Maia and Jordan are driving out to Long Island to the Praetor in person.  As they get close, Maia decides this is a great time to apologize for running off a few nights ago.  You know, back when he got all kissy at her and she spontaneously remembered that he’s actually a jerk who tore her throat out.

No.  No, book, no.  Maia didn’t do anything wrong.  Even if we go with the assumption that Jordan should be forgiven, she still didn’t do anything wrong.  She said “I need some space” and then she went and got it.  She didn’t…I don’t know, kick him in the shins and call him stupid before running off.  She didn’t run off without a word.  She said “not right now,” and then she backed off until she felt comfortable.  That’s nothing to apologize for.  Having her feel guilty for taking care of herself and ensuring her own comfort and safety is really, really disgusting.

They have a talk about their relationship, and Jordan says he can’t be friends with her because he still loves her.  It has to be an all or nothing thing for him.  I…am actually okay with this, because I find it more palatable than someone who sticks around acting like a friend just so he can eventually worm his way into her pants.  I mean, he does leave the option of “nothing” pretty clearly open, and he’s not required to be her friend any more than she’s required to be his. 

However, like most of the times that this book does anything I agree with, I still can’t really agree with it because it’s still out of place.  I just don’t care about these two and their squishy bits when there’s a Praetor to see and a Luke to save.  And I’m sick of every single scene in this book being shoved full of squishy feelings instead of the actual plot that’s running in the background.  Get on with it already.

So they make out and for once I’m actually glad of the scene change.

Clary has more symbolic dreams about angels and ice.  Yes, we get it already.  Jace is awesomesaucepants and Jonathan is the devil.  Enough with the symbolism hammer.  Clary wakes up in an unfamiliar room and tries to ring-talk to Simon, but he doesn’t answer. 

She had no idea where she was, what time it was, or how long she’d been out cold.

Apparently she also doesn’t think it strange that she was “out cold” and has no recollection of what happened after kissing Jace in the back yard.  People don’t generally forget everything that happened right before they go to bed, so it can’t be that she walked into this room under her own power and laid down for a nap.  One would think that the whole “somehow I got knocked the fuck out and transported without my knowledge” thing would be extra creepy, but to Clary, it’s not even a blip on the radar.

She had to go on autopilot. Check out where she was, learn what she could.

…are those things people normally do on “autopilot”?  Is the book so dedicated to Clary being passive that when she does stuff, she can’t even be intentionally doing them?

Clary wanders through the house while making sure to describe every single room for us in exacting detail.  I’ll spare you and mention the only part that’s relevant: no one’s home.

She finally finds a window and looks out to discover that she’s in some mundane city with canals.  She guesses Amsterdam or Venice, but since her descriptive skills are all reserved for furniture and clothing, I have no idea which would be a better guess.  Also she finds a wardrobe full of new clothes for her.  We can’t have the main character running around in anything less than designer clothing.  That would be just unthinkable.

With all this talk of clothing and furniture, I can’t help it.  I really want to play Sims now.

The silver Herondale dagger with its pattern of birds was jammed into the plaster wall. When she looked closer, she could see that it was pinning a photograph in place.

How unobservant do you have to be to not notice the picture the first time?  Why do you have to look ‘closer’ to see it?  I mean, if anything, she’s hyper-focused on the dagger, so looking ‘closer’ wouldn’t show her something outside the dagger.  Why even point out that she didn’t notice it the first time?  It’s a descriptive paragraph; the author could simply describe the whole thing without needing a reason to move from one topic to another.  I mean, would anyone be confused if it had been written as:

The silver Herondale dagger with its pattern of birds was jammed into the plaster wall; it was pinning a photograph in place.

???

Clary then goes poking around in Jonathan’s room and he catches her.

Skip over to Isabelle, waking up in bed with Simon.  She spends a moment confused because he’s not ripped and gorgeous, but she still wants to bone him.  It just drives in the idea that you have to fit a certain image to be considered sexy, whether you are male or female.  The fact that Isabelle still likes him anyway does not help, because it points out that she still doesn’t find him sexy, and she likes him in spite of this failing on his part.  Why can’t she be unconcerned with his absent six-pack, or think that he’s sexy just like he is?  Why not that instead of this insistence that there’s only one possible way to be sexy or attractive?

Isabelle gets up and we spend three pages following her as she gets ready for the day.  Did the author get paid by the word?  Did she write this during NaNoWriMo?  Really, what is the point of all this extra padding?

Well, finally they are ready to go see the Iron Sisters.  They live in some place called the Adamant Citadel, which is…somewhere, but there’s doors into it located all over the place.  There just so happens to be one in New York.  So they portal there.  You know, if they’re going to just make a portal and go there, then what’s the point of having a door in New York?  There could just as easily be one door, located in the Swiss Apls or something, and it would still be exactly as easy to get to thanks to their deus ex machina- I mean, Magnus.

Are we just running with the idea that magic doesn’t cost anything, so Magnus can just fling it around on a whim instead of needing to conserve it and take the subway?

