Author's Note: I'm sorry it took so long! Yikes! Um, I thought I'd be able to finish up tonight, but I'm just not going to be able to AND get a good night's sleep. I'm sorry to be such a liar! Ugh! But I'll get it done this week! PROMISE!

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Jace is still.

He has been for two minutes now. I've counted the seconds.

I'm starting to get nervous, and I look to Jordan desperately. He simply nods and says what he has said ten times in a row now, "He'll be fine."

I need to distract myself. And I need answers. So I ask, "Where have you been?"
Jordan looks at me for a long time with a cryptic expression before sighing, and saying, "When you were young, I did research on you and your family. Through years and years of work, I found out the truth—that you and Jace had been in love, that you trusted that love so much that you made it the center of everything. You thought that Jace would never be able to kill you, so you convinced your family to make the spell bound by your life, that the only way his siblings were to be released be by your death. Of course, this information that I learned was valuable. And you knew, even as young as you were, that the life you were living then was the important one. You used to tell me that 'the voices are coming.' You said it every night until they did come. And they tried to repress everything I'd told you—that you'd loved Jace and he'd loved you."

"Why?" I whisper, finding the voices quiet inside my head now.

Defeated.

"They didn't want you to know because it could have messed up everything. They wanted you to kill yourself, and therefore kill Jace and his siblings, too, so that they would never hurt the world. But they feared that if you loved him, you wouldn't be able to do it."

"So…you were the one that told me the truth when I was little?" I ask him.

"Yes."

"And you faked your death?"

"I had to. We knew the voices were coming, and Jace, too, for that matter. I couldn't risk being killed by him and the voices taking you over, too. You would have died, and it would have been an unnecessary sacrifice."
"How, though? What just happened?" I ask, my mind whirling.

"The demon must have been attached to Jocelyn. She was a famous dabbler in dark arts. He probably possessed her, possessed her to come here, where so much power from your family lies. He used Jocelyn's body to open up the portal, and let him free. And then, when you killed the demon, it released his hold on Jace. Your family would not have wanted you to do this, as it would have been too risky. If you couldn't have killed the demon, it would have unleashed horrible terror on the world. It was too big of a chance to take."

I listen to the voices as they whisper their apologies in my head, and I am, strangely, unhurt. I feel their sincerity, their desperation for the world to be safe, for them to be released and for me to be released, as well, for everything to become natural again. For people to live and die as it is meant to be.

"It's okay," I whisper.

"What?" Jordan asks.

"Nothing," I reply quickly, looking back down at Jace. He is deathly still. "Why didn't he remember—Jace, I mean."

"He didn't want to remember, Clary. It would have held him back. And his siblings encouraged him to forget. He can speak with them through certain magic's, and they helped him forget. And time helped him, too. It's been centuries since you were in love."

"What happened to me, after you faked your death?" I ask slowly.

"I'm not sure. When your family took over your mind like they did, it made you go insane, and I lost track of you in various foster homes. I've been tracking you, and I found that you'd been sent to a mental institution. But when I got there, Jace had already taken you. So I had to really hurry to find you."

"This is crazy," I say, looking back down at Jace. And then I think back, over everything, and I have more questions again. "Why did Jace become a monster like this? If he loved me, why'd he do this?"

"Search your memories, Clary, and find out."

So I do.

I go into the deep caverns of my mind, and the voices let the walls they've built fall down completely. They let me see for the first time in years, and I'm immersed in the past.

I run to the barn as quickly as I can.

But it's too late.

I know because I've seen the carnage of his children in the town. I know when I run inside, and see John, standing in front of a swirling portal with a look of awe on his face. He's too far gone.

"John," I gasp, out of breath, horrified.

He turns to me, his eyes wide and manic. "Cassia, you've come to see. You've come to see how beautiful it is, haven't you?"

"John, why have you done this?" I demand, my voice hopeless and heartbroken. I'm drowning in my own sorrow and horror. The world is burning around me, collapsing.

