Chapter 18
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“I taught you that,” said Hodge, dry amusement in his
voice. “And now you turn my lessons back at me.
Rightly too.” He looked as if he wanted to sink down into
a nearby chair, but held himself upright nevertheless. In
his rigid posture there was something of the soldier he
had once been, ry thought.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she said. “That my
mother was married to Valentine. You knew her name
—”
“I knew her as Jocelyn Fairchild, not Jocelyn Fray,” said
Hodge. “And you were so insistent on her ignorance of
the Shadow World, you convinced me it could not be the
Jocelyn I knew—and perhaps I did not want to believe it.
No one would wish for Valentine’s return.” He shook his
head again. “When I sent for the Brothers of the Bone
City this morning, I had no idea just what news we
would have for them,” he said. “When the ve finds
out Valentine may have returned, that he is seeking the
Cup, there will be an uproar. I can only hope it does not
disrupt the ords.”
“I bet Valentine would like that,” Jace said. “But why
does he want the Cup so badly?”
Hodge’s face was gray. “Isn’t that obvious?” he said. “So
he can build himself an army.”
Jace looked startled. “But that would never—”
“Dinnertime!” It was Isabelle, standing framed in the
door of the library. She still had the spoon in her hand,
though her hair had escaped from its bun and was
straggling down her neck. “Sorry if I’m interrupting,” she
added, as an afterthought.
“Dear God,” said Jace, “the dread hour is nigh.”
Hodge looked rmed. “I—I—I had a very filling
breakfast,” he stammered. “I mean lunch. A filling lunch.
I couldn’t possibly eat—”
“I threw out the soup,” Isabelle said. “And ordered
Chinese from that ce downtown.”
Jace unhitched himself from the desk and stretched.
“Great. I’m starved.”
“I might be able to eat a bite,” admitted Hodge meekly.
“You two are terrible liars,” said Isabelle darkly. “Look, I
know you don’t like my cooking—”
“So stop doing it,” Jace advised her reasonably. “Did
you order mu shu pork? You know I love mu shu pork.”
Isabelle cast her eyes skyward. “Yes. It’s in the kitchen.”
“Awesome.” Jace ducked by her with an affectionate
ruffle of her hair. Hodge went after him, pausing only to
pat Isabelle on the shoulder—then he was gone, with a
funny apologetic duck of the head. Had ry really only
a few minutes before been able to see the ghost in him
of his old warrior self?
Isabelle was looking after Jace and Hodge, twisting the
spoon in her scarred, pale fingers. ry said, “Is he
really?”
Isabelle didn’t look at her. “Is who really what?”
“Jace. Is he really a terrible liar?”
Now Isabelle did turn her eyes on ry, and they were
large and dark and unexpectedly thoughtful. “He’s not a
liar at all. Not about important things. He’ll tell you
horrible truths, but he won’t lie.” She paused before she
added quietly, “That’s why it’s generally better not to ask
him anything unless you know you can stand to hear the
answer.”
The kitchen was warm and full of light and the salt-
sweet smell of takeout Chinese food. The smell
reminded ry of home; she sat and looked at her
glistening te of noodles, toyed with her fork, and tried
not to look at Simon, who was staring at Isabelle with an
expression more zed than the General Tso’s
Duckling.
“Well, I think it’s kind of romantic,” said Isabelle, sucking
tapioca pearls through an enormous pink straw.
“What is?” asked Simon, instantly alert.
“That whole business about ry’s mother being
married to Valentine,” said Isabelle. Jace and Hodge
had filled her in, though ry noted that both had left
out the part about the Lightwoods having been in the
Circle, and the curses the ve had handed down. “So
now he’s back from the dead and he’se looking for
her. Maybe he wants to get back together.”
“I kind of doubt he sent a Ravener demon to her house
because he wants to ‘get back together,’” said Alec, who
had turned up when the food was served. Nobody had
asked him where he’d been, and he hadn’t offered the
information. He was sitting next to Jace, across from
ry, and was avoiding looking at her.
