Alicante, Idris, Friday Morning
The battle of the Adamant Citadel had nearly killed Jace. And Simon was in Idris now too, brought by Raphael, after being abducted by Maureen because why not, right? And some time between London and the Citadel, Sebastian's forces had taken on the Praetor Lupus. Jordan was dead.
And now, the Downworlder representatives who had come to Alicante for the emergency Council meeting were gone. And all morning there had been rumors that Sebastian had been in the city last night. In Alicante. And now… The Council room, so orderly only a few days before, was full of shouting Shadowhunters. Everyone was standing, some in groups and some apart. Most of the groups were arguing.
Down in the center of the amphitheater, were the four carved wooden seats of the Downworlders, set around the lecterns in a half circle. They were empty, and splashed across the floorboards in front of them was a single word, scrawled in a crooked hand, in what looked like sticky gold paint:
Veni.
It was written in ichor. Angel blood.
Alec and Isabelle were in the crowd. They waved Clary and Jace and Simon over as soon as they saw them. "Is it true?" Isabelle said to Clary, after the quick reassuring embraces were over. "Sebastian was at your house last night?"
"At Amatis's, yes-how did you know?" Clary demanded.
"Our father's the Inquisitor; of course we know," said Alec. "Rumors about Sebastian being in the city were all everyone was talking about before they opened up the Council room and we saw - this."
"It's true," Simon added. "The Consul asked me about it when she woke me up - like I'd know anything. I slept through it," he added as Isabelle shot him an inquiring look.
"Did the Consul say anything to you about this?" Alec demanded, sweeping an arm toward the grim scene below. "Did Sebastian?"
"No," Clary said. "Sebastian doesn't exactly share his plans."
"He shouldn't have been able to get to the Downworld representatives. Not only is Alicante guarded, but each of their safe houses is warded," said Alec. There was a pulse going in his throat like a hammer; his hand, where it rested on Jace's sleeve, was shaking with a fine tremor. "They were at dinner. They should have been safe." He let go of Jace and jammed his hands into his pockets. "And Magnus - Magnus wasn't even supposed to be here. Catarina was coming instead of him." He looked at Simon. "I saw you with him in Angel Square on the night of the battle," he said. "Did he say why he was in Alicante?"
Simon shook his head. "He just shooed me away. He was healing Clary."
"Maybe this is a bluff," Alec said. "Maybe Sebastian is trying to make us think he's done something to the Downworld representatives to throw us off -"
"We don't know that he's done anything to them. But - they are missing," Jace said quietly, and Alec looked away, as if he couldn't bear to meet their gazes.
"Veni," Isabelle whispered, looking at the dais. "Why . . . ?"
"He's telling us he has power," Clary said. "Power none of us even begin to understand."
A sharp report rang out through the room, the bell that called the Council to order. Jia Penhallow had moved to the lectern, an armed Clave guard in hooded robes on either side of her. "Shadowhunters," she said, and the word echoed as clearly through the room as if she'd used a microphone. "Please be silent." The room subsided gradually into quiet, though from the rebellious looks on quite a few faces, it was an uncooperative quiet.
"Consul Penhallow!" called out Kadir. "What answers do you have for us? What is the meaning of this - this desecration?"
"We're not sure," said Jia. "It happened in the night, in between one watch of guards and another."
"This is vengeance," said a thin, dark-haired Shadowhunter, the head of the Budapest Institute, Lazlo Balogh. "Vengeance for our victories in London and at the Citadel."
"We didn't have victories in London and at the Citadel, Lazlo," said Jia. "The London Institute turned out to be protected by a force even we were unaware of, one we cannot replicate. The Shadowhunters there were warned and led to safety. Even then, a few were injured: None of Sebastian's forces were harmed. At best it could be called a successful retreat."
