"I should probably tell you, but you're a child," said Jaime crawling out from the corner he had crammed himself in. He brushed himself off, then crossed his arms as he looked down at the predicament Kit was in.
"Have you spent all your five dollar insults already?" Kit sat back on the floor, too exhausted to even kneel anymore.

He shook his head. "I got a few ten dollar words I've been saving for later, but I mean it, you're actually a child." Jaime frowned.

Kit looked down at himself for the first time he was stuck in this mushroom circle. Small hands gripped his pants legs. He just stared in exhausted disbelief. "How long have I been talking to the Prince of Faerie looking like a ten year old?"

"If it makes you feel better your body has been changing-wait! And you're back to normal size again..again." He added unhelpfully.

Kit didn't feel a thing. His voice didn't even sound different to him, but this time he watched himself change. From this position his eye level didn't even change that much.

Jaime started howling with laughter suddenly as an idea hit him. "He put you in a time out!"
"Shut up!" Kit snapped, trying to think. "What is this anyway?"

Jaime's laugh was cut short. "It's obviously a faerie circle, from the sounds of it there must be a twin of this one somewhere in the human world. You started to fade a few times, did you go anywhere?"

"The snowy field," he recalled, shivering from remembering the cold.

"But you stopped now." He pointed out. "But you're still changing shape."

Kit sighed, " a second longer and he would have told me how to get out of here."

The shocked expression on Ash's face told him his suspicions were correct. He knew it, and Ash knew it, that's why he wasted no time getting out of here.

"Did you really do what I think you did? Compel him?" Jaime asked, actually looking impressed for once.

If that was all Jaime had picked up on he would have been grateful, but Kit knew it was only a matter of time before he mentioned the other thing, so he changed subjects. "Why did you take the Codex? Surely you know the difference between that and an evil spell book."

"I'm here for my own reasons too, remember?" Was all he said, his eyes drifting away from him.

Kit hesitated, "Jaime, you wouldn't…"

"What?" He said sharply.

He took a long pause "Nothing, nevermind. We're wasting time here and we have no idea where the Black Volume is."

Jaime crouched down next to him grinning widely. "Maybe if someone didn't have a pathological attraction to traps we might be getting somewhere."

Kit glared, he knew by the stupid grin on his face he had changed back into a kid again. Jaime brought up his hand and actually flicked him in the nose.

"Hey!" He wacked his hand away before they both froze. Kit sprung up and tried to hurl himself out of the circle only to be knocked back down by an invisible force.

"Damn it!"

Jaime covered his mouth to keep himself from laughing. "You're such a cute kid, look at you and your chubby cheeks!"

Kit lifted himself up, his cheeks unhelpfully warming up. "I'm ten not five!" he clapped a hand over his face when he heard himself yell he was a ten year old out loud.

Jaime had tears in his eyes as he wrestled with his shaking body from trying to restrain the laughter. "Hahaha, don't worry, if you get stuck like that at least your baggage would be easier to carry!"

"When I get out of here you better start running, because even as a kid I knew how to make people disappear.." he trailed off, an old memory of a strange black flute and an old faerie he hadn't thought of in ages resurfaced. He remembered that day Johnny had bargained for it, it took him ages to find a contact, back then before it was finally his there were a few days Johnny's calm had broken. It was like he was frantic to get it. Kit had let Barnabas believe he had dug up the Red Scrolls under his father's stall, but he knew Johnny had traded it for some obsessed warlock in exchange for the flute. But now that he thought about it, whatever it was, it was Barnabas now.

"Hey, did you hear that music earlier, you know the flute?"

Jaime dragged himself off the ground. "I heard you guys talking about something you heard, but no, I didn't hear any demonic instruments or fiddles for that matter."

Kit rolled his eyes. "Random question, back when we were at Pandemonium's club house did you see a ruby encrusted scroll casing?"

Jaime thought about it. "I saw scrolls, I don't remember any specific ones, there might have been a few like that. Why?"

"I don't know," he said truthfully. It might be a coincidence or nothing at all, he didn't even know what the flute thing was supposed to even do.

"It's a summons, for whom I don't know."

"The only thing I know is that it looks like I was right about the little demon spawn," Jaime's eyes darted back to him, "no offense."

"It's the Black Volume, I could feel it on him. I don't know how long that magic has been working on him, but whatever is left of him it's not going to last much longer." Kit said, his hand subconsciously finding Caliburn's hilt when he felt the strange pulse from Ash's aura. Jaime's face turned stoney.

For a second there Ash's eyes had turned pitch black, in that moment Kit couldn't read him, there was no light, no soul. Whatever it was Dru had seen that she fought so hard to protect was almost snuffed out.

"Go on without me, if we don't find the Black Volume soon this is all over," said Kit.

Without hesitation Jaime stood up and picked his bag off the floor, already heading for the door.

"Really?" Kit threw his hands up. "Not even a 'good luck'? No wonder even your sword thought you were an asshole."

"Why, are you going to admit you need rescuing?" Jaime pretended to wait for an answer. "You have to have some idea to get out of there, you're not about to give up with Ash Morgenstern searching for your boyfriend."

Even if it was stupid to start blushing just because he called Ty his boyfriend, his mutinous face did it anyway.

"You better be long gone before I get out of here, Rosales, consider this a head start."
Jaime didn't laugh, his face darkening as his thoughts turned inward again, leaving Kit staring after him on edge. Maybe he shouldn't have let him go on his own, or he should have forced him to tell him what he was planning, but Jaime was right, there was no time to be wasting here.

Kit gave himself a second to be embarrassed at how stupid his one plan of escape was. There was no reason for him to believe this could work, except that he desperately hoped it did.

So ignoring how stupid he sounded speaking out loud in an empty room, he called out, "Evander?"

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"It's not ash," Ty examined. The black charcoal stain on the stairs leading to the dungeons. Black smears were spattered against the steps and walls, and as they headed further down they were overwhelmed by the smell of blood.

Dru walked down a few more steps and tried to pull out a witchlight. The stone laid in her palm completely lifeless. Even if she concentrated the stone didn't light up. In fact she could start to feel a sudden fatigue from the weight of Phaesporos strapped to her back.

"Runes aren't working." She looked up at her brother. Ty was still studying the stain.

"Burnt," she heard him mumble to himself.

"Did you hear me?"

Eventually, he pulled himself away and followed after her, his eyes trained ahead. "The blight, but this is different."

Dru swallowed back her question. She didn't need to ask if it was possible that the blight could have evolved as the spells bound to Ash began to change and take hold. But that smell of iron filling her nose had her pleading they were both wrong. A forceful wind blew through the corridor as they reached the bottom of the steps. The air whipped around like black tendrils as it swept up the black ash from the stone floors and threw it against the wall. In seconds it was coating her skin and gear as it whirled around her like black sand. They stood trapped in a macabre hourglass waiting for the sand to drift away so they could see what they were standing in. Everything it touched left violent black smudges; so much of it that at first she thought that the thick thorns that acted as bars of the cells were black as well.

"Is there anyone here?" She called out, using her sleeve to shield her eyes.

"Yes," it was Ty who answered. He was bent low, his head peering into one of the cells.

At first she didn't see what he was looking at, too worried watching the thorns twitch as human contact came near. But then she saw it as his hand brushed away more of the strange black charcoal, white bone. Her heart seized in her chest. These were Ash's prisoners, they had to be, the Tower had been vacant until recently.

He had promised to take back control.

Words she should have said built up in her lungs as a storm of black sand raged on with her in the center.

She stood over her brother and watched as he unearthed half of a white skull, the other half was crumbling into more of the black dust. Slowly, the rest of it succumbed and before it fell away between Ty's fingers she swore she could hear an unearthly groan as it dissolved. She felt the tarnish on her skin begin to burn as she realized they weren't in a dungeon at all, they were in a crematorium, and coating their skin and painting the walls were the remains of the enemies of the Seelie Court. All at once her brain shut down the feeling of sweat plastering the ashes to her skin, the grainy feeling of breathing it in. Instead of reality she was in a black and white picture book of horrors, it was just another scene in a movie, it would be over soon enough when she unpaused.

