Isabelle was asleep. Safely and soundly. Alive. Alec still held her head in his lap. Every so often, he ran his fingers through her hair. Jace sat down next to him, Clary and Simon seated next to one another on the other side of the fire.
Eliza ruffled through her pack. She had sworn that she packed more than three spare knives. There had been a bundle of them and somehow only three made it to the bag.
"Damn it." She groaned. "Freaking fantastic."
"What's wrong?" Clary called out.
Eliza tossed the bag aside with a huff. "I only have four knives left." She counted the one that was still secured in the brace. She wished she had just reached down into the demon's mouth to rescue her other one, but even she knew that was a bad idea. "What the hell am I supposed to do with only four knives?"
Simon's face pulled together. "Why do you say 'only four' like that isn't a lot? Because," he told her, "that's a lot of knives."
She sat down beside Jace and he threw his arm around her. "Simon," Jace tittered, "don't you know anything about Eliza?"
"Oh, actually, I know a lot about her." Simon's eyes glinted in the light of the fire.
In the mess of everything, Eliza hadn't gotten around to telling Jace that Simon knew their secret. She would just have to wait until the others were asleep.
Jace eyed him suspiciously. "Lizzie likes knives. Maybe a little too much, but she does. And for her, four is the same as two."
"Her backups have backups." Alec added.
Clary nodded in agreement. "She's very serious about the sharp and pointy things."
Eliza did like knives. They made great weapons. They could be used as range weapons or close ones. They were easy to handle and easier to throw. Each one felt like an extension of her body. That was natural, how a good weapon was supposed to feel. Her father had taught her that.
Jace asked Alec if Isabelle would be well enough to travel tomorrow. In any case, she would have to be. They needed to move out and find Sebastian quick. He was sure to know that they were in Edom. Especially after the fiasco at the Hall of Accords.
Simon gasped and lurched over. His hand clutched his chest. Clary screamed his name. Bloodied tears fell from his eyes.
"What's wrong?" Clary grabbed his shoulder.
He pressed his hand down on his chest. "I felt like I got stabbed."
Jace mumbled something about Raphael being Simon's sire. Simon asked what that meant, but Jace waved it off with nothing further said.
"When was the last time you fed?" Eliza asked him. It had been a long while since he had fixed Izzy, but the veins of his body were still black beneath his skin. Whenever he had fed, it hadn't been of recent.
"You lost a lot of blood, Simon." Clary reprimanded him. "You need to feed." She got to her feet and went over to Simon's pack. "Where are all the bottles you brought? You have to be starving."
Simon rushed up and snatched the bag from her. Clary shot him a murderous look. "I don't have them." He admitted. He said that while they were fighting the demons earlier, all of his blood bottles had broken. He had nothing to feed from.
"Simon!" Clary snapped at him. "You should have told us!"
Jace rolled his eyes. He took his arm from around Eliza and stood up. Frivolously, he swept his hair back from his face. "Been here before, haven't we?" He grinned down at Simon. Ever the dramatic. "You, starving and hopeless. Me, free for the pickings and filled with good blood. Sure, we got a tad bit lost in the homoeroticism of it all, but I really love my w-girlfriend and I'm very secure with my sexuality. Which is strictly Eliza, if anyone was wondering."
"We weren't." Alec piped up.
Jace shot him an offended glare. He looked to Eliza as if to say can you believe him? She smiled, shaking her head.
Jace rolled up his sleeve and bore his arm in front of Simon's face. "Here. I know I taste delicious."
Simon said no very sternly. "No way am I biting you now. You're all full of heavenly fire. I'd probably burn from the inside out. Not. Interested."
Almost immediately, Clary pulled her hair back from her neck. She offered it to Simon. "This is what best friends are for."
Eliza hauled herself to her feet. She walked over to Clary and replaced her hair so that her neck was once again covered. "I don't think so." She clucked her tongue, suddenly sounding very much like their mother. "Big sisters are for making sure their little sisters don't get drained by their vampire best friends."
