Well. It's been a while.
I'm not going to lie, I feel like I've lived a decade in this one year. I hope wherever you all are, you're safe, happy, and healthy. And I hope this chapter takes you away from all the sadness and fear in the world for a little bit. I love you all, so much.
Happy reading!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mortal Instruments or the Infernal Devices.
"What would I do without your smart mouth? Drawing me in and you kicking me out. You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down. What's going on in that beautiful mind? I'm on your magical, mystery ride. And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright. My head's underwater, but I'm breathing fine. You're crazy and I'm out of my mind…"
- All of Me, John Legend
Chapter Fifteen
Jace did not often remember Celine Herondale.
No one talked about her – certainly not the half-siblings whose lives she had ripped apart, or the grandmother who despised her as a cheating whore. He had learned long ago to fold his mother into the depths of his mind, a secret to be taken out and turned over in the dark of night, with only the shadows to bear witness.
Sometimes it felt as though she had never existed, like the memories he cradled inside his head were the lie and she had been erased from history – erased so absolutely and completely that in the early days after Imogen had adopted him it had taken everything within him not to scream she was here, she was here and I loved her and I want her back I want her back I want her back –
No, Jace did not often remember his mother. Not anymore.
Not until Clary Morgenstern had drawn her out of his head.
The girl in question was reaching across the blanket for a chocolate-covered strawberry, hair spilling across her shoulder like a crimson wave, and he had to fight the urge to reach out and run his fingers through the gentle spirals, looser and longer than the thick corkscrew curls she'd had at the start of the evening.
It was strangely easy to lose himself in watching her like this. There was always something new and bright about Clary – the way her face lit up in wonder, the bow of her lips when she smiled, the blush that highlighted the freckles spattered across her nose.
He wondered if his mother had ever thought about his father like this, if she had wanted to spend eternity tracing the planes of his face and the curls of his hair, if he had made her smile once upon a time – if that was how he had driven her to love him so recklessly and desperately that she'd bled herself out to keep him.
Your mother loved me. A smooth, hated voice, unemotional and cool as ice, repeating like a broken record player inside his head. The stupid, foolish woman.
His mother had loved his father, loved him to the point of madness and beyond – Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, never to surface again.
To love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be the one destroyed.
The night changed from comforting to threatening in a second, the shadows fashioning his secrets into a noose of his own making. He could almost see the ghosts of the past amongst the darkness, summoned to see history repeated, to see the Herondale legacy play out once more into ruin and despair.
"Jace, look!" Clary scrambled up, darting to the edge of the treehouse and leaning so far over the edge that his heart skipped a beat, thinking she had fallen. "A shooting star!"
He joined her at the railing, thoughts of the past forgotten for a brief, shining moment as a brilliant white streak shot like a bullet across the starry sky. He knew that it was tradition to make a wish, but he could see nothing but Clary, incandescent with joy and amazement, gazing at the sky as though she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life.
She turned to him, beaming so widely that his own lips turned upwards in response. "I've never seen a shooting star," she said breathlessly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "That was…awesome."
"Eloquent as always, Morgenstern."
She elbowed him in the side. "Oh shut up, Shakespeare. Just admit that it was awesome."
"It was," he said softly, but he wasn't thinking about the shooting star, not at all.
He was thinking about Clary – Clary with her eyes of burnt emerald and soft jade, Clary who was biting and witty one second and tender and loving the next, Clary who could draw truths out of him with nothing more than a touch of her hand and a beckoning gaze.
Clary, who was more dangerous than he had ever realized.
No, he could not afford to let Clary slip through the cracks, could not afford to give her any more of himself than he already had. He would do what he had to do, what his mother had never been able to do. If he had to break Clary's heart to protect his own, then –
So be it.
Will had been seven years old when he'd fallen into the lake.
It had all been his own fault, of course. His mother had warned him never to go near the water, frequently when he was younger and less so as he'd gotten older and her lucid moments had grown fewer and fewer. The servants at their manor had tried their best to keep an eye on him, but it was all too easy for a little boy in a house of children to slip out without being noticed.
