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She looked up at Janus. “Please,” she whispered. “For me. You don’t have to kill Jace. You can be a better person.”

“I have let you think that I can be saved,” he said, in the same remote voice. “Because it gave you pleasure to believe it. But that was never the plan. I have had a very long time to think about this, Clarissa, and I know exactly what I want. I am not the one who will change to be more like you—it is you who will change to be more like me.”

22

A Wicked Lie

“The Queen is insane,” Dru said. “And I mean that literally. I think she must have lost her mind.”

“Why?” Nene asked. She was sitting very calmly in a chair as Dru bounced off the walls of her room, desperate to wrench the door open and rush back to the Queen’s chambers and scream. She wanted to know what was happening to Ash. He’d sacrificed himself to let her get away and now Dru was terrified. What if she’d gotten him killed?

“Because she’s working with the Princes of Hell,” Dru said. “Villains always think they can team up with Princes of Hell or major demons and that for some reason, in their special case, Hell will be loyal to them. But demons are always disloyal. They don’t like their allies any more than they like their enemies. If you’ve read enough Shadowhunter history, you know it never works out. It’s such a rookie mistake.”

Nene blinked. “What is a rookie?”

“Not important,” Dru said. “What if she hurts Ash?”

“The Queen, you mean?” Nene didn’t look worried. “She won’t harm him. He is too useful to her. I would worry more that she would draw him again to her side.”

Dru whirled around in horror. “Surely not,” she said. “After what the Queen said about forcing him to cooperate—”

“It can be hard to break away from old loyalties.”

“Either way, I have to get out of here,” Dru said. “They’re never going to let me live, and if they let Clary live, it’ll only be because Janus has finally managed to brainwash her into being on his side. She won’t be able to stop him from whatever he wants to do—and if he’s allied with the Princes of Hell, whatever he wants to do is going to be pretty bad.” She thought for a moment. “Actually, I would upgrade that to terrible.”

“You cannot abandon Ash,” Nene said. “He needs you.”

Before Dru could reply, the door to her room flew open. She spun around, her heart pounding, half expecting to see the Queen at the head of a squadron of guards, ready to arrest her or drag her to the Whipping Tree.

Instead, it was Ash. He came in as casually as if nothing much had changed since the last time he’d been here, shutting the door firmly behind him. But he couldn’t hide how drained he looked, his eyes darkly shadowed. There was blood soaking one of his sleeves, though Dru could not tell where the wound was.

She started to run toward him. And stopped, realizing that automatically, without a thought, she had intended to throw her arms around Ash. To cling to him, to make sure he was real and whole and all right.

But he would see that as weakness, or as pretending, wouldn’t he? It would reveal things she didn’t want him to know; things she barely understood herself. So she held herself back, feeling foolish.

“You’re all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Nothing happened.”

“But there’s blood on you.”

“It’s not my blood.” Ash’s gaze briefly ran over Nene, who was in her Elara disguise, and returned to Dru. His expression was wintry, cold and a little blank, as if he were talking to a stranger. “I just came to make sure you weren’t planning to do anything drastic.”

Dru frowned, fighting a dawning sense of anxiousness. He was no longer behaving as he had outside the Queen’s chamber. Had all that had been pretense? Or was this chilliness the pretense? “Like trying to run away?” she said. “Because I don’t think my life expectancy in Faerie is going to be very long.”

“Dru,” Nene said, softly objecting, but Ash didn’t look at her. He seemed content to pretend Nene wasn’t there.

“I have negotiated with the Queen for you to have a safe place in Faerie,” Ash said. “You will remain while I go to Idris with Janus. And with Clary.”

All of Dru’s nerves were buzzing, and not in a good way. “What did you have to do to persuade her not to kill me?”

“She asked for my loyalty. For me to stand by her, unquestioning. And for me to disavow my Shadowhunter blood,” said Ash. “There will be no more training, no runes. When I return to my room, I will break my stele and throw it in the fire. But it is of no matter. The Shadowhunters have never had my loyalty, as you well know.”

“But they have mine,” Dru snapped. “And they’re still in danger. Am I supposed to be grateful now? Am I just supposed to abandon my family to the Princes of Hell?”

“You will have to bid farewell to the mortal world altogether, Dru,” said Ash, and she thought it would have been better if he’d sounded angry or mocking. The pity in his voice was almost more than she could take. “Its time is over.”

This makes no sense. Ash was maddening, arrogant, annoying, selfish—but he wasn’t weak. Dru couldn’t imagine him so quickly giving in to Janus and his mother.