She struts down the city streets with poise and confidence. Her heels strike the pavement with purpose and perfect metronomity. Her presence is a paintbrush, and every stroke leaves a trail of strawberry blonde streaks. Delicately from the arm of her pinstripe sweater, her turquoise spaghetti-strap purse hangs. A polished finger brushes back stray strands, tucks them neatly behind her ear.
She glances quickly both ways before ducking behind a side road. Her pace quickens; she mumbles a few words, softer than the human ear. Then, against coarse and grime-coated brick, she trails a finger, the moment she rounds the corner.
She waits.
And around the corner, they come, dressed like night bouncers and tailgaters. She's frozen still, a pensive marble statue, and they mind her as pedestrians would along a well-traveled road. But a road, this is not. This trail has yet to be trampled, so they take it slow, nose to the air, and leaving no crevice unchecked. When the last of them pass, she whirls on a single stiletto and strides the way she came. Her eyes are stuck in a permanent roll, and she huffs a curt sigh.
Ordinarily, she would indulge in the game of cat-and-mouse. It was in her nature to tempt the inferno, only to tame its fiery dance. But this cold and cloudless day, something far more sinister plays. An old flame burns only to consume. This plot tastes of something far more nefarious. Something intentional. It left an ink stain amid all the strawberries.
She must get home.
The wolves aren't the smartest bunch, but unfortunately, there's always him making the wisest decisions. She spies him waiting by the car, leant against like a very formidable mop. He's not looking around. He isn't expecting her to show.
She doesn't bother. The tires are probably slashed anyway. Or, knowing him, something more critical. Like the breaks.
Downtown is rife with pedestrians. Mundanes mostly. Mundanes who go about their unextraordinary lives doing unextraordinary things – valeting for busy hotel services, serving exquisite food for the bourgeois, commuting from state office to state office. Or, driving the Uber that takes them there.
Occam's Razor.
Why look for a safe place to portal, when she can just...
"Lydia!"
"What's up Lyds?"
"What the hell is Stiles doing here?" her voice takes an accusatory tone as she takes a seat in the back.
Kira, who had been dancing in the driver's seat, meets her with wide, doe eyes.
"Please don't report me! He begged to come."
She catches him stealing glances and the smile he had slowly melts away. Lydia waves away the major infraction; it's not the first time they crashed a ride.
"Whatever. Just - go."
Her anxiety motivates her into a cold silence. Not of wolves pursuant, or any creature that crawls by day or takes flight in the night, she holds no fear. The Down world is her chess board, and she's the grandmaster. No, Lydia is afraid of only two things in this world. As her ride coasts the current of the city veins, her chest tightens and her breath finds escape uneasy.
The two upfront carry on a lighthearted conversation.
The early morning brightens into midday.
The car rolls to a wary end, a few blocks from the institute headquarters.
"Uh… Are you sure this is where you want to be dropped off?" Stiles scratches his temple and squints an eye.
"I mean. I can just drive you home, off the clock," Kira adds as she takes in the disembodied neighborhood.
Her words fade into nothing. Expression lost, Lydia peers out at things unseen. She paces the pavement deliberately. Shadows obscure her periphery, yet flee upon focus.
"Lydia?"
"Home isn't safe, can't go home."
"What? Your place is like a fortress. Bel couldn't…"
She turns to him, fierce with determination, "That little bastard broke through my wards." And with a snap, she opens a portal behind her, shimmering silver like water's edge, "Don't follow me."
She steps through, leaving no room for protest.
Stiles looks at Kira. Kira looks at Stiles.
Neither a question, nor statement, it was a confirmation of two converging thoughts.
"We're going after her, right? Yeah, ok."
Bellamy didn't slash the tires or cut the breaks. It's a pretty little buggy, cute in its compactness. Bright yellow and printed daisies. A classic. Something so intrinsically and inextricably Lydia – he could never dismantle it. Not in good conscience. When his very presence is enough to deter her from coming out this way, what would be the point? He's done enough in the name of revenge and retribution. Justice. He'd wait here, until they've scoured every inch of every corner of every street and every building. And when they come up empty, because no one sees the moves Bellamy sees, he'll dig his set of keys out of his pockets and drive it someplace safe.
She'll come to him then, where the lines of politics obfuscate, when the definition of them isn't confined to ridiculous binaries.
He's leaning against the buggy with crossed arms, and stares vacantly at a dynamic equilibrium of pedestrians. They're all blurs in his memory, ebbing through his mind like the capricious tides. Then, something alerts him. He looks around – for the squirrel – but whatever it was, he couldn't locate. No evidence of malintent, yet the bells never stop ringing. Each time he thinks he's got it, the danger escapes him. As if the mere observation of it forced the threat into inexistence.
The beating of a heart floods his ears, faint at first, until it rises into a cacophonic frenzy.
It's not his own.
He turns to face the buggy.
Gold infinites locks with his brown eyes. A lovely rose-red and fluffy pink light synchronizes with the throb of his heart. Clouds of darkest night suffocate.
It reaches out to him, through steel doors and pierces his chest.
The roiling, pulsating cloud twists around his beating heart and he screams. Viscerally.
Lydia looks around, confused at where her portal ended up. Her surrounds are familiar; it's where she spent her entire life. She was supposed to be inside the estate, not on the front patio deck. Inside. In. The usual ragamuffin around these parts has no chance of breaking the wards around the gate, let alone the cocktail of spells surrounding the manor. She knows of only six people who have the capacity do this, but only one who uses archaic and illegal runes to subvert the opposition. Or flee his own problems.
