The Wicked Ones
Author: Cassandra Clare; Robin Wasserman; Emily Bett Rickards
Date: 2018-09-11 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Young Adult; Paranormal
Description: 1 Hour and 56 Minutes Celine Montclaire goes to the Shadow Market to escape. She would go anywhere in Paris, or the entire world, to escape the suffering she experiences at the hands of her family. She did not expect to meet Valentine Morgenstern there, or to have him promise her freedom and the heart of the man she secretly loves. On one condition, of course. At the Shadow Market, nothing is for free.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Rights: Copyright © 2018 by Cassandra Claire, LLC. All rights reserved.

GHOSTS OF THE SHADOW MARKET

book 6

THE

WICKED

ONES

by

CASSANDRA CLARE
and

ROBIN WASSERMAN

WALKER BOOKS

Ghosts of the Shadow Market

1.

Son of the Dawn
by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan

2.

Cast Long Shadows
by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan

3.

Every Exquisite Thing
by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson

4.

Learn About Loss
by Cassandra Clare and Kelly Link

5.

A Deeper Love
by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson

6.

The Wicked Ones
by Cassandra Clare and Robin Wasserman

7.

The Land I Lost
by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan

8.

Through Blood, Through Fire
by Cassandra Clare and Robin Wasserman

The Shadowhunter Chronicles

The Mortal Instruments

City of Bones

City of Ashes

City of Glass

City of Fallen Angels

City of Lost Souls

City of Heavenly Fire

The Infernal Devices

Clockwork Angel

Clockwork Prince

Clockwork Princess

The Dark Artifices

Lady Midnight

Lord of Shadows

Queen of Air and Darkness (forthcoming)

The Eldest Curses (with Wesley Chu; forthcoming)

The Red Scrolls of Magic

The Lost Book of the White

The Eldest Curses 3

The Last Hours (forthcoming)

Chain of Gold

Chain of Iron

The Last Hours 3

The Shadowhunter’s Codex (with Joshua Lewis)

The Bane Chronicles (with Sarah Rees Brennan & Maureen Johnson)

Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy (with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson & Robin Wasserman)

A History of Notable Shadowhunters and Denizens of Downworld (illustrated by Cassandra Jean)

Also by Cassandra Clare

The Magisterium Series (written with Holly Black)

The Iron Trial

The Copper Gauntlet

The Bronze Key

The Silver Mask

The Golden Tower (forthcoming)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

First published in Great Britain 2018 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

“The Wicked Ones” copyright © 2018 Cassandra Claire, LLC
Cover and series illustration © 2018 Davood Diba

The right of Cassandra Clare to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This book has been typeset in Dolly Pro and Pterra

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-4063-8386-7 (ePub)
ISBN 978-1-4063-8387-4 (PDF)

www.walker.co.uk

The Wicked Ones

Paris, 1989

It was said among the Shadowhunters that one could not know true beauty until one had seen the gleaming towers of Alicante. It was said that no city on Earth could rival its wonders. It was said that no Shadowhunter could feel truly at home anywhere else.

If anyone had asked Céline Montclaire her opinion on the subject, she would have said: obviously these Shadowhunters had never been to Paris.

She would have rhapsodized about gothic spires spearing the clouds, cobblestone streets shimmering with rain, sunlight dancing on the Seine, and, bien sûr, the infinite varieties of cheese. She would have pointed out that Paris had been home to Baudelaire and Rimbaud, Monet and Gauguin, Descartes and Voltaire, that this was the city that had birthed a new way of speaking, seeing, thinking, being—drawing even the most mundane of mundanes a little closer to the angels.

In every way, Paris was la ville de la lumière. The City of Light. If you ask me, Céline would have said, nothing could be more beautiful than that.

But no one ever asked. As a general rule, no one asked Céline Montclaire’s opinion on anything.

Until now.

“You sure there’s not some kind of rune to keep these foul beasts away?” Stephen Herondale said as a thunderous flutter of wings descended. He ducked, whacked blindly at his feathered foe.

The flock of pigeons quickly passed, without dealing any mortal blows. Céline waved off a couple of stragglers, and Stephen breathed a sigh of relief.

“My hero,” he said.

Céline felt her cheeks warm alarmingly. She had a terrible blushing problem. Especially when she was in the presence of Stephen Herondale. “The great Herondale warrior afraid of pigeons?” she teased, hoping he wouldn’t hear the quaver in her voice.

“Not afraid. Simply exhibiting a prudent amount of caution in the face of a potentially demonic creature.”

“Demon pigeons?”

“I look upon them with great suspicion,” Stephen said with as much dignity as a pigeon-phobe could muster. He tapped the longsword hanging by his hip. “And this great warrior stands at the ready to do what need be done.”

As he spoke, another flock of pigeons took flight from the cobblestones, and for a moment all was wings and feathers and Stephen’s rather high-pitched squeal.

Céline laughed. “Yes, I can see you’re fearless in the face of danger. If not in the beak of danger.”

Stephen glared fiercely at her. Her pulse quickened. Had she overstepped? Then he winked.

Sometimes she wanted him so much she felt like her heart might explode.

“You sure we’re still going in the right direction?” he said. “I feel like we’re walking in circles.”

“Trust me,” she said.

Stephen clapped a hand to his heart. “Bien sûr, mademoiselle.”

Unless you counted the starring role he played in her daydreams, Céline hadn’t seen Stephen since he’d graduated the Academy four years before. Back then, he’d barely noticed her. He was too busy with his training, his girlfriend, his friends in the Circle to give much thought to the slip of a girl whose eyes tracked his every move. But now, Céline thought, her cheeks burning again, they were practically equals. Yes, she was 17, still a student, while he was 22, not just a full-fledged adult but Valentine Morgenstern’s most trusted lieutenant in the Circle—the elite group of young Shadowhunters sworn to reform the Clave and return it to its pure and ancient glory. But Céline was finally a member of the Circle too, handpicked by Valentine himself.

Valentine had been a student at the Academy alongside Stephen and the other founding members of the Circle—but unlike the rest of them, he’d never seemed quite young. Most of the students and teachers at the Academy had thought of Valentine’s crowd as nothing but a harmless clique, odd only in that it preferred late-night policy debates to partying. Even then, Céline understood that this was exactly how Valentine wanted to appear: harmless. Those who paid attention knew better. He was a fierce warrior, with an even fiercer mind—once he fixed his inky black gaze on a goal, nothing would stop him from achieving it. He’d comprised his Circle of young Shadowhunters he knew to be as capable as they were loyal. Only the best of them, he’d told her that day he’d approached her at a particularly boring lecture on Downworlder history. “Every member of the Circle is exceptional,” he’d said. “Including, if you accept my offer, you.” No one had ever called her exceptional before.

Ever since then, she’d felt different. Strong. Special. And it must have been true, because even though she still had one more year at the Academy, here she was, spending her summer vacation on an official mission with Stephen Herondale. Stephen was one of the greatest fighters of his generation, and now—owing to Lucian Graymark’s unfortunate werewolf situation—Valentine’s most trusted deputy. But Céline was the one who knew Paris, its streets and its secrets. It was the perfect moment to show Stephen that she’d changed, that she was exceptional. That he couldn’t do this without her.

Those had, in fact, been his exact words. I couldn’t do this without you, Céline.

She loved the way her name sounded on his tongue. She loved every detail of him: the blue eyes that sparkled like the sea of the Côte d’Azur. The white-blond hair that glowed like the golden rotunda of the Palais Garnier. The curve of his neck, the tautness of his muscles, the smooth lines of his body like something carved by Rodin, a model of human perfection. Somehow he’d gotten even more handsome since she saw him last.

He’d also gotten married.

She tried not to think about that.

“Can we pick up the pace?” Robert Lightwood grumbled. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get back to civilization. And air-conditioning.”

Robert was something else she tried not to think about. His grouchy presence made it substantially more difficult to pretend she and Stephen were taking a romantic stroll through the moonlight.

“The faster we go, the more you’ll sweat,” Stephen pointed out. “And trust me, no one wants that.” Paris in August was approximately ten degrees hotter than hell. Even after dark, the air felt like a blanket soaked in hot soup. For the sake of discretion, they’d traded their Shadowhunter gear for mundane fashion, choosing long sleeves to cover up their runes. The white T-shirt Céline had selected for Stephen was already soaked through. This was not exactly unfortunate.

Robert just grunted. He was different than Céline remembered him from the Academy. Back then, he’d been a little stiff and curt, but never deliberately cruel. Now, though, there was something in his eyes she didn’t like. Something icy. It reminded her too much of her father.

According to Stephen, Robert had had some kind of falling out with his parabatai and was understandably cranky. It’s just Robert being Robert, Stephen had said. Great fighter but a bit of a drama queen. Nothing to worry about.

Céline always worried.

They trudged up the final hill of Rue Mouffetard. By day, this was one of Paris’s most bustling market streets, bursting with fresh produce, colorful scarves, falafel vendors and gelato stands, and obnoxious tourists. At night, its storefronts were shuttered and silent. Paris was a market town, but all of its markets went to sleep after dark—all except one.

Céline hurried them around a corner, down another narrow, winding road. “We’re almost there.” She tried to keep the anticipation out of her voice. Robert and Stephen had made it very clear that the Circle did not approve of Shadow Markets. Downworlders mingling with mundanes, illicit goods changing hands, secrets swapped and sold? According to Valentine, this was all the unseemly consequence of the laxness and corruption of the Clave. When the Circle took power, Stephen had assured her eagerly, the Shadow Markets would be shut down for good.

