Well, chapter three was getting insane (and insanely long) so I split it. At this point I'm estimating that this fic will be five/six chapters long...but we'll have to wait and see.
(No more than ten. If it passes ten chapters, I'm quitting life).
Once again, this was written without a beta (CASSIE I MISS YOU!) so any and all mistakes are mine even more than usual.
This chapter also comes with a TRIGGER WARNING for violence and violent sex/dub-con.
"Simon!"
Jace's panic was a flash fire in Alec's chest, igniting in a blinding rush that seared all conscious thought to ash; Alec lunged, knowing-sensing where Jace would be, the two of them hands of the same body, directed by the same mind. Jace caught Simon's shoulders and Alec grabbed the brunet's hips and they eased him down carefully, Jace cradling Simon's head to protect his skull from the hard ground.
"What happened, what's wrong with him?" Alec asked, but Jace just shook his head, his eyes gone wild and frantic. His fear – fear, real and bitter and biting – beat at Alec like fists gloved in ice, and they were close enough for Jace's thoughts to cut through him like razors, his fear ripping their bond wide open; )not again not again not again – (
Alec's fingers flew to Simon's throat, but saw that the boy was breathing before he had to touch skin. Relief nearly took his breath away, and he thought a prayer of gratitude to Raziel that he didn't have to tell Jace that his brother was dead.
"Let me have a look at him," Magnus ordered, and Alec stood up out of the way, making room for Magnus to kneel down beside Simon. Fingers wreathed in amethysts and pink sapphires spread wide over Simon's chest – and whipped away almost at once. "Stop touching him," Magnus ordered sharply, "Alec, get him away from Simon now," and Alec didn't have the bond with Magnus that he did with Jace, didn't have the warlock's thoughts nestled in and entwined with his own, but the strange, urgent tone in the warlock's voice had him obeying without question; he leaned down and grasped Jace's wrist to haul him up and drag him away –
And the moment he touched Jace, he felt it; an insatiable sucking pull as if a black hole had gotten lodged beneath Jace's skin, blue goldstone teeth buried in Jace's psychic jugular and drinking him down, devouring him whole. Alec touched his parabatai and the hunger engulfed him, lashed out and latched on like a leech dropped from Yggdrasil, sucking on his energy in a whitewater rush –
He staggered, almost driven to his knees by the shocking drain, but then Izzy's whip snapped around his waist and wrenched him back and he pulled Jace with him, didn't let go, would never let Jace go –
And as abruptly as it had started the drain was gone, snapped off like a light. Jace sank to his knees, and it took all Alec had to guide his fall instead of dropping him.
"What the hell was that?" Izzy demanded. She looped her whip back around her wrist, looking pale as she glanced between her brothers. "Well?"
Jace shook his head, unable to speak. He felt light and empty on the other side of the bond, like a boy made of dandelion fluff. Alec held him tight.
"He's been almost completely drained of aetheric energy," Magnus said. "And somehow he's figured out a way to pull it out of other people." A hard blue light wove around his graceful hands like gloves, and he reached out above Simon's chest, this time careful not to touch him.
"You're talking about Simon." Ice speared down Alec's spine as he understood why his parabatai felt like a ghost in his arms. "Is Jace going to be okay?"
Magnus glanced at the blond. "He'll be fine. Simon didn't have time to take too much." Seeing Alec's expression, he added, "If he was going to die, he'd already be dead. Give him a few minutes and he'll be back to his usual obnoxious self."
"Would somebody mind explaining in words the rest of us can understand?" Izzy snapped. "What's aetheric energy? And is Simon some kind of psi vampire now?"
"It's what fuels our runes," Alec told her. When Magnus flicked a sharp, speculative look his way, he ducked his head to avoid it.
"Accurate," Magnus allowed. "Common wisdom is that it's what souls are made of. Mana. Life force. Whatever you prefer to call it. But I suspect that what Simon is doing is temporary and will stop once his reserves are full again – not that I understand how he's doing what he's doing, it's technically impossible, but – "
He pointed at the ground, and Izzy gasped as they all saw it in the same moment: the perfect oval of dead and dying grass framing Simon's body. Even as they watched it was still growing, expanding rapidly; Alec could see the blades of grass darkening and withering into dry husks, washed blue by the light coming from Magnus' hands.
"No one seems to have told him that," the warlock said softly.
Impossible. Impossible. Alec stared at the dead grass and knew: this was not one of the gifts Raziel had given to the Nephilim. If it had been, it would be too often-used to keep secret, too good a weapon to keep hidden. Neither Hodge's lessons nor the books Alec read in the dead of night had ever hinted at something like this, and his skin crawled as he watched Simon devour a part of the world.
Like a demon in human skin.
Sensing Alec's revulsion, Jace flinched, his psyche compressing down into sharp, brittle obsidian.
"We need to get him out of here," Magnus said finally. "I don't know if he's limited to the mana in living materials, but since he's already figured out the impossible I don't especially want to wait and see if he can take it out of metal as well." Which would destroy the park, Alec realised quickly, looking around at the tall metal edifices. All the rides... He knew vaguely what an amusement park was meant for, but what in Raziel's name had Jace and Simon been doing here? "I think I can make him safe to move if you give me a moment."
Alec's palm had moved between Jace's shoulder blades without his consciously being aware of it, automatically sending gentle waves of serene reassurance through the bond, a constant wordless mantra of I'm at your side/I have you/you are not alone that was as comforting as firelight on a cold night. And Jace did feel cold, cold and empty, but he was growing warm again with encouraging speed, the small golden star in his ribcage brightening quickly. It was a relief to know that Magnus was right; Jace's light would be back to its usual brilliance before much longer.
But that his aetheric levels were rejuvenating didn't, couldn't disguise the fact that something else was wrong. Jace had his head bowed, hiding his face, but Alec could feel – something like uncertainty, something shaken and raw with sharp teeth, and it was terribly, achingly familiar.
It felt like that night at Renwicks.
"He – said there was something on the roof." Jace's voice, not quite smooth enough to be mistaken for normal. "Simon. He saw something, just before he passed out."
Izzy drew her whip again. "I'll check it out."
"Wait," Alec said, I'll come with you on the tip of his tongue – but the words crystallised into ice in his mouth as he realised that going with his sister meant leaving Jace, and it was like Abbadon's claws raking through him all over again, ripping him in two –
They both needed him, how was he supposed to choose –
"Go with her," Jace said.
"I'll be fine," Isabelle said at the same time – and then she was gone, her long, loping stride taking her swiftly into the darkness.
Alec looked after her, the nervous, skittering ache in his marrow demanding to go after her.
"She can handle herself," Magnus said without looking up. His fingers sketched elegant sigils in the air, some invisible, others drawn with ribbons of light that faded after only a breath. He had beautiful hands. It was hard not to watch them.
