The third book in The Mortal Instruments series, published in 2009, is the conclusion of the Valentine arc and serves as a good ending point if you don’t want to commit to the gigantic universe created by Cassandra Clare. For me, this is only the beginning, because I will continue to cover the entire series. Since you are reading this, you either already read the books or you are never going to read them, so with that in mind, let me explain the entire plot of City of Glass, the best and worst book in the series so far. There’s a lot to unpack here.
Trigger Warnings: Incest, self-harm, sexual assault.
Recap.
Valentine’s ship was destroyed by Clary before he could finish his demonic ritual, but he's still in possession of two of the Mortal Instruments, the Cup and the Sword, and his whereabouts are unknown. The fledgling vampire Simon is now able to walk in broad daylight, which may have something to do with drinking Jace’s blood. It’s revealed that both Jace and Clary are the results of Valentine’s experiments, which granted them unique powers. Clary and Simon have broken up, but she can’t be with Jace because he’s trying to be a proper brother to her from now on. At the end, a woman named Madeleine told Clary that she knew how to wake up her mom.
City of Glass: Abridged.
Part I: Sparks Fly Upward.
A week after the events of the last book, Clary is preparing to travel to Idris, the Shadowhunter homeland, along with Madeleine and the Lightwoods to find Ragnor Fell, a Warlock that knows how to wake her mom from her coma. At the Institute, Magnus Bane is preparing the Portal to send them over, but Jace is planning to leave before Clary gets there because he thinks it’s too dangerous for her to go to Idris. He’s worried that Clary’s Rune ability will make the Clave1 suspicious of her, so he called Simon to ask for his help in making sure Clary doesn’t go. Simon refuses, not because it’s wrong to control Clary, but because he hates Jace. While they are arguing, an army of Forsaken2 shows up at the Institute. The Lightwoods, Jace and Simon are forced to go into the Portal to escape, leaving Magnus and Madeleine behind.
Madeleine is killed by the Forsaken, and no one really cares about it despite how important she seemed to be.
I need you to know that Magnus is wearing rainbow leather pants during all this, just because.
Simon passes out and then wakes up in an unfamiliar house. The Lightwoods are staying with the Penhallows in Alicante, Idris’s capital city, and Jace explains that they brought Simon with them to save him from the Forsaken. Simon thinks Jace planned for this to happen, which Jace is rightfully offended by because, as he points out, he saved Simon’s life and broke the law to do so, which he has done several times at this point, and Simon has yet to show any sign of gratitude for. Simon sucks.
Clary and Luke arrive at the Institute and find Magnus alone and bloodied. He’s weakened by the attack, so he can’t open a new Portal for Clary, but she uses a new rune to create one, not thinking about the consequences. She gets transported to Idris along with Luke. They are sent to Lake Lyn, the place where the Angel Raziel created the Shadowhunters, where they almost drown, and the water gives them hallucinations. Luke is very pissed off at Clary for almost killing them, and to make it worse, Luke is in extra danger because Downworlders aren’t allowed to enter Idris without notifying the Clave. They walk for hours until they find the capital and sneak into a house, at which point Clary is having really intense and creepy hallucinations. The house turns out to be Amatis Herondale’s house. She’s the first wife of the late Stephen Herondale, and she’s also Luke’s sister, whom he hasn’t seen in almost 20 years. Amatis agrees to hide them, and Clary falls asleep.
An important thing that is set up during this chapter is the Demon Towers, which sort of create an anti-demon barrier around the country. I sure hope they never stop working!
Meanwhile, the Lightwoods are deciding what to do about Simon and how to send him back to New York. There are only teenagers in the house because the Lightwood and Penhallow parents are in a government meeting. Aside from Jace, Alec, Isabelle and Max, there’s Aline Penhallow3, a young, flirty and naive girl, and her cousin Sebastian Verlac, whom everyone likes except for Jace. He gets a weird vibe from Sebastian.
Max gets thrown out of the room because the older kids never take him seriously. It doesn’t seem important now, but it will be.
