Alicante was a roaring mass of Shadowhunters and Downworlders. The stark black clothing of the Shadowhunters floated amongst Angel Square like a black sea, waves of people roiling and slapping against the walls in a hurry to get to the Accords Hall. Weaving about the Shadowhunters, Clary noticed, were Downworlders; werewolves dressed in their casual jeans and flannel shirts, slipping through the throng like water; warlocks, their cat-like eyes scanning the crowds; and faeries, their delicate, lithe transitions like that of a ballerina.
The throng parted when they sought Clary, hesitating at the edge with her hands knit tightly together. She stared back, listening to the hushed whispers floating amongst them - "Valentine's daughter" "Bad blood" "Traitor" "Jonathan's little sister." But Clary couldn't help but cling on to the words "Hero" "Our saviour" "Angel".
She stood, hovering on the sidewalk, her eyes on Magnus as the black spikes of his hair bobbed above the crowd and glistened in the afternoon sunlight. He found his way to the path they'd made down the center of Angel Square and sauntered toward her.
"Clary," he greeted when he reached her. His voice was sympathetic, as was his expression. "The hearing has already started. You can't go in there when the Clave is in session."
"He's my brother, Magnus. My brother. I have more right than anyone else to watch his fate decided." Although she already knew what it would be. They were going to kill him. The Clave were going to kill her brother, the only blood-related family she had left. She didn't know whether to be happy or upset about it. "Besides, Jace is in there. And Simon. I need to be there, Magnus. Surely you must understand that."
He looked at her with a sort of admiration, like the way a protective elder brother would look when they looked at their sisters. Except for Sebastian, Clary thought. He looked at her with only hunger in his hollow eyes, empty of feeling and love.
Her throat burned with tears as she looked up at him, expectantly.
Finally, he inclined his head in a single, serious nod. Thank God, she thought with relief. "Fine," he agreed. And then, with amusement: "I really wished you wouldn't look at me like that."
She blinked. "Like what?"
"Like a bird waiting on its mother to bring it a worm. All wide eyes and open mouths."
"But I don't look like-"
Magnus sighed. "Yes, you do. And it isn't open for debate. Come on," he added, placing his hand on the small of her back, "before it's too late."
As soon as she stepped through the doors, silence greeted her. The black sea of Shadowhunters of which stood before her was silent, their limbs frozen, most of them being her close friends and family, or just people she knew. She saw Aline stood at the far right, poised at the front of the crowd as if she were about to pounce at any given moment. Jace, seated beside Alec at one of the wooden benches lining the Hall. His hands were clenched into fists. Alec looked murderous, his blue eyes luminous with tears of rage, seeking justice for Max's death. Beside him, perched on the arm of the bench, her electrum whip snaked around her wrist like a gold-silver bracelet, was Isabelle, and beside her, Mayrse.
So many, Clary thought with dread, a feeling that surprised her. So many who'd give anything to watch her brother burn and laugh as he did so. She wondered if she were the only one who wanted to save him. After all, he was her brother. He'd saved her life on more than one occasion.
Her heart thumped. She wondered if maybe it was too late. If Sebastian had already been sentenced to death.
But then the crowd shuffled, and she gasped.
She felt Magnus's hands clamp around her wrists and pin them to her sides as she launched forward.
"Clary."
Jace was beside her. He shot Magnus a reproachful look, who released her and stalked over toward Alec.
Jace slung an arm about her waist and pulled her against him, the warmth of the heavenly fire in which burned within him seeping through the material of his gear and pulsing through her skin. She suddenly felt drained, and if it weren't for Jace's arm around her, she was sure she would have fainted.
"You shouldn't be here," he breathed into her ear. "You shouldn't have to see this."
But Clary wasn't listening; her eyes were on Sebastian.
Placed atop a raised platform at the front of the Hall was a steel chair, its legs sunk into the floor. Manacles were embedded into the tiles. Slumped forward in the chair, a thick stream of blood oozing from his mouth, was Sebastian.
He'd been beaten to a pulp. His cheekbones were blotched with black and yellow bruises, his lower lip split down the center, dripping blood down and over his chin. His hair, usually snow-white, was matted with dried blood. Shackles were bound around his wrists and ankles, securing him to the chair.
"Thank you all," boomed a voice, "for gathering here today on this... delightful event."
Robert Lightwood.
He stood at the dais, cloaked in a black robe. He looked down at Sebastian with loathing - and she sagged back in Jace's arms. There was no way Robert was going to spare Sebastian. He was going to die. He was going to kill him. This is it.
