Chapter 54


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    Jace stumbled to the edge of the Portal before stopping, a hand against the gilt frame. A strange hesitation seemed to have taken hold of


    him, even as Idris shimmered before his eyes like a mirage in the desert. It would only take a step—


    “Jace, don''t.” ry said quickly. “Don''t go after him.”


    “But the Cup,” said Jace. She could not tell what he was thinking, but the de in his hand was shaking violently as his hand shook.


    “Let the ve get it! Jace, please.” If you go through that Portal, you might nevere back. Valentine will kill you. You don’t want to


    believe it, but he will.


    “Your sister is right.” Valentine was standing amid green grass and wildflowers, the des waving around his feet, and ry realized that


    though he and they were inches away from each other, they stood in different countries. “Do you really think you can win this? Though you


    have a seraph de and I am unarmed? Not only am I stronger than you, but I doubt you have it in you to kill me. And you will have to kill


    me, Jonathan, before I''ll give the Cup to you.”


    Jace tightened his grip on the angel de. “I can—


    “No, you can''t.” Valentine reached out, through the Portal, and seized Jace’s wrist in his hand, dragging it forward until the tip of the seraph


    de touched his chest. Where Jace''s hand and wrist passed through the Portal, they seemed to shimmer as if they had been cast in


    water. “Do it, then,” said Valentine. “Drive the de in. Three inches—maybe four.” He jerked the de forward, the dagger''s tip slicing the


    fabric of his shirt. A red circle like a poppy bloomed just over his heart. Jace. with a gasp, yanked his arm free and staggered back.


    “As I thought,” said Valentine. “Too softhearted.” And with a shocking suddenness he swung his fist toward Jace. ry cried out, but the


    blow never connected; instead it struck the surface of the Portal between them with a sound like a thousand fragile shattering things.


    Spiderwebbing cracks fissured the ss-that-was-not-ss; thest thing ry heard before the Portal dissolved into a deluge of ragged


    shards was Valentine''s derisiveughter.Material ? N?velDrama.Org.


    ss surged across the floor like a shower of ice, a strangely beautiful cascade of silver shards. ry stepped back, but Jace stood very


    still as the ss rained around him, staring at the empty frame of the mirror.


    ry had expected him to swear, to shout or curse at his father, but instead he only waited for the shards to stop falling. When they did, he


    knelt down silently and carefully in the welter of broken ss and picked up one of therger pieces, turning it over in his hands.


    “Don''t.” ry knelt down next to him, setting down the knife she''d been holding. Its presence no longerforted her. “There wasn''t


    anything you could have done.”


    “Yes, there was.” He was still looking down at the ss. Broken slivers of it powdered his hair. "I could have killed him.” He turned the


    shard toward her. “Look,” he said.


    She looked. In the bit of ss she could still see a piece of Idris—a bit of blue sky, the shadow of green leaves. She exhaled painfully.


    “Jace—


    “Are you all right?”


    ry looked up. It was Luke, standing over them. He was weaponless, his eyes sunk into blue circles of exhaustion. “We''re fine,” she said.


    She could see a crumpled figure on the ground behind him, half-covered in Valentine''s long coat. A hand protruded from beneath the


    fabric’s edge: it was tipped with ws. “ric ...?”


    “Is dead,” said Luke. There was a wealth of controlled pain in his voice; though he had barely known ric, ry knew the crushing weight


    of guilt would stay with him forever. And this is how you repay the unquestioning loyalty you bought so cheaply, Lucian. By letting them die


    for you


    “My father got away,” said Jace. “With the Cup.” His voice was dull. "We delivered it right to him. I failed.”


    Luke let one of his hands fall on Jace’s head, brushing the ss from his hair. His ws were still out, his fingers stained with blood, but


    Jace suffered his touch as if he didn’t mind it, and said nothing at all. “It''s not your fault.” Luke said, looking down at ry. His blue eyes


    were steady. They said: Your brother needs you: stay with him


    She nodded, and Luke left them and went to the window. He threw it open, sending a draft of air through the room that guttered the


    candles. ry could hear him shouting. calling down to the wolves below.


