Suddenly, we switch to Jace’s POV!  I guess Clary was figuring out too much shit, so we had to move over to the guy who’s just sitting on his bed and sulking.  Since, as we all know, figuring shit out is just a no-no in YA books.  No one wants to read about that.

Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but Clary didn’t know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that was why.

Yeah, I’m sick of this trope, too.  The whole ‘good girls aren’t allowed to know they’re beautiful’ thing.  It’s disturbing on so many levels.  Why are we glorifying low self-esteem?  Jace here is basically saying that strong, confident women are a turn off, but the weak, meek, sad little girls who need his big strong manly assurances are attractive. 

It’s almost like this book knows that girls have self-image issues, but instead of encouraging them to be confident, it just encourages them to be down on themselves, because…sexy?  Fuck that.  I’d rather hang out around someone who knew their own beauty any day of the week.

I could almost see this working.  If Isabelle did use her looks as a way to manipulate people (remember, we haven’t seen her do that except against the demon, and even then, it didn’t take much in the form of manipulation), and if Clary was just sort of blasé about her looks (in an “I’m sexy and I know it and let’s not make a big deal out of it” way), then that could be commented on.  Instead, Isabelle is the blasé one, and Clary is just clueless. 

Words were weapons, his father had taught him that, and he’d wanted to hurt Clary more than he’d ever wanted to hurt any girl.

Um…sexy? 

Clary actually cuts out the banter this time and gets right to business.  (Finally!)  She says she thinks her mother hid the cup in one of her paintings.  Clary demonstrates by showing that she figured out how to hide the coffee cup inside a picture of the coffee cup.  Boy, I’m so glad we didn’t get to see that.  So boring.  Reading about Jace flopping around on his bed was miles more interesting than that.

Jace then hangs a lampshade on the fact that Clary shouldn’t know how to do any of this, and instead of her figuring it out somehow, she just magically knew how to do it.  They theorize that Clary’s mother taught her how to do it, then the brain-spell made her forget, and now that the spell is wearing off, that’s coming back.  Okay, I guess that’s a plausible explanation…but it’s also a boring one.  Just because you can twist your world around to support your dull writing doesn’t make it un-dull.

Clary further explains that she thinks the cup is in Dorthea’s tarot deck.  That’s actually a decent hiding place, because Dorthea doesn’t even know she has it.  I mean, I would have gone for a safety deposit box in Switzerland, but hey, the old lady who likes candles works, too.

“I thought the search for the Cup was in the hands of the Clave now.”

“It’s just better if we do this ourselves,” said Jace impatiently. “Hodge and I already discussed it and that’s what we decided.”

Because…?  No, really, I’m going to need something more, book.  You can’t just go with “because we said so” and call it a night.  Why is it better off in the hands of a bunch of dumb teenagers who can’t go to a party without starting a fight?

Their apparent answer is: because Dorthea is afraid of the Clave, but not of Clary.  Okay, so go tell the guys in charge, and also tell them that Clary can mediate.  There’s still no reason to cut the authorities out entirely. 

Their real answer is: Jace is a glory-hound.

Then they start talking about how Jocelyn worked so hard to keep the cup away from Valentine, and that means…they can’t tell the other guys who want to keep it away from Valentine.  What?

Then Jace mentions he wants to get a car, because he doesn’t want to transport the cup on a train once they manage to get it.  For some reason, a rental car is out of the question, though it’s not really clear why that was brought up or dismissed.

Simon is the only named character so far to have a driver’s license, so that’s how he gets dragged back into this mess.  So after more bullshit about how they can’t call anyone else (none of which makes sense of course.  CALL SOME BACKUP YOU DUMB FUCKS), Clary gives Simon a call.

“If we get the Mortal Cup, I’ll have a way to get my mom back. It’s the only reason Valentine hasn’t killed her or let her go.”

You don’t know that!  Seriously, this book goes around making suppositions left and right, and then the characters act on them as if they are gospel truth.  They have no concrete reason to think that Clary’s mother is alive or being held or anything.  They know not one thing about her mother.  All they’ve done is guess a lot, then assume they guessed right.

Simon does agree to drive them, but only after making more D&D references, because that’s just so relevant right now.

Later, as they wait for Simon to show up, Hodge chit-chats with Clary.  He tells her that, by the laws of dramatic irony, Jocelyn and Luke had the exact same history as Clary and Simon.  Grew up together, he loved her, she didn’t love him back.  Luke left after Jocelyn married Valentine.

“But if he loved her, why did he tell those men he didn’t care what happened to her? Why did he refuse to let them tell him where she was?”

“As I said before, where there is love, there is also hatred,” said Hodge. “She hurt him badly all those years ago. She turned her back on him. And yet he has played her faithful lapdog ever since, never remonstrating, never accusing, never confronting her with his feelings. Perhaps he saw an opportunity to turn the tables. To hurt her as he’d been hurt.”

What the ever-loving fuck is this?  Is the book trying to honestly tell me that everything Luke did was on the up-and-up, or are the characters all this fucking stupid?  How come no one has proposed the idea of “maybe he was lying to those bad guys in an attempt to protect Clary and her mother”?  It’s the most obvious answer, and yet everyone’s just running with the idea that Luke is an asshole.  What’s more likely, that he was lying for the past 15 years, or that he’s been lying for the past 2 days?

