This has been a long time coming.

Eight
Let the Winds of Heaven Dance

Waves of invisible fire crashed through the Institute, breaking like burning surf against her Marks, and Isabelle was out of her seat and running before her conscious mind could put it together, a lifetime's well-honed instincts remembering-understanding-acting without the need for deliberation. Max shouted something behind her but she didn't stop to listen, her runes singing like struck glass through her skin as she sprinted through corridors and up flights of stairs, doorways and paintings turned to smears of colour by the speed of her steps, her hair a black whip behind her—

Another wave of searing gold, invisible but not intangible, swept through the building like a tsunami; her every Mark rang with it like a struck gong and she knew what it was, knew what it meant, found herself standing in the doorway of the Infirmary and was not surprised to see Simon sitting upright on a cot, his eyes and skin full of a light that cast strange shadows on the wall behind him, his hand upraised and held against Syr Bellesword and Isabelle's father.

She was not surprised to see that it was not Simon at all.

She felt the moment the angel recognised her presence like a flaming brand held to her breastbone, a golden agony as if the full might of the sun's fire had turned its attention on her alone. Her Marks sang beneath it and her body trembled, struck by the immensity of that regard, terror and awe a carcanet about her heart—

"Quiida i tox?" it snarled through Simon's voice, a demand so clear the glass in the windows shivered and Syr Bellesword and Izzy's father both flinched as if whipped, Simon's human voice too thin a protection against the lightning-strike that burned behind it—

But Izzy didn't flinch. The thunder in the angel's words echoed in her chest, and her ears rang with it, every bone in her humming like windchimes in the wake of that voice, and she stood her ground without quailing.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't understand you."

It stared at her without blinking, Simon's eyes turned to stars by the power looking through them. "Nurma!" it said sharply. "Quiida i Nurma?"

She shook her head, spreading her hands to illustrate her helplessness. "I don't understand," she repeated.

And abruptly he, it, stood inches from her, ablaze with gold like a figure of living light, and Izzy's breath dissolved into smoke as it took her face in Simon's hands, so gently, and his hands were Midas' hands, turning her to gold with the angel's touch—

"Where," it asked through Simon, through lips gilded with Heaven's might, "is he?"

"Jace?" she whispered, because who else could the angel be looking for, this angel who had stood over her brother and held the Mortal Sword between him and the Inquisitor?

"Jace," it echoed, and nothing more.

"In the Silent City," Izzy said. There were planets revolving in the angel's gaze, comets and moons dancing there as if all the universe were held enclosed in its mind like an orrery…

"City of bones," the angel said, sing-song and eerie, "city of the dead, city of the dark." It held her face in its hands, and her runes burned. "Can you hunt him through the shadows, Shadowhunter? Can you find him?"

"Yes," she said.

"Then show me."

And the world turned to fire.

Distantly she heard her father's cry and Syr Bellesword's sudden curse; distantly she was aware of a curtain of flames enfolding her, embracing her, flames that arced and beat like wings. But those eyes held hers, held her as if she were a star it would add to the constellations she could see revolving in its gaze, and the rest of the world became a faint and far-off dream, nothing like as real as the music searing through her soul; the song of spheres, a wild and rhapsodic chorale that encompassed all the world in its singing, every world, every living thing, and for the briefest of instants she heard the song of her own body, her every cell a vital note in the Song of Songs—

Silence fell like a guillotine, and the loss of the music was so ruthlessly sudden, so terribly total that she cried out before she could stop herself. The flames parted, and she stumbled as Simon's hands fell from her, stumbled as if wounded; she pressed a hand to her heart and felt the anguish there, even as her Marks still hummed with the faintest echoes of that heavenly song.

Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, she looked around—and ice spun like silk down her spine.

She was not standing in the Institute—was nowhere near the Institute. Instead in an instant of fire they had crossed half the city, so that now angel and Shadowhunter stood encircled by the names of the dead, inside the square that housed the New York entrance of the Silent City. The names of fallen Shadowhunters were engraved on the walls, macabre flower petals clasped around the statue of Raziel at their centre, Raziel with the Mortal Cup at his feet. Even as Izzy found her balance she saw Simon's body approach the statue, and was struck by the strangeness of it, the image of these two angels facing each other, one clothed in mortal flesh and one in stone.

If Simon's angel recognised the tableau it made it gave no sign. It stared at its marble cousin, and a wash of something terrible broke over Simon's face like a shadow across the sun; enraged, frenzied, chillingly alien. Simon's lip curled back in a snarl and his hands wrenched at the air, a cutting, a tearing—

"Odo," he hissed—

And the gate opened. With a groan like pain, the earth fell away beneath the statue, revealing the stairs that led down into the dark, down into the necropolis of the Silent Brothers, and the darkness seemed almost to reach out of it, to flow like poison from that yawning mouth—

The angel was staring at her again, a stare like a burning sword. "Find him," it said, commanded, Simon's voice wavering like heat-struck air, a mirage that would dissolve into fire at the least provocation, shred into that earth-shaking voice from the Council Chamber, the one that had made them all bleed from their ears and broken the blood vessels in their eyes—but beyond the glory Izzy could hear the terror in it, the frenetic energy that whipped and howled like scouring storm winds.

So she ran. Down the steps, into the dark; darkness that gave way like cringing demons before the angel's fire, golden light that stretched ahead of them into the shadows. Izzy led the way down and her feet had wings, she was moving faster than she ever had, her Marks blazing with power as if new-drawn and fuelling a speed she'd never known before, so that together she and the angel seemed to fly down the stairs like twinned comets. In mere seconds they reached the first level of the Silent City, the staircase dissolving beneath their feet into an enormous space that Izzy could sense more than see, the open air of the long hall and high ceiling a tangible presence on her skin.

They did not stop, but crossed the floor in a streak of light, the angel ever a half-step behind-beside her, a living sun in the tomb-like dark. The City smelled of stone and dust and unloved space, and beyond their footsteps there was no sound at all.

No Silent Brothers appeared to bar their way, or demand an explanation for their presence. Had they fled from the angel's light; did they hide from it even now, in the shadows where Izzy couldn't see?

When they reached the stairs that led to the lower levels, she had her answer. Beside her, the angel snarled, shaking the ground beneath her feet, but the world did not change in the face of its fury. The stench of blood still rose up from the stairs, a thick miasma of coppery death that squeezed a fist around her heart.

"Jace," she whispered. Jace was down there somewhere, and suddenly she understood why the angel was so desperate to find her brother. Something had gone very, very wrong in the Silent City.