"But the attack on the Citadel," Lazlo protested. "He did not enter the Citadel. He did not reach the armory there -"
"But neither did he lose. We sent through sixty warriors, and he killed thirty and injured ten. He had forty warriors, and he lost perhaps fifteen. If it hadn't been for what happened when he wounded Jace Lightwood, his forty would have slaughtered our sixty."
"We're Shadowhunters," said Nasreen Choudhury. "We are used to defending that which we must defend with our last breaths, our last drops of blood."
A noble idea," said Josiane Pontmercy, from the Marseilles Conclave, "but perhaps not entirely practical."
"We were too conservative in the number we sent to face him at the Citadel," said Robert Lightwood, his booming voice carrying through the room. "We have estimated since the attacks that Sebastian has four hundred Endarkened warriors on his side. Simply given the numbers, a head-to-head battle now between his forces and all Shadowhunters would mean that he would lose."
"So what we need to do is fight him as soon as possible, before he Turns any other Shadowhunters," said Diana Wrayburn.
"You can't fight what you can't find," said the Consul. "Our attempts to track him continue to prove fruitless." She raised her voice. "Sebastian Morgenstern's best plan now is to lure us out in small numbers. He needs us to send out scouting parties to hunt demons, or to hunt him. We must stay together, here, in Idris, where he cannot confront us. If we split up, if we leave our homeland, then we will lose."
"He'll wait us out," said a blond Shadowhunter from the Copenhagen Conclave.
"We have to believe he doesn't have the patience for that," said Jia. "We have to assume he will attack, and when he does, our superior numbers will defeat him."
"There's more than patience to be considered," said Balogh. "We left our Institutes, we came here, with the understanding that we would be returning once we had held a Council with the Downworld representatives. Without us out in the world, who will protect it? We have a mandate, a mandate from Heaven, to protect the world, to hold back the demons. We cannot do that from Idris."
"All the wards are at full strength," said Robert. "Wrangel Island is working overtime. And given our new cooperation with Downworlders, we will have to rely on them to keep the Accords. That was part of what we were going to discuss at the Council today -"
"Well, good luck to you with that," said Josiane Pontmercy, "considering that the representatives of Downworld are missing."
Missing. The word fell into the silence like a pebble into water, sending out ripples through the room. Isabelle felt Alec stiffen, minutely, at her side.
"We don't know that!" Jia protested. "Guards are out searching now -"
"Sebastian wrote on the floor in front of their very seats!" shouted a man with a bandaged arm. He was the head of the Mexico City Institute and had been at the Citadel battle. "Veni. ’I am come.' Just as he sent us a message with the death of the angel in New York, now he strikes at us in the heart of the Gard -"
"But he didn't strike at us," Diana interrupted. "He struck at the representatives of Downworld."
"To strike at our allies is to strike at us," called Maryse. "They are members of the Council, with all the attendant rights that represents."
"We don't even know what happened to them!" snapped someone in the crowd. "They could be perfectly all right -"
"Then where are they?" shouted Alec, and even Jace looked startled to hear Alec raise his voice. Alec was glowering, his blue eyes dark. "Has anyone tried to track them?"
"We have," said Jia. "It hasn't worked. Not all of them can be tracked. You cannot track a warlock, or the dead -" Jia broke off with a sudden gasp. Without warning the Clave guard on her left had come up behind her and seized her by the back of her robes. A shout ran through the assembly as he yanked her back, placing the blade of a long, silver dagger against her throat.
"Nephilim!" he roared, and his hood fell away, showing the blank eyes and swirling, unfamiliar Marks of the Endarkened. A roar began to rise from the crowd, cut off quickly as the guard dug his blade farther into Jia's throat. Blood bloomed around it, visible even from a distance. "Nephilim!" the man roared again. His arms were thickly muscled, the veins standing out like ropes as he struggled to hold Jia still. "Stay where you are! Do not approach, or your Consul dies!"
Aline screamed. Helen had hold of her, visibly restraining her from running forward. Behind them the Blackthorn children huddled around Julian, who was carrying his youngest brother in his arms; Drusilla had her face pressed against his side. Emma, her hair bright even at a distance, stood with her blade Cortana out, protecting the others.
