The Mortal Instruments, part 2: City of Ashes
someone needs to call Child Protection Services
The first three books in The Mortal Instruments were all released within a year of each other, making it even more obvious that these books are repurposed fan fiction. City of Ashes, published in 2008, takes place only one week after the events of City of Bones. Before getting into the actual book, I find it worth noting that Clare changed the narrator; instead of having only Clary’s PoV this book jumps around following different characters. Since I am Clary’s biggest hater, I’m quite happy with this. With that out of the way, let’s begin.
Trigger warning for discussions of incest and domestic violence.
Recap.
Clary found out that she’s a Shadowhunter and her real father is Valentine Morgenstern, the leader of a racist cult. She also discovered the boy she fell in love with is her “brother,” Jonathan Christopher, also known as Jace, who, up until recently, also didn’t know his father was Valentine. Their mother, Jocelyn, is in a magical coma, so she can’t confirm or deny any of this. After a big battle, Valentine managed to run away with the Mortal Cup, one of the Mortal Instruments of the Shadowhunters, and nobody knows where he may be.
City of Ashes: Abridged.
Part 1: A Season in Hell.
The prologue immediately reveals that Valentine is back in New York; he hired a young warlock to summon a powerful demon. The warlock gets killed right away by the demon, and then Valentine reveals he can now control demons thanks to the Mortal Cup.
The book starts properly at the Institute, as Jace gets back from hunting a demon with Alec and Isabelle. You can really get the feeling that these three are family, and this book focuses a lot on Jace’s relationship with the Lightwoods, who took him in when he was 10 years old, as a way to highlight his struggle to connect with Clary and Jocelyn, who are supposedly his blood relatives. Upon arriving at the Institute, Jace and the others are greeted by Maryse Lightwood, Alec and Isabelle’s mother, who has just come back from her diplomatic work in Idris, the Shadowhunter homeland. With her is the youngest Lightwood child, Max, who treats Jace like a cool older brother. Jace immediately notices that Maryse is angry with him, and it turns out that she has found out about the events of the last book and is convinced that Jace knew all along who his father was. Maryse turns her back to Jace, an angsty teenager who lived 7 years under her care, and he’s understandably upset by this.
We switch PoV to Clary (ugh), who’s watching TV with Simon. He gets weird when a vampire movie comes up, it seems he has PSTD from being kidnapped by vampires in the last book. Clary tries to calm him down, and then he impulsively kisses her. They don’t have time to talk about this because they get a call from a distressed Isabelle, who says Jace has left the Institute, and she doesn’t know where he is.
The PoV changes again, this time to a new character, the werewolf Maia Roberts. She’s at a werewolf bar, where Jace has just arrived looking for trouble. Maia is wary of Jace because he’s too beautiful, and we then get her backstory. As a child she suffered a lot of abuse from her older brother, but her parents didn’t believe her because he looked beautiful and innocent, and after he died she started dating a handsome boy named Jordan, who also ended up abusing her. He was a werewolf, and when Maia broke up with him, he attacked her and turned her. He will be relevant later, so keep that in mind. After being turned, Maia ran away from home and joined Luke’s pack in New York1. In present time, Jace is looking for a fight with the werewolves, and things get worse when someone finds a dead teenager outside the bar, a werewolf apparently killed by a vampire. The werewolves demand that Jace do something about it, since he’s supposed to protect Downworlders. Jace acts like it’s not his problem, and things keep escalating until Luke arrives and takes Jace outside. They talk, and Jace tells him he didn’t run away from the Institute; Maryse threw him out because of his father, and he’s looking for trouble because he doesn’t know what to do now. Going to the bar was an obvious cry for help.
Luke calls Clary and asks her to come speak with Jace; he thinks she may be able to calm him down. Clary and Simon get to the bar, and she tries to convince Jace to go back to the Institute to convince Maryse that he’s not working with Valentine. Jace agrees to go back to the Institute if Clary and Luke go with him; he clearly needs an adult figure to make him feel safe, and I have to admit I felt really bad for Jace during this book; he acts like a realistic child, and his pain at being doubted by his foster family is very raw. Luke immediately recognizes that Jace needs a supportive adult in his life and agrees to go to the Institute with him, despite having a bad relationship with the Lightwoods from their shared past in Valentine’s cult.
