Excerpt: The Blasted Tree

“She’s alive,” Ashe said, and Clary could not help but notice the note of disapproval in her voice. “Likely stunned. Destroying a world would have that effect on you I imagine.”

Clary saw Ashe standing above her, the mage’s dark face highlighted by the flickering flames at her hands. Her black and fathomless eyes were narrowed, her brows down over them; there was soot on her face, even darker than her skin, and her hair—usually braided impeccably—was tangled and damp with something. Tollin’s round pale face appeared, followed by Sam’s muted brown.

They were in a stone room of some sort, but significantly more rustic than the library Clary had just been in what felt both like moments and lifetimes ago. She could hear Tollin breathing, as he always did, through his mouth, and the constant click-clack of Sam picking at her nails. She was nervous, of course.

That was to be expected, considering Clary had just destroyed the world.

“Where is everything?” asked Sam, her voice even more high-pitched than normal. “When you say she destroyed the world—”

“I quite mean it,” said Ashe.