Clary and Jace wake up to find that the big council meeting is abou to start, and also all the Downworlders are mysteriously missing, including Clary’s mother.

They find this out by following Jia around and saying “And then?  And then?  And then?” while she doles out information with a teaspoon.  Never actually hesitating when she say something, but apparently only willing to answer with one factoid at a time.  Because…padding.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Clary said. “I can tell by your expression that there’s more.”

Well I’m glad you can tell, because all we got in the text is ‘Jia said.’  There is nothing about this woman’s speech or manner that indicates she’s withholding something.  It’s more like she just continually forgets to finish her story.

When they get to the council room they find everyone in an uproar because Jonathan apparently painted Latin threats in angel blood on the floor.

Her memory sparking, Clary turned to Jace. “Brother Zachariah—I never got a chance to ask you if you knew whether he was all right?”

Honestly, this book is so random.  Page count not long enough?  Um…just have them talk about…you know, something…Oh!  Zach!  Yeah, haven’t mentioned him in a while.

before Clary could ask him what he meant, she heard someone call her name.

Wow, that was such a useful aside.

They meet up with Isabelle and Alec and talk, of course. 

“He’s telling us he has power,” Clary said. “Power none of us even begin to understand.”

…graffiti is actually on the lower end of messages that one could send.  It can be used to great effect to unsettle people or for propaganda purposes, but really, it’s mostly used in low-level, anonymous ways (at least when done in a military light) for the purpose of spreading awareness or causing generalized unrest.  It’s not considered a sign of an individual’s power.  Daring, maybe.  Cunning, in the right circumstances.  But brute-strength power, as they suggest here?  If you want to express power, you’ve got to do something that actually takes a lot of power to accomplish, and sneaking into a place just takes sneakiness.

But don’t no one tell this book; they’re all aghast that Jonathan can…go places and paint.

She thought of the way he’d appeared in her room and then disappeared. Of the way the ground had opened under his feet at the Citadel, as if the earth were welcoming him in, hiding him from the threat of the world above.

See, now that’s more like it.

“It happened in the night, in between one watch of guards and another.”

Add ‘basic guard rotation scheduling’ to the list of things these people can’t do.

The meeting finally starts, and it’s basically several pages of people angrily repeating “we don’t know what’s going on.”  Thankfully, a Bad Guy spy jumps out of his guard disguise to hold Jia at knifepoint.  He spends far too long going through faux-poetic rhetoric before finally getting to the point, which is that Jonathan offers to trade the missing Downworlder representatives for Clary and Jace.

And when your Downworld allies learn that you have sacrificed their representatives because you would not give up your own, they will turn on you. They will join with us, and you will find yourselves fighting not just he who holds the Infernal Cup, but all of Downworld.”

…you know, unless no one tells them, since you conveniently removed all Downworlder representatives from the equation.

Or, you know, unless they blame you for doing the actual killing.  “You kidnapped our friends and brutally murdered them!  Let’s side with you!  Yay, murder for all!”

I can see them turning anti-Shadowhunter (again) for that, but siding with Jonathan?  Why?

“You have his word on the Angel

Isn’t this the same guy who keeps murdering angels?  I don’t think that has too much weight anymore.

He then sweetens the pot by saying if they strike a deal, Jonathan won’t kill anyone who stays in Idris or voluntarily turns dark.

Clary and Jace almost voluntarily go, but then the rest of the Shadowhunters finally realize that they outnumber this jackass a couple hundred to one and decide to attack him.  That doesn’t work to well, since he just bursts into flames, shouts “you’ve got two days!”, and disappears.