Jace scanned the darkened interior of the cabin with his hand clenched around the handle of his blade, waiting for the moment it took for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Alec's witch light cast long shadows along the walls and set an eerie glow to the many bottles and odd objects that cluttered the shelves that ran along the edges of the room. The two boys quietly crept towards the back of the cabin when they heard a scuffling coming from behind the over turned table.

Jace raised his blade, sending its light out in front of him while beckoning Alec to follow him. The light of the blade fell on a pair of legs that were jutting out from behind the fallen table. Jace narrowed his eyes and approached cautiously. He stepped around the table as he raised his blade up over his head.

Feltman cried out, covering his face with one blood soaked arm.

"Please, just leave me alone!" Jace didn't lower his weapon. Alec moved to stand next to him.

"Jace who is this?" Feltman peeked over his arm at the sound of another voice. As Jace stared down at him, blinking because of the lights in his face, he couldn't help but be reminded of a blood soaked rat.

"This is the warlock piece of filth that set the Ouimet demons on us." Jace said with distaste. Feltman shook his head.

"I didn't know it was you!" Jace sneered as he lowered his seraph blade down and pointed it at the Downworlder.

"Right. Give me one good reason why I should believe you." The warlock stuttered. "Nope, not good enough." Jace raised his blade.

"Jace!" Jace turned to look at Alec. "Maybe he's telling the truth." Jace scoffed and looked down Feltman with scorn

"He's not." As Jace raised his blade up again, Feltman yelled out,

"I thought it was your father and brother coming back to finish me off!" Jace frowned.

"What are you talking about? Explain what happened." Alec said. Feltman stared at Jace warily.

"Start talking or I start cutting off limbs." Jace threatened. To his surprise, the old warlock laughed. Alec and Jace glanced at each other.

"He's serious, I wouldn't test him." Alec said. Feltman raised tired eyes up to Alec's blue ones.

"I have no doubt that he's serious. He's just a little too late to threaten me with that." he raised up his left arm and Alec stifled a gasp of shock. His arm was missing from the elbow down, the stump the source of the blood that the warlock was drenched in.

"What happened. Tell me before I remember that I don't really care." Jace said tonelessly. Feltman glared at him.

"Your family happened. They came here and did this to my house. Then your…brother cut off my arm…"

"But why? What did you do?" Feltman looked away. Jace raised his voice. "What did you do Feltman?" The warlock flinched and refused to meet his eyes. When he spoke again his voice was nearly a whisper so that the boys had to lean in to hear him.

"I told other warlocks to refuse to do business with him, and I may have told them…other things…" Jace's eyes widened.

"What other things?" Alec asked. The warlock remained silent. Jace pressed the seraph blade into his chest.

"Answer! What other things did you tell them?" he demanded, his patience starting to wear thin. Feltman looked up at him miserably.

"I told them he was looking for the Cup…" Jace heard Alec let out a shocked breath.

"You fool. Did you really think my father wouldn't find out? You might as well have just painted a giant target on your back." Jace said venomously. "Didn't it occur to you that he would have other warlocks already working for him? That's how he found out isn't it?" When he didn't answer right away Jace pressed the point of the angel blade into his sternum. Blood bloomed up when the blade pierced him.

"Jace." Alec pulled at his sleeve. The warlock didn't seem to notice.

"Yes that's how he found out. He said that killing me…would be too easy. That I deserved to suffer first. That I would die slowly, without my magic to help me…" the warlock's voice quieted and he seemed to sag back against the cupboard behind him. Jace's seraph blade reflected off of the pool of blood that had been collecting around him from his arm.

"Yeah…that sounds like something he would say." Jace murmured as he lowered his blade. The warlock started to mumble incoherently and Alec looked down at him sadly.

"He's gunna die Jace. What do we do?"

"And they stole from me too! The demons…" Jace crouched down in front of the warlock, leaning his weight onto his blade.

"Feltman, hey look at me. I need you to do something for me. For us." he gestured to him and Alec. Feltman focused his blurry eyes on Jace's golden ones. "It's very important…I know I don't deserve your help after what they've done to you…"

"I'll do it. Whatever it is I'll do it." Jace's eyes widened in surprise as did Alec's.

"You will? Really?" Feltman nodded tiredly before looking at him with grave eyes.

"On one condition." Jace bit his lip. This was the part where he had to agree to something that was going to inevitably screw him over. But what choice did he have? They needed a portal…

"Fine. What's your condition?"

"Jace…" Alec said worriedly. Jace shushed him.

"We need the portal, Alec." The warlock's eyes seemed to glint.

"I'll make you a portal with the last of my magic…if you, Jace Morgenstern, promise to kill me afterwards." Jace stared at him. "It's a pretty fair trade if you ask me." the warlock said weakly.

"I don't know about this, Jace." Alec said. Jace stood up and took his sleeve before pulling him across the room to talk to him.

"How else are we gunna get back?"

"I can't believe you're considering this!"

"He's dying anyways."

"It's still murder."

"He's a Downworlder." Alec narrowed his blue eyes at him.

"And obviously that means something different to you than it does to me." Jace felt a pang of guilt but pushed it away.

"So you're saying we should just leave him here to die slowly like my father intended? How is that humane?" Alec raised an eyebrow.

"Oh so Downworlders have feelings now?"

"Oh for fuck's sake…" Jace resisted the urge to shake him. "Look, plain and simple: he can help us and we can help him. Okay? Can you handle that Lightwood?" Alec's eyes seemed to burn through him.

"Yeah I can handle it. He's just a means to a result. But can you handle the result Morgenstern? I sure hope you can because you're the one that's going to have to live with what you're about to do." With that, Alec pushed past him and returned to Feltman.

Jace stared at the spot he had been standing in before feeling himself go numb. A second later, he followed Alec back to the injured warlock.

"We have a deal." Jace said. Feltman started up at him gravely.

"Your word Nephilim. Swear to the Angel." Jace saw Alec's shoulders tighten.

"I swear to the Angel that I'll keep my end of the deal as long as you keep yours."

Feltman smiled wearily before placing his finger tip in the pool of blood next to him. Then with obvious effort, he began drawing a circle of runes on the cupboard door, while speaking the words of the spell.

Alec stood and backed away, not meeting Jace's eyes. Soon, the telltale shimmer of a portal was gleaming next to Feltman, who had gone a pasty gray color.

"There. It's done. Don't be a liar like your father, boy." Feltman said.

Jace lowered the point of his blade over the warlock's heart as he crouched down in front of him. With a hand on his shoulder, Jace leaned in and shoved the seraph blade through his chest. Blood bubbled out of the corner of his mouth before Jace pulled his blade free again.

"I won't." Jace said as he gracefully stood up.

The warlock's milky eyes closed and his raspy breath silenced, leaving the room dead quiet. Jace turned and cleaned his blade off on a ragged curtain that hung limply from a small window. Finally, he turned to Alec.

The other boy was staring at him with a strange mixture of anger and pity, and it seemed to wake Jace out of his stupor. He gestured expressively at the portal with his blade. "You think you can manage to keep your head and get us to the right place this time?" he asked meanly.

Alec glared at him before striding past him and into the portal. He disappeared with a flash that made Jace's eyes sting. Before following him, Jace turned and looked back at the dead warlock on the ground. Suddenly his brother's words echoed in his head. I killed someone tonight…

Jace turned away from the body and went after Alec, telling himself that the tears in his eyes were remnants from the portal's blinding flash and nothing more.