As if Jace's name was a charm against the dark, the angel's light grew brighter. Lines of fire arched from Simon's spine, twining and spiralling upwards and outwards through the darkness like vines of light, budding stars like fruit or blossoms. Izzy's breath caught in her throat at the impossible glory of it, the wings of sunlight that lit up the topmost floor of the Silent City bright as day, washing colour across the vast plain of stone. For the first time Izzy saw the patterns decorating the floor, the night sky replicated in shades of marble, every star lovingly set down beneath her feet; while above the ceiling was a flurry of frescoes, seraphim and cherubim and dominions locked in an intricate dance, their wings interlaced in golden braids. In the paintings the angels had the feathered wings of birds, nothing like the sheets of dazzling fire that framed Simon now like the nimbus of a saint, shifting and undulating like the Aurora Borealis in every shade of gold, flames that writhed like water, changing shape from moment to moment; sharp edges melting into wave-like curves, spirals gaining razored points, tendrils and tongues stretching outwards in skeins of glowing gilt only to collapse into ripples of white wine and honey.

She was still staring at them, her eyes watering at their brightness, when the angel spoke. "Come," it said, "we must go faster," a command her body obeyed before her mind registered the imperative in it; it held out Simon's hand and she took it, refused to cringe as it pulled her close and effortlessly lifted her up, as if she weighed nothing at all. Instinctively she looped her arms around Simon's neck as the angel cradled her against Simon's chest.

Her eyes wanted to close against the stunning brightness of him. She didn't let them.

Without warning the angel plunged down into the dark, and Izzy's gasp was lost to the light-drowned shadows. The stairwell was tight and close and they rushed down it like a riptide of fire, shearing the air before them; there was not enough space and yet they never touched the stone, never crashed even though Izzy was sure they must, stairs flashing past in their hundreds and floor after floor opening up and gone behind them and it was like being caught up in a burning whirlwind, flames and feathers of light whipping and lashing and flooding the staircase and she could not make herself look up at Simon's face, could not catch her breath as they plummeted down and down and down—

Until with a rolling twist they soared through an archway and into-onto one of the lower floors, and Izzy felt it even as the angel let her go and she landed in a graceful crouch on the floor, knew it before the angel's scream of fury broke the world apart like a hammer kissing a mirror; the wrongness, the wound in the fabric of the real—

There was a demon in the Silent City.

And she was unarmed.

)0(

A roar of challenge burst from his-their-xyr throat like a sword from its sheath, gilded in fire and rage as Simon dropped to the ground in front of his-their-xyr Shadowhunter, countless wings flaring wide in a threat display older than this world's sky; and the demon crouched over the bodies littering the floor quailed away from the radiance of heavenly fire. Its presence burned like poison in Simon's throat, a sick cold around his heart, washing the world in a crimson hatred that spilled across the stone, dripped from the roof of the hall like brackish water; a hate that demanded, compelled the Infernal's utter destruction, an imperative like breath with all the force of a raging wildfire behind it, in it. The demon's mephitis clawed at his light, an icy pressure against his flames, darkness of the abyss beating like waves against his light and xe-they-he snarled—

"Adokaz-Aoi!" the demon hissed, grovelling, prince of stars and xe hesitated, struck by the shock in its un-voice, by the weight of its words. "Do you not remember me, Adokaz-prince? I am one of your own—forgive me, my prince, I did not believe the rumours of your return—we thought you dead!"

Simon-and-not stared at it, uncertain, confused. Flickers of memories danced around the edges of the fire, shadows on the wall like dreams; a thousand demons kneeling to him, xem, calling xem just that, prince of stars, Sword of the King, and xyr own voice singing it back, echoing the truth of it… For a millisecond that stretched aeons, Simon's vision seemed to waver, doubling the bloodied corpses on the floor, the pillars holding up the roof, and for the merest moment the demon itself, the demon whose twin was not a black and noxious thing but a crouched figure of gleaming silver, ephemeral wings like moonlight on water curved about and behind it, mirrors to Simon's own—

And in that instant it lunged, snarling, those silver wings become sheets of steel and then they were gone, there was only the umbra-wreathed monster with sun-on-ice eyes and a mouth full of stalactites, stalagmites and xe snapped into motion, whirling in place like a top with xyr wings spinning around xem like rotor blades, a whirlwind of light and fire and the demon screamed as its leap collided with that oscillating wall of burning edges—

Simon whipped his wings apart and caught the demon on the backstroke, smashing it back across the space. It crashed into stone and xe flew after it, the pillars shaking with the force of his roar, xyr scream of wrath, wings extended like claws, swinging like living swords for that manifest shadow. He plunged down on it like an axe like lightning and the demon twisted away, striking out, forming black limbs of its own shadow-stuff to meet xem with, a stinging scorpion's tail and a porcupine's thousand quills stinking with venom, acid and Simon's wings were both armour and weaponry, pairs of them folded around xyr fragile mortal core while others cut and slashed, blades of crystallised heat and frozen light, scything atoms in half and catching-shaping-hurling the resulting fireworks, the nuclear explosions like dying stars, at xyr enemy with wings that became limbs with all the fluidity of flame, morphing as needed, a meteor shower of light and heat flash-flash-flashing and the demon's claws were jagged ice, splintered crystal lash-lash-lashing and raking xyr wings, sparks flying like blood from his wounds and stinking ichor splash-splash-splashing from the demon's, spilling across the floor like oil. Fire and cold, stagnant water locked in opposition, trading wound for wound and not-blood for ichor, elemental titans casting terrifying lightshows and grappling, snarling, bleeding smoke and sparks as each fought to tear the other apart—

And in its protective cage of glass-clasped wings xyr human sleeve, the mortal heart of this countless-winged light-born creature, bled red wept red screamed red, a haemophilic Snow White in his golden coffin, convulsing every time the demon's claws found their way through that forest of wings to brush the pair wrapped around him—

And those wings flickered like candles in the wind, weakening—

But the demon was tiring too, slowing faster, and xe shrieked like an eagle, like a glacier with vicious triumph, and dived upon it.

)0(

When the angel engaged the demon Izzy found herself surrounded by the leavings of a massacre—the light of the angel's wings lit a field of corpses, dozens of Silent Brothers cast down bloody on the ground. The air stank of blood and death, the foulness mortals made in their final moments, and probably Izzy could have stopped to give the fallen their last rites, but instead she plunged among the bodies for a weapon, any weapon, because there was a darkness here that the angel's wings did not, could not banish, a shadow that writhed and twisted, a demon who should not have been able to enter the city at all—

But of course there was no need, really, to find a weapon—it was not as if the angel was going to need the help of a seventeen year old Shadowhunter, not even Dedicated, to defeat a single demon.