And of course, Magnus spoke from experience. He'd been the one facing down a horde of demons with Izzy, not even on Earth but in the between-realms where the demons were stronger, while Alec was uselessly unconscious from Abbadon's poison. Reminding Alec of his failure to protect his sister was not the right track to take. Still, instead of arguing, Alec pulled out his stele and started to draw a night-vision rune on his arm, so that he could keep an eye on her without leaving Jace alone. The building she was heading for wasn't so far away...
"Here, let me." Jace stood up, slightly wobbly, and stole the stele from between Alec's fingers.
Alec jerked his arm away before Jace could touch it. Your boyfriend just tried to drain your mana! he almost snapped, but what he said was, "You probably shouldn't. Not until your aetheric levels are back to normal."
Jace stared at him. The shadows eclipsed most of his face, but there was no good way to disguise the turmoil Alec could sense through their bond. "All right." He handed the stele back.
By the time the rune was done, Isabelle was already on her way back. "This is all I found," she said, holding her hand out so they could see the gleam of metal cupped in her palm. "There was nothing alive up there. Or undead," she added, just for the sake of clarity.
She flicked her wrist and tossed the object to Alec, who caught it out of the air and brought it up to his face to inspect it. It was a five-pointed star, a silver charm the size of his thumb nail. Wordlessly, he extended it to Jace. The blond took it with a blank expression.
And then, in the same moment, the three of them locked gazes in a Lightwood triskele. They needed no words to communicate; the grim understanding flashed between the trio like the fire in their name. A star for the Morgensterns, yes, and who would care for Shadowhunter affairs except another Shadowhunter?
"Whoever it was wanted to be seen," Izzy said softly, and Alec felt Jace's agreement as a flutter of dragonfly wings, green and shimmering.
"Yes, I'm sure the walking ego over there is not at all used to having stalkers," Magnus said, getting to his feet. Alec watched him without meaning to, without realising that he was doing it. The night vision Mark altered your sight, turned everything silvery and silken, and the warlock fit there like gem in a platinum setting, as if the night was something made solely to frame him. "While you three discuss this fascinating turn of events, I'm going to reopen the portal. The containment spell on your little friend won't last long, and I'd like to get him back to my apartment before it fails. If we're all agreed that letting him eat the park would be a bad idea? Yes? Yes? I thought as much."
)0(
Everything was darkness, and everything was fire.
Obsidian fire, dark as tongues cut from the night sky, licking up the walls and roaring their claim for all to hear. They gave no light but the heat was staggering, like standing in a forge, enough to stop the breath in Simon's lungs. Poisonous smoke billowed everywhere, charcoal and sulphur, and Simon coughed, pulling up his shirt to cover his mouth.
Beneath the sound of the flames, he could hear a child crying.
"Hello? Is anybody in here?"
No one answered, but the weeping sounded louder.
"Hold on, I'm coming!" Simon called. Gingerly, he tried to move towards the sound, but it was an ever-growing maze; without light he could only see the flames as flickers of deeper darkness, shadows blacker than black. The very stone in the walls was burning; the glass in the windows was melting, dripping like water down the panes, and Simon half-thought the oxygen in the air was about to go up in smoke.
But when he stretched out his hand, the heat retreated. When he reached out, the flames flinched back, like living things afraid. He stepped forward and they fled from him, adders and asps fleeing a basilisk.
Monster.
The crying grew louder. Simon walked through the flames, and they didn't touch him. Part of the ceiling gave out with a crash behind him, but that didn't touch him either.
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
He turned towards a door at the end of the corridor, and like the red sea the fire parted for him, a fragile path of safety. There was enough light, from the window at the end of the hallway, to see a ring of stars engraved in the wood of the door; they glinted faintly with silver gilt. Morgenstern stars.
And Simon realised where he was, what – and when – this place must be: Morgenstern manor, the night of the Uprising. The night Valentine had burned this house to the ground, and one of Simon's brothers with it.
The realisation crossed blades with the crying coming from inside the room, and in a wave of new panic Simon threw open the door – and froze.
In the far corner, huddled against the flames, was a small boy, lit by the witchlight clutched in his hands. The soft light reflected from hair as pale and silvery as a star, and dark eyes wide and wet with terror, and Simon's heart wrenched in his chest. He could only have been a few years old.
"Jonathan?" he called, raising his voice so he could be heard over the flames. "Is that you?"
The boy nodded, holding his witchlight tight against his chest. "Y-yes. Where're my brothers?"
Simon tried to smile, tried not to remember that Jonathan had died in this fire. "They're fine, don't worry about them." The ebony fire was already in here, devouring the pastel wallpaper like strokes of greedy ink. "You and me are going to go find them, okay? We'll – "
"Stop!" Jonathan shouted, and Simon did, stopped just as he would have fallen. There was no floor; beginning a few inches from Simon's shoes and ending a foot or two from Jonathan there was only a deep, impenetrable blackness, a terrible void of nothingness and cold. Looking at it was like staring into a black hole.
Unreal horror and adrenalin raced through Simon, and he gripped the doorway tightly, shaken by the near escape.
Jonathan was still crying. "You can't save me. You'll f-fall!"
Simon's heart broke in two – and bled a grim determination through his veins, bitter and resolute and strong as a seraph blade. "I'm not leaving you," he swore fiercely. Would his mom have left Jonathan? She had hated him, but if she'd been here, if she could have saved him, would she have let him burn?
It didn't matter. Simon wouldn't, couldn't.
He pulled back and surveyed the room. The nursery; black flames wreathed a wooden crib, elaborately carved with decorations swallowed by the fire. There was a window not far from Jonathan; if Simon was standing on Jonathan's little island, he could probably reach it. Fire and oxygen; breaking a window would make normal flames worse, but would hellfire be affected the same way?
They would have to risk it. A window would get them outside, and they could climb or jump down if they had to.
"I'm going to run and jump to you, okay?" Simon called. "And then we're both getting out of here!"
Jonathan shook his head, holding his knees against his chest. "You should just go," he said, shrinking in on himself. "Everyone will be happier with me g-gone."
In that moment, Simon hated his mom. Hated her like he hated Valentine.
"I'm not leaving you!" he shouted. Never. Not ever. Not even with the fire on all sides, not even with the bottomless pit waiting under his feet. Not even for his own survival would he, could he turn his back on this boy, scared and alone and broken. His own blood, his brother, Jace's fraternal twin – No. "Not in a million years."
Jonathan stared at him, amazed, and the pieces of Simon's heart throbbed like wounds.
He backed up into the corridor, readying himself. "Try to make room for me to land," he yelled – and then he ran.
He leapt, and –
Failed. He fell.
He heard Jonathan scream and it was that, that which shattered him apart; not fear for himself, not the Lucifer-like plunge into the darkness, but knowing that he'd failed his brother and left him alone to die.