    She knelt down next to Jace. “It''s all right,” she said haltingly, though clearly it wasn’t, and might never be again, and she put her hand on


    his shoulder. The cloth of his shirt was rough under her fingertips, damp with sweat, strangelyforting. “We have my mom back. We


    have you. We have everything that matters.”


    “He was right. That''s why I couldn’t make myself go through the Portal,” Jace whispered. “I couldn''t do it. I couldn’t kill him.”


    “The only way you would have failed,” she said, “is if you had.


    He said nothing, only whispered something under his breath. She couldn''t quite hear the words, but she reached out and took the bit of


    ss out of his hand. He was bleeding where he''d held it, from two fine and narrow gashes. She put the shard down and took his hand


    closing his fingers over the injured palm. “Honestly, Jace,” she said, as gently as she''d touched him, “don''t you know better than to y


    with broken ss?"


    He made a sound like a chokedugh before he reached out and pulled her into his arms. She was aware of Luke watching them from the


    window, but she shut her eyes resolutely and buried her face against Jace''s shoulder. He smelled of salt and blood, and only when his


    mouth came close to her ear did she understand what he was saying. what he had been whispering before, and it was the simplest litany of


    all: her name, just her name.


    EPILOGUE:


    THE ASCENT BECKONS


    THE HOSPITAL HALLWAY WAS BLINDINGLY WHITE. AFTER SO many days living by torchlight. gaslight, and eerie witchlight, the


    fluorescent lighting made things look sallow and unnatural. When ry signed herself in at the front desk, she noticed that the nurse


    handing her the clipboard had skin that looked strangely yellowish under the bright lights. Maybe she''s a demon, ry thought, handing


    the clipboard back. “Last door at the end of the hall,” said the nurse, shing a kind smile. Or I could be going crazy.


    “I know,” said ry. “I was here yesterday.” And the day before, and the day before that. It was early evening, and the hallway wasn''t


    crowded. An old man shuffled along in carpet slippers and a robe, dragging a mobile oxygen unit behind him. Two doctors in green surgical


    scrubs carried Styrofoam cups of coffee, steam rising from the surface of the liquid into the frigid air. Inside the hospital it was aggressively


    air-conditioned, though outside the weather had finally begun to turn toward fall.


    ry found the door at the end of the hall. It was open. She peered inside, not wanting to wake Luke up if he was asleep in the chair by


    the bed, as he had been thest two times she''de. But he was up and conferring with a tall man in the parchment-colored robes of the


    Silent Brothers. He turned, as if sensing ry’s arrival, and she saw that it was Brother Jeremiah.


    She crossed her arms over her chest. "What''s going on?”


    Luke looked exhausted, with three days’ worth of scruffy beard growth, his sses pushed up to the top of his head. She could see the


    bulk of the bandages that still wrapped his upper chest under his loose nnel shirt. “Brother Jeremiah was just leaving.” he said.


    Raising his hood, Jeremiah moved toward the door, but ry blocked his way. “So?” she challenged him. “Are you going to help my


    mother?"


    Jeremiah came closer to her. She could feel the cold that wafted off his body, like the steam from an iceberg. You cannot save others until


    you first save yourself, said the voice in her mind


    “This fortune-cookie stuff is getting really old.” ry said. “What''s wrong with my mother? Do you know? Can the Silent Brothers help her


    like you helped Alec?


    We helped no one, said Jeremiah. Nor is it our ce to assist those who have willingly separated themselves from the ve.


    She drew back as Jeremiah moved


    past her into the hallway. She


    watched hirwalk away, mingling


    with the crowd, none of whom gayé


    him a setond nce. When she fet


    her own eyes fall half-shut, she-saw


    the shimmering aura of nqour


    that surrounded him, and wondered


    what they were seeing: Another


    patient? A doctor hurrying along in


    surgical scrubs? A grieving visitor?


    “He was telling the truth,” said Luke from behind her. “He didn’t cure Alec; that was Magnus Bane. And he doesn’t know what''s wrong with


    your mother either.


