Chapter Thirteen

"So what's our plan once we find the Scourge?" said Jace. "We can't just go in guns blazing."

Clary looked at him sideways, her lip quirking up. "'Guns blazing'? Did you pick that up from Simon?"

"I might have," Jace said, cracking a smile too.

They had been walking for a few hours along the tunnel. It seemed to stretch endlessly in front of them, their witchlight stones the only source of light for miles. Jace had never been claustrophobic, but there was something about the void-like passage with its jet-black walls that made his fingers twitch.

"What do you think?" Clary asked. "You're the strategist."

He was grateful to focus on something other than the tunnel. "We'll be outnumbered," he said, "but we can use that to our advantage. Their guard will most likely be concentrated around Lexie, so if we blend into the crowd, we should be able to get in and out before they can stop us."

Clary was silent. Jace glanced at her; she was staring straight ahead, her face carefully blank.

"Tell me," he said quietly.

She took a deep breath. "I think they know we're coming," she said. "When Leviathan told me Lexie was here, he said, 'Come find me. Come witness your destruction.' And Nell said there was a way to get to the site from our world, so why didn't they take Lexie straight there? Leviathan wanted us to follow them. He wanted—he wanted us to watch..." Her voice sounded tight. Jace took her hand and heard her draw in another steadying breath. "The only thing I can't figure out is why they attacked us when we came through."

Jace was acutely aware of the pain in his side. He bit his lip. "Maybe they wanted to slow us down," he said, keeping his voice neutral. "They didn't want us to catch up to them too soon."

"Yeah." Clary exhaled. "It's a good thing they didn't know about my Extraction rune." Jace nodded, forcing a smile.

"So we have to assume they'll have some kind of trap set for us," he said. "But if Leviathan wants us there, then our way to Lexie will be clear. We'll just have to make sure we have an escape route."

A glimmer of light appeared ahead of them. They turned a corner; the tunnel opened out into woods made of trees with ebony trunks and branches. Though the branches were bare, no leaves littered the ground, and the soil had a grayish tint. The air smelled of damp, rotting wood. When Jace looked up, it was as if he were seeing the cloudless sky painted on a cracked and broken ceiling. The wind whistling through the woods made the branches clatter.

"Look," said Clary, pointing. A thin, silvery vine crept across the ground, disappearing into the trees. They followed it; it grew thicker and thicker, soon eclipsing the width of Jace's arm. At last they emerged into a small clearing. The vine was wrapped around a tree, twisting around the trunk so that the blackened wood was almost completely hidden. Shimmering leaves sprouted from it, encircling clusters of silver-blue berries. Clary stepped forward, extending her hand.

"What are you doing?" Jace said, more sharply than he had meant to.

Clary glanced back at him. "I thought it might be good to take some. Just to have them."

"For what?" Jace said. "A weapon?" Clary tilted her head, her eyes searching his. "Look, I almost died from that stuff," he said quickly. "No one deserves to go like that. Let's just leave them, okay?"

"Yeah," said Clary, moving away from the vine. "Okay. Sorry." She began to walk around the grove, her eyes flitting from tree to tree. More silvershadow vines were tangled in the branches, hanging between the trees and knotting around each other; Jace couldn't tell where one vine ended and another started. They seemed parasitic, leaching the life from the trees.

"Here," said Clary suddenly. She was staring at the trunk of a tree. Jace approached; a tiny rune was carved into the wood. He would have missed it, but Clary must have been able to sense it was there. "This one leads to another part of Faerie," she said. She moved to another tree. "This goes to Thule." It was as if she were reading the runes, translating them. "Edom. And this one—"

She stopped short. Jace went over to her and looked at the rune etched in the tree. Clary clasped her left hand in her right, running her thumb across her palm. He could see the outline of the same rune there, a pale scar he knew well.

"He's there," she said quietly. "Watching us."

Jace touched her shoulder; she exhaled, wrenched her gaze away from the tree, and moved ahead. "This one," she said, nodding at another tree. "This leads back home." Jace took out a knife and gouged an X into the bark, visible from a distance. Clary was still looking around; he watched her walk around the clearing, her lips forming silent words. He thought he knew what she was looking for, but he kept quiet, letting her circle the grove once, twice, three times. At last, she came to a stop.

