Previously on Long Live the Hunt
"All the kids were supposed to be sleeping. When parents went to check up on them, their cots were empty and there was a message on the pillow. 'Children need playmates who lift them up high.' "
Clary's voice came out strangled as she glanced nervously up at Alec. "The Seelie Queen wants playmates for her child."
"You can think of me what you will." the Seelie Queen continued, clearly struggling to keep her voice composed. "But I will slaughter every man, woman and child who tries to harm my child."
Nostrils flaring, the queen's hand caressed her stomach as her lips pulled back in a scowl. "On multiple accounts, the Nephilim have sought the destruction of my child. It seems only fair that I have the same pleasure of returning the favor. Child for child."
In between mind debilitating contractions, Clary had come to a conclusion. In this moment, when the birth of her son was threatened by the greedy hands of death, sacrifices would have to be made.
The footsteps were right outside the tent, the flap tearing open as Clary secured the child in Jace's arms and wrenched herself off the table. She yanked on a pair of training pants as a figure slumped against the tent flap, his blood spattered on the walls outside. The warlock had the portal open, Isabelle darted in first and Clary pushed Jace and her son in after her.
The warlock gave a startled cry as Clary shoved him in last and the portal disappeared from sight.
Love at first sight is a fantasy for the desperate and lonely. There's only infatuation and lust. Love, if ever, comes later. Or never.
At least that's how it's supposed to be.
Then how was it possible, for Jace to feel such an overwhelming and instantaneous love for this small boy, cradled in his arms? Either he was desperate and lonely or this was the part of being a parent nobody ever explained properly. To love so selflessly and immediately.
Was it normal to feel this much emotion at once? It had been mere minutes since Clary had been giving birth in a tent, with the imminent threat of invasion slinking closer in the woods. Soldiers were falling outside the tent, Clary was screaming, Jace was crying out internally and then in a rush of emotions, everything in the world was right.
The moment Isabelle handed Jace his son, for the smallest fraction of a second, the war was meaningless, the ominous attackers outside were background noise and all he could see was his angelic child. Clary had always told him that he looked like an avenging angel. Dangerous and beautiful. This child was another kind of angel. An angel of salvation.
Jace had been right before. This child would save them both in every way humanly possible.
"Thank God you're alright." Alec called with relief as he pushed his way through the crowded Institute to reach his siblings.
"More than alright." Jace murmured, still entranced by his son's beautiful face.
"Well I'll be damned, we have another Herondale here to cause trouble." Alec said faintly, stopping beside Jace and peering down at his godson with the strangest look of admiration and smugness. "It's a miracle you all made it out."
"About 6 soldiers of our own were killed outside the tent." Isabelle sniffled, her eyes also glued to the miraculous child. "Miracle is not an adequate word."
"He's got Clary's eyes." Jace whispered with a smile, as he reluctantly pulled his gaze away from his son and searched for her.
They appeared to be in the Paris Institute. It was filled with Shadowhunters that were receiving treatment on the examination tables lined along the walls or gorging on food that was presented on a long table in the center. All the Shadowhunters trapped in Idris had escaped through portals to one of the institutes they'd won back.
"Where's Clary?" Jace asked sharply, his eyes roving over the crowds again and coming up unsuccessful. His wife was nowhere to be seen. "Where is she?"
Isabelle and Alec turned to survey the crowds of Shadowhunters, but there was no recognizable redhead in sight.
"Don't panic, there's a lot of people here. She's probably being examined or grabbing food." Isabelle said hurriedly, not looking comforted by her own words.
"Clary would not be interested in eating right now." Jace said coldly, trying not to jostle his son as he craned his neck to sift through the crowds. Hysteria was clawing up the insides of his throat in an awfully familiar way. The same way it had when Clary was nowhere to be found at Alec's wedding. "Something's wrong."
Alec was calling someone over, but Jace wasn't interested. He spotted the warlock present during the labor, sitting on an examination table at the back of the ops center.
Adjusting his arms to shield Christopher from contact with others, Jace shouldered his way through the hoards of people, receiving several rude comments along the way. He couldn't even be bothered to give a retort as he seized the tiny warlock by the front of his robes.
