Author's Note: This chapter contains psychological manipulation, captivity, stress, emotional whiplash, mentions of torture, mentions of rape, mentions of incest, and, of course, Sebastian.
Sorry this update is so late, and sorry the chapter is so long! I wanted to show a few different view points, and show Sebastian and Clary's confusing back and forth throughout the day. Hope you're all well!
Chapter Twenty Two
Soaking wet and exhausted, Jace trudged out of Turtle Pond.
The coolness of the mid-November water was practically a relief, the pond so cold that it numbed him down to his bones, taking the lingering feeling of the Queen's glamor with it, cleansing him of the filth of the Court and replacing it with mud and algae and scum. Only when he reached the bank did that relief begin to fade, as numbness turned to an uncomfortable, prickling chill that clung to him like the wet to his clothes, and the aching in his temples graduated to a migraine.
The moon, its reflection no longer visible in the murky water, was half hidden behind a cluster of clouds and much lower in the sky than he'd expected, and when he picked up his bag and pulled his watch from it, he saw with a start that it was one in the morning. Jace was certain that he'd only been in the Seelie kingdom for an hour and a half—two at the most—and yet nearly four had passed.
It wouldn't have bothered him if it didn't feel like every minute that passed was just one more minute of failing Clary, but it did feel that way, and so he was bothered, and in a fit of tired frustration he threw the watch at the ground. The glass face snapped against a rock, and Jace choked off a shout, spinning around and knotting his fists in his hair. He sank to the muddy ground, letting his hands slide over his face.
A lot could happen in four hours. And instead of doing something useful he'd wasted time trying to get information out of the Queen, wasting it being toyed with and taken advantage of.
If the advisor had been telling the truth, there was a chance it wasn't all a complete waste, but Jace still had a bad feeling about what Callum had said. If it was some elaborate ruse by the Queen, Jace would be wasting more precious time following a false lead. But if it was real, if the fey really had wanted to help, well, Jace wasn't sure he liked what that meant either. Because ultimately, if Callum was being truthful, the implications of his reasoning for helping Jace meant something far worse.
It meant that the Seelie Queen already had some sort of deal with Sebastian. Some sort of alliance. And the Queen only sided with winners.
Distractedly, he wondered if this was the pattern of history because the Queen knew, from her immortal knowledge, which sides would win or lose, or if it was because the Queen's aid was so great an advantage that it allowed victory for the winning side. Either way, it was bad news for anyone who stood to fight against Sebastian. On his own, he was dangerous. But with the Seelie Court backing him? Who else would follow?
He shook his head, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was thinking too big. He needed to focus on one problem at a time. Right now, that meant finding Clary. He could deal with everything else once he'd managed that.
And finding Clary meant following the only lead he had. Callum was right. What else could Jace do but trust him?
Really, perhaps it was less trusting Callum himself, and more trusting in his mutual hatred and distrust of Sebastian. That was something Jace could lean on. So, whether this was all a trick or not didn't matter—Jace had to try.
But first, he'd need to look into this demon. It couldn't be that no one besides a few ancient fey bloodlines had heard of him. That didn't make any sense, did it? How many demons didn't want to be known?
Jace would need to ask around, gather as much information on this Azomos as possible. If it seemed too risky, or at all like a trap, he'd figure out something else. Only if what Callum said checked out would he move forward with the plan.
And then, to go about summoning a demon, Jace would need supplies. He'd need spell books and candles, a safe space to perform the summoning, chalk for runes and binding marks. And he'd need to prepare for whatever it was the demon might request.
Callum had said he didn't know what Azomos would ask for, but it couldn't be anything good. Not if a demon was the one asking.
But that, too, was a problem for later.
Jace exhaled, the motion broken by chattering teeth and a violent racking of shivers, and he couldn't tell if it was thinking things through that had managed to somewhat calm him, or if it was just the onset of hypothermia that was slowing his thoughts.
He reached over to pick up his watch, and turned it over to find a new, spidery crack across the face. Fingering the fractures with numb fingers, he picked himself off the ground and stooped to grab up his bag.
Before anything else, Jace would need a place to stay.
With his family going to Alicante, the Institute might have been a good option, but if it had already been attacked by Sebastian's troops, then it might be again.
The only good thing that had come of the attack was due to the fact that most of them had already left for the mountains, which meant the Endarkened were too late. Surely, Sebastian had sent them to kill off any remaining chance Jace and Clary had at rescue. Only timing had saved them, and somehow, three Shadowhunters had managed to kill all of the soldiers. And Sebastian must be furious about it.
But it left Jace without a reliable home.
With another shaky sigh, he turned South and started out of Central Park. It would take a while to walk to the Lower East Side, but there was a perfect abandoned church there he could crash in. It would be warmer than out in the open, and would likely have a stash of weapons he could access if needed. It would have to do, for now, since it was safe to assume Sebastian would be able to find him at any of Jace's usual spots.
Though, honestly, Jace was almost positive Sebastian wasn't looking for him. After all, he'd gotten his revenge for what he thought of as Jace's betrayal. He'd had his fun torturing Jace and ultimately, he'd gotten what he wanted more than anything—Clary. If keeping her meant having to leave Jace out of the picture, well…Jace was likely no more than an afterthought to Sebastian now.
By the time Jace reached the gates, he felt utterly drained, and despite the run down state of the building—though it had only closed down relatively recently—the synagogue was a welcome sight. The building was made of worn, beige stone and chipped plaster moldings, a plain Gothic revival design; two squared towers, with simple but elegant four-leaf tracery banding them two-thirds of the way up, shot up along each side of the main structure like tall, fat chimneys, and a long arched window sat just above a set of double doors, their terracotta-orange paint peeling and weathered.
He hopped over the squat iron fencing around the front and trotted up the two short levels of steps, and with an unlocking rune to the padlock guarding the entrance, he was stepping inside. The main entryway opened out into a vaulted nave, and lines of dusty pews led up to the altar. The inside was less rugged than the exterior, the paint more intact, the wood cleaner, and though it didn't come close to the comfort of the Institute, Jace let out a sigh and dropped his bag on one of the pews closest to the front.
He quickly changed into fresh clothes, throwing his wet ones over another pew to dry, before stretching out on the bench. With his bag as a pillow, he laid out on his wooden bed, staring up at the overlapping blue arches of the ceiling, the shivering off his muscles finally beginning to ease.
As soon as he was still, the reality of his situation seemed to crash down around him, just as it had in the greenhouse.
Even as he closed his eyes to try and find sleep, Jace saw the cell in the mountain house, saw Clary in that black, lacy nightgown, saw the trashed library and the white ribbon over Maryse's eyes. He saw the Queen, her horrible eyes, recalled that he'd thrown a fucking knife at her, threatened one of the most powerful Downworld leaders there was.
He heard her voice in his head, unlying and prevaricating, like a nail driven into his ear: the Clarissa you'll be retrieving will not quite be herself. He heard the advisor's voice, strange and foreign in his own head. You are weak. Even your runes cannot protect you as weakened as you are. You are physically and mentally exhausted. Weak. Weak. Weak. He saw Sebastian's black eyes where Clary's green ones should have been, felt the false comfort of the glamors touch against him.
When he finally fell asleep, after what seemed like ages of tossing and turning and fighting hard to quiet his thoughts, his dreams were haunted by all the same miseries. Only after an eternity of nightmares, centered mostly around Clary, and all the many things Sebastian could do to her, did his sleep fade into a cold and empty blackness that was just minutely better than seeing Clary's torture and being reminded of his own failures.