"It's not here," she said. "It's—it's really gone." Relief flooded her voice. "I thought it might have come back. Reformed itself."

"It'll be hundreds of years before that happens," Jace said. "Hundreds of years before Beelzebub reforms, and then he'll have to build his world back up from scratch. You really inconvenienced him."

Clary snorted, her face breaking into a smile. "That's one way to put it," she said. Jace grinned back.

"Nell said we'd be within the wards now," he said. "Can I have the toy?" Clary pulled Lexie's stuffed wolf out of her bag. Jace took it and inked a tracking rune onto the back of his hand, then closed his eyes.

He saw a ring of trees, with the same blackened wood as the ones that surrounded him now. Half a dozen faeries encircled a stone dais in the center of the ring, spears clutched in their fists. A pedestal rose from the dais, a woven basket at its foot—and inside the basket, lying still with her eyes closed, was Lexie. Jace could see her eyelids fluttering, her chest rising and falling evenly.

"She's alive," he said to Clary without opening his eyes; he wanted to keep watching Lexie, to know she was okay. He heard Clary gasp. "They're at the site. It's close."

There was no response. He opened his eyes—and froze. Clary stared at him with wide eyes; she was wrapped tightly in the arms of a faerie, a blade to her throat. Before Jace could move, he felt the sharp sting of a knife at his own throat.

"Drop them," said a voice in his ear. "And hands above your head."

Jace opened his hands automatically, lifting his arms up in surrender. His stele and the toy fell to the ground at his feet. The faerie seized his wrists and yanked them behind his back, binding them tightly with what felt like thorny vines; they dug painfully into his skin.

"Bind her and strip her weapons," the faerie holding Jace ordered the other. He unbuckled Jace's weapons belt and slung it over his own shoulder, then began to pat him down. Across the grove, the other faerie was doing the same to Clary. She met his gaze and tilted her chin infinitesimally toward her captor. Jace shook his head: Don't resist. The thorns would tear their hands to pieces before they managed to fight off the faeries. Clary didn't look pleased, but she stood still as the faerie finished removing her weapons, even finding the daggers hidden up her sleeves and in her boots.

Jace felt the point of a blade pricking his spine. "Move," said the faerie. He and Jace began to walk, Clary and the other faerie marching alongside them. As they left the grove behind, Jace glanced back; Lexie's stuffed wolf, trampled and dirty, was already sinking into the soft earth.

They walked in silence. Jace's mind was whirring; getting captured had not been part of the plan. Without a doubt, they were being taken to where Lexie was, but it was too much to hope the faeries would give them any chance to get close enough to stop the ritual. He ran through scenarios in his head—too many of them involved luck.

The faeries were leading them on a twisting, pathless route through the woods; within a few minutes, Jace could hardly tell where they had come from. Even if they did save Lexie, how would they find their way back?

Suddenly, Clary staggered, falling against a tree. Her captor shoved her forward. "Move, girl," he snarled.

"Sorry," Clary mumbled, but Jace saw her gaze dart to the side. He looked past her; she had left a smear of blood on the trunk of the tree.

He had to suppress a grin. Clever as always, he thought. He let a thorn prick his finger, then brushed it against a tree as they passed, drawing a glistening line on the black wood. They walked on, marking trees at intervals, leaving a trail of blood behind them.

At last, the trees began to thin. Through the gaps, Jace caught a glimpse of the stone dais. His heart jumped—Lexie was there, so close—

The dais vanished suddenly from view. The faeries had changed course, pulling them to the left, away from the clearing. "Where are you taking us?" Jace asked. All he got for his trouble was a sharp blow to the back of his head.

A tall cage appeared in front of them, made from long, thin stalks of what looked like bamboo. The faerie holding Jace opened the door with the tip of his dagger and shoved Jace into the cage. Clary, too, was unceremoniously thrown inside. The door shut and latched behind them.

