Lost and Found

by TheIXMuse

Sebastian comes back for Clary and Jace and they are hidden away where no one will be able to find them. When Sebastian begins to torture them, he shares just how dark his desires are, and Clary quickly realizes how far will go to attain them. Will they ever be able to make it out together? M for rape, incest, torture, and lots of other nasty things. Not for the faint of heart!

29. Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Five

[January 15th, 1PM; Cooperstown, New York]

Lalo returned a grin with equal chill, drummed his fingers on the bartop. "Fine. You best have a seat, then."

"I'll stand," Jace said, pulling at the neckline of his tattered shirt to complete a half-marked iratze on his shoulder. The warlock watched in a detached, interested sort of way as he healed himself of the wounds caused by the Deumas.

"Have it your way. The information you wanted—you are, trained Nephilim that you are, knowledgeable of the Princes of Hell?"

Jace stopped what he was doing, looked up to meet the man's eyes. "Yes," he said tightly, pocketing his stele.

"And so you are familiar with Belphegor?"

"'Familiar' is the wrong word. I know of him."

"Well, there's your answer."

Jace shook his head, frowning, little pricks of information, bits and pieces of facts and histories from demonology books fluttering through his mind as he tried to connect the dots. He knew, of course, who Belphegor was. Master of sloth. A nasty thing that loved to play with humans, lure them in with gifts of ingenious invention. All in all, a concept not so frightening to behold: a prince of laziness, lack of ambition. But Jace knew the idea of sloth itself was more tricky than it appeared on the surface. And he was, nonetheless, still a Greater Demon. But how the two were connected—he was drawing a blank.

"You're saying this Azomos is Belphegor."

"Indeed."

"How?"

"You know how these things work, with names," Lalo said flippantly. "All great beings have an endless list of titles, each one its own unique plagiarization of the one before. Especially when it comes to what mortals call them. These names are mistranslations, over and over and over again, from one language to another until it becomes something else entirely. And your Prince of Hell is the master of sloth." Lalo turned his hand in a dismissive gesture, as if he was speaking common knowledge.

"What does that have to do with the name?"

"Hmm. I thought at least this much you would recognize," he said, half scoffing.

"Warlock…" Jace said in warning, bracing his hands on the countertop.

"Nephilim," Lalo returned mockingly, the wrinkles around his eyes lengthening as his lashes lowered. "It's Latin, boy. Sloth is a mistranslation of Latin's 'acedia.' Which happens to be a mistranslation of a Greek work from akidia. And before Greek there was Mycenaen, and before that Minoan, which though technically indecipherable was similar enough to all the Cycladic languages before it, and on and on down the line. Best guess is that who we call Belphegor today was first seen in those civilizations, and known as Azomos. And as civilization conquered civilization and mashed language after language together, at some point the z turned to a c, and an s was dropped, and some vowels and consonants swapped."

At Jace's skeptical glare, the warlock shrugged and said, "Or you may choose to believe it was not a name given by mundanes, but the Seelie."

The fey. That's right. Jace recalled a tiny note in a book, no more than a sentence, that Belphegor treated with them long ago.

"How do you know this?"

"There are ancient histories even the Nephilim have not been able to track. It does not make it untrue simply because your kind has never heard the name."

"But how do you specifically know of this?"

"Information is my trade. That is why you came to me, no?"

"Fine. Let's assume all of this is true. Azomos is Belphegor…" Jace said, hesitating on his next question. He hadn't told anyone about the book, because he wanted to confirm the name first, and because he figured there was a decent chance of his questioning of the Downworld getting back to Sebastian. On the off chance that this was real, he didn't want to risk Sebastian hearing about Jace trying to find a resource able to track him, and then getting to the book first.

But Jace needed to know. He needed to know if this was some sort of trap, or, more likely, information to keep him busy, and away from the action.

"Yes?" Lalo urged, a bit impatiently.

"I've been told there's a book. One containing information on a greater magic than we know today."

Lalo narrowed his eyes curiously. "In that regard I cannot help you. I have neither heard of a spellbook like this, nor am I aware of whether or not Azomos would be holding it. Although, it would be unusual for such a powerful grimoire to go unknown for so long—perhaps this does suggest that it has been hidden away in his possession."

"So it's possible."

"I suppose. Regardless, if this book does exist, it is not something you should trifle with. If it's something a Greater Demon cares to hide away, it must be powerful indeed."

Then it was just the thing he needed.

Lalo scoffed as he took in the intention in Jace's eyes, and before he could even ask about where the demon could be found, the warlock spoke again. "I am neither aware of whether or not Belphegor is on Earth, or if he even can be summoned. He hasn't been seen for over a century. Either way, the more important question is should he be?"

Jace straightened, stepping back slightly from the counter. Was it possible? To summon a Greater Demon and get what you wanted from them without practically selling your soul? He thought of Callum's warning, his accusation of weakness. But Jace didn't feel weak. He felt angry. And determined. And like this was his only chance.

"It's not a trick question, Jace. The answer is likely 'no,'" Lalo said firmly. "Hence why I am strongly advising you against doing anything so stupid as summoning him. If he has been in the wind for all this time, and you are the one to bring him back and give him form…well, it won't be good for anyone, but I'd think your Council would be especially angered."

"That's for me to worry about," Jace said flatly.

"I can see in your eyes that you think I've given you an easy solution to your problem. But you are wrong to think so. Very wrong."

"Not easy. Just straight forward. That demon might have something I need. For someone peddling in information, you sure are overly critical. Don't you think judging your customers for the information they request—the information you provide—is bad for business?"

Lalo sighed in that way people do when they know they've lost an argument. "Ask away."

"Excellent. So how would one go about summoning a Prince of Hell?"

---

[January 17th, 8:50AM; Alicante, Idris]

The sky was blue and orange as the sun rose, and purple shadows cast down from the old stone and glass buildings. Birds sang from rooftops, the air cool and damp from last night's dew. Alec had never been a morning person, but it was hard to deny that it was beautiful. Still, it was difficult to appreciate the majesty of Alicante right now.

Though he'd gotten horrible sleep last night, he had still risen before sunrise, and was dressed and ready hours before he was supposed to be outside the Gard. Even as tired as he was, he stood in rapt attention at the edge of the street, his eyes focused on the cobblestones at the center of the square—the spot, he knew, where the portal would appear.

He knew he should be excited that his father and sister would be arriving, that they would all be together in one place, but it was hard to feel relief when he knew his entire family wouldn't be there. Because as much as he hoped that not hearing from Jace was due to any other reason, he knew that it was because he wouldn't be coming to Alicante with the rest of them. At first, he'd been concerned that his lack of response had been due to Sebastian having kidnapped him again, but then he realized Sebastian was too boasting for them to not have heard he had Jace by now if that was the case. No. This time, Alec didn't think Sebastian had anything to do with it. It was just Jace being selfish.

He glanced impatiently at his watch.

It was still ten minutes til, but a small group of Council members had already gathered in the square in wait of the appearance of the final arrivals from New York. They wouldn't be the last arrivals—there were a few Institutes that weren't attacked that had yet to evacuate—but they would be the only survivors of one of those attacks. And that was enough to strike people's attention. The small crowd was broken into pairs or trios, whispering factions that cut him a gossiping glance every now and then. The only other person standing alone was Jia, who looked to be almost in a state of meditation as she stood tall and still, staring blankly out across the square.

It looked as though it was the first moment of relative silence, of peace, that she'd had in quite some time.

"Are you ready?"

Alec startled, at last turned away from the square to find Helen Blackthorn taking a place by his side. She was sporting dark circles of her own, though she certainly looked more put together than he did, which was impressive considering all she'd been through the past few days.

"Of course," he said bluntly, looking back to the street.

"Not to see your family," she clarified, leaning against one of the stone pillars at the base of the Gard. "I mean for the trial."

Ah, right. The trial. That was what they were all waiting for.

"We didn't do anything wrong," he snapped, a bit too quickly, and Helen narrowed her eyes, seeming almost offended.

"I know that."

Alec sighed, running a hand over his face. "Sorry," he back peddled, reining in his frustration. "I've just had to defend myself from the second I returned."

"It's okay. I get it," she said, and his first thought was that she couldn't possibly—that there was no way she could understand—before reminding himself that she was the only person to attempt to stand up for his family the other day. Perhaps because she had just lost her own.

"No, really. I'm sorry," he repeated. "I was rude. And I'm sorry about the rest, as well. I heard about Los Angeles."

Helen looked away, but in the morning light he could still see the shine that developed at the corners of her eyes. She blinked it away quickly. "I'd rather not talk about it," she said sharply, and Alec nodded, because that was something he understood, too.

They stood in silence for another minute or so. He checked his watch again. And then, at last, a spot of blue flashed against cobblestone, and light rapidly gathered and grew into a portal. Alec stood upright, dismissing himself from Helen to approach, and the rest of the Council that had gathered closed in around the growing portal.

Jocelyn and Luke came through first, greeting the Council members briefly, polite but reserved. They were followed immediately by Simon, who looked slightly ill from portaling, but managed to nod at Alec and awkwardly find a place to stand beside Luke. Then there was Isabelle, who seeing was like a breath of fresh air, and who, though looking exhausted, was immediately running up to Alec the second her feet were on solid ground. He caught her in a tight embrace, taking in the comfort of having her in his arms, and the smell of home that clung to her hair and clothes.

"It's good to see you, Iz," he said, and she stepped back to look him in the face, her hands on his shoulders. "You too," she breathed, and smiled gently with relief.

"No Jace?"

She shook her head stiffly.

"Okay. It's okay. We'll figure it out," he sighed, but Izzy didn't look too convinced. Over her shoulder, he could see his father was appearing from the portal.

"What do you think they'll—?"

But before Iz could finish her question, the street was bathed in a pulsing red light.

Everyone in the square fell silent as the light from the demon towers turned crimson, the city's battle alert activating: demon blood had just entered the wards. All eyes turned to Robert, who stood in the middle of the square, looking weak from his recovery, and just as confused as everyone else at the warning of the demon towers.

Looking back, Alec realized his father's reaction must have been one of instinct—an instant response at seeing the red of the towers, a reflex after years of active missions and fights and demon hunting, even though he wasn't geared up or armed—but when he reached for his belt, for a weapon that wasn't even there, or perhaps his stele, the small group snapped in to action. It only took a moment for weapons to be drawn, and shortly after, as people all across the city noticed the lights of the towers, the street in front of the Gard was flooding with people. Alec only had a second to realize what was happening before half of the Council around his father surged forward defensively. The other half, confused by the sudden outburst, pushed back, and the square turned into a roiling mess of bodies.