The warlock yelped with surprise as his eyes darted between Jace and his son.
"Where's Clary?" Jace demanded, giving the tiny man a little shake when he blinked fearfully at him. "Where is Clary?"
"She's not here." the warlock stammered, his eyes flickering to Isabelle and Alec who had caught up to Jace. He slammed the man against the wall hard enough to hear an unpleasant crunch.
"I gathered that much! Where is she?" he growled, feeling slightly guilty as Christopher began to cry. The warlock looked at Jace the same way Clave Shadowhunters looked when they knocked on the door with unfortunate news. Impossible.
"She didn't come through the portal. Seelies entered the tent after you left and she pushed me in last." the warlock said desperately. He had the nerve to look teary eyed.
Isabelle had managed to pry the child out of Jace's arms. Fine. He needed two hands to strangle the man anyways.
"Jace NO!" Alec shouted, grabbing at his arms. But Jace had already lunged at the poor warlock who had backed away to the far edge of the table.
"YOU LEFT MY WIFE BEHIND?" Jace roared, seeing nothing but red as he was bulldozed by Alec's massive form. His ridiculously long arms were restraining Jace as he thrashed and snarled with such an unparalleled fury, his rage could have burned the world to ashes.
"She pushed me in!" the warlock said placatingly, his frail chest rising and falling with fear as Jace tried to wrench himself out of Alec's hold.
"Alec if you know what's good for you, you'll let me go!" Jace threatened, his hands twitching for his sword.
Alec's grip only tightened around his shoulders. "It's not his fault Jace. Look, we're going to get Clary back - "
Jace managed to twist one arm free and yanked the warlock's ankle, pulling him within striking range. His fist swung out in an arc and made a satisfying crunch against the man's jaw. People were shouting at Jace, but he didn't care. He felt a sudden bloodthirsty desire to punch every single face in the room, with the exception of Christopher. None of them understood.
None of them were capable of understanding the physical pain he was in. Clary was with the Seelie Queen. Nobody here was registering that!
"Jace!" Isabelle snapped, darting to stand between him and the warlock, Christopher still cradled in her arms. "If you want to keep punching him, I'll help you. I owe him a couple of good knocks myself. But you need to think about Christopher now. You need to be there for him."
Chest heaving, eyes burning with unshed tears, Alec released Jace's arms and Isabelle handed him his baby.
Jace focused on Christopher's tiny face but it was Clary's piercing green eyes that stared back.
Clary was afraid to open her eyes.
From the moment the lone seelie slashed his way into the tent, everything had been a blur. The warlock yelping as Clary shoved him in, the portal closing and then finding herself surrounded by seelie soldiers.
Though she would never admit it, the pleased and hungry look in their eyes as they registered who she was had sent chills down her spine. It didn't take long for them to capture her. She doubted even Jace, as skilled as he was, could have escaped the tent alive.
She was however, comforted that she managed to kill 4, disarm 2 and leave another one handless. Then her sword was gone along with the rest of the world.
Now, she tried to keep her breathing steady so as not to alert anyone to her returning coherency. Clary used her senses to devise a rough estimate of the situation she was in. She could hear sets of heavy footsteps pacing somewhere to her right. She couldn't decipher any other movement close to her. Was she lucky enough to be alone?
She could smell a pungent and thick layer of perfumed flowers with another familiar scent, similar to iron.
Her body didn't appear to be injured, aside from the mild throbbing in her temple from where they likely knocked her out. She could feel the cool metal table pressing against the small nape of her back. So she was laying down horizontally?
A different, more intense kind of pain was suffocating her on the inside. Somewhere, hopefully far away from here, was her son. Seconds were all she had had with Christopher. The trade between seconds or a lifetime was simple. By closing the portal to cut off the line to seelie pursuers, she had traded a few precious seconds with her son so that he could have a life.
Seconds versus a lifetime. Was there even a choice? And Jace. He would understand. He probably wouldn't ever forgive her but there was another factor in their relationship now that trumped everything else. He would know. He would grieve. Probably even cause a ruckus for the others. But eventually, he would reach the same conclusion she did. Christopher's life was worth exponentially more than their own.
