"Jace!" she shouts at him.

His bruised eyes widen, half in relief and half in horror. It looks like he put up one hell of a fight. His cheek is bruised and there is cut above his eye that is bleeding down his face. He is gagged and unable to say anything and instead, is making angry noises as he tries to break free of the hold on him. Clary takes half a step towards him and collapses to the ground, scraping her legs. She rolls to her side and pushes herself up onto her knees and tries to walk on her knees to him. She gets to just in front of him, only a foot or so, and is grabbed by her shoulders and prevented from moving any further. "Jace!" she shouts at him again, wishing she was more decent and not almost naked. It's humiliating to know that he is seeing her like this. So beaten down and broken and degraded.

The hands on her shoulders grip her hard and she winces as fingers dig into her new brand while they drag her away. "No! Let him go, you crazy bitch! You have me! You don't want him. It was me who caused you to lose the Dark War!"

"Silence!" the Queen shouts. Silence engulfs the room. "I thought you would like your gift, little pet." The Queen says in a sing song voice.

Clary turns to face her on her knees and begins to beg. "Please, let him go. I'll do anything. I'll stay here for the rest of my life if you just let him go. I'll do anything. Just...please, let him go."

The queen's mouth curves upwards as she looks down on Clary. "Look at you. I've only had you a short while and you are already begging at my feet. You are more pathetic than I thought you were, and that isn't saying much. Why your brother was so obsessed with you is beyond my comprehension."

Clary turns her head and looks back to Jace. His eyes are now focused solely on Clary now. They're filled with sorrow and full of an unspoken apology. I'm sorry I got caught. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. they say to her. "I love you." she tells him as tears roll down her cheeks.

He says something that sounds like "I love you too." through his gag before thrashing again against the hold on his arms and ripping the black shirt he is wearing at his shoulder. "Declarations of love have always amused me." the Queen says bitterly. "Especially when those declarations are designed to garner my empathy. But what you have forgotten, my little pet, is that I do not have the want or desire to feel empathy for anyone. That is why I am Queen and you are in the dirt, groveling at my feet."

Clary doesn't even care at this moment how weak she may look. All she can think about is how she can save Jace and get the queen to set him free. "Please, my lady, let him go." she says in a calmer voice, filled with respect. "I am a Morgenstern. My father tried to kill all of your kind and I was the one who drove the blade through my brother's heart that caused you to be on the losing side of a war that was yours to win. You don't really want him."

"But I do want him." the Queen says with a twist of her lips. "I want him because it causes you pain to see him here. In fact..." She pauses and motions to someone behind Clary with a wave of her hand.

Clary turns around to see a faerie with a large sword step forward and poise it at Jace's chest. His beautiful eyes grow hard and stern before turning to her and locking with her green eyes. They soften immensely as they hold each other's eye contact and then the sword is pushed into his chest. Clary screams out an agonized wail as the scene from Lake Lynn is played out before her again. Jace's eyes widen with the pain as his body begins to convulse.

"No!" she screams. The hands holding her still release her and then she is crawling on her knees to him. The knights holding him let him fall to the floor with a thud. She's barely able to see him through her teary eyes as she closes in on him. Somehow, her hands are released from their bindings behind her and she throws herself at him, her blood covered hands landing on his chest. The life is quickly draining from his eyes while her cries grow harder. Just as she is about to place a kiss on his face, hands pull her up and away from him. "No!" she screams at the top of her lungs. Her effort to try to get out of the hold on her is impressive given how tired and hurt she is. Her screams turn panicked and more agonized the further she is pulled away from him. Unbelievable pain closes around her heart then as she watches while the life drains out of his eyes. "Jace! No!" she chokes out through her sobs.

When his chest stops moving, her body goes limp, the fight draining from her, being quickly replaced with excruciating pain that squeezes her heart in her chest so tightly that she feels like she is unable to breathe. She is faintly aware of the amused laughs that surround her. They are growing in intensity the lower she sinks to the floor as she cries. "Look at how pathetic she is." the Queen says with a laugh. She tries to look up at Jace one last time and is stunned into stillness. She watches him as he sits up and begins to laugh along with everyone else. "Jace?" she asks with confusion.

