The pungent smell was nearly enough to make him retch, but he locked his jaw and willed himself to keep down what little liquid was still in her stomach. When the nausea lessened, and his brain could once more aim its attention on anything that wasn't the stabbing pain in his abdomen and the foul smell of his medication, he rolled his head towards the window and tried focusing on the distant noise of ocean waves and the pair of demons squabbling over the remains of some decaying carcass and tried not to think at all. The wounds were starting to ache more insistently, and he knew that it would only get worse as the pain killers wore off. It was one of those rare moment where Sebastian regretted no longer having the help of runes, a quick iratze would have already fixed the problem and he could already be hunting the rebel scum who did this to him. Well, to Jace, actually. He would have to find a way to remove the physical side of their bond, too, he reasoned. It was becoming more and more of an annoyance now that Sebastian no longer had necessity to use him as blackmail with the Clave or the Lightwoods. A sigh escaped his lips, painful against his parched throat, the weight of the blankets stifling on top of his body, leaving his clothes and hair damp with sweat and clinging uncomfortably to his body.

He was rather sure it was the pain that first summoned her. His vision was blurred and his head ached sharply, Sebastian blinked with some difficulty and, when he opened them again, he saw her, standing at his bedside and looking down at him. She was still dressed in the red ceremonial dress she had worn the last time he saw her, still young and with a healthy tone to her skin and her eyes sharp and lively. There was nothing that suggested there could be something wrong with her, not a thing that could give away the fact that she was dead. Except the large stain of blood on the front of her dress. Her expression was unreadable, but when she met his eyes, he didn't look away.

He licked dry lips with a dry tongue. "What are you doing here?"

The words barely scrape past his parched throat, but she seemed to understand them perfectly nevertheless. She shrugged one shoulder. "You tell me."

Fair enough. Sebastian was not yet so far gone that he couldn't distinguish a hallucination when he saw one. He bared his teeth at her in a mockery of a smile as a dull disappointment settled in his chest. "You must be loving seeing me like this."

A small crease formed between her brows. "Not as much as you would think."

"Liar."

Her eyes snapped to his, the corner of her mouth twisting downwards. "Gloating was always more your thing than mine."

There was so much fucking self-assurance in her voice. It grated against his nerves. Sebastian knew she was not really here - that her body had long since rotted to bones miles away from here - but he still couldn't stomach the thought that even just the memory of her could still be here, watching and judging and lording her final victory over him. He snarled with all the bite he could muster. "You expect me to believe you're not getting even a little satisfaction out of seeing me like this, little sister? I would in your place."

Clary actually laughed softly. "Maybe we are not so alike as you thought, then."

Sebastian huffed out a hollow laugh. "Maybe you should stop acting like you are so much better than me. Then you would have seen I was right. But you had to go and play the hero, didn't you Clarissa? Go and get yourself killed." He swallowed, remembering the splatter of blood mixing with sand, his sister's chest torn open and white bone showing. The cries and the screams and above all else the feeling of emptiness that deepened with every blow, leaving him drowning and desperate.

"As if you had nothing to do with that!" she exclaimed, her face suddenly thunderous, "What did you expect me to do, then? Just nod along and let you turn the world in this twisted place just for your entertainment?"

"I could have given you everything!" His hands spasmed at his sides, gripping the sheets hard enough to tear them, "And yet you chose to betray me."

Clary's expression turned sad. "Look around, Sebastian. The world has turned empty and hollow. There is nothing here that could have made me happy. The 'everything' you wanted to promise me is nothing but a lifetime of pain and misery."

He kept his face hard. "So why is it that you're here, then? To get an apology?"

"An apology wouldn't change anything." Clary snorted. It was unnerving how real she looked, he could even see her hair and the hem of her dress flutter thanks to the soft breeze coming through the open window. "As for why I'm here, well, you should ask yourself that. I'm only here because you want me here. Maybe I'm the one you want to see. Or, maybe you just can't run away from your guilty conscience anymore."

Sebastian felt a stab of anger cut through the haze of pain. "I never ran away."

"Bullshit. You want me to believe that you moved to Beverly Hills because you liked the view of the decaying city better than the one in New York? Or are you just taking a very long holiday?"

He clenched his fists harder, nails cutting into his palms. The sting of it was drowned out by the searing pain of his wounds that was coming back in full force. "I don't care what you think," he whispered closing his eyes, blocking out the sight of her, "You're one more corpse in this bone yard, and I don't give a fuck what happened to you. You deserved it, for trying to stop me."