But that wouldn't happen.

"Ash did this..?" She heard someone say from far away before realizing she had whispered it. Ash, the one thought tying this tragedy to her real life spoke to something miles within her.

Ty didn't pick up on her distress, "I don't know, but it seems likely it was a spell from the Black Volume. If he did this then we may be too late."

"Don't say that!"

Ty looked over at her in surprise.

"Why would he do this?" A small voice escaped her lips. Was he really gone? The boy she played video games with who laughed as she threw the controller, the one she met in a quiet cottage by a sea. The words he wrote to himself were printed in her mind. How could that person no longer exist? The person who made her feel like just a girl more then anyone had ever done. She was helpless around him, comfortable with him next to her, she wanted things to change, and she was terrified of that too. More than ever, she was just a girl. And all at once that fear was rising in her chest that all she left him with were lies.

Ty didn't answer, and she didn't know if there was anything he could say. She looked around the room as the wind died down revealing bits of bone or clothing. There was one large pool of blood near the mouth of the open hole. She walked over it to it. The blood poured from the side of the tower, and as she looked down she saw the wind carrying away more of the bloodied dusts as it drifted down like snow onto the thorns below. Soon those thorns would turn black from blood ash.

"Dru," Ty said in distress. "There may be a way the Black Volume can undo this, me and Kit are also looking for a way to reverse-"

"I said stop!" She heard herself shouting before she could stop herself. She looked back around at her brother, his pale face was almost swallowed by the darkness of the room, his grey eyes darting back and forth trying to understand how he was upsetting her now. She wished it would bring her back to her senses, but it did the opposite. He looked like that when Kit had left too, hopeless and defeated, but more than that he looked uncertain, and it scared her more than even the dead drifting like snow around them to finally see her older brother exactly as he was too. Just a boy.

"Stop saying that, you know it's not going to be that easy." Her voice shook. "We can't keep fixing things, that's all we do, go around fixing things until they're broken."

Ty tried to stand back up, his hand clumsily grasping onto the thorns to pull himself up. The thorn caught him, and his hand slid with blood slipping away his hold, setting him back on his knees. But he didn't seem to notice as he wiped his brow, smearing the blood on his forehead. He didn't have anything wise or reassuring to say, no smart plan or fact that she didn't know. For the first time they were finally seeing each other eye to eye, it only took a collision of terrible things.

"I messed things up, I know that, but I don't see how quitting is going to help either." He said, a flash of his old defiance still intact.

She let her face fall in her hands. "We shouldn't be the ones doing this." She rubbed away the stinging in her eyes.

"There were no other choices," Ty said, and it was almost convincing.

But she didn't know if that was exactly true, if they had let others take the lead, if Ty hadn't been the one to start the investigation on the Mortal Instruments, if Dru hadn't fought for Ash, and Kit wasn't the First Heir, things might have been different. Then Ty said something she didn't expect.

It was just a whisper. "Not for me, at least," he added, and that was the truth of it.

It might not have been the right choice, and maybe it was more selfish than any Shadowhunter should be, but how could Ty not get involved once Kit was thrown into the epicenter of all this? How could she step aside and let whatever happen once she knew what was in Ash's heart?

"We are Shadowhunters," she said with growing strength. "Our job is to protect people, and that's what we did."

When she looked over at him she was taken aback by the look he was giving her. His eyes were searching her, his hand clenching and unclenching into fists, and slowly he held his head higher in pride. He was looking at her for guidance.

She walked over to him, but didn't try to touch him. There was nothing more she knew to say, The only thing she could think of to do was stand in the dark and be scared together, because she believed in him, and now she knew he believed in her too. When they left this death behind they would at least know they would continue to do the only thing a Shadowhunter could do. In her heart she knew they were more than their worst mistakes.

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Dru was right, there were no guards as Jaime sprinted from the royal quarters. He almost skidded across the floor when the corridor he entered took him by surprise. Black moss like mold grew between the cracks in the stone, dead flowers and greying baby's breath hung from the ceiling like spiderwebs. The whole place had an aura of decay Jaime knew from a lifetime of stories to expect from the Winter Court, but not the Summer Court. Kit was right, Ash was dying, and so was the land with him.

There were only two ways this could end.

He raced down the hall, trying to bend the corridor to his will and bring him to the dungeons like Dru had instructed him, but instead he found himself running endlessly down the same hall. The stone path just kept coming with no end in sight, finally when he was out of breath he stopped, and watched as the hall expanded again another mile before his eyes. This wasn't getting him anywhere, he didn't want to meet up with the others, he wanted the Black Volume. And he didn't have any more time to waste on an illusion.

"Jaime Rosales," a voice said to his left.

A dijin stood to his left in an alcove blocked off by a tattered blue curtain. Long dark hair was pulled back in a gold hair pin, similar golden bangles hung from his light pink wrists. His heavy lidded eyes regarded him with vague surprise, as if Jaime was an apparition he wasn't expecting in an otherwise pleasant dream.

"Nealon," Jaime said his name. "You're the one Mark chose from the Shadowhunter Downworlder Alliance. I didn't expect you to still be here."

"I am a member of the Seelie Court first and foremost."

Jaime tracked his hand as he pulled out a jambiya strapped to his waist. The thin hilt was made from gold encrusted with jade, fire burned in the form of arabic letters on the curved blade. The dagger seemed to hiss as it was released, the fiery lettering reflecting in Nealon's dark eyes. He tried to remember what Mark had mentioned to him and Dru about him, something about being part of a protecting warrior caste.

Jaime unleashed his seraph blade, whispering the name of 'Abdiel'. "Is that a threat?"

"That depends," Nealon answered. "With what intent have you come here?"

"Don't worry I'm not after your prince, I'm here for the Black Volume of the Dead."

The reflection of the burning letters seemed to leap in his eyes. "Then you have come for the King, to kill him."

"King?" Jaime barely suppressed a laugh. "I'm pretty sure that's highly contested right now."

"Your Prince is positioned to become the next Unseelie King. That is all. Claim or not, my oath to the Alliance ends with the affairs of my people."

Jaime lowered his seraph blade. "You realized don't you, that with two Shadowhunter Kings cooperation with the Alliance will be more crucial than ever."

A lancing pain shot up his arm, Jaime had to bite his tongue to keep himself from wincing.

Nealon shook his head, but the lazy movement looked more like his head lolled to either side. "They will be Kings of Faerie, they will live in Faerie, their consorts and their children will be Shadowhunter blood they share means nothing once they take the oath. Once they are sworn and tied to the Seelie and Unseelie lands their covenant for the Clave will be broken."

Jaime's grip reflexively tightened around his blade. Why, he didn't know. It's not like he would be the one forced to give up being a Shadowhunter. But as the thought entered his head he could hear the whispers of his abuela in his ear sowing doubt in his ears. "A Faerie should know you can't just erase blood. Being a Shadowhunter is more than just a covenant." Tiny pin pricks of pain started up his arm in warning. If he didn't keep himself measured the curse would be activated in earnest.

Nealon lowered his weapon, but instead of relaxing, one foot shifted in front of the other. "Not according to your own rules of exile. 'The law is hard, but it is the law.' Isn't that what the Nephilim say?"

Jaime smirked, readying himself. "I've always preferred the Blackthorn motto myself, 'a bad law is no law.'"

"Seems to me if you cannot respect the custom of your kin, perhaps you are no kin at all."

At once, he charged at the same time Nealon spun. His jambiya striking out as his back turned away from Jaime. He pulled back, deflecting the attack from his side, locking them in place.

Even with one hand the dijnn easily held him at bay.

Nealon looked over his shoulder at him, everything in his posture was still at complete ease.

"Tell me, how many thorns have accompanied you here, rose of the Nephilim."

Jaime pushed back, sending a shower of sparks as his seraph blade flew up, releasing the two of them. Nealon jumped back and pivoted back around as easily as if he moved in a dream.

Instead of answering he demanded his own answer, "You have it, don't you?"