She watches him intently as his face transforms into one that is distinctly faerie in nature. Pink skin with pointed ears. Confusion takes over as what was once Jace, begins to laugh hysterically at her.

It was a glamour she thinks to herself. A strong glamour.

A tidal wave of conflicting emotions crash through her then. Her body and heart are still reeling from watching Jace die...but it wasn't really Jace. Relief, anger, sorrow, happiness, and worry are all warring within her, trying to figure out which emotion is the dominant one.

"We should do this again." the Queen says with a very satisfied and amused tone. "It was very entertaining for me and my court." There is a loud round of laughter that spreads through the room as she is picked up and dragged out of the room, her body completely limp and lifeless.

Jace

He looks down on her from above. She is in nothing but her pair of purple boy shorts while her bare chest is on display for a room full of faeries. Every inch of her skin is covered in dirt and blood while her hair is tangled and matted with dried blood. Her back is a myriad of straight deep cuts that can only be made with a whip while there is some sort of burn on her shoulder and a deep gash in her right thigh that is slowly pouring blood. His heart clenches almost unbearably hard at the sight of his love.

"No!" Clary screams out, sounding broken and tortured as a blade is slid into his own abdomen. He watches, utterly helpless, as the faeries holding her let her go and then she is crawling on her knees to his weakening body. One faerie steps forward as she passes and releases her hands from behind her back just as she falls on his body while blood pours from his wound. She leans down and looks like she is about to kiss him and then she is pulled away from him again. She kicks angrily and screams an agonized scream as they drag her away from him.

Jace sits up straight in his bed, sweat pouring down his face. He was in mid-scream when he woke. Alec comes barreling in his room with a worried look that mars his beautiful features. "Jace, are you okay?"

Jace kicks his sweat soaked sheets off of him and swings his legs over to the side of his bed and places his feet on the floor. "I had another dream." he tells Alec quietly and a little breathless. He reaches up and pushes his damp hair out of his face. "They just feel so damn real, Alec. Like...it's really happening."

Alec sits down on his bed beside him. "What was happening this time?"

He takes a shaky breath before telling him. "Clary...she was scarred and bloody, like she had been tortured. Her back looked like Sebastian's." The sight of her trembling and almost naked body flashes through his mind. "She was in a room with the Seelie Queen and her court. Then I was brought in and they killed me and made her watch, helpless to stop it." Jace shakes his head as it hangs between his shoulders, his lost eyes cast down to his feet. "The look on her face when she watched me die was...horrible."

Alec reaches up and places a hand on his parabatai's shoulder. "You've got to forgive yourself for not being there with her to protect her, Jace."

"I've told you before that I don't think that is what my dreams are about. It feels like someone's trying to tell me something." he tells him with fervor. "Clary would have dreams that she swore were sent to her by Ithuriel. They showed her things that were going to happen."

"Jace." Alec interrupts. "She's been gone for two months." Jace flinches at the reminder. "I know you are still healing but it's unhealthy to think that way. That she's alive."

"But what if she is?" Jace says forcefully. "What if that is what those dreams are trying to tell me?"

"Then that would mean that you are dead." Alec says flatly. "You just said yourself that you died in the dream."

"I also saw whip marks all over her back. It was like when I dreamed she was being whipped by that faerie in the green room." Jace says to him. Alec is familiar with the green room from how many times Jace has told him about it from his dreams.

"Then again, you are still sitting right here, very alive." Alec counters. Jace takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes shut, trying to force out the sound of her screams. "Why don't you let me draw you a Sleep rune?" Alec asks. "Maybe you could get more than a couple of hours tonight still." It's past three in the morning.

Jace doesn't look at him and rolls back onto the bed while nodding his head. He feels Alec place the stele to his shoulder and the rune sink into his skin for a moment before sleep takes him.

Clary

Clary is dragged, limp and emotionally drained back to her dirt room. The further she gets away from what just happened, the more she starts to allow herself to feel relief that it wasn't really Jace. He's still out there somewhere, alive, and that is what really matters. After she is unceremoniously dumped onto the floor of her room, the knights leave her through the door that quickly melts into the wall without a trace. She feels very tired and drained. Her body lays still on the floor as she slowly falls asleep, tears flowing down her face, dreaming of a time when the queen finally kills her.

