City of Ashes: The Inquisitor Calls

When he comes back from his date with Magnus, Alec is sucked immediately back into the world of the Institute. Maryse stops him almost as soon as he steps inside, asking him to send Jace to the library.

He's pretty sure Jace is asleep so he knocks hesitantly, waits a few moments, and then knocks again. When Jace answers the door, he looks...exhausted. Like he hasn't been sleeping properly. Alec knows that he hasn't, at least since Valentine. Jace hasn't talked to him about it, but Alec knows he must be hurting, both from his father's deception and from the revelation that Clary is his sister.

Jace blinks in surprise. "Alec?"

Alec shrugs. "Sorry to wake you up. Mom sent me to get you. She wants to see you in the library."

"Right now?" Jace looks at him a little too closely. "I went to your room before. You weren't there."

"I was out," Alec says, hoping Jace doesn't ask for anymore information. What a pair of parabatai they make right now, each afraid to speak to the other about the most frightening thing in their lives right now.

"All right," Jace says, and Alec relaxes minutely. "Hang on a second while I change my shirt."

Alec watches as Jace finds a clean shirt and peels off the one he's wearing. It's stuck to his skin in some places with dried blood, and Alec feels that same spike of shame he always does when Jace gets hurt and Alec isn't there to help. He looks away and asks, "What happened to you?"

"Picked a fight with a pack of werewolves," Jace says as he pulls on his shirt. Apparently neither of them want to give details on their night. Jace follows Alec into the hallway and says, "You have something on your neck."

Alec's hand flies to his throat. He should have used an iratze after leaving Magnus's place, and he knew it.

"Looks like a bite mark," Jace continues. "What have you been doing all day, anyway?"

"Nothing," Alec says, and he can feel his cheeks flushing bright red. Keeping his hand clamped over his neck, he adds, "I went walking in teh park. Tried to clear my head."

"And ran into a vampire?"

"What? No! I fell."

"On your neck?"

Alec makes a noise that he really wishes he hadn't, but Jace seems to take the hint. "Fine, whatever. What did you need to clear your head about?"

"You," Alec says carefully. "My parents." His dad staying in Alicante and his mom's caginess as to why are not encouraging. "My mother came and explained why she was so angry after you left. And she explained about Hodge. Thanks for not telling me that, by the way."

"Sorry." Jace's cheeks flushed. "I couldn't bring myself to do it, somehow."

Alec feels for him. He's not sure he could have told Max that their tutor had betrayed them all to Valentine. "Well, it doesn't look good," Alec says, dropping his hand and looking at Jace seriously. "It looks like you were hiding things. Things about Valentine."

Jace stops short. "Do you think I was lying? About not knowing Valentine was my father?"

"No!" Alec says, startled by Jace's vehemence. "And I don't care who your father is either. It doesn't matter to me. You're still the same person."

"Whoever that is." Jace's voice is cold, and Alec has seen what that sort of mood can lead to for Jace.

"I'm just saying," Alec says, keeping his voice calm and soothing. "You can be a little--harsh sometimes. Just think before you talk, that's all I'm asking. No one's your enemy here, Jace."

"Well, thanks for the advice. I can walk myself the rest of the way to the library."

"Jace--"

But he's already gone, leaving Alec behind with his distress. It feels like his family is falling apart around him, and he can't figure out how to keep them all together.

***

Apparently, Jace didn't think before he talked, because now he's in the prisons in the Silent City until the Inquisitor decides what to do with him.

Alec is sitting on Izzy's unmade bed, and there's a noise in the hall that Izzy goes to investigate.

"I thought I heard someone coming down the hall, but I didn't think it would be you," Alec hears her from the door. "What are you doing here?"

Clary's voice answers, slightly frantic, "You sent me that text message. You said the Inquisitor threw Jace in jail."

"Clary! I didn't mean you should race down here right now."

"Isabelle! Jail!"

"Yes, but--." Alec hears Izzy sigh, and then she steps back into her room. "Look, you might as well come in. And shoo, you," she adds to Church, waving him out. "Go guard the elevator."

Church lays down on his stomach and goes to sleep.

"Cats," Izzy mutters, slamming the door.

