City of Bones Chapter 10 Summary

City of Bones

• Welcome to Part Two, which is called "Easy is the Descent."
• Woo! Title-of-the-book shout-out. Maybe that's why this chapter is one of the longest in the book.
• Chapter 10 picks up right where Chapter 9 left off. Remember? Clary's mother was not in the Circle, but she was Valentine's wife. Quite the shocker for our heroine.
• Other members of the Circle include Jace's dad, Michael Wayland, Robert and Maryse Lightwood (Isabelle's and Alec's parents), and warlock daddy killers Blackwell and Pangborn.
• Any member who didn't abandon the Clave before the Uprising has been punished.
• That includes Hodge, who can never leave the Institute, and the Lightwoods, who can only return to Idris for short periods of time.
• They also talk a lot about Valentine and his motivations. Check out his character page for the demonic dirt.
• Jace ultimately decides that they need to lift the block on Clary's memory if they can hope to learn anything, and only the Silent Brothers can do it.
• Clary has to think about it. After all, this would involve allowing someone access to her mind, to see her most private memories, some of which she never even knew she had.
• When Jace is a little pushy to Clary, Simon tries to step in and defend her. It's a nice effort, but he fails miserably. He does succeed in getting escorted out of the Institute altogether, though.
• That night, Clary has a weird dream about dancing with Simon and Jace in the Glass City of Idris.
• The next day, Clary meets Brother Jeremiah of the Silent City. He lives up to his hometown's name. The dude does not talk. Ever. He prefers to communicate telepathically.
• He's downright dreamy, too, with his bald head, no eyes, and sewn-shut mouth. Rawr. Jace who?
• Brother Jeremiah can't read Clary's mind yet. The block is too strong, so Clary will have to travel to the Bone City and be analyzed by the entire Silent Brotherhood. Sounds like a hoot.
• They may travel to the Bone City in style—Brother Jeremiah has a carriage fit for a princess—but Clary isn't Cinderella and this isn't a princely ball. It's, not surprisingly, a graveyard.
• The motto of the Shadowhunters greets them as they descend into the crypt: "The descent into Hell is easy" (10.297). This just keeps getting sunnier!
• It gets darker and darker as they head deeper and deeper into what is now called the Silent City. Either the Silent City and the Bone City are one in the same, or the Silent City is separate and below it. We're not sure yet.
• One of the rooms they pass through is like a mausoleum made of dead Shadowhunters.
• As Brother Jeremiah says (well, he doesn't say anything, but you know what we mean), "Those who die in battle are burned, their ashes used to make the marble arches you see here. […] Even in death, the Clave serves the cause" (10.317).
• Finally they tromp through a long, torch-lined tunnel into a room with a huge table surrounded by numerous hooded Silent Brothers. We had thought there were just two or three, like the Jonas Brothers or, for you Shmoopers who've been around awhile, the Smothers Brothers. We were wrong. Numbers-wise, these guys are more like the Knights of the Round Table.
• Clary agrees to open up her mind before the silent council.
• It's not pleasant. At all.
• She sees a fast-paced rush of memories, a whole life-passing-before-her-eyes thing, ending with two words "burning into her eyes: MAGNUS BANE" (10.342).
• Um, who?
• After Magnus Bane, whoever that is, practically smacks her in the face, she swoons and cracks her elbow open on the marble table.
• Jace helps Clary up and heals her with his stele.
• He tries to lead Clary out of the Silent City by himself, hoping to sneak a peek at parts of it he hasn't seen, but Brother Jeremiah puts a stop to that and supervises their exit.
• They hail a cab back to the Institute.