While this is happening, Simon meets Maia, who asks him to tell Luke that Magnus Bane came around to inspect the dead werewolf. They have a friendly conversation, then Simon explains how he knows Jace, and we get this gem:
Maia making comments about how Clary and Jace are such good siblings is a reoccurring thing; it annoys me a lot, and I know it ties into her backstory with her abusive brother, but it feels like a bad comedic gag.
Jace, Clary and Luke go back to the Institute to speak with Maryse. When they arrive, she’s on a magical Zoom call with Raphael, the Latino vampire from the last book, who is making sure the vampires aren’t blamed for the deaths of the werewolf boy and the warlock that was found dead recently2. They end the call and Maryse turns to the group. She’s shocked to see Luke and is reluctant to explain why she asked Jace to leave, but eventually she reveals that the Inquisitor, someone tasked with judging Shadowhunters, is coming to New York to investigate the whole Valentine fiasco. She wanted Jace to leave so the Inquisitor wouldn’t throw him into prison for cooperating with Valentine. Jace says that he doesn’t want to hide from the Shadowhunter government the rest of his life, so he proposes a trial under the Angel’s Sword, another Mortal Instrument which forces Shadowhunters to tell the truth. Maryse agrees and lets Jace return to the Institute while they wait for the Inquisitor.
Clary and Luke go back home and let Simon know about what happened. She mentions she wants to get her own runes and be a proper Shadowhunter, so Luke gives her Jocelyn’s stele3.
Late that night, Jace is woken up in his room by Alec, who just got back from Central Park but doesn’t want to elaborate on what he was doing. Jace notes that Alec has a very obvious hickey on his neck, so he doesn’t push him to explain. Alec tells him to go meet with Maryse in the library, where Jace sees Maryse and the Inquisitor, Imogen Herondale. The Inquisitor hates him on sight. Maryse tells the Inquisitor that Jace wants to be interrogated under the Sword to prove he’s not working with Valentine, and the Inquisitor agrees but decides to send him to prison in the City of Bones to await his trial.
While Jace is being thrown into a cell, Clary and Simon are chilling in Luke’s house. Someone rings at the door, and it turns out to be Maia. She will be around to help Luke and protect Clary, who in turn hates Maia instantly because she hates women in general, even though Maia is being really nice. Simon calls Clary his girlfriend despite them never having a conversation about it, and Clary just rolls with it because she needs to get over her brother.
Meanwhile, Jace is having a panic attack inside his cell, which I think is reasonable considering all that he’s gone through in the last week. I think it’s funny how in every Clary chapter she’s only thinking about Jace and how much she wants to kiss him, but Jace is so busy going through hell to bother thinking of her. Anyway, he suddenly hears screams, and the body of a Silent Brother drops in front of his cell. Then a demon appears, and Jace gets so scared he passes out.
We quickly switch to Clary and Simon making out, and she compares it to kissing Jace. See what I’m talking about? Before they can continue being gross, Clary gets a message from Isabelle telling her that Jace is in jail.
Jace wakes up to find his evil, scheming father in his cell. Valentine immediately starts gaslighting him; he tells Jace that he’s proud of him, that he’s sorry for what happened last book, and that he never meant to harm Clary, etc. Jace is very conflicted because now he knows his childhood was abusive and considers the Lightwoods his real family, but Maryse did act very badly towards him recently, so his father’s words get to him a little. He notices that Valentine has stolen the Angel’s Sword, which is the only thing that Jace can use to prove his innocence. Valentine tries to persuade Jace to join him, but Jace is not having it. They hear someone coming, so Valentine dips again, leaving Jace fearing for his life.
Clary gets to the Institute in a hurry and is shocked to see that Isabelle and Alec are very calm about Jace being in prison. They think it’s not that bad, and Jace had it coming for talking back to the Inquisitor. Isabelle texted her because she hopes Clary can make Jace apologize. Isn’t it weird that Jace keeps being mistreated by adults, and then people expect him to be the bigger person?