Without opening her eyes, Clary moved her pinky a fraction and found it restrained. Her wrists were bound tightly together with a thick material, probably vines. There was no use in searching for a stele or weapon on her.
Now the question of the hour was why she was still breathing. It was needless to expend any anxiety or anger over it. She knew the answer. Something much worse than death was waiting for her. And she would need to use her last sense to find out what that was.
Clary opened her eyes.
"Has anyone ever told you that you sleep like the dead?" a voice trilled from across the room.
Slowly, as if reacting to a wild and unpredictable animal, Clary sat up and turned to address her captor. Pain radiated from her sore limbs as she moved but she made sure to hide that from her face.
Lo and behold, the Seelie Queen was lounging on a plant woven rocking chair. A small child slept soundly in her arms. The queen looked serenely at Clary, a curious expression flitting across her face.
"I apologize about the wrist bindings. You have a track record of being reckless." the queen said almost fondly. This was certainly a tone, she'd never received from the queen before.
Clary decided it was best to cut to the chase. "Why have you kept me alive?"
The Seelie Queen's lips twitched like she wanted to laugh and she shook her head tiredly. "I will not kill you for now. Out of respect for Jonathan and my son."
Clary didn't bother trying to hide her reaction. She scoffed and hopped off the table, landing agilely on the floor. The instant the balls of her feet touched the floor, it felt like wrecking balls slamming up her muscles.
"You should rest." the Seelie Queen said airily. "Childbirth is not kind to the body."
"Yes, because you would know." Clary said coldly, tensing her wrists against the bindings.
The queen cocked her head to the side. "Yes. I would know."
It was like the moment they'd been sizing each other up for had arrived. Clary returned the queen's steely stare from across the room, challenging her to say it first.
And the indescribable rage and frenzied protectiveness of a mother burned inside Clary, overtaking all reason and civility. She was sure that it was equal if not more tempered in the queen.
"Perhaps, you are the only person in the world who can even begin to understand how I feel. We are both mothers now. We have a higher love in our life now that diminishes the value of any war or grudge or even enemy. We are nothing alike you and I." Clary said smoothly. Everything she was saying was despairingly true. "We will never see eye to eye on any political or moral issue. But this is the one thing we can agree on."
"And what would that be?" the queen drawled dismissively. But her clouded eyes countered her calm facade.
"Neither of us will surrender in the fight for our child." Clary replied, the words carrying such a heavy and deep weight that went miles beyond their literal meaning.
When the queen remained silent Clary continued. "This is a mutually assured destruction situation. Both our children are in danger and only we have the power to stop that."
Clary couldn't breathe as she waited for the queen to say something. Surely she understood the enormity of what Clary was asking. How could they keep fighting a pointless war when there were other, more significant lives involved? Were they selfish enough to put the lives of their children at risk? Too stubborn and prejudiced to reverse the terrible fate of their children?
Then the Seelie Queen laughed. Cold as ice and sharp as knives. "Do you really believe the Clave will ever stop the manhunt for my child? Do you think they'll ever let my son live? If you're foolish enough to believe that, then you've already lost."
"It doesn't have to be that way." Clary protested.
"There is no other way." the queen snapped. "You are too young to understand the pride and reverence the Clave has for the law. They are fixed and immovable in their perspective of my child. It's like a horse with blinders. All they can see and accept is the potential for danger and that is enough to warrant death."
"If we can renegotiate our terms, we can go our separate ways and both our children can live in safety - "
"How many times have I expressed to you about the cruelty and harshness of the Clave?" the queen interrupted, her eyes searing into Clary's. "Was the desire and satisfaction in your father and brother's deaths not enough evidence?"
"How does any of that matter now? How can you gamble so carelessly with your son's life?" Clary said loudly, trying to bite back her temper.
Without jostling her son, the Seelie Queen stood up and glided towards her. She stopped a few feet away from her, close enough for Clary to see the small and beautiful face of the child.
"Everything I've done has been for the sake of my son." the queen said softly. "You'd be naive and blind to think the Clave would ever value the life of my child."