The Jambiya flashed in front of him as an answer. Nealon threw himself in the air, twisting himself until he kicked out at Jaime's face. Jaime rolled out of the way, but lost his seraph blade as he hit the ground. His shoulder hit awkwardly when he tried to roll, forcing him to land on his arm. The light from the adamas went out as it rolled across the floor near where Nealon landed, his back to Jaime once again.

He had complete confidence in his abilities, not even treating Jaime like a true threat.

It was pissing him off.

"The Black Volume is the beating heart of the prince, therefore I cannot allow it to fall into anyone else's hands."

Jaime absorbed this, remembering the panicked expression on Dru's face when he suggested destroying it. He had known, of course he had known she was keeping something from him. The worst part of it was that he couldn't even blame her for it.

When he spoke now, he imagined he was speaking to Dru. "That's more than just a heart, it's a poison, and it's killing him and Faerie. There comes a time you have to step aside and do what needs to be done, and that time is now."

Nealon stiffened, but the Dru in his imagination didn't falter.

"We're still on the same side." But Jaime knew that alone wouldn't convince anyone. He put Dru behind him, there would be a time he would look for forgiveness but now wasn't it. "Look, I am not saying this as a Shadowhunter, but a Rosales. There's something I want, and to do that I need the Seelie Court on my side. Let my self interest speak for itself, the Rosales are still friends of the Fair Folk."

Finally, Nealon turned back around, his weapon lowered to his side. "I hear your words, friend of faerie, and if you can make wish a reality I promise to grant you yours. Tell me what it is you want. And as a word of advice, do not lie to a djinn."

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"Do you really think she's alive?" Dru asked her brother hopefully.

"Ash isolated Janus from any of the other prisoners, it's likely he would do the same for Clary and keep her somewhere outside of the dungeons."

"But where else would he keep her in this tower?"

Ty didn't say anything else as they rounded a corner, leading her to a huge tapestry of the night sky covering the wall from floor to ceiling. His sister couldn't look away from the stunning colors in the sky, silver, greens and electric blues shimmered over the fabric making the material come to life.

Ty looked as hard as he could at the materials, but he didn't have the abilities to see through glamorous like Kit had. "A conjuration enchantment was placed on the tapestry when I last saw it. Once you touch it, a creature will be summoned," he warned his sister. By most appearances it looked the same as it had before, save for the constellations. Before he quickly recognized the Hydra constellation in the stars, now it was Capricornus.

"There's no other choice but to trigger the trap, is there?" Dru asked, already pulling her sword from the sheath strapped to her back. Resignedly, Ty followed her lead and took out several knives from his weapons belt.

"Back up," he told her, reaching out a hand to pull back the tapestry. His fingers grasped empty air as his hand moved right through it entering the tapestry. But just as he connected the fabric to the material world could he finally see the constellation move. The stars formed a creature growing more solid as it slithered to the edge of the tapestry where his hand was. He yanked it back, but it was too late, the creature spilled out into the world and looked up at him with huge yellow eyes. It had a long reptilian mouth like an alligator, and two long horns that curve towards its face on its snout. It's bottom half was that of a fish and legs with huge hooves turned its body to examine them.

"A demon!" Dru exclaimed.

"No!" Ty tried to throw a hand in front of her to stop her from raising her sword. "It's a-"

It raised it's massive body, opening it's expanding snout, growing larger and larger, lined with razor teeth, and only thing they had time to do was yell out before they were swallowed whole.

They were plunged into darkness, but instead of digestive fluids drowning them, a river of night sky splashed against the walls of their chamber, washing up stars like beached starfish around them. They were wading through a sea of stars. Aurora borealis swam up to their knees shining like luminescence in a sea.

"Whoa!" Dru craned her neck to look up at what looked like a infinet sky. "This is so cool! But wait, are we still in that thing's stomach?"

"It's a makara, they're often mistaken as demons but they are guardian spirits for doorways and gateways." It must be an illusion, but it was an incredible one. Ty couldn't help but be reminded of the glimpse of the faerie sky in the feast hall of Lyonesse. But as he looked around at the stars surrounding them, there was one difference between that sky and the one they found themselves in now.

"So, it was a faerie? Oh!"

Ty turned around to see where she was looking at to find an outline of a woman in the stars. Her bottom half was a fish still, and on her forehead were the two large horns and two yellow stars dotted her eyes. The woman winked at them and wiggled her fingers at them.

"Hello-?" Dru took a step towards her but the stars forming her exploded, sending shooting stars across the sky.

"We have to find our own way out of here," Ty said.

Dru sighed, "I had the feeling."

Ty looked at the constellations again, unlike the sky in faerie the constellations were patterned the same as the one in the mundane world, which meant Ty should be able to have an idea of where they were.

"There's the northern star, should we follow it? You know, like the saying that the northern star leads to home?" She pointed, her finger tracing the outline of the little dipper to find Polaris in the sky.

Ty looked at the other stars, and noticed at first what he thought was the Vega star because of how bright it was, but then he remembered when they were in the dungeon night was only just falling around them. Venus shines so bright that it is the first star that is visible when the sun sets. That is why it's called the "Evening Star", but it was also the last star to disappear in the morning, giving it it's other nickname, "the Morning Star".

"Venus, the Morning Star," he shortened his explanation. Dru nodded, her eyes fixating on the star as they started walking together.

They took three steps before everything changed and the night sky was drained from the world leaving them back in the black stone of the Unseelie Tower. Right in front of them was the tapestry but this time the woman outlined in the stars stared back at them.

"Very quick thinking! That hardly took you anytime at all. But I don't suppose you would just go away would you?" The makara said.

"We have to get past your gateway," Ty told her.

"Hmph, oh well, she's been yelling at me to let you pass anyway," the faerie's hands reached the end of the tapestry and pulled it back revealing a doorway.

"Thank you," Dru told her, before running in the room with Ty.

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"Just let them in!" Clary demanded of the makara again. She was losing her patience with the faerie as soon as she heard the commotion outside.

"Calm, child. You know I cannot just allow them to simply enter," she hushed her.

Clary let out an aggravated sigh. "I've been stuck in here for days, what do you expect?"

Ever since Ash had defeated Janus he had her imprisoned in this makeshift cell made of Spikes roughly plunged into the cracked stone work like an afterthought. She didn't know what she expected him to do, maybe she was just being optimistic to think he had finally come around. But she had really hoped he would accept this time when they met again. All she had for company was the faerie spirit he had left as a guardian and his daily visits that always left her feeling splintered. Everyday it was harder not to fall into despair, everyday he came and she tried to talk to him but everyday the light in his eyes started to die. Just like in her nightmares she was terrified that one day he would be looking back at her with eyes so black and flat just like Sebastian's had been. Then on top of all that she had no idea how much time had really passed, and where was Jace? Why hadn't he come for her? She knew there must be a good reason Jace and Simon hadn't come immediately afterwards, but she knew that wasn't a good sign either.

Images from the battlefield came back to her, of Kit writhing on the ground and Alec getting to him before they could give him back up.

She thought she saw him…

"Oh, look at that! They figured it out, quiet timely too," the faerie interrupted her thoughts.

Clary raced to the crude iron bars sticking from the ground to the ceiling like pipework and gripped it in anticipation. But who finally stepped through the doorway wasn't who she was expecting.

Tiberius and his sister Drusilla Blackthorn stepped past the doorway and into the room Clary had first met her nephew. She was speechless at first, confused as to why it was Emma and Julian's family that had found her when she remembered what the connection was. Dru had been held captive by Ash for months, but despite that it was eventually revealed that she had been protecting him since she came back. It caused a bit of an uproar in the Clave, some saying they shouldn't have trusted a 'little girl', discounting her experience for notions of girlish romances. It made Clary angry, people had tried to discount her too, Emma, Isabelle, Shadowhunters were always way behind on the times. She didn't discount Dru, even though she was young, and even though she had heard what Ash had been up to. Insead she wanted to believe that it meant it wasn't too late for him after all.