Céline had only been in the Circle for a few months, but she’d already learned this lesson: if Valentine hated something, it was her duty to hate it too.

She was trying her best.

There was no law that a Shadow Market had to be located on a site rich with dark energy, marinated in the blood of a violent past—but it helped.

Paris had no shortage of possibilities. It was a city of ghosts, most of them angry. Revolution after revolution, blood-spattered barricades and heads rolling from the guillotine, the September massacres, the Bloody Week, the burning of the Tuileries, the Terror. . . As a child, Céline had spent many sleepless nights wandering the city, summoning visions of its greatest cruelties. She liked to imagine she could hear screams echoing through the centuries. They made her feel less alone.

This, she knew, was not a normal childhood hobby.

Céline’s had not been a normal childhood. She discovered this only when she arrived at the Academy, where for the first time she’d met Shadowhunters her own age. That first day, the other students had chattered about their idyllic lives in Idris, galloping horses across the Brocelind Plain; their idyllic lives in London, New York, Tokyo, training under the kind eye of loving parents and Institute tutors; their idyllic lives anywhere and everywhere. After a while Céline stopped listening, drifted out unnoticed, too bitterly jealous to stay. Too embarrassed by the prospect that someone might make her tell her own story. After all, she’d grown up on her parents’ Provence estate, surrounded by apple orchards, vineyards, rolling fields of lavender: by all appearances, la belle epoque.

Céline knew her parents loved her, because they told her so repeatedly.

We’re only doing this because we love you, her mother would say before locking her in the basement.

We’re only doing this because we love you, her father would say before lashing her with the whip.

We’re only doing this because we love you, when they set the Dragonidae demon on her; when they dumped her for the night, eight years old and weaponless, in a werewolf-ridden wood; when they taught her the bloody consequences of weakness or clumsiness or fear.

The first time she ran away to Paris, she was eight years old. Young enough to think she could escape for good. She’d found her way to the Arènes de Lutèce, the remains of a Roman amphitheater from the first century AD. It was, perhaps, the city’s oldest blood-soaked ruin. Two thousand years before, gladiators had warred to the death before a cheering, bloodthirsty crowd, until the arena—and its crowd—were overtaken by an equally bloodthirsty barbarian horde. For a time, it had been a cemetery; now it was a tourist trap, yet another heap of stones for bored schoolchildren to ignore. By day, at least. Under the midnight moon, it came alive with Downworlders, a bacchanalia of faerie fruits and wines, gargoyles enchanted by warlock magic, waltzing werewolves, vampires in berets painting portraits in blood, an ifrit accordionist who could make you weep yourself to death. It was the Paris Shadow Market, and from the moment Céline first saw it, she felt herself finally home.

That first trip, she’d spent two nights there, haunting the booths, befriending a shy werewolf cub, sating her gnawing hunger with the crêpe nutella that a Silent Brother had purchased for her, no questions asked. She’d napped beneath the tablecloth of a vampire’s jewelry stand; she’d whirled with horned children in an improvised faerie revel; she’d finally discovered what it meant to be happy. On the third night, the Shadowhunters of the Paris Institute tracked her down and returned her home.

That was when she learned—not for the last time—the consequences of running away.

We love you too much to lose you.

That night, Céline had curled fetal in the corner of the basement, back still bloody, and thought, so this is how it feels to be loved too much.

Their mission was straightforward. First, track down the warlock Dominique du Froid’s booth at the Paris Shadow Market. Second, find some evidence of her shady business dealings with two rogue Shadowhunters.

“I have reason to believe they’ve been trading Downworlder blood and parts to her in return for illegal services,” Valentine had told them. He needed proof. It was up to Céline, Stephen, and Robert to find some.

“Quietly,” Valentine had cautioned. “I don’t want her tipping off her associates.” Valentine made the word associates sound like a vulgarity. For him, it was: Downworlders were bad enough, but Shadowhunters allowing themselves to be corrupted by a Downworlder? That was unforgivable.

Step one proved simple. Dominique du Froid was easy to find. She’d conjured her name in neon lights, right out of thin air. Literally—the letters glowed brightly, three feet above her booth, with a neon arrow pointing down. DOMINIQUE DU FROID, LES SOLDES, TOUJOURS!

“Just like a warlock,” Robert said sourly. “Always for sale.”

“Always on sale,” Céline corrected, too quietly for him to hear.

The booth turned out to be an elaborate tent with display tables and a curtained-off area in the back. It was crammed with tacky jewelry and colorful potions—none quite as tacky or as colorful as Dominique herself. Her hair was dyed in platinum blond and hot pink stripes, half of it scooped into a side ponytail. The other half was crimped and hairsprayed to a hard sheen. She wore a ripped lace shirt, a black leather miniskirt, purple fingerless gloves, and what looked like a significant portion of her jewelry inventory around her neck. Her warlock mark, a long, feathered pink tail, was slung over her shoulders like a boa.

“It’s like an Eidolon demon tried turning into Cyndi Lauper and accidentally got stuck midway through,” Céline joked.

“Huh?” Robert said. “Is that another warlock?”

Stephen smirked. “Yeah, Robert. Another warlock. The Clave executed her ’cause she just wanted to have fun.”

Céline and Stephen laughed together, and Robert’s obvious fury at being mocked only made them laugh harder. Like most Shadowhunters, Céline had grown up entirely ignorant of mundane pop culture. But Stephen showed up at the Academy full of arcane knowledge about bands, books, songs, movies that no one had ever heard of. Once he’d joined the Circle, he’d dropped his love of the Sex Pistols just as quickly as he’d trade his leather jacket and frayed denim for the dull black uniform that Valentine favored. Still, Céline had spent the last couple of years studying mundane TV, just in case.

I can be whatever you want me to be, she thought, wishing she had the nerve to say it.

Céline knew Amatis, Stephen’s wife. At least, she knew enough. Amatis was sharp-tongued and stuck-up. She was opinionated, argumentative, stubborn, and not even that pretty. There were also rumors that she still secretly associated with her werewolf brother. Céline didn’t much care about that—she had nothing against Downworlders. But she had plenty against Amatis, who obviously didn’t appreciate what she had. Stephen needed someone who would admire him, agree with him, support him. Someone like Céline. If only she could make him see that for himself.

They surveilled the warlock for a couple hours. Dominique du Froid was constantly leaving her booth unattended, scurrying off to gossip or trade with other sellers. It was almost like she wanted someone to rifle through her belongings.

Stephen yawned theatrically. “I was hoping for slightly more of a challenge. But let’s get this done and get out of here. This place stinks of Downworlders. I already feel like I need a shower.”

“Ouai, c’est terrible,” Céline lied.

The next time Dominique left her booth, Stephen tailed her. Robert slipped into the booth’s curtained-off area to poke around for evidence of dirty dealings. Céline was left to play lookout, browsing the booth next to Dominique’s, where she could signal Robert if Dominique unexpectedly came back.

Of course they’d assigned her the most boring job, the one that required nothing but shopping for jewelry. They thought she was useless.

Céline did as she was told, feigning interest in the hideous display of enchanted rings, chunky gold chains, charm bracelets jangling with Greater Demons carved in brass and pewter. Then she spotted something that actually did interest her: a Silent Brother, gliding toward the booth in that disconcertingly inhuman way they all had of moving. She watched out of the corner of her eye as the robed Shadowhunter studied the jewelry display with great care. What could someone like him possibly be looking for in a place like this?

The scruffy pre-teen werewolf manning the booth had barely acknowledged Céline’s presence. But he scurried straight over to the Silent Brother, eyes wide with fear. “You can’t be poking around here,” he said. “My boss doesn’t like doing business with your kind.”

Aren’t you a bit young to have a boss?

The words reverberated in Céline’s mind, and she wondered for a moment whether the Silent Brother wanted her to overhear. But that seemed unlikely—she was standing several feet away, and there was no reason for him to have noticed her.

“Parents threw me out when I got bitten, so it’s either work or go hungry,” the kid said. He shrugged. “And I like food. Which is why you got to get out of here before the boss comes back and thinks I’m selling to a Shadowhunter.”

I am in search of a piece of jewelry.

“Look, man, there’s nothing here you can’t get somewhere else, better and cheaper. This stuff is all junk.”

Yes, that I can see. But I am looking for something particular, something I’ve been told I can find here only. A silver necklace, with a pendant in the shape of a heron.

The word heron pricked Céline’s ear. It was such a specific request. And it was something so suited to a Herondale.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t know how you heard about that, but it’s possible we’ve got one of those back here. I told you, though, I can’t sell to—”

What if I doubled the price.

“You don’t even know what the price is.”

No, I do not. And I imagine you won’t get a better offer, given that the necklace is not on display for customers.

“Yeah, I pointed that out myself, but—” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. Céline tried not to make it too obvious she was straining to hear. “Boss doesn’t want his wife to know he’s selling it. Said he just needs to put the word out and a buyer will find us.”

And now a buyer has. Imagine how pleased your employer will be when you tell him it sold for more than his asking price.

“I guess he never needs to know who bought it . . .”

He will not hear it from me.

The kid considered this for a moment, then ducked beneath the counter for a moment and reappeared dangling a silver pendant. Céline suppressed a gasp. It was a delicately carved heron, sparkling in the moonlight, the perfect gift for a young Herondale proud of his heritage. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift into an alternate reality, one in which she was allowed to give Stephen gifts. Imagining fastening the pendant around his neck, nuzzling his soft skin, breathing him in. Imagining him saying I love it. Almost as much as I love you.

