The pulse is throughout his body, but he feels it in his ears the most. He ran out of arrows half a minute ago, and his arm begins to tremble as it holds his sword-cane aloft, cutting a path. Jem is a shadowhunter. He'll fight with what he has, even if he'd rather have his bow and be twenty paces back.
He's not afraid to see the demons faces. He just hates when they're fast enough to evade the blade and come in close. What Jem really hates is beingheld down.
Jian! Jian! Wǒ de bǎobèi!
He can smell the shax breath, but in the same instant, he smells its blood as Will's throwing knife flies into its left eye.
"Now, now. You're an engaged man, James. You can't go kissing random strangers like that. It's frightfully unseemly."
Jem breathes as best his body will allow and smiles. HIs own boot knife finishes off the final cur.
"I'd say we've successfully deterred all other advances. Thank the angel I've got you to keep me honest."
He may not be clear on why, but he can't help but notice the jibe makes Will look as if he's swallowed a lemon whole.
The night is quiet as they amble back to Cyril and the carriage.
Jem thinks of Tessa, his shoulders twitching, already waiting to feel her arms about him. He thinks of the kiss and the not-goodbye that has become their custom, and how every night fashions itself as a gamble, threatening to be the last.
Demons within and without always coming within a hair's breadth.
"Will?"
"Hmm?"
His parabatai seems distracted with the moon, and far-away thoughts, but with a single word his attention is caught, his eyes focussed and clear.
"I love you, brother."
"Jem?"
"An impromptu time to mention it, I know. But I do."
Jem is used to people staring into his eyes that way. Looking not for sincerity, but for a sign of the drug's work, for the dilation and the silver, worriedly searching for the doors of death. He's used to it, though he hates that everyone does it. But Will is the easiest to forgive.
"And I love you. As my own soul, Jem."
Jem feels his own face stretch freely into a grin once more and he takes in the smoke and the fog and the dirty alleyway of London he's come to know so well. He can hear the horses in the distance and feel the very nearness of home.
It's good to be alive.