"That's Matthias Gonzales," said Alec in a shocked voice. "He was head of the Buenos Aires Institute-"
"Silence!" roared the man behind Jia-Matthias-and an uneasy silence fell. Most Shadowhunters stood, like Jace and Alec, with their hands halfway to their weapons. Isabelle was clutching the handle of her whip. "Hear me, Shadowhunters!" Matthias cried, his eyes burning with a fanatic light. "Hear me, for I was one of you. Blindly following the rule of the Clave, convinced of my safety within the wards of Idris, protected by the light of the Angel! But there is no safety here." He jerked his chin to the side, indicating the scrawl on the floor. "None are safe, not even Heaven's messengers. That is the reach of the power of the Infernal Cup, and of he who holds it."
A murmur ran through the crowd. Robert Lightwood pushed forward, his face anxious as he looked at Jia, and the blade at her throat. "What does he want?" he demanded. "Valentine's son. What does he want from us?"
"Oh, he wants many things," said the Endarkened Shadowhunter. "But for now he will content himself with the gift of his sister and adoptive brother. Give him Clarissa Morgenstern and Jace Lightwood, and avert disaster."
Oh, no.
"We are Nephilim," Robert said coldly. "We do not trade away our own. He knows that."
"We of the Infernal Cup have in our possession five of your allies," was the reply. "Meliorn of the Fair Folk, Raphael Santiago of the Night's Children, Luke Garroway of the Moon's Children, Jocelyn Morgenstern of the Nephilim, and Magnus Bane of the Children of Lilith. If you do not give us Clarissa and Jonathan, they will be put to the deaths of iron and silver, of fire and rowan. And when your Downworld allies learn that you have sacrificed their representatives because you would not give up your own, they will turn on you. They will join with us, and you will find yourselves fighting not just he who holds the Infernal Cup, but all of Downworld."
Isabelle watched Clary and Jace exchange a desperate look. When Clary started forward, Isabelle’s hand was around her wrist, giving it a hard jerk back. "Don't," Isabelle said.
"You are a fool and a follower," snapped Kadir, his eyes angry as he regarded Matthias. "No Downworlders will hold us accountable for not sacrificing two of our children to Jonathan Morgenstern's pyre of corpses."
"Oh, but he will not kill them," said Matthias with vicious glee. "You have his word on the Angel that no harm will come to the Morgenstern girl or the Lightwood boy. They are his family, and he desires them by his side. So there is no sacrifice."
In her worry over Clary, Isabelle had forgotten about Jace.
And now e was gone already, away from all of them, striding out onto the aisle of stairs between the benches. "I will go!" he shouted, and his voice rang through the room. "I will go, willingly." His sword was in his hand. He threw it down, where it clattered on the steps. "I will go with Sebastian," he said, into the silence that followed. "Just leave Clary out of it. Let her stay. Take me alone."
"Jace, no," Alec said, but his voice was drowned by the clamor that ran through the room, voices rising like smoke and curling up toward the ceiling, and Jace stood calmly, with his hands out, showing he had no weapons, his hair shining under the light of the runes. A sacrificial angel. Matthias Gonzales laughed. "There will be no bargain without Clarissa," he said. "Sebastian demands her, and I deliver what my master demands."
"You think we're fools," Jace said. "Actually, I know better than that. You don't think at all. You're a mouthpiece for a demon, that's all you are. You don't care about anything anymore. Not family or blood or honor. You're no longer human."
Matthias sneered. "Why would anyone want to be human?"
"Because your bargain is worthless," said Jace. "So we give ourselves up, and Sebastian returns his hostages. Then what? You've been at such pains to tell us how much better he is than the Nephilim, how much stronger, how much cleverer. How he can strike at us here in Alicante, and all our wards and all our guards can't keep him out. How he'll destroy us all. If you want to bargain with someone, you offer them a chance to win. If you were human, you'd know that."
