"So where am I?"
"You are in Cantre'r Gwaelod, just as you expected" answered Sebastian.
Clary shrank back, automatically, as Sebastian stepped towards her. "What are you going to do to me?"
"Nothing." He laughed at her reaction, as his hands passed right through her. "I'm no more here in body than you are. You may not have killed me, but you did a very good job of driving me out of this dimension. For the moment, I can only come here as a projection."
"So why did you bring me here?" she asked. Part of her didn't want to know the answer, but she knew that the more information she could get, while Sebastian was willing to talk, the better.
"I am somewhat . . . limited . . . in what I can do at the moment. Strangely enough, the fae are also quite interested in taking revenge against you and Jace. But right now, they aren't willing to break the terms of the peace agreements, and attack either of you directly, either."
"Surely kidnapping me is against the terms of the agreements?"
"Oh, we didn't kidnap you. If you remember, you came quite willingly, and your body is untouched. That has always been the law – if mortals come willingly, then the fae may keep them."
"So that's your revenge – to keep me imprisoned here?"
"Not exactly." Sebastian smiled. "I imagine that given time, the Nephilim or the Silent Brothers would work out how to bring you out of your trance, and back to your body. But in my experience, both you and Jace prefer heroic action to patience. I am expecting Jace to come here, looking for you." He paused, then continued.
"When he arrives, he will be offered an exchange. Your mind returned to safe and well to your body, if he will remain freely here in Cantre'r Gwaelod and serve the Fae. Seven years is the usual term, I believe. I expect that he'll find it quite pleasant, on the whole; he's very pretty, and Faerie women appreciate good looks. Then he will be returned to the mortal world. Of course, time runs a little differently here. Around seventy years will have passed for you. You'd be . . . eighty seven? Eighty eight? If you're still alive, that is – as I understand it, Shadowhunters don't generally have long lives."
Clary tried to remain calm. "He doesn't know I'm here, though. And if you send him a message, to tell him where I am, he'll be looking for a trap."
"Oh, I should think you will have left enough clues. Why do you think we waited so long before bringing you here – you were so easy to reach, we could have brought you in that first dream, in New York. Besides, even Nephilim should be able to guess that the Fae are involved somehow. And if they don't manage to work out where you are straight away, no doubt they will confront the Seelie Queen. She will tell them the exact truth; that you heard Mark Blackthorn's voice, and that she believes you to be here, in Cantre'r Gwaelod."
He stepped back, a mocking look on his face. "You will live out your life without love, Clary; then Jace will do the same." Turning as if to walk away, he vanished.
"Brother Enoch has finished with Clary." Jem's voice called up the stairs.
Tessa stepped back from Jace, holding the door open for him. "Let's go and see what he has to say. Or at least," she added, "what he's going to think at us."
Brother Enoch looked sombre, Jace thought, though it was always hard to read the Brothers' emotions.
"I have little to add to what Magnus has already told you, I'm afraid. As he says, both her mind and her body are unharmed; she is simply in deep trance. I can find no suggestion that she has been coerced into this state, and I think we must assume that whatever has happened to her, she was a willing participant."
"But Clary wouldn't just do something like this . . ." Jace protested.
Magnus shook his head "Not intentionally. But not coerced just means she wasn't physically pushed into this state by a spell or a potion. If it is the Fae who are behind it, we know that they are incredibly good at trickery and persuasion."
"What Magnus says is true" Brother Enoch's thoughts were clear to all of them. "There is no physical coercion, but she may well have been taken by some kind of trick."
"Is there anything you can do to bring her back?" Jem asked. "If she's not been taken by force, could we reach her somehow, and persuade her to return?"
"I cannot reach her through the trance, I'm afraid. My suggestion is that Tessa takes her to the Spiral Labryinth; the warlocks there are skilled at unravelling new and unknown magics."
Tessa nodded. "I think you're right." She looked at Jace. "I would stay there with her; I worked there for many years after Will died, and I know the warlocks there well. If anyone can find out how to pick this apart, I think it is them. It would also be a very safe place for her to be if you are going to go back to Wales."
Jace didn't like the idea, but he couldn't think of a better one. He didn't want to leave her, but evidently, taking her with them wasn't really feasible, and following up the clues from Clary's sketch book seemed like the best way to discover what had happened to her.
"Are you going to go back to Wales too?" Jem asked Magnus.
"I am. You may have noticed that I make a habit of joining Herondale boys in mad rescue journeys across Wales, and I see no reason to stop now. At least this time I'll have Alexander to dilute the insanity a little."
A moment after they stepped through the Portal into the yard in front of the Institute, Gwen appeared from the front door.
"What's happening? Did the Brothers manage to find out anything about what's wrong with Clary? Has she woken up at all?"
Magnus sighed. "Is she always like this?"
Jace answered her: "We've not found out anything more, really, but she's in the Spiral Labryinth, and they're trying to see if they can get anywhere. It still seems like the best lead is to go and see this warlock from her sketch book. How far is it, Gwen – could we go this evening?"