She paused, then, kneeling next to the body of a Silent Brother, in the coagulating blood that had come from his mouth when he fell. (Never mind, her cóada was already ruined, already stained with Simon's blood from this morning…) She longed for her glorious electrum whip, but it was true, wasn't it? What angel would need her help? She would only get in the way—and so she watched, unaware that she was trembling, unable to say, if she had been asked, whether she shook with awe or terror. The battle was as far from the fights she knew as the sun to a tea-light, a wholly different thing. The angel fought with its wings, huge scythes of golden light that took new shapes between Isabelle's blinks, wreathing it in what were simultaneously weapons and unhuman limbs that it controlled effortlessly, moving through the air like a bullet; the demon was smoke and sickness, forming and re-forming as the angel's wings cut its creations apart, lashing with terrible claws, teeth, pincers and tails. It was like watching a thunderstorm, the flash of lightning in a dark sky; tangled together, crashing together, angel and demon alike both seemed monstrous, like nothing Izzy's world could ever have birthed. Light and lightnessness, fire and living night both wreathed in ozone and the splash of sparks, and those who thought only the dark was terrible had never understood the power that made the deserts—never seen that hurricane of cutting wings, that storm of burning swords, never heard a demon scream as if for mercy as it cringed away from a blow, gushing ichor upon the stone floor—

It was terrible—and it was glorious. Izzy was afraid and elated, terrified and overjoyed with visceral wonder, for here, here was proof that the Shadowhunters had behind them a force to rival the full might of Hell, to rival and devastate it utterly—here was Raziel's kin come to fight for Raziel's children and prove that there was hope, there was purpose, there was a reason for the tithe of pain and deaths laid upon Izzy's people and it was a price well-paid—it was well-paid and well-done and the Nephilim's Celestial family were proud of them, recognised their sacrifices—

Would fight with them—

And when the angel cried aloud with what could only be triumph, plunging down like a hawk for the kill, Izzy shouted with it, ablaze with that same savage exultation, rising to her feet with the force of the cheer that ripped out from between her bared teeth—

It did not occur to her that an angel, even one currently incarnate, would have any trouble with a demon. It had not occurred to her to worry. But suddenly the fearful, abject, wounded demon lunged upwards with a mouth that gaped open like an earthquake, full of teeth longer than Izzy's arms and clearly not so wounded it had appeared to be—and those teeth, those black-ivory teeth like splinters of the abyss caught and sheared through a whole cluster of wings that exploded into dying sparks—

And the angel screamed.

Not in rage or anticipated celebration but in pain, in agony that clapped Izzy's hands over her ears in a useless, shameful attempt to shield herself from it. It rang from the stone walls and bled across the floor in a gush of sound, and even as Izzy's hands fell incredulous so did the angel, crashing to the ground like a star cut from its moorings in the sky—

And—

No—

The demon laughed, an awful, thunderous sound as it twisted and pounced on the angel's glowing form, a demonic cat leaping for an injured mouse—

No—

The world didn't work that way—

The angel screamed again, not a mouse but a trapped butterfly, auroric wings struggling beneath stabbing claws, flickering like dying witchlights—

Dying—

No—

The world does not work this way—

Her hands were empty. Her hands were empty and Simon was in there, Simon, Jace's heart and Izzy's friend—but more than that, larger than that, loomed the death of how she understood the universe to be, the fall of light before the dark, the undoing of all she and all her ancestors before her had fought for bled for died for, over and over they had died and that was what they did, it was the price they paid it was why they were made, but they did it hoping believing knowing that there was something bigger, something greater, some light that could not go out no matter their individual failures, and if that was not so—

It could not be not-so—

The sun rose in the east and nausea was bad and two plus two was four, Shadowhunters died and warlocks lived forever and Light Worlders shaped the world and beyond it all, above it all, the light, the light of Heaven was greater than the shadow of Hell, that was how the universe worked—

The angel screamed and—

No—

No, THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT WORK THIS WAY

—and Izzy screamed with it.

Screamed, as white light to rival the sun burst from her hands like a nursery of stars being born. Screamed as, without conscious deliberation, her palms came up to halt the desecration before her. Screamed, as the light, her light seared across the space between like Artemis' silver arrow and struck the demon that had profaned this place and blasphemed against the world. Like a tide of glittering diamonds it smashed into the monster, carried it back and back and back and Izzy was screaming, defiance and denial, rejection and revolt as the white light of stars streamed through her and out of her with the roar of all the oceans of the world, the howl of every wind that blew above every field, the rumble of the earth beneath her feet and above it all she screamed and screamed and screamed—

NO!

THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT WORK THIS WAY!

Somewhere very distant, she was aware of the demon screeching fit to wake the dead, saw the smoke of it boiling as it writhed. She knew the light could kill it, not merely send it back to the realm it came from but destroy it utterly, and she sensed the moment the demon knew it too, the terror in it, its horror of her.

She felt it when the demon fled from her, her and her light, and vanished into the tunnels of the Silent City like a rat into a sewer, bleeding great gouts of foul smoke and ichor. She felt it like a wrongness gone, a weight lifted, a false thing made true again.

And the river of starlight faded from her hands like a witchlight no longer needed.

As she was, now, no longer needed.

The thought barely had time to flit through her mind before Isabelle Lightwood—who had never swooned in her life and had never expected that to change—fell to the ground in a dead faint, and lay quiet and still amidst the corpses, and thought no more.

)0(

Simon came back to the world with the thick taste of copper in his mouth and nought but blackness above him.

The angel—the creature—had retreated, and without its wings Simon could see nothing, had to lift shaking fingers to his eyes to be sure they were even open. The darkness was total, impenetrable. But then, they had to be hundreds of feet underground at least…

Or maybe I've gone blind, he thought, panicked, and his body was awash with pain, every inch of him aching as if he'd been pummelled by a football team. His fingers found his cheeks wet, and with resigned familiarity he recognised the scent of his own blood, found it smeared beneath his eyes and around his mouth, at his ears and below his nose.

At least I'm not choking on it this time…

He took a deep breath and sat up, the sheer totality of the dark making him feel dizzy, as if he might tumble away into it if he moved wrong. He set his palms down on the cool stone floor to reassure himself that he was not, in fact, hovering in some terrible void.