Then there was Ty. She knew from Emma that he had been trying to get into the Scholomance before his application was rejected because he seemed so different from the other Centurions, despite his brilliant intellect. But that hadn't stopped him from carving his own way, and it was actually him who originally found the connection between the Seelies, the missing mundanes, and the missing Mortal Instruments. If things had happened differently, and he didn't disappear along with Kit for over a year he would have been honored for his services. But nothing happened like anyone expected, and instead here they were.

"Dru? Ty?" She called out as they stepped further into the room. The sconces on the walls flared to life at their presence. They stared back at her with the concern of rescuers that felt out of place on their younger faces. She knew she looked like a mess, her hair was tangled and matted with dirt, blood and sweat crusted on her skin from the battle she was abducted from. But from what she could see from the dark lighting they didn't look much better off. Black ash coated their skin, and their pallor looked unnaturally pale.

Dru was the first one to react. "Clary!" She ran over to her. "Are you alright?"

She was only sixteen but she had a whole two feet on her in height. Her large eyes looked genuinely upset at finding her like this. Clary remembered meeting her when she was just a little girl and how easily tears had flooded her eyes. She looked like she had been crying now too, but she knew the kind of leader she had turned into without anyone ever asking even though she was so young. Shaking hands slipped past the bar to hold Clary's.

"How did you get here?" She asked. "Wait, wrong question. Who came with you?"

Dru shot a glance at her brother. "It's just us… and Jaime Rosales and Kit."

She blinked, taking that in. Only four of them had come for her. "Jace didn't come with you?"

The makara whistled from the tapestry, stealing their attention. "Oh honey, I hate to say I told you about that boy of yours but..." She tsked.

"Not now!" Clary snapped. Instead of saving her sanity by having someone to talk to like the makara insisted she was doing she was actually building on her ever growing anger issues this cell was giving her.

Dru hesitated before answering. "It's a bit complicated, when you were taken, Alec, well, he fell in battle."

"I saw," she said, her hands turning white as she gripped the spikes. "He's not..."

"No," Dru said. "But he's not in great condition either."

She let go of the bars.

Alec.

The Clave, the Shadowhunter and Downworlder Alliance, and the New York Institute must have been in chaos. But that's not what she thought about right now. It was impossible just to think of Alec as the Counsel, not even as Jace's parabatai. He was also her brother. She folded her arms around herself and retreated back into the cell facing away from the others. She couldn't count all the times she and Alec pretended to fight because he called her short, but all of them flew through her mind now. Or the times they would ditch Simon's concerts and sneak back in later pretending they didn't go out to get tacos instead. She couldn't even begin to think of Max and Rafe and how distraught Magnus must be. Thinking of them as a family, her family, brought on so many memories that reminded her how grateful she actually was to have Alec in her life, even if they didn't start on the best terms. Her stomach twisted with guilt when she thought of Jace and how he must be feeling with his parabatai in critical condition and her getting herself kidnapped.

"So that's why they couldn't come," was all she could say.

"Also, the entrances to Faerie are still closed, but that's not an issue with Kit's powers," Ty added.

"But why only you four? What about Simon, Emma, or Julian?" She asked, still feeling like she was missing something.

Ty's gaze drifted away from her. "At the battle, Kit almost opened a portal to the Void, since then the Clave have deemed him too dangerous to live."

Clary spun back around. Ty was standing perfectly still, almost eerily, save for the way his hands worked across his knife. His eyes glided away from her but his expression was blank as far as she could tell. She knew he had a connection with Kit. She hadn't seen it when they were fifteen but it was obvious to everyone once Kit left and refused to get in contact with him that something had happened. She always suspected that heartbreak was involved by the isolation Kit imposed on himself. It was written in everything he did, and everything he didn't. Jace used to try to broach the subject, but that usually ended any visit pretty quick. She didn't know what happened when Ty showed up at the academy, only that he did, and the two of them disappeared in Faerie together for over a year. But now Tiberius Blackthorn stood telling her that Kit had some sort of demon powers and was exiled for it without even so much as blinking.

"The Void? How does he have that kind of power?"

Dru shot a worried glance at her brother and when it didn't look like he was going to explain she stepped in. "Like we said, it's complicated," said Dru. "But that's why we couldn't let anyone else be involved, no one else can know where Kit is or that he's alive."

Except Jace. She didn't say it out loud but there was no way she could keep that secret from him. He had run himself into the ground when he went missing, they both had. They went on expeditions to Faerie and did whatever they could to help Tessa and Jem find their lost son. Jace of course took it upon himself to make it seem like his fault, as if Kit had run away. If Alec was still in charge this wouldn't even be an issue, but he wasn't and who knew what was going on right now. If the Silent Brother's were left to make the decision themselves there was no doubt they would elect to dissect him.

She took a deep breath, trying to even out her building anger.

"Hand me a steele." She held out a hand waiting until Dru passed her her's. Her jaw tightened until she was speaking through gritted teeth. "Now back up."

Hastily, they backed up to the doorway, watching as she inscribed an opening rune on one of the spikes. She fuled all her anger and frustration until each line of the mark leaving behind a searing red rune. When she was done she backed up covering her face just in time for the impact as the cell actually exploded. The force of the rune's power shook the tower, shaking loose rubble and dust, and when it cleared several spikes had been reduced to a pile of wreckage at her feet.

She stepped out of the settling dust, ignoring the shocked expressions. "We have to hurry and stop Ash." She said to Dru.

Her eyes sparked with emotion at her nephew's name. "Ash?" What's been going on?" Their last conversation hadn't left her mind since he left this chamber. She tightly closed her eyes remembering the maddening look in his eyes. They had to save him, she wouldn't give up until she did. For the first time she noticed the blade strapped to Drusilla's back. Phaesporos, she couldn't forget that blade and there was no mistaken it.

Sebastian Morgenstern's sword.

A sickening fear was written over Dru's face but she wasn't shying away from what was happening. Whatever had happened, it was obvious she didn't shy away from Ash either. She really hoped that she might be the key to Ash's heart after all, before it was too late.

"It's about what he's going to do." She said, grimly. " The Dark Artifice has finally taken hold and I can't stop him on my own."

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"You called, my Lord?" Evander stood relaxing against one of the pillars like he had been there the entire time and completely at ease in his enemies surroundings. He was wearing the same suit that looked like it was made out of water as a material he had first met him in. Now that he thought about it, he didn't think he had seen him wear anything other than that. His strange eyes, a mismatch of swirling blues, greens and violent pink looked up at him, hitting Kit with a feeling of unease he had forgotten about. The more he thought about Evander the more he got the impression the Faerie lived in Kieran's closet standing there until he was activated again like a roomba.

"That worked?" Kit was astonished.

"Why wouldn't it?" Evander asked as if it was typical for Faeries to appear out of thin air whenever their names were mentioned.

"Is this some kind of power of yours? Tell me if it is, I don't want to accidentally mention you when I'm in a compromising position."

"I'm very professional, you understand, it was in my resume," he said seriously.

"Resume?" Kit mouthed.

Evander continued on. "Perhaps you should refrain from calling my name in intimate situations." Strange colors whirled like a pinwheel in his eyes.

Kit snorted. "There goes my small talk for strip poker fridays."

Evander took a glance around the room before settling back on Kit. "Speaking of, I do hope I'm not interrupting you in one such compromising scenario. Is it safe to presume the trap you are caught in is genuine and not….recreational?"

More aware of the enchantment he was under he began to feel himself shrink again. "What kind of kink do you think I have here?" He held out a hand to stop him. "Don't answer!"

Evander gave him one of his signature low bows turning himself into an acute ten degree angle. "A wise decision my Prince."

"I need to know how to get out of this." Evander didn't answer immediately. "I can't exactly keep my promise of becoming the Unseelie King if I'm a prisoner of the Seelie Court." He added.

He brought his hand up to stroke his chin. "That would be quite unfortunate, that is of course if you actually did intend to return to Lyonesse." Evander speculated as he stared him down. The power Kit had given him over himself by summoning him here was starting to make him regret this idea.

"Doubting me already? That doesn't bode well for our long future together." Kit joked, but he was getting apprehensive. Evander didn't strike him as the type he could easily deceive, even if he knew what made him tick.

