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CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

❝ The Heart Of Stone ❞

The sound of water woke her. It was a heavy repetitive sound — water sloshing against something solid, over and over, as if she were lying in the bottom of a pool that was rapidly draining and refilling itself. There was the taste of metal in her mouth and the smell of metal all around. Her cheek was pressed against something solid and damp and decaying.

She pressed her cheek further against the cool surface to relieve her burning body. It felt alight, ignited like a high fever had taken hold of her. She was conscious of the nagging, the persistent pain in her head, and was definitely sure her nose was broken. 

She woke quietly, without ceremony. There was no announcing, no calling, no nothing. One moment she was asleep. Then, she woke. She realized she was trapped immediately after. She couldn't feel her hands — please, she thought, please let me still have hands — and she couldn't feel her legs — please, she thought, please let me still have legs. She spent several long minutes staring into the darkness. Everything smelled of salt and wood. She felt the wind blow over her left leg.

So she must at least still have one leg.

Slowly, her fingers began to move, so she must still have them, too. She had her limbs, but they were restrained. She was also starving. She stared ahead in the darkness again as her gaze adjusted to the light. The room was an ugly gray-green. The walls were the same green metal. There was a single high round window in one wall, letting in only a little sunlight, but it was enough. When she heard a groan, she realized she wasn't alone in the room. 

The shadows were thick, but she blinked through them, adjusting her gaze and narrowing her eyes. Across from her, her hands bound together and chained to a large steam pipe, was Maia. Her clothes were torn and there was a massive bruise across her left cheek. She could see where her braids had been torn away from her scalp on one side, her hair matted with blood. There was another groan, and then a creak, and her head snapped too fast to her left - so fast she felt dizzy. 

At first, she saw nothing but the darkness. Then her eyes caught movement.

She froze.

Slowly, she realized what she was looking at.

She said, "Shit."

The moment she sat up, Maia stared at her and burst immediately into tears. "I thought," she hiccupped between sobs, "that you — were dead."

"I am dead," Simon said from beside Esme. He was staring at his hand. As he watched, the blisters fading, the pain lessening, the skin resuming its normal pallor.

"I know, but I meant — really dead." She swiped at her face with her bound hands. Simon tried to move toward her, but something brought him up short. A metal cuff around his ankle was attached to a thick metal chain sunk into the floor. Valentine was taking no chances.

"Don't cry," he said, and immediately regretted it. It wasn't as if the situation didn't warrant tears. "I'm fine."

"For now," said Maia, rubbing her wet face against her sleeve. "That man — the one with the white hair — his name is Valentine?"

"You saw him?" Simon said. "I didn't see anything. Just my front door blowing in and then a massive shape that came at me like a freight train."

Esme's voice collapsed into itself. "I fought him."

Hearing the fragility in her voice, Simon tried to reach her. She was much closer, strapped to the manacles beside him. He held her hand. At this moment, she was not happy that he could read her like an open book. She thought of how she must look, in his enhanced sight. Hair a wild tangled and miserable mess, eyes bloodshot and red-ringed. Dried blood crusted around her nose and mouth, bruise peppering her skin. She's felt so alive fighting Valentine — for a moment she had thought - she had seen her father. She had believed she was fighting him, at last, at long last. But she hadn't been. And like every other time, she'd been thrown to the ground.

"He's the Valentine, right?" Maia asked. "The one everyone talks about. The one who started the Uprising."

"He's Jace and Clary's father," Simon said. "That's what I know about him."

"I thought his voice sounded familiar. He sounds just like Jace." She looked momentarily rueful. "No wonder Jace is such an ass."

Simon could only agree.

"So you didn't . . . " Maia's voice trailed off. She tried again. "Look, I know this sounds weird, but when Valentine came for you, did you see someone you recognized with him, someone who's dead? Like a ghost?"

Simon shook his head, bewildered. "No. Why?"

Maia hesitated. "I saw my brother. The ghost of my brother. I think Valentine was making me hallucinate."

Esme blinked. "Maybe he used a demon. He'd sent demons after you before. Maybe they were different kinds of demons." She felt Simon's fingers intertwine with hers tightly.

"Well, he didn't try anything like that on me. I was on the phone with Clary. I remember dropping it when the shape came at me — " He shrugged. "That's it."

"With Clary?" Maia looked almost hopeful. "Then maybe they'll figure out where we are. Maybe they'll come after us."

"Maybe," Simon said. "Where are we, anyway?"

"On a boat. I was still conscious when he brought me onto it. It's a big black hulking metal thing. There are no lights and there are — things everywhere. One of them jumped out at me and I started screaming. That was when he grabbed my head and banged it into the wall. I passed out for a while after that."