He smelled blood and ozone, the too-sweet scent of demonic ichor and a horrible smell like the worst kind of public toilets—ammonia and faeces, thick and awful. It took his sluggish mind too long to remember the bodies he had glimpsed through the angel's attention, dozens of Silent Brothers scattered like broken dolls on the floor; took him longer to remember that those bodies would have voided their contents when they died. That was the source of the smell.

He swallowed. His throat burned, horrifically raw. I need light, he thought, knowing that, for once, he had no seraph blade to light his way. You couldn't bring weapons to a meeting with the Inquisitor, Jace had said, and so Simiel was waiting on Simon's pillow at Alec's apartment. And Simon had no witchlight stone, didn't even have a stele. Without light I'll never find my way out of here.

Izzy. He had to find Izzy. She had done something…saved him, and the angel with him. There had been a white light…

Simon curled his hands into fists and reached for the angel buried inside him like shrapnel, pleading, hoping. Light. He needed light. He needed light, because Izzy hadn't made a sound and that meant she needed help; because Jace was in a cell somewhere down here and that demon was not, he thought, dead; because without light all three of them were trapped down here, in the endless dark—

LIGHT!

A wave of exhaustion not his own broke briefly over him—and a softly gleaming light shimmered hesitantly into existence, a slender bracelet around his right wrist growing brighter by the moment; his enkeli rune, glowing beneath his sleeve. When he rolled up the bloodied silk the light of the Mark was like a bizarre lantern set into his skin, a strong, clear gold, and Simon didn't even have the strength to be amazed, only grateful that it had worked.

He held up his arm. Like the beam of a lighthouse, the light cut like a knife through the dark, illuminating drying pools of blood, stones cracked and charred by the fighting of angel and demon—but no bodies, and no Isabelle.

They'd been fighting at the far end of the hall, Simon told himself. The angel had left Izzy at the other end, further than the light could reach. He just had to go find her.

He had to crawl. His legs refused to bear his weight, his entire body seemingly folded out of paper—ripped paper, stained and waterlogged, and that made no sense but Simon couldn't make himself care, didn't have the energy to straighten out his metaphors. Achingly, awkwardly, he inched himself along the stone floor, struggling to light his way with the rune Marked on the inside of his right arm. There followed a horrible, endless stretch of time that would haunt him till the day he died; the stench; the chill, all-encompassing darkness; the bruised throbbing of his bones; the heavy awareness of the dead built into the walls, and those more recently fallen laid in their own blood on the ground. The silence, a cage of lead simultaneously constricting and too large, choking him and leaving him certain that there was something out there in the dark with him.

There wasn't. There wasn't. But it was impossible to be sure, to quiet that primal animal terror, and he dragged it behind him like a corpse as he crawled.

Maybe he went in circles for a while; there was no telling. It felt like years later that his beam of light found an outlying body at last, a Silent Brother whose pale umber robe was stained dark with his own blood, his sewn-sealed mouth ripped open in a silenced cry. The horror of it, coming unexpectedly out of the dark, nearly stopped Simon's heart; he bit down on an unfeigned scream and the light snapped out without warning, leaving him alone with that image seared into his brain, those empty eye-sockets and the gaping, bloodied mouth—

It took too long for him to bring the light back.

When he managed to once more make his enkeli Mark play nightlight, Simon continued on, stopping every few minutes to sweep his light around and look for Izzy. Soon he was crawling through tacky, drying blood, sickeningly sticky beneath his hands and knees, and trying not to wonder if he could have prevented this massacre. He—they, him and the angel—they had come for Jace, had known something was wrong; the need to get to him had been overwhelming, as irresistible as a heart's need to beat. It was gone now—presumably, hopefully the demon had run far beyond where it was a threat to his aikane—but if they had been faster…

They're not dead because of me, Simon told himself, even as another, colder voice whispered;

But you could have saved them.

They'd had stories of their own, these men; stories that had nothing to do with him, of which he was no part, but no less real than his, no less important. The Silent Brothers were a strange sect, but they were still human, still Nephilim; they'd had desires and dreams, grudges and nightmares. They'd been children once.

And now they're meat, another part of him said dismissively, and Simon grit his teeth.

Isabelle was near the stairs. She was lying on her side as if she'd fallen, and Simon went to his knees beside her, wishing sharply for a stele; if she'd hit her head she would need an iratze at least, but he had nothing to draw it with...

When a solution occurred to him, he almost smacked himself, it was so obvious: he was surrounded by Nephilim! Of course one of the Silent Brothers would have a stele. Grimly, he searched the bodies around him, trying not to gag, his flesh crawling. It was a difficult, undignified, fumbling search, trying and often failing to keep the light on what he was doing; by the time his fingers closed on the slim, cool rod of a stele in a dead man's pocket Simon hardly glanced at it, exhausted past bearing. He shuffled back to Izzy and pushed up her sleeve, awkwardly holding the now blood-smeared stele in his left hand so that his right could shine light on the network of Marks already gracing Izzy's arm.

Carefully, he drew a small iratze—since size had no bearing on a rune's power—between a sabedoria and a tharros, and felt the familiar drain as it took. For a minute his vision swam, and the light on his arm blinked like a firefly; the stele slipped from between his fingers to clatter on the ground—

And Izzy groaned, raising her hand to her head. "Simon…? Simon!"

She bolted upright, so quickly that she almost smacked their heads together; Simon only just got out of the way in time. "Careful!"

"Sorry." When he angled his arm—sending the light, not in her face to blind her, but to the side so they could both see a little—she looked sickly pale. "Are you okay? What happened?"

She stared at him—and then down at her hands.

"Izzy?" he asked hesitantly.

"Light," she said. "Light came out of my hands." She was still staring at them.

"…Okay." …That sounds fake, but okay, his mind added hysterically. "I take it this is not a normal Shadowhunter thing?"

She shook her head.

"Have you ever done it before?"

"No."

"…Okay." What the fuck. "Well, thanks. Pretty sure you saved my life." It came out far more lightly than he'd meant—and that was a terrible pun—fuck it, he was too tired for this.

"Your Mark's glowing," Izzy said with surprise.

Simon resisted the urge to go what?! By Jove you're right! "Yes," he said instead. I levelled up and unlocked a new skill. "But I don't know how long I can keep it up. We need to—" He stopped as he suddenly realised that he had no idea what came next.

