AN: As usual, major kudos to Maggie for being a beta extraordinaire. If you guys like reading this story, it's because of her.
Compulsory Butterflies: Part IV
It isn't that small spaces particularly bother him. Once, when he was nine, he spent six hours trapped in the bottom of a well after Jace convinced him a Gravler demon had laid eggs at the bottom of it. Alec should have been suspicious when Jace didn't volunteer to go down first. While Maryse tracked down a warlock willing to levitate him out, Alec nursed a broken ankle and endured a lengthy lecture from his parabatai on the sheer impossibility of any demon laying eggs—whether they looked like a platypus or not.
It isn't the size of the space.
It's the damp heat clinging to the century-old stone. It's the smell of waste and decay caked onto his clothes. It's the smell of his own sweat beneath those clothes. It's the fact that it's been a week since he's seen sunlight, and two weeks since he's had something hot to eat.
Something small and rough smacks into the side of his head. Alec turns to glare at Jace. "What?"
Jace rolls a second stone in his palm. "You're distracted. You need to be focused."
"I am focused."
"On sulking. You should be focused on detecting signs of discovery." Jace crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back against the sewer wall with his eyes closed. "I'm doing all the work here."
"There's no one to detect."
"It would seem the Secret Tunnels are aptly named."
Alec twirls his dagger once and jabs it into the soft, sandy ground. "We've been in Alicante for two weeks, and we're not any closer to finding the Mortal Sword or undermining Valentine's operation."
"We have a plan." But Jace sounds as disenchanted as Alec feels.
"It's a bad plan."
"It was your plan."
"I know," Alec allows, "but we're moving too slowly. Even divided into teams, there aren't enough of us to search miles and miles of sewer. It could be another two weeks before we find the entrance to—"
Jace's eyes flash open. "So what—you think we should just go back to headquarters and wait there? At least out here we're being proactive."
"Are we?" Alec shakes his head. "We haven't been in contact with anyone in weeks. Maybe the parameters have changed. Maybe they need us back at—"
"You mean maybe Clary needs you."
"Jace." Alec smoothes his features into their most neutral expression, resorting to a calmness that he's come to perfect over the last several weeks. Any time Jace refers to Clary like she's a particularly nasty disease, Alec parries with patience. Jace can't stand it when people are patient with him. It takes a great deal of self-control on Alec's part, but goading Jace has become one of his few distractions from the dingy dimness of the tunnels.
"She can't be that good in bed."
Then again…. "I don't want to hit you."
"Or maybe she is."
Alec resolutely digs his blade into the dirt, chipping away at the small stones. "That's none of your business."
"Come on. If it isn't the sex, there has to be something." Jace sounds petulant. "Something that sets her apart."
"You really want to talk about this?"
"I'm bored. Making you uncomfortable helps satiate my desire for conflict."
Alec turns away with a noise of frustration.
"Here, I can help you get started." Jace leans forward. "You like Clary more than you like Magnus because…"
"Magnus? What does Magnus have to do with anything?"
"Well, you like him, don't you? I can tell. But you're in love with Clary."
"I don't…"
"Don't get me wrong; Magnus wouldn't be my first choice either. Something about the fuzzy leg warmers makes me question the man's ambition."
Alec refuses to meet Jace's eyes. He feels too hot and slightly nauseous. Something about his parabatai's nonchalance makes Alec feel like the earth has been stripped away beneath his feet but gravity hasn't quite caught up to him. "I don't...Magnus is...he's...but I love Clary."
"Do you?" All of the sarcasm is gone from Jace's voice. He sounds resigned. "I thought maybe she was just a way to—"
"She's not."
\ /
They got careless.
That's the first thought that flits through his mind when he hears the scuttling of legs through water just before something heavy and swift knocks into him. He pitches forward, barely getting his hands up fast enough to stop his face from meeting the ground. Ahead of him, Jace whips around, seraph blade drawn from his belt. He's still muttering the seraphic name when a second demon launches itself at his chest.
Alec knows he needs to move, but cord-like tentacles twine their way around his left arm and suddenly it feels like an entire city's worth of electricity is surging through his body. He screams out against his will. Something is burning. Faintly, through the pain, he hears another voice, but he can't open his eyes, and soon everything is indistinguishable darkness.