Simon was starving. It would be easy for him to finish Clary quickly and she worried that Clary wouldn't want to fight him off. Selfless, too much so. A blessing and a curse in Clary's case.
"I'm not biting you." Simon told Eliza. There was a faint terror in his voice. "You taste-."
"Don't say it!" Eliza threatened him.
He'd fed from her once and gagged right after. Her blood was poison. Except then, she hadn't known why. He had almost died drinking Sebastian's blood. She wondered if his was worse than hers. Probably.
"Jesus," Alec groaned and got up; he was careful not to wake Isabelle, "drink from me."
They all stared back at him, bewildered and concerned. Alec hardly liked Simon. Tolerated was a better word for it, really. And yet, he was offering Simon to drink his blood. And he was being completely serious. As serious as Jace had been, minus the theatrics of it all.
"You can't stand me." Simon reminded him.
Alec shrugged it off. "You saved Isabelle. I'll save you. Then we're even."
Not, she understood, an act out of the goodness of his heart. He was repaying a debt. Way sooner rather than later. Alec was hasty in walking to stand in front of the vampire.
"Is this weird for you too?" Jace was at her side. His lips brushed against her ear as he spoke.
"I feel slightly intrusive watching such a…what did you call it…ah, yes, a homoerotic moment." She teased him. Jace glared down at her.
Alec bared his throat to Simon, face pinched together tightly. So, no one was at all comfortable. "Can we…not do this in front of everyone?" Simon cleared his throat. "It's weird."
Jace chuckled. "Our moment was private, you know. Just the two of us." Eliza nudged him sharply with her elbow. "Ow! Why do you keep doing that?"
"Simon," Clary bemoaned, "it's not like some dumb kissing game from middle school. You're just feeding. It's natural." Alec shot her a look. "I didn't mean-you know what, I give up." She threw her hands in the air.
Alec grabbed onto Simon's shoulder. "Come on. Jeez." He trudged off, dragging Simon behind him. He lugged Simon down one of the tunnels until they couldn't be seen.
"Intimate moments should be private, you know." Jace quipped. He caught her elbow before she could use it against him.
"You're insufferable." She muttered.
"It's cute, though, right?" She arched an eyebrow and refused to answer. "Right?" He called as she walked away from him.
"Simon knows." She carded her fingers through Jace's hair. "About us. That we're-."
"Completely and totally in love with each other?" He titled his head so that he was looking up at her.
Alec, after generously donating his blood to Simon, had gone to keep watch at the end of the tunnel. Simon was curled next to Isabelle, both fast asleep. Clary had knocked out soon after and Eliza had draped a blanket over her. The cavern was growing cold and the fire could only do so much. The last thing any of them needed was to catch hypothermia in the Hell dimension.
"I think everyone knows that." She laughed quietly. Everyone had always known that about them. Even when they weren't supposed to love each other, they had. Jace, admittedly, had been worse about hiding his feelings. "I meant, he knows that we're married."
She was thoroughly surprised that no one had even mentioned the runes. Or even spotted them. The ones over their hearts were easy to hide under clothing. But the stark Wedded Union runes that graced their hands weren't. Granted, it had been a long, worrisome journey and no one exactly had the time or mind to examine each and every rune someone else bore.
"Oh." Jace's mouth formed a circle. "How'd he find that out? Is he spying on us? Is he into voyeurism, I-."
Eliza put her hand over his mouth. "He heard you last night. What did you whisper, oh, 'goodnight wife, dream of me', that was it."
Jace's cheeks turned a soft pink shade. It was exceedingly rare for Jace to blush. He didn't believe in embarrassment; the word didn't exist in his personal vocabulary. "Damn vampire hearing."
Jace kept his eyes on her. They had lightened significantly, fading back to their normal color. Clear, resolute tawny.
"What are you thinking?" Her finger slid down the slope of his nose. "Tell me."