When Jace awoke, the sun threw beams of blue and orange and purple light across the main hall where it poured in through the dirty, stained glass windows, and he groaned as he sat up. Though his sleep had felt like it'd gone on for an eternity, he felt entirely unrested, his eyes bleary and burning as if he'd stayed up all night. His watch though, let him know he'd been out for nearly ten hours.
Slowly, he sat up, stretching out, surprisingly not any more sore than he had been when he laid down the night before considering the hard, unpadded pew he'd slept on, and pulled from his bag the apple Simon had given him. As he bit into the warm, slightly bruised flesh, he was reminded of what Simon had asked of him and retrieved pen and paper from the front pocket. He wrote out quickly:
Might have a lead from my visit to the Court. Going to investigate.
He thought about what Callum had said, and hesitated to mention anything of the demon. If Alec and Izzy found out he was going to try and summon a demon, they might try to stop him if they thought it would be too dangerous. On the other hand, Magnus might have some knowledge of this Azomos.
After a moment of debate, he added, Ask Magnus what he knows of Azomos, and signed his name.
Better to ask, without giving too much information, and without worrying his siblings. As for the Seelie's suspected alliance with Sebastian, that Jace would need to keep to himself until he was certain of the information Callum had shared. He withdrew his stele from his pocket, the adamas warm in his palm, and marked a quick rune to send off the fire message. It burned from the outer edges in, smoldering until the paper vanished into the air.
Jace applied an iratze to his stomach afterwards, hoping to fix up any minor remaining injuries from his time with Sebastian and any failings as a result of his exhaustion, before tucking his stele back into his pocket. After packing up his things, he headed for the door.
Today was going to be a long day. He better get started early.
After leaving the training room, Clary went straight back to the bedroom to get in the shower, locking the door to the bathroom behind her. It wasn't as if Sebastian couldn't get in if he wanted to, but its false protection provided her with a much needed—though microscopic—sense of calm, and if anything, it let him know that she didn't want him there.
Once the door was shut behind her, she practically collapsed onto the floor. She was coated in sweat, her clothes damp with it, and she swore she could feel his saliva drying on her neck, across her chest, every spot that he'd kissed and licked the skin. Hurriedly, she stripped off her clothes and turned on the shower, which was rapidly becoming her only safe space in this hell hole.
When she stepped in, pressing her hand against the already fogging glass to slide the door close, she saw that there was blood smeared across its back, dark and horrible and accusatory.
She thought of Sebastian's face when she'd cut him, thought of the way it felt to watch blood run down his jaw, to have all of that anger inside of her drained and replaced with guilt.
He was still her brother, she knew. She'd accepted a long time ago that, even if small, there would always be some part of her that wanted to care about him, that wanted to think him capable of change, or of actually caring about her. But she'd also, most importantly, accepted that he was a monster. That he was a murderer, capable of horrible things, and that he would never be the brother that she wanted him to be. More so now than ever did she have to accept that. No brother would do the things he did.
So even if outweighed by hate ninety nine percent of the time, a certain amount of grief was acceptable when dealing with Sebastian. Grief for the person he could have been. Grief for the life he lost before he was even born. But not guilt. Never guilt. She'd never felt bad for wanting him dead and gone. She couldn't—not after everything he'd done. Not after he'd proven, over and over, that he was more demon than anything else.
And yet today, she had.
How could she so despise someone and worry for them all at once?
It wasn't like she'd really hurt him. It was just a minor cut, nothing that an iratze wouldn't heal.
As for her first attack, she hadn't meant it anyway.
Well, no. Those weren't her words, they were Sebastian's. Clary had meant it. She very much meant to stab him through the heart, and she almost had. Maybe that was why she felt so bad. Maybe it wasn't guilt, but disappointment at not having succeeded.
But the longer she stared at his blood on her hands, the more she was certain that this feeling wasn't disappointment.
She groaned, furiously scrubbing away the blood, watching as the water pooling by the drain turned from clear to pink, and then clear again.
It wasn't her fault for feeling bad about it. She'd probably feel bad having to hurt anyone, right?
She suddenly recalled something Sebastian had said, back when they were in the apartment, back when he was still pretending to be someone she could learn to trust and depend on.
"You killed our father," he'd said, "and you don't care. Never given it a second thought, have you?"
And she hadn't. She thought that was because Valentine never really was her father, only this ominous figure that rose like a shadow over her life, viscous and hate driven. But perhaps she hadn't cared because she hadn't actually had to kill him with her own hands.
If Raziel hadn't killed Valentine, Clary herself would have driven a sword through him, just as he had done to Jace. No family relation or blood tie would have prevented her from doing so. Valentine deserved it, with every breath of his being. But still, nothing in the world was black and white. So maybe, if it had been by her hands…maybe she still would have felt a bit guilty. Simply for having killed a human being.
But, Sebastian wasn't a human, was he?
She should be thrilled that she made for a killing blow. It meant she was willing—able—to do so. But instead she just felt sick and heavy.
She thought of the look on his face after she'd cut him, when he understood what was happening, understood how she was feeling—some sort of gross satisfaction in her discomfort. Like he had won. Like he had proven a point: that part of her, no matter how deep, cared about him.
But she still didn't understand. He'd shown over and over his obsession, his craving to have her at his side. He'd argued endlessly that they were the same. Not entirely, but in the ways that mattered. Two sides to the same coin.
"You have ruthlessness in your bones and ice in your heart, Clarissa. Don't tell me any differently," he'd said, only minutes after their conversation about her killing Valentine, as an argument to support their likeness. But if she was truly like him, she wouldn't care if he was hurt or killed. It didn't make sense: he believed she was like him—cold, ruthless, would do anything to win—and yet, at the same time believed that she cared for him. Didn't the two contradict each other? Sebastian didn't have the capability to care. Clary did. Wasn't that what made them different? Or, perhaps he just didn't know how to show it. Perhaps…he did care, in his own way.
No, that was impossible. It was more likely he was just taking advantage of that fact—that Clary could care. He'd always been a master of manipulation, twisting things until they appeared just as he wanted them to. Now was no different.
Isolating someone from their friends and family, forcing them to depend on the only person left, forcing them to think that person actually cared. Wasn't that what abusers did to trap their victims? Wasn't that what Sebastian was doing?
Yes, it was impossible that he loved anything. He himself even admitted as much, just a few nights ago—"...that might be as close as I can get to this thing you call love."
Clary shuddered, continuing to scrub at the back of her hand with her thumb long after the blood was gone.
Mindlessly, she started the same routine she always did in the shower: shampoo, then conditioner, and then, while it was soaking, she moved on to wash her body.
But when she felt between her legs, and found the area slick, she felt herself grow lightheaded and sank to the floor, curling up against the tiled wall. She sat there for a long time, letting herself break down, crying so hard that she started hyperventilating, clutching her ring so tightly in her hand that the metal pressed a circle into her palm, choking on her own tears and the thundering rain from the showerhead, and then just as quickly as the attack had come, it stopped, and she stood and continued cleaning herself.
When she was at last satisfied that all trace of him had been scrubbed clean of her, she got out of the shower, toweling off and swiping a hand through the condensation on the mirror to look at herself.
She looked exhausted. Her eyes were puffy from crying and the heat of the shower, her hair looking limp and flat despite the detangling she'd done just a moment ago, and all along her torso, from her neck to the flat of her stomach, she was spattered with hickies.
