Shinyun had taken no chances with her poison. She clearly wanted Magnus to have no chance in the Pit.

“One last thing,” said Shinyun, and she sounded like she was smiling.

She stepped close to Magnus.

“I led you to a place where you could not receive calls. I rendered your phone unusable. And I contacted Alec myself on your behalf.” She smiled. “I set a trap for each of you. Alec Lightwood should be dead shortly.”

Magnus could face anything, if Alec was safe.

It was a dark explosion in Magnus’s mind, a howling scream of agony and rage. A rage that he rarely if ever allowed himself to feel. A rage that came from his father. He lunged for Shinyun. Bernard and the other cult members grabbed his arms, holding him back as he struggled. Blue sparks, faint and pale, appeared at his fingertips.

Shinyun patted Magnus’s face, the gesture almost hard enough to be a slap.

“I do hope you said a proper farewell to your child of the Angel, Magnus Bane,” she murmured. “I can’t imagine you two are going to the same afterlife.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

* * *

Helen Blackthorn’s Blood

THE PILLARS OF FIRE CLIMBED tall, each rising above the tree line. The heat was intensifying, clawing at Alec’s skin as though it could tear his runes away. He considered his dwindling options. The pillars were spaced about fifty feet apart in a rough circle. If they were quick, they could charge between two and escape. But just as Alec moved to dive through an opening, the pillars on either side bent to block him, reshaping themselves in an instant, and then returning to their original height when he backed off.

Alec had seen a Shadowhunter jump flames this high once before, but he was not Jace, and he couldn’t do it.

“Oh, by the Angel,” said Helen.

Alec assumed she was just bemoaning their situation, but when he glanced at her he saw her eyes were closed. Her hair streamed in her face, a silver mirror that almost reflected the firelight.

She said, “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“How could this possibly be your fault?” Aline asked.

“Mori Shu sent me a message asking for protection because he was being hunted by the leader of the Crimson Hand,” said Helen in a rush. “He came to Paris to find me. He picked me, specifically, because my mother was a faerie. He thought I would be more worried about the faerie deaths and more sympathetic to Downworlders. I should have taken Mori Shu into protective custody. I should have told the Paris Institute everything, but instead I tried to deal with it on my own. I wanted to find the leader of the Crimson Hand and prove I was a great Shadowhunter, and nothing like a Downworlder at all.”

Aline pressed a hand to her mouth as she watched Helen. There were tears sliding down Helen’s face, under her long curling eyelashes. Alec kept his eyes moving, checking on the pillars of flame, which seemed content to simply trap them here until, probably, something worse showed up.

“But from the start, I kept messing up,” Helen went on. “I was meant to meet with Mori in Paris, but instead the Crimson Hand caught up with him and sent demons to kill us. Mori Shu fled. Leon was following me around, and we both would’ve been killed by the demons if Alec hadn’t intervened. I still didn’t ask anybody for help. Maybe Mori Shu would still be alive if I had. I didn’t go to the head of the Paris Institute, or the head of the Rome Institute once Mori Shu pointed me there. Now we’re caught in a trap, waiting to die, all because I didn’t want to tell anybody that a warlock had chosen me. I didn’t want the Clave to think of me as any more of a Downworlder than they already do.”

Aline and Alec exchanged a glance. Just because Valentine’s crusade for Shadowhunter purity had been defeated didn’t mean the bigotry he represented had ended. There were people who would always believe Helen was tainted by her Downworlder blood.

“There’s nothing wrong with Downworlders,” said Alec.

“Tell the Clave that,” Helen said.

Aline said, unexpectedly loudly, “The Clave is wrong.” Helen looked up at her, and Aline swallowed. “I know how they think,” she continued. “I didn’t shake a Downworlder’s hand once, and then he became one of the”—Aline darted another glance at Alec—“one of the Downworlder heroes of the war. I was wrong. The way they think is wrong.”

“It has to change,” Alec said. “It will change.”

“Will it change in time for my brothers and sisters?” Helen demanded. “I don’t think so. I’m the oldest of seven. My brother Mark has the same faerie mother as I do. The others have a Shadowhunter mother. My father had only just married a Shadowhunter woman when Mark and I were sent to their home. That Shadowhunter woman could have scorned us. She loved us instead. She was so good to me when I was small. She always treated me exactly like her own. I want my family to be proud of me. My brother Julian is so smart. He could be Consul one day, like your mother is now. I can’t stand in the way of what he could accomplish—what they all could accomplish.”

As though they weren’t in imminent danger of their lives, Aline went over to Helen and took one of her hands.

“You’re on the Council, right?” she asked. “And you’re only eighteen. You’re already making them proud. You’re a great Shadowhunter.”