Simon and Jace have an angry discussion about Clary, for the hundredth time. Alec leaves and comes back, saying that Simon has to be taken to the Gard, the seat of the shadowhunter government. The new Inquisitor has promised to take Simon back to New York, but Jace doesn’t trust like that, so he asks Alec to go with Simon. The two of them make their way there and have a little chat about how they both have unrequited feelings for Clary and Jace, and Simon tells Alec that he should just get over his crush and commit to his relationship with Magnus.
Alec is shocked that everyone knows he’s gay, and Simon says that Jace is the only one that doesn’t know. Jace does know, they talked about it last book, so Simon is just plain wrong. Anyway, they make it to the Gard, and surprise surprise, the Inquisitor4 betrays Simon as soon as Alec leaves and throws Simon in a jail cell. The Inquisitor is trying to frame the Lightwoods as spies for Valentine, and he wants Simon to confess that he’s part of the Lightwood’s conspiracy, which Simon refuses to do because he’s not that bad5.
There’s a guy on the cell next to Simon’s that calls himself Samuel, but he’s obviously Hodge, the guy from the first book who betrayed them to Valentine. Simon and Hodge become jail friends.
After leaving the Gard, Alec sends a message to Magnus, asking him to let him know once Simon makes it back to New York.
The next morning, Clary wakes up feeling better, and Amatis explains her backstory. She’s Luke’s sister, and she was married to Stephen Herondale, but Valentine told Stephen that he shouldn’t be married to the sister of a werewolf, so they got divorced. Amatis never stopped loving Stephen, which is insane considering what he did. She informs Clary that Luke left Idris for some time, and he wants her to lay low while he’s out, but Clary, like the impulsive and careless idiot she is, doesn’t care and sneaks out to find Jace.
Clary makes it to the Penhallow’s house, where she’s greeted by a surprised Isabelle who tries to stop her from seeing Jace. She pushes through Isabelle and then meets Sebastian, whom she feels an instant connection with for some reason. He lets her go inside the room where Jace is making out with Aline. Clary is pissed off about this, she has a fight with Jace, and he’s extremely mean to her and says that he didn’t want her to go to Idris because she always makes things worse, and he refuses to help her find Ragnor Fell. Remember, the whole reason Clary is here is to find the warlock that can cure her mother. After Clary leaves, Alec comes in and tells Jace and Isabelle that Simon was not sent back to New York and is being kept imprisoned in the Gard. Jace is very stressed out and resorts to self-harm, both by literally hurting himself breaking a window and by being an asshole to everyone he loves. That includes telling Alec that he knows about his feelings and that he is just a coward for using Jace to avoid committing to Magnus. It’s nasty.
Clary is followed by Sebastian, who’s very interested in her. He walks her home, and she asks him to help her find Ragnor Fell. Once in Amatis’s house, she gets scolded for sneaking out, and she feels really bad about it, but she won’t learn anything from this.
Meanwhile, Jace went to the Gard to get Simon out, but Simon refused because he didn’t want the Inquisitor to have more excuses to frame the Lightwoods and Jace.
The next morning, Sebastian wakes Clary up and tells her he knows where to find Ragnor Fell. She thinks about Amatis for a second before deciding that she will leave the house again.
They ride out on Sebastian’s horse to a little cottage in the woods around the city, where Ragnor Fell supposedly lives. On the way there, they talk about Jace and what it was like for him to grow up in Idris, and Sebastian gets weirdly annoyed when Clary says that Valentine loved Jace as a son. Keep that in mind.
Once they make it to Ragnor’s house, they are surprised by Magnus Bane, who puts a spell on Sebastian and explains to Clary that he just got there that morning after getting a distress message from Ragnor. He found Ragnor dead, and he thinks Valentine killed the warlock to get the Book of the White, a famous book that has the cure for Jocelyn’s magical coma, amongst other powerful spells. Magnus says that the Book was hidden by Jocelyn in the Wayland manor, but he can’t go take it because the manor has spells to keep people out. This retroactively fixes a plot hole from book 1 about how Valentine-as-Michael-Wayland was never investigated by the Clave. Magnus tells Clary that the only person that can get into the manor is probably Jace, and he asks her to get him the Book in exchange for waking Jocelyn up.