He'd been reckless in that way children always were, thinking themselves invincible, surprised even as his foot slipped on the mossy rock and he tumbled towards the glossy surface of the lake. How could this happen to me?
He hadn't even had time to scream before his body hit the freezing water, a million dagger pinpricks of cold that paralyzed his limbs and brain. It had all been strangely calm for a few minutes, painful beyond measure but peaceful, until his lungs tried to get their first gasp of air and found that they couldn't.
The terror had hit him then, wrapping around him like a boa constrictor to squeeze the life out of his body, vicious and unrelenting in its grip. He'd managed to kick himself to shore and collapsed, shivering, on the pebbly beach, still caught in the death throes of his panic.
Will hadn't known fear like that again – not until he'd watched Tessa crumble in his arms.
He could still feel the heat of her body against his, the imprint of her trembling fingers over his heart, so small and fragile beneath his own. He couldn't erase the memory of her eyes, the lack of life in them, utterly devoid of that spark that he'd only ever seen in Tessa, that had always, always been her.
Will never wanted to see her like that again, as small and broken as a baby bird in his arms.
Maybe that was why he'd told her about the nightmares, utterly unable to bear that hopeless, defeated look in her eyes. As though she'd been ashamed of herself for the undying grief of losing her whole family, for not being able to endure an unendurable tragedy every single moment of her life.
He looked across to where she sat by her desk, cross-legged with her laptop perched on her knees.
At first glance, she appeared fine – more than fine. Her hair was caught up into a high ponytail, the ends brushing her collarbone. Her cheeks were flushed with colour, eyebrows drawn together, and lips pursed as she frowned down at her screen. She looked almost like the cool, efficient Tessa Gray he had known for the past three years, the Tessa Gray he'd believed unshakeable – almost, until his eyes dropped to her hands, white knuckled and rigid over the keyboard.
"You're staring."
Will pulled himself together, his eyes flicking up to Tessa's face to find that she wasn't even focused on him. Her gaze was fixed on her laptop, although he noticed her lips slightly quirk up at the ends.
"As one does in the presence of a beautiful lady," Will quipped half-heartedly, knowing even as the words left his lips that she hadn't bought the flirtatious remark.
Tessa sighed and set her laptop aside, looking directly at him. "Will, I'm fine."
How many times had he repeated those same words? To the kind police officer who had sat him down and broken the news, to the counsellors his grandmother had sent him to, to every concerned adult who had asked but never really wanted to know, to his sisters – to Jem.
How many times had they been the truth?
"Yeah," he said without thinking. "I said that a lot too."
The words came out more truthfully than he would have liked – too acidic, too bitter with memories of the past.
Tessa's eyes flitted over his face, searching, scrutinizing as though she was evaluating him for a test he didn't even know he'd taken. Her face was grave, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, but she gave nothing else away.
"Then you should know," she said finally, "that sometimes you just have to say it. There's no other option but to be fine."
"For some of us, maybe," Will shot back. "But not for you. You have people who care about you. You have Clary and Jon and your aunt and uncle. Do you think you're doing them a favour by pretending?"
"Do you think it'll help them to see me like this?" she said furiously, soft grey eyes turned to steel. "Do you think I don't know what they've done for me? The sacrifices they've made for the burden of an orphan girl they had to take in? Clary has only just started looking at me like I'm not about to break any second. Jocelyn and Valentine used to stay awake all night to make sure I slept. Jonathan had to hold my hand every time I got into a car. For two years. Two whole years. And now when they finally think I'm okay, when they can move on, you want me to pull them back into hell?"
"They clearly don't think you're okay," Will retorted, feeling his own temper uncoil and rise to the surface. He didn't even know why he was so angry, only that there was something about the way she'd talked about herself – burden of an orphan girl – that made him want to break something. "Jocelyn knew, didn't she? That's why she wants you to hold a memorial."
"Why does it even matter to you?" Tessa asked, frustration lining the crinkles of her forehead. "If it's about what you just saw, you can forget that. I've got it under – "
"Under what? Under control? Because you and I both know that's a lie."
