Also by Cassandra Clare

dark, smudged shapes. “No one home—oh!” She jumped back a step as something flung itself against
the window: a lumpy, hair-covered ball. Slime slicked the glass. Emma was already crouching, about
to pull a stiletto from her boot. “What is it?” She straightened. “A Raum demon? A—”
“I think it’s a minipoodle,” said Julian, the corner of his mouth twitching. “And I don’t think it’s
armed,” he added as she glanced down to stare accusingly at what was, yes, definitely a small dog, its
face pressed to the glass. “I’m almost positive, in fact.”
Emma hit him on the shoulder, then drew an Open rune on the door. There was the snapping click of
the lock, and the door swung open.
The dog left off licking the window and rushed out, barking. It darted around them in a circle, then
lunged toward a fenced area at the far end of the yard. Julian darted off after the canine.
Emma followed him through ankle-high grass. It was a nice garden, but nobody had taken real care
of it. The plants were running wild, the flowered hedges overgrown. There was a pool, bordered by a
waist-high ironwork fence, the gate hanging open. As Emma neared it, she could see that Julian was
standing by the side of it, very still. It was the kind of pool that had LED lights in it, cycling through a
rainbow of garish colors. Rows of pool chairs surrounded it, made of white metal with white
cushions, dusted with fallen pine needles and blown jacaranda blossoms.
Emma slowed as she reached the water. The dog was crouched by the pool ladder, not barking but
whimpering. At first Emma thought she was looking at a shadow on the water; then she realized it was
a body. A dead woman in a white bikini, floating on the surface of the pool. She was facedown, long
black hair drifting around her head, arms dangling at her sides. The purple glow from the pool lights
made her skin look bruised.
“By the Angel, Jules . . . ,” Emma breathed.
It wasn’t as if Emma hadn’t seen dead bodies before. She’d seen plenty. Mundanes,
Shadowhunters, murdered children in the Hall of Accords. Still, there was something plaintive about
this body: the woman was tiny, so skinny you could see the lines of her spinal column.
There was a splash of red against one of the pool chairs. Emma moved toward it, thinking it was
blood, then realized it was a Valentino handbag made of bright red intaglio leather, slightly unzipped.
A gold wallet had spilled out of it, and a pink phone.
She glanced at the phone, then picked up the wallet and flicked through it. “Her name’s Ava Leigh,”
she said. “She is—she was—twenty-two. Home address listed as here. Must have been his
girlfriend.”
The dog whimpered again and lay down, his paws by the pool’s edge. “He thinks she’s drowning,”
Julian said. “He wants us to save her.”
“We couldn’t have,” Emma said softly. “Look at her phone. None of the calls have been answered
in two days. I think she’s been dead at least that long. We couldn’t have done anything, Jules.”
She put the wallet back into the bag. She was reaching for the handles when she heard it: the click
of a crossbow loading.
Without looking or thinking, she threw herself at Jules, knocking him down. They hit the Spanish
tile hard as a bolt whistled by them and vanished into the hedges.
Julian kicked off against the ground and spun them over, rolling between two of the chairs. The
phone Emma had been carrying flew out of her hand; she heard it hit the pool water with a splash and
cursed silently to herself. Julian levered himself up, his hands gripping her shoulders; his eyes were
wild, his body pressing hers into the ground. “Are you all right? Were you hit?”
“I wasn’t—I’m fine—” she gasped. The dog was huddled by the fence, howling, as another bolt
whistled down and struck the corpse in the pool. Ava’s body flipped over, baring her swollen,