Before he even had a chance to run to Robert's side, those closer to the portal rushed forward to block his path. "He's been Turned!" someone shouted, and Alec felt his blood run cold at the accusation. There was no way—his father had been fine when he last spoke to him—

He felt Isabelle latch on to his arm to keep him close in the growing crowd. "He's not Endarkened, there must be some mistake!" she yelled to no one in particular, but none seemed to hear her over the chaos as Shadowhunters began calling out orders.

"Wait—!" Alec heard Jia demand, but her voice was washed out, too.

"Get him—!"

"New York traitors—!"

"Close the portal!"

The shouts of angry and terrified Nephilm spurred the group, and Alec watched, stuck at a distance, as armed Shadowhunters thrust swords and seraph blades toward his father, who stumbled back in shock.

They really thought he was Turned. They thought more Endarkend were going to come through the portal. They thought the city was under attack.

They're going to kill him.

Alec grabbed his sister's hand and began shoving hurriedly through the crowd, all of whom were struggling forward to try and see what was happening. When he at last broke through the inner circle, he saw his father pinned on his knees, three Council members gripping him tightly, one drawing a knife from his belt. Without a second thought, Alec was rushing forward, tackling the cluster of Council members around his father to the ground. He rolled to his feet to find Jia at his side, standing in front of his father, who was shouting something about being unarmed, raising his hands in the air.

"Wait! He's not been Turned!" Alec shouted, but a Shadowhunter he didn't recognize was already on top of him, attempting to pin him down.

"We are not under attack!" Jia said. "Stop!"

But Alec could already tell that half the crowd was willing to ignore her command, and the other half simply couldn't hear her over the chaos, and the rioting group continued fighting forward.

In a panic, Alec tried to throw the Shadowhunters pinning him off of his back as he saw a member of the crowd raise a bow, aimed directly at his father. With a shout he managed to break free one arm, shoving and punching until he was out of their grasp, but he was stopped yet again by a fist grabbing the back of his gear.

He watched in horror as the woman with the bow twitched her fingers to release the arrow, his heart leaping into his throat as the scene turned to slow motion.

He couldn't lose another parent. He couldn't—

Faster than lightning, something silver snapped through the air, just as the arrow left its nock, striking the projectile aside with a clatter that was lost in the crowd.

Only after it was struck down did Alec see the whip as it was pulled back, tracing the silver coils to his sister as she wound it back up her arm.

In the shock of what'd happened, Alec managed to free himself once more from the stunned Shadowhunter that was holding him, again running to his father, only to be stunned by the familiar face that had taken up a spot next to Jia.

Magnus stood with his hands up, his fingers alight with blue fire as the portal closed. "What the hell is going on?"

"Push them back!" Alec shouted, without time to worry about why his ex was there, or whether or not creating a barrier was actually something he could do, but Magnus, without question, responded instantly with a snap of his fingers that sent a ring of blue flame radiating outward, allowing Alec to pass through and pushing back the rest of the crowd.

With space to move, Alec lunged past Jia, grabbing at his stunned father's arm. With frantic hands he thrust Robert's arm in the air and pushed up his sleeve, relieved to see black, angelic runes there, and for a moment, he thought he saw relief in his father's eyes too as he realized what Alec was doing, as if he had truly been considering that he might have been Turned without his knowing it.

"Look!" Alec declared, holding his father's arm up, and slowly, the immediately surrounding Shadowhunter's took in the sight, their weapons lowering as they realized their mistake. Some looked horrified, ashamed, guilty, others still fuming and ready to go, and the word spread outward among the crowd.

"We are not under attack!" Jia repeated, her voice heard more clearly as the fervor began dying out. "Someone shut off those fucking alarms!"

---

[January 17th, 9:05AM; Alicante, Idris]

From outside the circle of shouting Council members and the growing crowd of Shadowhunters—flooding out of the Gard, of their houses, weapons slung on backs and belts, or in hands and at the ready—the scene appeared a chaotic mess, a jumble of confusion and terror.

But to Amatis, it appeared as though it were a Shakespearean play, masterfully orchestrated by the playwright, the mayhem just an element to serve a purpose, to further the story. And without rehearsal, they were all playing their roles perfectly.

Just as planned, her arrival to Alicante through the tunnels in the Seelie Court went unalerted, or at least unnoticed as the wards were already going off, the red of the demon towers flashing brilliantly in the morning sun and reflecting off of the glass buildings that gave the city its nickname. It took a short moment for a crowd to form, but once it did the streets were swarming, the city full with Shadowhunters that had retreated there from all across the globe.

It only took a second to narrow in on the one she would take. An older man, perhaps in his early forties, with short cut brown hair and tanned skin. He was not a member of the Council, nor a regular face in Alicante, and did not appear to be looking around for any friends or loved ones. He stood at the corner of a building, loading a crossbow.

But she could see that the panic of the crowd was already beginning to calm, likely as word spread outward from the epicenter that Robert was detained, or that he appeared, at least outwardly, not Turned. She would need to strike now.

Swiftly, quietly, she darted out of the shadows across a storefront to the neighboring alley. The man didn't seem to notice as she darted into the small, shrouded lane between the buildings behind him, and a quick glance revealed that no one else was looking in their direction. Before he had a chance to process that he was being attacked, she had jerked him backward into the alley by a firm grip on the nape of his neck, and with a strike to his arm knocked the crossbow away—not that it would have done much in such close-quarters. By the time he knew to shout, she was pressing the Infernal Cup to his lips, and by the time he knew to fight back, she was already pocketing the cup and withdrawing a scarf from her jacket as he coughed up black froth. With one hand she pinned him to her chest, holding him still more easily than she would have been able to months ago, tucking her head just behind his shoulder so he couldn't scratch at her eyes with his flailing arms, and with the other she pressed the fabric hard against his mouth so his screams wouldn't leak out from between her fingers.

And scream he did. As they all had when they were Turned.

But the process was over in no more than forty five seconds. She couldn't see his face, but she knew the color would be leaching out of his eyes, the black of the pupil swallowing the iris whole. His Marks would be crumbling, evaporating from skin, as he gagged on his own shouts and his blood boiled and turned in every vein and artery.

She knew the transformation was done when he stopped struggling, and then calmly raised a hand to push away her arm, which she let him do. When he turned to look at her, his eyes had returned to their normal color, though there was certainly something else that was missing instead, something that had been there before that was now gone.

Call it what you will. That spark of mortal life, that brightness among Shadowhunters, even those at their darkest. That touch of the angel—now eviscerated.

The crowds were unpacking from the tight circle that had formed in the square, some slowly dispersing, some gathering in smaller groups to whisper to each other about the wards, about the Lightwoods, about Jonathan. The man she'd just Turned said nothing, only stood rolling his wrists back and forth, staring down at his arms as if he were in a new body. He was, in a way. She remembered that feeling. That sensation of being awake for the first time, of possessing a physical strength she felt she was always meant to but never had, of knowing exactly how she felt about everything, all the contradiction and pain of humanity gone and replaced with the most wonderfully transparent understanding.

"What's your name?" she asked, tucking the scarf in her pocket. It was tinged red and black, his blood mixed with Jonathan's and Lilith's.

"Nikolai Blackburn."

"Welcome, Nikolai." She withdrew a neatly folded letter from her coat and held it out for him. "For now, your instructions are here. We'll be in touch. Burn it once you've read it through."

"I understand," he replied, and quickly tucked away the note. And he did seem to understand—that he would follow orders quietly, and in his day to day act like nothing had changed. That he had new aspirations for the world. That there was nothing else that needed saying, that they would now part ways.

The ground cracked behind her and a small opening back to the Seelie tunnels appeared. Just in time. All flawlessly planned out.

Just as she was about to step into it, the newly Endarkend spoke again.

"Was it only blood that made us all along? Nothing more?"

It seemed more rhetorical than directed at her, but Amatis still paused. She remembered a similar thought having occurred to her. She knew the question was far from existential in nature. She knew it was more driven by a sort of awe, a shock that something so simple as his blood could have been holding him back. None of that nonsense about a soul making a man could be true, then, could it? It was all just blood. Blood and power.

She recalled a line from a poet she used to love.

Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.

It had been, at some point, one of her favorite quotes. Now that she was perfection, now that there was no fear, it meant something very different to her than it used to.

"I feel stronger than ever," he said then.

Amatis smiled. "You'll get used to it."

"I already have."

---

[January 17th, 10AM; Alicante, Idris]

A city full of frightened people was a dangerous one. Especially when the people being cornered had armories full of weapons and the wrath of angels in their blood. Even the bravest, most hardened people alive, when pushed to the brink, when on edge for months, could turn on each other at the drop of a hat.

Magnus had seen it before, but in all his life, and in all the histories, he'd never known any man able to turn Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter so quickly and efficiently as Valentine Morgenstern. And, of course, Jonathan followed suit.

That was what they had all witnessed today, outside of the Gard. The work of Jonathan Morgenstern. That, at least, was not in question.

Everything else, though—motive and method—were up in the air.

"It was a test. To see if the wards would sound off if he sent in an Endarkened."

"Good. Let the bastard see that we'll know the instant he's here."

"It can't be that simple. Why would he need to test the wards? He has enough of an army now to attack at any time."

"Let's hope it wasn't a test, because if it was, we failed. The Wards may have alerted us, but we were still sorely unprepared and uncoordinated."

"We still outnumber him by far. With the Accords—"

And on it went. Magnus had mostly zoned it out, the tiresome back and forth of the Council. There was little purpose in attempting to decipher Jonathan's reason behind the event. The result was near the same whether he'd meant to test the strength of the wards or had some other plan, because whatever it was, he had succeeded. And he'd done so right under Magnus and Catarina's nose.

As soon as they'd managed to calm the crowds in the square, and detained Robert for questioning, Magnus had been asked to test him again for all forms of demonic influence, against the advice of several of the Council that claimed he was biased toward the New York Institute, to which, he had to admit, they had a point. Still, he'd discovered that while Robert wasn't under any demonic influence, he was possessing a small trace of demon blood.