But the shadows tasted like ichor, thick and sweet and hot on his lips, pouring over his tongue as he fell, pulled down by a drunken gravity; he spun over and over, around and around until he couldn't remember which way was up and which was down, didn't know if he was falling or flying, and the shards of his heart were lost somewhere in the dark, slipped through his ribcage and his fingers and gone, and the demon blood slid down his throat like ambrosia, catching fire in his belly and bleeding into his veins, nitro-glycerine and astrolite and it was so good, so sweet –
He slammed onto his back, and
)0(
jerked awake with a gasp.
"Simon?" He heard a rustle of blankets, a light being switched on, and then a warm hand was cupping his cheek as a familiar face came into view above him, frowning with concern. "What's wrong, aoiveae-orshé? Are you all right?"
Aoiveae-orshé. Dark star, spoken like an endearment.
Simon stared up at the man, struggling to calm the rushing panic left over from his…dream? Nightmare? "I think so," he said slowly. "Just a bad dream." The details were already fading from his memory, leaving only a smudge of remembered fear, and a tight, molten ache as if his blood was shining, that made him suddenly, sharply aware that he was naked beneath the sheets, and so was his lover.
Lover? That felt wrong, somehow. Simon's gaze moved down from the man's face, and caught on the exquisite rune over his heart, a complex, intricate design of swirls and looping knots.
Yes, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. He is your parastathentes, and you adore him. From the moment you saw him you have been his, and he yours.
Of course he was. Simon smiled, the strange uncertainty melting away like the memory of his dream. "I'm okay," he promised, reaching up to slide his fingers into his lover's sable-silk hair. The runes on his wrists and fingers gleamed like onyx jewellery. "Really. It was just a dream."
The tension went out of the other man's shoulders. "You're sure? Just a dream, not a vision?"
Simon's eyes caught on his lover's lips. His skin was drawing tight, the simmer of heat in his veins growing stronger, hotter. "I don't think so," he whispered. Without meaning to, he found his fingers trailing down the back of his parastathente's neck, stroking the smooth, warm skin. He traced the shape of his lover's powerful shoulders, the lithe, hard muscle of his upper arms marked with calligraphic runes. They whispered their names to him – fortis, sabedoria, dexterias – and he knew them, from the pages of the Codex and from their places on his own skin.
The Codex? A flash of memory – a book with a battered cover, a voice saying 'it's an old edition,'...
He gave it to you for your seventeenth birthday, the voice said smoothly, so that you could learn what you are. He taught you everything you know about the Shadow World, and he taught you well.
That was right, he remembered now... But it was vague, smoky, and the heat beating beneath his skin didn't care, was more focussed on the body in front of him, the hard, taut muscle ribboned with black. He could feel his lover's eyes on him as he trailed his fingers down, cataloguing the familiar map of Marks; enkeli, mnemosyne, forza... Each one sang beneath his fingertips, a whispering chorus of rippling gold that echoed through him, a low, heated purr vibrating through his bones.
Simon wasn't paying attention; he couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. Not with those molten hematite eyes on him, watching him like prey, like a feast. He kept his own gaze on his lover's chest but the attention made Simon's stomach tighten with electric anticipation, with vicious, simmering want. It drew across the hunger from the dream like a whetstone, sharpening it, honing the razor-breath edge until it felt as if Simon's skin would part around it, cut open from the inside. The muscle beneath his touch was hard and taut, drawn tight like a predator waiting to spring, and aroused seemed like too tame a word.
Remember, the voice murmured, and the memory reached up and overwhelmed him; last night, his naked skin against their velvet blankets, the sound of his own voice crying out for mercy. Literally crying, tears on his cheeks and salt on his lips, driven past shame by the hot wet press of his lover's tongue lapping into his core. Cruelly wicked and wickedly cruel, prying him apart until Simon was sobbing, reduced to nothing but an empty vessel literally dying to be filled, incoherent with need, helpless...
A note like struck crystal cut through the other runes, jolting him out of the sense-memory, and Simon paused with his fingers splayed over an azo stamina rune. "This one..."
His parastathentes glanced at Simon's hand, then looked back at him. "You drew that one." His voice was husky.
Simon's mouth went desert-dry. "I did?"
His lover leaned closer. "You did," he breathed against Simon's ear, and Simon almost moaned.
Soft, almost mocking laughter whispered down Simon's spine, rushing like fire through his veins, igniting him. Black velvet and dark furs rustled as the other boy-man shifted, and Simon reached for him, pulling him close even as his lover slid smoothly atop him, powerful, leonine-lean arms caging him in. For a brief second alarm fluttered in Simon's chest, a sudden white flash of waitnothisisn'tright, but then it was gone, drowned out by the searing wave of pleasure-bliss as the warm weight of another body settled on top of him, against him, a hard thigh parting his legs; his skin seemed a thousand times more sensitive than it humanly could be, choked with nerve-endings and each one a fizzing sparkler of light under the pressure, the contact. His legs melted open without resistance and his hands flew to his lover's back, gasping, arching into it, his fingertips kissing the metal-smooth ropes of scar tissue snaking down his para's spine –
Wrong. It jolted through him; the texture of the scars under his hands wasn't right, wasn't meant to be. Simon froze, disorientated, dizzy with the sense that the world was spinning around him, coming apart around him, cracks shuddering through the fabric of reality on all sides –
You're not –
Simon pushed him away and sat up, his breath coming fast and hard not with desire but with something like shock, something like panic. He couldn't get enough air, there wasn't enough air in the room, something was terribly, unutterably wrong –
"Simon?" His parastathentes rolled onto his side, all warm concern. "Hey, talk to me. What's wrong?"
"You're – you – " Simon couldn't articulate it, didn't have the words to explain the choking dread tightening its fingers around his throat, but he flinched away from his lover's reassuring hand. Wrong, wrong, you're not – Hardly able to speak, Simon threw back the covers and scrambled out of the bed, panting like an animal caught in a trap.
I don't know this room. It was a beautiful room, but he didn't know it. Everything was deepest black and palest white, all onyx and pearl, exquisite but nothing he would have chosen for himself. There was a small fireplace of gleaming black marble, currently housing a knot of flames that burned warm gold, not hellfire-black. An ebony bookshelf took up one corner, neatly stacked with books and elegant, tasteful curios, all in shades of black and white – he dazedly realised that the books had probably been rebound to match the room, unless someone was actually obsessive enough to collect books based on the colours of their covers. Strange black designs were painted here and there on the walls. The full-length mirror propped against one wall was framed in dark wood and decorated with a mother-of-pearl inlay; without his glasses, he was too far away to make out the design. The walls were white, and the thick carpet on the floor looked as thick and soft as snow; gauzy white curtains billowed in the breeze from the open doors that seemed to lead out to a balcony. It was night outside.
And he was sitting on a nest of black velvets and furs, a bed raised up from the floor on a tiered white platform like an altar in a temple.