She felt some of the anger from earlier creep in at the sight, but it didn't stick, too emotionally and physically exhausted to feed it. Stepping away from the mirror, she wrapped the towel tightly around her and cautiously stepped back into the room, relieved to find herself alone. She locked the bedroom door.
Digging through the dresser, she selected a pair of clean underwear, a silky smooth, cream button down, and a pair of black jeans. When she finished dressing, she tossed the towel and dirty clothes in the hamper and unlocked the door, pulling it open to step out into the hall, and practically ran into an Endarkened as she did. She let out a tiny gasp, stepping back to find a dark haired man, a few inches taller than herself, standing in the doorway.
"Pardon, miss," he said curtly, taking a step back so she had room to move into the hall if she wanted to.
"...Why are you right outside the door?"
"Just doing my job," he answered slowly, his blue eyes not meeting hers, and it took her a moment to realize he was staring at her neck. She blushed, slapping a hand over the little bruises there, scoffing angrily. "What, your job as my jailer? It's not like I can go anywhere. And if he told you to guard me, well, that's even more ridiculous. It's him I should be guarded from," she huffed, but the man only took another step back, a small smile curling his lips at her comment.
"Whatever," she murmured when he made no reply, and glanced quickly up and down the hall. "Where is he, anyway?"
"Out."
"Out?" she repeated skeptically, and the soldier finally looked her in the eye. "He went out on an errand. Don't worry. He'll be back shortly."
Clary made another displeased noise at the idea that she might be perceived as worryingly awaiting his return. "He can stay gone forever for all I care. In fact, I hope he gets gutted while he's out doing whatever he's doing."
"He won't."
"Yeah," she sighed, brushing past him and into the hall, headed for the library. "I could never get that lucky."
It wasn't until late that Clary saw Sebastian again, and for once she heard him approaching before he announced himself. Whether he intended it that way, she didn't know.
"I thought you were 'off the clock' for the rest of the day," she said, keeping her head down and continuing sketching as he sat in the armchair next to her. Both seats were angled inward towards the fireplace—which she had started up for lack of anything better to do a few hours ago—and she watched from her peripheral as he crossed his legs, one ankle over his knee, and leaned back with a sigh.
"Careful. You're starting to sound like a lonely housewife." She could hear the smirk in his voice and rolled her eyes.
"On the contrary. I was hoping you'd gone out for cigarettes and were never coming home," she said, and Sebastian's confused silence was worth the throwaway remark as she stared down hard at the paper. She'd been trying to finish the drawing of Jace, but the lighting in the living room was horrible, and it only ended up making the sketch look streaked and unproportionate.
Both were quiet for a moment, and the only sound that filled the room was the crackling and popping of the flames.
"The fire's nice," he said then, and she snorted, still attempting to fix the drawing.
"What?" he asked, leaning forward to try and catch her gaze, and just to be spiteful, she purposely kept her focus on the page.
"Since when have you ever thought something was nice?" she replied, brushing eraser bits onto the floor.
He gasped in feigned offense. "I think plenty of things are nice," he said defensively. "A warm, cozy fire; the smell of cedar, or ginger; the turning of the leaves in the fall; old, quiet cityscapes—" he began listing off, and she genuinely couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
"—blood of the innocent, sacrificial virgins, general chaos and human suffering," Clary added, cutting him off, and she could practically feel the heat from his glare on the side of her face as she smiled down at her sketchbook.
"Well, good thing you're no longer innocent, then. I could have used your blood for all the rituals I do if you weren't so soiled," he retorted, and now it was Clary's turn to gasp offendedly. "You—! If I'm 'soiled' then you're the one who did it to me!"
But he was too busy laughing to reply, and now she was the one glaring, the half drawn Jace looking blankly back at her. When Sebastian's laughing died down, he sighed and sank back further into the chair. "I do actually like a fire, though," he said slowly.
"You make it sound as though you actually have a personality besides possessiveness, deception, and murderous rage," she muttered, but, surprisingly, he ignored the remark.
He was either getting better at controlling his outbursts anytime she insulted him, or he was simply getting used to the hateful comments.
"You know, when I was little," he continued, "I used to be in charge of keeping one going in the winter, at the Idris cottage. I had to gather kindling, cut wood and stack it, keep it dry and store it, make sure the fire had enough wood to burn through the night."
He paused, sucking in a little breath and stretching his legs out, and the reminiscent edge to his voice made Clary keep quiet. It wasn't often that he talked about his childhood, and she found herself looking up and into the flames as he spoke, his voice lulling and narrator-like, picturing a little boy, the spitting image of his father, doing his chores. The image was all very fairytale-esque, a cottage at the edge of the woods, thick banks of snow on the ground.
"It was one of the little routine things that Valentine had me do that I didn't mind so much. If I let the fire go out, I would be punished, but I liked keeping it going. I learned which woods burned the slowest: hard maple and black oak, and if it was hot enough, slightly green woods. And when there was downtime, I would read next to it. The fire, I mean." He stretched out a hand, warming it by the hearth. "I'd pull back the fire gate and sit practically right up next to the flames. It used to always piss our father off, seeing me sitting so close. He'd scold me, tell me I'd ruin my clothes, or the books, or burn myself. But he eventually gave up trying to get me to stop, grumbling something about me being nonflammable."
"Is that true?" she asked curiously, watching mesmerized as a log crumbled, the flames curling up around its skeleton.
"That I can't burn? No, not at all," he laughed. "It might be that I can withstand direct heat at higher temperatures than the average Shadowhunter could, but I can't say I've ever tested the theory."
She hummed, setting down her pencil as she started thinking back to her own childhood. They didn't have a fireplace in their Brooklyn apartment, but they did at Luke's farm house upstate. She recalled the first time he taught her how to start one, how to teepee the wood and how to place the kindling.
"When I first learned to start a fire, I was fascinated. It felt like an art form—the way you lean the kindling up all pretty and tall, just to let it burn into nothing. Like Buddhist water painting: creating something beautiful that doesn't last. Or maybe," she added as an afterthought, "I was just another edgy little kid who liked fire." She leaned back from her sketch. "Either way, after Luke taught me how to make a fire, I scared the hell out of my mother by trying to start one on the floor of our apartment," she said and Sebastian laughed softly.
"It couldn't have been that bad."
"The apartment was carpeted," she replied, finding herself smiling slightly at the memory. "My mother has never hit me, but I could tell she thought about it then, after she stomped out the smoldering bit of carpet. And I know Luke got an earful, too."
Sebastian chuckled, and then reached across to her chair, making her tense as he pulled at a curl of her hair, twirling it around a finger. "Little spitfire," he whispered, and as she felt her face heat, she resisted the urge to pull away. When he dropped the curl, she at last looked up at him, her mouth opening as she started to reply, but then she actually saw his face for the first time since he'd sat down, and her words stuck in her throat.
"...Your face," she said slowly. Sebastian tilted his head and a bit of hair, blanched a clearish orange-white by the fire light, fell over his brow.
"Yes?"
The blood had been cleaned from the side of his face and from his hair, but the cut from earlier was still very much there. Across his left cheek was an ugly, scabbing gash all the way along the cheekbone, raw and fresh at the edges. She could tell it had reopened a few times just from moving his face, some of the blood darker than the rest.
"Why didn't you heal it?" she asked, fiddling with her pencil anxiously.
