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City of Fallen Angels

Author	Cassandra Clare
Language	English
Series	The Mortal Instruments
Genre	Young adult, fantasy, Urban fantasy
Publication place	United States
Pages	432 pp
Preceded by	City of Glass
Followed by	City of Lost Souls

City of Fallen Angels is the fourth book in the The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. The series was meant to end with City of Glass; it was announced in March 2010 that a fourth book would be added, with Cassandra Clare later saying that she views this as a "second trilogy" in the series. The book was released on April 5, 2011.

Plot

The book follows Simon's difficult transition into vampirism. Simon receives an offer from a vampire named Camille Belcourt who claims to have been usurped by Raphael. She says that if Simon joins her side as the Daylighter, then he will finally earn his place in vampire society. After his meeting with Camille, he returns home worried about what his mother will think as she has been suspicious since he went to Idris (City of Glass) and did not return for almost two weeks. Although Magnus erased memories of his absence, she has been subconsciously suspicious about everything from his whereabouts to his friends, as opposed to before when she was less strict. As Simon tries to adjust to life as a vampire, he is attacked numerous times, and each time the Mark of Cain curse works ("And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold"), and the attackers are killed or flee in terror. Anyone who tries to attack him quickly meets with a biblical "sevenfold" death. After coming home after just such an attack, his mother confronts him about the blood he had stored in his closet, and he is forced to tell her what he is. She believes that he is no longer her son and begins to pray. Desperately, he tells her it is all a bad dream, and she, surprisingly, believes him. Raphael tells him soon afterward that vampires have the power of persuasion. Knowing he cannot go back to his mother's house, he moves in with his band's new member, Kyle. When Jace comes to Simon's apartment, he meets Kyle, and realizes that Kyle is, in fact, a werewolf.

Meanwhile, Jace has been having dreams in which he murders Clary by stabbing her or choking her, which has led to stress between the two of them, leading Jace to avoid her and Clary to worry about him. Clary's mother, Jocelyn, is having difficulty adjusting to Jace as Clary's boyfriend because he reminds her so much of Valentine. Clary and her mother also discover that someone is trying to make more children like Jonathan, which again Jocelyn has trouble coming to terms with. Clary then goes to Simon's gig and finds that Jace went because he thought she would not be there. She then runs out into the rain, only to have Jace follow her. The couple then kiss. Meanwhile at the same gig, Simon runs off stage ill (mostly due to his lack of blood consumption). Maureen, a fourteen-year-old and the band's only fan, follows Simon and asks for his picture. Halfway through taking it, Simon bites her and drinks her blood, and is thankfully interrupted by Kyle. At the gig, after the incident with Maureen, Simon is confronted by Maia and Isabelle. They are furious at him, as he never told either of them that he was dating both of them. Halfway through the argument, Kyle shows up. Before he can say anything, Maia recognizes him. It turns out that Kyle is actually Jordan Kyle; Maia's ex-boyfriend who had turned her into a werewolf. Right away she attacks him, only to be stopped by Isabelle and Simon. The day after, they receive a message saying someone was holding Simon's girlfriend hostage, and he should go to save her. Calling up Clary, Isabelle and Maia, Simon determines it is a joke, only to find it was actually Maureen, who would always claim to be Simon's girlfriend at gigs, who had been kidnapped and killed when Simon did not show up to save her.

