Emma and Julian sit around in shock that Julian killed his own dad while all the evil bad guys fall over dead.  I’m still wondering how they had a moment of peace to even start doing that, but otherwise…I got nothing, it’s a pretty meatless little scene.

Over with Clary, Jonathan is still having the longest death scene in the history of overwrought long death scenes.  He’s got a damn hole in his chest, how is he managing to keep this all free of wheezing, coughing up blood, and other assorted messes?  He’s just…lying there…taking his time…being pretty.

After two more pages of blathering purple prose from this guy who was apparently evil 100% due to his demon blood and 0% to his upbrining, he finally kicks the bucket and we’re allowed to move on.  I have no cares at all, because that wasn’t a character I actually know.  At all.

Clary leaves that stranger’s corpse and goes to sit with her friends and they all talk about the plot.  There’s really no confusion or any holes that need to be filled in – it’s been a fairly open plot so far – but these guys feel the need to sit around and talk about everything they’ve already done anyway.  Which, to be fair, is a pretty human response, I just don’t want to read about it any more than I enjoy being part of those conversations in real life.

When they finally move on to talking about how they’re all stuck here, they manage to latch on to the idea that Magnus’s father can get them home, even though Magnus is staunchly against it.

Even though Magnus claims it’s a fate worse than death (and even though he’s the only person who can do this and the others aren’t exactly being forceful), it takes very little prompting before he finally summons his demon daddy.  Eh, anything to get us to the end of this sooner.

Magnus’s dad is Asmodeus, one of the “nine princes of hell.”  Did we ever get confirmation if Edom is “hell,” by the way?  Last I remember, it was one of many parallel universes, and yet any time demons show up they talk about the biblical idea of Heaven and Hell, including the idea of falling from heaven to hell, so…are these just alternate dimensions and ‘falling’ is just going through a portal?  The biblical stuff in this book stands out so awkwardly; there was no attempt at all to get it to mesh with the rest of the wroldbuilding.  Why even bother bringing it in at all if you’re just going to use it for a veneer? 

Oh, right, easy symbolism that you can co-opt to make yourself look important without any actual effort involved.  I forgot for a moment.  Silly me.

Asmodeus apparently feels the need to give us a Sunday School lesson as a way to introduce himself. 

“He’s also not telling you that all princes of Hell have a realm they rule; this is his.”

Okay, so Edom isn’t hell. …so what is?  Is hell more of an idea?  Is it, like, a confederacy of realms?

They ask if Asmodeus can send them back to their own world, and he demonstrates his ability by sending Luke and Jocelyn with a wave of his hand.  But, he says, sending the rest will require a price.  His price is that he wants Magnus, because apparently he’s like a little energizer bunny and killing him will repower his city, or something.

Really unclear on what this “power” does or why Edom needs it, since apparently it was a burned out lump before Jonathan ever got there…  Really, they just keep repeating “power” as if that actually explains anything.

Well, in true YA fashion, all the kids decide that the death of their buddy is the worst thing EVAR and won’t allow it.  Then again, the stakes are pretty low in this case, comparatively speaking.  Carry on.

This goes on for several pages before we find out Asmodeus wants his immortality, not necessarily to cut his head off or anything so messy, but on the other hand having hundreds of years catch up to you at once tends to be fatal, so same result anyway.

There is much mushiness as Alec is still insisting that Magnus not die, even though everyone’s going to die anyway if they stay put.  As has been pointed out before, there’s nothing to eat in this world.  The mush goes on for many pages.  It’s honestly pretty bland, but it just won’t stop.

Until, at last, Simon points out that he’s also immortal, and he offers up his immortality instead.  Asmodeus says he’ll take the deal and even return Simon to life (since he’s technically a corpse and all) so long as he gets all of Simon’s memories related to Clary et all.  Apparently demons eat those things.  Who knew?

For some reason everyone is up arms about that too.  God, there’s no pleasing you kids, is there?

Why is this taking so long?  They’re droning on and on about it.  Tip to all you readers out there: emotional moments are best when in concentrated form.  Strong feelz take a lot of energy out of a person, if it drags on we’re just going to get tired.  And that’s if we cared in the first place.

“You’re talking about who Simon is,” said Clary. “You’re talking about taking him away from us forever.”

No, just who he’s been for the past year or so.  He’d be back to City of Bones Simon, which isn’t that different from current Simon, and if he learned all this stuff once I’m pretty sure he can do the same again.

Oh my god, they are still debating all of this.  Whyyyyyyyyyy?

On and on and on and on and

On

And

On and on

And

On and

On and on and on

And on.

Seriously, the whole rest of the chapter is spent on this.  We spend more time on Simons God Damned Memories than we did on Jordan’s entire death fall-out.