It was infuriatingly simple. Sebastian had used a similar trick before—granted, to a different end—when he'd left demon metal in Luke's rib. But this time, there was no physical object, no embedded weapon, for the warlocks to suspect anything might have been left behind in Robert's wounds. And when a test for demon venom or spellwork to explain the Inquisitor's symptoms turned up negative, they'd boiled it down to the traumatic injuries themselves. Because while the smallest amount of demon blood, practically untraceable, would only weaken a Shadowhunter—their angelic blood would burn it out eventually—as long as it was still in their bloodstream, even if only in the most minuscule amounts, it would set off Alicante's newly strengthened wards.

"Regardless of reason, the wards served their purpose," the Consul noted. "There is nothing more to do about it now. We should proceed with the original purpose for our gathering. As the Inquisitor and his children are in question, I shall be administering the Mortal Sword myself. We will open the Gard for the rest of the Clave now."

At that, the room quieted, and the members closest to the hall opened the great doors for the rest of the city to join.

This was what they had all been waiting for. And what Magnus was dreading.

Robert was brought out first, walked to the center of the dias next to Jia. The sword was positioned in front of him, the point of its silver blade resting on the floor, the elaborate, winged cross-guard facing down, like a bird diving into the sea. Jia held it upright by the pommel with a gloved hand, letting Robert take hold of it once he was ready. As he gripped the hilt in his fingers, swung the blade upward, Magnus could see from the well hidden grimace on his face the pain of bearing it. Agonizing, even for the most well-trained of Nephilim. Even for the Inquisitor.

And the questioning began. They had Robert recount the past week's events, starting from when they realized Jace and Clary were gone, all the way through that morning. They questioned him in detail about the attack on the Institute, about Jace, the Clave hushed in the hall as they listened. When they were done with Robert, Alec came next.

Magnus tensed as he watched Alec brace against the mental and physical weight of the Mortal Instrument, his shoulders tight and his brows pinched. He'd heard Shadowhunters describe it as a prickling sort of pain, like hooks digging into the palm, piercing nerves to mystically compel truth. The warlock knew there were much worse ways to draw information from a person, but he couldn't help but think it was barbaric when it was Alec who was subjected to it. Still, Alec was strong and stern as he always was when dealing with Nephilim business, and answered their questions firmly through gritted teeth.

Robert, Alec, and Isabelle were all posed a set of same or similar questions. How did they find Jonathan, what happened in the mountains, what state were Clary and Jace in, what happened to Clary, was Jace possessed, why was he not here, where was he now, and what was he doing? Though he expected some fractious comments from Alec, it was Isabelle who protested some of the inquiries under the Sword to defend her brother when asked why they proceeded with the mission when the Clave ordered a standby.

"Because we knew Jace and Clary were there. Because we knew Jace was being tortured. Because Alec thought we could get them out. We did get…." She choked on what was surely going to be the word them before she corrected herself. "We did get Jace out."

It took a member of the Clave informing her that the only reason their mission succeeded was because a majority of Sebastian's forces were out attacking Institutes for her to willingly continue with the interrogations.

The questions finally varied when it was Jocelyn's turn.

"Why were you the only Institute that survived?" Jia asked, and Magnus could already tell he was going to hate this line of questioning.

"I don't know," Joceyln said firmly.

"Was it because Jonathan did not want to kill his mother?"

"I don't know Jonathan's intentions. But I can say that he has no sympathies for me. He despises me."

"And do you have any sympathies for him?"

"I…" Jocelyn started, clenching her jaw and hefting the sword. "I may have, at one point. But it was only the guilt that a mother feels when she fails her child. But I know now there was never anything to save. So, no, I have no sympathy for Jonathan Morgenstern." She trailed off, her arms shaking, Magnus suspected not from the Sword. "He took my daughter," she added quietly, her voice wet.

Jia paused, and Magnus began to wonder if these questions were the Council's, not her own. "Could Clarissa have asked you to be spared? Would Jonathan have listened to her requests?"

Listened. Past tense. Would Clary have asked her mother, her Institute, be spared, before she was Turned. Because Endarkened didn't have requests; Endarkened didn't care for their families.

Magnus' gaze wandered to Luke, who stood, his arms crossed, at the base of the dias, his expression stiff with anger.

"I don't know," Jocelyn ground, her frustration growing. "I don't know what he plans to do or how he plans to do it. I don't know his intentions with Clary. And those intentions, whatever they are, won't protect her from harm. Didn't protect her. He doesn't care about her."

Jia let the line of questioning drop, and Magnus saw in his mind the young Nephilim on his doorstep that he took pity on years ago, one of the few he would ever know to willingly step away from the Shadowhunter life, a starch comparison to the grieving woman before him now. Everything she did for the sake of that little red headed girl with bright green eyes, Valentine's daughter.

When the interrogations were done, the Clave voted for Robert to stay on as Inquisitor. He passed by just barely enough. The Consul looked relieved to announce the end of the trial and meeting, though much of the Clave still appeared notably unsatisfied. Magnus couldn't blame them. They were all looking for a solution to something that had no answer.

"Very well," Jia said, returning the Sword to the Silent Brother who had brought it. "We will send a team to retrieve Jonathan Herondale. The Council will reconvene upon the arrival of the remaining Downworld representatives to discuss further preparation."

The crowd began dispersing, many of them casting envious or disapproving looks at the New York Shadowhunters who had grouped together near the edge of the main hall. It was more out of instinct that Magnus started approaching the group, his eyes locked on the mess of dark hair, but as Alec tapped his sister on the shoulder before ducking into the masses, the warlock thought better of following after to check in with him.

Magnus had to remind himself that he needn't be involving himself where it wasn't absolutely necessary, though the thought didn't make it hurt any less to see an exhausted Alec retreating from sight. But, the Lightwoods would need space, time to breathe. They had a funeral to attend.

And Magnus, he had this Asomos to look into.

---

[January 17th, 10AM; Undetermined Location, Mexico.]

The stars up above were foreign.

Clary knew she should have been able to identify at least some of them, a constellation here or there, recognition of an outline only vaguely shaped as its name implied it would be pulled from some childhood memory of stargazing with Simon. But they were all scrambled and out of place, and far, far too bright.

But the sky was just a backdrop, like a curtain hung at the back of a stage, distant and just nonspecific enough that it didn't really matter anyway. Instead the focus was on the boy. The boy on the hill with shining golden wings; the lead in the play. His back was to her, his face turned away, looking to the false stars. The wind blew softly, and like leaves falling from autumn trees, his feathers shed slowly, spiraling to the ground like little arrows of golden light.

She couldn't remember how she got here. Only that she'd been standing, waiting, unnoticed, for far too long.

The longer she watched, the more evident it became that the angel didn't know she was there, and the more she thought she might cry as a result.

If only he would spin to face her. She was certain she would know his face, recognize all the lines and features and emotions there, know it, unlike those strange stars, if only he would turn around. If only he would look back at her.

She didn't know she was struggling to find her voice until it at last came to her, a quiet, pleading whisper.

"Jace."

The angel's molting wings fluttered, stretched. The boy began to turn, fluidly, as if he was hovering. And as he turned, a shadow overtook his body, like smoke clinging to a wet, smoldering log. The shadow grew until it was all there was, until it blotted out the stars, the wings, the boy, and at last, his face, just as he was fully turned toward her.

"Please," she tried, but the shadows didn't answer, only stole his face away and stretched out over the hill until they consumed everything, swallowing her whole.

And then the dark was all there was.

The kind of blackness that was only found at the bottom of the ocean, or in caves that stretched so deep below the earth that the creatures living there were born without sight, the kind of black that devoured any light that dared attempt at shining.

There was no up or down. No left, no right. Only endless, suffocating darkness.

Clary sat in it, lost, aimless, for too long, not even trying to call out because she knew the void would never let her voice sound.

Only when she felt a pressure around her waist did she move, flinching away, but the grip was too tight, and the darkness too dark, for her to truly fight it. And then with a sudden tug, she was pulled downward, the sensation of falling tightening her chest and twisting her stomach, until she felt her feet hit the surface of something, and there was suddenly light all around her.

When her eyes adjusted, she took in the scene before her. A tall, open room with darkened walls. A large window on the far end with the stained glass broken out, where she could see flames that curled through the streets outside. Inside rubble was strewn across the floor and lifeless bodies were scattered amongst broken stone and dying embers. The bodies were faceless, all of them, but even so Clary found that she cared less than she knew she should have about their deaths.

Then there was Sebastian, standing directly in front of her, his hands on her waist. His eyes seemed to contain the very same darkness that he had pulled her from, and on his back sat two large, black wings, the handle of the Morgenstern sword protruding over his shoulder. He looked like a Renaissance painting of a fallen angel, his face hard and angled, each feather on the wings layered atop the other like wide, textured brush strokes. For some reason, even there, amongst the ruins of the Gard, she thought she might could reach up and brush away the black, as if his feathers were only darkened by ash, and not pigmented that way—that there might be white beneath the soot after all.

"Clary."

"Hmm?"

But he said nothing, reaching up to stroke her hair instead.

"You're all bloody," she remarked suddenly, only noticing the fact as she spoke it, the speckles of red across his face, the dark smears of it along his neck and collar. Shock passed through her like a lapping wave, receding quickly behind an untoward sense of calm.

Her brother looked at her oddly, tilting his head. "So are you."

And she was. It was on her arms, her hands, her dress.

She moved, then, like an animatronic, her limbs bending stiffly as she took Sebastian's jaw and pulled him down, standing on her tiptoes to meet his face halfway. She kissed him. Gently, like she would a lover, and he leaned over her to accept the gesture, his lips tasting sweeter than they should on her tongue.

"Clarissa."

Clary opened her eyes at the sound of her name, which had come not from Sebastian's lips, but another's, someone directly at her back. A glaring flash of light came from behind her, brighter than anything produced by the sun or artificially—a radiance otherworldly, one which illuminated the entire room, thrusting harsh shadows from the rubble on the ground and reflecting blindingly off of Sebastian's armor, so bright off the metal that her eyes watered. Sebastian, simply watching her curiously, seemed unphased as a chorus of hissing voices rose around them, erupting from the source of light, hundreds of voices that were somehow all one.

Did he not see the light? Did he not hear the voices?

They—no, it was calling her name. All of her names, over and over—Clarrissa, Clary, Fray, Morgenstern, Clarissa, Clary, Clary, Clary—and she stilled as the whispering voices increased. She felt a hand on her, not Sebastian's, cold as an icicle on her bare shoulder, and froze up.

The dream seemed to shift, locking down, shuddering to a halt as something like paralysis set in.

Dream?

She couldn't move.

She couldn't speak or blink or breathe.