"Things?" Esme asked cautiously, her voice sounding remote. "What do you mean things?"

"Demons," she said and shuddered. "He has all sorts of demons here. Big ones and little ones and flying ones. They do whatever he tells them."

"But Valentine's a Shadowhunter," Simon said. "And from all I've heard, he hates demons."

"Well, they don't appear to know that," said Maia. "What I don't get is what he wants with us. I know he hates Downworlders, but this seems like a lot of effort just to kill two of them." She had started to shiver, her jaws clicking together like the chattery-teeth toys you could buy in novelty stores. "He must want something from the Shadowhunters. Or Luke."

I know what he wants, Esme thought, but there was no point in telling Maia; she was upset enough already. Simon shrugged his jacket off. "Here," he said, and tossed it across the room to Maia.

Twisting around her manacles, she managed to drape it awkwardly around her shoulders. She offered him a wan but grateful smile. "Thanks. But aren't you cold?"

Simon shook his head. The burn on his hand was entirely gone now and he kept it tightly linked with Esme. The presence of her fingers between his made this awful, terrible thing a little less of it. "I don't feel the cold. Not anymore."

Maia opened her mouth, then closed it again. A struggle was taking place behind her eyes. "I'm sorry. About the way, I reacted to you yesterday." She paused, almost holding her breath. "Vampires scare me to death," she whispered at last. "When I first came to the city, I had a pack I used to hang out with — Bat, and two other boys, Steve and Gregg. We were in the park once and we ran into some vamps sucking on blood bags under a bridge — there was a fight and I mostly remember one of the vamps just picking Gregg up, just picking him up, and ripping him in half — " Her voice rose, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. She was shaking. "In half," she whispered. "All his insides fell out. And then they started eating."

Simon felt a dull pang of nausea roll over him. He was almost glad that the story made him sick to his stomach, rather than something else. Like hungry. "I wouldn't do that," he said. "I like werewolves. I like Luke — "

"I know you do." Her mouth worked. "It's just that when I met you, you seemed so human. You reminded me what I used to be like, before."

"Maia," Simon said. "You're still human."

"No, I'm not."

"In the ways that count, you are. Just like me."

She tried to smile. He could tell she didn't believe him, and he hardly blamed her. He wasn't sure he believed himself.

Simon turned to Esme, his voice whispered. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened to your nose?"

Esme said, "Valentine punched me."

"I'm going to kill him."

She scoffed. "First, we'll have to get out of these — " she pulled on the metal manacles that jangled, " — which doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon, so . . . " she looked at him and shuffled closer, as close as she could get. If they extended their arms, she could touch his elbow. "I was calling you, you know. You didn't pick up. That's twice now. You promised you'd always pick up. You'd always answer, you promised." And she realized she was crying when she felt her tears run down over the dried blood and she tasted it on her tongue.

Simon felt wretched. He jerked towards her, almost forgetting his restraints, to wipe her tears. But to nothing. Horrifyingly, it seemed, she was crying blood.

Maia had fallen into a fitful doze against the steam pipe, Simon's jacket draped around her shoulders. Simon watched the light from the porthole move across the room and tried in vain to calculate the hours. Usually, he used his cell phone to tell him what time it was, but that was gone — he'd searched his pockets in vain. He must have dropped it when Valentine charged into his room. He had bigger concerns, though. His mouth was dry and papery, his throat aching. He was thirsty in a way that was like every thirst and hunger he'd ever known blended together to form a sort of exquisite torture. And it was only going to get worse. 

Blood was what he needed. He thought of the blood in the refrigerator beside his bed at home, and his veins burned like hot silver wires running just under his skin.

He thought of Esme, just beside him — warm, too warm. If he concentrated on his hearing enough, he could hear her veins, pounding just beneath her pale, thin skin. The blood rushing through her veins, the blood — 

"Simon?" He stopped himself from thinking further, appalled at where his thoughts were taking him. It was Maia, lifting her head groggily. Her cheek was printed with white dents where it had lain against the bumpy pipe. As he watched, the white faded into pink as the blood returned to her face.

Blood. He ran his dry tongue around his lips. "Yeah?"

"How long was I asleep?"

"Three hours. Maybe four. It's probably afternoon by now."

"Oh. Thanks for keeping watch."

He hadn't been. He felt vaguely ashamed as he said, "Of course. No problem."

"Simon . . . "

"Yes?"

"I hope you know what I mean when I say I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're with me."

He felt his face crack into a smile. His dry lower lip split and he tasted blood in his mouth. His stomach groaned. "Thanks."