"Hey, Clary," Alec says. "What are you doing here?"

"Isabelle texted me. She told me what happened to Jace."

Alec looked at Izzy. Why would she do that? She had to know Clary was just going to overreact.

"Oh, come on, Alec," she says. "I thought she should know. I didn't know she'd come racing up here!"

"Of course I came!" Clary interjects. "Is he all right? Why on earth did the Inquisitor throw him in prison?"

"It's not prison exactly," Alec says, sitting up and pulling one of Isabelle's pillows into his lap. "He's in the Silent City."

"In the Silent City? Why?"

Alec has mostly gotten over his initial annoyance at Clary's questions, but this one is a little tricky. One of those times where he's going to give her an answer, and she's going to react like a mundane and not a Shadowhunter.

"There are cells under the Silent City," he says hesitantly. "They keep criminals there sometimes before deporting them to Idris to stand trial before the Council. People who've done really bad things. Murderers, renegade vampires, Shadowhunters who break the Accords. That's where Jace is now."

"Locked up with a bunch of murderers?" Clary bounced to her feet. "What's wrong with you people? Why aren't you more upset?"

Alec and Izzy share another glance. "It's just for a night," Izzy says. "And there isn't anyone else down there with him. We asked."

"But why? What did Jace do?"

"He mouthed off to the Inquisitor," Alec answers with a sigh. "That was it, as far as I know."

"It's unbelievable," Izzy says, perching on the edge of her vanity.

"Then the Inquisitor must be insane," Clary says.

"She's not, actually," Alec says, trying to find a way to explain this to a mundane Clary. "If Jace were in your mundane army, do you think he'd be allowed to mouth off to his superiors? Absolutely not."

"Well, not during a war. But Jace isn't a soldier."

There it is. The fundamental misunderstanding. "But we're all soldiers," Alec says gently. "Jace as much as the rest of us. There's a hierarchy of command, and the Inquisitor is near the top. Jace is near the bottom. He should have treated her with more respect." It's always Jace's problem. He makes people work for his respect.

"If you agree that he ought to be in jail, why did you call me?" Clary snaps. "Just to get me to agree with you? I don't see the point. What do you want me to do?"

"We didn't say he should be in jail," Izzy shoots back. "Just that he shouldn't have talked back to one of the highest-ranked members of the Clave." Her voice softens a little. "Besides, I thought that maybe you could help."

"Help?" Clary asks. "How?"

Alec answers, "I told you before, half the time it seems like Jace is trying to get himself killed. He has to learn to look out for himself, and that includes cooperating with the Inquisitor."

"And you think I can help you make him do that?" Clary asks, clearly skeptical.

"I'm not sure anyone can make Jace do anything," Izzy says. "But I think you can remind him that he has something to live for."

Because no one here seems to be able to is the part she doesn't say, and it's the part that makes Alec yank on the fringe of Izzy's pillow, sending beads scattering across Izzy's blanket.

"Alec, don't," Izzy says.

"Can we go to the Silent City and see him?" Clary asks.

"Will you tell him to cooperate with the Inquisitor?" Alec asks. The last thing they need is Clary going in and making things worse.

Clary pauses a moment. "I want to hear what he has to say first."

Alec drops the pillow and stands with a frown, but before he can answer, someone knocks at the door. Izzy answers. "Max. I thought you were asleep."

Max stands in front of Izzy, wearing an oversized sweatshirt and carrying a book. "I was in the weapons room," he says. "But there were noises coming from the library. I think someone might be trying to contact the Institute." He peers around Izzy and asks, "Who's that?"

"That's Clary," Alec says. "She's Jace's sister."

"I thought Jace didn't have any brothers or sisters," Max says with wide eyes.

"That's what we all thought." Alec picks up his sweater from where he'd left it on Izzy's chair and pulls it on. His hair haloes out with static electricity and he presses it down impatiently. "I'd better get to the library."

"We'll both go," Izzy says. "Maybe something happened."

"Where are your parents?" Clary asks.

"They got called out a few hours ago," Alec says as he steps into the hall. "A faerie child was murdered in Central Park. The Inquisitor went with them."

"You didn't want to go?"

