A/N: I'm not CC but I really wish I was!
SORRY FOR THE EPIC FAIL ON THE UPDATE! It's been what? A month? More? I don't even remember the last time I thought about posting something for this haha.
Okay, so thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, and to those who have done both. I love the feedback and I'm glad you were all happy about the turn out of the last chapter. Thank you for the condolences about my friend passing away, and don't forget to check out my new story 'All's fair when love is war'- the first two chapters are up. Review review review!
CPOV
"I don't know where to start," I admitted some time later. I was curled against Jace's side, my fingers firmly laced with his. We were sat outside his cell, leaning against the cold stone wall. He was twirling my stele in his free hand, watching the glint of the dim wall lights against its crystal surface as he waited patiently for me to talk. I didn't deserve his patience. I didn't deserve him, period.
"How about the beginning? I heard it's a pretty good place to start." Jace smiled weakly. I tried to smile back but I knew it was nothing but a weird grimace.
"I'm not sure I know what the beginning is anymore." I muttered. He squeezed my hand gently and shrugged.
"I have some questions, if that would help?"
I nodded and waited.
"Well, could you tell me about the Circle?"
"It's what my father and his people call themselves. They're anti-Clave and formed after my grandparents were killed in Europe by downworlders. My Father-" I paused, suddenly hating the sound of the word on my tongue, "Valentine is their leader." I amended.
"What exactly do they do?"
"They kill."
"Who?"
"Downworlders mostly, but Shadowhunters who stand loyal to the Clave have been murdered too. And those who turn traitor to the Circle. Once you're in it, you're in it for life. Anyone who abandons the cause is done for."
"Like my dad. Well, Michael Wayland." Jace sighed quietly. I turned to look him in the eye but he was staring at the bars of his cell, his expression blank.
"What do you mean?"
"Your brother told me that Valentine isn't scared to kill a Shadowhunter when he doesn't get what he wants. He told me not to expect any special treatment just because Valentine put that blood in me and that I'd probably end up the same way Michael Wayland did. Hodge told me that because Michael wouldn't hand me over when they figured the blood had worked, Valentine killed him."
My head whipped around to Jace and I took in the deep frown and the grimacing line of his mouth sadly.
"I know you hate it when I say this, but I'm sorry. My father is disgusting."
Jace shrugged and bit down on his bottom lip lightly, still avoiding my eyes.
"Michael must have known what would happen if he didn't hand me over. I'm just glad he didn't. I can't imagine what I'd be like right now."
To my own surprise, I laughed.
"You'd probably be like me, huh? And my brother; a complete ass and obsessed with our power."
"You're not an ass. Your brother… I could probably come up with some better adjectives to describe him, but I guess 'ass' is as valid as any." He protested, but I could see his mouth curving up ever so slightly. I shook my head with my own smile, which faltered almost immediately. I averted my eyes to the ground and toyed with a speck of dirt on my pants.
"I killed people because I was annoyed at my mom. I ripped them apart like they didn't even matter. You saw what I was like upstairs. That's how I have been for the past few years- how can you tell me I'm not an ass?"
"Okay, so I guess you've done a few dickish things but that's not who you are now, even if it's who you were then. Valentine manipulated you in to thinking it was the right thing to do. You said it yourself- he told you downworlders were trying to kill your mom. If my mom was still alive, I know I'd do everything I could to protect her even if I was majorly pissed at her. Families stand up for each other, no matter what."
I pulled my hand from his, ashamed. There I was, feeling sorry for my self because I couldn't control my emotions and I was forgetting that I did in fact still have two living parents and Jace had none. Fair enough, my family was completely screwed but… they were there and they always had been. Jace had never known his biological parents and Michael Wayland had been killed by my own father.
I felt like complete crap.
"You shouldn't be here." I said quietly and pushed myself from the floor, yanking the stele from his hands.
"Neither should you," he countered pointedly. I wandered to the far wall and rested my head against the cool stone. The temperature helped my headache a little.
"This is my home. These people are my family and therefore my responsibility. I have nowhere else to be."
Jace raised an eyebrow and rose smoothly to his feet. He crossed the room in two strides and took my hands in his.
"You could be with me; at the institute with the Lightwoods. Or with your mom. Anywhere but here."
