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Chapter Text

CHAPTER ONE

REBECCA

The rattling of the elevator was alarmingly loud as it jangled to a stop at the third floor of the Institute. Rebecca had never liked elevators. As a child, all she had been able to think about while riding one was how easy it would be to get trapped inside. She could feel her heart thudding away in her chest; it was so loud she was sure that Clary, who was right on her heels, was able to hear it.

"Come on," she whispered to Clary, sliding open the gilded elevator doors and stepping out into the hallway.

"Rebecca," Clary said nervously. "You're sure the library will be empty?"

As her heart gave another nervous flutter, Rebecca turned to Clary with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "It'll be fine. Don't worry, Clary."

I'm one to talk, she reflected, as her heart continued to thud away inside her chest.

They hurried across the hallway, reaching the library without encountering anyone. Even though Rebecca had lived here all her life, the library gave her chills every time she walked inside. The sprawling ground floor was tastefully decorated with tables and desks and comfortable-looking armchairs; despite the vast number of bookshelves, it still looked spacious. In contrast, the railed second-floor gallery was smaller, crowded with bookshelves, and much cozier. Rebecca had been very fond of spending afternoons here, curled up in an armchair in the corner, but ever since Hodge had left, she had stopped enjoying the silent company of the library. His desk stood in the center of the room, almost exactly as he had left it. She half-expected Hodge to stand up behind it with Hugo perched on his shoulder.

Shaking off the memory, she turned to Clary. "The rings are up there," she said, gesturing to the staircase that led up to the gallery. They had both donned rubber-soled sneakers, and Rebecca had marked herself with a soundless rune just to be on the safe side. The heavy silence seemed eerie rather than comforting as they bounded up the steps and walked past rows of bookshelves, heading for the display cases at the far end.

Clary stopped to gape at a few of them. A delicate glass flacon whose stopper was an enormous emerald; a crown with a diamond in the center that did not look as if it would fit any human head; a pendant in the shape of an angel whose wings were clockwork cogs and gear; and, the objective of their mission - a pair of gleaming golden rings shaped like curling leaves, the faerie work as delicate as a baby's breath.

Trying to control her shaking hand, Rebecca pulled out her stele and set it to the smooth glass surface of the display case. Is this really me? she thought. Stealing from the Institute, my home, to pay the Queen of the Fair Folk, who, as I very well know, are like scorpions, with a barbed sting in the tail?

Unbidden, the words of the Seelie Queen came back to haunt her. For as is often the happenstance with that which is precious and lost, when you find him again, he may well not be quite as you left him. They had been sitting in the back of her mind ever since their meeting with the Seelie Queen. Now, the words bubbled to the surface, drowning out almost everything else.

"Rebecca?" Clary's voice brought her out of her reverie. She was looking at Rebecca anxiously, her green eyes clouded with concern.

"You should do it," Rebecca said, stepping away from the display case. "You're the best at runes, after all."

Clary nodded, moving forward confidently. Then she stopped to look back at Rebecca. "Are you sure you're alright with this?"

Rebecca nodded, biting the inside of her lip. "I'll do anything it takes to get Jace back."

The words seemed to fill Clary with a renewed sense of confidence; her green eyes hardened, and she began to move the stele against the glass, tracing out a simple opening rune. Before she could complete it, however, they heard a distant scraping sound, followed by a low creak. Rebecca instantly knew what it was. The door to the library was opening.

Instantly, the two girls froze, mutely exchanging looks of horror. Signaling to Clary to finish the rune, Rebecca silently padded over to the gallery railing, and carefully peered over the edge. Two people had entered the room - two people she recognized instantly. One was Jace. The other was Sebastian. Her blood turned cold.

Clary had opened the display case and was in the process of stowing away the rings, but she looked up as Rebecca came over. "What is it?" she whispered.

"You know the lost person we're all looking for?"

"Jace?"

"He's not so lost anymore."

"He's here?!" Clary's voice rose an octave.

"Quiet!" Rebecca gripped Clary's arm in an effort to keep her quiet; from the sudden wince that crossed Clary's face, she could tell that she was gripping too hard, but they had more important things to worry about at the moment.

The two girls peered over the edge of the railing. Luckily, it seemed that neither Jace nor Sebastian had heard or seen anything amiss.

"You were right, Jace," Sebastian was saying. "The place is deserted." The two of them were standing right below the gallery, on a mosaic image of Raziel presenting the Mortal Instruments to Jonathan Shadowhunter. The light from the skylight in the roof lit up the mosaic, making it seem like they were standing in a spotlight on a stage.

Clary's look of horror mirrored exactly what Rebecca was feeling. Sebastian had been very much dead, but now he looked very much alive. His face was all planes and angles, his hair now silvery white. Rebecca's heart gave an involuntary squeeze as she gazed down at the top of Sebastian's head. Having gotten over the initial shock of seeing him, all she could think about was the last time she had seen him - on the banks of a river at the bottom of a valley in Idris. She could remember his hand whipping up to meet her face, his sword glinting as he raised it above Isabelle, all while Jace lay dying near the water's edge.

Jace's golden hair shimmered in the sunlight as he threw his head back, seemingly enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face. Ever since he had gone missing, Rebecca had been plagued by the thought that he might be hurt, or bleeding, or starving to death. But this Jace standing below her looked whole, healthy, and happy.

"I'm always right, Sebastian," he said. "You ought to know that about me by now."

Sebastian gave him a measured look, and then a smile. It had every appearance of being a real smile, but he had smiled at her before, and that had turned out to be one big lie.

"So where are the books on summoning?" he said. "Is there any order to the chaos here?"

"Not really. It's not alphabetized. It follows Hodge's special system."

"Isn't he the one I killed? Inconvenient, that," said Sebastian. "Perhaps I should take the upstairs level and you the downstairs."

Rebecca's stomach gave a sudden, unpleasant lurch. She pulled Clary backwards, to the far end of the gallery. Hidden behind a huge wooden bookshelf, concealed so cleverly that you couldn't find it unless you knew it was there, was a trapdoor set into the floor. Rebecca pulled up the trapdoor, hoping against hope that it wouldn't creak - it didn't - and pushed Clary ahead of her into the darkness. Rebecca dropped down, landing catlike on the floor, and pulled the trapdoor shut, just as the sound of footsteps grew louder on the stairs.

Barely breathing, Rebecca and Clary stood perfectly still, listening to Sebastian move around upstairs. A faint smell, something like old books, filled the space they were in. It was barely three feet wide and was mostly used to store books that were too delicate or worn to withstand light and air. It also housed some of the more dangerous books - books about ancient warlock magic, books about demon languages.

All too soon, Rebecca could feel the darkness around her begin to press against her eyes, like a living being threatening to envelop her. A high, ringing sound filled her ears.

No, she thought blindly. No, this can't be happening - it's too soon-

She couldn't think anymore. Couldn't breathe anymore. She could no longer feel Clary beside her. The darkness had consumed her completely, cutting off her breath. She stumbled blindly, and immediately walked face-first into the wall right beside her. She thought she heard Clary say something but couldn't make out any words.

The ringing in her ears was building to a crescendo. The walls began to close in on her, suffocating her. Rebecca desperately tried to calm herself down, will herself to take deep breaths, but her body didn't listen. The memory of her last time here was too much. Suddenly, she was a ten-year-old girl again, trapped in the darkness.

So, she gave in to the panic.

She scrabbled for the trapdoor in the pitch blackness, found the handle, and yanked it open. In a flash, she was up and out of the tiny room. Bright sunlight blinded her for a second, and she took an involuntary step back, knocking the trapdoor shut again. It settled into place, invisible among the dark wooden planks that lined the gallery floor.

Too late, she realized she had made a huge mistake. Sebastian stood in front of her, a dangerous smile on his face. He looked like a cat that had cornered a mouse. "Well," he said silkily. "This is a pleasant surprise."

Rebecca immediately took a step back, resting both feet firmly on the trapdoor so that it would be impossible to open. She hoped Clary would take the hint and wait until the coast was clear.

"Sebastian," Rebecca said coolly. "I wish I could say the same."

Sebastian simply smiled in reply. Then he moved, so fast that he was little more than a blur. He came up behind her and expertly seized both of her wrists in one hand, the other gripping her shoulder tightly. Rebecca struggled furiously, but it was simply no use.

Sebastian prodded her in the back with a long white finger. "Let's go." He pushed her ahead of him, past the bookshelves and down the stairs.

"Hey, Jace!" he called out gleefully.

Jace appeared from behind a bookshelf, an expression of polite interest on his face. It changed to one of surprise as he recognized his adoptive sister.

CLARY

Clary had struggled to open the trapdoor and had failed. It simply wouldn't budge. She listened with growing despair to Sebastian's voice - the words were muffled, but she could tell that Sebastian had found Rebecca. She stood still, listening as the footsteps above them eventually faded away.

Clary slowly pushed the trapdoor open and peered out. The gallery was empty. Quickly, silently, she climbed out and pushed the trapdoor shut. She could hear voices from the floor below; her hand immediately went to her weapons belt, but of course, she didn't have it with her.

Rebecca, Jace and Sebastian were standing on the floor below. Sebastian, a smirk on his face, had a tight grip on Rebecca's wrists, and she looked simply furious. Jace's face was simply passive.

"Rebecca?" Jace was saying. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Rebecca snapped.

Jace turned to Sebastian. "What are you going to do to her?"

Sebastian's eyes were fixed on Rebecca, narrow and calculating. "Kill her, obviously. She's seen and heard too much."

Jace frowned, as if he knew that something about what Sebastian had said should bother him, but he did not know what. Rebecca's mouth was now set in a grim line. She had stopped struggling and was simply gazing at her brother. "Would you really let him kill me, Jace?" she said, her voice low, almost challenging, daring him to do it.

Jace didn't reply.

Clary tried to steel herself to do something. She couldn't just stand by and watch while Sebastian murdered her friend - but what could she do? At that moment, she caught Rebecca's eye. As if she knew what Clary was thinking, the Lightwood girl shook her head, almost imperceptibly. We can't take them down on our own, she seemed to be saying. Get out, get help. 

Rebecca turned back to Jace; her lips pursed. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. "Little spitfire, isn't she?"

Jace was staring at his sister, frowning. "You can't kill her, Sebastian."

For the first time in Clary's memory, Sebastian looked flustered, as if he hadn't expected Jace to disagree with him on any account. But he regained his composure almost immediately. "Do you have any better ideas?"

"We take her with us," Jace said steadily.

Sebastian looked at him, eyebrows raised. "You can't be serious."

Rebecca took advantage of Sebastian's momentary distraction and freed one hand from his grip. She whipped her fist up, landing an expert punch to Sebastian's nose. He stumbled back, more in surprise than shock. Jace immediately bound his sister's hands in an iron grip.

"Son of a..." Sebastian started to say. He dabbed at his face, but of course, there was no blood - he didn't bleed that easily, not anymore. "Enough of this," he said to Jace, his voice tight with anger. "Let's leave before anyone sees us in here."

No! Clary wanted to scream. But she forced herself to stay silent. Jace nodded, and then it all happened so fast that Clary couldn't move a muscle. Sebastian gripped Jace's arm and twisted the silver ring on his finger. And, like a mirage, the three of them vanished.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWO

REBECCA

It had been approximately twenty-four hours since Rebecca had woken up to find herself imprisoned in this bedroom. The room itself was nice enough - it had pale blue walls and gauzy white curtains that fluttered in the slight breeze. But that hadn't stopped her from relentlessly banging on the door, screaming for Jace, for Sebastian, for anyone, to let her out.

And she was furious with herself. Furious with herself for acting like a scared little girl, furious with herself for even giving Sebastian the opportunity to get to her. She clenched her fists, feeling her nails dig into her palms-

Bang!

She leaped to her feet instantly. The door was standing wide open - finally - and Sebastian was leaning casually against the door frame. "Oh, you're up," he said lazily. "How nice." He gave her a charming smile; she noticed that his teeth were very white.

"What do you want?"

"I've come to offer you," - he swept an elaborate bow - "my hospitality."

"Wouldn't it be a lot less trouble just to kill me?"

Sebastian tilted his head as if pondering the question. "Yes, it would. But Jace really doesn't want me to. It's quite annoying." He examined his nails. "He also won't let me starve you to death, so..." He spread his arms. "Here I am."

Rebecca scoffed. "Yeah, right. Well, you can save your breath, Sebastian. The day I accept your 'hospitality', as you so graciously put it, is the day Hell freezes over."

"Which might be sooner than you think." Sebastian smiled. Then, before she could react, he crossed the room in two strides and grabbed her arm, pulling her up until she was face to face with him.

"Listen to me," he spat. His voice was low and steady, but his eyes burned with an intense fury. "My hospitality is not something you turn down, alright? If you know what's good for you, you'll make yourself presentable and join us downstairs."

He let go of her arm and gave her one last charming smile before striding out of the room. Rebecca's heart felt as if it had shrunk down to the size of a walnut. Slowly, almost absent-mindedly, she smoothed down her clothes and followed Sebastian out of the room.

The door from her room-slash-prison led into a long passage, with still more doors leading off into rooms, all of them closed. A sleek glass spiral staircase led downstairs to a large room, half of which was devoted to a long glass table. Black pendant-cut glass lights hung from the ceiling, sending dancing shadows against the walls. Everything was very modern, from the black leather chairs to the large fireplace, framed in washed chrome. There was a fire blazing in it.

The other half of the room was taken up with a large television screen, a glossy black coffee table on which were scattered games and controllers, and low leather couches. Sitting at the glass table were two people - Jace and Clary.

"Clary?" Rebecca gaped in astonishment.

"Jesus, Rebecca... your face." Clary got up and came over to Rebecca, letting her fingers trace the bruise on her cheek. A twinge of pain shot through Rebecca's face and she flinched. She didn't even remember getting the bruise.

Clary turned to Sebastian. "I need a stele."

"Oh, like I'm going to give you one." Sebastian jerked his head at Jace. "Jace, you better give your sister an iratze before she keels over."

Jace obediently came forward, gesturing for his sister to hold out her arm, which she did.

"How did you get here?" Rebecca said to Clary as Jace traced out an iratze on her forearm.

"Jace brought me." Clary was worrying at her lip; it was something she did a lot when she was anxious. The iratze was already working its magic - Rebecca could feel her swollen cheek returning to its normal size, the cut on her lip healing.

"Why?" she demanded, turning to Jace. "Are you just going to keep kidnapping everyone to try and win them over with 'hospitality'?"

Jace remained uncharacteristically silent, absorbed in putting his stele away. Rebecca glanced at Clary, who just shrugged hopelessly. Having finished putting away his stele, Jace turned to his sister again, now being uncharacteristically polite. "You want lunch?"

A heavy feeling settled in Rebecca's heart as she exchanged looks with Clary. "Sure, why not?"

Ten minutes later, Rebecca found herself installed at the big glass and steel table. From the food spread out on the table - bread, Italian cheeses, salami and prosciutto, grapes and fig jam, and bottles of wine - they were obviously somewhere in Italy. And from looking at the view - a canal draped around a low bridge - she guessed they were in Venice.

She sneaked another glance at Sebastian as he offered her a roll. She'd always thought he was extremely good-looking since she had met him for the first time in Idris. And he'd thought she was beautiful - he had said so, at least. The memory was too painful to consider. Rebecca pushed it aside, forcing a smile as Sebastian offered her a roll.

"Thanks," Rebecca said grudgingly. There. She had thanked Sebastian. She waited for a bolt of lightning to shoot out of the sky and turn her into a pile of ashes, but unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened.

The roll was delicious. Or maybe it just seemed that way because she was starving. Either way, she was through with it before she remembered to breathe.

"Wine?" Sebastian offered.

Rebecca declined, but Clary accepted. As Clary took a cautious sip, Rebecca cleared her throat, hoping to make conversation. Maybe she could find out something that could be of help; she had no idea how or when she would relay any information to Alec or Isabelle, but she pushed it aside - she would burn that bridge when she came to it. "So... this apartment, is it yours?"

"It was my father's," Sebastian replied, sipping his wine. "Valentine's. It moves in and out of worlds - ours and others. He used it as a retreat as well as a mode of travel. He brought me here a few times, showed me how to get in and out and how to make it travel."

"There's no front door."

"There is if you know how to find it," Sebastian said. "Dad was very clever about this place." There was so much familiarity in that single word - Dad - it was as if Valentine and Sebastian had shared a real father-son relationship.

Rebecca looked at Jace, who shook his head. "He never showed it to me. I wouldn't have guessed it existed."

"It's very... bachelor pad," Clary said. "I wouldn't have thought of Valentine as..."

"Owning a flat-screen TV?" Jace grinned at her. "Not that it gets channels, but you can watch DVDs on it. Back at the manor, we had an old icebox powered by witchlight. Here, he's got a Sub-Zero fridge!"

"That was for Jocelyn," said Sebastian.

Clary looked up sharply. "What?"

"All the modern stuff. The appliances. The clothes. They were for our mother. In case she decided to come back."

At that, Clary turned a bit green. Feeling sorry for her, Rebecca tried to steer the conversation somewhere else. "So what do you do? Just travel around inside this apartment and..."

"See the world?" Jace said lightly. "There are worse things."

"Yeah, but you can't do this forever."

"Why not?" Sebastian's dark eyes glittered as they fixed on Rebecca's own.

"Because the Clave is going to find you eventually," she said. "You can't hide forever, Sebastian."

Sebastian set down his wine glass. "I'm aware of that," he said coolly. "Which is why I have a new plan. One that involves you to a very great extent."

"What?" Rebecca was astonished. "Why me?"

"All in good time, sweetheart." He drained his wine glass, his eyes glinting mischievously, which only increased the impending sense of doom that Rebecca felt. 

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THREE

REBECCA

Rebecca sat against the headboard of the bed, running Sebastian's words over and over in her head. Did he plan to kill her? To turn her over to his side? To use her to get to her family?

She was shaken out of her reverie by Clary, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed in front of her. They were once again in the blue-walled bedroom. "Do you have any idea what Sebastian meant?" she said, as if continuing a conversation they had just been having. "When he talked about his plan?"

Rebecca shook her head. "None."

Silence settled on them for a few minutes. Clary absently picked at the threads in the bedsheet.

"By the Angel, what do we do?" Rebecca burst out suddenly. She sprang up from the bed and began pacing the room. "This is insane. Sebastian is a complete lunatic."

Clary bit her lip. "I have something that might help."

Rebecca stopped and stared. "What is it?"

Clary simply wiggled her fingers at Rebecca in response. Rebecca didn't know what she was supposed to be looking at until she spotted a golden ring on Clary's finger - one that definitely hadn't been there before. "Is that the..."

"Faerie ring, yes," Clary confirmed.

"What about the other one? Weren't there two of them?"

"I left it with Simon."

"So he knows you're here?"

"Yep."

"Does it work?"

"Yep."

Rebecca raised her eyebrows. "I bet the Seelie Queen is going to be all sorts of pissed."

"To Hell with the Seelie Queen," Clary replied, and they immediately burst out laughing.

A knock sounded on the door and the laughter died immediately. Clary let her hand drop and shot Rebecca a tense look. It dawned on Rebecca that they couldn't let Jace find out about the faerie ring either; now that he was completely under Sebastian's control, they couldn't trust him anymore.

The door swung slowly open, and Jace looked in at them from the doorway. "I hate to interrupt your repartee, ladies," he said graciously. "Could I borrow Clary for a minute?"

"Sure." Rebecca got up to leave, and as she passed Jace in the doorway, he gave her a brilliant smile, as if nothing was wrong, as if all was right with the world. She tried to return it, and failed.

The living room was empty. Rebecca sank into the sofa in front of the coffee table, examining the various video games scattered around. She supposed that all she could do right now was play nice - especially since Jace and Sebastian were now bound by mind and blood. Cut one and the other bleeds.

"See anything you like?"

The voice almost made Rebecca jump out of her skin. She turned around to see Sebastian looking down at her with his usual charming smile.

"Looks like the two lovebirds are holed up in your room," he continued, sitting down beside her. He lazily put his legs up on the coffee table, scattering games and controllers.

"It's not my room," Rebecca muttered irritably.

Sebastian simply chuckled at her reply, resting an arm on the sofa behind her. She shifted forward slightly, feeling anxiety curling in the pit of her stomach.

Then he suddenly sat up. "Seeing as we have only each other for company..." He turned to look at her, mischief clearly written on his face – it looked so familiar that Rebecca's breath hitched in her throat. He looked so much like...

She forced herself back to the present. "...would you like to see the weapons room?" Sebastian was saying.

If it means I can kill you, yes, she thought. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it wasn't possible; fantasizing about it was the only form of catharsis she could safely partake in. Out loud, she said, "Sure." Her voice was strangely hoarse.

She was pretty sure Sebastian had said they were going to the weapons room, so when he led her to the master bedroom instead, she was confused.

"Nice," she said sarcastically. But it wasn't far from the truth. The master bedroom was nice, with a huge rosewood bed occupying most of the space. The windows were artfully tinted a dark blue, overlooking a canal. Her heart gave a momentary squeeze - it reminded her of Alicante.

"Not so fast, darling." He tapped the side of the wardrobe. It slid away, revealing a set of stairs behind it. Sebastian cast a smirk over his shoulder at Rebecca as she came up behind him.

"You're kidding. Secret stairs?"

"Well, not so secret anymore."

She shook her head in amazement. "Why are you showing me this? I could just grab a knife and kill you."

"You could," Sebastian said. "But you won't."

And he was right. Rebecca wouldn't do anything that would put Jace's life in jeopardy, and he knew it. And he was also enjoying the turmoil that was going on inside of her - her love for her brother warring with her hatred for him.

She followed Sebastian as he took the stairs two at a time, emerging into a wide room with a polished wooden floor and high walls. All manner of weapons hung from the walls, just as they did in the training room in the Institute - kindjals and chakhrams, maces and swords and daggers, crossbows and brass knuckles, throwing stars and axes and samurai swords. Training circles were neatly painted on the floor.

"Pretty impressive," Rebecca admitted. "Where did you get all of this stuff?"

Sebastian appeared not to hear her question as he crossed over to the far wall, where a single, large sword hung. It was sleek and shiny, and looked very much like a regular sword, except that the blade was made of what looked like black metal. It was intricately carved with runes of speed, strength and accuracy. Sebastian lifted it from its hook and ran a finger along the blade edge. "This is a special blade I had made," he said. "Blessed iron, fortified with runes." He held it out to her. "Try it."

Warily, Rebecca took the sword. It was surprisingly light, and the grip was expertly fitted. For some reason, she was reminded of the night demons had attacked Alicante. She felt a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth - the taste of blood.

She closed her eyes.

Screams and shouts of terror. The roars and grunts of countless demons. The smell of smoke as Alicante burned. The rotting smell of demons in the air. And - worst of all - the darkness that had blinded her as she had entered the kitchen in the Penhallows' house, looking for Max, only to be greeted by Sebastian.

She barely noticed that she had been gripping the blade with her other hand, her palm pressed against the edge. Feeling a sharp sting on her hand, she opened her eyes and looked down to see that blood was seeping from a huge cut in her palm, spattering to the floor in fat red drops.

Sebastian was looking at her with slightly narrowed eyes. Seeing him standing there, she was suddenly filled with a white-hot rage so intense she could feel her eyes burning. She wanted to hurl the blade right into his chest and watch as the life left his demon-black eyes. She wanted him to hurt as badly as she did every day, with guilt crawling through her veins like poison.

But she did none of those things. Instead, she said, "I'm going to get an iratze," and left the room as fast as she could without actually running.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FOUR

REBECCA

Rebecca awoke with a start, her heart slamming against her rib cage. She had fallen into an uneasy sleep sometime last night, her dreams peppered with faceless monsters, blurry faces, and Max. Always Max.

The room was still dark. Untangling herself from the blankets, she pushed the curtains aside. It was probably very early in the morning - the sky was still a deep, hazy blue and birds chirped from the trees. The air was crisp and cold, and the streets outside were deserted. She vaguely registered the absence of canals - they were no longer in Venice.

Suddenly feeling thirsty, she wrenched open the door - and froze, her mouth falling open. There was a bloody handprint on the wall. There were dark puddles on the floor, looking almost black in the early morning light. A single long, dark smear of blood marked the wall opposite.

A door opened, and Sebastian stepped out, his silvery-white hair rumpled, his expression playful. Behind him came two girls, both looking sleep rumpled and carrying six-inch heels in their hands. One was fair, a little scantily dressed, in a glittering short skirt and spangled top. The other was younger, softer-looking, with black hair cut short, a red velvet band around her head, and a lacy black dress.

Vampire, Rebecca thought immediately. She could tell just by looking at her. The vampire grinned at her, showing pointed teeth. Clearly, she knew that Rebecca knew. The mundane girl caught sight of Rebecca, then looked back at Sebastian with a high-pitched giggle that made Rebecca's ears hurt. "È lei tua amica?"

Rebecca knew a little Italian, courtesy of Jace, but the girl spoke with an accent so pronounced she could barely make out a word.

Sebastian looked up, saw Rebecca standing in the doorway, and his smile faded. "No lei non è."

The mundane girl started laughing hysterically as she followed Sebastian down the stairs. The vampire shot Rebecca one last ageless smile before following the other two.

Rebecca stood still for a minute, completely nonplussed, and then dashed down the stairs. The downstairs room was empty except for Sebastian, who turned to look at her as she came up behind him.

"What are you doing up?" He sounded genuinely surprised.

"What am I doing?" she said, her voice far too shrill for her liking. "What are you doing?"

"Getting some towels to clean up the mess." He jerked his head towards the stairs. "Vampires and their games..."

"And the mundane was alright with it?"

"She got a little frightened at the sight of fangs. Sometimes they do." At the look on Rebecca's face, he laughed. "She came around. Even wanted more. You saw for yourself that she's alive and kicking."

"Yeah..." Rebecca mumbled uncomfortably, sliding onto a kitchen stool. She suddenly felt self-conscious. She had bolted downstairs without a second thought, and she figured she probably looked horrible. Her guess was confirmed when she caught sight of herself in the glass-fronted kitchen cabinet. 'Horrible' was an understatement. Her hair was everywhere, and there were sleep lines on her cheek where she had mushed her face into the pillow.

"Wine?" Sebastian said, holding the bottle out to her.

Rebecca cast an eye at the clock, thought about reminding him that it was six in the morning, then decided against it. He could rot his insides with alcohol for all she cared. "Just water, thanks."

He poured out two glasses of mineral water - one for her, and one for himself. His movements were smooth and fluid, like a dancer's. He pushed a glass towards her with one hand, the other tipping his glass toward his lips. When he was done, he slammed the glass back down on the counter. "You probably know this, but fooling around with vampires certainly makes you thirsty."

"Why would I know that?" Rebecca said sharply.

He shrugged. "Figured you were playing some biting games with that Daylighter."

Rebecca pursed her lips. "Nothing like that ever happened between me and Simon. And even if it did, why would I tell you? It's none of your business."

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. "Take it easy, spitfire. I never asked."

She rolled her eyes. "What are you doing with a vampire in your bed, anyway? Don't you hate and despise Downworlders?"

"No," he said. "Don't mix me up with Valentine."

"Yeah," she muttered. "Tough mistake to make."

"It's not my fault I look like him." For the first time, Sebastian's voice held a tinge of bitterness. Rebecca stared at him.

"See, there you go again," he said, somewhat exasperated. "You're always looking at me like that."

Startled, she said, "Like what?"

"Like I burn down animal shelters for fun and light my cigarettes with orphans." He poured another glass of water.

"You killed a child," Rebecca pointed out, amazed to find that her voice was steely calm. Usually, she couldn't talk about Max without breaking something or bursting into tears. Sometimes both. "You killed my little brother. That's not something you can be forgiven for, ever."

Sebastian drew in a breath. "So that's it," he said. "Cards on the table so soon, Lightwood?"

"What did you think?" she said venomously, and to her surprise, Sebastian flinched as if she had slapped him.

"Would you believe me if I told you it was an accident?" he said, setting his glass down on the counter. "I didn't mean to kill him. Just to knock him out, so he wouldn't tell-"

"Like you did with me?" Rebecca laughed sourly.

"I misjudged my own strength," he said quietly. "You were strong enough to take it, but Max-"

"And Sebastian Verlac? The real one? You killed him, didn't you?"

Sebastian looked at his own hands as if they were someone else's. There was a silver chain holding a flat metal plate around his right wrist - hiding the scar where Isabelle had once sliced his hand away. "Max wasn't supposed to fight back-"

"DO NOT SAY HIS NAME!" There was the sound of shattering glass - Rebecca had thrown the glass she had been holding at the wall behind Sebastian's head. Pity she hadn't thrown it at his head. "Don't say his name." She wasn't yelling anymore, but her voice was trembling, and she hated the sound of it, hated to look weak in front of Sebastian. She took a deep breath and tried to sound calm. "You have no right. Don't you dare say his name."

She didn't remember getting to her feet, but she became aware that she was on her feet now, chest heaving, ears humming. "He was a nine-year old boy," she said, her voice a little more than a whisper. "How could you kill a nine-year old boy?"

Sebastian didn't reply. He was simply gazing at her with an odd expression on his face - pity, maybe. That only made Rebecca angrier. She started to leave, but he clamped a hand around her wrist, forcing her to stop in her tracks.

"Let me go."

"You believe Jace is different," Sebastian said quietly. "You believe he isn't the same person, that my blood changed him. Don't you?"

Rebecca simply nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak.

"Then, why is it so hard to believe it might go the other way? Maybe his blood changed me. Maybe I'm not the same person I was."

"And maybe you're just saying whatever you think you need to say to get me to trust you."

"Maybe I just want someone who sees me for what I am."

Rebecca looked away, desperate to leave, but Sebastian wasn't letting her go anytime soon.

"I'm giving you a chance," he continued, his voice low. "To see that what Jace and I are doing is the right thing. Can you give me a chance?"

She looked back at him again, this time, full in the face. "Don't worry, Sebastian Morgenstern. I see you for what you are - a monster." Wrenching her hand out of his grip, she left the kitchen, her wrist throbbing.

Rebecca sat fuming in her bedroom. She clamped her hands in her lap in an effort to stop them from shaking, but it didn't help. Her argument with Sebastian had torn open a gaping wound in her chest - one she had thought she had healed from. Eventually, she gave in to the tears that had been threatening to spill.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Rebecca opened the door and peered out. The blood on the hallway wall was gone, the plaster unmarked. It was so clean she half-wondered if the whole thing had been a dream - the conversation with Sebastian, all of it. But no, the light bruise on her wrist where Sebastian had held her said otherwise.

To her relief, Clary and Jace were in the kitchen when she went downstairs. Sebastian was making something that involved onions and eggs, and Jace was leaning against the refrigerator. Clary was sitting at the dining table, and she waved when she saw Rebecca.

Sebastian glanced at her as she took a seat at the dining table. "Scrambled or fried?"

"Fried," Jace said, before Rebecca could reply. "She hates scrambled." He cast an affectionate, big-brotherly grin at her, which she tried to return.

"Help yourself to coffee!" Sebastian called out, turning to look back at Rebecca with a lopsided smile. "I remember how much you love a cup of coffee in the mornings."

Rebecca's stomach squirmed unpleasantly. She had told Sebastian that herself, not so long ago. The memory was still fresh in her mind. It had been her first night at the Penhallow mansion in Alicante. She and Sebastian had snuck up to the rooftop to watch for a shooting star that was supposedly going to be visible that night. They had stayed up talking for hours, eventually completely forgetting about the shooting star, and fallen asleep with their heads resting on each other's shoulders. Now, the memory made her feel sick.

Rebecca grabbed a mug and poured out some coffee, glad to have something to keep herself busy. She took a sip from the mug and winced, realizing she had forgotten to add sugar. Jace slid a packet of sugar across the table to her. "Here."

How can you dump so much sugar in it? Unbidden, Alec's disgusted face floated across her mind. I'm going to puke just looking at it. The thought of Alec felt like a weight in her stomach.

She took the packet from Jace with a word of thanks and ripped the packet open with so much force that the sugar exploded everywhere. She cursed colorfully, and not too quietly either.

"Are you all right?" Jace said, looking at his sister with some concern. "You seem... off."

"I'm fine," Rebecca said shortly, reaching for another packet of sugar.

She glanced toward the window. The view was no longer of a canal but of a hill rising in the distance, topped by a castle. "Where are we now?"

"Prague," said Sebastian, placing a plate of fried eggs in front of her and wiping his hands on a dishcloth. "Jace and I have an errand to do here." He glanced out the window. "We should probably get going soon, in fact."

Clary jumped at the opportunity, smiling sweetly at Sebastian. "Can we come with you?"

"No."

"Why not?" Clary crossed her arms over her chest. "Is this some manly bonding thing we can't be a part of? Are you getting matching haircuts? Because Rebecca and I could do that too, you know."

"Maybe they should come," Jace said, handing Clary a plate of eggs and sitting down at the table. "We could always use extra fighting hands."

Sebastian's eyes, which were dark and deep, gave away nothing. "Anything could turn dangerous."

Jace shrugged and popped a strawberry into his mouth. "Well, it's your decision. I'm going to get my stuff." After grabbing another strawberry off the plate, Jace popped it into his mouth and shot upstairs. Clary got up to follow him, but not before giving Rebecca an odd look that she didn't fully understand.

"You're not eating your eggs," Sebastian remarked. He had slid up behind her noiselessly like a snake.

"I'm not hungry," Rebecca said, trying to sound sincere.

Sebastian took a seat opposite her, and fixed her with his gaze. Rebecca determinedly looked down at her hands, her lips pursed. She could still feel his gaze on her when Jace reappeared, shrugging on a suede jacket. He had clipped on his weapons belt too, and wore finger-less dark gloves. Clary was right behind him.

"I changed my mind," Sebastian said abruptly. "They can come with us."

Rebecca looked up, startled by his sudden change of heart. From Clary's expression, she could tell that she was just as bewildered.

Jace raised his eyebrows. "Matching haircuts for everyone?"

"I hope not." Sebastian sighed. "I look terrible with curls."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FIVE

REBECCA

And just like that, they were in Prague. The kitchen wall had transformed into a shimmering grey mist, and the four of them had simply stepped through it, right outside into the weak morning sun. It was colder than Rebecca had anticipated; she shivered slightly.

They were walking down what Sebastian said was Charles Bridge. It all felt so surreal - being here, strolling through the streets of Prague like they were on vacation. Rebecca sneaked a peek over the edge of the bridge, saw the steel-colored water gliding below.

The bridge opened out into a cobble-stoned street lined with tourist shops selling everything from opal necklaces to delicate glass figurines to wooden toys. The crowd thinned as they headed further inward, towards an old medieval square. Here, instead of souvenir shops, kiosks filled the space, selling hot cider and freshly cooked sausages.

Rebecca was halfway through her mug of cider when the old astronomical clock in the center of the square chimed the hour. "There's a legend," Sebastian said, leaning forward with his hands cupped around his own mug, "that the king had the eyes of the clockmaker put out after this clock was finished, so he could never build anything as beautiful again."

Rebecca stared into her cider, wishing she could just drown in it. Clary shuddered and moved closer to Jace, perhaps more out of habit than anything else. "That's sadistic," she said.

Sebastian ran his finger around the rim of his mug, and licked the cider off. "The past is another country."

"Foreign country," Rebecca blurted out, immediately regretting it.

Sebastian's eyes snapped to her. "What?"

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. That's the whole quote."

Sebastian simply shrugged in reply, pushing his mug away. "Let's go."

Rebecca drained the rest of her cider, then erupted into a coughing fit as the hot cider went down her throat. Jace raised his eyebrows at her. "You alright?" She nodded, coughing, as they set off after Sebastian.

Prague was a strange city - it was beautiful, with its narrow streets, tiny shops, and distant castles. It was like a fairy tale come to life. But underneath all that, there was a strange feeling in the air, as if the city was dormant and waiting for something to come along and wake it up.

After about ten minutes of marching in a single file through the ever-narrowing streets, they reached another square, smaller than the last. All the stores were closed here, except for one - what looked like an antique store with the words ANTIKVARIAT splashed across the window in fading gold letters. Peering inside, Rebecca could see dusty old bottles - probably display bottles, but there wasn't enough light to make out what was inside them. Much to her surprise, Sebastian entered the store, followed by the other two; after a moment of hesitation at the doorway, she followed.

As soon as she stepped inside, she sneezed. And then sneezed again. And again. The heady smell of mothballs hung in the air, making her sneeze some more. She had always been slightly allergic to dust.

Clary was ogling some of the junk that lined the shelves. Putting out a tentative finger, she lightly stroked what appeared to be a salt-and-pepper shaker that was shaped like one of the figurines in the clock in Old Town Square. "Isn't this beautiful?"

Rebecca murmured an assent and turned away. She wasn't particularly interested in antiques; she didn't have an artist's eye, and to her, everything just looked like old junk.

Sebastian, meanwhile, had made his way towards the counter at the back of the store, behind which stood an old man with a face as wrinkled as an old bedsheet. The counter itself was glass-fronted and held heaps of what looked like dusty jewelry and small glass bottles.

Sebastian said something in Czech, and the man nodded and jerked his head towards the others with a suspicious look. His eyes were a dark red color. The glamour began to slip away, and Rebecca could finally see the old man for what he was - a Vetis demon, complete with grey skin and ruby-red eyes, a mouth full of pointed teeth that jutted every which way, and long, serpentine arms that ended in heads like an eel's - narrow, evil-looking, and toothy.

Sebastian was looking at them over his shoulder. "They're with me," he said firmly in English. "They are entirely to be trusted, Mirek."

Mirek's mouth puckered. "I don't like this," he began, in a raspy voice. "We agreed you'd come alone."

Instead of replying, Sebastian pulled out a pouch, tied at the top, from his pocket. Loosening the string, he upended the entire contents of the pouch on the counter. Bronze coins rolled in every direction. "Pennies from dead men's eyes," Sebastian explained triumphantly. "Exactly one hundred of them. Now, do you have what we agreed on?"

One toothed hand felt its way across the counter and bit gently at a coin. The demon's red eyes flickered over the pile. "That is all very well, but it is not enough to buy what you seek." He gestured with an undulating arm, and above it appeared a shining, luminous chunk of adamas. It was more than Rebecca had ever seen in a lifetime.

"Pure adamas," Mirek said, as if to emphasize the point. "The stuff of heaven. Priceless."

Anger crackled across Sebastian's face like lightning. However, it was gone almost as soon as it had come. "But we agreed on a price."

"We also agreed you'd come alone." Mirek's red eyes roamed over the four of them, pausing on Clary before flickering over to Rebecca. "I'll tell you what else you can give me," he rasped. "A lock of this young woman's pretty hair."

Before Rebecca could protest, Sebastian, who had followed Mirek's gaze, whirled around to face him. "Absolutely not."

The demon blinked a slow lizard-like blink. "Absolutely not?"

Rebecca was almost as surprised as the demon. Though she knew perfectly well what Mirek could do with a lock of her hair, she was astonished that Sebastian had refused. If a bit of her hair was all that was stopping him from getting the adamas, why not just give it?

"You will not touch a hair on her head," Sebastian repeated, again in that slow, menacing voice. "Nor will you renege on our bargain. No one cheats Valentine Morgenstern's son. The agreed upon price, or-"

"Or what?" Mirek snarled. "Or I'll be sorry? You are not Valentine, little boy. Now, that was a man who inspired loyalty-"

"No," said Sebastian, sliding a seraph blade from the belt at his waist. "I am not Valentine. I do not intend to deal with demons as Valentine did. If I cannot have your loyalty, I will have your fear. Know that I am more powerful than my father ever was, and if you do not deal fairly with me, I will take your life, and have what I came for." He raised the blade he held. "Dumah," he whispered, and the blade sprang to life.

The demon recoiled, snapping out several words in some demon language. Rebecca slipped her own seraph blade out of her pocket - the one Sebastian had given her before they had left. "Sanvi." The seraph blade sprang to life in her hand.

Then, out of nowhere, something slammed into her shoulder with the force of a sledgehammer, and she was knocked to the ground. Looming over her was a massive snake-like creature, its head flat and shiny like a cobra, its body jointed and insectile. An Elapid demon.

Rebecca rolled to the side as the Elapid struck again, and its head went straight through the cement wall, bits of cement and brick flying everywhere. The demon screeched in irritation - a sound that sent chills up her spine. Before it could pull its head out and launch another attack, she sliced upwards with her blade, neatly separating the head from the rest of the body. Demon ichor spewed from the severed head, hissing as it came in contact with her shoes.

Sebastian was fighting another of the Elapids by the door of the shop; Jace was fending off two next to a display of antique ceramics. Behind the counter, Clary stabbed an Elapid demon and watched it disintegrate under her hands.

Clary looked up, her gaze shifting to something behind Rebecca - she whirled around and saw that an Elapid had sneaked up on Sebastian, whose full attention was on the demon in front of him. Another was dead at his feet, its body slowly dissolving into ashes.

Clary screamed something, quite possibly, Look out! but it was fruitless. Either Sebastian hadn't heard, or he was too busy fighting the Elapid in front of him - either way, it couldn't end well.

On instinct, Rebecca took aim with her seraph blade, and let it fly. It sank into the demon behind Sebastian, which let out a howl of agony. Whirling around, Sebastian skillfully decapitated the monster, and it thumped to the ground, its body already beginning to disintegrate.

Sebastian looked up and met Rebecca's eyes, and opened his mouth as if to say something - then his eyes widened as he glanced past Clary. "Clary! Stop him!"

Rebecca whirled around to see what he was talking about, and saw Mirek, his hands fumbling at a door set into the back of the shop. Clary yanked a seraph blade from her belt. "Nakir!" she cried, vaulting up onto the counter, and she flung herself from the top of it as her weapon exploded into brightness. She landed on the Vetis demon, knocking him to the ground. One of his eel-like arms snapped at her, and she sliced it off with a sawing motion of her blade. More black blood sprayed. The demon looked at her with red, frightened eyes. "Stop," he wheezed. "I could give you whatever you want-"

But Clary simply drove her seraph blade down. It plunged into the demon's chest, and Mirek disappeared with a hollow cry. Clary thumped to her knees on the carpet.

Breathing heavily, she stood up, a triumphant look on her face. Jace, having finished off his own adversary, was looking at Clary, coming to terms with what had just happened. "Name of the angel, Clary..." he breathed.

"The adamas," Sebastian cut him off sharply. "Where's the adamas?"

"Here." Rebecca gestured, reaching down below the counter, and scrabbling around until she felt something hard and smooth. She pulled out the luminous chunk and handed it to Sebastian, becoming aware of a stinging sensation in her feet as she did so. Now that the adrenaline of the fight had worn off, she realized just how much her body hurt. Her shoulder was throbbing. Something warm and wet was running down the side of her face.

Groaning slightly, she bent and inspected her shoes, most of which had melted away because of the ichor, leaving her toes exposed. Some of the ichor had seeped inside too, which explained the sting she felt.

"Alright, you three," Sebastian said. He was grinning widely, lazily spinning the adamas in one hand. "Tomorrow, we use this," he said, gesturing to it. "But tonight, we celebrate."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SIX

REBECCA

Rebecca's feet had definitely seen better days. She pulled off her left boot with a wince and inspected the angry red welts that had sprung up everywhere. Gingerly, she placed her feet on the floor and stood up – but almost immediately, she was forced to sit back down on the bed; the pain was too much. Demon ichor normally didn't cause such serious burns, but an Elapid demon's blood was particularly poisonous. It didn't help that she hadn't been wearing her usual Shadowhunter gear either.

Jace had already marked her with an iratze, even though they could do little against burns caused by demon blood. It hadn't done much by way of healing, but it had reduced the pain. But during the short trip from the antique shop back to the apartment, it had worn off, and her feet were throbbing with pain.

A soft knock sounded on the door. "Come in," Rebecca said, assuming it was Clary.

Sebastian walked in instead. He looked remarkably clean, considering what they had just been through. He'd discarded his stained leather jacket in favor of an antique military coat, which, thrown over his T-shirt, lent him a look of thrift-store chic. He was carrying something in his hands, something black and shiny.

"That looks nasty," he said, throwing the shiny material onto the bed.

"What do you want?" Rebecca said, more weary than angry.

"Here." He presented her with a small bottle – she hadn't noticed him holding it at first.

Her curiosity won out and she inspected the tiny glass bottle. The liquid inside appeared viscous but perfectly clear. "What is it?"

"One drop and you'll feel like a new person."

She must have looked skeptical, because Sebastian rolled his eyes and plucked the bottle out of her hand. "It's an extract of a root found in L'Isle Adam. Quaint little town." Unscrewing the top, he squeezed the dropper onto his tongue. "See? Not poison."

Rebecca still made no move to take it. Sebastian sighed and placed the bottle on the bedside table. "Look, it'll help you with the pain, help heal the burns on your feet. It's your choice if you want to trust me or not." He started towards the door.

"Wait!" Rebecca gestured to the black material on the bed. "What's this?"

His expression changed to a smirk. "A gift. For you."

She picked up the shiny material. It was velvety soft and light as air. "You can't be serious."

"Why not?"

"There's no way I'm wearing this."

"Well, you can hardly visit Prague's best nightclub in that-" he gestured to her torn t-shirt and blood-soaked jeans – "so I suggest you get changed soon." The door banged behind him.

Rebecca's gaze unwillingly shifted to the delicate glass bottle on the bedside table. With a sigh of defeat, she scooped it up and grabbed the black dress from the bed before slamming the bathroom door behind her.

She didn't look too bad, much to her surprise. The dress was short – really short, coming down to her mid-thighs. It was slightly uncomfortable, but she also looked more like Isabelle than ever – which was unusual even though they were twins. For starters, Rebecca's hair was a lighter shade than Isabelle's – almost hazel. And her eyes were grey, while Isabelle's were black. The result was that people almost always thought she was joking when she told them they were twins.