Esme hummed. She said, "Yes, it's very unfortunate we're all here, but I'm glad it's you two."

Simon said, "Pushing your luck, Dyne."

Maia leaned toward him, the jacket slipping from her shoulders. Her eyes were a light amber-gray that changed as she moved. "Can you reach me?" she asked, holding out her hand.

Simon reached for her as did Esme. The chain that secured her ankle rattled as she stretched her hand as far as it would go. Maia smiled as their fingertips brushed —

"How touching." Esme jerked her hand back, staring. The voice that had spoken out of the shadows was cool, cultured, vaguely foreign in a way she couldn't quite place. Maia dropped her hand and twisted around, the color draining from her face as she stared up at the man in the doorway. The man had come in so quietly none one of them had heard him. "The children of Moon and Night, getting along at last."

"Valentine," Maia whispered.

Simon said nothing. He couldn't stop staring. So this was Clary and Jace's father. With his cap of white-silver hair and burning black eyes, he didn't look much like either one of them, though there was something of Clary in his sharp bone structure and the shape of his eyes, and something of Jace in the lounging insolence with which he moved. He was a big man, broad-shouldered with a thick frame that didn't resemble either of his children's. He padded into the green metal room like a cat, despite being weighed down with what looked like enough weaponry to outfit a platoon. Thick black leather straps with silver buckles crisscrossed his chest, holding a wide-hilted silver sword across his back. Another thick strap circled his waist, and through it was thrust a butcher's array of knives, daggers, and narrow shimmering blades like enormous needles.

"Get up," he said to Simon. "Keep your back against the wall."

Simon tilted his chin up. He could see Maia and Esme watching him, white-faced and scared, and felt a rush of fierce protectiveness. He would keep Valentine from hurting them if it was the last thing he did. "So you're Clary's father," he said. "No offense, but I can kind of see why she hates you."

Valentine's face was impassive, almost motionless. His lips barely moved as he said, "And why is that?"

"Because," Simon said, "you're obviously psychotic."

Now Valentine smiled. It was a smile that moved no part of his face other than his lips, and those twisted only slightly. Then he brought his fist up. It was clenched; Simon thought for a moment that Valentine was going to swing at him, and he flinched reflexively. But Valentine didn't throw the punch. Instead, he opened his fingers, revealing a shimmering pile of what looked like glitter in the center of his broad palm. Turning toward Maia, he bent his head and blew the powder at her in a grotesque parody of a blown kiss. The powder settled on her like a swarm of shimmering bees.

Maia screamed. Gasping and jerking wildly, she thrashed from side to side as if she could twist away from the powder, her voice rising in a sobbing scream.

"What did you do to her?" Esme shouted, leaping to her feet. She ran towards Maia, but the leg chain jerked her back. "What did you do?"

Valentine's thin smile widened. "Silver powder," he said. "It burns lycanthropes."

Maia had stopped twitching and was curled into a fetal position on the floor, weeping quietly. Blood ran from vicious red scores along her hands and arms. Simon's stomach lurched again and he fell back against the wall, sickened by himself, by all of it. "You bastard," he said as Valentine idly brushed the last of the powder from his fingers. "She's just a girl, she wasn't going to hurt you, she's chained up, for — " He choked his throat burning.

Valentine laughed. "For God's sake?" he said. "Is that what you were going to say?"

Esme glared up at Valentine, blood tears running down her face. "You're horrible."

"Thank you," he replied pleasantly. She scowled at Valentine. Esme was very short and on her knees, Valentine was very tall, but Esme very much wanted to scowl at Valentine and Valentine seemed intent on being scowled at, so they made it work.

Simon said nothing. Valentine reached over his shoulder and drew the heavy silver Sword from its sheath. Light played along its blade like water slipping down a sheer silver wall, like sunlight itself refracted. Simon's eyes stung and he turned his face away.

"The Angel blade burns you, just as God's name chokes you," said Valentine, his cool voice sharp as crystal. "They say that those who die upon its point will achieve the gates of heaven. In which case, revenant, I am doing you a favor." He lowered the blade so that the tip touched Simon's throat. Valentine's eyes were the color of black water and there was nothing in them: no anger, no compassion, not even any hate. They were empty as a hollowed-out grave. "Any last words?"

Simon knew what he was supposed to say. Sh'ma Yisrael, adonai elohanu, adonai echod. Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He tried to speak the words, but a searing pain burned his throat. "Clary," he whispered instead.

A look of annoyance passed across Valentine's face as if the sound of his daughter's name in a vampire's mouth displeased him. He brought the Sword level with a sharp flick of his wrist and slashed it with a single smooth gesture across Simon's throat.