"As you all know, a traitor lies amongst us," said Robert. "A traitor who is not fully Shadowhunter, and not fully Downworlder." His grave voice did not waver as it carried across the gaping Shadowhunters with finality. "Over the past several months, our world has been threatened to destruction. A leader, whom we all know went by the name Valentine Morgenstern, intended to banish the race of Shadowhunters from this world and replace them with a race of his own, but he failed."
Clary thought she saw Sebastian's lips twitch, but when she turned, she saw that his lips were pressed into a bloodless line. Jace's grip tightened around her as if he could read her thoughts, as if he knew she would surge forward and unbind him from the shackles at any given moment. She gnarled on her lower lip, tasting blood.
"In his stead," Robert continued, "he left a replicate of himself to carry out his intentions. His own son." Drawing his sword, he stepped down from the dais and strode toward the steel chair. Bright sunlight stabbed across the blade, sending sparkles of silver dancing across the Hall, like sunlight shimmering across the water of a lake. Robert raised his blade, the jagged point pressed against Sebastian's chin, forcing the boy to meet his eyes.
Sebastian raised his head slowly, deliberately, and Clary couldn't help but wonder if his measured movements was purposely for Robert's sake. She couldn't speak for Robert, but she knew how easily irritated Inquisitors could get. The boy's black eyes were empty, almost as if he knew this was it for him and there was no going back - at if he'd... given up.
"Confirm your name." Robert's voice was stern, though his sword-hand quivered slightly. "You are Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern, son of Valentine Morgenstern, and brother of Clarrissa Morgenstern, correct?"
Clary tensed all over, and in response, so did Jace. "You don't have to see this." His arms were secured around her waist now, restraining her like chains of iron. "You know what will happen, Clary."
"No!" Clary snapped. Several heads stood at the back row turned, but Clary hardly noticed; her eyes were on Jace now, boring into him like razor blades. "No! He's my brother, Jace. I can't just let them kill him." Her voice rose into a whine.
He stared back, and she was suddenly back at Renwick's, struggling against Jace's grasp and staring into his hollow, brainwashed eyes. He shook his head, opened his mouth-
"I am Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern." Sebastian's voice echoed across the room, as smooth as satin and edged with amusement. "Son of Valentine Morgenstern..." He paused, and his eyes sought Clary's. They stared at each other across the space that separated them, Clary pleading with her eyes. But he just looked at her as if she were nothing but a leech he'd wandered across on the ground. "Though I bear no relation to Clarrissa," he said finally, turning back to the Inquisitor. "She is no sister of mine."
His words hit her like a blow to the chest. It surprised her that, despite all he'd done - to the Lightwoods and to herself and to everyone else he'd destroyed - she still felt a twinge of sympathy for him, for the boy who had been raised by Valentine, an evil, power-driven man focused on only his goal.
She opened her mouth, but no words came. They were there, but she couldn't compete with the terrible thickness in her throat. All she could do was shrink back in Jace's arms, and stare.
The Inquisitor looked impassive, his sword-hand trembling ever so slightly. "Clarrissa's blood courses through your veins, just as yours courses through hers. There is no denying the truth." He jerked his dagger, the point digging into the boy's throat. "And I will get the truth from you."
Sebastian looked up at him with loathing, clearly oblivious to the blood trickling down his throat and soaking his shirt-front black.
The crowd had somehow inched forward, their expressions animated as if they were watching a Silent Brother doing nude cartwheels across the Hall. They looked almost... hungry. Alec and Isabelle had risen to their feet and were stood beside Magnus. Their faces looked as if they had been carved from stone.
Sunlight streamed in through the glass ceiling, slicing through her vision like lasers.
Clary moved forward slowly, dragging Jace with her.
"Did you, or did you not, create your army of Dark Shadowhunters with the intention to destroy the world?" Robert asked.
"Are you really asking me that?" said Sebastian.
Robert remained calm, though Clary could see the restraint in the crease between his dark eyebrows and the rigid line of his mouth. "Did you," he growled, "or did you not, create your army of Dark Shadowhunters with the intention to destroy the world?"
Sebastian sighed. "I did," he said, gravelly. "And if it hadn't been for my little sister"-he turned, their eyes locking-"I would have succeed. If it hadn't been for my father-"
"If it hadn't been for your father," interrupted Jace, "maybe you would have been less of an evil bastard than you are now. Who knows, maybe we could have been friends."
He was being sarcastic. Clary was sure of it, though it was hard to tell with the hardness coating his voice.
Robert barely seemed to hear him speak; his eyes were fixed on Sebastian, loathing and rage and triumph mixed in his expression.
"Jace," warned Alec, suddenly beside them. "Don't."
