Hey, guess what, apparently Emma is going to be a pretty major character.  This chapter kicks off with her, too.

Sucks for people who were more interested in the Clary/Jace crowd.  Since, you know, they spent money expecting those people and got this kid instead.

Emma wakes up in Idris to find Helen (Julian’s sister and one half of the token lesbian couple from City of Glass) watching over her.  Helen explains everything that happened, and also that her parents are dead.

Helen’s voice trailed off into a meaningless string of words, words such as “positive identification” and “scars and markings on the bodies” and “no evidence recovered.” Things like “in the water for hours” and “no way to transport the corpses” and “given all the proper funeral rites, burned on the beach as they had both requested, you understand—”

Good fucking god, if you’re going to include that much detail, why bother with the whole ‘trailed off’ bullshit?

Emma screamed. It was a scream with no words at first, rising higher and higher, a scream that tore her throat and brought the taste of metal into her mouth. It was a scream of loss so immense there was no speech for it. It was the wordless cry of having the sky over your head, the air in your lungs, ripped away from you forever.

It is amazing how this book can manage to make dead parents melodramatic.  Chill the fuck out, book.  At this point you’re just trying to sound pretty, which actually detracts from the emotional pain we should be focused on.

So then Jules comes in and…hands her her sword.  Because, you know, that’s totally something you want to give to a person who is currently, literally flailing around in agony.  And, indeed, she cuts herself on it, and the book manages to paint that as even more “high school angst poetry” than the above passage about screaming.

Switch over to Simon, who is hanging out with all the Shadowhunters as they line up to Portal over to Idris.

He talks to Clary about how much it sucks that they’re separating and also everyone they know is in danger.  *whew* gosh, that dragged on for, like, a whole page.  Time to get back to squishy romance talk!  Apparently Simon and Isabelle have…I don’t even know, manufactured bullshit that came out nowhere.  Weren’t they fine in the last book?

“I see that even as the world plunges into darkness and peril, you two stand around discussing your love lives. Teenagers.”

HI, MAGNUS!  Welcome to the party.  Bring your beautiful self on in here.

Oh.  Oh, you’re going to wander off and talk to Alec and leave us with these two?  *sigh*, if you must.

Simon still has the telepathic fairy ring from last book, even though there’s only one now and therefore nothing for it to talk to.  It was brought up completely and utterly out of the blue, then dropped a moment later, so I’m sure that won’t be important.  *wink wink nudge nudge*

Clary leaves, Isabelle comes on and then–

Fuck you, reader, this is a Cassandra Clare book.  You don’t get to read a full scene!  Instead let’s go check in with Alec and Magnus.

“I—” Magnus broke off and looked away, shaking his head. “Alec. I have forgiven you.”

“It doesn’t seem like it. You seem angry.”

When Magnus looked back at him, it was with a gentler expression. “I’m worried about you,” he said. “The attacks on the Institutes. I just heard.”

…wait, that’s it?  Really?

Oh, no, of course not, silly me.  We’ve got several more pages on this subject to go through.  It’s none of it anything new.

“I told you,” Magnus said softly, “on our first date that you would have to take me as I came, no questions—”

Alec waved that away. “That’s not a fair thing to ask, and you know—you knew—I didn’t understand enough about love then to understand that. You act like you’re the wronged party, but you had a hand in this, Magnus.”

Zing, Alec scores a direct hit!

I guess one thing to be said about these books’ “overwhelming fire” approach: fire off a large enough barrage of shots, and something has to stick eventually.  There are some genuinely good bits in this series.  It’s just such a mess trying to find them.

They end with absolutely nothing resolved, and then we switch back to Izzy and Simon.  Wow, wasn’t that such a productive aside?

Not that coming back is any more productive.  They get mushy and make out in a corner and Izzy gives him her necklace, only to have Simon ask if they’re dating at the end of it.  Of course there’s no answer.  We’ve still got, like, 700 pages left to fill, and fuck if we’re going to fill it with plot, right?