She'd been grinding her wrists so tightly, the grated skin against the vines had drawn blood. It was soothing to have some new and fresh physical pain to distract her from the internal agony.
"Come." the queen breathed, her eyes wide with earnest. "Meet your nephew. Damon Jonathan Morgenstern."
Whether out of morbid curiosity or genuine interest, Clary found herself closing the distance between them. For the first time, she really looked at the face of the child… her nephew. His beauty was indisputable. Skin that seemed as smooth as butter, cheeks as rosy as his mother, his nose arched the same as his father, his lips pursed in a frown like the queen and then he opened his eyes. Green and vibrant. Like her brother. Like her.
"Jonathan would have adored him." the queen said, her voice tinged with loss and a kind of sadness that widows carried. "Then he wouldn't have been obsessed with making a family with you and Jace. He would have found peace with us. He should have found peace with us."
"And yet you tore apart my family." Clary murmured, still drinking in the sight of her nephew. A bothersome and regretful fragment of a long forgotten dream, rising to the forefront of her mind.
In another world, Jonathan could have had everything. This child could have had everything.
"No." the queen disagreed. "I reunited our family."
At Clary's confused expression, the queen turned to face the east wall of the room. She followed her gaze and her blood ran cold. Pale and lifeless, Fairchild green eyes staring empty at the ceiling, Jonathan's corpse lay on a raised marble altar.
"Is that - ?"
"Yes." the queen said admiringly. "I found his body and brought him home. Now, our family is reunited. Father, mother, son and aunt."
"At this rate, you'll die of starvation rather than my own hand." the Seelie Queen said dryly.
She watched with amusement as Clarissa sat resolutely in her chair, her bound wrists bleeding and angry red on the table. What a strange creature.
So stubborn and determined to prove a point. Although, perhaps in their history, she was wise not to accept any food in her court.
"Suit yourself." the queen shrugged. She plopped a sugar plum in her mouth and chewed slowly, considering the wild redhead opposite her.
Such a strange creature. She wondered what potential for family Jonathan ever saw in her. She definitely had potential for fury, fighting and nobility. And sure, there was undoubtedly potential for selflessness and irrational, mundane love. Besides all of that, she was just an ordinary child who believed her way was the high and mighty way.
But there was something else. And perhaps, this closer, more intimate time together had made Amara see that. Clarissa was a sincerely kind person. The kind of person that was instantaneously likeable. Easy to befriend. Loyal and unwaveringly, so. The kind of person that made for a good friend. A good sister.
Damn Jonathan for having a nice sister. How was Amara supposed to kill her now?
"I fought for him you know." she said suddenly.
Her face was so intent, so honest. Her eyes were sincere as they stared at Amara from across the table. Such a funny little thing. She wanted the queen to trust her. It was endearing.
"And yet here we are." Amara quipped lightly, sipping her red herb wine. Sweet with a splash of blood. Just the way she liked it.
Clarissa's brows creased endearingly as her fists clenched and a trickle of blood trailed down her wrists and onto the white table cloth. "I did. I fought to save him. He's an innocent child that's been thrown into a game of politics he didn't ask for."
Amara had always been good at reading the truth in people's words. It bothered her that she found no hint of deceit in Clarissa's. It was becoming harder and harder to dislike this extremely likeable girl.
"Let me guess." she said slowly, raising her handkerchief to dab the corner of her lips. Clarissa's wretchedly observant eyes followed the movement. Amara smirked internally. Mortals were always so focused on the irrelevant details, giving her time to phrase her lies as truths. Although this one didn't require much careful wording. "You bargained my life to save his."
Clarissa's face was unreadable but Amara could see the flash of surprise in her eyes before she resumed her stony stare. She almost laughed out loud at her childish mannerisms.
"The point is." she started, clearly trying to remain calm. "I've always been on… Damon's side. From mother to mother, you can understand my desperation to protect my son. You've been preaching about the cruelty of the Clave and their inability to look beyond prejudices. I think it's rather hypocritical and biased of you, to seek the death of my son."
Amara's jaw clenched as she regarded the woman across from her. Her eyebrow was arched slightly, as if waiting for Amara to devise some clever explanation. Her eyes looked hard but there was an air of real confusion and frustration.