It is beautiful, is it not?

Céline flinched at the voice of the Silent Brother in her head. Of course he couldn’t know what she’d been thinking. But nonetheless, her cheeks burned with shame. The kid had retreated to the back of the booth to count his money. The Silent Brother had now fixed his blind gaze on her.

He was different than the other Silent Brothers she’d seen, his face young—even handsome. His jet-black hair was threaded with streaks of silver, and his eyes and mouth were sealed, but not sewn shut. Runes sliced viciously across each cheek. Céline was reminded how envious she had once been of the Silent Brotherhood. They had scars like she had scars; they endured great pain like she endured great pain. But their scars gave them power; their pain felt like nothing, because they had no feeling. You could not be a Silent Brother if you were a girl. This had never seemed very fair to Céline. Women were, however, allowed to join the Iron Sisters. Céline had liked the idea when she was younger, but now she felt no desire to live cloistered on a volcanic plain, with nothing to do but craft weapons of adamas. The very thought of it made her claustrophobic.

I am sorry to startle you. But I noted your interest in the pendant.

“It’s . . . it just, it reminded me of someone.”

Someone you care about a great deal, I sense.

“Yeah. I guess.”

Is that someone perhaps a Herondale?

“Yes, and he’s wonderful.” The words slipped out accidentally, but there was an unexpected joy in saying them out loud. She’d never let herself do so before—not in front of someone else. Not even alone.

That was the thing about Silent Brothers. Being with them wasn’t quite like being with someone else or like being alone. Confiding in a Silent Brother was like confiding in no one, she thought, because who was he going to tell?

“Stephen Herondale,” she said, softly but firmly. “I’m in love with Stephen Herondale.”

There was a jolt of power in saying the words, almost as if speaking her claim aloud made it a little more real.

The love of a Herondale can be a great gift.

“Yeah, it’s awesome,” she said, bitterly enough that even the Silent Brother noticed her tone.

I have upset you.

“No, it’s just . . . I said I love him. He barely knows I’m alive.”

Ah.

It was stupid, hoping for sympathy from a Silent Brother. Like hoping for sympathy from a rock. His face remained completely impassive. But the voice that spoke in her head was gentle. She let herself believe it was even a little kind.

That must be difficult.

If Céline had been another type of girl, the type with friends, or sisters, or a mother who spoke to her with anything but icy disdain, she might have told someone else about Stephen. She might have spent hours dissecting his tone, the way he sometimes seemed to flirt with her, the way he’d once touched her on the shoulder in gratitude when she lent him a dagger. Maybe talking about it would have blunted the pain of loving him; maybe she even would have talked herself out of loving him. Talking about Stephen might have become commonplace, like talking about the weather. Background noise.

But Céline had no one to talk to. All she had were her secrets, and the longer she kept them, the more they hurt.

“He’s never going to love me,” she said. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be near him, but now he’s right here, and I can’t have him, and in a way that’s even worse. I’m just . . . I just . . . it just hurts so much.”

I sometimes think there is nothing more painful than love denied. To love someone you cannot have, to stand beside your heart’s desire and be unable to take them in your arms. A love that cannot be requited. I can think of nothing more painful than that.

It was impossible that a Silent Brother could understand how she felt. And yet . . .

He sounded as if he understood exactly how she felt.

“I wish I could be more like you,” she admitted.

In what sense?

“You know, just, shut off my feelings? Feel nothing. For anybody.”

There was a long pause, and she wondered if she’d offended him. Was that even possible? Finally, his cool, steady voice spoke again.

This is a wish you should dispense with. Feeling is what makes us human. Even the most difficult feelings. Perhaps especially those. Love, loss, longing—this is what it means to be truly alive.

“But . . . you’re a Silent Brother. You’re not supposed to feel any of those things, right?”

I . . . There was another long pause. I remember feeling them. That is sometimes as close as I can get.

“And you’re still alive, as far as I can tell.”

Sometimes that, too, is difficult to remember.

If she didn’t know any better, she would think he had sighed.

The Silent Brother she met on her first trip to the Shadow Market had been kind like this. When he bought her the crêpe, he hadn’t asked her where her parents were or why she was wandering the crowds alone, or why her eyes were red from crying. He only knelt and pinned his blind eyes on hers. The world is a hard thing to face alone, he said inside her mind. You do not have to.

Then he did what Silent Brothers did best and fell silent. She knew, even as a child, that he was waiting for her to tell him what she needed. That if she asked for help, he might even offer it.

No one could help her. Even as a child, she knew that too. The Montclaires were a respected, powerful Shadowhunter family. Her parents had the ear of the Consul. If she told the Brother who she was, he would only bring her home. If she told him what waited for her there, what her parents were really like, he probably wouldn’t believe her. He might even tell her parents she was spreading lies about them. And there would be consequences.

She’d thanked him for the crêpe and skittered away.

She’d endured so many years since then. After this summer, she would return to the Academy for her final year, and graduate; she would never have to live in her parents’ house again. She was almost free. She didn’t need anyone’s help.

But the world was still a hard thing to face alone.

And she was so, so lonely.

“Maybe the pain of loving someone is a fact of life and all, but do you really think that, like, all pain is? You don’t think it would be better if you could just stop hurting?”

Is something hurting you?

“I . . .” She summoned her nerve. She could do it. She almost believed that. She could tell this stranger about the cold house. About the parents who only seemed to notice her when she did something wrong. About the consequences, when she did. “The thing is—”

She broke off abruptly as the Silent Brother turned away. His sightless eyes seemed to be tracking a man in a black trench coat hurrying toward him. The man stopped short when he caught sight of the Silent Brother. His face abruptly drained of color. Then he spun on his heel and hustled away. Most Downworlders were skittish around Shadowhunters these days—news of the Circle’s exploits had gotten around. But this looked almost personal.

“Do you know that guy?”

I apologize, I must attend to this.

Silent Brothers did not display emotion, and, as far as Céline knew, they didn’t feel it. But if she didn’t know any better, she would say this Silent Brother was feeling something very deeply. Fear, maybe, or excitement—or that strange combination of the two that descended just before a fight.

“Okay, I just—”

But the Silent Brother was already gone. She was alone again. And thank the Angel for that, she thought. It had been careless, even toying with the idea of dredging her dark truths into the light. How foolish, how weak, wanting to be heard. Wanting to be truly seen by anyone, much less a man with his eyes fused shut. Her parents always said she was stupid and weak. Maybe they were right.

Brother Zachariah wove through the crowded Shadow Market, careful to keep a few feet of distance between him and his target. It was a strange game they were playing. The man, who went by the name of Jack Crow, certainly knew that Zachariah was following him. And Brother Zachariah could have picked up his speed and overtaken the man at any point. But for whatever reason, Crow didn’t want to stop, and Brother Zachariah didn’t want to make him. So Crow strode across the arena and into the dense warren of streets just beyond its gates.

Brother Zachariah followed.

He was sorry to have left the girl so abruptly. He felt a certain kinship with her. They’d both given a piece of their hearts to a Herondale. And they both loved someone they could not have.

Of course, Brother Zachariah’s love was a pale imitation of the real, raw, human thing. He loved through a scrim, and every year it got harder to remember what lay beyond. To remember how it had felt to long for Tessa the way a living, breathing human longed. How it had felt to need her. Zachariah no longer truly needed anything. Not food, not sleep, not even, much as he sometimes tried to summon it in himself, Tessa. His love persisted, but it was blunted. The girl’s love had a jagged edge, and talking to her had helped him remember.

She had wanted his help too, he could tell. The most human part of him was tempted to stay by her side. She’d seemed so fragile—and so determined to seem otherwise. It touched his heart. But Brother Zachariah’s heart was encased in stone.

He tried to tell himself otherwise. After all, the very fact of his presence here was evidence of his still-human heart. He’d been hunting for decades—because of Will, because of Tessa, because a part of him was still Jem, the Shadowhunter boy who had loved them both.

Still loves them both, Brother Zachariah reminded himself. Present tense.

The heron pendant had confirmed his suspicions. This was definitely the man he’d been seeking. Zachariah couldn’t let him get away.

Crow ducked into a narrow cobblestone alley. Brother Zachariah followed, tense and alert. He sensed their slow-motion chase was nearing its end. And indeed, the alley was a dead-end. Crow whirled around to face Zachariah, a knife in his hand. He was still young, barely into his twenties, with a proud face and a shock of blond hair.

Brother Zachariah had a weapon and was quite good at using it. But he made no move to draw his staff. This man could never be a threat to him.

“Okay, Shadowhunter, you wanted me, you got me,” Crow said, feet braced and knife ready, clearly expecting an attack.

Brother Zachariah studied his face, searching for something familiar. But there was nothing. Nothing but the pretense of brash courage. With his sightless eyes, Zachariah could see beneath such facades. He could see fear.

There was a rustling behind him. Then a woman’s voice.

“You know what they say, Shadowhunter. Be careful what you wish for.”

Brother Zachariah turned, slowly. Here was a surprise. A young woman—even younger than Crow—stood in the mouth of the alley. She was almost ethereally beautiful, with shining blond hair and the kind of ruby lips and cobalt eyes that had inspired millennia of bad poetry. She was smiling sweetly. She was aiming a crossbow directly at Brother Zachariah’s heart.

He felt a jolt of fear. Not because of the knife or the crossbow; he had nothing to fear from these two. He would prefer not to fight at all, but if necessary he could disarm them harmlessly. They weren’t equipped to protect themselves. That was the problem.