He reached up and caught her hand. "You're different here." He finally said. "Stronger, more alert. It scares me." Fear. Another thing that barely existed to him. He was a master at covering his fear with sarcasm and poorly timed jokes. "Your eyes…they've been like his since we were in the Seelie Court. I thought maybe it was just the Queen-I know you hate her. But it's been days and they're still black."
She kissed the back of his hand. She rested their hands on his chest. "Don't worry." She murmured. "I'm still me." He protested, softly but indignantly. "It's just this place. It's Lilith's realm and I have her blood. It's affecting me differently, but I promise you that I don't feel all evil or anything. Bad Eliza is a thing of the past."
His mouth quirked. "Bad Eliza, huh? Does she had a riding crop you could borrow?"
"Jace!" She gasped with a laugh. "I swear, sometimes…"
He chuckled, clutching their hands together tightly. He took several even breaths. "Last night…" Jace had the uncanny ability to switch the mood of any conversation in an instant. It could go from all fun and games to life and death within the fraction of a second.
"Nothing needs to be said of last night." She told him. Her mouth was dry. They'd never gotten the chance to talk about it and she wasn't sure she wanted to.
Jace sat up. He rested back on his hands. "Liz, you saved my life. The heavenly fire was going to consume me."
"Okay." She said. "I saved you. It's what we do; we save each other. But-."
"I know." He said quickly, "The others can't know."
She nodded. It had been a silent agreement. If the others knew, it put them all in inherently more danger than they were in. If they knew, any hope of the element of surprise was lost. As far as they knew, Eliza did what she did best and helped Jace control his emotions, and the heavenly fire.
"It's the only way."
He knew that, he told her. "I wish it wasn't. I wish you didn't-."
She shushed him. He had always been protective of her. From that first breakfast date at Taki's. His wavering concern for her emotions as she threw herself into something completely foreign. Perhaps even that first hunt when she plunged herself right into the line of the demon and he seemed wary to let her go off and handle herself. To prove herself and possibly get hurt on the way. Jace's need to protect her was often endearing but in that moment, she felt sickened by it. It wasn't an overly masculine display. He was a protective person, of everyone he cared about. It was engrained in his nature.
She just knew that as badly as he wanted to protect her from Sebastian, to save her from harm, there would be no saving her from the fate that lie ahead. It was intrinsically laid out, she saw that now. Lilith had been right. She and Sebastian belonged together in life and death. They had gone into the world together and they would leave it together.
Eliza would make sure of that.
"Do you think that when we get married, Magnus could charm moonflowers to bloom in your hair?" He asked offhandedly.
"What?" She giggled.
Jace smiled at her. "The morning glories, back at the Institute. Do you remember the night I showed them to you?"
How could she forget? "You said you wanted to trust me. I wanted you to, not because it was going to be easier for me, but because I needed you to. I wanted you to trust me and to want me the way I wanted you."
He pulled her close and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He pressed a kiss to her temple. "I remember the way your face lit up when you saw the greenhouse. Your eyes were so green, so full of life and wonder but I saw something broken in you. The same thing I saw when I looked in the mirror. The way you were in awe of little morning glories, I thought they were just some dumb flowers that bloomed at midnight, but you made them special. Beautiful." His fingers were cool against her shoulder. "I think maybe a midnight ceremony is a little outrageous, even for us. So maybe Magnus could work a little magic and have them bloom during the day. You could tuck them," his fingers danced along the edges of her temples, twirling strands of her hair, "here."
"Given this a lot of thought, have you?" She smirked as he continued to run his fingers through her hair. He hummed in response. "I think morning glories during the day is a perfectly reasonable request to make."
His face softened as he pulled away from her. He cupped her face and she didn't care that his fingers were sticky with sweat and dirt and whatever else. "I'm going to tell you something."
She stiffened. "Then tell me."
"It's what I saw, when we first came through into Edom. I said I didn't see anything. I lied." Well, she knew that much. He had been too spooked to have not seen anything. "I saw a throne room. There were two thrones made of gold and ivory. Behind them was a window and you could see the world through it. But it was dead, like this world. But it was freshly razed, newly burnt and destroyed. The flying demons were everywhere, and the fire consumed the ground." His voice trembled as he continued on. "One of the thrones was mine and the other belonged to Sebastian. Clary and Max and Alec and Izzy, they were all there but they were in a locked cage. When I looked at them, I didn't feel anything like remorse or regret. I felt happy and-."
