City of Lost Souls recap

With Jace missing and bound to Jonathan Morgenstern so that killing one would kill both, the Clave decides Jace is expendable and Clary decides otherwise. Taking a pair of faerie rings from the Seelie Queen so she can speak secretly to Simon, she lets Jonathan take her, and lives in the apartment that moves between cities with a Jace who is calm, content and not himself. Isabelle, Alec, Magnus and Simon search for a way to break the bond; the Iron Sisters tell them only heavenly fire can do it. Clary discovers that Jonathan has a cup of Lilith's making with which he intends to turn Shadowhunters into servants of demons. Simon summons the angel Raziel and trades the Mark of Cain for the sword Glorious, and Clary drives its heavenly fire into Jace, freeing him and severing the bond, though the fire remains in his body. Jonathan escapes, uses the Infernal Cup on a company of captured Shadowhunters, and rides away with an army of the Endarkened.

Clary Fray is the daughter of Valentine Morgenstern, the Shadowhunter who twice tried to overthrow the Clave and purge the Downworlder races. Valentine was destroyed by the angel Raziel at the end of the war, after Clary rewrote his summoning ritual in her own name; her one request from the angel was Jace's life, since Valentine had killed him. For two books Clary and Jace believed themselves brother and sister, which was a lie of Valentine's: Jace is a Herondale, taken as a newborn and given angel blood, while Valentine's true son Jonathan was given demon blood, posed as a Shadowhunter called Sebastian, killed the youngest Lightwood child and betrayed Alicante before Jace killed him in battle. His body was never recovered. In the months after the war the demon Lilith marked Jace and used him to raise Jonathan from the dead, needing the blood of Jace and of Clary's friend Simon, a vampire who can walk in daylight and who carries the Mark of Cain. Simon's Mark destroyed Lilith, but the ritual had already worked: Jonathan woke, Jace was left bound to him so that harm to one is harm to the other, and the two of them vanished. Clary's mother Jocelyn is with Luke, a werewolf pack leader born a Shadowhunter; Alec Lightwood is with the warlock Magnus Bane and has begun secretly asking an old vampire how a warlock's immortality might be ended.

The Clave convenes and reaches the obvious conclusion: because Jace and Jonathan are bound, the only certain way to destroy Jonathan is to accept that Jace will die with him, and the Council authorises it. Clary refuses to accept the verdict, and the Lightwoods refuse with her. Jocelyn tells Clary what Jonathan was like as a child and makes it plain that she believes her son cannot be saved and should not be. The search produces nothing, because the pair are not anywhere the Clave can track. Alec continues his private enquiries with Camille Belcourt about ending a warlock's immortality, and does not tell Magnus. Simon, living with Jordan Kyle, is drawn into the search as the person Clary trusts most.

Clary goes to the Seelie Court and comes away with a pair of faerie rings that let two people speak mind to mind at any distance; she gives one to Simon and tells nobody else. When Jonathan comes for her, she goes with him deliberately, letting her family and the Clave believe she has chosen her brother's side. He takes her to the apartment he shares with Jace, which is warded and windowless and opens onto a different city each time they leave it, so that she has no idea where in the world she is. Jace is there, unhurt and untroubled, easy and affectionate in a way he has never been, with none of the guilt or grief that used to define him. He does not think he is being controlled, and that is the most alarming part.

Clary reports to Simon through the ring while pretending to settle in. In New York, Isabelle, Alec, Magnus, Simon and Jordan work the problem from the other end. The Iron Sisters, who forge the Shadowhunters' weapons and answer to nobody, tell them that what Lilith made can only be undone by heavenly fire, which no one living has. Magnus, who knows more about Lilith's kind than he will say, confirms it. Alec's meetings with Camille go on. Jonathan begins letting Clary see fragments of what he is planning, confident that she will come round to it, and shows a possessive interest in her that has nothing brotherly in it.

Jonathan takes Clary and Jace to a gathering in a foreign city where demons and their servants mix openly, and it becomes clear he is recruiting rather than hiding. Clary searches his rooms and finds a cup, black and wrong, made from what Lilith left behind: with it he can force a Shadowhunter to drink and turn them into something that keeps its training and loses its will. His intention is an army of them. She also learns what he means to do with the Shadowhunters he takes, and how little time there is. A warlock is coerced into building him what he needs, and Clary passes everything she can to Simon through the ring while trying to reach whatever is left of Jace underneath Lilith's work.

The others close in on the apartment's location, and Clary's position becomes untenable as Jonathan starts to suspect her. She is nearly caught with the ring. Jace, still not himself, is the more immediate problem: the bond means that any attack on Jonathan is an attack on him, so nobody can act until it is cut. Isabelle, Alec, Magnus, Simon and Jordan reach the building; Brother Zachariah lends help the Clave has refused. With no source of heavenly fire in the world, the only remaining option is to ask for one directly, and the only person with a claim on an angel's attention is the man wearing his Mark.

Simon summons Raziel and asks for a weapon. The angel takes back the Mark of Cain in payment and gives him the sword Glorious, which holds heavenly fire. Clary drives it into Jace. The fire burns Lilith's rune out of him and severs the bond, so Jonathan can now be killed without killing Jace, but it does not go out: it stays in Jace's body, so that he cannot touch anyone without risk. Jonathan, no longer protected, escapes rather than fight. Jace survives, barely, and is not the same.

Jonathan takes the Infernal Cup to an old sacred site with a company of captured Shadowhunters and forces them to drink, turning them into the Endarkened: fighters who keep their skill and lose everything that made them themselves. Amatis, Luke's sister, is among them, and Luke is left badly wounded in the fighting. Jonathan rides away with an army the Clave has never faced and no obvious way to reverse what he has done. In New York, Camille Belcourt is killed and the child vampire Maureen takes over the clan. Magnus finds out what Alec has been asking Camille and ends their relationship. Jace is alive and free of Lilith at last, but he burns from the inside with heavenly fire, and Clary cannot touch him.

Simon calls the angel Raziel and asks for a weapon, paying with the Mark of Cain, which the angel takes back; in exchange he receives the sword Glorious, which holds heavenly fire. Clary uses it on Jace. The fire burns away Lilith's rune and the bond that tied him to Jonathan, so that Jace is himself again and Jonathan can be killed without killing him, but the fire does not leave: it stays inside Jace, so that he cannot safely touch anyone, Clary least of all. Jonathan escapes. He takes the Infernal Cup to an old sacred site and forces a company of captured Shadowhunters to drink from it, turning them into the Endarkened, warriors who keep their skills and lose everything else; Amatis, Luke's sister, is among them, and Luke is left gravely wounded. Jonathan leaves with an army the Clave has no answer to. In New York, Camille Belcourt is killed and the child vampire Maureen takes the clan. Magnus learns what Alec has been doing behind his back and ends the relationship. The book closes with Jace alive and burning, Clary unable to touch him, and Jonathan Morgenstern at the head of a force of turned Shadowhunters preparing to come for the rest.