And it felt holy, what they did here, didn't it? Holy in the old ways, rich and raw as the rites of Inanna and Dionysius. A divine frenzy of teeth and need, a violent shattering, screaming, bleeding, pleasure so good it was pain and pain that broke open into pleasure –
No!
Simon clutched at his head, trying to tear the thoughts that weren't his right out of his skull. Badly wrong, something was badly wrong and it was like being clothed in dust, coated in ashes and coloured chalk –
He heard a sound like an entire flock of ravens taking flight, a pair of sun-devouring wings spreading wide within his head –
And felt them impeded, checked from unfolding to their full span by some barrier.
If he'd been confused and fearful before, now terror swamped him. Simon whipped around in a circle, disbelief and panic scraping sharp teeth over his jugular – and now that he was looking, with the thick, heavy pressure pressing down on his mind, he could see them. The black designs on the walls weren't modern art, weren't even painted; the pictograms were made of black crystal set directly into the wallpaper, a dizzying array of arcane symbols – he recognised the Key of Solomon from Supernatural, but there were more, so many more, circles within circles, septagrams and spiky knots of thorn-and-razor sigils – and he was caught in them. Like a sparrow trapped in a carnivorous hedge, he could feel the vicious, deadly hooks snagging at those ebony wings, knifing deeper the more they – he – struggled; tearing at him, bleeding him, the more he fought the brighter the sigils shone, bars of a cage that was shrinking around him, pressing in on him, forcing his wings to bend or break…
Not crystal, something whispered. Lilithium.
"Don't fight it, Simon," his lover said. His voice was soft and soothing, like warm velvet. "It's all right, just let it happen…"
Simon sank to his knees with a groan, dizzy and weak, and he felt his lover's arm wrap around his waist, keeping Simon from falling off the bed's dais. He could swear the symbols grew stronger as they worked on him – feeding on him, the thorns embedded in his psyche throbbing like a vampire's fangs. But it was more than that… As they took, so did they give; ephemeral poison pumped into him with every heartbeat, and as Simon's limbs grew weighted, trembling with weakness, his blood began to simmer. A warm, heavy sweetness unspooled from the needles stabbing into his chakras, pooling in the pit of his stomach like fine brandy, like adrenalin.
"No," he whispered, pleading, but no one was listening. No one cared.
Distantly, he felt himself picked up, cradled in strong arms against a rune-kissed chest. His skin was drawing tight, flushing with heat, every artery dilating to speed the spread of the lilithium-born virus, and every cell of his body was pulsing was a pleasure that was pain, a pain that was pleasure. It was so rapidly becoming unbearable, a sugar-coating on his nerves becoming acidic, awful ecstasy –
He fell against the blankets, dropped, and instantly curled in on himself, hugging his knees as he rubbed his cheek against the dark furs. Oh God, God, he needed – he had to get it out, building and burning, eating him alive from the inside – fangs of fire – he could hear laughter, wild and fey, echoing through his head – a howl of triumph spiralling up and up and up as black wings fluttered against the walls of a cage –
He groaned, wrapping his arms around his stomach as he bowed forward. His cheek against the blanket – soft, so soft –
–
H-help me –
"Oh, Simon." He heard footsteps, felt his lover's approach and turned to it like a flower to the sun, starved for sensation. "It's all right, aoiveae-orshé. It's safe. You can't get past the bindings no matter what you do."
This isn't right... And yet when the callused hand touched his cheek Simon moaned, pushing into the contact desperately. He couldn't stop himself, even though it hurt, shards and splinters dragging through over-sensitized skin. What's... "...wrong with me?" he slurred.
A thumb brushed Simon's lower lip, and it was pain, it hurt beyond words, a note like struck crystal singing through his bones and blood and every cell of his body convulsed with it, sharp and terrible and screaming for more. "It's the bindings," his parastathentes said softly. "So you don't have to be afraid. You can't hurt anyone. You can be yourself here, aoiveae-orshé. You can let go."
With awful gentleness, the fingers slipped down to his jaw, tenderly turning Simon's face up and out of the blankets, and Simon was helpless to resist, his nails digging into his arms as his eyes met dark black ones, and somewhere inside he'd already known.
"S-Sebastian," he choked, and Sebastian smiled.
)0(
"Through here," Magnus ordered, holding the door open for Alec and his burden. "Set him down on the bed."
It was a heavy burden, Alec thought, carefully stepping sideways through the doorway so as not to knock Simon against the frame. Jace might have stayed with Isabelle to handle the mundane police, but Alec could feel his parabatai's fear and concern for the boy in his arms like ocean waves; retreating briefly, momentarily, before returning in a bitter rush, helplessly seeking, unstoppable. Simon wasn't Simon; he was all of Jace's dreams for the last month. He was Jace's absences the last few weeks, and his hidden joy; Jace's clumsy attempts at blocking the bond for hours at a time; the devastated look on Jace's face when Simon had crumpled like a doll.
He was a hell of a lot more than Jace's brother.
Alec set him gently down on Magnus' bed. Even now Alec couldn't help but notice, with a flutter of jittery warmth, that Magnus had replaced the plain mattress that had been here before with a grandiose four-poster, a ridiculous concoction of crimson and ebony silk that nonetheless made Alec's mouth go a little dry. It was too easy to imagine how beautiful Magnus' dark-honey skin would look against all that red and black...
Simon's head lolled against a pillow, and without thinking Alec cupped his skull to adjust its position so Simon didn't wake with a wicked crick in his neck. If he woke. Only the rise and fall of his chest gave any sign that he was still alive.
He has to wake up. Alec couldn't imagine what Jace would do if Simon didn't.
"You should step back now," Magnus said, and Alec obeyed, getting out of the warlock's way – and then standing awkwardly, no longer sure what his purpose here was, not knowing where to look. As Magnus bent over Simon, Alec shoved his hands in his pockets and stole a glance around the room. Magnus had redecorated since Alec had been in here last. A cloud of tiny fairy-lights – chips of witchlight strung on silk threads – hung from the ceiling in a circle around the new bed, a curtain of golden stars that cast light on the newly-painted black walls. A thick black carpet, as fluffy as fur, covered the wooden floor, and the blue dressing table had been either been replaced by or turned into a bright pink one, its mirror jewelled with softly glowing light-bulbs.
Alec had never seen anything like it. No Shadowhunter he knew had a room like this, full of things chosen just because they looked nice. He thought of the Lightwood manor in Idris that he'd rarely seen, and the townhouse in Alicante, where he and Izzy and Jace had spent a handful of summers without Alec's parents. Both places were richly furnished, grand and gleaming with mahogany and marble, and crystal chandeliers that dripped facets like rain. They were beautiful fortresses, meant to impress and intimidate and, in the event of disaster, keep safe the family that dwelt within. But their beauty was a cold beauty, cold and austere, intended as a weapon. Nothing in a Shadowhunter's life was beautiful just for the sake of beauty.