The youngest Lightwood son, Max, comes in and gets introduced to Clary. They bond over manga4, and he’s very cute. Max pops up here and there, but overall he’s not important. Maryse and the Inquisitor aren't around because another Downworlder was killed, a fairy, and they went to investigate. The Institute gets a distress call from the Silent Brothers, so Alec, Isabelle and Clary go to the City of Bones. There they find a massacre; all the Silent Brothers have been brutally murdered. Scared, they run to find Jace. They find his cell, and Clary draws a rune so powerful that it opens everything inside, including Jace’s manacles. He’s injured, and they take him outside the City, only to find themselves surrounded by Shadowhunters.
Maryse and the Inquisitor had called for reinforcements when they got back to the Institute and saw the distress call. Among the gathered Shadowhunters, there’s a silver-haired woman who stares at Clary. She will be come back later. The Inquisitor takes a look at Alec, Isabelle, Clary and Jace coming out of the City and jumps to the conclusion that the Lightwoods and Clary are helping Jace escape. Alec informs the crowd that the Silent Brothers are dead, and the Inquisitor deduces that the murder of the fairy was a distraction and that whoever killed the Brothers did it to steal the Angel’s Sword, which was in their care. Jace confirms this and also tells them that Valentine spoke with him but didn’t reveal much. The Inquisitor is even more distrustful of Jace, pointing out that Valentine taking the Swords means he can’t be put to trial.
Jace faints because there’s demon poison in his system. Alec calls Magnus, and the warlock gets there right away to take care of Jace. It’s quite obvious that Magnus and Alec are dating at this point, but it’s not “revealed” yet. While Magnus heals Jace, the Inquisitor is trying to get him back in a cell, which is ridiculous if you think about it for two seconds. Why would you put him back inside the City of Bones after it has been easily breached by your enemy and it no longer has any Silent Brothers to defend it? What would stop Valentine from coming back to take Jace, your only card against him? They end up reaching a compromise by having Magnus keep Jace imprisoned in his house.
Part 2: The Gates of Hell.
The first chapter of Part 2, The Seelie Court, is by far the messiest chapter in the book. It’s a couple days after the events in the Silent City. We start with Clary dreaming of her mother, who draws a protective rune on her arm, and she still has it when she wakes up. Clary meets up with Simon to visit Jace at Magnus’s house. While they walk there, she notices Simon wincing at the sun, like the light hurts him. This is foreshadowing. They get to Magnus’s place, where Alec is already waiting for them. Jace has been moping the entire time, much to Magnus’s annoyance.
The group theorizes about Valentine’s goals. They are confused as to why he wanted the Angel’s Sword, since its only use is to make Shadowhunters speak the truth, but then Magnus proposes that the Downworlders who have been killed are part of Valentine’s plan. Basically, he thinks Valentine is trying to perform a ritual that will make the Angel’s Sword a demonic weapon by bathing the Sword in the blood of a member of each Downwolder tribe (warlocks, werewolves, vampires and the fae). He suspects that Valentine will use the Sword to raise an army of demons.
Alec calls his mother to inform her of their theory. In the meantime, Simon and Jace bicker over Clary because they are in a stupid love triangle. After speaking with his mom, Alec gets a call from Isabelle, who tells them the Queen of the Seelie Court (the faeries) is requesting an audience with them. Isabelle thinks it may be a good idea to tell the Queen their theory to get her help. The fae are very dangerous, but the group agrees to go, including Simon, despite being a human and bringing nothing to the table, because he’s an idiot. Jace also wants to go, but he can’t leave Magnus house. At least that’s what they thought, because actually Magnus put it in his contract with the Inquisitor that he can let Jace leave as long as someone else takes his place while he’s out. Of course, Alec takes Jace’s place and stays with Magnus, so Clary, Jace and Simon go meet up with Isabelle to go to the audience with the Queen.
They find Isabelle in Central Park, which is the entrance to the Court. They have to jump into a pond that transports them magically to the Fae realm, where they meet Meliorn, a fairy knight that Isabelle has been dating. He doesn’t do much yet, but he’s important in later books. Meliorn takes them to the Queen, who seems very interested in Jace and Clary, and they are given drinks. Jace warns Clary not to drink, but she accidentally ingests a little bit. They talk about the murdered fairy, inform the Queen that the killer is Valentine, and tell her their theory about the Angel’s Sword. The Queen doesn’t really care; she just wants to mess with Jace and Clary. She tells them that Valentine experimented with them and tells Jace that she will help them out if Jace asks Valentine about the blood in his veins next time they see each other. She mentions that Clary has a power related to “words that can’t be spoken,” which will be explained later. Jace agrees, and they get up to leave, but Clary can’t get out because she drank the fae potion.