Her eyes caught her own in the mirror. There was no denying it - Rebecca didn't look like the rest of her family, something that people had been quick to point out. Maryse had always brushed them off, but that hadn't stopped the rumors from circulating...

As Rebecca gazed at her reflection, she wondered what Izzy would say if she saw her wearing the dress. Probably something like, You know what would go great with that? A thigh sheath!

Never in a million years, Izzy, Rebecca smiled. Her heart contracted with a sudden pang of homesickness – where were Izzy and Alec? What were they doing now?

Suddenly sickened with herself, she pulled the dress up and over her head, cursing silently. Throwing the dress back onto her bed, she splashed some cold water over her face, and pulled on a fresh t-shirt and jeans. Doubtless Sebastian would be annoyed, maybe angry, maybe both, that she had not worn the dress, but she didn't care. To hell with what Sebastian wanted.

"You look quite dashing," Sebastian remarked in an amused tone as Rebecca clattered down the stairs. He was most likely being sarcastic, but she was too tired to retort or even shoot him a glare.

Clary arrived downstairs a few minutes later, wearing a shimmery velvet dress. Jace unhitched himself from his position against the wall. "I could point out that that's not a dress, that's underwear," he said, "but I doubt it would be in my best interest."

"Need I remind you," said Sebastian, "that that is my sister?'

"Most brothers would be delighted to see such a clean-cut gentleman as myself squiring their sisters about town," said Jace, grabbing an army jacket off one of the racks and sliding his arms into it.

"Nobody says 'squiring' anymore, Jace," Rebecca said. "Get with the times."

"It's called having 'class'," Jace replied smoothly. "None of which you seem to have, incidentally."

Rebecca almost smiled; bickering with Jace was the closest she had felt to being home in the past few days. She felt an arm sliding around her waist and jumped; Sebastian was standing next to her, a dazzling smile on his face. "You ready to celebrate?"

Prague at night was colder than during the day; Rebecca was extremely grateful for her jacket. There were no street signs or pedestrians around, and she wondered for the millionth time how Sebastian was so sure of the way. She would never have admitted it, but she was completely turned around.

A shallow flight of stairs led them down to a tiny square, one side of which was lit by a flashing neon sign that said KOSTI LUSTR."

What does that mean, 'Kosti Lustr'?" Clary asked.

"It means 'The Bone Chandelier.' It's the name of the nightclub," said Sebastian, sauntering forward. His pale hair reflected the changing neon colors of the sign: hot red, cold blue, metallic gold. "You coming?"

Walking into the club was akin to walking face-first into a signpost, which Rebecca had actually done on one occasion. Only this time, she was hit by loud music and bright lights, not a metallic pole. There was a DJ booth along one wall. Techno music blasted from the enormous speakers.

Someone gripped her wrist: Sebastian. Before she could pull away, he put his mouth close to her ear, speaking above the music. "Come on. We're not staying up here with the hoi polloi." He propelled Rebecca to the far end of the room, where yet another set of stairs led down into darkness. She glanced at Sebastian; he grinned, his face all angles and shadows in the harsh, focused light. "Easy is the descent," he said.

Rebecca shivered slightly, glad to feel Clary beside her.

The music downstairs had an even more insistent beat than the music upstairs. Here, everything was stone, the walls bumpy and uneven, the floor smooth beneath their feet. A massive statue of a black-winged angel rose along the far wall, its head lost in shadows far above, its wings dripping strings of garnets that looked like drops of blood. Explosions of color and light burst like cherry bombs throughout the room; every time one burst, it rained down a glittering shimmer onto the dancing crowd below.

However, the thing that caught Rebecca's eye – caught everyone's eye, in fact – was the massive chandelier in the middle of the room. True to the name of the club, it was made of bones – human skulls, femurs, and fingers.

And the dancers – most of them were werewolves, faeries, or vampires. Rebecca was surprised when they didn't pay any attention to them, and she was more than sure that the reason why had something to do with Sebastian.

Clary and Jace were lost to the dancing crowd almost immediately. Slowly but surely, Rebecca squeezed her way to the bar, hoping she could order a drink or something. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

If only she had just stayed put under the trapdoor, none of this would have happened.

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian pushed his way through the crowd after Rebecca. When he caught up with her, she had settled herself onto a stool behind the bar, and was ordering a drink from the bartender - a kelpie with deep blue eyes and bright green hair.

"Having fun?" he asked her, as the kelpie slid a glass of flaming liquid across the counter to her.

"Loads," she said flatly, examining the drink, which was giving out flames of bright blue.

"Ah, that's no way to be," Sebastian grinned, sitting down beside her. "You're at the best nightclub in Prague. Possibly the world."

"Yeah," she said grumpily. "Also, I've been kidnapped, Izzy and Alec are probably worried out of their minds, and I also lost my younger brother." Defiantly, she scooped up the drink and gulped it down, and emerged coughing.

"Firewhisky." Sebastian eyed the glass in her hand. "A bold choice."

Rebecca didn't say anything as she ordered another glass and downed it in one go. Sebastian, however, didn't order anything; he just silently watched her.

After downing her fifth glass, she flashed Sebastian a huge grin, and beckoned for him to lean closer to her. He did, until their faces were merely inches apart. Being this close to her was intoxicating - he could see every detail of her eyelashes. "This stuff is good!" she yelled, right in his ear. Sebastian jerked back involuntarily. But Rebecca didn't notice; she had turned, and was trying to catch the attention of the bartender. But Sebastian neatly plucked the glass out of her hand and set it down on the counter. "Rebecca, no," he said. "You've had enough."

Rebecca pouted, then leaned forward so her face was only inches from his. "You're very good-looking," she whispered.

Sebastian's stomach gave a strange lurch. "Thank y-"

Rebecca started to sway on her stool, and Sebastian caught her by the shoulders. "By the Angel, you're a lightweight, aren't you?"

She giggled, sliding her arms around him and resting her head on his shoulder. "You're nice," she murmured. "It's so nice to be here with you, Mark."

Sebastian's heart turned to ice.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SEVEN

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian regarded the man in front of him, eyes narrowing slightly. "Do you have the information I asked for?"

The fair-haired man standing in front of Sebastian nodded, casting a wary glance around him. The alley they were standing in was deserted, although the street beyond was bustling with vehicles and people. A stray cat cast them a curious glance, then, perhaps deciding they weren't of any interest, turned its attention back to the dead mouse between its paws.

The man pulled out a piece of paper. As he handed it to Sebastian, the sleeve of his shirt edged back to reveal familiar Shadowhunter runes. "There are many Shadowhunters named Mark," he said in his heavy accent. He spoke slowly, as if English was unfamiliar to him. "But only one who ever visited the New York Institute." He tapped the paper Sebastian was holding. "That's him."

Sebastian handed the man a roll of bills. He nodded swiftly, muttered something in Czech, and vanished into the busy street beyond. But Sebastian stood there, gazing at the paper. It showed a boy, of about the same age as Sebastian himself. He had pale hair - almost white - and blue-green eyes. His mouth was pulled back in a wide, mischievous smile.

Slowly, deliberately, Sebastian crushed the paper in between his fingers, his knuckles turning white.

CLARY

"I need to talk to you."

Clary eyed the grey-eyed Lightwood curiously. She hadn't expected anyone else to be up so early, but she had still avoided going downstairs - she had no desire to run into Sebastian. She shook her head slightly, letting the last vestiges of sleep escape her mind. "Yeah, of course." She moved aside to let Rebecca enter the room.

Rebecca sat on the bed and looked down at her hands. "I think we need to leave, Clary," she said finally.

Clary was taken aback. "Why?"

Rebecca shook her head. "I cannot live in the same house as the person who murdered my brother. It-it's eating me up."

Clary was silent. Rebecca had taken Max's death extremely hard. She had even refused to attend Max's funeral, and had stayed at the Lightwood mansion in Idris, locked in her room for three solid days, refusing to come out even to eat. She couldn't argue with what Rebecca had just said.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "But what about Jace?"

Rebecca shook her head. "I'll do whatever it takes to save Jace. He's my brother, too. But-" She broke off and bit her lip. "I don't trust myself around Sebastian. Every time I'm around him, I have to stop myself from just running him through with a blade. And what would happen to Jace then?" She smiled dryly. "Besides, after last night... I wouldn't be surprised if Sebastian wants to kill me too."

Clary went to sit down beside Rebecca. "Well, I wouldn't take it personally," she said lightly. "Sebastian wants to kill everyone."

Rebecca gave a small smile, to Clary's gratification. "It's not just that," she said. "Last night, I got pretty drunk at the bar. I shouldn't have, but-" she took a deep breath. "Anyway, I called Sebastian by somebody else's name. And he wasn't too happy."

"Somebody else's name?" Clary echoed. She racked her brain, trying to think of anybody else they knew who looked like him-

"Nobody you know," Rebecca said quickly. "The point is, Sebastian is a psychopath. Who knows what he'll do now?"

"But why would he get so angry-" Clary broke off as it dawned on her. "Oh."

"Yep."

"He likes you."

"Is he even capable of liking somebody?" Rebecca shrugged. "Maybe it's crazy, but somehow, that makes me more terrified of him."

Clary nodded. She understood completely.

"And that's why we need to leave," Rebecca said, looking desperately at Clary.

But Clary couldn't bring herself to even consider Rebecca's proposal. She couldn't leave Jace, no matter what. "I..." She trailed off, looking into Rebecca's stormy grey eyes. What could she even say to her? How could she ask her to stay, when Sebastian had murdered her brother? "You know Sebastian would never willingly let us leave," she said finally.

Rebecca nodded. "I know. Which is why we'll have to keep our eyes open for an opportunity." She clasped Clary's hand. "Promise me that we'll take it when it comes, Clary."

"I promise."

REBECCA

When Rebecca went downstairs a few minutes later, massaging her temples in an effort to alleviate the dull pounding in her head, Jace was nowhere to be found. Only Sebastian was there, standing in the living room, facing the wall, a determined set to his shoulders.

Something about the way he was standing piqued Rebecca's curiosity. Her hangover forgotten, she hesitated for a moment, then immediately crouched down, moving soundlessly over to the kitchen counter and ducking down behind it. Then, very carefully, she raised her head, just enough to see over the counter.

Sebastian had his back to her. He'd changed from his nightclub clothes into a button-down shirt and jeans. He turned, and his shirt lifted slightly – just enough for her to see the weapons belt slung around his waist. In his right hand, he clutched a stele, and, as she watched, he set its point against the wall and drew a rune she didn't recognize.

A shimmering doorway appeared on the wall; within seconds, Sebastian stepped through it and was gone. Without thinking twice, Rebecca covered the distance to the wall in two leaps and stepped through the doorway before it closed.

They weren't in Prague anymore, for sure. It was much warmer, for one thing, and all the signs Rebeca saw were in French. The streets were narrower, and the sky was a deep blue. The sun was just beginning to come up, turning the eastern sky into a myriad of pinks and yellows.

Sebastian was hurrying into a narrow alleyway. Rebecca went after him, her sneakers slipping and sliding on the smooth stone pathways that had been worn down over the years. She passed one or two people, most of them early morning workers. Once, a guy in a black leather jacket with the hood pulled down over his face eyed her as if he thought she might be worth mugging, but she gave him her best you-do-not-want-to-mess-with-me gaze and he retreated.

She followed Sebastian for what seemed like forever, though it couldn't actually have been more than half an hour. Like in Prague, he seemed perfectly sure of the way, zigzagging between alleyways and narrow streets – it was all she could do to keep him within her sight.

A street sign pointing the way to Rue de la Seine told Rebecca they were in Paris. Ironic, she thought, as Sebastian hurried down yet another alleyway. She had always wanted to take her travel year in Paris.

Sebastian suddenly stopped at one of the houses that lined the street. He raised a hand and punched a code into an electronic machine set next to the door – X235. The door opened with a series of mechanical beeps and he vanished.

One minute later, having repeated his actions, Rebecca stood in the center of a courtyard, facing three stairwells. She became uncomfortably aware that she had absolutely no weapons with her. If something attacked her, her chances were looking very slim indeed...

Knowing she couldn't stay out here hesitating forever, Rebecca chose a stairwell at random and ducked into it, feeling a lump settle in her throat. The ceiling brushed the top of her head. She couldn't stretch her arms out on either side, and she couldn't see more than three feet in front of her.

But on she went, further inwards, the knot in her stomach growing tighter with every step she took. Her only solace was the little square of light far behind her, outlining the stairs leading back up to the courtyard. The streets of Paris, the ordinary world, seemed eons away. There was only the darkness and her, going down and down and down.

She had been so focused on keeping her panic at bay that she almost failed to notice the stench in the air – the stench of demons. At around the same moment she realized it, a light flared in the distance.

After being in the darkness for so long, it took her a few seconds to make out a stone archway in front of her, at the apex of which was set a human skull between the V of two enormous ornamental crossed axes. Through the archway, she could hear voices, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying. If she wanted to hear, she would have to go closer. Hesitantly, she shuffled forward.

A door opened suddenly to her left, just ten feet or so away. She froze as the voices grew louder.

"...not like his father," one said, the words as raspy as sandpaper. "Valentine would not deal with us at all. He would make slaves of us. This one will give us the world."

"The Great Mother trusted him. He is her child."

Sebastian. Of course they were talking about Sebastian.

"He is also Nephilim. They are our great enemies."

"They are his enemies as well. He bears the blood of Lilith."

"But the one he calls his companion bears the blood of our enemies. He is of the angels."

"Lilith's child assures us he has him well in hand, and indeed he seems obedient."

A dry, insectile chuckle. "You young ones are too consumed with worry. The Nephilim have long kept this world from us. Its riches are great. We will drink it dry and leave it as ashes. As for the angel boy, he will be the last of his kind to die. We will burn him on a pyre until he is only golden bones."

They're talking about my brother. Rebecca clenched her fists and sucked in an involuntary breath.

It was a tiny sound, but it was enough.

There was absolute silence for a second.

And then the first demon appeared in the doorway.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER EIGHT

REBECCA

RUN, RUN, RUN.

That was the only thought flitting through Rebecca's mind. No matter how many demons she killed, the tiny, itchy bit of terror never went away – it was always there, in the thud of her heart, the slapping of her feet on the stone floor.

The rasping of the demons was getting louder and louder; Rebecca didn't dare to look behind her, but she knew it wouldn't be long before they caught up. In a last, desperate bid to defend herself, she skidded to a stop near the archway she had seen earlier and tugged at one of the ornamental axes, trying to pull it free from its hold. But the axe held fast; years of rust made it impossible to free.

The demons were almost upon her. They were Dahaks, Rebecca saw. Their tentacles were waving around in excitement, and they were hissing loudly. She had never fought them before, but she knew that if she got caught, she would be dead. Dahaks were particularly tough to kill, and their tentacles were poisonous. Rebecca let out a scream of frustration and took off again. If only she could reach the courtyard, she would be safe; the Dahaks couldn't follow her out into the sunlight.

Relief flooded her when she saw the staircase looming up in front of her. She had barely set foot on it when one of them grabbed hold of her foot and yanked her backwards viciously. Rebecca immediately lost her footing and stuck her hands out to brace the fall. On instinct, she kicked out as hard as she could. The grip on her foot loosened, but several other tentacles wrapped around her shins and ankles, dragging her back. Sharp pain shot up her thigh, and her vision swam.

She was flat on the ground now, kicking for all she was worth. Through a haze of pain, she spotted at least half a dozen more demons, all hissing and spitting and rasping. For the first time, Rebecca couldn't think of a single thing to do. Terror was seeping through every vein in her body, striking her numb. One of the demons leaned over her, leering (if demons could leer), and seized her wrist. Excruciating pain spread from the point of contact, and Rebecca struggled again, but her muscles felt like they had been filled with lead. Black spots appeared in her vision. Her windpipe was suddenly too small. She was gasping for breath, heaving desperately, but each new breath was harder than the last.

And out of nowhere a shimmering blade drove down, burying itself in the demon's skull. It vanished, and there was Sebastian, a blazing seraph blade in his hand, ichor splattered across his white shirtfront. Behind him the room was empty save for the body of one of the demons, still twitching, but with black fluid pouring from its severed leg stumps.

Rebecca tried to sit up, but she could barely move. As though from several miles away, she heard him say, "... deadly poison, Rebecca. What were you thinking?"

And then everything faded away.

Nausea and pain racked her body. She could make out splotches of color, but nothing definite. Her wrist was still throbbing. She also became aware of a gentle swinging sensation – someone was carrying her.

Then everything went silent. For a moment she thought that was the end of it: she had died, died battling demons, the way most Shadowhunters did. Then she felt another pleasant burning sensation on the inside of her arm, and a surge of what felt like ice spilling through her veins.

It was as though someone had poured ice-cold water on her face. With a great gasp, Rebecca shot upright, clutching her chest and wheezing heavily. Her lungs seemed to take a while to begin functioning properly again, and by the time she had started breathing normally, her vision had returned completely.

She was lying on a park bench. The sky was a brilliant blue, and she could hear the distinct sounds of bees buzzing. The park itself was deserted, but it looked lovely, with tastefully arranged beds of flowers, and what even looked like a fountain in the distance. And sitting next to her was Sebastian.

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian regarded Rebecca thoughtfully, a small smile on his face. After taking in her surroundings, she turned back to him, and said slowly, "So I suppose you saved my life." She was careful not to look at him as she spoke. "Where are we?"

"Luxembourg Gardens," he replied. "It's a very nice park. I had to take you somewhere you could lie down, and the middle of the street didn't seem like a good idea."

At that, she finally looked up and met his eyes. Her grey eyes, normally as piercing and sharp as a steel blade, were clouded. "Thank you for saving my life."

"You're welcome." Sebastian rested an arm on the bench behind her and leaned back. "I will admit, though, I didn't think you'd follow me down there. You're braver than I thought."

"That was more like stupidity," Rebecca said, looking down at her hands, which she had tightly clasped in her lap. "I nearly got myself killed." She turned, shifting her body so that she was facing him. The cloudiness had disappeared from her eyes, and now they looked razor sharp. "Speaking of, why are you dealing with demons?"

"I wasn't dealing with them," Sebastian said smoothly.

"I listened to them talking about you," Rebecca said sharply. "I know what you're doing-"

"No, you don't," Sebastian interrupted. "First, those weren't the demons I was dealing with. Those were their guards. That's why they were in a separate room and why I wasn't there. Dahak demons aren't that smart, though they are mean and tough and defensive. So it's not like they were really informed about what was going on. They were just repeating gossip they'd heard from their masters. Greater Demons. That was who I was meeting with."

Rebecca raised her eyebrows. "Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better."

"I'm not trying to make you feel better. I'm giving you what you've always wanted – the truth."

"I heard the Dahaks say that you were going to give this world to the demons," she said quietly. "Is that true?"

"Now, does that sound like something I'd do?"

Rebecca's eyes blazed unexpectedly. "You seriously can't expect me to give you an honest answer to that."

Sebastian sat up straight, moving a little closer to her; she didn't flinch, just stared at him intently with her grey eyes.

"I thought you said you were going to give me a chance," he said. "I'm not who I was when you met me in Alicante." His gaze was clear. "And before that, I only ever knew Valentine growing up. He taught me everything I know." He leaned forward a little more so that their faces were now only inches apart. "It's not easy to doubt the things you've grown up believing."

Rebecca turned away. "The least you could've done was come up with a better excuse. And Valentine was wrong. He was so obsessed with what the Clave got wrong that he could see nothing past proving to them that he was right."

"Look," Sebastian said, feeling mildly exasperated. "Valentine had the right idea. I mean, look at us – barely any Shadowhunters left and demons are getting stronger every day. Eventually, we'll be overrun."

"And you expect me to believe you care if that happens."

"Sometimes extreme situations call for extreme measures. To destroy the enemy, it can be necessary to understand him, even to treat with him. If I can make those Greater Demons trust me, then I can lure them here, where they can be destroyed, and their followers as well. That ought to turn back the tide. Demons will know that this world is not as easy pickings as they imagined it."

"And you and Jace are going to do all that by yourself?" Rebecca snorted. "Good luck."

Sebastian decided to ignore her jibe. Instead, he stood up and held his hand out to her. "Come with me. I want to show you something."

"No way. Take me back to the apartment right now."

Sebastian groaned. "Could you be any more frigid if you tried? I don't think so."

"I'm not frigid!" she said indignantly.

"Then come with me."

Rebecca hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Fine. But if you do anything-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know - you'll make mincemeat out of me."

She rolled her eyes.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER NINE

REBECCA

"Paris is nice," Rebecca said vaguely, as they walked past narrow, curving streets and wide avenues. She shivered slightly in the cool wind coming off the Seine. Sebastian unwound the scarf from around his neck and handed it to her. It was a heathery black and white tweed, still warm from being wrapped around his neck.

Rebecca hesitated, but Sebastian thrust it at her impatiently. "Don't be stupid," he said. "You're cold. Put it on."

"Thanks," she said reflexively, and winced. The scarf had a citrusy scent, like cologne, and she was a good deal warmer now. Sebastian slowed down as they walked, pointing out various landmarks for her benefit. He started to explain how all the neighborhoods in Paris were numbered-

"The vingt arrondisement," Rebecca said, nodding.

A hint of surprise showed on Sebastian's face. "How do you know that?"

For some reason, Rebecca felt mildly embarrassed at his surprise; she had always wanted to visit France, and had even been planning to take her travel year at the Paris Institute. It felt odd - and not entirely comfortable - to be walking with Sebastian in Paris. "I read it somewhere," she said vaguely.

It seemed like the day was just beginning for the people in Paris – there were men in trench coats carrying suitcases, hurrying without stopping, quite a few of them on the phone. There were also groups of young college girls, all decked out in stylish tight-fitting pants and high heels. Quite a few of them stopped to give Sebastian appreciative glances. One girl, sporting a lovely blue dress, her hair a mass of golden curls, even flashed him a flirtatious smile. Sebastian winked back, and she turned around to giggle with her friends.

Ugh, Rebecca thought. She leaped up onto the wall that ran beside the Seine, and glanced down at the river. The water was a grey-blue color, lazily drifting along below. She winced as she almost lost her footing on the wall; a twinge of pain shot through her ankle. The sores on her feet from the Elapid blood were still not fully healed.

"Sebastian," she said suddenly, sparing him a cursory glance, "Does the demon blood hurt you?"

Sebastian abruptly stopped walking, and Rebecca, caught slightly off balance on the narrow wall, heavily jumped down onto the pavement, colliding with Sebastian's chest - hard, warm and muscled beneath his shirt. A passing girl shot her an amused, jealous look, and Rebecca stepped hastily away from Sebastian. "Never mind," she said, seeing his stony expression. "Forget I asked."

Sebastian didn't say anything for a few more minutes as they continued walking. Then, abruptly breaking the silence, he said, "Yes, it does. All the time."

They eventually stopped outside a small café which Sebastian claimed sold "the best hot chocolate in Paris, or anywhere in the world, really". He was telling the truth, though - the hot chocolate was excellent. They made it at their table - which was small and wooden, as were the old-fashioned high-backed chairs - in a blue ceramic pot, using cream, chocolate powder and sugar. It was so thick you could have a spoon stand up straight in it.

"You know, they'll bring you another croissant if you want," Sebastian said, eyeing Rebecca as she wolfed hers down. "You're attacking that one like a wolverine."

She shrugged. "I'm fine. I was just hungry." After a pause, she said, "Didn't you want to show me something?"

Sebastian leaned forward, elbows on the table. "That wasn't entirely true. I wanted to talk to you. Convince you."

Rebecca slowly leaned back against the chair. "Then talk." She suddenly noticed that his eyes weren't all black – if you looked very closely, there was a silver ring around his iris. She shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on what he was saying.

"Do you think you can forgive me? I mean, do you think forgiveness is possible for someone like me?"

Rebecca didn't say anything for a moment. Surprise and shock rend her mute, even though she had been half-afraid that he would ask something like this, and now that he had, she didn't know what to say. She lowered her gaze to the wooden table, hoping the answer would be etched in there somewhere; she was sadly disappointed. "You do know that... there are some things for which I can never forgive you."

"Yes."

"And if you really want to be forgiven, you've got to make amends."

"I know that."

"Then why... all of this?" She gestured wildly with her mug, almost spilling her hot chocolate. "In case you didn't know, kidnapping me and Clary is not 'making amends'! Keeping Jace as a prisoner-"

"He's not a prisoner," Sebastian said quietly.

"Oh yeah, of course he's not," she said sarcastically. "You just brainwashed him into thinking you're right and everyone else is wrong."

"And if I turned myself in to the Clave, what do you think they would do?" Sebastian said. His voice was still calm, but there was a hint of impatience. "Do you think they would give me a second chance?"

Rebecca didn't say anything.

"I've always liked you, Rebecca." Sebastian wasn't looking at her anymore, but into the depths of his own mug. "In Idris... I knew we had something special. You feel the same way, don't you?" He looked back up to meet her gaze. "I knew it was a dangerous thing. I tried to hide my feelings for you, but... " He sighed. "It seems that you desire someone else."

Rebecca sat frozen, her grip on her mug so tight that her knuckles were white.

"But you belong to only me," he said, and his gaze hardened, his voice like steel. "And if I can't have you, then no one else will." He reached forward and gripped her wrist. "Say you understand."

Rebecca stayed silent.

Sebastian's grip tightened, sending stabs of pain shooting up her forearm. "Say you understand." His voice dripped with fury.

With enormous effort, Rebecca wrenched her grip out of his hand and stood up. "We're done, Sebastian," she said coldly. "I will never be yours, not now, not ever."

Sebastian's eyes blazed with vicious anger. But it was gone almost as quickly as it had come - with a serene smile, he paid the bill and flashed a brilliant smile at the waitress, who blushed. And, together, they left the café.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TEN

REBECCA

Sebastian said he had an errand to run, and politely asked Rebecca if she wouldn't mind waiting. Just as politely, she replied that she didn't mind at all, and so, she found herself standing outside a blue shuttered house, the sun now high enough to make her shirt stick to her back with sweat.

She contemplated making a run for it. Maybe she could find the Paris Institute. They would be able to help her, wouldn't they? She would be able to return to her family.

But no. She couldn't leave Clary behind. If she escaped, Sebastian would not hesitate to take his anger out on Clary, and Rebecca couldn't risk that happening.

Sebastian didn't take very long. He was back in less than two minutes, and then, without any hassle, they returned to the apartment. The living room was empty when they arrived, but Jace immediately burst through the door leading to the kitchen, closely followed by Clary. "Where were you?" he demanded.

Sebastian shrugged, moving to the kitchen and filling a glass of water. "I thought Rebecca might want to see Paris, especially since she's always wanted to take her travel year at the Paris Institute."

Jace's expression softened, but his voice didn't. "You could have at least told me," he said. "Or left a note. It isn't as if our situation is the safest. What if something had happened to her-"

"I followed him," Rebecca said, glancing sheepishly at Jace. "When he left, I followed him through the Portal. If it's anybody's fault, it's mine."

Jace's shoulders relaxed. "Just as long as you two weren't off canoodling somewhere."

"C-canoodling?" Rebecca spluttered, but Jace simply smiled wickedly as Sebastian chuckled. "Whatever. I'm going to go change."

Clary followed Rebecca to her room; she stood leaning against the wall as Rebecca leaned over the sink in the bathroom and turned on the tap.

"So, what really happened with Sebastian?" she said, as Rebecca cupped water in the palm of her hands and let the cool liquid trickle over her face. It was surprisingly refreshing. She turned and faced Clary, not bothering to dry her face.

"I followed Sebastian to this underground chamber," she began without preamble. "I got attacked by a couple of Dahak demons-" she looked away and swallowed visibly, "-but Sebastian... saved me." She told Clary everything Sebastian had told her, including their conversation in the café - well, almost everything. She left out the part about him supposedly having feelings for her.

Clary bit her lip. "It looks like he really has a plan. It looks like he's really trying to redeem himself." There was a flicker of hope in Clary's voice as she said it, and Rebecca didn't have the heart to disagree. So she simply nodded.

Dinner that night was a somber affair. Neither Rebecca nor Clary spoke much, although Sebastian seemed to be in a very cheerful mood. The moment they had finished, however, Rebecca escaped to her room, seeking some peace and quiet. The day's events had been... bizarre, to say the least, and she wanted to think.

She peeled off her clothes and stepped into the shower. The warm water was like a gentle hand caressing her back. She shut her eyes - and Sebastian's words rose up in her mind, a whisper in her ear, almost like he was standing right next to her.

It seems you desire someone else.

Mark. She had called him Mark, that night in the club. She hadn't thought about Mark in a long time, and couldn't see how she had mistaken Sebastian for him. They had the same blond hair, but that was where the similarities stopped; the Mark she had met in the New York Institute two years ago had been soft-spoken and mysterious, but forever on the lookout for a new adventure. Rebecca had never met someone who had as big a heart as he did, though he always tried to hide it. Once, they had both found an injured bird lying on the ground outside the Institute. Mark had scooped it up in his hands and nursed it back to health for two solid months before releasing it. Sebastian would have probably stepped on it and laughed, she thought, stepping out and turning the water off. After getting dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, she sat on the bed for a long time, staring at the moon as it made its way across the sky.

Hours later, she jerked awake. She had fallen asleep sometime last night, but something had awoken her - she was sure of it. As she slipped out of bed, tousle-haired and alert, she realized what had woken her up.

"JONATHAN CHRISTOPHER MORGENSTERN!"

Clary.

Rebecca muttered a curse that would have made Alec give her a severe talking to, and hurtled out of the room, onto the landing.

For a moment, she thought she was dreaming. Clary was standing there in green silk pajamas, with Jace next to her, sweaty, a big gash across his chest, and Sebastian, in a dark t-shirt and black pants, his hair sleep mussed. The sight of him made her heart beat faster, but she ignored it.

"Lovers' spat?" Sebastian said.

Clary's voice shook, but Rebecca could tell she was trying to hide it. "Jace's rune's damaged. Here." She put her hand over her heart. "He's trying to go back, to give himself up to the Clave-"

Rebecca couldn't believe what she'd just heard. "Clary?!" she said in astonishment, more convinced than ever that she was just dreaming.

Sebastian's hand shot out and grabbed something from Jace's hand. A cup. Pure and glowing. An exact replica of the Mortal Cup. He flung it away, and it slid across the floor, coming to a rest near the top of the stairs.

Meanwhile, Sebastian had grabbed hold of Jace, and was rapidly tracing his stele over something on Jace's chest. Jace was white with shock and completely still. He didn't try to resist – he just stared at Clary with a wild mixture of incredulity and betrayal, and only when Sebastian had stepped away did he finally meet his gaze.

Rebecca could now see the rune that Sebastian had drawn on Jace's chest – an iratze. And underneath that, there was another, fainter rune with a gash running across it. The rune that binds him to Sebastian, she thought.

"Honestly, Jace," Sebastian said. "The idea that you thought you could get away with something like this just knocks me out."

Jace's hands tightened into fists as the iratze, black as charcoal, began to sink into his skin. His next words were eked out, breathless: "Next time... you want to be knocked out... I'd be happy to help you. Maybe with a brick."

Sebastian made a tsk noise. "You'll thank me later. Even you have to admit this death wish of yours is a little extreme."

The iratze was quite obviously hurting Jace for some reason - maybe because of the demonic nature of the rune - but when he spoke, his words were cold and clear. "I won't remember this later," he said. "But you will. That person who acts like your friend-" He took a step forward, closing the space between himself and Sebastian. "That person who acts like they like you. That person isn't real. This is real. This is me. And I hate you. I will always hate you. And there is no magic and no spell in this world or any other that will ever change that." For a moment the grin on Sebastian's face wavered. But Jace didn't. Instead, he tore his gaze from Sebastian and looked at Clary. "I need you to know," he said, "the truth - I didn't tell you all the truth." Jace winced. "The plan," he said. "To raise Lilith, to make a new Cup, to create a dark army - that wasn't Sebastian's plan. It was mine."

"What?" Rebecca gasped. But Jace didn't look at his sister - he was still staring at Clary, whose eyes were wide with shock.

"Sebastian knew what he wanted," said Jace. "But I figured out how he could do it. A new Mortal Cup - I gave him that idea." He jerked in pain. "Or, should I say, he did. That thing that looks like me but isn't? He'll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he's doing it. That's what you're saving, Clary. That. Don't you understand? I'd rather be dead- " His voice choked off as he doubled over . The muscles in his shoulders tightened as ripples of what looked like pain went through him. Then he straightened up, his expression bewildered.

So something had happened to that rune. Either Jace had done something to it himself somehow, or he'd been injured in that spot... whatever the case, Jace had been himself for these past few minutes. Not anymore, though.

"What's going on?" he said.

Sebastian grinned. "Welcome back."

"Is it time?"

Sebastian made a show of looking at his watch. "Just about. Why don't you go on ahead and we'll follow? You can start getting things ready."

Jace glanced around. "The Cup - where is it?"

Sebastian pointed. "There. Feeling a little absent-minded?"

Jace's mouth curled at the corner. He grabbed the Cup, gave Rebecca a good-natured wave, quickly planted a kiss on Clary's cheek, and then pulled out his own stele. Within a second, he was gone.

Sebastian turned to Clary, his black eyes very bright. "You called for me. Why?"

I could ask you the same thing, Rebecca wanted to scream at her.

"He wanted to give himself up to the Clave," Clary whispered. "They would have killed him."

"What did Jace mean, 'it's time'"? Rebecca said.

Sebastian whipped around to face her. His eyes, like bits of black diamond, bored right into hers, but she refused to look away, refused to back down. He reached out a hand, and very tenderly, brushed away a few stray strands of hair from her face. His fingers grazed her cheek. "You'll find out," he murmured.

Rebecca jerked back under his touch, but not before Clary noticed.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER ELEVEN

REBECCA

"What the hell happened back there?" Rebecca said to Clary in a harsh whisper as soon as Sebastian was out of earshot. He had disappeared soon after Jace had left, explaining that he needed to get things ready for the 'ceremony'. "Why did you tell Sebastian that the binding rune was damaged?"

"I would've had to!" Clary countered. "He was going to go to the Clave to give himself up-"

"By the Angel, have you really lost your mind?"

"What would you have done in my place?" Clary said furiously. "The Clave – they would have looked for a way to separate Jace from Sebastian, and of course, they can't do that without a heavenly blade – and then they would have killed him."

"Maybe you're right," Rebecca said mockingly. "Or maybe you're just so blinded by your love for Jace that you'll do anything to keep him alive, even if it's not what he wants."

"He wouldn't have wanted to die!"

"I'm sure he would've preferred that to being Sebastian's pawn!"

"Oh, you're one to talk."

That caught Rebecca off guard. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Clary stepped closer to her. "Yeah, I saw that. You and Sebastian, having your little moment together. Are you on his side now? Going to get married soon and live happily ever after as Mr and Mrs Morgenstern?"

"Shut up, Clary!" Rebecca's hands had balled themselves into fists. "You don't know what you're talking about..." Her voice died away as she stared at Clary. She took a deep breath and continued, "I'm not on his side. And never will be. You have to trust me, Clary."

Clary, whose face had gone red with fury, slumped back against the wall, all the tension leaving her body. "I should have known. That was just... stupid of me. After Max... I'm sorry." She looked up at Rebecca. "Are we good?"

Rebecca gave her a small, sheepish smile. "Of course."

Clary didn't return the smile. "There's a problem, though."

Rebecca's heart sank. "What is it?"

Clary dropped her voice and said, "My faerie ring is missing."

"Missing?" Rebecca echoed. "Where is it?"

"If I knew that, it wouldn't be missing," Clary said exasperatedly. "The last time I remember having it on was before we went to the nightclub in Prague. I don't know if-"

"Sebastian?" Rebecca interrupted. "Could he have found it?"

"That's just it. I don't know if I lost it, or if he found it somehow."

Rebecca steeled herself. "Well, there's only one way to find out. We'll need to search his room-"

A loud knocking on the door startled her into silence. She cast Clary a worried glance as the door opened, and Sebastian came in. He was holding something long, red, and flowy in his hands. He'd changed, too – he was wearing a scarlet leather tunic, intricately worked with gold and silver runes, and held together by a row of metal clasps across the front. There were hammered silver bracelets on each of his wrists, and he wore the Morgenstern ring. He graciously smiled at them, then held out the red material. "This is for you to wear," he said, as Rebecca unfurled it - two beautifully woven silk red capes, with a black and gold trimming around the end.

"This is for... the ceremony?" Rebecca said.

"Yes. How you look tonight – the impression you make on our new acolytes – is important. Put it on."

Clary and Rebecca simply exchanged mute glances.

"I'll give you ladies some privacy to get ready," Sebastian said, making his way to the door. "Oh, by the way," he said, turning to look back at them. "Tonight, you call me Jonathan Cristopher Morgenstern."

The minute he left, Clary stood up. "I have to search for the ring. I have to let Simon know about this ceremony tonight."

"No, hang on." Rebecca placed her hand on Clary's arm. "Maybe it's better if I go." When Clary cast her a questioning look, she hurriedly explained, "I think he trusts me. At the very least, he probably won't be too pissed if he does find me snooping about his room, instead of you. I could probably play the damsel-in-distress card."

Clary didn't like it, but she relented. "Alright then."

Sebastian's room was empty. The bed was a tangle of black silk sheets and comforter. There was a glass and steel desk near the window, covered with books and papers, and boy clothes were scattered everywhere – jeans and jackets and T-shirts and gear.

On the nightstand, there was a small silver box, carved with the initials J.C.; Rebecca stared at it for only a moment before beginning a frantic search for the faerie ring. She started with the steel desk – it had a dozen drawers at least, each one containing dozens of papers with complex numerical and alchemical figures on them; giving up on the desk, she threw open the drawers to his closet.

"You've got to be kidding me," she murmured. The closet was filled with clothes from name designers - Armani suits, Gucci t-shirts, and the like. How much money did he have? She sighed and closed the closet door. The only thing left to search was his nightstand. Casting a quick glance at the door, she pulled the drawer open.

Bingo. Lying on a stack of notes was the faerie ring. She barely had time to slip it into a pocket and push the drawer shut before the door opened and Sebastian strode in.

Rebecca tried for a nervous smile.

"And what," he said, walking slowly over to her, "are you doing in my room?"

Rebecca let him draw close to her, a smile still on her face. "Looking for you, actually. I wanted to talk to you." She took a step closer to him. "I was thinking about what you said to me before... about how we had something special." She looked up, forced herself to look into his eyes. "You were right, Sebastian. I felt it too."

Sebastian's expression didn't change, but when he spoke, he sounded breathless. "Do you mean that?"

"Yes," Rebecca said, fighting against the lump in her throat. "I want to give you a chance, Sebastian. I want to know you."

Sebastian grasped her hand and brought it to his lips. "You will not regret this, my beautiful one." His eyes were bright, his cheeks flushed - the redness was in stark contrast to his pale skin.

"I'm going to go get ready," Rebecca said softly, and, taking her hand out of Sebastian's, she left the room, her heart thudding.

"Quick, quick!" Rebecca whispered harshly, shutting and locking the door to her bedroom. She thrust the faerie ring at Clary, who slipped it onto her finger and shut her eyes, her face twisted in concentration. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes, fear trickling across her face.

"What's wrong?" The nervous relief in Rebecca's chest was replaced by a dull horror. "Is it working? Can you reach Simon?"

"No..." Clary wrung her hand, as if the ring was a pen that could be coaxed to write a little more by shaking it. "There's nothing. I can't hear Simon."

"Let me try-"

Too late.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWELVE

REBECCA

The door banged open, and Sebastian stood there. His eyes rested on the ring in Clary's hand, which caught the light filtering in through the window and shone like a mini sun. For just a second, his eyes darkened to a pitch black, and an expression of intense fury crossed his face. Then it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"Honestly, I'm disappointed," he said, "that you really thought you could get away with this."

Rebecca's throat closed up.

"Incidentally, how did you even find the ring? I thought I'd concealed it well enough, but apparently not." He gave a crooked smile. "Well done."

They simply stared at him, holding their breath. It was like those few moments just before getting pounced on by a demon – those tense moments of anticipation that were sometimes even more terrifying than the attack itself.

Before Sebastian could take a single step towards them, Clary, quick as lightning, threw down the ring and immediately stomped on it. Sebastian had stopped in his tracks, an incredulous expression on his face. "You seriously didn't-"

Clary lifted her foot, and Rebecca saw that the ring was now nothing but a pile of gold dust. Then she looked back at Sebastian and realized that they had no choice but to fight him. Sebastian snarled and took a step forward, but Rebecca didn't let him get very far. She kicked him in the stomach, and he stumbled back. Clary took the opportunity to grab his stele, but Sebastian grabbed hold of her and pulled her back, shoving her into Rebecca, who somehow managed to get a hold of Clary. "Clary, get out of here! Find a way out!"

Sebastian pulled Clary toward him and she wheeled around, bringing her fist into his jaw. He cursed and let go, and she ran downstairs, his stele still in her hand.

Rebecca tried to get in under his guard, but he was too fast. He shoved her against the wall, one hand gripping both her wrists. She kicked him in his most sensitive area – something she would normally never have done, but she was desperate. Sebastian grunted and let go of her, and she lunged for the door, but something caught her around her feet, and she fell.

"Stay still!" Sebastian growled, one of his hands around her wrists, the other around her throat.

"Let me go!" Rebecca wriggled and almost managed to free herself, but Sebastian tightened his grip so much that the pain was almost unbearable. His face was right next to hers, and she could actually feel his hot breath against her cheek.

"Do you remember..." he said in a low voice, "when I took you to that shop in Angel Square? And we went riding through Brocelind Forest?"

"I'm going to kill you," Rebecca said, her voice trembling with rage. "I swear it on Max's life, Sebastian-"

"You told me about the first demon you ever killed," Sebastian continued, his voice soft. "A Croucher, wasn't it?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Sebastian's grip relaxed on her throat. He placed his hand on her cheek, his lips brushing against her ear. "I remember you told me you never felt good enough for anybody..."

"By the Angel-"

"Alec was the oldest son, so naturally, he was the favorite. Jace was famous, even in Idris. And then there was you."

Rebecca struggled again, but her mind was only half in the present – the other half was reliving what she had told him that day in the forest.

"Not to mention those rumors that flew around-"

"Those were NOT TRUE!"

"But how do you know?"

"SHUT UP!" She was actually crying now, tears falling down her cheek. She hated herself for being weak in front of him, for weeping like a child. "Please, please just let me go-"

"I'm giving you a chance to make a name for yourself, Rebecca. No longer will you be Alec Lightwood's younger sister. Or Jace Herondale's adopted sister. Or Isabelle Lightwood's twin sister." He placed his mouth close to her ear. "You can become Rebecca Trueblood."

At that, a sort of dull explosion went off in her head, like a dull firework of rage. With tremendous effort, she wrenched her hand out of his grip and slapped him across the face so hard her fingers stung. For some reason, that seemed to badly shock him. He let go of her, and she was up and out of the door and down the stairs in no time.

Clary was in the living room, facing the blank wall. She was desperately tracing Sebastian's stele in the air, but the rune just wasn't taking shape.

"Clary, we have to go!" Rebecca screamed, as Sebastian thundered down the steps after them, one side of his face marked with a red handprint.

A shimmering doorway appeared in front of them – Clary had finally created the Portal. "The Institute!" she shouted, and Rebecca nodded. Gripping hands, they ran through the Portal.

Rebecca immediately knew that they hadn't made it back to the Institute – if not the gale that threatened to unbalance her, the hard rock under her feet and hands would have definitely told her so. Clary was a few feet away, looking a bit dazed. And behind her was Sebastian, who had somehow landed on his feet.

They were standing on top of a rocky plain. In the far distance bleak, scree-covered karst hills rose, black and iron against the night sky. There were lights up ahead.

Rebecca cursed silently. Sebastian must have somehow caught up to them and forced the Portal to send them here, to this ghastly place.

Sebastian looked beside himself with fury. "You bitch," he spat. Rebecca wasn't sure if he was talking to her or Clary. Either way, he didn't seem too fond of either of them at the moment. A knife had appeared in his hand, seemingly out of nowhere. "One false move," he said quietly, "and I will kill both of you. I don't give a damn anymore about what Jace says. Understand?"

Rebecca simply stared stonily at him.

Sebastian took that as a yes and then began prodding the two girls down the rocky slope. Rebecca managed fine, but Clary, who was wearing thin slippers, lost her footing more than once. Every time Rebecca held out a hand to steady her, Sebastian's knife came dangerously close to her throat.

The lower they climbed, the clearer the scene became. The ground in front of them rose to a low hill. If Rebecca hadn't been wearing jeans, the thorny bushes that were scattered around the hillside would have cut her to the bone.

Atop the hill, facing north, was a massive ancient stone tomb. In front of the tomb was a flat sill stone stretched across the shale and grass. Grouped before the flat stone was a half-circle of about forty Nephilim, robed in red, carrying witchlight torches. Within their half-circle, against the dark ground, blazed a blue-white pentagram. Atop the flat stone stood Jace. He wore scarlet gear like Sebastian; they had never looked so alike. He was saying something to the group clustered around him, and as they got closer, his words became clearer.

"...gratitude for your loyalty, even over these last difficult years, and grateful for your belief in our father, and now in his sons."

Sebastian jabbed the tip of the knife into Rebecca's back yet again; she gritted her teeth and refrained from turning around and strangling him, and instead shuffled forward towards the stone steps that led up to the podium on which Jace was standing.

Catching sight of them, Jace gave them a quick smile and then turned back to face the others. "A thousand years ago, the Angel gave us his blood, to make us special, to make us warriors. But it was not enough. A thousand years have passed, and still we hide in the shadows. We protect mundanes we do not love from forces of which they remain ignorant, and an ancient, ossified Law prevents us from revealing ourselves as their saviors. We die in our hundreds, unthanked, unmourned but by our own kind, and without recourse to the Angel who created us." He moved closer to the edge of the rock platform.