\ /
It doesn't begin as a dream. Clary is crouching beside him, warm-bodied and smelling strongly of the shampoo he had rubbed into her hair on the last morning they spent together. She's saying something, and it sounds important, but he keeps kissing her mid-sentence. Neither of them understands.
She presses a stele into his hands, carefully wraps it in his fingers.
Now her voice is sharp and distinct. "Are you ready?"
He nods and she lies down on the ground. There isn't much space in the sewers, but she's small and he's able to straddle her hips between his knees. He wonders where the others have gone.
The shirt she's wearing is dark and pristine, and she pulls it up, exposing her stomach and the runes swirling across it.
"Go ahead," she tells him. "Don't stop, no matter what."
When Alec looks back down at his hand, the stele is gone. In its place is a dagger—straight-edged and glinting.
It makes sense now.
Only the slightest pressure is required for the tip to break skin. Blood wells around the blade as he drags it down, tracing the line of a Mark that is on the tip of his consciousness.
"It needs to be deeper."
It's then that Alec realizes that she's looking at him. Her eyes, as green as they've always been, are staring directly into his own. There's no uncertainty, no coincidence in the stare. She sees him.
He presses harder, not stopping the dagger is sunk to the hilt and the rune is grizzly and
complete. Two overlapping circles seem to both push and pull apart, drowning in the pool of blood.
Clary is blind again—her eyes still and unseeing. He doesn't know what the Mark means.
\ /
When Alec comes to, he has to blink away the brightness of the room. Daylight pours in from tall, curtain-drawn windows. Everything from the carpet to the sheets he is sleeping on are white. There is even a white bandage taped to his arm.
He sits up, and his first thought is Jace.
The memory is clear—opaque as it is sharp. The darkness of the sewer. The ambush. A sound, wet, like mud being sucked under a boot heel. Jace swearing and then silence. Electricity.
There's a stiffness in his neck. Alec raises a hand to the small puncture wound just beneath his ceratoid. It's scabbed over, and he can tell from the iratze fading on his shoulder that he hasn't been out long. No more than five hours. It doesn't put him at ease.
A glass of water sits on the discreet table beside the bed. His throat is dry, and the roof of his mouth tastes like paper, but he can't bring himself to do anything but cautiously sniff the cup for the bitter scent of sedatives.
When he pushes himself onto his feet, the room spins and he has to sit back down for a full two minutes before managing a second attempt. The door seems too far away, and he feels naked without a weapon, so he shuffles toward the windows.
Nausea overwhelms him when all he sees in the distance are rippling waves of sand that stretch toward the unbroken horizon.
\ /
"Where are we?"
"The Namib desert. For now. Tomorrow we will be somewhere else. Perhaps Prague."
"Where's Jace?"
Jonathon gives Alec a look of disinterested contempt. "I told you. He's back at home. Where he belongs."
"Take me to him."
"No."
Alec flexes his hands. "Why not?"
Jonathan doesn't respond.
"Did you hurt him?"
"He's my brother," Jonathan says, as if that's an answer. The words make Alec's skin crawl.
"That doesn't—"
"I wouldn't hurt him, but I can't always keep him from hurting himself."
"Why am I here?"
Jonathan folds his arms across his chest. He is shorter than Alec but has a larger build. The way he carries himself makes Alec doubt his chances going into a one-on-one fight unarmed. "Jace is family. He belongs with us. And you,"—Jonathan lowers his chin—"are becoming a problem."
Alec says nothing. It's his second day in the house—which must be enchanted—and Jonathon is the first living person he's encountered. The door to his bedroom is locked from the outside.
"Quite a bit changed during your stay in the sewers. For one, your spy is dead. I killed her first—a traitor's death. I took my time tracking down the rest of your party until only the two of you were left."
"You killed them."
"Naturally."
"But I'm still alive. Why? I won't give you information. Neither will Jace."
Jonathan makes his way over to a desk chair situated rather uselessly in the corner of the room. He drops into it. "I'm fairly certain there isn't anything of interest you could tell me anyway. Whatever remains of the resistance will be dealt with shortly, even without you divulging their whereabouts. I told you, things have changed."
"Then why—"
"For instance, my sister has returned to us."
Alec falters, and Jonathan notices.