In order for Clary to leave, she needs to be kissed by the person she truly desires. Simon kisses her and it doesn’t work, so then Jace kisses her because everyone knows they are still in love with each other, and they fully make out in front of Simon. They are now able to leave the Court, but the mood is in hell. After getting back to Central Park, Clary is trying really hard to act like nothing happened, but Simon is pissed off, so he leaves before she can even speak to him. Finally, the chapter is over.
Clary goes with Jace and Isabelle to the Institute. She’s trying to reach Simon, but he won’t answer her calls. At the Institute, she goes to Jace’s room to borrow a shirt5 . He’s going to take a shower, but before that he takes the opportunity to ask Clary to run away with him, incest be damned. Clary, who can’t think straight because Jace is half naked, refuses him and calls their love sickening. He gets mad and calls Clary out for using Simon as a distraction, and then finally goes to take his shower. Clary takes a nap in Jace’s bed and has a weird dream about Jace and an angel with black wings, which she thinks is Simon, but this is likely foreshadowing for a character in the next book.
She wakes up, and Jace is already out of the shower. He’s holding a broken glass, a piece of the Portal that Valentine used last book to escape. They talk about Valentine but get interrupted by the Institute’s doorbell. They get down to the door along with Isabelle. It’s cold, so Isabelle gives Clary her jacket, which isn't important but I just want to highlight how nice Isabelle is. Anyway, they get to the entrance, and it turns out to be Raphael, the Latino vampire, who’s holding Simon’s near-dead body.
Raphael explains that Simon went to the vampires’ lair because he was afraid that he was turning into a vampire. The vampires attacked him, but Raphael remembered that he was friends with the Shadowhunters and saved him. He’s still going to die and turn into a vampire because he ingested vampire blood that one time that he got turned into a rat. They start arguing about what to do now and if they should let Simon turn into a vampire. Clary initially objects, but then they decide to go ahead with it. They have to bury him so he can finish the process, so they take his body to a Jewish graveyard. Simon then digs himself out of the grave, now a full-fledged vampire.
A couple of days later, Clary goes with Luke to visit her mom at the hospital. While Luke is outside the room, she opens up about her love for Jace and what happened to Simon, and then finds out that Luke heard most of what she said. She blames herself for Simon being a vampire, and Luke tells her that it’s not her fault that Simon gets into danger because nobody asked him to do it, because he’s the one that is always running after Clary. They have a conversation about love, and Clary talks about how “love takes your choices away.”
Luke drops Clary at this house, where Simon is waiting for her. They talk, it turns out that he doesn’t need glasses anymore, Clary tells Simon he should tell his family, etc. While they are talking, they hear a crash outside, and Luke rushes inside the house carrying an injured Maia. He says there was a demon outside the house, and it attacked Maia, who was protecting the place. He killed the demon, but Maia is in bad shape, so they have to call a warlock.
Clary asks Simon to call Jace because she’s avoiding him. This won’t last long, but we need some drama between these three. Jace says he’s coming over with Magnus and Alec. There’s a short fight between Maia and Simon because Maia realizes that he's been turned into a vampire, and they are the natural enemies or whatever. Clary interrupts the fight, and then Jace arrives with the others.
This scene makes Clary even more of a Maia hater, and she takes the chance to throw some fantasy racism against her because that’s what Clary does when she gets mad at a Downworlder. I think the fact that Maia is half-Black makes Clary look worse because she basically threatens to call the Shadowhunters, the cops, on her, and the entire werewolf pack.