"You never did tell me the name of my nephew." Amara responded, watching as Clarissa blinked with shock. This was the reaction she'd been hoping for. Sidetracked conversations were key to avoiding an answer or garnering time to fabricate a lie as a truth.
"I never knew you considered him your nephew." Clarissa said stiffly, her teeth grinding as she glared with accusation and suspicion.
"You did not answer my question." Amara pressed, still hoping to dodge this mortal's intrusively deep questions.
Clarissa seemed to mentally debate the risks of telling the oh so evil queen before sighing. "Christopher Herondale."
This managed to catch Amara by surprise. " 'Bearer of Christ'. It was also Jonathan's middle name."
Another blink of surprise from the strange creature. "You knew that?"
A surge of irritation and hurt flickered across Amara's features. "Jonathan and I were closer than you think. We were not just lovers."
Leaving the insufferable child to this realization, Amara was overwhelmed by the sudden flood of emotions that recurred each time their relationship was brought up.
Nobody ever understood. And that never mattered to Amara. She and Jonathan had had a love much more powerful and explosive than anything mortals could even hope to experience. Such a consuming and otherworldly emotion that could not be expressed properly in mere mundane terms like 'love' or 'marriage'.
They hadn't bothered to explain the details and complexity of their relationship to people who would only have responded with hatred, doubt and scorn. They knew what their feelings meant, and that had been enough for her.
Never in her thousands of years, had she ever been so seen and appreciated like she had with Jonathan. Each lover she'd distracted herself with had never captivated her attention or swept her off her feet. Each lover had been easy to betray if her desire for acquisition or power was stronger. But not with Jonathan.
Out of everyone that had ever existed in the universe, perhaps, only Jonathan and Amara had beared the knowledge of being hated and unwanted all their lives. And in the short time they'd known each other, they had found a new and foreign emotion that was nameless to the mortals.
Now, looking at the woman sitting opposite her, Amara was painfully reminded that she was the reason Jonathan was gone. The reason that Amara was alone every night. The reason that Damon would grow up without a father. The reason that Amara would be mourning in eternal misery.
And all the reasons she'd searched for to hate this easily likeable girl returned.
"Do you want to know why I want to kill your son?" Amara said venomously, rising to her feet as she abandoned all attempts at pretenses. "To protect my son!"
Clarissa looked bewildered as she looked at Amara with disbelief. "That's absurd."
Amara's nostrils flared as she just barely refrained from pulling the girl by the hair to Jonathan's grave and showing her exactly what she meant. How could mortals be so plain stupid? Must everything be spelled out for them?
"Your son is the product of two Nephilim who are both gifted with more angel blood. My son is a unique hybrid of his own. Part faerie and part Nephilim with the gift of demon blood. When Damon takes the throne, the only person who remotely stands a chance to defeat him is Christopher." Amara seethed, her veins boiling with maddening rage.
It was dreadfully annoying to wait as mortals processed her responses. This girl seemed to require double the time most mortals did. For someone who sang like a canary about the woes and passions of love, you'd think she'd have more sympathy for the queen!
A heart broken and devastated widow who's also been sentenced to be a single mother. Damon was her last love, her last connection to Jonathan and she'd be damned if she let him die.
Finally, Clarissa began to stutter incomprehensibly, still overwhelmed by the information. All the saints in heaven and all the demons in hell, why was Amara stuck with a dolt?
"That is the most twisted and insane concept I've ever heard." she managed to spit out. She rose to her feet across the table from her and they glowered at each other, neither willing to rescind.
"You have taken everything from me!" Amara seethed.
She could feel the roots below her feet quake as her temper was threatening to seize control.
"Your people are trying to steal my throne! You have robbed my child of a father! Your people are craving for the death of my child's mother! But above all, the most inhumane, barbaric and savage of them all!" Amara ranted with such pent up frustration, unequal to anything in the universe, she thought lightning bolts would begin to rain down. "Your people are going to strip me of my son! There are a thousand things that obstruct my son's path, a thousand odds have been stacked up against him from day one and I will not let your son be one of them."