"Yes. I dare to say it. The Angel who created us will not aid us, and we are alone. More alone even than the mundanes, for as one of their great scientists once said, they are like children playing with pebbles on the seashore, while all around them the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered. But we know the truth. We are the saviors of this earth, and we should be ruling it."

Rebecca shivered slightly. Jace was a much better speaker than she had ever given him credit for.

"It is time to turn from Raziel to Lilith, the Great Mother, who will give us power without punishment, leadership without the Law. Our birthright is power. It is time to claim it." He looked sideways with a smile as Sebastian moved forward. "And now I'll let you hear the rest of it from Jonathan, whose dream this is," said Jace smoothly, and he retreated, letting Sebastian slide easily into his place.

Sebastian gave Jace a gracious nod, and then, gripping Rebecca tightly by the elbow, pushed her forward until they were both in clear view of the crowd.

"My friends, Jace Herondale has told you everything that is in my heart. Everything I believe to be true. I can only hope that you put your trust in me. Are you with me?" He raised their entwined hands above the crowd, and Rebecca twisted away quickly, giving him a look of deep disgust.

Sebastian ignored her. He reached into his tunic and drew out the Mortal Cup, which glowed softly white under the moon. The murmuring of the crowd grew louder.

Sebastian stepped down off the rock and moved toward a large, intricately drawn pentagram. At the edge of it he began to chant. "Abyssum invoco. Lilith invoco. Mater mea, invoco."

He drew a thin dagger from his belt and handed it to Rebecca. "Will you do the honors?" He held his palm out to her, and then stepped closer to her so their faces were a mere few inches apart. "And don't even think of trying anything foolish. Remember, I'm still bound to your brother."

Without looking at him, Rebecca took a deep breath, placed the edge of the knife on his palm and sliced downward. Blood welled, black in the night.

"I hope it hurt," she whispered fiercely, and stepped back, dropping the knife at his feet. Sebastian smirked and held his hand over the Cup. His blood dripped into it, thick and black as tar.

Something like a bright flame burst into existence at the center of the pentagram, growing and expanding until it had morphed into the shape of a woman.

"Lilith," Sebastian said in a ringing voice. "As you called me forth, now I call you. As you gave me life, so I give life to you."

The flames died down, and Lilith stood before them, the height of an ordinary human, ripped naked with her black hair waterfalling down her back to her ankles. Her body was as grey as ash, fissured with black lines like volcanic lava. She turned her eyes to Sebastian, and they were writhing black snakes.

"My child," she breathed.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

REBECCA

Sebastian seemed to be glowing himself – all pale hair and pale skin. "Mother, I have called you up as you wished of me. Tonight, you will not just be my mother, but a mother to a new race."

He indicated the waiting Shadowhunters, who were motionless, probably with shock. It was one thing to know a Greater Demon was going to be called, another to see one in the flesh. "The Cup," he said, and held it out to her, its pale white rim stained with his blood.

Lilith chuckled. She took the Cup and tore a gash in her ashy grey wrist with her teeth. Very slowly, sludgy black blood trickled forth, spattering into the Cup, which seemed to change, darkening under her touch, its clear translucence turning to mud. "As the Mortal Cup has been to the Shadowhunters, both a talisman and a means of transformation, so shall this Infernal Cup be to you," she said in her charred, windblown voice. She knelt, holding out the Cup to Sebastian. "Take of my blood and drink."

Sebastian took the Cup from her hands. It had turned black now, a shimmering black like hematite.

"As your army grows, so shall my strength," Lilith hissed. "Soon I will be strong enough to truly return - and we shall share the fire of power, my son."

Sebastian inclined his head. "We proclaim you Death, my mother, and profess your resurrection."

Lilith laughed, raising her arms. Fire licked up her body, and she launched herself into the air, exploding into a dozen spinning particles of light that faded like the embers of a dying fire. When they were gone completely, Sebastian kicked at the pentagram, breaking its continuity, and raised his head. There was an awful smile on his face.

"Come forward, Rebecca," he said, raising the cup.

Rebecca stood numb with shock for a moment. "You can't be serious," she spluttered.

"Jace?" Sebastian turned to him. "Mind doing the honors?"

"What honors?" Rebecca demanded, panic beginning to seep in. "There is no way you'll make me drink from that filthy Cup!"

"Fine, then." Sebastian waved a hand at Jace, signaling him to stop. "If you won't, someone else will. Cartwright, bring her forward."

Behind her, Rebecca could hear Clary say, "Jace, what is this? What's going on?"

The crowd parted, and a robed man pushed forward, a stumbling woman at his side. A chain bound her to his arm, and long, tangled hair hid her face from view. Cartwright, whom Rebecca dimly remembered seeing in Idris, put his hand on his captive's head and forced her to her knees. Then he bent and took hold of her hair, jerking her head up. She looked up at Sebastian, blinking in terror and defiance, her face clearly outlined by the moon.

"Amatis!" Clary cried.

And so it was. Amatis Herondale.

Sebastian strode over to her and pushed the Cup against her lips.

"Wait!" Rebecca cried, her voice raw. "I'll drink it - don't-"

Sebastian looked up and met her eyes, a cruel smile etched on his face. "Too late," he said, and he forcefully jammed the Cup against Amatis's lips. She retched and coughed, black fluid spilling down her chin. Sebastian yanked the Cup back, but it had done its work. Amatis made an awful hacking sound, her body jerking upright. Her eyes bulged, turning as dark as Sebastian's. She slapped her hands over her face, a wail escaping her, and Rebecca, standing frozen in shock, saw that the Voyance rune was fading from her hand.

Amatis dropped her hands. Her expression had smoothed, and her eyes were blue again. They fastened on Sebastian.

"Release her," he said to Cartwright, his gaze on Amatis. "Let her come to me."

Cartwright snapped the chain binding him to Amatis and stepped back. Amatis remained still for a moment, her hands lolling at her sides. Then she stood and walked over to Sebastian. She knelt before him, her hair brushing the dirt. "Master," she said. "How may I serve you?"

"Rise," Sebastian said, and Amatis rose from the ground gracefully. She seemed to have a new way of moving, all of a sudden. All Shadowhunters were adroit, but she moved now with a silent grace that made a chill run down Rebecca's back. She stood straight in front of Sebastian.

"Come here to me," Sebastian beckoned, and Amatis stepped toward him. She was a head shorter than him at least, and she craned her head up as he whispered to her. A cold smile split her face.

Sebastian raised his hand. "Would you like to fight Rebecca?"

It was like someone had poured ice water into Rebecca's veins. She couldn't have said how or why, but the idea of fighting Amatis terrified her - though she tried not to show it.

Noting her reluctance, Sebastian said, "Surely some demonstration of her power is in order. Come, Rebecca, she is older than you are. Are you afraid?" He pulled out a long dagger from his belt and held it out to her.

Rebecca took in a deep breath, and, keenly aware of Sebastian watching her, slowly took the knife. Amatis was gazing at her with all the intensity of a wolf stalking its prey. Someone threw her a knife, which she caught without even looking. Her blue eyes burned into Rebecca's grey ones.

"Fight her, Amatis."

And she did.

Amatis moved with such blinding speed that Rebecca had to use every ounce of her training. Amatis leaped into the air and swung her foot forward, aiming for Rebecca's hand, but Rebecca dodged, came up behind her, and kicked Amatis in the back, right below the ear.

For a normal Shadowhunter, below the ear is the most dangerous place to get hurt, but Amatis recovered almost immediately, and whirled around, slashing down with the knife. Rebecca parried with her own, but Amatis punched her once, twice, three times in the stomach until her legs gave way and she fell to the ground, wheezing.

As Rebecca doubled over, coughing and retching, she was vaguely aware that Amatis had swiftly plucked the dagger from her hand and was holding it against her throat. The cold steel prickled her skin.

"And there you see it," said Sebastian. "Even a Shadowhunter of no particular skill or strength - your pardon, Amatis - can become stronger, swifter, than their seraphically allied counterparts." He slammed one fist into the opposite palm. "Power. Real power. Who is ready for it?"

The Shadowhunters in the crowd immediately broke formation and began surging towards Sebastian in one long, ragged line. Rebecca's eyes watered, and she doubled up again, her head pounding. Amatis was incredibly strong – each punch had been like a sledgehammer to the body.

"Rebecca!" Someone was running towards her, a bright mass of red curls bouncing about her shoulders – Clary.

"Are you all right?" she said, placing both hands under Rebecca's shoulders and hauling her up.

"No," Rebecca wheezed. "But I will be. God damn it, she's strong."

"Shh. Don't talk too much."

A sudden cry rent the air, and the Shadowhunter who'd been reaching for the Cup staggered back, an arrow in his throat. In disbelief, Rebecca whipped around and saw, standing on top of the stone dolmen, Alec, in gear, holding his bow. He grinned in satisfaction and reached back over his shoulder for another arrow.

And then, coming from behind him, the rest of them poured out onto the plain. A pack of wolves, running low to the ground, their brindled fur shining in the variegated light. Behind them walked familiar Shadowhunters in an unbroken line: Isabelle and Maryse, Helen Blackthorn and Aline Penhallow, and Jocelyn. With them was Simon, the hilt of a silver sword protruding over the curve of his shoulder, and Magnus, hands crackling with blue fire.

"Clary!" Rebecca's heart leaped into her throat and she mutely pointed, lost for words.

"I know!" Clary cried, almost sobbing with relief.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

REBECCA

"Drop them!" Sebastian screamed, waving his arms like a demented windmill as the Shadowhunters below him erupted into chaos. "Use other weapons!" The scene would have been funny, if not for the seething, roiling, boiling, frustrated mass of converted Shadowhunters beneath them.

"What's going on?" Clary shouted above the noise.

"Their seraph blades don't work anymore!" Rebecca yelled back. "Sebastian's just told them to use other weapons."

"We have to get to the other side!" Clary said. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah."

Together, they fought their way through the melee. Nobody paid much attention to them – the dark Shadowhunters were all too confused by why their seraph blades weren't working anymore, or too preoccupied with the advancing mass of Shadowhunters.

They reached the other side much quicker than Rebecca had expected. The battle had properly begun now, the red clashing with the black with the intensity and ferocity of a hurricane. The coppery smell of blood hung in the air, and the sound was almost deafening. "Alec," she gasped. "Where's Alec? And Izzy?"

"Rebecca!"

It was a voice she knew so well. She whirled around, and there was Alec, bow in hand, staring at her with an expression of mingled relief and disbelief.

"Alec!"

He waded through the battle and wrapped her in a one-arm hug. Out of the corner of her eye, Rebecca spotted Clary being pulled into her mother's arms. "By the Angel, we were so worried! What happened?"

"I got kidnapped," Rebecca said. "Sebastian took me to his-"

Her words were cut short as Alec forced her down, aimed and fired. She whirled around to find Cartwright standing there, an arrow sprouting from his chest. Even as she watched, he keeled over.

"You up to fight?"

"Of course."

Without another word, Alec handed her a seraph blade from his belt and then waded into the battle again, firing arrows so fast she could barely follow them. She plunged in after him.

There was always a sort of cold detachment that came with battle. As Rebecca whirled and kicked and dodged, she felt almost separate from her own body, as if she was hovering just above the battle, watching herself fight. Though they outnumbered Sebastian's forces, his were stronger, faster, and more deadly.

From time to time, she spotted familiar faces in the crowd - Jocelyn, Maryse, Simon. She spotted Isabelle a few feet away, taking down enemies left and right with her whip. But there was one dark Shadowhunter sneaking up behind her, his sword raised. Rebecca started towards her sister, but a hand wrapped around her elbow, pulling her off balance, and she found herself face-to-face with Sebastian.

Rebecca immediately struggled, turning back to Isabelle, her chest tight with worry for her sister - and exhaled a sigh of relief as Isabelle made short work of the dark Shadowhunter who had been standing behind her. Sebastian, apparently not too happy that her attention was not on him, shook her hard. "So," he said, nearly spitting with rage. "The first opportunity you get, you betray me?"

"Oh shut up!" Rebecca screamed, half-wild from the sudden relief that had filled her. "I was never on your side! And I never will be!"

"That's where you're wrong."

Rebecca opened her mouth to retaliate, but before she could get a single word out, Sebastian collapsed, writhing in what looked like pure agony. His hands clutched at his skin as he screamed, as if he wanted to tear out his own skin.

Backing away, Rebecca caught sight of something bright out of the corner of her eye. Closer to the rock platform, something bright shone, like a small sun right on the surface of the earth. People everywhere were turning to look. A pang of anxiety hit her, and she ran forward, pushing through the crowd, until she saw the source of the light.

Clary was holding a sword, and the other end of it was sticking into Jace - Jace, of all people. Rebecca couldn't even tell if he was hurt, or screaming in pain, because he was burning like a star. As she watched, breathless, the sword burned itself up, and Jace fell to his knees.

The fighting immediately broke out again, as if they had all woken up from a trance. But Rebecca paid no attention – now that Jace was free of Sebastian's binding, she had to see him, make sure he was alright - and then something went into her stomach, making her double up. She looked up to see a dark Shadowhunter, his face expressionless, his grip still on the knife he had just stabbed her with.

Rebecca had never sustained a life-threatening injury before. Her whole body tingled, as if she'd had a severe electric shock. The dark Shadowhunter had vanished, taking his knife with him.

Time seemed to progress at a tenth of its original pace. Rebecca looked down, seeing the blood gush out from her front, immediately soaking her clothes and dripping down onto her shoes. An intense, burning pain spread from the wound, and it hurt more than anything that Rebecca could have ever imagined. My stele, she thought dazedly. But of course, she didn't have one.

She collapsed like a rag doll, her hands covered in her own blood, and then the shock set in. Panic filled every inch of her brain, and she began to scream - a raw scream of pain and terror - and all she could do was scream, hoping it would relieve something – but no, it only compounded it.

ALEC

Alec brought his seraph blade down in an arc, slashing open the chest of the dark Shadowhunter in front of him, and watched him crumpled to the ground. He jumped as someone, or something touched his arm, and whirled around, but it was only Isabelle, her face pinched with fear.

Isabelle never showed her fear.

"Izzy? What's wrong?" Anxiety curled like a snake in Alec's stomach.

"Becca!" she yelled over the noise of fighting. "She's hurt - badly - Magnus is with her-"

She tugged his arm and led him over to the stone dolmen. Behind it, Magnus crouched, his coat spattered with dust and blood, his hair disheveled. In front of him, leaning against the wall, lay Rebecca, her hand red.

Red? Alec had to look twice before he realized that Rebecca's hand was covered in blood - and so were her clothes and shoes. She looked pale as snow and sweat beaded her forehead. Seeing him, she tried to speak, but blood trickled out of her mouth, and she subsided into a fit of coughing.

Alec's heart turned stone cold. He dropped down to his knees beside his sister. "Magnus, what-"

"Stabbed," Magnus said. He looked tense and strained. "Some kind of special blade, it's preventing the wound from closing. At least, I think so. My magic isn't working."

Alec looked down at the blood that drenched the ground. There was so much of it, it was hard to believe that it all belonged to only one person.

"How-how long does she have?" Alec choked out, as Isabelle hovered over his shoulder, her face pale and worried.

"I-" Magnus shook his head. "I can't say exactly. Maybe no more than a few minutes."

Rebecca's eyes were now completely closed, but she was still breathing heavily, even as more blood gushed out of the wound in her stomach. Alec gazed at her face, pressing her lifeless hand to his lips, hoping against hope that his little sister would survive.

"Get back, all of you!"

Alec whirled around to find Sebastian pointing his blade at them.

"Get out of the way now. I don't have to tell you what happens otherwise."

Alec was aware of nothing but a steady buzzing in his ears. "Haven't you done enough?" he bellowed, jumping to his feet. "You've killed her! She is dying! What more do you want to do to her? What more can you take away from her?"

Sebastian snarled, resting the blade against Alec's throat. "I didn't take anything away from her. You did. I gave her a chance to become who she really was – but she turned it down for you. Loyal, isn't she?"

Alec moved, but Sebastian moved faster. He slammed the hilt of his blade into Alec's face and then kicked Isabelle, who stumbled back but recovered quickly. She raised her whip, but Sebastian raised his blade and pointed it, not at Alec or Magnus, but at Rebecca's lifeless body. "Move," he said. "And I'll end her suffering right now. And you, warlock, step away. Further back. That's it. Thank you."

Magnus's eyes were as hard as snow. Isabelle and Alec lowered their weapons slowly, their eyes on their sister. Sebastian reached over and grasped Rebecca's wrist. He twisted the silver ring on his finger and they both vanished.

Alec, Isabelle, and Magnus were left staring at the blood that drenched the ground all around them.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SEBASTIAN

"I'm really sorry, but there is no way-"

"Find one," Sebastian growled. "Because if you do not give her back her life, I will take yours."

The blue-skinned warlock turned to the pale young woman lying on the bed, almost entirely motionless. Only her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. The warlock turned back to Sebastian. "I wish I could, but... there is nothing I can do. She is going to die, and no threats of yours on my life can change that."

But Sebastian wasn't listening. He was standing with his fists clenched, face expressionless, staring at Rebecca. The view out the bedroom window was in dire contrast to how he felt - a sunny beach, the water as blue as cornflowers. But Rebecca was dying. The whole world should have been black and cold; nothing could be beautiful. She was almost perfectly still now - there was not even the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.

Sebastian took a deep breath. He knew what he had to do now; in fact, it was something he had been planning to do ever since he had met her, ever since she had looked at him with eyes that shone almost silver in the sunlight, eyes full of admiration.

"Get ready," he said to the warlock. "There is a way to save her."

The warlock looked wary. "There really isn't. Unless she has a parabatai-"

"She doesn't. But there are other ways." Sebastian slipped off his shirt, dropped it to the floor, and pressed his stele to his skin.

The warlock's eyes widened. "If you do that, you will be condemning her to a life of constant pain and misery-"

"I don't care!" Sebastian snarled. "Now, do as I say, or I will have your head and display it as a trophy."

The warlock said no more, but simply readied herself as Sebastian started tracing a rune across his skin.

It had been seven days since Sebastian had rescued Rebecca and still, she lay like dead under his touch. It was only her shallow, shaky breaths that told him she was still alive. Her skin was cold, her lips tinged with blue, her hair spread out around her head like a halo.

The blue-skinned warlock by her bedside turned to face Sebastian. "No improvement," she reported in a low voice.

Sebastian nodded mutely. He had hardly expected to hear anything different, and yet, each time, that bubble of hope in his chest expanded only to be burst again. "You may go," he said. The warlock left without any hassle.

Sebastian waited until she had left, and then slowly walked over to Rebecca's side and touched her cheek. She was pale, almost as pale as Sebastian himself. Her runes were in blinding contrast to her skin. Her chest still rose and fell with short bursts of breath, almost in a hypnotizing rhythm, and yet, Sebastian felt as if she was already gone. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. Please come back. Please come back to me."

It was nearly midnight when Sebastian returned to the apartment, his clothes soaked through with blood. His boots left behind bright red footprints as he walked straight through to the bedroom and discarded his soiled clothes in favor of clean ones.

The next thing he did was go straight to the guest bedroom to gaze at the young woman sleeping on the bed. The curtains were drawn apart, allowing moonlight to wash the room in a pale, ghostly light. He was about to turn away, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest, when a sound made him freeze.

It had sounded like someone taking in a breath. Not daring to get his hopes up, Sebastian turned his head slowly to look at Rebecca. Even from across the room, he could see that her eyes were now open, the moonlight making them look black. For a moment, she simply lay there, and then she slowly sat up, her face twisting in pain.

She looked down at her hands, her expression slowly changing from one of bewilderment to horror. She gasped and clutched at her face. Then she began to scream.

Sebastian leaped inside and tried to pry her hands away from her face, but she was having none of it. She was twisting, as if in incredible pain, her voice stripped raw. "It burns!" she screamed. Her nails raked Sebastian's cheek. She was incredibly strong. "And-and I can't breathe!"

"Rebecca!" Sebastian forced her arms down to her sides. "Calm down."

It took her a while, but she finally did. She was lying on the bed now, her eyes wide, and Sebastian could finally see that her eyes didn't just look black, they were black, completely bleached of their grayness. A heavy feeling settled in Sebastian's stomach, mixed with something else that could only be described as elation.

Rebecca shook her wrists free from his grip and sat up. "My whole body... it feels like my soul is on fire." Her eyes narrowed. "What the hell did you do to me?" Her voice was low, but when Sebastian didn't reply, she let out a scream of rage and leaped on him, bringing him to the ground, her hands around his throat. "What the hell did you do?!" Fury danced in her eyes. "Tell me, or I will kill you."

So, Sebastian told her.

REBECCA

Rebecca was a jumble of emotions. Fear, disgust, relief - they all whirled through her mind in an endless maelstrom. Laced through it all was an intense burning pain, as if she had fire flowing through her veins. It was pure agony. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, the hard wall pressing into her back. Sebastian was on his knees a few feet away, massaging his throat, and eyeing her as if she was a wild animal that he wasn't sure he could overcome.

"So, you couldn't handle being a monster all on your own," she said slowly. Every sentence took immense effort. "You had to make me one too." She saw a flicker of hurt cross Sebastian's face, and felt a savage pleasure.

"I did it to save your life," he said quietly.

"I'd rather be dead," Rebecca spat. "Leave me alone, Sebastian. Get out."

Sebastian seemed to realize it was fruitless to argue with her; he got up and quietly left, leaving Rebecca alone with her thoughts.

It took three days for Rebecca to get used to moving with the pain. On the third day, she could get up and move around, and if she concentrated hard, she could bring the pain down to a dull ache. It took another three days for her to stop spitting up blood at random times during the day, and it took ten days for her to be able to hold a sword without her fingers spasming from pain.

Throughout it, Sebastian was at her side, ever patient and ever helpful, which was very unlike him. For the first couple of days, Rebecca snapped at him and recoiled from his touch, and each time it happened, Sebastian looked hurt, but he pretended like nothing had happened.

The pain wasn't the only change, though. When she got it under control, she realized that something else had changed – she was stronger and faster than she had ever been before.

By the end of the twelfth day, she could hold her own against Sebastian in a swordfight.

"Alright, I surrender." Sebastian raised his hands in mock defeat, grinning widely. "You can take the sword away now."

Rebecca tried to fight a smile. "No, I don't think so." Her grip on her sword, the tip of which just tickled Sebastian's throat, was unwavering. In her other hand, she held Sebastian's sword, which she had deprived him of moments before. "It's really quite amusing to see you like this-"

She gasped as Sebastian moved with lightning speed; a second later, his sword was back in his hand, and he was standing pressed up against her back, the blade tickling her throat. "You were saying?" he said softly, his breath warm against her cheek.

Something like electricity ran through Rebecca's body. She was very aware of how little space there was between them, and how close his lips were to her ear. Butterflies erupted everywhere in her body.

She twisted away. "Alright, you made your point." She turned away from him and laid her sword down on the table. When she turned around, Sebastian had sheathed his sword and was sticking a selection of daggers into his belt.

"Off to do... whatever it is you do?"

Sebastian looked up at her. "I have to."

Rebecca looked away and pursed her lips. This was standard – every night, Sebastian would disappear to do whatever it was that he did, and he never told her what he was doing or where he was going.

She felt a painful sting on her forearm and shook it away. "Of course you do," she said, her voice expressionless.

Sebastian looked at her again as if he wanted to say something, but he simply slipped his belt around his waist and left the weapons room.

For a minute, Rebecca stared at the door through which he had vanished, and then, in utter frustration, slammed her fist into the table.

There was a low, droning sound – the sound of wood moving against wood. Rebecca looked around in surprise, and then she spotted it.

It was a false drawer of sorts, sticking out of the wooden table. Its texture was the exact same as the wood surrounding it – it would be impossible to find unless you knew exactly where it was. Or, as in her case, unless you found it by accident.

Rebecca dropped to her knees and began examining it. It was small and flat, and no more than six inches wide and two inches high. There was a small stack of letters, and lying on top of it was a silver family ring, engraved with a pattern of flames and a large 'L'. Her Lightwood family ring.

With trembling fingers, Rebecca picked it up, the weight of it familiar in her hand. It reminded her of home, of Alec's warm hugs, Izzy's tinkly laugh, Jace's witty quips, and Max's adorable little smile.

Silently, she slipped the ring into her pocket and pushed the drawer shut. As she hurried up the steps, teeth gritted to stop herself from crying out in pain, she made a promise to herself - tomorrow, she would convince Sebastian to let her go along with him, no matter what.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EMMA

The training room was Emma's favorite room in the Institute. It took up almost an entire level, and both the east and the west walls were clear glass. You could see blue sea nearly everywhere you looked. In the center of the highly polished wood floor stood the Blackthorn family's tutor, a commanding woman named Katerina, currently engaged in teaching knife-throwing to the twins. Livvy was following instructions obligingly as she always did, but Ty was scowling and resistant.

Julian, in his loose light training clothes, was lying on his back near the west window, talking to Mark, who had his head stuck in a book and was doing his best to ignore his younger half-brother.

"Don't you think 'Mark' is kind of a weird name for a Shadowhunter?" Julian was saying as Emma approached. "I mean, if you really think about it. It's confusing. 'Put a Mark on me, Mark.'"

Mark sighed theatrically. At sixteen, he was just enough their senior to find everything Emma and Julian did either annoying or ridiculous. "If it bothers you, you can call me by my full name," he said.

"Mark Antony Blackthorn?" Julian wrinkled his nose. "It takes a long time to say. What if we got attacked by a demon? By the time I was halfway through saying your name, you'd be dead."

"In this situation are you saving my life?" Mark asked. "Getting ahead of yourself, don't you think, pipsqueak?"

Julian opened his mouth to retaliate, and suddenly, the floor under them rocked like the deck of a ship. Emma slid forward just as a terrible screaming rose from downstairs – an unearthly howl that sent shivers running down her back.

Livvy gasped and went for Ty, wrapping her arms around him as if she could encircle and protect his body with her own. Mark had risen to his feet already; Katerina was pale under her coils of dark hair.

"You stay here," she said to Emma and Julian, drawing her sword from the sheath at her waist. "Watch the twins. Mark, come with me."

"No!" Julian said, scrambling to his feet. "Mark-"

"I'll be fine, Jules," Mark said, with a reassuring smile; he already had a dagger in each hand. "Stay with Emma," he said, nodding toward both of them, and then he vanished after Katerina, the door of the training room shutting behind them.

And so, Emma sat quietly with Jules, tense as coiled wire, Cortana gripped tightly in her hand. Seconds turned to minutes. Time passed agonizingly slowly. Jules gripped Ty's shoulders, assuring him that everything would be okay. Ty looked mutinous, and a little afraid.

A terrible howl, feral and vicious, ripped through the Institute. It was impossible to guess what it was - it might have been a werewolf, but no - this was something much darker and bone-chilling. There was silence for a moment, and then the sounds of ripping wood and shattering glass echoed through the Institute, occasionally punctuated by screams and oddly, laughter.

Julian's face paled. He whipped around to look at Emma. "We need to get out of here," he said, and stood up, gripping Livvy's hand. "Emma, get Dru and Tavvy, and meet me in the office. And you two-" he turned to Livvy and Ty standing beside him. "You're going to follow me to the office, alright?"

Emma nodded. Working like a well-oiled machine, the four of them split up - Jules heading for the office, with Ty and Livvy in tow, Emma heading for the upstairs rooms, where Dru and Tavvy would be.

With Tavvy in her arms and Dru clinging to her weapons belt, Emma raced down the halls of the Institute, murmuring over and over that they would be alright, it would be alright. She raced past window after window, the sunlight slashing through in bursts and almost blinding her. She was blinded, by panic and the sun; it was the only explanation for the wrong turn she took next. She turned down a corridor, and instead of finding herself in the hallway that she expected, she found herself standing atop the wide staircase that led down to the foyer and the large double doors that were the building's entrance.

The foyer was filled with Shadowhunters. Some in black, others in red gear. There were rows of statuary, now toppled over, in pieces and powder on the ground. The picture window that opened onto the sea had been smashed, and broken glass and blood were everywhere. Emma felt a sick lurch in her stomach. In the middle of the foyer stood a tall figure in scarlet. Pale blond hair, white skin, and coal-black eyes – it was none other than Sebastian Morgenstern.

By his side was a girl of about the same age as Mark. Emma dimly remembered her as one of the Lightwoods. She, too, was wearing red. The way she was standing, right at Sebastian's side, with the other red-clad Shadowhunters standing behind her - all suggested to Emma that she was someone important. Her eyes swept the room carefully and slowly, coming to rest on Emma. Emma tensed, but the Lightwood girl acted like nothing was wrong, and simply moved her gaze away.

Sebastian raised a hand and crooked a long white finger. "Bring her," he said; there was a rustle in the crowd, and Mr Blackthorn stepped forward, dragging Katerina with him. She was fighting, beating at him with her hands, but he was too strong. Emma watched in disbelieving horror as Mr Blackthorn pushed her to her knees.

"Now," said Sebastian in a voice like silk, "drink from the Infernal Cup," and he forced the rim of the cup between Katerina's teeth.

Katerina tried to fight free, but Sebastian was too strong; he jammed the cup past her lips, and Emma saw her gasp and swallow. She wrenched away, and this time Mr Blackthorn let her; he was laughing, and so was Sebastian. The Lightwood girl was smiling, too, but it looked artificial.

Katerina fell to the ground, her body spasming, and from her throat came a single scream - worse than a scream, a howl of pain as if her soul were being torn out of her body.

"Is that the last of the Shadowhunters here?" Sebastian asked.

"There is the boy, Mark Blackthorn," Mr Blackthorn said, raising a finger and pointing at his son.

Sebastian looked down at Katerina, who had stopped spasming and lay still, her dark hair tangled across her face. "Get up, sister Katerina," he said. "Go and bring Mark Blackthorn to me."

Emma turned to Dru. "Dru," she whispered. "Take Tavvy and run to the office. Tell Jules I'll be along as fast as I can. Go!" Dru looked as if she was about to protest, but then she snatched up Tavvy and left. Emma turned to the foyer again.

Katerina had gotten to her feet. Blank-eyed, she swiftly crossed the room and dragged Mark over to Sebastian. The Lightwood girl's face had become ashen; her eyes were fixed on Mark. But, as quickly as it had come, that expression vanished, to be replaced by an eerie calm.

Mark had been struggling, but he stopped when he caught sight of her. "Rebecca?" he said in astonishment. "Rebecca! What are you doing here? Are you with – are you with him?"

Rebecca simply looked away, her lips pursed. Sebastian was looking at her, his mouth twisted in an awful smile. Mark took advantage of Katerina's momentary distraction and twisted away from her grasp, but almost immediately, half a dozen Endarkened surged toward him, and one caught him by his wrists, a dagger held against his throat.

Sebastian's gaze snapped back to Mark. "Enough of this. Make him drink from the Cup."

"Wait." Rebecca gripped Sebastian's arm. "He's not all Shadowhunter." She turned and looked at Mark, with something almost like tenderness in her expression. "He's half-faerie. The Cup wouldn't work on him."

"And how do you know that?" one of the Endarkened said roughly.

"I have no reason to tell you," Rebecca said crisply. "All I know is that we can't convert him. Leave him be."

"We could take him to the valley of salt," said a brown-haired woman. "Or to the high places of Edom, and sacrifice him there for the pleasure of Asmodeus and Lilith."

"Are you as stupid as you look?" Rebecca spat. "You think it wise to do something like that with one of the Fair Folk?"

"The Fair Folk?" the brown-haired woman sneered. "He's hardly one of them. Unless you wish to save him? Perhaps you have feelings for this half-breed filth?"

"His mother was Lady Nerissa of the Seelie Court." Rebecca's voice was quiet and deadly. "I'm merely trying to avoid getting into their bad books. And if you ever question my loyalty again, you will beg for the sweet release of death when I am done with you."

The brown-haired woman glowered, but Sebastian looked amused. He turned to Julian's father. "Come and restrain him. Wound him if you desire. I shall have only so much patience with your half-breed son."

Emma could not stand by and watch any longer. Before she knew what she was doing, the throwing knife left her hand and flew through the air, burying itself in Sebastian Morgenstern's chest.

Sebastian staggered back. "Ouch," he said, and pulled the knife free. The blade was slick with blood, but Sebastian himself looked unbothered by the injury. He cast the weapon aside, staring upward, and his eyes focused on Emma.

"It's a shame you won't live," he said to her. "Live to tell the Clave that Lilith has strengthened me beyond all measure." He turned to the others. "Kill her."

"Let me," Rebecca said, her gaze fixed on Emma now. A dagger had appeared in her hand, seemingly out of nowhere. Sebastian glanced at her. There was admiration in that glance, and something else - something almost like affection. "Alright," he said.

Rebecca spared Sebastian a curt nod before she swiftly headed for the steps. Emma's chest tightened in fear; she stood frozen for a moment, and then she turned and ran, her hair flying out behind her. She leaped and jumped down a short set of steps, spun to the right, and burst into the office. She slammed the door behind her and threw the bolt before turning to stare.

The office was a sizable room, the walls lined with reference books. There was another library on the top floor as well, but this was where Mr Blackthorn had run the Institute. There was his mahogany desk, and on it two telephones: one white and one black. The receiver was off the hook on the black phone, and Julian was holding the handset, shouting down the line: "You have to keep the Portal open! We're not all safe yet! Please-"

The door behind them burst open and Rebecca walked in, her black eyes glinting. Then she shut the door behind them and traced a single rune on it with her stele – block.

She turned to face the two shell-shocked twelve-year-olds. "Hurry," she said urgently. "It won't be long before he realizes something's wrong."

Emma and Julian could only stand and stare. "You-you're helping us?" Julian spluttered. He was staring at her red gear, carved with unfamiliar runes.

"Yes. Now go!" She began to shunt them towards the Portal, which had appeared on the eastern wall, but Julian twisted out of her grip.

"No! Not without my father and Mark!"

"We do not have time for this!" Rebecca hissed. "Just do as I say-"

"I am not going to leave without them!"

Rebecca turned Julian around to face her. "Julian."

Julian stared at her. "How do you know my name?"

"I'll keep Mark alive, okay? I'll do whatever it takes to save him. I swear on the Angel. But right now, you need to go."

Emma tugged at Julian's sleeve. "Come on, Jules."

Julian reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged towards the Portal. The last thing they saw was Rebecca's determined face, and then, she vanished as the Portal swallowed them up.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

REBECCA

With a heavy heart, Rebecca shucked off her gear and watched Sebastian do the same. Her mind was full of thoughts of Mark. Seeing him had been such a severe shock that she had almost let her facade slip in front of Sebastian. And the hurt and shock on his face as he'd looked at her... Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut. To stand by and watch while Sebastian had turned those Shadowhunters had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. And it wasn't by choice – she could still feel that unknown force that had held her, keeping her frozen. It had taken every ounce of her willpower to break through it to save Mark from meeting the same fate as the others.

Sebastian's voice cut through her thoughts like a knife. "How did you know that Blackthorn boy was the son of Lady Nerissa?"

Rebecca opened her eyes and tried to look unruffled. "Because he told me," she said, in a tone that she hoped made it clear that she didn't want to talk about it. Sebastian did not press her further, but the look in his eyes made it clear exactly how he felt about Mark.

"Let's get out of here," Rebecca said lightly, trying to change the subject. "The weather is so beautiful. What do you say?" She knew he could never say no to her.

And that was how they found themselves walking down the Santa Monica Pier. The evening was cool, and the moon shone like silver. Water lapped gently against the sides of the pier in soft, rhythmic waves.

"Ooh, look." Sebastian pointed. "Santa Monica Pier Aquarium." He turned and raised his eyebrows at Rebecca. "We simply have to go there," he said, and dragged her inside, despite her protests.

Inside, it was much quieter, and nearly empty, since the aquarium was only a few minutes from closing. The few people that were inside looked like pale blue ghosts in the light cast by the huge aquariums.

"Sarcastic fringehead." Sebastian laughed, pointing at the tank to his left. The so-called fish eyed him beadily through the glass. It was quite ugly, with an oblong body and serrated fins.

"A small but very hardy fish with a large mouth and aggressive territorial behavior," Rebecca read off the display plaque. "Sounds like someone I know." She shot Sebastian a knowing look.

"I'll take that as a compliment." He inclined his head mockingly. "I'm sure we'll find one for you too, don't worry."

"No thank you."

"Humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa."

"Bless you."

"No, look, that's your fish!" It was a small, but somewhat interesting-looking fish, with silver lines running across its body. As they stared at it, it shot off to the other side of the tank.

"The Hawaiian name means 'triggerfish with a snout like a pig'," Sebastian read, and then patted the tip of Rebecca's nose. "Humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa must be your spirit animal."

"Stop it!" Laughing, she pulled his hand away. "I can't even say the name."

How was it that Sebastian could so seamlessly slide into this persona of Jonathan Cristopher Morgenstern, who seemed untouched by the demon blood? In the blink of an eye, he could change, and somehow shrug off all of the death and destruction he left behind him.

But was Rebecca herself any better? Just a few hours ago, she had witnessed a father nearly torture his own son, and she had allowed – no, facilitated it. She was no better than he was.

She didn't like to think about it, but she couldn't help but admit that she was... different. Stronger, faster, deadlier... but not herself. She would find herself somewhere and not know how she got there, or she would wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, her fists clutching the bed sheet. She was sure that it was a side effect of... the procedure Sebastian had used, but she couldn't bear to talk about it with him, either. She didn't want any reminder of what had happened; all she knew for sure was that she was no longer Rebecca Lightwood.

When they left the aquarium, the weight in Rebecca's heart had lessened, if only slightly. The water was much more still now, and the pier was almost deserted - it was quite late, after all. A memory rose in her mind like something rising to the surface of water - a memory of her and Mark sneaking out of the New York Institute to try to find faeries in Central Park. Maryse had caught them after, and had assigned them to weapon-cleaning duty. Mark had been angry and had grumbled throughout, but Rebecca hadn't minded. She hadn't minded anything that let her spend time with Mark.

"Are you alright?"

Rebecca turned around to look at Sebastian. His eyes were wide, tinged with concern. The silver ring around his iris was the same shade as that of the moon.

"Yep," Rebecca said lightly. "Why do you ask?"

"Because we just walked past Ben & Jerry's and you didn't bat an eyelid."

Rebecca stopped in her tracks. "Did we really?"

Sebastian grinned. "Yes."

She shrugged. "Not really in the mood for ice cream tonight."

"Then what are you in the mood for?"

Rebecca stared at the water for a few seconds. "Something like this." She turned and pressed her lips to his.

Sebastian stiffened, but he quickly relented, pulling her in to deepen the kiss and wrapping both arms around her. His lips were soft, so much softer than she ever could have imagined, and it was almost perfect, hearing the lap of little waves against the pier, feeling his hands on her and his lips against hers. Almost.

She didn't know how much time had passed before they broke apart.

"Do you want to..." Sebastian gazed into her eyes, letting the rest of the question hang in the air between them.

"Yes."

Rebecca didn't want to let go. His kisses were better than any drug, and she was addicted. For a brief moment, they disconnected as they kicked off their shoes at the door, but then their lips found each other again.

They stumbled into the bedroom, nearly falling multiple times. Sebastian scrambled to take off his shirt, his hands slipping on the buttons. Rebecca was surprised to see that his hands were trembling; she had never thought anything could unsettle him.

But this did. He threw off his shirt, and as he leaned in to kiss her again, she tripped over it and threw her hand out to balance herself. Unfortunately, she hit Sebastian's face instead, and they both landed awkwardly on the bed. Sebastian's lips brushed the tip of her nose.

"Well, that was graceful." He chuckled, shifting himself so that he was directly on top of her.

She grinned. "Shadowhunter, remember? And by the way, you missed. Your lips were supposed to touch mine, you dingbat."

"My sincere apologies." He touched his lips to hers again, and then everything else just... went away. She arched up, and Sebastian slipped his hands under her shirt, swiftly pulling it over the top of her head, and throwing it away. His lips wandered down to her neck, and she closed her eyes as he traced his lips down her neck.

Sebastian's hands wandered to the clasp of her bra, and slowly undid it. Rebecca sat bolt upright.

"Jesus, Rebecca," Sebastian said, sitting back, looking amused. "What's wrong?"

"I can't do this." Rebecca quickly clasped her bra again, and began scrambling around on the floor for her t-shirt. She didn't know why, but she simply could not go any further - in fact, she felt sick. Sebastian was looking at her expressionlessly. Having slipped on her t-shirt, Rebecca sat back on the pillows. "Maybe we should just take it slow..."

"But I don't want to," Sebastian said, and his eyes flashed. "I don't want to take it slow, Rebecca. I want you. By god, I want you." His lips crashed into hers again, hands sliding up under her shirt, but she pushed him away.

"No, Sebastian. We need to talk."

He stared at her for a second. "You want to do this... right now?"

"Yes." Fear prickled her spine, but she knew she had to sound confident to make this work. She had his attention. Now, she had to make sure it didn't go to waste. "We need to talk about your... mission, or whatever you want to call it."

"Mission?"

"This whole thing. The Infernal Cup. Turning Shadowhunters."

Sebastian put his hands to his temples. "And you're suddenly questioning this... why?"

"Because it seems fruitless! Yes, the Clave needs to change, but not like this! You can't rid the world of demons by storming Institutes and killing people." When he didn't say anything, she continued, "I didn't kill that girl today. I let the younger Blackthorn family go."

Sebastian looked up. "Are you telling the truth?" His voice had become dangerously soft, something that should have spiked her fear, but now, she wasn't afraid. Not anymore.

"Yes. They were kids, Sebastian. If you think I'll murder twelve-year-olds for you, you're wrong."

For a second, Sebastian looked like he wanted nothing more than to finish what the Endarkened who had stabbed her had started, but then he stood up. "You think you're not like me, but you are."

"No, I am not."

Sebastian grabbed her wrist, yanking her up. "Really? Then who stood by me and watched the Shadowhunters turn into Endarkened? How many have you watched me do that to? And what have you done to stop that from happening?"

Rebecca twisted out of his grasp. "I am with you, Sebastian, you know that. But I will not stand for killing. You're tainting us, not making us stronger. Demonic alliance-"

"So you regret what I did to save your life?"

Yes! she wanted to scream. You've made me a thing, a monster, something even worse than an Endarkened! She said nothing, but Sebastian looked like he had gotten the answer he was looking for.

"I trusted you, Rebecca," he said quietly. "But you're just as filthy as the rest of them. If you don't believe in what I'm doing, maybe you should rejoin your filthy family. The family that refuses to accept you." He grabbed a pillow from the bed and pulled his t-shirt back on. "I'm sleeping downstairs tonight."

She caught him by the arm before he could leave. "Deny it all you want, but I know that there is a sliver of goodness in you. And I'm determined to bring it out, Jonathan."

Sebastian's eyes flashed. "I love you, Rebecca. But if you're with me, you're all in or you're all out. I won't keep dangling for you."

And then he was gone.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

REBECCA

Rebecca sat on Sebastian's bed, picking absently at the sheets. She knew she had been naive in hoping to change Sebastian's mind, but she hadn't expected him to give her an ultimatum either. And worse, if he started to question her loyalty...

Was it possible to love someone and hate them at the same time? There were moments when she wanted to run him through with a blade, and moments when she just wanted to grab his face and kiss him. How could she feel such conflicting emotions for a single person? She inhaled the scent of his bed sheets – they smelled like he always did, like citrusy cologne – which, in her opinion, he used too much of.

Coming to a decision, she slipped off the bed and padded across to the door and slowly pushed it open. Even though the corridor was empty, Rebecca couldn't help but feel a little nervous as she quietly pulled out a pen, paper, and stele from the bedside drawer. She hastily scribbled out a letter, and then traced the Ignis Nuntius rune on a corner. The paper immediately caught fire. She watched it burn completely, returned the stele to its original position, and then collapsed on the bed.

The next time she woke up, the digital clock on the bedside table told her that it was exactly 2:34 am. She knew something had woken her up, but she didn't know what. In an instant, she was on her feet, her hands already reaching for the stele, when she heard a sound.

It sounded like someone... whooping? Was Sebastian whooping?

She padded down the stairs. It sounded like it was coming from the downstairs bathroom, the door to which was ajar. She nudged it open, not sure what she expected to find...

Sebastian. He was hunched over the toilet bowl, his arms shining with sweat. He heaved, coughing up what looked like black fluid. His whole body was trembling.

"Sebastian...?" she whispered, her breath catching in her throat.

He looked around, and she was shocked to see that he was actually crying, tears streaming down his face. He started to say something, but was racked by another bout of retching. More black fluid spattered the floor.

Rebecca probably stood there for five more minutes, but to her, it felt like an hour. When Sebastian finally stood up, he was so weak he could barely get her name out. A dribble of blood ran down his chin. He tried to take a step forward but stumbled almost immediately.

Rebecca caught him, looping his arms around her shoulders. His eyes drooped. Somehow, she managed to carry him up the stairs to his bedroom, where he collapsed like a rag doll onto the bed. Rushing to the kitchen, she grabbed a towel and bowl of water and ran upstairs.

Sebastian was still sweating profusely, and his eyes were rolling up in his head. Panic almost overtook her, but she pushed it aside and tried to steady her breathing. Carefully, she peeled off his shirt and wrung out the cold cloth, pressing it to his forehead.

Suddenly, he started thrashing about and screaming, his nails digging into his skin as if he wanted to tear his own flesh out. "Sebastian!" Rebecca yelled, her throat closing up. She tried to grab on to his arms, but he was too strong. He continued to thrash about, his nails tearing away his skin. Rivulets of blood ran down his arms.

Rebecca stood back, at a complete loss for what to do. The anxiety sitting in her stomach like some great ugly monster almost threatened to overwhelm her. With enormous effort, Rebecca forced herself to focus and raced down the stairs, throwing open drawers and upending shelves. All the while, she could hear him still screaming his throat raw, as if his insides were on fire.

