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Ragnor Fell.

“Go. Outside. Now.” Ragnor snapped his fingers; green sparks flew. “I find one-word sentences work best with Nephilim. We don’t have much time and it’s not safe for you here,” he added. “Move.”

Kit, keeping his hand on Ty’s sleeve, started toward the door. The air outside was whirling, as if a small tornado had landed on Cirenworth’s front steps. Kit squinted, trying to see the gardens, the gravel paths, or anything familiar through the churning storm.

He and Ty reached the front door and darted through it. And Kit realized immediately, as swirling currents lifted him off his feet, why he hadn’t been able to see the gardens, or the paths, or anything else.

Ragnor had placed a Portal directly in front of the door, so that the door itself opened into the Portal’s heart. It was instantaneous—one moment Kit was on the threshold of Cirenworth, and the next he was being whirled away into a churning expanse of darkness.

With no idea where they were going, Kit reflexively tried to tighten his grip on Ty, but they were already in the vortex of the Portal, the brutal wind tearing them apart.

For the second time that day, Kit reached out in desperation and felt his hand close on nothing.

A moment later, darkness took him.

Clary

When the Huntsman told her that he was going to move her from the workroom to his bedroom, where she would be more comfortable, Clary thought he meant that he planned to let her out of the cage. Instead, with the assistance of several guards, the cage was transferred. Janus personally walked her to what would be her new quarters, his hand gripping her arm possessively as he steered her through the corridors of the Seelie Court. Clary wanted to flinch away from his touch, but she didn’t dare to. Not yet.

They placed the cage in the center of his room, where it could be seen no matter where he might be standing. Blankets and pillows were piled on the floor, and she was given a plain cotton dress and a bowl of water with which she was supposed to wash the blood and dirt from her body.

Janus, in a strange imitation of respect, left the room while she changed. In fact, he left her alone for some time, during which Clary did everything she could not to let her thoughts get the best of her. She was afraid for Dru, and she was afraid as well for Jace, Simon, Izzy, and the others. They would have no idea where she had gone. Jace would be panicking in that way that he did, where he got more silent and more frozen as if at any moment he might shatter.

Part of her wished she’d fought Janus, harder and faster, at Pandemonium. She knew she’d held back. She was risking two lives now, not one, and the thought had frozen her like nothing else ever had.

She was almost relieved when the door opened and the Huntsman came into his room, his gold mask glittering. He drew up a chair in front of the cage and sat down in it, like a reporter about to conduct an interview. But reporters were supposed to be objective, and there was nothing objective about the way he was looking at her through the bars. Even though she couldn’t see his full expression, he made her shudder.

“I knew you must have been startled at Pandemonium, when I took you,” he said. “I wish I could have explained, but there wasn’t time.”

Clary didn’t speak. He appeared to realize that he was still wearing his mask, and reached up to take it off. How could she have been fooled by him at Pandemonium? As she stared at him now, he only looked like Jace in broad strokes. The same hair, eyes, hands, but this Jace looked haggard, his expression haunted, his skin grained with fine lines as though he were ten years older than her Jace. He had scars, too, ones that Jace didn’t have. And the way he looked at her—Jace would never look at her like that.

“Where’s Drusilla?” Clary said finally.

“She was an accident,” Janus said, defensively. “We didn’t intend to take her, but Ash was determined to save her life.”

Ash. Clary thought of the little boy he’d been when she had seen him in the Unseelie Court. She knew he had grown up in Thule, Emma and Julian had warned her he had changed during his time there, but she hadn’t been prepared for the cold-eyed warrior hurling knives at her.

“She’ll be kept safe here,” Janus said, obviously rattled by Clary’s silence. “Neither of you will come to any harm. The Queen has promised it.”

Clary wanted to tell him what she thought of the Queen’s promises, but she didn’t. Her fate seemed contingent on keeping Janus happy. Or at least not furious.

“If not to harm me, then why bring me here at all?” Clary inquired. “I know the Queen is not particularly fond of me.”

He laughed a little. “The Queen needs me, and she knows that in order to keep me working for her, she has to accept your presence at Court. It isn’t as if I was going to leave you behind.”

“What do you mean, leave me behind?” Clary said.

“Change is coming,” he said, his gold eyes gleaming eagerly. “The mortal world will no longer be the safest place for you, soon enough. You may not understand why just yet,” he added, cutting her off as she began to protest. “But your view of the world is incomplete. You have been surrounded by people who believe that if they just pull together—if they just do their best—they can triumph over any evil. But they do not know true evil.”

“And you do?” Clary whispered.

Janus ran his hands through his hair. It was something Jace did sometimes, and Clary felt her heart contract. “Valentine believed that the Shadowhunters were weak. That they had become corrupted. But there are those who believe they were always weak, because Raziel is weak. What we need is for the Shadowhunters to swear allegiance to a different angel.”

“Do you have an angel in mind?” Clary asked, incredulous.

She saw something flicker in his eyes, and he sat back, his face a careful blank. “It’s so hard to catch the attention of an angel, isn’t it?” he said. “Even for those of us who are supposed to be their children. Even now, when the Nephilim are in desperate straits. Surely you would agree that we must reclaim our homeland?”

That sounded like bloodshed. Clary tried to look calm. “You mean from the Cohort?”