"You don't have to keep going." She assured him quickly. She didn't want him to. He sounded broken. His voice was dead, nothing to it at all.
He said he had to. "You were there, too." He said in a low voice. "On your knees in front of us. Bruised and bloodied, beaten to a pulp. I couldn't remember if I had done it or simply watched him do it to you. You were stubborn, like always. He wanted you to beg, for mercy or your life, but you wouldn't do it. But you looked at me and you asked me to make it stop. To be the person you knew I was. Liz, I-," he turned away from her to face the fire, "I told him to kill you. I looked at you and I felt nothing. I watched him plunge a sword into your heart and I felt nothing."
Her chest ached. Her heart burned. Her angel, her husband, so ensured of his own darkness, so unaware of his true goodness. It killed her.
She placed her hand on the back of his neck. The curls there tickled her fingers. "Jace," she had to speak slowly, choose her next words with precise care, "whatever that demon was, it could see inside our heads. The things it showed you-all of you- were shallow, based on desires that the demon thought you wanted. Nothing that you saw was a reflection of what's inside your heart. You broke out of that dream because you knew it wasn't real, right?" He gave a solemn agreement. "How did you know? What made you realize it was fake?"
Orange light flickered across his face. It lit his eyes. Shadows fell on the side furthest from the fire. "Max was there." He finally spoke again. "And when you di-when it happened, I told myself I should cry. I was supposed to cry. I was supposed to feel something, but I didn't."
She twisted the baby fine curls through her fingers, careful not to pull on his hair. Sometimes he liked that, but on most cases he was tender-headed as a child. "All the demon saw inside of you was a want for control and it supplied an idea that it thought fit that. There are so many things that you can't control, and I know it hurts you. So much has happened to you that you haven't been able to control. The desire to be able to control something or everything isn't wrong, Jace." She moved her other hand and let it rest on his chest, right above his heart. She could feel it, the rapid gallop that matched his quick breathing. "I know your heart, Jace Herondale. I've seen it a thousand times over and each time, I see it's a good heart. A pure heart. There is nothing but heaven in you."
And if Jace Herondale was the closest she got to Heaven, that was perfectly fine with her. If Hell- if this dimension was what awaited her after her life ended, that was acceptable because in her life, she had loved a piece of heaven and he had loved her back.
Jace clasped his hand over hers. They were silent after that, just the two of them, the sound of their breathing, and the feeling of Jace's heart under their hands.
"Is that why you saw him?" He didn't look at her. "Your father. Valentine."
It had just been a second. A flash of him before he was gone. In the moment, she had been confused. He was dead. Gone. She watched with relief as they had burned his body, ensuring Valentine Morgenstern would not return from the dead a second time. And then, there he had been. Standing only a short distance away from her, his arms outstretched wide. A hug, she knew, he was waiting for an embrace. Probably something he had done a hundred times with a younger Jace. He had always been the favorite child.
Briefly, she wondered if her father had been sent to Edom for his crimes. Had he been waiting on her? He smiled, joyous and…proud.
"What do you mean?"
That was when he looked over at her. His mouth was drawn together and his eyebrows downturned. "You said the demon saw our desires and gave us what we thought we wanted. It showed you Valentine. Why?"
She exhaled heavily. "I told you that I didn't always hate him." She said. "I spent the majority of my life wanting to please him, wanting him to love me. The way he loved you. He always got so…relaxed when he would go back to be with you. I was jealous for a long time. He would stay gone for ages, he said you needed him more than we did." Jace's tight expression molded down. "I know now why he never wanted to be near us. Sebastian was…well, himself and every time he looked at me, he saw failure. He wrote it down in his journals, I kept one of them. He even admitted it. I should have been perfect for him. I was exactly what he wanted."