"I am bound to assist the Unseelie King in all matters, of state and otherwise. But as I see it you are still but a mere Prince," he considered measuredly.

This should have been the time for his uneasiness to bloom, but understanding finally dawned on him. Whether he realized it or not he just slipped up and gave him a glimpse of the real Evander. "So, that's it," Kit smiled.

Evander's eyes flashed a violent pink, his hand falling to rest on his hip. "What is?"

Kit didn't answer directly. "I'm going to make you a deal. Help me get out of here and once I'm out of the palace you can take me back to Lyonesse."

"Does this deal contain loopholes and deception?" He inquired with a hint of expectation in his voice.

Kit rolled his eyes. "Is that really any different than any other deal made in Faerie?"

A row of striking white teeth flashed as Evander grinned. "A true King of Faerie you may make yet."

There was no shaking on it, for Faeries a verbal agreement was binding enough. Instead Evander got straight to work and took his time walking around the circle examining it.

"This is a unique faerie circle. It's purpose seems to be displacement instead of transport. You are stuck in two different times, represented by your small body. When you choose to leave the circle, take care that you leave in the time you wish to remain in."

"Does that mean if I leave when I'm in my child body then I'll go back eight years ago?"

Evander nodded.

"Why would anyone make that part of the enchantment? Ash said the Seelie Queen made it to try and smuggle him out of the Unseelie lands, so I get the transportation part but why make him younger?" He wondered out loud

Evander looked unfazed as he said, "I'm sure she found it preferable if she could get her son back as he was before the years had changed him away from her."

Kit was beginning to understand the bitterness Ash must have had towards her. The world had no shortage of terrible parents, but one that was willing to steal away their life to get them back to the way they wanted them to be was on a new level of bad parenting.

He looked down at the circle. "Great, now that is cleared up how exactly am I supposed to leave?"

Evander blinked, then leaned against the desk, one foot hung casually over the other. "Ah, I see now. You don't want to leave."

"Have you been talking to Jaime? Is that why you think I'm into some weird imprisonment roleplay?" Said Kit impatiently.

Evander ignored him. "Regardless of why it may be, the truth remains that there is something keeping you from leaving the circle, fetish, fear."

Kit thought about this. The explanation sounded ridiculous at first. No matter what anyone said, he didn't actually have a death wish. He looked down again at his legs that would only let him stand so tall. Everything seemed so much simpler when he was ten, it wasn't really, there was nothing simple about living your life on the run because your dad's idea of a stable career involved selling the secrets of people with fangs and had the ability to summon creatures with even bigger fangs. But back then he knew who he was, at least he thought he did. He knew when he grew up he would take over for his dad, and he would spend his life in the twilight of markets, and staying in the shadows of the law. To him that didn't even seem complicated back then, it was just the way his life was.

Turned out he wasn't who he thought he was, and after meeting the version of himself from Thule he was probably lucky he didn't grow up to be him either. Still, that didn't change the fact he had been walking around since then feeling like he lost a huge part of his identity. And as he looked at Evander he knew why he was stuck, because moving forward would mean leaving behind even more of himself. But when he thought of Ty and how his resolve never wavered, how if Tavvy was here he could hear him telling him to stop running away, and how he thought he really meant it when he told Jem he was going to go through to it.

"Nothing's holding me back, I'm getting the hell out of here," he said, as he felt his body grow in size again. Without even a second thought this time he moved past the barrier, leaving the mushrooms that had imprisoned him to shrivel and die.

Weight didn't leave his shoulders upon the realization that he really meant it this time. But there was a strange sort of peace that came with knowing that he didn't have to look back anymore, no matter how this all ends.

Evander nodded approvingly. "The terms of your deal have been accepted then."

Kit watched the mushrooms blacken and shrink. His resolve acted like a poison on the prison he was leaving behind. "Now to find Ty and the others."

Evander straightened up, his brief lax in discipline was over, now he was back to the strange Faerie that was somehow integral to the Unseelie Court but had no title that Kit could figure out. No one had ever referred to him as an advisor, at least not an official one, he just seemed to exist like a permanent fixture of the Court.

"I see the caveats are being unveiled already."

"I never said anything about leaving the palace immediately," Kit said, but he guessed the electric blue sparking in his eyes meant he already expected as much.

Accepting this without question, Evander took a long stride towards the door and motioned him through. "Lead the way my Lord."

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Dru stood in the middle of the dias where the Scrying Glass of the Fae rested on a podium. Nothing had changed here since she had last stood here with Ash, just the world outside and herself. Standing around her like knights in a fairy tale was Clary and Fairchild and her brother. And they had, after all, stormed the castle, and ascended the evil tower. Of course, this was far more bloody with horror elements than the tales Julian would read to Tavvy. This was more like the nightmares he used to wake up screaming from. Blood and Ash fell like snow from the sky, and now here they were in a room that glittered like diamonds. Maybe it was the Tower or her expectations that turned the starlike stalactites into a dark filter foreshadowing more horror to come, but she couldn't see this place as just beautiful anymore.

The whole palace was like that when she thought about it. From the stained glass in First Heir's bedroom, depicting the Court's dichotomy to the garden growing in the courtyard. In truth, that darkness had always been there, she just hadn't been able to see it. The Tower was bloody and ruthless but it was honest with what it was, and Dru had like that. But the Seelies hid just as much darkness under the guise of flowering nature. For all the beauty in this place it was still trapped in the dark.

"How is this supposed to work?" Clary asked.

Dru tried waving her hand over the bowl like Ash had done but nothing happened. "Maybe it requires magic?"

"If that's the case we won't be able to use it ourselves." Ty stood arms folded and frowning. "We will have to come up with some kind of lure for either Ash or Sammael to use the scrying glass to discover Christopher's body."

"Kit has faerie powers, sort of. Maybe he can use it?" Dru suggested.

The other two didn't look very optimistic about that.

"On the brightside our lure has been set and baited."

Dru spun around, Jaime was standing behind them, grinning mischievously.

"Jaime! How did you get here?" She gasped.

He winked, shrugging his backpack further onto his shoulder. "Turns out this place has a back door in every corner."

"But where is Kit?" Ty was the first to ask.

"That would be the bait," Jaime said. "Ash discovered him when we were searching the room. Kit fed him the bait. I wouldn't be surprised if he's heading here now to confirm it."

"But where is Kit?"

Jaime faltered. "Yeah, about that part. Prince Jekyll and Hide didn't exactly let him out of the trap he put him in when he left."

"So you just left him?" Dru asked incredulously.

Jaime shrugged. "He said he had a plan."

Ty gripped his forearms, his voice coming out strained. "If he's safe then it would be better to leave him there. Did you find the Black Volume?"

Clary stared. Dru couldn't help but wonder if Ty sounded cold, but to her and Jaime they knew Ty prioritized Kit above almost everything else.

Jaime's face softened as he Ty addressed him. "He's safe, Ty. But no, it wasn't there."

She tried to catch his eye, but he seemed to be avoiding her gaze.

Dru looked into the empty basin of the Scrying Glass, things were falling apart already.

"And I thought me and my friends had no idea what we were doing," Clary muttered.

She grimaced, it was hard to hear a famous hero agree that they were as unprepared as they thought they were.

"I've got a plan." Dru spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"You do?" Ty asked skeptically.

"Sort of." The three pairs of eyes began to drift. "But I think it's the best shot we got!" She looked directly at her brother now, and though her words were meant for everyone it was really to him she was speaking. "I need you to believe in me. I can do this but I need you to stay behind as backup. Leave Ash to me and no matter what happens don't interefeare until I say so."

Ty swallowed down a lump in his throat, but he unfolded his arms and unsheathed a knife from his belt. "We will follow your lead."

Jaime didn't say anything but his expression was black as he watched the other's assent. She wanted to ask him, but if she did she was afraid she would lose her nerve.

"You're probably the only one who knows him at all," Clary said, she didn't hide the hurt in her voice. "So, you're the best shot we got."

"What signal are we waiting on? I don't want to be the bearer of bad news," though Jaime didn't really seem bothered, "but the Prince doesn't seem like he's been on his best behavior lately. There was something off in the way he talked to Kit, plus there was blood on his hands."