Finally, she found what she was looking for – a length of sturdy rope. She raced back upstairs and then, with immense difficulty, managed to pin down one of his arms and bind it tightly to the bedpost. She did the same for the other arm. He did not calm down the slightest bit, but at least he could no longer hurt himself.

It took him almost half an hour to stop, and by that time, his wrists, where she had bound the rope, were bright red. His skin was torn open in various places, little trickles of blood running down his body. The bed sheets were wet with his blood. His eyes focused on Rebecca, who had been hovering anxiously by his bedside. "Rebecca?"

"Yeah, I'm here." She carefully undid the ropes around his wrists. "Are you... okay?"

Sebastian looked down at himself – at his sweat-stained t-shirt, his bloody arms, and then back at her. She expected him to ask what had happened, but instead, he wrapped his arms around her. His body was shaking with tears.

"It's okay," she said, feeling tears pricking the backs of her eyelids. "I'm here. I'll never let you go."

"I never wanted you to see this side of me," he said quietly, his voice painfully hoarse. "This terrible, ugly side."

"It's because of the demon blood, isn't it?" She released him and he laid back on the pillows.

He nodded. "I have good days and bad ones. I have terrible days as well. Then there's these types of days." He smiled weakly. "Thank you for not looking at me like everyone else does."

"How do they look at you?"

"Like I'm a monster."

By the time Rebecca had given him enough iratzes to let him heal, it was almost 4 am. She had just finished changing the bed sheets when Sebastian came into the bedroom, having changed into a fresh t-shirt and pants.

"Thank you for looking after me," he said quietly. "Most mornings... Well, I just wake up on the bathroom floor with half my skin torn away." He smiled wryly.

"That's not funny," Rebecca said sharply, her voice uneven.

"That's why I'm not laughing." He leaned over and kissed her, but this time, it was slow and simple and sweet, and all it said was, I love you. Breaking apart, he settled down on the bed beside her. "Still, it's better here than anywhere else. Back in Idris, Valentine would just lock me in the basement whenever it happened."

"What?" she croaked, feeling sick.

"And if it wasn't the fits, it was the whipping."

Rebecca sat up straight. "Valentine whipped you?"

He tapped his shoulder. "On my back. Almost every day."

"Show me."

"I don't think-"

"Show me."

Mutely Sebastian lifted his shirt over his head.

Rebecca had to swallow back a gasp. His bare back was striped with ragged scars, one after the other, too even to be random accident. "Why?" she whispered.

"They're a reminder," Sebastian replied, "of the perils of obedience."

She lifted her hand and gently traced one of his scars. She could feel him flinch beneath her touch. "Don't you mean 'disobedience'?"

"I mean what I said."

"Do they hurt?"

"All the time."

Rebecca swallowed and looked up at him – or rather, at the back of his head. Then she leaned forward and lightly brushed her lips against his bare shoulder. "Does that make it feel better?"

Sebastian pulled down his shirt and whipped around. "No. But this does." He pulled her into his arms and kissed her passionately, before resting his forehead against hers. "Falling in love with you wasn't a part of my plan, but turns out... it was the most essential part."

MAGNUS

Magnus wasn't on Blackfriars Bridge, as he was supposed to be. He was actually on Waterloo Bridge, staring across the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge. It appeared to be mostly empty, save for the early morning commuters that walked quickly, their heads bowed against the light drizzle. Cars whizzed past, and it was weird to be able to see them go by without actually hearing them. The wind cut through his thin white dress shirt, but he hardly noticed it. And then he spotted her.

She was standing on the pavement that skirted the railing, gazing down at the river below. Her hair whipped around her face. She looked like she was alone.

Magnus decided to take the chance and see her. As a warlock that had lived through several hundred years, there wasn't much he couldn't survive. Not to mention, he was quite curious about why she had asked him to meet her. He snapped his fingers and the Farsighted spell dissipated.

At Blackfriar's Bridge, she was standing with her head tilted up, letting the weak morning sunlight wash across her face. The traffic on the bridge had increased slightly, as had the number of pedestrians.

"I'll admit," Magnus said, walking up to her, "I was surprised to get your message. Even more surprised when you asked me not to tell Alec."

Rebecca smiled, but she did not turn around to face him. "Thank you for not telling him."

"How do you know I didn't tell him?"

"If you had, he'd be here too."

Magnus inclined his head. "A fair enough assumption. But why did you call me here?"

At that, Rebecca did look at him, and he saw it immediately - her irises were now as black as night. Magnus was slightly unsettled, but he tried not to show it. "Rebecca... what happened to you?"

She smiled sadly. "I'll tell you everything, Magnus. You're the only one I can trust right now. But first, can you do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"Don't tell Alec that I am alive. Don't tell anybody. Pretend we never met."

Magnus took a deep breath. "Okay."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JACE

Not much had changed at Magnus's since the first time Jace had been there. The same small entryway and single yellow bulb. Jace used an Open rune to get in through the front door, took the stairs two at a time, and buzzed Magnus's apartment bell. Safer than using another rune, he figured. After all, Magnus could be playing video games naked or, really, doing practically anything. Who knew what warlocks got up to in their spare time?

Jace buzzed again, this time leaning firmly on the doorbell. Two more long buzzes, and Magnus finally yanked the door open, looking furious. He was wearing a black silk dressing gown over a white dress shirt and tweed pants.

His feet were bare. His dark hair was tangled, and there was the shadow of a day-old stubble on his jaw. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"My, my," said Jace. "So unwelcoming."

"That's because you're not welcome."

Jace raised an eyebrow. "I thought we were friends."

"No. You're Alec's friend. Alec was my boyfriend, so I had to put up with you. But now he's not my boyfriend, so I don't have to put up with you. Not that any of you seem to realize it. You must be the - what, fourth? - of you lot to bother me." Magnus counted off on his long fingers. "Clary. Isabelle. Simon-"

"Simon came by?"

"You seem surprised."

"I didn't think he was that invested in your relationship with Alec."

"I don't have a relationship with Alec," said Magnus flatly, but Jace had already shouldered past him and was in his living room, looking around curiously. One of the things Jace had always secretly liked about Magnus's apartment was that it rarely looked the same way twice. Sometimes it was a big modern loft. Sometimes it looked like a French bordello, or a Victorian opium den, or the inside of a spaceship. Right now, though, it was messy and dark. Stacks of old Chinese food cartons littered the coffee table. Chairman Meow lay on the rag rug, all four legs sticking straight out in front of him like a dead deer.

"It smells like heartbreak in here," said Jace.

"That's the Chinese food." Magnus bustled past him and discreetly snatched a piece of paper from the table and shoved it into the pocket of his dressing gown. Then he threw himself down onto the sofa, stretched out his long legs, and sighed dramatically. "Go on, get it over with. Say whatever you came here to say."

"I need a favor," said Jace.

Magnus rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Of course you do."

"It's important," Jace said. "It's about Rebecca."

That seemed to catch Magnus's attention, if only slightly. He sat up a little straighter, his eyes narrowing. "What about her?"

"Well, you know she's... missing."

"I wouldn't say that, exactly," Magnus muttered, swinging his long legs off the sofa. "I think we know exactly where she is."

"With Sebastian," Jace said, his voice tight. "And who knows what that bastard will do to her."

"And I'm assuming you want my help to find her?"

"Yes."

Magnus shrugged. "No can do, little Shadowhunter."

Jace felt a surge of annoyance, coupled with the constant worry that had plagued him ever since the battle at the Burren. "Why not?"

"Because I've tried it before. And it hasn't worked."

"Well, try again."

Magnus shook his head. "It's not that simple. Sebastian is smarter than that – most likely, she has a Blocking rune day and night."

"Is there... I don't know, anything else we can do? Any other way we can track her? Or Sebastian?"

Magnus fixed Jace with his catlike gaze. "No."

Jace sighed and slumped down on the sofa opposite Magnus. "There's one more thing."

Magnus raised an eyebrow.

"I think you should get back together with Alec."

Magnus rolled his eyes again. He let out a loud sigh and lay down on the sofa. "And why is that?"

"Because he's miserable," said Jace. "And he's sorry. He's sorry about what he did. He won't do it again."

"Oh, he won't sneak around behind my back with one of my exes planning to shorten my life again? Very noble of him."

"Magnus-"

"Besides, Camille's dead. He can't do it again."

"You know what I mean," said Jace. "He won't lie to you or mislead you or hide things from you or whatever it is you're actually upset about." He raised an eyebrow at Magnus.

"So?" Magnus rolled onto his side. "What do you care if Alec's miserable?"

"What do I care?" Jace said, so loudly that Chairman Meow sat bolt upright as if he'd been shocked. "Of course I care about Alec; he's my best friend, my parabatai. And he's unhappy. And so are you, by the look of things. Take-out containers everywhere, you haven't done anything to fix up the place, your cat looks dead-"

"He's not dead."

"I care about Alec," Jace said, fixing Magnus with an unswerving gaze. "I care about him more than I care about myself."

"Don't you ever think," Magnus mused, pulling at a bit of peeling fingernail polish, "that the whole parabatai business is rather cruel? You can choose your parabatai, but then you can never un-choose them. Even if they turn on you. Look at Luke and Valentine. And though your parabatai is the closest person in the world to you in some ways, you can't fall in love with them. And if they die, some part of you dies too."

"How do you know so much about parabatai?"

"I know Shadowhunters," said Magnus, patting the sofa beside him so that the Chairman leaped up onto the cushions and nudged at Magnus with his head. The warlock's long fingers sank into the cat's fur. "I have for a long time. You are odd creatures. All fragile nobility and humanity on one side, and all the thoughtless fire of angels on the other." His eyes flicked toward Jace. "You especially, Herondale, for you have the fire of angels in your blood."

"You've been friends with Shadowhunters before?"

"Friends," said Magnus. "What does that mean, really?"

"You'd know," said Jace, "if you had any. Do you? Do you have friends? I mean, besides the people who come to your parties. Most people are afraid of you, or they seem to owe you something, or you slept with them once, but friends - I don't see you having a lot of those."

"Well, this is novel," said Magnus. "None of the rest of your group has tried insulting me."

"Is it working?"

"If you mean do I suddenly feel compelled to get back together with Alec, no," said Magnus. "I have developed an odd craving for pizza, but that might be unrelated."

"Alec said you do that," said Jace. "Deflect questions about yourself with jokes."

Magnus narrowed his eyes. "And I'm the only one who does that?"

"Exactly," Jace said. "Take it from someone who knows. You hate talking about yourself, and you'd rather make people angry than be pitied. How old are you, Magnus? The real answer."

Magnus said nothing.

"What were your parents' names? Your father's name?"

Magnus glared at him out of gold-green eyes. "If I wanted to lie on a couch and complain to someone about my parents, I'd hire a psychiatrist."

"Ah," said Jace. "But my services are free."

"I heard that about you."

Jace grinned and slid down in his chair. There was a pillow with a pattern of the Union Jack on the ottoman. He grabbed it and put it behind his head. "I don't have anywhere to be. I can sit here all day."

"Great," Magnus said. "I'm going to take a nap." He reached out for a crumpled blanket lying on the floor, just as Jace's phone rang. Magnus watched, arrested mid-motion, as Jace dug around in his pocket and flipped the phone open. It was Isabelle. "Jace?"

"Yeah. I'm at Magnus's place. I think I might be making some headway. What's up?"

"Come back," Isabelle said, and Jace sat up straight, the pillow tumbling to the floor. Her voice was tightly strained. He could hear the sharpness in it, like the off notes of a badly tuned piano. "To the Institute. Right away, Jace."

"What is it?" he asked. "What's happened?" And he saw Magnus sit up too, the blanket dropping from his hand.

"Sebastian," Isabelle said.

CLARY

There were dozens of unfamiliar coats and jackets hanging in the entryway of the Institute. Clary felt the tight buzzing of tension in her shoulders as she unzipped her own wool coat and hung it on one of the hooks that lined the walls.

"And Maryse didn't say what this was about?" Clary demanded. The edges of her voice had been rubbed thin by anxiety.

Jocelyn had unwound a long gray scarf from around her neck, and barely looked as Luke took it from her to drape it on a hook. Her green eyes were darting around the room, taking in the gate of the elevator, the arched ceiling overhead, the faded murals of men and angels.

Luke shook his head. "Just that there'd been an attack on the Clave, and we needed to get here as quickly as possible."

"It's the 'we' part that concerns me." Jocelyn wound her hair up into a knot at the back of her head and secured it with her fingers. "I haven't been in an Institute in years. Why do they want me here?" Luke squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. Clary knew what Jocelyn feared, what they all feared. The only reason the Clave would want Jocelyn here was if there was news of her son.

"Maryse said they'd be in the library," Jocelyn said. Clary led the way.

You know why you're here, don't you, breathed a soft voice in the back of her head. She knew it wasn't really there, but that didn't help. She hadn't seen her brother since the fight at the Burren, but she carried him in some small part of her mind, an intrusive, unwelcome ghost.

Because of me.

Erchomai.

I am coming.

Someone had pushed back all the furniture in the library, clearing a large space in the middle of the room, just atop the mosaic of the Angel. A massive table had been placed there, a huge slab of marble balanced on top of two kneeling stone angels. Around the table were seated the Conclave.

Maryse was seated there too, looking thinner than usual. Her face was white, and her eyes were closed. One of the other members was standing next to her, ticking off names as she chanted aloud.

"Berlin. No survivors. Moscow. No survivors. Los Angeles-"

"Los Angeles?" said Jocelyn. "That was the Blackthorns. Are they-"

Maryse looked up, startled. Her blue eyes swept over Luke and Clary. "There were survivors," she said. "Children. They're in Idris now."

"Helen," said Alec. "Is she all right?"

"She was in Idris, with Aline," said Maryse. "Her younger brothers and sisters survived, although there seems to have been an issue with the eldest brother, Mark."

"Mark?" Isabelle exchanged glances with Alec. "But that's-"

Alec shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and Isabelle trailed off into silence.

"An issue?" said Luke. "What's going on, exactly, Maryse?"

"I don't think we'll know the whole story until we get to Idris," said Maryse, smoothing back her already smooth hair. "But there have been attacks, several in the course of two nights, on six Institutes. We're not sure yet how the Institutes were breached, but we know-"

The door opened and Jace came in. He was flushed with the cold, bareheaded, fair hair tousled by the wind. Without a word, he went to stand beside Alec and Isabelle.

"Maryse?" Luke urged. "Is Sebastian responsible?"

Maryse's face turned even whiter. "Yes." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Yes, yes he was. And he had the Endarkened with him."

There was the low buzz of voices – panic, alarm, outright fear. "The Clave has called for immediate evacuation," Maryse said, raising her voice. "All Institutes are to empty out. All Conclaves must return to Alicante. The wards around Idris will be doubled after tomorrow. No one will be able to come in or get out."

The council members mutely exchanged glances. There didn't seem to be anything else to be said or done. One by one, they left, until it was just Maryse, Isabelle, Alec, Jace, Jocelyn, Luke and Clary.

Maryse waited until the last of the council members had disappeared down the hallway before standing up. "There is something else you need to know."

Jocelyn, Jace, Clary and Luke all looked at her, but Isabelle and Alec simply stared fixedly at the floor.

"It appears that Sebastian has recruited a new lieutenant as well." Maryse's voice quavered, but only very slightly.

"Who?" Jocelyn said sharply.

Now it was Maryse's turn to stare at the floor. Taking a deep breath, she said without looking up, "Rebecca Lightwood."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY

ALEC

"Okay," Magnus said. "You wanted to talk to me. So talk."

Alec looked at him, wide-eyed. Magnus had turned up that morning just before they were all scheduled to leave for Idris. Countless times, Alec had imagined just what he would say – but now that Magnus was actually standing in front of him, with his mesmerizing slit-pupil cat eyes, and his cool, sharp gaze, Alec couldn't think of a single thing to say. Besides, the news he had just heard was still sharp in his mind. "What?" he said finally.

"I assumed that was the meaning of all those phone calls," Magnus said. "And why you sent all your stupid friends over to my apartment. Or do you just do that to everyone?"

Alec cleared his throat. "Aren't you ever going to forgive me?"

"I-" Magnus broke off and looked away, shaking his head. "Alec. I have forgiven you."

"It doesn't seem like it. You seem angry."

When Magnus looked back at him, it was with a gentler expression. "I'm worried about you," he said. "The attacks on the Institutes. I just heard."

Alec felt dizzy. Magnus forgave him; Magnus was worried about him. "Did you know we were leaving for Idris?"

"Catarina told me she'd been summoned to make a Portal. I guessed," Magnus said wryly. "I was a little surprised you hadn't called or texted to tell me you were going away."

"Ah." Alec fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "There was... a bit of news we heard yesterday."

Magnus's brows furrowed slightly. "What news?"

Alec's breath hitched in his throat. "Rebecca's been turned into an Endarkened."

Magnus was silent for a moment. "Are you sure?"

"The head of the London Institute sent word." Alec's voice was ripped raw with anxiety. "Eyewitness accounts say that she was right beside Sebastian, the whole time." He ran a hand through his hair. "That's got to be the only reason, right? I mean... Rebecca would never do this, she'd never side with that murderer. Not after Max, and she still blames herself for what happened to him..."

"Alec," Magnus gripped his former boyfriend's shoulders. "Rebecca.... She is a strong girl. She will return. Just... don't abandon her. Keep your faith."

Alec gripped his hands. "What? You talk as if you know-"

"I don't," Magnus reassured him. "Go to Idris. You're safer there, but don't be trusting, and don't let your guard down. I need you to live," he breathed, and turned around, very abruptly, and walked away.

I need you to live.

Alec sat down on the frozen stone bench and put his face in his hands.

REBECCA

When Rebecca returned to the apartment, she found Sebastian waiting for her, his face unreadable. He wore red gear. His blessed iron sword was in his hands, and he was running a finger along the edge of the blade lovingly. "Where were you?" he said, his eyes flicking up to look at her.

"Out for a walk," Rebecca said. "Not a crime, is it?" She made for the kitchen for a glass of water, but in one fluid motion, he stepped in front of her, blocking her way.

"Meliorn has informed me that the Clave has called off its search parties for you," he said. "I guess they got tired of searching for you, huh?"

"I guess." She tried to maneuver around him, but he grabbed her wrist.

"Seriously, Sebastian?" Rebecca said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice. "Still miffed that you got your ass handed to you in London?"

"I did not get my ass handed to me." He pushed her away and strode towards the kitchen. "It was a mistake."

"Excuse me?" Rebecca knew she should let the matter drop, but her temper was always close to the surface these days. It was impossible to remain calm around Sebastian for long. Despite the fact that she was relieved that the London Institute, at least, was safe, she couldn't handle Sebastian sulking like a child about it. She followed him into the kitchen, about to say more, but she stopped as she noticed what he was holding.

"What's that?"

"A spoil of war." He held it up. It was a beautiful gold medallion, with the imprint of a wolf's paw and a pattern of leaves around the edges. The words Beati bellicosi were engraved at the top.

"Beati bellicosi..." Rebecca breathed. "Blessed are the warriors. That's the motto of the Praetor Lupus. What are you..." Suddenly it dawned on her. A dead weight dropped into her stomach. "You didn't."

"I had to." Sebastian stuffed the medallion into his pocket. "Someone had to pay the price."

She felt sick, but she swallowed it down. "How many?"

He shrugged. "Fifty or sixty. Don't know, really."

"Fifty or sixty..." She clenched her fists, fighting against the tightness in her chest. What had she gotten herself into? Did she really have the strength to see this through? How long would it be before she snapped? Or worse, became like Sebastian?

Sebastian seemed unconcerned with her reaction. As she stared at him in shock, he cocked his head to one side. "I think they're ready."

"Ready? Ready for what? What are you talking about?"

Sebastian smiled. It was nothing like the warm smile she had seen at the Santa Monica aquarium. This one was plain evil, and it sent a shiver up her spine.

"We're going to meet your dear family, of course."

A Portal spat them out on a volcanic plain, with a line of distant mountains in the horizon. White snow dusted the ground: thick in some places; crisp, thin ice in others. Deadly sharp rocks sliced through the ice and snow, along with the bare branches of hedges and frozen moss. There was no moon. Stars pricked the sky here and there.

"Where are we?" Rebecca said.

"This... this is the Adamant Citadel." Sebastian's voice was high with excitement, his face alight with a mad, feverish glow. He raised his sword – which had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and all around them, the Endarkened appeared, as if they had simply melted from the shadows. They were dressed in their usual black and red gear and were armed.

"Tonight, we take over the city of the Iron Sisters," Sebastian said. As he spoke, shadows dotted the plain across from them – about fifty of them. It was too dark to make out their faces, but she knew they were Shadowhunters. Rebecca felt a hollow ache in her chest. She longed to be there, fighting alongside the Shadowhunters, fighting to protect the Adamant Citadel, not to destroy it.

Sebastian pressed a sword into her hand. "Paratus es, regina meis?"

Rebecca swallowed, and accepted the sword.

The battle was a bloodbath. Rebecca had been in one before, but the memory seemed almost hazy. She could only remember flashes of it - pain, the blood that drenched her clothes, and Alec's and Izzy's faces, white with fear. Fear for her life. She separated from Sebastian at the first opportunity, trying to keep the Shadowhunters alive. Even though there were less than half that number of Endarkened, they seemed to be struggling.

A blonde woman stumbled towards an Endarkened as he dispatched a Shadowhunter with a stab of his sword.

"Jason!" she cried out. "Jason, please stop!"

The Endarkened stiffened and turned.

Oh god, no. Rebecca tried to push her way towards the blonde woman, stopping only to slice off the hand of an Endarkened who had been raising his blade to strike a Shadowhunter before him. He turned, his face twisted in fury, but the Shadowhunter behind him made short work of him. Rebecca surged forward.

The blonde woman was sobbing. "You don't have to do this." Her seraph blade dangled loosely in her hand. "Come with us. They're working on a cure. We'll fix you-"

Jason the Endarkened paid no attention. He lifted his sword, but before he could bring it down, Rebecca was there. She slashed viciously with her blade, slitting his throat. He collapsed silently.

The blonde woman screamed. Rebecca turned to her and caught her as she staggered. Her eyes locked onto Rebecca's, and recognition dawned in them. "You!" she screeched.

Rebecca wrapped the blonde woman's fingers around her blade. "They cannot be saved, understand? Now pull yourself together."

She stared at the sword in her hand. "But why..."

"Just go!"

Despite Rebecca's best efforts, too many Shadowhunters were crumpling like rag dolls around her. Too many seraph blades going dark forever. Too much blood.

Foolishly, she let her sword arm go limp, too horror-struck by the carnage around her, and too weighed down by the guilt that reared behind her like a great, ugly monster. That was when she felt the cold kiss of a blade against her throat.

Clary's green eyes were alight, her grip unwavering on the blade held against Rebecca's throat. Seeing her, Rebecca had the strange urge to cry. "Hello, Clary," she said quietly.

Clary didn't reply. Rebecca didn't think she trusted herself to. The steel against her throat was now burning, as cold and as hot as ice - it was a seraph blade. All of her instincts screamed attack! but she forced herself to stay still.

"I swear, I'm not an Endarkened," Rebecca said.

"And I'm just supposed to believe you?" Clary said, trying to sound scornful. "You-"

She was interrupted as a slender, black-clad Shadowhunter with bright hair, moving so fast it was like watching fire spring from ridge to ridge in a forest, raced across the rocky plain. Only in this case the forest was Sebastian's army, Endarkened falling one by one. Falling so quickly, they barely had time to reach for their weapons, much less raise them. And as they fell, others began to fall back, confused and uncertain, so that Rebecca could see the space that was being cleared in the middle of the battle, and who stood in the center of it.

Jace.

JACE

Jace hurtled through the air, collided with a Dark Shadowhunter, and rode the Endarkened One's body down to earth, dispatching him with a vicious scissoring blow. Somehow, he had acquired a second blade; he wasn't sure where. Everything was blood and fire singing in his head. Jace had fought before, many times. He knew the chill of battle as it descended, the world around him slowing to a whisper, every movement he made precise and exact.

The Dark Shadowhunters didn't seem to feel much fear, and they died without screaming. The one in front of Jace, though, had his face twisted with fear-

"Really, Andrew, there's no need to look like that. I'm not going to do anything to you," said a voice behind Jace, sharp and clear and familiar. And just a touch exasperated. "Unless you don't move out of the way."

The brown-haired Shadowhunter darted hastily away from Jace, who turned, already knowing what he would see. Sebastian stood behind him. He had arrived seemingly out of nowhere, though that didn't surprise Jace. He knew Sebastian still possessed Valentine's ring, which allowed him to appear and disappear at will. He wore red gear, worked all through with gold runes - runes of protection and healing and good luck. Gray Book runes, the kind the Endarkened couldn't wear. The red made his pale hair look paler, his grin a white slice across his face as his gaze scanned Jace from his head to his boots. "My Jace," he said. "Been missing me?"

In a flash, Jace's swords were up, both tips hovering just over Sebastian's heart. He heard a murmur from the crowd around him. It seemed that both the Dark Shadowhunters and their Nephilim counterparts had paused their fighting to watch what was going on.

"You can't actually think I missed you."

Sebastian raised his eyes slowly, his amused gaze meeting Jace's. Eyes black like his father's. In their depths Jace saw himself, saw the apartment he had shared with Sebastian, the meals they had eaten together, jokes they had traded, battles they'd shared.

He had subsumed himself in Sebastian, had given over his will entirely, and it had been pleasurable and easy, and down in the darkest depths of his treacherous heart, Jace knew that part of him wanted it again. It made him hate Sebastian even more.

"Well, I can't imagine why else you're here. You know I can't be killed with a blade," Sebastian said. "The brat from the Los Angeles Institute must have told you that, at least."

"I could slice you apart," Jace said. "See if you can survive in tiddly wink-size pieces. Or cut off your head. It might not kill you, but it would be fun watching you try to find it."

Sebastian was still smiling. "I wouldn't try," he said, "if I were you."

"Why not?" Jace growled through clenched teeth.

Sebastian inclined his head, and someone stepped out from behind him, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. It took Jace a few moments to realize who it was – Rebecca. The sight of his sister made Jace freeze in position. She, too, was wearing red like Sebastian, and she walked with the sort of confidence you couldn't fake. Her eyes – black as night – glittered, empty of expression.

Something tightened in Jace's chest. He'd always been able to tell exactly what she was thinking – whether she was angry, frustrated, sad or happy. She was an open book. But not anymore. The girl who stood in front of him was a stranger.

"Because," she said, "you'll have to get through me first."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

JACE

Jace's chest tightened, but he didn't let his expression change. He couldn't possibly let Sebastian know how much seeing his sister turned into an Endarkened hurt him.

"This is a fight you won't win, Jace," Rebecca said. "So you better turn around and just leave. Sebastian doesn't want to kill you."

"Well that's too bad, since I really want to kill him." He tried to sidestep Rebecca, but she raised her blade, blocking his path.

"I mean it, Jace. If you fight him, you die."

Jace faltered in his step for a moment. Though Rebecca's expression gave away absolutely nothing, her voice was low and urgent, like she was actually afraid for him.

Sebastian grinned. "Isn't she wonderful? I knew from the first moment I laid eyes on her that she'd be a wonderful soldier. I'm good at that kind of thing, you know."

Jace's gaze was still fixed on his sister. "Rebecca, move," he snarled.

"Oh, give him a chance," Sebastian called out mockingly. "He's so keen."

Gritting her teeth, Rebecca turned around to face Sebastian. "You can't hurt him."

The smile vanished from Sebastian's face. "Are you telling me," he said quietly, striding forward so that he was face to face with her, "that you actually care about what happens to him? Your pathetic family?"

Rebecca's eyes hardened. She fixed Sebastian with a steely glare. "Fine." In one fluid motion, she whirled around and drove her blade into Jace's shoulder.

The agony was instant, clear and clean as the blade slammed into his shoulder. It was like being electrified – Jace felt the pain through his entire body, his muscles contracting, his back arcing off the ground. Heat seared through him, as if his bones were being fused to charcoal. Flame gathered and coursed through his veins, up his spine –

He saw Rebecca's eyes widen, and in their blackness, he saw himself reflected, sprawled on the red-black ground, and his shoulder was burning. Flames licked up from the wound like blood.

Jace began to struggle up onto his elbows, though the movement sent a wave of pain through his shoulder so severe, he thought he might pass out. His vision darkened; when it came back again, Rebecca was standing over him, her sword at her feet, and the two of them were surrounded by a ring of figures.

Women, gowned in white like Greek oracles, their eyes leaping orange flames. Their faces were tattooed with marks, as delicate and winding as vines. They were beautiful and terrible. They were Iron Sisters.

"In six hundred years we have not abandoned our Citadel," said one of the Sisters, a tall woman whose hair fell in black ropes to her waist. Her eyes blazed, twin furnaces in the darkness. "But the heavenly fire calls us, and we come. Move away from Jace Herondale. Harm him again, and we destroy you."

Rebecca's chest was heaving, but she didn't look alarmed or frightened. She looked relieved, maybe even a little triumphant.

"Neither Jace Herondale nor the fire in his veins will save you, Cleophas," Sebastian said, raising his sword and stepping in front of Rebecca. His voice was steady. "The Nephilim have no savior."

"You did not know to fear the heavenly fire. Now you do," said Cleophas. "Time to retreat, boy. And take your loyal puppy with you."

For a moment, Sebastian looked furious. Then he lunged forward, and the Morgenstern sword buried itself into the earth.

The earth seemed to howl as if mortally wounded. A tremor ripped through the ground, spreading out from the tip of the Morgenstern sword. Jace's vision was coming and going, consciousness bleeding out of him like the fire that bled from his wound, but as the darkness came down, he saw Sebastian grasp his sister's hand and twist the silver ring on his finger. The two of them vanished.

REBECCA

When they got back to the apartment, Rebecca was furious. At herself or at Sebastian, she wasn't sure. Without sparing a glance for him, she hurtled up the stairs to the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face until her whole face felt numb. Her conversation with Jace had unsettled her, and she knew she had gambled his life by stabbing him. She thanked her lucky stars that Magnus had told her about the heavenly fire in Jace's body.

"Is something the matter?" a mild voice inquired.

Rebecca turned around to find Sebastian standing in the doorway, his eyebrows furrowed. She'd been ready to scream at him, but when she saw him standing there, she felt nothing but a great surge of sadness for the boy in front of her.

Sebastian stepped forward slowly, grasping both of her hands in his. "Rebecca?"

She couldn't stop the shudder that ran through her body at his touch. As much as she tried to hide it, Sebastian noticed it straight away and he stepped back, letting go of her hands. His whole demeanor immediately changed from one of concern to one of cool indifference. "So," he said. "I guess all your promises about how you would never think of me as a monster, an abomination – those were all just lies?"

"No," Rebecca replied, trying to keep her voice even. "I tried, Sebastian. You know I did-"

"Tried what?" Sebastian spat. "You certainly never tried to help me. And I suppose all those sabotages – London, Moscow – they were your doing as well?"

Rebecca's breath hitched in her throat. "How did you-"

"You think I'm a fool?"

The thing about Sebastian was that he rarely ever raised his voice. He simply lowered his voice to a soft, deadly whisper and that was more than enough to let you know that you had better run for your life.

But Rebecca was not going to stand there and take it. Unlike Sebastian, when she got angry, her voice said it all.

"Do you have any idea how much I've given up to try to help you? I gave up everything – my life, my family, my identity. Everyone I love now thinks I'm a traitor."

"Yeah, well, I didn't ask for it."

"Yeah, but you needed it!"

Sebastian fixed Rebecca with an expressionless stare. "You think I need your pity? You think you're my savior? It's like those cheesy romance movies, isn't it? The troubled, bad boy gets saved by the good-hearted, kind girl. Here's a little heads-up for you, darling – I never needed a savior."

"Stop it!" Rebecca's voice had reached a scream. "This is what you always do, isn't it? You're trying to hide how you really feel."

When he didn't say anything, she continued, "The way you are – it's not your fault. It's Valentine's. I've seen the real Jonathan, the real you. And that's the one I..." she faltered. That's the one I fell in love with, she wanted to say. But did she really love him? She stumbled past, hoping Sebastian didn't notice her falter. "Come with me, Sebastian. Let's give this all up. You can still put this all behind you."

Sebastian's fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. He was not looking at Rebecca anymore, but staring fixedly at the floor. "What the hell do you want from me, Rebecca?"

"I want you to stop all of this!" Rebecca cried. "Stop killing people. Stop trying to single-handedly take down the Clave."

Sebastian took a deep breath. "Fine."

Rebecca couldn't process that he'd just agreed. "Fine...?"

Sebastian looked up at her. "We can't be together anymore."

"What? What are you saying-"

Sebastian stepped closer to her. His eyes were almost sorrowful. "You don't get it, Rebecca. You're trying to save someone who cannot be saved. Death, destruction – it's in my blood. And there is nothing you can do to change that. Nothing."

Rebecca gritted her teeth. "Yes, there is-"

"No." Sebastian gripped her hand in both of his own. "You think you love me, but you don't. It's only because of the blood we share. But I love you. You may not believe it, but I do. I've loved you since the day I first set eyes on you, in Idris."

Rebecca was lost for words. "Sebastian..." She tried to reach for him, but he pushed her away and left the room, banging the door closed behind him.

Rebecca stood frozen for a second, and then she sat down heavily on the bed. Her heart felt as if it had dropped down all the way to her toes. She knew she had to go after him, reason with him, stop him from going after anyone else, but she couldn't move. Eventually, exhausted to the bone, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, it was still dark outside. One look at the clock on the bedside table told her all she needed to know - she had been asleep for nearly twenty hours.

The memory of last night's events came back to her in a rush. Mouth dry, stomach lurching, she wrenched open the door and hurried down the stairs.

Sebastian was standing in front of the kitchen wall. As she watched, he pulled out his stele and traced a rune onto it - one that she had seen him trace many times before. But she still didn't know which rune it was. Sebastian stepped through the shimmering grey Portal that the kitchen wall had transformed into, stowing his stele in his belt as he did so.

Feeling an odd sense of déjà vu, Rebecca darted forward and stepped through the Portal just before it vanished.

She was standing outside Amatis Herondale's house. The pale, yellow door and tall structure was immediately recognizable; she had visited Clary multiple times when they had been staying in Alicante back in September. The wards glowed with a soft white light, as they always did, and the moon was high in the sky. Sebastian was nowhere to be seen – the winding streets were empty.

Rebecca slowly walked up to the door of the house. It was slightly ajar already. Immediately, her senses went on high alert, and she stood still for almost a minute, trying to make out if anything was out of place.

Nothing stirred.

Slowly, Rebecca walked inside. The kitchen, living room - they all looked undisturbed. The anxious knot in her chest loosening slightly, she turned to head for the stairs, and almost screamed.

A dark shape was lying on the sofa. Rebecca could tell it was human, at the very least - the moonlight streaming through the window was just enough to illuminate a pair of long, gangly legs. The face was in darkness, but the shape wasn't moving.

Rebecca moved forward cautiously. The dark shape sat up suddenly, and she almost yelled again. Familiar features came into view - curling dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a pale face, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Simon?"

Simon stood up. "Rebecca?" He sounded astonished, but he tensed almost immediately, as if he expected her to leap forward and attack him. They stood like that, staring silently at each other, until Simon finally said, "What are you doing here?"

"I-" Rebecca started to say, then stopped. What was she doing here? She decided to tell the truth. "I followed Sebastian here."

Simon's eyes widened. "He's here?"

"No! I mean, I don't know. I just know he took the Portal here."

Simon stepped forward. He was wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans, and Rebecca could see the tips of his fangs jutting over his lip. "Are you an Endarkened?"

"No. I swear on the Angel, I am not an Endarkened."

"Then why-"

"Long story," Rebecca said wearily.

Simon took a step forward, swayed alarmingly, and then collapsed back onto the sofa. Rebecca watched him with open curiosity. "What happened to you?"

"Got drunk," Simon grunted, resting his head in his hands.

"I thought vampires couldn't get drunk."

"Yeah, well, me too."

"Hmm." Rebecca crossed the room to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and then emptied the contents onto Simon's head. He yelped and shot up, the water splashing over his trousers and staining the sofa.

"Did that help?" Rebecca said teasingly.

"Yeah," Simon spluttered.

"Good, because I need your help."

Simon looked up, curiosity and wariness in his expression. "Sebastian?"

"He's here for something, but I don't-"

Simon paled. "Clary," he whispered, and then bolted upstairs. Bewildered, Rebecca followed. Simon had reached the door at the end of the hall - the one that led to Clary's room. Light flickered in the crack beneath the door. Clary's voice, surprisingly loud, floated across the hall to where Rebecca and Simon stood, frozen, listening: "But I don't know why it matters."

"Because we are alike!"

That voice was definitely Sebastian's. Simon tensed, as if getting ready to barge into the room; quick as lightning, Rebecca gripped his arm and shook her head mutely. "We need help," she whispered.

Simon's shoulders tensed. "There's no time-"

"If we go in there alone, we have no chance against Sebastian!" she hissed. "I'll stay here and make sure that nothing happens to Clary. You run and get help."

Simon looked at her dubiously.

"Oh, fine," Rebecca said, exasperated. "You stay, and I'll go."

Without waiting for Simon's reply, Rebecca darted back down the stairs.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

REBECCA

Rebecca's first instinct was to run to the Gard - in fact, she was almost there when she turned abruptly, her feet carrying her down familiar roads to the Lightwood house. She hoped that at least Robert would be there, even if the others weren't. As Inquisitor, he would know what to do. And as her father, he would hear her out... wouldn't he?

She arrived only slightly out of breath, tugged at the gates and sprinted up to the front door. "Robert!" she screamed. "Dad!"

The door opened almost immediately, and Isabelle stood there, covered in a long silk dressing gown. "What in the world-" she started to say. Then her mouth fell open.

But Rebecca paid her no heed. She darted past her sister and into the house, still yelling for her father. He came, barely ten seconds later, also in a dressing gown, his dark hair sleep mussed. He looked astonished to see his daughter standing there in the entrance of Lightwood manor, dressed in scarlet gear, shouting something about Sebastian.

But Robert had not been made Inquisitor for nothing. In less than two minutes, he had gleaned the whole story from Rebecca, and had roused half a dozen guards to go to Amatis's house, and half a dozen more to meet them at Lightwood manor.

Rebecca waited alone in the drawing room for the guards to arrive, her fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the polished wooden table. It had been only five minutes since Robert had informed them, but it felt like an eternity.

The door to the drawing room opened, and Robert walked in, flanked by six guards. He inclined his head in Rebecca's direction, and the guards immediately strode over to her. One of them, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a buzz cut, grabbed her by the elbow.

"Hey!" Rebecca tried to shake herself free, but the guard held on to her with a grip like iron. She turned desperately to Robert. "Dad, what's going on?"

But Robert paid no attention to her. "Take her to the Gard," he said to the soldier holding Rebecca. He nodded stoically.

Emotions raged around in Rebecca like a storm - confusion, anger, hurt. In one swift motion, she twisted away from the guard, snapped up his sword and held it at his throat. But the others closed in swiftly, grabbing her arms, her shoulders, and snapping cuffs on her wrists.

Rebecca struggled desperately. "Dad, why are you doing this? You need to get Sebastian-"

Her voice cut off as abruptly and quickly as if someone had stolen her vocal cords. Rebecca choked, trying to say something, anything, and then she spotted the rune that one of the soldiers had marked her with - a rune of Quietude.

Robert met her eyes briefly, and though his face was expressionless, his eyes were filled with a deep sorrow. He quickly looked away as the guards marched his daughter out of Lightwood manor and up to the guard.

JACE

"I must say," Jace said, leaning against the bars, "that it has been quite dull without you around."

Rebecca looked up with a smile, which was in stark contrast to her surroundings. The prison at the Gard wasn't exactly sunny and cheerful. He could barely make out her face in the gloom.

"Hi, Jace," she chirped. They could have been greeting each other at the park. "The Inquisitor told you, then?" With some difficulty, she got to her feet and moved closer to the bars. Jace could hear the rhythmic screech screech of her metal chains on the stone floor.

The Inquisitor, she called him. Not 'Dad'.

"I see you've got a new accessory." Jace nodded at the chains around Rebecca's feet. "Looks good on you."

"Hm." Rebecca's lip curled. "You're pissed at me."

Jace simply shrugged.

"I don't blame you. You have every right. But please, please ­– wait until the trial-"

"Trial?" Jace said, before he could stop himself. "What trial?"

"The Clave has decided to hold a trial to 'determine my fate'," she said, making air quotes with her fingers. "Apparently, the guards didn't find Sebastian when they went to look for him at Amatis Herondale's house, and that doesn't bode well for me."

"That's unfortunate." Jace tutted sympathetically. "If only you hadn't sided with a homicidal lunatic."

A flash of hurt crossed Rebecca's face. "You don't know the whole story."

"I don't think I need to."

"Yes, you do," Rebecca said impatiently. "I swear, there is an explanation for it all-"

"Ooh, I would really love to hear the explanation behind why you stabbed me. That was a real brother-sister bonding experience."

Rebecca sighed and shook her head. Jace felt a savage sense of triumph laced with guilt. He didn't know how to feel towards Rebecca anymore. They had been close before, as close as siblings, but Jace couldn't help but feel a certain sense of anger towards her. It had been determined that she wasn't an Endarkened, so why on earth had she decided to side with Sebastian? Was she even on his side? Had she been pulling some kind of double-agent stunt the whole time? All these questions and more whirled around inside Jace's head, but he kept his face impassive.

"I knew you would be safe," Rebecca said quietly, her gaze on the floor, her hands gripping the bars of her cell. "I knew about the heavenly fire. Magnus told me." Then she looked up. "Where is he?"

Jace crossed his arms. "What do you want Magnus for?"

"I need him as my defendant."

Jace frowned. "But he's a Downworlder. The law doesn't-"

"Specifically exclude Downworlders," Rebecca continued smoothly. "They probably figured a Shadowhunter would never dream of going to a Downworlder for help. Magnus is my defendant. And until I see him, I don't talk."

Frustrated, Jace pulled out his witchlight. "Looks like you're going to be waiting a long time. He's at a dinner meeting right now."

He could almost see Rebecca's ears perk up at that bit of information. "Dinner meeting? With whom?"

"Meliorn," Jace said slowly, taken aback by her eagerness. "It's a meeting of Council representatives."

"Meliorn," Rebecca repeated, her brows furrowed. Her fingers tapped the bars impatiently. "But why would he-" Her expression cleared. "By the Angel," she whispered. She grabbed Jace's wrist through the bars. "Jace, listen to me. You can't trust Meliorn. He's going to do something to-"

"Give me one good reason why I should trust you," Jace interrupted.

"Because their lives are in danger!" Her grip on his wrist tightened. "Sebastian wanted to take hold of the Citadel – I know he did, and he's pissed that he couldn't. So he's going to come after those we care about."

"What does this have to do with Meliorn?"

"The faeries are working with Sebastian!" Rebecca's voice was close to a panicked shout.

"But we asked them if they were, and they said they stood with us-"

"Yeah, and who did we ask? Meliorn!" When Jace's expression remained blank, Rebecca sighed impatiently. "Meliorn's half-human. He can lie."

Jace wrenched his wrist out of his sister's grasp. "Why do you even care?"

Rebecca closed her eyes, as if praying for patience. "Look, I understand that you feel you can't trust me right now. But I'm trying to help-"

"Yeah? Well, yesterday, your idea of help was to stab me in the shoulder. You nearly killed me, and you nearly killed Brother Zachariah."

Rebecca sighed. "I'm sorry. But I didn't know how else to summon the Iron Sisters! You were being slaughtered out there."

Jace gripped the bars so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Some sort of painful internal struggle was going on within him. He badly wanted to believe her, wanted to trust her, but every time he let his guard down, he was reminded of all the reports of the attacks they had received from Institutes - reports of people dying, of Shadowhunters being turned, of families being torn apart.

And she had been there through it all. She had watched it happen, and hadn't raised a finger to stop Sebastian.

"Jace..." she made to take his hand, but as soon as her fingers brushed his wrist, she leaped back as though she'd been burned.

"What is it?" Jace said.

"It burns." Rebecca was clutching her hand, wincing. "Must be the heavenly fire." She looked up, and Jace could see alarm reflected in her eyes. "Your hair is literally glowing."

Jace leaned against the bars and willed his breathing to slow down, his heartbeat to revert to a steady drum. "I don't understand," he said. "Why would it burn you?"

"Because she's demon-blooded." Jia Penhallow stepped out of the shadows. Around five or six Shadowhunters stood behind her, wearing gear and carrying weapons. Jia herself was dressed in black, with an elaborate cape that gathered itself obediently around her feet.

"Demon-blooded?" Jace demanded, stepping away from the bars. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rebecca smiled serenely. "Hello, Consul Penhallow."

"It means she's got demon blood in her, Jace Herondale." Jia strode to the bars of the cell and peered in. "She's just like Jonathan Morgenstern."

A cold pressure, like water solidifying to ice, was seeping through Jace's heart. He whipped around to look at Rebecca, his eyes mutely asking a question.

"It's true." Rebecca kept her gaze on the Consul, refusing to meet his eyes. "After the battle, I was... badly injured. I almost died. Sebastian injected some of his own blood into me to help me heal."

Jace's throat closed up. How is that possible? Were you really going to die? Does that mean you're really on his side after all? He couldn't decide what to ask first. But he needn't have bothered, because apparently, Jia had other plans for Rebecca.

"Guards, get her out." Jia stepped back.

The five guards approached the cell. One of them unlocked the door, and the other four immediately formed a tight-knit circle around Rebecca, weapons held at the ready. Their faces were tense. They were afraid of her, Jace realized. The thought was so bizarre he almost laughed out loud. Four trained Shadowhunters, afraid of his sister?

