City of Heavenly Fire
Page 89

Instead she saw the Consul’s room at the Gard in Alicante. Jia sat behind her enormous desk covered in stacks of files. She looked exhausted, her black hair liberally sprinkled with strands of white. She had a file open on the desk before her. Jocelyn could see grainy photographs of a beach: sand, blue-gray sky.
“Jia Penhallow,” Sebastian said.
Jia’s head jerked up. She rose to her feet, the file sliding to the floor in a mess of paper. “Who is it? Who’s there?”
“You don’t recognize me?” Sebastian said, a smirk in his voice.
Jia stared desperately ahead of her. It was obvious that whatever she was looking at, the image wasn’t clear. “Sebastian,” she breathed. “But it hasn’t been two days yet.”
Jocelyn pushed past him. “Jia,” she said. “Jia, don’t listen to anything he says. He’s a liar—”
“It’s too soon,” Jia said, as if Jocelyn hadn’t spoken, and Jocelyn realized, to her horror, that Jia couldn’t see or hear her. It was as if she weren’t there. “I may not have an answer for you, Sebastian.”
“Oh, I think you do,” Sebastian said. “Don’t you?”
Jia straightened her shoulders. “If you insist,” she said icily. “The Clave has discussed your request. We will not deliver to you either Jace Lightwood or Clarissa Fairchild—”
“Clarissa Morgenstern,” Sebastian said, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “She is my sister.”
“I call her by the name she prefers, as I call you,” said Jia. “We will not make a bargain in our blood with you. Not because we think it is more valuable than Downworlder blood. Not because we do not want our prisoners back. But because we cannot condone your tactics of fear.”
“As if I sought your approval,” Sebastian sneered. “You do understand what this means? I could send you Luke Garroway’s head on a stick.”
Jocelyn felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. “You could,” Jia said. “But if you harm any of the prisoners, it will be war to the death. And we believe you have as much to fear from a war with us as we do from a war with you.”
“You believe incorrectly,” Sebastian said. “And I think, if you look, you will discover that it hardly matters that you’ve decided not to deliver Jace and Clary to me, all neatly wrapped up like an early Christmas present.”
“What do you mean?” Jia’s voice sharpened.
“Oh, it would have been convenient if you had decided to deliver them,” said Sebastian. “Less trouble for me. Less trouble for all of us. But it’s too late now, you see—they’re already gone.”
He twirled his stele, and the window he had opened to the world of Alicante closed on Jia’s astonished face. The wall was a smooth blank canvas of stone once again.
“Well,” he said, slipping the stele into his weapons belt. “That was amusing, don’t you think?”
Jocelyn swallowed against a dry throat. “If Jace and Clary aren’t in Alicante, where are they? Where are they, Sebastian?”
He stared at her for a moment, and then laughed: a laugh as pure and cold as ice water. He was still laughing when he went to the door and walked out of it, letting it lock shut behind him.
16
THE TERRORS OF THE EARTH
Night had fallen over Alicante, and the stars shone down like bright sentinels, making the demon towers, and the water in the canals—half ice now—shimmer. Emma sat on the windowsill of the twins’ bedroom and looked out over the city.
Emma had always thought she would come to Alicante for the first time with her parents, that her mother would show her the places she had known growing up, the now-closed Academy where her mother had gone to school, her grandparents’ house. That her father would show her the monument to the Carstairs family he always spoke of proudly. She’d never imagined she would first look on the demon towers of Alicante with her heart so swelled up with grief that sometimes it felt like it was choking her.
Moonlight spilled in through the attic windows, illuminating the twins. Tiberius had spent the day in a vicious tantrum, kicking the bars of the baby’s crib when he was told he couldn’t leave the house, shrieking for Mark when Julian tried to calm him down, and finally smashing his fist through a glass jewelry box. He was too young for healing runes, so Livvy had wrapped her arms around him to keep him still while Julian picked the glass out of his younger brother’s bloody hand with tweezers, and then carefully bandaged it.
Ty had collapsed into bed finally, though he hadn’t slept until Livvy, as calm as always, had lain down beside him and put her hand over his bandaged one. He was asleep now, head on the pillow, turned toward his sister. It was only when Ty was sleeping that you could see how uncommonly beautiful a child he was, with his head of dark Botticelli curls and delicate features, anger and despair smoothed away by exhaustion.
Despair, Emma thought. It was the right word, for the loneliness in Tavvy’s screaming, for the emptiness at the heart of Ty’s anger and Livvy’s eerie calm. No one who was ten should feel despair, but she supposed there was no other way to describe the words that pulsed through her blood when she thought of her parents, every heartbeat a mournful litany: Gone, gone, gone.
“Hey.” Emma looked up at the sound of a quiet voice from the doorway, and saw Julian standing at the entrance to the room. His own dark curls, shades lighter than Ty’s black, were tousled, and his face was pale and tired in the moonlight. He looked skinny, thin wrists protruding from the cuffs of his sweater. He was holding something furry in his hand. “Are they . . .”
Emma nodded. “Asleep. Yeah.”
Julian stared at the twins’ bed. Up close Emma could see Ty’s bloody handprints on Jules’s shirt; he hadn’t had time to change his clothes. He was clutching a large stuffed bee that Helen had retrieved from the Institute when the Clave had gone back to search the place. It had been Tiberius’s for as long as Emma could remember. Ty had been screaming for it before he’d fallen asleep. Julian crossed the room and bent down to tuck it against his little brother’s chest, then paused to gently untangle one of Ty’s curls before he drew back.
Emma took his hand as he moved it, and he let her. His skin was cold, as if he’d been leaning out the window into the night air. She turned his hand and drew with her finger on the skin of his forearm. It was something they’d done since they were small children and didn’t want to get caught talking during lessons. Over the years they’d gotten so good at it that they could map out detailed messages on each other’s hands, arms, even their shoulders through their T-shirts.
D-I-D Y-O-U E-A-T? she spelled out.
Julian shook his head, still staring at Livvy and Ty. His curls were sticking up in tufts as if he’d been raking his hands through his hair. She felt his fingers, light on her upper arm. N-O-T H-U-N-G-R-Y.
“Too bad.” Emma slid off the windowsill. “Come on.”
She shooed him out of the room, onto the hallway landing. It was a small space, with a steep set of stairs descending into the main house. The Penhallows had made it clear the children were welcome to food whenever they wanted it, but there were no set mealtimes, and certainly no family meals. Everything was eaten hastily at tables in the attic, with Tavvy and even Dru covering themselves in food, and only Jules responsible for cleaning them up afterward, for washing their clothes, and even for making sure they ate at all.