Magnus wakes Sebastian from his spell, Sebastian and Clary leave, and then Sebastian takes her to the ruins of the Fairchild manor, her mother's childhood home. He decides that’s the perfect place to make his move, so he kisses Clary, and she immediately feels that there’s something wrong. Uhm, wonder what that could mean. He gets mad when she refuses his advances, he says that she’s the one for him, and they are soulmates. Things get weird, and he apologizes, and they go back to the city. He spills that Simon is being kept imprisoned in the Gard, which he shouldn't know about because Alec only told Jace and Isabelle.
Back to Simon, we see that Isabelle is sending him blood so he doesn’t starve. Suddenly, he gets a magical Zoom call from the vampire Raphael, and he tells Simon that basically everyone hates him for being a daylighter. I stan Raphael for being a fellow Simon hater.
Clary gets to Amatis’s house, where Jace is waiting for her. He gets pissed about her hanging out with Sebastian, but he apologizes for his behavior yesterday. Clary calls him out for hiding the fact that Simon is there and in prison, and then she starts throwing plates at him? Like an insane person? She just starts throwing Amatis’s stuff at him because she’s mad? She’s the worst, if I were Amatis I’d kill her. Anyway, Jace explains that he tried to free Simon and that he wanted to stay in prison, so she calms down a little and tells him what Magnus told her about the Book of the White. Jace agrees to go with her to the Wayland manor to get the Book, so Clary creates a portal to get there.
Things get crazy at the Wayland manor. They get to the library and find the book—no problem there, but then they find a secret passageway to a cellar, where Valentine kept an actual angel imprisoned for decades. The angel, Ithuriel, is badly injured and can’t speak, but he gives Clary and Jace some visions of the past. They see Valentine summon Ithuriel and then torture the angel after it refuses to speak with him. They also see Valentine make a deal with the demon Lilith, she gave him some demonic blood, and he used this blood to experiment on his first son, Jonathan. He also gave Jocelyn the angel blood, not knowing that she was pregnant with Clary. The experiments are the reason why they have special powers. Then the angel begs to be killed, so Jace kills the angel, and the whole house explodes.
Seconds after 1) meeting an angel, 2) killing it, and 3) almost dying in an explosion, Jace and Clary start making out.
Clary is all for it, she doesn’t care about being related anymore, but she realizes that Jace is only giving in to his feelings because he thinks he has demon blood and that he’s damned and disgusting either way. Essentially, Jace thinks that he was born evil, and that’s why he’s in love with his sister. He’s also putting Clary on a pedestal now that they know she has angel blood, which makes her uncomfortable and adds to his idea that he’s evil for corrupting her. Jace’s arc in this book is about overcoming his self-hatred, and Clary doesn’t want Jace to kiss her for the wrong reasons, so they stop and then see the city burning in the distance.
Part II: Stars Shine Darkly.
We switch to Isabelle’s PoV. She’s at the Penhallow’s house, alone with Alec, Max, Sebastian and Aline, they are waiting for Jace to come back. Sebastian gets out for a moment, and then Max says that he saw someone climbing the demon towers, which gets completely dismissed by the older kids. Suddenly, a creature breaks the window and grabs Aline, and all hell breaks loose. Isabelle leaves Max with Alec and Sebastian, then grabs her whip and goes out of the house to find Aline.
She finds her on the street, about to be raped by a demon. I think this is a completely gratuitous use of sexual assault for shock value, because up to this point, demons have only been interested in killing and eating humans, and this scene is made even worse by how Cassandra Clare handles Aline’s response to it later on. Back to the story, Isabelle kills the demon, and Aline runs away in fear. Isabelle realizes that the Demon Towers aren’t shining, meaning they aren’t keeping the demons out anymore, and since all the fighting adults were in a meeting at the Gard, the only people in the city are children and the elderly. It’s fucked.