"You know what?" Tessa slammed her laptop shut and got to her feet. "You can just go. This is none of your business and I don't need your help. Why do you even care?"
"Because I know what it's like!" he yelled, fuelled by the kindred despair and loneliness somewhere deep inside him, by the remembrance of her shuddering body in his arms. "I know what it's like to live with that kind of ache in your heart all by yourself, day after day, and I can't stand the thought of anyone else knowing it too."
The anger drained out of him in a second, leaving him hollow and carved out and knowing only that he didn't want to leave this frustrating, fascinating, broken girl alone on her own. They were both on their feet, though he didn't remember getting up, and she was staring at him, impossibly beautiful and impossibly lost.
The thrumming bass of Jonathan's music reverberated in the sudden silence between them.
"I'm sorry."
He hadn't heard right. "What?"
"I'm sorry," Tessa repeated, her voice barely more than a whisper. Her face had softened, lips curling into soft lines, eyes wide and strangely bright. She walked over to him and sank down on the bed, so close that he could have reached out and twisted his finger around the cinnamon curls of her hair.
"Wow," he said slowly, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Tessa Gray, Tessa I-will-castrate-you-in-your-sleep-and-feel-no-regret-about-it Gray had just apologized to him. "Could you say that one more time so I can record it and remember this moment for eternity?"
"Don't push it," she warned, though her lips twitched at the corners.
"I had to try," he said, sitting down on the bed beside her. "But for what it's worth, I'm…I'm sorry too."
Tessa shook her head. "You don't need to apologize. You were right."
"History has been made," Will murmured dazedly. "Tessa Gray just apologized to me and then said I was right. Someone slap me."
Tessa whacked him across the shoulder.
"It's still real," he said in awe. "This is the greatest day of my life."
"Okay, so I suppose I don't need to say anymore – "
"Shutting up now," Will said instantly, lacing an imaginary zip across his mouth.
Tessa took a breath, glancing down at her hands as she spoke. "You were just trying to help me. I'm sorry I blew up at you. I should've known that you would understand."
Will shook his head. "I shouldn't have interfered. You'll figure things out, Tess. In your own time, and your own way."
"Thanks," Tessa said gratefully, then wrinkled her nose. "Though I must say it feels strange to be getting advice from my most hated enemy."
"Now love, are you really going to say that you still hate me?"
"I will if you keep calling me love," Tessa fired back, though they both knew it was half-heartedly. "But…I suppose you could say they might have shifted from hate to strong dislike."
"Wonderful," Will announced, and turned to face Tessa. "Then it's time to move to second base."
"The only moving you'll be doing is in a wheelchair if you think – "
"God Tess, where is your mind at?" Will demanded. "Here I am trying to be innocent and offering to be friends, and you just want to get straight into my pants."
Tessa looked as though only one word had registered with her. "Friends? You…want to be friends?"
"Why not?" Will shrugged. "You know very well that my feelings for you have never remotely approached the hate category – "
"I would prefer it if they did," Tessa muttered.
"And you've upgraded to strongly disliking me. Trust me, that qualifies you for friendship. Just ask Alec or Jem."
"You've been trying to get me in bed with you for the last two years and suddenly you want to be friends?" Tessa asked suspiciously. "What's the catch?"
"Can't a man just want friends these days?" Will said indignantly. "Although we are very conveniently in bed together right now, so if you want to check that off the bucket-list – "
"Making a super convincing friendship argument there, Herondale."
"Okay, okay, sorry," Will said contritely, wondering if he had ever said the word sorry so much in such a short span of time. He stretched out his hand to her, cocking his head to the side and giving her his most winning smile. "So, friends?"
Tessa looked torn for a fraction of a second, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as her eyes flicked from his hand to his face. He had never wanted to get inside her head more, to find out on what a flip of a coin her decision was teetering, wishing with a kind of desperation he didn't understand that it would land right side up.
