ALEXANDER GIDEON LIGHTWOOD

Clary and Jace flung themselves at Alec, laughing, as the air exploded with cheers. Aline and Helen gave Alec a mutual thumbs-up. The Projections of Isabelle and Simon waved from the back of the room. The Blackthorns whooped and applauded; Emma whistled. Maryse Lightwood wiped away tears of happiness as Kadir patted her shoulder gently.

“Alec Lightwood,” cried Jia. “Please rise. You are the new Consul of the Clave.”

Emma had expected an outburst from Lazlo, or at least a look of black rage. Instead he merely smirked coldly as Alec rose to his feet among cheers and applause.

“This vote doesn’t count! It shouldn’t count!” shouted Zara. “If those who died on the field could have voted, Alec Lightwood would never have won!”

“I will work toward your rehabilitation, Zara,” said Alec evenly.

Silver flashed. Zara had snatched a long dagger from the weapons belt of a guard standing near her; he made no move to stop her. There were gasps as the rest of the guards tossed weapons to the other Cohort members, steel sparking in the light from the great windows.

“We refuse to recognize Alec Lightwood as Consul!” shouted Manuel. “We stand for our old traditions, for the way things always have been and always should be!”

“Guards!” Jia shouted, but the twenty or so guards were making no effort to stop the Cohort—in fact, they had joined them in a flurry of unsheathed daggers. Emma glanced at Lazlo Balogh, who was watching with folded arms, clearly unsurprised. Somehow, Emma realized, the Cohort’s allies had planted guards who were sympathetic to their cause. But what on earth were they planning? There were still only a fraction of them compared to the overwhelming number of Shadowhunters who had voted for Alec.

Jia leaped down from the dais, unsheathing her dao. All over the Hall, Shadowhunters were rising to their feet and drawing arms. Alec had reached for his bow, Jace his sword. Dru reached for Tavvy, her face pale, as the rest of the family took out their weapons.

Then Zara raised her dagger and put it to her own throat.

Movement in the room ceased. Emma still gripped Cortana, staring as Manuel followed Zara’s gesture, placing the blade of his own dagger against his throat. Amelia Overbeck did the same—Vanessa Ashdown followed, with Milo Coldridge—until all the Cohort members stood with blades to their throats.

“You can put your weapons down,” said Zara, holding the knife against her throat so tightly that blood dripped down her hand. “We are not here to harm our fellow Shadowhunters. You have harmed yourselves enough with your foolish and shortsighted vote. We are acting to save Alicante from corruption and the glass towers from ruin.” Her eyes glittered madly. “You spoke before of the value of the lands outside Alicante as if Alicante were not the heart of our people. Very well then, go out and embrace the mundane world, away from the Angel’s light.”

“Are you demanding we leave Alicante?” said Diana in disbelief. “We who are Nephilim as you are?”

“No consort of a faerie is as Nephilim as I am,” Zara spat. “Yes. We ask—we demand—that you go. Clary Fairchild can create Portals; let her make one now. Step through it and go where you wish. Anywhere that is not Alicante.”

“You’re only a few people,” said Emma. “You can’t kick the rest of us out of Alicante. It’s not your tree house.”

“I am sorry it came to this,” said Lazlo, “but we are not a few people. We are many more. You may have intimidated people into voting for Lightwood, but their hearts are with us.”

“You would propose a civil war? Here in the Council Hall?” demanded Diana.

“Not a civil war,” said Zara. “We know we cannot win against you in battle. You have too many filthy tricks. You have warlocks on your side.” She glared at Alec. “But we are willing to die for our beliefs and for Alicante. We will not leave. We will spill Shadowhunter blood, yes. Our own blood. We will cut our own throats and die here at your feet. Either you will go or we will wash this room clean in our blood.”

Jaime rose to his feet. “Call their bluff,” he said. “They cannot hold us hostage—”

Zara nodded to Amelia, who plunged the dagger she held into her stomach and twisted it viciously to the side. She fell to her knees spurting blood as the room exploded with gasps of horror.