I grinned wanly and met his eyes.
"That would be nice, but it's impossible. I can't leave here. Not yet. I have things I need to do."
"Like what?" he frowned.
"Like stopping Valentine and Jonathan before they…" I trailed off weakly.
"Before they what, Clary? What do they want from you?" he pressed, sensing my hesitance to continue. I sighed and shook my head.
"It's better for you not to know."
"You promised me you'd tell me everything." He said stonily, squeezing my hands tighter in his. The look in his eyes was a fierce, molten gold and I tried to look away, but I just couldn't. With a sigh, I told him.
"Valentine is planning on wiping out all of the Downworlders."
Jace stood perfectly still for a moment before he burst out in to hysterical laughter.
"How they hell is he planning on doing that?" he said through his amusement. I raised my eyebrows and just looked at him. Slowly, his laughter died out and his expression settled in to a frown.
"He's… he's planning on using you, isn't he?" he asked darkly. I nodded and we stared at each other in silence for an immeasurable amount of time.
"No," he said firmly, shaking his head with a small smile.
"There's this rune he wants me to create-"
"No."
"I have to make him believe I'll-"
"No,"
"Jace, you need to listen to me otherwise-"
"Dammit, Clary; no!" he yelled, letting go of my hands and taking a step away from me. He was furious.
"Don't even think about being an idiot about this. We need to leave, both of us, right now. We need to tell the Clave what's happening and we need to get back to the institute and your mom and my family and maybe we can stop him some other way. There has to be another way." He said quickly, his voice pleading and his eyes wild. I shook my head.
"There is no other way, Jace. I'm staying here to carry on with my plan, and you're going back to New York where you belong."
"You're plan?" Jace laughed, "God this must be good. Go on then, enlighten me. What is this genius plan of yours that's going to get you killed?" his voice grew steadily louder until he was almost screaming. I slammed my palm against his mouth, effectively shutting him up.
"Be quiet or we're both going to die. Do you want Jonathan to hear you?" I hissed under my breath. He mumbled illegibly against my palm before taking me by the wrist and pulling it away so I couldn't understand him.
"I want him to hear me. I want to kill that bast-"
"By the Angel, Jace. Shut the hell up!"
Jace and I stared at each other for a long time.
"Are you going to listen to me or do I need to make you?" I asked. My voice was low and angry. Jace took in a deep breath through his nose and folded his arms; waving one of his hands in a way that said 'Go ahead. Entertain me'.
"Right. This is how it's going to go down. First, I need to get you out of here and back to New York. I'm going to create a portal and I'm going to send you through it, and you're not going to argue with me."
"If you think I'm going to leave you here-"
"I said you're not going to argue with me Wayland! Is that clear?" I growled through my teeth. I'd known this would be difficult, but damn I didn't expect him to be this uncooperative. Jace nodded with tight eyes and I carried on.
"Before you leave, I'm going to put a copy-cat rune on you so we can fool Jonathan for a little longer. It won't last forever but it will buy me some time to get to my father. I'm going to make him believe that I'm going to make that rune for him, and then I'm going to try and kill him. Then I'll need to move on to Jonathan. He'll be harder because of the demon blood, but I have a plan. Meanwhile, you're going to go back to the Institute, gather everyone you can and persuade the Clave to set up a direct portal in to Idris. My father has an army of demons he's been controlling and no doubt when he catches wind of what we're up too, he'll send them to war. I want you to stay out of the way of the fight until you feel the shift, and then I need you to come look for me." I finished and sucked in a deep breath. Jace was staring at me like I was speaking to him in Arabic.
"A 'copy-cat' rune? Feel the shift? What the hell are you talking about?" he said bluntly and I rolled my eyes. I didn't have all the damn time in the world to explain this.
"A copy-cat rune is something I've been working on. Right now there is a copy of me walking about the house upstairs. It's how I was able to come down here and talk for so long. I'm going to put that rune on you so you can escape but to Jonathan and Valentine it will look like you're still here. The copy-cat rune is like an identical body double of you. It moves and talks and has your memories, but it can't feel pain. It's the perfect diversion."
"You're going to make another me?" he asked dubiously as his eyebrows pulled together.
"Something like that." I nodded. He remained quiet for a long moment before he looked up.
