The next day, there was a council meeting in Idris, and Sawyer was at the center of it. The meeting was about her, if they had to trust her. Since Magnus was a cat, he couldn't be representive of the Warlocks, and Catarina Loss went instead. Catarina, Sawyer saw, had a blue skin, like Sawyer had a green skin.
'You must be Sawyer, right?' she asked, 'I was informed about you, but I do not know that much.'
'I am,' she said, 'Is it hard? Having a blue skin? I don't mean to be rude, but as you can see I'm green.'
'Well, I mostly glamour it, when mundanes can see me,' she said.
Sawyer did that too, though sometimes she didn't. When she was little, she hadn't been able to, and everyone had laughed at her skin colour.
Christabel was, together with her, at the center of the council, where everyone could see her. The consul was an asian looking woman, forty years old. Jia Penhallow was her name, Sawyer remembered. The Inquisitor, Robert Lightwood, stood next to her.
'Tell the story, miss Thropp,' the Inquisitor requested. 'The first thing the Clave wants to know is how you learned to fly like that. We have no records of warlocks being able to fly like you do.'
'Well, you have no records of the Grimmerie either, one of the most powerful spellbooks there is,' she said, 'It has been lost for so long even Magnus didn't know about it. My guess would be that it's been lost since before the Clave was, and been found by the Wizard. I took it from him, and it belongs to us, children of Lilith.'
'Be more specific, warlock,' the consul said, 'We want to know what you did, why you did it, when you did it.'
'Maybe we should act the scene,' Sawyer said to Christabel. 'Well, when I grew up in the Order, I believed in the Wizard as a Wonderful man, as everyone calls him, with amazing magic, someone who would protect us all, I was wrong. When I was young, I wanted nothing more than to be on his side. Because of my powers, that's what the Wizard wanted. But when I met him, I found out who he really was. He tried to build an army, kidnapping werewolves and taking the human out of them. I knew a bit about that before, though, but I believed the Wizard didn't know, that he would stop it. But when I met him, I realised it was him, it had been all the time. He transformed warlocks who were against him into animals, and I haven't yet found the cure. He showed me the Grimmerie, asked me to use a levitation spell, and I did. I saw it was hurting the goat I enchanted, and tried to turn it back, but I couldn't. Spells from the Grimmerie can't be reversed with just a counter cast, you have to find a completely new spell to change the effect, entirely different magic. I realised the Wizard was evil. I didn't yet know what he was planning, what he wanted, but I knew I couldn't trust, that I had to fight him. I took the book, and ran, followed by Christabel. Christabel, maybe it'll be more Obvious if we show this scene.'
'Okay,' Christabel said, 'I hope you're happy, I hope you're happy now. I hope you're happy how you hurt your cause forever, I hope you think you're clever.'
'This is a interrogation, not a Broadway show,' Robert Lightwood snapped.
'I'm showing you how it happened,' Sawyer said, 'Like this. We did indeed sing part of it. I hope you're happy, I hope you're happy too, I hope your proud how you would grovel in submission, to feed your own ambition!'
Now they sang a line together, from the song Sawyer and Christabel both knew backwards. 'So though I can't imagine how, I hope you're happy, right now.'
'Sawyer, listen to me. Just say you're sorry. You can still be with the Wizard, what you've worked and waited for. You can have all you ever wanted.'
'I know,' she said, and after that she sang again, 'But I don't want it. No. I can't want it anymore.'
Sawyer used some magic to play the background music. That wasn't exactly how it happened, but that didn't matter that much, it showed enough.
'Something has changed within me, something is not the same,' she sang, 'I'm trough with playing by the rules of someone else's game. Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep. It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap!'
'It's time to try defying gravity,' she continued, 'I think I'll try defying gravity, and you can't pull me down.'
Christabel ran towards her. 'Can't I make you understand, you're having delusions of granteur!'
'I'm trough accepting limits, 'cause someone says they're so! Some things I cannot change, but 'till I try I'll never know! Too long I've been afraid of losing love I guess I lost. Well if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost! I'd sooner buy defying gravity!' She turned to Christabel now. 'Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity, and you can't pull me down.'
Sawyer pulled out her book, and started the chanting. She stopped her magic, though, to avoid accidents or weird things. 'It worked! Come with me! Think of what we could do, together!'
'Unlimited, together we'll be unlimited. Together we'll be the greatest team there's ever been! Christabel, dreams the way we planned them!'
'If we work in tandem,' she cut in.
'There's no fight we cannot win,' we sang together, 'Just you and I! Defying gravity. With you and I defying gravity. They'll never bring us down,' we sang together.
'Are you coming?' Sawyer asked, 'Shall I cast the spell on you too?'
