Jace wakes up in the infirmary back at the Institute and finds Alec and Isabelle watching over him.  Everyone magically knows that Jace is the “real” Jace again.

Jace took a ragged breath. “Something missing. I felt it, even with Sebastian, but I didn’t know what it was I was missing. But it was you. My parabatai.”

Jee, sure would have been nice to see that in the text.  I don’t think Jace and Alec had one single scene together this whole book, and Jace never even mentioned the boy.  They don’t care a whit for each other, except when the author wants to remind us that she made up this cool parabatai nonsense and then did nothing with it.

Also, Jace now glows from being stabbed with an angel sword, because apparently he wasn’t special enough already.  Then he goes back to sleep.  The next day, Clary wants to go see him, but they won’t let her in because he’s napping.  And…um…all she wants is to see him, and Alec and Isabelle got to go watch him sleep.  So what’s the big deal?  Clary agrees with me and decides she’s going to go see Jace without permission. 

Also, Simon can now say “God,” for bullshit religious reasons, because Christianity is totally factual in this book’s world.

Clary and Simon spend a while talking about all the other relationships that were angsted about in this book.  Maia and Jordan are “officially” together.  (Who cares?)  Luke and Jocelyn are still wedding planning.  Simon is going to meet with his sister and family-ish.  What a disappointingly simple resolution to something that was given way too much time during the actual novel.

Alec goes to the subway station to see Camille again.  There’s too many subplots in this book.  This one (and Simon’s with Becky, for that matter) haven’t been mentioned for like half the book, because there was too much other stuff going on.  I’d almost forgotten about both.  There’s simply not room for all of this in a single book, and the pacing really suffers for it.

Anyway, Magnus followed him this time, but he already knew what was going on because Camille told him.  Magnus admits he’d been thinking about giving up his immortality because 800 is a really long and boring time to be alive, but he wants to give it up, not having it taken from him.  He doesn’t believe Alec when Alec says he wouldn’t go through with it.  So they break up.  Then there’s some weird shit about how Alec’s witchlight lights up when Magnus holds it, even though it shouldn’t.  It goes nowhere, and they’re still broken up.  I…find I really don’t care, if only because I never got much out of their relationship in the first place.  They always just felt like two people who occupied the same space, not an actual couple.  So they’re broken up, so what?

Alec decides he’s going to kill Camille because he’s pissed.  He tries to find her and runs into Maureen instead.  Maureen killed Camille, so now she’s the head of the New York clan.

Clary goes to the Institute and talks to Isabelle.  Remember all that drama about whether or not they should tell the Clave or just go fight without telling them?  Yeah, turns out they lied their asses off to the authorities and got off scot free.  Book…we like consequences.  That’s where drama comes from, and drama makes for good stories.  Just saying “We did shit and nothing happened” is not a good story.

And then more relationship talk, because of course.

Clary briefly talks to Brother Zach and convinces him to let her in to see Jace, because obstacles and consequences are for other books, interesting ones.  Not this one.  They talk about relationship stuff and how they love each other and also shit that happened so far in the book.  It’s mind-numbingly boring, so I skimmed most of it.

Jace has “heavenly fire” inside him now and he burns people when he touches them.  So he can’t touch Clary, and apparently that will be our new point of angst in the next book.  Because there always has to be angst.  Then they drop ominous hints about how there’s going to be a big war because Jonathan is still out there in the world somewhere, fucking shit up, even though we have nothing to base this on except his…existence.  Which is fine and all, just not as ominous as they’re making it sound. 

I know I told you once that whether God exists or not, we’re on our own. But when I’m with you, I’m not.

So, you’re filled with fire from the literal heaven after having it up there by the sword of an archangle, which was given to your friend, who can’t say god’s name without choking, by an angel who said all glory belongs to god, and you’re actually in doubt about whether or not god exists?

Book, you need to take a class in subtlety and try again.

In the library, Maryse shows one of the silent brothers a pair of ripped-off angel wings she found on the floor, and everyone gasps.  It’s all ominous and cliffhangery and shit, and we’ll have to wait until next year to find out what Jonathan did with the rest of the angel.  With any luck, you’ll all forget that I’ve done these books by that point and won’t insist that I review the new one, too.  I mean, that could happen, right?