Robert's lips twitched. "If it hadn't been for Valentine, would you have been a different man than the monster he made out of you? I wonder."
The boy blanched at that. "You didn't know Valentine like I did. He gave the members of the Circle a choice, a choice to fight with him or against him. He gave everyone a choice. Everyone but me." The word was barely a whisper. "I never chose this. I never got a choice in the matter. Valentine forced my mother to consume Lilith's blood-"
"That is true," said Robert. "But why does the Angel's blood course through your sister's veins, and not yours?"
Sebastian clenched his jaw. Clearly he had no intention of answering.
"Tell me, boy."
"You already know why."
"It would benefit to hear it from you. It would help in your defence against your sentence."
Sebastian chuckled. "And what, exactly, would I benefit from it? A quick, painless death, at the least?" He shook his head, grinning, fresh blood trickling down his chin from his split lip. "I know you would benefit from it, Inquisitor. You'd give anything to watch me defend my name and happily kill me all the same. So, go ahead. Kill me."
Robert studied him for a moment, as if he were looking for a verification that he actually meant his words. Convinced he'd found just that, he turned, facing the crowd. "This day will be recorded in all Shadowhunter history, remembered to be the day when all those to be slain under the hand of Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern seeks justice." Turning, he raised his dagger. Sparkles danced off the silver blade, scattering across the walls, the crowd of Shadowhunters, the floor, like a thousand shards of glass raining down from the heavens. "With your death," he said, and he swung the dagger.
Time seemed to have stopped. She saw Sebastian's eyes widen, the light of the blade reflected in them, those eyes that never showed fear; she saw Robert's face, alight with excitement; Jace's arms tightening around her compulsively; and something else, something that flashed once behind her eyelids, and then was gone.
And then she had somehow tore free of Jace's grasp, and she was pushing her way through the crowd, gripping onto that flash of hope that had appeared behind her eyelids. She pushed and shoved, hearing Jace call out to her. She kicked and thrashed. She felt as if she were making her way through a maze, suffocating and trying to look for an escape.
And then she was there. She raced up the platform steps - and lunged, standing between Sebastian and Robert.
"Stop!" she screamed, and thrust her hand forward as the blade came to a stop just inches away from her face.
Robert looked at her down the length of it. "Out of the way, girl, or I will be forced to punish you along with your brother."
"You won't touch him," she spat. He blinked. "I know he's done wrong." Lowering her hand, she turned to face the crowd. They stared back, and for a moment there she was, standing atop the dais and giving her speech about Valentine. They had gazed upon her in fascination and astonishment, but this was different. Now the crowd looked impatient, as if they had heard this speech a thousand times before. Only Jace, stood at the front of the throng beside Alec and Isabelle, looked concerned and somewhat irritated. "I know he's done wrong," she repeated. "And I'm not denying that. He deserves to be sentenced to death for the lives he's took - especially Max's." Isabelle looked down, and Alec reached to squeeze her hand. "But do you honestly believe that killing him will give you piece? Because it won't. You can't change what is; you just have to learn by it, and grow from it-"
"Clary-" Sebastian started, but he seemed to choke on the words.
She looked at him, and he stared back. His eyes were huge and round, innocent, like how a child might look when it wonders what it had done that was so awfully wrong.
"Clary," he started again, "don't. There's nothing you can do-"
"How do I know that if I don't try?"
His eyes were glistening with disbelief. "Why would you even try for me? After all I've done, this is what I deserve-"
"No." Clary shook her head and moved closer to him. Her hands gripped the arms of the steel chair as she leaned forward until their breaths mingled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jace take an exaggerated step forward, but otherwise he remained put. "No. You only think this is what you deserve. You only think that because you believe it, because your part-demon, and that this is what you deserve." She thought of Jace and how he'd acted when he thought he were part-demon, how he thought he should behave and keep everyone at arms length. "But it's not, Jonathan. It's not."
He looked at her blankly, as if she were there but she wasn't. She could see herself reflected in his eyes, her expression full of affection for her brother. She seemed to have rendered him speechless.
She straightened up, and looked directly at the Inquisitor, who was watching them closely. "Please, if you'll just hear me out-"
"This... parasite," said Robert, "murdered innocent people and reveled in their blood. Jonathan Shadowhunter swore an oath to the Angel Raziel, to protect those who can't protect themselves with his life. We must abide by his promise-"
"You're not listening to me." Clary wanted to scream in his face, to make him see reason. She wanted to shake him violently, to slap him silly. She knew violence wasn't the way to go about things.
