Magnus was the first to rise, followed by Alec and then Isabelle. Isabelle walked over to comfort Jace, but he ignored her and walked away. She couldn't blame him. He had never been able to deal with any loss of any kind. Luke tried to get Jocelyn to stand up, but she clung to Clary, refusing to let her go, so he kept his arms wrapped around her and left her to cry. Simon eventually stood up to join in the conversation.

"We have to find a way out of here," Isabelle said. "Magnus, surely you know if there is a way out?"

"All of the paths have been sealed off. I'm afraid there is absolutely nothing that we can do to get us back home."

"We?" Alec said.

"That's what I said. There is absolutely nothing that we can do to get us back home."

"Exactly," Alec replied. "Nothing we can do, which suggests that you know somebody who can do something to get us home."

Magnus drew away from Alec and looked around at the hall. His expression was unguarded, stripped of its usual distance, and he looked both very young and very, very old. His face was a young man's face, but his eyes had seen centuries pass, and never had Alec been more aware of it. "There are worse things than death," Magnus said.

"Maybe you should let us be the judge of that," said Alec, and Magnus scrubbed a despairing hand across his face and said, "Dear God. Alexander, I have gone my whole life without ever taking recourse to this path, save once, when I learned my lesson. It is not a lesson I want the rest of you to learn."

"But you're alive," said Isabelle. "You lived through the lesson."

Magnus smiled an awful smile. It wouldn't be much of a lesson if I hadn't," he said. "But I was duly warned. Playing dice with my own life is one thing; playing with all of yours-"

"We'll die here anyways," said Simon. "It's a rigged game. Let us take our chances."

"I agree," Isabelle said, and Alec nodded his head in agreement. Magnus looked down at Luke and Jocelyn, and sighed.

"Majority vore," he said. "Did you know there's an old Downworlder saying about mad dogs and Nephilim never heeding a warning?"

"Magnus-" Alec began, but Magnus only shook his head. Rings sparkled on his fingers as he brought his hands together, as if in prayer, and closed his eyes.

"My father," he said, and he heard Alec suck in his breath with a gasp. "My father, who art in Hell, unhallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Edom as it is in Hell. Forgive not my sins, for in that fire of fires there shall be neither loving kindness, nor compassion, nor redemption. My father, who makes war in high places and low, come to me now; I call you as your son, and incur upon myself the responsibility of your summoning."

Magnus opened his eyes. He was expressionless. Three shocked faces looked back at him.

"By the Angel-" Alec started.

"No," said a voice just beyond their huddled group. "Definitely not by your Angel."

Isabelle stared. At first she saw nothing, just a shifting patch of shadow, and then a figure evolved out of the darkness. A tall man, as pale as bone, in a pure white suit; silver cuff links gleamed at his wrists, carved in the shape of flies. His face was a human face, pale skin pulled tight over bone, cheekbones sharp as blades. He didn't have hair so much as a sparkling coronet of barbed wires. His eyes were gold-green, and slit-pupilled like a cat's.

"Father," said Magnus, and the word was an exhalation of sorrow. "You came."

The man smiled. His front teeth were sharp, pointed like feline teeth. "My son," he said. "It has been a long time since you called on me. I was beginning to despair that you ever would again."

"I hadn't planned to," Magnus said dryly. "I called on you once, to determine that you were my father. That was once enough."

"You wound me," said the man, and he turned his pointed-tooth smile on the others. "I am Asmodeus," he said. "One of the Nine Princes of Hell. You may know my name."

"You're- Magnus's father?" Alec asked in a strangled voice. He turned to Magnus. "When you held the witchlight in the subway tunnel, it flared up in colours- is that because of him?" He pointed at Asmodeus.

"Yes," Magnus said. He looked very tired. "I warned you, Alexander, that this was something you would not like."

At this, Jace had wondered back over to join the group, though he stayed silent and didn't seem to pay much attention to anything.

"I don't see what the fuss is about. I have been the father of many warlocks," said Asmodeus. "Magnus has made me the most proud."

"Who are the others?" Isabelle asked, her dark eyes suspicious.

"What he's not saying is that they're mostly dead," Magnus said. He met his father's eyes briefly and then looked away, as if he couldn't stand prolonged eye contact. "He's also not telling you that all princes of Hell have a realm they rule; this is his."