Isabelle goes back into the house to inform her brothers and Sebastian of what’s happening. Alec leaves to go find Aline, and Isabelle leaves Max alone with Sebastian while she goes looking for something. Terrible mistake. When she comes back, she only finds Sebastian, and he attacks her by surprise.
Magnus came to the city to help fight the demons. Alec sees him, and Magnus finally tells him that he loves him, and yells that the reason he’s been ignoring Alec’s calls is because he hasn’t introduced him to his parents. He also tangentially reveals that he’s 800 years old (much to unpack here), and then Alec says that if they survive this, he will introduce him to his family. This would be very sweet if it wasn’t for the age gap.
Clary and Jace make it back to the city, and they see a pack of werewolves that are also going there, but they are on their side. Clary gets attacked by a demon, and one of the wolves saves her and then turns out to be Maia. Remember Maia? She was very important in the last book. She tells them that Luke called werewolves from all over the world to come help the Shadowhunters because somehow he knew that Valentine was going to do something. Mind you, Clary and Luke have been in Idris for about 3 days, and Luke left Clary two days ago, so he did all that in a very short time. This is kind of a plot hole, but nobody questions it. Maia says that the werewolves have been evacuating everyone to the Accords Hall, so they go there to find the Lightwoods.
In the Hall, they find Alec, and he tells them that Max and Isabelle are still at the Penhallows house, with Sebastian. Clary reunites with Luke, and then the Consul (the Shadowhunter president) accuses Luke and his werewolves of invading Idris. Clary leaves Luke and the Consul arguing and goes to talk with Magnus to give him the Book of the White. Sebastian comes out of nowhere and tries to get his hands on the Book, but then Alec and Jace see him and ask him about Max and Isabelle. Sebastian tries to get alone with Clary, but everyone is suspicious of him, so he mentions the fact that Simon is still in the Gard because the prisoners were left behind in the evacuation. He fails to convince Clary to go with him, so he gives up and leaves, while Clary goes to the Gard with Alec and Jace. Magnus disappeared at some point during the conversation.
Clary and company go to the Gard and get Simon out, he insists on freeing Samuel/Hodge, so they also take him outside and realize who he is. Everyone is still mad at Hodge for the whole “selling us out to Valentine” thing, but Simon is buddies with him, so he defends him. They ask Hodge why he’s in Idris instead of hiding away somewhere, and he explains that he knew Valentine would go to Idris looking for the final Mortal Instrument, the Glass, though no one knows where it is. Hodge says that he figured out its location: the Glass is actually Lake Lyn, where Clary almost drowned early on. Suddenly, Sebastian pops out of the woods and throws a dagger at Hodge, killing him before he can finish speaking. He tries to explain himself by saying he was protecting them from Hodge, but nobody buys it, so he just drops the act and goes full evil villain.
They realize that he’s spying for Valentine, so they try to fight him and get absolutely curb-stomped. After beating up everyone, Sebastian decides to run away and disappears into the darkness. The group goes back to the Hall, noting on their way that the demons have retreated, and there they find Isabelle and the Lightwood parents crying and holding Max’s lifeless body.
There are no more demon attacks for three days, and the Shadowhunters use that time to burn their dead, while those not in mourning try to figure out what to do now. Clary and Simon are staying at Amatis’s house, and they get a visit from Aline. She explains that Sebastian was actually not her cousin, she got some photos of him from her aunt in Paris, and it’s a completely different boy. The fake Sebastian must have killed the real one on his way to Idris and taken over his identity. Aline and her family feel terrible for what happened with Max, so Aline asks Clary to explain to the Lightwoods that “Sebastian” tricked all of them.
Aline also takes the opportunity to tell Clary she has no feelings for Jace because she’s a lesbian, and she was using Jace to figure out her sexuality. So, to recap, our first lesbian character is also our first SA victim, and her coming out is not about her but about making sure that she isn’t a threat to our main couple.