"We weren't invited," Izzy says, twisting her hair up and securing it with a glass dagger. "Look after Max, will you? We'll be right back."

"But--"

"We'll be right back," Izzy repeats, and then they're gone, leaving Clary with Max.

***

Since Hodge disappeared, Alec, Izzy, and Jace have been holding down the Institute, dealing with any and all Downworlder activity in New York, so it's not a strange thing for Alec and Izzy to answer a call from Alicante, but to get a call from the Silent Brothers is something else. An attack on the Bone City is nothing short of an all-out emergency, and Alec rushes to get into gear while Izzy makes sure Max is safe.

He's finishing with his runes when Izzy and Carly come around the corner. "Are you ready?" he asks Izzy. "Is Max taken care of?"

"He's fine," she says, holding out her arms. "Mark me."

Alec gets to work tracing the familiar runes on his sister's skin, then glances over to Clary. "You should probably head home. You don't want to be here by yourself when the Inquisitor gets back."

"I want to go with you," Clary says.

Izzy's answer is dry and slightly amused as she blows cool air over her Marks, cooling the sting of the stele. "You sound like Max."

"Max is nine. I'm the same age as you," Clary argues.

"But you haven't got any training," Alec says. "You'll just be a liability."

"No, I won't. Has either of you ever been inside the Silent City?" Clary demands. "I have. I know how to get in. I know how to find my way around."

Alec straightens, ready to argue. "I don't think--"

"She has a point actually," Izzy interrupts. "I think she should come if she wants."

Alec stares at her. "Last time we faced a demon, she just cowered and screamed." Clary is shooting daggers at him with her gaze, so he adds, "I'm sorry, but it's true."

"I think she needs a chance to learn," Izzy argues. "You know what Jace always says. Sometimes you don't have to search out danger, sometimes danger finds you."

Izzy always knows to bring up Jace's advice when Alec is being stubborn, and Clary jumps right in to the opening. "You can't lock me up like you did Max. I'm not a child. And I know where the Bone City is. I can find my way there without you."

Alec turns away, resigned, and Izzy says to Clary, "Give me your stele. It's time you got some Marks."

***

It's dark and cold by the time they're standing in front of the statue of Raziel that hides the entrance to the Silent City.

"Last time I was here, Brother Jeremiah used a rune on the statue to open the door to the City," Clary says.

Alec answers grimly, "I wouldn't want to use one of the Silent Brothers' runes." He looks around with a frown. "They should have sensed our presence before we got this far. Now I'm starting to worry." He pulls out a dagger and slices it neatly across his palm. Squeezing his fist tightly over the stone cup held in the statue's hands, he lets his blood drip out. "Blood of the Nephilim. It should work as a key."

The statue's eyes open and the grass at the Angel's feet splits, revealing a darkened stairway leading down into the Silent City.

"Something's wrong," Clary says, and Alec can't find it in him to argue. She holds up her witchlight stone to light the way, but Alec steps in front of her.

"I'll go first, then you follow me. Isabelle, bring up the rear."

They proceed slowly, the witchlight only enough to illuminate a short way of their path as they make their way between the rows of stone mausoleums.

"I never thought I would enter the Silent City," Alec says, his voice hushed and somber. "Not before death."

"Brother Jeremiah told me what they do to your dead," Clary says. "They burn them up and use most of the ashes to make the City's marble."

"Hmpph," Izzy says. "It's considered an honor. Besides, it's not like you mundies don't burn your dead."

The air around them smells like ash and smoke, but underneath it is something else. Thick and heavy, like rotting fruit. Alec pulls out one of his seraph blades and names it with a whispered, "Arathiel." The blade's light combines with Clary's witchlight as they head further down into the City.

The stench gets stronger the further they go, and when the corridor they're in opens out into a pavilion surrounded by spires of carved bone, Alec looks around in awe. At least until his gaze lands on a fan of red across one wall.

"Is that blood?" Izzy asks, startled.

"Looks like it," Alec says, gripping his blade tighter as he scans the room. The shadows are so thick they may as well be curtains.

"What could have happened?" Izzy asks. "The Silent Brothers--I thought they were indestructible...."

Clary's witchlight flares brightly, and in the sudden light, Alec catches sight of one of the Silent Brothers, impaled on a bone spire, blood pooled beneath him.

