CHAPTER TWO

Even Angels Stop

Charlotte,

My sincerest apologies for not being able to address your concern sooner; I am afraid what Miss Herondale has recounted to you is true. Yorkshire, usually untouched by things of the Shadow World, has been aflutter since the leak of Mortmain's alliance with Ravenscar Manor.

The men of the Clave were, in fact, here and sought out to question every Downworlder and Shadowhunter who may have been invaluable. The others pointed me as a newcomer and the Council was specifically interested in why I had developed an interest in the little village. Fear not, I had recounted a tale of my longing of peace and solitude away from the blood and smoke that is the London sky.

The investigation on the Manor had proceeded merely a day after Miss Herondale's departure from the place. Reports indicate that the place had been made clean of any dastardly activities. No word of the clockwork servants or Edmund Herondale. As to where he is now, I fear I do not know. I believe I would be able to track him if I had an item that belonged to him but, as mentioned, the Manor was clean. They found nothing of value in the Manor home – nothing unusual but books inscribed in Chinese, herbs and spices of Eastern origin, and the like.

I currently seek the whereabouts of Edmund Herondale for I trust young Miss Cecily is secure in the hands of the Clave and I need not watch over her as you, and her brother, certainly will. I will report shall I find anything new and of importance.

Sincerely,

Ragnor Fell

X X X

"No!" shouted Will. "Absolutely not!"

"It is the mandate of the Clave," replied Charlotte kindly.

"I don't bloody care, she's just a girl!"

"And you're just a boy, William." She stepped from behind one of the bookshelves, being silent enough that no one had sensed her presence there. She knew how to be invisible as she had been so all her life. Her mouth was set in a line, her eyes fierce and piercing. "Do not discredit me as if you know me, William. You do not."

The meeting they had been discussing had been warranted from the request she had posed just the night before. Will, of course, was not supposed to be there; therefore, he was. The only one who was not there was Henry, who was much too occupied in his lab as he always was. Gideon preferred to keep out of the matter at hand. Tessa sat by Jem at a chaste distance, though their fingers grazed together every so often. He had been adamant at pressing the situation – that she not be permitted to become a Shadowhunter, that she be sent off to their family home in Wales with a multitude of servants who would keep her there and keep her safe.

"Our home in Wales had been sold. We were destitute before Uncle Axel found us and we had nowhere else to go-"

"The Clave can purchase the house-"

"And you speak for the entirety of the Clave? Are you of any significant importance that they do blindly whatever it is you say? I am a Shadowhunter by blood and by right and to withhold me from my wishes is against the Law."

Silence settled upon the room, Will's eyes looking away from her in defeat. No one in the room could look at anyone else in the eye. The only sound that could heard was the crackling fire. A few moments more and Will darted out the room without a second glance.

"He only means to keep you safe," muttered Tessa. Cecily let out a bitter laugh, bit her tongue, and shook her head.

"Well?" the girl asked.

"You begin training tomorrow morning," said Charlotte.

And with that, they were dismissed.

X X X

Gideon Lightwood was unperturbed by the ordeal.

Not that he was apathetic to anything but with the engagement of James and the arrival of Cecily Herondale, the Institute was aflutter about those instances rather than the betrayal of his father or of his betrayal of his own father or of his brother's questionable loyalty.

He walked around the corridors alone, as he always often did. Even in daylight, the corridors were damp and dark, as though living in a dungeon permanently. Then again, there was no difference to that for London was consistent in that one retrospect – that it was dark and damp and inconsistent, most of the time.

It was then made clear that it was he who will be training both Cecily and Sophie. Charlotte had preferred for Will to instruct her but she was not anticipating the apparent loathing that the girl had for her brother. Oh, how he empathized and envied them both. As much as she loathed him or appeared to, she must have some affection left for him. He was still her brother, still her bones and blood. By God, the way the light left Will's eyes as through even the angels in Heaven stopped to catch their breath at the sight of her coming in through those doors. Poor man had been through so much in a span of two days.

But then again, so had he.

X X X

The sun was peering through Wales that day. It was cloudy, mostly, and by God when was it not? Still, though. Wales was not familiar to the yellow light peering through from the white wisps above. You could see them roll around the mountains a lot and the sky was usually grey. If someone was to go into the woods by himself during the fogs though, that will probably be the last anyone will ever hear of the poor bloke. Or lass. But it was a pleasant enough to grow up in, Wales was. And much like that day, that last good day, oh Angel, when the Sun came through those clouds on rare clear days or even when the light seeped through the fluff… You could practically hear God gloating and sighing like He Himself can't believe He could make something so beautiful. It's all silent for a second because even the angels stop to gaze.

That was the last image that Cecily had of home, back when she was still allowed to be a child. She and her mother had only left for a few hours and Ella had complained of little less but a headache and the buildings of a small rash. It was probably something that grazed her skin when she was out in the gardens.