"That isn't a good thing." Jace murmured.
She knew that. "I was stronger, faster, better than any normal Shadowhunter, just like he made me to be. Resilient. When pushed, I could be what Sebastian was. I could be ruthless and cruel and terrifying. But I was human, I was like you. That was what he had wanted in his warrior. Someone who could be merciless, but human enough to appeal to others and gain followers."
She remembered the time he called her unstoppable. Fourteen years old, a raw force of nature. She'd beaten Sebastian during training. It had been a brutal fight, one that edged on almost an hour. She had been exhausted and ready to quit. His taunts had sparked something horrid in her. After she had nearly beaten him to death, Valentine left Sebastian to clean himself up and he took care of her. As he administered healing runes and cleaned the blood from her face, he told her she could be unstoppable, if she wanted. She was beautiful, his own Helen of Troy that he had crafted himself. She had the face to launch a thousand ships and the power to wage a war and win it.
"He needed obedience from me." She could feel the phantom touch of a moist cloth running across her forehead. "He had it from you and he had it from Sebastian. Had I been obedient, things would be different." They wouldn't be in Edom. Valentine's war would have been won. Downworlders would have been eradicated. Their world would look very different. "When the demon looked in my head, it saw a little girl who wanted nothing more than the love of her father. Naturally, as soon as I saw him standing in front of me with a smile on his face and expecting a hug, I knew it wasn't real."
Jace's laugh was tense. They both knew that Valentine had never been happy to see her. Or had ever hugged her out of the goodness of his heart.
"It's time you went to bed." She told him.
He rolled his eyes and brushed his lips across her cheek. She let him get comfortable before she laid down next to him. Her back against his chest, his arms around her. It felt normal, the way it used to. Minus the fact that they were on the floor of a cave in a demon dimension and not in bed.
"I love you."
She said it back, heart in her throat and tears in her eyes. Because not too long ago, they had been in the same position. The night before an impossible mission. The two of them only wanting to spend it next to one another. Even then, he had fallen asleep first, leaving her to her own thoughts and devices. The looming thought that when the next night fell, her last breath would be taken.
Tomorrow, she planned to win a war. And that meant dying.
Alec was, for all reasonings of the word, hungover. Had the circumstances been different, Eliza would have been amused. And she was, a tiny bit. But she was also worried and a little annoyed.
"Alexander Gideon Lightwood, I'm going to kick your ass." She huffed.
Below the bluff, down past the ridged line of grey rock they were using for cover, Eliza saw them. The Endarkened. Sebastian's little toy soldiers.
"I'm sorry." He muttered. Whatever deathly headache he had would have to be enough for her.
Behind the Dark Shadowhunters lay the dilapidated Edom-version of the Gard. Other than the fact that it was in absolute ruins and there was a huge wall surrounding it, it looked just like the one in Alicante.
The Endarkened were spread out in groups. The largest one was centered right in front of the gate that led into the Gard. Smaller groups were scattered up and around the hill. Sebastian had guarded his…Gard very well.
"What are you thinking?" Jace asked from behind her.
In truth, not a lot. Nothing at all about how they were going to break into the Gard. Moreso about the tens of security officers that were stationed and how the six of them were supposed to handle that.
"About my inheritance." For lack of a better word. "We need a way in and-."
"Absolutely not." Jace snapped at her. "You're not going in alone."
"Jace is right." Though, Alec never liked admitting that. "They'll slaughter you. We have to stand together."
Eliza crossed her arms over her chest. "Your lack of faith in me is astounding truly." Several times, Hodge had told her she was the best Shadowhunter of their age, possibly ever. Sure, it was a lot of Endarkened to take on but she knew that the second she said her name, they'd load her up and deposit her in front of Sebastian. He wanted to kill her himself and in front of Jace and Clary.
"The answer is no." Jace repeated. "Now, come on. We need to get back to the others."
