Oh, my silly, silly sister. How could she think she could kill me? Stabbing me with a sword? Pathetic. I had told her. I couldn't be killed with anything under Heaven. But she tried anyways. I wanted to laugh, but there was pain. Something was burning inside me. I looked down at my body to where the sword was still inside my chest. A hot, searing pain went through my heart, through my ribs, my upper body. It was burning me, burning burning burning and I suddenly knew that there was no escaping it. Like lightning in a thunderstorm, the pain made its way through my body, from the hole in my chest to my toes, behind my eyes, my fingers. I felt anger running through me and I roared. I roared and I felt so much pain that I screamed. I pulled the sword out of me and I was burning, literally burning. There was a light in me and a fire and I vaguely saw Clary stepping away and I screamed. I was burning. No, I realised. Something inside me was burning. Something was burning away. There was still pain. But there was also something else. There was lightness. Where there wasn't pain there was freedom and I could feel it more and more as I could feel myself getting weaker and weaker. I felt the cool floor beneath me, a contrast to the heat of my body. The retreating pain made room for a completely new feeling. I didn't know how to describe it. I can't say when I stopped screaming. Was it when the burning was at its peak? Was it when I was beginning to realise what was happening to me. I couldn't tell. I didn't feel anything for a moment, just the numbness that pain always leaves behind, and the warm blood that was seeping into my clothes. And then there were green eyes. Like mine could have been. If they weren't what they were. The wonderful green of eyes that weren't demonic. Mother. The word was all over my brain. Mother mother mother. Family. Clary. Never in my life had anything be so clear, so wonderful, so pure. And I was sorry. I knew that I was going to die. And I was sorry. I remembered the dream I once had, where I had been the son and the brother I could have been. But all the terrible things I did. I could never be this son. I wanted to tell them so much, I wanted to say I'm sorry and when I did, my voice was hoarse and barely a whisper. Sebastian. The name echoed in my mind. The name I had worn but that wasn't my name.
"Jonathan. My name is Jonathan."
Apart from being hoarse, my voice sounded different, even in my head. It was softer, the cruel undertone was gone. And I felt the weight lifting from me. All the pain and what was demonic was gone and never in my life had I felt so light.