Some immeasurable amount of time later...

Clary has long since quit fighting being dragged to the green room. It's futile and she always ends up being punished for not going willingly and putting up a fight. Her body is riddled with scars but the worst torture that she experiences is the mental kind. Varys always plays tricks on her, killing 'Jace' over and over again in front of her or 'Jace' telling her that he doesn't love her anymore. That he's ashamed of her for being so weak and unable to fight the faeries off. Then there are the ones where Jace is fucking numerous girls and faeries, moaning their names and saying how Clary was such a bore in bed.

She also watched Simon and her mother be killed more times than she can count. She feels so broken and tired all of the time and is ashamed of how she's almost given up, barely finding the will to live anymore. Her skin hangs loosely over her skinny frame, her bones poking out where they hadn't before. She hasn't looked in a mirror in a long time but she knows that she looks vastly different now. She doesn't feel that spark of life that once filled her. The only thing that keeps her going is her love for Jace. She can't give up and die because that would destroy him and she can't be the reason for the kind of pain that it would inflict on him.

As she readies to turn the corner to go to the green room where Varys surely awaits with a smile like always, the knight behind her jerks her to go straight. Confused, she looks back to him only to be slapped in the face as he tells her to look forward. She steps on the thin sheet that is wrapped around her body like a dress and stumbles a little in her stride. It's too long but she's just grateful that after what felt like a month of being naked, she was allowed to have this to cover herself with, even though she has to take it off when she is with Varys. It's dirty and torn in a bunch of spots but it's hers. As weird as it sounds, she's grown attached to it. It acts as a shield for her from the world she is in and it is the only thing that she has to her name since being brought to Faerie.

After a long walk, she begins to hear a sweet and melodic sound from up ahead. Her ears perk up and she finds herself wanting to walk faster so she can find out where it is coming from. Up ahead, there is a glowing light coming from a large opening along with the sounds of laughter and the sweet smell of roses. When they finally reach the room, she sees faeries of all shapes, colors, and sizes smiling and dancing. Somewhere in the back of her mind, alarm bells are going off but she ignores them, pushing the nagging feeling to the back of her thoughts.

"Come. Dance with us." a dark faerie with skin the color and texture of grey bark says to her and takes her hand. She smiles at him and takes his offered hand as the music seeps into her bones. She suddenly feels light on her feet and quickly finds herself dancing and laughing along with everyone else. The room is filled with roses of every color pinned against the walls and delicious food that smells of fruit and berries. She grabs a sweet purple drink from a tray and downs it in a few gulps before grabbing a handful of berries and scarfing them down. The giggles that escape her mouth sound carefree and light, reminding her of the girl she used to be. It's a breath of fresh air to feel like herself again.

When they start to pluck the roses from the wall and throw them to the floor, she thinks nothing of it. All she cares about is how great it feels to be dancing at this gathering and not in the green room with Varys. She's so lost in her own world that she doesn't even notice when the thorns on the stems of the roses begin to stab into the bottom of her feet, tearing her soft skin there to pieces. By the time she notices the throbbing pain in her feet, it's too late and for some reason, she pushes the pain to the back of her mind. Everyone around her is laughing at her but she can't find the will or want to stop dancing. Instead, she keeps dancing, her face switching between grimacing in pain and smiling brightly with laughter.

A very long time passes as she dances and her blood now covers every rose, turning them all the same color of shimmery gold-crimson as her blood. As she is spinning in a circle with her arms out to her side, a familiar face catches her attention. She stops spinning and smiles widely when she sees Mark Blackthorn and a few other faeries from the Wild Hunt standing with him. Their two colored eyes giving them away and making them discernible from the rest of the faeries there. "You're Mark Blackthorn!" she shouts to him with a smile.