In the silence that followed, you might have have heard a drop of blood strike the floor. Matthias was still, his blade still pinned against Jia's throat, his lips shaping words as if he were whispering something, or reciting something he had heard -
Or listening to words being whispered into his ear.
"You cannot win," Matthias said finally, and Jace laughed, that sharp acerbic laugh of his. Not a sacrificial angel, then, but an avenging one, all gold and blood and fire, confident even in the face of defeat. "You see what I mean," Jace said. "Then what does it matter if we die now or die later -"
"You cannot win," repeated Matthias, "but you can survive. Those of you who choose it can be changed by the Infernal Cup; you will become soldiers of the Morning Star, and you will rule the world with Jonathan Morgenstern as your leader. Those who choose to remain the children of Raziel may do so, as long as you remain in Idris. The borders of Idris will be sealed, closing it away from the rest of the world, which will belong to us. This land granted you by the Angel, you will keep, and keeping within its borders, you will be safe. That, you can be promised."
Jace glared. "Sebastian's promises mean nothing."
"His promises are all you have," said Matthias. "Keep your alliance with Downworlders, stay within the borders of Idris, and you will survive. But this offer stands only so long as you give yourselves willingly up to our master. You and Clarissa both. There is no negotiation."
Silence fell again.
And then Clary moved away from Alec and Isabelle, Simon trying catch at her arm. She turned and looked at him, and shook her head.
His dark eyes pleaded with her. "Don't," he whispered.
"He said both of us," she whispered back. "If Jace goes to Sebastian without me, Sebastian will kill him."
"He'll kill you both anyway." Isabelle was nearly crying with frustration. "You can't go, and Jace can't either - Jace!"
Jace turned to look at them. His expression changed as he realized Clary was struggling to get to him. He shook his head, mouthing the word: "No."
"Give us time," Robert Lightwood called. "Give us some time to cast a vote, at least."
Matthias drew the knife away from Jia's throat and held it aloft; his other arm circled her, his hand gripping the front of her robes. He raised the knife toward the ceiling, and light sparked off it at the gesture. "Time," he sneered. "Why should Sebastian give you time?"
A sharp singing noise cut the air. Something bright shot through the air, and and there was the noise of metal striking metal as an arrow slammed into the knife Matthias held above Jia's head, knocking it free of his grasp. Isabelle whipped her head sideways and saw Alec, his bow raised, the string still vibrating. Matthias let out a roar and staggered back, his hand bleeding. Jia darted away from him as he dived for his fallen blade. Isabelle heard Jace call out "Nakir!" He had drawn a seraph blade from his belt and its light illuminated the hall. "Get out of my way!" he shouted, and began to shoulder his way down the steps, toward the dais.
"No!" Alec, dropping his bow, flung himself over the back of the row of benches, and dived on top of Jace, knocking him to the ground just as the dais went up in flames like a bonfire doused with gasoline. Jia cried out and leaped from the platform into the crowd; Kadir caught her and lowered her gently as all the Shadowhunters turned to stare at the rising flames.
Matthias was a black shadow at the heart of the flames. They were clearly not harming him; he seemed to be laughing, throwing up his arms over and over as if he were a conductor directing an orchestra of fire. The room was full of shrieks and the stink and crackle of burning wood. Aline had run to clutch at her bleeding mother, weeping; Helen was watching helplessly as, along with Julian, she tried to shield the younger Blackthorns from what was happening below.
No one was shielding Emma, though. She was standing apart from the group, her small face white with shock as, over the already horrible sounds filling the room, Matthias's cries pierced the din: "Two days, Nephilim! You have two days to decide your fate! And then you will all burn! You will burn in the fires of Hell, and the ashes of Edom will cover your bones!"
His voice rose to an unearthly shriek and was suddenly silenced, as the flames dropped away and he disappeared along with them. The last of the embers licked across the floor, their glowing tips barely touching the message still scrawled in ichor across the dais.