If this ends up being a big reveal at the end of the book, I’m going to hurt someone.

After that bit of head-smashing idiocy, everyone gathers up to go.  Turns out Alec fights with a bow and arrow.  Boy, I sure hope they don’t get caught in any tight spaces.  Like a building.  Which is where they’re heading.  (Does this author know anything about weapons besides which ones look ‘cool’?)  They’re also all painted over in new runes that, I guess, they plan on using while they fight.  But humans don’t do magic, because that comes from icky, dirty demons.  Just felt like reminding everyone of that.

Simon shows up, and he’s still pissy about the whole coming-in-second thing.  Seems he’s decided to take it out on Clary, since he’s rude to her and civil to everyone else.  Because, if you remember, it’s all Clary’s fault that she didn’t read his mind and realize he likes her, and that makes her stupid.  (Fucking book.)

Simon watched as the three Shadowhunters headed up the rose-lined walkway to the house.

“Demonic activity levels? Do they have a device that measures whether the demons inside the house are doing power yoga?”

“No,” Clary said, pushing her damp hood back so she could enjoy the feel of the sunlight on her draggled hair. “The Sensor tells them how powerful the demons are—if there are any demons.” Simon looked impressed.

First, stop putting Simons actions/thoughts on the same line as Clary’s dialogue.  This is basic stuff, people!  Was the editor just asleep while reading this?  I wouldn’t be surprised, it’s boring as fuck.  Second, why would anyone hear ‘demon activity level’ and think ‘yoga’?  The author is now so focused on shoving in her ‘witty’ lines that she’s making characters stupider just to work it in.

The super-cool-special-hunter people come back and say there’s nothing to worry about, just some Forsaken up in her apartment.  Because that’s not something to worry about?  When we were introduced to these things, Jace said they were mindlessly aggressive killing machines.  So why are they waiting patiently in her room for her to show up?  Why aren’t they just leveling the whole house?  This is not how you do mindless monsters, book.  This isn’t a video game where you can avoid random encounters by walking around them. 

Well, I guess it’s only fair that the monsters work by video game rules, since the dialogue works by comic book rules.

And yet, even though they say the monsters will stay upstairs, they pull out a bag of weapons to go…not fight them?  Whatever, at least Alec changes out his bow for a staff.

Turns out that the super-awesome-hunters are invisible, but Simon and Clary can still see them.

“You can see us,” said Jace, “because now you know the truth of what you’re looking at.”

That’s really crappy invisibility.  It only works against people who don’t know you’re there?  I mean, I guess handy for keeping the masquerade up, but it’ll do jack squat against anyone who wants to do harm to them.  And why not just say that they included Simon in whatever magic they’re doing?  The whole mess feels like a sloppy patch on a plot hole that didn’t even need to be there.

They go inside and it stinks, which means demons have been there.  Alec and Isabelle look nauseated by it, but weren’t they trained to deal with demons?  Shouldn’t part of that training be “not incapacitated at the first indication of the enemy”?  But the good news is that the demons aren’t there anymore, so they go to talk to Dorthea.  (After more banter.)

Dorthea is happy to see Clary, because the last time she heard from the girl she was jumping through a teleport door.  And, as you remember, no one thought to call Dorthea and let her know they didn’t end up at the bottom of the Hudson or something.  But Dorthea is a good person and is happy to know that they’re alright and doesn’t bring up the utter lack of common decency.  (Or it could be the bad writing making everyone forget about that, but for once, the bad writing is making someone a better person instead of a worse person.)

Dorothea sighed. “I feared as much.” She settled back against the cushions. “Do you know what he wants with her?”

“I know she was married to him—”

Why does everyone keep harping on this like it matters?  Would the plot be any different if they hadn’t been married?  “Jocelyn stole the cup from Valentine after she realized he’s evil” vs “Jocelyn stole the cup from Valentine, her husband, after she realized he’s evil.”  See?  It doesn’t matter!

They banter more about love without saying anything of any importance.  Then, finally, they get around to talking about the cup.  Rather than just outright saying “Mom gave it to you secretly,” they have to approach the subject sideways and snarkily, giving the implication that Dorthea knows what she has and is hiding it from them.  She gets offended at the suggestion that she’s a liar.

“So she gave it to you disguised,” Jace explained, “in the form of a gift.”

Dorothea looked at him blankly.

Doesn’t she remember? Clary thought, puzzled. “The tarot deck,” she said. “The cards she painted for you.”

Why does this book have such a problem just saying stuff?  Does Clary think that the cards are the only things her mother gave Dorthea?  They were good friends.  Who’s to say they didn’t exchange gifts all the time?  Why not just start with the cards instead of running all around the subject?

Clary pulls the right card out of the deck and does some magic on it so she can pull the cup out.  And…it works.  It’s treated like a big dramatic thing, but was any reader really thinking it wouldn’t?  I mean, this isn’t the kind of book where the main character is allowed to be wrong.

Well!  It’ that time again!  We’ve only got five chapters left in this book, so it’ll be finished next week.  If anyone has any suggestions on what should come next, leave a comment below, and I’ll put the next poll up next Thursday.