She shook the image out of her head, commanded it to never exist again; but, memories were cruel that way. You can never choose what to remember, much like you cannot always choose what happens to you.

Cecily sat in front of her vanity table, carefully brushing her hair, finding the repetitive motion somewhat soothing, bringing her back to a time beyond her, back to a land where even the angels stopped to wonder how something could be so beautiful. It calmed her frustration, soon enough her fingers stopped shaking and her shivers weren't by the cold.

There was a knock on her door and her brush stuck in her hair. Silence broke through, like respect for the angelic passersby.

"Who is it?" she said, her voice soft.

"Cecy."

More passing angels, some of them passing for the show. Will waited outside the door, his hands in his pockets, trying to remember the last time he knocked on his little sister's door. All he could remember was her knocking on his – she in tears, him her comfort. Who would have thought they would end up this way in merely five years?

For a moment, he sounded like himself, exactly as she had remembered him although much more grown up. Not like his father, no; his voice smoother, steadier – the kind that could woo knickers off the Reverend Mother herself.

The clacking of her heels sounded from the room, the sound getting stronger as she neared the door. Slow and steady as the sea.

The door opened. "Yes?"

Her intelligent wide eyes were bright, piercing – sharp as shards of shattered glass.

"We're going to have to talk sooner or later," he said, his hands still in his pockets, his hair hiding his eyes. His voice may have been his but his posture dictated otherwise. "Might as well get it over with."

She raised an eyebrow and her mouth twitched up to a smirk. "Get it over with – is that what you said to yourself when you left us?" She turned away from the door and Will stared at its frame. "Well, Will? Are we going to get it all over and done with or what?"

"I did not mean for it to sound like-"

"Yes. Yes, you did."

She went to her vanity and resumed combing her hair. She was already clad in familiar Shadowhunter black but it was different for him on her. She was so little when he left her – when he left all of them – still so free and fiery. The girl in front of him still burned but it was of a different kind of fire.

"Sil-"

"No, William. I will not leave here without being trained, as is my right by birth and blood. I will not have you train me. And you will have no say in what I do here or anything else."

"I'm still responsible for you," he said, his voice quivered with conviction.

"You abandoned that responsibility when you abandoned me, us. When you abandoned us."

All colour and conviction that Will may have gained, vanished. "I never meant to. I didn't want to!"

"But you did! You did, Will. Five years and not a letter, a word, a hair, a sixpence that may have fed us on Christmas morn, but you didn't!" Her eyes were closed, her fists clutching her hairbrush, her head turned away from him. A solitary tear had left her eye and she hastily brushed it away with the back of her hand.

"You killed me when you left, Will," she said through gritted teeth. "To Mother and Father, all they cared about was you."

"That's not tr-"

"Yes, it is! Every day and every night for five years, Mother would look outside a window, any window, waiting for you to come back home. And for a while, I did too." She looked at him then, the tears freely flowing from both their eyes. Will said nothing.

"I… I knew you would never leave me like that. Ellie'd already gone but I knew you wouldn't, not even if you were dead. You promised," her voice broke. "Both of you did."

"Silly, all I did was to protect you," he said, half whispering to himself. Was that even true though? He knew the fib of the curse, the lie that had destroyed him, his family, his beloved sisters… his beloved. So much had been taken away from him and in turn, he had taken so much away from everyone else. He was not the brother Cecily Herondale deserved but she was the little sister he so desperately needed. He needed that same little girl again, that weeping little girl to come and need him again, to come into his room and hold her until the lightning went away.

"Fine work you've done doing that, then," she said, brushing her hair again. Her fingers were shaking again.

"I know I've wronged you,"

"You've done much more than that."

"I know, Cecily. I know that. All I ask for is a chance-"

"You've had five years worth of chances, Will."

"Just let me explain why I did what I did."

"Why should I?"

"I wanted the rose to be still on the bush. And my sweet beloved to still be loving me. Please, Cecy. Hear me, just this once." And standing in front of her was her Willy again. She did not see the sharper angles of his jaw or the defeated dark circles under his eyes. He was the twelve-year-old boy, meek and lovely as a maiden, bowing his head, begging for his little sister to come back home – to him.

"Don't you dare use Ella against me, to make me listen to you."

"I just want to protect you-"

"YOU NEVER HAVE BEFORE!" she bellowed, her shriek bouncing off the Institute walls. "All those years, Mother never saw me again. She only saw you – she looked at me and saw you. You want me to go back to Wales – I have nowhere to run back to, Will! We've lost the house in Wales – Father threw away all the money we had for drink and gambling. I've had to keep house for others while ours rotted away for a penny or two, had to launder other families' clothes while I wore the same dress for months on end, had to steal and get beaten for it – just so mother would eat something other than mint leaves on water. You say you want to protect me then where were you when we needed you – when I needed you?"

