Also by Cassandra Clare

She heard a crack. Sterling shrieked and fell to his knees, Cortana dropping to the ground. She
reached down to seize it up; by the time she straightened she was surrounded by a small group of
Followers, led by Belinda.
“What have you told her, Sterling?” Belinda demanded, showing small white teeth behind her red
lips.
“N-nothing.” Sterling was clutching his wrist. It looked badly broken. “I took the sword to give to
you—proof of good faith—”
“What would I want with a sword? Idiot.” She turned to Emma. “We’re here for him,” she said,
pointing at Sterling. “Let us take him and we’ll go.” She grinned at Emma. “If you’re wondering how
we knew to come here, the Guardian has eyes everywhere.”
“Emma!” It was Cristina’s voice; Emma whirled and saw Cristina on the outside of the circle,
Perfect Diego beside her. To Emma’s relief, Cristina was only limping a little bit.
“Let them in,” Belinda said, and the crowd parted so that Perfect Diego and Cristina took their
places on either side of Emma. The circle closed back up around them.
“What’s going on?” Perfect Diego demanded. His gaze lit on Belinda. “Are you the Guardian?”
She burst out laughing. After a moment several of the other Followers, including the curly-haired
boy, started to laugh alongside her. “Me? What a hoot you are, handsome.” She winked at Perfect
Diego as if acknowledging his perfectness. “I’m not the Guardian, but I know what the Guardian
wants. I know what’s necessary. Right now the Guardian needs Sterling. The Followers need him.”
Sterling whimpered, his cry lost among the laughter of the crowd. Emma was looking around,
gauging the distance to the front doors of the Institute; if they could get inside, the Followers couldn’t
come after them. But then they’d be trapped—and they couldn’t call the Conclave for help.
Sterling curled a hand around Perfect Diego’s ankle. Apparently he had decided Perfect Diego was
his best bet for mercy in the circumstances. “Don’t let them take me,” he begged. “They’ll kill me. I
screwed up. They’ll kill me.”
“We can’t let you have him,” said Perfect Diego. Emma was mostly sure she was imagining the
regret in his voice. “Our mandate is to protect mundanes unless they are posing a danger to our lives.”
“I don’t know,” Emma said, thinking of the green-haired girl bleeding out her life. “This one seems
killable.”
Belinda gave them a red-lipped smile. “He’s not a mundane. None of us are.”
“Our mandate is to protect, either way,” Perfect Diego said. Emma exchanged a glance with
Cristina, but could tell Cristina agreed with Perfect Diego. Mercy was a quality the Angel expected
Shadowhunters to have. Mercy was the Law. Sometimes Emma worried her capacity for mercy had
been burned away in the Dark War.
“We need him for information,” Cristina said quietly, but Belinda heard it, and her lips tightened.
“We need him more,” she said. “Now hand him over and we’ll go. There’s three of you and three
hundred of us. Think about it.”
Emma threw Cortana.
It whipped out of her hand so quickly that Belinda had no chance to react; it spun around the circle
of Followers like a needle around a compass, flickering and golden. She heard shouts, cries, halfpain
and half-astonishment, and then the sword was back in her hand, thunking solidly into her palm.
Belinda looked around in genuine astonishment. The tip of Cortana had just grazed the shirtfronts of
the circle of Followers; some were bleeding, some just had rips in their clothes. All were clutching at
themselves, looking stunned and frightened.
Cristina seemed delighted. Perfect Diego just seemed thoughtful.