There’s one more chapter and an epilogue left.  Let’s see how long it takes me to get through them.

Today we start with putting the fairies on trial.  Oh, wait, sorry, first we start with a crapton of descriptions.

the Downworlders who also shared the table: Luke, representing the werewolves; a young woman named Lily, representing the vampires; and the very famous Magnus Bane, the representative for the warlocks.

You know, when we were dealing with shenanigans that revolved around New York and Clary/Jace, the fact that the creatures from New York were involved made plenty and fine sense.  But once we get to this level…why is Luke getting to represent all werewolves?  Or Lily representing all the vampires?  Maybe one of them gets to be overall just because someone has to, but all three of the lead creature reps just happen to be from the same place?

Have we even ever seen any vampires that weren’t from New York?  Are there any?

Is Luke in charge because he callously murdered ever other pack leader and called it necessary, too?

Someone named Kaelie stands up to be representative of the Seelie Court, but not the Unseelie Court, and protests that the conditions the council is trying to set would be ruinous.

Jia goes over those conditions for our convenience: the fairies have to take full responsibility for everything that happened in the war, pay for all damages and repairs, disband their armies, and accept that any fairy bearing  a weapon of any sort will be killed on sight.

Because, you know, these self-absorbed Shadowhunters think that sun doesn’t shine without their permission and their own affairs are so far above the affairs of man, and man could never hope to reach their level, so they never bothered to study human history.  Which explains why they’re basically trying to do the Treaty of Versailles all over again.  And we all know how well that worked out the first time.

Magnus stands up to cite Carthage and argues for leniency.  But no one listens to him, because one anecdote does not a history class make, and everyone is more interested in revenge than actual administrating.  Typical, considering what we know of their education is based mostly in weapons handling.  This does seem like the sort of verdict you’d get if your leaders know how to stab things really good, but not how to negotiate.  Anyway, the fairies are forced to take the deal anyway, and thus the foundations for the Great Fairy War Two Decades Hence are established.

We then move on from that to spend more time on the question of Helen Blackthorn than on the whole rest of the fairy race combined.  Because we all know where this book’s priorities lie.  Seems a bunch of people think Helen, being half-fairy, should be cast in with them instead of allowed to stay as a Shadowhunter.

“You can’t deny the faerie blood in her. You can’t deny she can lie.

Um…so can you?  They bring up the fact that Meliorn could lie and that did them harm, but only because people thought that he couldn’t.  With her heritage fully known, there’s no more threat there than there is from anyone else.

I’m not denying that people are prejudiced idiots and will latch on to any old excuse to cover their hatred, but why does no one else point this out?

After much banter on the question (while saying very little about it, oddly.  A shame, this could be a good chance for commentary, but not when all you’ve got are “nu-uh” “uh-huh” arguments from both sides) they decide to let Helen stay on just not stay with her family.  Then they argue about Mark, and for the sake of my sanity I really need to pretend like this is just one day in a long proceeding which the book decided to focus on, and not that all these people really are spending the majority of their time like this.

Because, really, the idea that this much of the proceedings after a war are dedicated to two kids who didn’t even do much just hurts me.

Also, are Helen and Mark the only half-fairies in the whole world?

Probably, since this book likes to completely forget about anything beyond the scope of her main cast.

If this was peace and victory, Emma thought, maybe war and fighting was better after all.

Oh, god, not this again.  Look, I get that this sucks, but for the love of all that is non-deadly, can we please stop with this bullshit?

IT WAS A WAR WITH A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO LITERALLY WANTED TO KILL EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF YOU AND THEN BURN THE EARTH TO A CINDER.  Do not take a war like that and then co-opt our modern reaction to stuff like Iraq to tack on the end of it.  Circumstances matter.  You can call the fallout horrible without saying “gosh, remember those homicidal maniacs who killed my best friend’s parents?  Those were the good old days…”

Cut to Clary and Jace spreading Jonathan’s ashes by a lake.  It’s…unobjectionable.  Like so much in the book, it’s only problem is being part of a long line of repetitive scenes.

Back to Julian and Emma.  They’re eavesdropping on Jia and Luke talking about things I don’t care about and am skipping because this chapter is so fucking long. Then they mention Emma will be brought to Idris to be cared for, at which point Emma bursts in to protest.  Even though everyone is actually perfectly happy to let Emma stay in LA, there’s a long argument about it anyway.  Uhg, this book.