Whoever was dealing the cards for grief and anguish must have something against Jace.
Because everything in life was constantly a challenge. Who would have thought, even in the middle of a war, things could get dramatically worse.
"No." Jace grumbled in response to Alec's next suggestion. "No it won't work!" he snapped, interrupting him successfully.
"Jace." Isabelle said placatingly.
This only aggravated Jace further. The warlock was safely separated from Jace, Magnus was always baking something for him, Simon was the king of stupid jokes that never made anyone feel better, Isabelle was constantly giving him pitying looks and Alec was failing to come up with a solid plan. He was going to go insane.
Only Christopher hadn't pissed him off. Strangely good at sleeping through the night, Christopher was the most perfect child Jace had ever laid eyes on. He'd always thought babies were a mixture between poop machines and wailing sirens. Christopher was all of the above. But much more adorable.
"No Isabelle, don't 'Jace' me." he said angrily, rising to his feet. Why didn't any of them understand? Every minute they spent pondering ridiculous ideas to save Clary, was another minute she suffered, another minute their family was separated.
"We're all doing the best we can. We all want to save her." Simon said, speaking for the first time that evening. Jace wanted to deck him.
"Sure sure, now that you're a Shadowhunter and hopelessly in love with Isabelle, all's well in Simonville so Clary can just chill a little while longer in the Seelie court right?" Jace retorted, ignoring Alec's exasperated sign.
Simon looked as if he'd been slapped. Darn moron, Jace wanted to make it really look like he'd been slapped. "You know I want Clary back as much as you do."
"Yeah?" Jace asked scathingly. "But you don't need her anymore now that you've got your own perfect little life going on, like we can't all hear the two of you being all cheery and pleasant while you bang the night away in your room - "
"Jace!" Alec warned at the same time Simon shouted.
"Stop acting like you're the only one upset here! While you've been holed up in your room, sulking with Christopher, we've been trying to form a rescue plan to get her back - "
"Yeah and how's that going?" Jace yelled, knocking his chair back as he shot up from his seat. "Because I don't see her here!"
Isabelle who was sitting in between them, fisted the material of their shirts and wrenched them back into their seats.
"You are the biggest pair of selfish prats." she said coldly. "Way to make Clary's kidnapping all about you."
Jace pulled himself out of her hold and stalked towards the door. "If the Clave can't come up with a legitimate plan to save her by tomorrow morning, I'm going in myself to get her and there's nothing you can say to stop me."
The door opened abruptly as he reached for the handle and Aline tumbled in looking breathless as she gripped the door knob tightly.
"What's wrong?" Alec asked immediately, shouldering Jace out of the way.
Clutching a stitch in her side, Aline righted herself and turned to look at Jace sadly.
"No - " he whispered, shaking his head with resolute disbelief.
"No no no!" she said in between labored breaths. Jace looked up at the worn wooden ceiling with both relief and dismay. Should he be hoping she was dead?
"We just received a message from the Seelie Queen." Aline said, causing Jace's head to snap back to her. Aline seemed to hesitate, trying to find the right words .
"Just say it!" Jace exclaimed as he watched her at a loss for words before appearing to settle on bluntness. Aw hell this would hurt.
"She wants to trade Clary for Christopher." Aline said almost apologetically.
Jace wheeled on his heel and punched the wall, splintering part of it into a million shards.
Clary had never met Stephen or Celine Herondale. Jace's father was supposedly best friends with her father. Both ambitious and righteous in their own way. Both dead as a result of their quest for the greater good.
But she hadn't thought much about Celine besides her suicide. Clary was probably not qualified to judge or even attempt to understand her decision. She may have even harbored a little anger towards her for doing it while she was pregnant with Jace. Didn't she realize her life was tied to his?
Without knowing what was going on in Celine's life, Clary could not pass judgement. However, she did know what was going on with her own life. She never imagined herself doing this. It was in her nature to fight, surrendering was never an option.
The reality was, she was never going to make it out of here alive. And as long as she was here, she was leverage for the queen, another pawn in her game. Despite the queen's promises not to kill her out of respect for Jonathan and her son, she'd be kidding herself if she didn't think she wasn't going to be eventually tortured.