The voice behind her grew louder, and Sebastian just looked on, watching, waiting.

If only she could twitch a finger, or jerk her chin. If only she could turn around, and look at the thing behind her. If only she could turn to face it, she could—

But as the impulse to turn and look, to fight the immobility, grew, Sebastian smiled and cupped her face, urging her silently to stay. Her eyes darted to his as she struggled between turning back and looking forward, and she focused on him, because she still couldn't move. Because there was nowhere else to look.

And then she saw his eyes.

Really, truly saw them.

Black, just as they always were—but now deeper. Unveiled, somehow.

In the contrast of the brightness all around them, in the presence of the thing behind her, she saw that his eyes weren't reflecting any of that blinding light.

No, the light on the whites of his eyes ended at the edge of the iris, and like matter devoured by a black hole, the reflection disappeared behind some unseeable force.

Clary's mouth opened in horror, the voices reaching a fever pitch behind her, and—

She jolted awake with a gasp, sucking in air like she'd been suffocating and was only just now allowed a breath. Maybe she had been; she was lying on her side, her face pressed down into a swath of pillows and fabric, and she clawed at the sheets in a half-panic to free herself from their confines.

When she came to full awareness, and realized she was only in bed, that it had just been a dream, she calmed, taking in a deep, shaky breath as she rolled onto her back.

She hadn't had a dream that vivid in quite some time.

And that horrible, whispering voice…she could still recall it clearly in her head, fading in volume like an echo down a long, dark hall as she tried to place it.

She'd heard it before somewhere. She was sure of it.

With another steadying breath, she sat up slowly, only to be met with a figure standing in the doorway. She jolted in surprise, her heart rate spiking before she had the chance to realize who it was, and fell back to the bed in exasperation.

"Sebastian," she groaned, running her hands through her hair.

"I didn't mean to startle you."

Clary sighed. "No, it wasn't…wait, what are you doing?" she asked, rubbing at her eyes as she sat back up. He was fully dressed, and carried a wide tray in his hands. He used his foot to push the door shut the rest of the way, and as he approached she saw an array of food across the silver surface, fruit and bread and thinly sliced meats.

"I thought I'd bring you breakfast," he said, and though she instantly thought, why, all that came out was a sheepish oh as Sebastian set the tray on the end table. "But you sort of look like you're going to throw up," he added, looking her up and down.

She shrugged, embarrassed, and pulled the covers up around her. "Sorry…I…"

"Bad dream?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Here. Start with coffee." Sebastian handed her a mug, watching expectantly as she cradled the hot ceramic to her chest. It smelled amazing. Black, just how she liked it.

"Thanks," she said quietly, and began to sip it slowly, feeling awkward as he took a seat at the edge of the bed and leaned back on his hands. "You're not going to have any?" she asked, when the silence was too much.

He shook his head. "I already ate. So, do you get them often? Nightmares?"

The question caught her off guard, and she lowered the coffee. Nightmare didn't seem like the right word for these types of dreams. It seemed too childish, almost. "Um…I don't know. It depends. I dream a lot, yes. Sometimes they're frightening, sometimes they're not." She shrugged, and added, "They're all just dreams, anyway."

"Hmm," Sebastian said, clearly unconvinced by her stumbling response.

"Do you ever get nightmares?" she asked, genuinely curious, though not expecting a genuine answer, but without a beat of hesitation he replied. "No. But then, I rarely dream."

"What? You mean you just don't remember them, right?" she asked skeptically.

"No. I can count on my hands the amount of times I've dreamt. It's rare. But when I do dream, it's of you."

Clary raised her brows, trying to read the blank expression on his face. The words themselves sounded like something a fairytale prince might spout, that they only ever dreamed of the princess, but coming from Sebastian in that dark, blunt tone, it felt more creepy than romantic. Though, to be fair, it didn't seem like that was what he was going for.

"Really? That's weird," she said, and he straightened up a bit. If she didn't know him better, she would have said he looked almost defensive.

"Which part?"

"Both parts. It's weird."

"Is it? I don't think it is."

Well of course he wouldn't think it's weird. Not dreaming at all she could maybe pass off as a side effect of him not being all human. But to dream only of her? That was strange. Although, she supposed that, especially since being introduced to the Shadow World, she'd often dreamt of those she was tied to in some way, as if when her sight returned her dreams were freed from some sort of confinement.

"Who do you dream of?" he asked, as if he could sense her train of thought.

"Don't you mean what do I dream of?"

"No," he said simply, and she glanced away, taking a sip of coffee to delay having to respond. Because she did, at least recently, usually dream of Jace, or Sebastian. But she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of admitting either of those answers.

She thought of them both in the dream she'd just had. Jonathan Herondale and Jonathan Morgenstern. Quite literally character foils of each other—Jace's gold to Sebastian's black—and yet, in the dream it had been Sebastian that had pulled her out of the darkness, and Jace who had his back to her.

It had been Jace who fell away, and Sebastian who'd stood with her. Even in the ruins and rubble, even amongst the chaos and the dead, he'd only looked at her.

She couldn't shake the strangling feeling of the shadows, the light and the voices calling her name, the black of Sebastian's eyes, the bodies all over the floor. She felt a pang of anxiety as she now imagined those faceless corpses as her family, her friends, strewn across the floor of the Gard, looking up at her in their death as she stood next to the man who wanted to burn their word down.

But when she realized Sebastian was still waiting on her reply, and she looked back up at him, she saw that, though his eyes were indeed black, they were nothing like how they'd looked at the end of her dream. Now, with late morning sun streaming in through the window, she could see a reflection of light across their surface, and the tiny sliver of grey around the pupil.

"It varies," she said, which was technically the truth, and before Sebastian could press her clearly avoidant answer, she added, "Can I ask you something?"

"Yes," he said, allowing the change in subject, and she set her coffee aside to indicate the importance of the question.

"Are my friends and family okay?"

His fair eyelashes lowered. "How would I know?"

Clary hesitated, unsure if she should push the topic considering his guarded look. But they had an agreement; she could ask questions and he would answer if he could.

"I don't believe for a second that you aren't keeping tabs on all of them," she said plainly, and she was relieved when she caught a tiny little tilt to the corner of Sebastian's lips as he paused in thought.

"Before you answer," she said, a bit pleadingly, "remember you promised not to lie to me."

There was another pause, and then, "They're alive."

"They're alive?" Clary scoffed. "That could mean anything."

Sebastian cut her a glance that clearly enough said that he wouldn't be sharing anymore on the matter, and she put up her hands. "Fine. Then…what's going to happen to them? When this is all over?"

"When what's over?"

"You know, the war—whatever the master plan is that you won't tell me," she clarified, though she knew he was perfectly aware of what she'd been asking.

He liked to do that, she noticed. Feign ignorance to certain things she said to keep her talking. To force her to say things aloud. She hated it. And she hated, too, the way he looked at her now, scanning her face as if he was trying to pick the best response to suit his needs.

"They'll have the same choice as everyone else," he replied slowly. "They can submit, or they can stand against me."

He didn't have to elaborate; what would happen to someone if they stood against him was well enough implied. Clary swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. "So, Jace is included in that?"

It was a risky question considering his outburst at her bringing him up last night, but she was emboldened by his apparent willingness to talk this morning. She was rewarded with a seemingly honest answer.

"Maybe," Sebastian said, pulling one knee up onto the bed to face her. "I would like him to be with us, yes."

"But he'll have to…submit?" Clary nearly cringed on the last word. "You want him to be with us, like we were all together in the apartment?"

Sebastian narrowed his eyes again. "Is there something else you're trying to ask?"

"I just mean…how do you expect that to work? All three of us together?"

A harsh laugh rumbled up through his chest, and he threw his head back with a grin. "You mean if he sides with us can you fuck him?"

Clary's face flushed, and when she physically recoiled, she was glad she had set down the coffee a moment ago. "God, no! That's not what I was asking! Not everything is about sex you know."

"Freud would disagree."

"Well, Freud was a sexist, plagiarizing hypocrite. So."

Sebastian laughed; Clary rolled her eyes.

No, what she wanted was to ask how Sebastin expected Clary to be okay with him torturing Jace everytime he got mad at him for going against him. She wanted to ask how he expected Jace to go along with them being together, as Sebastian insisted they would be. She wanted to ask if he planned on using the cup to Turn Jace.

But after she'd asked the other day why he didn't turn her, and he gave her a clipped reply before ending the conversation, she was concerned that bringing it up wasn't the best idea. Not yet, at least. Though he seemed more amused than angered, she didn't want to risk him shutting down.

"Can we just for a second not pretend like my being here with you somehow erases my concern for him? I just want to make sure that Jace, and all my family and friends, will be okay," she ventured, and his smile faded slowly.

"Do you remember what I told you at the club in Prague?"

Clary frowned. Prague. It felt like so long ago. The faerie drugs she had taken that night didn't help her memory, but she remembered being pulled into a small, more quiet corner of the club by Sebastian, talking to him at the edge of a fountain. What he'd said that night hadn't meant much to her in the moment—she'd been high, after all. But when in the morning, through a splitting headache, she pieced together the evening and recalled what he'd said she realized the weight of it. It had been one of the first times he showed a true part of himself, even if she hadn't known it at the time.

You have a dark heart in you, Valentine's daughter. You just won't admit it. And if you want Jace, you had better accept it. Because he belongs to me now.

"You said a lot of stuff that night," Clary said quietly, but he must have been able to tell that she knew what he meant, because he continued.

"You can have him, but he can't have you."

She blinked, picked up her coffee again to have something to do with her hands. "But what does that mean?"

His shoulders seemed to tense a bit, and when he leaned forward she could tell that he was quickly tiring of the subject. "It means that he gets to live if he sides with me, and that you can have him to do with as you please, but you'll still always be mine."

"That doesn't make any sense," she said, but it was more for herself, because this argument—that his logic was twisted—was something they'd already discussed. At some point, she perhaps believed that if she forced him to put his thoughts, his reasoning, into words, that he would realize how ridiculous and terrifying half the things he said really were. She should've known better by now.

"You want not to pretend? Fine. Then you know it will be up to you, right?"

Clary looked up, confused. "What will?"

"Whether he lives or dies."

"I don't understand," she said slowly, and she felt her heart begin to thump harder in her chest.

"At some point, you will very likely have to convince him not to fight me."

"Oh."