Magnus proceeds to heal Maia, and Jace asks about Luke, who should have been outside in the truck, but they didn’t see him. Clary panics, and they go outside to find him. On the way, there’s another stupid scene involving the Clary/Jace/Simon love triangle, but I won’t bother to explain that. The three of them find Luke being attacked by two demons; Jace takes care of one, while Clary scares away the other one with the rune that she got in her dream ages ago. They save Luke and take him to Magnus to be healed. Magnus has been working overtime, so he’s getting weaker, and he’s starting to get tired of these people asking him for favors without paying him for his service. He’s right, to be honest, but then Jace is like, “Well, you HAVE to help us; you are dating Alec,” which is so entitled of him, like Magnus is not even your secret boyfriend, Jace, why do you think you can order him around like that? Alec immediately denies that he’s dating Magnus, which only makes Magnus even more mad. I'd be mad too if my boyfriend not only denied our relationship but also made me work for free. In the middle of everyone shouting, Luke wakes up, and they decide to stop fighting for the time being.
Clary and Jace have another stupid scene of them going back and forth on how they can’t be together, but they are sooooo in love with each other and their lives are so hard. Who cares about this? There are bigger problems right now. Clary’s character becomes so annoying in this book, like she literally can’t go a single chapter without agonizing because she can’t kiss her brother. Girl, focus on the evil maniac raising an army of demons. This stupid scene is interrupted by Simon; he snaps at Clary for still flirting with Jace while they are dating and goes home, while Magnus and Jace stay at Luke’s house for the night.
Jace then sneaks out in the middle of the night and goes to find Valentine. It turns out he tortured the demon that attacked Luke in order to find out Valentine’s location, which is a boat in the middle of the East River. He gets there on a demonic motorcycle, which I don’t feel like explaining, but it can fly and Jace lands on top of the boat. He doesn’t see anyone around, so he goes inside and sees a vision of a dying Clary, he gets so scared that he passes out. When he wakes up, Valentine is with him, and he explains that the vision was Agramon, the demon of fear.
They start talking about Valentine’s evil plan, and then Jace asks him what veins run in his veins, which is the question the Seelie Queen told Jace to ask if he wanted help from the faeries. Valentine gives a vague non-answer about having Angel’s blood, like every Shadowhunter. Disappointed, Jace explains that he went to see Valentine because he feels like a burden to the Lightwoods and every person he cares about, and he’s a teenager, so he craves reassurance from an adult figure. Very realistic and sad. Of course, Valentine starts talking about how Downworlders are impure and degenerate, and Jace remembers that his father is a white supremacist. Valentine asks Jace to join him and promises that he will keep everyone Jace loves safe, including his disgusting Downworlder friends. Jace tries to get some more information on Valentine’s plan, which seems to have 2 phases: first, summon a ton of demons to scare the Shadowhunters into obedience; second, use the Angel’s Sword to make the demons fight each other until they are all dead. Not a bad plan, really. There’s also the unspoken step three, the genocide of all Downworlders. Valentine shows Jace some of the demons he has already summoned, which scares the shit out of Jace because there are a lot, and then Valentine tries to manipulate Jace a bit more by saying that they are the same and that everyone they get close to gets hurt, so they have to stay together. He’s a master manipulator; you have to give it to him.
The chapter ends with Jace giving his answer to Valentine, but we don’t see it. Did he agree? Did he tell Valentine to fuck off? Make your bets.
Part 3: Day of Wrath.
Clary wakes up the next morning unaware of Jace’s late-night shenanigans. She has a brief conversation with Magnus, then wakes up Luke and updates him on what he missed last night due to almost dying. Maia, the other demon victim, also wakes up and Clary has one of her signature “internalized misogyny” moments and complaints in her mind about how Maia is too hot to be a werewolf; she should be ugly and hairy. She interrupts her own train of thought to acknowledge that she’s being an asshole, which I would consider character development if Clary didn’t go back to being a hater in like 5 seconds; in fact, she’s so mean to Maia that she starts crying. She feels guilty for attacking Simon last night, and Clary is being really awful about it. Maia’s tears are quickly forgotten because Jace and Alec come in with donuts, and Maia gets out of the living room to go cry alone.
Maia is joining Isabelle on the “characters that deserved better” list.
Jace and Magnus have a quick argument because, remember, Jace is under Magnus’s care, and he shouldn’t have left the house. Since Jace and Alec came to the house together, Magnus gets a little jealous and asks if they were together. Jace says he was walking, and Alec was actually outside the house the whole night, which Magnus thinks is a little touching. Everyone cheers up a bit when Alec opens the donut box, and they start discussing the demon attack from last night.