Isabelle, on the other hand, didn't seem the least bit confused. "We need to get Jace," she finished for him, calmly.

Simon bit his lip. The thought of leaving Jace alone in this City-turned-tomb cut at him, but… "Maybe it's smarter to go get help first," he started—

Only to double over as a wave of heat and gold like liquid sunlight crashed over and through him, flooding him to the brim with energy too hot to hold, to contain, and Simon swallowed his words in a choke of copper—

No. A certainty to warp his bones and burst his heart and put him back together kintsugi-style, brimming-burning with desperation-denial; no, he could not, could not leave Jace here in the dark with the dead, behind bars he should never have been thrown behind—

FIND HIM.

The compulsion was stigmata tearing him open, a need stronger than breath; Simon was on his feet before he knew it, fuelled by that energy, that urgency to have Jace near him and all right, in his arms and well, unharmed, warm and alive.

"The angel wanted to find Jace," Isabelle said, still in that eerily calm voice. "So we need to find him."

"Yes," Simon agreed, no longer at odds with her. He offered her his light-gilded hand to help her up.

Electricity sparked between their palms when they touched, jolting lightning-like up Simon's arm and down his spine. The light of his Mark bleached white in an instant, gold gone pearlescent and shining like a star, and as Simon automatically pulled her to her feet he drew a sharp breath at the saccharine shock of it.

"Naleli cayaare," he whispered—something else whispered through him, words of pearl and platinum like sorbet on his tongue, sweet and cold and sharp, and he saw the glow of his eyes reflected in Izzy's—

And blinked, and it was gone, the only light the steady gold of his enkeli rune and his mouth gone dry, and only Izzy's wide eyes to say it had happened at all.

"Star dancer," he said before she could ask. He let go of her hand. "It means—star dancer."

She nodded slowly. "I'll ask Alec," she said simply.

And started walking. "Come on," she tossed over her shoulder. "The cells are down this way."

Naleli cayaare. The whisper echoed in his head.

Star dancer.

Simon followed her.

)0(

Naleli cayaare.

Star dancer.

Izzy replayed the words over and over in her mind as she led Simon—and the golden fire that kept sparking in his eyes—down through the Silent City. They found more bodies, more dead Silent Brothers, and neither glimpsed nor heard anyone alive. Distantly, she worried; was it really possible that the demon, whatever it was, had cut down the entire brotherhood? And how had it managed to get into the Silent City at all? Had someone accidentally broken the protections on this place, or had it been deliberate, a calculated attack? Her thoughts leapt to Valentine, of course, but why in Raziel's name would he want to murder the Silent Brothers? Where was the gain for him?

Or was this something to do with the murdered warlock child—could this be the Spiral Court's revenge for the loss, their strike against the Nephilim—? No, it couldn't be—surely the Court would give them more than three days to find the killer they hunted—

And endlessly, dizzyingly, her mind circled the starlight.

Star dancer.

It was gone, now. She couldn't feel it inside herself, didn't feel powerful or gifted in any way that she hadn't been before. There was no sense that she could summon it again—no sense that she'd been the one to summon it at all. Maybe she hadn't been, maybe she'd only been a channel for someone else, something else—the angel that walked in Simon, or even Raziel, intervening to save his Celestial sibling's life. If Simon's angel could manipulate Shadowhunters by their Marks, who was to say Raziel, whose blood was in their very veins, couldn't move his power through one of his children at need?

But Simon's angel hadn't thanked Raziel through her. It had named her instead: naleli cayaare.

Star dancer.

Well, maybe that was what angels called mortals who acted as mediums for angels; what did she know about it?

Alec might know. Alec was frantic, a mirror to her heart flashing her name in Morse code, and Izzy was grateful that the agela-bond was beyond words because she had no words to give. Only the memories: the angel's awful glory, burning her eyes like the sun; the demon's black monstrosity, smoke and poison; the light filling her up like starlight in water, breaking out of her like a moonrise…

Alec felt very far away, when she thought about that light. And Izzy—Izzy felt tired. No, that was the wrong word—drained. She felt drained. Weightless. Strangely buoyant, as if, if she didn't focus on walking on the ground, she might float away…

Simon too seemed lost in thought, so that he and Izzy walked in silence except for those times when she had to direct him. Her night-vision was good, much better than a Light Worlder's, but even a Shadowhunter couldn't see in pitch blackness. The only light was the glow of Simon's rune, which he held up like a lantern uncomplainingly, even though after a while his arm must have been aching. But finally they came to a door that didn't swing open when Izzy pushed at the handle.

"The cells should be through here," she said, frustrated. If Simon's angel wanted Jace out of the Silent City, then she would do her utmost to get Jace out—but even with her stele, she would never be able to get through a lock crafted by the Silent Brothers. "But I don't know how we can—"

"Odo."

Inside the door, Izzy heard the tumblers of the lock shift and click. When she touched the handle again, the door gave way, swinging wide open.

She turned to look at Simon, and saw the flicker of fire in his eyes, under his skin.

The corridor beyond the door smelled of blood and the dead, but Izzy hardly needed Simon's light; at this distance even the runed block on Jace's cell couldn't hide him from her agela sense. She saw through Jace's eyes the moment the light reached him; with a flare of disorientation that almost made her stumble, she saw the hallway both from her angle and through the bars of his cell, the two images overlaying and blurring into each other—

"Jace!"

—and then Simon was there ahead of her, ignoring or possibly not even noticing the dead Silent Brother on the ground. He wrapped one hand around the electrum bars and lifted the other high, and Izzy saw her brother then, his gold skin pale and his wrist chained to the far wall, unwell but unharmed.

The relief was staggering.

But Jace clearly didn't feel the same way. "What happened?" he demanded, and Izzy belatedly remembered that they were both covered in blood—Izzy in the Silent Brothers', and Simon in his own, the repercussion of angelic possession. "There was something—I heard—are you all right?"

"We're fine," Simon said, which was maybe stretching it a little but Izzy didn't see the need to argue the point.

"There was a demon," she told Jace. "It killed the Silent Brothers—we haven't seen anyone still alive down here. Simon's angel and I drove it off."

Jace's face twisted. "Valentine brought it here," he said wearily.

Simon stiffened. "He was here?" His voice had a snarl in it.

Jace nodded. "He's stolen the Mortal Sword. I don't know what for. He was…"

Izzy could feel his helplessness even through the block. "It's okay," she said, even though it clearly wasn't. "We're getting you out of here. Everything else we can figure out in the sunlight."