Christabel shook her head, 'I hope you're happy, now that you're choosing this. But someone ought to stay here. I'll protect Rosie, I'll spy on the Wizard for you, find out what he wants. Remember, I'll Always be your friend, even if it takes years to find each other again.'
Then the guards burst in, Sawyer used magic to make the fake guards look real, with a lot of help from Christabel. This sort of thing was her speciality. The guards took hold of Christabel.
'Leave her alone, she's nothing to do with it!' Sawyer shouted at the guards, after a year of acting the whole musical together, she could do it.
'It's me you want,' she screamed, 'It's me!'
'Sawyer!' Christabel screamed. The guards let her go, and ran towards Sawyer. Sawyer started rising, and soon she was far out of their reach.
'So if you care to find me, look to the western sky!' she sang in her most powerful voice, 'As someone told me lately, everyone deserves the chance to fly! And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free, to those who'd ground me, take a message back from me! Tell them how I am defying gravity! I'm flying high, defying gravity! And soon I'll match them in renown! And nobody, in all the order, no Wizard that there is or was, is ever gonna bring me down! Bring me down! Ooh!'
Sawyer sank again to the ground. 'So, that's how it happened. With most of the singing. Christabel told me later what the Wizard wanted: to destroy the Clave, and recently we found out how he wanted to gain an army, to make a deal with Lilith to raise her son, Jonathan Morgenstern.'
'That's impossible,' the Inquisitor said, 'Only an angel can bring people back from the dead. Not a demon.'
'Oh, but there are old rules. One life brought back for the light means one life brought back from the dark. They'll need the person who died and was brought back, and they'll need someone to resurrect him. A warlock could do a good job I think, but the ideal person for this task is alive now, and they're looking for him.'
'For whom?' the consul asked, 'Who do they need?'
'The Daylighter, Simon Lewis,' she said, 'Daylighters have very special powers. Simon won't use them of course, but they'll try to force him. And they'll need the counterweight, the one who was brought back.'
'Who is it?' Robert Lightwood asked.
'Your son,' she said, 'Well, adopted son. Jace Herondale.'
'What?' the consul asked, 'What are you talking about?'
Jace stood up then. He had wanted to keep it secret, Clary thought that was best too, but now it was time to tell. Sawyer had told them already, and the story wasn't complete if they left that out.
'I was resurrected. When Valentine raised the angel Raziel, Valentine had killed me, stabbed me with a sword. The angel killed Valentine, and Clary could ask for one favour from him, and she asked for me. The angel brought me back from the dead. We wanted to keep it secret, but now we can't anymore.'
'Why didn't you tell us?' Robert Lightwood asked.
'We were afraid,' Jace said, 'Of the consequences, but we were wrong, we should have told it. The enemie did know it already, and want to use it to resurrect Sebastian. Sebastian would be a very dangerous weapon, but he can't be controlled, not really. Valentine could barely control him, and the Wizard won't be able to either. Even if we defeat the Wizard, Sebastian will be a sole problem if he survives, because he'll want to destroy us, just because he can. That's what he's like.'
'Then we won't let anyone get near Jace,' the Inquisitor said, 'Won't let anyone use him to resurrect that filthy son of Valentine's.' Jace knew why the Inquisitor was a bit bitter, why he hated Sebastian so much. Sebastian had, after all, taken Max away from them, their little brother. Isabelle had suffered most from his death, because she kept punishing herself, but they all felt terrible grief.
'We have to protect Simon too,' Alec said, standing up, 'Jace and Simon. They are both needed for the ritual, and I'm guessing the Wizard is already looking for them right now.'
Jace realised Simon was alone in New York. Well, Luke's pack was there too, but the shadowhunters were gone. Luckily, the meeting would be over when Sawyer's fate was decided, and Jace had the idea they wouldn't punish her, but help her.
'We are going to vote about this: Will we let Sawyer Thropp aid us, or will we distrust her and punish her?'
'Wait,' Collin said, 'We haven't discussed everything yet, about how we were attacked, and the Wizard's Order captured Magnus Bane and me. That must proof the Wizard's our enemie, they captured a shadowhunter and a warlock who's allied with shadowhunters.'
'That's right,' Sawyer said, 'I used protective spells, very powerful protective spells, to protect Collin, and when we went to Emerald City to save them, Magnus had been transformed already. The Wizard feared him, you know. He fears no one as much as a warlock who's powerful, and his enemie, like me. But Collin was completely healthy. They tried to harm him, but they couldn't.'
Jace remembered how surprised he had been to see Collin completely healthy when they found him, not wounded at all.