He raised a brow in that incredulous way that she hated, his gaze sharpening. "Why do you care?" he pried, leaning forward on his elbows across the arm of the chair. "Does it bother you? Seeing your brother injured?"
Clary made a noise in the back of her throat. "Don't put words in my mouth."
"Would you prefer I put something else in your mouth?"
She groaned and set her drawing aside. "You're disgusting. Is sex the only thing you think about?"
"Ah, I deserve that. That was shameless," he said, but he was still smirking annoyingly.
Clary huffed, wanting to look away, but finding herself unable to.
"I figured I'd leave it. Let it heal on its own."
"Why?" she snapped, and he grinned at her obvious disapproval.
"You know, as a reminder."
"What are you on about? A reminder of what?"
"Not to underestimate you," he said, smile sly and teasing, and the grin stretched the skin across his cheek, irritating the cut. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
Clary looked at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowing in irritation, and in that moment she was reminded of Jace—of the time he'd made himself heal like a mundane when he'd punched through a window at the Penhallow's. And though they did it for very different reasons—Sebastian to tease her, Jace in penitence—she was reminded that Sebastian and Jace were occasionally more alike than she'd care to admit.
It was visible in more subtle details: the two's mannerisms, their way of speaking and joking, the way they moved. But still, in so many other aspects, the two were so very different. How could two boys raised by the same man be so dramatically opposed?
Well, that was the point of Valentine's experiment, she supposed. Raise two boys differently. See which upbringing, and which type of blood, made the better soldier. One boy who got affection, at least as much as Valentine could offer, and one who got only pain and austerity.
Really though, that in itself was difficult to picture. Even Jace, the boy who Valentine had been supposedly more caring with, was abused growing up. So to think that Sebastian had it worse? That he hadn't received even an ounce of what little care Valentine could muster?
One of the few other times Sebastian had spoken to her about his childhood, he'd said, "I learned to play the instruments of war and paint in blood. I am not like Jace."
And she'd thought, at the time, that that had been true. That their drastically different childhoods had made them different people. One brought up in violence, while the other was taught music and language and art—Jocelyn's influence, Sebastian had called it once. But even when Valentine was trying, there were some things that he couldn't change about his parenting, some things that leached through into both of their upbringings.
He could be more harsh with one than the other, but his parenting bore similar traits in the boys. The hardness and resistance to pain, the kind formed by a cruel guardian, and the cunning and confidence, the kind born of a premature independence. The covering of emotions with sarcasm and anger, the trait of an education that staked intimacy as a killer.
Distractedly, Clary wondered what would have happened if the roles had been reversed. What if the demon boy got the more caring father, and the angel boy the more cruel one? Would it have changed who they became? Would she be sitting across from Jace right now, his gold eyes dark and obsessive instead of loving and warm, longing for return to her family, her brother?
It was the age old question: which mattered more, nature or nurture? Blood, or rearing?
But that debate had never been put into the context of the supernatural—angels and demons. Surely, it was the demon blood that made Sebastian cruel, more so than having Valentine as a parent, right?
"That's stupid," Clary at last declared, pushing up out of her chair. Sebastian blinked, clearly a bit baffled by her response. "What?" he asked, rising to his feet with her, and when she stepped up to him, close enough to feel the unnatural heat of his skin beneath his shirt, he stilled, looking down at her quizzically.
He remained still as she reached around him, even as he realized what she was doing, and she pulled his stele from his belt. He made no move to stop her, knowing that while she was right there with him, just inches away, there wasn't much trouble she could cause even with a stele, and for a strange moment she paused, looking up at him, asking for permission.
When he took half a step back and let his arms relax at his sides—though she wasn't fooled into thinking his muscles couldn't flex and grab her in a split instant if he wanted to—she curled her fingers around the adamas.
With her other hand, she pulled the collar of his shirt aside and leaned forward, pressing the tip of the stele to the pale, smooth skin beneath his left collarbone. He didn't tense at the sizzling of his own flesh, only stood motionless, hands at his side, eyes locked on her face as she bit her lip and traced an iratze.
The mark sank steadily into the skin, and when she looked up, she saw the laceration knitting itself closed, the scabbed blood flaking away as the flesh healed.
"There," she said, and releasing his collar, she stepped back to inspect her work.
Sebastian smirked, touching his fingertips lightly to his cheek, but his eyes were locked on her in that thought-piercing gaze. "So it does bother you then?"
"Don't be an idiot," she scoffed, turning back to her chair to gather her sketchbook and pencils. Then, reluctantly, she held out the stele. "I did that for me. I don't want blood all over the pillow cases."
Still grinning, he plucked his stele from her palm and returned it to his belt. "Whatever you have to tell yourself to get through the day, huh?"
"You've no idea," Clary muttered, turning to leave the room just as his smile faded into frown.
"It's not that hard, is it?" he asked then, and something about his tone of voice made her pause—something caught between anger and what sounded like genuine offense at her remark. He was the one that made the joke. She was just being honest.
"Is what not that hard?" she asked, feigning ignorance.
"Being here," he started, lifting his hands, "in a home with anything you could ever need or want. Being here with me, your brother, who wants to build a world that we can rule side by side. Is it that hard, being here with me?"
The casual, reminiscent tone of their conversation just minutes ago, the comfortability between them—even their insults has been teasingly soft—suddenly struck her hard. The five minutes by the fireplace actually hadn't been complete hell. She hadn't had to grit her teeth through the small talk, like she had had to every other moment since she'd been taken that he tried to speak to her as if everything was fine and normal. It hadn't felt awkward or forced. He'd come off like a real human with real feelings.
And his question—it snapped her back to reality.
How had she forgotten who she was really speaking with?
A psychopath. A rapist. A cold, heartless murderer.
Was she going mad? To have let her guard down for even a moment? To have forgotten, even just for a few minutes, that this—here—wasn't a jail cell?
Clary stared at the floor for what seemed like an eternity. At last she let out a small, sad laugh. "You ask as if you actually care how I feel about it. But you don't." She turned back to look at him, to try and read his expression, but it was carefully schooled, blank and illegible.
"You don't," she repeated, clutching her sketchbook to her chest, her fingers digging hard into the edges of the thin cardboard cover. "You seem to forget that I'm a prisoner here. And you ask if it's 'not that hard'? I don't have everything I could ever need or want here. Because I don't have my family or friends. I can't hold a stele without worrying about you beating me senseless. I can't—I can't sleep without worrying about where your hands are. I can't even go outside. Everyone I love thinks I'm some demonic, brainwashed monster because of you, plus I have to stay here? It's not just hard, Jonathan. It's unbearable," she finished in a rush, the words spilling out of her before she could stop them.
She hadn't used his birth name in a while—not since that first night—because she knew it pissed him off, but she was too tired to care. Too tired to be worried about his reaction, to feel any fear or sadness or rage, or anything besides a thin, exhausted resentment.
Sebastian though, didn't appear bothered, his expression still dead-panned. Clary had expected at least an enraged pinching of his brows, or for his eyes to harden, but he just hummed, as if considering her response—as if she'd no more than politely disagreed with his opinion.
She was starting to get weirded out by his consistent lack of anger recently.
"But you don't really care if I hate being here. You can't feel anything at all. Want to know how I know?" Clary took a brave step towards him, her chin lifted defiantly. "Because if you really cared about me, you'd be the one feeling guilty."
Her brother stared at her, the firelight washing out his skin, flickering shadows darkening the contours beneath his cheekbones, and for the life of her, she couldn't tell what he was thinking.