"We'll be back in a few hours," the faerie said, grinning at them through the bars. "Wouldn't want you to miss the show." And laughing with his companion, they disappeared back into the trees.

Clary cursed, struggling against her bindings. "We need to get out of here," she said. "We need to get to Lexie." She began to pace in circles, flexing her hands; blood trickled down her fingers from where the thorns were cutting into her skin.

"Clary, stop," Jace said. "You're hurting yourself."

"I know." She twisted her hand back and forth, coating her wrists in blood. They slid past each other within the bindings. "Almost—there." Slick with her blood, the vine slipped off her wrists and fell to the ground with a dull splat. "Let me do yours," Clary said.

Blood was running down her hands at an alarming rate. "Clary—" Jace began uncertainly.

"It's fine," she said impatiently. "Turn around."

Reluctantly, Jace turned. He felt her tug at his bindings for a minute, looping the vine between his wrists. At last, they came apart. He rubbed his wrists as he turned back to face Clary. She had gone very pale.

"Clary," he said, more sternly.

"It's fine," she said again, though she sounded breathless and her fingers shook as she unzipped her gear jacket. "Help me stop the bleeding."

He tore the sleeves from her t-shirt into strips and wrapped them around her wrists. The cuts weren't deep, but they were numerous. Blood spotted through the white fabric.

"I'll be okay," Clary said before Jace could speak. "I'll heal myself as soon as we get out of here."

They both looked around. The cage was relatively large, with enough space for them to walk around it, though Jace's head was an inch below the latticed ceiling. The gaps between the stalks looked big enough for Jace to put his whole arm through them. Clary seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because she reached through the bars, her hand brushing them—and jerked back as a new stalk of wood shot up between them, filling the gap. She turned and kicked another part of the cage, hard; the bars didn't crack, but nor did they replicate themselves.

Jace went to the door. The latching mechanism, made of the same wood, had already twisted itself into a knot. Turning away, he pulled his sleeves down over his fingers and wrapped his hands around the bars, taking care not to touch them. He tried to force the bars to splinter, but they were hard as steel.

Clary swore loudly and seized the bars, making them multiply wildly. The light on the floor of the cage was rapidly diminishing.

"Stop," said Jace sharply. "We'll run out of air."

She wrenched herself away, leaving bloody handprints behind. "There must be something we can do," she said, her voice cracking in desperation.

"You won't escape," said a drawling voice. "But do keep trying. It's ever so entertaining."

They turned; a pale-haired faerie was leaning against a tree, smirking at them through the bars.

"Ingenious, is it not?" he said, stepping closer. He looked oddly familiar, though Jace was sure they had never met. "I designed it myself, though Caladrius enchanted the wood." His pale-green eyes gleamed—Jace recognized those eyes.

"Oh," Clary breathed. "You're Orrin."

"So you've heard of me," Orrin said, looking satisfied.

"We met your sister," said Clary. Orrin went rigid, the smile sliding off his face. "Nell. She wants you home."

A dull flush appeared on Orrin's cheekbones. "You leave Nellie out of this," he said in a low voice, all bravado gone.

"She needs you," Clary said softly. "Now more than ever."

He snarled. "If it weren't for your kind, she wouldn't be in the position she's in. She deserves vengeance."

"But she doesn't want vengeance," Clary said. "She wants you."

Orrin's face hardened. "Nellie understands that I'm doing this for her. And as for you—I hope you die alongside your daughter."

Clary flinched. Orrin swiped his hand along the wall of the cage, more wood springing up in his wake as he turned on his heel and stormed into the woods.

Stripes of sunlight fell through the bars and across Clary's face, making it look worn and wearied. She sank to the floor and drew her knees up. Jace wished he had something to say, anything, but he felt that he was all out of words of encouragement. Here they were, mere feet from Lexie, trapped in a cage and powerless. And all the while, he was living on borrowed time...

All at once, pain ripped across his chest, as if someone had struck him with a whip. His knees gave out and he slid to the floor, turning his face away from Clary so she wouldn't see his grimace of pain. Not yet, he thought desperately, please not yet...