Veni.
I HAVE COME.
[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Post one of three today. From City of Heavenly Fire. Warning for violence.]
And now, the Downworlder representatives who had come to Alicante for the emergency Council meeting were gone. And all morning there had been rumors that Sebastian had been in the city last night. In Alicante. And now… The Council room, so orderly only a few days before, was full of shouting Shadowhunters. Everyone was standing, some in groups and some apart. Most of the groups were arguing.
Down in the center of the amphitheater, were the four carved wooden seats of the Downworlders, set around the lecterns in a half circle. They were empty, and splashed across the floorboards in front of them was a single word, scrawled in a crooked hand, in what looked like sticky gold paint:
Veni.
It was written in ichor. Angel blood.
Alec and Isabelle were in the crowd. They waved Clary and Jace and Simon over as soon as they saw them. "Is it true?" Isabelle said to Clary, after the quick reassuring embraces were over. "Sebastian was at your house last night?"
"At Amatis's, yes-how did you know?" Clary demanded.
"Our father's the Inquisitor; of course we know," said Alec. "Rumors about Sebastian being in the city were all everyone was talking about before they opened up the Council room and we saw - this."
"It's true," Simon added. "The Consul asked me about it when she woke me up - like I'd know anything. I slept through it," he added as Isabelle shot him an inquiring look.
"Did the Consul say anything to you about this?" Alec demanded, sweeping an arm toward the grim scene below. "Did Sebastian?"
"No," Clary said. "Sebastian doesn't exactly share his plans."
"He shouldn't have been able to get to the Downworld representatives. Not only is Alicante guarded, but each of their safe houses is warded," said Alec. There was a pulse going in his throat like a hammer; his hand, where it rested on Jace's sleeve, was shaking with a fine tremor. "They were at dinner. They should have been safe." He let go of Jace and jammed his hands into his pockets. "And Magnus - Magnus wasn't even supposed to be here. Catarina was coming instead of him." He looked at Simon. "I saw you with him in Angel Square on the night of the battle," he said. "Did he say why he was in Alicante?"
Simon shook his head. "He just shooed me away. He was healing Clary."
"Maybe this is a bluff," Alec said. "Maybe Sebastian is trying to make us think he's done something to the Downworld representatives to throw us off -"
"We don't know that he's done anything to them. But - they are missing," Jace said quietly, and Alec looked away, as if he couldn't bear to meet their gazes.
"Veni," Isabelle whispered, looking at the dais. "Why . . . ?"
"He's telling us he has power," Clary said. "Power none of us even begin to understand."
A sharp report rang out through the room, the bell that called the Council to order. Jia Penhallow had moved to the lectern, an armed Clave guard in hooded robes on either side of her. "Shadowhunters," she said, and the word echoed as clearly through the room as if she'd used a microphone. "Please be silent." The room subsided gradually into quiet, though from the rebellious looks on quite a few faces, it was an uncooperative quiet.
"Consul Penhallow!" called out Kadir. "What answers do you have for us? What is the meaning of this - this desecration?"
"We're not sure," said Jia. "It happened in the night, in between one watch of guards and another."
"This is vengeance," said a thin, dark-haired Shadowhunter, the head of the Budapest Institute, Lazlo Balogh. "Vengeance for our victories in London and at the Citadel."
"We didn't have victories in London and at the Citadel, Lazlo," said Jia. "The London Institute turned out to be protected by a force even we were unaware of, one we cannot replicate. The Shadowhunters there were warned and led to safety. Even then, a few were injured: None of Sebastian's forces were harmed. At best it could be called a successful retreat."
"But the attack on the Citadel," Lazlo protested. "He did not enter the Citadel. He did not reach the armory there -"
"But neither did he lose. We sent through sixty warriors, and he killed thirty and injured ten. He had forty warriors, and he lost perhaps fifteen. If it hadn't been for what happened when he wounded Jace Lightwood, his forty would have slaughtered our sixty."