Clary and Simon go to the Hall, where Luke is trying to negotiate with the Inquisitor and the Consul to form an alliance between Downworlders and the Clave. He asks that all Downworlders get a seat at the Shadowhunter Council, which they refuse to grant. Clary tells Luke the truth about Sebastian because the Lightwoods are still in the cemetery. Suddenly, someone screams, and they see Valentine entering the building—it’s not really him, just a projection. Valentine then proceeds to explain his evil plan: basically, they have two days to swear loyalty to him or get killed by his demon army. The Inquisitor gets angry, and Valentine kills him, which shocks everyone because projections shouldn’t be able to harm people, and then Valentine vanishes.
Later, Clary and Simon go tell the Lightwoods all that happened, but only Jace, Alec and Isabelle are home; their parents are still at the cemetery; and Isabel won’t come out of her room because she blames herself for Max’s death. Simon decides to stay and try speaking with Isabelle, while Jace walks Clary back to Amatis’s house.
Jace notices that Clary has blood on her jacket, and she explains that it’s from Sebastian (don’t worry about it). Jace takes a thread from her jacket, and they say goodbye.
Simon manages to get inside Isabelle’s room, and she tells him that she feels guilty about Max dying because she didn’t pay attention when he told them he saw someone climbing the Demon Towers, which was probably Sebastian. Simon tries to console her, and she decides to make out with him to distract herself from what happened. Isabelle stans, we are in shambles.
Back to Clary, she’s preparing to sleep when Jace climbs into her room through the window. He’s clearly depressed and grieving, and he finally says that he loves her, and that it’s not because he’s monstrous, because demons can’t feel love, so him loving her is proof that he’s still human, and it’s actually a very sweet confession if you ignore the fact that these two think they are related. Jace asks her to let him sleep with her that night, just sleeping, and they spend the night together. It’s giving final goodbye scene.
Jace wakes up before her and goes to meet up with Luke, who’s still trying to convince the Clave to make an alliance with the Downworlders. Jace tells Luke that he will go after Sebastian alone, and Luke is worried about Jace because he’s the only decent adult in this series, and he can see that Jace is being suicidal. Nonetheless, he lets Jace go on his mission. Clary wakes up alone and sees that Jace left a note for her, which made it clear he’s going to do something self-sacrificial, so she’s really worried.
Clary goes to the kitchen and finds Simon and Isabelle, who spent the night together (ugh), and she tries to convince Isabelle to go after Jace with her. Isabelle refuses because Jace is a warrior, and he can fend for himself, plus they have a lot to deal with in the city, and Clary throws Max’s death in Isabelle’s face like an insensitive asshole. Mind you, Max’s funeral was the day before. Things escalate, but they get interrupted by someone arriving at Amatis’s house.
*Dramatic drumroll*
It’s Clary’s mom. Magnus woke her up.
Part III: The Way to Heaven.
Clary is in shock. Isabelle, not knowing who Jocelyn is, gets in front of Clary to protect her, which is a very small gesture, but I love her so much for this. She’s willing to protect Clary despite what she said to her about Max, she’s too nice. Anyway, Clary recovers from her surprise and lashes out at her mom, realizing how much anger she’s been keeping inside about Jocelyn lying to her. Jocelyn tries to excuse her actions, and Clary storms out of the house.
Simon goes to speak with her, and Clary deflects from the issue by asking if he slept with Isabelle. They did not, thank God. He pushes her back on track, and she admits that the main reason she’s mad at Jocelyn is because of Jace. She blames Jocelyn for her having such a complicated relationship with him because it wouldn’t have happened if they knew they were siblings beforehand.
While they are talking, they see the Downworlders leaving the city, meaning that the Clave refused to make an alliance. Clary thinks about a rune that she saw in a dream, a rune to connect people, and rushes to the Hall, where Luke and all the Shadowhunters are.
Clary stands in front of everyone and reveals her ability to create new runes. They don’t believe her, so she comes up with a quick demonstration. Clary uses a rune that shows people the person they love the most, and it works, so they finally believe her, but the Clave still refuses to join forces with the Downworlders. Desperate, Clary explains that they can’t win against Valentine alone and that he won’t stop at just killing the Downworlders, he will go after all of them like any other fascist, and Clary tells them she can make a rune that allows Shadowhunters and Downworlders to share powers and fight side-by-side.
