“Demons and warlocks can’t help what they are,” Balogh said darkly. “Shadowhunters are held to a higher standard. The deaths of those three men sit squarely on the shoulders of Tobias Herondale. And he would have been punished in kind, had he ever been foolish enough to show his face again. He never did, but debts need repaying. A trial was held in absentia. He was judged guilty, and punishment was carried out.”

“But I thought you said he never came back?” Julie said.

“Indeed. So the punishment was carried out on his wife, in his stead.” 

“His pregnant wife?” Marisol said, looking like she was about to be sick.

“Sed lex, dura lex,” Balogh said. The Latin phrase had been hammered into them from the first day at the Academy, and Simon was coming to hate the sound of it—so often was it used as an excuse for acting like monsters.

Balogh steepled his fingers and contemplated the classroom, watching in satisfaction as his message came clear. This was how the Clave treated cowardice on the battlefield; this was justice under the Covenant. “The Law is hard,” Balogh translated for the hushed students. “But it is the Law.”

 källa