She shrugged. "I guess. It's not that far, maybe about an hour's drive."
Magnus shook his head. "I haven't seen Iolo for a long time, but he was never the easiest of warlocks to deal with."
"Which ones are?" muttered Jace under his breath.
"Personally, I'm not that keen on floundering up a Welsh valley in the mud and the dark." continued Magnus, ignoring him. "I'd suggest we have something to eat, and go tomorrow."
He looked at Gwen. "Do they sell takeaway pizza in this benighted country?"
She giggled, and produced a pile of flyers. "Papa Johns is good, but they don't deliver this far out, so we'd have to go and get it."
Magnus waved his hand, casually. "You might. I don't. Just ring and order pizza, Nephilim child, before we all die of starvation."
"So what's he like, then?" asked Alec, as they headed out of Cardiff the next morning.
"Well, he has a terrible dress sense." answered Magnus. "And an even worse beard. That was forty years or so ago, to be fair. It's possible that his personal grooming has improved since then."
"Have you ever been to Cwm Ger?" asked Gwen. "Terrible dress sense and an even worse beard probably describes half of the people there."
"Only half?" countered Magnus. "It's obviously improved."
"Not unless all the women used to have beards too."
"Fair point." he admitted.
Jace sat in the back of the car next to Alec, fiddling with a dagger. "Do you actually have anything useful to tell us about him, Magnus? Because I thought we were going to try and find out why Clary is currently in an unreachable coma, as opposed to judging a best dressed warlock competition."
"No need for a competition" answered Magnus, ignoring Jace's tone. "I'd win, no-one else would bother taking part."
"From what I've heard," said Gwen, peaceably, "although he has a lot to do with the fae, he's still reasonably friendly to Nephilim."
She looked at a map "Hang on a sec – Magnus, we need to turn up there – I'd forgotten this last bit."
"This doesn't look like a road" Alec sounded dubious.
"Don't be fussy, there's plenty of worse tracks around here. We just carry on up here for a bit, then there's a place we can leave the car. They don't really like people parking up there, but it'll be ok for a while.
They left the car parked at the edge of a turning with a selection of old buses and vans, glamoured to blend unobtrusively into the trees and bushes around it.
"We need to walk up from here. I wouldn't worry too much about glamours for us, they're used to seeing all sorts go past, no-one'll ask any questions."
After they'd walked for a while Alec looked at Gwen curiously, and asked: "So what exactly is this place?"
"It's sort of halfway between a commune and a village, I guess. People just live here, in tipis, mostly."
"Mundanes?" asked Jace, curious despite himself.
Gwen shrugged "Some, but there's a lot with Fae blood, even if they don't know it. I guess it's why they don't really fit into the regular Mundane world. There's people like that all over Wales - you find someone living in a bender or a turf roofed roundhouse in the woods, you can put money on there being a little bit of faerie in them somewhere. Drives the mundie authorities round the bend, trying to keep them all in line and make them follow the rules."
Jace didn't ask what a bender was; he had a feeling he didn't want to know. As they walked up the increasingly soggy path he was beginning to sympathise rather more with Magnus' complaints about muddy Welsh valleys, and think more longingly of New York than he had ever imagined likely.
Finally, Gwen ducked into the woods, and took them down a miraculously dry and un-muddy path to a neat looking wooden hut with a few chickens pecking around outside.
"He's gone up in the world," said Magnus, approvingly. "Last time I was here he was living in some sort of strange round canvas affair."
"Magnus. How very . . . interesting . . . to see you here." A small figure with dark red hair - and, Jace noticed, a very long and rather strangely plaited beard – appeared from the hut. "To what do I owe this delightful surprise? It was a yurt, by the way. Very comfortable, but the canvas rotted eventually."
"Have you ever considered stone? Boringly traditional, but so very long lasting."
Jace stepped forwards, impatiently. "I don't know about you, Magnus, but I wasn't particularly wanting to discuss the merits of different building materials."
"And you are?" The warlock's Welsh accent was suddenly pronounced.
"Jace Herondale."
"Related to William Herondale?"
Magnus answered for Jace "He's his great great great grandson, or something like that, I've lost track along the way. And yes, he's just as annoying."
"So why did you come here, Jace Herondale?"
Gwen stepped in, hurriedly "Rydyn ni gyda problem, Iolo Llwynog. Bydd e yn posib i chi helpu ni?"
"Efallai. Beth chi esiau?"
Switching to English, she continued. "Jace here, and his girlfriend Clary Fray, are staying with us at the Institute down in Cardiff. Something very strange has happened to Clary - we think the fae, maybe the Wild Hunt might be involved somehow, and we wondered if you'd heard anything."
"I've heard murmurings."
"What sort of murmurings?" asked Jace.
The warlock shrugged. "About revenge. I think it would be fair to say that you two Shadowhunters are not the most popular people in Wales, right now.