The silence stretched and stretched, nearly unbearable, and for a second Will's heart sank utterly and absolutely as her eyes shuttered and he knew that she had decided to kick him out for good. Suddenly, the thought of never sitting next to her like this, never bantering or flirting with her, never seeing her blue-grey eyes widen in surprise or narrow in annoyance, seemed almost –
She clasped his hand.
"Friends it is."
Jace didn't have to look at his watch to know that he had kept both of them out far longer than he should have – and yet no part of him wanted to leave the treehouse.
Every cell in his body protested as he separated himself from Clary, as they packed up the blankets and picnic baskets and dusted themselves off to climb back down the rope ladder again. Clary had looked around one last time, peering at the maze of stars that stretched above them as though trying to commit it to memory, and he'd promised that they would return to the treehouse before long with her pencils and sketchpad in tow.
His limbs felt leaden with reluctance as his feet touched solid ground again. They had spent close to six hours in the treehouse, and yet he felt as though he could have spent six more and then some, just pressed into Clary, her softness and her light, hearing the tinkle of her laughter and the lilt of her voice.
She was climbing down the ladder now, nimble and deft, lower and lower until he could wrap his hands around the curves of her waist and place her safely on the ground.
"You know I could probably have made two steps by myself, right?" she asked sardonically.
"Best not to take the chance with you," Jace answered, easily avoiding her hand as she tried to swat his shoulder and trying not to give away how badly he wanted to touch her, how swiftly he jumped at every opportunity to keep her close to him.
"I would be a little nicer to the person you're about to walk through a dark forest with," Clary threatened, crossing her arms over her chest. "I could kill you and bury your body right here and no one would ever find you, Herondale."
Jace snickered. "I'd like to see you try, short stuff."
"You are absolutely incorrigible," Clary muttered as they set off through the trees, shafts of moonlight spilling between the branches to illuminate silver patches of ground.
"I've been told it's one of my better qualities," Jace said cheerfully. "Along with being devilishly charming and outrageously irresistible."
"So irresistible that you have to cheat to get a date," Clary replied sweetly.
"Technicalities," Jace dismissed with a wave of his hand. "We still ended up on the date, so I think this counts as a win."
"Sure, sure," Clary said cheerfully. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Jace had spent so many nights out here, sleeping beneath a blanket of stars, that navigating through the darkened forest was easier than finding his way through his own house. He knew every trail and off-road path, the places where tree roots burst up through the ground like craters, the quiet hoots of the owls and the pitter-patter of the various critters that dwelled within the woods. These trees had been home to him more than his own, so familiar that the creak of their branches were like old friends saying hello.
Clary was unusually subdued as they walked back through the trees, her lively face pensive and far away as she walked. Twice, he had pulled her out of the way of an exposed root, and finally he slipped his hand through hers and intertwined their fingers, pretending that it was for her own safety.
They arrived back at the Herondale mansion, the monolithic building almost entirely dark save a single lighted window on the top left hand side – Cecily's bedroom. He had a sneaking feeling that whatever his sister was doing awake so late at night had nothing to do with her math exam, and much more to do with the interrogation that would soon await him.
Clary finally seemed to shake back into herself as they approached his motorcycle, moonlight glinting silver-bright off the metal. "If you had told me that I was going to ride this broken-down death-trap on wheels twice, one of those times being in the dead of night, I would never have agreed to this."
Jace gasped. "How dare you insult my baby like that?"
Clary rolled her eyes. "You men and your vehicles. I swear I wouldn't even be surprised if you declared your amorous intentions and proposed to that thing right now."
"Thing," Jace breathed in horror, laying a hand over his heart and closing his eyes in pain. "Stop, please. I beg of you."
Clary smacked him in the chest with his helmet. "Whipped."
"Jealous," he retorted.
That earned him a light slap in the shoulder blades as they both climbed on, Clary settling herself behind him more comfortably than she had earlier. She would have rather died than admit it, but he had a very good feeling that Clary wasn't quite as opposed to the bike as she pretended to be.