It took a minute, but the pain subsided. Shaking slightly and taking in shallow breaths, he chanced a look at Clary. She didn't seem to have noticed; she was staring at the floor, her gaze hard with concentration.

"Someone will have to come get us," she said, as if she were thinking out loud, "to bring us to the site. We could fight them. Take their weapons. If we time it right..."

Jace had to wait until he was sure his voice would not tremble when he responded. "It's as good a plan as any," he said carefully.

Perhaps she did detect something odd in his tone, because she looked up at him. "Don't you give up," she said sharply. "Not after everything you said last night. If I have to keep fighting, so do you."

"I'm not giving up," Jace said softly.

Clary nodded. "Good. Because we're all getting out of this alive."

The words were on the tip of Jace's tongue. He swallowed them. It would be selfish, he thought, to tell her now. It would be for his peace of mind, not hers. Despite her steely tone, Clary looked pale with worry. She shuddered suddenly.

"What's wrong?" Jace asked.

It was a moment before she answered, and when she did, it was in a whisper. "Leviathan."

"Is he—is he saying something to you?"

She shook her head. "I can just feel him." She shivered again. "Don't let me fall asleep, okay?"

Jace nodded. Phrases of comfort flitted through his head, each more useless than the last. No meaningless platitudes would make this more bearable. All he could do was lean back against the bars of the cage and count his heartbeats and pray to every angel that existed that he had enough left to see this night through.

Whether it was anticipation or simply the way time passed in Faerie, the hours seemed to go by at a snail's pace. Jace fell into an uneasy sleep, half-propped against the cage wall, but Clary stayed awake, watching the shadows on the floor shift infinitesimally. She wished she could see Lexie; she had walked around the perimeter of the cage trying to get a glimpse of the stone dais, but it was well concealed by the trees that surrounded them. The situation would at least be tolerable if she could keep watch on her daughter, see her breathing and be reassured that she was still alive and safe. Nothing made her feel more trapped than this powerless, agonizing, endless waiting.

She paced; she sat; she kneaded her fingers until they went numb. She mulled over possibilities in her head, some too frightening to think about. And beneath it all, there was that presence tugging at the back of her mind, waiting for her to close her eyes...

Suddenly, silence fell, a silence so profound and complete that Clary would have thought she'd gone deaf if it hadn't been for the sound of her own breathing. She raised her head; the sun had fallen nearly to the horizon, turning the floor of the cage golden-red. In the bloody light, Clary could see that the wind seemed to have stopped, making the leaves on the trees hang eerily still.

"Jace," said Clary uncertainly, but before he could do more than open his eyes, the world turned upside down. Clary was flung back against the walls of the cage as it tumbled through an inky void, spinning uncontrollably.

They landed hard, mud spraying up around them. Jace coughed violently somewhere in the cage. Clary spat a lock of hair out of her mouth and rolled to her feet, staggering slightly as her head spun. It took a minute for her surroundings to come into focus.

She had seen it in the vision Leviathan had sent her, but she still had to catch her breath. The jet-black stone of the pedestal seemed to ripple as the sun slipped beneath the horizon. In the lavender dusk, the stars began to appear, pale but swirling like a kaleidoscope. Even the blood-red pentagram on the dais seemed beautiful in their lustrous light. But most beautiful of all was Lexie, sleeping peacefully in the woven basket. Clary's heart cantered in her chest; without knowing what she was doing, she leaped forward.

Something hit the walls of the cage, making the whole structure shake. Clary stumbled. Grinning at her, Orrin slid his sword back into his belt—Clary's sword, and her weapons belt, Clary realized with a flash of anger—and said, "Next time I'll put it through the bars. Now be quiet. He's coming."

A reverent silence had fallen. Clary turned and saw him, the circle of faeries around the grove parting easily as he stepped into the clearing: Caladrius.

As he moved toward the dais, he seemed to shimmer, the light of the stars sweeping across his violet hair. He was exactly as Clary had drawn him, with his sharp jaw and cheekbones—except for the eyes. She had sketched him with vicious eyes, the kind that glimmered darkly with humor but never betrayed a smile. In reality, his eyes were soft, gentle, full of sorrow. They made him look years younger than Clary had expected, especially as his gaze flitted uncertainly toward her and Jace.