Isabelle went next. She was used to the stomach-dropping feeling of transportation by Portal.

Because we have officially given up on the first book, where there were only two portals in New York, and have now decided to have portals be just a handy substitute for cars.  Which, really, I wouldn’t mind if it was just explained better.  I mean, I was bitching in City of Glass about how there don’t seem to magical alternatives to modern technology, but the answer to that is not a big flaming retcon.

They wind up at an old, abandoned monastery and find a bunch of detritus from people who hang out there and do fake-magic like painting the walls with pentagrams.

“Mundanes,” said Magnus. “Playing their little games with magic, not really understanding it. They’re often drawn to places like this—centers of power—without really knowing why. They drink and hang out and spray-paint the walls, like you could leave a human mark on magic. You can’t.”

Uhg.  We haven’t seen the whole “mundanes are stupid and useless” rhetoric for a while, and I was hoping the book wouldn’t come back to it.  But nope, here we go, droning on about how normal people are pathetic and can only scrabble around hoping to be as awesome as these stupid fucking shadowhunters.

Also, what’s with the spray paint hate?  How is it any different from the hunters and their steles?  At least, in terms of “leaving a human mark.”  Seem like pretty much the same thing, only one works and the other doesn’t.

Oh, yeah, and, YOU COULD ALWAYS JUST FUCKING TELL THEM INSTEAD OF JUDGING THEM FOR NOT BEING AS “SMART” AS YOU.  No, I’m not over that.  We have never had a good explanation for why the hunters don’t come out to the world, and that still pisses me off.

Isabelle and Jocelyn go inside and I just noticed that Jocelyn went off on this grant adventure without saying goodbye to Clary/noticing she’s gone.  Didn’t pop her head in the room to check on her daughter or nothing.  It’s like they’re not even related, until the book wants to create another hurtle for Jace/Clary.

Back to Clary, who was being ‘hugged’ by Jonathan when we last saw her.  Jace comes in to banter and asks why Jonathan was hugging her.

“It was nothing,” Clary said, waving a dismissive hand at her brother. “I tripped. He was just keeping me from falling over.”

Clary, what are you doing?  Why do you feel the need to cover for this asshole?  Why can’t you just say “this fucking asshole grabbed me from behind and I fervently hope he doesn’t do it again”?  What do you think will happen if just tell the truth?

I can’t wrap my brain around her reasoning here.  This lie comes out of the blue and we don’t have a clue why she’s telling it.

They all sit down to eat lunch because why not.  Turns out the house they are in moves around between places just like Jonathan does.  But…they’re in a building…  okay, whatever, magic and shit.

They sit around and talk for a while because we got to get that word-count up somehow!  Oh, wait, no we don’t, get on with it.  Clary sorta-kinda asks about what their plan is, but Jonathan doesn’t want to tell her.  He thinks she’s only there for Jace, which is obvious enough that even these idiot characters can see it.  They decide to hang out together for a week before telling her their plans.  Because…yeah, you can totally put a timeline on building trust like that?  They decide that until that time, she can’t talk to anyone else or go outside, unless Jace is with her.  How is that supposed to help with the trust issue?  If she can’t talk to anyone on the outside, how is that an indication that she won’t once she has the freedom and ability to?

The idea of a Jace who was allowed to do things—Jace, who always did whatever he wanted—made her sick to her stomach.

Clary, shut up.  They just went on about how you weren’t allowed to go outside without your boyfriend escorting you.  Don’t get upset about him and then ignore the same when it happens to you.  That’s giving implied approval to the idea that they can tell you what to do, and it’s only wrong when a MAN is in the same situation.  And that’s disgusting.

Isabelle and Jocelyn are walking toward the Sisters’ tower and on the way they talk about love and stuff.

“Well, you managed to keep Luke hanging around for his whole life, basically, before you agreed to marry him. That’s impressive. I wish I had that kind of power over a guy.”

“You do,” said Jocelyn. “Have it, I mean. And it isn’t something to wish for.”

Noooooooooo, stop it, stop it, stop it.  Jocelyn isn’t to blame for Luke’s obsessive behavior, she didn’t “do” anything, and there is no such thing as the “power” to make men want to fuck you so much that they “have” to stalk you until you give in.  No, just fuck off with that whole line of thought.

A woman’s “power” is not to entice men into doing stuff for them.  Women and men have the same “power,” being that we’re all people and that’s the end of that, and men are responsible for their own actions.  Yes, even when it comes to sex and relationships. 

Apparently Robert cheated on Maryse, and it must have been a long time ago because Jocelyn already knew about it.  Isabelle doesn’t know who it was, though.  And…if it was that long ago, then it’s probably not more important in their relationship than the fact that Max just died.  I don’t understand the ultra-angst that Isabelle is displaying here.  It sounds like it’s old news, except for the fact that the author just invented it.  What, was the dead-kid story line just not…romantic enough?

Anyway, they finally reach the tower and go inside.