"The stairs creak as I sleep; it's keeping me awake / It's the house telling you to close your eyes"

"Little Talks" Of Monsters And Men

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It's too hot.

No, it's too cold.

It's hot on the left, cold on the right.

There's too much noise.

Now, it's too quiet.

The sheets smell funny.

What was that noise?

Church is taking up too much space.

The bed is too big.

The pillow is too warm.

Now my face is freezing.

My nightie is riding up.

It's tangling in my legs.

What's that noise?

Tessa sat up, turning her head, trying to find the position that she could hear best in. She closed her eyes, focusing.

Silence.

Creeeeeeaak.

Tessa reached under her pillow, her hand closing around the leather grip of a seraph blade. She focused again, listening for the noise.

Creeeeeeaak. Smack! Smack!

She got out of bed, her nightie swirling in the breeze coming in through her window. She poked her head out of her bedroom, looking round. She blinked in the dim, blue light of the witchlit corridors.

'Church?' she whispered. She scanned the floor for the familiar puffball of the blue Persian cat. 'Church?' She clicked her tongue for good measure, snapping her free fingers.

Nothing.

She crept out then cursed herself. The least she could've done was put on her boots, now if she needed to run she'd stub her toe or something worse. Plus her feet were cold and she was going to get sick.

'Hello?' she aske the empty corridor. She held the unactivated seraph blade in front of her, its name on the tip of her tongue. 'Is anybody there?'

In the corner of her eye, she saw a whisper of white. She spun round, calling the name of the blade. It blazed to life, blinding her.

She winced and closed her eyes, white and green light flaring behind her eyelids. Then, remembering her training, forced her eyes open, squinting against the light.

Nothing.

'Come out!' she called. 'I'm armed and dangerous!'

Is it a mundane?

Is it a Shadowhunter?

It can't be a demon. They can't come in.

Did I lock the door yesterday? I think I did.

It can't be a mundane then.

But did I lock the door?

Surely it's another Shadowhunter.

Perhaps it's James or Lucie's children visiting.

At this time at night?

Can they hurt me?

Is it a man?

What did the white blur look like?

It seemed rather large.

She pressed her back to the wall and inched down the corridor, eyes darting to the corner of her vision to the centre and back to the corner.

Her hand started shaking.

Stop it, you're a trained Shadowhunter. You're almost ninety-eight years old. You're a warlock and a Shadowhunter. You trained under Will and Jem, you learnt from the very best of your age. You can take care of yourself.

God, I wish Will was here. He wouldn't be afraid.

Are you afraid?

I'm not afraid. Being afraid would be stupid.

But you don't know what's out there. It could be… be something like a Hydra demon. You're just one person, you can't handle a Hydra all by yourself.

It's not a Hydra.

It could be though.

Tessa, realising she was stopped in the middle of the open, shook herself of her thoughts, failed, and focused on keeping her steps silent and her hands steady.

'Hello?' she asked.

Nothing.

Will once said that Jessamine was still around, that he sometimes saw her. Perhaps it's her.

Tessa pressed her lips together and whispered, 'Jessamine? Is that you?'

But ghosts can't make noises. They just float about. And even if it were Jessamine, she wouldn't waste her afterlife annoying me in the dead of night. She may despise me but she doesn't care enough to do that much work.

'Please come out.' She hated the way her voice shook. 'Please come out. I'm tired and I just want to go to bed.'

She listened for the sound again, tilting her head up.

Five seconds passed.

Ten.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Forty-five.

A minute.

Tessa sighed and lowered her weapon, staring at it's white-blue blade.

I'm being paranoid. I hadn't gotten much sleep for the past few days and it's getting to me. That's all.

Is it?

I need to go to bed. I ought to make a draught or something.

But what if something's out there?

I ought to get a roommate. The Institute was too big a place to live in alone.

What if they're just waiting until you go back to bed to run in and stab you to death?

An image, fleeting and fast, entered her mind of a blurry white figure running a knife through her while she laid in bed. In her head, she was screaming and writhing as the blade went in and out, in and out, bloody bloody bloody.

'Bloody hell,'' she whispered to herself. Tessa raised a hand to her face and rubbed at her eyes. 'No, no, I need sleep.'

But what if there's—

"No!" she yelled. "I am tired and all of this will just go away if I go to bed!"

She looked up and around, seeing nothing but the lonesome tapestries on the opposite wall.

Tessa sighed, rubbing her cheeks and pulling the skin down her face. 'Bloody hell,' she repeated. 'I'm losing it.'

With heavy feet, Tessa trudged back to her room. She rubbed warmth back into her feet and laid the still activated seraph blade on her nightstand.

'Tessa?'

She looked over to the other side of the bed, seeing Will propped up on his elbow, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

'What are you doing up?' he whispered gravelly. He reached out, rubbing a hand down her thigh.

Tessa sighed and brought his palm up to her cheek. 'Nothing. I just… I don't know.'

In the light of the seraph blade, his blue eyes seemed bluer and the shadows of his cheekbones more pronounced. One of Will's best lighting, in Tessa's opinion. Especially with sleep-mussed hair and a rumpled shirt.

'Are you nervous about something?' he asked.

She shook her head, crawling under the blankets with him. 'No… I don't… I thought I heard something.'

Will looked at her, his eyes roaming over her face, lingering on her eyes a few times. He leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her lips. Tessa closed her eyes, focusing on it.

I'm fine. I'm fine. Will's here. He's not worried. And even if there was something out there, he'd easily protect me from it. We're fine.

He pulled away, his face just a hairsbreadth away from hers. 'You're okay,' he told her. 'It's only the wind, fy heulwen.'

Tessa blinked at his nickname for her, given during a drunken bout decades ago. 'Fy heulwen,' he had slurred. 'It means "my sunshine" in Welsh. And that's what you are, my Tess. My sunshine. Given to me in the rainy, stormy shitstorm I call life. My sunshine. Fy heulwen.'

Tessa closed her eyes, leaning into him. She let him pull her to their mattress and settled on his chest. He interlocked their fingers and whispered a kiss to her knuckles. 'I love you,' he murmured.

Already feeling sleepy, Tessa hummed in response.

Will stroked her hair until he grew too tired to do so. She breathed with him, in… out. In… out. In… out. In… out. She counted his heartbeats until she was certain that hers beated in the same rhythm. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thir