New World

35 | Livia's Watch pt.2

"Yeah, I'm counting on that," Julian replied.

As if on cue, the doors to the Sanctuary opened, and Clary and Jace walked in. Lila knew the rumour was that Jace and Clary had been killed, when they were in fact alive. Which was why when Lily Chen—sounding bored—said loudly, "I cannot believe my own eyes. Isn't that Jace Herondale and Clary Fairchild back from THE DEAD?"

And then the vibe and sound in the room was eccentric. Clary looked alarmed as yells of shock and misunderstanding ran around the room, shouts also of happiness and relief, as if fears had been denied and shaken away. Jace was looking around with a smirk.

"EVERYONE," Emma announced loudly, Lila saw her standing on a table. "EVERYONE, SHUT UP."

Beside Cristina, Jace shot finger guns at Julie Beauvale, whose cheeks were flushed. "Good to see you, bestie," Jace said.

Clary looked at Jace with a scrunched nose. "Thank you," she said, "we're glad to be here."

And the room fell pin-drop silent.

"Inquisitor Lightwood sent us to Faerie," Clary said. "To seek a weapon in the possession of the Unseelie King, one that would be deadly to Shadowhunters. We discovered that the Unseelie King had opened a Portal to another world, one without angelic magic. He was using the earth from that other world to create the blight you have heard of—the one eating through Brocelind Forest."

"That blight was eradicated the night before last," said Jace. "By a team of Nephilim and Fair Folk, working together."

There was a crowd of loud and confused voices.

"But we are not the only Nephilim working with faeries," said Clary. "The current King of Unseelie, Oban, and the Cohort have been working together. It was the Cohort who arranged for him to be put on the throne."

"How do we know that's true?" shouted Joaquin Acosta Romero, from the Buenos Aires Institute. Lila thought he was quiet obnoxious, with the way he spoke.

"Because they have done nothing but lie to you," said Mark. "They told you Jace and Clary were dead. They told you faeries slaughtered them. Here they stand, alive."

"Why would the Unseelie Court agree to be part of a scheme in which they were blamed for murder?"

Everyone looked at Julian.

"Because the Cohort and the Unseelie King have already agreed on exactly what both of them will get from this parley," he said. "The parley is a performance. That is why Horace is Projecting it so every Shadowhunter can see it because the performance is more important than the outcome. If he is seen to get what he wants from the Fair Folk, then confidence in the Cohort will grow so strong that we will never have a chance to unseat them."

"This is a government that will murder its own to control its own," said Jace. The smirk was gone from his face, and he looked cold and stony. "This time, it was us. By luck, we survived and are standing here to tell you our story. The Inquisitor is meant to uphold the Law. Not to hide behind it as an alibi for murdering their own."

"What about murdering those who aren't Shadowhunters?" called someone in the midst of the crowd. Lila almost leaned forward to see who it was.

"We're against that, too," said Jace.

"We've had bad members of our government before," said Julian. "But this is different. They've broken the system that might fix the situation. They're manipulating the Clave, manipulating us all. They are creating the illusion of threats to control us all through fear. They claim that faeries murdered Jace and Clary so they can declare an unjustified war—and under the cloak of that chaos, they put our Consul in prison. Who can speak against the war now?"