Dru exchanged a look with Clary. Ty stood even more uneasy. Dru didn't really think Jaime would have left Kit in real danger but with all of that in mind she was asking her brother to give up a lot of control for the time being. All so there was a slight sliver it might work out.

Kit was trapped in the palace, like how Dru had been when she exchanged the antidote for his life. He had once tried to tell her she would get to make amends for her regrets and now he was giving her the chance. She wouldn't waste the favor.

"Banish," Clary suggested. "Say the word banish in any context you want and then we'll jump to your side."

Dru nodded in agreement. "Just remember the signal." She looked at each one of them in turn. For each one of them standing here and the ones waiting on their return and Ash and Kit whose lives were hanging so much in the balance, she would have to do this.

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The smell of dirt and decay filled Kit's nose. It was something he had unfortunately become familiar with in the days he spent in the Silent City. He didn't need to see inside the layers of earth compacted around him to know dead bodies laid crushed underneath the soil he walked was hardly enough space to even move through, it was so narrow his shoulders brushed the dirt walls as he tried to scrape by. Kit stopped when he finally came to a wall layered with bones. Skeletons with eye sockets red with fresh blood stared at him, reaching fingers protrude from the compounded earth wiggling in his direction.

"Don't worry," Evander said behind him. "They are all very dead. The magic of the palace may sometimes animate the remains. And preserve them."

They watched a centipede crawl out from the skeleton's eye socket and with it came fresh tears of blood.

"What is this place?" Kit asked. As he stared at the remains in the wall a sinking realization hit him that he wasn't the only one to find this dead end. "Why did you bring me here?"

"You said you wanted to meet up with your friends, but you had to make sure that no one else saw you."

Voices spoke out suddenly, but instead of coming from miles away it sounded like there was only a thin paper wall between them.

"And how do you know about this place?" It was tight of a squeeze that he couldn't even turn his head to look at Evander. Instead he just heard his unsettling voice in his ear.

"Oh, that. Actually, I believe she said she was related to your Blackthorns. She was surprisingly...forthcoming with her information about the palace."

What was he talking about? And was it really like how he was making it sound or was just messing with him again? A wave of claustrophobia hit, trapped in a tightly packed corridor of rotting corpses.

"Dru!" He heard clear as day ring out from behind the wall.

Kit launched himself at the wall. "I have to see what's going on!"

"Then dig," Evander suggested without feeling.

His hands froze as he gripped the dirt wall. There were bodies in this wall, the dirt crumbling so easily at his hands. He spared another glance at the skeleton watching him, imagining himself trapped forever in a landslide before starting to tear away at the dirt. Madly, he ravaged through the wall, knowing Ty had to be on the other side, and he wasn't alone, only one other person would callout Dru's name like that and he would have recognized it if it was Jaime's voice.

The dirt wall gave way until it was piled up to his knees, finally he had made a window in the wall he could see through. He was looking into a huge round room, tall thrones like spear heads reached up high almost touching the stalactite ceiling circling a large dias. Right in the middle of the very center of it all was a podium holding a bowl. Standing over it was Ash Morgenstern standing alone and proud. Until Dru had collided with him. Hiding behind one of the thrones was Ty. He was crouched low so Ash couldn't see him, a knife out at the ready.

"Can they see me?" Kit whispered.

"No," Evander whispered darkly in his ear.
"You are completely invisible to everyone but me."

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Dru had hidden herself behind the Scrying Glass, knowing that behind two of the other thrones was Ty, Jaime and Clary counting on her to make this count. She hoped that this would work and that if Kit had ran into Ash and told him about Thule Kit then he would come here to see for himself. If they hadn't, then Dru would have to come up with another way of finding him. But it wasn't long before she heard the huge oak doors creek open and the heavy thud as it closed.

Somebody was here. Footsteps echoed all throughout the room as someone approached the dias. Above her stalactites shook with the vibration. It wasn't long before she could hear the footsteps just behind her as someone ascended the stairs.

A shadow casted over her.

Dru looked up to see a pair of shocked green eyes staring back. She didn't wait for his reaction, she jumped up grabbing his collar and practically pulled him over the dias with her until they both tumbled behind it. Ash didn't even put up with a fight, his arms just flew awkwardly to the side as she pulled him down with her.

"Dru!"

She almost had him pinned against the podium at first, too intensely focused on his eyes, his green eyes, his eyes, not black and monstrous like Clary had warned. Then she realized how close their faces were and immediately pulled back.

"What are you doing here?" He had pressed himself straight into the podium while she peered up at him. "You shouldn't be here!"

"You're okay," she whispered. "You're really you." She said breathlessly.

His face turned a deep scarlet and blinked.

He shook his head "Listen to what I'm saying here!"

Dru blinked too, and remembered her anger. "And what do you think you were planning on doing?"

"I-?" He stammered at her sudden anger. "What do you mean what I was planning? You stole away into the palace, where a Prince of Hell lives."

"I promised you I would come back, remember?" Dru realized with a start that she had grabbed his hands and were gripping them tightly when Ash looked down at them.

He ripped himself away from her. "Don't touch me, Dru, you can't." He retracted his hands cradling them like her touch had burned him.

She recoiled at the rejection, folding her own hands in her lap.

He rounded on her as a realization hit him. "He lied to me. You knew he was here didn't you? Did you tell him to lie to me?"

Dru looked down at her hands, knowing he was talking about Kit. "I did, I'm sorry. I knew you would keep your promise to look for my brother."

Flately, he said. "So you could steal the Black Volume."

Dru didn't know what to say, the way he was looking at her made her want to die. He would hate her, just as she was starting to realize she felt so much more for him she had made him hate her.

"We were trying to help, and I didn't know how to persuade them otherwise without telling them your secret." She tried to explain.

Ash closed his eyes. "I understand, I was just convenient to you, how predictable Drusilla."

Her heart sank and withered at the cold way he spoke her full name, not the nickname she had wanted him to say. But when he made it to stand up she grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Her eyes were stinging but she wouldn't let him walk away.

"Tell me what you are planning on doing with the Cold Fire."

His eyes widened and then to her horror a shadow of pure black fleeted through his eyes. He tried to shake her off, but she held firmly.

"You found Clary, you let her go, didn't you?" He said coldly.

The look he gave her, the sound of his voice changed and for a second she was sure she didn't know this person at all.

"I know you don't want to hurt her, the Black Volume is getting to you we have to do something!"

"You are so stubborn!" He bursted. "You think you know me? Do you really think I could give you my heart? That it would be so easily read? I told you didn't I? I have nothing to give you!"

He looked wild, cornered into a trap she had made. And now he was lashing out and every scratch and scar she deserved. She wanted to give him what he wanted and let go, she wanted to retreat and never show her face to him again, but she couldn't.

"You didn't answer me!"

"How can you not get it?" He almost laughed, but when she saw something slip past his eye and down his cheeks she almost lost her grip on him. "I did things, things that couldn't be forgiven. And why? Because I didn't want the terrible things to happen to me." Self hatred seethed in his words. "I tortured people while my father watched, I stood by and did nothing while Elsif was executed because of me. I..I killed my own mother because of Jace. I chose someone who never even cared about me over my own blood."

Dru let go, both of their arms falling to their sides. A stunned silence followed that struck through the room like a sharpened knife. Silence had never sounded so violent but she knew that every second she didn't say anything it wounded him.

"I can't tell you what to do," she said her voice shaking out of control.

He stared back at her, the fear from his confession was plain on his face.

"And I can't tell you who you are, your right," she sniffed. " But I can tell you I know I'm more than my biggest mistakes, and I've made so many of them lately, and the ones I regret the most are with you." She paused daring to meet his eyes again. "And I know you are more than the choices you couldn't make."

Ash stilled.

"Or the things you wish you didn't. Maybe I'm wrong and that's okay, but I still think you are the brightest thing this world has never gotten to see." There was nothing she could do to stop the tears they poured down now. "And I want everyone to see it!" Her face flew up, unashamed of her tears or the raw emotion she couldn't hold back. "Because I don't think there is any way the world could be the same after, and I don't want you to do anything for me or anyone else either cause I want to see what it looks like when you change the world."