"I can explain-"

"No," she said softly. "No more. Leave."

"Cecily…"

"I said leave."

"Chwær, please. I love you." He took a step closer to her.

"NO!" she yelled, throwing her hairbrush at him with all the force and strength that she had.

The brush hit him squarely on the side of his head. She was still strong, still swift, still with nearly precise aim. She rose from her seat and stormed up to him, pushing him out the door. He still begged in protest for her to listen to him but she only pushed, cried, and said no. She beat his chest with her fists, him trying to hold her wrists to calm her down as he did when they were children to have her calm down, but she wouldn't.

"Silly, please!"

"No! Get out! I have no brother, my brother is dead!"

She slammed the door in his face, locked it, and fell to the floor, her face buried in her hands, weeping as silently as she possibly could.

X X X

She heard Cecily's screaming through and walls and knew that Will had gone over to talk with her. It was never going to fare well, the first talk, that much she knew. Her heart pained for Will and Cecily both – siblings who had just found each other but for all the darkness and cruelty that their fates possessed, they were in for naught.

Tessa was in her room, alone. She paced quietly from one corner to the other, giving up on reading entirely. She tried to read, to maybe escape as she always did in her books, but through all the words that swum around the pages, the colour turns to the all too familiar hue of broken blue, the dark haired boy coming to mind with every hero and hopeless case and daring rescue and how the hero was supposed to always get the girl; the dark haired boy she can't help but-

A knock on the door and she could only stare at it. What if it was Will, completely inconsolable with grief? Her heart pained at what she had brought him through and everything else that had gone wrong for him. As though there was some kind of law that said that everything that could go wrong, will and would. What would she do if it were him and what would she do if it were not?

"Tessa?" The voice at the other side of the door was voice of the one she had promised herself to. She opened it and one look at him and she thought of kisses against walls and words she'll never be told again. And to see him as broken down as he was over her and to have another woman break him even more – even she could not take it. It was not her burden to bear but she held it in her shoulders, carrying it like a precious child in her womb.

She fell into Jem's arms and he held her close to him, brushing her hair with his thin fingers.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered, her face half buried on the crook of his shoulder. He smelled of spice, tea, and London rain.

"But here I am," he said, soothing her hair.

"You heard the yelling this morning – he needs you," she replied, pushing him away gently, but only to look at him.

"I know. I just needed to make sure you're alright," he said, brushing stray hairs away from her face. "I know you care for him as I do so could not possibly be alright with this either."

Her heart sunk to her feet, the guilt rushing in. "Have you see him?"

"You worry for him." She nodded. "Fret not, my love. I know where he is. I'll take care of him for you."

X X X

He had not seen Will for the entire day.

Normally, this would not have bothered him as much but with everything that had been going on, Jem was worried. The girls were with Gideon in the training room, as was his beloved. He would have trained Tessa himself if were not so sickly but he agreed that Will was more qualified than he. If there was anyone he trusted with his life – his future wife – it was Will. He knew that to be true.

But he was not there for training and not even his sister was concerned.

Normally, when Will was not around, he would say that he was off at some mundane inn, saying that he had been dishonouring young girls and becoming intoxicated with every pint of alcohol he could get his hands on. But he knew, Jem knew, that Will never did any of those things. He was always the better man, much better than anyone else in the world chose to see him as. He was anti-modest, destroying himself for others despite the good that he is for reasons Jem didn't understand. He knew this to be true.

In all the years the two boys had known each other, people had always seen him as kinder. People would often be so kind if they too knew the finality of their lives, that each breath could be their last. Humans are born terminal but tend to imagine themselves immortal, as though they were assured of immortality. Jem knew death was coming and knew that if he was going to do some good in the world, he needed to do it then and there. Will made himself look as though he took the other path – the path that lived in selfishness, in frivolity, in hedonism. But he was good – selfless, even – and that, Jem knew to be true.

Which is why the strong scent of alcohol coming from the library had surprised him and the person laying amongst filth and broken glass had surprised him even more.

"Will, what are you doing?"

"Becoming what everyone believes me to be."

X X X

A/N: Ahhh, update after forever! I kept delaying writing this because Will/Cecily interaction kills me at this point. Right in the fangirl feels! The line that Will recites is from a song that you'll hear about soon enough (or if you're a sneaky sneak, you already know where I'm going with this). Thank you to Rachel, Anon Guest, and maryann544 for reviewing. It means a lot! I already have a bit of Chapter 3 written up so hopefully the wait won't be as long. Then again, feedback gets me motivated. Wink.

Thank you for reading! I'm looking for a beta – just hit me up at snapspotter or sisypheandreams on Tumblr.

xx, Jonnah.