"We're Shadowhunters," said Nasreen Choudhury. "We are used to defending that which we must defend with our last breaths, our last drops of blood."
A noble idea," said Josiane Pontmercy, from the Marseilles Conclave, "but perhaps not entirely practical."
"We were too conservative in the number we sent to face him at the Citadel," said Robert Lightwood, his booming voice carrying through the room. "We have estimated since the attacks that Sebastian has four hundred Endarkened warriors on his side. Simply given the numbers, a head-to-head battle now between his forces and all Shadowhunters would mean that he would lose."
"So what we need to do is fight him as soon as possible, before he Turns any other Shadowhunters," said Diana Wrayburn.
"You can't fight what you can't find," said the Consul. "Our attempts to track him continue to prove fruitless." She raised her voice. "Sebastian Morgenstern's best plan now is to lure us out in small numbers. He needs us to send out scouting parties to hunt demons, or to hunt him. We must stay together, here, in Idris, where he cannot confront us. If we split up, if we leave our homeland, then we will lose."
"He'll wait us out," said a blond Shadowhunter from the Copenhagen Conclave.
"We have to believe he doesn't have the patience for that," said Jia. "We have to assume he will attack, and when he does, our superior numbers will defeat him."
"There's more than patience to be considered," said Balogh. "We left our Institutes, we came here, with the understanding that we would be returning once we had held a Council with the Downworld representatives. Without us out in the world, who will protect it? We have a mandate, a mandate from Heaven, to protect the world, to hold back the demons. We cannot do that from Idris."
"All the wards are at full strength," said Robert. "Wrangel Island is working overtime. And given our new cooperation with Downworlders, we will have to rely on them to keep the Accords. That was part of what we were going to discuss at the Council today -"
"Well, good luck to you with that," said Josiane Pontmercy, "considering that the representatives of Downworld are missing."
Missing. The word fell into the silence like a pebble into water, sending out ripples through the room. Isabelle felt Alec stiffen, minutely, at her side.
"We don't know that!" Jia protested. "Guards are out searching now -"
"Sebastian wrote on the floor in front of their very seats!" shouted a man with a bandaged arm. He was the head of the Mexico City Institute and had been at the Citadel battle. "Veni. ’I am come.' Just as he sent us a message with the death of the angel in New York, now he strikes at us in the heart of the Gard -"
"But he didn't strike at us," Diana interrupted. "He struck at the representatives of Downworld."
"To strike at our allies is to strike at us," called Maryse. "They are members of the Council, with all the attendant rights that represents."
"We don't even know what happened to them!" snapped someone in the crowd. "They could be perfectly all right -"
"Then where are they?" shouted Alec, and even Jace looked startled to hear Alec raise his voice. Alec was glowering, his blue eyes dark. "Has anyone tried to track them?"
"We have," said Jia. "It hasn't worked. Not all of them can be tracked. You cannot track a warlock, or the dead -" Jia broke off with a sudden gasp. Without warning the Clave guard on her left had come up behind her and seized her by the back of her robes. A shout ran through the assembly as he yanked her back, placing the blade of a long, silver dagger against her throat.
"Nephilim!" he roared, and his hood fell away, showing the blank eyes and swirling, unfamiliar Marks of the Endarkened. A roar began to rise from the crowd, cut off quickly as the guard dug his blade farther into Jia's throat. Blood bloomed around it, visible even from a distance. "Nephilim!" the man roared again. His arms were thickly muscled, the veins standing out like ropes as he struggled to hold Jia still. "Stay where you are! Do not approach, or your Consul dies!"
Aline screamed. Helen had hold of her, visibly restraining her from running forward. Behind them the Blackthorn children huddled around Julian, who was carrying his youngest brother in his arms; Drusilla had her face pressed against his side. Emma, her hair bright even at a distance, stood with her blade Cortana out, protecting the others.