Clary reveals the protective rune that she got in her dream, which no one recognizes, so she explains her theory that she has the power to create new runes. In order to try it out, they ask her to invent a rune that makes people “fearless,” and they decide to try the rune on Alec, the most insecure person in the room.
Just after this, someone knocks at Luke’s door. Luke opens it and four people come in: Maryse Lightwood, her husband Robert, Isabelle, and the Inquisitor. This is the first time that the Lightwood father appears, and he’s totally overshadowed by what happens next.
So, it turns out the “Fearless” rune does work—a little too well, in fact. Upon seeing his family, Alec walks up to them and immediately tries to come out of the closet and announce his relationship with Magnus. He gets interrupted just before he can say who he’s dating, thanks to Magnus throwing a sleeping spell at him, and the Lightwood parents are extremely confused by this turn of events.
Moving on, the Inquisitor reveals that she knows where Jace went last night, and everyone is shocked about Jace going to see his father. The Inquisitor put a tracker on the glass shard that Jace has been carrying with him since he left the Institute, so she knows that he and Valentine spoke on the boat.
The Inquisitor jumps to the conclusion that Jace is collaborating with Valentine, which makes sense this time, and threatens to punish the rest of the group for helping Jace. The Lightwoods try to defend Jace, and Robert calls him part of the family, but the Inquisitor has no mercy. It seems that her desire to punish Jace is her attempt to get revenge on Valentine for the death of her own son, Stephen, but we will get the full story later.
My favorite part of this scene is when Luke says that if Jace went back to his abusive father looking for comfort, it’s not Jace’s fault, but rather the adults’, because they failed to be there for him. Congrats to Luke for being a responsible adult.
To the surprise of everyone, Alec wakes up and sides with the Inquisitor. This makes Isabelle really mad at him. The Inquisitor takes custody of Jace and makes a final threat to Clary and Luke before everyone leaves, including a pissed off Magnus.
While all this is happening, Maia, whom no one has bothered to check on for over an hour, runs away from Luke’s house because she wants to find Simon and apologize to him about their fight. She says that Simon is the only one who treated her like she was important, and I have no idea where this comes from. On her way, she gets attacked by the fear demon, and Valentine kidnaps her.
At the Institute, the Inquisitor puts Jace in a magical cage and explains to Jace that she’s going to make a deal with Valentine, exchanging Jace for the Mortal Instruments. Jace is like “that won’t work, my dad doesn’t love me”, but it falls on deaf ears. She leaves Jace unguarded, and shortly after Alec comes in to see him.
This is a really sweet scene where Alec reveals he didn’t betray Jace, he only agreed with the Inquisitor so she would trust him. Alec knows that Jace would never join Valentine, and he helps Jace escape the cage.
Back at Luke’s house, Clary finally realized that Maia was missing. She deduces that Maia went to find Simon, because this book keeps telling us these two are close despite never showing us that, and she calls Simon to let him know. Just as she’s talking with Simon on the phone, he says that someone is breaking into his house. Then there’s a crashing sound, and Valentine announces that he’s taken Simon before the call disconnects.
Alec and Jace go find Isabelle, and they explain Alec’s actions to her. I like all the scenes of these three together; their bond is really sweet, and they have great banter. Isabelle calls Clary to let her know Jace’s free, and then Clary shares the news about Simon and Maia. I honestly think that Isabelle didn’t even know who Maia is, which goes to show how severely sidelined Isabelle was this entire book.
They help Jace get out of the Institute to meet up with Luke, Clary and Magnus, while Alec and Isabelle distract the Inquisitor.
We briefly check up with Simon and Maia, who are being held hostage in Valentine’s evil boat. They make amends about Maia attacking him, and then Valentine comes in. He tortures Maia a bit and then cuts Simon’s throat.
Luke, Clary and Jace wait for Magnus at the docks, and Luke explains the Inquisitor’s backstory in the meantime. Pay attention; this will be important later.