“It wouldn’t be my move,” Jace agreed. “First the candy
and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous
demon hordes. In that order.”
“He might have sent her candy and flowers,” Isabelle
said. “We don’t know.”
“Isabelle,” said Hodge patiently, “this is the man who
rained down destruction on Idris the like of which it had
never seen, who set Shadowhunter against
Downworlder and made the streets of the ss City run
with blood.”
“That’s sort of hot,” Isabelle argued, “that evil thing.”
Simon tried to look menacing, but gave it up when he
saw ry staring at him. “So why does Valentine want
this Cup so bad, and why does he think ry’s mom
has it?” he asked.
“You said it was so he could make an army,” ry said,
turning to Hodge. “You mean because you can use the
Cup to make Shadowhunters?”
“Yes.”
“So Valentine could just walk up to any guy on the street
and make a Shadowhunter out of him? Just with the
Cup?” Simon leaned forward. “Would it work on me?”
Hodge gave him a long and measured look. “Possibly,”
he said. “But most likely, you’re too old. The Cup works
on children. An adult would either be unaffected by the
process entirely, or killed outright.”
“A child army,” said Isabelle softly.
“Only for a few years,” said Jace. “Kids grow fast. It
wouldn’t be too long before they were a force to contend
with.”
“I don’t know,” said Simon. “Turning a bunch of kids into
warriors—I’ve heard of worse stuff happening. I don’t
see the big deal about keeping the Cup away from him.”
“Leaving out that he would inevitably use this army to
launch an attack on the ve,” Hodge said dryly, “the
reason that only a few humans are selected to be turned
into Nephilim is that most would never survive the
transition. It takes special strength and resilience.
Before they can be turned, they must be extensively
tested—but Valentine would never bother with that. He
would use the Cup on any child he could capture, and
cull out the twenty percent who survived to be his army.”
Alec was looking at Hodge with the same horror ry
felt. “How do you know he’d do that?”
“Because,” Hodge said, “when he was in the Circle, that
was his n. He said it was the only way to build the
kind of force that was needed to defend our world.”
“But that’s murder,” said Isabelle, who looked a little
green. “He was talking about killing children.”
“He said that we had made the world safe for humans
for a thousand years,” said Hodge, “and now was their
time to repay us with their own sacrifice.”
“Their children?” demanded Jace, his cheeks flushed.
“That goes against everything we’re supposed to be
about. Protecting the helpless, safeguarding humanity
—”
Hodge pushed his te away. “Valentine was insane,”
he said. “Brilliant, but insane. He cared about nothing
but killing demons and Downworlders. Nothing but
making the world pure. He would have sacrificed his
own son for the cause and could not understand how
anyone else would not.”
“He had a son?” said Alec.
“I was speaking figuratively,” said Hodge, reaching for
his handkerchief. He used it to mop his forehead before
returning it to his pocket. His hand, ry saw, was
trembling slightly. “When hisnd burned, when his
home was destroyed, it was assumed that he had
burned himself and the Cup to ashes rather than
relinquish either to the ve. His bones were found in
the ashes, along with the bones of his wife.”
“But my mother lived,” said ry. “She didn’t die in that
fire.”
“And neither, it seems now, did Valentine,” said Hodge.
“The ve will not be pleased to have been fooled. But
more importantly, they will want to secure the Cup. And
more importantly than that, they will want to make sure
Valentine does not.”
“It seems to me that the first thing we’d better do is find
ry’s mother,” said Jace. “Find her, find the Cup, get it
before Valentine does.”
This sounded fine to ry, but Hodge looked at Jace as
if he’d proposed juggling nitroglycerine as a solution.
“Absolutely not.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Nothing,” Hodge said. “All this is best left to skilled,
experienced Shadowhunters.”
“I am skilled,” protested Jace. “I am experienced.”
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Hodge’s tone was firm, nearly parental. “I know that you
are, but you’re still a child, or nearly one.”
