Disclaimer: The Mortal Instruments Trilogy belongs to Cassandra Clare.
-Over at the Heart-
In Alicante, we know how to hold a proper festival! He says this with his voice caught between adulthood and childhood. His eyes are bright and his hands gesture. He is smiling, and she's caught up in his smile.
Only if it involves a lot of faeirie-lights and flower chains. She says in a way that's showing she's only grudgingly admiring the way the streets are lit up and the people swirling by in their best evening finery. The highlight of each year is happening as they speak.
Idris is celebrating the day that Jonathon Shadowhunter asked the angel Raziel for the art of the Marks. It is a day and a night of celebration for all those who bear the Marks on their skin and hold angel blood in their veins.
Her smile turns thoughtful as she regards the dancing that will be held at the Heart in front of the Hall of Accords. Valentine will be there.
Their voices echo softly like a whisper as the cobble stones murmur back to them about their day. The classes at the Academy were short today. The sparring was very enthusiastic as well. Maryse and Robert seem to fit together as they drift by in their own atmosphere. The words are like falling raindrops. They are steady and at ease with each other. Raindrops are not awkward when next to each other.
Luke is musing about The Circle in a lapse of companionable silence. Their years at the Academy are coming to an end. But Valentine seems to imply that the Circle will remain. What's to come in the span of a year when they are all Shadowhunters?
The sky is darkening and the faeirie-lights are becoming useful. Their haunting sparkle brightens the stars and Jocelyn breaths in chilled air. The stars look like chips of ice and the air tastes like cool water vapor.
He is suddenly running down the street and before she has time to doubt what he is doing he is back with a necklace in his hand. A chipped carbon emerald on a leather thong dangled between his fingers.
For you, He says in the simplest manner as he moves behind her and threads the leather around her neck. It is a gift to go along with your dress.
You noticed the dress. She says with a laugh and they continue to make their way toward the Heart of Idris.
Who wouldn't? He murmurs almost to himself and sighs a little as he watches her hips sway as she walks. Strands of her hair are lifted by the wind and it seems like invisible fingers brush against her neck and tangle themselves in her hair. He's a little jealous. But he refuses to acknowledge what he cannot see.
The Heart appears. And Valentine comes to swoop her away in his arms. The stars are twinkling so brightly. Luke is not surprised and sits at a corner table and sips cordial. He counts the floor tiles. He watches the stars inch along the sky. But he does not glance, not a single time, toward the space that is Valentine and Jocelyn's alone.
By the end of the night, Valentine and Jocelyn are engaged. The perfect night to propose, Valentine was always dramatic.
But is he who walks her home. And it is he whom she pecks on the cheek goodnight.
Valentine cannot say as much.