Ash just gaped at her as she gripped her arms tightly around herself. At least, she told herself, if he hated her, she had told him the truth. Because she could walk away forever but she couldn't live with herself if she never told him.

Then the door creaked open behind them.

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"What is this? A lover's spat?" The Greater Demon spoke. Sammael's voice sent chills down Kit's back, but it did nothing compared to the way his heart seized when he saw him. Light bronze skin and eyes, dark feathered hair and horns and hooved feet radiated an aura like miasma, almost choking him through the wall. Behind one of the thrones, Ty's hand holding his knife shook violently as the demon addressed his sister.

Kit couldn't understand it, but still he held fast behind the throne.

But Sammael wasn't alone, walking behind him was Janus, Heosphoros in hand.

Ash spun around, positioning himself in front of Dru. "You're back?" He tried to sound dismissive, but his actions betrayed him. "And I see you found Janus."

"I need to get out of here," Kit panicked. "How do I get out of here Evander!"

A hand gripped his shoulder, as he whispered in his ear. "I thought you said you couldn't be found, didn't you? If I recall, you said your plan was to make the Sammael believe you were dead."

Kit tried to shrug him off, but it was no use in this narrow passageway. "I can't just sit here and watch this, he'll kill her!"

"Hmm," Evander pretended to ponder. "And ruin all of the young Blackthorn's planning?"

"What are you saying," Kit seethed.

"This was his plan wasn't it? Or have you really not noticed how meticulously he planned for this outcome? Or did it never occur to you to wonder how you inevitably ended up in a situation like this? Safe and secure when danger strikes, unable to act out and endanger yourself. Clearly everything has worked out in his favor."

"You don't know a damn thing about Ty!" He said. "You think he would willingly let his sister be in danger?"

Evander reached over his shoulder and pointed out Ty. "Yet he's still standing his ground in hiding. It would seem to me that this sister is far more pivotal for this plan to work than you are. You heard that emotional speech, I'm sure it was very touching."

He was mocking her.

Kit tried to elbow him but Evander somehow avoided. "Shut up! You're my servant aren't you? Do what I say and get me the hell out of here!"

"I owe no oaths to a prince with no crown," he said to Kit's outrage.

"Forget this!" He started to gather his powers around himself. He felt his body grow distant as the light began to pool around him.

"Not yet!" Evander yanked his arm back, clasping something on his wrists, then just like that his power left him.

Kit pulled himself away from him, snatching up his arm to look at the charm no dangling from it. It was a bracelet made from small bird bones and black pearls. Two black raven feathers hung from either side. They were soft but when he touched them his fingers sliced open. "What did you just do?" He struggled until he could finally turn himself around.

Evander grinned pleased. "You won't be teleporting anywhere. I can't have you getting yourself killed, not until you fulfill your end of the bargain with me."

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"Poor Janus, locked up why you went around fraternizing with your little girlfriend," Sammael said. "You're like a mundane teenager throwing a house party when the adults aren't around."

"This is my Court," said Ash. "If she has business with me it doesn't concern either of you."

A long black nail stroked the Greater Demon's chin thoughtfully. "On the contrary, if you begin locking up my subordinates for some quaint little crush I would consider that very much my concern."

He took a step forward, the clop of his hoof sounded like a giant weight. It reverberated through the wooden floor and underneath Dru's feet.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ash threatened as the demon approached.

He continued, a bang resounding through the room with each step. "Listen to you." He chuckled darkly. "That's exactly why I have to get rid of the little distraction."

"He's right, Ash." Janus spoke up, his eyes as dead and hollow as ever. "She's made you forget who you are. What we are doing here."

"Don't you dare," Ash hissed, pulling out Heosporos. Dru didn't stall, following suit with its brother Phaesporos.

Sammael paused, smiling wickedly. "It's almost cute the way you Shadowhunters find mates for life, like penguins!" Then with a flick of his wrists Ash was on the ground, bent over in agony, Heosphoros forgotten at his feet. A splash of blood as black as ink was slashed across his chest.

"Aghhhhhrr!" He yelled out in anger.

"Ash!" Dru ran to him but before she could reach him a hand gripped her face and pulled her back into the demon's embrace.

Sammael had appeared behind her, holding her tightly, his long claws pinning her neck to him. "I would love to watch the humanity burn from your pretty blue eyes," he growled in her ear.

She swung out with her sword but he had caught it, blade in hand and easily tore it from her grasp. He tossed it aside.

"Don't make me kill you faster, I want to watch him beg for your life."

Ash peered up from the ground, clutching his heart, the whites of his eyes turning black. "You!"

Sammael laughed. "Well don't you have something to say?" He shook her violently like a rag doll in front of him.

"Stop it!" He screamed, "I kill you!" I'll burn you!"

Dru looked to where her brother was hiding and tried to shake her head. She caught just the glimpse of his face before he retreated back behind the throne.

Don't do it! Not yet!

She hadn't said the code word they had agreed upon. Until she did they promised not to interfere but how long would they really wait?

Suddenly, she felt one of his black nails press against her throat. "Perhaps you need a little more motivation to find the right words?"

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"Damn it Evander!" Kit roared. He had seen this before back in Pandemonium. Sammael had stuck his nail down the mundanes throat and drained their humanity from within. "Let me out!" Kit grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the opposite wall. Small bones fell from the wall and clattered at their feet.

Evander stared down at him, unaffected, his eyes swirling in a sudden intensity of color. "No. You are far too important to the Unseelie Court alive."

"AND THAT MEANS THEY HAVE TO DIE?" He pushed him further into the wall, the dirt crumbling onto his clothes as it accepted him.

"If he finds you, we all die," he reminded him.

His fist clenched holding the material of his clothes, then, he released. Instead, he started furiously tearing at the dirt wall in front of him, ripping it apart until there was more than just a window. Half his torso was exposed but still they couldn't see him. Breathing hard he watched as Ash withered on the ground. Kit remembered the feeling of the seal breaking and the void pulling him apart from within. It was blinding madness. He didn't know what Sammael did to him, but the agony each of his muscles moved with told him it was close enough.

Ash had been right about him, he ran away. From everything and everyone, even when he thought he was over it and he was facing things head on it turns out he was just running from something else. But now there was nothing he could do but watch.

He just hoped he was wrong about Ash.

Get up and fight!

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Ash could hardly stand up, Sammael had used the Black Volumes magic against him until he was lying on his stomach, dangling Dru in front of him. Anger and ichor pulsed through his veins, he could feel the thumping of his heart only animated now by the increase of the magic within him where it had laid still before. His vision turned to a murky black, Du's form blurred until it was just a silhouette. But his hatred was focused behind her. Sense of self slipped, and felt himself plummet until a black a hole where his name was lost in his hollow screaming.

"I'll kill you all." Burn them, choke them on the ashes, his mind raged on.

"Wrong answer boy," Sammael sneered.

but he was cut off by a sudden maddening laugh ripping itself from his mouth.

"Hahaha! I'm going to take everything from you!" He grabbed Heosporos, ignoring the screaming in his core from the movement. "Your precious First Heir is already dead!"

The dark silhouette moved as it was casted to the floor. The Prince of Hell rose up, malice built up around him, but fear was beyond the boy with no name now.

He laughed again, his wings unfurled from his back, ripping through his tunic. "All you have is me now!"

Sammael started, cracking a wicked smile across the boy's face. "And I can't wait to take that from you too."

The demon lunged forward, extending his magic surely meant to bind him. But just as it almost reached him Ash took to the sky in surprising speed.

"GET DOWN HERE BOY!" Sammael bellowed.

His grin twisted unnaturally. He raised his arms wide and on command the wooden floor began to eat away and decay turnin to rotten wood. The brown stone of the walls cracked and grey. A thundering crack echoed from the cavern ceiling. Dust erupted in an explosion as the stalactites broke and fell around them. His laugh reached an unnaturally high pitch drowned out by the crashing of the ceiling.