Only when she became frustrated with his silence and started to turn away from him did he speak, and the question stopped her dead in her tracks.
"Do you want to go outside, then?"
Clary froze, her feet stopping awkwardly mid-turn.
"We could catch the sunset," Sebastian added, glancing at his watch, and when he flicked his gaze up, he saw her face twisted in confusion. She said nothing, and her stunned silence amused him. "Well?" he urged, and she at last turned back to him fully.
He had to refrain from smiling. She probably had a million things running through her head—probably wanted to point out that he'd blown past most of what she'd said, or wanted to ask if he was joking, or if this was some sort of trick—but she must have settled on not questioning it at all because all she said was a slightly startled, "Yes."
Better not to look a gift horse in the mouth, right?
He knew it was not what she had been expecting, in part because of the look on her face, and in part because it was not really what he'd wanted to do in response to her outburst. His initial thought had been to show her how much worse her situation could be.
But she hadn't been entirely wrong. He didn't care if she hated being here nor did he feel guilty that she did—it was little more than an inconvenience. In fact, that she hated being here was to him only a challenge. He would make her see that here with him was where she was meant to be. But then, physically hurting her now would only serve to prove her point.
He needed to twist this in a different way.
"You can set that down. You won't need it," he said, and slid the sketchbook and pencils from her arms where she continued to stand still as a statue. He set the book face up, the half finished drawing of Jace awkward and smudged with erased marks and smears of graphite all over the page.
With a hand at the small of her back, he ushered her into the hall and towards the foyer, stopping at the front door. Removing his stele from his belt, he held out his palm, and she looked up at him with a puzzled expression before realizing what he was asking, and sheepishly proffered her right wrist, the black band catching light as she raised it for him. The band activated, rune flaring briefly red, before he marked the metal with his stele. The glowing design sank into the band, and he saw Clary watching it intently, surely trying desperately to commit the rune to memory.
It didn't worry him. It wouldn't work if she tried it herself, anyway.
Once he was done, he released her arm and opened the front door, stepping out onto the walkway. When he looked back, he saw she was still standing hesitantly in the doorway.
Like a dog nearing its electric fence.
He smiled and stretched out a hand. "I deactivated that feature, for now. It won't shock you."
"...Promise?"
Sebastian almost laughed. She asked as though his promises ever meant something to her—to anyone. Instead, he just nodded. "Promise."
She sucked in a breath, still looking disbelieving, and after a moment she closed her eyes and reached out her right hand to take his, stiff and tensed for pain, before letting the bracelet pass through the door frame first as he helped her down the short double-step beneath the door. When she hit the walkway, she opened her eyes and exhaled deeply, looking down to see her bare feet on the ground.
She'd either been too scared to ask him to wait for her to go grab her shoes for fear of him changing his mind about letting her out, or it had simply not occurred to her to do so in the excitement for fresh air, but either way, she didn't seem to mind being barefoot, wriggling her toes in the dry grass and small pebbles that made up the path leading to the front door.
"It's warm," she said leerily under her breath, and then she looked up and took in her surroundings, turning her head to note the landscape, the shape of the house, the path around back. A light wind ruffled her hair, and she almost smiled, her cheek twitching, though she refrained from the instinct. When she realized her hand was still in his, she jerked it away, looking back down at her feet and rubbing her fingers over the bracelet. He'd noticed she'd picked up the habit recently, a motion as mindless and anxiety-produced as twirling her hair or biting her nails.
"So, am I allowed to walk around, or…."
He raised his hands, spread his arms wide. "There's not much to see besides the gardens out back, but…be my guest."
Smiling to himself at the irony of the phrase applied to her current situation, Sebastian stepped back, giving her room to go where she wanted. Clary turned once more, taking in the hip-height stone wall surrounding the front, inner stretch of property; the pebbled footpaths intersplicing the yard; and the dry, low rolling hills that spread out in all directions beyond it, cracked earth broken here and there by tough shrubbery. To Clary, who had traveled very little outside of her time with Sebastian, it probably just looked like the South Western US.
To the left of the house, on the East side, was a small outdoor sitting area with a swinging bench and a few chairs around a low table atop a plain cement patio that backed up to the house, and paths leading around to the South side where the garden was. To the right, the West side of the property was more bare: a small tool shed that had clearly gone unused long before they'd come here, with gaps in the wood and holes in the roof, and an empty lot for parking vehicles, also currently unused. Sebastian had no need for cars.
At last, she turned to the left, careful to stay on the path, and Sebastian followed leisurely behind. He could see her eyes darting around anxiously, could see how hard she was trying to act natural from the stiff way that she moved.
She was looking for a way out—trying to figure out where they were, trying to figure out where the wards were, trying to figure out if there was anything at all that could be used to her advantage out here. He hadn't expected any different. She might have felt bad about cutting him earlier, but that was a very, very small step. She still thought she hated him entirely.
That was why he'd brought her out in the first place. He needed to see what she would do. He needed to remind her that she wasn't going anywhere—at least, not anywhere without him. She could be indoors, outdoors, or on any continent in the world. The house itself didn't matter. Clarissa wasn't leaving him.
Still, as he watched her wander, part of him hoped she would run. Part of him hoped she'd make a break for it, just so he could enjoy the chase, and have an excuse for punishment afterwards. He absently ran his fingers over his cheek, the mark of her last little rebellion gone.
But she only made her way slowly around to the back. The garden was by far the most notable thing about the house, the vegetation lively and perfectly cultivated by the couple that previously owned the property, and when she reached the gate that opened into the garden, she let out a tiny gasping breath. The wrought iron groaned as she swung it open, and her focus seemed to shift to the plants as she began walking around the yard to inspect each and everyone one, brushing leaves and blossoms gingerly with her fingertips.
He took a seat by the fountain as she explored, watching her face carefully as she tried too hard to focus solely on the flora. When her eyes did flick up to the horizon, they were quick and darting, the desert reflecting perfectly over the green of her irises.
With the sun sliding lower in the sky, her hair lit up a bright copper and her bracelet shone, all lining her in metallic hues, and her silk blouse gleamed where the light touched her, turning almost transparent in the glow. All along the base of her neck and collar were the bruises he'd left earlier, the contrast against her pale skin stunning, like little dark thumbprints up and down her throat, each mark screaming this one's mine.
When Clary reached the edge of the garden, she paused briefly beneath the mango trees, frowning to herself as she stepped over some rotten remains on the ground. Sebastian could practically see the wheels turning in her head: what areas were suitable for growing mangos?
Finally, she gravitated to the fountain, sitting on the bench next to Sebastian, careful to leave a few feet between them.
"It's beautiful," she said at last, and he wasn't sure if she was talking about the gardens or the sunset until she added, "You didn't plant all of this, did you?"
He laughed, shaking his head. "No. Landscaping wasn't included in Valentine's training regimine. It was put in by the previous owners."
"Who were they?" she asked, as casually as she could, and she looked away when he narrowed his eyes. But the suspicious look he gave was only for show. Even if she knew the story, the full names of the owners, it wouldn't help anyone figure out where the house was located. It had been a private purchase, kept secret from even the highest ranking Circle members for a reason.
After enough of a pause passed to sufficiently put her on edge, he replied honestly. "They were allies of Valentine. They purchased this place as a sort of safe house for those in the Circle, if ever needed, before they died in the Uprising."