“Can you build your new Clave on the blood of dead children?” Zara screamed at Alec. “You said you would show mercy. If you let us die, every time you step into this room from this moment onward, you will be walking on our corpses.”

Everyone looked at Jia, but Jia was looking at Alec. Alec, the new Consul.

He was studying not Zara’s face but the faces of the others in the room—those who looked at Zara as if she were the promise of freedom. There was no mercy on the faces of the Cohort. Not a one of them reached for Amelia as her blood ran out across the floor.

“Very well,” said Alec with a deadly calm. “We will go.”

Zara’s eyes widened. Emma suspected she had not expected her plan to work, but had hoped to die as a martyr and destroy Alec and the rest of them in the process.

“You understand,” Lazlo said, “that once you go, Lightwood, you cannot return. We will lock the wards of Idris against you, tear the Portal from the walls of the Gard, brick up the entrances from the Silent City. You will never be able to come back.”

“Brick up the entrances to the Silent City?” said Diego. “You would cut off your own access to the Silent Brothers? To the Cup and Sword?”

“Who holds Idris holds the Mortal Mirror,” said Lazlo. “As for the Silent Brothers, they have been corrupted, as the Iron Sisters have. We will cut them off from Alicante until they see the error of their ways. Until they see who the true Shadowhunters are.”

“The world is bigger than Idris,” said Jace, standing tall and proud beside Alec. “You think you are taking our homeland, but you are making it your prison. Just as we can never return, you will never be able to leave.”

“Outside the wards of Idris we will fight on to protect the world,” Alec said. “In here, you will rot as you play at being soldiers with nothing to fight but each other.”

Alec turned his back on Balogh, moving to face the Clave. “Let’s open the Portal now,” he said. “Those who do not live in Alicante, return through it to your homes. Those who live here will have a choice. Gather your families and come with us or remain here, trapped forever, with the Cohort as your rulers. It is the choice of each Shadowhunter whether they wish to be imprisoned or free.”

Clary rose to her feet and walked to the doors at the back of the room, taking her stele from her pocket. The Clave watched in silence as her stele flashed in her hand and a silvery-gray whirlwind began to grow against the doors, opening outward, shimmering along the walls until it had become an enormous Portal.

She turned to look at the room. “I’ll keep this open for as long as anyone needs to leave Idris,” she said, her voice firm and clear. “I’ll be the last who passes through. Who wants to be the first?”

Emma stood, and Julian moved with her, acting together as they always had. “We will follow our Consul,” Emma said.

“The Blackthorns will go first,” Julian said. “Keep your prison, Zara. We will be free without you.”

The rest of their family rose with them. Aline went to Jia and looped her arm through her mother’s. Emma would have thought the room would have been full of cries and chaos, of arguing and fighting. But it seemed as if a cloak of stunned acceptance had been drawn over the Shadowhunters, both those leaving and those staying. The Cohort and their allies watched in silence as the majority of Shadowhunters either headed toward the Portal or went to gather up their things from their Alicante houses.

Alicante would be a ghost town, a ghost city in a ghost land, Emma thought. She looked for Diana, found her nearby in the crowd. “Your father’s shop,” she said. “Your apartment—”

Diana just smiled. “I don’t mind,” she said. “I was always coming back with you to Los Angeles, love. I’m a teacher. Not a shop owner in Idris. And why would I want to live somewhere Gwyn couldn’t go?”

Cristina hugged Diego and Jaime as they stood, ready to return to Mexico City. Divya and Rayan were preparing themselves. So were Cameron and Paige Ashdown, though Vanessa still stood on the dais, glaring at them with narrowed eyes. Amelia’s body lay at her feet. Emma felt a twist of pity. To sacrifice so much for a cause that cared nothing for you, and then to die unmourned. It seemed too cruel.