Sunlight danced across the walls as the door to the Hall swung open, and Simon walked in. His eyes scoured the crowd as if he were searching for someone, and when he spotted Clary poised between a dagger and Sebastian, he rocked back on his heels. His eyes widened.
Clary ignored him. She knew he'd never approve of this, especially after Sebastian having killed his mother, but this was her brother, and his opinion was irrelevant.
"Jonathan never chose this," she said, her eyes resting on each and every face in the crowd. She found herself avoiding Jace's penetrating gaze, and Alec's and Isabelle's and Simon's, all of whom Sebastian had destroyed. She wondered if Luke and Jocelyn would approve, but they were on their honeymoon. Fortunately. "You knew Valentine. You've all seen how manipulative he was, you all witnessed the destruction he caused. He was a power-driven man, a man who strived to be the best, to be a leader. He made each and every one of you believe a lie. Just like he made Jonathan believe that there was no such thing as love and affection." She looked down at him, and smiled. He swallowed. "Valentine forced my mother to consume the Angel's blood when I was in her womb. He did the same thing with Jace. But Jace... he was too good, too much light courses through his veins, and Valentine knew he'd never stand beside him because of it-"
"Clary." It was Jace. He was making his way up the platform steps, his eyes glistening. "That's enough."
She ignored him, her ears humming with the effort. "That's why Valentine forced my mother to consume Lilith's blood, because he knew that, in order for his air to stand beside him, he had to burn out his humanity so he didn't repel against him-"
"I said," Jace growled, "that's enough!"
Clary turned on him. "CAN YOU JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME FINISH?"
He froze with his foot raised in midair, and stepped back. The crowd looked wary, too. They glanced at each other, murmuring to themselves in low voices.
"Our father beat him." Her voice was shaking now, as were her hands. Gasps rose from the crowd. Their eyes were on Sebastian now, who flushed and stared fixedly at his feet. "I know this because... I've seen... The whip marks on his back - I've seen them."
Jace was staring at her with a sickened expression, probably wondering how she'd come across the marks on his back, or when she'd seen Sebastian without a shirt. She decided she didn't care.
"Our father beat him," she repeated. "Used him as nothing but a tool at his own advantage. Raised him to stand beside him and follow through on his intentions. Jonathan hasn't known any different. He was raised without love and affection. Everything he's done has been part because of Valentine."
She fell silent. They were all staring at her, glancing from her to Sebastian repeatedly. Beside her, Robert cleared his throat. "But that does not excuse what he has done. It changes nothing-"
She whirled. "It changes everything."
"Clary." Sebastian sounded shaken. "Don't."
"It does not change the fact that Jonathan needs to be punished for his crimes," said the Inquisitor. "He poses a great threat to us-"
"Now, maybe," said Clary. "And if you kill him, he will no longer pose a threat to you. But you want to see him suffer for the remainder of your life. And if you kill him, you won't have that satisfaction. If you kill him, I will be the one seeking justice. On you."
"I will not be belittled by a silly, little girl-"
Behind her, Sebastian growled. "Talk to my sister like that, and I'll-"
"You'll what?" asked Robert. "Kill me? That may be a little difficult-"
"There is a way." Clary's voice bounced off the walls and carried back to her. "There is a way you can seek justice. And I know how."
A symbol flashed behind the backs of her eyelids, that same symbol that had drove her forward through the crowd: a rune, as simple as a knot. The Binding rune.
These are not the first dreams I have showed you.
Magnus stepped forward then, rising up the platform steps. Alec reached for him, but he jerked away from his reaching hand. "And what, exactly, do you propose we do, Clarissa?" His yellow eyes were shining with interest, and Clary knew, in that instant, that he already knew the answer.
She grinned. "We turn him into everything he fears to become. We cure him."
"What?" Robert looked incredulous.
More gasps. More stares. More mouths dropping open.
She turned to Jace. "The heavenly fire," she said. "It can cure him. I can help him, if you help me. All I need is to tie you two together using the Binding rune I used to bind Shadowhunter to Downworlder in the Mortal War." She pleaded with her eyes. "Please! All I've ever wanted was a brother."
He stared at her. He looked murderous at first, but then his eyes softened, and he nodded. "You have a stele?"
Clary didn't answer, because in that moment, she had turned and threw her arms around Sebastian. He smelt of dust and soot and blood, and demon. She could feel the pounding of his heart through his shirt.
"Clary," he whispered into her hair. His voice shook. She pulled back and gazed into his eyes. They shone with tears, glistening like black rocks of coal. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I've done. Will you ever be able to forgive me?"
Clary reached up, caressed his cheek in her palm just as the tears fell down his face. And the boy never cried again. "It's already done."