As they marched her out of the cell, Jace was finally able to get a good look at her. She looked about the same as she always had – brown hair, and a tall, slim frame. But as Jace met her eyes, a shiver ran down his back. They were black – black as obsidian, just like Sebastian's. 

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

REBECCA

Rebecca had been fully prepared to face an amphitheatre full of angry Council members, so when Jia led her into a much smaller, sparsely furnished room, she could not conceal her surprise.

The guards ushered her into one of the two wooden chairs, while Jia occupied the other. Once seated, she waved her hand at the guards, who instantly departed. The door clanged shut behind them, making the gloom complete.

Rebecca glanced at the door.

"Don't even think about it." Jia lifted an eyebrow. "There are ten guards stationed outside in that corridor."

Rebecca sighed; she was all out of witty comebacks at this point. The dingy room was uncomfortably hot, and she felt slightly nauseous. "Why have you brought me here?"

Jia shifted forward slightly. "I'm sure you're aware that the severity of your crimes warrants the death sentence."

"I'm aware."

"But you're also a valuable hoard of information."

Rebecca inclined her head, mockingly. "No wonder they made you Consul."

Jia ignored the jibe. "You have two choices, Rebecca. Either you cooperate, plead not guilty, and maybe, just maybe, you'll avoid the death sentence."

Rebecca remained expressionless.

"Or... you refuse to cooperate. And I have to warn you, we have ways of making you talk."

Rebecca simply smiled. "If you're talking about the Agony rune, Consul... you're going to have to come up with something better than that." She didn't know where all of this confidence was coming from, but she was going to make use of it while she had it.

"You think you can withstand the Agony rune?" Jia said.

"I can withstand a lot more than you think." Rebecca leaned forward. "But here comes the really unbelievable part – I'm on your side."

"Really? Mind telling me exactly why I'd believe you?"

Rebecca could tell that Jia was trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Because the faeries are working with Sebastian Morgenstern. Meliorn is a half-human, half-faerie. He can lie. And whoever you've sent to the Downworld meeting... well, they're Sebastian's hostages by now."

"Why would Sebastian kidnap a couple of Downworlders?"

"For two reasons: one, they're pretty good leverage. If I heard right, he's got Magnus, Raphael, Luke and Jocelyn. He's got leverage over Alec, who'd do anything to save Magnus; Clary, who'd do anything to save her mother and Luke; and Jace, who'd do anything for Alec and Clary."

"And the second reason?"

"Well, he's just pissed that he couldn't take over the Adamant Citadel."

Jia raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"I know you've got no reason to believe me, or to trust me. But if you want to stop Sebastian, you've got no other choice. I'm the only one who knows him. I can tell you how to kill him."

Rebecca could almost see the gears turning in Jia's head. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me all of this information simply out of the goodness of your heart."

Rebecca pursed her lips. "All I want is a fair trial, Consul. For people to understand why I chose to stay." She paused for a moment, and then continued, "I had my freedom. I could've chosen to leave at any time I wanted."

"But you didn't."

Rebecca strained against the cuffs binding her wrists, almost unconsciously. She felt them cut into her skin, felt blood slowly seep from the wound. "I didn't, because...in reality, I couldn't."

"Why not? You just said that he gave you your freedom."

"He did. But he found another way to imprison me, to make me obey."

"His blood."

Rebecca nodded. "We are bound by blood. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't go against his wishes. I could not do anything he did not want me to do." She fixed Jia with an unswerving gaze. "Forgive me for being frank, Consul, but you have not experienced the horrors of demon blood. It will warp you, twist your mind beyond anything you could ever imagine." She became aware that her hands, tightly bound as they were, were trembling. Her heartbeat was erratic. She could remember everything as though it was only yesterday... and yet, so much had happened since then.

"I almost lost myself to it. I forgot everything – who I was, what I stood for." She looked down. "It was only the memory of my family that saved me. But Jonathan, or Sebastian, or whatever – he has no family to speak of! That's why he clings so desperately to me, to Clary and Jace, because deep down, some untainted part of him is very, very lonely. He wants nothing more than to love and be loved." Rebecca looked up. "I tried to bring out that untainted part of him. But I was unsuccessful."

Abruptly, the Consul stood up. "Your trial will be held tomorrow. Tonight, you will remain in the cells of the Gard."

The sun set while Rebecca remained in the dingy room. She'd lost almost all the feeling in her hands, and her wrists were red raw. Eventually, a stoic guard entered and escorted her back to her cell.

As the cell door clanged shut, the guard cast a quick, furtive glance around, before whispering, "Thank you."

Bewildered, Rebecca whirled around. "What? What did you say?"

The guard cast another quick glance around before stepping closer to the bars. "You saved my sister's life. Thank you." Without waiting for a reply, he strode away, and Rebecca was left with nothing but an unpleasant weight in her stomach for company.

JIA

It was with a heavy heart that Jia Penhallow entered the amphitheatre the next morning. None of the Downworld representatives had answered any of the messages they had sent last night. After her conversation with the Lightwood prisoner, Jia had ordered for messages to be sent almost non-stop to Meliorn's house, where the meeting had been held. There had been no response.

At exactly 5:30 am this morning, Clave officer Amanda Ravenscar informed her that all efforts to trace them had yielded no results. Now she was forced to consider the possibility that Rebecca had been right... and that she might be willing to help them. Nevertheless, she had assigned Patrick Ashdown to the task of searching for them.

But when she entered the amphitheatre, all of her worries vanished, to be replaced by horror. The sight that met her eyes was one that would haunt her dreams for many years to come.

In the center of the amphitheatre, were the four carved wooden seats of the Downworld representatives, set around the lecterns in a half circle. They were empty, and splashed across the floorboards in front of them was a single word, scrawled in a crooked hand, in what looked like sticky gold paint: Veni.

I have come.

Jia could feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Somehow, she knew, even from this distance, that pure angel blood, ichor, had been used to trace that single word.

REBECCA

The trial was a complete disaster. Almost immediately, Jia was forced to suspend her questioning as Shadowhunters from all around the room – and indeed, from all around the world – hurled questions at Rebecca. Within a few minutes, it had turned into a full-blown argument.

"What is the meaning of this?" Kadir, a heavyset man with a booming voice gestured to the ichor splattered across the seats of the Downworld representatives.

"I don't know," Rebecca said through gritted teeth. The Mortal Sword lay heavy and cool under her fingers. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't pry her fingers away from it. It was as though the Sword had hooked itself, not only onto her fingers, but deep into her soul, drawing out the truth.

She cast a quick glance at Alec, who was standing stony-faced, his hands perfectly still at his sides. He must be out of his mind with worry, Rebecca thought. With Magnus missing, a part of Alec had to be missing too.

"This is vengeance," said a thin, dark-haired Shadowhunter whom Rebecca recognized as the head of the Budapest Institute. Lazlo Balogh, she thought his name was. "Vengeance for our victories in London and at the Citadel."

"They were hardly victories," Rebecca said shortly. "London was saved because I managed to get a message to them and warn them about the attack. They had enough time to put up wards before-"

A sudden murmur ran around the room.

"You warned the London Institute?" Jia said sharply.

"Yes." Rebecca's voice sounded weary to her own ears. "I don't know why that would surprise you, since I'm telling you, I'm on your side."

Taking advantage of the silence that followed, she quickly continued, "Look, I stayed with Sebastian because I... I didn't have a choice. He compelled me to." A collective shudder ran around the room, but Rebecca ignored it. "And for a while, I believed that I could save him. Stop him from killing more. Turning more." She twisted around to look at everyone else in the hall. "None of you have any idea what demon blood can do to you – how it can twist you and warp you into something you won't even recognize. But I do, because his blood flows in my veins. And with that, comes all of the speed, strength and ruthlessness he has."

Everyone was dead silent, all eyes fixed on Rebecca.

"And right now, I'm willing to help you kill him. Because I'm the only one who knows how. And any more time wasted on this trial means more time for him to Turn more Shadowhunters to his cause!" She turned back to face Jia, stubbornly ignoring her father, the Inquisitor, who stood to her left. "I've told you everything I know. It's up to you to-"

Her words were cut short as a man suddenly stepped forward from behind Jia and seized her from the back of her robes. A shout ran through the assembly as he yanked her back, placing the blade of a long, silver dagger against her throat.

"Nephilim!" he roared, and his hood fell away, showing the blank eyes and swirling, unfamiliar Marks of the Endarkened. A roar began to rise from the crowd, cut off quickly as the guard dug his blade further into Jia's throat. Blood bloomed around it, visible even from a distance.

Rebecca recognized him almost immediately – Matthias Gonzales, head of the Buenos Aires Institute – or he had been. Now he was loyal lapdog to Sebastian.

"Hear me, Shadowhunters!" Matthias cried, his eyes burning with a fanatic light. "Hear me, for I was one of you. Blindly following the rule of the Clave, convinced of my safety within the wards of Idris, protected by the light of the Angel! But there is no safety here." He jerked his chin to the side, indicating the scrawl on the floor. "None are safe, not even Heaven's messengers. That is the reach of the power of the Infernal Cup, and of he who holds it."

"Stand down, Matthias!" Rebecca could hear the trembling in her own voice, but she was hoping nobody else did. "Drop the blade and move away from-"

"Keep your mouth shut, you traitor!" Matthias roared, and for a second, he lifted the blade from Jia's throat to point it at Rebecca instead, but then it was back there again. "I heard everything you said. How you betrayed the love of our master."

A lump rose in Rebecca's throat, and she suddenly found she could not speak. Looking down, she realized that the Mortal Sword had stopped glowing – she was free of its binding.

Robert Lightwood pushed forward, his face anxious as he looked at Jia, and the blade at her throat. "What does he want?" he demanded. "Valentine's son. What does he want from us?"

"Oh, he wants many things," said the Endarkened. "But for now, he will content himself with the gift of three – his sister, his adoptive brother, and his former lieutenant. Give him Clary Morgenstern, Jace Herondale and" – his face visibly wrinkled in disgust – "Rebecca Lightwood, and he will spare you all."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

REBECCA

Rebecca stepped away from the Mortal Sword, clenching her hands in an effort to stop them from shaking. Robert's eyes lingered on her for a second, but then he turned and said – "We are Nephilim. We do not trade away our own. He knows that."

"We of the Infernal Cup have in our possession five of your allies," was the reply. "Meliorn of the Fair Folk, Raphael Santiago of the Night's Children, Luke Garroway of the Moon's Children, Jocelyn Morgenstern of the Nephilim, and Magnus Bane of the Children of Lilith. If you do not give us what we ask for, they will be put to the deaths of iron and silver, of fire and rowan. And when your Downworld allies learn that you have sacrificed their representatives because you would not give up your own, they will turn on you. They will join with us, and you will find yourselves fighting not just he who holds the Infernal Cup, but all of Downworld."

Rebecca's heart sank. She had suspected it all along, but until now, it had been nothing but a hunch. To hear it, to be sure of it, was something else altogether.

"You are a fool," snapped Kadir, his eyes angry as he regarded Matthias. "No Downworlders will hold us accountable for not sacrificing two of our children to Jonathan Morgenstern's pyre of corpses. As for the Lightwood girl-"

"No one is going anywhere." Robert's voice was hard as steel.

"Oh, but he will not kill them," said Matthias with vicious glee. "You have his word on the Angel that no harm will come to them. They are his family, and he desires them by his side. So there is no sacrifice."

A hush settled over the room. Nobody seemed to know what to do.

And although Rebecca felt unsteady on her feet, she stepped forward. "I am willing to go," she said to the silent spectators. "Take me, Matthias, but leave Clary and Jace out of it."

Matthias's laugh was cruel. "The fabled Lightwood. Do you honestly believe that he will forgive you after all you've done?"

She replied without hesitation. "I know he will."

"This is stupid!" A voice rang around the room. Alec. He was gazing at her with a sort of fury, and for a second, Rebecca thought it was directed at her, until he said – "Rebecca, please. Don't go."

Rebecca refused to meet his eyes. "I have to." Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Matthias. "Well, what are you waiting for?" She held out her hands, wrists together, palms up.

Matthias regarded her balefully. Then, swiftly, he stepped down from the dais, dragging Jia along with him, his blade still on her throat. "If you try anything funny..."

Rebecca simply gazed back at him, her face expressionless.

Matthias and Jia were five feet away from her when she moved, sweeping Matthias' legs out from under him so that he immediately lost balance. Quick as a flash, she seized Jia by her robes and shoved her to the side. By this time, Matthias was on his feet, his blade back in his hand. He lunged for Rebecca – once, twice, thrice – but each time she dodged, and when he came in a fourth time, she grabbed hold of his blade arm, and rammed her elbow into his solar plexus. As Matthias gasped with the shock, she seized the blade from his hand, and, without hesitation, stabbed him in the chest.

Gasping, Matthias looked down, registering the blade sticking out of his chest.

"You should have known this was coming, Matthias," Rebecca said, so that only he could hear. She pushed the blade in deeper, and he groped wildly, trying to bring his hands to her throat, but the life left him before then.

Rebecca wiped her bloodied hands on her robes and then looked up to find everyone in the room staring at her open-mouthed. "What?" she said.

In response, Jia ordered the Clave guards to take her back to the dingy room with the two chairs. By this point, she felt like nothing more than a showpiece, shunted back and forth as Jia pleased. The blood on her clothes was rapidly drying, hardening to a sticky crust that would be almost impossible to remove. She paced around the tiny room with her hands shoved deep into her pockets, trying to stop them from trembling.

Her chest seemed suddenly too small to hold her lungs. Every breath took effort. She knew what this was - an overwhelming urge to cry, but she hadn't been able to shed tears since the day she almost died. No matter how upset she was, or how much she wanted to cry, she couldn't. Most likely a side effect of the demon blood. So her feelings found an outlet in her trembling hands, the lump in her throat, the constant unease in her stomach.

The sound of a key turning in a lock broke her train of thought. Jia again, she thought wearily, sinking against the wall, watching the heavy wooden door slowly swing open.

But it wasn't Jia. Alec, Izzy and Jace entered the room, closely followed by Clary. And hovering behind them all, looking as though he wasn't quite sure how he'd got there, was Simon.

Rebecca unhitched herself from the wall. "What are you all doing here?"

"Rescuing you, of course." Jace gave her a lopsided smile.

"Right. And I suppose the guards outside the door are just-"

"Oh, I told them to leave." A pretty girl with long black hair poked her head around the door. Aline Penhallow. "I even forged an official order."

"Thanks, but..." She could barely get words out of her mouth. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you're our sister, stupid." Izzy raised an eyebrow. "Any more dumb questions?"

Alec laid a hand on Izzy's shoulder to stop her from saying more. "Becca... I overheard Dad and the Consul talking. The Council has decided your sentence."

Rebecca waited for him to continue, but when he didn't, she said, "Well, what is it?"

Alec fiddled with a hole in his sweater. "Death. Tomorrow at noon."

The words should have meant something to Rebecca – after all, he'd just told her that she had been handed a death sentence, but to her surprise... she felt nothing. In all honesty, she hadn't been expecting anything less, and if she tried to wrap her head around it, she would lose her mind.

"Well, we better get out of here, then," she said, raising her eyebrows and meeting everyone's gazes.

"I'll check if the coast is clear." Aline disappeared with a swish of her long black hair.

"Right." Rebecca turned around to the others. "What else did you hear, Alec? Do they have any idea how to stop Sebastian?"

Alec's mouth tightened into a thin line. "No. They don't know what to do, especially with the offer Sebastian has given them."

Rebecca nodded. "Sebastian's not going to fight you head on. He's going to try to divide us first. That's why he kidnapped the Downworld representatives, and Jocelyn." She glanced at Simon. "Simon, do you think the Downworld's going to side with us after the disappearance of their representatives?"

Simon looked startled at being addressed in such an official manner. His hand unconsciously went to the medallion at his throat – it was identical to the one she had seen Sebastian holding at the apartment.

"I think," he said with reluctance, "that though there are some Downworlders who would be reasonable, the vampires wouldn't. They already believe Nephilim set a light price on their lives. Warlocks..." He shook his head. "I don't really understand warlocks. Or faeries."

"We can't trust the faeries. I know for a fact that they're helping Sebastian. And it's no good believing Meliorn – he's half-human, he can lie."

"We could go into hiding," Isabelle said immediately. "Disappear to a place where Sebastian will never find us; the Clave can report back to him that the three of you fled despite all attempts to keep us. He can't blame the Clave for that."

Rebecca shook her head impatiently. "Doesn't matter. He'll destroy the whole Clave getting to us, and anyway... if he managed to get to Clary in her bedroom, where do we hide? He'll find us no matter what."

"What would he want with you, anyway?" Simon said.

She shrugged. "I'm guessing he wants Jace for his heavenly fire. Clary, because she's his only family. And me... well, he either wants to kill me for betraying him, or..."

"Or...?" Simon prompted.

"The point," Clary pressed, "Is that we can't take him down by force. But we can't bend to his will, either."

"So what do we do?" Izzy said impatiently.

"I could go," Rebecca said. All eyes flicked to her instantly. "Send me to him. After all, I'm the only one who has a chance against him."

"I think you're forgetting someone." Jace wiggled his fingers at her.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. But just so you know, I could kick your ass if I wanted to."

"Not a chance."

"While I think you would both be fabulous at kicking each other's asses, we have more important things to worry about," Clary snapped, glaring at Rebecca and Jace in turn.

"Right." Rebecca nodded sheepishly. "I hate to admit it, but Jace is our best chance. Nothing but a blade containing heavenly fire can kill Sebastian now."

Silence fell as everyone digested this information. Alec was the first to break it. "How in the name of the Angel would we get a heavenly blade? It's not like we can summon Raziel again-"

He was interrupted by a light knock on the door.

"That's Aline," Jace said. There was a flash of something in his eyes as he looked at Rebecca - pride, maybe? But it was gone almost immediately. "We'd better go."

They tiptoed out into the corridor. There were two guards standing at the entrance to the room, but to Rebecca's amazement, they acted as if the little troop were part of the wall.

A smile tugged at the corner of Jace's mouth as he looked at her. "You've got a couple of friends down here, even if you don't know it."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

REBECCA

"Clearly, you didn't think this through." Rebecca looked up from the make-up brush she had been fiddling with. She hadn't even realized it, but she had started to pull out bristles from the brush in her absent-mindedness. Quickly, she stashed the brush in a drawer, hoping Isabelle hadn't noticed.

When Isabelle didn't say anything, Rebecca swiveled around on her stool, turning away from the dressing table mirror to look at her sister. "Did it occur to you that this is the first place they'll look? The Lightwood mansion? Not to mention how Robert will react when he finds out there's a fugitive in his house-"

"Robert?" Isabelle interrupted. "Not 'Dad'?"

Rebecca shrugged. "I don't know, Izzy. I don't know anything anymore."

Isabelle didn't reply. She slid off the bed and walked over to the window, gazing at the demon towers that glowed softly in the distance. "The funeral's over." She rested her hands on the windowsill. "At least, the smoke's stopped rising."

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Rebecca realized that she had forgotten all about the funeral in her excitement at escaping. So many Shadowhunters dead. Gone. "How many..." she couldn't finish the question, but Isabelle didn't need her to.

"A hundred. At the least."

Rebecca was expecting to feel something – maybe a heavy lump of guilt, or some remorse, or something. But what she felt was even worse – it was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just a black, empty pit in her stomach, sucking everything towards it like a black hole. Sucking all her humanity. Maybe she was slowly becoming like Sebastian – a monster without a shred of humanity. How long would it be before she would be incapable of remorse or love? A few days ago, it was not being able to shed tears. Now, it was not being able to feel human.

A stinging sensation in her palm made her look down. Blood oozed in fat red droplets, dripping onto her already blood-stained clothes. A black hairpin was biting into her palm, already slick with blood. She must have picked it up from the dressing table without even realizing it.

She looked up to see Isabelle staring at her.

"Crap," Rebecca muttered. "I'm sorry." She threw the soiled pin into the dustbin.

Isabelle tutted impatiently. "You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that?" She pulled out a stele from her pocket and stalked over to her sister. "Hold out your hand."

Mutely, Rebecca did as she was told. Isabelle expertly traced on iratze on the back of her hand, and turned it over to inspect the wound as it closed up.

"Your clothes are ruined," she said disapprovingly, sounding remarkably like Maryse. "I'll get you some new ones."

Rebecca couldn't help the small smile that crossed her face.

Isabelle's jeans were rather loose for her at the waist, and the neckline of her t-shirt was alarmingly low. Once upon a time, Rebecca would have refused to wear it, but now, she was relieved to have clean clothes at all. When she slipped out of the bathroom, fully dressed, Clary was in the room saying something to Isabelle, who was standing with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. A young girl was holding Clary's hand. It took Rebecca a moment to recognize her. Emma Carstairs.

"Emma?" Rebecca said in disbelief. "How did you get here?"

"I came in through one of the windows," Emma supplied helpfully. "Like in Peter Pan."

"She said she has some information," Clary said.

"Information? About Sebastian?" Rebecca glanced at Isabelle, and then looked back at Emma, who nodded eagerly. Her whole posture was one of confidence – confidence that she faked, but confidence nonetheless. Her parents had died days ago, and yet, here she was, strong and unbroken. Rebecca felt a sudden surge of admiration for her.

"We'd better let the boys know," Isabelle said. "They need to hear this."

"Clary," Jace said. "Did you kidnap Emma Carstairs?"

Clary gave him one of the trademark exasperated looks that she reserved specially for Jace. "No. She got here on her own."

They had shifted their discussion to the boys' room, and, admittedly, they were not taking Emma's appearance as well as Rebecca had expected them to. "She said she has some information about Sebastian," she said, sitting down on the bed next to Jace. Alec started to protest for the second time, but Isabelle waved him into silence.

"Emma," Jace said with surprising gentleness. "How did you get to the window?"

"I climbed over the rooftops," she said, pointing out the window. "It wasn't that hard. Dormer windows are almost always bedrooms, so I climbed down to the first one, and – I found Clary." She shrugged, as if what she'd done hadn't been either risky or impressive.

When everyone continued to stare at her, she said uncomfortably, "They've noticed that Rebecca is missing. They're sending out search parties right now."

Alec looked down at Emma with the half-fond, half-worried look of a much older brother. "Don't be afraid-" he began.

"I'm not afraid," she snapped. "I came here because you need help."

Jace's mouth quirked up at the corner. "What kind of help?" he asked.

"I recognized that man today," she said. "The one who threatened the Consul. He came with-with her ­to attack the Institute." She jerked her head towards Rebecca, carefully not meeting anybody's eyes. She swallowed and continued. "That place he said we would all burn in..."

"Edom," Rebecca said quietly. Emma nodded.

"Emma, have you told anyone else?"

Emma hesitated, and then shook her head.

"Why not?" said Simon, who had been quiet until that moment. Emma looked at him, blinking; being only twelve, she had probably barely encountered Downworlders up close before. "Why not tell the Clave?"

"Because I don't trust the Clave," said Emma in a small voice. "But I trust you."

Clary swallowed visibly. "Emma..."

"When we got here, the Clave questioned all of us, especially Jules, and they used the Mortal Sword to make sure we weren't lying. It hurts, but they didn't care. They used it on Ty and Livvy. They used it on Dru." Emma sounded outraged. "They would probably have used it on Tavvy if he could talk. And it hurts. The Mortal Sword hurts."

"I know," Rebecca said gently. She really wanted to put her arm around the younger girl, but she refrained, not sure if she would appreciate the gesture or not.

"I also overheard some of the Clave members talking," Emma continued. "They were afraid that Clary and Jace would try to escape too – they know Clary can make Portals. Then they would have no way to bargain with Sebastian."

"Hang on," Alec said suddenly, and he sprang up from his perch on the window and strode out of the room.

Isabelle raised her eyebrows and gave Rebecca a look that seemed to say, What was that about?

But Alec was back almost immediately, carrying a huge, leather-bound book. As he sat down on the lone chair and began rifling through the pages, Jace turned to Emma again. "Did the Clave members you overheard give any sense of when they were going to decide what to do?"

Emma shook her head. "They were still arguing when I left. I crawled out the top floor window. Jules told me not to, because I'd get killed, but I knew I wouldn't. I'm a good climber," she added with a tinge of pride. "And he worries too much."

"Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything else they said?"

Emma shook her head. "They don't know where Sebastian is. They don't know about the Edom thing - I mentioned it when I was holding the Mortal Sword, but I think they just thought it was another word for 'Hell.' They never asked me if I thought it was a real place, so I didn't say."

"Thanks for telling us. It's a help. A huge help. You should go," Jace added, as gently as he could, "before they notice you're gone."

Jace stood up as Emma turned to Clary, who nodded and led her over to the window where Alec had been sitting earlier. Clary bent down and hugged the younger girl before reaching over to unlatch the window. Emma clambered out with the agility of a monkey. She swung herself up until only her dangling boots were visible, and a moment later those were gone too. There was a light scraping overhead as she darted across the roof tiles, and then silence.

"I like her." Alec broke the silence. "She reminds me of Rebecca, when she was little, stubborn and impulsive."

"Two of those things still apply," Jace said.

"I'm so flattered." Rebecca rolled her eyes. Isabelle smirked, and just for that moment, everything felt perfect. There was no Sebastian, no impending mortal doom – just them being a family. But she was soon pulled back to reality.

"Here's what I found out about Edom." Alec tapped the book in front of him. "And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day, it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever." He sighed. "And of course, there's the legends about Lilith and Edom, that she was banished there, that she rules the place with the demon Asmodeus."

It was like a lightbulb had gone off in Rebecca's head. "Oh, god. I'm so stupid."

Everyone looked at her in mild alarm. "Rebecca..." Clary said nervously.

"It's obvious! Lilith protects Sebastian. If there's anywhere he'd go, it's Edom."

"Rebecca."

"I didn't think much of it when they were discussing sacrificing Mark in Edom, but now that Emma said it..."

"Rebecca!"

"What?" She looked around at everyone else. They were looking at her with faces pinched tight with worry. "What is it?"

"Your eyes..." Clary said. "They're..."

Rebecca strode to the mirror. Sure enough, both her eyes were black as night, the whites of her eyes washed black. She sighed and closed her eyes, forcing her breathing to slow down. It happened whenever she got too excited or tense. If she had to guess, she would have said that the demon blood inside her was readying itself, whether to fight or flee.

Once she was taking steady breaths again, she turned around to face the others. "Well, now we know where he is," she said, in a tone that implied that nobody should mention what had just happened. Every time they looked at her, she could see it in their eyes – and it didn't matter that she was their sister. She was still a demon-blooded creature. And every time she was reminded of it, she felt like she was drifting further and further away from herself. Eventually, she would have nothing to hold on to at all.

'None shall pass through it forever and ever' doesn't sound very encouraging," said Jace. "Besides, there's no way to get to the demon realms. Traveling from place to place in this world is one thing-"

"There's a way." Rebecca cleared her throat. "It's an old one, one that even the Nephilim can't close. It lies outside their jurisdiction."

"Well, where is it?" Isabelle, ever the sweet and patient one, demanded.

"It's in the Seelie Court," she replied. "And it's guarded by the Fair Folk. No human has set foot on that pathway in more than a hundred years."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

REBECCA

Jace was prowling the room like a cat. The rest of them watched him, Simon with one eyebrow cocked.

"There's no other way to get there?" Jace asked. "We can't try to Portal?"

"We're not demons. We can Portal only within a dimension," said Alec.

"I know that, but if Clary experimented with the Portal runes-"

"I won't do it," Clary interrupted, putting her hand protectively over her pocket. "I won't put you all in danger. I Portaled myself and Luke to Idris and nearly got us killed. I'm not risking it."

"I've got an idea," Rebecca said. "Clary, you can make a Portal to the Seelie Court, right?"

"Yes," she said. "That I could do - I've been there; I remember it. But would we be safe? We haven't been invited, and the Fair Folk don't like incursions into their territory-"

"There's no 'we' here," Rebecca said firmly. "I'm going alone."

Alec sprang to his feet and said loudly, "I knew it, I bloody knew it, and absolutely not. Not a chance."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Since when do you say 'bloody'?"

"Since the situation bloody warrants it." He crossed his arms over his chest.

She sighed. "Guys, I have to do this alone. I started this whole mess, and I have to fix it."

"Sebastian started this mess," Isabelle pointed out.

"And exactly how do you plan to take him down yourself?" Jace's voice was steady, but Rebecca could see the tension in his shoulders when he spoke.

"Because the Queen knows me," she said, crossing her arms too. "I've visited her more times than I'd want to admit, and she still thinks I'm on Sebastian's side. If we all show up-"

"She'll know you're on our side." Clary exhaled slowly.

"Exactly. She'd probably try to kill us. Even if we do get past her, she'll definitely warn Sebastian."

Everyone was silent; Rebecca knew she had hit them with a good argument. "Besides, I-I can't stand putting you guys in danger. Not again."

"That's not your choice to make," Isabelle said firmly.

"By the way," Jace said dryly, "How exactly did you plan on killing him without me?"

"I don't need you-" Rebecca began hotly.

"You said that heavenly fire was the only thing that could kill him."

She gritted her teeth. She knew when she was beaten. "Okay, fine. But the others-"

"Becca, you are NOT doing this on your own," Alec cut in firmly.

"Is it because you don't trust me?" She didn't mean to yell, but she did.

Alec looked stunned at her outburst; he opened his mouth to respond, but she didn't let him.

"I'M STILL A TRAITOR TO YOU, AREN'T I?" She wasn't even yelling anymore, she was screaming. She could feel the demon blood flowing through her, fueling the rage.

Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone. All the rage left her, and she was nothing but a puppet whose strings had just been cut. Everyone's eyes were on her, and she could see bewilderment in their faces, and more than a tinge of fear.

"Sorry, I-" The words caught in her throat. "I'm sorry." She left the room before anyone could say anything.

But she didn't know where to go. Back at the New York Institute, she would always go to the roof to cool off after an argument with Jace or Isabelle. Here, in the unfamiliar Lightwood manor in Alicante, she found herself walking around aimlessly - looking for what, she wasn't quite sure.

Finally, she found what must have been the drawing room. It looked as if it hadn't been used in a very long time - the plush armchairs were all covered in a fine film of dust, and the curtains were drawn, dousing the room in a dreary gray light.

Rebecca walked absent-mindedly over to the ottoman and placed a hand down on it, watching the dust rise into the air and hang there, falling slowly, gently. A mere two weeks ago, she wouldn't have been able to enter the room without collapsing into a fit of sneezes - but now, the dust didn't bother her at all. It was an odd feeling to actually miss an ailment like that, but she knew why she did. It was just one more thing that made her feel less human.

"Fancy, isn't it?"

She whirled around. Jace stood by the door, his shoulder hitched against the dark oak doors.

"I suppose. They even have an ottoman. Aren't those things from the 19th century?"

"Trust some posh, pretentious family to keep one in their drawing room." Jace strode in and closely inspected an armchair before apparently deciding that it was good enough to sit in. A puff of dust rose as he plopped into it. "We're leaving in fifteen minutes, by the way. Everyone's getting ready."

"Okay." Rebecca looked up and met his cool, sharp gaze. Could she tell him what had been weighing on her mind ever since she had set out to kill Sebastian? Could she tell him of the risk to her own life?

I'm going to die either way, she reminded herself, and straightened. "I suppose I'd better get ready too, then." She walked out of the room, leaving Jace still sitting in the armchair, looking lost in thought.

"Where are we?" Isabelle frowned, picking pieces of moss out of her hair.

"I aimed for just outside the Throne Room," Clary replied, getting to her feet. Behind her, the shimmery mistiness of the Portal vanished, leaving them in darkness.

"It looks different." Simon's voice penetrated the gloom.

"It always looks different," Rebecca replied, brushing moss away from her face. "Come on, I know the way."

The six of them moved down the corridor, their feet making no noise, thanks to the Soundless runes they had all applied before going through the Portal. It was just as Rebecca remembered it, except for the curtain covering the archway that loomed up in front of them - it changed every time she visited. The last time, the curtain had been made out of dead leaves. Now, it was thorns, woven together so that they formed a dangling sheet.

She could hear voices from beyond the curtain – even some laughter. Her grip on her sword tightened. Carefully, she lifted the thorn curtain slightly, hoping to see what was going on beyond it. The others crowded around her, necks straining. Someone stepped on her foot, and she fought back an involuntary gasp of pain.

The Queen was impossible to miss. Wearing a silvery dress, she reclined on her divan, as her red hair, artfully woven with roses, fell across one shoulder. The floor was covered in snow, and long icicles hung from the ceiling, each one bound around with ropes of gold-and-silver thorns. Bunches of white roses were piled around the room. Rebecca had to blink; the effect was quite blinding.

Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized the Queen was talking to a heavily armored faerie knight. His armor was dark brown, the color of the trunk of a tree; one of his eyes was black, the other pale blue, almost white. For a moment she thought he had the head of a deer tucked under his big arm, but as she looked closer, she realized that it was a helmet, decorated with antlers.

A shiver ran through her as she recognized the knight. It was Gwyn, the leader of the Wild Hunt. Rebecca had seen him only once before, when she and Sebastian had visited the Seelie Queen. The memory of his unnerving gaze, the way he exuded power as ancient as time itself... it was not pleasant to be in his company.

"And how goes it with the Wild Hunt, Gwyn?" the Queen was asking. "The Gatherers of the Dead? I assume there were rich pickings for you at the Adamant Citadel the other night. I hear that the howls of the Nephilim tore the sky as they died."

"So I have heard, my lady," Gwyn said. His voice was rich and deep, like the kind of voice a tree would have, if it could speak. "But we were not at the Adamant Citadel. The war games of Nephilim and Dark Ones are too rich for our blood. The Fair Folk mix poorly with demons and angels."

"You disappoint me, Gwyn." The Queen's delicate features twisted themselves into a childish pout. "I had hoped for your advice."

"Forgive me, lady," Gwyn said. "I cannot advise you."

"But I gave you such a gift." The Queen sulked. "The Blackthorn boy. Shadowhunter and faerie blood together; it is rare. He will ride at your back, and demons will fear you. A gift from myself."

Rebecca's heart felt like it had been twisted into a pretzel. She stepped back quickly and heard gasps behind her as she trod on quite a few toes.

"What's wrong?" Alec whispered.

But Rebecca barely heard his question. She had already raised her sword, and before anyone could stop her, she strode through the curtain. The rest of them exchanged the briefest of exasperated glances before following her.

Rebecca had never seen the Queen look as flustered as she did now. She pulled herself upright with a hiss, the roses in her hair coming loose and falling to the floor. Gwyn's hand jumped to the sword at his side.

"How dare you enter the Court unbidden?" the Queen demanded. "This is the highest of crimes, a breaking of Covenant Law-"

"How dare you speak of breaking Covenant Law!" Jace shouted. "You, who have murdered, and lied, and taken Downworlders of the Council prisoner. You have allied yourself with evil forces, and you will pay for it."

The Queen smiled, her composure regained. "Jace Herondale, with the company you keep, I doubt you have the authority to lecture me on breaking Covenant Law."

Jace must have realized she was talking about Rebecca, because he turned to face her, his eyebrows arched.

"Rebecca Lightwood," the Queen said silkily. "Seems like you've had a change of heart."

Rebecca said nothing.

"I warned him, you know," the Queen continued, picking a rose out of her hair. "Humans are unpredictable creatures. I warned him you would break his heart. I tried to protect him." A flash of anger crossed her features. "But he was blinded by his obsession with you."

"Aw, that's too bad. He didn't listen to you, did he?" Rebecca poured mock sympathy into her voice. "Did you want him all to yourself? I don't blame you, really. He's so handsome. And a really good kisser. I didn't know that, did you?" She felt a savage sort of pleasure as the Queen's mouth puckered at her words.

"You do realize that if we kill you here and now, before you can return to the Clave to tell your tales, none need ever know-"

"I'd like to see you try, you cow," Rebecca spat.

The Queen regarded them expressionlessly. "I'll be sure to convey the tragic news of your death to Sebastian," was all she said before a dozen faerie knights poured out of the tunnel, Meliorn among them. As they advanced on the little group of Shadowhunters, Gwyn slipped away quietly.

The fight barely lasted for ten minutes. There were at least fifteen faerie warriors, but they were no match for the Shadowhunters, and in no time at all, they were on the ground, most of them injured or dead.

Alec had an arrow aimed straight at Meliorn's head as he clutched his leg, which was bleeding profusely. "Tell us how to get Magnus - how to get the prisoners back," he said. "Do it, or I'll turn you into a pincushion."

Meliorn spat. His white armor seemed to blend into the snow around him. "I will tell you nothing," he said. "Torture me, kill me, I shall not betray my Queen."

"He's useless," Rebecca said, watching his blood stain the snow around him. "He can lie, remember?"

Alec's face shut. "True," he said. Without another word, he let the arrow fly. It sank into Meliorn's chest, and the faerie knight fell back, the force of the arrow sending his body skidding back across the snow. His head hit the cave wall with a wet smack.

"There's more of them coming," Isabelle said, jerking her head towards the archway. Clary grabbed her stele and raced towards it. "I've got it!" she yelled over her shoulder.

Rebecca didn't wait to see what she would do. Gripping her sword, which was slick with faerie blood, she made for the Queen, who was still standing next to her divan, her face twisted in horror. She vaulted over the divan and grabbed the Queen's arm, pressing her sword against the tip of her throat. "Right. Now, give us what we want, or the next dead body will be yours."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

REBECCA

Rebecca should have known that with the Fair Folk, things never came so easily. The Queen, still with Rebecca's sword against her throat, led them down an endlessly long corridor, ignoring the muffled curses and gasps of pain from the others as they stumbled over rocks that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and twisted out of creepers that attempted to wrap around their legs.

"How much longer?" Rebecca said finally.

"Not long," the Queen said serenely.

Rebecca rolled her eyes as Simon came up behind her and tugged at her elbow. "I really, really hate to say this," he whispered, "but that kind of seemed too easy."

"Maybe she's letting us go because she thinks we'll die there."

"That's comforting," Simon whispered sarcastically, falling back into step with Clary.

Rebecca shrugged. "What did you expect? A pep talk?"

As the darkness became more and more complete, her thoughts wandered to Sebastian. What was he doing now? Did he already know that she had turned against him? Probably not, but the Queen would warn him soon enough.

But if it came down to killing him, would she really be able to do it? Could she kill someone she loved? Did she even love him at all? These questions swirled around in her head until she became dizzy.

Fortunately, the Queen's voice brought her out of her musings. "Here we are," she said, a tinge of amusement in her voice. "Can you guess the right road?"

They stood in a massive cave, the roof so high it was lost in shadow. The walls glowed with a phosphorescent shine, and three roads branched out in front of them. One was clear and broad and smooth, leading directly ahead. The one on the left shone with green leaves and bright flowers; Rebecca even thought she saw a glimmer of blue sky in the distance. The one on the right was dark and narrow, its shadows so thick they seemed to be almost alive, waiting for them to come into their clutches.

Something clicked in Rebecca's mind. "This is the Three Roads," she said. "That one," she pointed to the one on the left, "leads into the mundane world. That," she pointed to the one on the right, "leads further into Faerie. The one directly ahead of us leads straight to Hell."

"How do you know?" Alec sounded genuinely puzzled.

"Because this is where the Endarkened hid," she replied, turning to the Queen. "They waited here at the crossroads, then took the road leading to the mundane world and made for the Adamant Citadel."

"By the Angel," Clary breathed.

"Did you know this before?" Isabelle said urgently.

"No." Rebecca tore her gaze away from the Queen's unwavering one. "No, I asked Sebastian, but he never trusted me enough to tell me where they were." She glared at her feet. "Let's just go." She poked the Queen with the tip of her sword, and she jumped. Under other circumstances, she would have laughed.

"Just a second." Jace turned to the Queen. "What will stop you from telling Sebastian we've come after him the moment we leave you?"

The Queen's lips thinned. She looked old in that moment, despite the youth and beauty of her face. "You ask a fine question. And even if you kill me, there are those in my Court who will speak to him of you, and he will guess your intentions, for he is clever. You cannot evade his knowing, save you kill all the Fair Folk in my Court."

"Swear," said Jace. "I know what promises mean to your people. I know you cannot lie. Swear you will say nothing of us to Sebastian, nor will you allow anyone in your court to do the same."

"I swear," said the Queen. "I swear that no one in my court by word or deed will tell him that you came here." But there was a smile on her face.

Rebecca dug her sword deeper into the Queen's back. "I know you think you are sending us to our deaths," she said. "But we won't die so easily. And when we win this war, we will make you and your people bleed for what you have done."

"Come, now," said the Queen. "You do not have the stomach for so much killing. You may have the blood of Lilith herself, but your heart is still pure."

Rebecca snorted. "Lady, if my heart was pure, I would not have murdered eight of your faerie knights back there. I'd be happy to kill more." She looked around at the others. "Are we ready?"

The corridor curved far away into the distance, seeming as if it had been hollowed out of the rock around it by fire. As they moved forward in total silence, the pale stone walls around them darkened, stained here and there by streaks of charcoaled blackness, as if the rock itself had burned. The smooth floor began to give way to a rockier one, grit crunching under their boot heels. The phosphorescence in the walls started to dim, and Alec drew his witchlight from his pocket and raised it overhead.

In front of Rebecca, Simon suddenly stopped, and she walked straight into him. She rubbed her nose ruefully as Clary, beside her, whispered, "What is it?"

"Something moving." He jabbed a finger in the direction of the shadows ahead. "Up there."

She peeked around Simon's shoulder, but her eyesight was nothing compared to Simon's vampire vision. She looked around at Isabelle and made a jabbing motion with her fingers towards the source of the disturbance up ahead. Isabelle's eyes widened in understanding, and she turned to Alec and Jace, who nodded.

Silently, Alec held up three fingers and began counting down. Three, two, one.

Quick as a flash, he swung his hand down, dousing the light. Isabelle moved ahead, while Rebecca stayed behind, her grip on her sword so tight that her fingers were beginning to hurt. In the pitch dark, she could hear the sounds of a scuffle: a thump, and then a very human yelp of pain.

"Stop!" Simon called, and light exploded all around them. It was as if a camera flash had gone off. Rebecca had to blink a few times to get her eyes to adjust to the new brightness.

The scene filled in slowly: Jace holding his witchlight, the glow almost blinding in the narrow corridor. Alec, his bow raised and notched. Isabelle, the handle of her whip tight in one hand, the whip itself curled around the ankles of a slight figure hunched against the cave wall - a boy, with pale-blond hair that curled over his slightly pointed ears-

"By the Angel." Rebecca lowered her sword, her heart thumping erratically; she couldn't tell if it was from relief or worry.

Isabelle's whip slithered back into her grasp. Alec's bow fell to his side. The boy lifted his head and scowled.

"Mark?" Jace said in an incredulous tone.

"Are you all right?" Rebecca reached for his hand, but he wrenched it away from her grip, his eyes burning with fury.

"You let him kill my family!" The anguish in his voice was as sharp as a knife. "My brothers and sisters... they're dead, aren't they?"

"No, I - Mark, they're alive-"

"STOP LYING!" He was standing upright now, his fists clenched at his sides. But his eyes were still downcast, his head still bowed. "The faeries told me they were all dead! And they can't lie!"

Clary came to Rebecca's aid. "Your father was Turned. But your brothers and sisters are alive. They're in Idris. They escaped. They're fine."

Instead of looking relieved, Mark went white. "What?"

"Julian, Helen, the others - they're all alive." Clary put her hand on his shoulder; he flinched away. "They're alive, and they're worried about you."

Mark said nothing. He looked down at his feet, his chest heaving.

"Mark, I'm sorry." Rebecca took a step closer to him, wary of what he would do. "I swear, I didn't know what to do, I-"

"Rebecca." Jace's warning tone stopped her in her tracks. She turned to frown at him – surely telling him that his family was alive and well was the most important thing?

"Have you eaten anything, drunk anything since the Fair Folk took you?" Jace asked, moving to peer into Mark's face. Mark jerked away, but not before Rebecca heard Jace's sharp intake of breath.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"His eyes," Jace said, raising his witchlight and shining it into Mark's face. Mark scowled again but allowed Jace to examine him.

He looked almost the same now as he'd done two years ago – the trademark long lashes and high cheekbones, thanks to his faerie blood. But his eyes were different. One was Blackthorn blue, the color of the sea. The other was gold, hazed through with shadows.

A lump settled in Rebecca's throat. "The Wild Hunt," she whispered hoarsely. "You're one of them now."

Jace was scanning the boy with his eyes, as if Mark were a book he could read. "Put your hands out," Jace said finally, and Mark did so. Jace caught them and turned them over, baring the other boy's wrists. His bare forearms were striped with bloody whip marks. Rebecca thought of the way Clary had touched Mark's shoulder and he'd flinched away. The Angel only knew what else they'd done to him. At the thought, her stomach writhed unpleasantly.

"When did this happen?" Clary asked.

Mark pulled his hands away. They were shaking. "Meliorn did it," he said. "When he first took me. He said he'd stop if I ate and drank their food, so I did. I didn't think it mattered, if my family was dead. And I thought faeries couldn't lie."

"Meliorn can," said Alec grimly. "Or at least, he could."

"When did this all happen?" Isabelle demanded. "The faeries only took you less than a week ago-"

Mark shook his head. "I've been with the Folk for a long time," he said. "I couldn't say how long."

"Time runs differently in Faerie," Alec said. "Sometimes faster, sometimes slower."

Mark said, "Gwyn told me I belonged to the Hunt and I couldn't leave them unless they allowed me to go. Is that true?"

"It's true," Jace said.

Mark slumped against the cave wall. He turned his head toward Clary. "You saw them. You saw my brothers and sisters. And Emma?"

"They're all right, all of them, Emma, too," Clary said. "Thanks to Rebecca. She allowed them to escape under Sebastian's nose."

