William Herondale

November 9, 1882

The house buzzed with people in the early dawn. Somehow, the Shadowhunter resistance had never found this place. They had thought they knew all of Mortmain's houses but this one had no automaton guard posted outside nor did he ever host parties here. It had the strange air of being the place that he might actually have considered his home. It was decorated in a personal style with diagrams and maps and bits of his travels. In the center of the house was a room that was heavily fortified with both magics and physical barricades. If Jem hadn't known exactly where the door was, the glamours would have kept them from finding it.

Now that room was full of Shadowhunters. The body was being cut into pieces to make a resurrection as close to impossible as they could manage. It was a desecration of the dead but they had all seen or at the very least heard of Mortmain's trophy cases of spoils and his hall of prisoners. Nobody felt much guilt over removing his head so it could be weighted and tossed into the sea.

Jem had talked through Tessa's scattered impressions and Will had made lists. Landmarks and shops that she remembered that they could find. Jem had been right, he had recognized the house immediately. They'd made it there ahead of the others that were also searching based on descriptions. The Lightwoods hadn't been far behind them and Will knew that Cecily was downstairs going through Mortmain's personal correspondence right now.

Tessa had another neat but impersonal room that locked from the outside in this house. Will stepped into it carrying a jug and sat down on the far side of her little settee. She was leaned against Jem's chest and he had his chin on her hair. She was still blood soaked and was in and out of consciousness but she was calm and she was breathing. When she was awake enough to meet his gaze, she smiled at him.

"Is she awake?" Will asked.

"Sometimes," Jem told him, "Were they able to find a warlock healer?"

"Magnus said he'd come but he isn't here yet," Will said.

The Shadowhunters were avoiding the little bedroom because Will had told them to leave her be. Magnus had accused Will of being a touch protective of Tessa but it didn't hold a candle to Jem. He had barely let go of her. While she was sleeping he admitted that though he knew that awful things had happened to her, he had never before seen the evidence of it. She'd always been healed and whole by the time she came to see him.

Will made sure that Jem didn't need to let her out of his sight. He wasn't sure he could have left her alone with anyone else when she was that vulnerable. She had trouble sitting up on her own after all the exhaustion and injuries and over extended magic. He had gone down to find water for her to drink, food, cloths to get the worst of the blood off.

Will had left them alone to whispered conversations that they'd never been able to have before and come back to find them like this. Snuggled together. Jem smiled at him over her head.

Will wanted to touch Tessa's face, check that she was still warm and still breathing. He wanted to rewrite the world so that she never had another broken bone. He didn't and he couldn't so he took a knife out of his belt and cut the fabric of her dress away from her torn arm. He pulled it a little closer to him and she murmured in protest but didn't wake. She sat with her knees over Jem's lap and Will had to adjust her feet a little to sit close enough to clean the wound. He could pick out the finger marks of the automaton on her forearm where the bruising was deepest.

She was bloody and filthy and once again fighting broken ribs for each breath. He'd made a joke about it and had gotten a small but genuine smile. It wasn't laughter but it had been happy and she so rarely looked happy. That he found her beautiful even like this was not something to allow himself to dwell on. One did not opine on the beauty of the girl in your best friend's arms.

That she was a hero he did allow himself to think on. Will was determined that the Clave not forget that. There had already been talk of "that warlock girl" and it made him want to hit them.

He looked up from the bloody cloth in his hand and she was looking down at him with blue gray eyes. Jem had helped her wash most of the blood off her face before she'd started drifting in exhaustion but there was still blood in her hair. Her own, Mortmain's, and more than a little from the snarling warlock that Will had beheaded.

"I'm sorry, I snuck away," she said to him her voice still thick.

"Don't be," he said. "You were right. And you did it just as you said you could."

"Is he really dead?" she asked.

It was Jem who answered her, "They're down there cutting off his head."

"Good," she said. "Was London nice?" When Will looked confused and Jem didn't answer she said, "I never saw London before the automatons, was it nice once?"

"And I behold London, a Human awful wonder of God," Will said and she gave him another smile, recognizing the quote. He still held her wrist and the skin was warm. Her fingers lay against his forearm.

"You and the poetry," Jem said and Will could hear both the smile and the mock disgust in his voice.

"I like it," Tessa said.

"Good, he can quote it at you and leave me in peace," Jem said and Will could see the smile this time.

"You'd miss it if I never quoted literature at you," Will said, "And the Angel knows you need it or else you'd never get any culture at all." Tessa laughed at that sitting up a little. It was a short gentle sound cut short by her injured ribs but it made Will laugh back.

"Do you always keep your promises?" she asked.

"Never, not once," Will said immediately, unable to stop smiling. Jem shook his head at him in that fond but exasperated way that he had been doing since they were children. They had spent almost as long apart as they had been together. Six years as parabatai and four years without being in the same room but Will couldn't really feel the time apart.

"You promised you'd help me get free and you promised you'd make me laugh," she said. "You're doing quite well."

"I also once promised Jessamine that I would replace the bell in Big Ben with a cage full of ferrets so I can't be trusted too far," Will told her.

"There's still time for ferrets and bell towers and everything else," Tessa told him. "We've so much time."

She reached out with her good hand and wrapped her fingers around Will's. She was tucked into Jem's arms and she laid her head back against his chest. Jem laid on his cool narrow hands over theirs. A piece of Will's chest ached to pull her in so she cuddled up to him like that but a larger part, a louder part, was so enormously grateful to have the two of them there that it was drowning out any other feeling.

Hell had come to London and he'd lost everything and after that Will hadn't bothered with futures that lasted beyond the week.

Now he sat with the future laid out before him. It was hazy but it was there. His sister had pulled a face at him over a dining room table earlier that day. Charlotte was busy gently but firmly wrenching control of the resistance back from Margaret and Rupert. She was arguing with Gabriel Lightwood and his team of Clave envoys on behalf of the Cadair Idris prisoners and the Downworlders like Magnus Bane who had stood by the resistance. The Clave itself was reopening the passages that connected England to Alicante and the Silent City.

There was a future there that stretched farther than the next few days.

A future that had these two people in it.

"Dw i'n dy garu di," he said to them. Tessa had started to doze again but she roused herself. Both her soft grey eyes and Jem's bright silver ones were on him.

"What does it mean?" she said, "You said it before." Will cursed his stupid mouth for talking faster than his thoughts had gone. Of course she would remember. Then he smiled because of course she would remember.

"It means, I'm glad to know you," he said which wasn't entirely a lie though neither was it a translation.

The three of them sat with their hands tangled together, talking softly of ferrets and futures and anything that wasn't blood and metal monsters.

The End.

Author Notes:

I would like to take a moment and thank you for reading. Infernal War is the longest completed piece of fiction I have ever produced and though it started as a half-assed prompt fic, it has become something much bigger that I massive enjoyed plotting, writing and discussing with people over the past few months.

Though this volume of the story is over. There are two planned sequels in the works that will take this altered version of the TID story up through to the modern day.

Thank you again for reading.

I hope that you found something to enjoy here. I would love to know if you have any comments or questions or hate mail to share.