And the realization hit her for the very first time: that what he was saying was a possibility. That she might not get away from Sebastian before something major goes down. That Sebastian might win. She'd not once truly let herself imagine a reality where she had to beg her family to stand down to save their very lives. Clary might have liked to think that she would rather die than let Sebastian destroy everything, but was she willing to let everyone else die, too? Because then what would it all be for? Spite? To let everything that was good die, simply for an act of rebellion?

She looked down into the mug, watching the golden brown bubbles at the surface of the coffee cling onto the ceramic as she swirled the cup. "...What if I think he could win?" she asked, too afraid to meet his eye.

But when he was quiet, she had to look up to meet his hard, cold stare. He waited until their eyes locked. "Do you?"

Clary swallowed.

I don't know.

But she didn't say that. Instead, she broke eye contact again, and gave an exaggerated sigh to try and mask the nervous twisting in her gut. "Jace belongs to you. I belong to you. But you never told me who you belonged to," she said, returning to their conversation in Prague. It was the one question she'd ever asked that had stumped him, and though it was certainly relevant to the topic, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't bringing it up to bug him at least a little.

It seemed to work; his response was curt. "I told you I don't know."

"Is it Lilith?"

He gave half a laugh. "No."

"...Is it me?"

His jaw tightened slightly, and now he really was starting to look annoyed. But, it seemed, not so much at the implication of belonging to her as much as a growing distaste of the topic itself.

Clary put a hand up placatingly. "Hey, don't get pissed at me. Trying to build trust means I get to ask questions that piss you off without repercussion."

"We never said anything about repercussions. Just that you could ask." He smiled slightly, in a way that didn't quite reach his eyes—in a way that said he was only half joking.

But before she had a chance to grow anxious over the sly look, he spoke, his tone loosening again. "It's my turn to ask a question."

"...Okay," she agreed hesitantly.

"Can you control your rune creation?" His voice was level, as if he were proposing an innocent, idly curious inquiry, but it instantly set off alarms in her head.

"That's out of nowhere."

"We were talking about dreams," he offered with a shrug.

"Oh," she said, though she couldn't remember ever having told him she'd seen runes in her dreams before. "Well, no, I can't control it. Not really."

"Then I want to help you learn how to."

Clary felt herself tense. So that's why you're here, she thought suddenly. That's why he brought her breakfast and coffee, and was calmly putting up with her questions. He wanted something.

For some reason, the realization disappointed her.

Clary leaned back with a dubious look. "Why? So you can take advantage of my abilities? You know I'm not going to make you something that helps you end the world, or whatever. Besides, it doesn't work like that. It's not some super power I can just activate whenever I want. It just…comes and goes."

"No, it's not a superpower. It is an ability; a muscle that can be trained."

"That's easy for you to say. Valentine's experiments literally gave you more strength…and muscles to train."

"That experiment also gave me the ability to use magic, which I had to train myself in," Sebastian said, and Clary gave him another skeptical look, though she knew, at least in this regard, that he was right. She had seen it herself, his ability to work portals and glamors, make things appear like warlocks could. She remembered what Jocelyn had said about Valentine, about how injecting himself with demon blood made him as close to a warlock as a Shadowhunter could get.

"Clary, you literally raised a man from the dead to interrogate him. With a single rune—one that you created. You can do anything."

"Well that ended up being a horrible idea," Clary snapped. "And how did you even know that? Only Luke and Maryse were there."

Sebastian sighed, like he was disappointed that she wasn't keeping up. She didn't appreciate his patronizing tone when he said, "And who is the only other person you told?"

"...Oh. Jace. So, wait, do you just know everything that Jace knows? Or, knew up until the Burren?"

"Not exactly."

"Ugh, whatever. I didn't create that rune, I was just allowed to access it through Ithuriel. It already existed, Raziel just didn't give it to the Nephilim."

"Why do you think that? Because of something some warlock told you once?"

Not just any warlock, she thought. The high warlock of Brooklyn.

"And even so," he continued, "is that the case for all of your runes? When your mother created the rune to hide the cup in the card, had the angels already invented that? Do you really think the angels already had a rune for appearing to onlookers as their loved one so they could be manipulated, or a joining rune for Shadowhunters and Downworlders, or a rune for birth control?"

"I don't know," Clary huffed, growing frustrated. "I mean, they're…godly. Isn't the point that they're all knowing? That, technically, everything imaginable already exists because they can make it so?"

"You're thinking about it the wrong way—and under the lens of religion. If a god exists, it is not all knowing. Angels are not all knowing. They're creatures, just like the rest of us. They can die just like the rest of us," Sebastian said sternly, and Clary went still at the severity of his tone. "Besides, you say angels created the runes, or at least that all possible runes already exist and angels know them all, right? Then are you not close enough to an angel to create and know runes on your own? Surely if I've enough demon blood for you to call me more demon than human, then you've enough angel blood to make you more angel than human."

Clary frowned, her brows pinching in distaste. She wasn't really religious, but still, it felt sacrilegious to compare oneself to an angel—though Sebastian probably liked the comparison for that very reason.

"I never thought about it that way," she conceded. "I wouldn't even know where to begin. I've only ever created runes when I needed them."

"You're telling me you've not once tried to make a rune for something simple?"

Clary gave him a funny look. "If it's simple, why would I need a rune?"

"Because it might make a simple thing simpler."

Her lips twisted incredulously, and she said nothing.

"Just think about it," he urged gently, and the almost encouraging tone to his voice was off putting. "Start small."

"If you want me to train my rune creation...you'll have to give me a stele."

"Nice try. But no," he said with a dry laugh. "You can start on paper."

"Worth a shot," she muttered, picking absently at a loose thread on the comforter.

As hesitant as she was to do anything Sebastian suggested, she did suppose that control over her ability would benefit her more than anyone else. It wasn't as though he could force her to do anything bad with it. And besides, doing this might help in getting him to trust her. At some point he would have to give her a stele to let her test runes. And maybe then….

"Are you hungry now?" Sebastian asked, snapping her out of her thoughts, and she looked back to the tray of food, which she had almost entirely forgotten about.

It did look delicious.

"Yeah, actually."

"Good. I'll let you eat, then," he said, and rose from the bed. Before she could reach for the food, she froze as he stretched down to flattened the covers around her legs, and then plucked up the tray and set it in her lap. Leaning over her, he seemed to hesitate for a moment, before withdrawing his hands and spinning on a heel.

The door shut quietly behind him.

---

[January 17th; Seelie Realm.]

It had been some time since Sebastian had seen the inside of the Queen's chambers, yet it looked precisely the same—as eternal as its primary inhabitant, who was currently sprawled out on the bed. Just as the room remained unchanged, so too did the lady's face: un-marred by lines of stress or grief, despite her ruling over an entire peoples; not a wrinkle to be found even by her hundreds of years of life; her pores so small and clear that her skin looked nearly porcelain. Ever beautiful, and—still, Sebastian found—occasionally boring to behold.

What was different today, as opposed to the other times he'd been here, was the presence of two other figures in her bed. A male and a female, both fey, and both as undressed as the Queen herself, which was entirely.

With any other girl, he might have thought this stunt was put on to inflame jealousy. But then, Her Lady was no girl. He didn't doubt that she could have been caught doing this whether his arrival was expected or not, that this was, if anything, a reflection of her lack of romantic care for him at all.

The three of them untangled upon his entry, flushed from activity rather than embarrassment at his sudden presence, and the Queen leaned back casually to take a sip from a glass of wine.

"Always the hedonist, I see," Sebastian said, closing the door behind him. "Your knight told me you were expecting me."

"Ah, my Morning Star returns," she cooed, her eyelashes lowering as she tipped her head back to take him in.

"Should I come back later?"

"No, no. Do come in. You are just late of a wonderful ménage à trois. I'm sorry you missed it," the Queen mused, lifting the hand that wasn't holding her glass. The gesture was vague but the two fey in her bed seemed to understand, and slid gracefully over the covers to take her palm and each place a kiss on its back before rising to take their leave.

"You tease me. You know I'm the possessive type," he joked, and Her Lady sighed dramatically, tossing the covers aside. "Not of me, I'm afraid."

Sebastian cocked his head, raising a shoulder in a half shrug. "And that is exactly why you're so fond of me."

The Queen smiled. "Come. Sit. Amatis tells me we've much to discuss," she said, and as he approached she snapped her fingers at the retreating pair of fey. "A drink, for our guest."

Without a beat, the female turned to do as commanded, but Sebastian could tell by the stiffness in her movements that she wasn't all too happy with having to serve him. He let her anyway, though he could have easily prepared a drink himself, sitting down in an armchair near the bed instead, watching as the woman poured him a glass.

He recalled something the Lady had said to him in the past. "You should get used to being served. We'll make you a king someday soon." And then, just as now, he'd thought to himself that there would be no adjustment; there would only be satisfaction that it finally was as it always should have been.

When the fey moved to him, bending down to present the cup, he noted the sheen of sweat on her torso, her long, exotically colored hair falling away from her fair breasts, and her eyes held his firmly.

Clary's gaze would have darted away nervously.

He took the cup, smiling, and the Queen waited for her to leave before sliding out of bed to seat herself across from him, donning a sheer robe as she did.

"Your time is precious. Shall we get right into it?" she asked, raising her cup. Sebastian matched the motion before sipping his drink, and took in the bitter juice, the subtle, salty tang of faerie wine. Warmth shot through him, and we smiled, savoring the personalized flavor that Seelie drinks offered, encapsulating an indescribable and craved taste, unique to each who consumed it. That was one of the benefits of being aligned with the Queen of the Seelie. One could indulge in all the pleasures of the realm if only they had the power and worth to be granted doing so without risk of trickery.

"Your operation in Alicante was a success," the Queen noted, and Sebastian nodded. "It was."

"Your patience has paid off."

It was an I told you so if he'd ever heard one from her; it wasn't like her to be nonchalantly complimentary, and it was she who had convinced him months ago not to rush through the plan. He had to admit, allying himself to her had paid off. He nodded, enough to acknowledge the unspoken, though well earned, pride in her voice without overplaying the gratitude.

"As has Meliorn's information. I may not have attempted this if not for his report about the flaw in the new wards."

"Yes, he has always been quite invaluable to me. I am glad that his gifts have been suited to your needs as well. And your next steps?"

Sebastian took another sip before setting down his cup on the decedent side table and leaning back in his chair. "That is what I wanted to discuss with you. As I prepare both realms for the ceremony, I need to drive a wedge between the Nephilm and the Downworld. I had planned to bring threats to each race…."