And those chandeliers had been paid for with warlock blood, Alec thought, feeling sick as Magnus whispered under his breath, gesturing liquidly above Simon's prone body.
But even as Alec looked over, Simon's head moved on the pillow, shifting restlessly, feverishly. Magnus' voice was a soothing ribbon of sound, low and murmuring as he chanted words Alec couldn't hope to understand, but for all that even Alec could feel the energy building in the room – centred around Simon, like a cage of invisible lightning – whatever the warlock was doing only seemed to be making it worse. Simon's brow was still slick with sweat, as it had been since they'd portalled to Magnus' apartment, but now he was panting, his skin flushed red. Magnus traced glowing sigils in the air with a graceful fingertip, and Simon whimpered, a sound like a terrified werewolf cub; he was panting, and his eyes rolled beneath his closed lids, darting back and forth as if he were seeking a way out. But he didn't wake up.
Alec wanted to ask Magnus exactly what he was doing, but he didn't want to risk breaking the man's concentration. Instead he focussed on sending calm reassurance back to Jace.
He received a wave of relief in response, and understood from long experience that his sister and parabatai were done and heading this way.
Simon mumbled something, and Alec's attention snapped back to the tableau in front of him. "What's he saying?" he asked softly, hoping that Magnus could bear the interruption.
Magnus didn't answer. Alec hesitated, unsure whether he should ask again or not – was Magnus ignoring him, or had he not heard the question?
"Agé," Simon whispered, and the terrified plea struck Alec's heart like a shard of ice. The word meant nothing to him, but he'd never heard Simon sound like that – never heard anyone sound like that.
As if he were caught between sobbing and screaming.
"Agé, obelis agé – " Simon's fingers curled into fists in the sheets, and he was still panting, almost hyperventilating, and it was too much, too awful, there was no way Jace could miss Alec's confused alarm and no way to disguise the cause; strong emotion always strengthened their bond, turned the cord that bound them into a chain and Alec felt Jace's attention turn towards him, snap towards him like a thrown blade.
"Agé, gnay ipé, obelis – "
It was too much – the fear they shared was a tightrope between them, flinging open the gates of flesh and self and forging a trapdoor that swallowed Jace whole in a dark flash. Alec blinked and Jace was there, sharing his skin, looking out through his eyes in a way that wasn't supposed to be possible without the battle-trance to bind them. They'd never managed to skindance outside of battle before, and it had never been like this: like a stake slamming into his chest, a pressure beneath his skin that threatened to break him open in a blaze of silver and jade. It was supposed to be natural, smooth and easy like two streams merging into one, but he wasn't ready and neither was Jace and instead of slotting into place Jace was dragged in where there was no room, all jagged burning edges and the screech of rust-on-rust.
But Jace was terrified, and Alec made himself small within his own body, curling in on himself to give Jace room. This wasn't skindancing, wasn't merging into one whole in two bodies to better hunt demonkind; but Jace needed and Alec gave, because he could do nothing less. He gave his skin and his hands, his eyes and ears and lips, his tongue and the throb of his pulse in his veins; because Jace needed them Alec poured them into his grasp as carelessly as if they were buttons or bobbins, common and worthless as dirt.
Take them, take them all. Take everything you need.
He felt the bright gleam of his parabatai's gratitude, and then Jace pulled him on like an ill-fitting glove and moved his lips;
"What's happening? What's wrong with him?"
Magnus looked up sharply, his mien that of a startled cat. He opened his mouth to answer – and then his eyes narrowed, suddenly piercing. The warmth drained out of his gaze in an instant.
"I don't care what he is to you," the warlock said coldly over Simon's frenzied murmuring. He turned back to Simon, resuming his spellcasting. "But I don't work with gidim."
The class of demons capable of possession. The knowledge flashed seamlessly from Alec to Jace and Jace stiffened in Alec's skin while Alec bristled on his parabatai's behalf; it wasn't possession, it was channeling, he'd consented, and anyway Jace hadn't intended for this to happen, hadn't done it on purpose –
"Alec let me in," Jace said, and it was Alec's voice but the words were shaped differently, the intonation was all Jace. (But it wasn't your voice that told him, Alec's subconscious whispered, he looked into your eyes and he knew you weren't the one looking back at him – just from your eyes – ) "What's wrong with my brother?"
"The simple answer is that I don't know," Magnus answered, and his voice was cool but it emerged through gritted teeth. The inner sides of his hands glowed blue and gold from his wrists to his fingertips, and he held his palms almost against Simon's temples. "I'm feeding him mana, but his energy levels keep spiking in ways I've never seen before; his body is reacting as though he's been poisoned, but I can't find any venom; he's speaking a language I know he doesn't speak – "
A memory, Jace's this time: Magnus in this very room, the night Jace had gone alone with Simon to the Dumort and almost gotten himself killed; 'I've watched you grow up, I've been through your memories…' Of course Magnus would know what languages Simon spoke, he'd been the one to craft and renew the block on Simon's mind, but that meant –
What could it mean? How could Simon speak a language he didn't speak?
"Enochian?" Jace asked before Alec could puzzle it out. His voice – Alec's voice – sounded strange, even accounting for the person using it.
"Do they teach all you idiot Nephilim your mother-tongue now?" Magnus asked. "How did you know that?"
Jace didn't answer. "What's he saying?"
"He's terrified," Magnus said bluntly, "and not of me." He shot a blazing look over his shoulder at Jace. "Go back to your own body and get here as quickly as you can." It was not a request.
Jace hesitated. He looked down at Simon with Alec's eyes, and longing sweet and terrible as an armaskō blade pierced Alec through the heart. He couldn't breathe for the intensity of it; it was as awful as it was incredible, a kind of agony, a kind of ecstasy, a kind of need. He wanted to –
It cut off abruptly, so suddenly that Alec was left reeling.
)How do we do this?( Jace asked, all business, and Alec could feel him trying to pull away – but after all, they didn't know how they'd done this in the first place, never mind knowing how to undo it.
)I think – ( Alec hesitantly felt around, and they both saw it in the same moment. In the end it was easier than ending a skindance, because instead of being merged into one mind they were only sharing a body, and Alec grasped the 'glove' so that Jace could pull out of it, and they slipped apart in a disorientating rush.
Alec gasped, sucking in air like a man saved from drowning. Holding himself in tight and small to give Jace control had been like holding his breath; his lungs weren't actually burning from the effort, but something else was, some psychic thing that made the world sway dizzyingly around him as he found his bearings again.
Wordless apology came from Jace, and a matching disorientation; it couldn't have been any easier for his parabatai. What had happened to Jace's body while he was driving Alec's?
"He's gone," he said quietly, just so Magnus would know.
"Good." The warlock didn't turn to look at him this time, remaining focussed on Simon.