The fear stemmed from the realization that he had achieved his goal. This search was the one thing that still bound him to Tessa, to Will, to his former self. What if today he lost his only remaining tie to Jem Carstairs? What if this, today, was his last truly human act?

“Come on, Shadowhunter,” the woman said. “Spit it out. If you’re very lucky, maybe we’ll let you live.”

I don’t want to fight you. From their reaction, he could tell they hadn’t expected the voice in their head. These two knew enough to recognize a Shadowhunter—but apparently they didn’t know as much as they thought. I have been looking for you, Jack Crow.

“Yeah, so I heard. Someone should have warned you, people who come looking for me tend to regret it.”

I mean you no harm. I only want to deliver a message. It is about who you are and where you came from. You might find this difficult to believe, but—

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a Shadowhunter too.” Crow shrugged. “Now tell me something I don’t know.”

“You here to buy, or to shoplift?”

Céline dropped the potion bottle. It shattered on the ground, releasing a puff of noxious blue smoke.

After the Silent Brother had ditched her for the hot guy in the trench coat, the werewolf kid had shut down the booth. He glared at Céline until she accepted it was time to move on. So she’d meandered over to Dominique du Froid’s booth, trying to look innocuous. Which worked fine, until the warlock herself appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Or just here to cause havoc?” Dominique said, in French.

Céline cursed, silently. She’d had one job, a humiliatingly easy one at that, and she’d still managed to fail. Stephen was nowhere in sight, and Robert was still rummaging through the warlock’s tent.

“I was waiting for you to come back,” Céline said, loudly and in English, so Robert would be sure to hear. “Thank goodness you finally did. I’m melting in this heat.” She said that last part even louder. It was a prearranged signal, just in case. Translation: Get out, now. Hopefully she could keep the warlock distracted long enough that he could slip out unseen.

Where was Stephen?

“Bien sûr.” The warlock had a terrible accent, French by way of Southern California. Céline wondered if warlocks could surf. “And what is it you’re looking for, mademoiselle?”

“A love potion.” It was the first thing that popped into her head. Maybe because she’d just spotted Stephen, hurrying toward them—while trying very much to look like he wasn’t hurrying. Céline wondered how Dominique had managed to give him the slip in the first place, and if she’d done so on purpose.

“A love potion, eh?” The warlock followed her gaze and made an approving noise. “Not bad, though a little beefy for my taste. The better the body, the worse the mind, I always find. But maybe you prefer dumb and pretty. Chacun à son goût, eh?”

“Um, oui, dumb and pretty, sure. So—” What was Robert doing back there, anyway? Céline hoped he’d managed to slip out without her seeing him, but she couldn’t take the risk. “Can you help me?”

“Love is a little beyond my pay grade, chérie. Anyone around here who tells you different is lying. But I can offer you—”

She fell silent as Stephen arrived, looking slightly harried. “Everything okay here?”

He shot Céline a concerned look. Her heart pounded; he was worried about her. She nodded. “Totally fine. We were just—”

“Your friend here wanted me to sell her a potion to make her fall in love with you,” the warlock said. Céline thought she might drop dead on the spot. “I was about to tell her I could only offer her the next best thing.” She pulled what looked like a can of hairspray from beneath the booth and sprayed a puff of it in Stephen’s face. His expression went slack.

“What did you do?” Céline cried. “And why did you say that?”

“Oh, relax. Trust me, in this state, he won’t care what anyone says. Watch.”

Stephen was staring at Céline like he’d never seen her before. He reached out a hand and touched her cheek, gently, his expression wondering. He looked at her like he was thinking, Could you be real?

“Turns out your little blond friend here has a nasty case of demon pox,” Dominique told Stephen. Céline decided she was not, in fact, going to drop dead; she was going to murder the warlock.

“Demon pox is so sexy,” Stephen said. “Will there be warts?” He batted his eyes at Céline. “You would look beautiful with warts.”

“See?” the warlock said. “I fixed him for you.”

“What did you do?”

“It’s not obvious? I did what you asked for. Well, it’s a cheap approximation of what you asked for, but what else is the Shadow Market for?”

Céline didn’t know what to say. She was furious on Stephen’s behalf.

On her own behalf, she was . . . something else. Something she should not have been.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re beautiful when you’re confused?” Stephen gushed. He gave her a moony grin. “Of course, you’re also beautiful when you’re angry, and when you’re sad, and when you’re happy, and when you’re laughing, and when you’re . . .”

“What?”

“When you’re kissing me,” he said. “But that one’s just a theory. Do you want to test it out?”

“Stephen, I’m not sure you really know—”

Then he was kissing her.

Stephen Herondale was kissing her.

Stephen Herondale’s lips were on her lips, his hands were on her waist, caressing her back, cupping her cheeks. Stephen Herondale’s fingers were threading through her hair.

Stephen Herondale was holding her tight, tighter, as if he wanted more of her than he could have, as if he wanted all of her.

She tried to hold herself at a distance. This was not real, she reminded herself. This was not him. But it felt real. It felt like Stephen Herondale, warm in her arms, wanting her, and her resistance gave way.

For one eternal moment, she was lost to bliss.

“Enjoy it while you can. It’ll wear off in an hour or so.”

Dominique du Froid’s voice yanked her back to reality—the reality in which Stephen was married to someone else. Céline forced herself to pull away. He let out a tiny whimper and looked like he was going to cry.

“First taste is free. You want permanent, you have to pay,” the warlock said. “But I suppose I could give you the Shadowhunter discount.”

Céline froze. “How did you know I was a Shadowhunter?”

“With your grace and beauty, how could you be anything else?” Stephen said. Céline ignored him. Something was very wrong here. Her runes were covered; her clothing was convincingly mundane; her weapons were hidden. There was nothing to mark her true identity.

“Or perhaps you’d like to buy two doses,” the warlock said. “One for this schmuck, and one for the schmuck behind the curtain. Not quite as handsome, of course, but those uptight ones can be a lot of fun once they let loose . . .”

Céline’s hand crept toward her hidden dagger.

“You look surprised, Céline,” the warlock said. “Did you honestly think I didn’t know you three stooges were watching me? Did you think I would just leave my booth without a security system? I guess loverboy’s not the only thing dumb but pretty around here.”

“How do you know my name?”

The warlock threw back her head and laughed. Her molars gleamed with gold. “Every Downworlder in Paris knows about poor Céline Montclaire, wandering the city like a murderous little Éponine. We all feel a little sorry for you.”

Céline lived with a steady, secret simmer of rage, but now she felt it boiling over.

“I mean, I can’t afford to have Shadowhunters poking around in my business, so I’m still going to have to take care of you, but I’ll feel sorry for you as you die.”

Céline drew her dagger just as a flock of Halphas demons exploded from the tent. The winged beasts swooped toward her and Stephen, razor-sharp talons extended, beaks open to unleash an unearthly screech.

“Demon pigeons!” Stephen shouted in disgust, his longsword in his hand. The blade flashed silver in the starlight as he sliced and slashed through thick, scaly wings.

Céline danced and dodged two birdlike demons, fending them off with her dagger as she pulled out two seraph blades with her free hand. “Zuphlas,” she whispered. “Jophiel.” As the blades began to glow, she flung them in opposite directions. Each flew true, straight into a demon’s throat. Both Halphas demons exploded in a cloud of bloody feathers and ichor. Céline was already in motion, leaping through the warlock’s curtain. “Robert!” she cried.

He was locked inside what looked like a gigantic antique birdcage, its floor coated with Halphas feathers—as was he. He looked unharmed. And very unhappy.

Céline broke through the lock as quickly as she could, and the two of them rejoined Stephen, who had managed to dispatch several of the demons, though a handful of them swooped off the ground to safety, looping and diving through the night sky. Dominique had opened a Portal and was about to leap through it. Robert seized her by the throat, then slammed the blunt end of his sword down on her head with a resounding thud. She dropped to the ground, out cold.

“So much for stealth,” he said.

“Céline, you’re wounded!” Stephen said, sounding horrified.

Céline realized a demonic beak had torn a chunk out of her calf. The blood was seeping through her jeans. She had barely felt it, but as the adrenaline of battle faded away, a sharp, stabbing pain took its place.

Stephen already had his stele in his hand, eager to apply an iratze. “You’re even more beautiful when you’re bleeding,” he said.

Céline shook her head and backed away. “I can do it myself.”

“But it would be my honor to heal your perfect skin,” Stephen protested.

“Did he get hit on the head?” Robert asked.

Céline was too embarrassed to explain. Fortunately, the cawing of Halphas demons echoed in the distance, followed by a woman’s scream. “You two watch the warlock,” she said. “I’ll deal with the rest of the demons before they eat anyone.” She took off before Robert could ask any more questions.

“I’ll miss you!” Stephen called after her. “You’re so cute when you’re bloodthirsty!”

Nearly two hundred years before, the Shadowhunter Tobias Herondale had been convicted of cowardice. A crime punishable by death. The Law, in those days, was not just hard, it was merciless. Tobias went mad and took flight before he could be executed, so in his absence, the Clave meted his punishment out on his wife, Eva. Death to her. Death to the Herondale child she carried.

This, at least, was the story.

Many, many decades ago, Zachariah had learned the truth behind this tale. He had met the warlock who saved Eva’s child—and then, after the mother’s death, raised that child as her own.

That child had sired a child, who had sired a child, and so forth: a secret line of Herondales, lost to the Shadowhunter world. Until now.