"You look surprised. But you shouldn't be. She knows she belongs with Father and I."
"What have you done to her?"
"Nothing. She chose to return, and Father accepted her with open arms."
Alec glances around the room, suddenly desperate for anything that could be used as a weapon. "You're lying."
"I'm not. It's why you're here. Because Clary thinks she's in love with you." The words are said ironically. Jonathan's eyes are dark with a cold amusement.
Just the sound of her name has Alec expecting to find her standing beside him, hand outstretched for him to take. But he keeps his attention on Jonathan and doesn't lower his guard for a moment. If Clary were in the house, Alec would know.
"You're nothing to me," Jonathan continues. "You're a mediocre hunter fighting for the losing side in a war that is going to change the rules of this world. It was a mistake to let my sister fuck you, and if it were up to me, I would kill you now."
Alec doesn't flinch under the harsh scrutiny. He meets Jonathan's gaze evenly.
"But Clary wants you alive, and Father has always spoiled her."
\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /
Ten Days Earlier
When the door closes, Clary has to resist the urge to throw her tray of food at it. Of course it isn't the maid's fault that she's been under house arrest since her arrival. It isn't the maid's fault that she's been confined to her room for the last five days, learning to hate the space she had spent memorizing for the first sixteen years of life. But Clary is desperate to throw something, do something—anything to make the frustration inside of her something physical.
Her room is not what it used to be. It is smaller, quieter, less comfortable. Without a stele in her hand, the room is more confining than shackles. She knew coming back was a risk, but she had thought that, at least, here she would be doing something useful
\ /
"Take me to my father."
The servant sets the tray of food down on the table. The scent of beef broth fills the bedroom. "The Master has forbidden interruption from anyone."
From you.
"I want my stele."
"The master has forbidden it."
\ /
She carefully tracks the footsteps approaching her room. They are too quiet to belong to a servant. Too purposeless to belong to her father. And yet she knows them.
The lock on the door disengages, and Clary feels her brother enter the room.
He closes the door behind him. "Father didn't tell me you were back. I had to hear it from one of our prisoners. He seemed convince that you were working as our spy the entire time."
Jonathan embraces her as her father had when she first arrived. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her forehead. Only he does not release her. He grips her shoulder and runs a hand through her loose hair as if it is familiar and dear.
The instinct to push him away takes her by surprise. She learned as a little girl that physically rejecting her brother is futile, and almost always backfires. He is bigger. He is stronger. He can see. He does what he wants. She knows better. She used to know better.
Instead of pushing him away, she tells him what she told her father. "It was wrong for me leave. I hated it there. You should have seen them, lawless and unorganized. Completely helpless. I couldn't stay any longer."
"You missed us."
"I missed everything. The house. The gardens. The lake. My bed."
"They why leave in the first place?" He thumbs her chin. "If you're so fond of our home."
He doesn't believe her. Neither did her father at first. So she wraps her fingers in the fabric of his shirt and leans a little closer. "You were right about them, and I shouldn't have left. But Alec missed his family."
"The Lightwood boy?"
"Yes. He was worried about them and—"
"He threatened you."
She bites the inside of her lip. His voice is so stark white she feels her own is red and seeping like a wound. "No. Alec needed to make sure they were okay, and I wanted to help him. So I—"
Quickly, he releases her, and she stumbles back a half-step. "Why? Why would you break Father's rules and leave without permission?"
"Because he never would have given me permission. You know that."
"So you betrayed us for the first man you wrapped your legs around?"
"It wasn't like that! I love Alec, and he—"
Jonathan's laugh is sharp. He sounds amazed. "You love him?"
She collects herself. She imagines that Alec is standing at her side. "Yes, I love him. And he loves me. And even though he doesn't realize he's supporting the wrong side, I know I can change his mind."
Jonathan makes a derisive noise. "Because he loves you?"
"Yes."
Jonathan is silent. She follows his breathing closely, listens as it evens out into its usual easy rhythm. He is watching her, something he knows makes her feel her own blindness. "Clary," he says finally, "you know I only want what's best for you. And this boy…he isn't our blood. And you're not his. His loyalties lie elsewhere, and he can't be trusted."
"You were the one who brought him here in the first place."