Alec wanted to ask how Magnus had known it was Jace wearing Alec's skin, how he had been able to tell who he was talking to from a single glance. But the lines of Magnus' back were tensed, his shoulders bunched tight beneath the violet velvet jacket he'd worn for their date, and Alec didn't think Magnus needed the distraction right now. Instead, silently, he came to sit down on the bed behind Magnus and reached for the warlock's shoulders.
Magnus jerked a little with surprise as Alec touched him, but didn't protest as Alec began kneading the cruel knots in his shoulders. He relaxed under Alec's hands almost immediately, allowing the contact, and Alec felt a warm glow of pleased pride.
He said nothing as he unpicked the knots in the warlock's muscles one by one, smoothing them away as he'd done for Jace and Izzy for years. But he was terribly aware, despite everything, that this was the closest they'd been since that first kiss, and that they were sitting on Magnus' bed.
Embarrassed by the direction his thoughts were taking – how could he think like this, when Jace's brother was so badly hurt just inches away? – he glanced past Magnus to Simon – and noticed something that had been so unremarkable to Jace that his parabatai had taken no note of it; Simon was bloodstained and his throat marked with the grip of Abigor's fingers, but above those bruises were others, and they had been made by human teeth.
)0(
"Now, where were we?" Sebastian asked. He climbed onto the bed, his eyes fixed on Simon in a way that made Simon think of tigers – Sebastian was no lion, he was a Siberian tiger, biggest of the big cats, the most powerful land predator in the world – "Oh, yes. We were going through the Marks you've drawn on me, weren't we?"
Simon shook his head in denial, panting for breath; no, this isn't right, leavemealone, but Sebastian ignored him. His parastathentes caught Simon's right hand like a manacle, so hard that Simon's wrist twinged with pain. "This one," he murmured. He pulled Simon's hand towards his own collarbone, to the rune placed like a seal over Sebastian's sternum. "Do you remember this one, dearling?"
It was – at first Simon thought it was a desviar Mark, a block, but no, it wasn't. This Mark had a stronger, louder song than desviar – it was permanent, where desviar was temporary. But it was almost, almost the same... The mystery made Simon forget his unease, pierced through the choking fog of toxic desire. It was like hearing a song by your favourite artist covered by an orchestra-and-choir; the core was familiar, but now it made the hairs on your arms stand up, a spine-shivering sound like a Mark Petrie track –
"What is that?" Simon asked. That's not what desviar sounds like...
Another shock of memory: his hand against someone else's arm, pale against honey-gold skin, and a strange foreign word that felt like home – aikane –
It slipped away like wind through his fingers. His parastathentes's skin was darker than Simon's but it wasn't that gold, not like that, and the Mark under his hand didn't call itself desviar, its name was –
"Vernda," Simon whispered.
Shield.
"And this one." Before Simon could understand it, could make sense of what he was hearing from the unfamiliar rune – newness and strangeness, a perfection that caught his breath and a strength to stop bullets – his lover tugged Simon's hand again, pulling it to the parastathentes rune over his heart –
And it was like dying. The bond between them flooded open in a drowning rush and it was a sword thrusting into his heart, black and burning as if new-forged, cutting through every layer of skin and self-awareness straight to his core. Pierced, impaled, sliced open and bared and it was like falling into ebony fire, drowning in it; pried open with smouldering black velvet swallowing him whole, the terrible softness caressing every inch of his skin, slipping into the crater of his chest and satin ribbons parting his lips like tongues, flooding into him, snaking down his throat and flicking switches as they went, onetwothree in a dizzying wave of locks snapping open, fourfivesixseven, failsafes coming down, door after door blown wide open like a prison-break and the blade's in so deep but not to slay, no, to open the way instead, cleaving through the bars that keep him caged and he can't scream, can't tell if it's agony or ecstasy or both or neither. Benzoin incense in his lungs like smoke and silver chains looping in moonlight whorls snapping like spun sugar and nightmare wings folding around him, clasping him close holding him tight and it's terror, it's freedom, absinthe and sandalwood and I have you, I know you, held so tight and jade lightning strike-strike-striking and crystal canines sliding so sweetly into his neck, like kisses, like stars he can't stand it, jewels wreathing his wrists and his blood spilling, falling, dripping into the darkness drop by sizzling golden drop and the triumph isn't his but it's thick as smoke, engulfing him from every side, triumph and midnight jubilance calling him out, summoning, the gate is open –
)Goh an gis vonsarg orst ds goh apamnayz biat,( his lover whispered through the dark, the words not Enochian gold but tarnished silver and steel, rust-kissed but familiar enough, I know your every shadow and I stand here unflinching, Simon understood and his free hand was in his lover's hair, clinging, drowning, it was like a choke collar coming free, the unspeakable relief! )Zir ix ciasin.(
I am not afraid.
Violated, desecrated, some vital human skin ripped open and left bleeding and Simon didn't care. He could breathe, as if his humanity had been suffocating him, a weight he hadn't known he was carrying and he nearly cried with the reprieve. He didn't have to be afraid here, not even of himself; there was a greater darkness than he and it had him, he could feel its wings still wrapped around him, nothing he could do would break through that hold and it was such a release, it was okay. He didn't have to fight, didn't have to hide – he was held, acknowledged, cherished, prized – he could give himself up, give it all up.
"Sebastian," he gasped, the sound almost a sob as it tore out of him, "Sebastian – "
"Niisor, odrax esach," Sebastian murmured – commanded. Come forth, little brother; Simon could feel the imperative wrap like iron around his bones – "Liis chi ozien. Niisor!"
You are mine. Come forth!
Simon screamed, and let go.
He fell; he plunged down through the broken shards of his cage and the scream caught in his throat and became a roar, a harpy's shriek of rage and triumph. He could have fallen forever but his wings unfolded with a Tartarus-snap and the sheer power, the glorious void-kissed rush! Indescribable-unspeakable, lit up like a sun and he surged up, spiralling in a whirlwind-streak, all star-studded glory and diamondfire and he –
Crashed into his lover's mouth and felt himself met, half-knocked out of the sky by a platinum meteor. The shock was – stunning, shattering, he crowed with wild surprise and fervent joy, vicious, bloodthirsty excitement. Strength to strength he flung himself against this other, this one who knew him-matched him, and he felt his para's lips curve into a smirk against his, felt the challenge flash between them like a game of apocalypse. Simon wanted pain, ached to rend and sear and sleeve his arms in blood, wanted fire and wanted to rule –
"You want it?" his lover breathed against his mouth, and his lust beat like black waves against Simon's mind, oil and ink, "Then fight for it, my little fabaznil, my aoiveae-orshé – "
Game on.