The surviving member of this line was in grave danger. For a long time, that was all Brother Zachariah knew. For Tessa, for Will, he had dedicated himself to learning more. He had followed breadcrumbs, run headlong into dead ends, nearly died at the hand of a faerie who wanted the lost Herondale to stay that way. Or worse, Zachariah feared.

The lost descendant of Tobias Herondale had fallen in love with a faerie. Their child—and all their children’s children—was part Shadowhunter, part fey.

Which meant Zachariah wasn’t the only one seeking. He strongly suspected, however, he was the only seeker who meant no harm. If an emissary of Faerie was willing to attack not just a Shadowhunter, but a Silent Brother—willing to break the Accords in the most egregious of ways—simply to stop his search, then surely the search was imperative. Surely the danger was mortal.

Decades of quiet inquiries had led here, to the Paris Shadow Market, to the man rumored to have in his possession a precious heron-shaped pendant, a Herondale heirloom. The man named Crow, who most assumed to be a mundane with the Sight, known as savvy but untrustworthy, a man all too satisfied by life in the shadows.

Zachariah had learned of the pendant first—it was a Parisian warlock who’d heard about his search and contacted him with confirmation. She told him his suspicions were correct: the owner of the pendant, whatever he wanted to call himself, was a Herondale.

Which, apparently, was old news to everyone but Zachariah himself.

You’ve known about your heritage all this time? And yet you never revealed yourself?

“Sweetheart, I think you can put down the crossbow,” Crow told the woman. “The psychic monk doesn’t seem like he means us any harm.”

She lowered the weapon, though she didn’t look very happy about it.

Thank you.

“And maybe you should leave us alone to talk,” Crow added.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea—”

“Rosemary, trust me. I got this.”

The woman, who must have been his wife, sighed. It was the sound of someone who understood stubbornness and had long ago given up trying to fight it. “Fine. But you—” She poked Brother Zachariah with the crossbow, hard enough he could feel it through his thick robes. “Anything happens to him, and I will hunt you down and make you pay.”

I have no intention of letting anything happen to either of you. That’s why I’ve come.

“Yeah, whatever.” She took Crow in her arms. The two embraced for a long moment. Zachariah had often heard the expression “holding on for dear life,” but rarely had he seen it enacted. The couple clung to each other like it was the only way to survive.

He remembered loving someone like that. He remembered the impossibility of saying good-bye. The woman whispered something to Crow, then hoisted her crossbow and disappeared into the Paris night.

“We’re newlyweds, and she’s a little overprotective,” Crow said. “You know how it is.”

I’m afraid I do not.

Crow looked him up and down, and Brother Zachariah wondered what this man saw. Whatever it was, he seemed unimpressed. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t.”

I have been looking for you for a long time, longer than you can imagine.

“Look, I’m sorry you wasted your time, but I don’t want anything to do with you people.”

I fear you don’t realize the danger you’re in. I am not the only one looking for you—

“But you’re the only one who can protect me, right? ‘Come with me if you want to live,’ and all that? Yeah, I’ve seen that movie. Not interested in living it.”

He was plenty sure of himself, Brother Zachariah thought, and felt the strange urge to smile. Maybe there was a trace of the familiar here after all.

“A man like me, he makes his fair share of enemies. I’ve been looking out for myself my whole life, and I don’t see any reason I—”

Whatever he said next was drowned out by an unholy screeching. A giant birdlike demon swooped down, speared Crow’s coat with its razor-sharp beak, and lifted him into the air.

Brother Zachariah seized one of the seraph blades he had brought along, just in case. Mebahiah, he named it, and flung it at the birdlike demon. The blade embedded in the feathered sternum, and the demon exploded midair. Crow tumbled several feet to the ground, landing in a noisy heap of feathers and ichor. Zachariah rushed over to help the man to his feet, but these efforts were rebuffed.

Crow examined the large, ragged hole in his trench coat with disgust. “That was brand new!”

It is indeed a very nice coat. Or . . . it was. Zachariah refrained from pointing out the good fortune that the Halphas demon hadn’t ripped a hole through anything more valuable. Like his rib cage.

“So is that the danger you came to warn me about? Saving my new coat from a demon seagull?”

It struck me as more of a demon pigeon.

Crow brushed himself off. He darted several suspicious looks at the sky, as if expecting another attack. “Listen, Mr. . . .”

Brother. Brother Zachariah.

“Right, okay, bro, I can see that a guy like you could come in handy in a fight. And if you’re that determined to protect me from some big, scary danger, I guess I won’t fight you on it.”

Brother Zachariah was surprised by the sudden change of heart. Perhaps nearly getting pecked to death by a demon pigeon sometimes had that effect on people.

I’d like to take you somewhere safe.

“Sure. Fine. Give me a few hours to tie up some loose ends, and Rosemary and I will meet you on the Pont des Arts at dawn. We’ll do whatever you want. Promise.”

I can accompany you, as you tie these ends.

“Listen, brother, the kinds of ends I’m talking about, they don’t take kindly to Shadowhunters poking around in their business. If you catch my drift.”

Your drift sounds mildly criminal.

“You want to make a citizen’s arrest?”

I am concerned only with your safety.

“I made it twenty-two years without your help. I think I can make it another six hours, don’t you?”

Brother Zachariah had invested decades into this search. It seemed wildly unwise to let this man slip away, with only a promise that he would return. Especially given what he’d learned about the man’s reputation. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence in his word.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking, and I know I can’t stop you from following me. So I’m just asking you flat out: You want me to trust you? Then you try trusting me. And I’m swearing, on whatever you need me to, that your precious lost Shadowhunter will be on that bridge waiting for you at dawn.”

Against his better judgment, Brother Zachariah nodded.

Go.

Céline had no taste for torture. Not that this was what they would call it, whatever they did to the warlock to get her to talk. Valentine had taught his Circle to be careful with their words. Robert and Stephen would “interrogate” Dominique du Froid, using whatever methods they deemed requisite. When they got the answers they needed—names of her Shadowhunter contacts, details of crimes committed—they would deliver her and an inventory of her sins to Valentine.

The warlock was bound to a folding chair in the cheap flat they were using as a home base.

The warlock was unconscious, blood trickling from the shallow wound on her forehead.

This was how Robert and Stephen referred to her, not by name but as the warlock, as if she were more thing than person.

Valentine had wanted them to conduct this investigation without alerting the warlock to their presence. It was only midnight on their first day in Paris, and they’d already screwed everything up. “If we bring him some answers, he can’t be too mad,” Stephen said. It sounded more like wish than prediction.

Stephen had stopped commenting on the gamine beauty of Céline’s legs and the addictive qualities of her porcelain skin. He claimed not to remember the effects of the warlock’s potion, but his glance strayed to Céline every time he thought she wasn’t looking. She couldn’t help wondering.

What if he did remember?

What if, having finally touched her, held her, kissed her, he’d discovered a new desire in himself?

He was still married to Amatis, of course; even if he desired Céline—maybe even, a little bit, loved Céline—there was nothing to be done about it.

But what if?

“Is anyone else hungry?” Céline said.

“Am I ever not hungry?” Stephen said. He slapped the warlock sharply. She stirred but did not wake.

Céline backed toward the door. “Why don’t I go find us something to eat, while you’re . . . taking care of this?”

Robert yanked the warlock’s hair back, hard. She yelped, and her eyes flew open. “Shouldn’t take long.”

“Great.” Céline hoped they couldn’t tell how desperate she was to get out of the apartment. She didn’t have the stomach for this kind of thing, but she couldn’t have them report that back to Valentine. She’d worked too hard to gain his respect.

“Hey, you’re limping,” Stephen said. “You need another iratze?”

He was worried about her. She told herself not to read anything into it. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore,” she lied. “I’m fine.”

She’d applied the healing rune halfheartedly, and it had not completely closed her wound. She preferred, sometimes, to feel the pain.

When she was a child, her parents had often refused her iratzes after training sessions, especially when her injuries were caused by her own mistakes. Let the pain remind you to do better next time, they told her. All these years later, she was still making so many mistakes.

Céline was halfway down the precarious staircase when she realized she’d forgotten her wallet. She tromped painfully back up, then hesitated outside the door, stopped by the sound of her name.

“Me and Céline?” she heard Stephen say.

Feeling slightly ridiculous, Céline withdrew her stele and drew a careful rune on the door. Their amplified voices came through loud and clear.

Stephen laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It sounded like a pretty good kiss . . .”

“I was under the influence!”

“Still. She’s pretty, don’t you think?”

There was an excruciating pause. “I don’t know, I never really thought about it.”

“You do realize that marriage doesn’t mean you’re never allowed to look at another woman, right?”

“It’s not that,” Stephen said. “It’s . . .”

“The way she follows you around like a drooling puppy?”

“That doesn’t help,” Stephen acknowledged. “She’s just such a child. Like, no matter how old she gets, she’s always going to need someone else telling her what to do.”

“I’ll give you that,” Robert said. “But Valentine seems convinced there’s something more to her.”

“Nobody’s right all the time,” Stephen said, and now they were both laughing. “Not even him.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that!”

Céline didn’t realize she was in motion until she felt the rain on her face. She collapsed against the cool stone of the building façade, wishing she could melt into it. To turn herself to stone; to shut down her nerves, her senses, her heart; to feel nothing . . . if only.

Their laughter echoed in her ears.

She was a joke.

She was pathetic.

She was someone Stephen had never thought about, never cared about, never wanted. Would never want, under any circumstances.

She was a pathetic creature. A child. A mistake.