Sebastian knew he had always been good at hurting people, it was something he prided himself on even, the easiness with which he could find a person's weak spot and have them groveling at his feet was nothing short of exhilarating. And now he hoped he was hurting her too. Hurting her like she had hurt him with her betrayal, the wound of it only worsened by her premature death. Yet, despite his growing tiredness and the pounding in his head getting worse, it was not quite enough to drown out her laugh. "Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that."

He fixed her with a withering glare, ignoring the black spots creeping in from the edges of his vision. "You're not going away, are you?"

Clary shook her head, looking infuriatingly unbothered, and crossed her arms over her chest, partially hiding the splatter of blood. "Guess not."

"Okay. I get it." A bitter smile tugged at his cracked lips. "You're going to make me suffer, aren't you?"

The world faded out before he could catch her reply.

He woke again well after sundown with the sea breeze tugging at his burning skin. Sebastian opened his eyes and stared out of the window. If he craned his neck enough, he could just glimpse the ocean on the other side of that bluff, but even the smallest movements such as taking a slow breath made his ribs creak and his lungs ache sharply. A soft breeze came in off the water, wicking away the demoniac's smell of decay and filth and replacing it with faint notes of crisp and salty and living. He couldn't really feel his hands anymore, but maybe that was for the best. Sebastian swallowed past the sandpaper in his throat and lifted his head.

She was still there, still watching him with an inscrutable expression that felt like judgment and satisfaction and sympathy all rolled into one. Clary was sitting perched on the six-drawer dresser with her feet not quite managing to touch the floor. The night wind ruffled her hair, partially shielding her eyes from him. She stared at him, meeting his gaze for long moments. Sebastian couldn't find it in him to fight with her now. For the first time in his life he felt just too tired for that kind of rage. All the same, he found this silence between them unbearable. It felt too empty.

"Does it even matter," he wondered, "That I tried to do the right thing? For you? For our family?"

Clary sighed. "Of course it matters," she said after a pause, "It just doesn't change anything."

His eyes slipped closed, his traitorous brain providing him with very vivid images of Clary's blood drying on her face. Her eyes fixed and staring. "It changed everything."

Her lips tightened. "What were you expecting? That I would be grateful that you slaughtered all my family and friends?"

Sebastian drew a breath and grunted at the pain that lanced through his chest. "I gave them a choice to join me and save themselves, but they refused. As rebels, they got what deserved."

"Oh, Sebastian." Clary murmured, her voice oddly soft. Gentle, almost. "Look around. Nobody here gets what they deserve."

His lips curled in a bitter sneer. "Nobody you say? Because to doesn't seem like it to me, Clarissa. I've got anything a person could dream of, anything that was unjustly denied to me. Isn't that what justice is? I had nothing but now I have everything." It was a lie and they both knew it. The word sounded hollow even to his own ears.

Clary just kept staring at him. Her face wasn't angry or gleeful or even satisfied. She just seemed young and deeply sad.

Sebastian hated her.

Fog rolled in before sundown, cloaking the beach in eerie gray. By now, Sebastian was not sure of how much of what he saw or heard was real or just a figment of his failing mind. Clary lingered around the room still, not looking or talking to him in hours but staring out of the window instead. Soon, Sebastian wouldn't be able to check anymore. He was losing the strength to even lift his head.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, but somehow his sister's voice reached him, even still.

"The pain fades," her words were soft. "What comes after is the difficult part."

He couldn't find it in him to resent or even regret her presence. She was not haunting him anymore.

She was company.

His voice was weak – somewhere between a mumble and a rasp. It shouldn't be recognizable as speech, but he knew his sister would understand him. "Are . . . are you going to stay?"

"Yeah. Until the end." He lifted his head an inch – just enough so that he could still look her in the eye. She gave him a firm nod. "This part is easier if you don't have do it alone."

His eyes closed and his whole body sagged. "Clary," he whispered, "I..."

Some instinct he couldn't explain made him lift his head and open his eyes one more time. Clary was gone. In her place stood a much older woman, just as blood-splattered as his sister's had been, face long set in a grim expression. Sebastian would scream and curse at her all over again if he weren't so pathetically weak. How dare she drive his sister away from him.

"My Lord, we found someone who might be able to heal you..." Amatis said, unaware of the burning resentment that Sebastian was harboring towards her.

"How long?" he asked gritting his teeth at the pain lancing through his chest at every breath.

"The Endarkened are bringing the warlock here as we speak."

Sebastian struggled for breath and tried to force his voice to be steady – to be strong. "I want you to start packing. We will be leaving as soon as I will be back on my feet."

Amatis' brow furrowed but she didn't question him. She never did. "Where to?"

His breath hissed out once, then twice. A new sensation, one that felt suspiciously like anticipation, was building in his chest. "We are going back to New York."

After all, he was not a coward.