"So why not just keep that other you here and you come back with me?"
"The doubles can't think for themselves. They do as their told. Imagine if I left it here alone and Valentine told it to draw the rune? I have to stay. I need to do this." I said as I traced my stele along the stone wall in the familiar shape of the portal rune. I felt Jace step up behind me and the familiar feeling of his warm breath on the back of my neck.
"This is insane, Clary."
I nodded and stepped back from the metallic swirling mass of the forming portal so I was flush against his chest. He slid his arms around my body and hugged me tightly to him, like he was never going to let me go. I took advantage of the situation and only allowed myself a moment or two to lean in to his embrace before I drew the stupidly complicated copy-cat rune on the unmarked skin at the base of his wrist- in the exact same position as my own. He flinched as my stele touched his skin but didn't pull away until I let his arm go and stepped away again.
I turned just in time to see the strange blurring form of his doppelganger stepping away from his body, and in almost no time at all a completely lifelike Jace was stood beside the original. He bore all of the same marks and bruises as the original, but the vague, vacant look deep in his golden eyes gave him away as a fake. Only someone who paid infinite attention like me would notice just by looking at it.
"Wow, that's… well, creepy doesn't even cut it." Jace muttered as he took an involuntary step away from the double.
"He need's to be beat up a little, but otherwise I think it's a pretty good job." I observed. Jace shot me a look.
"You're going to beat me up?"
"No. Not you personally, anyways." I tried to smile but I knew he was going to have to leave soon. There was only so long I could keep myself holed up down here before people got suspicious of my own double upstairs. I felt a warm, wet trail slide its way down my cheek and brushed the tears away sadly as I stared at my Jace.
"No matter what happens, I love you okay? Don't forget it." I said sincerely, trying to pour all of the emotion I felt in to those few words. Jace seemed to come out of some kind of trance and his face contorted in fury.
"No! I'm not leaving you here. There has to be some other way. There must be another way." He practically begged, gathering my hands up in both of his.
"I've told you, it has to be this way." I whispered to the ground. His hand grabbed my chin none too gently and he jerked it up so I had to look at him.
"Why?"
"I guess that's just the way the fates wrote it." I said somberly as I rose up on to the tips of my toes and brushed my lips softly against his. This kiss was nothing compared to what we'd shared in the past, but somehow it was infinitely more; this one mere whisper of a kiss.
"I love you," Jace said against my mouth and I couldn't help but smile at the sound of the words. He loved me. And I was leaving him.
"Goodbye, Jace. Got to go off most of my family now." I managed to choke out with a grimacing smile. He made to say something else, but I didn't give him the chance. Before he knew what was happening, I pressed hard against his shoulders and he fell through the portal.
In less time it took to take a single breath, he was gone. Suddenly, my entire body felt alert- like my very blood was simmering just beneath the surface like water coming to the boil. It felt pleasant, but it was also like something- a huge something- was suddenly missing from my life. This was what I'd warned Jace of.
I want you to stay out of the way of the fight until you feel the shift.
The shift. It gave me some comfort knowing that I'd been right when I'd assumed we'd create some kind of blood bond between us. We shared the same Angel's blood and we shared a soul deep connection. That kind of bond was indestructible. I just hoped he'd be able to figure it out with only the feeble explanation I'd hastily written on a piece of paper and shoved in to his jacket pocket earlier.
I was snapped out of my revere when someone cleared their throat indignantly behind me. I span around so I could shoot a tearful glare at the Jace-for-all-intensive-purposes who was looking at me with the exact look of shock, disappointment and loving sadness that Jace had worn before I pushed him through the portal.
"Don't you look at me like that, too." I growled before shoving him none-too-gently in to the cell and closing it tight with locking and protection runes.
I didn't meet the decoy Jace's eye as I marched out of the room to face my father.
A/N: This one was far shorter than I usually write, but I'm hoping it was short and sweet. Don't worry if you don't really understand the bond bit at the end, it will all become clear over time. It's not supposed to be entirely obvious yet. I think only Serenity Shadowstar understands it properly- and that's including me and it was my idea!
Drop me a review and let me know what you thought!
You know we don't have all the time in the world to make the floods seem still. You know we don't have all the time in the world to make the most of this. Just smile like the idiots you are.
-Floods by Fightstar