She turned to Simon, raising her eyebrows. "Can you open it up?" she asked, meaning like the other door, like the City's entrance. If he couldn't, she would check to see if the dead Silent Brother had been carrying keys—

Simon didn't even look at her; the anger in his face turned to fire, and he closed both hands around the bars of the cell's door. Light shot down his arms like lightning, gilding every vein—

And he ripped the door out of the wall.

)0(

The hinges gave with a screech of metal like a demon's howl and Simon tossed the door aside like it was cardboard, bronze and gold beating in his head like drums, like wings. He strode into the cell with light moving under his skin like water and all he could think was Jace, all he knew was the need-want-craving to gather his aikane close and be sure of him, know down to his marrow that Jace was all right, okay, in one piece and well.

Jace was staring at him as if hypnotised, and Simon caught his face between his hands and kissed him, frantic, needing, there was blood on his cheeks and chin but Jace kissed him back like it didn't matter, pressed into him and Jace's mouth was warm and alive and Simon couldn't get enough of it. The chain on Jace's wrist rattled and Simon didn't hesitate a second, dug his fingers under the manacle and tore it like paper and heard it clatter to the ground without even glancing at it, kissing Jace over and over, tasting him, the life in him, the unhurt-ness of him, Jace's hands twisting just as desperately in his hair and Simon's skimming over Jace's body, relearning reassuring himself of the unbroken lines, the solid reality of his lover. You were gone they took you away from me, locked you in the dark with the dead andthe blur the sear of something fiery and vicious rushing through Simon a tidal wave of gold, sheets of light like silk folding around Jace like protective arms, like walls of adamantium and Jace was shaking, trying to speak and Simon swallowed his words down, licked them off his lips like sugar, lost, you could have been lost, if the demon had gotten down here and it was an unbearable thought, a burning blade of terror-rage-desperation no less sharp for being parried, blocked, averted, you're okay you're okay as he kissed Jace over and over, "I thought you were dead," Jace's whisper like a secret and Simon crooning in his throat, honey behind his teeth and "Not this time," nuzzling him, biting him so gently and Jace was trembling against him, shaking harder, his callused hands sliding down Simon's skull, his neck, to his shoulders—

And shoving him away.

It was a Shadowhunter's push and Simon almost fell, caught his balance only at the last instant, the wings that had embraced Jace shredding into sparks as they broke around him and Simon didn't understand, his lips were still aching, bruised and "Jace?"

"No," Jace said, and his voice had a patina like bronze, dull and rough. "We're not doing this."

"Doing what?" Simon's mind was a whirlpool, spiralling and confused and full of a roaring that drowned out his pulse. They—they had to get out of here, had to find their way back to the surface, tell someone that the Silent Brothers were dead, and Jace…

Jace stepped back, away from him and it made no sense, did not compute, Simon was staring at him as Jace said, "This. Us. We can't do this anymore."

"What?" Slowly, slowly, it was coming together, and Jace's expression wasn't breaking into a grin, wasn't revealing the joke, was instead resolute and unyielding and everything of fire in Simon was icing over, going cold. "That's not funny, dearling."

"It's not supposed to be," Jace said with lips still red from their kisses. "I mean it. We can't be together anymore, Simon."

Individually, the words all made sense, but together the pattern they formed was incomprehensible, a Rorschach test with nothing in it, no shape to it and Simon was failing it, failing the test, he knew it and couldn't help himself, couldn't see what could not be there. "I don't understand," he said desperately, helplessly, and felt it like a wound when Jace looked away.

No no no, don't, look at me, LOOK AT ME—

"It's not that complicated," Jace said. "This—us—it was never going to last. You had to know that."

"No," Simon whispered, and maybe it was a lie, he wasn't sure, but there was nothing else he could humanly say in answer. "I didn't know. Why would I?"

"Because there was never anywhere for it to go but to an end," Jace said. "There's no life for us, Simon. There never was."

"Not if we don't try," Simon said frantically, "not if you won't even try—if you just give up—why are you giving up?"

"Because there's nothing to believe in!" Jace snapped, driving Simiel right through Simon's heart and Simon couldn't breathe, couldn't see, the ground giving way underneath him and his eyes on fire with stupid, stupid tears. "It's a fantasy, it was always a fantasy, lovely while it lasted but it was never going to last forever, Simon! And now it's time to wake up and grow up. Or did you think there was a white picket fence in our future?"

That was cruel, needlessly cruel, Jace hadn't even known that phrase until Dean had mentioned it on Supernatural and Simon had explained it, they'd laughed and Jace had teased him and hearing it now was a twist of the knife. Simon wanted to cry why are you doing this but he knew, part of him knew and that was the worst part, the worst thing. "No," he managed, his breath hitching, "no, I didn't, but there could be something, we could make something if we tried, if you wanted it, there's nothing saying that we can't—"

"There are two worlds that say we can't!" and Jace was almost yelling now, almost shouting, voice raised and toxic and terrible, don't do this, please don't do this. "Where are we supposed to go, Simon? Where's this dreamland where we can be together? Because it's not your world, and it's not mine!"

"Fine, we can't get married," Simon shouted, "so what? I never asked you for that, I never needed to go public, it can stay a secret—"

"It isn't a secret anymore! They know! And even if they didn't—even if it was a secret, what then? What was your plan? Were you going to be Dedicated, were you going to smile at my wedding, were you not going to mind when I had children with someone else, a life with somebody else that you can't share and you can't have? Or was I supposed to give up being a Shadowhunter for you? Was that it? Go to college with you, get a degree in media studies? Would that be sufficiently mundane for you? Was that what you wanted?"

"I wanted you!" Simon cried. "I want you, I don't care, Jace, tell me what you want and I'll do it! Tell me—" Crying, he was crying, tears falling from his eyes like rain and he couldn't remember how to be ashamed, couldn't figure out how to care about something so unimportant. "Tell me you want me and I'll take your oaths, okay, I'll be a fucking Shadowhunter, I'll never say a word against the Clave again, I swear, I promise—I'll be their perfect pureblood, everything they want, everything you want—"

Jace was watching him with what could only be pity. "You can't," he said softly.

"I can, I can, I will, I'd bleed out every drop of Morgenstern blood if that was what you wanted—"

"You can't do that either." Jace's voice had hardened, crystallised. "And even if you could, you'd still be a man, Simon. You'd still be male. You'd still be a singer, an anarchist, a Light Worlder. You would still be you, and my world has no place for you in it."