The sidewalks were empty. The streets shimmered with rain. The searchlight beacon atop the Eiffel Tower had gone to sleep, along with the rest of the city. Céline felt utterly alone. Her leg throbbed. Her tears would not stop. Her heart screamed. She had nowhere to go, but could not go back upstairs, back to that room, to that laughter. She set off blindly into the Paris night.

Céline was at home in the dark, slumbering streets. She wandered for hours. Through the Marais and past the hulking Pompidou, crossing from the Right Bank to the Left and back again. She visited with the gargoyles of Notre Dame, those hideous stone demons clinging to gothic spires, awaiting their chance to devour the faithful. It seemed unfair that the city was so full of stone creatures who could feel nothing, and here she was, feeling so unbearably much.

She was in the Tuileries—more bloody ghosts, more creatures carved of stone—when she spotted the trail of ichor. She was still a Shadowhunter, and she was a Shadowhunter in desperate need of distraction, so she followed it. She caught up with the Shax demon in the Opera district, but stayed in the shadows, wanting to see what it was up to. Shax demons were trackers, used to hunt people who didn’t want to be found. And this demon was definitely tracking something.

Céline tracked it, in turn.

She tracked it through the slumbering courtyards of the Louvre. It was oozing ichor from a wound, but it wasn’t moving like a creature slinking off to nurse its wounds. Its giant pincers skittered at the cobblestones as it hesitated at corners, deciding which way to turn. This was a predator, tracking its prey.

The demon paused in the archway of the Louvre, at the foot of the Pont des Arts. The small pedestrian bridge stretched across the Seine, its railings crowded with lovers’ locks. It was said that if a couple attached a lock to the Pont des Arts, their love would last forever. The bridge was almost deserted at this hour, except for one young couple, locked in an embrace. Completely oblivious to the Shax demon slithering out of the shadows, pincers clicking together in eager anticipation.

Céline always carried a misericorde blade. Its narrow point was exactly what she needed to penetrate the insectoid demon’s carapace.

She hoped.

“Gadreel,” Céline whispered, naming a seraph blade. She crept behind the Shax demon, as steady and silent as it was. She too could be a predator. In one smooth, sure motion, she stabbed the misericorde straight through the carapace, then slid the seraph blade into the wound she’d opened.

The demon dissolved.

It had all happened so swiftly, so quietly, that the couple on the bridge didn’t even break from their embrace. They were too intent on each other to realize how close they’d come to being a demon’s late-night snack. Céline lingered, trying to imagine it: standing on the bridge with someone who loved her, a man gazing so intently into her eyes that he wouldn’t have noticed the world ending.

But Céline’s imagination gave out. Reality had caged her in. As long as she thought Stephen hadn’t noticed her, she could fantasize about what might happen if he ever did.

Now she knew. She could not un-know.

Céline wiped and sheathed her blade, then crept closer to the couple, close enough to hear what they were saying. She was glamoured, after all, so there was no danger in doing a little eavesdropping. What did a man say to the woman he loved, when he thought no one else could hear? She might never find out, if she waited for someone to say them to her.

“I hate to say I told you so,” the woman said, “but . . .”

“Who knew he’d be so willing to trust a warlock?”

“Who knew anyone would believe you were the long-lost descendant of some noble Shadowhunter line?” she said, then laughed. “Oh wait, I knew. Admit it, deep down, you knew it would work. You just didn’t want it to.”

“Of course I didn’t want it to.” He touched her cheek, impossibly gently. “I hate this. I hate leaving you here.”

“It’s not for long. And it’s for the best, Jack, I promise.”

“You’ll come find me in LA as soon as it’s taken care of? You swear?”

“In the Shadow Market. At our old place. I swear. As soon as I can be sure the trail’s gone cold.” She kissed him, long and hard. When she pressed her hand to his cheek, Céline spotted the glint of a wedding band.

“Rosemary—”

“I don’t want you anywhere near these people. It’s not safe.”

“But it’s safe for you?”

“You know I’m right,” she said.

The man hung his head and tucked his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. It looked expensive, except for the giant gaping hole torn through the left side. “Yeah.”

“You ready?”

He nodded, and she pulled a small bottle from her bag. “This better work the way it’s supposed to.” She handed it to her husband, who uncorked it, swallowed its contents, and tossed it into the river.

A moment later, he clutched his hands to his face and began to scream.

Céline panicked. It wasn’t her place to interfere, but she couldn’t just stand here and watch as this woman murdered her—

“Jack, Jack, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

She clung to him as man moaned and shuddered, and, finally, slumped quietly into her arms. “I think it worked,” he said.

When they backed away from each other, Céline gasped. Even in the dim light of the streetlights, she could see that his face had transformed. He had been a blond with sparkling green eyes and sharp, chiseled features, around the age of Stephen and nearly as handsome. Now he looked ten years older, his face carved with worry lines, his hair mud colored, his smile crooked.

“Hideous,” the woman named Rosemary said approvingly. Then she kissed him again, just as desperately as before, as if nothing had changed. “Now, go.”

“You sure?”

“As sure as I am that I love you.”

The man fled into the night, his coat melting into the darkness.

“And ditch the trench!” Rosemary called after him. “It’s too obvious!”

“Never!” he shouted back, and then he was gone.

Rosemary sagged against the bridge and buried her face in her hands. So she didn’t see the gargoyle behind her blink its eyes and swivel its stone snout in her direction.

Céline suddenly remembered: the Pont des Arts had no gargoyles. This was a flesh and blood Achaieral demon, and it looked hungry.

With a furious roar, the monstrous shadow peeled itself off the bridge and unfolded a set of huge, batlike wings that blotted out the night. It opened its jaw wide and bared razorlike teeth, then lunged straight for Rosemary’s throat. With shocking speed, Rosemary hefted a sword and slashed. The demon screeched in pain, raking its talons against the metal blade with enough force to knock it from the woman’s hands. Rosemary stumbled to the ground, and the demon seized its moment. It leapt onto her chest, immobilizing her beneath its massive wings, and hissed. Teeth neared flesh.

“Sariel,” Céline whispered, and stabbed her seraph blade through the demon’s neck. It yowled with pain and whirled toward her, its innards bursting through its hide even as it tried, in its last remaining moments, to attack.

Rosemary heaved her sword and sliced off the creature’s head, seconds before head and torso exploded into a cloud of dust. Satisfied, she collapsed backward, the wound in her shoulder bleeding freely.

Céline could tell how much it hurt—and how determined the woman was to reveal no pain. She knelt by her side. Rosemary flinched away. “Let me see—I can help.”

“I would never ask for help from a Shadowhunter,” the woman said bitterly.

“You didn’t exactly ask. And you’re welcome.”

The woman sighed, then examined her bloody wound. She touched it gingerly, winced. “As long as you’re here, you want to give me an iratze?”

It was obvious the woman was no mundane. Even a mundane with the Sight couldn’t have fought the way she did. But that didn’t mean she could withstand an iratze. No one but a Shadowhunter could.

“Look, I don’t really have the time to explain it, and I can’t exactly go to the hospital and tell them I got gnawed on by a demon, can I?”

“If you know about iratzes, you know that only a Shadowhunter can bear a rune,” Céline said.

“I know.” Rosemary met her gaze steadily.

She didn’t bear the Voyance rune. But the way she had moved, the way she had fought . . .

“Have you borne a rune before?” she asked hesitantly.

Rosemary smirked. “What do you think?”

“Who are you?”

“No one you need worry about. You going to help, or not?”

Céline withdrew her stele. Applying a rune to anyone who wasn’t a Shadowhunter meant probable death, certain agony. She took a deep breath, then carefully applied stele to skin.

Rosemary let out a relieved sigh.

“Are you going to tell me who sent a Shax demon after you?” Céline said. “And whether it was the same person who made sure an Achaieral demon was here to finish the job?”

“No. You going to tell me why you’re wandering around in the middle of the night looking like someone just drowned your pet rock in the Seine?”

“No.”

“Okay then. And, thank you.”

“That guy who was here with you before . . .”

“You mean, the one you didn’t see and won’t say anything about, ever, if you know what’s good for you?”

“You love him, and he loves you, right?” Céline asked.

“I guess he must, because there are some dangerous people out there looking for me,” Rosemary said. “And he’s done his best to make sure they think they’re looking for him instead.”

“I don’t understand.”

“And you don’t have to. But, yeah. He loves me. I love him. Why?”

“I just . . .” She wanted to ask what that was like, how it felt. She wanted, also, to extend the conversation. She was afraid to be alone again, stranded on this bridge between the endless black of river and sky. “I just want to make sure you have someone to take care of you.”

“We take care of each other. That’s how it works. Speaking of which—” She gave Céline an appraising look. “I’m in your debt now, for helping me out with the demon. And for keeping my secret.”

“I didn’t say I would—”

“You will. And I don’t believe in debts, so let me do you a favor.”

“I don’t need anything,” Céline said, meaning, I don’t need anything anyone can give me.

“I keep my eyes open, and I see what’s happening in the Shadowhunter world. You need more than you think you do. Most of all, you need to stay away from Valentine Morgenstern.”

Céline stiffened. “What do you know about Valentine?”

“I know that you’re just his type, young and impressionable, and I know that he can’t be trusted. I pay attention. You should too. He’s not telling you everything. I know that.” She looked over Céline’s shoulder, and her eyes widened. “Someone’s coming. You should get out of here.”

Céline turned around. A Silent Brother was gliding along the left bank, nearing he edge of the bridge. There was no way of knowing if it was the same one she’d met in the Shadow Market, but she couldn’t risk running into him again. Not after what she’d told him. It was too humiliating.