The Clave needs a moment to discuss this information, and Clary goes outside to wait for their decision. Her mom finds her and apologizes for all the lies, and they have a long conversation about Valentine and his experiments. Jocelyn explains that her son Jonathan was born evil because of the demon blood and that Valentine gave her angel blood while she was pregnant with Clary, unbeknownst to him. Clary is upset at Jocelyn for calling Jace inherently evil, at which point Jocelyn finally explains that Jace is NOT Jonathan and therefore NOT Clary’s brother.
Okay, get ready for the explanation:
18 years ago, Valentine and Jocelyn had a son, Jonathan Christopher, who had demon blood thanks to Valentine’s experiments. Around the same time, Michael Wayland had a son, which we will call the Wayland Baby, and Stephen Herondale’s wife got pregnant. Valentine gave Céline Herondale angel blood to continue his experiments. When Céline was 8 months pregnant, Stephen died, and she killed herself out of grief. Valentine took the baby (a boy) out of Céline’s body—we are going to call him Herondale Baby—and gave him to Hodge to take care of for some time. Then, Valentine’s group was beaten during their coup attempt. Michael Wayland and his wife died, and Valentine faked his death and that of his son Jonathan. He used the bodies of the Wayland couple and killed the Wayland Baby in place of his own son. He then took the Herondale Baby, whom he also named Jonathan Christopher, and raised him at the Wayland Manor. The Herondale baby is Jace. Valentine put his real son, Jonathan, at a house somewhere else and then proceeded to raise Jace and Jonathan separately for the next decade, until he faked his death again so Jace could go live with the Lightwoods. So, there were three babies, the Wayland Baby was killed, the Herondale Baby (Jace) supplanted the Wayland Baby, and the Wayland Baby’s body was used to fake the death of the real Jonathan Christopher.
I hope you got all that. There’s a lot to process, like the fact Jace was taken out of his mother’s corpse, and that Valentine killed a baby, but Clary only cares about the fact that she can now be with Jace. Aside from that, she wonders if the real Jonathan ever got “less evil”, and then Jocelyn drops the final bomb: Clary has met the real Jonathan, he was the one that killed and took over Sebastian Verlac’s identity.
Meaning that despite not being related to Jace, Clary did still kiss her brother. Cassandra Clare is seriously committed to the incest.
Remember when Clary said that Valentine loved Jace, and Sebastian got mad? He got upset because he was jealous of Valentine’s love for Jace. There are tons of little comments here and there whenever the subject of Valentine comes up or Clary says something about her brother, and it makes going through Sebastian’s scenes super satisfying. It's a good twist, despite everything.
Clary is anxious to tell Jace the truth, and then Luke comes out of the Hall with more good news: the Clave has agreed to an alliance, and they will let Clary use her rune. For the rune to work, a pair of one Shadowhunter and one Downworlder have to draw the rune on each other. The first couple to test it are Luke and Jocelyn, since they are basically married anyway.
There are only werewolves, warlocks and faeries present because the vampires have not agreed to join the alliance yet. Clary sees Magnus, thanks him for curing Jocelyn, and asks him if he’s going to ask Alec to be his partner. He says he doesn’t want to pressure him to come out in front of his parents, which is nice. In the meantime, Clary asks Simon to tell the Lightwoods the truth about Jace, but Alec is not really paying attention.
Then Alec sees Magnus, asks him to be his partner, and kisses him in front of everyone.
This was probably huge in 2009. Moving on, the vampire Raphael arrives and announces that the vampires will only join the alliance if they hand over Simon and let the vampires kill him. I would vote in favor of that, but Luke firmly declines.