"That's Matthias Gonzales," said Alec in a shocked voice. "He was head of the Buenos Aires Institute-"
"Silence!" roared the man behind Jia-Matthias-and an uneasy silence fell. Most Shadowhunters stood, like Jace and Alec, with their hands halfway to their weapons. Isabelle was clutching the handle of her whip. "Hear me, Shadowhunters!" Matthias cried, his eyes burning with a fanatic light. "Hear me, for I was one of you. Blindly following the rule of the Clave, convinced of my safety within the wards of Idris, protected by the light of the Angel! But there is no safety here." He jerked his chin to the side, indicating the scrawl on the floor. "None are safe, not even Heaven's messengers. That is the reach of the power of the Infernal Cup, and of he who holds it."
A murmur ran through the crowd. Robert Lightwood pushed forward, his face anxious as he looked at Jia, and the blade at her throat. "What does he want?" he demanded. "Valentine's son. What does he want from us?"
"Oh, he wants many things," said the Endarkened Shadowhunter. "But for now he will content himself with the gift of his sister and adoptive brother. Give him Clarissa Morgenstern and Jace Lightwood, and avert disaster."
Oh, no.
"We are Nephilim," Robert said coldly. "We do not trade away our own. He knows that."
"We of the Infernal Cup have in our possession five of your allies," was the reply. "Meliorn of the Fair Folk, Raphael Santiago of the Night's Children, Luke Garroway of the Moon's Children, Jocelyn Morgenstern of the Nephilim, and Magnus Bane of the Children of Lilith. If you do not give us Clarissa and Jonathan, they will be put to the deaths of iron and silver, of fire and rowan. And when your Downworld allies learn that you have sacrificed their representatives because you would not give up your own, they will turn on you. They will join with us, and you will find yourselves fighting not just he who holds the Infernal Cup, but all of Downworld."
Isabelle watched Clary and Jace exchange a desperate look. When Clary started forward, Isabelle’s hand was around her wrist, giving it a hard jerk back. "Don't," Isabelle said.
"You are a fool and a follower," snapped Kadir, his eyes angry as he regarded Matthias. "No Downworlders will hold us accountable for not sacrificing two of our children to Jonathan Morgenstern's pyre of corpses."
"Oh, but he will not kill them," said Matthias with vicious glee. "You have his word on the Angel that no harm will come to the Morgenstern girl or the Lightwood boy. They are his family, and he desires them by his side. So there is no sacrifice."
In her worry over Clary, Isabelle had forgotten about Jace.
And now e was gone already, away from all of them, striding out onto the aisle of stairs between the benches. "I will go!" he shouted, and his voice rang through the room. "I will go, willingly." His sword was in his hand. He threw it down, where it clattered on the steps. "I will go with Sebastian," he said, into the silence that followed. "Just leave Clary out of it. Let her stay. Take me alone."
"Jace, no," Alec said, but his voice was drowned by the clamor that ran through the room, voices rising like smoke and curling up toward the ceiling, and Jace stood calmly, with his hands out, showing he had no weapons, his hair shining under the light of the runes. A sacrificial angel. Matthias Gonzales laughed. "There will be no bargain without Clarissa," he said. "Sebastian demands her, and I deliver what my master demands."
"You think we're fools," Jace said. "Actually, I know better than that. You don't think at all. You're a mouthpiece for a demon, that's all you are. You don't care about anything anymore. Not family or blood or honor. You're no longer human."
Matthias sneered. "Why would anyone want to be human?"
"Because your bargain is worthless," said Jace. "So we give ourselves up, and Sebastian returns his hostages. Then what? You've been at such pains to tell us how much better he is than the Nephilim, how much stronger, how much cleverer. How he can strike at us here in Alicante, and all our wards and all our guards can't keep him out. How he'll destroy us all. If you want to bargain with someone, you offer them a chance to win. If you were human, you'd know that."
