City of Ashes

City of Ashes
American cover for City of Ashes.
Author(s)	Cassandra Clare
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	The Mortal Instruments Series
Genre(s)	Young adult
Publisher	Margaret K. McElderry
Publication date	March 25, 2008
Media type	Print (Hardback
Pages	464 pages
ISBN	ISBN 1416914293
Preceded by	City of Bones
Followed by	City of Glass

City of Ashes is the second installment in The Mortal Instruments series, a young adult urban fantasy series set in New York written by Cassandra Clare. The first four books of the series have been published, with two left. The first book City of Bones was originally published in the USA in hardcover on March 25, 2008.^[1]

Plot

Taking place immediately after City of Bones, Clary Fray wishes that her life will go back to normal.^[2] But after learning that she is a Shadowhunter and part of a new world she never imagined existed, everything has changed. Her father is not dead, but is the fearsome Valentine, who means to slay all Downworlders to cleanse the Earth, her mother, who has kept this world hidden from her is in a coma, and the boy she has fallen in love with, Jace, has just been revealed as her brother, shocking them both.

The story starts with Valentine exerting his control over a Greater Demon through the use of the Mortal Cup, foreshadowing the demon battles to come. Then it jumps to Clary, who is watching a vampire movie with her best friend Simon, who freaks out a bit. When she goes to comfort him, he kisses her, and she’s unsure what to do, as she only loves him as a friend.

In the meantime, Isabelle and Alec Lightwood’s parents return from Alicante, the Shadowhunter city, and their mother, Maryse, speaks to Jace, who she feels she can no longer trust. She believes him to be in league with his father, Valentine, now that it has been revealed that Jace is his son. Jace leaves and goes to a werewolf bar to pick a fight, and meets a young werewolf named Maia along with other displeased members of Luke’s pack. He provokes a fight by refusing to investigate the death of a werechild slain in the alley nearby, despite being a Shadowhunter and bound by Clave law. Luke walks in in time to stop the violence and returns Jace to the institute. When they arrive, Maryse tells him that she was trying to send him away to protect him from the Inquisitor of the Clave, who is coming to make sure Jace is not a spy. He mouths off to the Inquisitor, who punishes him by locking him in the Silent City for the night.

During his imprisonment, Jace begins to hear screams and finds that Valentine has sent a fear demon in and killed the Silent Brothers to get the Soul Sword, the second of the three Mortal Instruments. An alarm goes out to the Institute, but the adult Shadowhunters have been distracted by the death of a Faerie child and are not there to hear it, so Isabelle, Alec and Clary answer it and head to the Silent City, knowing that Jace is there. They find everyone dead inside but Jace, and Clary, in a rush to get him out, does some sort of opening rune to unlock the prison cell. When they return to the surface, they find the adult Shadowhunters waiting for them. The Inquisitor points out that the Soul Sword is what was to be used against Jace the next day to prove if he was telling the truth about not being a spy for Valentine, and that his father has protected him by stealing it.

Magnus Bane, the Head Warlock of New York, offers to keep Jace under lock and key for the Clave, and the Inquisitor, out of options, reluctantly agrees. The four teens figure out that Valentine hopes to turn the Soul Sword into a demon weapon rather than an angel weapon, which is done by heating it four times and cooling it each time in the blood of a different Downworlder child’s blood: vampire, werewolf, warlock and faerie. In the hopes that the faeries will join them in the fight against Valentine, Clary, Jace, Isabelle and Simon enter the The Faerie Realm to speak to the Queen. Clary is tricked into drinking faerie food, and is forced to stay unless she “gets the kiss [she] most desires.” Simon offers to kiss her, but is devastated when the Queen states that his is not the kiss Clary most desires. Jace kisses her, because they both still have feelings for one another despite having found out they are brother and sister, and she is free to go. After they escape the Faerie Realm, Simon storms off, leaving Jace and Clary to fight about their feelings despite being siblings.

The vampire Raphael then shows up with a dying Simon, explaining that he had been drawn to the vampires after biting Raphael while a rat in City of Bones, and that he would die and be reborn as a vampire. Clary insists upon being there for the transformation.

Later, Luke finds Maia outside his door after being attacked by demons. He is injured as well, and Clary, Simon and Jace fight off the demons, but not before Jace secretly pumps one of them for information about Valentine’s whereabouts. Jace then flies off to find Valentine, who is hiding out on a boat in the river. He has the opportunity to kill him, but can’t. Valentine asks Jace to join him and promises that none of his loved ones will be harmed if he does.

The next morning, the Inquisitor shows up and imprisons Jace again, having discovered he visited Valentine the previous night. She tells him she is planning on trading him for the Mortal Instruments, but Jace tells her that Valentine doesn’t care about him enough to make the trade. She doesn’t believe him and leaves. Alec helps Jace escape by suggesting he jump up into the rafters, an impossible feat for a normal human, but Jace manages it and goes to help Clary, who has discovered that both Maia and Simon have been kidnapped by Valentine for their blood.

In the meantime, Clary has discovered that with her drawing ability, she can create new runes. She creates a “fearless” ruin that allows Jace to defeat the fear demon his father has summoned. There is a great battle on the boat, during which the Inquisitor corners Jace and asks him a series of additional questions and pauses at the sight of a star shaped scar on Jace’s collar. As a demon comes at them, she sacrifices herself for him. Jace then finds Simon close to death and allows him to feed on his blood, saving his life, but the battle continues to go badly for the Shadowhunters until Clary draws a new rune and destroys the boat and the demons on board, ending the fight.

Thanks to Jace’s blood, Simon is now a Daylighter, a vampire who had withstand the sun. Clary finds she doesn’t care that she and Jace are siblings and wants to tell him she loves him, but he speaks first and promises not to love her more than a brother would, thinking that’s what she wants. Clary’s mother is still in a coma, but a silver-haired woman stops her on the way to the hospital and tells her she knows how to wake Jocelyn.

Cover

Clary Fray is on the original cover.

References

1. ^ http://cassandraclare.com/cms/home
2. ^ http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?detail=aboutProduct&sku=1416914293&id=57092805#aboutProduct

See also

Novels portal

• The Official Mortal Instruments Website
• Cassandra Clare's Official Website
• Review of The Mortal Instruments Series