Lydia is a spaghetti maker, her magic the spaghetti, but nothing she concocts even dents the heavenly fire engulfing her home.
She resorts to furiously pounding on the door.
"Luca!"
She loves him, but his flagrant disregard for –
"LUCA!" she yells, feeling the anger stew.
"Oh, fuck me."
Luca's head thumps against the table top.
Bryan narrows his eyes, and they flit from Abigail to Luca, "...What?"
Almost like she couldn't believe it, Abigail slowly stands, then she's darting toward the door.
"You know, you'd think I'd have connected the dots by now?" he shoots up, and paces the floor frantically. His fingers comb through his hair and twine at the back; he tries to suffocate himself with his arms.
"What did you do?" his voice is clear and powerful, and the waves shocking through him exacerbates his guilt.
"Oh, I'm so glad I didn't let you kill her."
A look of confound contorts Bryan's face.
"Luca."
"You remember Lydia. Right?"
"Luke…" his eyes roll into the back of his skull as he pinches the bridge of his nose, elbows falling on the table.
"She's the one who attacked us!"
"She's not gonna give a fuck about that?"
The door beats furiously. Abigail tries abet the storm, but the flurry of questions she cannot answer only serves to infuriate further. Her own magic couldn't break through. With elderly poise and authority, she strides over and interrupts the argument occurring in her living room.
"You need to let my granddaughter in now."
Luca gives her his attention for all of half a second.
"Ok, ok. I break the seal. You whisk me away. Deal?"
"You can't keep screwing over your friends," as Bryan says this, Luca's face falls and the back of his throat starts burning as he tries to hold himself together, "Face it. I'll be here."
Luca sniffs, wipes his nose, and rubs his face, and sighs, "Fuck."
"Be right there!" he calls loudly so Lydia can hear. Forces a wry smile across his cheek.
He kneels in the spot where he initially placed the rune, the hearth that stokes the fire. He glances where he scribbled it out of the soft flesh of his palm. It reminds him, deeply, of the darkest day in his life. He didn't heal quite as quick then as he does now. He's lucky. What he could have lost that day, may have been lost forever.
His hand trembles, but grounds it in carpet threads and cotton balls.
He waves his stele over the mark in intense concentration. The fire recedes, the sea to Charybdis' jaws. It leaves a neat, blackened spot, stark against flawless white.
Every part of him begged to be shrunk into an infinitesimal point.
The door slams open.
Luca looks up, those green-hazel eyes full of disbelief – wide with shock.
"What the hell did you do."
He finally takes in his surroundings, and tries to suppress a smile. He fails.
"It looks like most of your decorations have been cottonized. Funny story – "
The temperature plummets, and suddenly he's dodging icicle spears. Narrowly – keeping a tight center and only moving just enough to evade them. That is, until he decides to punch one with his bladed knuckles, sending a lump of ice hurtling into his side before finally transforming into cotton and falling harmlessly on the floor.
He grunts and tries to wince away the pain.
"Ok, ok! No bullshit, just please. Stop."
"What. Happened."
"Picture this," he motions to the state of things, "except with more flying objects and your grandma trying to kill us!" he lets the anger well and bubble over, feels pinpricks of heat bite his skin, "We came to talk, and she met us with force," his nose is curled into a snarl as he takes mediated advances on the youthful witch, and throws nasty glares in Abigail's direction, "So you know what we did? We kicked grandma's ass and set her down to talk."
In a fit of frozen anger, she wraps his head in ice magic. With a twirl of her fingers, she drags him closer, right before her, and forces him to his knees.
"Next time you need to interview my family? Go through me first."
"Whatever! She. Attacked. Us!" he grunts, fighting through the stabbing pain, "Don't make me break out of this. It'll hurt you more than me. And I like you."
And like that, she relents. Luca squeezes his temples and nurses his skull as Lydia steps past him. Luca finds Bryan's gaze before continuing.
"Besides, it's not like you invite me over for Boggle or Life. Didn't know this was your grandma," again, he gestures to Abigail, "and I didn't know this was your house."
"You're not a good house guest."
Bryan snorts.
"What, exactly, was worth turning my place into the local fleece farm?"
"That's classified," he turns to Bryan for confirmation, "Yup. Very classified information."
"Clave orders," Bryan affirms.
Lydia sighs, "Which means – "
"I'm gonna tell you anyway," ,"He's going to tell you anyway," they say simultaneously.
"So get this - "
"They've appointed me Regent of Alpharetta," Abigail cuts in, her patience with Luca wearing thin, "Something significant is sending the underworld into a tailspin. I'm afraid that's all we can tell you."
"We." Luca mocks silently, slapping Bryan's shoulder.
"What? Between the demonic energy and lack of Shadowhunter marks, I thought my life was in danger." She shrugs, finally defending herself.
"Anyway," Luca claps his hands together with finality, "Our business here is done, actually. Bry. If you would do the honors?"
Lydia's arms cross, her lips pressed to a flat line.
"We'll catch up sometime! Promise."
Bryan firmly clutches Luca's shoulder, massaging it with strong hands. Tendrils of darkness coil all around them, nudging their legs and licking their skin. He passes an apologetic look to the ladies, but upon meeting Abigail's, his expression steels.
"Our agreement still stands."
Darkness swallows them up.