Hatred burned away at him, and the pleasure of destruction besotted him as he watched. "I'll take it all with me! Your hate! Your blood! It's all mine now!"

"SEIZE HIM JANUS! GROUND THE BRAT!" The demon ran to the dias, his hand waving across the Scrying glass, a desperate attempt to prove his lies about the Heir.

"Don't let him!" the girl on the ground screamed. "Banish Sammael!"

And like a commander giving an order other's leaped out from behind the thrones. Two males and a woman with bright red hair that probed his conscience with a recognition he could not quite reach. A knife sailed through the air grazing Janus' shoulder. Janus faltered, suddenly off balance, and fell back to the ground before he could reach one of the banisters.

He flew above them all, gripping his sword tighter. Janus, Sammael, the names repeated in his head in a maddening chorus, he had to destroy them to purge him of the noise. His wings shifted, gathering the wind underneath him and dove.

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His eyes were black. A night with no stars, no light reflected in them as Ash looked down at them all. The smile Dru had once thought lit him up was dark and twisted. Fear paralyzed rooted her to the spot as she stared up at his face, but it wasn't for herself.

Clary threw herself at Janus, her seraph blade crashing into her own sword as he defended. Ty bounded across the room, dodging stalactites trying to give support to Clary as Janus tried to disarm her. Dru tried to track the fight but dust exploded around them covering the place in a thick screen.

"NO!" The earth around them rocked by the Prince of Hell's screams. Spinning around she saw the demon knock the Scrying Glass to the ground, breaking it from it's podium. Water spilled from the bowl and before it hit the ground and scattered until a thousand particles and droplets Dru caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Blonde hair splayed out on a stone table, his face was the color of parchment and his right hand hung over the side, a blistering scar shone brightly above his wrists. Wind blew past her, a black feather fell into the disarray. She looked up, Ash's form was a blur as he dove for Clary and Janus, his sword arched back.

A sword imbued with heavenly fire.

She darted forward, grabbing her sword from the floor but there was no way she could get to them in time. But both Janus and Clary who had experienced far more life and death battles pushed back, jumping away just as Ash tried to slash his way through them.

A knife sailed through the room and the dust, cutting through the noise and commotion clipping Ash's wing. Blood poured from the room a crimson so dark it was black pelting the floor. He lost flight stumbling and skidding until he hit the ground.

Janus made a move to run after him but was intercepted by Clary.

Dru froze, before she could make up her mind black magic stood the hairs on the back of her neck. Turning slowly she saw darkness pulled like reaching tentacles into a black mass slowly forming into one solid shape. The dark cloud disappeared and in its place was a snake with olive skin and black stripes and a huge body. It raised its body, it was at least twelve feet and when it stood up it came up to Dru's chest. The snake's hood extended revealing two black dots on either side. Then it struck, aiming straight for Ty.

Dark shadows pooled around her brother, shadow snakes formed around his ankles trapping him in place while the cobra sped towards him.

"Ty!" She yelled out, but out of nowhere Jaime jumped from behind a stone throne, diving in front of Ty and swiped up the snake that was Sammael with his hammer and sending him sky rocketing into the air. The snake wiggled and twisted before forming again until a person-a smaller figure she couldn't make out in the dust settling around them but when he landed, feet on the ground he was back in his horrifying form.

"You okay?" Jaime tossed his head back and yelled out to Ty. The black snakes that formed around him had disappeared when Jaime had struck down their masters.

Ty adjusted his headphones and nodded.

She heard his wings before she saw him. A gust of wind blew apart the dust cloud revealing the dark figure diving hell bent for the Prince of Hell. Ash's eyes came alive with flames, something was burning inside him now, eating away at the dark coal in his eyes. His flying was unsteady, wavering as the wind caught him but it wasn't enough to knock him off course.

He was burning now. She was afraid that when it burnt out there would be nothing left of him. His white hair flew in the wind leaving his face crystal clear. An image of perfection. He was beautiful, like Lucifer falling in the war against Heaven. All softness of the teenage boy she knew was erased, all that was left were hard lines and harder edges as he pulled back Heosporos. Blue flames sparked to life against the blade transforming the sword of dawn into an infernal Glorious.

Sammael waited for him, reaching out a hand for his coming blade, an evil smile split across his face as Ash rose Heosphoros for the strike.

Dru was moving before she knew what she was doing. She leaped over a throne and jumped across the splintered wood floor, rose Phaesoporos and before Ash could reach Samael she swung. The two Morgenstern blades collided, a bright spark lit the air. Ash was swept to the side by her attack, sending them both plummeting away from the dias where Sammael stood. Behind her she heard someone engage the demon, distracting him. But she couldn't spare a glance for what was happening behind her now. Their blades were still locked, dark silver and black stars shined against the blue fire. Ash's black eyes absorbed nothing of their light, and when he looked at her she saw no recognition or even a flicker of interest.

"I'll cut you down, girl," he warned, and she knew he meant it. His wings began to beat even as his feet touched the ground, pushing his momentum against her. Matted feathers and black blood dripped from his wound onto her shoulder.

She tried to stand her ground but he was pushing her back. Her feet slid across the fractured wood until she was pushed up against something. Her back hit solid stone, her head knocking against it hard. Her vision blacked out for a second of a moment and when it came back she saw black wings looming over her.

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He was furious. The girl dove right in his way, tearing him from his war path. He could feel the ashes in his mouth, his body burned at a fever pitch, something had to burn. He was dying, he could feel his lungs becoming choked, his muscles cried out as they expanded, magic swirled around him in uncontrollable chaos. He would die, but he wouldn't die alone.

It was the ones called Janus, and Sammael, his body recognized, they were the source of this primal desire overtaking him, this girl was no one, nothing.

She struggled desperately against him, her brown curls clung to her face as she fought back but her eyes never left his. Her eyes, there was something about them..

He pushed harder, watching the Cold Fire leap in response, casting her eyes in an electric blue light.

"Ash!" She called out. Her voice rang in his ears and he felt something spark in her eyes spar in his veins instead of fire.

"Enough of this!" He yelled back, pushing the fire closer to her. He began flapping his wings harder, until blood and feathers flew into her eyes, blinding her. The flames licked closer to her face, the chilling air it left turned her cheeks blue as she fought against the freezing temperatures.

"Stop! Ash!"

She surprised him by kicking out at the pillar behind her, pushing herself forward into the fire. Her strength didn't give in as she pushed his sword back. He was speechless.

She was fearless.

Yet as he stared back, his grip momentarily slipping, a tear fell down her cheek.

He couldn't look away, it held him like a trance, something that despite the burning in his soul told him was important.

"Don't you remember?" She said, dragging his eyes to her's, a sad smile on her lips. "What you told me? What the color of the sea is at midnight?"

"Is that why I'm here? To tell you that you're not a monster?" She demanded. Her eyes were hard as she stared him down, never flinching, because Drusilla Blackthorn didn't flinch. He was afraid to death of getting that answer because she was right. That was exactly what this was about. Desperately, he lived his life waiting for someone to tell him it wasn't true. The accusations his father made against him, 'If you think I am a monster what do you think you are? Son of a monster.' He used to say. The thing the Unseelie King turned him into and the fear he saw in his mother's eyes when he returned and kept him forever at arms length.

Somebody tell him he was human, tell him he could be loved. Or free him from this and finally tell him he was nothing but a tool, monster or human otherwise. An object to be tossed aside.

"Well, you're not."

He stepped back, freeing their swords, his eyes still locked with her's. The girl transformed in front of him into a thousand visions.

He remembered the way she looked in the candlelight as she hid her smile and giggled. The way her face flushed and the snow fell in her hair as they ran through the streets of a mundane village. How her hands trembled when she held a controller and her chipped black nail polish. Her eyes swimming with tears he didn't understand as she peered up at him through dark lashes and asked him to call her Dru, and a million ways she looked at him that his heart couldn't forget.

His heart…

Her mouth fell open, words sure to follow after that he would cut off short as she reached for him.

"That's what your heart looks like, Ash Morgenstern, and it's not evil."

He took up Heosphoros again, and this time pointed it at his heart and plunged into his chest.

"ASH!"