She had a wealth of knowledge about the inner workings of the Clave, their plans and strategy. Not to mention the horrible and manipulative things the Seelie Queen could do with her as a means to humiliate the Nephilim, bargain with them or control Jace. And she couldn't let her have that power.
Even more than that, she knew where Jace had taken Christopher through the portal. And she would rather die than let the queen have that knowledge.
After discovering the truth about her motivations, Clary needed no more convincing that Christopher was in mortal danger. As long as she lived, she made him vulnerable and risked leaking his whereabouts.
So that meant there was only one solution…
The doors to the chamber swung open as the queen strode in, her gown flanking her like an army. Her expression was grim, suspicious and even a little smug.
"Did you have sufficient time to unburden your sins towards Jonathan before God?" she asked, pausing beside the marble altar, her hand reaching out to caress the corpse.
Clary had refused to be near the body. She'd already made her peace with her brother's death in the mundane graveyard. The Seelie Queen was only feeding some disturbing fantasy by keeping him here. At least finding his body acknowledged his death. She shuddered to remember her madness when she thought Clary was keeping him hidden.
"I saved my brother by killing him. My real brother would not have wanted his face to be worn and abused by a monster." Clary said steadily. The words had barely left her mouth before a crack resounded in the large chamber.
Her cheek stinging, Clary turned her gaze back to meet the queen's. In a matter of seconds, she'd crossed the room and was now almost chest to chest with Clary.
"You will not disrespect him in my court." she said viciously, her eyes flashing dangerously as her breathing became stunted. Clary frowned at the woman. Jonathan was such a touchy subject, she'd be sure to take advantage of that.
"His corpse presented like a holy object is disrespecting enough to him. He was the antonym of holy." Clary said evenly. She was enjoying this reaction in the queen.
Her jaw was clenched so tightly, Clary thought it would snap. She breathed out sharply before retreating a few steps. "I just came to inform you of something as I wanted to see your reaction."
Well if she wanted to return brutal honesty…
"Jace Herondale has requested to enter my court. He wishes to speak to me and I am about to go meet him." the Seelie Queen said, a victorious smile gracing her features.
"No." Clary breathed, staggering backward, tripping on the stairs and managing to catch herself by the elbow as her wrists were still bound. The queen couldn't lie.
"Yes." the queen crooned, clapping her hands together. "Goodbye now."
It took a moment for her to make sense of what she was saying before flinging herself after the Seelie Queen, but the door had already closed behind her with terrible finality that echoed in the chamber.
Clary screamed with frustration as she pounded her fists on the door, ramming her shoulder into it with all her body weight. What was Jace doing? How could he leave Christopher without both his parents? The only reason she hadn't gone mad with worry about her son was the comfort in knowing Jace would protect him.
And of all the reckless things he scolded her about, here he was being the most idiotic chivalrous hero. If they were both dead, she would kill him again.
Clary felt some of her fingers crack as she slammed them against the door, her shoulder becoming bruised as she repeatedly launched herself against the solid and undamaged door. Her knuckles were split, and she was just about to back up and kick the door when a pair of arms caught her around the waist.
She shrieked as she tried to jerk herself free but a familiar voice she never thought she'd be relieved to hear, sounded in her ear.
"Will you stop screaming? Do you want to send the guards running?" Alec hissed, releasing her when she stopped thrashing.
Had she accidentally inhaled some seelie drug again? But as she turned and looked up at his towering form, she flung her arms around his neck, a strangled sob coming out. He awkwardly patted her head and disentangled her arms, cutting away at the bindings.
"But how are you here?" she stammered. "Tell me Alec, you didn't really let Jace talk to the Seelie Queen alone did you?"
He towed her away from the door and into the shadows behind a large pillar of vines. She cried out again, ignoring Alec's exasperated sigh, when she saw Isabelle and Simon waiting there. But how was this happening? Nobody entered the seelie court without permission.
"We need to start moving before she decides to come back." Simon warned, unable to wipe the goofy smile off his face. He grinned at her confused expression and pulled out two short handed axes as he used them to begin climbing up the pillar.