"And he served his purpose." Jonathan closes the space between them until she can feel the heat from his body. "He certainly made a woman out of you. I hardly recognize my meek little sister."
This time when he touches her there is no condescension in the gesture. He runs his knuckles along her jaw as if he means to learn the shape of her face. She sucks in a breath and doesn't move.
"What more could you want from him?"
\ /
She doesn't imagine heaven. When she thinks of an afterlife, she images New York, a city so tall it pushes at the sky. She imagines Alec holding her hand and crowds of people rushing around them, faceless and unseeing.
Max calls out their names, and nobody stops but them.
\ /
"Miss, the Master will see you now."
\ /
The last time she was in her father's office, she stole papers off his desk. He must know that, but he doesn't mention the transgression. He sits and scratches ink into new papers.
"It's not my desire that you to be confined to your room," scratch scratch scratch, "but you understand why I'm wary of letting you roam free."
"You think I'll try to escape again."
"No." scratch "But you came back for a reason. You can't expect me to believe that it was only homesickness that drove you back into our arms."
"I want to see my mother."
The scratching stops. He lays the pen on the desk. "Your mother?"
"They told me she's alive. That she's always been alive and that you're keeping her prisoner."
In the short silence that follows, her father makes a decision.
"What they told you is true," he says. His voice remains steady and composed, rich and smooth like the dark chocolate he used to bring home from his trips to Belgium,. Clary remembers letting pieces of it sit on her tongue until the bitterness melted sweet while her father quizzed his children on the progress of their studies.
"Why did you lie to me? Why did you tell me she was dead?"
"I wanted to spare you the truth. I thought it would be best that you believed your mother had died, not that she abandoned you and your brother as infants."
"Why did she leave?" Why didn't she take me with her?
The chair legs grind against the carpet as Valentine stands. "I told you the Clave killed your mother. That isn't necessarily a lie. They destroyed the woman I loved and turned her into someone who would betray her husband and children. She succumbed to their propaganda."
"What did she do?"
"She gave the Circle up to the Clave, and then she stole the one weapon we had to defend ourselves. You were two days old. Taking you with her would have hindered her escape."
\ /
It's late and the cold from the bathroom tiles seeps up into her skin. She's been sitting in front of the toilet for hours, hearing her father's words and feeling nauseous. She hasn't gotten sick, but the anticipation is there, along with the piecemeal impression of Jocelyn Morgenstern that has started to take shape in her mind: dark hair, cold hands, diamond-cut eyes that never miss a thing, and a voice like wind through sturdy tree branches.
Clary rolls Magnus' vile between her palms. There is an unprecedented amount of magic inside, and the liquid makes the glass warm, and she's become accustomed to the heat of it against her breastbone, where she usually wears it beneath her shirt. When she holds it to her ear, there is a soft, hollow hum—the echo of an ocean churning inside a seashell.
When Clary unscrews the tiny cap, the sound grows into a throb. Idly, she wonders if swallowing the liquid would turn into a song. She wonders if, given the chance, her mother would have sung to her when she was a child.
She taps the uncapped vile along the rim of the toilet seat, and tips it infinitesimally. She tips it a little further. The potion is hot where it touches her thumb, and though nothing spills, she flushes the toilet anyway.
\ /
When Jonathan asks if she would like to go on a walk, she doesn't hesitate to agree. He tells her that it's cool outside and helps her into a fleecy jacket that smells brand new. He also tells her she won't need her cane. So she laces her arm through his and lets him lead her down hallways she would have no trouble navigating on her own.
They both know that she's giving him something.
\ /
If it weren't so windy, it would be pleasant outside.
Clary doesn't like wind. She doesn't like its senselessness or its impermanence. She doesn't like how it's one more invisible force pushing her along. But she can feel sunshine filtered through thin clouds, and the ground is supple beneath the soles of her shoes. Growing inside of her is an urge to run to her favorite tree and feel whether or not the bark has changed since she left. But Jonathan is like an anchor at her side.
"Is it true? Are you and farther collecting the Mortal Instruments?"
"Yes, and we almost have them all."
"What are you going to do with them?"
"Summon Raziel, of course. You know the story, Clary. Father told it to us when we were children. Any Nephilim who brings the instruments together and conducts the ceremony can summon the angel and demand that he fulfill a desire."