The Queen's lips tightened knowingly. "But you are uncertain now."

"Yes."

"Understandably. If you kill one of each race, do you not risk turning them against you?"

"Right. I suppose it boils down to whether or not we believe fear of myself or hatred of the Clave will be more effective."

"Elaborate," she said, and her tone was not one of confusion, but intrigue and wisdom, and it was times like this that he saw the strategist come out of her, her thoughts already matching his, ten steps ahead.

"I see two options," he said, idly fingering the lip of his glass. "I can come to each of them with an offer of a place in the new world. I can entice them with pleasantries, and promise of survival, and hope that their distaste for the Clave outweighs their unease in joining me. Or, I can demonstrate what will become of them if they do not side with me—give them a taste of what is to come for any opposing Nephilim, deliver my offer with a gift of death upon one member of each race. Now, the latter, of course, would require the death of one of yours. For…consistency."

"I see," she said, and though it went unspoken that the death of one of her own could not be faked, he knew she saw that as well without any explanation. Meliorn might be able to spread rumors and feed lies to the Clave, but not all of the Seelie were aware of what was occurring behind the scenes. News of a death of a fey might get back to faeries who weren't aware of their Queen's alignments, might stir questions about no recent killings to be witnessed, or bodies to be found. If they went for this path, one of her's would have to die.

He pressed on. "The recent demon attacks are likely to aid in a push toward the former. The Downworld has seen first hand the effects of the increasing counts of demons, and they are sure to be sour with the Clave for having left them behind to cower in their home country while they and the mundanes suffer attacks."

"Could this very thing not sway them the other way? A fair argument could be made that some Downworlders may conclude from this chaos that they do in fact need the Nephilim to help control the demons—a realization of necessity for the people you are trying to extinguish. And necessity always triumphs over mere dislike."

"True, but again, the question repeats itself: would fear of myself win out over this necessity? I could of course assure them that when I win they would no longer suffer demonic attacks. And that they would no longer be subject to Nephilim rule or law."

"You forget that some have come to like this law. Many among them feel it helps keep their fellows controlled, prevents them from needlessly indulging in terrorization of mundanes."

"And so the dog comes to love its cage," Sebastian muttered, and the Queen chuckled.

"I find it amusing you say this with such distaste, considering it a tactic you're currently employing on your sister. Who, quite humorously, formed the very allegiance between the Downworld and Nephilim that you are attempting to break."

Sebastian laughed. "An alliance against our father, at that. But you mistake my methods. The end goal is not to cage my sister, but to offer her the opportunity to take her rightful place—to be in control alongside me. If she denies me, then if there is any cage it is one she put herself in."

Her Lady's eyes crinkled at the irony, though whether her entertainment was at the squabbles of the Mortal War or the analogy of the cage, he was unsure. "Still," she said, "to offer to destroy a law Downworlders have come to rely on only presents itself to them as a risk of chaos. It is not as enticing an option as you may believe it to be. They do not want no law at all. You are trying to entice them out of the cage by either wagging a bone, or snapping them on the nose. Instead, you must offer to replace it with something they believe to be better."

"I do not care what the Downworld wishes to do once I take Alicante so long as it does not interfere with my rule. Nor do I care what happens to the mundanes," he said, watching the roses above the Queen's bed slowly shed petals. They would regrow by morning, fresh thorns and blossoms and vines. "As it stands, do you believe your people would rather remain under the hold of Nephilim and the Accords than allow me to take control?"

"Ah. That is the paradox. Any ruler should desire for their subjects to love the cage of their law, but if that ruler knows at all what to do, what the people want is not of real consequence—I know what is best for them. Just as you know what is best for your dear Clarissa."

Sebastian sighed, giving in further to the warmth of the wine that curled through his stomach. "Regardless, we don't need them to join us in the fight, nor to not resist at all. We just need them to either stand on the sidelines, or not resist until after I've dealt with the Nephilim. Our numbers are good—not so good that we should risk taking all Nephilim and Downworlders at once, without at least attempting to separate them. But as far as how we prevent that resistance, I believe it is a fair shot either way," he said, and though he could already tell by the look in her eyes that she knew how she wished to proceed, he gave her the option anyway. "If it is a decision you hold any preference over, you are welcome to choose. I trust your experience, both with strategy and knowledge of the Downworld in general."

The Queen smiled slightly, seeming to ponder a moment.

"There is, perhaps, one other option," she said softly. "One that would allow you to play on their hatred of the Clave, and offer you up as a better option."

"Oh?"

"We have the Clave kill a member of each, instead of you."

"Elaborate," he teased.

"We write a story: the Clave is so frightened by the thought of the Downworld aiding your success that they are willing to do whatever it takes to turn the Downworld against you. Even if that means bringing death. A Clave member disguises themself as an Endarkened, and kills one of each, to try and encourage the idea that you should not be trusted. But unfortunately, one of the Downworld recognizes this mystery agent as Nephilim," she said, twirling a red curl of hair around her finger as she spoke as if they weren't discussing murder.

Sebastian leaned forward, intrigued. It was a faerie-designed plan, that much was certain. Overly reliant on trickery to succeed. But if it did work, it would without a doubt ensure the Downworld stood aside.

"It is…overly complicated," he posited. "But it just might work. The Shadowhunter we pin the blame on, though—what happens when they inevitably deny it was them? What then? What when they are put to the Mortal Sword?"

"Then there is an accident. They die in their cell before trial."

Sebastian narrowed his eyes, standing to pace the floor as he imagined her plan playing out. "This method. It would still require the death of one of your own."

Her Lady nodded, her typical, knowing smile fading as she considered something. Sebastian knew she was ruthless, but from what he could tell, she did genuinely care for her people as a whole. That she knew what was best for them didn't negate whatever concern she possessed for her Court. It was why she sided with him, after all. But then, she wasn't the type to save one over the many.

"I may have just the solution for that," she said, rising from her chair as well. She glided over to the corner of the room, topped off her drink. "You recall Callum, my advisor?"

"The one who's always frowning?" Sebastian asked, thinking of the little faerie with ashy brown hair that tended to linger around the Court.

"That is the one. He is of an old genetic line, and possesses certain abilities that have been quite useful in the past. But he was spotted communicating with the Herondale boy before he left the Court."

Sebastian paused in his pacing, struck by the Queen's word choice.

"Communicating?"

She tipped her head, like she'd been caught. "You have heard of the fey that can influence dreams? Callum is one of those." She strode over to Sebastian, reaching up to touch his temple lightly with her fingertips. "He has the ability to speak to someone telepathically, through touch."

"I see. So you've no idea what he told Jace?"

"Unfortunately, no."

Sebastian stepped back from her touch, returning to his chair and the wine.

It couldn't be that the advisor informed Jace directly of the Court's alignment to him, otherwise it would have been reported to the Clave by now. That, at least, justified the Queen's delay in relaying this information to Sebastian. Not that that made him any happier about it; because if the advisor needed to communicate quietly, it was something he shouldn't have been sharing.

Still, he hadn't lied to Clary earlier when he admitted to keeping tabs on her family, Jace included, and as far as the Endarkend reported back, he didn't appear to be stirring up much trouble. It had seemed he was simply poking around for information on tracking, and so Sebastian had dismissed it. But if his search was guided by this advisor, perhaps he was looking for something specific. He'd have to have Amatis look into it further. The last thing he needed was Jace somehow managing to track him and bring the Clave to his doorstep before everything was in place for the ceremony. Perhaps he'd underestimated him afterall.

He touched the silver bracelet on his wrist, the one engraved in Latin.

If I cannot move heaven, I will raise Hell.

When he said nothing, the Queen continued. "I want you to know that I do not take this lightly. I would have especially liked to avoid removing Callum due to his ability, but regardless of what he shared, it does no good to keep an advisor around that is willing to keep secrets from me. I would normally handle a matter like this personally, but we may have a chance here to kill two birds with one stone."

"You're asking that I do it."

"For continuity's sake. If I am ever asked directly…" she trailed off, waving her hand to punctuate her meaning.

No, she wouldn't be able to lie if anyone ever asked her if she was involved in the killing of one of her own for the sake of her alignment to Sebastian, but there was not one thing she couldn't talk herself out of with half-truths. But whatever her true reason for passing the task off to him, he saw no reason to question her intentions. Besides, if he did it himself, he might be able to get the advisor to give up whatever information he'd provided Jace.

"I understand. Consider it done," Sebastian agreed, looking up to find a thin smile already returned to her face, and an expression that told him she was done talking shop. Before she moved on, he continued with a final request. "I do have one favor to ask. I will be gathering materials for the ceremony as we move forward. I may need Meliorn to courier it to my Endarkened in Alicante."

"And this favor—will it grant me any immediate return?" she whispered, her voice taking on a promiscuous tone, her robe parting around her legs as she approached, letting him see the long, stretch of milk white skin unbidden. Not that the sheerness of the fabric covered much anyway.

It was always a game, the transfer from business to pleasure. There were no real favors between the two of them, no need to pay each other back for things that were self-serving for them both in the end. Still, Sebastian didn't mind as she leaned her hip against the side of his chair, drooping her torso over him as she brought her face about his. He had to tip his head up to meet her eyes, and he gave a scoffing laugh at her sly look.

"Did your courtesans not satisfy you?" he asked, reaching up to pull a neatly tucked spiral of hair loose. "Or is your libido as boundless as your beauty?"

"You know I do not tire like she does."

Sebastian's amusement faltered slightly. Now the Queen really was teasing, picking at him for a carefully curated reaction. He saw it, and yet, the Queen might be the only person he allowed to make jabs at Clary's expense. Besides, she wasn't wrong.

With a swiftness perhaps unexpected, he stood and gripped her shoulders, giving her the response she wanted, a show of exaggerated anger to fuel an imaginary envy.

As he walked her back to the bed, she reached up, gripping his shoulders and lifting her face until it settled against his neck, her lips meeting skin gently. He felt himself relax as she kissed him there, felt a heat pool in his stomach as the edge of her teeth dug in hard. Sebastian leaned into her.

He liked to think that she had learned what he liked in the bedroom after all their time together, but the truth was that she always had known. Something about the Queen let her see exactly what a person wanted just from a glance, like the fey wine, its flavor adapted perfectly to please the drinker. It was part of why he would never fully be able to trust her. But in regard to sex, it was certainly a benefit.

She repeated the rough treatment, cutting her teeth all down his neck and to his collarbones.