Simon's nails slashed over Sebastian's back merciless-deep, hard and sharp as razors. Wetness greeted him, the perfume of copper and rust and he kicked out, twisting, a panther's low snarl tearing out of his throat as he sought to fling the other man from atop him –
And Sebastian slammed him back down against the mattress, pinning his hips expertly, catching and shoving Simon's hands down against the nest of pillows, his strength! Simon's spine bowed without permission, arching upwards with a desperate, hungry gasp; it wasn't a loss, it was perfect, an unholy, blissful thrill of being bested, mastered. Pleasure like magma uncoiled through his veins, slow and thick and heady, unbearable, unimpeachable, and it was safety and it was desire, a vicious need for that force, that power, to feel it and be possessed by it. He could throw himself against it for centuries and it would not break, would it? It would hold him, could hold him, and far from inciting fear it only excited him more –
He bucked hard, just to test it, but Sebastian's grip only tightened and Simon hissed, tossing his head back at the sensation, his bones grinding together beneath the skin and the hurt was white, terrible, blinding, perfect white and blood was trickling down his parastathentes' shoulders, little threads of crimson winding down his arms. Simon leaned up and licked it, deliberately scraping skin with his teeth, and Sebastian's low, breathless laughter made his stomach clench tight.
His teeth crunched down and blood flooded into his mouth, human teeth could cut bone in the right circumstances and Sebastian snarled like the earth tearing. He jerked back and Simon let him go, slipped his hold and snatched a dagger from beneath his pillow, twisting beneath the older Shadowhunter and thrusting the knife at Sebastian's neck – only for his wrist to be smashed away but his other elbow slammed into his para's throat and when Sebastian reared back to breathe Simon snapped his legs back and kicked him, both feet to the other's man's stomach and throwing him back. Simon scrambled upright, his palms slipping on the dark silk sheets as he spun for the edge of the bed, run run run and he was panting with excitement, snatches of breathless laughter susurrating between each gasp of air –
The mattress shifted just slightly and he heard the soft whistle of something cutting fast through air, glimpsed something black and shining like a necklace of night before it looped tight around his throat and jerked. Simon's hands flew to his neck with a gasp and he was choking, wrenched backwards against a hard, solid chest and the line of metal a shriek of fire across the line of his neck, biting at his windpipe, and he was so fucking turned on he could hardly see.
"Is that all you've got, aoiveae-orshé?" His parastathentes purred in his ear, and Simon moaned, tipping his head back as his lover's hand twisted, holding the chain around Simon's throat like the reins of a bridle. "Is that the best you can do?"
There were bracelets of bruises around Simon's wrists, fingerprints pressed like dark jewels into his pale skin; the bedside light licked over them and Simon snarled, tipping his head back against Sebastian's shoulder, lips wet and open because yes, this was it, they'd done this before.
He keeps you safe, his gossamer memory whispered, keeps you anchored. You wear his marks like gems and every time you touch them you know who you are –
His. You have always been his.
There were runes on Simon's palms, on his fingertips, and he knew that if he could only remember what they were for he could get out of this, you don't need a weapon you are a weapon, but so much of him wanted to stay right where he was. And yet instinct made him struggle, pulling at the slim chain around his neck and fighting to break free, to get air, to escape and turn the tables because the urge to rip out Sebastian's throat was stronger than the need for oxygen, the need to scream –
Using the chain Sebastian jerked him back, shaking him like an errant puppy. "Liis chi ozien, Simon." The words were low and dark like poisoned honey, and the grip on the chain stayed harsh and cruel, and Simon shuddered with sick, sharp-toothed bliss, a whimper catching in his throat as the truth of it melted through his bones. You are mine. God, it was beyond words – so fucking hot, twisted up so tight inside; the other man's runes singing against Simon's back and he couldn't stand it, held pinned for his lover's pleasure – "Liis jahalantz paít cak ozien."
You will always be mine.
"Vaoan," Simon whispered, his eyes falling shut.
Yes.
Without releasing his grip on Simon's neck, Sebastian shoved him down against the mattress, pressing his face into the slick sheets like he was something Sebastian meant to break. The motion pressed their hips together hard, sliding Sebastian's cock through the cheeks of Simon's ass and Simon moaned, his nails raking through the fabric under his fingers. He was gasping for breath and his mind was swimming, simmering, all heat and gold and junkie-craving. Somewhere the sigils on the walls were glowing, but he couldn't remember why he should care –
He was already slick, left-over from the night before, and if he could have breathed past the chain around his throat he would have howled when his lover's cock teased him, sliding back and forth so fucking slowly, torturing, catching just a little on the rim of Simon's hole with each pass. Empty, empty-empty-empty and every cell of his body was swollen and wet and ready, needy, frantic, vicious: he twisted, fighting Sebastian's hold just to feel the burn of being held, the choking lock around his neck and the bone-melting relief of not having to hold back or be afraid of what he might do – it was indescribable, blissful, green gunpowder and white fire, mulled wine and sharp steel; it was safe, he was safe, he could let it all go and be a monster because Sebastian had him mastered –
"Gohvs zt," Sebastian ordered; say it, and Simon snarled, helplessly dripping pre-come onto the sheets as Sebastian ran his thumb down the crease of him, prying him open and teasing the hot wet throb of need. "Say you're mine, and I'll give you everything you need."
Before Simon could draw a breath – to deny it or scream it, there was no telling – Sebastian slid two fingers into him smooth as silk, sudden and thick and oh, no, too much and not enough and Simon jerked up out of the blankets with a sobbing gasp, needing the air, pushing back against his lover's hand desperately, the sounds coming out of him –
"I'll collar you with your own halo, fabaznil," Sebastian murmured. "Just say the words, and I'll make sure this never happens."
The chain fell loose around Simon's neck as Sebastian let it go, abruptly tangling his fingers in Simon's hair and wrenching his head back, up out of the sheets, making him look –
The sheets under his hands weren't silk. They were slippery because they were wet.
Simon looked past his cage of sigil-wrought lust and saw Jace lying there, still and cold with his throat torn out, his blood staining the sheets and flavouring Simon's teeth, dripping from his lips, and Simon screamed and screamed and screamed.