But the words fell on deaf ears. "Helen can't take care of them. Not alone," Mark said a little desperately. "And Jules, he's too young. He can't take care of Ty; he doesn't know the things he needs. He doesn't know how to talk to him-" He took a shuddering breath. "You should let me come with you."

"Yeah, we can take him with us, bring him back home-"

"You know we can't, Bec," Alec said, with a touch of sympathy in his voice. "He's one of the Wild Hunt now. Besides, we can't take him to Hell with us-"

"Are you blind?" Rebecca interrupted harshly. "Have you seen what they've done to him? And the Angel only knows what else they would do-"

"He can't leave!" Jace said harshly. "If he tries, he'll die."

"I'd rather die," Mark said.

"Look, Becca," Jace said gently. "They took him, not because he was faerie blood, but because he has Shadowhunter blood. It's their way of punishing the Nephilim."

Reluctantly, Rebecca turned back to Mark, feeling her heart sink down to her toes. She hated to admit it, but he was right.

"Show them what a Shadowhunter is made of," Jace said to Mark. "Show them you aren't afraid. You can live through this."

In the wavering illumination of the witchlight, Mark looked at Jace. Tears had made their tracks through the dirt on his face, but his eyes were dry. "I don't know what to do," he said. "What do I do?"

"Endure. You can do it. I know you can."

"Jace," Alec said, his bow at his side. "Jace, we need to let him go before the Hunt notices he's missing."

"Wait," Rebecca said. She pulled out her own witchlight and pressed it into Mark's hands. "Take this, and remember my promise, Mark. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far away you are, I will find you. When this is over, I will find you. I swear on the Angel."

For the first time, Mark's eyes met her own, and his hands closed around the witchlight. "I will remember." Then he turned and ran back down the passage on soundless bare feet.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ALEC

Rebecca's eyes were expressionless as they followed Mark down the tunnel. Again, Alec couldn't tell what she was thinking at all. Was she relieved to see him? Or did she blame herself for what had happened to him?

"You gave him your witchlight," Isabelle said. "You've always had that witchlight-"

"Screw the witchlight." Rather than sounding angry or indifferent, Rebecca sounded brittle, like something inside of her was on the verge of breaking. Without warning, she slammed her fist into the side of the cave wall. With a grimace, she withdrew her hand.

"Rebecca," Alec started to say. Then Simon interrupted, startling everyone a little. He'd been oddly quiet throughout their encounter with Mark.

"Guys," he said. "I don't know if you can see it, but there's something-something at the end of the tunnel."

"A light?" Jace said. Alec knew him well enough to detect the undercurrent of sarcasm in his tone, but he was not sure that anybody else noticed it.

"The opposite." Simon moved forward, and the rest of them followed hesitantly in his wake. A few hundred meters ahead, the tunnel curved slightly, and then they all saw what Simon must have seen - darkness. The tunnel ended in a whirling vortex of darkness. Something moved in it, shaping the dark like the wind shaping clouds. None of them said anything at first; they were all frozen to the spot, unable to do anything except watch the darkness shift and move like a living thing.

Almost compelled by the silence, Alec said, "This is the craziest thing we've ever done."

"What if we can't ever come back?" Isabelle said. The ruby around her neck was pulsing, glowing like a stoplight, illuminating her face.

"Then at least we'll be together," Clary said, and looked around at her companions. She reached out and took Jace's hand, and Simon's hand on the other side of her, and held them tight. "We go through together, and on the other side we stay together," she said. "All right?"

Nobody answered, but Isabelle took Simon's other hand, and grabbed Alec's. Alec reached out for Rebecca; her fingers were clammy.

They stepped forward, and the shadows swallowed them up.

THE SEELIE QUEEN

"Mirror, my mirror," said the Queen, placing her hand upon the mirror. "Show me my Morning Star."

The mirror hung on the wall of the Queen's bedroom. It was surrounded by wreaths of flowers: roses from which no one had cut away the thorns.

The mist inside the mirror coalesced, and Sebastian's angular face looked out. "My Queen," he said. His voice was calm and composed, though there was blood on his face and clothes. He was holding his sword, and the stars along the blade were dimmed with scarlet. "I am... somewhat occupied at the moment."

"I thought you might wish to know that your sister and adoptive brother have just left this place." The Queen hesitated. "The Lightwood girl is with them too."

Hope flared in Sebastian's eyes, but he squashed it almost immediately. "So she has betrayed me?"

"Yes, my Morning Star," the Queen said breathily. "It pains me to see you so hurt, but as I recall-"

"I assume," Sebastian interrupted, "that they made you promise not to tell me that they came to your court?"

"They did," said the Queen. "They said nothing about telling you of leaving."

Sebastian laughed.

"They killed one of my knights," said the Queen. "Spilled blood before my throne. They are beyond my reach now. You know my people cannot survive in the poison lands."

"Then I shall take your revenge for you," Sebastian replied; a muscle twitched in his jaw. "And I shall show her what the real price of betrayal is."

REBECCA

Rebecca was sitting in front of a mirror. Isabelle hovered impatiently behind her, a stick of lipstick in her right hand. She eyed it critically. "No, red isn't really your color."

Before Rebecca could say anything, Isabelle grabbed another tube, one that Rebecca recognized as lipgloss. Kneeling down, Isabelle dabbed it onto her sister's lips. "Much better." Looking pleased, she got to her feet. "By the way, the perfume you got me is heavenly. Where did you find it?"

Rebecca opened her mouth to answer – though she didn't know what to say – and was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Guys?" Clary's voice, sounding slightly muffled. "Everyone's waiting."

Rebecca got up, and almost tripped over her feet. And no wonder – she was wearing high heeled slippers. And a dress. It was inky black, sleeveless, and fell right to her knees. Her hair, she realized, shone, falling in soft waves over her shoulder. She was also wearing make-up: eye-shadow and mascara and eyeliner and whatever else they called it.

"Coming!" Isabelle said impatiently. She was adjusting her own dress – a strapless maroon affair that hugged her body. Once she was done, she linked her arm with Rebecca's. "Ready?"

They were in the Lightwood manor in Alicante. Of course, a small voice whispered in the back of Rebecca's head. There's a party tonight, to celebrate yours and Isabelle's twenty-first birthday.

Downstairs in the entrance hall, lit chandeliers cast a soft glow over the whole room. People milled around, clutching drinks in their hands. There was food laid out on the table.

"There they are!"

Alec was making his way towards them, a big grin on his face. He was wearing a black suit, and he looked positively alight with happiness. Magnus trailed behind him, wearing his usual enigmatic smile and a glittery red suit.

"Happy birthday, biscuit." Magnus grinned, gesturing all around. "Is this a party, or is this a party?"

Rebecca couldn't help but grin in return. "It's amazing, Magnus. Thank you."

After that, it was just a blur. Isabelle soon vanished, leaving Rebecca to mingle on her own. People kept coming up to her and wishing her. She had just escaped from a particularly exhausting conversation with Peter Hallowdale, when she felt someone's hands cover her eyes.

"Guess who?" The voice that whispered in her ear was more familiar to her than her own.

"I don't have to." She grinned. "You're late, by the way." Rebecca removed the hands covering her eyes and turned around to face him. Pale blond hair, green eyes – her heart swelled just looking at him.

Jonathan smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I-"

Rebecca didn't let him finish. She pressed her lips to his, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close. "I'm just glad you're here."

His smile grew even wider. "Wait here."

"Where are you going?"

But he was already gone, pushing through the crowd. As she watched, he climbed partway up the staircase leading to the upper floors and raised his hands. "Can I have everyone's attention please?"

It took a few minutes for people to realize that he was speaking. Rebecca was glaring at him, trying to catch his eye so that she could ask him what the hell he was doing, but he was determinedly avoiding her gaze.

"First of all, I'd like to wish a very happy twenty-first birthday to two of the most beautiful ladies in the world – Rebecca and Isabelle Lightwood!"

Everyone clapped. Some even whistled. Rebecca spotted Isabelle standing with her arm linked through Simon's, smiling widely. Maryse stood beside Isabelle, her arm linked through her husband's. Robert was chuckling heartily at something Magnus had said. Beside Magnus was Alec, shoulder to shoulder with Jace, who was standing with his arm around Clary.

Everything was so perfect, and yet... something was missing. The feeling was like a punch to the gut; for a moment, Rebecca felt so lightheaded she thought she might lose her balance. She forced herself to return to the present.

"...something even more special tonight," Jonathan was saying. "Rebecca Lightwood, I love you. I have loved you since the day I set eyes on you."

The crowd 'awwwed' in unison.

"Which is why," Jonathan continued, pulling out a dark red velvet box from his pocket. The crowd gasped collectively. "I have to ask you this."

He got down on one knee, and his eyes found Rebecca in the crowd. "Rebecca Marie Lightwood, will you marry me, Jonathan Cristopher Morgenstern?"

The crowd was silent. Everyone's eyes were on Rebecca, compelling her to say yes – wasn't this what she wanted? Did she not love Jonathan with all her heart? She wanted to say yes. Could life be any more perfect than this moment right here? And yet, something was missing. Or more like someone.

"Erm," Rebecca said. It sounded almost deafening in the silence. Hating the feeling of all those eyes on her, she pushed towards the staircase as fast as her heels would allow, took Jonathan by the hand, and led him up the staircase.

Once they were out of view, Jonathan said, "Are you okay?"

The concern in his expression was enough to make her heart melt like butter. "I'm sorry," she said, feeling her breath hitch in her throat. "I just need-"

"More time?" He kissed her gently. "Then you have it. I'll always be right here, Becca."

"I need to-" Why couldn't she get any words out properly? "I need to see Max."

Jonathan's expression became almost grave. "Of course, I understand."

He started walking down the hallway. Rebecca followed, not sure what he was doing – wouldn't Max be at the party downstairs?

She was just about to ask him what was going on when he opened the door to her room at the end of the hallway and walked through without hesitation.

Rebecca followed, stepping through the door to see him standing at her bedside table, head bent. "Jonathan, what-"

But the words died in Rebecca's throat as he turned around and held out a framed picture - a picture of a young boy with round glasses and curly hair. He was smiling, but not in the way that most kids smile; this was more of a shy smirk, like he knew something that nobody else did.

It was Max, of course.

"What is this?" Rebecca felt cold all over. "Why are you showing me this?"

Jonathan's eyebrows went up. "I thought you wanted to see Max."

"Yes, but-" she groaned in frustration. "Not his picture! I need to see him. In person. Where is he? He should be at the party, right?"

Jonathan looked quite alarmed now. "Rebecca, are you sure you're alright?"

"Of course I am," she said, a little too sharply.

"Then..." he hesitated. "You should know that Max is dead."

Rebecca felt like someone had poured ice into her veins. "What?"

"Yes, he died five years ago," Jonathan said quietly. "Hodge killed him."

"That can't be true."

"Rebecca-"

"No, it can't be true!" She was screaming the words, her hands pressed tight against her ears, as if that would protect her from the horrible, horrible news.

Jonathan tried to pry her hands away from her ears. "Becca-"

"Max isn't dead because Hodge killed him," she said, finally lowering her hands. Her voice was steady despite her erratic heartbeat. "He's dead because you killed him."

Jonathan stumbled back. "Rebecca, what are you- I didn't!"

She felt her knees give and sank to the ground. There were no more happy party goers, no cake, no laughter, only grey, powdery ash and blackened rock. She pressed her palms to her eyes, hoping that would stop the tears that were finally beginning to fall.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

REBECCA

She could feel hands prying her own away from her face. Someone was saying her name urgently, over and over. Alec was leaning over her, gripping her hands tightly. He looked shaken, and his eyes were bright - with anger or grief, she didn't know.

"Max?" he asked.

Rebecca simply nodded, getting to her feet. She had to keep moving to stop herself from drowning in guilt. The vision, or dream, or whatever it had been, had dredged up everything she had ever wanted to forget.

"Where's Izzy?" she said, looking around. The surroundings reminded her of a picture she had seen of the surface of the moon in a mundane school textbook. It was ashy grey, pitted with craters. The smallest was only a few meters wide, the bigger ones reaching up to a few hundred meters across. The sky, too, was a dead grey color. The only thing that emitted any light was the scorched-looking sun.

"I don't know," Alec said worriedly.

They jogged up the rise of the nearest hill, and down the other side. To Rebecca's relief, Isabelle was at the bottom, struggling to her feet. Alec scrambled down the steep side of the hill and caught her in a one-armed hug. "Iz," was all he said.

Rebecca stood there awkwardly. To her surprise, Isabelle then pulled her into her arms for a fierce hug. She had never been one to show physical affection.

Isabelle let out a sound that was somewhere between a sniffle and a sob. When she pulled away, her eyes were bright with unshed tears and anger.

Rebecca jumped as she heard footsteps behind her, but it was only Clary and Simon. They looked shell-shocked.

Isabelle stepped out from behind Rebecca. "You two...?"

"Fine," Simon said. "We... saw things. Weird things." He wouldn't meet Isabelle's gaze, and for a tick, Rebecca wondered what he had seen.

"It was a demon," Alec said. "The kind that feeds on dreams and wishes. I killed it." He frowned slightly. "Where's Jace?"

Clary paled under the dirt on her face. "We thought he'd be with you..."

"He's alright." Alec shook his head. "I'd know if he weren't."

Just then, Jace came stumbling down the hill, a vacant look on his face. Immediately, Clary was at his side, gazing anxiously at him, checking him for injuries.

"What did you see?" Rebecca said. "Max?"

Jace simply shook his head without looking at her. "I didn't see anything."

"It's all right, whatever you saw. It's all right," Clary said. She leaned in and touched Jace's face; Rebecca was acutely reminded of Jonathan's fingers on her lips in the dream.

"We all have dreams," Clary was saying. "It doesn't mean anything. Remember what I said before? We stay together."

It doesn't mean anything. Rebecca held on to those words for dear life.

After that, they got down to business. Clearly, nobody wanted to linger in this place; it was so dead and lifeless that it made Rebecca's stomach clench. The air was thick and hot. She didn't think they could survive here for very long, but she didn't say it out loud. Nobody needed to hear it.

She slid her stele out of her pocket and traced a Tracking Rune onto her wrist, hoping that her plan would work. Only the blood in her veins could lead her to him. She slipped the stele back into her pocket, feeling the Tracking rune washed over her like a gentle wave.

"He's not far," she said. "A day, maybe two days of walking away."

She didn't realize it for a while, but her demon blood made her immune to the harsh environment. Not completely immune, but she was better off than the others. As they walked further on, the others' breathing became more labored, their pace slower.

The demon blood didn't help her with runes, though. The ones that she had applied for speed and sure-footedness were almost gone, and her Tracking rune was looking very faint, too.

Isabelle voiced Rebecca's unspoken thoughts. "Our speed runes are fading," she said, frustrated.  "That could be the difference between two days of walking and three. Sebastian could be doing anything to the prisoners."

Alec winced visibly.

"He won't," Rebecca said confidently. "They're leverage. He wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that."

"We could walk all night," Isabelle said. "We could use Wakefulness runes. Keep applying them."

"Not a good idea," Jace said from behind Rebecca. "When Wakefulness runes fade, you crash. Then we'll be facing Sebastian basically hungover - not a good idea."

"What about those caves down there?" Simon, who had caught up with Rebecca, pointed at the crest of the hill.

"Good idea," Jace said. "We're in a demon dimension, God knows what lives here, and you want to crawl into a narrow dark hole and-"

"All right," Simon interrupted. "It was just a suggestion. You don't need to get pissed off-"

Jace, who was clearly in a mood, gave him a cold look. "That wasn't me pissed off, vampire-"

Something huge and dark hurtled out of the sky, straight towards them. Rebecca caught only a glimpse of wings, teeth and dozens of red eyes, and then Jace was gone, rising up into the air, caught in the clawed grip of an airborne demon.

Isabelle screamed. Rebecca gripped her sword, but she didn't know what good it would do - the demon was already high in the air, too far away to instigate a fight.

Clary whirled on Alec, who already had his bow out, an arrow notched and ready.

"Shoot it!" she screamed.

Alec spun around, trying to keep the demon in his line of sight. "I can't get a clear shot; it's too dark - I could hit Jace-"

Isabelle's whip uncoiled from her hand, reaching impossibly high; the demon let out a shrill cry of pain. The creature was tumbling through the air, Jace still caught in its grip.

Alec swore under his breath and let the arrow fly. It shot upward, piercing the darkness; a second later, a heaving dark mass plummeted to earth and hit the ground with a whump that sent up a huge cloud of powdery grey ash.

The demon was big, bigger than Rebecca had originally thought. It was the size of a horse, with dark green, reptilian skin. It had six clawed appendages, and dozens of red eyes covered what had to be its face. The shaft of Alec's arrow protruded from its side.

Jace was kneeling on its back, a seraph blade in his hand. He plunged it down into the back of the creature's neck viciously, over and over, sending up small geysers of black ichor that sprayed his clothes and face. The demon gave a squealing gurgle and slumped, the glow in its red eyes dimming.

Jace slid from its back, breathing hard. The seraph blade had already begun to warp and twist with ichor; he tossed it aside and finally looked at the others.

"That," he said, "was me pissed off."

Alec made a sound halfway between a groan and an expletive and lowered his bow. His black hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat.

"You don't all have to look so worried," Jace said. "I was doing fine."

Clary gasped. "Fine? If your definition of 'fine' includes becoming a snack for a flying death centipede, then we are going to have words, Jace Herondale-"

Simon coughed loudly. "What were you all saying about taking shelter in caves being a bad idea?"

"Actually, that was just Jace," Rebecca said. "Sounds like a great idea to me."

The first cave they tried turned out to be perfect. Surprisingly, there were runes carved into the cave walls - runes of protection and defense. As they moved further in, they came to a large circular room, clearly crafted by human hands. There was a fire pit in the center of the room, long gone cold. White gems were set into the ceiling, filling the room with dim illumination. Isabelle turned off her witchlight.

"I think this was a place to hide," Alec said in a hushed whisper. "Some sort of last barricade where whoever lived here would be safe from the demons."

"I think it's perfect," Rebecca said, tracing one of the runes with her fingers. "We can sleep here tonight."

Jace looked dubious. "Is it safe?"

"I'm pretty sure," she replied. "I don't sense anything down here."

"Sense?" Simon repeated. "You mean, you can sense demons?"

"Sort of." Her tone must have made it pretty clear that she didn't want to elaborate, and he didn't press it.

Jace scoffed. "It would have been helpful if you'd sensed the flying death centipede before it got me."

Rebecca simply rolled her eyes, refusing to grace Jace's remark with a reply. "I'll scout the tunnels just to be sure," she said, gesturing with her sword. "You guys just... rest up."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY

REBECCA

By the time Rebecca re-entered the cave, the others had already set up camp. All the bags had been neatly piled into a corner and blankets and water bottles had been taken out and were being passed around.

"The east corridor ends in a door," she began without preamble, reaching for a bottle and gulping down some water. "There's a gate, like the one we saw earlier, but this one's broken. And there's flying demons everywhere. They're not coming anywhere near here, but you can still see them."

Everyone sat up a little straighter, tension written on their faces.

"Someone should keep watch, just to make sure we're safe," Isabelle said, casting a worried glance at Simon as he sat down beside her.

"We can take turns doing it," Rebecca said, gesturing with her sword. "I'll take the first watch. You guys should get some sleep in the meantime."

"I'll come with you," Alec said, getting to his feet.

"It's alright," she said firmly. "You need to rest while you can. Besides, this place doesn't affect me as much as it affects you-"

But Alec was adamant. Which was how, ten minutes later, they were sitting at the end of the eastern corridor, Alec fingering his bow, Rebecca tracing the edge of her sword. For the first time in Rebecca's memory, the silence that hung between them was thick with tension.

"You think we should have left a note for Maryse and Robert?" Rebecca said suddenly.

Alec laughed dryly. "I think they'll figure out where we went. Eventually. Maybe I don't care if Dad ever figures it out." He threw his head back and sighed. "Oh, God, I'm a cliché," he said in despair. "Why do I care? If Dad decides he hates me because I'm not straight, he's not worth the pain, right?"

Rebecca simply shrugged. "It's what you're programmed to do. You care about what your dad thinks, even if he looks at you like you're dirt on his feet." She could hear the bitterness in her voice.

But Alec didn't say anything in response. He simply stared at the dead grey sky visible through the cracked hole in the roof. And it hit her - Alec was worried sick about Magnus. It must be killing him to act like he had it all together when he didn't.

"Magnus is alright, trust me," she said quietly.

"How do you know, Becca?" His voice was strained, and he was speaking much more quietly. She could barely see his face in the shadows.

"Look," she said, shuffling a little bit to face him. "Sebastian wouldn't kill them until he has us all there. Don't forget, that's why he took them in the first place."

"As bait?" he said, keeping his head bowed.

Rebecca couldn't answer. She had never seen his facade break as much as it had right then, and it downright scared her. Nothing was more solid in this world than Alec, her big brother. But even he had his limits.

So they sat in silence, watching the demons circling the dead sky.

Barely an hour passed before they heard the screams. The voice was immediately familiar to them, a voice that Rebecca had known since she was nine years old. Jace.

Exchanging mute looks of horror, they raced back to the clearing where they had left the others. Clary was on her feet, while Isabelle was still raising her head from Simon's lap, looking groggy. She scrambled to her feet as they burst in.

"Jace-" Alec gasped. "We heard him screaming-"

"Where is he?" Rebecca's voice was shrill with panic.

Simon, who was also on his feet, pointed down another passageway that led out of the clearing. "Seemed like it was coming from there."

Clary immediately hurtled down it, her sword clutched in her hand. The rest of them followed. Rebecca's heart was pounding, and not just because of the running. She had a feeling that something terrible had happened.

The rocky corridor eventually opened out onto the desert, but this one was further away from the circling demons they had seen earlier.

In the middle of the sandy plain, where the rocks sloped downwards, something burned brightly, so brightly that Rebecca's eyes watered just looking at it. It seemed to be almost alive, twisting and writhing like some sort of snake. The heat seemed to scorch her right where she stood.

Clary gasped out something no one could hear. Then she slipped her stele out of her pocket, quickly tracing a rune on her wrist - pyr, the fireproofing rune.

"Stay back!" With that demand, she took off, racing straight towards the fire. The heat was slapping Rebecca in the face now, forcing her to step back. Her skin felt like it was burning. Which meant only one thing - that raging fire was heavenly fire, and it did not like her. Or Simon. Clary's figure was now barely visible against the flames; then she stepped into it and vanished.

Isabelle had her arms wrapped around Simon, undoubtedly holding him back from running straight after Clary into the fire.

Alec took a halting step forward, then cried out and fell to his knees. Rebecca ran forward and dropped down beside him. "Alec, Alec-"

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him to his feet. His face was deadly white except for a smear of soot down his left cheek. He turned to her, shrugging off his gear jacket. "My parabatai rune - can you see it?"

Rebecca felt her stomach drop unpleasantly. She grabbed his collar, yanked it down - and breathed a sigh of relief. It was still there. "It looks fine."

Alec shrugged his jacket back on. "I felt something change; it was like something in me twisted-" His voice rose. "I'm going down there."

"No!" She firmly caught his arm. "Don't you dare-"

"Look!" Simon's voice cut through the terrific roar of the flames. Rebecca looked up to see that the fire was now half the size it had been before. As they gazed at it, almost in a trance, it continued to shrink, almost excruciatingly slowly, finally leaving nothing but a circle of blackened earth. In the middle of the circle stood Clary and Jace. It was hard to see through all the smoke and the still-dying embers, but they looked unharmed.

There was something strange about the way they were standing; it looked almost ritualistic. Clary was standing, Jace kneeling in front of her, his hands in hers, almost as if he was being knighted. A few seconds later, he got to his feet, and the two of them began walking back up the path towards the others.

For a moment, the four of them - Isabelle, Alec, Simon and Rebecca - stood transfixed, and then they hurtled down the path. Until then, Rebecca hadn't realized that her fingers were trembling - she was more terrified than she had let on. Isabelle threw herself into Jace's arms, while Simon wrapped Clary in a bear hug.

"Thank god, thank god," Rebecca muttered feverishly as Jace let go of Isabelle and pulled her into a hug. His skin was cool against hers, almost cold. There wasn't a single scorch mark on him. As she let him go and moved past him to hug Clary, she saw Simon flash Jace a huge grin and hold out his arms, gesturing for a hug. But Jace shook his head. "I don't care if I did just set myself on fire, I'm not hugging you."

Simon sighed and dropped his arms. "Your loss," he said. "If you'd gone in, I would've let you, but honestly it would've been a pity hug."

Rebecca almost laughed with relief as she pulled away from Clary. Jace turned incredulously to Alec. "Did you hear that?" he demanded. "A pity hug?"

Alec held a hand up. Rather surprisingly, Jace fell silent. "I recognize that we're all filled with the giddy joy of survival, thus explaining your current stupid behavior," Alec said. "But first"- he raised a finger - "I think the four of us are entitled to an explanation. What happened? How did you lose control of the heavenly fire? Were you attacked?"

"It was a demon," Jace said after a pause. "It took the form of a woman I - of someone I had hurt back when Sebastian possessed me. It goaded me until I lost command over the heavenly fire. Clary helped me get it back under control."

"And that's it? You're both okay?" Isabelle said, half-disbelieving. "I thought - when I saw what was going on - I thought it was Sebastian. That he'd come for us somehow. That you'd tried to burn him and that you'd burned yourself up..."

"That won't happen," Jace said gently. "I have the fire under control now."

"How?" Rebecca said, amazed.

Jace hesitated for a second, then said, "You just have to trust me."

"That's it?" Simon said in disbelief. "Just trust you?"

"Don't you?" Jace asked.

"I..." Simon looked at Isabelle, who glanced at her brother.

"Of course we do," Alec said firmly, looking around at them as if daring one of them to disagree. "We trusted you enough to come here. We'll trust you to the end."

As they began to slowly trudge back to the cave, Clary tugged at Rebecca's sleeve and motioned for her to slow down. They fell back behind the others.

"Here," Clary said in a low voice, taking a sword from her weapons belt and handing it to Rebecca. It was about the length of her forearm, and the blade was a dark silver, almost black. A pattern of black stars dotted the center ridge of the blade.

"Isn't this the Morgenstern blade?" Rebecca frowned. The blade was surprisingly heavy in her hand, as if it was being pulled down to the ground below her by some unseen force.

"Yes," Clary said. "It contains heavenly fire."

"How-"

"Trust me." Clary closed Rebecca's fingers around the grip. "We'll need it for Sebastian."

JOCELYN

Not too far away, Jocelyn Fairchild woke up with a start as the door to her cell banged open.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

JOCELYN

Sebastian had never reminded Jocelyn so much of Valentine. In his white knit shirt, he was almost his father's spitting image, except for his slender frame, which - Jocelyn realized with a shudder - he'd inherited from her.

He smiled humorlessly at her from the doorway. "Mother," he said.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "What are you doing here, Jonathan?"

He shook his head, still with the same smile on his face, and drew a dagger from his belt. It was narrow, with a thin blade - like an awl. "If you call me that again," he said, "I will put your eyes out with this."

Jocelyn swallowed. She could remember holding him, cold and still in her arms, not like a normal child at all. He hadn't cried. Not once. "Is that what you came to tell me?"

He shrugged. "I came to ask you a question." He glanced around the room, his expression bored. "And to show you something. Come. Walk with me."

The corridor outside the room was stone, big blocks of limestone slotted together with concrete. The floor was smooth, worn down by footsteps. Yet there was a dusty feel to the place, as if no one had been in it for decades, even centuries.

There were doors set into the walls at random intervals. Jocelyn felt her heart begin to pound. Luke could be behind any of those doors. She wanted to dash at them, jerk them open, but the dagger was still in Sebastian's hand, and she didn't doubt for a moment that he knew that better than she did.

Finally, Sebastian spoke. "What if I did tell you I loved you?"

Jocelyn clasped her hands loosely in front of her. "I suppose," she said carefully, "that I would say that you could no more love me than I could love you."

They had reached a set of double doors. Shouldering them open, he said, "Aren't you supposed to pretend, at least?"

"Could you? Part of you is me, you know. The demon's blood changed you, but did you really think that everything in you otherwise comes from Valentine?"

Without answering, Sebastian shouldered the doors open and stepped inside. After a moment Jocelyn followed - and stopped in her tracks.

The room they had entered was huge and semicircular. A marble floor stretched out to a platform built of stone and wood rising against the western wall. In the center of the platform sat two thrones. There was no other word for them - massive ivory chairs overlaid with gold. Each had a rounded back and six steps leading down from it. An enormous window, glass reflecting nothing but blackness, hung behind each throne. Something about the room was oddly familiar, but Jocelyn couldn't have said exactly what.

Sebastian bounded up onto the platform and beckoned her to follow him. Jocelyn moved slowly up the few steps to join her son, who stood in front of the two thrones with a look of gloating triumph on his face. She had seen the same look on his father's face, when he'd gazed down at the Mortal Cup.

"I don't understand," Jocelyn said, and her voice came out bleak and dead even to her own ears. "You want to rule this world? Some dead world of demons and destruction? You want to give orders to corpses?"

Sebastian laughed. "Oh no. You misunderstand me entirely. This fortress of mine has doorways to both worlds - Edom, and Idris." He gestured to the windows behind the thrones. "This world is drained dry, yes. A bloodless corpse of a place. Oh, but your world is ripe for ruling. I dream about it during the days as well as the nights. Do I burn the world slowly, with plague and famine, or should the slaughter be quick and painless - all that life, extinguished so quickly, imagine how it would burn!" His eyes were feverish. "Imagine the heights I could rise to, borne aloft on the screams of billions of people, raised by the smoke of millions of burning hearts!" He turned to her. "Now," he said. "Tell me I got that from you. Tell me any of that is from you."

Jocelyn's head was ringing. "There are two thrones," she said.

A small crease appeared between his brows. "What?"

"Two thrones," she said. "And I'm not a fool; I know who you intend to have sit beside you."

The feverish energy had drained from Sebastian's face. Jocelyn could almost imagine him as the son he would have been, as just a boy who had had his heart broken. The pain in his eyes was all too clear for her to see. "Weakness," he said, half to himself. "It's a weakness."

"It's human," she said. "But do you really think Rebecca could sit next to you here and be happy or willing?"

When Sebastian didn't say anything, Jocelyn played her last card. "You took away her dearest possession. You took away who she was - her name, her identity and her family. Do you really think she could love you after all that?"

Sebastian seemed not to have heard. He was gazing at the thrones, apparently transfixed. "That doesn't matter," Jocelyn heard him mutter. "She will always be mine."

REBECCA

They were getting close. She could sense it. The blood in her veins seemed to be singing and she was on edge, jumping at every little sound - every sigh, every hushed whisper.

She wasn't the only one, though - they all seemed to be running entirely on nerves and adrenaline. The energy runes they had applied had long since faded. Sebastian's bracelet was on her wrist, and the tracking thread was growing stronger, leading them straight to him - and possibly, their deaths.

She tried not to think about it.

Fortunately, they stumbled across something that drove it - and probably everything else from her mind.

They had arrived at the edge of a cliff, and below them, spread out as far as the eye could see, was Alicante - or, at least, the mirror image of it. As they walked through the ruins, the knot in Rebecca's stomach twisted itself tighter and tighter - until they arrived at the Accords Hall.

In the human world, it looked like a Greek temple, but now, it was lacquered metal. A tall square building, if something that looked like molten gold that had been poured out of the sky could be described as a building. Massive engravings ran around the structure, like ribbon wrapping a box; the whole thing glowed dully in the orange light.

"The Accords Hall." Isabelle stood with her whip coiled around her wrist, looking up at it. "Unbelievable."

Rebecca started up the steps, which were gold, streaked with black. The huge double doors were covered with squares of hammered metal, each one engraved with an image. Jace stepped up beside her and lightly touched the engravings. "Can you read it?" he said to no one in particular.

Alec joined them next to the double doors and squinted at the pictures. "I can't recognize the letters."

"It's Gehennic," Rebecca said suddenly. She didn't know how she knew. "An old dialect - older than the books back at the Institute."

"How do you know that?"

She shrugged, then reached up to trace the engravings with her index finger. "It's... a story. Humans lived here... or something like humans." She pointed to one of the panels. "They lived in peace, and then demons came. And then..." Her fingers hovered over another image depicting the Angel Raziel rising out of Lake Lyn, Mortal Instruments in hand.

"How?" Isabelle said. "Is that our Angel - our Lake Lyn?"

"I think so." Rebecca grazed her fingers over the next panel. The pictures seemed to be almost speaking to her, like a voice whispering in her ear. "The demons came, and Shadowhunters were created to battle them. But the Shadowhunters rejected the help of the Downworlders. The warlocks and the Fair Folk joined the demons - their infernal parents. And Shadowhunters were slaughtered. In their last days, they created a weapon that was meant to hold the demons off." She pointed to a panel of a woman holding up a sort of iron rod with a burning stone set into the end of it.

"They didn't have seraph blades; they hadn't developed them. It doesn't look like they had Iron Sisters or Silent Brothers, either. They had blacksmiths, and they developed some sort of weapon, something they thought might help them. The word here is 'skeptron,' but it doesn't mean anything to me. Anyway, the skeptron wasn't enough."

The next panel needed almost no explanation - it showed the Nephilim lying dead, the woman with the iron rod crumpled on the ground, the rod itself cast aside. "The demons - or asmodei, as they're called here - reduced the entire world to this... wasteland. They killed every living thing and razed cities to the ground." She dropped her hand - at the same time, the voice in her ear faded away.

"Asmodei," echoed Clary. "I've heard that before. It was something Lilith said, about Sebastian. Before he was born. 'The child born with this blood in him will exceed in power the Greater Demons of the abysses between the worlds. He will be more mighty than the asmodei.'"

"Asmodeus is one of the Greater Demons of the abysses between worlds," said Jace, meeting Clary's gaze.

"Like Abbadon?" Simon inquired. "He was a Greater Demon."

"Far more powerful than that. Asmodeus is a Prince of Hell - there are nine of them. The Fati. Shadowhunters cannot hope to defeat them. They can even destroy angels in combat."

Alec looked slightly green as he traced the last panel with his index finger.

"But is this our world?" Isabelle's voice rose. "Did we go forward in time? If the Queen tricked us..."

"I don't think she did," Rebecca said wonderingly. "I think we went sideways - this looks like a parallel dimension of sorts. A place where history went in a slightly different direction." She shuddered involuntarily as she looked at the panels again.

"Let's get out of here," she said finally, climbing down the steps. "I don't sense any demons, and I'm giving out a sort of stay-away vibe, but that definitely doesn't guarantee our safety. The sooner we get to Sebastian, the sooner this thing ends, one way or another."

One way or another.

Stop thinking about it, she told herself. She almost didn't realize that Simon had asked her a question. "Huh?" she said stupidly.

He repeated his question. "You can communicate with demons?"

Rebecca regretted bringing it up. "Sort of. I can sense them, and they can sense me. The smaller ones will stay away because they figure we're too much trouble, but the more powerful ones... they could come knocking any second now."

"Oh, that's a comfort," Jace muttered.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

REBECCA

It turned out that the fastest way to reach Sebastian was through the Accords Hall itself. Rebecca cast the Tracking rune on her wrist a dark look as they hurried through the Hall. They had debated for several minutes whether they should double back through the Accords Hall, or climb around it, and had finally agreed that going around would take too long - the ruins were spread out far too wide, and clambering over them would have taken them twice as long.

She almost didn't realize that they had already reached the heart of the Accords Hall. In their world, a large fountain in the shape of a mermaid stood in the center of the room. Here, there was a raised black marble structure, and on top of it, a statue of a man, holding aloft a thin, iron rod. Near the hilt, there was a large, embedded red stone, which seemed to glow of its own accord.

"This must be Jonathan Shadowhunter," Clary said wonderingly, gazing up at the face of the man, which towered six feet above her.

"Then that would be the skeptron," Jace said, pointing to the iron rod. He clattered forward, up the steps to the statue, and before anyone could cry out warning, he had grabbed the hilt.

There was a loud, grinding sound. Then absolute silence.

"What-" Rebecca started to say, and then stopped as she felt a cool tingling on her neck. A second later, what looked like giant flying grubs shot out of the doorway they had just come through, heading straight for them.

Though there were easily a dozen of them, they were still no match for Rebecca's ruthlessness, Jace's speed and Alec's aim. In a short time, they all stood, panting slightly, gazing at the lifeless bodies of giant grubs that littered the ground.

But Isabelle hadn't been as lucky as the others, who had escaped with nothing more than minor bruises. One of the demons had sunk its teeth into her leg, and blood had started to pour from it. Rebecca could immediately tell that the bite was poisonous. Alec had desperately tried to trace iraztes on her skin, but they had all faded away, leaving nothing but faint white traces. And her leg was steadily getting worse.

Rebecca had stood there, watching in sheer desperation, desperately trying to hold back tears. Alec was on his knees beside her, and Jace had turned to Clary, wide-eyed. He had begged her to do something, anything, and Clary had come through.

She had created a Portal and sent them back to the cave they had spent the night in. As they stepped through it, Rebecca had already begun to sense more demons on the way.

But Isabelle didn't get any better. Clary had tried iratze after iratze, but it didn't seem to work. The poison was too strong. The events of the past few minutes ran through Rebecca's mind as she stared at her dying sister, her clammy hand clasped tightly in Rebecca's own. Her eyes were fluttering, and she was taking great, rasping breaths. Rebecca knew it was only a matter of minutes.

She didn't think she could stand to lose someone else after Max. She had promised herself that she wouldn't let it happen, and here they were again. If she lost Izzy too... she didn't know what she would do.

"Something has to help!" Simon shouted suddenly, his voice echoing off the walls. "You're Shadowhunters; you fight demons all the time. You have to be able to do something-"

"And we die all the time!" Jace shouted back at him, and then suddenly crumpled over Isabelle's body, doubling up as if he'd been punched in the stomach. "Isabelle, God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-"

"Move," Simon demanded, and suddenly, he was on his knees next to Isabelle, pushing everyone else out of the way.

"What are you doing?" Rebecca's voice was a snarl, but she didn't care at that moment – Isabelle, her sister, was dying, and everything and everyone else could go to hell.

Without a reply, Simon raised his wrist and tore open the vein. Blood ran in rivulets down his arm. Jace's eyes widened. He stood up and backed away; his hands were in fists, but he didn't move to stop Simon, who held his wrist over the gash in Isabelle's leg and let his blood run down his fingers, spattering onto her, covering her wound.

"What... are... you... doing?" Alec ground out between his teeth, but Jace flung up a hand and whispered something. Rebecca barely heard him. Her eyes were fixed on the wound on Isabelle's leg. She was still unconscious, but the ribboned skin on her leg was beginning to knit itself back together. Beneath the blood, Rebecca could see pink, fresh skin covering the torn mass of flesh.

Isabelle's eyes opened. They were wide and dark. Her lips had been almost white, but the color was starting to come back into them. She stared at Simon uncomprehendingly, and then down at her leg. The skin that had been torn and shredded looked clean and pale, only a faint half-moon of neatly spaced white scars left to show where the demon's teeth had gone in. Simon's blood was still dripping slowly from his fingers, though the wound in his wrist had mostly healed.

He looked pale – much paler than usual. He lifted his wrist to his mouth, his teeth bared-

"Simon, no!" Isabelle said, sitting up so suddenly that her hand struck Rebecca's face. Then she winced heavily and lay back down, her eyes closed.

Clary caught Simon's wrist. "It's all right," she said. Blood stained his sleeve, his shirt, the corners of his mouth. "It's okay - Isabelle's okay," she said, and drew Simon to his feet. "Let's give them a second," she said softly, and led him away.

"Izzy? Are you alright?" Rebecca clasped her hand. Jace and Alec were bending over her, their eyes clouded with concern. Isabelleslowly opened her eyes and nodded. "I'm okay - I'm fine."

And there, Rebecca felt it again – tears that pricked her eyes. She didn't fight it this time, just let them fall. These were for Isabelle, her dearest sister, and she was one of the people Rebecca loved most in this world.

SIMON

Simon was sitting with his back against the cave wall, staring into the heart of the fire. He could feel the heat from it hitting his skin, but it was different somehow – more of a tense crackling than a warmth. He guessed it was cold in the cave, from the fact that Alec had bundled himself up in a bulky sweater and carefully wrapped a blanket around Isabelle. But Simon couldn't feel it, not really.

"Hey." Rebecca was walking over to him, a sweater draped over her shoulders. She settled down beside him, resting her back against the cave wall. After a few moments of silence, she said, "What you did for Isabelle... that was really brave." She turned to look at him, and Simon flinched a little under her gaze – those pitch-black eyes seemed to look right through him. She must have realized, because she immediately looked away and cleared her throat.

"Sorry," he said immediately, hoping he hadn't hurt her feelings.

"It's alright," Rebecca said airily – perhaps a little too airily. "Anyway, I really came over here to say thank you."

"For what?"

"Duh. For saving Isabelle." She gave him a sideways smile. Simon couldn't help but give a small smile in return.

"I always thought it would be me," she continued, and Simon realized that the smile had dropped from her face. "I knew this was a suicide mission, but... I always figured if not all of us were to survive, it would be me."

"Why?" Simon said, trying to shake off some of his dizziness. He was dangerously low on blood.

"I-" she started to say, and then broke off, looking at him more closely. "Are you alright? You look... sick. And really pale."

"I'm fine-"

"The blood!" Rebecca interrupted, bringing her hand to her forehead. "Of course, you lost a lot of it..." She cast him an apprehensive glance. "I'd offer my blood, but... I'm guessing you don't want demon blood in your veins."

Simon opened his mouth to reply, but a sudden, stabbing pain shot through him, and he doubled up. He felt robbed of his breath, except he didn't breathe. Nevertheless, his chest hurt, as if something had been ripped out of it.

"Simon. Simon!" Rebecca gripped his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

He looked up at her slowly, his eyes streaming tears tinged with blood. A look of horror stole over Rebecca's face. "God, Simon..."

He sat up slowly. The pain was already starting to ebb. "I don't know. It was like someone stuck a knife into my chest."

Rebecca's eyes, which had been clouded with concern, immediately cleared. She examined his face and stood up, letting the sweater fall to the floor. "Raphael," she said in a flat voice. "He's your sire, the one whose blood made you a vampire."

Simon nodded. "So?"

She shook her head. "Nothing," she muttered. "When did you last feed?"

"I'm fine," Simon began, vaguely reflecting that Rebecca could be just as bossy as Isabelle when she wanted to.

"What about the bottles you brought?" Rebecca was already looking around for Clary's bag, which she spotted in a corner of the cave. She was about to pick it up when Simon stopped her.

"The bottles broke," he admitted. "The bottles broke when we were fighting the demons in the Accords Hall. The blood's gone."

Rebecca turned around, looking furious. "Simon Lewis, why didn't you say something?"

"Say something about what?" Jace appeared, his blond hair messy. Clary was still asleep in the far corner of the cave.

"Simon's starving," Rebecca explained. "His blood supply is gone, and he lost so much blood-"

"Why didn't you say something?" Jace demanded.

"Because," Simon said. "It's not like there are animals I can feed on here."

"There's us," Jace said.

"I don't want to feed on my friends' blood."

"Why not?" Jace walked past Rebecca and looked down at Simon; his expression was open and curious. "We've been here before, haven't we? Last time you were starving, I gave you my blood. It was a little homoerotic, maybe, but I'm secure in my sexuality."

Simon sighed internally; he could tell that under the flippancy, Jace was completely serious in his offer. Probably less because it was sexy than because Jace had a death wish the size of Brooklyn. "I'm not biting someone whose veins are full of heavenly fire," he said. "I have no desire to be toasted from the inside out."

"Oh, for God's sake. I'll do it." Alec stood up, carefully repositioning Izzy on the blanket. He tucked the edge around her and straightened.

Simon let his head fall back against the wall of the cave. "You don't even like me. Now you're offering me your blood?"

"You saved my sister. I owe you." Alec shrugged, his shadow long and dark in the light of the flames.

"Right." Simon swallowed awkwardly. "Okay."

REBECCA

Alec and Simon disappeared halfway into the nearest dark corridor so Simon could feed. Rebecca didn't understand exactly why Simon wanted privacy, but she didn't question it. It couldn't exactly be fun feeding in front of everyone.

While they were gone, Jace woke up Clary while Rebecca stuffed all the blankets and sweaters back into the backpacks. Isabelle was awake too, looking much better. She was still a little pale, but otherwise, she seemed perfectly alright.

Alec and Simon returned a few minutes later. The change in Simon was astounding – he looked... fuller, somehow. Rebecca was relieved. And glad that Alec had offered, though he didn't look too happy about it. While he applied an iratze and a blood replenishment rune, Rebecca and Jace hauled all the backpacks to the center of the cave and stomped out the fire.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

REBECCA

They could see it, finally. A half-ruined fortress, with Endarkened clustered all around it - a warped mirror of Alicante's Gard Hill. The structure resembled the Gard they knew, but with a massive wall around it, the fortress enclosed within like a garden in a cloister.

"You know what's interesting?" Rebecca said. "I've seen a few flying demons, but they're staying well away from the Dark Gard-"

Alec raised an eyebrow. "Dark Gard?"

"Got a better name?" She shrugged. "Anyway, they're staying away from the Dark Gard and the hill. They serve Sebastian, but they seem to be respecting his space."

"Well, they can't be too far away," said Jace. "I doubt he would take that chance."

"Or they could be inside the fortress," Rebecca said.

Alec sighed. "Let's get back to the others."

Simon was standing by Isabelle, and Clary had her sketchpad and a pen out and was drawing runes. From the way she was shaking her head, tearing out the pages and crumpling them up in her hand, it wasn't going as well as she might have liked.

"Are you littering?" Jace demanded as they jogged to a stop beside the other three. Clary gave him what was probably meant to be a withering look, but which came out fairly soppy. Jace returned it with a look just as soppy.