"What will Father ask for?"
"All Nephilim who hasn't pledged him their loyalty will be turned into Forsaken."
She doesn't stifle her gasp quickly enough. She thinks of the horror stories she heard as a child and imagines the Nephilim she met at the fortress—Max, Isabelle, Maryse, dozens of children—turning into inhuman aberrations. She imagines Alec's humanity being stolen away. The thought makes her shudder.
Jonathan covers her hand with his. "Don't worry. The brutes won't be left to wander about. They'll be killed quickly. We started massing our armies weeks ago."
"But what then? If you destroy all the hunters, who will fight the demons?"
He doesn't answer immediately, and Clary worries that he will not reveal any more of their plans. Maybe he is testing her as much as she's testing him.
When he finally speaks, his voice is bitter. "Father wants to start from scratch. He wants to use the Mortal Cup to turn all humans into Nephilim so that we can wipe out the Downworlders,"
"You don't agree."
"He thinks too highly of Heaven's power," he answers vaguely, and Clary is too surprised to question him. She hasn't heard Jonathan speak against their Father since he was a little boy. Valentine does not tolerate defiance from anyone—least of all his own children.
Clary remembers the rumors that had circulated inside the fortress. She remembers the werewolf's misgivings.
"The war is changing. We can't be sure she won't be caught in the crossfire."
"Father lets his prejudices blind him." Jonathan brings them to a stop beside the lake. Wind whips through the reeds and silences the birds that usually occupy the trees. It feels like they're standing in a vacuum. "He gets so caught up in the Nephilim's ancient mandate that he refuses to acknowledge their complete potential. He underestimates other sources of power." He turns his body in toward hers. "And he's always undervalued you."
"I don't know what you mean. I can't fight."
She doesn't expect him to touch her—doesn't expect the way he touches her. His thumb traces the parting of her lips, as light and glancing as the breeze against her face. He lingers at the corner of her mouth. "You're a Morgenstern. You're more valuable than any one of those rebels. They pale in comparison to us. You and I have a power they could only dream of."
She drops pulls her arm from the crook of his elbow and moves closer to the bank. "I want to meet our mother."
"Why? She's nothing."
"I want to know what she's like."
"It's pointless. She's unconscious, and nothing wakes her."
"Is she here at the house?"
"Of course not. Don't you think you would have noticed if she was?"
"Father won't take me to her."
"He doesn't trust you."
Clary bends down and digs a smooth rock from the muddy bank. It's flat and dirty in her hand, and she throws it as high and hard as she can over the lake. It lands with a distant plunk in the water. She rubs the dirt off on her pants.
Behind her, Jonathan laughs in his sharp, humorless way. "Don't worry. He doesn't trust me either."
\ /
"Father."
"You aren't eating, Clarissa."
She picks up her fork—a habitual response to the disapproval in her father's voice. But she can't concentrate on eating and drags the tines through the pasta on her plate instead. A servant crosses the room and refills her father's cup. Jonathan hasn't joined them, but his absence isn't mentioned.
"You missed my birthday."
The glass is replaced on the table. "Yes, and I'm sorry. But the rebels were staging an attack against Alicante, and they had to be dealt with swiftly. You understand."
"Yes. But you've never missed my birthday before."
Valentine sighs. "You will have other birthdays."
"Yes. But you didn't get me anything."
This makes him pause, as Clary suspected it would. Her father had always prided himself in bestowing important gifts on their birthdays. Each gift is a lesson, and Valentine has always endeavored to educate them.
He sets down his fork. "You're right."
"I was thinking that—"
"You want to meet your mother."
"Yes."
The chair creaks with the shifting of his weight, and it's the only sound in the room. "I don't think that would be wise."
"You don't have to worry about me trying something. I already told you, I want to be here with you and Jonathan. I could never go back to those people."
Her father doesn't respond. She sets her own fork aside.
"What if…I told you something you don't know? About the resistance—the rebels."
"We've already discussed this. The wards prevent you from directing us to their stronghold, and there's nothing you could inform me of that I'm not already—"
"But what if there is?"
She can feel her father bristling at the interruption. "Clarissa—"
"What if I could tell you where to find Jace?"
She has his attention now.
"Go on."
"I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to hurt him or…Alec."