Clary then goes to the church of Talto, where she finds an altar of the book of the occult depicting the process of creating demon babies, like Jonathan was. Clary is observed by gray-hooded figures. Clary vows to leave but finds herself battling a hydra demon. After some struggle upon Clary marking her athame, she manages to maim the hydra demon, and Isabelle comes to her rescue, but Clary is injured in the process through the demon burns. In a bank, Simon assists the clave in Camille's capture by taking photos with his phone to alert the shadowhunters. Her subjates are thus killed, and she is escorted by the institute where she is guarded until her interrogation. Jace and Simon discuss the effects of the blessed metal on Camille when Isabelle meets them. Upon disclosing what happened at Talto in regards to Clary, Jace becomes extremely concerned. While he lets Clary be a shadowhunter, he still is protective of her and worries about her as he loves her, and she is not as experienced. He races off to visit Clary in her room, leaving Isabelle and Simon with each other. Jace and Clary shares an intimate moment in one of the spare rooms in the Institute, where Clary is healing from the scars she had gotten when fighting a Hydra demon at the Church of Talto. On the point of taking the next step in their relationship, Jace almost injures Clary with a knife. Disturbed by his recent spate of nightmares, Jace breaks down and admits that he has been having nightmares and that this was the reason he was avoiding Clary. Clary then offers to help Jace by taking him to the Silent City. There, the Silent Brothers tell them that the nightmares Jace has been having are due to his vulnerability to demonic influence, which occurred after Jace was resurrected by the Angel Raziel after Valentine had stabbed him. All Shadowhunters are subjected to a ritual to protect them as infants and when Jace resurrected, it was like he had been reborn without the protection. The Brothers decide to perform the ritual again to give him the protection he lacks and Jace agrees to stay in one of the cells of the Silent City until the ritual can be performed. Clary wants to stay with Jace, but the Silent Brothers say that she will be a distraction. Jace tells Clary that he will get better for her and Clary promises to see him very soon. Clary and Jace say their goodbyes and Clary leaves for the night. In his cell, Jace has a dream that he is back is in Idris while realizing it's still a dream. Max appears to him and persuades him that the dreams are telling him that he is actually hurting Clary and that his father (not Valentine) is worried about him. He cuts his arms after Max convinces him that he will destroy the rotten part. With his blood, Max (whom is actually the demon Lilith in disguise) draws a rune on his chest which puts him under Lilith's influence.

Jocelyn and Luke, now engaged, attend an engagement party organized by Luke's werewolf pack, in which Simon disappears. Clary also disappears after being kidnapped by Jace. He has lied to Clary about leaving the Silent Brothers early (though he does not lie about how he wants to be bound to her as the possession has not affected his feelings for her). Jace tells Clary about a rune that binds them to one another forever. Clary accepts and hands him her stele. He begins to draw a rune, but Clary finds out too late that this is not the rune he told her about as she begins to fall unconscious, with Jace catching her and carrying her away. Simon is led away from the party by Maureen, now a vampire, and is taken to Lilith, who has been alive since the beginning of time. She turned up at one of Simon's band's gigs and introduced herself as a promoter called Satrina (one of 17 names given to Lilith). She explains that she needs him to resurrect Sebastian from the dead. When he tells her he cannot bring the dead back to life, she tells him that he has had that power since he became a Daylighter. In order to persuade him to resurrect Jonathan (Sebastian), she possesses Jace and orders him to kidnap Clary. Jace brings Clary to Lilith and she orders him to kill her if Simon does not resurrect Jonathan (Sebastian). Simon reluctantly bites him and drains some of his blood; being poisoned in the process due to Sebastian's demon blood.

Isabelle, Alec, Maia, and Jordan follow Simon using a business card they found in his wallet in order to find him. When they get to the building, they look for him on every floor. Instead they find the place that Lilith used as her nursery, with all the children dead. Everyone of them had clawed hands and black eyes, like the one Clary and her mother saw at the hospital. The babies were the outcome of Lilith trying to make half-demon children like Sebastian. While going through the room, Isabelle notices a being in the corner and attacks it, but it turns out to be a mother of one of the babies who then explains to them what was happened.

Meanwhile, Clary tricks Jace by saying she does not wish to watch and he embraces her (as the possession has not affected his feelings for her, including his concern for her well-being, as seen when he later asks if she is cold). She then grabs Jace's knife and cuts the rune that Lilith is using to possess him on his chest, causing Jace to be freed from Lilith's control. (She learned from Luke earlier in the novel that if a rune is disfigured in any way, it will lose its power.) Jace tells Clary to run away, and believes that she did, but then Lilith reveals that Clary stayed and starts torturing her with a whip. The third time that she goes to hit Clary, Simon kills Lilith by throwing himself in between Lilith and Clary. The Mark of Cain, of course, causing Lilith to be destroyed. The Clave appears at the scene, and Isabelle tells them what happened, while Jace is waiting for them upstairs. Up on the roof, Jace is ashamed of his actions, while Clary tells him that she loves him no matter what happens, and the two kiss. She then goes down to the lobby to meet her mother, Luke, Simon, Maia, Alec, Magnus and Isabelle.

It concludes with Jace's rune healing, hearing Sebastian's voice in his head, and with Sebastian/Jonathan now in control of Jace, Jace is forced to finish the awakening ritual on Sebastian, who is now wholly and fully alive.

Reception

The Manila Bulletin gave a mixed review, writing that, "when it departs from Simon's story is when it is at its most weakest".

References

Category:2010s fantasy novels Category:American fantasy novels