Author's Note: All righty. Here's one update. I'll be updating in like two minutes again because I already have the next chapter written. So stick around! And here I thought I wasn't going to get any writing done! I love when inspiration strikes! (:

Chapter Twenty-One

The conservatory has been added to the castle. It used to not be here, or so Jace had said.

But standing in the middle of it, watching the sunset flash against the glass of the walls and roof, the smell of the earth surrounding me, I'm glad it was added.

I sit down in an old iron chair. It's been warmed by the sun, and I melt into it.

The sun is just starting to dip, and the clouds have broken up into small wisps, finally parting to let the sky turn brilliant pink before it is dark.

I close my eyes, because I'm ready. I'm ready to talk with them.

What are you?

Your protection. Your guidance for when you stumble.

What happened to my human protector—Starkweather?

Killed.

By Jace?

No. Car crash. A mundane accident. These things happen from time to time. The Starkweathers are not immortal nor indestructible nor do they come back to life once dead.

Why not?

Your gift to be reborn is an exception to the rule, Cassia. You were given the gift because it was needed. But no one should live forever. This is the way of things. We were not powerful enough to give you indestructibility, nor could we give you the gift of eternal life because it went against our creed. The Starkweathers could not be given the same gifts as you, however, because they were merely human. They were only entrusted with information.

You keep saying we. You keep saying that you gave me the powers I have. What do you mean?

There's only a slight hesitation before they answer.

We're you're ancestors, Cassia.

My gasp sharply cuts through the room.

"What?" I ask aloud.

When the Waylands let the evil overtake them, the village erupted into chaos. There was bloodshed, violence. The Waylands, unaccustomed to their power, destroyed everything in their path. They Turned some, killed others, and took their time, for the sport-for the thrill. They decimated the entire population of the town. You were there. You tried to stop them. You did stop the demon from escaping. But you were overwhelmed. You stole back to the castle, to your family—to us. There, we planned.

A memory comes to me, and I think they give it to me…because the memory is not through my eyes. I see myself, in a torn dress, stained in blood, tears in my eyes. I'm hysterical, crying and screaming and trying to tell everyone what has happened.

You thought you'd failed everyone by not stopping the Waylands. They were friends of yours—you were even very close to their father. When we decided to lock the siblings up to keep them from destroying the entire world, you volunteered to be the human key—the only way to bind a spell so big is to use a person's essence. You took it upon yourself to guard the door, to stop them from ever being unleashed.

Why are you in my mind now? Talking to me?

Because Starkweather was killed. Because we are drawing to the end of this story, Cassia. The time of your never-ending life cycles are up. We have spent the last centuries searching, thinking, hoping, praying. We have found a way to kill the siblings—once and for all, no more games.

But…how are you still alive?

We aren't. We are only ghosts, spirits granted the ability to stay in the Otherworld, to find a way to stop this evil from being unleashed in the world. When our job is done, we will all be set free.

So you haven't always been in my head?

No.

Why did I go so crazy?

We were unaware of how an unsuspecting mind would react to our presence. We almost lost you. Ironically, it was Jace Wayland that helped us talk to you clearly, without the haze of drugs in your mind.

What about the missing time in my memory, when I was a child?

We don't know. We were not with you yet. You were still just a child, with Jordan Starkweather before his accident.

I inhale deeply, stretching my neck to release the tension there. It doesn't work.

What's the plan to end the Four?

When Jace begins to the spell to unlock the door, we will tell you the exact steps to take to change it. In the end, we will bind you to the demon that first gave the Four's power. Then, when Jace kills you to unlock the door, he will also kill the demon. And then they will all die.

I inhale.

Hundreds of images of stabbings flash through my mind. I remember it's a painful way to die, slow if you don't hit the right spot. Once, I hit my lung, punctured it, and I suffocated on my own blood. It spewed out of my mouth, and the last thing I had tasted was the metallic heat of my own blood.

I shiver.

You will save the world, Cassia. It's what you wanted. It's what you've always wanted.

My own memories try to sift through to me, because I'm digging for them. I want to remember my time in the village that was destroyed. I want to remember things on my own, from my own point of view, but it's like the old movies in my mind are hitting a wall that's impenetrable.

I give up.

And then I trust in the voices.

Because they are part of me.

Because they cannot lie to me since they are in my own head.

So I say, aloud, with a heavy heart but the slow building feeling of purpose echoing inside me, "Okay. I'll do it."

My voice seems to ring in the conservatory, and when I open my eyes, the sky is dark, the sun gone.

The plants around me start closing up for the night.

And there's no reason to be here anymore.

I drift, drift throughout the huge castle. Had I been a little girl, I would have ran up all the steps, all the spiral staircases, peeped into all the seemingly hundreds of rooms, and pretended to be a princess locked away in the tower, waiting for rescue from her prince.

But my prince won't come. I don't have one.

I just have a villain, a villain set on my death.

There will be no hero to save me.

I find myself in the library again. Jace is thankfully gone, and the candles are glowing throughout the room, giving it a golden, smoky haze that's comforting somehow.

I make my way to the bookshelves and pluck out an old classic, a fairy-tale book so that I may get lost in it.

As I read, my head gets blessedly heavy and I think for the first time in what feels like years that I will be able to simply go to sleep on my own—not being knocked out or passed out.

And then, just as I ready myself to make my way back to the bedroom, I hear a rustle behind me.

I frown and lift up, turning slightly.

There's nothing there, in the flickering shadow cast by the candles. It appears to the eye that I'm alone in the great room.

But the tight feeling in my stomach, the cool chill in the air that lifts the hair on my neck, make me think otherwise.

A flash of darkness shoots in front of me, blowing my hair back.

I'm standing up now, in a panic, my book crashing from my lap to the floor in a loud clatter. "Who's there?" I demand.

A demonic chuckle echoes through the air like a ghost's teasing.

I squint into the shadows, looking for a darker spot in the inky black. I find nothing.

The wisp of movement flies by me again, this time stinging my hand.

I gasp and look down at my palm, at the small cut that oozes crimson. My eyes flash back to my surroundings, my heart pounding. "Who's—?"

"Hello."

I bite back a scream and spin towards a tall man, a tall man with dark silken hair tumbling into his slate gray eyes. He's striking in a cold and angular way, his face a bit too sharp and delicate to be considered beautiful.

"What do you want?" I snap, backing up. My hand searches for a weapon to use behind me because he is not human. He is not right.

He flashes me a smile, and his fangs are elongating, his eyes turning from gray to crimson flame. "You," he hisses, his voice barely human. His face is changing now, too, turning into something so hideously ugly that I think no true demon could ever outmatch him. Without his mask, he's ungodly to look upon.

They all are.

I grope blindly for something—anything—and I touch the corner of a thick book. It's in my hand, and I'm swinging, clipping him in the temple.

But this does nothing to hurt him.

Instead, it only angers him.

And as he advances on me, I wonder if I should just let him kill me. But that would be for nothing. And I can't die yet.

I don't want to.

I don't want to die.

But then he's lunging at me, and I wonder if I have a choice in the matter.