So after Luke became a werewolf, Valentine needed a new second in command for his racist cult. He recruited Stephen Herondale, the Inquisitor’s son. Stephen had a wife, but Valentine made him get divorced because his wife had “undesirable relatives” (they don’t say it yet, but it’s obvious that Stephen’s first wife was related to Luke). Valentine made Stephen marry a younger girl, Céline. Shortly after, Stephen died in a vampire raid, and Céline killed herself out of grief while 8 months pregnant. Now the Inquisitor blames Valentine for the death of her entire family, and that’s why she takes it out on Jace.
Got all that? Okay, cool.
Magnus finally arrives, and he turns Luke’s truck into a water vehicle, and they sail to Valentine’s evil boat. I feel so bad for Magnus, he shouldn’t be doing all this for free.
Back at the Institute, the Inquisitor calls Valentine to do the exchange, and then Valentine proves that he doesn’t care about his children and refuses her trade offer. He also reveals that Jace said no to him last night, which we all knew.
Maryse decides that she’s done with the Inquisitor’s BS and is going to free Jace, she even makes a point of calling him her son. This sweet moment gets interrupted by Alec and Isabelle revealing that Jace has already left. Thn the Lightwoods and a couple dozen Shadowhunters rush to fight Valentine.
Clary’s group is almost there, but then they get attacked by flying demons. One of them grabs Clary and takes her inside Valentine's evil boat, and of course Jace jumps into the water after her. Inside the boat, Clary she finds a badly injured Maia, who informs her that Simon is dead. Clary doesn’t want to believe it, and she uses a rune to create an escape path. Maia is able to escape, but Clary is captured by Valentine.
Jace makes it to the boat, and Luke follows right after. On the deck, they are immediately swarmed by Valentine’s demon army. They do fine for a while, but soon the demons start winning. Thankfully, the other Shadowhunters arrive just in time to save the day. In the middle of the battle, the Inquisitor pulls Jace aside. She asks Jace again what he knows about his parentage and then asks to see Jace’s shoulder, where he has a small scar in the shape of a star. I won’t make the same joke again, IYKYK. The Inquisitor seems to have realized something, and a second later she jumps in front of a demon attack to save Jace. Everyone’s very confused, then Isabelle gets injured, and to make things worse, Alec falls off the edge of the boat.
Valentine takes Clary to the room where he’s doing his evil demonic ritual. She tries to attack him with the Angel’s Sword, and fails pathetically. Valentine likes screwing with her, so he takes the chance to call her out for being in love with her brother. He also explains to Clary that he’s not an outlier among the Shadowhunters and that the very core of the institution is racist and doesn’t care about the Downworlders.
Jace got inside the ship and had a brief fight with the fear demon. Meanwhile, Alec is rescued from the river by Magnus, and they have a little romantic moment where Alec gives his energy to him because the warlock has depleted his magic resources.
After fighting the fear demon, Jace stumbles into the room where Simon’s body is being kept. He’s barely alive, so Jace makes Simon bite him. Clare totally leans into the homoeroticism of this. Jace even says that he would have let Simon kill him, and he thinks about Simon’s veins being full of his blood. Crazy stuff. The two of them go find Clary and Valentine, and when they get there, Valentine is very upset about Simon drinking Jace’s blood. There’s a fight, and then Clary uses her rune power to make a rune that makes Valentine’s evil boat straight up explode. The Shadowhunters are saved by the faeries, who came to their rescue thanks to Jace. Remember, the Seelie Queen said they would help the Shadowhunters if Jace asked Valentine “what blood runs in his veins,” which he did. A lot of attention is being drawn to Jace and Clary’s blood.
Everyone important is fine, and they all go home. Simon is now immune to the sun, and he finally breaks up with Clary, and says he may start going out with Maia. Jace is allowed back in the Institute, he has a sweet mother-son scene with Maryse. Clary and Jace meet up; she tries to tell Jace that she’s actually cool with incest, and they should be together, but then Jace is like, “Actually, you were right, I shouldn’t try to date my sister,” and she’s devastated. Clary then goes to visit her mom at the hospital, and there she sees the silver-haired Shadowhunter woman that has been hanging around in the background. The woman is named Madeleine, and she says she knows how to wake Jocelyn up. The end.
Relationship Chart.