Now Clary and Jace are taking a horse ride through the countryside.  Because…fuck it.

Sometimes he would slow the horse to point out the manor houses of the richer Shadowhunter families

Quick question: how to Shadowhunters get rich?  Is there a lot of money in slaying demons in secret?

They pause at the turnoff to the Herondale manor. 

Do…do Shadowhunter lines just always have single children?  Are there no distant Herondale relatives?  No one in his lineage had a sibling, who then went on to have kids, who would maybe want a house with their last name over the door?  Nothing about this whole “ancient family home” idea makes sense.  In the peerage, this only really works by ignoring the cousins.  But they still exist, and inherit if need be.

“The Consul told me that as long as I want to call myself Jace Lightwood, I’ve got no legal right to the Herondale properties.

So…even though this book has spent an inordinate amount of time obsessed with blood lineage, all of that now gets thrown out the window and they really base everything on names?

Granted, that would make adoptions a hell of a lot easier…

Jace decides he’s going to go ahead and be a Herondale after several pages of waxing poetical about it.

Now with Alec, who is musing about how his parents aren’t coming home at the same time as everyone else.

Alec would, technically, be running the Institute for that week. He was surprised to find that he was actually looking forward to it.

So…what does that even mean?  I think at one point we had other Shadowhunters there, but mostly not really, it was very unclear, so for all we know being “in charge” of the place means just him and Isabelle sitting around staring at the ceiling.  What do they even do when there’s a homicidal maniac on the lose?

Magnus shows up and they talk about their relationship.  Again.  They’re still tots in love, in case anyone was unclear on that point.  Magnus says that Alec was right about how he should share his past, and he gives Alec a book he wrote about some experiences.  Probably a tie in to the Bane Chronicles, but as I can’t be arsed to care about those, I can only assume.

They make up.  Is anyone surprised?

Clary arrives home and spies her mother and Luke on the couch.

Jocelyn was asleep beside him, curled up with a throw rug over her.

…did you run out of blankets?

She goes upstairs and sees Isabelle there.  They talk about the plot and about Simon.  There’s a flashback to several days past, when Clary used the town’s one working phone to try to call Simon.  (So…they mention that it was spelled to work around all the magic.  Was this spell not suitable to be used on cars and guns as well?  Did the spell include a service provider?  Are they hacking into some local provider?  Amazing how these rules for magic last right up until the book wants something else to happen.)

Apparently it’s against the law to tell a mundane about demons unless they are actually in danger.  A special exception was made for Simon the first time since he kind of stumbled on it without anyone willing that to happen.  I don’t see why that exception doesn’t still hold true.  It’s not like that exception was dependent on his memories, or like it can’t be made again.

They made smalltalk on the phone and it was clear that Simon didn’t remember anything about her.

The Simon who’s living in Brooklyn now, that’s Simon the way he used to be six months ago. And that’s not a terrible thing. He was wonderful. But he changed when you knew him: He got stronger, and he got hurt, and he was different.

Eh?  Seems pretty much the same to me. 

Mostly because all the claims of “difference” are bound up in the way he acted in response to his dangerous circumstance, but that’s a change in said circumstances, not in Simon himself.  His reactions to the Shadowhunter world didn’t change significantly from his first introduction to his last interaction.  Simon sitting at home doing homework is not different from Simon in Edom battling demons; only the world around him is. 

Now, he could have changed.  A different circumstance can produce change in a person.  I’m just saying that it didn’t happen in this series.  The Simon that we saw in CoHF is not all that different from CoB Simon, who chased Clary into a strange creepy church because he was concerned for her or shot out a skylight to defeat a demon.  If he was ever not the sort of person to do those things, we didn’t see it on the page.

Maia sat on the couch in the apartment—her apartment now. Being pack leader paid a small salary

From what income?

Mia mopes.  It’s less than a page long and the first we’ve seen of her in ages.  I guess without a boyfriend around (or at least the angst of his passing to draw on), the book lost interest in her.

We end the chapter with Emma and Julian, packing to head back to LA (um…what stuff do they have?) and going through the same drama they’ve been going through this whole book.  I continue to not be quite as annoyed when it comes from them as the rest of the cast.  Go figure.

There’s still an epilogue to go.  Good god, there’s still an epilogue… *sigh*