"Alec," Isabelle gasps. "Do you see--"

"I see," Alec says. "And I've seen worse. It's Jace I'm worried about."

Izzy moves forward for a closer look, her fingertips dragging over a table splattered in blood. "This blood is almost fresh. Whatever happened, it happened not long ago."

Alec heads for the corpse and spots a trail leading away from the pool of blood. "Footprints," he says. "Someone running." He gestures for the girls to follow and heads out of the pavilion, following the footprints down a narrow tunnel. He pauses in the darkness, and Clary pushes impatiently past him.

She starts running, and Alec calls after her, but she doesn't stop, and soon he and Izzy are running after her, chasing the faint, bobbing brightness of Clary's witchlight. She's moving so fast even Alec can't catch up with her. Just ahead, he hears an enormous ripping noise, and Izzy cries out in surprise.

Alec puts on a burst of speed and makes it to the cell Clary's light came to rest in, the door collapsed outside. "What's going on?"

Clary crouches on the floor next to Jace, who pulls himself upright. His face is grey, and his shirt is bloodstained. Alec's expression shifts immediately to concern, and he kneels by his parabatai. "And are you all right? What happened? Can you remember?"

Jace holds up a hand. "One question at a time, Alec. My head already feels like it's going to split open."

"Who did this to you?" Izzy asks, a tone of rage under her question.

"No one did anything to me. I did it to myself trying to get the manacles off." Jace looks at his wrist, and Alec sees that nearly all the skin has been scraped off.

"Here," he says, at the same time as Clary, and they both reach for Jace's hand. He meets Clary's gaze, and she drops her hand. Alec takes Jace's wrist gently and deftly marks him with an iratze just below the worst of it.

"Thanks," Jace says and pulls his already-healing hand back. "Brother Jeremiah--"

"Is dead," Clary says.

Alec offers Jace a hand, but he shrugs it off, pulling himself to a standing position. "I know. He was murdered."

"Did the Silent Brothers kill each other?" Isabell asks. "I don't understand--I don't understand why they'd do that--"

"They didn't," Jace answers, and Alec knows that this is going to cost him. Once again the only witness to a tragedy. "Something killed them. I don't know what." His face twists in pain. "My head--"

"Maybe we should go," Clary says. "Before whatever killed them..."

"Comes back for us?" Jace looks down at his shirt and his hand. "I think it's gone. But I suppose he could still bring it back."

"Who could bring what back?" Alec asks, but Jace's face has turned from grey to white, and Alec has to catch him as he starts to slide down the wall. "Jace--"

"I'm all right," Jace argues, but he's holding tightly to Alec's sleeve. "I can stand."

"It looks to me like you're using a wall to prop you up. That's not my definition of 'standing.'" Still, Jace can't be too badly hurt if he's being sarcastic.

"It's leaning," Jace says. "Leaning comes right before standing."

"Stop bickering," Izzy says, kicking something out of her way. "We need to get out of here. If there's something out there nasty enough to kill the Silent Brothers, it'll make short work of us."

"Izzy's right," Clary says. The first reasonable thing she's contributed all night, Alec is fairly certain. "We should go. Jace--are you okay to walk?"

"He can lean on me," Alec says, pulling Jace's arm over his shoulders. "We'll fix you up when we get outside."

They pass the twisted body of Brother Jeremiah lying on the paving stones as they leave, and Izzy stops to pull his hood down over his fear-contorted face. They all stand silently over his fallen form.

"I've never seen a Silent Brother afraid," Alec says. "I didn't think it was possible for them to feel fear."

"Everyone feels fear," Jace says, and something in his voice, in the way he seems to curl in on himself, makes Alec push on, wanting to get them all out of this dark, cold, despairing place.



[ooc: All dialogue comes from City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare.]

City of Ashes: Calling in a Favor

A group of Shadowhunters had been waiting for them when they finally exited the Silent City. Maryse and the Inquisitor but also several other Nephilim from both Alicante and New York.