She nodded, letting her eyes shift back to the landscape beyond the garden walls, her lips thinning as she chewed at her cheek. Sebastian leaned towards her, waiting for whatever was on the tip of her tongue to slip, and when she noticed him staring, this time she held his gaze instead of nervously looking away.
"The gardens are amazing. Being outside is amazing. But it's only amazing because I've been locked up for nearly two weeks. Granting me permission,"—she spat the word—"to be outside doesn't change anything. I'm still your prisoner."
Her face was hard, her jaw tight, but even as she spoke, whatever anger had possessed her earlier in the day was gone. What before had been a spitting fountain of rage was now drying up, and it made her look older, that frowning, tired face.
"Prisoner. Guest. Roommate. Captive. Call it anything you want. But you're the one making things miserable for yourself. It only takes you accepting all of this."
"Sebastian, that makes absolutely zero sense. How can I decide something that's been decided for me?" she sighed, running her hands down her face.
The sky was lit with brilliant purples and golds, just as it had been the other evening when he'd watched the sunset from here, but the clouds were more wispy today, like downy feathers strewn across velvet—same palette, different painter.
Sebastian leaned closer to his own little painter, just enough to see her shoulders tense, just enough to be able to smell a hint of her shampoo in the air. She must have showered earlier, after the training room. Must have scrubbed and scrubbed until her skin was red, as she'd done after every night they'd spent together, must've looked herself over and pressed on all the little signatures he'd left on her skin, must've cried and told herself it wasn't her fault—that the pleasure didn't mean anything, that it couldn't, because it was her brother touching her, that there couldn't be anything other than disgust.
Such a worthless view. Incest. As if relation mattered at all when it came to fate, and power, as if it did anything other than strengthen their bond. Two of the strongest forces in the mortal world, connected by blood and complete possession of each other.
Sometimes he imagined a reality where she was raised with him as a Shadowhunter, she in her rightful place beside him from the start. Oh, the things he would have done with her. The things they would have gotten up to behind Father's back. Not that Valentine would be able to do anything about it if he'd cared enough to try.
But instead she was stolen away from him, and by his own supposed mother at that. Her memories stolen, her birthright stolen, her world as she knew it muted beneath the smothering quilt Jocelyn dared to call love—nothing more than blinders to the son she abandoned. Nothing more than a mote to keep Clarissa stealed away from him. Just as Jace had tried to do. His whole life, before he even knew of her existence, everyone had only tried to keep them apart.
How could Clary not see all of that? She got caught up on such little things, such mundane things. He supposed, in part, it wasn't her fault. Just as he was raised to be a weapon, she was raised with all of Jocelyn's words stuffed in her head. And now that they were finally together, now that no one stood a chance in tearing her away, now that he was so close to having the world, she still couldn't comprehend that they were meant to be. He enjoyed her fight, her fury. But he just might enjoy seeing her give in even more—and she would. Soon enough, she would see that this had nothing at all to do with decision. Soon enough she'd gladly never shower again if it meant preventing the sensation of him from washing away.
"See that tree, about twenty yards out?" Sebastian said, and Clary looked up from her hands, turning to where he pointed in confusion. "And across that way, the two shrubs right next to each other."
Clary nodded slowly, and Sebastian lowered his arm.
"That's the border of the wards."
Clary turned to look at him in disbelief, her eyes widening and her fingers tightening around the bracelet she'd been fiddling with. Sebastian continued, nodding at the manor. "It stretches the same distance all the way around the house. A perfect circle. Oh, and since you were wondering, we're in Mexico."
She made a face that read as dubious shock, torn between wondering if he was lying or if this was some test, or as though she thought he was being overly confident in revealing such information. She looked back to the tree, ordinary and unremarkable, staring at it expectantly as though she might be able to see the invisible barrier there. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked quietly.
"Because, Clarissa, there's nothing you can do about it."
Her face whitened and her fists clenched at her sides, and Sebastian decided to push further, just for fun. "Go on. Make a run for it."
But she didn't. Clary only looked down at her lap, her hair curtaining her face.
"I've seen you looking around for escape. So do you think you could make it beyond the wards before me? If you had my stele, do you think you could make a portal before I catch up to you? Of course, you'd have to take into account the fact that you're not wearing shoes."
When her face jerked up to his, her eyes shone angrily. Still, it was only a fraction of what had been there before. "If you're trying to prove that I'm not a prisoner, you're doing a horrible job."
"You miss my meaning. Where would you go, hmm? Even if you did briefly get away, where could you go that I couldn't find you? Would you go back to your supposed family? You're dead to them, remember? Even if they don't try to kill you on the spot, even if they find out you haven't been Turned, do you think they'll take you back now that you've been corrupted? Do you think they'll take you back after you've been in bed—literally and figuratively—with a murderer? Do you think they'll take you back knowing you liked it? Do you think Jace will take you back?"
"You've made your point. Now you're just being cruel."
"Not just cruel, sister—honest. You do so hate it when I lie."
"But it's not true. They're not like that. Jace isn't like that."
"Are you sure?"
She said nothing, but he could tell her expression wasn't one of doubt, only a thin frown reflective of a careful decision not to argue with him further.
"You're right. You don't get to decide whether to stay or go. But you do get to decide whether you'll accept this as it is, or will be miserable the rest of your life. Because it will be the rest of your life," he said, and she nearly flinched, her eyes skirting back to the horizon. It was getting dark now, the shadow of the house stretching out long beside them.
"You don't have to fight me anym—"
"Stop telling me what I want!" Clary shouted suddenly, her cracking voice echoing dully across the garden and back. "Just because you're lonely doesn't mean that we were meant for each other. It doesn't mean that I'm yours or—"
Before he could think it through, her jaw was in a bruising grip between his fingers as he grabbed at her face, jerking her head back towards him, and she let out a little gasp, her eyes squeezing shut. For a moment, nothing happened as he debated how to respond, or what to do with her, and the feeling of holding her pinned there sent a furious rush to his head.
"You said," he started lowly, gripping tighter at her jaw until she opened her eyes in a pained squint, "that you don't have your family. But I am your family. I'm your brother. Your lover." He paused, running his thumb over her lip in that way she despised before releasing her face. "I'm everything you need."
Clary winced, rubbing her fingers over her jaw. "And what about my friend?" she said through gritted teeth, her eyes shining wetly. "Are you that, too?"
He blinked, admittedly taken aback, and was reminded of something she'd said back when she'd run away with Jace and him. She'd been high, then, leaning in close to hear him over the noise of the club, her eyes hazy and her cheeks red, her words slow and slurred, her hair messy from dancing.
Who do you belong to?
She made an annoyingly smug face at his silence. "Have you ever even had a friend?"
She stopped there, but he could practically hear her next thought: not an ally, not someone loyal to Valentine, or bound by fear or magic—a friend.
What a disgustingly human need. And a deranged one at that. To believe that any relationship existed altruistically was delusional.
"I've no need for friends."
Her expression slowly shifted into something that made his blood boil. Not love, or concern, or guilt, nor even anger, but pity. She looked at him for a long, quiet moment.
"Everyone needs friends."
"Then be my friend," he said, his tone harsh and mocking as he pushed a wolfish grin.
The pity faded, and she gripped the stone edge of the bench tightly. "That's not how it works."
Sebastian stood, moving to sit on the edge of the fountain, directly opposite her. He could see her well enough, even in the rapid onset of dusk, the sunlight practically gone, but from here, when he leaned in, it was hard for her to look away. He waited until he had her gaze before speaking again.