Time to check in with Jace. He’s followed Sebastian into a cave, where Sebastian is talking with Valentine. It’s important to remember that Jace doesn’t know that Sebastian is Valentine’s real son, because Jace’s reaction upon seeing these two talk and be close with each other is to assume Sebastian is sleeping with his dad. They don’t have anything weird going on, but that’s how it looks to Jace because he’s not used to seeing Valentine be vulnerable with anyone.
I will continue to call Jonathan "Sebastian" to avoid confusion and because Jace still doesn’t know the truth.
Sebastian makes a comment about having fun tricking Clary and Valentine is clearly uncomfortable with this, which is RICH coming from him.
Jace confronts Sebastian once Valentine leaves, and he makes a joke about Sebastian dating Valentine, which throws him off for a second. He really didn’t see that one coming. Sebastian recovers from the shock, and they start fighting. Despite his angelic powers, Jace is no match for Sebastian, and he gets quickly beaten up.
Back to Clary, Simon tells her that he’s going to give himself up to the vampires to make sure they join the alliance, but he asks Clary to give him the Mark of Cain. This mark will force Simon to be an eternal wanderer, and anyone who hurts him will get hurt back. Simon goes to find Raphael and the vampires, then he shows them the rune, and they decide to join the alliance since they can’t kill Simon anyway.
Sebastian has Jace tied up. Before leaving, Valentine told Sebastian not to release the demon army before he gave the signal, but since he’s Clary’s brother, Sebastian is unable to follow orders and releases the demon army early in front of Jace. He tells Jace that Valentine is going to use the Mortal Instruments to summon Raziel, the angel that created the Shadowhunters, and then he will ask a wish from the angel. Somehow, Jace baits Sebastian into freeing him, and they leave the cave.
They keep fighting, but Jace’s terribly injured. Sebastian tells him the truth about his birth, making him realize that the one with the demon blood is Sebastian and not him. It seems like Sebastian will kill him, but suddenly ISABELLE shows up and uses her whip to RIP SEBASTIAN’S HAND OFF.
Isabelle says that’s payback for killing Max, and she throws Sebastian away. She had gone after Jace after finding out that he wasn’t Clary’s sister because she wanted Jace to know he wasn’t disgusting and evil. This got to me, not going to lie. Then Sebastian gets up and starts beating up Isabelle in front of Jace. Despite his serious injuries, Jace manages to move thanks to the power of love and stabs Sebastian in the back right before he can kill Isabelle. Sebastian falls into a nearby river, seemingly dead, and Jace passes out.
The Shadowhunters-Downworlder alliance is fighting off Valentine’s demon army. Clary can’t join because she’s not old enough, so she’s waiting in the Hall until she decides to go through a Portal to stop Valentine herself.
She gets transported to Lake Lyn, where she immediately gets captured and tied up by Valentine. He needs blood to summon the angel, and he’s about to kill Clary when Jace appears out of thin air (I honestly have no clue how he did it) and says he killed Sebastian and is going to kill Valentine as well. Valentine doesn’t think Jace can do it because he’s too soft and wasn’t able to do it before, but they start fighting, and Valentine ends up killing Jace in front of Clary.
Valentine seems genuinely sad about it, but he gets on with his plan. Clary wants to give up, she feels there’s no point to living anymore, but she realizes that she can’t let Jace’s death be in vain. She messes up Valentine’s summoning circle, and then the angel shows up. Valentine asks the angel to wipe out all other Shadowhunters, but Clary is the new master, so the angel tells Valentine his plan was stupid and spits heavenly fire at him, killing him instantly. It’s kinda epic. The angel asks Clary what her wish is, and she asks to bring Jace back from the dead.
The angel revives Jace and goes back to heaven or whatever. Jace wakes up, and he and Clary have a really beautiful moment. It’s the culmination of Jace’s story, finally realizing that he’s good and that he's loved.
Epilogue.
