Fortunately, though the rest of the Penhallows’ house was quite elegant, the attic—where “the war orphans,” the collective term that had been applied to the Blackthorn children and Emma since they’d arrived in Idris, were now living—was extremely plain, functional and sturdy in its design.

Holy shit, it’s like a nesting doll made out of useless clauses.

The war orphans are sitting around being sad for a little while, then Helen comes in to announce that the London Institute was attacked, but the attack failed.

She felt as if she ought to be thrilled at the good news, but there was a tearing feeling inside her—a terrible jealousy. Why did the inhabitants of the London Institute get to live when her family died? How had they fought better, done more?

You know what?  Emma’s kind of growing on me, bless her vengeful little heart.  I can’t quite put my finger on why, but her angst seem far less…well, blatantly manipulative on a meta level.  It feels like part of the story instead of something tacked on to give her a tragic character.  I’m not sure why.  I got all up in arms over Max dying just to up the angst quota, but not here.  Hm, maybe I’ll figure out the difference as we go along.  Or maybe it’s just one of those things.

Well, Emma’s angst may feel organic as a character set up, but her scenes aren’t, and that one lasted all of three pages before we switch over to Clary and Jace shopping for weapons.

Inside the shop were blades displayed in deadly fans of gold and steel and silver.

Do we really have to go over all the reasons that gold is not a sturdy material again?  Even if it’s just gilt, why bother, that’ll come off real quick.

Clary reached for the rapier, but Jace, having leaned the naginata against the wall, shook his head at her. “That claymore would be taller than you. Not that that’s hard.”

…

… …

Book, do you realize “rapier” and “claymore” are two vastly different things?  One is small and thin and has no (or little) sharp edge because it’s made for thrusting.  The other is honkin’huge and might as well be a bludgeoning tool. 

They spend a while talking about special swords, and then it turns out the shop owner has a “family” blade that was made for the Morgensterns.  We’ve gone five books so far with the only special sword being the angel sword, and now all of a sudden everyone and their aunt has an heirloom weapon.  Making it only that much more obvious that the entire idea was made up between books and shoved in unceremoniously. 

This is why outlines are important, people.  Outline your whole series so you don’t end up with random last minute ass-pulls in the final book.  Either that or just admit that every brilliant idea that flits into your head can’t fit in one work, and save it for a different story.

The shop owner gives her the sword for free.  Because of course.

Despite the steel and precious metals in the sword’s construction, it felt as light as a feather in her hand. She raised it up, the black stars along the blade winking at her, a light like fire running, sparking along the steel.

And then they get the news about the London Institute as well, making the previous scene with Emma completely and utterly pointless.  We find out that they survived because of some vague protection something that no one actually knows anything about.  Clary starts freaking out because “her family” is doing such bad things.

Jace tries to make her feel better by saying that her last name means “Morning Star” and that’s pretty snazzy, right?

“The morning star isn’t a star,” Clary said grumpily. “It’s a planet. I learned that in astronomy class.”

“Mundane education is regrettably prosaic,” said Jace.

You know what, this is why you people are still using candles and horses.  You think things that actually exist aren’t TOTALLY FRIKKIN AWESOME just because you’d have to actually make up some NEW poetry to go along with it.  I mean, the fact that there’s a PLANET that rises before the sun on our horizon isn’t exactly dull, but because it doesn’t fit the pretty words you’ve already got, you’re going to be all “psh, laaaaaame”?  Grow up and join the 9^th century. 

Back with Simon.  Raphael has snuck into his cage and wants to make a deal to get rid of Maureen together.

She was made insane by her Turning

What?  Just a couple chapters ago you said she went insane from demon mind muckage!  Get it together, book, this is embarrassing even for you.

Raph’s plan is to get him out of the cage and off to Alicante before anyone notices he’s gone, since he’ll be safe there and also can tell the Shadowhunters that Maureen has been breaking all the laws by letting the vampires kill willy-nilly. 

Man, they Shadowhunters still haven’t done anything about that?  We knew about it back in CoLS.  These people are really shitty paranormal police.  Especially since they apparently forgot all about it and need to be convinced again.

Simon doesn’t like it, because then all the vampires will know he’s a snitch and try extra extra hard to kill him, but he’s not got a whole lot of choice in the matter, so he agrees.

Back to Clary and Jace.  They go to the main hall to do some superstitious little ceremony blessing her sword (which…is actually sort of cute, like those statues that everyone rubs for good luck sort of superstitious), and then Jace starts going off on a tangent about how he’s soooooooooo dark and evil and shit now.

You know what.  I’ve got it.  I know why Jace’s angst bugs me and Emma’s doesn’t.  Emma’s feelings come from within herself.  She feels bad about her jealousy, but also, she actually feels jealous.  She’s allowed to have weak moments before she cries about being weak.  Jace’s angst is purely in dialogue.  He’s throwing a hissy fit about how he must secretly be evil or some shit, but what has he really done that’s so evil?  You know, in the times that he wasn’t possessed. 

Why do you think I could so easily think of ways to break and destroy, but I now can’t think of any way to fix it?

Because, really, this is about the best stab we’ve got, and that’s totally fucking normal.  Attacking is always easier than defending.  That’s Art of War 101.

Suddenly a city-wide alarm goes off calling everyone to “the Guard.”  (Even the Shadowhunters Wiki isn’t sure what that is, though it’s been mentioned several times.   Some sort of meeting hall?)  When they get there, they find out that the Iron Sisters are under attack and need reinforcements.

Robert is there, and he won’t let Clary and Jace join in.

“You’re not. You’re not letting people whose relatives were taken in the attacks go through. You’re not telling them the Endarkened can be saved.”

Robert gave her a grim look. “We don’t know that they can’t be.”

 “We know,” Clary said. “They can’t be saved!

And you know this from all that extensive testing and rigorous research you did into the matter?

I mean, I agree, don’t send in emotionally invested people.  That’s a disaster waiting to happen.  But the rest continues to be groundless conjecture.

But Robert won’t listen to reason-mixed-with-unreason and considers the possibility of a trap to be too wild to contemplate.  So, while he’s not looking, Clary and Jace sneak off to the fight anyway.