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She crossed the room to the far wall, and edged along it toward the sound she’d heard, keeping to the darker shadows. As she went, she twisted the knife around in her blood-slippery hands, trying to keep hold of the hilt while angling the blade toward the rope around her wrists. As she reached the place where the room curved, her view opened out unexpectedly, and she could see what had been hidden from her before.

It stopped her in her tracks.

It was clear this other half of the room had once been an abattoir, where dead animals were processed and drained of blood. The floor curved down toward a rusty grate, and a long, ancient-looking sink ran along part of the wall.

That wasn’t what had stopped Dru, though. In the middle of the room was a cage. A battered gold-barred cage that stretched to twice the height of a person. The bars of the cage were etched with runes. Shadowhunter runes.

And inside the cage was Clary.

She was barefoot, wearing the dress she’d been wearing in the club, now torn at the hem and stained with what looked like blood. Her hair was a tangle of red curls, her green eyes wide and watchful.

She was watching Ash.

Dru recognized him immediately, even without the wings, which clearly came and went. (She remembered Emma and Julian telling her how surprised they’d been in Thule when wings had suddenly burst from Ash’s back.) He wore black linen trousers, boots, and a gray tunic fastened up the front with a row of silver clasps. She wondered where the wings went when he wasn’t using them. Did they fold up against his back, curling in on themselves like sleeping animals? If so, she could see no sign of them underneath his clothes, only the shape of his shoulders, the straight line of his back. Perhaps some magic hid them.

In his right hand he held a clutch of daggers, silver bladed, black hilted. As Dru watched from the shadows, he selected one with his left hand, weighing it gently in his palm. He was watching Clary very calmly, not smiling, but considering.

“What was the last thing my father said before he died?” he asked her. “Before you killed him?”

Clary had retreated as far away from Ash as she could, all the way to the back of the cage. Her chest rose and fell quickly with her breathing, but her voice was even when she said, “Ash. Listen to me. Whatever you believe about Sebastian—about the Mortal War, the way it ended—it’s not the truth.”

Ash sighed. “That,” he said, “is not the right answer.”

With a quick flick of his wrist, he threw the knife. It was a flash of silver light, hurtling through the bars of the cage. Clary flung herself to the floor, ducking out of its way, and it missed her by bare inches, sinking blade-first into the wall behind the cage with a loud thunk.

There were several other daggers also protruding from the wall, Dru saw, a sick feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. And others scattered around the floor of the cage.

But surely Ash wasn’t actually a murderer, Dru thought. He had saved her life.

Of course, he’d also said she might regret that.

As Clary rose carefully to her bare feet, Dru backed up a step. Her blood-sticky hands and wrists were aching, but she managed to turn the knife at the right angle again, and began sawing away at her bonds with renewed energy.

Ash drew another dagger. “Is it true,” he said, still staring intently at Clary, “that before you killed my father, he begged for mercy?”

Clary’s face was stark in the odd light emanating from the walls. “No,” she said. “That isn’t true. Listen to me, you’ve been told lies, Ash—”

“You know of Thule. In that world, you died,” said Ash, “and because of that, my father lived. Where’s the lie?”

The rope around Dru’s wrist came loose. It slithered to her feet; suddenly her hands were free, and as she tightened her grip on the knife in her hand, she saw Clary’s gaze, catching Dru’s movement, flick to her.

It was a tiny gesture, but Ash caught it, and whirled away from the cage, his eyes on Dru. The daggers flashed in his hand as she threw herself at him. She saw him grin and then she was driving her knife toward him, toward the part of his throat where a wound could kill instantly. Just under the perfect line of his jaw—

His hand flashed up. He caught her wrist, even as the force of her lunge sent them both crashing against the bars of the cage. He smelled of salt and steel and something botanical. Faerie cologne, Dru thought grumpily. Eau de Seelie Court.

His smile as he looked down at her was almost feral. Then there was something cold against Dru’s throat, the sharpness of his dagger blade there like the bite of acid. Clary screamed Dru’s name, and Dru twisted away from Ash, causing the edge of the blade to graze her skin, opening a shallow, stinging cut—

“That’s enough.”

The voice was low, deadly, familiar.

Ash stepped back from Dru, his face calm and unreadable, his silver-bladed daggers still in his hand, which hung loose at his side. Dru gripped the knife, still slick with blood—hers, not Ash’s—and her chest rose and fell in hard, fast gasps as she turned toward the sound of the voice.

In the arched stone doorway stood a tall figure, framed by the eerie blue-green light that glowed from the moss-veined walls. He wore the same clothes he had at Pandemonium: all black, soft boots that she knew now had reminded her of the boots Mark had been wearing when he’d returned from the Wild Hunt. Faerie boots.

He still looked like Jace. The same golden hair, tousled into curls, the same sarcastically curved mouth. But he wore a golden mask that covered his eyes and nose, a half mask, carved to look like the proud and deadly face of a hawk.

Dru heard Clary make a noise, a sort of strangled gasp. Maybe because this man, this stranger, looked so much like Jace. Maybe because a heavy crossbow, of clear faerie workmanship, was braced against his shoulder, its tip trained squarely on Dru’s chest.