Clary turned to the others pleadingly. "Jace."
Isabelle smiled ruefully as she inked over Clary's iratze rune. "I really don't know what you see in him. He's such a stubborn idiot."
Clary laughed for the first time in ages, as Isabelle voiced her earlier sentiments. "Tell me where he is."
"You're not going after him." Alec said firmly. "We have a plan."
"Well tell me what that is!" Clary said, unable to keep the whine out of her voice. Isabelle's quiet laughter could be heard as she followed after Simon with her own set of short hand axes.
Alec sighed at her as he handed her two sets of axes. "Jace was determined to invade the seelie court on his own if the Clave couldn't come up with something better. Then Magnus had this theory that if Jace offered to speak to the queen and she granted him access to the court, a few of us could get in by blending in our Nephilim blood with his extra angel blood. And it worked. Now start climbing."
"Wait." Clary said, receiving an irritated eye roll from Alec. "What about Jace?"
"We have a plan, why doesn't anyone like my plans anymore?" he said grumpily as he pulled out his own axes. Seeing she was still unmoving he sighed again. "He's going to distract her for as long as he can so we can get out - "
"We're using him as a distraction?" Clary's screech was interrupted by Alec's rough hand over her mouth.
"Angel, will you let me finish?" he said incredulously. "The Seelie Queen won't kill him as long as she thinks he knows where Christopher is."
"But - "
"She wanted Christopher in exchange for you. She's under the impression Jace is bargaining, which by the way he refused to do. But that's what she thinks, so Jace will get out I promise." Alec said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. "But trust me, he'll do something even more stupid if he thinks you didn't get out, now move."
She wordlessly struck the pillar with her axe and began to climb. It was a miracle they had gotten in. Now they had to get out.
When she reached the top, Simon helped pull her up onto the platform above the chamber. Hidden at the top of the pillar was a hatch that gave way to a narrow network of ducts. The average adult barely fit on their hands and knees as they shuffled down the dirt duct. It would have been claustrophobic if she hadn't been feeling so trapped in the massive chamber. It made for quite the juxtaposition.
Enclosed in dirt, everyone's breathing became heavy as the air became thicker. Simon wheezed out that this meant they were almost at the end of the tunnel. Clary wondered what would happen if they got lost in this winding dirt maze.
Over Simon's shoulder, Clary saw the faint shine of light as they emerged into the sunlight. The bones in her back creaked and screamed as she straightened them out. Fresh air and light was the second best gift she could receive right now.
She was surprised to find them in a ditch by a busy market overhead. Simon looked chipper as he led the way down the street. Vendors were lined along the sides of the road as customers bustled about, picking vegetables, meats and seafood. There was loud live music coming from somewhere in the distance and sounds of cars honking as they passed through the middle of the market.
"Where are we?" Clary asked, momentarily mesmerized by the livelihood of the market.
"Bangkok. We moved Christopher to the Bangkok Institute before coming to the court. We thought it was safest to move him around in case the queen ever guessed a location." Isabelle replied, looping arms with Clary.
"Thank you." she said earnestly, hoping they understood the extent to which she was thanking them.
"Aw shut up Fray." Simon teased, leading them down a city street before stopping in front of a large hospital. "The Bangkok Institute looks like a hospital on the outside, neat huh?"
But Clary wasn't listening to him. As they passed between the realms of mundane and Shadow world, Clary saw Jace pacing on the lawn outside, a baby nestled in his arms.
In the corny way mundane movies do it, Jace happened to turn and meet her eyes at the same time she found his.
In the less corny way, Clary nearly tripped and fell flat on her face as she stormed across the lawn and as gently as she could, crushed herself against him. Christopher let out a gurgle that unleashed a torrential downpour of tears that she welcomed with a wide smile.
Two things were clear in her mind;
First, that this was the family reunion she'd been waiting for, and the one she would spend the rest of her life defending.
And second, the Seelie Queen must die.
Author's Note
WOW two chapters left before the grand finale
Thank you, if you've stuck around this long
I really enjoyed writing this chapter, I think it touches bases with a lot of deeper themes and relationships/relationship dynamics
Let me know your thoughts!