“Remember,” Rosemary said. “Valentine is not to be trusted.”

“And why should I trust you?”

“No reason at all,” Rosemary said. Without another word, she strode down the bridge toward the Silent Brother.

The sky was pinking. The endless night had finally given way to dawn.

I had expected to find your husband on this bridge. But even as he formed the words, Brother Zachariah sensed their untruth.

He had trusted a man he knew could not be trusted. He had let his sympathies for the Herondale line, his desire to believe there remained some bond between the Carstairs and the Herondales—even though this man was barely a Herondale and Zachariah was barely a Carstairs—cloud his judgment. And now it was Jack Crow who might bear the consequences.

“He’s not coming. And you’re never going to see him again, Shadowhunter, so I suggest you not bother to look.”

I understand that the Shadowhunters have given your family every reason not to trust us, but—

“Don’t take it personally, I don’t trust anyone,” she said. “It’s how I’ve managed to stay alive.”

She was stubborn and rude, and Brother Zachariah couldn’t help but like her.

“I mean, if I was going to trust someone, it wouldn’t be a cult of violent fundamentalists who get a kick out of executing their own . . . but like I said, I don’t trust anyone.”

Except Jack Crow.

“That’s not his name anymore.”

Whatever name he chooses, he will always be a Herondale.

She laughed, and when she did, her face took on a strangely familiar cast. Familiar in the way that Jack Crow’s had never been. “You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do, Shadowhunter.”

Brother Zachariah reached into his robe and pulled out the heron necklace he’d bought from the Shadow Market. The necklace, he remembered, that Crow had sold without his wife’s permission or knowledge. As a man might do if it were not truly his to sell. The pendant glittered in the dawn light. Zachariah marked her surprise, and offered the chain.

She opened her palm and allowed him to place the pendant gently in her possession. Something deep in her seemed to settle as her hand wrapped around the heron charm—as if she had lost some essential piece of her soul, and now it was returned to her.

“A pigeon?” She raised her eyebrows.

A heron. Perhaps you recognize it?

“Why would I?”

Because I purchased it from your husband.

Her lips were pressed together in a thin, tight line. Her hand had formed a fist around the chain. It was clear the child at the booth had spoken the truth: she didn’t know the pendant had been for sale.

“Then why give it to me?”

She could pretend a lack of interest, but Zachariah wondered what she would say if he asked for it back. He suspected he would have a fight on his hands.

Because I have a feeling it belongs to you—and to your family.

She stiffened, and Brother Zachariah marked the minute twitch of her hand, as if instinctively reaching for a weapon. She had sharp instincts, but also self-control—and arrogance, grace, and loyalty, and the capacity for great love, and a laugh that could light up the sky.

He had come to Paris looking for the lost Herondale.

And he had found her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You are the Herondale. Not your husband. You. The lost heir to a noble line of warriors.

“I’m nobody,” she snapped. “Nobody of interest to you, at least.”

I could reach into your mind and confirm the truth.

She flinched. Zachariah didn’t have to read her mind to understand her panic, or her welling self-doubt as she scrambled to figure out how he had seen through the ruse.

But I would not trespass on your secrets. I want only to help you.

“My parents told me everything I need to know about the Shadowhunters,” she said, and Brother Zachariah understood this was as close to an admission as he was going to get. “Your precious little Clave. Your Law.” She spit out that last word like it was poison.

I am not here as a representative of the Clave. They have no idea I’ve come to you—or even that you exist. I have my own reasons for finding you, for wanting to protect you.

“And they are?”

I would not trespass on your secrets, and I would ask that you not trespass on mine. Know only that I owe a great debt to your family. The bonds holding me to the Herondales run deeper than blood.

“Well, that’s nice of you and all, but no one asked you to pay any debts,” Rosemary said. “Jack and I are doing just fine, taking care of each other, and that’s what we’ll keep doing.”

It was clever of you to make it seem as if your husband was the one I sought, but—

“It was clever of Jack. People underestimate him. And they pay for it.”

—but, if I could penetrate your ruse, others who seek you may as well. And they are more dangerous than you know.

“These ‘others’ you talk about butchered my parents.” Rosemary’s face betrayed no expression. “Jack and I have been on the run for years. Trust me, I know exactly how dangerous this is. And I know exactly how dangerous it is to trust a stranger, even a stranger with psychic ninja powers and a deeply weird fashion sense.”

One of the things Brother Zachariah had learned in the Silent Brotherhood was the power of acceptance. Sometimes it was stronger to recognize an unwinnable fight and accept defeat—the better to begin laying groundwork for the next battle.

Though this was not a battle, he reminded himself. You could not war for a person’s trust; you could only earn it.

Your heron necklace now has an enchantment on it. If you encounter trouble you cannot face on your own, you need only summon me, and I will come.

“If you think you can track us through this thing—”

Your husband suggested that the only way to earn trust is by offering it. I will not try to find you if you prefer not to be found. But with this pendant, you can always find me. I trust you will summon me for help, if and when you need. Please trust that I will always answer.

“And who are you, exactly?”

You may call me Brother Zachariah.

“I could, but if I end up in this hypothetical situation where I need my life saved by some bloodthirsty monk, I’d rather know his actual name.”

I was once . . . It had been so long. He almost didn’t feel entitled to the name. But there was a deep, nearly human pleasure in allowing himself to claim it. I was once known as James Carstairs. Jem.

“So who will you summon when you encounter trouble you can’t face on your own, Jem?” She fastened the pendant around her neck, and Zachariah felt a sliver of relief. At least he’d accomplished that much.

I don’t anticipate that.

“Then you’re not paying attention.”

She touched him on the shoulder then, unexpectedly, and with unexpected gentleness.

“Thank you for trying,” she said. “It’s a start.”

Then he was watching her walk away.

Brother Zachariah watched the water stream beneath the bridge. He thought about that other bridge, in another city, where once a year he returned to remember the man he’d once been and the dreams that man had once had.

At the far end of the Pont des Arts, a young street musician opened a violin case and raised the instrument to his chin. For a moment, Zachariah thought he was imagining it—that he had conjured up a fantasy of his former self. But as he drew closer—because he could not stay away—he realized the musician was a girl. She was young, no more than fourteen or fifteen, her hair swept up beneath a newsboy cap, a neat, old-fashioned bowtie at the collar of her white blouse.

She bowed the strings and began to play a haunting melody. Brother Zachariah recognized it: a Bartók violin concerto that had been written well after Jem Carstairs had put down his violin.

Silent Brothers played no music. They didn’t listen to music either, not in the ordinary way. But even with their senses sealed off to mortal pleasures, they still heard.

Jem heard.

He was glamoured; the musician must have assumed she was alone. There was no audience for her music, no possibility of payment. She wasn’t playing for spare change, but for her own pleasure. She faced the water, the sky. This was a song to welcome the sun.

Distantly, he remembered the soft pressure of the chinrest. He remembered his fingertips capering across the strings. He remembered the dance of the bow.

He remembered how, sometimes, it had felt like the music was playing him.

There was no music in the Silent City; there was no sun, no dawn. There was only dark. There was only quiet.

Paris was a city that luxuriated in the senses—food, wine, art, romance. Everywhere was a reminder of what he’d lost, the pleasures of a world no longer his. He had learned to live with the loss. It was harder, when he immersed himself in the world like this, but it was bearable.

This was something else, though.

The nothing he felt, as he listened to the melody, watched the bow waltz up and down the strings—the great hollow it opened inside him, echoing only with the past? That made him feel utterly, dismally inhuman.

The longing he felt, to truly hear, to want, to feel? That made him feel almost alive.

Come home, the Brothers whispered in his mind. It is time.

Over the years, as he’d gained more control, Brother Zachariah had learned how to isolate himself from the voices of his Brothers when need be. It was a strange thing, the Brotherhood. Most assumed it was a lonely, solitary life—and it was, indeed, solitary. But he was never truly alone. The Brotherhood was always there, on the edge of his awareness, watching, waiting. Brother Zachariah needed only extend a hand, and the Brotherhood would reclaim him.

Soon, he promised them. But not yet. I have more business here.

He was more Silent Brother than not. But he was still less Silent Brother than the others. It was a strange, liminal space, one that allowed him a modicum of privacy—and a desire for it that his Brothers had long since abandoned. Zachariah shut himself off from them for the moment. He felt a deep regret over his failure here, but it was good, it was human, to feel regret, and he wanted to savor it, all on his own.

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 chevre and a small pot of honey, 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 cafes, their preferred picnic spots, the best crêpe 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 danger 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.

“Did she remind you of anyone?” Tessa teased.

Her love seemed to cause her great pain. I would have liked to help her.

It was one of the things she loved about him, his abiding desire to help anyone in need. This was something the Silent Brotherhood could not strip away.

“I used to come to this bridge all the time, you know, when I lived in Paris. After Will.”

It is very peaceful here. And very beautiful.

She wanted to tell him that wasn’t it. She hadn’t come for the peace or the beauty—she’d come because this bridge reminded her of the Blackfriars Bridge, the bridge that belonged to her and Jem. She’d come because standing here, suspended between land and water, her hands tight on the iron railing, her face raised to the sky, reminded her of Jem. The bridge reminded her that there was still someone in the world that she loved. That even if half of her heart was gone forever, the other half was still here. Unreachable, maybe, but here.

She wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair. It would be asking something of Jem that he couldn’t deliver, and the world had already asked far too much of him.

