Once Upon A Time
Chapter 8
Clary P.O.V
Dinner had passed rather slowly, the only sound being the quiet clink of cutlery against plates and teeth. It was rather tedious.
I would much rather a canvas and some pastels, now that would be entertainment at its best. But this late at night, the moon high in the sky and illuminating a pool of white light through the window, I would imagine that the rest of the house is asleep. Which is probably what I should be doing right now, but I am struggling a little.
Isabelle had lent me an old night gown of hers that she said was much too small for her, but unlike her, I am not tall in the least, so the hem drags on the floor as I make my way to the bed in her spare room and snuggle down.
I rest my head down on the pillow and shut my eyes, falling asleep almost immediately.
Flames crackle in the fire place, sending a tender golden glow to the whole room. To the stone walls to the marble floor, everything is comforting and warm and familiar. Every corner and every crevice of this room makes the blood in my veins tingle and spark. And I don't know why.
The room dissolves and Jace appears, dressed in a simple white shirt and a sword in his hilt by his hip. "M'lady." He says, dropping down on one knee and bowing his head.
I move towards him at a sluggishly slow pace and then I am in front of him, and he looks up.
His eyes are beautiful, like pools of molten gold resting in the face of an angel. His high cheekbones, his full lips, his soft blonde locks. Everything about him, perfect. And he's looking at me like I'm a wonder of the world.
"Clary," He says, his voice sweet and thick like honey. "You have to know, I-" And then he chokes, the words stopping in his throat and his eyes widening to form shocked O's.
"Jace?" I sink to my knees beside him, panic setting in.
Then I see it. The scarlet stain blooming across his heart like a flower, staining the thin fabric with his own blood.
"Jace!" I screech.
He slowly falls back and I somehow find his head in my lap, my tears splashing onto his shirt and mixing with the ever growing ruby mark pulsing out of his chest. He claws at his chest as if in slow motion, his eyes confused and sad.
And then it stops. Everything.
His hands fall limp by his side and his eyes lose its light, like a flame dying without the oxygen it needs. And in that moment, I know it. He's gone.
"No, no, no," I cry, my tears falling and spilling over my cheeks and down. I repeat this like a chant, like it can somehow fix what's been broken and bring him back.
And in a blink of an eye, he's gone too. Disappeared between one choked sob and the next. I crumble to the ground, unable to gather enough strength to even hold myself upright, and sob.
I feel something cracking inside me, and I feel as if it can never be mended. I'm going to stay like this forever. Broken and unable to feel anything but the pain and sorrow that overwhelms me.
And the worst part, I don't even know what's broken.
When I wake I am screaming. Not a scared scream, but a heart wrenching cry I never knew I was able to make.
I cut it off as quickly as I can and cover my mouth with my hand and squeeze my eyes shut. It was just a dream. Just a dream.
But it felt too real, so vivid. Everything about it felt so completely tangible that I never stopped to think about what was happening. I never stopped to think. I'm shaking like I've stood out in the cold for the night, but my cheeks are burning and I feel like I'm about to pass out. A whimper rises in my throat as the door opens. Somehow I missed the sound of footsteps on the creaky floor.
"Clary," Jace hisses through the dark. The bed sinks beside me under the weight of him and suddenly I'm crying into his shoulder, bawling really.
I expect him to push me away, to at least give me an awkward half-hearted condolence. But instead he wraps his arms around me, using one hand to pat the back of my head and the other to rub my back. He whispers in my ear, but I can't make anything out over the sound of my own voice.
God only knows how long he held me in his arms, whispering reassuring sounds in my ear, but I can't help but notice the way I seem to fit perfectly against him, our heart beats pounding in our chests together, our breaths in sync.
"Just wait a moment," Jace whispers and his arms are no longer around me.
I feel cold, goose bumps rise along my arms and my skin feels frozen.
A flicker, a spark, and then light illuminates the room. Beside the bed, Jace has a candle in his hands, in the other a live match. He blows the match out and sets the candle on the bedside table before retaking his seat on the bed.
I can see him now, and the chill in my bones has receded, but something still feels wrong."
Are you going to tell me what's wrong," He whispers, grabbing my hand and squeezing it between his own.
I shake my head. "It was just a dream, I get them sometimes."
"A nightmare." He says, scooting closer. "I get those too. When I was younger, I used to have very bad ones," His adams apple bobs as he gulps. "And Maryse- that's Alec and Isabelle's mother -would sit with me the whole night. She'd light that candle," He says, poking a finger to the flickering flame at the bedside. "And she would tell me that as long as she was there, the nightmares would stay away, that she would fight them off for me."
"What were your nightmares about?"
He moves to open his mouth, but stops short. He closes it and averts his eyes. "My parents mostly." He mutters.
I can tell that this must be a sore point, because his eyes begin to water a little and his chin crumbles up like he's forcing back tears. After a little while, he speaks again. "What about you? What was your nightmare about?"
"I-" I don't want to tell him. I don't know why, but I don't. It just seems so strange, to dream so vividly of someone dying, only to speak with them minutes later. "I don't remember." I am a horrible liar.
And I can see it in his eyes that he knows as well.
