t it? It’s just another one of their nonsensical rules, the rules they use to grind ordinary Shadowhunters into the dust. I did what I did because I had to. I did what I did because it was the only way to make the Clave listen. Shadowhunters didn’t die because of me; they died
because the Clave ignored me.” He met Aldertree’s eyes across the crowd; the Inquisitor’s face was white and twitching. “So many of you here were once in my Circle,” said Valentine slowly. “I speak to you now, and to those who knew of the Circle but stood outside it. Do you remember what I predicted fifteen years ago? That unless we acted against the Accords, the city of Alicante, our own precious capital, would be overrun by slobbering, slavering crowds of half-breeds, the degenerate races trampling underfoot everything we hold dear? And just as I predicted, all that has come to pass. The Gard burned to the ground, the Portal destroyed, our streets awash with monsters. Half-human scum presuming to lead us. So, my friends, my enemies, my brothers under the Angel, I ask you—do you believe me now?” His voice rose to a shout: “DO YOU BELIEVE ME NOW?”

His gaze swept the room as if he expected an answer. There was none—only a sea of staring faces.

“Valentine.” Luke’s voice, though soft, broke the silence. “Can’t you see what you’ve done? The Accords you dreaded so much didn’t make Downworlders equal to Nephilim. They didn’t assure half humans a spot on the Council. All the old hatreds were still in place. You should have trusted to those, but you didn’t—you couldn’t—and now you’ve given us the one thing that could possibly have united us all.” His eyes sought Valentine’s. “A common enemy.”

A flush passed over Valentine’s pale face. “I am not an enemy. Not of Nephilim.
You
are that. You’re the one trying to entice them into a hopeless fight. You think those demons you saw are all I have? They were a fraction of what I can summon.”

“There are more of us as well,” said Luke. “More Nephilim, and more Downworlders.”

“Downworlders,”
Valentine sneered. “They will run at the first sign of true danger. Nephilim are born to be warriors, to protect this world, but the world hates your kind. There is a reason clean silver burns you, and daylight scorches the Night Children.”

“It doesn’t scorch me,” Simon said in a hard, clear voice, despite the grip of Clary’s hand. “Here I am, standing in sunlight—”

But Valentine just laughed. “I’ve seen you choke on the name of God, vampire,” he said. “As for why you can stand in the sunlight—” He broke off and grinned. “You’re an anomaly, perhaps. A freak. But still a monster.”

A monster.
Clary thought of Valentine on the ship, of what he had said there:
Your mother told me that I had turned her first child into a monster. She left before I could do the same to her second.

Jace.
The thought of his name was a sharp pain.
After what Valentine did, he stands here talking about monsters—

“The only monster here,” she said, despite herself and despite her resolution to keep silent, “is you. I saw Ithuriel,” she went on when he turned to look at her in surprise. “I know everything—”

“I doubt that,” Valentine said. “If you did, you’d keep your mouth shut. For your brother’s sake, if not your own.”

Don’t you even talk about Jace to me!
Clary wanted to shout, but another voice came to cut hers off, a cool, unexpected female voice, fearless and bitter.

“And what about
my
brother?” Amatis moved to stand at the foot of the dais, looking up at Valentine. Luke started in
surprise and shook his head at her, but she ignored him.

Valentine frowned. “What about Lucian?” Amatis’s question, Clary sensed, had unsettled him, or maybe it was just that Amatis was there, asking, confronting him. He had written her off years ago as weak, unlikely to challenge him. Valentine never liked it when people surprised him.

“You told me he wasn’t my brother anymore,” said Amatis. “You took Stephen away from me. You destroyed my family. You say you aren’t an enemy of Nephilim, but you set each of us against each other, family against family, wrecking lives without compunction. You say you hate the Clave, but you’re the one who made them what they are now—petty and paranoid. We used to trust one another, we Nephilim.
You
changed that. I will never forgive you for it.” Her voice shook. “Or for making me treat Lucian as if he were no longer my brother. I won’t forgive you for that, either. Nor will I forgive myself for listening to you.”

“Amatis—” Luke took a step forward, but his sister put up a hand to stop him. Her eyes were shining with tears, but her back was straight, her voice firm and unwavering.

“There was a time we were
all
willing to listen to you, Valentine,” she said. “And we all have that on our conscience. But no more.
No more.
That time is over. Is there anyone here who disagrees with me?”

Clary jerked her head up and looked out at the gathered Shadowhunters: They looked to her like a rough sketch of a crowd, with white blurs for faces. She saw Patrick Penhallow, his jaw set, and the Inquisitor, who was shaking like a frail tree in a high wind. And Malachi, whose dark, polished face was strangely unreadable.

No one said a word.

If Clary had expected Valentine to be angry at this lack of response from the Nephilim he had hoped to lead, she was disappointed. Other than a twitch in the muscle of his jaw, he was expressionless. As if he had expected this response. As if he had planned for it.

“Very well,” he said. “If you will not listen to reason, you will have to listen to force. I have already showed you I can take down the wards around your city. I see that you’ve put them back up, but that’s of no consequence; I can easily do it again. You will either accede to my requirements or face every demon the Mortal Sword can summon. I will tell them not to spare a single one of you, not a man, woman, or child. It’s your choice.”

A murmur swept around the room; Luke was staring. “You would deliberately destroy
your own kind
, Valentine?”

“Sometimes diseased plants must be culled to preserve the whole garden,” said Valentine. “And if
all
are diseased . . .” He turned to face the horrified crowd. “It is your choice,” he went on. “I have the Mortal Cup. If I must, I will start over with a new world of Shadowhunters, created and taught by me. But I can give you this one chance. If the Clave will sign over all the powers of the Council to me and accept my unequivocal sovereignty and rule, I will stay my hand. All Shadowhunters will swear an oath of obedience and accept a permanent loyalty rune that binds them to me. These are my terms.”

There was silence. Amatis had her hand over her mouth; the rest of the room swung before Clary’s eyes in a whirling blur.
They can’t give in to him,
she thought.
They can’t.
But what choice did they have? What choice did any of them ever have?
They are trapped by Valentine,
she thought dully,
as surely as Jace and I are
trapped by what he made us. We are all chained to him by our own blood.

It was only a moment, though it felt like an hour to Clary, before a thin voice cut through the silence—the high, spidery voice of the Inquisitor. “Sovereignty and rule?” he shrieked. “
Your
rule?”

“Aldertree—” The Consul moved to restrain him, but the Inquisitor was too quick. He wriggled free and darted toward the dais. He was yelping something, the same words over and over, as if he’d lost his mind entirely, his eyes rolled back practically to the whites. He thrust Amatis aside, staggering up the steps of the dais to face Valentine. “I am the Inquisitor, do you understand, the
Inquisitor
!” he shouted. “I am part of the Clave! The
Council
! I make the rules, not you! I rule, not you! I won’t let you do this, you upstart, demon-loving slime—”