Will walked into the weapons room with his hair still dripping. He had plunged his head into the icy water from the chipped basin on his wash stand multiple times in an attempt to relieve his hangover.

While it had shocked him out of his stupor, his head still gave the occasional throb. It had drastically slowed his progress on making his way back up to his room and getting into his gear. If he could have his way, he'd pass out in an instant and pick this job up again in the morning.

Surly after all these months in a warlock's house the girl wasn't going anywhere. One more night wouldn't make any difference, he tried to assure himself.

But every time he tried to stop what he was doing and lie down, there were always the image of those large brown eyes that seemed to be seared onto the inside of his eyelids.

The idea of disappointing that little girl bothered him more than he thought.

And after all this time he thought he had desensitized himself to these kinds of things.

But the girl thought he was an angel. And though his Shadowhunter lineage guaranteed the fact that he indeed had angel blood running through his veins, that was not a comparison given to him by other people.

So, grinding his teeth against the pain he had forced himself to sit back up and stick his feet into his boots. That damn little girl was going to drive him mad until he brought the older girl back to her. Better to do it quick and get it over and done with.

It had been a chore trudging back down there, but the hopeful promise of a peace of mind drove him onward.

The doors were already open, and as he trudged in the first thing he saw was Emmaline, already in gear and testing out a pair of ulaks carved from softly glowing amadas.

He felt old irritations rise up in him as he watched her pumpkin spice colored ringlets bounce around the nape of her neck. For no adequate reason, her hair had always annoyed him.

It was pinned and tucked up in a twisting, braided, and curling mass, trailing just a few locks to fall over her ears and around her shoulders. The ringlets were natural, and required no use of irons, yet retained an eternally happy bounce with every movement she made. It set his teeth on edge.

Jem always wondered why, but Will had never been able to give any sort of answer other than 'it just does.'

"I must say William," Emmaline drawled as she halted her movements. "I am not sure if I should be flattered by the fact that you're staring at me…or if I should throw you into the nearest weapons rack."

"Don't flatter yourself," he said bluntly as he made his way to the opposite end of the room and picked up a newly polished seraph blade. "You really have nothing worth staring at."

"That's more like it," she replied as she strapped the ulaks into her weapons belt. "I'll admit I was not quite sure how to handle you in that sulky mood, so I'll let you get away with that one."

"You don't need to handle anything Emma dear," he sighed as he began stocking his own belt with blades and throwing knives.

"Funny," she snapped back. "I don't recall giving you permission to call me Emma."

"Since when do I need permission to do anything?"

Emmaline fell quite, her eyes like chips of blue glass. She crossed her arms, her hip popping slightly as her weight shifted onto her right foot. The infernal ringlets bounced merrily as her head tilted to the side, striking another nerve with Will.

He didn't know how he could possibly last this mission without cutting them off.

"Has it ever occurred to you that we might have been good friends if you had only been kinder on our first meeting?" she finally asked.

"Perish the thought," he replied almost immediately. "I'm actually quite fond of our cat and dog relationship."

His eyes widened a fraction of an inch as he realized that it was true. While he didn't see Emmaline often, he enjoyed talking circles around her and watching her get flustered and angry. Her self-control around her temper was quite low, and it was always amusing seeing how long she could stick it out before she went off the deep end and tried to break his neck.

Not that she was incapable of that.

She was small, but powerful.

Their heavy silence was broken by Klaus walking in, fully dressed in his gear with a set of dual axes strapped to his back. He observed them with barely concealed exasperation, as if he was sharing Will's dread for this mission now that he had a reminder of how well Will and Emmaline worked together.

But since he had already volunteered their services, it would be rather rude to pull out now.

"Cyril is almost done saddling the horses," he said somewhat awkwardly. "Are we ready to leave?"

Emmaline nodded and walked over, her arms still crossed and fingers itching to throw something at Will.

"You two go on ahead," Will said, attempting to make himself sound nonchalant. "I need to stop in on Charlotte for a minute."

Klaus led Emmaline out, and her hair bounced around her shoulders with every step she took, making Will's fingers itch for his knives.

