CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
REBECCA
"Clearly, you didn't think this through." Rebecca looked up from the make-up brush she had been fiddling with. She hadn't even realized it, but she had started to pull out bristles from the brush in her absent-mindedness. Quickly, she stashed the brush in a drawer, hoping Isabelle hadn't noticed.
When Isabelle didn't say anything, Rebecca swiveled around on her stool, turning away from the dressing table mirror to look at her sister. "Did it occur to you that this is the first place they'll look? The Lightwood mansion? Not to mention how Robert will react when he finds out there's a fugitive in his house-"
"Robert?" Isabelle interrupted. "Not 'Dad'?"
Rebecca shrugged. "I don't know, Izzy. I don't know anything anymore."
Isabelle didn't reply. She slid off the bed and walked over to the window, gazing at the demon towers that glowed softly in the distance. "The funeral's over." She rested her hands on the windowsill. "At least, the smoke's stopped rising."
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Rebecca realized that she had forgotten all about the funeral in her excitement at escaping. So many Shadowhunters dead. Gone. "How many..." she couldn't finish the question, but Isabelle didn't need her to.
"A hundred. At the least."
Rebecca was expecting to feel something – maybe a heavy lump of guilt, or some remorse, or something. But what she felt was even worse – it was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just a black, empty pit in her stomach, sucking everything towards it like a black hole. Sucking all her humanity. Maybe she was slowly becoming like Sebastian – a monster without a shred of humanity. How long would it be before she would be incapable of remorse or love? A few days ago, it was not being able to shed tears. Now, it was not being able to feel human.
A stinging sensation in her palm made her look down. Blood oozed in fat red droplets, dripping onto her already blood-stained clothes. A black hairpin was biting into her palm, already slick with blood. She must have picked it up from the dressing table without even realizing it.
She looked up to see Isabelle staring at her.
"Crap," Rebecca muttered. "I'm sorry." She threw the soiled pin into the dustbin.
Isabelle tutted impatiently. "You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that?" She pulled out a stele from her pocket and stalked over to her sister. "Hold out your hand."
Mutely, Rebecca did as she was told. Isabelle expertly traced on iratze on the back of her hand, and turned it over to inspect the wound as it closed up.
"Your clothes are ruined," she said disapprovingly, sounding remarkably like Maryse. "I'll get you some new ones."
Rebecca couldn't help the small smile that crossed her face.
Isabelle's jeans were rather loose for her at the waist, and the neckline of her t-shirt was alarmingly low. Once upon a time, Rebecca would have refused to wear it, but now, she was relieved to have clean clothes at all. When she slipped out of the bathroom, fully dressed, Clary was in the room saying something to Isabelle, who was standing with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. A young girl was holding Clary's hand. It took Rebecca a moment to recognize her. Emma Carstairs.
"Emma?" Rebecca said in disbelief. "How did you get here?"
"I came in through one of the windows," Emma supplied helpfully. "Like in Peter Pan."
"She said she has some information," Clary said.
"Information? About Sebastian?" Rebecca glanced at Isabelle, and then looked back at Emma, who nodded eagerly. Her whole posture was one of confidence – confidence that she faked, but confidence nonetheless. Her parents had died days ago, and yet, here she was, strong and unbroken. Rebecca felt a sudden surge of admiration for her.
"We'd better let the boys know," Isabelle said. "They need to hear this."
"Clary," Jace said. "Did you kidnap Emma Carstairs?"
Clary gave him one of the trademark exasperated looks that she reserved specially for Jace. "No. She got here on her own."
They had shifted their discussion to the boys' room, and, admittedly, they were not taking Emma's appearance as well as Rebecca had expected them to. "She said she has some information about Sebastian," she said, sitting down on the bed next to Jace. Alec started to protest for the second time, but Isabelle waved him into silence.
"Emma," Jace said with surprising gentleness. "How did you get to the window?"
"I climbed over the rooftops," she said, pointing out the window. "It wasn't that hard. Dormer windows are almost always bedrooms, so I climbed down to the first one, and – I found Clary." She shrugged, as if what she'd done hadn't been either risky or impressive.
When everyone continued to stare at her, she said uncomfortably, "They've noticed that Rebecca is missing. They're sending out search parties right now."
Alec looked down at Emma with the half-fond, half-worried look of a much older brother. "Don't be afraid-" he began.
"I'm not afraid," she snapped. "I came here because you need help."
Jace's mouth quirked up at the corner. "What kind of help?" he asked.
"I recognized that man today," she said. "The one who threatened the Consul. He came with-with her to attack the Institute." She jerked her head towards Rebecca, carefully not meeting anybody's eyes. She swallowed and continued. "That place he said we would all burn in..."
"Edom," Rebecca said quietly. Emma nodded.