Valentine must motion a servant to the table, because there's the sound of feet padding against the carpet and the clink of dishes. Then a door closes.
"For one," he begins, "there is nothing I have to promise you. You are my child, and you will obey me."
"Yes, but—"
"Secondly, I have no desire to harm your brother. The Lightwood boy on the other hand…"
"But I love him. And he wants to join you. He will. I'll convince him, I promise."
"Could you?" He sounds curious, but Clary recognizes danger when she hears it. "Could you get him to submit to your desire? Could you command his loyalty? It isn't an easy task. And he is lost in the darkness."
The air feels thin and doesn't fill her lungs. Her chest burns. "I could do it."
"It does not seem fair to give you two gifts."
Clary reaches for her goblet to stop the trembling of her hand. Concealed beneath her shirt, the vile throbs like a second heartbeat.
\ /
The next morning, Clary is navigating the halls on her own.
She can feel Jonathan before he turns the corner. He bears battle Marks and a stride quickened with anticipation. He's just come from Valentine's study, and she knows that the information she gave last night is about to be put to use.
She shouldn't feel like a traitor, but she does. Anything and everything could go wrong, and there's nothing more she can do.
By the time Jonathan is close enough to smell, her stomach is aching nauseously. As he passes her, he bracelets her wrist with his fingers, speaks next to her ear. You may have struck a deal with Father, but accidents happen, and the sewers are dark.
\ /
On the first day of waiting, Clary can't stop moving. She walks every hall, opens every door, and climbs a tree that used to frighten her.
\ /
On the second day, she lies in the grass and tries to sync her breaths with the passing clouds and their rhythm of coolness and warmth.
\ /
On the third day, Clary gets out of her bed and nearly stumbles over the body lying on the floor.
\ /
There are moments when she feels that she's lost track of her senses. It's as if her body decides that something is too much, and very quickly everything goes soft and indistinguishable. She thinks that must be what people mean by 'blindness.' Blind touch, blind taste, blind smell, blind sound, blind sense. It happened once when she was eight and fell off the horse she was learning to ride. And again when she accidentally blew apart her door with an open rune. It happened when Alec first kissed her, touching her until the world chippedaway in layers of color.
It happens now, when she sinks to her knees and gropes clumsily ahead of her.
An arm. Durable cloth. Marks. Belt. Broad chest. Shoulder. Soft hair. And no matter how hard she tries to focus, she can't bring the pieces together, can't make sense of it.
She is shaking and not breathing. She cannot bring herself to touch the face. But there is a parabatai rune somewhere, and the familiarity of it makes her ache. She searches for a hand and finds it large, calloused and completely unfamiliar.
Her lungs finally release.
As her senses slowly return, she grips the hands until, finally, she feels the lethargic, steady pulsing of blood beneath her own.
"Jace."
She says his name and squeezes his hand. She does it five more times before he begins to stir.
"Wh—I…nggh."
"Jace, are you hurt?"
His response is an indiscernible groan. Clary abandons his hand and moves hers methodically over the rest of his body. When she reaches his thigh, he jerks beneath her touch.
"What are—what are you doing?"
"Checking for injuries. Are you bleeding anywhere?"
"I…" He catches her wrist before she can probe him any further. "Where are we?"
"Don't move. You might have a neck or spine injury. Do you have a stele? I could heal you…"
Jace leans up off the ground, and she stays still to avoid bumping heads. "He took my stele," he mumbles.
"Jonathan?"
"Yes." Grogginess gives way to suspicion. "How did you know? What is this place? Where's Alec?"
Alec.
Unthinkingly, she reaches out to touch the, now clear, parabatai rune beneath his collar bone. It's strong and powerful beneath her palm, and its vitality reassures her the way nothing else could. "He's alive."
Under the Mark, Jace's heart beats in testimony. "Yes," he breaths, and for a moment, neither of them say anything at all.
\ /
She wants to help him sit up, but he has yet to release her hand. So she sits back on her heels and listens to him groan at the effort.
"Where are—"
"This is my home. This is where I grew up."
"Valentine?" The name still pains him.
"He was here three days ago. He might be gone now. Where's Alec?"
Jace seems to hesitate. "I don't know. We were taken by surprise. Jonathan was in the sewers with some of his pet demons. And now I'm here."