He waited till they were out of sight before making his way over to Charlotte's study. The nagging in his head wouldn't stop until he talked to her about it. Sure, this would make Charlotte look at him differently, as well as give her another thing to worry about, but he needed to.

Damn those big brown eyes.

He entered without knocking, and Charlotte looked up from feeding some documents to the fire blazing in the hearth.

The bruise-like shadows beneath her eyes were lightening, and her hair was now combed and piled high on her head in a simple bun. She tossed the rest of the papers into the crackling flames before straightening the skirts of her cream colored dress.

"I thought you were leaving already," she said as she made her way back to her desk.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," he said bluntly. "The girl down at the orphanage Charlotte...her name is Nettie. About seven, blond hair and large brown eyes, and in a ratty pink dress. Do you think it's possible…?"

He trailed off, the words sticking in his throat. Will cursed mentally. He knew what he wanted to say, but he couldn't seem to form the words.

Charlotte gestured for him to continue, trying to mask the confusion in her eyes.

"I know you have your hands full with…" he gestured towards her stomach, which was still flat, but her eyes went soft as she understood.

"Then you better be sure to bring this girl back," she said with a soft smile. "I'm sure it would be heartbreaking for Nettie to be given a promise of a better life without her being a part of it."

Will nodded and offered her the smallest of smiles in return, and Charlotte was all but beaming.

"I'll go speak to Henry about it," she said as she began to pack away the many things littering the surface of her desk. "And you had better be going."

He nodded and raced out of the study, and through the halls that led to the courtyard.

Emmaline and Klaus were already waiting by the fountain out front, where three horses were saddled and ready.

Emmaline held the reigns of a glossy blue roan stallion, one of the horses that had pulled their carriage this morning. Klaus was stroking the side of the other one, a white Andalusian mare. Balios stood beside the mare, glancing up at Will as he made his way over.

"Is Jem not coming with us?" Klaus asked innocently, noticing the absence of Xanthos as he handed Balios over to Will.

Will saw Emmaline's eyes flit over towards him to gauge his reaction. He could see her shoulders stiffen as she ran her fingers through her stallion's mane, trembling slightly with each pass they made.

"He's not," he replied sharply as he swung a leg up on Balios's back.

He could see Emmaline's shoulders slump slightly and her hands stopped trembling. Klaus seemed to notice as well, and tried to quickly distract her.

"Are you taking Arion or Despoina?" he asked.

"Arion," she replied in a sulky tone as she led her stallion away from him.

Will rolled his eyes as she stopped suddenly, her gaze fixed on the cobblestones of the courtyard. Arion nudged her back with his nose, seeming to understand that she was upset. Emmaline turned back to look at her stallion over her shoulder, a faint smile on her lips.

She placed a light kiss on his nose and gave his muzzle a quick stroke before she swung herself up onto his back.

"Alright," she sighed. "Let's get on with it."

And with that, Will drew the ribbon from his pocket and revived the tracking rune.

XXX

Cia's breath was knocked out of her as she slammed sideways into a large rock.

Her eyes widened as she took in the large ball of purple fire flying straight towards her face. To her relief she fell faster than the fire flew, and hit the floor with an extra hard thud due to her arms being currently covered in a layer of stone.

She landed face first and got a lungful of dust and dirt.

Miss White let out a laugh that sounded like someone smashing a pair of bells against a rock. She swooped down from her usual unreachable elevation, the tips of her billowing skirts brushing Cia's back as she lay trembling and gasping at her captor's feet.

"What? Are we done already darling?" she taunted as she prodded Cia's bruised side with the toe of her black satin slipper. "I am sure you can win if you try again."

The same taunt every day.

The same words that mocked Cia and bit into her and burrowed under her skin.

She looked up at Miss White with intense loathing burning deep in her bones. The woman laughed and twirled around her, her toes kicking multiple spots on her side and back. Her laugh was making a transition towards a mad cackle, and it sent a shiver down Cia's spine.

