Clary was having another nightmare.
She had come to the institute to see him and, of all things, she had fallen asleep as they watched a movie. At first, he had continued watching the strangely entrancing mundane movie. He would look down at her every few minutes to make sure that she was alright. The dark circles under eyes were the only part of her that did not look completely relaxed. At some points she was even smiling.
Then she stiffened. She began thrashing against him. He held her to him, trying to calm her, then just trying to wake her, but she wouldn't wake. Tears were streaming down her cheeks from under closed lids.
Suddenly she cried out, then woke up. Without thinking, she grasped Jace's shirt in her small fists and cried into it. Shocked, he could do nothing but hold her until her weeping had subsided. Finally she looked at him.
"Clary," he said, she flinched. He tried again, even more quietly, "Clary, what's wrong?" She was still quiet, but this time he sensed that she was simply trying to gain control over herself before continuing.
"My mom and Luke are having a baby," she said quietly. Jace was confused. He didn't know much about mundanes, but her reaction seemed a bit odd.
"Isn't that a good thing?" he prodded cautiously.
"Of course," she said mechanically, "I'm really excited for them."
"But?" Jace prompted. She made a face.
"But I keep having the same dream," she said quietly, staring somewhere beyond him, "Ever since they told me. I never knew it hit me so hard…"
"What?" Jace asked quietly, forcing himself to be quiet and gentle, knowing that she'd clam up if he showed her even a tiny fraction of the worry he felt. But when she finally stared at him with guilty, dead eyes, he almost couldn't take anymore. He just wanted to hold her and protect her from whatever was hurting her.
"Did I ever tell you what I saw when we entered that demon realm?" she asked finally. Confused but still patient, Jace shook his head. "No, I wouldn't have, would I," she mused. "But it's about time I told you, because it's what I've been having nightmares about for the past few weeks.
"It always starts with me standing outside the Fairchild's golden manor house," she began, as though telling a story, "The day is perfect and the house is covered in roses the colors of fire. My mother appears on the balcony, a Shadowhunter to the core, wearing a beautiful dress, it's different every time, and gestures to the side yard and asks me my opinion. It's always beautiful, always perfect. An archway of roses at the end of an aisle, rows of wooden benches. When I look back at my mother, Luke is with her. Again a Shadowhunter. He asks me if I'm ready.
"Every time I'm freshly confused as to what he means. Then he appears. Sebastian." Jace drew in a breath sharply as she continued, "But he's not Sebastian, he's Jonathan. Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern, the way he would have been without the blood of demons in his veins. I always notice that his eyes are the same color as mine, though he still has Valentine's hair.
"Then the little girl appears, screaming for Jonathan with glee. Calling for her brother. She is no older than five or six, with violently blue eyes, wearing a pretty party dress that is in ribbons and covered in dirt. Jonathan calls her Val. Valentina. Named for the hero of a war that never was. When Luke married my mother, they honored him in that. She compliments my dress. Jonathan discovers that Val is covered not in dirt, but in chocolate. From a cake. A wedding cake.
"Then I look at my dress, and it's gold. I am still confused. Jonathan is amused and reminds me that I'm marrying you, it's our wedding day. That's what all the fuss is about. Jonathan then begins joking with me, being a big brother. He mentions flirting with Isabelle and that he likes her. In the demon realm, this is where I woke because Simon wasn't there. But my dream continues.
"After this, I always suddenly appear at the end of the aisle on my brother's arm. He is walking me down the aisle and giving me away to you. We are slowly going down the aisle when suddenly, he looks at me and his eyes are once again black tunnels. 'Hello, little sister,' he says to me then, looking at me as though waiting for me to offer to help him burn down the world.
"Then I look around, and everything is wrong. Instead of Shadowhunters, all are Endarkened warriors. Luke is a werewolf again, holding my mother around the waist while halfway in his wolf form. Holding his hand is Val, with Luke's blue eyes burning in a wolflike face. Then I look up at you, and you are connected to Sebastian again. I can see the rune burning on your chest. Your eyes are empty.
"I begin to cry, asking where you are, where my brother is, what's wrong with my sister. Then Sebastian laughs at me. You simply smirk. He drags me up to you and you put your hand over Sebastian's and mine. He begins drawing runes on our hands, all three of us. I never see the runes, but I sense them. They are runes of control and domination, binding and connecting. He was doing to the three of us what he had done to himself and you. And then I look down at my dress and it is vivid scarlet, no longer gold. The sky is dark with blood, the Fairchild manor again a husk. Sebastian is now wearing a crown of bones. I can feel that I am as well. The arch of roses is now dead, nothing left but thorns. You lead us to a nearby hill, and on it are two thrones made of bones and iron. He sits in one and I sit at his right hand. You stand at my right hand.
"That's about when I wake myself screaming," Clary finished, bringing both of them out of the gruesome mental picture, "And I keep drawing these," she added.
Jace looked at the more recent images in her sketchbook. Sebastian with green eyes and a smiling face. A little girl with blue eyes that never seemed to change, though there were many sketches of her at different ages. Some of them had her with a wolf's face. There were others. Luke as a werewolf, Jocelyn as an Endarkened Shadowhunter. Himself with horrible empty eyes, or black tunnels like Sebastian's.
He struggled to stop his face from revealing how horrified he felt.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he meant to sound stern, but ended up sounding pleading. Her eyes filled with tears.
"Part of me mourns my brother," she whispered, "I didn't want you to know that."
"Clary, he's your brother," Jace said patiently, "It'd be weird if you didn't miss him."
"But he wasn't my brother!" she responded indignantly, "I want my real brother! The brother I would have had if Valentine hadn't destroyed him.." She said, eyes wide in horror at her own words.
"Oh Clary," he held her gently, "I know, I know you want that. And with a new sibling coming, that must have brought up that dream," she nodded miserably as he continued, "But you have a brother, remember? Simon's your brother. For real this time."
She smiled slightly as she remembered poor little mundane Simon being brought in front of the Clave. He wasn't who he was before, Magnus' father had seen to that, but he now remembered Clary and his life. And when Jia Penhallow had stood up to ask what Shadowhunter family would take him as their own, Clary had stood and announced that the Morgenstern blood and name needed to be restored, and that if he would accept a darkened name, she would be glad to call him brother. And Jia had allowed it. Somewhat relieved as a matter of fact.
"But," Jace continued, "There is nothing wrong with you loving him. Or rather the idea of him. You love Jonathan Morgenstern, a boy who never could exist. Not Sebastian, the one who did."
Clary smiled then, the tension in her face and body lessening.
"Thanks, Jace," she said quietly.
"Glad to be of service," he replied, "I'm just glad that worked. I was making it up as I went along," he confessed ruefully. At this she laughed, looking lighter than she had in weeks.
"Come here, Jace Herondale," she said, and kissed him.