CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
REBECCA
Rebecca had been fully prepared to face an amphitheatre full of angry Council members, so when Jia led her into a much smaller, sparsely furnished room, she could not conceal her surprise.
The guards ushered her into one of the two wooden chairs, while Jia occupied the other. Once seated, she waved her hand at the guards, who instantly departed. The door clanged shut behind them, making the gloom complete.
Rebecca glanced at the door.
"Don't even think about it." Jia lifted an eyebrow. "There are ten guards stationed outside in that corridor."
Rebecca sighed; she was all out of witty comebacks at this point. The dingy room was uncomfortably hot, and she felt slightly nauseous. "Why have you brought me here?"
Jia shifted forward slightly. "I'm sure you're aware that the severity of your crimes warrants the death sentence."
"I'm aware."
"But you're also a valuable hoard of information."
Rebecca inclined her head, mockingly. "No wonder they made you Consul."
Jia ignored the jibe. "You have two choices, Rebecca. Either you cooperate, plead not guilty, and maybe, just maybe, you'll avoid the death sentence."
Rebecca remained expressionless.
"Or... you refuse to cooperate. And I have to warn you, we have ways of making you talk."
Rebecca simply smiled. "If you're talking about the Agony rune, Consul... you're going to have to come up with something better than that." She didn't know where all of this confidence was coming from, but she was going to make use of it while she had it.
"You think you can withstand the Agony rune?" Jia said.
"I can withstand a lot more than you think." Rebecca leaned forward. "But here comes the really unbelievable part – I'm on your side."
"Really? Mind telling me exactly why I'd believe you?"
Rebecca could tell that Jia was trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Because the faeries are working with Sebastian Morgenstern. Meliorn is a half-human, half-faerie. He can lie. And whoever you've sent to the Downworld meeting... well, they're Sebastian's hostages by now."
"Why would Sebastian kidnap a couple of Downworlders?"
"For two reasons: one, they're pretty good leverage. If I heard right, he's got Magnus, Raphael, Luke and Jocelyn. He's got leverage over Alec, who'd do anything to save Magnus; Clary, who'd do anything to save her mother and Luke; and Jace, who'd do anything for Alec and Clary."
"And the second reason?"
"Well, he's just pissed that he couldn't take over the Adamant Citadel."
Jia raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
"I know you've got no reason to believe me, or to trust me. But if you want to stop Sebastian, you've got no other choice. I'm the only one who knows him. I can tell you how to kill him."
Rebecca could almost see the gears turning in Jia's head. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me all of this information simply out of the goodness of your heart."
Rebecca pursed her lips. "All I want is a fair trial, Consul. For people to understand why I chose to stay." She paused for a moment, and then continued, "I had my freedom. I could've chosen to leave at any time I wanted."
"But you didn't."
Rebecca strained against the cuffs binding her wrists, almost unconsciously. She felt them cut into her skin, felt blood slowly seep from the wound. "I didn't, because...in reality, I couldn't."
"Why not? You just said that he gave you your freedom."
"He did. But he found another way to imprison me, to make me obey."
"His blood."
Rebecca nodded. "We are bound by blood. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't go against his wishes. I could not do anything he did not want me to do." She fixed Jia with an unswerving gaze. "Forgive me for being frank, Consul, but you have not experienced the horrors of demon blood. It will warp you, twist your mind beyond anything you could ever imagine." She became aware that her hands, tightly bound as they were, were trembling. Her heartbeat was erratic. She could remember everything as though it was only yesterday... and yet, so much had happened since then.
"I almost lost myself to it. I forgot everything – who I was, what I stood for." She looked down. "It was only the memory of my family that saved me. But Jonathan, or Sebastian, or whatever – he has no family to speak of! That's why he clings so desperately to me, to Clary and Jace, because deep down, some untainted part of him is very, very lonely. He wants nothing more than to love and be loved." Rebecca looked up. "I tried to bring out that untainted part of him. But I was unsuccessful."
Abruptly, the Consul stood up. "Your trial will be held tomorrow. Tonight, you will remain in the cells of the Gard."
The sun set while Rebecca remained in the dingy room. She'd lost almost all the feeling in her hands, and her wrists were red raw. Eventually, a stoic guard entered and escorted her back to her cell.
As the cell door clanged shut, the guard cast a quick, furtive glance around, before whispering, "Thank you."
Bewildered, Rebecca whirled around. "What? What did you say?"
The guard cast another quick glance around before stepping closer to the bars. "You saved my sister's life. Thank you." Without waiting for a reply, he strode away, and Rebecca was left with nothing but an unpleasant weight in her stomach for company.
JIA
It was with a heavy heart that Jia Penhallow entered the amphitheatre the next morning. None of the Downworld representatives had answered any of the messages they had sent last night. After her conversation with the Lightwood prisoner, Jia had ordered for messages to be sent almost non-stop to Meliorn's house, where the meeting had been held. There had been no response.