“He would have hated it, the idea of a Herondale out there somewhere who thinks she can’t trust the Shadowhunters. Who thinks we’re the villains.”

He might well have understood.

It was true. Will himself had been raised to distrust the Shadowhunters. He knew, better than most, how harshly the Clave treated those who turned their backs on it. He would have been enraged to learn about this lost branch of his family, at the thought of the Clave attempting to execute a mother and child for a father’s sins. Tessa feared for the safety of this lost Herondale, but just as much, she longed to persuade her that some Shadowhunters could be trusted. She wanted to make this young woman understand that they weren’t all hard and unfeeling: that some of them were like Will.

“I get so angry at them sometimes, the Shadowhunters who came before us, the mistakes they made. Think how many lives have been ruined by the choices of an earlier generation.” She was thinking of Tobias Herondale, but also Axel Mortmain, whose parents had been murdered in front of him, and Aloysius Starkweather, who’d paid for that sin with his granddaughter’s life. She was thinking, even, of her own brother, whose mother had refused to claim him as her own. Who might have found his way to being a better man had he been better loved.

It would be unjust to blame the past for choices made in the present. Nor can we justify present choices by invoking the sins of the past. You and I know that, better than most.

Jem, too, had seen his parents murdered in front of him. Jem had endured a life of pain, but he’d never let himself be warped by it—never turned to revenge or vindictiveness. And Tessa had been conceived as a demonic tool, literally. She could have chosen to accept this fate; she could have chosen to flee the Shadow World altogether, return to the mundane life she’d once known and pretend she did not see the darkness. Or she could have claimed that darkness as her own.

She’d chosen a different path. They both had.

We always have a choice, Jem said, and for once, the voice in her mind sounded like him, warm and close. It’s not always the choice we would want, but it’s a choice nonetheless. The past happens to us. But we choose our future. We can only hope that our lost Herondale ultimately chooses to save herself.

“That’s the best hope for any of us, I suppose.”

Jem slid his hand across the railing and rested it atop hers. It was, as she knew it would be, cold. Inhuman.

But it was also Jem: flesh and blood, undeniably alive. And where there was life, there was hope. Maybe not now, not yet, but someday, they could still have their future. She chose to believe it.

The Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés was founded in 558 AD. The original abbey was built on the ruins of an ancient Roman temple, then destroyed two centuries later in a Norman siege. Rebuilt in the tenth century AD, the church has now endured, in one form or another, for a millennium. The Merovingian kings are buried in its tombs, as is the torn-out heart of John II Casimir Vasa and the headless body of René Descartes.

Most mornings the abbey saw a steady trickle of tourists and observant locals wandering through its apse, lighting candles, bowing heads, whispering prayers to whoever might be listening. But this particular drizzly August morning, a sign on the door indicated the church was closed to the public. Inside, the Paris Conclave had assembled. Shadowhunters from all across France listened solemnly to charges lodged against two of their own.

Jules and Lisette Montclaire stood silently, heads bowed, as Robert Lightwood and Stephen Herondale testified to their crimes.

Their daughter, Céline Montclaire, was not called upon to speak. She had, of course, not been present for the warlock’s revelation of her parents’ crimes.

The scene played out as if Valentine had scripted it himself, and like everyone else present, Céline did exactly as Valentine intended: nothing.

Inside, she was at war with herself. Furious at Valentine for making her complicit in her parents’ destruction; furious with herself for sitting silently as their fates were sealed; more furious at her own instinct for mercy. After all, her parents had never shown any to her. Her parents had done their best to teach her that mercy was weakness, and cruelty was strength. So she steeled herself to be strong. Told herself this wasn’t personal; this was about protecting the Circle. If Valentine believed this was the righteous way forward, then this was the only way forward.

She watched her parents quaver with fear under the steely eye of the Inquisitor, and she remembered the two of them backing away from her, ignoring her cries, closing her into darkness—and she said nothing. She sat very still, head lowered, and endured. They had taught her that too.

The Shadowhunters of France all knew Céline, or thought they did: that sweet and obedient daughter of the Provençal countryside. They knew how devoted she was to her parents. Such a dutiful daughter. She would, of course, inherit their estate.

Céline bore the weight of the stares with dignity. She did not acknowledge the pitying looks. She kept her eyes on the floor when the judgment was issued and so did not see the horror on her parents’ faces. She did not watch them placed in the custody of the Silent Brothers, to be transported to the Silent City. She did not expect them to survive long enough to face the Mortal Sword.

She did not speak to Robert or Stephen, and let them believe this was because they had just consigned her parents to death.

Valentine caught up with Céline just outside the church. He offered her a nutella crêpe. “From the stand across from Les Deux Magots,” he said. “Your favorite, right?”

She shrugged, but took what he had to offer. The first bite—warm chocolate hazelnut, sweet pastry—was as perfect as ever, and made her feel like a child again.

Sometimes it was difficult to believe she had ever been young.

“You could have told me,” she said.

“And ruin the surprise?”

“Those are my parents.”

“Indeed.”

“And you’ve killed them.”

“They’re still alive, last I checked,” Valentine said. “They could probably stay that way, with a word from you. But I didn’t hear it.”

“You took a pretty big risk, not telling me the whole story. Expecting me to let you . . . to let them go.”

“Did I?” he said. “Or did I simply know you well enough to know exactly what you would choose? To know I was doing you a favor.”

He met her eyes. She could not look away. For the first time, she didn’t want to.

“You don’t have to admit it, Céline. Just know that I know. You’re not alone in that.”

He saw her; he understood. It was as if a muscle she’d been clenching her entire life finally released.

“A deal’s a deal, though,” he said. “Even if you got more than you bargained for. Stephen is all yours—assuming that’s still what you want?”

“How exactly would you make that happen?” she asked, clear now on exactly what Valentine was capable of. “You wouldn’t . . . you wouldn’t hurt him, would you?”

Valentine looked disappointed in her. “Stephen is my closest friend, my most trusted lieutenant. The fact that you could even ask that makes me question your loyalty, Céline. Do you want me questioning your loyalty?”

She shook her head.

Then that warm, buttery smile broke over his face again. She couldn’t tell whether this was the real Valentine breaking through, or the mask dropping back over his face. “On the other hand, it would be foolish of you not to ask. And as we’ve discussed, there’s nothing foolish in you. No matter what people might think. So, your answer: no. I swear to you, on the Angel, I will cause Stephen no harm in the enactment of this agreement.”

“And no threat of harm?”

“Do you think so little of yourself, that you assume a man would need to be threatened with harm before he could love you?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to: he could surely read it all over her face.

“Stephen is with the wrong woman,” Valentine told her, almost gently. “Deep down, he knows that. I’ll simply make this as clear to him as it is to us, and the rest will be as easy as falling off a cliff. You need only relax and let gravity do its work. Don’t be afraid to reach for the things you really want, Céline. It’s beneath you.”

What she really wanted . . .

It wasn’t too late to speak up, to save her parents.

Or she could keep her word, and keep his secret. She could let her parents pay for what they’d done to her. For the lattice of scars on her skin and her heart. For the ice in her blood. If she was the kind of daughter who could consign her parents to death, then they had no one to blame but themselves.

But that didn’t mean she had to accept the entire bargain. Even if she stayed silent, she could walk away: away from Valentine, now that she knew what he was capable of. Away from Stephen, now that she knew what he thought of her. She could close the door on the past, start again. She could choose a life without pain, without suffering or fear.

But who would she be, without pain?

What was strength, if not the endurance of suffering?

There is nothing more painful than love denied, the strange Silent Brother had told her. A love that cannot be requited. I can think of nothing more painful than that.

If Valentine said he could give her Stephen Herondale, he meant it. Céline did not doubt this. He could do anything, and that included finding a way to force Stephen Herondale into her life and her arms. But even Valentine could not make Stephen love her.

To have Stephen would mean not having him—it would mean knowing in every moment, every embrace, that he wanted someone else. It would mean a lifetime of longing for the one thing she could not have. The Silent Brother was wise, and spoke the truth. There could be no greater pain than that.

“Take your time,” Valentine said. “It’s a big choice.”

“I don’t need time,” she told Valentine. “I want it. I want Stephen.”

It didn’t feel like choosing, because it was the only choice she had.

About the Authors

Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood traveling the world with her family. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old. Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on the eponymous Jane Austen short story (and from which she later took her current pen name).

After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favorite city.

In 2007, the first book in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Bones, introduced the world to Shadowhunters. The Mortal Instruments concluded in 2014, and includes City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, and City of Heavenly Fire. She also created a prequel series, inspired by A Tale of Two Cities and set in Victorian London. This series, The Infernal Devices, follows bookworm Tessa Gray as she discovers the London Institute in Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, and Clockwork Princess.

The sequel series to The Mortal Instruments, The Dark Artifices, where the Shadowhunters take on Los Angeles, began with Lady Midnight, continues with Lord of Shadows and will conclude with Queen of Air and Darkness.

Other books in the Shadowhunters series include The Bane Chronicles, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, and The Shadowhunter’s Codex.

Her books have more than 36 million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Visit her at CassandraClare.com.

Robin Wasserman is a graduate of Harvard University and the author of several successful novels for young adults including the Seven Deadly Sins series, Hacking Harvard, the Skinned trilogy, and The Book of Blood and Shadow, as well as Girls on Fire, her first novel for adults. A recent recipient of a MacDowell fellowship, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Table of Contents

- Ghosts of the Shadow Market
- The Shadowhunter Chronicles
- The Wicked Ones
- About the Authors