"Can't you see, Cassia? I've given my children a gift! They will never die—they will never lose each other, as I've lost my wife. They will never feel such pain," John whispers, his eyes bright.

"You've made them into monsters. Can't you see what they have done?" I demand, motioning around us, to the screams I still hear ringing in my ears. "The village—it's burning."

"They will live forever," John continues to speak, as if I've not said anything at all. "And now I must hold up my end of the bargain. I must let him out."

"No!" I cry. "John, listen to me! You don't have to do anything. Jace hasn't Turned yet. The bargain isn't complete. You don't have to—"

"The bargain was for the exlir," John mumurs, pointing at the glass tube filled with swirling gold liquid that shines as bright as the sun. Three of the four viles are empty.

One left.

"Now, I must hold up my end, Cassia," John says, nodding to himself, moving towards the table—the table filled with burnt petals and decomposing animal carcasses, the ingredients he needs to free the demon.

The portal is growing brighter, the demon beyond realizing how close he is to freedom. How close he is to ripping this world apart even further. To kill and destroy.

I can't have anything else be destroyed. Not so long as I breathe.

"John, please," I beg. "Don't make me do this! Don't make me take your life!"

John is at the table now, mixing the powders that will seal his fate. He's shaking slightly, murmuring under his breath. Speaking in Latin, in dark magic.

The portal's getting brighter, my heart pumping faster.

I feel hot tears streaking down my face, tears I hadn't even realized I'd been crying. "John," I say, but it's just a hopeless word now, devoid of any passion because I know he is too far gone. His insanity has grown into a monster, a monster I cannot fight with words.

It's my fault, for not seeing, for not seeing how far he was slipping.

Now, I must end him.

To save everyone else.

I grab my sword, the blade sliding out of its sheath with a hiss, and I approach him. His back is turned to me, trusting me. He doesn't see me as a threat. He doesn't think the little girl who called him Uncle for most of her life was going to kill him now.

"Can't you see?" he asks suddenly, turning towards the portal, the flames glowing in his crazed eyes.

He talks more, more nonsense, and I move closer to him, closer and closer until I close my eyes and draw the blade upright.

God forgive me.

And then the blade is slamming home, right through his heart. His eyes go wide, his face slack in confusion—how could I have just killed him, after all—and then he's dead, crumbling down like ashes.

The portal goes dark.

And the world seems quiet again.

But not normal.

Far from normal.

Far from right.

Will anything ever be right again?

I drop the blade coated in John's blood, and I stagger back, my stomach revolting. Just as I am about to be sick, I hear it.

A small whimper.

Like a child's almost.

But it's not a child, I know even before I turn and see Jace, his eyes wide and filled with tears as he stares at his father's lifeless corpse.

And then his eyes find mine, a million different emotions flashing in those beautiful caramel orbs. Pain, anger, grief, horror, confusion, disbelief, and sickness.

I can see him falling apart before my very eyes. It starts with a crumple in his forehead and morphs until he is screaming silently, tears overflowing and falling down his cheeks.

"Why?" he rasps, doubling over as if I've punched him.

I've only ever seen him look like this once before.

When his mother died.

"I had to." The words are rushing out of my mouth, a desperate plea. "He was going to unleash horrible evil on the world. I…I had to, Jace, I'm so sorry—"

He's on his knees now, his face hidden from me by his dirty-blond curls. But as soon as the pitiful apology leaves my lips, his head snaps back up. His eyes are not on mine, though. They are on the glass tube filled with demonic blood.

I know what he's going to do.

In his horror, he's going to make the biggest mistake of his life. He's going to change everything in the worst possible way.

And I'm crying out, "NO!"

But he's already on his feet, as if in slow motion, reaching for the blood. And then he's looking at me, tears pouring down his cheeks, his eyes on fire. He says, in a whisper I have to strain to hear, "I hate you."

And then he drinks the blood.

And nothing will ever be the same.