After City of Heavenly Fire

14: Magnus

Magnus stomped on the ground. The earth was so frozen that not a granule of dirt stirred upon impact. Magnus could not dig through with anything in his immediate surroundings, the ground was just too hard. He didn't have hours to scratch away at compacted ice-mud, he had mere minutes before a wolf would undoubtedly catch a scent, no matter how much he tried to cloak his smell.

Magnus crouched down and scraped the snow away from a circle of ground, it's diameter roughly three times as wide as a person's shoulders. There would be plenty of space for someone like Jace to jump up, grab a tree root, someone's hand or the rim of the hole, and haul themselves upwards and to freedom. Judging by the way Clary and Jace's voices had echoed, Magnus could hazard a guess as to the size of the chambers they were being kept in. Smaller prisoners, like Clary, may need a leg up to reach the brim of the hole. The children, if they were being kept in the same place, would take a bit more effort to free. Especially the two newborns, it would be near impossible to hoist them up without a sound. Maybe the babies weren't being kept in the same place as the adults, it would make sense, they were so young they needed a lot of care.

Magnus summoned fire to his palms, one of the showier spells he found useful in combat, and began steadily melted the ice on the ground, loosening the earth, the water produced soaking into the ground and softening it. Magnus, sighing and casting an exasperated look at his manicure, began digging frenziedly, scooping up clod after clod of moist earth and tossing it over his shoulders. The tunnel was surprisingly close to the surface, a quick, temporary job, and took Magnus little time to break through.

A pale-faced Clary, looking very much the worse for wear with muddy water droplets blemishing her skin and soil scattered through her red hair that was coloured an almost brown burgundy by the poor light, stared up at Magnus with a look of half joy and half confusion.

Magnus winked and put a finger to his lips, wincing when a muddied, chipped nail almost entirely stripped of glitter polish crossed his vision. He could see the faint glow of the edge of a lamp's light through the bars of Clary's cell. Another figure, still out cold, slumped against the wall of the cell opposite, unidentifiable in the shadows.

Magnus whispered, "Stay silent, there's a chance that they don't know you're awake yet. Can you give me a rough idea of where the others are?"

"Sure, who's they?"

"Whoever is guarding you. There's no way they left you alone."

"Oh yeah, good point. I'll look out for them too."

"Great."

Magnus went to work on his second hole, guided by a murmur from Jace who had overheard what he had said to Clary and was announcing his position.

After a while Magnus, with the help of Jace, Alec and Simon, had dug eight holes. Tessa, Jem and Jocelyn were still out cold and there was no sign of Luke or the kids.

Izzy's hole was last and she sprung free as soon as she saw daylight, clawing at the dirt above her like a rat with a terrier at its heels. She shook her ebony hair out, dirt flying from the obsidian sheet, and it fell not in the slightest bit dishevelled to Clary's mild annoyance. Still in her cell, she shook her own out only for it to land even more tousled than it had been before.

To her great frustration Clary had been too short to climb to freedom and they had left her, deciding it was quicker for the guys to dig the holes without wasting time pulling her up.

"My turn yet?" Clary called bad naturedly.

Jace dropped in beside her, silent and agile as a cat, crouched, and latticed his hands. Clary stepped onto them and he flung her in a high arc, up and out in one fluid motion. Clary's hands flew to her mouth to muffle her cry of surprise, a mistake as she had nothing to catch herself with and she hit the lip of the hole hard, her hip slamming into the frozen ground and inducing an audible wince. Magnus stared daggers into her back, fighting back the shh that pressed against his lips.

Jace was soon at her side and hauling her to her feet. Clary glared and Jace flashed a grin back that disappeared as fast as it had appeared, there wasn't time for anything, not even teasing with the schedule they were running to.

Jace and Simon hoisted the motionless bodies of Tessa, Jem and Jocelyn into the waiting arms of Clary and Izzy whilst Magnus busied himself searching for Luke and the missing children, scurrying erratically along the snow with his ear low to the ground.

"What do we do now?" Clary hissed, laying her mother beside the other two unconscious figures.

"What?" Jem squinted through bleary eyes, the shock of the ice beneath him having woken him. "Will? Tessa?"

Clary dropped to his side, "Are you okay?"

Jem sat up sharply, "Where are they?"

He tried to stand but Jace was there pushing his shoulders back, "Shh! We have to go, they'll check for us soon and we need to be well away by then."

"Where are the-"

"No time." Alec interrupted, "We need to wake Tessa and Jocelyn and go."

Jem rolled from under Jace and came up onto his knees by Tessa, cradling her face in his hands. He traced the line of her cheekbones with his thumbs, massaging some warmth into her frozen face, her cheeks already beginning to tint a rosy pink from his touch.

"Might need a little more than that." Simon suggested.

Izzy was shaking Jocelyn but to no avail, she didn't stir.

Jace's eyes flicked frantically to and fro, "There's someone coming."

Soft footfalls and muffled voices could be heard below, from further along the tunnel.

"Clary can I..." Jace's face was awry with discomfort and Clary knew exactly what he planned to do.

She nodded, although hesitantly, "Go on."

Jace drew his hand back and slapped Jocelyn across the face with a force that seemed to be difficult for him, he hated what he was doing and it was written deep in every aspect of his face.

Jocelyn gasped and flew upright, "Jonathan Christopher Herondale!"

"How did she know-" Jace muttered but was cut off by Clary's expression, a warning to shut up and also a thankfulness for what he had done.

"I'm so sorry Tessa." Jem purred, voice ever so slightly breaking. He drew his arm back, faltered, and then carried the action out anyway.