Everyone hates Valentine and he hates everyone back, but especially the Inquisitor, Imogen Herondale. She also hated Jace but decided to sacrifice herself for him at the last minute, for reasons unknown at the moment but likely related to her dead son, Stephen.
Clace is dying. They are still convinced that they are siblings, and Jace has decided to stop trying to get Clary to accept her romantic feelings for him and is going to act like a brother from now on. Sad!
Clarymon is finally over, even though Simon still loves Clary, because he knows she will never return his feelings. The evil has been defeated at last.
For some reason, Simon and Maia seem to like each other despite having less than 5 conversations in the whole book. I don’t know what their ship name is, and I don’t care enough to look it up. Maia also has terrible taste in men.
Luke has admitted to Clary that he loves Jocelyn, which everyone already knew. Clary thinks Jocelyn loves him back, but she’s still in a coma, so no progress there.
Malec is complicated. Alec may still have feelings for Jace, but he’s also now officially dating Magnus. It’s still a secret, but he did almost tell his parents about it, so Alec seems to be pretty in love, even if he’s not willing to admit it yet without being compelled by magic.
Positives.
The world-building is still surprisingly detailed. I like how Luke acts like an actual responsible adult, and I think Clare did a good job portraying Jace’s teenage angst and fear. I think even the scenes of Jace pushing Clary into accepting her feelings for him work for his character, because his whole thing in this book is that he feels alone and needs comfort from people he trusts, so Jace pushing makes sense.
Now, let’s talk about everything else.
Negatives.
I already hated Clary, but at least in the first book, she’s a very active protagonist with clear goals that don't revolve around men. Unfortunately, her entire personality in City of Ashes is being in love with Jace. Every time we get into her PoV, she’s either pining for Jace, making out with Simon so she can forget about Jace, or mad at Jace because he doesn’t get they can’t be together. She barely thinks about her mom and makes absolutely no attempts to wake her up, nor does she make any important decisions in the book. Clary becomes entirely passive; she’s just being dragged around by Simon and Jace.
I don’t want to talk too much about the incest because we will get the full picture in the next book, but I think it’s insane that Clary’s “character arc” in this book was… being okay with the incest. The book seems to be sending the message that, if you are in love with your brother, the healthy thing to do is to admit your feelings and be with him, even if it’s wrong. We are supposed to feel bad for her because Jace is trying to act like a brother and not push her into an incestuous relationship anymore. Even with the reveal in the next book that they aren’t blood related, that doesn’t make this alright.
The other two romantic relationships in this book also frustrate me. Simon and Clary are super toxic; Simon is still acting entitled to Clary’s love and claims her as his girlfriend without talking things out properly, and she’s just using him the entire time. Every scene where Simon and Jace fought over Clary was irritating and annoying. This is the worst love triangle I’ve ever had to deal with, and I’ve read a lot of YA romance. Then there’s Alec and Magnus, and as I said in the relationship chart section, I just can’t get behind it, and it irks me that Cassandra Clare didn’t bother building up their relationship at all; they just start dating off-page, and all we see of their relationship is that Alec is trying to hide it. Magnus also comes across as an offensive gay stereotype at times. I can’t believe Clare was heralded as a gay ally for this.
Final Thoughts.
This book reaches telenovela levels of drama and messiness. It’s entertaining, but it also makes me deeply unconfortable. Last time I said that there was room to argue that Clare doesn’t have an incest kink, but I think this book makes it impossible to say that in good faith. If you read this book and still think Clare doesn’t think incest is hot, you are lying to yourself. Thankfully, the Clary and Jace situation will be solved in the next book, but I warn you, a second incest plot line is coming. Yes, you read that right.
Another thing we learn about Maia is that she’s biracial, and I want to highlight this because it’s part of a larger trend in the series. Every time Clare introduces a character of color, she makes sure to mention, or imply, that they are half white.
The warlock that Valentine got killed in the prologue.
Steles are the magical wands used to draw runes.
Especifically, they bond over Naruto, which made me burst out laughing because I didn’t expect to see Naruto being mentioned in this. Leave my favorite Shonen series out of this mess!
They are all wet because the portal to the Seelie Court is under a pond, it doesn’t matter.