It would bruise. But, then, bruises didn't remain on him for long, not since summoning Lilith. Something as light as hickies would be gone in just an hour. He almost wished they wouldn't heal, though. He wondered, as the Queen continued downward, how Clary would react to finding them on him. He wondered if she would get jealous.

He thought about what she had asked him that morning, wondered if any part of her felt like he belonged to her, or if she was just throwing his words back at him.

"You're insatiable," he murmured, running his hands through her hair as he pushed her into the pillows, and the Queen simpered.

"But that won't stop you from trying."

Sebastian grinned. "No. It won't."

"You're up late," Sebastian said, kicking off his boots by the door.

Clary was sitting in bed under a pile of blankets, reading a book, and she hardly looked up as he came in. "I'm not tired."

Good, neither am I, he thought, the brusqueness of her reply instantly putting him off. Although his body burned through any inebriating symptoms much faster than a normal Shadowhunter's would, he was still feeling the effects of the faerie wine, a sort of warmth present in his chest, an excitability, that regular alcohol didn't offer anymore. He already hardly slept, but it would be especially difficult to do so like this, riled up from the drink and the Queen's attentions. As long as Clary was awake he had something to mess with until the effects wore off.

When he approached her side of the bed, she tensed, glanced up awkwardly from her book. She still did that: froze when he came near her, like a rabbit caught out in the open. And like a predator, her reaction made his muscles coil in anticipation, ready to pounce. But she was starting to relax a lot quicker, too, because she turned back to the pages only a moment later, like unease of him was only an old habit she was finally starting to break. Without a word, he leaned down and kissed her, one hand plucking away the book and the other finding the back of her neck, his fingers twisting into her hair.

"My page number," she pouted against his lips, and he hummed dismissively, setting himself over her.

"You can find it again later."

Clary sighed as he pulled back, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. "You taste funny," she said, her nose scrunching slightly.

He ran his tongue over the back of his teeth curiously, surprised she had even noticed, trying to tease out the flavor of the Seelie drink—to him, something akin to a rich Barolo, dry and acidic.

"Wine," he offered bluntly.

"Huh. I didn't take you as the type for sweet whites." She curled her lip as she tried to follow through with the lie.

So Clary liked her wine light and sugary—noted. He might have guessed as much, but her tastes were occasionally unpredictable, like her preference for bitter, black coffee, though she couldn't stand the dryness of plain black tea.

"Is that what it tastes like to you?"

"I don't like it," she muttered, not seeming to notice the smug lilt to his question.

"Liar," he taunted, but before he could tease her further, she tried snatching the book still in his hand. With a chiding noise, Sebastian tossed it aside and out of reach, the pages fluttering theatrically before it thunked against the end table and he grabbed at her outstretched arm.

Like a bolt of lightning struck her wrist, she stiffened and jerked back, her eyes going wide. "Wait, wait—" she said quickly, sinking into the mattress. "No more tying me up. Seriously."

He paused, the urge to laugh bubbling in his chest at the fact that his grabbing her had instantly sent her thoughts to sex, but he refrained, eyeing her toyingly. What he found more amusing was that she was simply asking not to be restrained, not to not be fucked at all.

"Sebastian, I mean it," she pressed at the sight of his expression, like she could see the cruel ideas forming in his head. "I'm starting to think this is less about me resisting and more about some sadistic bondage kink you have."

At that, he did let out a chuckle. Honestly, he hadn't been planning on restraining her at all. But he couldn't tease her if he said that.

"Clarissa, you haven't seen the results of a bondage kink."

She scoffed, pulling her hands away from him. "You would know, huh?"

He shrugged coyly, tracing a finger along her jaw. She didn't flinch away. "You wouldn't believe what vampires get into."

"Gross, I do not need to picture that," she groaned, shaking her head, but her expression didn't match the dryness of her tone as she looked aside shyly, and her fingers clenched in a way that told him she was imagining exactly that. When he saw that her mind was starting to wander, he sat back and sighed, pretending to come to some sort of compromise.

It would always be beneficial to let her believe she had been able to talk him into—or out of—something than to let her know his intentions from the start.

"Fine," he said, rolling off of her and sitting himself against the headboard beside her. "I'll make you a deal. Prove to me you won't resist."

Clary exhaled dramatically. "And how am I supposed to do that?"

Sebastian crossed his arms behind his head, and couldn't help a conceited smile. "Initiate it."

"Initiate…?" she parroted, her tone confused, but the subtle reddening to her cheeks betrayed her. He played along, taking her hand and pressing it up under his shirt so her fingers were splayed over his chest. "Initiate it," he repeated, dropping his voice.

He watched her swallow timidly, her weight shifting onto her knees as she turned to face him. She sat there for what felt like a long time, surely debating what to do, whether it was worth putting up a fight, or trying to rationalize whatever was about to happen. He noted the little muscle in her jaw tightening, felt her palm dampen against the warmth of his skin in a nervous sweat before she withdrew the touch.

"I…I wouldn't even know how if I want to," she stuttered. "Which, to be clear, I don't."

Sebastian grit his teeth. Surely she wasn't serious. After everything, her persistent ability to convince herself that she was innocent was stunning at times. She couldn't argue that she'd never in her life been the one to make a move first, or that she'd never reciprocated. He could still remember the feeling of her fingernails on Jace's back like it was yesterday. He could still recall the tension behind the curtain in the club like he'd lived it himself, the way she grabbed the golden boy as fiercely as he did her. The way Sebastian had to sit still through a meeting with Meliorn while Jace had his hands all over her.

"Oh, please. Your playing at naivety is getting old. You might not have gone all the way before me, but you knew what to do with Jace. You continue to conveniently forget that he and I practically shared a body."

Clary blushed furiously, confirming she understood what he was referencing. He remembered the horrified look on her face the first time he'd mentioned it, back in the apartment when they'd fought. The way her cheeks burned nearly as bright as her hair, alight in anger and shame as he pinned her to the ground, the glass shards from the coffee table he'd thrown her through cutting into them both. It was then that he dropped the act of the misunderstood demon boy, stopped pretending like Jace might have changed him, stopped trying to convince Clary he was anything other than he was. He'd known it before, but it was then that he truly understood she was his. That he would do anything to keep her with him, even if she fought him every step of the way.

That, in fact, he quite liked fighting her.

And just as fun was making her fight herself. To face that occasional dissonance between her actions and words.

With a deciding and skittish nibble to her lip, Clary seemed to make up her mind. In a jerky motion, she swung one leg over him, her hand returning to his chest, and Sebastian grinned, leaning back further to give her space. For a moment, she just looked at him—so short that even on top they were eye to eye—her breathing quickening as she tried to work herself up. He could see in the nervous flickering of her eyes that she was trying to decide if doing this was worse than everything they'd done before. Because of course it was easier to have it forced on her, easier on her psyche to believe she didn't want it and didn't have any part in starting it. But he was getting tired of her pretending, as if she didn't want him so badly last night that she left him bruised and bloody.

"I don't know where to start," she admitted quietly.

Sebastian drew in an impatient breath. "If you want me to hold you down and do all the work, you just need to ask."

"No," Clary snapped, but she remained static above him.

He might have almost felt sorry for her when he noticed her legs beginning to tremble in an effort to keep herself off his lap if her uncertainty wasn't so equally vexing and entertaining. But even as rousing as her humiliation was, Sebastian didn't have the patience to wait all night. The humming intoxication left him feeling hot, balancing on the edge of a wire.

"How does it normally start?" he hinted, tipping his chin up, and her gaze fell briefly to his lips in response. She flushed, looked away again, but just as he thought he might abandon his attempt to coerce her, tackle her to the bed and have his way, she closed her eyes and leaned forward to kiss him. It was awkward—curt and close-lipped.

"That all you've got?" he whispered into her cheek as she pulled back, and—perhaps because it was just the right amount of teasing to frustrate her as much as embarrass—her anxiety seemed to dissipate a bit. She huffed and tried again, this time kissing him with more spirit.

It was a different type of rush, a different type of power, making her kiss him as opposed to forcing it on her, and he found he couldn't keep his hands casually behind his neck for long. He let her set the pace as she opened her mouth against him, but his fingers found her sides, squeezing, holding, his thumbs pressing in and tracing downward, popping over the hill of each rib, until she was shuddering at the sensation. Her own hands soon after located the bottom of his shirt, and though it was button-down, instead of taking the time to undo each she simply pulled it over his head in one fluid motion.

As she dropped his shirt to the side, he watched nearly entranced as her glossy lips parted for a winded breath, thrilled to see what she might do next, before she kissed him again, harder, fiercer, reveling in the much needed distraction of the kiss, though the way her hands moved down his bare chest spoke to a need she yet refused to accept. Clary traced the hard lines of his muscles, the touch lingering, her face scrunching in some combination of irritation and excitement, until she reached the button of his pants. And even as relatively modest as it all was, even as anxious as she seemed, Clary still appeared visibly stirred, red creeping down her neck and chest, as if the sudden assurance in her actions, her determination, was more than just a pretense to move things along.

He couldn't help but to smile against her mouth. It'd taken surprisingly little goading to get her to give in. Perhaps the small amount of residual fairie wine on his tongue was affecting her. Perhaps the ring. Perhaps she truly was simply beginning to accept him.

He didn't care why. He wanted more of it.

"Go on," he urged when she paused there, and to his surprise she didn't argue, and after a beat she was undoing his belt and button, pulling down his slacks and boxers at once. He lifted his hips to help her as she shimmied them down, and only when they were completely off and he was entirely naked before her did he see real hesitation in her eyes.

She averted her gaze from his member, sitting back on her heels, and he chuckled, closing the distance between them. "Awe, you were doing so well. Why stop now? It's nothing you haven't seen before."

Clary swallowed audibly, her eyes meeting his and staying there. Only when he was certain she wasn't going to make a move did he take her hand in his and guide it to his cock. She stifled a little gasp as she felt the heat of his skin, as he made her fingers wrap around him, his closing over top of hers to lead her movement. As he stroked up and down, he let out his own breathy noise at the feeling of her small hand beneath his, and she tipped her head forward to hide beneath her hair.

Now that was something he couldn't stand. She had no right to hide her face from him. Not when it wore such abashed and vulgar expressions.

He surged closer, pressing against her as she tried to sit back, pushing his face under hers so he could see her, his other hand coming around her to keep her from moving further away before sliding into the back of her shorts. She opted to kiss him again instead of looking into his face as his fingers slipped beneath her underwear, and he began rubbing over her at the same pace that she stroked him.

