A list of all the things that get described to us before we ever find out about any fighting, much less if there’s any fighting:

• Volcanic plain
• Mountains
• Snow
• Rocks
• Moss
• Moon
• Night sky
• Clary’s hair

FFS, writers, do not bog down your action with description.  It slows the pace and murders the tension of your scene.

The portal closed right behind Jace and Clary for absolutely no reason at all, conveniently preventing anyone from following them and dragging their asses back to Idris.

Fuck, and even after they finally start heading towards the fighting there’s more description.  Guess what, it’s all about the scenery.  This far into the chapter, all I really know is that rocks exist and the building is snazzy.  Is anyone attacking it?  Defending it?  Is it damaged?  WHO THE FUCK KNOWS NOT ME.

We finally get some talk about the evil hunters.  They…exist.  Where?  What are they doing?  Fuck all if I know.  Then Clary and Jace spend a while standing around and talking about the Iron Sisters, spouting off fun exposition.

A scream cut the night like a knife. Jace started forward before realizing the scream was coming from behind them. Jace whirled to see a man in worn gear go down with the blade of a Dark Shadowhunter in his chest.

Did you know there was a fight going on?  I didn’t know there was a fight going on.  I knew there were people standing around and “feeling” ominous, but since the description focused SOLELY on what everyone is wearing and what vibes their emanating, I figured they were just standing around with their thumbs up their asses.  Who knows, maybe this knife guy is an evil ninja or something. 

Another woman comes forward to try and talk to Evil Ninja Guy, and for all I know EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THIS BATTLE is just watching this family drama unfold like a fucking play.  I am so simultaneously bored and confused right now.

It turns out this whole attack is a trap, and there’s more evil hunters waiting to ambush the shadowhunters.  Fuck, they probably could have done without, it seems everyone was just standing around waiting to die anyway.

Finally, a madcap battle ensues, and Clary tries to fight her way through it to a wall so she can draw a portal there.  (What happens if she draws it on a rock? Or the ground?  We had all that description before to explain to us that…the ground exists.)

Instead of making it to a wall, Clary gets captured by Amatis!  Oh noes!  They then…stand around talking about the battle.  Well, Clary has the excuse of trying to stall, but I don’t know why Amatis is playing along.

“They did what they always do when there’s an attack outside Idris and a Conclave is not near. They sent through the Portal whoever arrived at the Gard first. Some of these warriors have never fought in a real battle before. Some of them have fought in too many. None of them are prepared

God, these people just get shittier and shittier every time we learn something new about them.  How did they not get wiped out long before Jonathan and his crew?

See, the army has what we call QRF teams, or Quick Reaction Force.  Other places have the same thing, but with different names, because it’s a very basic concept.  It’s just a group of people who are capable of rolling out quickly if an emergency occurs.  Maybe not necessarily geared up and chomping at the bit, but a team that is nearby, either doing nothing or doing nothing time sensitive, and trained in how to drop everything and run out the gate to face down an emergency.

That’s not even a uniquely military concept.  Firemen?  EMTs?  Pretty much the same thing.  So how, after untold thousands of years, did the Shadowhunters miss out on this and decide instead go with “ACK, FREAK OUT, JUST THROW BODIES THROUGH THE HOLE.”

As they’re standing around talking about fail!tactics, they notice that the tide of battle seems to be turning, all because one single person is just such a badass killing machine that they’re pretty much winning the war single handedly.

You know, “fight everyone by myself because I can” isn’t exactly what I’d call “master tactician.”  Just sayin.

While Amatis is distracted by that, Clary turns the tables and takes her prisoner instead.

Back at Idris, we see Isabelle and Alec showed up too late to go mad-dash through the Portal, too, so they’re stuck having family drama.  Isabelle basically just looses it and yells accusations at her father and screams in anger at everyone.  And…that’s it.  Nothing really objectionably, besides being utterly useless. 

Although, while I am enjoying Isabelle’s breakdown because it’s probably the most realistic thing in the book so far, I can’t help but notice that the only character to have an emotional spiral is a female…  It’s hard to complain about it, though, because it just means Isabelle is the only character who feels three dimensional at the moment. 

Back in Jace’s POV.  He’s slaughtering his way through the group, until he runs across Jonathan. They stand around and awkwardly talk for a while as…IDK, did the rest of the battle just automatically halt?  I mean, Jace was kicking ass all through it, but that doesn’t mean he was the only person fighting.  Except, I guess, it does.  Either that or the book just doesn’t fucking care, because as soon as Jace starts chitchatting there’s a “crowd” of people watching instead of doing anything else.  Heaven forbid anything happen outside the main characters.

Jonathan says he’s got Clary captive and threatens to hurt her if Jace does anything, so Jace surrenders. …but then Jonathan attacks him anyway?  Okay, sure, whatever, fuck it, sword fight now.  Who needs logic when you can just have pretty word pictures and call it a day?

“You don’t know either of us,” Jace gasped; he was breathing hard now, and knew he was fighting defensively

Hey, you know what would help with that?

NOT FUCKING CHIT CHATTING WHILE IN A DUEL.

Oh, Jonathan’s incest-rapey desires are still around, how fun.

That damn family sword gets more description every time it’s mentioned, which in a fight is a lot of times, and since Jonathan has supposedly had this sword the whole time and we’ve never had this level of attention paid to its damn decorations, it’s pretty fucking clear that this was pulled out of someone’s ass between books.

Also, yes, there’s stupid stars on the stupid sword, I’ve got it already.  Enough.

Finally at one point Jonathan gets the upper hand and stabs Jace.  Jace, instead of dying, promptly bursts into flame and Jonathan gets some magic blow-back from that.

Of course, Jace is still a bit stabbed, so he passes out from the pain.  When he comes to, the Iron Sisters are all standing around him and Jonathan.

“But the heavenly fire calls us, and we come. Move away from Jace Lightwood, Valentine’s son. Harm him again, and we destroy you.”

Um…if you’re capable of that, why didn’t you just do it already?

Jonathan, instead of leaving, decides to…start an earthquake.  Interesting plan.

Too bad we POV hop over to Alec.  He’s talking to Jia, trying to get her to open the portal again because he can feel something going on through his parabati magic with Jace.  Well, about time that stupid link finally did something.

Back to Clary and Amatis, who are chatting about whether or not Clary can kill, when the earthquake hits.  Okay, it’s less “earthquake” and more “2012-the-movie-style earthquake,” with giant chasms opening up and everything.  All the evil kids jump into the chasm.

Clary spots Jace and runs over to him.  His wound is bleeding fire instead of blood, and Brother Zach is there trying to heal it with magic.  Oh, sorry, runes, since “humans don’t do magic.”  Is that still a thing or has the series completely abandoned it?

Except flames flash up and burn Zach, and in the middle of the flames Clary randomly sees a rune.  I’m sure it’ll become important at the most convenient moment possible later.

While Zach is flailing around on fire elsewhere, Clary decides to draw a healing rune on Jace.  She draws it so hard that she passes out.  Which…is interesting, because I didn’t really get the impression that these runes drew their power from the people who create them.  That’s not really been a thing elsewhere in the books.  It always seems like people draw them and then they intrinsically have power.  Or that maybe it comes from the stele.  There’s basically never been any sort of effort conversion for the magic in these books, until Clary needs to conveniently pass out in order to show off how impressive that was.