    “I know," said ry, turning back into


    the room. She approached the bed


    warily. It wasfard to connect the


    small white figure in the bed, snaked


    over andainder by a nest of tubes<


    with het Vibrant me-haired >


    mother. Of course, her hair was still


    red; Spread out across the plow like


    ashawl of coppery thread,-but her


    skin was So pale that sh? reminded


    ry of the wax Sleeping Beauty in


    Madame Tussauds, whose chest


    rose and fell only because it was


    animated by clockwork. Content


    belongs to NovelDrama.Org


    She took her mother’s thin hand and held it, as she’d done yesterday and the day before. She could feel the pulse beating in Jocelyn’s


    wrist, steady and insistent. She wants to wake up, ry thought. I know she does.


    “Of course she does,” said Luke, and ry started in the realization that she had spoken aloud. “She has everything to get better for, even


    more than she could know.


    ryid her mother’s hand gently back down on the bed. “You mean Jace.”


    “Of course I mean Jace,” said Luke. “She’s mourned him for seventeen years. If I could tell her that she no longer needed to mourn—” He


    broke off,


    “They say people inas can sometimes hear you,” ry offered. Of course, the doctors had also said that this was no ordinarya—


    no injury, nock of oxygen, no sudden failure of heart or brain had caused it. It was as if she were simply asleep, and could not be woken


    up.


    “I Know,” said Luke. “I’ve been talking to her. Almost nonstop.” He shed a tired smile. “I''ve told her how brave you''ve been. How she''d be


    proud of you. Her warrior daughter.


    Something sharp and painful rose


    up the back ofher throat. She


    swallowed itdown, looking away


    from Luke toward the window.


    Throughtt she could see the nk


    brick well of the building opposite.


    No pretty views of trees or river here.


    “I diel the shopping you askéd,” she


    SAld. "I got peanut butterand milk


    and cereal and bread from


    Fortunato Brothers.” She dug into


    her jeans pocket. “I’ve got change—"


    “Keep it,” said Luke. “You can use it for cab fare back.”


    “Simon''s driving me back,” said ry. She checked the butterfly watch dangling from her key chain. “In fact, he''s probably downstairs now.”


    “Good, I''m d you''ll be spending some time with him.” Luke looked relieved. “Keep the money anyway. Get some takeout tonight.”


    She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. Luke was, as her mother had always said, a rock in times of trouble—solid, dependable, and totally


    immovable. “Come home eventually, okay? You need to sleep too.”


    “Sleep? Who needs sleep?” he scoffed, but she saw the tiredness in his face as he went back to sit down by her mother''s bed. Gently he reached to


    brush a strand of hair away from Jocelyn’s face. ry turned away, her eyes stinging.


    Eric’s van was idling at the curb when she walked out of the hospital''s main exit. The sky arced overhead, the perfect blue of a china bowl, darkening


    to sapphire over the Hudson River, where the sun was going down. Simon leaned over to pop the door for her, and she scrambled up into the seat


    beside him. “Thanks.”


    “Where to? Back home?” he asked, pulling the van out into the traffic on First.


    ry sighed. “I don’t even know where that is anymore.”


    Simon nced at her sideways. “Feeling sorry for yourself, Fray?” His tone was mocking, but gentle. If she looked past him, she could still see the


    dark stains on the backseat where Alec hadin, bleeding, across Isabelle''sp.


    “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She sighed again, tugging on a wayward curl of copper hair. “Everything’s changed. Everything''s different. I wish sometimes it


    could all go back to the way it was before.”


    “I don’t.” said Simon, to her surprise. “Where are we going again? Tell me uptown or downtown at least.”


    “To the Institute,” said ry. “Sorry,” she added, as he executed a terrifically illegal U-turn. The van, turning on two wheels, screeched in protest. “I


    should have told you that before.”


    “Huh,” said Simon. “You haven''t been back yet, right? Not since—”


    “No, not since,” said ry. “Jace called me and told me Alec and Isabelle were okay. Apparently their parents are racing back from Idris, now that


    someone finally actually told them what''s going on. They''ll be here in a couple of days.”


    “Was it weird, hearing from Jace?” asked Simon, his voice carefully neutral. "I mean, since you found out


    His voice trailed off.


    “Yes?” said ry, her voice sharply edged. “Since I found out what? That he’s a killer transvestite who molests cats?”


    “No wonder that cat of his hates everyone.”


    “Oh, shut up. Simon,” ry said crossly. "I know what you mean, and no, it wasn’t weird. Nothing ever happened between us anyway.”


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