Jace must have seen it too, because his expression was open as he stepped forward. "Please," he croaked. "Please don't do this. She's our daughter. She's just a baby."

Caladrius's gaze swept across the faeries. "She will be a weapon," he said, and though he spoke with conviction, his voice still sounded thin. "We're doing this for the good of all."

He turned his back on them and ascended the dais. As he reached into his satchel, something flickered above him—and where Clary's heart had been racing a moment before, now it seemed to turn to lead. He was there, transparent, barely corporeal, but looking down on the scene, smiling—

"Stop!" Clary screamed. Caladrius paid her no attention. "Stop! He's using you! Can't you see? Lev—"

Pain speared through her mind. She dropped to her knees, clutching her head. Dimly, she heard Jace calling her name, felt the faeries stirring around them. With an effort, she raised her head, looking through a blur of tears as Caladrius placed a heart at each point of the pentagram. With hands dripping with blood, he stooped to pick up the basket—and Jace was shouting, slamming his body against the bars of the cage—and the hearts were burning to ash, and Leviathan's image grew more opaque as he reached a hand out, the rune on his palm glowing—

And suddenly, Clary knew what would happen before it did. She forced herself to stand and seized Jace's arm. "Close your eyes!"

In the instant that Caladrius placed the basket on the pedestal, light flared through the grove, blindingly bright even as Clary shut her eyelids. Leviathan screeched; Clary's head cleared. She thrust a hand through the bars of the cage, scrabbling for Orrin. The broken buckle gave way, and she pulled the weapons belt inside. She grabbed her sword and swung it down through the air, shattering the wooden latch.

"Get to Lexie!" she shouted at Jace. Chaos had erupted. Whether they were fleeing or fighting, the faeries had filled the clearing. Clary hastily tied her belt around her waist as she barreled through the faeries, blocking their path to Jace. Some of them swung at her, but they were still suffering from the effects of the blinding light, and Clary made quick work of them as she backed toward the dais.

"Clary, let's go!" Jace cried from behind her. She glanced back; he had gathered Lexie into his arms and was darting through the crowd. Clary made to follow him, but a faerie loomed suddenly in front of her. Snarling, Orrin brought a heavy broken branch down toward her. Clary threw her sword up to block the blow, but she had misjudged the angle. The club came down hard on her right arm, and she felt the bone shatter with a burst of pain that made her head swim. She switched hands and swung the sword blindly, feeling the flat of it collide with Orrin's head.

Then she was running, following Jace past trees marked with dried blood; silvery vines grew thicker and more abundant until they emerged into the silvershadow grove. Clary's head was thundering, with pain and fear and the sound of the faeries pursuing them—

And then her feet stopped moving. She would have pitched forward if she had had control over her movements. But something else had taken over. She felt herself turn, saw the familiar rune on the tree.

Come to me, Leviathan hissed. You are mine.

"Clary! Clary, come on!"

But Jace's voice was far away. Clary stepped forward, reaching for the rune.

"Clary!"

He grabbed her broken arm. She cried out as pain exploded through it, jarring her back into her body. As faeries burst into the grove, Jace yanked hard, and they fell toward another tree—toward home.

Clary felt no contact with the trunk; it was as if she were passing through jelly, unable to breathe, moving in slow motion. They tumbled out onto damp grass, the sharp scent filling Clary's nose. She rolled over, seeing the tree they had come through, with its own rune on the trunk. Without thinking, she lifted her sword and drove it through the rune. The tree glowed white before splitting in half with a splintering crack and crashing to earth.

Gasping, Clary pushed herself to her knees. Jace wheezed as he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, your arm—I didn't know—"

She shook her head. "Lexie..."

With trembling hands, Jace laid Lexie on the ground. She was motionless, her pale face slack. Clary bent over her, her stomach writhing. "Lexie, baby, wake up," she whispered. "Wake up. We're home."