)0(
Simon screamed, a sudden sharp sound that sliced the room in two. Alec jumped and Magnus swore in Hindi; the glow around his hands grew twice as bright but Simon writhed and the light stuttered, flickering like strobelights and Simon didn't stop, screamed and screamed as if his heart was being torn from his chest, the flashes of magic casting shadows over his eyes and gaping mouth and rictus face and the sound like broken glass in Alec's ears, sick and familiar – Alec knew that timbre too well, recognised it down in his bones, the horror of having darkness woven in among your veins and the desperation of wanting it out, needing it out, oh Raziel please don't let Abbadon have him, don't let –
No, wait, that was before – Abbadon's was gone and it wasn't Alec screaming this time – it was Simon and he was crying out endlessly, fear and tragedy and horror-horror-somebody-make-it-stop, and Magnus' spell pulsing in and out, on and off and light was spilling out from beneath Simon's sleeve, sunlight beaming brighter and brighter, spilling out around his wrist –
Alec heard a grinding crack and whipped his head towards the sound, looked away from Simon and Magnus to see the arterial fault lines slithering through the glass of the window, fracturing the mirror on the dressing table –
"Simon, no!" Magnus shouted, trying to be heard but Simon couldn't hear him, didn't wake, whipped his hands up and raked his nails across his skull, his face, tearing open raw red tracks to mirror the mirror and Alec dove for him, half lying on him as he fought to wrestle Simon's hands away from his face, nails dripping blood and Alec's head ringing like a struck bell from the screaming and Simon twisting and jerking under him like a man possessed, and he was shrieking words that made no sense, "Yolci t vors ol, yolci t vors ol!" over and over and Alec should have been able to pin him easily but instead Simon was almost throwing him off, stronger than he should have been, stronger than he possibly could be –
And the light from Simon's wrist was almost blinding –
Alec shoved Simon's sleeve down and there it was, an enkeli Mark emblazoned in liquid gold on his forearm, bisected by scars that could only have come from an alligatura rune but glowing, burning as runes could not burn –
What are you –
And every pane of glass exploded.
)0(
"This is your future, aoiveae-orshé," Sebastian said softly, his lips pressed to Simon's ear and his words were blades as Simon's screams crumpled into desperate, broken sobs. No, Jace, n-n-no please Jace what have I, I'm sorry so sorry Jace! "This is his future. You can't keep this from happening, you can't prevent this. Someday soon you'll tear him apart and laugh while he bleeds, because he's not strong enough to leash you and he never will be. And the darkness in you will always reject that which cannot be your equal. Violently."
He turned Simon's face to his and kissed him hard, and all Simon could taste was rust and salt, blood and tears, his heart breaking under the picture Jace's body made hollow and empty on the bed.
Sebastian sighed. "You don't even know what you are," he murmured. He stroked his thumb over Simon's cheek. "Come to me," he ordered, in a voice that was velvet and steel, "or you'll destroy everything you've ever loved."
He smirked. "Just like this," he said, and Simon couldn't look away from Jace's blank-empty-dead eyes but he felt the sigils on the walls – the wards, they were wards – come crashing down like the walls of Jericho.
And the thing inside him rushed up out of its broken cage with a roar to shake the world.
)0(
A hailstorm of glass ripped through the room and Alec's arm darted out to snatch Magnus and drag him down onto the bed, dropping and rolling so it that was Alec's back to the window and Magnus pressed up against his chest, safe from the flying shards. Alec caught the saffron-scent of Magnus' magic and something more, something richer and deeper caught in the other man's hair where it brushed Alec's face; salt and flowers, figs and sea-spray, and Alec just wanted to breathe it in and in and in –
The screaming had stopped. Threads of fire lashed Alec's back where shards had sliced through his shirt, but they were easy to ignore, far easier than the warm solidity of Magnus' body fitted against his.
Alec panted, wondering if it was over, if it was safe to move. If the pulse in Magnus' throat had a taste, if it would melt like maple sugar under his lips.
He swallowed hard. "Are you okay?" he asked hoarsely.
He felt Magnus nod. "I'm fine," the warlock said quietly, but he didn't try to move. His chest was rising and falling rapidly beneath Alec's forearm. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Alec whispered. His heart was a bronze bell in his chest, ringing and ringing.
But as his own breath stilled – he didn't dare to breathe, to break this fragile moment landed in his palms like a flake of snow – he heard someone else's; heavy, panicked panting, and he remembered Simon.
He let go of Magnus, forgetting to regret, and pushed himself up. "Simon?" he asked, not sure whether to be wary or concerned. Now that he didn't have the press of Magnus' body to distract him, he noticed that his skin itched – a shivery, restless kind of itching, as if electricity were brushing up and down over his body. Not all over, but gathered here and there on his skin, almost as if –
Simon's hands were held over his face. There was blood on his nails, smeared over his fingertips like paint, and between short, racing pants he was whispering something, a rapid stream of words that slipped past Alec's understanding like vampires fleeing the sun. Alec frowned, instinctively trying to make sense of it; it wasn't English, not Spanish or French or Russian, not Hindi or German or Persian, Romanian, Swahili, or Greek. He was fairly certain it wasn't Mandarin or Japanese, although he knew those less well and couldn't really be sure; it didn't match any of the demonic languages he'd learned with Hodge…
The only word he recognised was Sebastian.
It was only a second, a moment. He heard Magnus move behind him, shifting on the bed as Alec reached out to touch Simon's shoulder. He called Simon's name again, aware of Jace's tightrope-taut attention at the edges of his self –
And recoiled, cursing, as Simon's hands fell from his face. He scrambled off the bed, wrenching a seraph blade from his belt and invoking it with a whip-crack snap of vowels, "Ariel," revulsion and disbelief threatening to overcome him as all the pieces – all the hundreds of pieces – suddenly fell into place.
Because Simon's eyes were black as ichor, and it explained everything.
NOTES
A note on the leech from Yggdrasil line – there are leeches who CLIMB TREES so that they can ATTACK FROM ABOVE. I am not kidding. Look it up.
Agé – no (Enochian)
Agé, obelis agé – no, please no (Enochian)
Agé, gnay ipé, obelis – no, don't, please (Enochian)
Aoiveae-orshé – dark star (demonic/corrupted Enochian)
Gidim is an ancient Sumerian word, referring to demons who brought disease. They are the first spirits mentioned to possess humans.
Benzoin, wormwood (absinthe) and sandalwood are all used for summoning spirits.
Goh an gis vonsarg orst ds goh apamnayz biat – I know your every shadow and I stand unflinching (demonic/corrupted Enochian)
Zir ix ciasin – I am not afraid (demonic/corrupted Enochian)
Niisor, odrax esach. Liis chi ozien. Niisor! – Come forth, little brother. You are mine. Come forth! (demonic/corrupted Enochian). A note on this: before people are convinced that Sebastian = Jonathan Morgenstern, please remember that the angel in Simon's vision after the fight with Abbadon also called Simon 'brother'. It doesn't mean the same thing in Enochian that it does in English.
Liis jahalantz paít cak ozien – You will always exist as mine/You will always be mine (demonic/corrupted Enochian)
Vaoan – truth/yes (Enochian)
Gohvs zt – say it (demonic/corrupted Enochian)
Yolci t vors ol – Get it out of me (Enochian)
Alligatura is the name I have given to the binding runes Hodge used on Simon (and which the Inquisitor uses on Jace in City of Ashes); i.e., the runes that look like flames and are used as handcuffs on criminals. Basically, I got frustrated that only a few of the canon runes have 'angelic' names (at least ones that we know)(I'm talking about enkeli for angelic power, iratze for one of the healing Marks, etc) so I went through and gave them all names. I will probably post the full list on my tumblr at some point!
Ariel is an angel of protection, whose name means 'lion of God'.