They never found Sebastian’s body, obviously. There’s a big party to celebrate the alliance between Shadowhunters and Downworlders, and now all the Downworlders have a seat at the Council. Jace meets Amatis, and she gives him a box with Stephen’s belongings. He’s trying to connect with his biological father, but he feels that the Lightwoods are his real family, and he’s still dealing with all the baggage that Valentine left him with. He decides that his name is Jace and not Jonathan Christopher, because it’s the name that Maryse gave him and she’s his real mother. Jace’s my favorite character, his development in these three books was done really well. He and Clary start officially dating; the same goes for Alec and Magnus, and Simon has caught the interest of both Maia and Isabelle, because Cassandra Clare loves Simon just as much as I hate him, but he doesn’t know which one he likes. Ugh. Jocelyn and Luke got over themselves and confessed after three decades of mutual pining. Everyone’s happy.
The Fairy Queen makes a quick cameo and tries to get a favor from Clary with a promise to pay her back, but Clary doesn’t trust this clearly shady offer and refuses, which sets the Queen as a future antagonist.
The story ends with a nice message about how people need to learn from the past and that everyone is the same, etc.
Relationship Chart.
Clary and Jace can finally be together. Jace deserves better, but if he’s happy, I’m fine with it.
Alec has publicly come out and introduced Magnus to his parents. I still don’t vibe with the age gap, but the reader is obviously not supposed to think too much about that.
Isabelle and Maia are both attracted to Simon, for some Godforsaken reason.
Luke and Jocelyn are together, give it up for heterosexual marriage!
I included Madeleine in the graph because I still think the funniest bit in this series is how inconsequential she was. She didn’t even get an official flower illustration like everyone else, even Michael Wayland got his own portrait, and his only purpose is to be Valentine’s fake identity. It’s ridiculous.
Final Thoughts.
City of Glass is a decent finale for the Valentine arc, and despite leaving some things open, it’s a good stopping point. I think by this time Cassandra Clare has already settled into the style and tone of her series, and she has turned into her own thing. Like it or not, the thing that makes Shadowhunters unique is the commitment to convoluted family drama, which is present in every book, and I kind of respect that. The baby swap thing alone is amazing, she really had to put a lot of thought into making that work. The way Cassandra Clare bends over backwards to still include incest is disgusting, but the gymnastics she does to get there are almost impressive.
I think what made Shadowhunters so successful was the power fantasy aspect. A lot of YA stories focus on “special” teenagers and how they are going to make society better. Harry Potter tries to do that, but even fans of the series criticize the fact that the hero didn’t do anything to solve the issues in his society. Cassandra Clare, being an HP fan, probably realized this and implemented societal change into her story; her characters actually try to improve society, not just defeat the villain. The ending is less about beating Valentine and more about bringing Shadowhunters and Downworlders together. The anti-prejudice message is undermined by the real-life racism and homophobia in how Clare writes characters of color and queer characters, but if you were expecting her to be a paragon of representation, then that’s on you.
The message also gets a muddled by Sebastian’s existence, because his whole thing is that he’s inherently evil due to the demon blood, and it’s not really challenged by the narrative, which seems hypocritical considering that all Downworlders have some demon blood. I doubt Cassandra Clare thought very hard about the implications of that.
Personally, my favorite part of the book was Jace’s character arc and seeing him overcome his self-steem issues. Yes, it’s mixed in with the incest stuff, but it was still good. Despite how much I hate Clary, I think the scene of her choosing to save him at the end was really beautiful, because it shows Jace that he’s truly loved.
I have very little memory of the next three books, so I’m excited (and scared) to reread them and find out what sorts of horrors Cassandra Clare is going to present me with. The only thing that I remember is that good ol’ Sebastian is going to be the main villain, which means we are not done with the incest drama. Cool!
The Shadowhunter government.
Normal humans who have been Marked with Shadowhunter runes and turned into monsters. Valentine used them as fodder in City of Bones. It gets explained later on that Valentine sent the Forsaken to stop Clary from going to Idris.
Aline is half-Japanese, another example of Cassandra Clare including characters of color but only if they are half-White.
His name is Aldertree but nobody cares.
Simon’s cell has bars inscribed with Stars of David, because he’s Jewish and vampires get burned when they touch the symbols of their religion. I mention this because Simon’s struggle with his faith is actually kind of compelling.