He steps forward with a serious look about him and grabs her by her left upper arm. Her brows furrow with anger as he starts to pull her away from the wonderful music and delicious food. "Hey! Where are you taking me?" she yells at him and tries to shake free of his grip. His fingers tighten their hold. He drags her out of the room and down the hall away from the party until she can't hear the sweet music anymore. There is another faerie from the Wild Hunt following them with midnight blue hair. He looks like he is worried for some reason as his eyes follow Mark. He takes her to some room and lets go of her arm. That's when she begins to feel the blistering pain emanating from her feet. She looks down and sees her feet covered in blood and immediately falls to the floor. It hurts...so damn much.

She screams as her fingers reach down to find all of her skin missing from the soles of her feet and instead, feels ligaments and muscles embedded with thorns. "Here." says a voice from above her. When she looks up, she sees Mark looking down at her with a pained expression. She is beyond surprised when he pulls a stele out of the waistband of his pants. He places the tip of it on her left foot and draws an iratze there. After a few moments, she feels her foot start to heal itself. As he moves to the other foot, she tries to move fast to grab his stele but instead, the other faerie reaches out and grabs hold of both of her wrists. "I can't let you take that." he tells her.

When Mark finishes the second iratze, she looks up at him with pleading eyes. "Please, Mark. Let me have that stele."

"I'm sorry. I can't let you have it. This is all I am able to do for you." He nods down to her raw feet.

"But...please." she cries out. "You don't know what they are doing to me down here."

"It's not my business to know. I only did this for you to repay you for the witchlight your mate gave me when I was first taken here."

"Mark, please." she cries. "Your sister, Helen, is a friend of mine. Help me. Get me out of here."

"I'm sorry." he says to her again after flinching at his sister's name. There is a sad look that crosses his eyes for a moment before he bends down and gives her another iratze and stands up, tucking it back into his waist band. "I must go now." The other faerie releases her wrists and moves to the door of the room with Mark. "Stay here till someone finds you." Mark says just before he leaves and takes with him the only thing that could save Clary.

Sobs begin to rack her body then. For just the tiniest and briefest of moments, she thought that she might get out of here. Her heart soared in her chest and Jace's smiling face was all she saw. She's envisioned reuniting with him so often that it has become her favorite thing to do. Sometimes he cries with happiness and sometimes he kisses her and takes her right then and there. She allowed herself to believe that those thoughts would become a reality and now that Mark has walked away, taking the stele with him, the reality of still being here and held prisoner hits her like ten tons of bricks. Her heart breaks in her chest for what seems like the millionth time since she's been here. The crushing reality of her life is too harsh. She wants to die. She doesn't want to spend the rest of her life down here being tortured day after day.

Her loud sobbing attracts a passing young faerie. She hides herself behind part of the door and watches as she shudders with her sobs and listens to her tormented wails that come from her lips. When the faerie's mother comes to look for her, she finds her and Clary and calls for a knight. Two come and drag her back to her room, and this time, she fights with all she has. She kicks and screams, biting and scratching at anything that comes within reach. She receives a few punches to the head that make her dizzy before being dumped back into the room she's been held prisoner in since she got here. The dirt flies up around her as she lands and she coughs out as she tries to take a deep breath but gets nothing but dirt instead.

She pushes up off of the ground and almost makes it to the door in time to slip through before it closes. Her fists bang on the packed earth as she shouts at them, "Please, just kill me! Kill me! I don't want to be here anymore." The door melts into the wall and disappears. She screams in desperation as she turns around and kicks the only thing that has ever been in her room. The candle goes flying and crashes against the wall. It falls to the floor and rolls for a while, it's flame flickering almost completely out and leaving her in complete darkness.

Her hands fly up into her hair and she begins to pull hard. Some of her hair rips away from her scalp painfully as she continues to scream as loud as she can. "Just let me die!" she shouts. "I don't want to be here anymore! Jace! Where are you, Jace?! I need you!"

She knows that he can't hear her but it helps her to pretend that he can sometimes. She'll even have long conversations with him and that scares her. She knows that her sanity is slowly slipping away and there is nothing she can do about it. All she can do is not die, but in this moment, she can't remember why she shouldn't.

I know this chapter was rough but there is a turning point in the next chapter. I promise!

Thanks, as always, for reading and don't forget to follow and review and tell me what you think!