"Anything works," he said, "however we want it to work. We can be unstoppable together."
She raised her brows doubtfully. "Together? I'm suddenly included?"
Sebastian blew out a frustrated breath, not bothering to hide the irked narrowing of his eyes. "That's what I've been saying this whole time—Jesus, you're so stubborn that you're starting to go deaf. If I didn't want to do this together, I wouldn't have come back for you."
"You're one to talk. You're so stubborn that you contradict yourself at every turn. You want me to want to be with you, but I'm forced to stay regardless. You say we're meant to be, then say love shouldn't concern me. You say you don't need friends, but you force me to play the role of your partner, surround yourself with people who have no choice but to follow your every command—"
"Watch it," he breathed, a threat so quiet it went nearly unheard beneath the soft wind that had picked up across the plain, but it cut her off all the same.
She sighed, throwing her hands up in defeat. "Whatever. Look, if…if I'm going to be here with you, I need to know what's going on."
"Hah," Sebastian scoffed, propping his elbows on his knees. Was she really going to try playing at that again? "You've tried that line before. Last time you asked that, it ended in yours and Jace's betrayal, and a very, very valuable apartment being destroyed," he reminded her.
"Okay, true…but my reasoning is still the same. My intentions might not have been pure when I asked you to share your plans with me last time, but I still meant it when I said that I can't trust you if I don't know what's going on."
"You know what's going on, now. All my horrible, evil intentions."
"I know that you have a cup to create Endarkened. I know you hate the Clave, and the Shadow world, and pretty much everyone. I know you say you want to rule the world with me. But it's all so…." She paused, frustrated and searching for the right word. "Unspecific," she decided with a shrug.
Despite the sarcastic no shit at the tip of his tongue, he remained quiet, again letting the silence drag out between them. He was starting to realize silence was an effective way of annoying her without having to even lift a finger.
"I mean," she at last continued, "what does that even mean to you, when you say you'll have the world? I want to know where you go during odd hours of the day and night, what you'll use your army for, what your next steps are."
Clary was stuck with him, yes, but that didn't mean he could suddenly spill all his plans to her. She could be…unpredictable, and even with the ring, he couldn't be sure she wouldn't at some point be able to get in touch with the Clave. If there was any chance at all that she was to betray him again, he wasn't about to give her any ammunition to use against him. At least for now, sharing specific details with her was off the table.
"I can't tell you that yet."
"Why not? You're the one who said I can't do anything about it. About being here. So what difference does it make if I know or not?" she whined, and the brattiness was so palpable in her tone that his annoyance in her line of questioning was mostly overpowered by amusement. Still, his response was firm. "I said not yet."
Clary fell quiet, and the trilling of crickets and other night insects filled the hush that fell between them. He studied her, the way her eyes softened in the cover of darkness, the way her breathing slowed as she tried to think of what to say next, the way she shivered, ever so slightly, in the cooling evening air, and he felt a touch of something that he could only describe as being an uncomfortably sympathetic consideration. He ran a hand back through his hair as he leaned away from her, stretching back over the fountain's edge. "Your trust in me would be excellent," he said, "but I don't need it for this to work. I don't need it to have you. So if it's that important to you, figure out how to trust me some other way."
For a moment, she looked as though she was going to argue, her mouth opening and then closing slowly. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, the stubborn, debating tone relinquished for now. "Fine," she said, casting her eyes down as she gave in. "Then…can I ask you questions? And you have to answer them honestly?"
"Are you going to ask what my plans are?" he snorted, "because if so, then no."
She rolled her eyes, dismissing him with a flip of her hand. "No, I mean, just general questions. About you. Or about what you're thinking."
His eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"I don't know," she said with a shrug, her voice oddly bashful. "Well, I ask because I don't know you. I know…certain things that you've done. I know certain things about you. But I don't know who you are."
Sebastian tipped his head, considering her request.
Whether she was asking to try and appease him or was being genuine, he knew it should be a good thing that she wanted to know him. But something about it still agitated him. That she needed to know anything besides that he was her brother was unnecessary. Still, if he agreed, she'd see it as a compromise, and if it would make her any more susceptible to believing him, it would be worth it.
And after all, he could always answer in a lie.
"This will help you trust me?" he asked.
"We have to start somewhere, right? Ex nihilo nihil fit," she replied, and Sebastian was so startled by her use of Latin that he skipped over commenting on the fact that she'd skirted giving a solid answer to his question.
"You read Lucretius?"
"I've had a lot of time on my hands here," she grumbled, and Sebastian grinned. "You know you're using that wrong, right? 'Nothing comes from nothing' was a cosmological concept—physics, matter, and such."
"Shut up, you know what I mean."
He laughed, then turned his palms up in an open gesture. "Fine. You may ask questions."
"And you'll answer honestly?"
"Doesn't the validity of my response to that question depend upon you trusting me first?"
"Sebastian—"
"Okay, okay. Yes," he said, leveling her with an even look, and she blew out a breath, a curl lifting briefly from her cheek as she did so.
"Okay. Then, do you have a witchlight?"
He nodded shortly, pulling the cool stone from his pocket to show her, and when she held out her hand for it, he tossed it to her. The white-blue light of the stone underlit her face, casting purple shadows and darkening the bruises down her throat in its brilliant glow. She cradled it in her hands, on open palms, and though she didn't elaborate on why she had asked for it, he suspected it was in order to keep an eye on his expression. Sebastian might have been able to see her clearly in the dark, but without runes she must have been struggling. Regardless, the fact that she thought seeing his face would help her decipher if he was being truthful was comical.
"Okay…uh…what is your…" Clary started, then trailed off, her eyes darting away.
"Oh, hell, Clary," Sebastian laughed, "you were not just about to ask what my favorite color was."
"Well, you put me on the spot!" she shouted, half closing her fingers over the witchlight to try and hide the frustrated look of embarrassment that spread across her face.
"You're the one that asked for this," he replied, and she shrugged half-heartedly before turning to him impatiently. "Well?" she asked.
"I've never really thought about it. Perhaps…silver. Or red. Red is starting to grow on me," he said with a smirk, and it was enough to make her roll her eyes again.
"Okay," she said, taking a moment to think of her next question. He could see the moment she decided on it, her resolve steadying, and when she began, the words tumbled out quickly, the way they always did when she was anxious about something. "Why haven't you Turned me? If I irritate you so much, why haven't you? You told me that I would accept you, that I wanted you, that I just didn't know it yet. Isn't the easiest way to get me to see things your way by having me drink from the cup? And—before you say it—no, I'm not asking for it, I just want to know why. Just weeks ago you would have—tired to, even. So what changed?"
"Wow. Straight from boring first date to therapy session," he muttered, and her oh, whatever, you asshole, was just audible under her breath. "Still, that's an easy one," he lied, leaning forward close enough that she pulled back a fraction. "After Jace and you left, I learned that the Endarkened make for such boring company. That's all."
She frowned, seeming uncontent with his answer, and he wondered if she could sense the half-truth to his response.
It was true the Endarkened could be boring at times—yes, they made for an extremely powerful weapon, listening to his every word and possessing the same demonic power that he did—but there was also never anything new or unexpected about them. But to say that it was an easy decision not to Turn Clary couldn't be farther from the truth. In reality, when he'd first tried to Turn her at Lilith's summoning ceremony, it had been an uncalculated choice, a reaction based in anger at her non-compliance at the time. Only afterwards had he realized the issues with trying to use the cup on Clary.