Then they were off, the roar of the motorcycle piercingly loud in the quiet cul-de-sac, ricocheting off the glass and cement houses and reverberating through the night air. Clary was whooping, yelling her joy into the empty air, her words ripped away by the wind that wrapped around them and tossed their hair into knots as they sped like a glimmering comet through the darkness. Her legs tightened around his thighs, her fingers splaying out across his stomach, and the places where she touched him seemed to burn icy-hot, like shooting up a drug. He was laughing then, hollering with Clary, the echoes of their wild delight spiralling in their wake, and he never wanted to get off, dizzy with the heat and the magic of her, alive in a way no one else he knew ever was.
The ride ended too soon as he turned into her street, pulling up on the path leading to her front door and feeling suddenly and unreasonably nervous.
Which, of course, made no sense whatsoever.
This wasn't his first rodeo. He'd been on plenty of dates, with plenty of girls. He knew how these things went – he would walk whichever girl he was with to the door; they would make out at worst and end up in bed together at best, and then he would usually put them out of his mind forever.
But this wasn't just any girl who knew the drill.
They had reached Clary's front door, stepping onto the mat beneath her porch light, and for the first time in his life, Jace had absolutely no idea what to do.
"So," he said.
"So," she repeated, gazing up at him with wide green eyes. They were slightly amused and a little uncertain, and he thought that as much as she enjoyed teasing him, she wasn't very sure what to do next either. Somehow, that made it a little better.
"So," he said again. "This is probably the time I ask you for a second date."
"Probably," she agreed.
"And this is probably the time you should agree and throw yourself into my arms, declaring your undying love for me and sealing our fates with a kiss."
"And that is probably how you wind up in the ER with a bruised groin," Clary warned, but her eyes were lit up with repressed laughter.
They were close, so close that he could see the illumination of the porch light glinting off the arch of her cheekbones, turning each strand of her eyelashes to translucent gold. He wanted to trace his fingers over them, over every line of her face, learn the shape and feel of her like piano keys beneath his hands and memorize the shades of auburn in her hair like old melodies.
"What are you thinking about?" Clary whispered.
"That you're beautiful."
He had never intended for those words to leave his mouth as they had, so soft and serious that there was no question of making it teasing flirtation or charming flattery, nothing to hide that it had been the pure and simple truth. Clary had drawn more than one of those out of him tonight, a weaver spinning her threads of stolen secrets, but strangely this felt as though she'd reached inside him and seen what he was thinking before he'd even known it himself.
Clary looked taken aback, staring up at him as though she couldn't quite believe what had just happened. "What?"
"I said you're beautiful."
She rolled her eyes then, a teasing grin on her face. "Already trying to get that second date, are we? You're laying on the flattery a bit thick, Herondale."
"No," he said in surprise, stumbling a little over the words – another uncharacteristic behaviour. "I-I meant it, Clary."
That was genuine shock in her expression now, shock and disbelief and the slightest hint of suspicion. For the first time in all the years he'd known her, she seemed genuinely at a loss for words, unsure of how to take a compliment when she could dish out witty quips and scathing put-downs in a heartbeat. He couldn't understand her reaction, couldn't make out what was going on inside her frustratingly incomprehensible mind, but before he could even try, her face cleared.
"Thank you," she said finally, a slight smile creeping up on her lips, softening the edges of her mouth and the crinkles of her eyes. "And thank you – you know, for everything. I know you said it was because you wanted to, but I just…I know that must have been hard. And I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate what you did."
"This has been a bit of a heavy conversation for a first date," Jace agreed teasingly. "I usually wait till the third before breaking out the dead mothers and family baggage."
He waited for her to laugh, but she didn't say a word, only looked at him long and hard before she took a step forward and threw her arms around him.
The world narrowed to her and their little bubble of incandescent colour, some part of his brain recognizing that this was the first time she had ever hugged him, and the bigger part focusing on the feel of Clary in his arms, fragile and breakable and so, so strong. His arms looped around her waist, breathing in the lavender scent of her, the fine strands of her hair tickling his neck like spider-silk as her lips brushed his cheek. He was drowning in her, her smell and touch and feel, but if this was death, he would fling himself into it willingly a million times over.
