Also by Cassandra Clare

Emma saw the familiar shape of the Institute, the drive ahead of them, the canyon and hills rising
behind. There were shadows everywhere, a ring of them around the Institute, but only when the car
crested the last rise and the headlights swept the building did Emma feel the shock of what she was
seeing.
The Institute was surrounded.
Figures—dark, human-shaped—contained the Institute in a loose square. They stood shoulder to
shoulder, absolutely silent and unmoving, like old drawings Emma had seen of Greek warriors.
Sterling yelled something incomprehensible. Emma slammed on the brakes as the headlights
skittered across the trampled brush in front of the building. The figures were illuminated, lit up like
daylight. Some were familiar. She recognized the curly-haired boy from the band at the Midnight
Theater, his face set in a stony snarl. Beside him was a woman—dark hair, red lips—who raised a
hand with a gun in it—
“Belinda!” Sterling sounded stupidly terrified. “She—”
Belinda’s hand rocked back with the ricochet of the gun. An explosion of noise seared Emma’s ears
as the right front tire of the car exploded, torn in two by a bullet. The car slewed violently to the side
and skidded into a ditch.
Darkness and the sound of shattering glass. The steering wheel slammed into Emma’s chest,
knocking the breath out of her; the headlights went out. She heard Cristina scream, and scrambling
noises from the backseat. She wrenched at her seat belt, ripping it free, turning to reach for Cristina.
She was gone. The backseat was also empty. Emma bashed the door open and half-fell out onto the
packed dirt. She struggled to her feet and whirled around.
The car was mashed nose down into a ditch, smoke rising from the burst tire. Diego was coming
around from the passenger-side door, boots crunching on the dry earth. He was carrying Cristina, his
left arm slung under her knees; one of her legs hung at an odd angle. She had a hand on his shoulder,
her fingers bunched in the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
He looked very heroic in the moonlight. A bit like Superman. Perfect Diego. Emma kind of wanted
to throw something at him but she was afraid of hitting Cristina. He jerked his manly chin toward the
Institute. “Emma!”
Emma whirled. The figures surrounding the Institute had turned—they were facing toward her now,
toward her and Diego and the wreckage of the car.
In the moonlight they looked eerie. Stark figures in black and gray, a blur of faces. Weres, half
faeries, vampire darklings, and ifrits: the Followers.
“Emma!” Perfect Diego called again. He had his stele out and was inking a healing rune on
Cristina’s arm. “Sterling’s on the move—he has your sword—”
Emma whirled as Sterling shot past her, moving with inhuman speed. He’d freed his wrists and
ankles, but blood stained the hems of his trousers. “Belinda!” he shouted. “I’m here! Help me!” He
held something up as he ran, something that glowed gold in the darkness.
Cortana.
Rage exploded inside Emma’s chest. It shot through her veins like lit gunpowder and then she was
running, slamming across the grass and dirt after Sterling. She leaped over rocks, shot past blurred
figures. Sterling was fast, but she was just that much faster. She caught up to him nearly at the Institute
steps. He had almost reached Belinda.
She crashed into him, grabbed his jacket, and swung him around. His face was dirty, bloodstreaked,
pale with terror. She seized the wrist that held Cortana. Her sword. Her father’s sword. Her
only connection to a family that seemed to have dissolved away into the past like powder in rain.