Simon, Clary, and Izzy were waiting for them at the bottom of the safe side of the hill. Clary was drawing dozens of runes on the surface of her sketchpad. Several crumpled pieces of paper surrounded the ground at her feet.
"Well?" Simon asked as they approached. Alec gave a bleak face in return. "Oh. Good."
Jace knelt down and sat on the ground. He took out his stele and marked it through the dirt. He drew a haphazard square and labeled it 'DG' for Dark Gard.
"Creative." Clary pointed out dryly.
Jace narrowed his eyes at her. He continued illustrating the scene in the dirt. "The only way in is the gate of the defense wall. A good Opening rune," he gave Clary a fixed look, "should get us through the gate. But there are a lot of Endarkened standing guard at the front."
"There's a back path at the Gard at home." Izzy reminded him. "So, this Gard probably has one too."
Jace nodded and drew a squiggled line where the path should be. Simon asked what the wobbly line in front of the wall was. Jace sighed and said it was the gate. Izzy asked about the little swirls. Wearily, Jace said they were trajectory lines. "Have any of you ever used a strategy map before?" With a grunt, he tossed the stele aside. "Did any of you even register anything about my plan?"
"There was a plan hidden in there?" Eliza mused. "All I got were bad drawings and some suggestions."
Clary backed her up and said the drawings were really terrible. She offered Jace a few complimentary lessons, should they survive.
"Well," Eliza smiled down at them, "thank the Angel for you guys that I actually have a plan."
Jace glared up at her. His eyes were dark, a mixture of worry and anger. "A plan that I shot down not ten minutes ago."
She reminded him that they were a team. Jace wasn't the leader.
"Let's hear it. I'm intrigued." Izzy said. "It's got to be better than whatever this is." She gestured poorly to Jace's dirt map.
With a hard-lined pout, Jace picked his stele back up and shoved it in his belt. He muttered that it was a dumb and very bad plan.
Eliza rolled her eyes. "Sebastian most likely knows we're here by now, which means he has to know we're going to come for him. We need to get inside, and you guys need a way to get to the back path. There are way too many Endarkened to fight off. Let me provide a distraction. Let me be the distraction."
A tense, cold-bearing silence encompassed their group. They all looked from Eliza, to Jace, to one another, and then back to Eliza.
"Isn't that kind of dangerous?" Simon questioned her. "If we can't fight off a bunch of Dark Shadowhunters, what makes you think you can do it by yourself?" He paused after catching the insulted look on her face. "Not that you aren't a great fighter, because you are. Stellar, really good."
Clary huffed an amused breath. Simon, dangerous vampire Simon, was still a little scared of Eliza. Which, everyone should have been. She was more dangerous than the rest of them. The same evil that had taken over Sebastian and burned out his humanity lived inside of her. She was, most of the time, excellent at hiding it or repressing it. But the moments when it showed, when you could see just how deadly she was, those moments were enough to send armies running.
"She's stronger than any of us." Clary spoke. She was confident and sure of her sister. She always had been, even when Eliza had been on the side of the devils. "Here, especially. Haven't you noticed how while the rest of us are tired and weak, she's not? Liz has an advantage in Edom that we don't. If anyone could do it, she could."
Eliza was flattered. At least Clary believed in her. Even if she never planned on actually fighting the Endarkened. "Thank you for the compliment, Clary, but I wasn't planning on taking on the security wall." Then what, Alec inquired in a weary voice, was she planning on doing? "I was just going to surrender myself over." She shrugged her shoulders.
Jace's stony expression faltered. He looked at his wife with abhorrent shock. "You've got to be kidding me." She shook her head. She was completely serious. "You're insane. You are actually insane."
Izzy and Simon, shockingly, both agreed with Jace. "They're going to kill you on the spot." Simon told her. "Like, right there. And you're just going to be like a sitting duck."
Jace shuddered at the mention of ducks.
"I think you're all forgetting a very key aspect of Sebastian's character." She kicked a small rock with the toe of her boot.
"And what, pray tell, is that?" Jace muttered under his breath.