"Then leave it!" Simon shouted, and it was like a bandage being ripped off, long- swallowed words come spilling out like rotten blood from a hidden wound, one that had been buried and suppressed for weeks that weighed like years; Jace recoiled, physically flinched back as if he couldn't believe and Simon tasted the words like razors, knew they were too sharp too much too far as Jace's eyes went wide and shocked, raw and unfeigned but Simon couldn't take it back, couldn't stop the words from shooting out of his mouth like bullets, like head-shots, heart-shots— "For once in your fucking life, choose yourself over your precious mandate! You want to talk about fantasy versus reality, fine, let's, here we go! You think your people are chosen, you think you're special, but the reality is that you're going to die young and in agony because you're too fucking stupid to walk away! Shadowhunters aren't warriors of God, Jace, they're brainwashed idiots playing soldiers who abuse their kids 'cause that's what mommy and daddy did to them! And you know what, no one fucking cares! There's no such thing as a glorious death, there's no such thing as heroes, and maybe they'll remember your name but it won't matter, because you'll be dead and the dead can't hear the fucking stories we tell about them!" He was screaming now, crying now and couldn't stop, it wasn't fair of him and he didn't care, he'd been wanting-waiting to say this for what felt like years and and and Jace's face growing more and more still, more and more closed, final. "So leave! Leave with me, because they don't deserve you and maybe no one will remember your name when you're gone, but you'll be happy, you can have an entire lifetime of being happy and being human, instead of some toy soldier dying in the dark before you're thirty—"

And for a second, for a second—gods and Time Lords, for a second he thought he saw something like indecision in Jace's face, something like longing, a crack ajar in the closed door of his eyes and please—

Please, please, please—

They could have a life, if Jace turned his back on his people. Their mom would understand when she woke up, Clary didn't care, and no one else had to know that Jace and Simon shared blood. Jace could go to school, make friends he'd never have to watch die, become a martial arts teacher or a doctor or work in a music store. He could see movies in the cinema and visit the aquarium, the zoo, learn to skateboard or code or play football, he could collect stamps and be happy, be human, simply, complicatedly human, and Simon would love him till the day he died—on a deck chair in the sunshine, at eighty, or ninety, or a hundred and two—

If Jace could turn his back on his people. Such an enormous thing to ask of someone.

Such a small one, against the future it could buy.

"Aikane," Simon whispered. "Please."

Agony flashed across Jace's face like the strike of a sword—but he was a Shadowhunter to the core, wasn't he, he knew how to stand beneath pain and Simon's heart snapped like a bone as Jace shook his head, and it was a death-knell tolling, deep in the dark—

No

No

No.

"You can't seriously think I would do that," Jace said, and it was nearly a sneer, a whiplash snapping across Simon's throat; the contempt in it, the ice. "We're at war, Simon, and you want me to turn tail and run away—abandon my friends, my family, just so I can read Harry Potter and eat candy-floss—"

"You're not going to win!" Simon yelled. "You told me that, you told me that, it's a war you will never win, so why not leave, haven't you paid enough blood to it yet—"

"And what then?" Jace shouted, so suddenly Simon that Simon jumped. "Should we all just give up, all of us Shadowhunters? What makes me so special, surely every other 'hunter is worth just as much, surely they all deserve to grow old and die in their beds, but then what, Simon? Who fights then? Who protects your Fallen-damned Light World then? Should we all just watch New York become another Atlantis because none of us deserve to fall in battle? Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Trenton, Dover—how many cities would you let fall before you agreed I should defend them? Delphi? Shanghai? Cairo? London? How many people would you let die—a million? Ten million? A hundred million? How many is enough, Simon? How much blood do you think my life should cost?" He was shaking again, but not from kisses this time, not with anything like desire, and Simon had never seen him like this before, had never considered that maybe Jace had words like mines hidden in him too— "Maybe we'll fall eventually, but every year we buy is a victory, every day we give the mundanes is another day for them to find a better solution—maybe their scientists will find a way to seal the world-wards and keep the demons out forever, or maybe they'll figure out how to give themselves the Sight and learn to fight the monsters themselves, but they'll do it because we gave them time, because we bought them the world!" Rage. Rage, and contempt, and maybe even— "You selfish athumos, how can you even think I'd walk away—the Nephilim are all that stand between you and the apocalypse, and you want me to leave even one inch of the wall unmanned? How dare you even ask?"

"Then let me fight with you." Simon stood still, didn't flinch under Jace's bemused, angry glare, was too fucking desperate and afraid and broken to bend. "Right? If it's so important, if the Nephilim are stretched so thin, then I'll join you. I'll be Dedicated and take the oaths in a year. I'm sure the Clave will be happy to get another pureblooded Shadowhunter in their ranks, won't they? They might even like me more than you, with the angel riding shotgun."

Jace said nothing.

"No?" Simon asked, and his voice shook, now, fractured, now, because he was so angry he thought he'd die with it, genuinely wondered if he might spontaneously combust into his own funeral pyre with a scream to wreck the world. "One life for billions, right? I'm a Shadowhunter, I can be as strong and fast as the rest of you, I can use the runes. I even have a whole pokédex of extra superpowers that you don't have, so actually, it's my duty to fight, isn't it? With great power comes great responsibility, so the great web-slinger tells us."

"Simon…"

"I think I'll do that," Simon said. He wiped at his eyes, his cheeks with his sleeve. "I'll tell the Inquisitor today. They can send me to the Academy. Maybe if I work hard, they'll station me with you and Izzy and Alec. That'd be awesome. We can have Shadowhunter slumber parties."

"Simon!"

"I'll braid your hair and you can polish my sword. Or is that too gay for your beloved Clave?"

"You can't be a Shadowhunter!" Jace shouted.

"Oh fine, you can braid my hair and I'll polish your sword."

"This is not a joke!"

"Of course it fucking is!" Simon exploded, and light roared out of him, blazed like a bonefire and Jace threw his arm in front of his face, covering his eyes. "Because the only reason, the only reason you have for not wanting me to fight is because you don't want to see me hurt, you don't want me to die, so how fucking dare you ask me how dare I, when you'd do the exact same thing, when you're doing it now!"