Jace looked at Hodge through slitted eyes. Hisshes
were long, casting shadows down over his angr
cheekbones. In someone else it would have been a shy
look, even an apologetic one, but on Jace it looked
narrow and menacing. “I am not a child.”
“Hodge is right,” said Alec. He was looking at Jace, and
ry thought that he must be one of the few people in
the world who looked at Jace not as if he were afraid of
him, but as if he were afraid for him. “Valentine is
dangerous. I know you’re a good Shadowhunter. You’re
probably the best our age. But Valentine’s one of the
best there ever was. It took a huge battle to bring him
down.”
“And he didn’t exactly stay down,” said Isabelle,
examining her fork tines. “Apparently.”
“But we’re here,” said Jace. “We’re here and because of
the ords, nobody else is. If we don’t do something—”
“We are going to do something,” said Hodge. “I’ll send
the ve a message tonight. They could have a force
of Nephilim here by tomorrow if they wanted. They’ll
take care of this. You have done more than enough.”
Jace subsided, but his eyes were still glittering. “I don’t
like it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” said Alec. “You just have to
shut up and not do anything stupid.”
“But what about my mother?” ry demanded. “She
can’t wait for some representative from the ve to
show up. Valentine has her right now—Pangborn and
ckwell said so—and he could be …” She couldn’t
bring herself to say the word “torture,” but ry knew
she wasn’t the only one thinking it. Suddenly no one at
the table could meet her eyes.
Except Simon. “Hurting her,” he said, finishing her
sentence. “Except, ry, they also said she was
unconscious and that Valentine wasn’t happy about it.
He seems to be waiting for her to wake up.”
“I’d stay unconscious if I were her,” Isabelle muttered.
“But that could be any time,” said ry, ignoring
Isabelle. “I thought the ve was pledged to protect
people. Shouldn’t there be Shadowhunters here right
now? Shouldn’t they already be searching for her?”
“That would be easier,” snapped Alec, “if we had the
slightest idea where to look.”
“But we do,” said Jace.
“You do?” ry looked at him, startled and eager.
“Where?”
“Here.” Jace leaned forward and touched his fingers to
the side of her temple, so gently that a flush crept up her
face. “Everything we need to know is locked up in your
head, under those pretty red curls.”
ry reached up to touch her hair protectively. “I don’t
think—”
“So what are you going to do?” Simon asked sharply.
“Cut her head open to get at it?”
Jace’s eyes sparked, but he said calmly, “Not at all. The
Silent Brothers can help her retrieve her memories.”
“You hate the Silent Brothers,” protested Isabelle.
“I don’t hate them,” said Jace candidly. “I’m afraid of
them. It’s not the same thing.”
“I thought you said they were librarians,” said ry.
“They are librarians.”
Simon whistled. “Those must be some killerte fees.”
“The Silent Brothers are archivists, but that is not all
they are,” interrupted Hodge, sounding as if he were
running out of patience. “In order to strengthen their
minds, they have chosen to take upon themselves some
of the most powerful runes ever created. The power of
these runes is so great that the use of them—” He broke
off and ry heard Isabelle’s voice in her head, saying:
They mutte themselves. “Well, it warps and twists
their physical forms. They are not warriors in the sense
that other Shadowhunters are warriors. Their powers
are of the mind, not the body.”
“They can read minds?” ry said in a small voice.
“Among other things. They are among the most feared
of all demon hunters.”
“I don’t know,” said Simon, “it doesn’t sound so bad to
me. I’d rather have someone mess around inside my
head than chop it off.”
“Then you’re a bigger idiot than you look,” said Jace,
regarding him with scorn.
“Jace is right,” said Isabelle, ignoring Simon. “The Silent
Brothers are really creepy.”
Hodge’s hand was clenched on the table. “They are very
powerful,” he said. “They walk in darkness and do not
speak, but they can crack open a man’s mind the way
you might crack open a walnut—and leave him
screaming alone in the dark if that is what they desire.”
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