"He hates me." She sounded annoyed when she said it. As if his hatred of her was impossible to forget. "He's not going to let some mindless Dark Shadowhunter kill me. He's going to want to do it himself."
Begrudgingly, Alec told Jace that she was right. They all knew how badly Sebastian wanted to get rid of her. He was egocentric and a psychopath. He would want to do it himself.
"Great." Jace grumbled. "Let's just send her in to her death. That's such a great idea." He was giving Alec a murderous look. If they made it out alive, he was going to kill his parabatai for backing her up.
"Okay. Cool, so we're sending Liz in. But how are we," Izzy motioned around, "getting in?"
Simon's face lit up like Christmas. Jace's face somehow fell more as Simon announced that the had an idea.
"We need to steal their clothes." Simon said.
Even Izzy gave him a wild look. Eliza cocked an eyebrow.
"I don't think any of us wants to see any of them naked, Simon." Jace shook his head. "Even if their embarrassment hinders their fighting skills."
Simon narrowed his eyes. "We'll wear their clothes." Clary assisted. "Disguise ourselves as Endarkened. They probably won't even notice. That's what you mean, right?" She turned to Simon.
Eliza really hoped that was the track he had been on. Or else they were doomed.
"Exactly." Simon sighed. "God, it's only worked in every movie ever made." He told Jace sharply. Alec kindly reminded him that Shadowhunters didn't watch movies.
"Let's hope Sebastian doesn't either." Izzy supplied. Eliza assured her that he probably didn't know what a movie was. "So," she turned to Jace, "are we still running on the whole 'trusting you' thing on this?" Sternly, he said yes. The plan should always be to trust him. "Why can't we ever have a real plan?" She bemoaned. Jace reminded her that they did in fact have a plan. "I mean one that has a strategy and steps to follow and doesn't involve trusting your horrible decision-making skills."
He didn't even seem offended. "I do not have horrible-."
"Skeptron." Was all Eliza said.
Jace mumbled something under his breath. "Anyways," he gave Isabelle a pointed look, "there is a plan. Simon's." They all stared at him. "We're going to steal their clothes."
"Are you serious?" Simon blinked rapidly.
Jace nodded once. "It's a good idea. Nice work." He said that they'd follow the back path up to the Gard and once they were near the top, they'd work out Simon's plan. Eliza said that, for reassurance, she'd go up the front way and distract the Endarkened so they could sneak in. "Clary, I need you to use that rune that you did in the Seelie Court. Can you?" He asked her.
"Sure. But why?"
Jace smiled wickedly.
Sourness filled Eliza's stomach. It would probably be the last time they were all together, all alive. It was probably the last time she'd see Jace smile.
Jace was squeezing her tightly. His fingers dug so deep into her waist, like if he held her tight enough, she wouldn't leave.
"Jace." She mumbled across his mouth.
They weren't even really kissing. The soft yet stern press of their mouths together, unmoving. As if they were trying to hold down a moment and make it stay forever.
"Please don't. Don't go."
She swallowed and hastened herself before she pulled back from him. He was all golden light and inky black runes. Clary had really outdone herself as she had blanketed all of their skin in her most powerful runes.
"I'll be okay." She promised him.
"You don't know that."
A curl of hair flopped down in front of his eye. Gently, she pushed it back up to join the rest of his honeyed locks. "Yes, I do. Because you're going to come save me. I saved you and now it's your turn to save me. We have a pattern, don't break it."
He paled at the thought. "I'm not going to let him take you from me."
There it was, that overeager protectiveness. His raw determination to keep her in his life as long as he could, to save her life. She couldn't help but smile.
"Thank the Angel." She stepped back from him. "I have to go."
He caught her hand and slowly lifted it to his mouth. He left a gentle kiss there on her knuckles before dropping it. "I love you."
"Not nearly as much as I love you." She smiled warmly. Not nearly at all. "See you soon."