In the silence that followed, you might have have heard a drop of blood strike the floor. Matthias was still, his blade still pinned against Jia's throat, his lips shaping words as if he were whispering something, or reciting something he had heard -
Or listening to words being whispered into his ear.
"You cannot win," Matthias said finally, and Jace laughed, that sharp acerbic laugh of his. Not a sacrificial angel, then, but an avenging one, all gold and blood and fire, confident even in the face of defeat. "You see what I mean," Jace said. "Then what does it matter if we die now or die later -"
"You cannot win," repeated Matthias, "but you can survive. Those of you who choose it can be changed by the Infernal Cup; you will become soldiers of the Morning Star, and you will rule the world with Jonathan Morgenstern as your leader. Those who choose to remain the children of Raziel may do so, as long as you remain in Idris. The borders of Idris will be sealed, closing it away from the rest of the world, which will belong to us. This land granted you by the Angel, you will keep, and keeping within its borders, you will be safe. That, you can be promised."
Jace glared. "Sebastian's promises mean nothing."
"His promises are all you have," said Matthias. "Keep your alliance with Downworlders, stay within the borders of Idris, and you will survive. But this offer stands only so long as you give yourselves willingly up to our master. You and Clarissa both. There is no negotiation."
Silence fell again.
And then Clary moved away from Alec and Isabelle, Simon trying catch at her arm. She turned and looked at him, and shook her head.
His dark eyes pleaded with her. "Don't," he whispered.
"He said both of us," she whispered back. "If Jace goes to Sebastian without me, Sebastian will kill him."
"He'll kill you both anyway." Isabelle was nearly crying with frustration. "You can't go, and Jace can't either - Jace!"
Jace turned to look at them. His expression changed as he realized Clary was struggling to get to him. He shook his head, mouthing the word: "No."
"Give us time," Robert Lightwood called. "Give us some time to cast a vote, at least."
Matthias drew the knife away from Jia's throat and held it aloft; his other arm circled her, his hand gripping the front of her robes. He raised the knife toward the ceiling, and light sparked off it at the gesture. "Time," he sneered. "Why should Sebastian give you time?"
A sharp singing noise cut the air. Something bright shot through the air, and and there was the noise of metal striking metal as an arrow slammed into the knife Matthias held above Jia's head, knocking it free of his grasp. Isabelle whipped her head sideways and saw Alec, his bow raised, the string still vibrating. Matthias let out a roar and staggered back, his hand bleeding. Jia darted away from him as he dived for his fallen blade. Isabelle heard Jace call out "Nakir!" He had drawn a seraph blade from his belt and its light illuminated the hall. "Get out of my way!" he shouted, and began to shoulder his way down the steps, toward the dais.
"No!" Alec, dropping his bow, flung himself over the back of the row of benches, and dived on top of Jace, knocking him to the ground just as the dais went up in flames like a bonfire doused with gasoline. Jia cried out and leaped from the platform into the crowd; Kadir caught her and lowered her gently as all the Shadowhunters turned to stare at the rising flames.
Matthias was a black shadow at the heart of the flames. They were clearly not harming him; he seemed to be laughing, throwing up his arms over and over as if he were a conductor directing an orchestra of fire. The room was full of shrieks and the stink and crackle of burning wood. Aline had run to clutch at her bleeding mother, weeping; Helen was watching helplessly as, along with Julian, she tried to shield the younger Blackthorns from what was happening below.
No one was shielding Emma, though. She was standing apart from the group, her small face white with shock as, over the already horrible sounds filling the room, Matthias's cries pierced the din: "Two days, Nephilim! You have two days to decide your fate! And then you will all burn! You will burn in the fires of Hell, and the ashes of Edom will cover your bones!"
His voice rose to an unearthly shriek and was suddenly silenced, as the flames dropped away and he disappeared along with them. The last of the embers licked across the floor, their glowing tips barely touching the message still scrawled in ichor across the dais.
Veni.
I HAVE COME.
[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Post one of three today. From City of Heavenly Fire. Warning for violence.]