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“Think of it as a sort of test,” Clary suggested. “To have great power but learn not to misuse it is an excellent lesson for someone who will be King.”

“What does that mean?” he said. “When do you know that you are not just using a power, but misusing it?”

“The fact that you’re even asking that question shows me how different from your father you are. He would never have asked, because he would never have cared.”

Ash dropped his voice low. “Would it be misusing my power if I asked you to tell me one good thing about my father? It would please me very much if you did.”

Clary gritted her teeth, because she did want to please him; she did want to make him happy. Even knowing he was using his power on her did not dilute its impact. She pushed against the feeling, and the words that came out of her mouth felt both bitter and true. “The only good thing about Sebastian Morgenstern is that he’s dead.”

Ash flinched.

Clary wasn’t finished. “There was no part of him that was good, do you understand? No part of him that could feel real empathy. If Valentine hadn’t ruined him, it might have been different. In his last moments, I saw the person he might have been, and I think he saw it too. I think it felt like putting down a terrible burden.”

Ash had gone pale, his green eyes wide and dark.

“He was relieved?” he said incredulously. “To be dying?”

Clary nodded. “I was—I am—his sister,” she said. “Don’t you think I wanted to find things about him I could love? I even wanted to find things about Valentine I could love or simply admire, but there was nothing there either. Ash”—she leaned forward, the bars of the cage rattling—“I know the power you have has made you doubt that anyone will ever love you without its influence. But it isn’t true. And if you shut the door against the concept of love, if you resign yourself to bitterness, then you will never know who you could have been.”

Ash had stopped pacing. The look he gave her was unreadable: He could have been bored, or annoyed, or mildly interested. “My father—”

“Your father also wanted to be loved,” Clary said. “He had no idea how to make that happen, and it weighed on him. It crushed him. The very last words Sebastian ever spoke were to me, as he was dying, as the demonic influence left his soul. He said, ‘I’ve never felt so light.’ ”

Ash’s expression didn’t change. He nodded, as if he’d already known, before he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

12

Everlasting Ruins

Kit and Ty caught the train in the early morning. In Munich, they changed from their small regional railway to a bigger intercity train with plush seats and a cart that brought them tea and slightly stale croissants. Once they had eaten breakfast, Ty fell asleep on Kit’s shoulder, and Kit spent the rest of the trip trying not to move while staring out the window at the passing scenery.

Kit knew it didn’t mean anything that Ty was sleeping on his shoulder. It was probably just a practical choice—more comfortable than the headrest—and Ty had never had the touch sensitivity that Kit knew some people with autism did. But even if it didn’t mean anything emotionally for Ty, something inside Kit had radically changed. He was no longer the person who had been angry for years. He understood now that he had worn that anger like armor, because it was better to be angry at Ty than to yearn for him. Because Ty had hurt him—he still remembered the moment he had said, I love you, Ty, I love you, and Ty had not said it back.

Kit had been younger then. He had not been able to tell what was heartbreak, what was humiliation, and what was resentment. He had separated himself from Ty, even from most people who knew Ty, and so the wounds had not healed. All those feelings had rotted inside him, like wine turning to vinegar.

And like vinegar, they were bitter. He had thought of loving Ty only as something that could hurt him, not something that could make him happy; after all, Ty would never love him back. He still had no idea what Ty felt for him, now or in the past, but he had found a surprising peace with it. He couldn’t put a precise name to his own feelings either.

And there was so much unknown. Whether he and Ty would see each other again after this quest was over. If Ty would want that or not. But all that was part of the unimaginable future: Kit could not see anything past getting his family back. And there was also the question of Livvy. She was a secret Ty carried, but surely it was impossible to carry a secret like that forever. There would always be a breaking point. Kit remembered what Livvy had said in the moments after Ty raised her.

You cannot borrow from death. You can only pay for it.

As if his thoughts had been broadcast by loudspeaker, there was a sudden shimmer in the carriage, and Livvy appeared, sitting on the bench seat across from Kit and Ty. Again, she looked less like her old, living self and more like the wounded spirit they had seen when Ty had first brought her back from the dead. The grim look on her face didn’t help.

“You’re brooding,” she said to Kit, after giving her sleeping brother an appraising look.

“Ladies love a brooding guy,” said Kit.

Livvy glanced between him and Ty and raised an eyebrow. “Right, the ladies,” she said. “Is Ty really asleep?”

“Ty doesn’t pretend,” Kit said. “You know that as well as I do.”

She nodded as if admitting he was right. “All right,” she said, “there’s something I want to talk to you about.” Kit thought she sounded nervous, as if she was afraid he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

At that moment, Ty yawned and sat up, blinking. “I think we’re arriving,” he said.

Kit glanced out the window and saw that indeed, the flame colors of autumn had given way to city gray. A moment later the loudspeaker flickered to life and a near-incomprehensible voice, full of pops and static, began to announce their arrival at Budapest Keleti train station.

The train groaned to a halt with a hiss of brakes that echoed off the iron-and-glass ceiling. Neither Kit nor Ty was glamoured, so they pushed their way through the crowded train the old-fashioned way, emerging forcefully from the doors like a cork being popped out of a champagne bottle. Livvy was playing the role of her cheerful self again, drifting along beside them as they traversed the concrete platform, heading toward the main part of the station.