City of Lost Souls Read Online Free PDF Page B

chips of gold in the walls, and at the end of the passage was a multicolored curtain that swayed back and forth as if moved by wind,though there was no wind here underground. As Clary drew near to it, she saw that it was sewed out of butterflies. Some of them were still alive, and their struggles made the curtain flutter as if in a stiff breeze.
    She swallowed back the acid taste in her throat. “Hello?” she called. “Is anyone there?”
    The curtain rustled aside, and the faerie knight Meliorn stepped out into the hallway. He wore the white armor Clary remembered, but there was a sigil over his left breast now—the four C s that also decorated Luke’s Council robes, marking him as a member. There was a scar, also, on Meliorn’s face that was new, just under his leaf-colored eyes. He regarded her frigidly. “One does not greet the Queen of the Seelie Court with the barbarous human ‘hello,’” he said, “as if you were hailing a servant. The proper address is ‘Well met.’”
    “But we haven’t met,” said Clary. “I don’t even know if she’s here.”
    Meliorn looked at her with scorn. “If the Queen were not present and ready to receive you, ringing the bell would not have brought you. Now come: follow me, and bring your companions with you.”
    Clary turned to gesture at the others, then followed Meliorn through the curtain of tortured butterflies, hunching her shoulders in the hopes that no part of their wings would touch her.
    One by one the four of them stepped into the Queen’s chamber. Clary blinked in surprise. It looked entirely different from how it had the last time she’d been here. The Queen reclined on a white and gold divan, and all around her stretched a floor made of alternating squares of blackand white, like a great checkerboard. Strings of dangerous-looking thorns hung from the ceiling, and on each thorn was impaled a will-o’-the-wisp, its normally blinding light flickering as it died. The room shimmered in their glow.
    Meliorn went to stand beside the Queen; other than him the room was empty of courtiers. Slowly the Queen sat up straight. She was as beautiful as ever, her dress a diaphanous mixture of silver and gold, her hair like rosy copper as she arranged it gently over one white shoulder. Clary wondered why she was bothering. Of all of them there, the only one likely to be moved by her beauty was Simon, and he hated her.
    “Well met, Nephilim, Daylighter,” she said, inclining her head in their direction. “Daughter of Valentine, what brings you to me?”
    Clary opened her hand. The bell shone there like an accusation. “You sent your handmaiden to tell me to ring this if I ever needed your help.”
    “And you told me you wanted nothing from me,” said the Queen. “That you had everything you desired.”
    Clary thought back desperately to what Jace had said when they had had an audience with the Queen before, how he had flattered and charmed her. It was as if he had suddenly acquired a whole new vocabulary. She glanced back over her shoulder at Isabelle and Alec, but Isabelle only made an irritable motion at her, indicating that she should keep going.
    “Things change,” Clary said.
    The Queen stretched her legs out luxuriously. “Very well. What is it you want from me?”
    “I want you to find Jace Lightwood.”
    In the silence that followed, the sound of the will-o’-the-wisps, crying in their agony, was softly audible. At last the Queen said, “You must think us powerful indeed if you believe the Fair Folk can succeed where the Clave has failed.”
    “The Clave wants to find Sebastian. I don’t care about Sebastian. I want Jace ,” Clary said. “Besides, I already know you know more than you’re letting on. You predicted this would happen. No one else knew, but I don’t believe you sent me that bell when you did—the same night Jace disappeared—without knowing something was brewing.”
    “Perhaps I did,” said the Queen, admiring her shimmering