"Since this place - Edom - is your realm," Alec said, "then you're responsible for- for what happened here?"

"It is my realm, though I am rarely here," said Asmodeus with a martyred sigh. "Used to be an exciting place. The Nephilim of this realm put up quite the fight-"

"Let's cut to the business part of this," said Magnus. "You can open a door, correct? Send us through to Idris, back to our world?"

"Would you like a demonstration?" Asmodeus asked, flicking his fingers in the direction of Jocelyn, Luke and Clary's body. Neither of them seemed to have even noticed Asmodeus being there. There was a shimmer of air and they vanished. Just as they vanished, for a moment, Simon glimpsed the inside of the Accords Hall, the mermaid fountain and the marble floor, and then it was gone, like a tear in the universe sewing itself back up again.

"Jocelyn!" Simon shouted.

"I sent them back to your world," said Asmodeus. "Now you know." He examined his nails. "You got the first two for free. The rest, well, it'll cost you." He sighed at the looks on the faces around him. "I'm a demon," he said pointedly. "Really, what do they teach Nephilim these days?"

"I know what you want," Magnus said in a strained voice. "And you can have it. But you must swear on the Morning Star to send all my friends back to Idris, all of them, and never to bother them again. They will owe you nothing."

Alec stepped forward. "Stop," he said. "No- Magnus, what do you mean, what he wants? Why are you talking like you're not coming back to Idris with us?"

"There is a time," said Asmodeus, "when we must all return to live in the houses of our fathers. Now is Magnus's time. It takes great energy to fuel a realm. We draw from the power of what we have left behind, the great city of Pandemonium, the fire we fell into, but there is a time when life must fuel us. And immortal life is the best of all."

The numb heaviness weighing Alec's limbs vanished as he snapped to attention, moving in front of Magnus. He nearly collided with Simon and Isabelle. They had all moved to block the warlock from his demon father.

Asmodeus laughed. "Delightful," he said. "Look at them, Magnus, these children who love you and want to protect you! Who would ever have thought it! When you are buried, I will make sure they inscribe it on your tomb: Magnus Bane, beloved of Nephilim."

"You won't touch him," Alec said, his voice like iron.

Asmodeus rolled his eyes. "I do not plan to kill Magnus. That would be messy and silly, and besides, I could have had his death arranged at any time. It is his life freely given I want, for the life of an immortal has power, great power, and it will help me fuel my kingdom."

"But he's your son," Isabelle protested.

"And he will remain with me," said Asmodeus with a grin. "In spirit, you might say."

Alec whirled on Magnus, who stood with his hands in his pockets, scowling. "He wants to take your immortality?"

"Exactly," Magnus said.

"But- you'd survive? Just not be immortal anymore?" Alec looked wretched, and Simon couldn't help feeling awful for him.

"My immortality would be gone," Magnus said. "All the years of my life would come on me at once. I would be unlikely to survive it. Almost four hundred years is quite a lot to take, even if you moisturize regularly."

"You can't," Alec said, and there was a plea in his voice. "He said, 'a life given willingly.' Say no."

"I can't say no, Alexander," he said. "If I do, we all remain here; we'll die anyways. We'll starve, our ashes turned to dust to plague the demons of the realm."

"Fine," Alec said. "There isn't any one of us who would give up your life to save ours."

Magnus glanced around at the faces of his companions, dirty and exhausted and brutalized and despairing, and Simon saw the look on Magnus's face change as he realized that Alec was right. None of them, 3 Shadowhunters and a vampire, would give up his life to save theirs, even all of theirs.

"I've lived a long time," Magnus said. "So many years, and no, it doesn't feel like enough. I won't lie and say it does. I want to live on- partly because of you, Alec. I have never wanted to live so much as I have these past few months, with you."

Alec looked stricken. "We'll die together," he said. "Let me stay at least, with you."

"You have to go back. You have to go back to the world. I have to save you, Alec."

Magnus turned to Asmodeus. "All right," he said, and Simon could tell he was bracing himself, nerving himself up as if he were about to throw his body onto a pyre. "All right, take me. I give you my life. I am-"

"No. Stop."

Simon stepped forward. "I am willing."