Her goodbyes to the others hadn't nearly been so hard. Jace never made it easy to leave and he knew that. Izzy had enveloped her in a suffocating hug and made her promise to take out a lot of Dark Shadowhunters. Simon had even hugged her and reassured her that she was a great fighter and could kick serious ass. Alec, never having been one for physical affection, had reached his hand out and when she took hold, pulled her in. He hadn't said anything and they both knew nothing needed to be said. Other than Magnus, Alec was her best friend. He understood her better than Jace.
Clary, strong and resilient, had refused to cry even though tears stung her eyes. She drew a large fortis rune at the base of Eliza's collarbone. Her hand had shaken as she did it and Eliza covered it with her own. "You're going to come back." Clary had ordered her. "You're going to come back and we're going to go home."
All Eliza did was smile at her.
Now, she stood on the other side of the rock ridge. Separated by the formation from her friends. She didn't look back. She couldn't look back. Steeling herself, taking a deep breath of the rotten air, she blinked slowly. She double-checked her two seraph blades. She had a knife in each brace, one in her boot, another tucked in the back of her pants. Eosphoros on her back.
"Ready." She told herself. She had to be.
It was a hot and quiet journey down the slope. She wasn't exactly nervous, but she wasn't jumping for joy either. From her closer view, the Endarkened looked less like scattered ants and more like…enemies.
They wore the same blood red gear. They had the same twisted, unholy runes. It appeared that their own mission was to keep watch. From where she was standing, they weren't doing a very good job.
She took out her sword. The blade made a hissing sound as it left its sheath. Even in the dull sunlight, it seemed to glint and shine. The white gold seemed brighter than it ever had. Eliza took a moment to admire the blade. It was the best thing Valentine had ever given her. Now more than ever.
Someone shouted and she knew instantly that she had been spotted. The closest group ran for her. One, a smaller, slimmer woman was going to reach her first. Eliza charged and shoved her sword straight through her. As she yanked it back, she used the woman's body as a shield to block the blow from the incoming Endarkened.
She tossed the body to the left and jabbed out to the right. The sword stuck in the soldier's leg. She swung back and then forward again, slicing it off.
After that, it all became a blur. Gear and blood swam together in her vision. She could feel the hot wet of it on her face and neck, coating her hands. They fell around her but never stopped coming. It was a never-ending sea of Dark Shadowhunters. Her own all-you-can-kill buffet. If she didn't have a mission, she would have thoroughly enjoyed herself.
As she sliced the sword through the midsection of a male Endarkened, her sight traveled. They were coming from all directions. But there, they had left a perfect section unguarded. She saw her friends quickly and quietly rushing down the slope. None of the Endarkened were even looking in that direction.
Yet again, she proved to be a great distraction.
Someone grabbed her by the hair and yanked back. She shrieked out, more from surprise than pain. She took a seraph blade from her belt, shouted out "Camael!" and brought the blade down on the Endarkened's wrist. The blood sizzled as the seraph blade cut through and separated his hand from his arm. Her hair was released, and the hand fell into the yellow-tinted dirt.
She whirled on the Dark Shadowhunter. Her eyes were dangerously narrowed. "You just pulled my hair." She told him. He stared back at her. He clearly hadn't expected her to speak before killing him. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she jumped to the side. Right on time as an Endarkened charged forward and landed an axe blow to the one that had pulled her hair. The axe split right through his skull. "Oh, gross." Her nose wrinkled.
The Endarkened glared at her and lifted the axe. She spared a glance. Her friends had disappeared behind the Gard. All she saw was a body being dragged behind the corner of the defense wall. Thank the Angel.
He was about to swing it down in a wide arc that would end on her own head when she dropped her seraph blade to the ground.
"Wait." She told him loudly. The commotion stopped. "My name is Eliza Morgenstern. I think my brother would like to see me."
The Endarkened lowered his axe. He ordered one of the others to confiscate her weapons. Happily, she thrust her sword into his hand and passed off her seraph blade to another. They took the knives from her braces.
"Grab her and take her to him."
Two men grabbed hold of her by the wrists and jerked her forward.
She grinned. "Erchomai, Jonathan, erchomai."