"Simon—"

"Fuck you, Jace!" Simon snarled, and the light in him snapped and lashed, flames dancing, whipping, storming, sending the shadows running and leaping on the walls. "This is what love is, it's realising someone else is worth more than you are, but it's a false epiphany because we can only ever be worth as much as each other, I'm worth just as much and just as little as you, if you can demand it of yourself you can demand it of me, if you can choose then I can choose, and if you can fight then so can I!" There was a ringing in his ears, a heat in his hands, wrapped around his spine as if his wings, the angel's wings were braced to break through his skin and blaze. "I can be sacrificed or you can be saved, but you have to pick one or the other—"

"I don't love you."

The cell plunged into darkness.

(0)

"I don't want you to become a Shadowhunter," Jace said (was there a frantic edge to his voice, were his words clipped with desperation? Simon didn't notice and hardly cared) when it became apparent that the light was not coming back, "because you think that if you do, we can be together in secret. We can't. I don't want to." His voice froze, clotted like blood. "So there's no need to play the martyr."

(0)

"Unless you really do want to fight, for its own sake," Jace continued, blithe, airy. "In which case, go right ahead. I won't stop you."

(0)

It felt like a long, long time before Simon realised that the dark was real, was not just internal but external too. With slow, clumsy effort, he willed the enkeli Mark on his arm to glow, and the light it cast was dimmer than before.

When he looked up from the rune he found Jace watching him, his expression anxious. But it was gone as soon as he saw Simon looking, and the light was bad, and if Jace was worried about the angel freaking out…

It was quiet, the angel, buried deep. Simon reached for it and couldn't find it and didn't care.

The simple thought—I don't care, their words, and oh gods the fucking irony was a knife to the gut—made his throat close up, and Simon ducked his head away from the light, held his arm out to keep Jace from seeing how his face was marked with the stunning, agonising pain. As if his every nerve were screaming, but worse, deeper, twisting in him like razor wire and briar roses, and why did they call it heartbreak when every inch of you hurt?

He took a deep breath, and it scoured him like acid, and only then did he realise he had no idea what to say.

Part of him wanted to ask: did you ever?

The rest of him did not, because Jace might tell him.

No, that was stupid. Jace had not… No one was that good an actor. And Jace would not have risked what he had risked for anything less than an overwhelming love, a love like hemlock and cyanide. Deadly and total.

I woke in your arms this morning. I woke to your heartbeat this morning. You loved me this morning.

Didn't he? Hadn't he?

Maybe Jace was more upset that Simon had slept with someone else than he'd seemed. Or maybe it was the Inquisitor; maybe, now that he was faced with the consequences, he'd decided that Simon wasn't worth it. That even made sense. No one rational would stay in a relationship that cost so much.

So why do I feel like I'm dying?

"Are you sure?" he asked finally. Softly.

Why do I feel like I'd rather be dead?

He heard Jace sigh. "Enough," he said, and he sounded tired. "It's over, Simon. We're done."

Enough.

It's over.

We're done.

Simon stared at him, felt the silence fill him up. Looking into Jace's eyes was like meeting Medusa's; Simon couldn't figure out how to turn away, how to move, how to breathe.

Enough.

It's over.

We're done.

Enough.

It's over.

We're done.

Enoughit'soverwe'redonedonedone—

Jace looked away first.

But I still love you. Doesn't that mean anything?

Why doesn't that mean anything?

"Right," Simon said, and his voice was a little stronger but just as raw. "Well. There's nothing I can say to that, is there?"

"I'm—" Jace started but Simon made a sharp gesture.

"If you say you're sorry," he said pleasantly, with a smile full of shark teeth, "I will fucking lose it. Don't."

His hand had flashed, as he gestured. Simon stared at his fingers and he wasn't crying, not really. His heart was bleeding brine through his eyes, that was all.

'Your blood is my blood; your war is my war—'

And then his breath hitched and he choked and he sobbed, he was crying, was crying outright, awful and ugly and shameful because he couldn't bear it, he couldn't fucking bear it, 'together we are stronger, together we are whole' but Jace was tearing them in two and Simon couldn't even blame him, understood perfectly, all the logic was on Jace's side and that only made it worse, made it crueller, no one had ever told him that star-crossed love was cocaine for the heart. And Simon threw away the needle before he could take another hit, ripped the gleam of silver from his finger, the Morgenstern ring Jace had put there like a wedding band, and hurled it with all his strength, with the bastard child of rage and hate and despair like vodka in his veins—

Why does it hurt so much why why would you do this to me why would you hurt me like this how could you say—

The silver hit the stone like a bullet, and the chime was a keen of mourning.

"Go and die then," Simon managed, his breath catching on every word and tears streaming down his face and he couldn't even be embarrassed, fuck the patriarchy's insistence that men weren't supposed to feel—all Simon could do was feel, all he was was feeling, an exposed nerve burnt and livid with ashes pouring through his ribs where his heart used to be, ashes and dust. "I hope it's quick."

)0(

Izzy pressed herself against the wall as Simon ran past her down the corridor, wrapped in the scent of salt like a cloak. She held herself still, her eyes squeezed shut as his footsteps slapped the stone and Jace's pulse pounded in her throat, but even through her eyelids some light remained. She didn't look, but she listened, and heard Simon stop not far off, remembering, perhaps, that she and Jace would need the light…

She heard him cry, wet, wounded sounds muffled against something—his sleeve?—and her own eyes stung with tears.

*Why did you do that?* she asked Jace, the thought a gossamer whisper brushing the winter of his mind, his ice-locked heart. She reached for him and the cold burned her, turned her aside like a parried blade. *How could you do that to him?*

She opened her eyes and walked the short distance to the cell. There was just barely enough light for a Shadowhunter to make out shapes in the gloom as Izzy tentatively paused in the doorway, unsure, despite the renewed agela bond, what she would find.

Jace was kneeling on the ground, staring at something in his hand, and his thoughts were bound in diamond, cool and unbreakable, unfathomable.

"We need to follow him," Izzy whispered. Simon had the light.

If she raised her voice, she would break.

She felt Jace's fingers close around the metal ring, and knew what it was without words.

They said nothing. But in the last flickers of the light, Jace got to his feet, and the two of them followed Simon's footsteps, and pretended not to hear him crying.

NOTES

Odo—open (Enochian).

Sabedoria and tharros are the Runed names for the mental excellence and courage-in-combat Marks, respectively.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery (and sometimes other items) with gold/gold-dusted lacquer.

Naleli cayaare is pronounced nall-ell-ee kai-are-ey.

If you've forgotten, the 'your blood is my blood; your war is my war' comes from the Runed!Shadowhunter engagement oath. Jace and Simon said it together back in City of Shadows. The 'together we are stronger; together we are whole' is also a quote from that oath.