"Jace, this world has been burned to a cinder, and every living creature is dead," Clary said. "I'm fairly sure there's no one left to recycle."

"So, what did you see?" Isabelle demanded. Rebecca could tell she wasn't pleased at being left behind.

"Here." Jace pulled his stele from his pocket and knelt down, using the pointed tip of the stele to draw in the yellowish dirt. "Here's the Dark Gard. There's one way in, and that's through the gate in the outer wall. It's closed, but an Open rune should take care of that. The question is how to get to the gate. The most defensible positions are here, here, and here"-his stele made quick swipes in the dirt- "so we go around and up the back. If the geography here is like it is in our Alicante, and it looks like it is, there's a natural pathway up the back of the hill. Once we get closer, we split here and here"-the stele made swirls and patterns as he drew- "and we try to herd any demons or Endarkened toward the center." He sat back, worrying at his lip. "Rebecca I can take out a lot of them, but we'll need you to keep them contained while we do it. Do you understand the plan?"

Everyone stared for a few silent moments. Then Simon pointed. What's that wobbly thing?" he said. "Is it a tree?"

"Those are the gates," Jace said.

"Oh," said Isabelle, pleased. "So, what are the swirly bits? Is there a moat?"

"Those are trajectory lines - honestly, am I the only person who's ever seen a strategy map?" Jace demanded, throwing his stele down and raking his hand through his blond hair. "Do you understand anything I just said?"

"No," Clary said. "Your strategy is probably awesome, but your drawing skills are terrible; all the Endarkened look like trees, and the fortress looks like a frog. There has to be a better way to explain."

Jace sank back on his heels and crossed his arms. "Well, I'd love to hear it."

"I have an idea," Simon said. "Remember how before, I was talking about Dungeons and Dragons?"

"Vividly," Jace said. "It was a dark time."

Simon ignored him. "All the Dark Shadowhunters dress in red gear," he said. "And they're not enormously bright or self-driven. Their wills seem to be subsumed, at least in part, by Sebastian's. Right?" He looked to Rebecca for confirmation.

She nodded. "Pretty much."

"In D&D, my first move, when you're dealing with an opposing army like that, would be to lure away a group of them - say six - and take their clothes."

"Is this so they have to go back to the fortress naked and their embarrassment will negatively affect morale?" said Jace. "Because that seems complicated."

"I'm pretty sure he means take their clothes and wear them as disguises," Clary said. "So that we can sneak up to the gates unobserved. If the other Endarkened aren't very perceptive, they might not notice."

Jace looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. "It's in every movie, like, ever."

"We don't watch movies," said Alec.

"I think the question is whether Sebastian watches movies," Rebecca said. "And to the best of my knowledge, he doesn't. Not really."

"Is our strategy when we actually see him still 'trust me,' by the way?" Isabelle asked.

"It's still 'trust me'," Rebecca said.

"Oh, good," Isabelle said. "For a second there I was worried there was going to be an actual plan with, like, steps we could follow. You know, something reassuring."

"It's going to work," Rebecca insisted. "We're going to follow Simon's plan for getting into the Dark Gard."

Everyone was suddenly quiet. They had reached the end of the road. If they did this, there was no turning back. And each of them knew that not all of them might live to tell the tale.

CLARY

Clary didn't think she'd ever been so heavily runed, or had ever seen the Lightwoods covered in as many of the magical sigils as they were now. She had done them all herself, putting everything she had into them - all of her desire for them all to be safe, all her yearning to find her mother and Luke.

She'd also covered herself with healing runes, but they weren't enough to keep her lungs from aching from the constant dust. She stopped to cough now and turned away, spitting up black. Quickly, she wiped her hand across her mouth, hoping that none of the others had seen, but she wasn't so lucky.

"You alright?" Rebecca's dark eyes were narrowed in concern.

"Yeah," Clary replied, trying to keep her voice light. "It's just the air."

"You and Jace probably have it worse because of the angel blood." She gestured to Jace, who was walking a few feet ahead of them. Then she turned and gave Clary a reassuring smile. "This will be over soon. One way or another." She pushed ahead before Clary could reply.

Jace's drawing skills might have been poor, but his strategy was faultless. They were making their way upward in a sort of zigzag formation, darting from one heap of blackened stone to another. With the foliage all gone, the stone was the only cover the hill provided. The hill was mostly stripped of trees, only a few dead stumps here and there. Clary remembered the path up to the Gard in Alicante, green and lovely, and looked with hatred at the wasteland around her.

The air was heavy and hot, as if the burned-orange sun were pressing down on them. Clary joined the others behind a high cairn. They had refilled their bottles that morning from a lake they had found in the cave, and Alec was sharing around some water, his grim face streaked with black dust. "This is the last of it," he said, and handed it to Isabelle. She took a tiny sip and passed it to Simon, who shook his head - he didn't need water - and passed it on to Clary.

Clary took a mouthful of water and passed the thermos to Jace, who tipped his head back, swallowed and passed the bottle to Rebecca.

"That's it," Rebecca said, and dropped the now empty thermos. They all watched it roll among the rocks. No more water. "One less thing to carry," she added, trying to sound light, but her voice came out sounding as dry as the dust around them. Her lips were cracked and bleeding slightly; she was finally beginning to feel the effects of being stuck in a demon realm despite her demon blood.

Jace had shadows under his eyes, and Alec had a nervous twitch in his left hand. Isabelle's eyes were red with dust, and she blinked and rubbed at them when she thought no one was watching. They all looked pretty terrible, Clary thought, with the possible exception of Simon, who mostly looked the same. He was standing close to the cairn, his fingers resting lightly on a ledge of stone. "These are graves," he said suddenly.

Jace looked up. "What?"

"These rock piles. They're graves. Old ones. People fell in battle and they buried them by covering their bodies with stones."

"Shadowhunters," Alec said. "Who else would die defending Gard Hill?"

Jace touched the stones with a leather-gloved hand, and frowned. "We burn our dead."

"Maybe not in this world," Isabelle said. "Things are different. Maybe they didn't have time. Maybe it was their last stand-"

"Stop," Simon said. He had frozen, a look of intense concentration on his face. "Someone's coming. Someone human."

"How do you know they're human?" Clary dropped her voice.

"Blood," he said succinctly. "Demon blood smells different. These are people - Nephilim, but not."

Jace made a quick, quieting gesture with his hand, and they all fell silent. He pressed his back to the cairn and peered around the side. His jaw tightened. "Endarkened," he said in a low voice. "Six of them."

"Perfect number," said Rebecca with a wolfish grin. Her sword was in her hands already, and she was already stepping out from behind the cairn as the others reached for their weapons. Jace pulled himself up onto the rock, and Alec followed him, bow at the ready. Isabelle sprang after him like a cat, and Simon followed, fast and unerring, his hands bare.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CLARY

There were six Endarkened dressed in red standing in front of the Dark Gard, and they were only just turning around in shock and surprise when Rebecca sliced with lightning speed, taking down one of them. Another fell to his knees, an arrow protruding from his neck.

A third man, dark-haired and paunchy, staggered back with a yell, an arrow in his leg; Isabelle was on him in an instant, her whip slicing across his throat. As the man went down, Jace leaped and rode his body to the ground, using the force of the fall to hurl his own body forward. His blades flashed with a scissoring motion, slicing the head off a bald man whose red gear was splotched with patches of dried blood.

The fifth one, however, was behind Jace, her blade lifted and ready to strike. Clary whipped her dagger forward and let it fly. It buried itself in the woman's forehead and she folded silently to the ground without another cry.

The last of the Endarkened began to run, stumbling uphill. Simon flashed past Clary, a movement too swift to see, and sprang like a cat. The Endarkened man went down with a gasp of terror, and Clary saw Simon rear up over him and strike like a snake. There was a sound like tearing paper.

They all looked away. After a few long moments, Simon rose from the still body and came down the hill toward them. There was blood on his shirt, and blood on his hands and face. He turned his face to the side, coughed, and spat, looking sick. "Bitter," he said. "The blood. It tastes like Sebastian's."

Rebecca was staring at the dead Endarkened with an odd expression on her face, almost something like regret. When Alec went up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder, she jumped, and turned to face him. Once again, her eyes were pitch black, devoid of anything that made them seem human. But as she turned to look at Alec, her eyes cleared, and her breaths, which were short and heavy, slowed down.

"It's getting worse, she said flatly. "We'd better hurry up - the sun's setting." Without another word, she began tugging at the robes of the dead man at her feet.

They stripped the gear from the bodies, silently and quickly. There was something sickening about the work, something that hadn't seemed quite so horrible when Simon had described the strategy but that now seemed very horrible. After a few minor adjustments to the sleeves and pants, they all managed to make the clothes fit, though Alec's were a bit too short.

After stashing the bodies out of sight behind the rocky cairn, they started their way back up the hill. Rebecca had been right, the sun was going down, bathing the realm in the colors of fire and blood. She was walking ahead of the rest of the group, with an almost hungry expression on her face.

A crowd of Endarkened milled around the Dark Gard, which was bathed in blood-red light from the setting sun. Rebecca held up her hand, bringing them to a stop.

"You'd better put your hoods up," she said to Clary and Jace. "You're too recognizable. Actually-" her eyes met everyone else's. "we'd all better put your hoods up." She turned back to look at the Gard. "Hopefully, we can just stroll in." With a funny little shrug, she set off, not checking to see if they were following.

REBECCA

Rebecca felt cold all over - battle coldness, keeping her spine straight, her breath even. They marched past one red-clad warrior - a brown-skinned man, tall and muscular. He paid no attention as they marched past, carefully keeping their faces hidden.

The massive gates were looming upon them now. It was clear that they had been subjected to years of desecration. Their surfaces were chipped and scarred, splashed here and there with ichor and what looked disturbingly like dried human blood.

Rebecca placed her hand on them and they swung open easily, causing her to step back in surprise. "He doesn't know we're coming..." she muttered, more to herself than the others. She cast a wary glance behind her and then marched in.

Past the gates was a bridge over a narrow ravine. "Don't look down, whatever you do," Rebecca said in a fierce whisper, already halfway across the bridge. Alec took up the rear, facing behind them with his bow and arrow.

The sun had almost completely dipped below the horizon when they reached the front doors. Rebecca undid the latch, and the doors opened into darkness. She could sense the others looking at her, maybe hoping for words of reassurance, but she couldn't find any. So she simply stepped forward into the darkness.

A rush of cold air blew over them as the doors slammed shut behind them. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they realized they were standing in an enormous entryway, the size of the inside of the Accords Hall. A massive double spiral stone staircase led upward, twisting and winding, two sets of stairs that interwove with each other but never met. Each was lined on either side by a stone balustrade, and Sebastian was leaning against one of the balustrades, smiling down at them. He wore spotless scarlet gear, and his hair shone like iron. At the sight of him, Rebecca's skin seemed to buzz, like she'd swallowed adrenaline.

He shook his head. "Rebecca, my darling," he said. "I really thought you were much smarter than this."

"Smarter than what?" she said loudly, and her voice echoed off the bare walls. "We got inside. And unless I'm blind, there's six of us, and one of you."

"So you can count," Sebastian said coolly. The smile had vanished from his face, replaced by an almost feral expression. His eyes were fixed entirely on Rebecca. The rest of them didn't seem to exist. "Fascinating. But exactly how dumb do you think I am? Never mind that obviously, I found out from the Queen that you'd come here, but since you've arrived, you've set an enormous fire, taken a ride on a 'flying death centipede', if I recall correctly - I mean, you've done everything other than put up an enormous flashing arrow pointing directly to your location." He sighed delicately. "I've always known most of you were terribly stupid. Even Jace, well, you're pretty but not too bright, are you? Maybe if Valentine had had a few more years with you - but no, probably not even then. The Herondales have always been a family more prized for their jawlines than their intelligence. As for the Lightwoods, the less said the better. Generations of idiots-"

"You forgot me," Simon said.

Sebastian dragged his gaze over to Simon, as if he were distasteful. "You do keep turning up like a bad penny," he said. "Tedious little vampire. I killed the one who made you, did you know that? I thought vampires were supposed to feel that sort of thing, but you seem indifferent. Terribly callous."

Rebecca felt Simon stiffen beside her, remembered him in the cave, doubling over as if he were in pain, saying he felt as if someone had stuck a knife in his chest.

"Raphael," Simon whispered; beside him, Alec had paled markedly.

"What about the others?" he demanded in a rough voice. "Magnus - Luke-"

"Our mother," Clary said. "Surely even you wouldn't hurt her."

Sebastian's smirk turned brittle.

"She's not my mother," he said, and then shrugged with a sort of exaggerated exasperation. "But she is alive. As for the warlock and the werewolf, I couldn't say. I haven't checked on them in a while. The warlock wasn't looking so well the last time I saw him," he added. "I don't think this dimension's been good for him. He might be dead by now. But you really can't expect me to have foreseen that."

Alec lifted his bow in a single swift motion. "Foresee this," he said, but before he could let it fly, Rebecca caught his arm, throwing off his aim. The arrow landed some three feet to the left of Sebastian.

Alec lowered his bow, looking incredulously at his sister. "Rebecca, what the hell?"

Rebecca was staring at her hand as if she'd never seen it before. Her eyes were again demon-black, but when she looked up to meet everyone else's gaze, her expression was one of astonishment.

"I don't know... I didn't... why did I do that?"

"It's in your blood now, my beautiful one," Sebastian said, looking at her with unconcealed pride. There was something else in there too - a sort of feral longing. "Your instinct will always be to protect me. We're bound by more than our love. We're bound by blood. And together, we will rule Edom for all eternity!"

At the word eternity, the double doors at both ends of the entryway flew open, and demons poured in. Rebecca had expected it, had braced herself, but there was no real bracing oneself for something like this. She had seen hundreds of demons, killed hordes of them, and yet, as the flood poured in from both sides - spider-creatures with fat, poisonous bodies; skinless humanoid monsters dripping blood; things with talons and teeth and claws, massive praying mantises with jaws that dropped open as if unhinged - her skin felt as if it wanted to crawl away from her body. She forced herself to stay still and looked up at the boy she had thought she loved.

He met her gaze with his own dark one, and she remembered the boy in her vision, the one with bright green eyes and a smile that made her heart sing. She saw a furrow appear between his eyes.

He raised his hand; snapped his fingers. "Stop," he said. The demons froze, midmotion, on either side of Rebecca and the others.

"Rebecca," Sebastian said. "Don't hurt her. Bring her to me here. Kill the others." He narrowed his eyes at Jace. "If you can."

Then the demons surged forward.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

REBECCA

Seamlessly, they worked together, almost like they had been training for this situation their entire lives. Most of them actually had. Isabelle lashed out with her whip as Alec began firing arrows at the speed of light, taking down demons left and right. Simon, however, needed nothing more than his bare hands.

Clary, meanwhile, was undertaking the most important part of the plan - creating a Portal. As she traced her stele on the granite, rune after rune appeared. Small fissures spiderwebbed outwards from the runes, spreading across the granite.

"Clary, for the love of the angel, HURRY!" Isabelle screamed, as she dispatched a demon with her whip. Clary began to work more feverishly, but a tentacled demon grabbed her ankle and yanked her backwards. She went down with a cry, her stele falling to the ground as she tumbled. 

"Clary, get out of the way!" Rebecca yelled, grabbing one of her concealed daggers. Clary looked up, saw the dagger in Rebecca's hand, and immediately understood. She rolled out of the way as Rebecca let the dagger fly. The demon that had been holding Clary roared; the tentacle loosened its grasp, and Clary staggered up and to her feet. She hadn't been able to draw a rectangular doorway, so the entrance scrawled on the wall was blazing in a ragged circle, like the opening to a tunnel. Within the blaze, Rebecca could see the shimmer of the Portal - it rippled like silver water.

Jace hurtled by her and threw himself into it. She caught a brief glimpse of what was beyond - the blasted Accords Hall, with the statue still in the center of the room - before an Elapid demon took up all her attention. She could hear Sebastian somewhere behind her, yelling out something in a demonic language. She could make sense of a few words here and there, but nothing coherent.

As Rebecca sliced neatly, severing the Elapid in front of her in half, the Portal swelled with a sudden, incredible light and Jace hurtled back through it. Never before had he looked so much like an avenging angel; his bright hair seemed to glow as he landed lightly and raised the weapon he was holding in his hand. It was Jonathan Shadowhunter's skeptron.

As Jace raised the skeptron, the demons around them began to scuttle backward. Sebastian was leaning over the balustrade, his hands clenched on it, dead white. He was staring at Jace. "Jonathan," he said, and his voice rose and carried. "Jonathan, I forbid-"

Jace thrust the skeptron skyward, and the orb at the center burst into flame - a brilliant, contained, icy flame, more light than heat. Every demon in the room was annihilated instantly; all that was left of them were piles of ashes.

The light intensified, burning so brightly that Rebecca had to shut her eyes. When she felt it was safe to open her eyes, she did, only to find that the entryway was devoid of demons, and Sebastian was seething with rage. "No," he ground out through clenched teeth.

Jace was still standing with the skeptron in his hand; the orb had turned black and dead, like a lightbulb that had burned out. He looked up at Sebastian, his chest rising and falling fast. "You thought we didn't know you were expecting us," he said. "But we were counting on it." He took a step forward. "I know you," he said, still breathlessly. "You took me over, took control of me, forced me to do whatever you wanted, but I learned from you. You were in my head, and I remember. I remember how you think, how you plan. I remember all of it. I knew you'd underestimate us, think we didn't guess it was a trap, think we wouldn't have planned for that. You forget I know you; down to the last corner of your arrogant little mind I know you-"

"Shut up," Sebastian hissed. He pointed at them with a shaking hand. "You will pay in blood for this," he said, and then he turned and ran up the steps, vanishing so quickly that even Alec's arrow, winging after him, couldn't catch him up. It hit the curve of the staircase instead and snapped on impact with the stone, then fell to the ground in two neat pieces.

Rebecca was already stepping onto the first stair, hand on the railing, when Alec caught hold of her arm. "Wait," he said. "We need a plan."

"There's no time," she said impatiently. "You do realize that when he said 'pay in blood', he doesn't mean our blood."

Alec paled visibly, but he didn't let go. "That still doesn't mean you should go after him alone."

She sighed. She had to admit that he was right, like he usually was.

"Each staircase leads to a different level," Alec said. "We're going to have to split up. Jace, Clary and Rebecca - you take the east staircase; the rest of us will take the other."

No one protested. This was the best way to do it; Rebecca knew that Jace would never have agreed to split off from Clary, and Isabelle and Simon wouldn't leave each other's side.

"Jace," Alec said, again, and this time the word seemed to snap Jace out of his fugue state. He tossed the dead skeptron aside, let it clatter to the ground, and looked up with a nod.

The doors behind them burst open and Dark Shadowhunters in red gear began to pour into the room. Without a word, the six of them raced towards the staircase, breaking apart once they reached it.

At the top, Rebecca, Clary and Jace came to a stop, chests heaving, legs feeling like they were on fire.

"They won't be far behind us," Rebecca said. "We need to keep going."

She led the way confidently; the Dark Gard was no different to the one in Alicante, and she knew her way around it like she knew the back of her hand.

They turned into a long corridor. Halfway down it, they stopped in front of a set of metal doors. "Here's the Council Room," Rebecca whispered to the others, not sure why she was doing so. "You guys ready?"

Jace and Clary glanced at each other, then at her, and nodded.

"Well, here goes nothing." Rebecca swung open the doors and stepped inside with Clary and Jace on her heels.

The room beyond was as large as the Council room in Alicante's Gard, if not larger. However, instead of the usual row of seats, a wide bare marble floor stretched toward a dais at the end of the room. Behind the dais were two massive, separate windows. Sunset light poured through each of them, though one sunset was the color of gold, and the other was the color of blood.

In the bloody golden light Sebastian knelt in the center of the room. He was etching runes into the floor, a circle of dark connected sigils. Realizing what he was doing, Rebecca stepped forward, then lurched back as a massive demon loomed up in front of her. It looked like an enormous maggot, with a slit-like mouth that was full of jagged grey teeth. A Behemoth demon.

Before it could strike, she thrust her blade upwards, right into its center. The demon wailed - a loud, ululating sound that sent chills down her spine. Ichor gushed from the wound, covering her hand, but it didn't hurt. Not a bit. A sense of elation stole through her at this realization, and she drove the sword into its body again and again, until, finally, it collapsed to the ground with a gurgling scream.

Sebastian, meanwhile, had gotten to his feet and was standing in the center of his completed circle of runes. He began to clap slowly. "Lovely work," he said. "Really excellent demon-dispatching. Isn't she wonderful?" he added with glee.

Nobody said anything.

"You do recognize where we are, don't you?" he continued. He waved a hand at the dais behind him, and Rebecca noticed something that she hadn't noticed before - two thrones of ivory and gold, with golden steps leading up to them. Each had a curved back embossed with a single key.

"'I am he that liveth, and was dead,' " said Sebastian, " 'and behold, I am alive forevermore, and have the keys of hell and of death.' " He walked slowly over to Rebecca, enclosing her left hand in both of his. "These are the keys, made over in the shapes of thrones and given to me by the demons who rule this world, Lilith and Asmodeus." His dark eyes gazed into hers, and she could feel his gaze like cold fingers walking up her spine.

She forced herself to look away and wrenched her hand out of his grip. "Why are you showing us this?"

Sebastian chuckled slightly. He turned and began to walk towards the dais.

"I don't care if you threaten me!" she yelled after him. Her voice shook. "You've taken everything you possibly could from me! My family, my name - even my own blood!" The blood in her veins was hot and alive with fury. "So come after me again, Jonathan Morgenstern, I dare you."

Sebastian turned around to face them. His smile was cold. "Tempting. But to be honest, there are others I can go after." Seemingly on cue, a Dark Shadowhunter entered the room. There was no mistaking her - it was Amatis Herondale.

"Amatis, bring Jocelyn here."

Amatis smiled. "With pleasure," she said, and stalked out of the room, the hem of her long red coat sweeping behind her.

Jace stepped forward with an inarticulate growl - and stopped in his tracks, several feet from Sebastian. He put his hands out, but they seemed to collide with something translucent, an invisible wall.

Sebastian snorted. "As if I'd let you get near me - you, with that fire burning in you. Once was enough, thank you."

"So you know I can kill you," Jace said. "You can't hide in there forever. You'll starve."

Sebastian made a quick gesture with his fingers, and Jace flew up and back, and slammed into the wall behind them. Rebecca's breath hitched in her throat as she spun around to see him crumple to the ground, a bloody gash across the side of his head. Clary cried out and immediately ran to his side.

Sebastian hummed in delight and lowered his hand. "Don't worry," he said conversationally, and turned his gaze back to Clary. "He'll be fine. Eventually. If I don't change my mind about what to do with him. I'm sure you understand, now that you've seen what I can do."

Rebecca forced her expression to remain blank. She couldn't let him see how worried she was. For their plan to work, her acting skills would have to be put to the test. She looked up and met Clary's eyes. The red-haired girl nodded reassuringly. Taking a deep breath, Rebecca turned back to face Sebastian.

"I've always known you had power," she said slowly.

"Power," he echoed, as if it were an insult. "Is that what you call it?" He flicked his hand again, and Rebecca whirled around to see Clary crumple to the ground beside Jace.

"Here I have more than power, Rebecca. Here in this keep I can shape what is real." He had begun to pace inside the circle he had drawn, his hands looped casually behind his back, like a professor delivering a lecture. "This world is connected only by the thinnest threads to the one where we were born. The road through Faerie is one such thread. These windows are another. Step through that one"- he pointed to the window on the right - "and you will return to Idris. But it's not that simple." He regarded the stars through the window. "I came to this world because it was a place to hide. And then I began to realize. I am sure our father quoted these words to you many times" - he spoke to Jace, as if Jace could hear him - "but it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. And here I rule. I have my Dark Ones and my demons. I have my keep and citadel. And when the borders of this world are sealed, everything here will be my weapon. Rocks, dead trees, the ground itself will come to my hand and wield its power for me. And the Great Ones, the old demons, will look down on my work, and they will reward me. They will raise me up in glory, and I will rule the abysses between worlds and the spaces between all the stars."

"'And he shall rule them with a rod of iron,' " Rebecca said, remembering Jace's words, "'and I will give him the Morning Star.'"

Sebastian whirled around to face her, his eyes bright. "Yes!" he said, striding forward to stand in front of her. He gripped her arms. "You understand, don't you my darling? I thought I wanted our world, to bring it down in blood, but I want more than that. I want the legacy of the Morgenstern name."

"So... you want to be the devil? You want to rule Hell?" she said, half-bewildered and half-terrified. "Then why are you doing all this? Just let us go - you can have Hell."

"Alas," said Sebastian. "I have discovered one other thing that perhaps sets me apart from Lucifer. I do not want to rule alone." He extended his arm, an elegant gesture, and indicated the two great thrones on the dais. "One of those is for me. And the other - the other is for you."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

REBECCA

"No," Rebecca said desperately, resisting the urge to look behind her, to make sure Jace and Clary were alright. "I won't stay here - you must have known that..."

"You belong here with me, Rebecca." He was almost pleading.

"Why me?" she whispered.

"Because I love you," Sebastian said. He looked - uncomfortable. Tense and strained, as if he were reaching for something he couldn't quite touch. "I don't want you hurt."

"But you've already hurt me!" Her voice was tight. "You killed someone I loved! You kidnapped and brainwashed Jace - you - you tried to kill Isabelle! And you turned me into - into this - this monster, someone her own family can barely look at-"

"It doesn't matter if I hurt you," he interrupted. "Because you belong to me. I can do what I want with you. But I don't want other people touching you or owning you or hurting you. I want you to be around, to admire me and to see what I've done, what I've accomplished. That's love, isn't it?"

"No, Sebastian," she said softly. Her heart felt like it was lined with lead. "That's not what love is."

Sebastian's eyes narrowed. "Don't patronize me, Rebecca. You know that we have the same darkness inside of us-"

"That's because you made me that way!"

Sebastian shook his head. "You still don't understand. Do you have any idea what is going on in Alicante right now?"

A cold feeling began to spread in her stomach. "We're in another dimension," she said. "There's no way to know."

"Not exactly," said Sebastian, and his voice was rich with delight, as if she had fallen into precisely the trap he had wanted. "Look into the window above the eastern throne. Look, and see Alicante now."

She looked. When they had entered the room, she had seen only what seemed like the starred night sky through the eastern window, but now, as she concentrated, the surface of the glass shimmered and rippled.

She was looking at the inside of the Accords Hall. It was full of children. Shadowhunter children sat and stood and clung together. There were the Blackthorns, the children huddled tightly in a group, Julian sitting with the baby on his lap, his free arm stretched out as if he could encompass the rest of his siblings, could pull them all in and protect them. Emma sat close by him, her expression stony, her golden sword gleaming behind her shoulder-

The scene resolved into Angel Square. All around the Hall of Accords was a boiling mass of Nephilim, and ranged against them were the Endarkened in their scarlet gear, bristling with weapons - and not just the Endarkened but figures that Rebecca recognized with a sinking heart as faerie warriors. A tall faerie with hair of mixed blue and green strands was battling Aline Penhallow, who stood in front of her mother, her sword drawn as if ready to fight to the death. Across the square, Helen was trying to push her way through the crowd toward Aline, but the crush was too great. The fighting penned her back, but so did the bodies - bodies of Nephilim warriors, fallen and dying, so many more in black gear than red. They were losing the battle, losing it-

The scene faded. Rebeca whirled around to face Sebastian. "What's happening?"

"It's over," he said. "I requested that the Clave turn you over to me; they didn't. Admittedly because you'd run off, but nevertheless, they were no further use to me. My forces have invaded the city. The Nephilim children are hiding in the Accords Hall, but when all the others are dead, the Hall will be taken. Alicante will be mine. All of Idris will be mine. The Shadowhunters have lost the war - not that there was much of one. I really thought they'd put up more of a fight."

"You'll never succeed," she said, trying to inject some confidence into her voice. "There are still Shadowhunters all over the world-"

"And soon enough, they too will drink from the Infernal Cup. And then I'll send them out into all corners of the world to destroy what remains of Jonathan Shadowhunter's race. And then I will kill all the Iron Sisters and Silent Brothers. And then..." He smiled a terrible smile, and gestured toward the western window, which looked out on the dead and blasted world of Edom. "You've seen what happens to a world without protectors," he gloated. "Your world will die. Death on death, and blood in the streets."

"You can't imagine," Rebecca began, then stopped as her voice caught in her throat. She took a deep breath and continued. "You can't imagine that I'd actually choose to stay here with you if what you say is going to happen really does happen."

"Oh, I don't think it," he said breezily. "That's why I've waited, you see. To give you a choice. All those Fair Folk who are my allies, all the Endarkened you see there, they wait on my orders. If I give the signal, they will stand down. Your world will be safe. You'll never be able to return there, of course - I'll seal the borders between this world and that, and never again will anyone, demon or human, travel between them. But it will be safe."

"A choice," she said. Her voice sounded far away to her own ears. "You said you were giving me a choice?"

"Of course," he said. "Rule beside me, and I will spare your world. Refuse, and I will give the order to annihilate it. Choose me, and you can save millions, billions of lives, my darling. You could save a whole world by damning a single soul. Your own. So tell me, what is your decision?"

"No," she said breathlessly as the full impact of what she was going to have to do hit her. "I can't..."

Sebastian grabbed her hand and dragged her closer to the window. "Listen. They have come to Alicante now, those who ride the winds between the worlds. They are drawn to places of slaughter. Can you see?"

Through the window, she could see the Accords Hall. The clouds hung heavy and grey in the sky, but as she watched, they broke apart, and the Wild Hunt rode through, bristling with weapons, howling as their ghostly steeds pounded across the sky.

Mark.

"The Gatherers of the Dead," said Sebastian. "The carrion crows of magic, they go where great slaughter is. A slaughter only you can prevent."

Rebecca felt as if she was a million miles away from home, which she was. But it was more than that - she had never felt so alone in her stand against Sebastian, not even when she had been imprisoned in the Gard.

"Go and take the throne," he said. "If you do it, you can save them all."

She took a deep shuddering breath. "How do I know you'll keep your word?"

He shrugged. "I'd be a fool not to. You'd know immediately that I'd lied to you, and then you'd fight me, which I don't want. Besides, to fully come into my power here, I must seal the borders between our world and this one. Once the borders are closed, the Endarkened in your world will be weakened, cut off from me, their source." He smiled, ice-white and blinding. "It will be a miracle. A miracle performed for them by us - by me. Ironic, don't you think? That I should be their saving angel?"

"What about everyone who's here? Alec? Isabelle? My friends?"

"They can all live. It makes no difference to me," Sebastian said. "They cannot harm me, not now, and doubly not when the borders are sealed."

"And all I have to do is ascend the throne," she said.

"And promise to stay beside me for as long as I live. Which, admittedly, will be a long time. When this world is sealed, I will not just be invulnerable; I will live forever. 'And behold, I am alive forevermore, and have the keys of hell and of death.'"

"You're willing to do this? Give up the whole world of Earth, your Dark Shadowhunters, your revenge?"

"I realized there was something else I'd rather have," he said softly, his eyes fixed on her. She could once again see the silver ring around his iris, and was seized by a strange longing for the alternate reality she had seen upon entering this realm. There, everything had just been so... perfect.

"I'm offering you the chance to become who you really are, Rebecca," he said, his voice somehow even softer. From one of the folds in his coat, he pulled out a frayed piece of paper and placed it in her hand.

"What is this?" she said, her voice trembling.

"Proof that Rebecca Trueblood is real." Sebastian's voice was a breathless whisper against her ear.

Rebecca unfolded the paper, her heart thudding in her chest. Her fingers grew more and more numb with every passing moment.

"It can't be..." She let the paper flutter to the ground.

"But it is!" Sebastian's eyes were bright as he cupped her face in his hands. "Your father is Adam Trueblood. And your mother..."

"My mother..." she half-mumbled, glancing down at the birth certificate that lay at her feet. The ink was smudged, but the name was still legible.

"Susanna Trueblood," Sebastian said. "Born Susanna Williams. Until sixteen years ago, she was a librarian working at New York Public Library."

Rebecca closed her eyes. "Trueblood," she repeated. "Adam was Maryse's brother. And my mother..." She opened her eyes and looked back at Sebastian. "A mundane." A sort of weird sound escaped her, halfway between a moan and a sob. "This can't be happening."

Sebastian held her closer. And despite it all, despite everything, it felt good to be held by him. His arms were... familiar.

No. She couldn't let herself fall into that trap again. No matter what, she had to finish what she came here to do.

"I'm not who I thought I was," she said, looking up at Sebastian.

"No, Rebecca," he said softly. "You're so much more."

"You're right," she said, taking a deep breath. "More than you know, Sebastian." She pulled away from him, and heard him draw a sharp breath as she began to walk towards the throne. So, for all the surety in his voice, he had doubted, hadn't he? He had not been sure what she would choose.

Her steps echoed as she walked steadily to the thrones. The gold was icy cold to touch. She reached the one on the left, turned, and sat down.

It was almost like she was sitting on top of a hill. From here, she could see Jace and Clary, still lying motionless at the other end of the Hall. And in the center of the Hall was Sebastian, looking up at her with a smile spreading over his face.

"Well done," he said, "my queen."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

REBECCA

Rebecca's heart was thudding, her mind racing with what she had just learned. She stared at her hands in her lap. She would have rested them on the hand-rests, but they were shaped like skulls and she had no desire to touch them.

Sebastian was pacing around the center; every once in a while he would pause to look up at her and smile the sort of uninhibited, gleeful smile she associated with the Sebastian from her vision, the boy with guiltless green eyes.

The door to the room opened, and Amatis strode in, followed by two moving lines of Endarkened warriors. Their faces were blank as they silently ranged themselves along the walls of the room, but Amatis looked worried. "Lord Sebastian," she said. "Your mother is not in her cell."

Sebastian frowned and tightened his hand into a fist. "Vexing," he said. "The others must have let her out."

Rebecca felt a surge of hope mixed with terror. She fidgeted in her throne as Amatis flicked her eyes over to look at her; her mouth curved into a smirk.

"Would you like me to set the rest of the army to searching for them?" she said to Sebastian.

"There's no need." He glanced up toward Rebecca and smiled; there was a sudden explosive shattering sound, and the window behind her, the one that had looked out on Alicante, splintered into a spiderweb of mazed lines.

"The borders are closing," Sebastian said. "I will bring them to me."

The doors that they had originally come through burst open and Isabelle and Simon tumbled into the room. Physically, they looked unharmed, but their eyes widened in shock as they looked around, coming to terms with where they were.

As Isabelle's eyes landed on Jace and Clary, she cried out and ran to their side. She put her fingers to Jace's throat; Rebecca saw her shoulders relax.

"He's alive," Sebastian said, sounding bored. "Queen's orders."

Isabelle looked up. Some of the strands of her dark hair were stuck to her face with blood. "The Seelie Queen? When has she ever cared about Jace?"

Sebastian laughed. He seemed to be in an enormously good mood. "Not the Seelie Queen," he said. "The queen of this realm. You may know her."

With a flourish he gestured toward the throne where Rebecca sat. She squirmed uncomfortably. Simon was looking at her, an incredulous expression on his face. Isabelle, meanwhile, had gotten to her feet. When she saw her sister on the throne, she took an involuntary step forward - and was immediately blocked by a dozen Endarkened warriors, Amatis at their center. She carried a massive spear and wore an expression of frightening venom. "Stop where you are," she said. "You will not approach the lady of this realm."

Simon grabbed Isabelle and yanked her back.

"Rebecca!" Isabelle's voice was tight with bewilderment. "What-"

"You will not say her name," Sebastian hissed. "You thought she belonged to you; she belongs to me now, and I will not share."

"You're insane," Simon said.

"And you're dead," Sebastian said. "Does any of it matter now?"

"No!" Rebecca yelled hoarsely. "You will not harm any of them, Sebastian. We agreed on that."

Before Sebastian could reply, the entryway to the room burst open and Magnus and Alec spilled in, followed by Luke and Jocelyn. The doors slammed behind them, and Sebastian clapped his hands together. "Now everyone's here," he declared, his voice delighted. "It's a party!"

It was so much worse than Rebecca had expected it to be. She had expected shock - even anger - but she had not been prepared for the looks of utter betrayal and hurt that had crossed the faces of Alec, Magnus and Isabelle when they caught sight of her on the throne.

"Welcome, citizens of Edom," said Sebastian, his lips curling up. "Welcome to your new world."

Luke's hand immediately went to his belt, but it was Alec who moved fastest: one hand to his bow and the other to the quiver at his back, the arrow nocked and flying before Rebecca could shape the cry for him to stop.

The arrow flew straight toward Sebastian and buried itself in his chest. He staggered back from the force of it, and Rebecca heard a gasp ripple down the line of Dark Shadowhunters. A moment later Sebastian regained his balance and, with a look of annoyance, pulled the arrow from his chest. It was stained with blood.

"Fool," he said. "You can't hurt me; nothing under Heaven can." He flung the arrow at Alec's feet. "Did you think you were an exception?"

Alec's eyes flicked toward Jace; it was minute, but Sebastian caught the glance, and grinned.

"Ah, yes," he said. "Your hero with the heavenly fire. But it's gone, isn't it? Spent on rage in the desert at a demon of my sending." He snapped his fingers, and a spark of icy blue shot from them, rising like a mist. For a moment Rebecca's view of Jace was obscured; a moment later she heard a cough and gasp, and Jace sat up and rose to his feet. Beside him, Clary stirred. Jace immediately caught her and helped her stand.

Their faces drained of color as they took in the room full of warriors, their friends standing horrified around them, and lastly, Rebecca, sitting on the throne.

"Would you like to try to kill me? You have plenty of weapons there. If you feel like you'd like to try slaying me with the heavenly fire, now is your chance." Sebastian opened his arms wide. "I won't fight back."

"Jace," Isabelle hissed. "Jace, do it. Stab him. Go on-"

But Jace was shaking his head. His hand had been at his weapons belt; slowly he lowered it to his side. Isabelle gave a cry of despair; the look on Alec's face was just as bleak, though he stayed silent.

Sebastian lowered his arms to his sides. "You all are alive because Rebecca wants you alive. There is no other reason."

"You told her you wouldn't kill us if she ascended the throne," Jace said. His voice was without inflection. He hadn't met her eyes even once. No one had, except Isabelle. "Didn't you?"

"Not exactly," said Sebastian. "I offered her something much more... substantial than that."

"The world," Magnus said. He appeared to be upright through sheer force of will. His voice sounded like gravel was tearing at his throat, and for the first time since he had entered the room, Rebecca registered just how weak he looked. Something was seriously wrong with him. "You're sealing the borders between our world and this one, aren't you? If you close the gateway, you are no longer splitting your powers between two worlds. All your force will be concentrated here. With all your power concentrated in this dimension, you will be well-nigh invincible here."

"If he seals the borders, how will he get back to our world?" Isabelle demanded.

"He won't," said Magnus. "None of us will. The gates between the worlds will close forever, and we will be trapped here."

"Trapped," Sebastian mused. "Such an ugly word. You'll be... guests." He grinned. "Trapped guests."

"That's what you offered her," Magnus said. "You told her if she would agree to rule beside you here, you would close the borders and leave our world in peace. Rule in Edom, save the world. Right?"

"You're very perceptive," Sebastian said after a brief pause. "It's annoying."

"Rebecca, no!" Alec cried out. He started towards the dais, but was immediately cut off by the Endarkened. "Don't do this-"

"I have to," she said, and though her voice sounded weak to her own ears, it caught and carried across the room. Suddenly, everyone's eyes were on her. "If I don't, he'll kill everyone in our world. Destroy everything. Millions, billions of people. He'll turn our world to this." She gestured toward the window that looked out onto the burned plains of Edom. "It's worth it. It has to be. He won't hurt me. I believe it."

Jocelyn spoke for the first time since entering the room. "You think you can change him, temper him, make him better, because you're the only thing he cares about," Jocelyn said. "I know Morgenstern men. It doesn't work. You'll regret-"

"I already do, Jocelyn," Rebecca said. Her voice almost cracked, but she forced herself to remain stoic and in control. "Can you trust me that this is the only way to save you all? To save our world?" She shifted her gaze to Sebastian. "I accept your offer, Sebastian. I will be your queen."

Sebastian snapped his fingers. "You heard her," he said. "All of you. Kneel to your queen."

No! Rebecca wanted to yell out, but she forced herself to keep her mouth shut. One by one, the Endarkened began to kneel, their heads bowed; the last to kneel was Amatis, and she did not bow her head.

Her fingers began to tremble. She wanted to bury her face in her hands. She hated this, hated every minute of it.

Magnus was the first to kneel. Rebecca would never have guessed it - Magnus was so proud. But then, it was a pride that transcended the emptiness of gestures. She doubted he felt any shame at having to kneel when it meant nothing to him.

Alec followed Magnus, then Isabelle, then Simon, then Luke, drawing Clary's mother down beside him. And lastly Jace, his blond head bowed, went to his knees, and Rebecca heard the window behind her shatter into pieces, erasing any hope of returning to Alicante. It sounded like her breaking heart.

Glass rained down; behind it was only stone. No more Alicante.

"It is done. The paths between the worlds are closed." Sebastian wasn't smiling, but he looked incandescent. As if he were blazing.

He ran toward the platform, took the steps two at a time, and reached up to catch Rebecca's hands; she let him draw her down from the throne until she stood in front of him. His hands felt cool against her own. "You accept it," he said. "You accept your choice?"

"I accept it," she said softly. "I do."

"Then kiss me," he said. "Kiss me like you love me."

She had been expecting this; nevertheless, it didn't keep the uneasy feeling in her stomach at bay. She looked right into his eyes, focusing on the silver ring around his iris. She remembered the green-eyed boy she had seen in her vision, the one whom she really loved. The boy she had seen in the little moments in between. She remembered the kiss they had shared at the Santa Monica Pier. Even though Sebastian had taken a lot from her, he had given her something.

She slid one arm around his shoulder and pressed her lips to his. It felt exactly as it had the first time she had kissed him. Sebastian shuddered under her touch, and his hands slipped down to her waist.

She pulled away from him and pressed her lips to his ear. "Goodbye, Jonathan."

Sebastian pulled away in surprise. "What-"

Quick as lightning, Rebecca pulled Heosphoros from her belt and pushed the blade into his rib cage, right where his heart was.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

ALEC

Sebastian gasped, and spasmed in Rebecca's arms; he staggered back, the hilt of the blade protruding from his chest. His eyes were wide with shock and betrayal. "Rebecca..." Her name was a broken whisper.

Alec vaguely realized that Rebecca was standing with her hands clenched into fists at her sides, tears silently streaming down her face. Sebastian was on his knees now. He reached for the blade, then gasped and broke off. His hands had closed around the hilt, just above the wound in his chest. There was no blood, but there was a flash of red, a spark - fire. The wound was beginning to burn. "What – is - this?" he demanded through clenched teeth.

"Heavenly fire," Rebecca said, her voice tight. "Heosphoros wasn't just forged from heavenly fire, Sebastian. It-it is heavenly fire."

With a scream, he pulled the sword free. He gave the hilt, with its hammered pattern of stars, one incredulous look before he blazed up like a seraph blade.

Alec started towards the dais again. This time, the Endarkened made no move to stop him. Rebecca had been staring at Sebastian, who was entirely consumed by fire, but as Alec neared the dais, she cried out and staggered down the steps. She collapsed to the ground, gasping.

"Rebecca!" Alec cried as his sister began to thrash around wildly, screaming in what seemed like pure agony. Her voice mingled with Sebastian's.

"Alec, get away from me!" she yelled, her voice raw. "I don't-" She stopped and pulled away from Alec, turning so she was on all fours. She began to retch, and black blood poured from her mouth, staining the floor. Alec could do nothing but stand by and watch helplessly.

Finally, she gave a deep, shuddering breath, and managed to sit up. Her eyes found Alec's, and then they rolled up and she collapsed sideways onto the ground. Alec pulled her into his arms again. She was utterly lifeless, no pulse or heartbeat to be seen.

A wild panic seized Alec. He had lost so much already; he would not lose his little sister too. He dimly became aware that Sebastian had stopped screaming too. The fire had died down.

"Rebecca..." The voice was weak, barely more than a whisper. But it was enough. At the sound of her name, Rebecca took a great gasping breath and shot up. She took no notice of Alec; immediately getting to her feet, she ran up the steps to where Sebastian lay. Alec followed her, coming to a stop a few feet away.

There was a great blackened hole across the front of Sebastian's chest. His face was taut and white with pain. Rebecca was on her knees beside him. As Alec watched, she gently lifted his head and placed it on her lap. "Jonathan," she whispered, tightly grasping his hand. She was looking at him with an expression so full of pain and longing that Alec had to look away.

Clary, meanwhile, had approached the dais. She knelt slowly next to her brother.

"You put... the heavenly fire... into the blade of the sword," he said to his sister. "It was... cleverly done."

"It was a rune, that's all," Clary said softly. Her eyes searched Sebastian's face. "Sebastian..."

"No. I'm not him. I'm-Jonathan," he whispered. "I'm Jonathan."

"Go to Sebastian!" It was Amatis, rising, with all the Endarkened behind her. There was grief on her face, and rage. "Kill them all!"

Jonathan struggled to sit upright. "No..." he said hoarsely. But Rebecca whipped around to face the Endarkened, her face so full of rage that Alec actually took a step back. And it was enough to stop the Endarkened in their tracks.

"Take one more step forward," she said. "And you will regret it dearly. I will make sure of it." The Dark Shadowhunters, who had begun to surge forward, froze in confusion. Then, pushing between them, came Jocelyn; she dashed up the steps to the dais. She moved toward Jonathan and then froze, standing over him, staring down with a look of amazement, mixed with a terrible horror.