She didn't stir. Clary's fingers went numb; she dropped the sword into the grass beside her, her hand brushing her weapons belt—her weapons belt. She seized her stele and inked a Wakefulness rune onto her palm, them pressed it to Lexie's chest.

Lexie jolted as if she'd been shocked. Her eyes snapped open, and she began to cry. Clary had never heard a more beautiful sound. Together, she and Jace lifted her up and cradled her, all crying together, clutching each other as if they intended to never let go.

After a while, Lexie calmed. She slid onto Jace's lap, curling up against him. "Dada," she murmured.

"I'm here, princess." He kissed the top of her head, exhaled, and looked around. "Where are we?" he said.

Clary stood. It was difficult to see in the dim twilight, but they seemed to be in a park. It was a secluded bit of woods, but Clary could see paths up ahead, and buildings beyond that—familiar ones. "I think we're in Central Park," she said. "Look, I think that's the Empire State Building—ouch." She had pointed with her broken arm, and now that the adrenaline had worn off, it was beginning to throb painfully. She gripped the stele awkwardly in her left hand, scrawled an iratze onto her forearm, and felt the bone come back together. It was a sloppy job and she knew it, but she would have time to heal it properly once they got home.

Home, she thought with a rush of relief so strong that it nearly unbalanced her. Jace got to his feet, holding Lexie carefully. Clary brushed a hand against her daughter's soft curls, cherishing the feeling, knowing she would never take it for granted again. "Let's go home," she whispered.

Exhausted, achy, and lacking their phones, wallets, and most of their weapons, Clary and Jace decided the best thing to do was try to get a Portal from Magnus; Clary didn't trust herself to make one in her current drained state. They stopped at a bodega just outside the park, and Clary sat on the stoop with Lexie while the owner, a cheerful, round-bellied man, lent Jace his phone. As he made the call, Clary tried to rock Lexie; she was starting to get restless, fussing and squirming on Clary's lap.

After a minute, Jace re-emerged holding a cup of mixed fruit. "How did you pay for that?" Clary asked him.

"I didn't," Jace said, shrugging. "He gave it to me for free. Said our kid looked hungry." He sat on the stoop beside Clary and offered Lexie a piece of strawberry. She settled on Clary's lap and began to eat. "Magnus says he needs a few minutes. Are you okay to walk a bit?"

"Are you okay?" Clary asked, peering at him. He was sitting stiffly and looked pale. He gave a wan smile.

"I'm okay," he said. "Just want to get home."

Lexie made short work of the fruit, so it was only a few minutes before they were walking again, Lexie half-asleep in Clary's arms. Clary stroked her daughter's hair and listened to Jace's footsteps beside her and tried not to think about how close she had come to losing both of them tonight. Except she had to think about it. No more pushing it down. No more hiding.

"Clary, listen—" said Jace.

"No, wait," she said. "Just—just don't talk for a minute. I need to say something." He waited for her to find the words. "Sorry doesn't begin to cover it," she said softly.

"You don't have to—"

"No, I do," Clary said. "I do. Because I love you. And I don't say it enough." She drew in a breath. "A part of me died," she said quietly. "And all you were trying to do was make sure the rest of me survived. And I didn't know if it could, but you did. You—" She swallowed. "I'm just grateful. That's all."

He was silent. She glanced at him; the streetlights reflected off his shimmering eyes. "Jace?"

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "I love you too," he said gruffly.

As they approached an intersection, Clary saw a blue glow up ahead. They turned into an alleyway and found the Portal waiting for them. Clary glimpsed the garden of the Institute, and her heart ached at the sight of it. With her arms wrapped tightly around Lexie and Jace's hand on her back, she stepped through.

All she saw of the Institute was the garden wall before something seized her and her vision was obscured by a mass of red hair. "Mom—Mom, stop, I'm okay," she said, extricating herself from her mother's grip. Jocelyn stepped back, and she and Luke gazed at her with similar expressions of relief.

Magnus, having let the Portal close, reached over and ruffled Clary's hair. "Good to have you back, biscuit," he said. Then Clary's vision was blocked yet again, this time by black hair. She looked over Isabelle's shoulder with difficulty and saw Simon grinning at her. Across the garden, Jace was hugging Alec and whispering something in his ear. Whatever it was, it seemed to surprise Alec. Clary made a mental note to ask Jace about it later.