He says nothing. What he does do is stand up, walk around the bed and lay down beside, his back against the head board.
"What are you doing?" I ask, my voice hoarse from crying.
"I'm going to fight off your nightmares." He answers, locking eyes with mine.
My lip trembles and new tears roll down the wet paths on my cheeks. I crawl back down onto the bed and rest my head in the crook of his shoulder, his arm around me. "Will you stay the whole night?"
"Yes, I would protect you with my life Clary"
And it is in this moment that I can almost hear the broken piece inside me fixing, stitch by stitch.
O~o~O
Magnus was the one to find Jace and I. Jace acted strangely afterwards and I can't figure out why, but I can see what Magnus was talking about when he said Jace doesn't like him very much.
For some reason Jace keeps shooting white hot glares and smirks in Magnus's direction, which he returns by smiling sweetly and chewing his pancake happily.
"Thank you Alec." Isabelle says as Alec sets another two pancakes down on her plate.
"No problem at all my darling little sister." Alec replies, planting a huge dramatic kiss on her forehead which she scrubs away with the palm of her hand, scowling at her older brother.
Magnus, who is sitting on one side of me mutters under his breath about how he didn't get one.
Jace stands up from the table and puts his plate in the sink before coming behind Alec and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Alec, we should leave. I want to get some things done afterwards."
"But, my panca-"
"You can finish them later, now com'on."
Alec looks longingly at his pancakes as Jace drags him from his place at the table and throws him some boots.
"Get your behind in gear, we've got work to do."
"What kind of work?" I ask, rising from my seat a little.
Jace snatches his satchel of the back of his chair and holds it up. "We're going to give the lost crown to the King. That is how we found you in the first place." He stops midway on swinging the satchel over his shoulder as he watches me rise fully from my seat and walk down the hall. "Clary, what are you doing?" He asks cautiously, sort of like he already knows the answer.
"I'm grabbing some shoes. I'm coming with you."
"No, you're not." He replies, pronouncing every syllable very clearly. He walks towards me, looking at me like I'm a child that needs to be protected from the world.
This only makes me more determined. "But why not?" I ask back, returning his stare with one of my own.
"Clary-" He begins, but is cut off by Magnus.
"You might as well say yes Jake, she's going to follow you anyway." He takes a bite of his pancake and looks evenly at Jace, who looks either like he's going to start an uproar for getting his name wrong or throw a tantrum and storm into his room. He chooses the first.
"It's Jace, for your information, and somehow I fail to see how this is any of your business." Jace hisses with thinly veiled distrust and anger staining his voice.
Magnus takes his time wiping the corner of his mouth with a napkin before rising from his seat and crossing his arms across his chest, his feline eyes habouring a faint fire. "Excuse me if I'm wrong, but if my memory serves well, I think I've known Clary for, I don't know, thirteen years longer than you? So in all honesty, I could be asking you the exact same thing. My advice would be take Clary with you to save yourself some trouble. And that, little Goldy, is the only advice you will ever hear from me."
Jace's eyes look like they could burn holes in the back of Magnus' head as he towards his temporary room. Once he hears the door click shut Jace turns back on me. "You're not coming." He states simply.
"But Jace-"
"No, don't even try it. You're not coming at that is that. I don't care if Isabelle has to sit on you, but you are going nowhere near that castle."
"Why? Why can't I go?" I ask, pleading Jace with my eyes.
"Because I said so, that's why."
For the first time, an unfamiliar burning begins in my stomach. A fire that keeps sending the strangest, defiant thoughts to my brain. Who is he to tell me what to do? I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself and if he won't take me, who's to stop me?
I shushed the voice and instead asked, "And how do you plan on keeping me here?" I crossed my arms over my chest and tilted my head to the side.
Jace's eyes send a shiver down my spine. His mouth curls into a bitter grin and he chuckles quietly. "Oh how you underestimate me..."
O~o~O
"Jace!" I squeal as he carries my awkwardly in arms. I thrash around in his grip and try to loosen his hold on me but his arms are like steel: Strong and determined to stay that way.
He kicks open my bedroom door and dumps me unceremoniously on the bed and before I can even blow my wild red curls out of my eyes, the door shuts with a click, and then the he turns the lock.
I scramble from the bed and bang on the door with all my strength. "Jace! Let me out right now!"
"I'll let you out when I get back." He replies through the heavy wooden door. He mutters something to Isabelle about not letting me out and then I hear Alec's footsteps join his and they're gone and out the door. I run to the window and watch with my mouth in a firm line as the two boys cross the street and disappear from view.
I jump onto the bed and squeal into the pillows, the sound coming out muffled by the stiff feathers.
A noise from outside the door catches my attention mid-scream. A heavy thump.
The door clicks and opens and in the doorway stands Magnus, his hands shimmering with slowly fading blue sparks. "Well?" He asks, gesturing to the window. "We following or not?"
O~o~O
The sight I found in the living room shocks me to say the least, because laying on the floor in a motionless heap, her long black hair spread out around her head, is Isabelle. "You killed Isabelle!?"
Magnus, confused, looks from Isabelle's unmoving body and back to me. "God no, I just put a weak sleeping spell on her, she should be fine in half an hour."
