Author's Note: Ohhhhh, guys! We're getting closer to the grand conclusion! At least, I hope it's grand. We still have quite a few chapters to go, though. I just thought I'd get that out.
Unfortunately, this chapter lacks a certain gorgeous golden-haired boy, but it was necessary. And the next few chapters...well, let's just say y'all will get a lot of Jace the next few chapters! (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!) Anyway, enjoy the last update for the night. More tomorrow! (:
Chapter Twenty-Six
"Are you afraid?" Isabelle asks. "Or are you just relieved? You know, fighting for so long and everything…"
I have my legs pulled up to my chest in one of the iron chairs in the conservatory. Isabelle sits with me, watching the rain pouring down around us, and she's brought us tea, which smells heavenly but I haven't brought myself to drink.
"I'm afraid," I say. I feel no need to lie, no need to hide anymore. I will be dead in a week, and it won't matter what anyone thinks of me then.
"Are you mad…at Jace, I mean?"
"How could I not be?" I ask, but my question is at odds with my flat tone.
"He's only doing this for his siblings, you know. He misses them," Isabelle says. I see her shift in her chair, stretching out her long, slim legs in front of her. "They were very close, from what I've heard. When they were human, of course."
"He doesn't love anyone enough to miss them, Isabelle. Don't be so foolish as to think differently," I reply, glancing over at her for the first time in over an hour.
She looks down at her shirt, picks at its hem—an usually hesitant and bashful move from her. Her pale cheeks flush with rising blood.
And it clicks in place.
"You love him, don't you? Deeply?"
She sighs and her blush turns darker. "He found me…after his sister Turned me. He helped me. He took me in, let me live here and do as I please. I've been all over the world, spent time everywhere—seen everything. It's been a good life. And it's because of him."
"He's…he's evil, Isabelle."
"Then I am, too." She shrugs and meets my eyes. "You forget I kill people, too. I've killed my fair share. But it's a lonely life—or it can be. Jace has always been there."
"To let you share his bed with him?" I ask grumpily, crossing my arms for warmth as I turn my gaze back to the rainy conservatory walls.
"We fuck, sure. But it's more than that… he's my…he's my friend. And believe it or not, that's hard to come by, us being what we are and all." Isabelle tucks her hair behind her ears and adds, rather darkly, "Besides, I long ago gave up any romantic intentions with him besides the physical necessities. He's too hung up on you for that."
"Me?" I demand.
She nods and says, casually, "He's always been in love with you, Clary. I can't tell how many times he's said your name in his sleep or moaned your name when we're screwing. It used to bother me—it doesn't so much anymore."
"Just because he wants me for sex doesn't mean anything. He likes a challenge—and that's what I am. He doesn't…he doesn't love me," I almost laugh, shaking my head.
"He loves you as much as one of our kind can love. I never loved him, not even when I imagined being with him forever—as a significant other. None of us love each other, not particularly. The demon part of us keeps that at bay. But where there's a demon part, there's also a human part, however small."
"The demon part burns out humanity," I argue.
"No, that's the funny thing about humanity. Even with all odds stacked against it, it always seems to find a way of holding on. I can find mine sometimes, if I search for it hard enough. It's like…like a pinprick of light in a heart of darkness. It can't even be destroyed."
She pauses, and then adds, softly, "But it can be lost."
And anything lost can be found.
The voice is not mine.
But it is.
It's my voice, my voice from hundreds of years, thousands of broken hearts and disappointments, ago.
It seems important, meaningful and powerful.
But there's a block in my mind once again and this time, I don't have the will to push through it.
The days pass in a blur.
I have nothing to do, nothing exciting, nothing that one should be doing when living through the last week of their life—no bungee jumping, shopping sprees, spontaneous trips. I am instead locked in an old, dreary castle covered in endless rain. A castle that I used to live in, that I was born in. The castle that I will now die in.
I stop sleeping.
The dreams become too much.
They are fragmented and strange, and I can't remember them once I've woken. They feel real but very old, the oldest. I often try to push past the strange barrier in my mind, to view them again when I'm conscious, but I cannot.
The dreams continue, though, as if trying to tell me something.
Trying to warn me.
I can't shake the feeling.
The feeling that I'm missing something.
That I've forgotten something crucial.
I've forgotten because I was made to forget.
The memories have been hidden from me. Not by me. By something else.
I ask the voices about it, but they ignore me. They are too busy planning, making sure that the plan goes off without a hitch—that I die and so do Jace and all his siblings.
My time is running out, closer and closer. My window of opportunity to discover what I am missing is rapidly disappearing.
I don't know if I will ever know.
She's standing outside, on the cliff behind the castle.
She wears a long white fluttering dress. And this is odd because she doesn't like dresses. She doesn't wear dresses. She doesn't wear dresses now.
Peering down, she sees the steep drop, but it doesn't frighten her. She thinks of stepping off of it, dropping like a stone, crashing into the rocks and water below. Her head would crack open like a melon, and bright ruby blood would spread like paint over the rocks, into the water.
She can picture it, her body mangled and her white dress stained. She imagines the water pulling her remains away, taking her out to sea into the cool and quiet waters.
She will be back, though.
But this is not how it will be.
She will fall off the cliff, and she will be gone forever, not out drifting in the seat, waiting to be swept up and saved. She will just be gone.
She's sad.
So many things she wanted to have not been done. So many things she wanted to say have not been said. So many things…
She closes her eyes, inhales deeply, and then there's a man beside her. He's not a man she immediately recognizes, but he is familiar.
Only, he's changed.
He's aged.
The dark hair is no longer swishy and long, but cut in a respectable way for a middle-aged man. His face is a little worn, his wrinkles more prominent.
She notes the changes with a sense of awe. It has been a long time since she had seen anyone in her life age, nonetheless to see herself age.
The longest she'd ever made it was to twenty-five.
Jace had killed her that time.
"Who are you?" she asks the man.
He tilts his head. "You don't remember me?"
"No."
Yes.
Maybe.
Everything is jumbled.
"I'm Jordan," he says. "I'm—"
He breaks off as he fades, like a ghost, like dust blowing in the sudden gust of wind she feels pull at her hair and her dress.
The sky is gray, darker and darker until it is almost black.
The rain starts falling, pelting her like tiny ice pricks against her skin.
The waves below roar loudly, crashing against the shore hopelessly in the strong winds.
Jordan fades in and out, struggling. His words come in unintelligible spurts.
Her heart starts pumping, her mind starts fading. She's leaving. She's being drawn away…
So is Jordan.
But not before he says, not before he gets one word out.
"Starkweather."
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