City of Bones

Luke’s story leaves Clary feeling like her entire life has been a lie. Valentine is her father, and she had a brother she never knew. Clary remembers Magnus telling her there are only two portals in New York—Dorothea’s and one somewhere called Renwick’s, which she finds is an abandoned mental hospital on Roosevelt Island, formerly Blackwell’s Island—named after an old Shadowhunter family.

Luke rallies his pack, and they head for the hospital, where they fight through an army of forsaken to get Clary inside. They find Clary’s mom shackled to a bed. She doesn’t wake, and Luke guesses she’s in a magical sleep. The Shadowhunters Clary saw at Luke’s house corner them, and Clary runs as Luke fights them off. She finds Jace cleaned up from the fight at the Institute and unalarmed to be in Valentine’s domain. Valentine comes to collect Jace so they can leave. Clary readies to throw a dagger at him, but Jace stops her because “this is [his] father” (434).

Jace believes Valentine isn’t the enemy and that Hodge wanted the Mortal Cup for himself and that he lied to everyone. Jace’s real name is Jonathan, and Valentine tells Jace and Clary they are siblings. Valentine assumed Michael Wayland’s identity when he fled the Shadowhunter country and raised Jace in secret. When Jace was 10, Valentine received an anonymous letter from someone who knew his true identity, and Valentine staged his death, sending Jace to live in New York.

The door crashes open, and Luke enters, covered in blood but unharmed. Luke accuses Valentine of kidnapping Clary’s mom with the intention of torturing her. Valentine argues that he would never hurt her, and the two battle while Jace and Clary argue about their mother. Jace is sure she never cared about him, but Clary’s memories of her mom crying over his baby hair and pictures shakes the conviction Jace wears “like a transparent armor, protecting him from the truth” (450). He yells for her to be quiet, which distracts Luke so Valentine can deliver a debilitating blow. Clary throws herself atop Luke to protect him, yelling at Valentine about all the people he’s killed and the monster he is. At Valentine’s order, Jace drags Clary away. As Valentine prepares to kill Luke, Clary asks Jace if he wants to let her watch Luke—her family—die just “like [he] thought [he] watched [his] father die when [he was] ten years old” (456).

Her words break through to Jace, who disarms Valentine. Luke’s fast werewolf healing gets him back on his feet, and Valentine rails about how so many of his loyal followers turned on him and how Luke is less than human. Luke offers to let Valentine live in exchange for the Mortal Cup, which Valentine has stashed in Idris. Before they can use a portal to go, Luke’s wolves storm the room. Valentine kills one and makes a break for the portal, which is disguised as a mirror. He goes through and shatters the glass, rendering the portal useless. Jace blames himself for failing to kill Valentine and retrieve the cup. Clary’s words can’t comfort him, and he just holds her, repeating her name over and over.

Over the next several days, Clary’s mom is moved to a hospital. The Shadowhunters don’t know how to help her, and the Silent Brothers refuse to do so since she separated herself from the Clave. After visiting her mom at the hospital, Clary goes to the Institute. Magnus arrived shortly after Valentine left, healed Alec, and kept tabs on events. Jace didn’t tell Alec and Isabelle about Hodge’s betrayal, and Clary doesn’t know how to feel about that. Alec walks Clary up to the greenhouse to see Jace, apologizing for his earlier behavior on the way. Clary is sorry for the things she said, and by the time Alec drops her at the bottom of the greenhouse stairs, Clary’s decided that “an Alec who cracked jokes and poked fun at Jace was something she could get used to” (480).

She finds Jace alone at the center of the greenhouse. Jace is still upset he didn’t go after Valentine, but he realizes he has people who care about him and thanks Clary for helping him feel like he belongs. Clary asks him to go to the hospital, thinking their mother might wake if she hears his voice. Jace is still angry at their mom for leaving him, but he tells Clary their mom has to be a good person because “she raised you, didn’t she?” (483). They take one of the flying motorcycles the vampires left outside Magnus’s house, and as they soar over the city, Clary sees New York for what it is—human and shadow alike.