Lila smiled lightly as she approached Catarina Loss where she sat with Tessa Gray on the other side of the room.
"Hey," Lila said lightly. "Do you mind if I talk to you for a minute? Both of you?"
-
She was cut off by Julian saying, "Thank you all for responding to my summons," and she looked at Catarina and Tessa with a quick smile before she walked hastily through the rows of seats and over to her seat next to Ty. "I won't drag out any explanations. You know who I am, you know who my brother and sister are; you know Aline Penhallow and Emma Carstairs. You know that Aline's mother, our Consul, has been illegally taken into custody. You know that Horace Dearborn has seized power in Idris—"
"He was voted in," voiced a warlock. He had a white mark on his cheek in the shape of a spiderweb. "We cannot pretend otherwise."
"No one voted for him to throw my mother in jail," said Aline. "No one voted for him to remove the Consul from power so he could be in charge."
"There are others in jail too," said Cristina's mother, who sat beside Cristina. "Diego Rosales has been jailed for nothing!"
"As has my cousin Divya," said a boy with black hair and an anxious face. "What do you plan to do about it? Intercede with the council?"
"Everyone, all of us here, have always accepted a certain amount of prejudice from the Clave as normal," Julian said. "Now the Cohort have changed what we thought of as normal. Never before have Downworlders been driven from Idris. Never before have Shadowhunters jailed other Shadowhunters without even the pretence of a trail."
"Why do we care what other Shadowhunters do to each other?" Asked a phouka in a T-shirt talking about someone named Kaelie.
"Because that's step one, and what they do to Downworlders will be worse," Emma said. "They've already registered many of you."
"So you're saying we need to fight them?" said Gwyn in his rumbling voice. "This is a call to arms?"
"They're not a good Clave." a woman—Julie Beauvale—rose to her feet. "But they are still Shadowhunters," she said. "A lot of people who follow the Cohort are scared. I don't want to hurt those people. And their fear is real, especially now that Clary and Jace are dead. They were our heroes, and I knew them—"
"Julie," the woman beside her hissed. "Sit down."
"Jace and I were personally very close," Julie went on, "I would go far enough to call him my best friend, and I—"
"Julie," the woman beside her said, and grabbed Julie's shirt, pulling her down into her seat. "I think that what Julie meant is that you're saying the Cohort wants to destroy the government. But I'm guessing, given all the secrecy, that you also want to destroy the government, and I...don't know how we do that without hurting innocent people."
"We're not suggesting destroying the government," Julian denied. "Were saying it's being destroyed right now, already, from within. The Clave was built to give all Shadowhunters a voice. If we are all voiceless, then it is not our government. The Law was enacted to protect us and to allow us to protect others. When laws are bent and broken to put the innocent in danger, then it is not our Law. Valentine wanted to rule the Clave. Sebastian wanted to burn it down. We only want to return our rightful Consul to power, and to allow the government of Shadowhunters to be what it should be—not a tyranny, but a representation of who we are and what we want."
"Those are some pretty words," said a werewolf who sounded french. "But Jace and Clary were beloved of your people. They will want a war against those who harmed them."
"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?"
A blond boy raised a hand, and Lila saw he was Nephilim. "Oskar Lindquist here," he said. "Stockholm Institute. Are you basically saying we shouldn't go to Alicante? The parley is scheduled for tomorrow. If we do not arrive there tonight, we will be considered traitors."
"No," Julian said. "In fact, we need you to join the other Shadowhunters in Alicante as if everything is normal. Do nothing to alarm the Cohort. The parley is going to take place on the Imperishable Fields. We—the resistance—are going to interrupt it, with everyone watching. We will present our proof, and when that is done, we need you there to stand up for us and hold the Clave accountable for what they've done."
"Clary and I are the proof," Jace replied.
"Why do this during the parley?" called a bored-looking girl about Dru's age, with long brown hair, who sat beside her. "Why not confront them sooner?"
"Horace wants—no, he needs—everyone to see him triumph over the Unseelie forces," said Julian. "Every Shadowhunter in Idris is going to be watching him via a massive Projection."
There was a moment of surprise between the Downworlders.
"That means they'll be able to see and hear not just him but, if we join him—us. This is our chance. The Cohort is bringing everyone together in a way we don't have the power to do. This is our opportunity to show all Shadowhunters what the Cohort truly is."
"And what if it comes to a battle? We'll be fighting other Shadowhunters," said Oskar. "I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want that."
"Hopefully we can do this without a fight," said Julian. "But if it comes to one, we must be ready."
"So you have a plan for Shadowhunters," called Hypatia Vex. She looked over at Kit, Ty and Lila and winked. "What about us? Why did you bring Downworlders here?"
"To witness," said Julian. "We're aligned here. We're on the same side against the Cohort. We know we're better, stronger, when Downworlders and Shadowhunters work together. And we wanted you to know that even if the Cohort are loud and hateful, they're a minority. You have allies." He glanced around the room. "A few of you will be with us. Kieran Kingson. Magnus Bane. But as for the rest of you—after the Shadowhunters pass through the Portals to Idris, you will need to return home to your people. Because if you don't hear from us after the parley, you can assume we were defeated. And if we are defeated, you're in danger."
"We can withstand the Cohort," said Mark and Helen's Aunt Nene, and Mark looked at her in surprise. "There are many fewer of them than there are Downworlders."
"If we lose, it won't be only the Cohort you need to fear," said Julian. "Once good Shadowhunters can no longer stand up to them, they will begin to destroy and control Downworlders. And while they do that, there will be nobody left to stand against the tide of evil from other worlds. They care so much about their prejudice, their imagined purity, and their Laws, that they have forgotten our mandate: Protect this world from demons."
"We're an army. A resistance," Emma said. "We are seeking justice. It won't be pretty, but it'll only get worse. The longer we wait, the more damage they'll do and the more blood will be spilled stopping them."
"Horace doesn't want a war," said Diana. "He wants glory. If it looks like he's facing danger, I believe he'll back off."
"If we're an army, what are we called?" said Simon.
Julian turned and unpinned the rolled-up canvas hanging on the wall behind him, which had been held in place with tacks. A gasp went up as it unfurled.
Lila's breath caught in her throat.
Julian had painted a banner. On it was a pair of angel wings, obviously to symbolise Nephilim. Around it were the symbols of Downworlders: a star for vampires, a moon for werewolves, and a four-leafed clover for faeries. Behind them all on the background was a saber pointed point-down, painted shimmering good. Dangling from the hilt of it was a locket, one familiarly decorated with the symbol of thorns on the front.
"We are called Livia's Watch," Julian said. "We carry this banner in honour of my sister, so all who have been hurt by the Cohort will not be forgotten."
The image of Livvy in the Hall in Idris ran through Lila's mind, and she swept her hair away from her face, brought her own necklace from under her shirt ans twisted it round and round, the image going round and round in her mind. She subconciously reached out and grabbed Ty's hand tightly.
"If there is anyone who doesn't want to fight alongside us," Jace said, "they can depart now. No hard feeings."
The room was silent. Nobody moved.
"Now," Julian said. "Let's finalise the plan."