Author's Note: This chapter contains torture and captivity.

Chapter Seven

Jace crawled towards the door, where his only hope of life sat there mockingly.

He grabbed the measly loaf of bread and tin of water before dragging himself back to his corner. The food had been sitting there for probably three or more hours. Jace had lost track of time a good while ago.

After the person behind the door pushed the food through an opening—one that had surely been made by a stele to avoid his taking advantage of the gap, and then closed over again—Jace had only sat staring at the helping not large enough for a two year old.

Determined not to eat or drink anything Sebastian was offering, Jace had decided to count seconds to distract his aching throat and stomach. Every sixty seconds, he would draw a line through the dust and grime on the wall, marking a minute. When he got to twenty sets of tallies, he had played tic-tac-toe with himself; Os were his left hand, Xs were his right.

But after another twenty games, Jace's mind had started to wander again, and the pain steadily returned. The iratze Sebastian had left him with had glowed eagerly for some time, trying determinedly to stitch wounds together that may have actually needed stitches, before sluggishly wearing off, and the mark was nearly invisible now, another thin, silvery scar—and some meagerly healed wounds—the only sign it had ever been applied. The pain that had returned upon its disappearance was becoming a bit more than just distracting.

The hunger and weakness had become too great not to eat. And though he was fairly certain no one was actively watching him in his cell, he had almost felt embarrassed giving in and going to retrieve the food. Now that it was in his hands though, any embarrassment was replaced by fear of what might be in the food.

He picked at the bread first, slowly nibbling chunks of dried dough, testing it. He took one microscopic bite after another, until enough time had passed, and no new symptoms had developed, that he was satisfied and certain enough that it wasn't poisoned. Jace greedily scarfed the last of it and licked his lips and fingers of any crumbs. The bread was little, and settled heavily in his long empty stomach, but it was enough.

He then looked down at the tin of water. It was maybe about a cup's worth. Water, he presumed, but it was foggy, as if it had been run through gravel before scooped into the tin. He tried to take a small sip, tried to proceed cautiously as he had with the food, but as soon as the water touched his cracking lips and tongue, he was gulping it, shuddering as the soothing, cold liquid ran down his throat.

He only managed to pry his mouth from the tin when he saw it was half empty, and set it down. Logically, he knew he should ration the water, but now that he had drunk some, it was all his body wanted.

It wasn't on his mind for too long though, as a ripple of pain suddenly rushed through him, and he closed his eyes and tried to will away the burning in his chest, back, face, and arms. After inspecting his injuries, he concluded Sebastian had most likely dipped his weapons in demon venom, or that the weapons themselves were forged demon metal, before cutting Jace open with them, because the cuts were deep and nasty looking, bruised a dark blue-black beneath the layers of dried blood. The iratze had been a bandaid where a tourniquet was needed, and now that it was gone, just the wrong movement had him writhing on the floor, which…was another problem.

The cell was filthy, and Jace had open wounds. If the headache and the hot and cold flashes that plagued him were anything to go on, he was already developing a fever, which meant at least some of the wounds were infected. He glanced back down to the tin of water, and decided there wasn't nearly enough to waste on trying to flush already festering injuries. So he would sit, as he had been, as still as possible to avoid worsening the pain, and try to draw out the fluids as long as he could. That, and he would try—and fail, as he had been failing since he arrived here—to not think about Clary.

But the other day had made that increasingly difficult.

Jace did not cry. Almost never cried. But he had, then, when he could hear Clary screaming. He didn't think he could ever feel more useless than he did in that moment, listening to her crying out in pain and fear, but then she was screaming for Jace, and everything seemed to crumble apart around him.

He didn't know what Sebastian had done to her, and as much as he told himself he didn't want to know, it didn't keep his mind from picturing the possibilities. So he had cried and screamed, until the tightness and grief in his chest turned to a hatred so strong that he pounded on the walls and door, despite the way it ripped open his wounds, until he physically couldn't continue.

I'll kill him. I'll kill him before he touches her again. It was what he had told himself, when he couldn't move any longer, no energy left to fight or even cry. But there was still the little voice in the back of his mind that told him Sebastian could be with Clary right now, doing anything he damn well wished. Jace buried the thoughts as best he could.

Right now, he had to work on a plan to get them out, and he couldn't do that if he was dead of thirst or starvation.

He picked up the water again and took a conservative sip.

And a brilliant pain erupted across his chest.

He yelled, falling to his side, the tin of water clattering across the floor and spilling the last of it on the stoney ground. The pain was so sharp, so burning, that it took Jace a moment to realize it wasn't something from the torture. A throbbing agony seemed to be spreading from his parabatai rune, causing the fingers on his right hand to go numb as it radiated outward from his collarbone.

From the corner of his eye, he could see it burning—literally on fire—flames curling out of the rune, and he screamed, his hand flying to the mark to try and dampen the flame or cease the pain. But the flames continued burning beneath his hand, the light of the fire growing until it was nearly blinding, and he had to turn his face away, eyes closed tight.

When Magnus' face appeared on the back of his eyelids, hazy but clearly there, he thought he must have passed out.

Jace? The warlock's silky voice echoed through Jace's head, and it was just as disorienting as the pain itself.

Jace tried to gather a breath to reply, but when his lips parted, it was someone else's voice that came from his throat, just as distant and echoey as Magnus' had been in his head.

Magnus…Hurry, I'm going…to….

Alec. It was Alec.

Jace wanted to cry in relief at the sound of his parabatai's voice, wanted to reply, to scream, to do anything at all to let them know he was here, he was here, but Magnus' face began to slip from his mind, and Jace could only groan as everything went black and numb, like a burned out ember. And then just as quickly as it had come, the fire ceased.