Also by Cassandra Clare

this the ley line convergence?”
“There.” Mark pointed at a dark opening in the rock of the hill. As they moved toward it, Emma
reached back to touch the hilt of Cortana. Something about the place was giving her shivers—maybe
it was simply the power of the convergence, but as they neared the cave, and the hair rose on the back
of her neck, she doubted it.
“The grass is flat,” she said, indicating the area around the cave with a sweep of her hand.
“Trampled. Someone’s been walking here. A lot of someones. But there are no fresh tire tracks on the
road.”
Mark glanced around, head tilted back, like a wolf scenting the air. His feet were still bare, but he
seemed to have no problem walking on the rough ground, despite the thistles and sharp rocks visible
between the grasses.
There was a sharp, bright trill—Emma’s phone ringing. Jules, she thought, and snatched it out of
her pocket.
“Emma?” It was Cristina, her low, sweet voice oddly startling—a sharp reminder of reality after
the unreal flight through the sky. “Where are you? Did you find Mark?”
“I found him,” Emma said, glancing over toward Mark. He appeared to be examining the plants
growing around the mouth of the cave. “We’re at the convergence.”
“What? Where is it? Is it dangerous?”
“Not yet,” Emma said as Mark ducked into the cave. “Mark!” she called. “Mark, don’t—Mark!”
The phone connection dropped. Swearing, Emma stuck the phone back into her pocket and took out
her witchlight. It came on, soft and bright, raying out through her fingers. It illuminated the mouth of
the cave. She headed toward it, cursing Mark under her breath.
He was just inside the cave, looking down at more of the same plants, clustering around the dry,
soft stone. “Atropa belladonna,” he said. “It means ‘beautiful lady.’ It’s poisonous.”
Emma made a face. “Does it grow around here normally?”
“Not in this quantity.” He reached down to touch it. Emma caught his wrist.
“Don’t,” she said. “You said it was poisonous.”
“Only if swallowed,” he said. “Hasn’t Uncle Arthur taught you anything about the death of
Augustus?”
“Nothing I haven’t worked hard to forget.”
Mark straightened up, and she let go of him. She flexed her fingers. There was wiry strength in his
arms.
As he moved forward into the cave, which began to narrow into a tunnel, she couldn’t help but
remember Mark the last time she had seen him, before he had been taken by Sebastian Morgenstern.
Smiling, blue-eyed, short pale hair curling over the tips of his pointed ears. Broad-shouldered—or at
least she, at twelve, had thought so. Certainly he had been bigger than Julian, taller and broader than
all of them. Grown up.
Now, prowling ahead of her, he seemed a feral child, hair gleaming in the witchlight. He moved
like a cloud across the sky, vapor at the mercy of wind that could tear it to shreds.
He vanished around a bend of rock, and Emma almost closed her eyes against the image of a
vanished Mark. He belonged to the past that contained her parents, and you could drown in the past if
you let it have you while you were working.
And she was a Shadowhunter. She was always working.
“Emma!” Mark called, his voice echoing off the walls. “Come and see this.”
She hurried after him down the tunnel. It opened out into a circular chamber lined with metal.