'They even tried to kill me, but it didn't work, the person trying almost got himself killed,' Collin added, 'We don't know how long this protection will work, but as long as it works, I don't think anything can kill me.'
Jace wondered what it felt like, being stabbed and then not die. Jace had died once, and was suddenly brought back, and that had felt very strange. Would not dying feel less strange?
'That is strange indeed,' the consul said, 'Strange magic, like all the magic in the Grimmerie. Now it is time to start voting. First, do we believe Sawyer Thropp, and will we not punish her, but listen to her and attack the Wizard?'
All the downworlders voted for helping. Jace was too young to vote, but of course both Alec and Collin voted for helping, and so did Maryse, and a lot of other Shadowhunters. Enough. The consul counted the votes.
'That is decided. We will fight the Wizard. But can she keep the Grimmerie? Would that be safe? A witch with a book we do not know about?'
'It is a warlock book, Jia,' Catarina Loss said, 'It would be of no use to you, only warlocks can use it, and Sawyer has shown us that she know how to use it.'
Alec stood up then. 'She should keep the book, she knows it, and knows how to use it, and she needs to cure the warlocks and werewolves, make them human again, with the book.'
Jace had the idea most people didn't take Alec very serious, and Jace wanted to stand up and tell them that they were all idiots, and that Alec was one of the wisest en most intelligent shadowhunters he knew, but he found enough control not to, knowing that it would only make things worse.
Simon was on his way to band practice, from his home. All the shadowhunters were away now, but would be back after the meeting, so they wouldn't be gone that long. In the mean time Simon could hang out with Eric, Matt and Kirk. He had recently told them that he was a vampire, and Clary insisted that he told his mother, but Simon was afraid she wouldn't believe him, afraid she'd be scared. His bandmates were idiots, and Simon knew it, and he had predicted they would find it cool or something. He had been right about that, and Eric was convinced suddenly both Maia and Isabelle liked him because of his sexy vampire mojo. Obviously, there was no such thing, but Eric did believe it. Simon saw fast movement in the corner of his eye, but didn't see much. A part of him said it was probably nothing, but he lived in the Shadow world now, he was no longer a mundane. It was daylight. So no demons, and no vampires except for himself. Simon loved being a Daylighter, but he'd rather not be a vampire, but a mundane. If he were a mundane, he could even become a shadowhunter like Clary and Isabelle, but now he couldn't even enter the Institute, which sucked. He couldn't enter the place where his girlfriend lived. Simon saw movement again, and quickly turned. A werewolf, no, two werewolves. Simon didn't know if he could fight them, his mark of Cain hadn't been tested yet, so he ran. Suddenly he saw a third werewolf in front of him. I'm dead, he thought, unless the mark works I'm dead. But the wolf didn't attack him, it attacked the other two wolves. Simon was surprised. He didn't recognise the other wolf, it wasn't Maia. The wolf killed the two other wolves, and then turned into a human. It was still weird to Simon to see this things happen in the middle of the day where other people were. They didn't notice at all. Simon only now realised how blind he had been. The boy was good looking, Simon guessed, and he looked about eighteen years old, and Simon had never seen him before.
'That was close,' he said, 'You're lucky I was there in time. Well, maybe your mark would have killed them, but we're not sure of that. The name is Kyle, by the way, Jordan Kyle.'
'Lewis,' Simon said in the same James Bond style, 'Simon Lewis.'
Simon figured it probably sounded cooler when Jordan did it. 'I know who you are,' he said, 'You're why I'm here. Come with me, then I'll explain everything.'
'Alright,' Simon said, only trusting this guy because he had just saved him.
Jordan led him to his appartment, a nice small place, with a weird plant near the window. What was that?
'Have you ever heard of the Praetor Lupus?' Jordan asked.
Simon shook his head. 'Doesn't ring any bells.'
'Well, we're Guardian Werewolves. Our task is to protect young Downworlders from themselves and from the Clave. Newly changes werewolves and vampires often are violent, and they need others of their kind to teach them and protect them, and we make sure they find others, a task that is sometimes dangerous. I am tasked with protecting you, and finding out why you can walk in the Daylight.'
Simon wasn't sure if he could tell Jordan that. 'What are you going to protect me against? This Wizard guy who wants me to make Sebastian alive again?'
'The Wizard?' Jordan asked, 'The Praetor have always been independent, and we are not allied with the Wizard, but I didn't know he was our enemie.'
'Any werewolves of your group disappeared recently? Because he kidnaps werewolves and takes the human out of them, and then they're just wolves he can train to form his army. Weren't those guys you fought turned wolves?'
'I didn't know what they were,' Jordan said, 'Though I found it weird that they didn't change back when they died. Praetor Scott must know this immediately.'