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“Stop.” The witchlight danced against the walls; Clary’s hand was shaking. “Just because you know that, doesn’t mean—”

“Remember what I wrote to you, in that letter, after that night in Idris?” he said softly, pacing a little closer to Clary. Like a lion, circling closer to its prey.

“Fine, you remember our past,” Clary said. “What about last week? Where did we go to dinner with Simon and Izzy? What were we celebrating?”

Jace said nothing. He had stopped moving, except for his eyes. They followed every motion Clary made.

“What about last year? What did you give me for my birthday?” Clary’s mouth twisted, as if she was about to laugh or cry. “What about when you asked me to marry you? What did you say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jace said. “What matters is that I love you. What matters is that I’ve waited so long for this—so long for you. What matters is that I watched you die. At the Battle of the Burren. I held your body in my arms while the life left you and the world burned. What matters—”

Clary’s face was a mask of revulsion. “I know who you are,” she hissed, and bolted past Jace. Her witchlight rune-stone went dark, and for a moment, Dru blinked into the sudden blackness. She started to dart out from behind her pillar, but felt something catch at her, as if her clothing had snagged on a hook.

“Watch out.” It was Livvy’s voice. A moment later, Dru saw the dark figure of Jace turn and fling out his open palm. A mass of light streaked across the room, bright as the strobing beams on the dance floor. It was made up of glimmering dust, tiny particles that circled Clary and wrenched her feet out from under her, sending her skidding across the floor.

She gave a choked scream and tried to roll over, but whatever the glittering substance was, it seemed to act as a powerful sedative. She tried to push herself up on bleeding hands, but her body collapsed under her with an abruptness that made Dru flinch.

Jace, or whoever he was, reached Clary’s limp body in seconds, whirling her up into his arms. As he dashed with her toward the stairwell, Dru saw that one of her shoes had fallen off. It gleamed, bright silver, in the middle of the dirty concrete floor.

The metal staircase was rattling as Jace raced up it. Not that he was Jace, really. She started after him, only to feel a hard tug on her sleeve. She whirled, and saw Livvy.

She sucked in her breath. Livvy. Her sister stood in front of her, translucent but otherwise appearing no different than she had the day she died. Looking fifteen, younger than Dru, with her long hair loose and her eyes wide and the Blackthorn locket gleaming around her throat.

“Dru,” Livvy whispered. Her voice sounded as if it were weakening, as if energy was leaving her like blood from a wound. “Don’t go—”

Dru was already backing toward the steps. “Livvy, I have to go after them—there’s no time to get the others—”

“You can’t fight him,” Livvy gasped, her words fading, like mist in the air. “He’s not Jace—he’s from that other world, Thule…”

“I know,” Dru said, “but I have to try, please understand, please—”

Livvy’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. For a moment, the lines of her blurred, like a sketch destroyed by spilled water. Then she was a trace of smoke on the air, a curl of vanishing light. She reached out a hand to Dru, but it was disappearing, almost gone.

Livvy. Dru wanted nothing more than to stay where she was until the last trace of her sister was gone, but she couldn’t wait. She ran for the stairwell and charged up it, mentally checking for weapons as she went. What did she have with her? Dagger in her wristband, check. Seraph blade in one boot, stele in the other. Not that there’d be time to draw runes.

The metal staircase bent up and around at a sharp angle. Dru could hear the stairs rattling overhead. This Jace—whatever dimension he was from—was going to be faster than her, Dru thought, but he was carrying a whole other person. If she could catch up to him, get the drop on him somehow…

Some part of her knew she was being ridiculous. Jace was the best Shadowhunter warrior alive, here in this world. There was no reason to think that Thule Jace, who had continued his fight training from the age of seventeen in a vicious, demon-riddled world, would be a worse fighter than the Jace she knew. She was smaller than him, had less reach than him, had less experience than him—

She slipped on a step and stumbled, slamming her knee into the metal landing above. Ouch. No time for a healing rune, though. She used her crouching position to push herself off, cleared three steps, and found herself on the last flight of stairs. It ended in a dimly lit corridor, which ended at an open door.

Dru ran to the door and flattened herself against the wall, bending to pull her seraph blade out of her boot. She craned around the door, which opened onto the flat roof of the club.

Like most New York roofs, it was made of tar-covered asphalt, surrounded by a low stone wall streaked with grime. An equally grimy water tower adorned the far end.

The rain had stopped, but the rooftop still shone like slick black glass. Most of the clouds had blown west toward the Hudson, and the night was illuminated by the windows of high-rise buildings and the gleam of streetlights below.

At the far end of the roof, the false Jace was still holding Clary in his arms. Her red hair was draped over one of his shoulders, and her bare foot, from which the shoe had fallen, looked pale and vulnerable. Beside him stood a massive black horse, its eyes gleaming red. Armor made of leather studded with metal covered its chest and neck, and its mane shone like black gold as it tossed its head.

Dru didn’t know much about horses, but she knew enough to recognize this was a faerie steed, the kind Mark had ridden across the sky when he was in the Wild Hunt. And faerie steeds could fly.

Great. Evil Jace has a flying horse.

She had to get to Clary fast.

As she edged out from behind the door, she wished she’d worn more practical clothes. Stupid skirt. She should have worn a black one, not a tartan plaid that stood out against the darkness. Black for hunting through the night. At least fake Jace wasn’t looking at her; he was glancing over his shoulder, as if he was talking to someone behind him, though Dru couldn’t see anyone there.

Why does he have a faerie steed? Did he get it in Thule and bring it here? But in Thule, Faerie had been sealed off from the rest of the world. And it ought to be impossible for a Thule native to travel from Thule to Earth; as far as Dru knew, only one person had ever done it, and it had killed her. Surely this Jace couldn’t stay in the mortal world long without dying. He must have come recently, because he looked perfectly healthy, he looked—