Flashes of bloody reds and angry whites exploded inside his mind, blurring his vision and burning. Burning so much he thought a pyre had been lit inside him, the flames trapped beneath his skin. His heart constricted and expanded at the same time, shooting lightning in his veins. Yet nothing compared to the pain the rune inflicted him. No words, could describe the agony, the scorch, the slicing. Nothing.

It felt like his parabatai bond was a physical cable, a link that could not be broken. But the cable was pulled so tight, it was torn from his chest, tearing through flesh and bone and his soul, to be examined alongside the inside of his mind.

Thoughts were ripped from his memory to reach the dead humanity of the man who used to be Ari's brother. Though Edward's hope and worry were tightening his chest, he still hoped his hate for Christopher — pardon, Brother Havilah! — filtered through, poured through his being and into the Gregori's mind.

Edward did not scream, he would not let himself ruin his chance to find anything that could help his parabatai. This excruciating trituration of his brain by a man he hated, by a man who did not love Ari enough to stay for her, was nothing compared to what it would mean to stop.

When they released him, he noticed the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, the wooden piece they had given him to bite on had snapped, leaving shards in his cheeks that took several minutes to remove.

Tessa Gray looked as exhausted as Ed was. They were both panting and sweating on the cold floor of the circular room. Brother Zachariah treated him, while Aloysius Woe treated her. Ed was shivering, his mind reeling, his head pounding. He needed answers. Did it work? Did they find what they needed to save her?

The unaffected prat of a faceless Silent Brother seemed unaffected as he conferred silently with his brothers. He wondered how anyone could trust him to join a brotherhood when he was so ready to leave his actual siblings.

The group of brothers waited until Tessa and Ed were both treated and standing up before advancing on the both of them.

"Did it work? You felt her, right?"

"I felt her," Tessa said carefully.

The parabatai bond remains indeed and humanity subsists from Edward Longford to Arianne Dragonnoir, said Havilah to his fellow brothers and the envoys from the Spiral Labyrinth.

"In other words, her soul is only alive because of her parabatai bond?" Aloysius asked with curious eyes.

"Yes, we found traces of humanity that could not be detected in other Forsakens," Tessa explained. "This suggests the parabatai rune is the only thing that ties her to herself, through the connection she has with her surviving parabatai."

But it will not be enough to keep her that way.

"Then we have to act fast. You have a solution, right? We can bring her back," Ed said hope flourishing in his chest like the most beautiful flower in the world.

Tessa Gray stayed silent, her eyes falling to the floor.

Nothing can be done. The infernal modification is irreversible. Her soul struggles to subsists until the right moment, Havilah continued.

"But you said she was still here!" Ed exclaimed, his breathing becoming more erratic. "As long as she's here, that means she can be brought forward, that means she can be saved!"

It is complicated to explain. Your parabatai is already gone. What you feel are remnants of her soul that can be set free but not brought back, said Zachariah.

It did not make any sense. It didn't make any sense at all. What the fuck was that supposed to mean: kill her? He wanted her to go the Angel knows where, the way they all did after they died? No fucking way!

"Dum Spiro, spero. Right?" He asked Havilah in a desperate attempt. As I breathe, I hope. It was the Dragonnoir's words. It meant that as long as they were alive, there was always something to be done, something to aim for.

She is no longer breathing, Edward, only the Forsaken is.

It was like he punched him in the chest. There was no- no fucking way. He felt the tears gather but he would not let them fucking drop for this asshole.

"Don't know why I'm surprised you'd abandon her again, Christopher," he spat as a silent murmur of reproach filled his head from his brothers. You weren't supposed to call a Silent Brother by their former name. "What about you?"

Tessa blinked when he turned to face her.

"If I knew a way-"

"You're Tessa Herondale, right? You have the blood of angels and demons inside you, that's got to count for something! You must have an idea!"

"How did you -"

"Your husband lost his parabatai to Yin Fen, right?! You know what it did to him! Don't let that happen again! Help me! Help her!"

Tessa blinked at him with surprise veiled with the knowledgable sheen most immortals Ed knew bore. Edward hated the defeated slump in her shoulder before she even opened her mouth.

"There are things like soul transference or something, right?" He asked with more desperation than hope.

He could feel the parabatai rune burning on his chest, he could feel the bond he shared with Ari being pulled tight. He could feel her pain, her fear, her hope, though the latter was tainted with something he could not recognise, something unlike his own.

"I'm sorry," she said and he felt as though the ground unravelled under his feet. His knees crashed hard against the stone beneath him.

"Sorry," he repeated as if the word had no meaning at all.

Edward Longford, I understand your pain but-

Ed stood upright so fast he got dizzy with anger, stopping Zachariah dead in his attempt to comfort him.

"How the fuck would you understand my pain?!" He shouted. "None of you can ever get it! None of you had a parabatai!"

He realised even those who had a parabatai did not understand. Two days after that, he still felt like he had been hit by a truck. He was looking for the picture he took from her on the esplanade — wanted to show his mother even though she couldn't see it — and was surprised to find something else with it in his pocket. Her letter to Diane.

Something broke inside him just then. She knew. She fucking knew what she was doing when she pushed him through that portal. He punched the wall, furious with her. The letter had crumbled in his hand. He tried to smooth it, feeling guilty. He would have done the same. By the Angel, had he realised… He should have done the same.

And so he carried the letter everywhere with him: To breakfast, to training, to walk outside, and to those fucking meetings Mélodie forced him to go to.