She pulled back slightly, eyes shimmering green-gold in the soft light, as lovely and unreal as fairy dust. He gripped her tighter, promising himself just one minute, sixty more seconds to hold her in his arms, when the cold, cruel voice that dwelled in the darkest chasms of his mind reared like a cobra about to strike.
This is how you win her heart, it whispered, lovely and repulsive, mocking and tantalizing.
You give her just enough of yourself that she gives you everything.
Friends. She was friends with Will Herondale.
Tessa still wasn't sure what force in the world had possessed her to make that decision.
Sure, she had agreed to this plan – to make Will fall in love with her. She had agreed to lie, to cheat, to fake niceties and pleasantry and sacrifice her sanity for the sake of womankind. That was what the plan had involved.
But the plan had never involved her becoming friends, real friends, with her worst enemy.
And it definitely hadn't involved them huddled up in bed an arm's length away while Will switched on a torch and put on his creepiest voice to tell ghost stories.
Tessa had vehemently protested, but apparently there was nothing more sacrilegious than not telling ghost stories in the month of October. Never mind that Halloween was still a good two weeks away – apparently anyone entering into friendship with a Herondale was duty-bound to hear one of their ghost stories, passed down (or so Will said) through generations of Herondales.
Personally, Tessa thought the only thing passed down through generations of Herondales was a concerning lack of self-preservation and an innate talent for sarcasm, but she'd found herself abandoning their project and climbing cross-legged into bed with Will anyway.
They had turned off all the lights in the room, leaving just the small nightlight on her desk and the moonlight streaming in through the window to illuminate the space. Will held the torch up beneath his chin, the white light casting eerie shadows over his face and brightening the dark cerulean of his eyes.
"Our tale begins on a dark and stormy night much like this one – "
"It hasn't stormed all day," Tessa pointed out.
"My dear Tess, it's called artistic license. Do you expect me to start a classic Herondale story with 'it was a clear and beautiful night'?"
"It's called accuracy, William."
"Fine," Will acquiesced grudgingly. "It was a clear and beautiful night when an old man sat safe and sound in his home, having had an immensely blissful life because he had never met irritating girls with no respect for the sacred art of telling ghost stories – "
"Sounds like a very miserable and lonely old man – "
"He was indeed all alone in the world," Will said loudly, speaking over her. "But he did not mind, for his life had been free and full of adventure. He was just reminiscing on his many, many memories of heroic journeys and bountiful women when he heard a knock upon the door."
Will raised his hand and knocked once on the wall beside her bed, a fiendish grin forming on his face. Tessa rolled her eyes.
"He went to the door and opened it to find no one," Will continued, lowering his voice until she had to lean in to hear him. "He dismissed it as kids playing a prank, but he had only just returned to his comfortable chair when the knock came again."
"He returned once more to the door to find no one – and a fierce storm raging outside. No one could have been outside his door, for no one would have been foolish enough to venture out of their homes in such weather. The old man had just convinced himself that he had been imagining things when he heard it."
Will dragged his hands across the wall, fingernails scraping against the wood to produce an eerie scratching sound. "Now he began to be frightened. He dared not return to the door but barred it and holed himself up in the corner of the room. But it was just as he had done so that he heard the rattling clicks of someone trying to break into his house, the sound growing more frenzied and vicious by the minute. He could do nothing as the intruder's rage deepened, tearing through wood like paper and finally bursting through the door to – POUNCE!"
He lunged at her as the words left his mouth and Tessa screamed, leaning back on instinct to avoid his reaching fingers – and realising too late that there was nothing but empty air behind her.
She knew she was falling a split second before gravity seized hold of her, drawing her down and off the bed, and she reached out desperately for something, anything to break her fall. Her hands scrabbled for purchase on the bed, flailing until her fingers touched fabric and she pulled – right on Will's shirt.
Will made a desperate attempt to free himself but it was too late – her momentum had already drawn him forward and she had a fraction of a moment to understand the mistake she'd just made before his weight came crashing down upon her and they both toppled over the side of the bed.