Without his prompting, she began to grip at him tighter, her thumb slipping out from under his palm to brush daringly over his tip, and he bit at her lip in response, groaning lightly. Her eyes seemed to light up at that, and she started clumsily shifting on her knees above him, raising one leg so that he could pull down her shorts. He obliged, managing to slip them off with the hand that had been stimulating her, and when all that was left were her tops, he had to stop himself as he reached for those, too, pulling away and taking a breath.

She seemed startled as he suddenly withdrew.

"Take it off," he ordered, and she blinked at him, her lips turning down slightly before she reached behind herself to unclip her bra underneath her tank top.

He was certain Clary didn't wear bras to bed, so uncomfortable with their restraining clasps and elastic. No, the fact that she was wearing one this late in the night meant she'd chosen to wear it just to add another layer. Just to make it harder to put his hands on her. This time, he wanted to see her take it off.

When the clasp was undone, she pulled both bra and shirt over her head at once, dropping them in the pile of his clothes, and he could tell she had to refrain from covering herself with her arms by the way her fingers curled against her thighs, by the way her eyes slipped away from his and her blush deepened as her breasts fell loose. They were pale, her nipples perked, the flesh risen with goosebumps—small, but the perfect handful. He took her in, the full sight of her in the light as she hovered anxiously over his lap. He had thought she'd gotten over the embarrassment of being undressed before him, but perhaps she felt it different having willingly taken it off herself. Perhaps she was reminded of what she was actually doing. Or perhaps she would just always be a bit self conscious.

That was something he would never understand. No one would deny that she was beautiful but herself. But of course she was beautiful. She was his sister. Alluring and perfect and infuriating and powerful and stubborn and shy and feisty and dark. Contradictory. Complex. All for him.

Wanting to push her further, wanting to see her squirm, he settled into the headboard again. "Keep going," he said, not specifying the command, leaving it up to her to interpret. And instead of continuing the foreplay as he might have expected—either with the goal of putting off the act or better preparing herself—she lifted herself higher on her knees, trembling as she sat up tall, having to lean forward so her hips were high enough to get his length under her. With a confidence that seemed to startle even herself, she took hold of his cock and slid it between her legs.

He watched appreciatively—and a bit bemusedly—as she tried to position herself, reveling in the feeling of his tip being pressed along her, arousal coating it as she settled it against her entrance. She took a deep breath, her bottom lip wobbling in unease as she began to slowly, slowly sink herself down. Sebastian groaned as that wonderful warmth enveloped him, and she practically mewled at the lewd sensation herself. She winced at the stretch, her hands releasing the base of his cock once the tip was inside, and she continued downward torturously haltingly.

He had to knot his hands in the bed sheets to keep from overthrowing her, from taking control, but holding back was worth it to see her struggling like this, to see her lowering herself on him, fighting to take him even as wet as she was. She grimaced, doing well to stifle her groans, stubbornly attempting to keep quiet and at a distance. Her hands hovered awkwardly at her sides or on her legs, unsure where to put them, her thighs shaking with the effort to support her weight as she refused to brace herself on him.

But all it took was raising one knee, his thigh pressing up and into the back of her leg to tip her forward, unsteadied, and she fell slightly, forced to catch herself on his chest.

"Sebastian," she objected, short of breath, but he lowered his leg victoriously as she settled her hands on his shoulders to support herself as she continued.

"You can take it, little sister," he moaned into her hair, feeling her tense around him.

It was guaranteed to get a rise out of her, calling her that, the reminder of their relation exciting her—though, he was certain she would describe it as disgust. But he knew her. He knew that beneath all that denial, she felt it too. And she only proved him right as she grit her teeth at his taunting and sank down further.

He wasn't quite all the way inside when she stopped, panting, and Sebastian at last let himself touch her again, huffing in pleasure as he placed his hands over her hips. She seemed to take it as a directive, and steadily drew herself upward before dropping back onto him with a heavy breath. He shut his eyes as her head fell to his neck, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her curls falling over him, soft as downy feathers on his skin.

She repeated the motion, and he groaned as she gradually started a rhythm, riding him up and down, hiding her face against him. But even without seeing her eyes Sebastian knew what she was feeling, knew it in the fury of her respiratory rate, in her pulse, in the way she clung to him, torn between some grasping justification and letting herself enjoy this.

"Faster," he breathed, and to her credit, she tried, leaning back and pressing more of her weight into the hands planted on his chest, her hips jerking up and down more quickly. But after only a minute or so, she began to tire, her breathing turning erratic more from exertion than pleasure, and he huffed as his frustration grew, the urge to pound into her barely suppressed.

"I—" she began in a whining protest, but before she could get it out he was pulling her to a stop by her hips. She looked at him, eyes wide and owlish, like she'd done something wrong, like he might strike her, and the vulnerability made his mouth water. She trembled, her chest and face sporting a brilliant sex flush, her freckles like dark stars across ruddied pale skin.

"Here. Like this," he murmured and, instead of up and down, he rolled her hips forward and back in a slow, tight circle. As he rocked her forward, his cock pressing toward her belly inside and her pelvis grinding against his, she gasped through her teeth, clenching down tightly. He grinned as she let out a little oh, her eyes locking onto his in surprise as she tried the movement herself and sighed as he hit her g-spot again. She took to the motion quickly, her legs spreading wider so she could lower herself further on to him as she ground back and forth.

As she leaned back and threw her head up, falling into the pleasure, his hands trailed up to feel over her thin waist, basking in the sight of her hips rotating over him and her breasts swaying, breathless with a raging lust. She began to quicken her movements, combining the gyrations of her hips with an upward motion that drove him mad with the friction. God, she took to this quickly.

When she was moving fast enough that her hips were slapping against his, her panting turned to near sobs. "I—I can't, I can't," she cried, and Sebastian growled at the desperation in her voice, unsure if she meant that she couldn't stop, couldn't go fast enough, or couldn't keep going. He could have mocked her. He could have pushed and made her say aloud exactly what she meant. But he himself couldn't hold back any longer, and at last let himself move, planting his feet and thrusting up to meet her.

She nearly screamed as he drove himself into her, and she dropped back, placing her hands on the bed behind her, arching her back as he firmly took her hips and furiously fucked into her.

"I give you the reins and you still can't get off unless it's rough, huh?" Sebastian grunted, but Clary seemed far too out of it to respond to his quip.

He wished he could show her herself now, show her how fervently her hips dropped into his thrusts, how her knees spread wide so she could take all of him, how she sounded as she drew closer to the edge, like a finely tuned instrument reaching its crescendo. Like a conductor she pulled him along with her, as if there was a cord tied between them that she couldn't see, but subconsciously knew how to maneuver—or else puppet strings she was finally yielding to, the lines slack so he could tug them as he pleased.

It crossed his mind, as she writhed above him, to accept the possibility that perhaps she wasn't what he had always declared her to be. From the moment Valentine had told him he had a sister, from the very first dream he'd had of her—floating amongst the ruins of their father's demolished ship, the ship she destroyed, her hair curling flames reflecting gold off the back water, her smile vile and satisfied—Sebastian had known she had to have what he did. A pit of darkness in them that yearned for something more, a heart twisted and powerful. Someone who would understand. When he got to know her, it infuriated him that he might be wrong about that, that she might not ever understand. Now he thought that though she might not have the same blackness, she did have something in her, something fuming and grey, something that just needed fuel to come out, to grow. And Sebastian knew just how to stoke the flames. To help her find what she was meant to be.

He'd been stoking her for weeks now, like she was a tiny ember at the base of a deadened fire, his hardened hands, his oxygen, giving her life. When her eyes met his, he saw the fruits of his labor were blossoming above him, twisting upward like a bonfire, something that would spill out of this bedroom, creep its way into her very being. Sebastian gripped her like she was a part of himself, his fingers bruising tender flesh, and she gave back, throwing herself forward again, her arms snaking around his neck, her nails raking up his back, leaving fresh scratches along perpetually burning scars.

It didn't matter if she did or didn't have that darkness in her. He could mold her into whatever he pleased. She was his.

His.

When she was about to cum, her hands stroked through his hair, looking for purchase as her body was wracked with spasms, and he'd never been more glad she wasn't restrained when she knotted her fingers there and pulled as she came, her sex pulsing around him, her movements erratic.

He fucked her through her orgasm until she was whimpering at the overstimulation before he let himself go to the sinful sensations, his own crashing through him in furious waves as he held her close by the hips, his cock throbbing inside of her and his teeth locked onto her shoulder, claiming her like a beast might its mate. She gasped at the feeling of his finish, her body limp in his arms as he rocked her against him more time to chase that heavenly feeling before he collapsed with her, letting all tension run from his muscles.

For a moment, they stayed like that, locked together, breathing heavily against each other, her sweaty chest pressed against his own. As their lungs calmed, he played with her hair, let his fingers glide up and down the small of her back possessively. Despite her exhaustion, despite how quickly it passed, he would take this one round with his sister over ten back to back with the Queen—stamina be damned.

"Look at that," he drawled. "You came just from my cock."

Clary let out a quiet, pitiful moan, a sound that made him shudder as she buried her face against his neck at the realization that he hadn't touched her clit to bring her to completion. He laughed softly as she shook against him, her chest starting to heave again, and he felt a wetness drop onto his shoulder.

"That good, huh?" he teased, though he knew that wasn't why she was crying. She sniffled, a weak, balled fist batting at him angrily.

Sebastian took her frizzy curls in his hand and gently pulled her face back to his. She blinked at him, tears darkening her thick, coral lashes, her cheeks beautifully red, her bottom lip swollen from the abuse of her own teeth, and before she could pull away, pull herself off him, freeing him of that marvelous heat around his member to retreat to the bathroom to hide and wallow in her shame, he kissed her.

He let himself move slowly, his mouth caressing hers with long, drawn out pulls on her lips, let her defeatedly accept him, not an ounce of fight left in her.

Sebastian knew this victory was likely not to last, but as she willingly opened herself to him, it didn't make the taste of her any less sweet.

---

A/N:

As always, sorry that this took forever. The writers block for this chapter killed me. It's infuriating knowing what you want to write but for some reason struggling to do so. I have a habit of holding off on posting chapters because I'm unsatisfied with them, but I figured it was time to get this one up regardless of how I felt about it. It's getting harder for me to write from the side characters' points of view. Anyway, hope you're all well; I'll be back with more!