Today we start by following Emma, who is traveling with the group of other kids to the Guard, where hopefully they’ll be safe during the fight.

Helen, who was carrying a witchlight in one hand and her crossbow in the other

I think the weirdest thing about their insistence on arcane weapons is that…they’re literally just arcane weapons.  These aren’t magic arrows, or tipped with adamantas (so far as we know) or really anything besides “pointy thing that makes a hole when you throw it really hard.”  So there is literally no reason not to upgrade to something that doesn’t take two hands to manage.  Seriously, crossbows are bulky.  All this line says is “Helen gonna be in deep shit if anything takes her by surprise.”

Weirdly, this does remind me of Harry Potter fanfic.  Ever notice how much of that likes to ignore magic, too?

Before they get to their safe place, demons break through the city walls.  Didn’t the third book say there were wards that are supposed to stop that?  What ever happened to that?  Anyway, a fairy in armor comes up behind them.

Helen raised her right arm and shot her crossbow directly at him.

I tried to find one-handed crossbows, since the only ones I’ve seen are incredibly hard to manage with one hand.  All I found were little novelty things without a lot of pull weight (so, short range and not a lot of stopping power) and “weapons” from video games.  The ‘real’ ones I found were suggested for use hunting rodents.  In other words, not gonna stop a person, much less a demon.

In further other words, why not just have a handgun?

Well, it turns out that with a little help from some impromptu iron nails that have been hammered around everywhere, Helen’s little squirrel-annihilator was enough to take out the enemy anyway.

The next fairy is taken out with…falling scissors.  Really, there’s scissors hung on a string for some odd reason and Emma breaks it to drop them.  I don’t think that gravity is going to generate enough force to punch through all that armor they’re wearing…

A bunch of evil shadowhunters show up, but Brother Zachariah shows up to take them out with his…spinning flashy knives of doom.

Sigh.

Switch over to Magnus and Luke as they watch all the chaos outside, then Alec bursts into the room.  And…wow, that was a short and useless scene, wasn’t it?

Because now we’re back with Emma.  Aren’t you so glad we took a sidetrack for that?

As they forged their way farther into the center of the city, the crowd thickened: more Nephilim, more Endarkened, more faerie warriors

So the bad guys are invading from the outside, but the middle of the city has the highest concentration?  Wow, physics really got fucked up in this world, didn’t it?

They start hacking a path through the crowded battle to get to… Sigh, they’re doing this to get somewhere safe and out of the way of the battle, since there’s literally toddlers in their party.  If the center of the town is no longer actually safe, why are you still trying to get there?  Wouldn’t turning around and hiding in a basement somewhere make more sense?

They finally make it inside in one piece, because fuck it who cares about logic.

Back with Clary, who is still aghast to discover that Jonathan hasn’t given up his “you’re mine!” ways.  They bicker for a bit about his abysmal definition of love and how messed up he is, just in case you didn’t catch that the first 73 times we went over it.

Jonathan claims she’ll have to stay with him, because there’s not going to be anything left back in the real world, and to prove it he shows her images of the battle.  After he’s won there, he plans to take over all the world and burn it to a cinder, but he’ll stop if Clary agrees to stay with him.

That’s his grand plan.

This whole book is motivated by someone trying to get Clary’s affections.

Because, you know, she’s just so awesome and all.

Back with the prisoners.  They free Magnus and get ready to flee, but Luke won’t leave without Jocelyn.  But Magnus is too sick to run around with them, so Alec insists on staying with him while the others go to look around.

Naturally this all must include angsty romantic undertones, because heaven forbid that we forget Alec and Magnus are tots in love.

Then we spend a few pages with Emma so that we can…listen to the arrival of the Wild Hunt, but not actually get to see anything.  Wow, so thrilling.  I love reading about people…listening to stuff.

Luke and the others find Jocelyn.  That’s it.  That’s the whole scene.  Moving on.

Isn’t all this POV hopping fun?

Now we’re with Clary, and they see the Wild Hunt arrive through the magic window.  Well then why did we need that scene with Emma’s group?  Jeeze, this book could be a third shorter just by removing all the stuff that is pure repetition.

Jonathan says she should trust he’ll really do as he says, since it would be immediately obvious if he were to…not call off the attack.

Once the borders are closed, the Endarkened in your world will be weakened, cut off from me, their source.

Um…they were made with an adamantas cup made by an Iron Sister and full of demon blood.  You were not part of that process at all.  Why are they connected to you in the first place?

Also, I have a question.  Once that portal is closed off, what are you going to eat?  The whole world is dead, remember?

“[Conquering the living world] was beginning to bore me,” said Sebastian. “This is more interesting.

…this whole ‘twist’ continues to confuse me.  How is being already in power on a planet where literally nothing happens less boring than an active war?  I mean, I’m in favor of not fighting and all that, but still. 

After a lot more bantering about this (seriously, it gets more page time than Jocelyn and Luke being reunited), Clary finally goes to sit on the damn throne.

Oddly enough, for all Jonathan goes on about the reasons she can trust him to keep his word, he doesn’t seem to worry that she’ll run away as soon as he calls the cease-fire.