They hit the ground hard, the force of their movement pushing them onwards, a tangle of arms and legs that rolled over the carpet and came to a stop inches from Tessa's desk.
Neither of them moved for a full moment.
It took Tessa a minute and a half to realise two very important things: firstly, that she had just had all the breath knocked from her lungs, and secondly – and more urgently – that she was now lying directly on top of Will Herondale in closer proximity than they had ever been in all the time they'd known each other.
Get up! A tiny, rational part of her screamed, but the rest of her wanted, incomprehensibly, to lie there forever, to trail her fingers along the hard planes of his chest and twist them into the dark strands of hair that curled at his neck. Will's arm was looped around her waist, their bodies so flush together that she could feel the angle of his hips against her thighs, the corded ridges of muscle against her stomach. He smelled like the lime trees in Hyde Park, the citrus sunshine of afternoon picnics with her family and the sweet fragrance of her mother's freshly baked cinnamon buns, rich and sticky on her tongue.
"Tess?" Will's voice broke through the faint lightness in her head. "Are you okay?"
Reality rushed in like a cold wave to smack her in the face. What the hell was she doing?
"Yeah, fine," she got out, forcing her limp body into action and rolling off Will. She pressed her hands to her face, feeling strangely as though she'd been stumbling in circles through the thickest fog and had lost her senses entirely.
"Tess?"
Will's fingers were gentle on her wrist, pulling her hand from her head with one hand and tilting her chin upwards with the other.
"Are you hurt?" Will asked. "Did you hit your head when you fell?"
Tessa shook her head. "I'm fine. Just winded."
He didn't look convinced, eyes darting over her face as though he wanted to check over every square inch of her for the slightest imperfection. This was a Will she had scarcely seen – absent of his cocky humour and his teasing smile, focused and intense, with every iota of that focus narrowed in on her. His thumb brushed over her cheek, feather-light, and yet every scarce touch felt as though he had brought a candle to her skin and set her ablaze.
Her eyes found his of their own accord, drawn to his gaze like a moth to a flame. She had always thought them dark, the indigo violet of a midnight sky, but they were brighter somehow in the darkness – a vivid, iridescent blue that seemed to burn through to the soul of her and the desires that had just enveloped it.
This was dangerous, logic screamed, dangerous thoughts to think and dangerous feelings to feel for a boy who would only break her heart and yet –
She was still sitting on the floor of her darkened bedroom, Will kneeling before her, his fingers tender on her skin. It was the second time tonight she'd found herself pressed against Will Herondale, and yet it felt as though they had never been here before, in this space where time held no meaning and starlight spilled like champagne through the window, gilding the waves of his hair and the lines of his face. She wondered if that was why she was powerless to stop the burning want to draw him closer – if she was imagining what she saw reflected in those bright-dark eyes –
The door slammed open with a thud against the wall.
The light flickered on an instant later, flooding the room with brightness, and Tessa had no time to take in what had just happened before she heard Clary's amused, incredulous voice in the doorway.
"Tessa?"
Happy new year everyone!
2020 really has been…a ride and a half.
So I know I really dipped the whole of last year but in the last few months I've felt like I finally got my writing mojo back and I'm insanely excited to really throw myself into writing again. Which brings me to a question: would you guys prefer longer chapters like this (about 6000 words), but with longer breaks between chapters, or shorter chapters (about 3000-4000 words) but updated more frequently? I'm thinking of trying out a three week update schedule, but it would mean shorter chapters that are edited less and not quite as "perfect". I'm really interested to know what you guys think!
So, this brings us very definitely to the end of the Clace date. Secrets have been shared, histories have been revealed, and these characters have reached a turning point in their relationships with each other. Clace got a hug and Wessa are friends! (Only took them fifteen chapters too).
As always, please review and let me know your thoughts on this chapter, your New Year's Resolutions, Christmas presents and anything else you want to rant about! Reading you guys' opinions and thoughts absolutely makes my day. And of course, please stay safe and healthy and wear your masks!
Till next time, take care!