"Emma, have you told anyone else?"
Emma hesitated, and then shook her head.
"Why not?" said Simon, who had been quiet until that moment. Emma looked at him, blinking; being only twelve, she had probably barely encountered Downworlders up close before. "Why not tell the Clave?"
"Because I don't trust the Clave," said Emma in a small voice. "But I trust you."
Clary swallowed visibly. "Emma..."
"When we got here, the Clave questioned all of us, especially Jules, and they used the Mortal Sword to make sure we weren't lying. It hurts, but they didn't care. They used it on Ty and Livvy. They used it on Dru." Emma sounded outraged. "They would probably have used it on Tavvy if he could talk. And it hurts. The Mortal Sword hurts."
"I know," Rebecca said gently. She really wanted to put her arm around the younger girl, but she refrained, not sure if she would appreciate the gesture or not.
"I also overheard some of the Clave members talking," Emma continued. "They were afraid that Clary and Jace would try to escape too – they know Clary can make Portals. Then they would have no way to bargain with Sebastian."
"Hang on," Alec said suddenly, and he sprang up from his perch on the window and strode out of the room.
Isabelle raised her eyebrows and gave Rebecca a look that seemed to say, What was that about?
But Alec was back almost immediately, carrying a huge, leather-bound book. As he sat down on the lone chair and began rifling through the pages, Jace turned to Emma again. "Did the Clave members you overheard give any sense of when they were going to decide what to do?"
Emma shook her head. "They were still arguing when I left. I crawled out the top floor window. Jules told me not to, because I'd get killed, but I knew I wouldn't. I'm a good climber," she added with a tinge of pride. "And he worries too much."
"Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything else they said?"
Emma shook her head. "They don't know where Sebastian is. They don't know about the Edom thing - I mentioned it when I was holding the Mortal Sword, but I think they just thought it was another word for 'Hell.' They never asked me if I thought it was a real place, so I didn't say."
"Thanks for telling us. It's a help. A huge help. You should go," Jace added, as gently as he could, "before they notice you're gone."
Jace stood up as Emma turned to Clary, who nodded and led her over to the window where Alec had been sitting earlier. Clary bent down and hugged the younger girl before reaching over to unlatch the window. Emma clambered out with the agility of a monkey. She swung herself up until only her dangling boots were visible, and a moment later those were gone too. There was a light scraping overhead as she darted across the roof tiles, and then silence.
"I like her." Alec broke the silence. "She reminds me of Rebecca, when she was little, stubborn and impulsive."
"Two of those things still apply," Jace said.
"I'm so flattered." Rebecca rolled her eyes. Isabelle smirked, and just for that moment, everything felt perfect. There was no Sebastian, no impending mortal doom – just them being a family. But she was soon pulled back to reality.
"Here's what I found out about Edom." Alec tapped the book in front of him. "And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day, it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever." He sighed. "And of course, there's the legends about Lilith and Edom, that she was banished there, that she rules the place with the demon Asmodeus."
It was like a lightbulb had gone off in Rebecca's head. "Oh, god. I'm so stupid."
Everyone looked at her in mild alarm. "Rebecca..." Clary said nervously.
"It's obvious! Lilith protects Sebastian. If there's anywhere he'd go, it's Edom."
"Rebecca."
"I didn't think much of it when they were discussing sacrificing Mark in Edom, but now that Emma said it..."
"Rebecca!"
"What?" She looked around at everyone else. They were looking at her with faces pinched tight with worry. "What is it?"
"Your eyes..." Clary said. "They're..."
Rebecca strode to the mirror. Sure enough, both her eyes were black as night, the whites of her eyes washed black. She sighed and closed her eyes, forcing her breathing to slow down. It happened whenever she got too excited or tense. If she had to guess, she would have said that the demon blood inside her was readying itself, whether to fight or flee.
Once she was taking steady breaths again, she turned around to face the others. "Well, now we know where he is," she said, in a tone that implied that nobody should mention what had just happened. Every time they looked at her, she could see it in their eyes – and it didn't matter that she was their sister. She was still a demon-blooded creature. And every time she was reminded of it, she felt like she was drifting further and further away from herself. Eventually, she would have nothing to hold on to at all.
'None shall pass through it forever and ever' doesn't sound very encouraging," said Jace. "Besides, there's no way to get to the demon realms. Traveling from place to place in this world is one thing-"
"There's a way." Rebecca cleared her throat. "It's an old one, one that even the Nephilim can't close. It lies outside their jurisdiction."
"Well, where is it?" Isabelle, ever the sweet and patient one, demanded.
"It's in the Seelie Court," she replied. "And it's guarded by the Fair Folk. No human has set foot on that pathway in more than a hundred years."