"Useless," Miss White cackled as she gasped her breath. "That is what you are Cia darling. Useless! I am wasting time here! You should have been ready ages ago! Yet here you are! Lying in the mud like a dog! Fitting for the likes of you! I should have left you to rot in the orphanage!"

She turned her back to Cia, laughing maniacally as she struggled to push herself up into a crouch.

"The money, the glory! All a waste! I thought I would finally show I was more valuable than the Dark Sisters…but you are hopeless! Why was something as pitiful as yourself brought into this world? What reason do you have to be alive?! Tell me why I should not just kill you right here and now and rid the word of your miserable existence?!"

Cia let out a blood curdling shriek as she threw herself at Miss White. She was slowed a little by her stone covered arms, but she had caught Miss White on a rant. And obviously the warlock had not expected her to be able to stand on her own, let alone continue to attack.

Their bodies collided with a thud and Cia took them down to the floor and began to bash and tear at Miss White's face with her hands. The stone made it difficult to do much other than bruise it. Cia wanted to tear and rip. Or at least make it bleed.

But she barely even got a chance to do much damage, since Miss White regained her ability to react. Cia found herself in an almost identical situation to the one she was in a few moments before. She was flung into a wall, but instead of being left to drop back down to the floor, she was flung speeding across the room to the opposite wall.

Panic quickly set into her mind as she saw the hard packed dirt flying towards her. In a vain attempt to cushion her impact, she tried to move the stone from her arms to cover her back.

It didn't help, and the force of the impact had her seeing stars.

She was moving again, but she couldn't tell if she was going up or down. She was halted for a second. Enough time for her swimming vision to realize that she was just barely brushing the ceiling. Miss White's pale face was the only distinguishable think from that height.

Her heart leapt into her throat as she began her decent with a swipe of the warlock's hand.

There was nothing she could possibly do to stop this fall from crushing every bone in her body. Tears welled up in her eyes that had nothing to do with the force of the air flying past her face. She was going to die.

And she was going to die without her life meaning anything.

She clamped her eyes shut, bracing her body for the impact.

But instead, her body was brought to a neck snapping halt, hovering a few feet off the ground as is if she was spread out onto a pane of glass.

She opened her eyes warily.

Miss White was hovering underneath her. Her pale face was bruised with small round circles around her forehead from Cia's fingertips, but despite that she was smiling. Cia had expected her to be furious for ruining her precious face, but instead she reached up and cupped Cia's face in her heads so it was impossible for her to look anywhere other than into those bottomless tunnels that passed for the woman's eyes.

"So you are ready…"

XXX

The three of them had been riding for hours in a rather strained silence.

Will was in the lead, followed by Emmaline with Klaus bringing up the rear. They had just ridden past Witney, and were stopping to rest and water the horses by a stream that was not large enough to have a name.

Klaus offered to water the horses, leaving Will and Emmaline sitting under the trees in an even more strained silence then when they were riding. Crickets chirped, and the both of them could tell the other was extremely uncomfortable.

Eventually, Will decided that he had had enough, and attempted to break the tension.

"So Emma dear," he drawled. "I think you may have set a new record."

Her eyes flickered over to him, as if she was wondering if she should take the bait. She bit her bottom lip, as if she was trying to stop the words from tumbling from her mouth. But she lost.

"What are you talking about?" he sighed.

"You've been here almost a full day and we've had not one mention of Jem from you."

Emmaline shot him a murderous glare accompanied by a high flush in her cheeks.

"Stuff it," she hissed as she turned away and tried to cool her face with her hands.

"By the Angel," will teased as he leaned back against his tree. "I think this is the most I've ever seen you act like a girl."

He could see her ears turning scarlet where they peeked out from her ringlets. He rolled his eyes. This was way too easy. It was only a pity Jem wasn't here to see it.

His own chest gave a painful lurch.

No. He didn't want Jem here. But at the same time, he did. If Jem was here it would mean things were alright.

But they were far from it.

~Author's Notes~

I did it! I finally updated this. I'm so sorry it took so long for like the five of you who actually read this ;A;