She doesn't offer him an explanation. He notices.
"What are you doing here? Was the fortress attacked?"
"No. I left and came here. I have a plan."
He makes an unimpressed noise. "And how's that going?"
"I did it to help end the war. I did it to save Alec."
He says nothing.
"You can let me go now."
Jace's fingers linger on her wrist, circling her pulse as if noticing for the first time. Then his touch is gone.
\ /
A servant comes to lead Jace to the room where he will be staying. He offers a few sarcastic remarks but doesn't put up a fight. It must be strange for him to be here, she realizes. Maybe it's completely alien from the house where he grew up. Maybe it's eerily the same. He doesn't tell her anything he's feeling.
Clary wonders what he expects to find here.
\ /
She follows the music to the piano room.
She regrets the noise of her cane tapping along the tile floor as she navigates past the door. It disrupts the harmony of notes pouring from the grand instrument, but he doesn't stop playing.
She is familiar with the piece but can't recall the composer. It's one of her father's favorites, and there's distant memory of the melody softly coaxing her from sleep in the middle of the night. Jace plays it differently. He does not command the keys the way Valentine does. Rather he seems to rouse them into empathy and wakefulness. It's beautiful.
She stands and listens to the final crescendo, and when the last note dies, her reason for seeking him out seems unimportant.
"Did he teach you?"
"He tried. I wasn't patient enough."
"You mean he wasn't patient enough."
Clary shrugs. "Probably a little of both."
Jace slides down on the bench. "Sit here."
"Why?"
"Because it's part of my secret plan to maim you."
"No need to keep it secret. We're very open to maiming in this house."
She thinks Jace laughs but can't be certain because the sound is forcibly choked back. All the same, she rests her cane against the side of the piano and takes a seat beside him on the bench.
"And?"
"And play."
"What? Without sheet music?"
"Cute. Now play."
He doesn't sound particularly enthusiastic, but there's a determination that she recognizes. So she sighs, flexes her fingers, and finds Middle C. She begins with a scale, silently counting until the motions give way to memory. Eventually, she feels confident enough to move into a piece she had once tried desperately to master.
"Is that supposed to be Swan Lake?"
"Shut up."
\ /
He comes to her in the middle of the night.
Clary can't remember dreaming but knows the moment his hands touch her face that she is being pulled from something fathomless and into the most concrete thing she has ever known.
His name isn't even past her lips before he kisses her. Alec's nose presses against hers, his scent suddenly surrounding her, and she kisses him back even though the breath caught in her chest burns.
She searches his hands and finds familiar scars.
Together they sink sideways, rolling and tangling until she feels the edge of the mattress against her back.
Air becomes essential. "Alec."
His breath fans her cheek. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't wait to—"
"I love you," she tells him and touches his face.
"I know." But he sounds relieved, and it makes her want to kiss him again and again and again. So she does.
His jaw is rough with the beginnings of a beard, and she loves the way it scrubs her cheek, leaving her feeling raw and touched. He fists his hands so tightly in her t-shirt that the collar chokes up against her neck, and she likes that feeling, too. He tastes like night air.
When she begins unzipping his jacket, he pulls back.
"We can't."
"Are you angry with me?"
"No. Well, yes. A little. But we have to go."
"Go?"
Alec untangles their bodies, and suddenly his weight is gone. When he speaks, his voice comes quick and quiet from the other side of the room. "You need to get dressed. I need to get Jace." He opens up her closet and starts rummaging inside.
She slides off the bed. "Where are we going?"
He presses a pile of fabric into her hands. Jeans, a bra, a long-sleeved shirt, and socks. "Where's Jace's room?"
"It's the one you stayed in. But where—"
"I'll be right back, okay?"
"Where are we going?"
He pauses at the door. His hesitation makes her grip the clothes tightly to her chest. She shuffles forward. "Alec—"
"Jonathan is waiting for us." And then he's gone.
AN: If you're reading this it's because you have been blessed with divine patience. So sorry you had to wait this long for an update. I really did expect to get it out much sooner. Life kinda kicked me in the butt. I will do everything within my power to get the next chapter out in a much more timely manner. In the meantime, I'd like to thank you guys for sticking with me. You and your feedback rock my Fraywood world.