Page 142

Jace could still see Clary sketching, could still hear the bees in the meadow, the distant sounds of the city. If he gathered her up in his arms her hair would hold the warmth of sunlight.

Why would it not come again? he thought.

Because your world is changing. The deep voice brought images with it. Images of fire, of stars. A feeling of loss so profound it had become rage. You would think I would hate you, for you were formed from the blood of a great enemy of mine. Perhaps I will not destroy you all, it mused. Perhaps I will keep a few of you to amuse me. The wisest of you, the most talented, the beautiful and brave.

Somehow Jace knew the presence that spoke to him was not embodied. There was no physicality or mortal form behind it. If he pictured it in any way, it would be a force of nature, a whirling tornado of fury and flame.

Who are you? Jace whispered.

A soft laugh. I am the hole in the heart of the world. I am the destruction that does not relent. I am the last light before the darkness. I am the star of morning that brings the final dawn.

I am Lucifer.

25

Cast into Fire

Kit had thought the crown might be heavy, awkward, uncomfortable to wear. But it wasn’t. It seemed to fit him perfectly, to lie lightly against his brow. It didn’t feel strange.

It felt powerful.

He was no longer fearful, no longer in pain, not even when he looked at Ty, who was staring at him in what seemed to be shock. He felt as if he stood a thousand feet above the Riders of Mannan, as if they were no more than toy soldiers to be directed at his whim. How had he ever been afraid of them?

One by one, the Riders dismounted: red, then black, then white, and Ethna last, her pale face twisted with fury and horror. If she could have flown at Kit and murdered him, she would have, but instead knelt to him, down on her knees in the middle of the wet and filthy road.

The other three followed. Kit could tell they knelt reluctantly, even bitterly, and that was good. It was better that they wanted to fight him, and could not.

“Riders,” he said. “You will leave us. Now. Take your horses as soon as I finish speaking and go back to your Queen. Tell her that if she does not return those she has stolen—Clary Fairchild and Drusilla Blackthorn—I will take the throne from her, from her son. It would be easy.”

Slowly, furiously, the Riders rose to their feet. Their heads hung down; their eyes did not meet his. Kit could tell that Ty seemed troubled and that this should bother him, but it was a distant thing, an emotion to be examined later.

The Riders climbed onto their horses. The last to mount was Ethna, who stood with her hand on her steed’s flank, her strange pale eyes as hard as flint. “You are a fool if you think you can hold that crown, Herondale,” she said. “It will give you power over the fey, but not over everything. You will face a great evil from the beginning of the world, and that evil will destroy you.”

With that, she swung herself up onto her horse’s back, and one after another, the Riders launched themselves into the air, vanishing into the sky.

They were gone. And yet Kit could not stop himself from looking around over and over. It was as if he could see both the human world and Faerie at the same time, superimposed upon each other. Where there was a shop that sold tobacco and magazines, now there was also an ancient tree, scarred and stained with blood. Where there was a pharmacy, there was also a river with glittering swan boats floating on the water. Where there was a line of rooftops, he saw what seemed to be a vast dark wall, swirling with magic.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Ty. Ty had been angry at him, Kit remembered, but again it seemed like something to consider later. Ty was still beautiful, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, but it no longer stirred a sense of urgency in him. He felt as if he could sit and watch Ty be beautiful for several centuries and not be bored.

“We have to open the door to Faerie,” Ty said. “We have to get Dru and Clary. After that, we can sink the crown in the lake or break it apart or whatever you want to do.”

“I wish to keep it,” Kit said.

Now Ty looked more troubled. “Kit, no. We have to open a door into Faerie. The Riders knelt to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to get Dru and Clary. Especially if your power doesn’t affect the Queen—”

Kit winced. “There’s too much cold iron here,” he said, and indeed, he felt the pressure of it, like the oncoming pain of a headache. Wearing the crown made him more connected to the world—the air, the wind, the earth. The iron cut across that like a razor. He could no longer remember the urgency of what he had to do, but he wanted to please Ty. “All right. Let us open the way.”

He had wondered, all this time, how he would open the door to Faerie once he had the power to do it. He had the power to undo spells, and he still didn’t quite know how to use it. But this was different: He could feel Faerie, as if it were on the other side of a curtain, half seen at all times. All he had to do was reach out and pull the curtain aside, holding Dru in his mind’s eye as he did it. They would get her first, and then Clary next. Somehow, he sensed, Dru was in more danger.

As he caught hold of reality and drew it aside, a dark tunnel opened up between two buildings. Kit could see light within it, and sense the presence of enchantment, thick as layers of paint on an old wall. A wavering vision presented itself to him: Dru, standing beside a boy with pale hair, a silver crown on his head. Ash. Dru looked terrified; there was blood splashed on her clothes.

We must hurry. Together, Kit and Ty raced toward the tunnel. Something in Kit’s mind was telling him that the ground under his feet was not his land, not his earth. It was not Faerie—not until they stepped into the tunnel. It opened up all around them, and he was home.

—

Dru couldn’t stop staring at the body of the Queen. Not because the sight was horrible and grotesque, though it was: Blood still dripped from the hole in her chest, running red over the stones of the riverbank, staining the water. But because the body, though dead, had begun to shake and tremble, and for a horrible moment Dru envisioned the Queen rising, coming for Ash, her hands stretched out like claws, her silk gown clotted with blood.

Too many horror movies, she told herself. Ash had sheathed his bloody sword; his hand was gripping Dru’s arm as he spoke urgently, but she barely heard him. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the Queen’s body as it arched upward, like a bent bow, and from the Queen’s chest burst a cacophony of moths—moths of all shapes and sizes, with delicate wings: iridescent luna moths, pale death’s-head moths, blue tiger moths, and hundreds and hundreds of small white moths, the Queen’s whole body turning into a funnel of the flying creatures reaching up toward the shadowed ceiling of the cavern.