First was the fact that it had never been done on someone with higher volumes of angelic blood. Second, and most important, was that the demonic alignment granted by the cup risked causing her to lose her runic abilities, which were, without a doubt, tied to the Heavens. And that Sebastian could not afford.
Of course Turning her would be an easier way to handle her. She'd be more manageable, more fun, more dangerous. But for now, the cost outweighed the potential benefits of him having access to such a powerful skill. Before he would consider Turning her, it seemed the answer to these questions was to test the cup on Jace first. But that would be an experiment for later.
Bored with this game, he reached up to run his fingers through her hair, and she let him tuck a few loose curls back behind her ears. "Any other questions for now?" he asked, and she chewed uncertainly at her lip before shaking her head no.
"Then let's get inside. You look cold."
Clary wasn't actually that cold, but she let Sebastian lead her back indoors anyway.
When they got to the front step, she took a deep, greedy breath of fresh air before stepping back over the threshold into the house. Sebastian, who seemed unusually calm despite the drastic ups and downs throughout their interactions today, entered behind her and shut the door.
Out of habit, she scuffled her feet over the doormat as she entered, knocking off the dust and dirt from the ground outside, and felt silly for doing so when she noticed Sebastian simply walked in with his boots still on. Did he ever take off his shoes? Except for when in bed, she didn't think she'd ever seen him with them off. Though, it was even stranger to imagine him moseying around the house barefoot, or in slippers, like it was a lazy Sunday afternoon. She almost laughed at the thought, and then, with a sigh, she held up her braceleted wrist for him to take.
When he didn't immediately grasp it, she looked up to find that he had already been walking away, and he paused in the doorway to the foyer when he noticed her patiently waiting for him. A little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, barely noticeable, and she quickly put her wrist down, feeling her face warm a bit. It was like she was a pet, obediently waiting to have its collar put back on after being let briefly off the leash, and Sebastian saw it as clearly as she did.
Still, she didn't expect him to shake his head.
"Don't worry about it. I'll leave the barrier off. So that you can go outside," he said, and she looked him up and down quickly to try and read him. To try and figure out why. But he just looked superior, and slightly amused.
"Uh…thanks?" she said, following him into the kitchen, and she stood awkwardly in the doorway as he opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. He popped off the cap and drank it there, standing in front of the still-open doors to the fridge, the blue-white light making his skin glow, turning his scars transparent and white. It was strange, seeing him this way; something about it was just so…boyish. It made her remember that he was only seventeen. Practically a man in the world of Shadowhunters, but in mundane terms, he was just a teenager. And in that moment he looked horrifyingly human.
Despite everything that had happened today, it made her ease up a bit to see him this way. The usual menace in him seemed dulled, somehow.
He let out the breath he'd been holding as he drank, capped the now half-full bottle, and grabbed another from the fridge before shutting it.
"So, just to clarify…" she began, the odd scene briefly boosting her confidence, "are you saying that the sadistic shock feature is completely disabled, or that the barrier has just been moved to encompass the yard?"
Sebastian just grinned, tossing the unopened bottle at her, and she startled, barely managing to catch it. "I'm going to finish up working on something in the study. I'll see you in a few hours."
Clary nodded absently, and though she wasn't really thirsty, she cracked it open anyway. By the time she'd taken a small sip, he'd walked back into the hall, entered the cluttered study, and shut the door behind him without ever answering her question.
She thought again about what he'd said earlier—that he was done with "work" for the day—and wondered if he'd been lying, if he'd changed his mind, or if something had come up that he needed to handle. She decided not to ask.
It crossed her mind that it was probably for the best that he was busy with something besides herself, but then she realized how selfish a thought that was. Because it might not be best—him being busy. Busy might mean he was plotting an attack on her friends, or killing innocent people, or doing any other number of evil things.
But she was jumping to conclusions, right? He could be doing anything. Adding up bills, or organizing notes, or engaging in a healthy artistic hobby, like writing poetry or making pottery.
As hard as she tried though, she couldn't imagine him doing anything normal. After all, it wasn't like he actually had to pay for anything, and as horribly messy as he was, she couldn't picture him cleaning up or organizing. As for pottery and poetry, it was more likely he was forging weapons and writing death threats than creating art.
With a sigh, she headed up to the library. It was too early to go to bed, so she tried to continue sketching, but had to stop after a while since she kept zoning out, her gaze always drifting back to the window and the tree beyond it that Sebastian had pointed out earlier, just barely visible under the moonlight in the distance. So she moved to the bedroom next, taking a random book with her.
She spent most of the rest of the time her brother was in the study reading, but the classical style of the novel was getting increasingly difficult to comprehend the later in the evening it got.
It had been a busy day—well, at least a more active one than she had been having—and she was tired. Her muscles were slightly sore from training, and it felt good to stretch out across the cool bed spread, to let her eyes unfocus and gloss over the words in front of her. She started to nod off, and after snapping awake a few times at random, muted sounds from downstairs, she turned off the lamp and set the book aside, settling into bed. It was best to be asleep when Sebastian came to bed anyway.
But only five minutes after she'd turned off the light, the door to the room opened and Sebastian came in. Without thinking, Clary closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.
She listened as he quietly shuffled around the room, listened to the rustling of his clothes as he undressed, the thumping of his boots on the floor as he kicked them off, the clink of his belt buckle, the squeak of the drawer he kept his gear in. When she felt the bed sink with his weight, she had to remind herself to keep her expression blank, her muscles loose.
I'm asleep, I'm asleep, I'm asleep.
"I know you're awake," he said quietly. "You're breathing got all funny as soon as I walked in."
Shit.
She said nothing, but opened her eyes and let out a breath, curling up tighter on her side. Sebastian chuckled, pulling back the comforter and sheets to slide into bed. "You never wear the nightgowns," he noted with a sigh, "just shorts and a top." His tone was unabashedly disappointed.
That'd make things too easy for you, she thought, hugging her pillow.
"You wore nightgowns at the apartment. You wore them for Jace," he said, his voice stiff in such a way that she couldn't tell if he was actually upset or not, and she tensed at Jace's name.
At last, she said softly, "That was different."
She didn't know why she felt the need to defend herself. After all, she had only had access to Jocelyn's clothes then, and it wasn't like Valentine had stocked her wardrobe with sweatpants. But he said nothing in reply.
After a minute or so passed, she felt him move slowly across the bed. Clary shut her eyes again.
"So…are you thinking about my hands?"
"What?" she snapped softly, still facing away from him.
"You said you can't sleep without thinking about where my hands are," he clarified, and she felt his fingertips brush lightly over her hip. Even with a layer of blankets between the offending hand and her body, her skin began to prickle with goosebumps as he slid his fingers up and down her side.
"Worrying. I–I said worrying," she corrected, shrinking into the mattress. When his hand reached the top of the blankets, just at her bare shoulders, he brushed her hair back away from her neck. Before he could do anything else, she reached around to catch his hand, firmly holding it a few inches away. "And I can't sleep anyway when you won't stop jabbering."
In a single, swift move, he twisted his wrist in her grasp, grabbing at her forearm and tugging so she rolled onto her back with a gasp. She raised her other arm as he bent forward, but before she could do anything with it he trapped it beneath his palm, keeping it flat to the bed. She lay still as he leaned in close to her ear.
"I can be quiet. If you give my mouth something to do," he whispered, sliding his tongue up the shell of her ear. "What do you say we pick up where we left off in the training room?"