At exactly 5:30 am this morning, Clave officer Amanda Ravenscar informed her that all efforts to trace them had yielded no results. Now she was forced to consider the possibility that Rebecca had been right... and that she might be willing to help them. Nevertheless, she had assigned Patrick Ashdown to the task of searching for them.
But when she entered the amphitheatre, all of her worries vanished, to be replaced by horror. The sight that met her eyes was one that would haunt her dreams for many years to come.
In the center of the amphitheatre, were the four carved wooden seats of the Downworld representatives, set around the lecterns in a half circle. They were empty, and splashed across the floorboards in front of them was a single word, scrawled in a crooked hand, in what looked like sticky gold paint: Veni.
I have come.
Jia could feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Somehow, she knew, even from this distance, that pure angel blood, ichor, had been used to trace that single word.
REBECCA
The trial was a complete disaster. Almost immediately, Jia was forced to suspend her questioning as Shadowhunters from all around the room – and indeed, from all around the world – hurled questions at Rebecca. Within a few minutes, it had turned into a full-blown argument.
"What is the meaning of this?" Kadir, a heavyset man with a booming voice gestured to the ichor splattered across the seats of the Downworld representatives.
"I don't know," Rebecca said through gritted teeth. The Mortal Sword lay heavy and cool under her fingers. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't pry her fingers away from it. It was as though the Sword had hooked itself, not only onto her fingers, but deep into her soul, drawing out the truth.
She cast a quick glance at Alec, who was standing stony-faced, his hands perfectly still at his sides. He must be out of his mind with worry, Rebecca thought. With Magnus missing, a part of Alec had to be missing too.
"This is vengeance," said a thin, dark-haired Shadowhunter whom Rebecca recognized as the head of the Budapest Institute. Lazlo Balogh, she thought his name was. "Vengeance for our victories in London and at the Citadel."
"They were hardly victories," Rebecca said shortly. "London was saved because I managed to get a message to them and warn them about the attack. They had enough time to put up wards before-"
A sudden murmur ran around the room.
"You warned the London Institute?" Jia said sharply.
"Yes." Rebecca's voice sounded weary to her own ears. "I don't know why that would surprise you, since I'm telling you, I'm on your side."
Taking advantage of the silence that followed, she quickly continued, "Look, I stayed with Sebastian because I... I didn't have a choice. He compelled me to." A collective shudder ran around the room, but Rebecca ignored it. "And for a while, I believed that I could save him. Stop him from killing more. Turning more." She twisted around to look at everyone else in the hall. "None of you have any idea what demon blood can do to you – how it can twist you and warp you into something you won't even recognize. But I do, because his blood flows in my veins. And with that, comes all of the speed, strength and ruthlessness he has."
Everyone was dead silent, all eyes fixed on Rebecca.
"And right now, I'm willing to help you kill him. Because I'm the only one who knows how. And any more time wasted on this trial means more time for him to Turn more Shadowhunters to his cause!" She turned back to face Jia, stubbornly ignoring her father, the Inquisitor, who stood to her left. "I've told you everything I know. It's up to you to-"
Her words were cut short as a man suddenly stepped forward from behind Jia and seized her from the back of her robes. A shout ran through the assembly as he yanked her back, placing the blade of a long, silver dagger against her throat.
"Nephilim!" he roared, and his hood fell away, showing the blank eyes and swirling, unfamiliar Marks of the Endarkened. A roar began to rise from the crowd, cut off quickly as the guard dug his blade further into Jia's throat. Blood bloomed around it, visible even from a distance.
Rebecca recognized him almost immediately – Matthias Gonzales, head of the Buenos Aires Institute – or he had been. Now he was loyal lapdog to Sebastian.
"Hear me, Shadowhunters!" Matthias cried, his eyes burning with a fanatic light. "Hear me, for I was one of you. Blindly following the rule of the Clave, convinced of my safety within the wards of Idris, protected by the light of the Angel! But there is no safety here." He jerked his chin to the side, indicating the scrawl on the floor. "None are safe, not even Heaven's messengers. That is the reach of the power of the Infernal Cup, and of he who holds it."
"Stand down, Matthias!" Rebecca could hear the trembling in her own voice, but she was hoping nobody else did. "Drop the blade and move away from-"
"Keep your mouth shut, you traitor!" Matthias roared, and for a second, he lifted the blade from Jia's throat to point it at Rebecca instead, but then it was back there again. "I heard everything you said. How you betrayed the love of our master."
A lump rose in Rebecca's throat, and she suddenly found she could not speak. Looking down, she realized that the Mortal Sword had stopped glowing – she was free of its binding.
Robert Lightwood pushed forward, his face anxious as he looked at Jia, and the blade at her throat. "What does he want?" he demanded. "Valentine's son. What does he want from us?"
"Oh, he wants many things," said the Endarkened. "But for now, he will content himself with the gift of three – his sister, his adoptive brother, and his former lieutenant. Give him Clary Morgenstern, Jace Herondale and" – his face visibly wrinkled in disgust – "Rebecca Lightwood, and he will spare you all."