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before. It’s Clary’s Fearless rune that enables Jace to withstand the Greater Demon Agramon’s fear attack when Valentine unleashes him in
City of Ashes
. Valentine used Agramon to murder a Silent City’s worth of Silent Brothers, but Jace can’t be undone by his worst fear, thanks to the strength Clary has drawn onto his skin.
    When Valentine’s demon army is busy making short work of the Shadowhunters on board Valentine’s Ship of Evil (note: not its actual name), Clary is the one who demolishes her father’s plans by dismantling the entire ship with her superpowered Rune of Opening. Nuts, bolts, walls, floors, everything falls apart—as does Valentine’s victory. Clary can’t beat him in combat, so she ends the battle by destroying his battleground instead.
    And when the Clave is about to surrender to Valentine’s demands, because they’re certain they can’t win against “every demon the Mortal Sword can summon” (
City of Glass
), Clary is the one who insists that the fight isn’t over yet. She brings the Shadowhunters and Downworlders together by creating a rune that even Downworlders can wear: an Alliance rune that allows pairs of Shadowhunters and Downworlders to fight together and to draw on each other’s strengths. And, by insisting they team up—“if you don’t fight beside them, the runes won’t work” (
City of Glass
)—Clary is creating not just a temporary magical alliance but, potentially, a lasting one. She’s helping to break down thewalls of misunderstanding and fear that have kept the Shadowhunters and Downworlders from being true allies.
    The bonding of Shadowhunters and Downworlders is a development that Valentine never could have foreseen—because, aside from it being unlikely, prior to Clary’s Alliance rune, it simply wasn’t possible. And the Alliance rune is an especially apt way to challenge Valentine, because he has been bitterly jealous of the Downworlders’ powers for years. He went so far as to imprison Downworlder “specimens” in an underground lab, where he experimented on and tortured them in an attempt to learn their secrets. When Valentine similarly imprisoned the angel Ithuriel, initially it was to get answers to these questions: “Why should their powers be greater than ours? Why can’t we share in what they have?” (
City of Glass
)
    Valentine hated that Downworlders possessed powers Shadowhunters lacked, but it never occurred to him to try to share the Downworlders’ powers peacefully, in a way that would benefit both groups. His selfishness and cruelty blinded him to that possibility, whereas Clary’s open mind allowed her to accomplish what her father never could.
    In the end, when all seems lost—when Valentine stands at the edge of Lake Lyn with the Mortal Cup and Mortal Sword in hand; Jace lies dead on the ground; and Clary is devastated and hindered by runes that prevent her from speaking, separating her bound wrists, or walking—she grips a stele in her bound hands and, with a few swipes, draws over one of the runes Valentine has written to contain and control the angel Raziel. It is the rune symbolizing Valentine’s name, and Clary uses the last of her strength to write her own name over it.
    That single small rune is all she can manage, but it is enough. It makes her the master of the circle Valentine has drawn, which allows
her
to compel Raziel—while also stripping that power from Valentine, who picked the wrong day to incite an angel’s holy wrath.
    Clary has fought by using her art and imagination every step of the way. It’s as if this battle against Valentine is her masterpiece, and she’s signing her name to all of it. Her signature: the final mark you put on a piece of art—because she’s given it all she has, and it’s done. This fight with Valentine—it’s over.
    With one