Should?
Magnus places a hand on my back and I whisper a quick apology to Isabelle's unconscious form before I am lead out the door. Magnus closes his eyes and tightens his fist on a piece of fabric in his hands.
I am almost tempted to ask what he's doing when his eyes shoot open. "Follow me."
Magnus steps, much like everyone else's, are much larger than mine, so I have to partially sprint to keep up with his long-legged strides. The streets are wide and paved with pale stones. Shop keepers holler their wares from their storefronts as Magnus and I zip past. The streets are a maze of almost identical paths and people. It's quote disorientating. I have no idea how Magnus manages it.
Magnus stops and I crash into his back. A grunt of pain dies in my throat as he puts a finger to my lips and nods to our right.
Jace and Alec are crossing the street again, this time to a grand castle looming in the distance, its gothic style spires piercing the sky like daggers.
Magnus smiles down at me, raises his hand, and holds his thumb against his middle finger. "And this, is where it gets fun."
He clicks his fingers.
The first thing I felt was this unbelievable hollow and weightless feeling, pleasant but horrifying at the same time, I felt like I was a part of the air itself. The second was that my entire body had disappeared. That was when I screamed.
A hand clamped down on across the lower half of my face and Magnus' voice whispered in my ear, "I may have made us invisible, but I'm afraid not sound proof."
Invisible. Magnus had turned us invisible! It seems the extent of his abilities is endless, I must ask how he does it soon...
I look in the direction of Magnus' voice and focus on the area, and in moments I can see an outline of him. He points after Jace and Alec and we follow, hard on their heels.
O~o~O
Getting past the guards was the easy part, finding the right room, now that was a struggle.
Every once in a while we would lose the boys in the maze-like corridors only to find them on the other side of the palace minutes later.
At one point, we'd accidentally walked into a room filled with plush toys and dolls made of china, a crib had sat in the middle, dusty and vacant.
Now, after re-finding the boys for the umpteenth time, they stop outside a grand door, painted a light creamy colour with golden flowers blooming from every corner. They went inside and I went to follow when Magnus grabbed my arm.
"Clary," Magnus said in an urgent whisper. "The spell will wear off soon, you need to do what you came to do then get out."
"You're not coming with me?"
He shakes his transparent face. "No, I'll wait out here. The spell is only going to last so long, if I focus it more on you than me it'll last longer. Now go, you're probably missing all the fun." Magnus mouth quirks up in the corner and I notice that he looks paler than he was before, a bit drained, his honey coloured skin dull.
I wrap my hand around his waist and hug his semi-transparent body. "Thank you." I whisper in the grand hallway before slipping inside.
Inside, I see a dark head and another fairer one, Jace. It could be anyone, but I can tell it's him simply by the way his shoulders tense as he bows down, his blonde head low. He doesn't like having to bow to anyone, that much is clear.
But it seems he doesn't have much of a choice, because scattered on the perimeter of the room are guards, all with their heads bowed like Jace and Alec's.
A man sits on an imperial looking throne, staring down at Jace and Alec with only mild interest. "Rise, sons of Idris." He commands to the boys. On his head, he wears a circle of gold, decorated in jewels and pretty illustrations that I can't quite make out.
I fight the urge to duck behind a marble pillar and walk forward and the boys rise from their kneeling position. The man with the golden circle stands up too, and walks towards the boys with calculated steps. "The crown, have you been able to retrieve it from Downworld?"
Alec stands slowly with his head still bowed. "Yes your Highness, Jonathan and I have brought it for you." Wait, Jonathan?
A flicker of a spark appears in the older man's eyes, an almost eager excitement. "Well? What are you waiting for?"
Jace stands and carefully digs into the satchel, bringing out the silver tiara in his hands, before handing it to the man.
He holds it in his hands with more care than I would think possible for such sturdy looking hands. His eyes quickly turn from eager to a silent sadness that chills me to my very core. His bottom lip quivers, only slightly, but I see. "The princess, she was not...?"
Alec looks down at his feet and shakes his head solemnly. "No sire, we could not find her."
The man turns away from the two boys, squeezing his eyes shut. I can only assume that this princess they talk of was this man's daughter. The king. When he turns back, his eyes are devoid of grief, of much of anything. His dark eyes are as blank as a fresh piece of parchment.
That's when the door bursts open.
Two guards carry in a semi-conscious form dangling between their arms. A head of dark hair sways from side to side and then he's thrown to the floor to his knees. His head lolls back and I see him. Magnus.
He looks dreadful, his black hair limp in front of his face and his maple syrup coloured skin drained to a neat grey. Magnus's eyes find mine, despite my invisibility, and he says one thing before passing out completely. "Oops."
The feeling washes over me like a tide going back to see and suddenly I'm visible again.
Jace and Alec both whir around to face me, their eyes forming identical circles of shock, Jace's mouth moves to say my name but he is cut off.
The older man, the King, steps forward. Silencing Jace with a wave of his hand. The grief is back in his eyes but now they are focused at me. His lips move slightly and I catch what he is saying, over and over like a chant.
Seraphina.