The metallic, unbreakable cord that linked him to Ari was pulled so tight it was painful. Separation hurt parabatai and that, everyone knew. What they did not all know was what having an Endarkened one felt like. The pain, the scorch that he felt coursing through his veins was almost unbearable. He found himself sweating, and trembling at times. Shivering in pain and in agony. Especially at night when there was nothing else to think about but the shimmering hopefulness, aliveness and hurting soul he was linked to. He felt her call to him, beg him. Not with words, or thoughts or whatever. He felt her need. She was trapped.

The attacks on the Institutes had made for a few broken sets of parabatai. Mostly, the half remaining was, simply put, the half surviving. In this world, there was nothing worse than loosing a parabatai. At the very least, Edward could take comfort in the idea that he would see Arianne again. He could save her and he knew it. Right?

"Conor was the better half of me," a woman said.

She had not only lost a brother, this woman had lost a twin. They were the most powerful kind of bonded warriors. She would never see Conor again, and she had to share that story with the world right now.

"What about you, Edward?" The lady leading the group had asked.

He could not remember her name. She was a short woman with a kind face and dark frizzy hair. Telling her off felt like it would hurt her, which probably was why she was perfect for the job.

"I don't know why I am here." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "My parabatai is not dead. She's been turned, which means that I can still save her, if only they would let me."

"It's understandable to not know how to envision your life without a parabatai, the emptiness you feel can be so strong and overpowering, it's hard to see past it."

"When our bond broke, I could feel it, and I don't mean in my heart I felt a void, I mean, physically. I could feel the emptiness," some other guy chipped in.

"But that's my point, there is no void. I still feel her, my rune is still here, bleeding red, and I can still feel Arianne burning. I can feel her suffering, her despair. I can feel her! No matter what they say, Arianne Dragonnoir is alive-"

"Ari has parabatai?"

A clear innocent voice cut through the room with a childlike wonderment that did not belong to the girl he saw standing a few meters away from him.

"Ari?" His voice was almost a whisper.

"I'm Diane."

"You look so much like her."

He did not know who he was saying this to. What he was saying it for. She was standing there, an exact copy of his parabatai. She looked just a little younger, her hair was shorter. Now, that he looked into her searching, unwavering eyes, he noticed the difference. She was fifteen, but she was a child, like Ari never had been given the right to be.

"My apologies, everyone. I think this session might be cut short. You're all dismissed." The room emptied but for Diane, the frizzy-haired woman and him.

"Mom, did you know?"

The kindness in the woman's features changed to a mixture of love and embarrassment. She looked down before looking at her daughter with what Edward was sure was a perfectly made up explanation or lie.

"How could she not? She's been keeping Ari from seeing you for years," he spat numbly. "Haven't you, madame Fleurose?"

"We protected her-"

"Protected her? By keeping her from the people that shared her grief, that could help her through it? By letting her think they wanted nothing to do with her?"

"We did no such thing-"

"Did you know," he asked Diane. "That, ever since they took you in, your sister sent you a letter every single week in the hopes they would let you read them?"

Her mouth opened and closed, her eyebrows arched in surprise. She may look like a carbon copy of Ari but none of her expressions were hers. Did she even remember her sister? The last time they saw each other, she was not even six! All that because of Fleurose.

The woman's kindness completely evaporated when she looked at him with flames dancing in her gaze and a scowl slashing her face. He ignored her when she said:

"That's enough."

"Here," he said plunging his hand inside his pocket and taking out the letter. "She wrote this letter-" Mrs Fleurose tried to pry the letter from his hands. He pushed her away. "She wrote this letter for you, but she never sent that one, she-" he pressed forward despite the woman's attempts at keeping him away from her adoptive daughter who stayed rooted to the spot. "She kept it inside her pocket at all times, I don't know when she put it in mine- I- it must have been when- let go of my arm- she knew. Alright, she knew that-"

Mrs Fleurose pulled his arm away, tried to push him. He had enough of this. He pushed her quick and fast against the wall. Tears fell against his will, dusting his cheeks and clouding his vision. But the sound that came out of his chest was no synonym of sadness but of bitter rage.

"This may the last opportunity for your daughter not to feel abandoned the way her sister felt all those years. Are you really going to deny her the truth? To deny my parabatai the chance to tell her sister that she is loved?"

He did not wait for her answer. He gave a last push against her and went back to Diane who looked at him with horrified eyes.

"She wrote this letter but never sent it," he hiccuped through tears devoid of anger. "She never sent it because she knew that should there be one single letter you should read, it should be this one and she could not take the chance that this would be discarded in the trash, like all the others."

She took it from him gently, staring at the paper like it was maybe the greatest gift she had ever received.

"My sister's lucky to have a parabatai that cares for her so deeply," she said with a wistful smile. "How about… do you know what happened to my brother?" His heart sank, he cast a reproachful look to mrs Fleurose.

"He became a Silent Brother, brother Havilah."

Her eyes filled with surprise over a myriad of other confused emotions that played on her face.

"He's the one that always comes to me when I'm injured or sick."

"He's the one that gives family advice no one ever cares for," Mrs Fleurose said.

Suddenly, all the hatred he had harboured against Christophe vanished. He did try, in his own way. He needed to get out. Now. Before he punched Mrs Fleurose in the face. He shoved his hand in his pocket and it felt like he was tearing a part of himself away when he handed Diane the last picture he had taken of Ari. He had meant to show his mother, she would not be able to see anyway.

"You should keep it," Diane said kindly despite all the reverence she seemed to bear the simple picture. "She's your parabatai."

He tried to smile at her through the tears.

"I have plenty more at the institute." If they weren't destroyed.