Isabelle finally released Clary and opened her mouth. "Later," Clary said before she could speak. "We'll tell you everything, I promise. But Lexie needs to get to bed, and I want a Silent Brother to look at her and make sure she's okay."

"I'll summon one," said Maryse. She was beaming as she kissed Lexie's head and disappeared into the Institute.

Isabelle had left Clary behind and thrown herself at Jace. "Come on," Clary heard her say, "let's go have some dinner." He murmured something back to her. The others had already filed back into the Institute; Isabelle kissed Jace on the cheek and followed them in as Jace came over to Clary.

"I'll take her up," he said, reaching for Lexie.

"I'll come with you," said Clary.

"No, it's—it's really okay, I'll just..."

He sounded oddly breathless as he lifted Lexie out of her arms. Clary felt a prickle of unease. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Jace shook his head and went into the Institute. Clary followed him into the elevator and pressed the button before facing him. "Jace—"

"It's nothing," he said, his voice a little too easily smooth. "Go back downstairs. I'll meet you there."

"I'm already here," Clary pointed out. "Will you tell me what's going on?"

The elevator clanked to a stop, the doors opening with their usual clatter. Jace, avoiding eye contact, moved past her and down the hall toward Lexie's nursery. Clary caught up to him and beat him to the door, much to her surprise—she had never been faster than Jace. The unease grew in her stomach as Jace came into the room and lowered Lexie into her crib. She curled up, already asleep.

"You're hurt," Clary said. She saw his back stiffen. "You are, aren't you? Was it during the battle? Why didn't you say anything?"

He turned toward her so suddenly that she took a step back, startled. "You have to promise," he said. "You have to promise you'll try to get better. And it'll hurt for a little while, and that's okay, but don't let it consume you. I need you to—I need you to be okay. I need you to get through this."

Clary's heart was beating unevenly. "Jace, you're scaring me," she whispered.

"Don't be scared," he said. "It's—it's going to be—" He grunted and wrenched himself away from the crib, staggering into the bookshelf; one of the shelves broke with a loud crack, sending books tumbling to the floor. Lexie awoke with a start and began to cry.

"What..." Clary reached out to Jace as he clawed at the wall for purchase, his chest heaving.

"Clary," he gasped, "I—"

His eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched forward, crashing to the floor.

"Jace!" Clary screamed.

He convulsed, his back arching off the ground as he gave a strangled cry. Clary dropped to her knees beside him, her hands fluttering uselessly across his body. "No—Jace—I don't—" His body seemed to be radiating heat; she put a hand to his forehead and jerked it back—his skin was searing hot. "What—"

And suddenly, with a surge of horror, she understood. She unzipped his jacket, fisted her hands in his shirt, and tore it open; thick lines branched across his entire torso, wrapping around him like vines made of metal. They converged around his heart, pulsing malignantly.

"Jace," Clary whispered.

His body gave a final shudder, and he drew in a rattling breath. Then he was still.

"No—" She fumbled at her belt, yanked out her stele, and inked the extraction rune into his abdomen. It faded instantly to white. "No," she snarled again, her vision blurring. She blinked hard and gashed the rune into him again, this time closer to his heart. Once more, it faded. "Jace," she said, and her voice broke. Tears splashed onto his bare chest. "I can save you, you're going to be okay, I promise..."

Her hands were trembling; she drew in a deep breath and gripped the stele more tightly. She placed the tip directly over his heart and drew the rune again. Save him... She could feel her strength leaving her as she poured every ounce of her energy into Jace. By the time she finished, she was blinking spots out of her vision, her head light.

But the lines were receding, snaking down his torso and coalescing in a pulsating mass beneath the healed wound. She groped blindly for a dagger and made an incision in the scar. Metallic blood dribbled onto the floor.

"I told you," she mumbled, "you're going to be..."

The room tilted around her, the dagger and stele fell from her limp fingers, and she crumpled beside Jace as her vision went black.