"By the Angel," Maryse says, looking over Alec and Jace and Izzy. Jace moves away from Alec to stand a little ways off. From the look on the Inquisitor's face, he can tell she still wants to see Jace behind bars, so he fishes his phone from his pocket to text Magnus. There has to be another way. "What are you doing here, Alec? Isabelle? There was a distress call from the Silent City--"

"We answered it," Alec says, tucking his phone away again. He looks around the gathered crowd of Shadowhunters, full members of the Clave. They're all looking to him for answers. "You weren't at the Institute--and we couldn't raise anyone--so we came ourselves."

"Alec--"

"It doesn't matter anyway," Alec continues before anyone can try to stop him, can try to make light of what they saw down there. "They're dead. The Silent Brothers. Everyone in the Silent City. They're all dead. They've been murdered."

The whole group went silent and still, a pack of predators perched to pounce.

"Dead," Maryse says. "What do you mean, they're dead?"

Inquisitor Herondale steps forward. "I think it's quite clear what he means," she says, turning her attention to Alec, making him feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. "You found no one alive in the City?"

"Not that we saw, Inquisitor," he says, falling into the role of dutiful Nephilim.

"That you saw," she says, and Alec feels like he's been reprimanded, though he's not sure for what. She turns to Maryse. "There may yet be survivors. I would send your people into the City for a thorough check."

There are arguments back and forth as Nephilim march into the Bone City to search for survivors. Inquisitor Herondale takes charge immediately, and Alec sees the way that rankles his mother. Maryse hates having people tell her what to do or question her authority. Questions come fast and furious, and soon it comes out that the Mortal Sword was taken by Valentine--something Jace hadn't mentioned to them.

No one can quite figure out why though. Maryse suggests that it could simply be to sap the morale of the Clave. "The fact is--"

But before she can say what the fact is, Jace raises his hand as if to ask a question and then sits down suddenly on the grass as though his legs have given out. Alec kneels next to him, and Jace waves him away. "Leave me alone. I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Clary says, joining Alec on the grass. Alec glances down to Jace's wrist, where he'd drawn the iratze, only to find that the run is completely gone, not even a scar left in its place. Too much energy for healing raw wrists. He looks at Clary and sees her worry mirroring his own as she says, "Something's wrong with him. Something serious."

"He probably needs a healing rune," the Inquisitor says. "An iratze, or--"

"We tried that," Alec says. "It isn't working. I think there's something of demonic origin going on here." Why else wouldn't the rune work?

"Like demon poison?" Maryse asks, moving toward Jace.

The Inquisitor holds her back. "He's shamming," she says. "He ought to be in the Silent City's cells right now."

Alec jumped to his feet. "You can't say that--look at him!" He gestures toward Jace who is slumped on the grass, eyes closed. "He can't even stand up. He needs doctors, he needs--"

"The Silent Brothers are dead," says the Inquisitor, her voice cool and detached. "Are you suggesting a mundane hospital?"

"No," Alec says, keeping his voice deliberately even and casual. "I thought he could go to Magnus."

Izzy makes a sound that is entirely unladylike, and the Inquisitor gives Alec a curious look. "Magnus?"

"He's a warlock," Alec says, trying to make it sound like everybody knows this and not like he has a particular reason to know this. "Actually, he's the High Warlock of Brooklyn."

"You mean Magnus Bane," Maryse says. "He has a reputation--"

"He healed me after I fought a Greater Demon," Alec interrupts. "The Silent Brothers couldn't do anything, but Magnus..." He trails off. He's never really talked to anyone about that night, about Magnus sitting up with him all night.

"It's ridiculous," says the Inquisitor. "What you want is to help Jonathan escape."

"He's not well enough to escape," Izzy argues. "Cant you see that?"

Alec shoots her a look, hoping she'll take the hint and be quiet. "Magnus would never let that happen," he says. "He's not interested in crossing the Clave."

"And how would he propose preventing it?" the Inquisitor asks, her voice disdainful. "Jonathan is a Shadowhunter; we're not so easy to keep under lock and key."

"Maybe you should ask him," Alec says, the picture of innocence.

The Inquisitor's smile could slice steel. "By all means. Where is he?"

Alec checks his phone quickly for confirmation and says, "He's here." Raising his voice he calls, "Magnus! Magnus, come on out."


[ooc: All dialogue comes from City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare.]