"Mother?" Jonathan said. He was staring, almost as if he couldn't quite focus his eyes on her. He began to cough. Blood ran from his mouth. His breath rattled in his lungs. A tear escaped Rebecca's eye and slid down her cheek; she angrily wiped it away.

Jocelyn's face hardened, as if she were steeling herself to do something. Then she knelt and placed her hand on her son's cheek.

"I am sorry," he said with a gasp. "I am so..." His eyes tracked to Clary. "I know there is nothing I could do or say now that would allow me to die with even a shred of grace," he said. "And I would hardly blame you if you cut my throat. But I am... I regret. I'm... sorry."

Clary opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Don't," Jonathan said, and half-closed his eyes. "I see you trying to puzzle it out, my sister. Whether I ought to be forgiven the way Luke would forgive his sister if the Infernal Cup released her now. But you see, she was his sister once. She was human once. I-" And he coughed, more blood appearing on his lips. "I never existed at all. Heavenly fire burns away that which is evil. Jace survived Glorious because he is good. There was enough of him left to live. But I was born to be all corruption. There is not enough left of me to survive. You see the ghost of someone who could have been, that is all."

Jocelyn was crying, tears falling silently down her face as she sat very still. Her back was straight.

"I must tell you," he whispered. "When I die - the Endarkened will rush at you. I won't be able to hold them back." His gaze flicked to Rebecca. "You know what to do, don't you?"

Rebecca nodded. Perhaps she didn't trust herself to speak.

But Amatis was having none of it. "No!" she cried. "If the Cup is ruined, so shall we all be!" She spun toward the dais. "Lord Sebastian! Do not let your army be destroyed! We are loyal!"

Jonathan looked at Amatis; his green eyes were like lights. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should never have made you." And he turned his face away.

Rebecca gently transferred Jonathan to his mother's lap, then picked up Heosphoros and stepped down from the platform, making her way to the Behemoth demon at the other end of the hall. She slashed it open, and out rolled the Infernal Cup, covered in glistening ichor.

Rebecca glanced once at Jonathan, then at Luke, as if silently asking for permission. Luke was gazing at his sister with an expression of ultimate sadness, a sadness as profound as death. But he turned to Rebecca and nodded once.

Without hesitation, she plunged the tip of Heosphoros into the Infernal Cup, which shattered into pieces. Amatis gasped and put her hand to her chest. For a moment- just a moment- she stared at Luke with a look of recognition in her eyes: a look of recognition, maybe even love.

"Amatis," he whispered.

Her body slumped to the ground. The other Endarkened followed, one by one, collapsing where they stood, until the room was full of corpses. Luke turned away, pain fresh in his eyes.

Alec jumped as a sudden and harsh screeching sounded. At first, he thought it was one of the others, maybe even one of the Endarkened but the cry rose and rose and became a great shrieking howl that rattled the glass and swirled the dust outside the window that looked out on Edom. The sky turned a red the color of blood, and the cry went on, fading now, a gasping exhalation of sorrow as if the universe were weeping.

"Lilith," Jonathan whispered. "She weeps for her dead children, the children of her blood. She weeps for them and for me."

REBECCA

Rebecca knelt down beside Jonathan. She was still crying, tears freely flowing down her face, but she made no effort to stop them.

"They're dead," Clary said, looking around the room in wonder at the remains of Sebastian's army.

"They're all dead." Jonathan gave a half-choking laugh. "That was something. The Dark Ones are gone."

Clary leaned over him, urgency in her voice. "Jonathan," she said. "Please. Tell us how to open the border. How to go home. There must be some way."

"There's-there's no way," Jonathan whispered. "I shattered the gateway. The path to the Seelie Court is closed; all paths are. It's-it's impossible." His chest heaved. "I'm sorry."

A heavy weight settled in Rebecca's chest. She looked at Clary, and saw the same look of hopelessness mirrored in her eyes. When she looked down, Jonathan's green eyes were fixed on her.

Clary slowly got to her feet. She placed her hand on her mother's shoulder. Jocelyn was still crying silently, but at her daughter's touch, she gently shifted Jonathan to Rebecca's lap, and followed her daughter down the platform.

Jonathan coughed again, more blood trickling down the side of his chin. "Do you-do you love me?"

The words caused a fresh swell of tears to spill from Rebecca's eyes and she began crying in earnest. Her chest felt like it was constricting. But she couldn't say it. She couldn't, because she didn't. "I-I've seen the real you, Jonathan," she choked out finally. "And he is... wonderful."

"I've taken so much from you," he whispered hoarsely, and grasped her hand. "I want to give you something now." He coughed. "Adam... Adam Trueblood. He's alive. Living in New York City."

She was silenced by this statement.

"Go find him, Rebecca," Jonathan whispered. "You deserve to know..." He took in a ragged breath. "Do it... for me..."

"I will." She nodded, her voice thick with tears. "I promise."

The ghost of a smile, bitter and sweet, passed over his face. "I love you, Rebecca." He reached and traced a bloodied finger over her cheek. "All my life, the demon blood has scorched my veins and cut at my heart like blades, and weighed me down like lead - all my life, and I never knew it. I never knew the difference. I'm sorry that I condemned you to such a life." Blood dotted his lips. "I pray that you will be freed too, one day."

His hand dropped. "I've never felt so... light," he said softly, and then he smiled, and closed his eyes, and died.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

ALEC

Rebecca slowly rose to her feet. She made no move to wipe the silent tears streaming down her face. "He's gone," she said to the others. Her voice was flat and empty. She started down the steps, but then suddenly sat down, like she couldn't hold herself upright any longer. She buried her head in her arms and began to cry - not silently, as she had been doing so far - but heartbroken sobbing.

Alec slowly walked over to his sister. He didn't fully understand how Rebecca could weep for someone who had caused so much death and destruction, but he knew he couldn't try to. Whatever she and Sebastian - Jonathan - had had between them was special, and if Rebecca wanted to cry for him, she had every right to. All Alec could do was hold her in his arms. So he did precisely that.

Isabelle brushed past the rest of the onlookers and knelt down beside her sister. Rebecca drew away from Alec for a moment and threw herself into her sister's arms.

"I'm alright," she said, after a minute, gently disentangling herself from Isabelle. She looked up at Alec and repeated, "I'm alright."

Alec gazed into his little sister's eyes. Her irises were still black. And they would remain that way. Forever.

"I wish you'd told us," Isabelle said. "About your plan."

"It wasn't my plan," Rebecca said in a hollow voice. "It was Clary's. She didn't want to tell you because she was afraid it wouldn't work." She glanced at Clary, who was standing beside her mother and Luke. Upon catching Rebecca's eye, she gave her a small, watery smile, which Rebecca returned.

"Becca," Isabelle said, "I hate to ask, but did Seb-did Jonathan say anything about how to unseal the borders?"

Rebecca swallowed. "He said it wasn't possible. That they're closed forever."

"So we're trapped here," Isabelle said, her dark eyes shocked. "Forever? That can't be. There must be a spell- Magnus- " She whirled around to face Magnus.

"He wasn't lying," Magnus said. "There's no way for us to reopen the paths from here to Idris."

There was an awful silence. Then Alec, whose gaze had been resting on Magnus, said, "No way for us?"

"That's what I said," Magnus replied. "There's no way to open the borders."

"No," said Alec, and there was a dangerous note in his voice. He walked over to stand beside Magnus. "You said there was no way for us to do it, meaning there might be someone who could."

Magnus drew away from Alec and looked around at them all. His expression was unguarded, stripped of its usual distance, and he looked both very young and very, very old. "There are worse things than death," Magnus said.

"Maybe you should let us be the judge of that," said Alec, and Magnus scrubbed a despairing hand across his face and said, "Dear God. Alexander, I have gone my whole life without ever taking recourse to this path, save once, when I learned my lesson. It is not a lesson I want the rest of you to learn."

"But you're alive," said Isabelle. "You lived through the lesson."

Magnus smiled an awful smile. "It wouldn't be much of a lesson if I hadn't," he said. "But I was duly warned. Playing dice with my own life is one thing; playing with all of yours-"

"We'll die here anyway," said Jace, who had walked over to join the conversation. "It's a rigged game. Let us take our chances."

"I agree," Rebecca said.

Magnus glanced towards the other side of the dais, where Luke and Jocelyn still stood and sighed. "Majority vote," he said. "Did you know there's an old Downworlder saying about mad dogs and Nephilim never heeding a warning?"

"Magnus-" Alec began, but Magnus only shook his head and drew himself weakly to his feet. He still wore the rags of the clothes he must have put on for that long-ago dinner at the Fair Folk's refuge in Idris: the incongruous shreds of a suit jacket and tie. Rings sparkled on his fingers as he brought his hands together, as if in prayer, and closed his eyes.

"My father," he said, and Alec sucked in a gasp. "My father, who art in Hell, unhallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Edom as it is in Hell. Forgive not my sins, for in that fire of fires there shall be neither loving kindness, nor compassion, nor redemption. My father, who makes war in high places and low, come to me now; I call you as your son, and incur upon myself the responsibility of your summoning."

Magnus opened his eyes. He was expressionless. Five shocked faces looked back at him.

"By the Angel-" Alec started.

"No," said a voice just beyond their huddled group. "Definitely not by your Angel."

Alec stared. At first, he saw nothing, just a shifting patch of shadow, and then a figure evolved out of the darkness. A tall man, as pale as bone, in a pure white suit; silver cufflinks gleamed at his wrists, carved in the shape of flies. His face was a human face, pale skin pulled tight over bone, cheekbones sharp as blades. He didn't have hair so much as a sparkling coronet of barbed wires. His eyes were gold-green, and slit-pupiled like a cat's.

"Father," said Magnus, and the word was an exhalation of sorrow. "You came."

REBECCA

The man smiled. His front teeth were sharp, pointed like feline teeth. "My son," he said. "It has been a long time since you called on me. I was beginning to despair that you ever would again."

"I hadn't planned to," Magnus said dryly. "I called on you once, to determine that you were my father. That once was enough."

"You wound me," said the man, and he turned his pointed-tooth smile on the others. "I am Asmodeus," he said. "One of the Nine Princes of Hell. You may know my name."

"You're- Magnus's father?" said Alec in a strangled voice.

"Yes," Magnus said. He looked very tired. "I warned you, Alexander, that this was something you would not like."

"I don't see what the fuss is about. I have been the father of many warlocks," said Asmodeus. "Magnus has made me the proudest."

"Who are the others?" Rebecca asked, her dark eyes suspicious.

"What he's not saying is that they're mostly dead," Magnus said. He met his father's eyes briefly and then looked away, as if he couldn't stand prolonged eye contact. "He's also not telling you that all princes of Hell have a realm they rule; this is his."

"Since this place- Edom- is your realm," Jace said, "then you're responsible for- for what happened here?"

"It is my realm, though I am rarely here," said Asmodeus with a martyred sigh. "Used to be an exciting place. The Nephilim of this realm put up quite the fight. When they invented the skeptron, I rather thought they might win out at the last moment, but the Jonathan Shadowhunter of this world was a divider, not a uniter, and in the end, they destroyed themselves. Everyone does, you know. We demons get the blame, but we only open the door. It is humanity who steps through it."

"Don't excuse yourself," Magnus snapped. "You as much as murdered my mother-"

"She was a willing little piece, I assure you," said Asmodeus, and Magnus flushed red across his cheekbones. Rebecca felt a dull pang of shock that it was actually possible to do that to Magnus, to hurt him with barbs about his family. It had been so long, and he was so collected.

But then, perhaps your parents could always hurt you, no matter how old you were.

"Let's cut to the business part of this," said Magnus. "You can open a door, correct? Send us through to Idris, back to our world?"

"Would you like a demonstration?" Asmodeus asked, flicking his fingers toward the dais, where Luke was on his feet, looking toward them. Jocelyn was kneeling beside her dead son.

As Rebecca watched, they simply winked out of existence, along with Jonathan's body.

"Mom!" Clary cried out.

"I sent them back to your world," said Asmodeus. "Now you know." He examined his nails.

"How dare you-"

"Well, it's what you wanted, isn't it?" said Asmodeus. "There, you got the first two for free. The rest, well, it'll cost you." He sighed at the looks on the faces around him. "I'm a demon," he said pointedly. "Really, what do they teach Nephilim these days?"

"I know what you want," Magnus said in a strained voice. "And you can have it. But you must swear on the Morning Star to send all my friends back to Idris, all of them, and never to bother them again. They will owe you nothing."

Alec stepped forward. "Stop," he said. "No- Magnus, what do you mean, what he wants? Why are you talking like you're not coming back to Idris with us?"

"There is a time," said Asmodeus, "when we must all return to live in the houses of our fathers. Now is Magnus's time."

"'In my father's house are many mansions,'" Jace whispered; he looked very pale, and as if he might throw up. "Magnus. He can't mean- he doesn't want to take you back with him? Back to-"

"To Hell? Not precisely," Asmodeus said. "As Magnus said, Edom is my realm. I shared it with Lilith. Then her brat took it over and laid waste to the grounds, destroyed my keep- it's in slivers out there. And you murdered half the populace with the skeptron." The last was addressed to Jace, rather petulantly. "It takes great energy to fuel a realm. We draw from the power of what we have left behind, the great city of Pandemonium, the fire we fell into, but there is a time when life must fuel us. And immortal life is the best of all."

"You want to take his life?" Rebecca said loudly. "That's just cruel and stupid, even if you're a demon. How could you want to kill your own child-"

Asmodeus laughed. "Delightful," he said. "Look at them, Magnus, these children who love you and want to protect you! Who would ever have thought it! When you are buried, I will make sure they inscribe it on your tomb: Magnus Bane, beloved of Nephilim."

"You won't touch him," Alec said, his voice like iron. "Maybe you've forgotten what it is we do, us Nephilim, but we kill demons. Even princes of Hell."

Asmodeus rolled his eyes. "Again, I do not want to kill Magnus. That would be messy and silly, and besides, I could have had his death arranged at any time. It is his life freely given I want, for the life of an immortal has power, great power, and it will help me fuel my kingdom."

"But he's your son," Isabelle protested.

"And he will remain with me," said Asmodeus with a grin. "In spirit, you might say."

Alec whirled on Magnus, who stood with his hands in his pockets, scowling. "He wants to take your immortality?"

"Exactly," Magnus said.

"But- you'd survive? Just not be immortal anymore?" Alec looked wretched.

"My immortality would be gone," Magnus said. "All the years of my life would come on me at once. I would be unlikely to survive it. Almost four hundred years is quite a lot to take, even if you moisturize regularly."

"You can't," Alec said, and there was a plea in his voice. "He said 'a life given willingly.' Say no."

"I can't say no, Alexander," he said. "If I do, we all remain here; we'll die anyway. We'll starve, our ashes turned to dust to plague the demons of the realm."

Alec looked stricken. "We'll die together," he said. "Let me stay at least, with you."

"You have to go back. You have to go back to the world."

"I don't want the world. I want you," Alec said, and Magnus closed his eyes, as if the words almost hurt.

"You can't stay with me," Magnus said after a pause. "There will be no me; the demon will take my life force, and my body will crumble away. Four hundred years, remember."

"'The demon,' " Asmodeus said, and sniffed. "You could say my name, at least, while you're boring me."

"I have to save you, Alec," Magnus said. "You and everyone you love; it's a small price to pay, isn't it, in the end, for all of that?"

"Not everyone I love," Alec whispered, and Rebecca could feel tears pressing behind her eyes. Magnus and Alec were clinging to each other; there was tenderness even in the curve of Magnus's fingers around Alec's shoulder as he bent to kiss him. It was a kiss of desperation and clutching more than passion; Magnus held on tightly enough for his fingers to bite into Alec's arms, but in the end, he stepped away, and turned toward his father.

"All right," Magnus said, and Rebecca could tell he was bracing himself, nerving himself up as if he were about to throw his body onto a pyre. "All right, take me. I give you my life. I am-"

At that moment, Simon - Simon, who she had almost forgotten was there - stepped forward. "I am willing."

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FORTY

REBECCA

Asmodeus's eyebrows shot up. "What was that?"

Isabelle seemed to catch on before anyone else. She paled and said, "No, Simon, no!" but Simon went on, his back straight, his chin lifted.

"I also have an immortal life," he said. "Magnus isn't the only one. Take mine; take my immortality."

"Ahhhh," breathed Asmodeus, his eyes suddenly shining. "Azazel told me of you. A vampire is not interesting, but a Daylighter! You carry the power of the world's sun in your veins. Sunlight and eternal life, that is a power indeed."

"Yes," Simon said. "If you'll take my immortality instead of Magnus's, then I give it to you. I am-"

"Simon!" Clary said, but it was already too late.

"I am willing," he finished, and with a glance around at the rest of the group, he set his jaw, with a look that said, I've said it. It's done.

"God, Simon, no," said Magnus, in a voice of terrible sadness, and he closed his eyes.

"I'm only seventeen," Simon said. "If he takes my immortality, I'll live out my life- I won't die here. I never wanted immortality, I never wanted to be a vampire, I never wanted any of it."

Isabelle opened her mouth, but she seemed to be lost for words.

"It's settled then," Asmodeus said gleefully. "But there is one more thing I want from you. One more item to sweeten the deal." He grinned, and his teeth glimmered like sharp crystals.

"What?" Magnus's voice shook. "What is it you want?"

"His memories," said Asmodeus.

"Azazel took a memory from each of us, as payment for a favor," Alec said. "What is it with you demons and memories?"

"Human memories, freely given, are like food to us," said Asmodeus. "Demons live on the cries and agony of the damned in torment. Imagine then, how nice a change of pace a feast of happy memories is. Mixed together, they are delicious, the sour and the sweet." He looked around, his cat's eyes glittering. "And I can already tell there will be many happy memories to take, little vampire, for you are much loved, are you not?"

Simon looked strained. He said, "But if you take my memories, who will I be? I don't-"

"Well," said Asmodeus. "I could take every memory you have and leave you a drooling idiot, I suppose, but really, who wants the memories of a baby? Dull, dull. The question is, what would be the most fun? Memories are delicious, but so is pain. What would cause the most pain to your friends, here? What would remind them to fear the power and the wit of demons?" He clasped his hands behind his back.

"I promised my immortality," Simon said. "Not my memories. You said 'freely given'-"

"God in Hell, the banality," said Asmodeus. "Do you want to go back or not?" He yelled the last word, anger crossing his face like a bolt of lightning. He seized Simon's forearm. Instantly, Rebecca's sword was in her hand, as were Jace's and Isabelle's.

"Let him go," Jace said. "He is ours, not yours; the Nephilim protect what belongs to us-"

"No!" Simon said. He was shivering all over, but his back was straight. "Jace, don't. This is the only way."

"Indeed it is," said Asmodeus. "For none of you can fight a Prince of Hell in his place of power; not even you, Jace Herondale, child of angels, or you, Clarissa Fairchild, with your tricks and runes. Or you, Rebecca Trueblood, even though the blood of Lilith herself flows in your veins." He moved his fingers, slightly; Jace's sword clattered to the ground, and Jace jerked his hand back, grimacing in pain as if he'd been burned. Asmodeus spared him only a glance before raising his hand again.

"There is the gateway. Look." He gestured toward the wall, which shimmered and came clear. Through it, Rebecca could see the hazy outlines of the Hall of Accords. There were the bodies of the Endarkened, lying on the ground in heaps of scarlet, and there were the Shadowhunters, running, stumbling, hugging embracing one another- victory after the battle.

And there were Jocelyn and Luke, looking around in bewilderment. They were still in the same position they had been in on the dais: Luke standing, Jocelyn kneeling with Jonathan's body in her arms. Other Shadowhunters were only just beginning to glance toward them, surprised, as if they had appeared out of nowhere- which they had.

"There is everything you want," said Asmodeus, as the gateway flickered and went dark. "And in return, I shall take the Daylighter's immortality, and along with it, his memories of the Shadow World- all his memories of all of you, of all he has learned, of all he has been. That is my desire."

Simon's eyes widened; Clary gasped.

Magnus looked as if someone had stabbed him. "There it is," he whispered. "The trick at the heart of the game. There always is one, with demons."

Isabelle looked incredulous. "Are you saying you want him to forget us?"

"Everything about you, and that he ever knew you," said Asmodeus. "I offer you this in exchange. He will live. He will have the life of an ordinary mundane. He will have his family back; his mother, his sister. Friends, school, all the trappings of a normal human life."

Clary looked at Simon desperately. He was shaking, clenching and unclenching his hands. He said nothing.

"Absolutely not," said Jace.

"Jace," Simon said through clenched teeth. "It's the only way."

"Simon, shut up," Magnus said desperately. "Take me instead, Father-"

"I want the Daylighter," said Asmodeus.

"You can't just take our memories," Rebecca began furiously. "We're Nephilim. It would be tantamount to an attack. The Clave-"

"Your memories you may keep," said Asmodeus. "Nothing about your remembering Simon will get me in trouble with the Clave, and besides, it will torment you, which only doubles my pleasure." He grinned. "I shall rip a hole through the heart of your world, and when you feel it, you will think of me and remember me. Remember!"

Asmodeus pulled Simon close, his hand sliding up to press against Simon's chest, as if he could reach through his rib cage into his heart. "We begin here. Are you ready, Daylighter?"

"Stop!" Isabelle stepped forward, her whip in hand, her eyes burning. "We know your name, demon. Do you think I am afraid to slay even a Prince of Hell? I would hang your head on my wall like a trophy, and if you dare touch Simon, I will hunt you down. I will spend my life hunting you-"

Alec wrapped his arms around his sister, and held her tightly. "Isabelle," he said quietly. "No."

"What do you mean, no?" Clary demanded. "We can't let this happen- Jace-"

"This is Simon's choice." Jace stood stock-still; he was ashy pale but unmoving. His eyes were locked on Simon's. "We have to honor it."

Simon looked back at Jace, and inclined his head. His gaze was moving slowly over all of them, flicking from Magnus to Alec, to Rebecca, to Jace, to Isabelle, where it stopped and rested. Finally, he looked at Clary. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden faerie ring. He pressed it into Clary's hands, and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Asmodeus.

"Enough," said Asmodeus. "I hate good-byes." And he tightened his grip on Simon. Simon gasped, his eyes flying wide open; his hand went to his chest.

"My heart-" he gasped, and Rebecca knew, knew from the look on his face, that it had started beating again. A white mist exploded all around them, and a surprised cry escaped her throat. The mist encircled Simon and Asmodeus, half-blocking them from view.

Shapes began to appear in the mist as it thickened. Clary saw herself and Simon as children, holding hands, crossing a street in Brooklyn; she had barrettes in her hair and Simon was adorably rumpled, his glasses sliding off his nose. There they were again, throwing snowballs in Prospect Park; and at Luke's farmhouse, tanned from summer, hanging upside down from tree branches. She saw them in Java Jones, listening to Eric's terrible poetry, and on the back of a flying motorcycle as it crashed into a parking lot, with Jace there, looking at them, his eyes squinted against the sun. And then she saw her and Simon, laughing at something Simon had said- what was it he had said? She struggled to remember... And there was Simon with Isabelle, his hands curved around her face, kissing her, and she could see Isabelle as Simon saw her: fragile and strong, and so, so beautiful. And there was Valentine's ship, Simon kneeling on Jace, blood on his mouth and shirt, and blood at Jace's throat, and there was the cell in Idris, and Hodge's weathered face, and Simon and Clary again, Clary etching the Mark of Cain onto his forehead. Maureen, and her blood on the floor, and her little pink hat, and the rooftop in Manhattan where Lilith had raised Sebastian, and Clary was passing him a gold ring across a table, and an Angel was rising out of a lake before him, and he was kissing Isabelle . . .

All Simon's memories, his memories of magic, his memories of all of them, being drawn out and spun into a skein. It shimmered, as white-gold as daylight. There was a sound all around them, like a gathering storm.

Rebecca could feel the edge of the storm catching her, lifting her up and whirling her away. She saw the stone room recede into the distance at a terrible speed, and she was alone in the chaos. For a moment she thought Asmodeus had lied to them after all, that there was no gateway, and that they would float in this nothingness forever until they died.

And then the ground came up, fast. She saw the floor of the Accords Hall, hard marble veined with gold, before she hit it. The collision was hard, rattling her teeth; she rolled automatically and came to a stop at the side of the mermaid fountain in the center of the room.

She sat up and looked around. The room was full of utterly silent, staring faces, but they didn't matter. She wasn't looking for strangers. She saw Jace first; he had landed in a crouch, poised to fight. She saw his shoulders relax as he looked around, realizing where they were, that they were in Idris, and the war was over. And there was Alec; he had his hand still in Magnus's. Magnus looked sick and exhausted, but he was alive. Clary was stumbling to her feet and running to Jace.

And there was Isabelle. She had come through the closest to Rebecca, only a foot or so away. She was already on her feet, her gaze scanning the room, once, twice, a desperate third time. They were all there, all of them, all except one.

She looked down at Clary; her eyes were shining with tears. "Simon's not here," she said. "He's really gone."

The silence that had held the assembly of Shadowhunters in its grip seemed to break like a wave: Suddenly there were Nephilim running toward them. Maryse and Robert, closely followed by Jocelyn and Luke, Aline and Helen - and even Emma Carstairs.

To her surprise, Maryse immediately caught hold of Rebecca and looked her over, frantically, and then immediately pulled her into a hug. Rebecca allowed herself to dissolve into her arms, wrapping her own around Maryse and holding her tight.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

REBECCA

A few days later...

Lake Lyn looked almost unreal, with its lovely tinted grey sky. The water reflected the sky above it, making it appear a dull steel grey. The surface was very still, broken only by occasional ripples. The hills that surrounded the lake stood silent and solemn, almost as if they were in mourning too.

Clary was already standing at the edge of the water, Jace a few feet behind her. His golden hair rippled in the slight breeze.

Clary herself was shivering; Rebecca could see it as she came up beside her. She turned and gave Rebecca a sad smile - sad, but warm nonetheless - and held out the silver box she cradled in her arms. Feeling like she was in a dream, Rebecca reached out and touched the cool surface.

"Together?" Clary whispered.

Rebecca simply nodded. A lump had settled in her throat. She stared at the silver box, trying to come to terms with what they were going to do.

The Clave had burned Jonathan's body- at Clary's request. The burning of a body was an honor, and those who died in disgrace were buried at crossroads whole and unburned. The burning had been more than a favor, Rebecca knew; it had been a way for the Clave to be absolutely certain that he was dead. But still, Jonathan's ashes were never to be taken to the abode of the Silent Brothers. They would never form a part of the City of Bones; he would never be a soul among other Nephilim souls.

Clary slowly opened the box. Inside it were ashes, powdery and gray, flecked with bits of charred bone. Among the ashes lay the Morgenstern ring, glimmering and silver. It had been on a chain around Jonathan's throat when he had been burned, and it remained, untouched and unharmed by the fire.

"I never had a brother," Clary said, staring at the contents of the box. "Not really."

"You had Simon," Rebecca said simply. "He was your brother, in all the ways that mattered."

Clary looked up at the other girl. Her green eyes were still heavy with grief - or maybe weariness. She looked back down at the box. "Ready?" She took a deep breath and lifted the box.

"Wait!"

Clary's hand froze in mid-motion, her expression slightly puzzled.

"I-" For some reason, the words wouldn't come out of Rebecca's mouth. So she simply reached inside the box, closed her fingers around the Morgenstern ring. Clary didn't need to look inside the box to know what she had taken.

"I-" Rebecca began again, but Clary said quietly, "I understand."

Together, they lifted the box, and flung it out into the water. The splash sounded almost deafening. They could see it sink slowly beneath the surface, and then it vanished from view.

It was all so funny, wasn't it? How unfair the world was. How innocent people had to pay the price for the atrocities committed by monsters. As she tightened her fingers around the Morgenstern ring, something seemed to settle down inside Rebecca's chest. As if a hole inside had been partially filled.

"Ave atque vale," she whispered. "Ave atque vale in perpetuum, meus rex." Hail and farewell forever, my king.

"Ave atque vale in perpetuum, frater," Clary whispered after her. Hail and farewell forever, my brother.

The wind off the lake was icy cold, freezing the tears to Rebecca's face. She wept not for the boy she knew, but for the boy she yearned to know, the one she had seen only in rare moments, the boy she had kissed only in dreams.

The roof had always been Rebecca's favorite place to sit. Isabelle and Clary had joined her ten minutes ago, but neither of them had said a word, and Isabelle had simply squeezed her sister's hand in a reassuring sort of way. And they waited in silence for the Council's verdict. With every passing minute, the heavy feeling in her heart was diminishing, replaced by a jittery anxiety so intense that she shuddered.

Years passed before the door to the roof opened and Alec came out. The three of them were on their feet in an instant. Rebecca waited for Isabelle to say something, but she remained silent. She had been quiet ever since they had returned from Edom; the only time they had really talked after coming back was when Rebecca had shown Alec and Isabelle her birth certificate, and explained who her parents really were.

She missed Simon terribly, Rebecca knew. After all that had happened, the only things they had found solace in were each other's company. So when they stood up, Isabelle didn't let go of Rebecca's hand.

"It's bad," Alec said hoarsely. "The Faeries... they've been ordered to disband their armies. They can't carry weapons anymore."

"And Mark?" Rebecca said frantically, her throat dry. "What about Mark?"

Alec's blue eyes were dim. "He... they're not going to do anything about him, Becca. Since he's a part of the Wild Hunt now, there's nothing they can do."

Rebecca felt numb all over. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing did.

"Helen is being sent to Wrangel Island to work on the wards," she heard Alec say.

"What for?" Isabelle demanded. "Just because she has faerie blood?"

"That's horrible!" Clary said. "That's horrible! What about Aline?"

"Aline's going with her," Alec said. "There's some uncle that's coming to take care of the Blackthorn kids and the girl- Emma."

There was silence as everyone digested the information. It stretched on for so long that Rebecca thought she might scream, just to fill in the silence. Finally, Alec retreated back down the steps, leaving the three of them on the roof.

Izzy stared out at the city skyline. She had the sort of fixed stare that said, I'm trying not to cry. When she looked back at Rebecca, there were tears standing in her eyes. "I want to tell you something," she said. "And I don't want you to hate me."

"I couldn't hate you."

"Not possible."

"It's almost worse," Isabelle said. "than if Simon were dead. If he were dead, I could grieve, but I don't know what to think- he's safe, he's alive, I should be grateful. He isn't a vampire anymore, and he hated being a vampire. I should be happy. But I'm not happy. He told me he loved me. He told me he loved me, Becca, and now he doesn't even know who I am. If I were standing in front of him, he wouldn't recognize my face. It feels like I never mattered. None of it ever mattered or ever happened. He never loved me at all." She swiped angrily at her face.

"I hate it!" she broke out suddenly. "I hate this feeling, like there's something sitting on my chest."

"Missing someone?" Clary said.

"Yes," Isabelle said. "I never thought I'd feel it about some boy."

"It's not just some boy, Iz," Rebecca said softly. "It's Simon. And he did love you. And it did matter. Maybe he doesn't remember, but you do. We all do. And that's how we can keep him alive - by remembering him the way he was."

Isabelle didn't reply. What could she say? When someone has lost so much, can words offer any semblance of relief? Probably not. So they didn't say anything more. They just sat there, side by side, shoulders touching. And for a while, they felt a little less alone in this cruel world.

The evening air was dry and cool, sending strands of hair whipping across Rebecca's face as she stepped out of the Institute and drew her hood up. What she was about to do was against the Law, she knew. But for some reason, that didn't scare her very much. She wasn't sure anything ever could, not after what she had just been through.

Walking through the streets, riding the subway - it all felt like she was in a dream. Everything seemed so... mundane. But despite the surreality of it, it was a relief to finally be able to move around unnoticed, without people whispering and pointing at her as if she was an interesting yet dangerous specimen that had been set loose, as had been happening the past few days. In the bustling streets of New York City, no one gave her a second glance.

It was a short ride to Queens. Rebecca hurried past evening commuters, people walking dogs and chattering school children until she reached 68th Street. It took her a few minutes to find #11 - a two-storey brownstone with a plain white door. Scented geraniums grew out of flower pots placed on the window sill, nodding merrily in the breeze.

This was it.

Rebecca couldn't muster up the strength to climb the steps. She couldn't move. A lump formed in her throat. She had been so focused on actually finding the place, she hadn't thought about what she'd do once she found it.

She gazed at the door. Her parents were behind it - her real parents. The ones who had given birth to her. And the same ones who had given her away.

Mustering every bit of courage she could, Rebecca slowly walked up the steps, and rang the doorbell. She could hear its shrill echo from somewhere inside the house.

For a few agonizing seconds - seconds that seemed to last years - there was silence. Then footsteps sounded behind the door.

Rebecca had the mad urge to run. She could leave right now, pretend that she had never found out her parents' address, put it all behind her and move on-

The door opened.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

REBECCA

The man who opened the door was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He had black hair and blue eyes, and was broad-shouldered. He was wearing a simple button-down shirt and pants, and when he smiled at Rebecca, his eyes crinkled at the corner.

"Can I help you?"

Rebecca opened her mouth to speak. No words came out. Instead, she pushed her hood back, letting her brown hair tumble down in warm, heavy waves.

The smile faded from the man's face, replaced by a look of utter shock. "Rebecca...?" he whispered half-disbelievingly, as if he expected, almost hoped, for her to contradict him.

"Yes," Rebecca whispered. "I-I'm Rebecca."

A faint voice called out from inside the house - a woman's voice, sweet and lilting. "Adam? Who is it?"

The man paid no attention. He was still staring at Rebecca open-mouthed.

"Are you... are you Adam Trueblood?" Rebecca said.

The question seemed to snap him out of his reverie. "That's me," he said, unblinkingly. The woman called out again, and Adam snapped to action, holding the door open and stepping to the side, clearly indicating that she should come inside.

She had stepped into what looked like a foyer. A set of stairs led up to the floor above, and beside it there was another door, standing ajar.

"The house is split," Adam explained hastily, shutting the door behind her. "Another family lives upstairs, but we took the ground floor because-"

"What's taking you so long, Adam?"

Adam broke off just as a woman appeared through the doorway. For a moment, Rebecca thought she was very short, but then she realized that the woman was in a wheelchair. She wore a pale pink dress, and her hair was neatly drawn into a bun - hair that was the exact shade as Rebecca's own.

"Susie, this-this is Rebecca."

The woman went pale as she looked at Rebecca. "Oh, heavens," she whispered hoarsely, and held her arms up; as if in a trance, Rebecca moved forward as if in a trance, and knelt down beside the woman.

"Heavens, it really is you." Tears were flowing down the woman's face as she cupped Rebecca's cheek. Her eyes were a dark gray, the color of the storm clouds. Rebecca gripped her hand, and even though she couldn't remember seeing this woman before, her touch was familiar - as familiar as breathing, as walking, as smiling.

"But how did you- how did you find us?" Susanna said, as Adam helped Rebecca take off her hoodie. Underneath, she was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt, and her permanent runes seemed extremely out of place in that cozy little house. She started for a second, wondering if Susanna knew about the Shadow Word or not - but one look at her face gave Rebecca the answer.

"I managed to persuade the mundane police," Rebecca said, sitting down on the edge of a plush armchair.

"I imagine that would be pretty easy for you," Adam said, sitting down opposite her. His eyes travelled up and down Rebecca's arms. "Fine Shadowhunter like you." There was unmistakable pride in his voice.

"I suppose it was."

An awkward silence ensued, broken by Adam, who jumped to his feet and slapped a hand to his forehead. "My goodness, where are my manners? Here we have a guest and I haven't even..." He looked at Rebecca. "Would you like anything? Cup of tea? Coffee, perhaps?"

"Just water is fine, thanks."

As Adam disappeared through a doorway to another room, Susanna leaned forward eagerly. Despite her small frame, she radiated a sense of warmth and kindness that seemed to fill the whole room. "I have dreamed of this day for so long," she said softly. "To see my children grow, to see what they would accomplish-"

Rebecca's heart skipped a beat. "Children? You mean..."

Susanna smiled sadly. "Of course, I don't suppose you'd remember." At Rebecca's bewildered expression, she sighed and said, "You had a younger brother- Adam, coaster!"

Adam, who had returned from the kitchen and placed a glass of water in front of Rebecca on the wooden coffee table, smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, sweetheart." He slid a coaster from the pile on the table, placed the glass on it and sat back in his armchair.

Susanna turned back to Rebecca. "As I was saying, your younger brother- he was born when you were seven."

Questions whirled around in Rebecca's head. I had a younger brother? I was seven years old? But I thought I had been given away at birth? Why don't I remember anything then? Finally, she said, "What happened to him?"

"Well, he's still your brother. Only now, he would be a Lightwood, not a Trueblood."

A great black hole seemed to open up in Rebecca's chest.

He was born when you were seven.

Only now, he would be a Lightwood.

"What-what was his name?" Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

"His name was Maxwell. Max for short."

Rebecca couldn't take it anymore. She buried her head in her hands, feeling her chest constrict painfully.

"Rebecca?" Susanna's voice, filled with concern.

She looked up and met Susanna's concerned gaze, and Adam's troubled one.

"There is something you should know," Rebecca said. Taking a deep breath, she began her story.

She told her parents everything, beginning from the moment Jace had brought Clary to the Institute to the moment she had scattered Sebastian's ashes. When she explained what had happened to Max, Susanna cried out and buried her face in her hands, and Adam looked like the life had been drained out of him.

By the time Rebecca had finished, the sun had set and it was dark. Nobody had bothered to turn on the lights, and now, she could barely see either of their faces. After what felt like an eternity of silence, Adam got up and flicked on the lights, bathing the room in a warm glow. His face was tight and drawn.

Susanna was slumped in her wheelchair, staring at the floor. "Oh, Max," she whispered, closing her eyes. "My baby..."

Adam knelt down by his wife's wheelchair, still pale as a ghost, and whispered something to her. She nodded wearily, and he wheeled her into an adjoining room, closing the door softly behind her.

"She needs to rest," he explained. "Her health isn't the best."

"Oh. Right."

He sat back down and leaned forward, clasping his hands together in front of him. "I imagine you have questions for us, too." He had a clipped, oddly formal way of speaking, Rebecca realized. Just like a Shadowhunter. Old habits died hard, apparently.

"I do, actually." Rebecca leaned forward. "What happened when I was born? How did I end up with Maryse and Robert?"

At that, Adam smiled sadly. "That's the question I was dreading." He was quiet for a moment. "It's not an easy story to tell. Maybe we should talk in the garden?"

The garden was a small, neatly fenced-off area at the back of the house. Rebecca was surprised - it was rare to find gardens anywhere in the city. She could hear the faint chirp-chirp of crickets and the occasional honk from a passing car.

Adam closed the screen door behind him and sat down beside Rebecca on the steps leading down to the garden.

"I'll start from the beginning," he said. "I think most of your questions will be answered by the time I'm done." Taking a deep breath, he began.

"I suppose it all started back in the early 1900s, with Marie and William Herondale. William's father and I had something in common - we both gave up the Shadowhunter life to be with the women we loved. And it is a decision I have never regretted." The ghost of a smile crossed his face. "William grew up as a mundane. But, one day, when he was playing in his father's study, he came across a Pyxis. Not knowing what it was, he opened it. And out came Marbas."

Rebecca gasped softly. "But that's a Greater Demon!"

"Precisely. Marbas was humiliated and furious at being trapped for so long, and when he realized that he had been finally set free, he took his revenge by placing a curse on William."

"What was the curse?"

"I don't know, exactly. But the next day, William escaped to the London Institute to become a Shadowhunter and refused to return to his family, even when they tracked him down and pleaded with him to come back. Years later, he managed to track down Marbas with the help of a warlock, and to his dismay, he learned that he had never been cursed - it was a lie."

"That's awful," Rebecca said, wondering what this story had to do with her.

"William was furious, and he slew Marbas' corporeal form. But that only served to anger Marbas even more. He returned many years later, after William had married Marie Lightwood, and attacked their children. None of them was hurt badly, but Marie, determined to protect her children, trapped Marbas in his Pyxis again. And there he remained until nine years ago."

Adam turned and looked directly at her. "You're probably wondering what this has to do with you. Well, here it comes.

"Marbas has hated the Lightwoods ever since, especially the women in the family. When he escaped from the Pyxis for a second time, he tracked the Lightwoods down to New York. But the Institute was too well-protected. So, once again, he took it out on Maryse's family - us."

The pieces of the story were starting to come together. She understood what had happened.

"Marbas attacked us and destroyed our home. He-he hurt your mother. And he would have killed you and Max, if I hadn't managed to fend him off." Adam's tone was flat, but his face was tight and drawn. "The Clave was at the scene almost immediately. Marbas retreated, but the Clave insisted that after such an incident, they could no longer allow our children to remain with us. They would be sent to the Institute in Idris, to be raised and trained as Shadowhunters."

There was more than just sadness in his eyes, as though it had curdled into weariness over the years. "But Maryse stepped in. She already had two children, she said. A boy and a little girl. She would take you in, raise you as her own children. And maybe it was selfish, but..." He looked down and sighed. "I thought I would at least get to see you, if you remained here in New York. Maybe catch a glimpse of you somewhere on the street."

"But... but I don't even remember you," Rebecca stammered. "How could I not remember you at all, if I was nine years old when Maryse took me in?"

Adam smiled sadly. "Children of Shadowhunters and mundanes are always looked down on, Rebecca. Especially those whose parents have deserted the Conclave. They are often cast aside, often overlooked. I never wanted that for you or Max. I never wanted to burden you with a legacy that ended with a Shadowhunter abandoning his way of life for love."

Rebecca stayed silent, watching the leaves sway in the soft breeze. She dreaded what was coming next.

"So I asked Maryse to wipe your memories and replace them with memories of you growing up as a Lightwood. She wasn't happy about it, but she agreed. So we got Brother Zachariah - he's always had a soft spot for Nephilim - to perform the ritual in secret. As an added measure, Maryse had the memories of her children wiped as well, so that they would believe that you and Max were their real siblings."

A lump had formed in Rebecca's throat.

Adam looked down, his black hair falling forward into his eyes. "I'm so sorry," he said.

Rebecca could not form the words to reply. Instead, she reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her birth certificate. Mutely, she handed it to him.

Adam unfolded it, his eyes glistening. "I remember when you were six," he said quietly, "and a Clave representative came to ask you if you wished to join the Shadowhunters." Seeing Rebecca's puzzled look, he added, "It's custom. Every six years, a Clave representative will come to ask you if you want to be a Shadowhunter. You said no right away." He chuckled lightly.

Rebecca stayed silent, waiting for him to say more. She felt a great, unquenchable thirst, hungry to know more about the life she had lived but didn't remember.

"You were born with the Sight, you know?" Adam continued, almost as if he was talking to himself. "I had hoped that you weren't born with it, but... one day, I found you poking a water sprite that you had found in the park. So I told you everything about the Shadow World. You were only six, but you took it well. I knew that if you did ever choose to join the Nephilim, you'd be one hell of a Shadowhunter." He turned to her, misty-eyed. "And now look at you."

Rebecca smiled sadly. "Exactly. A demon-blooded Shadowhunter. I'm an abomination-"

"Blood doesn't matter, Rebecca. What's in your heart does." He turned to look at her. "And I know you have a good heart."

Rebecca nodded silently, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

What's in my heart? I don't know.

And they remained there, father and daughter, side by side, until the moon was high in the sky.

Chapter Text

REBECCA

Six months later

"Happy birthday!"

Rebecca's mouth fell open at the sight of the dress. It was a beautiful, dark red, with streaks of orange running through it.

"Flame for the birth of Nephilim," Adam said, quoting the old Shadowhunter poem.

"It's beautiful!" Rebecca unfurled the dress. It fell to just below her knees, and the sleeves were made of red lace, woven with patterns of runes - runes of good luck and happiness. She traced them with her fingers. "How did you get the runes in here?"

"That's all thanks to your mother," Adam said proudly, squeezing his wife's shoulder.

"It's amazing. Seriously, I cannot stress how absolutely gorgeous it is."

Susanna smiled warmly. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

Rebecca dropped down to her knees beside her mother and enveloped her in a hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"There's something else I have for you," Adam said, as Rebecca stood up. "If you want it, that is."

"What is it?"

In answer, Adam handed her a small velvet box. Inside, there was a polished silver ring, engraved with a pattern of crisscrossing swirls. She took it out, examining it in the palm of her hand. "Is this..."

"The Trueblood family ring," Adam said. "The engraving is a modified form of what mundanes call the triskele. The three spirals represent the mundanes, Downworlders and Shadowhunters."

"It's yours if you want it," Susanna said softly.

Rebecca stared at the ring in her hand. "I'll take it," she said, surprising even herself.

Adam reached out and curled her fingers around the ring. "You're a Trueblood now," he said. "You belong to a line of great warriors, of Consuls and Inquisitors, of Centurions from the Scholomance. Wear it well."

Susanna rolled her eyes. "Oh, stop pressuring the poor girl, Adam!"

Rebecca couldn't help the smile that crossed her face.

The sun was beginning to set by the time Rebecca reached the Institute, the dress neatly folded in her backpack, which was bouncing merrily on her shoulders. The Trueblood family ring, along with the Morgenstern ring, was hanging on the chain around her neck, gently clinking in rhythm with her steps.

As was customary every time she got back from visiting her parents, Rebecca took an alley that led to the back of the Institute, instead of using the front door. The alley opened out into a small square, from where she could easily climb in through her window using the pipes that ran down the wall.

Once she was back inside, she carefully hung the dress in her closet. She was about to remove the chain around her neck when a knock sounded on the door.

In a flash, Rebecca slipped the chain under her shirt, making sure the rings were out of sight, and kicked off her boots. When she opened the door, she found Isabelle standing outside, a somewhat suspicious expression on her face. She was wearing a red dress that clashed brilliantly with her black hair, and her whip was curled around her wrist.

"What's up?" Rebecca said, trying to look innocent.

Isabelle's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why do you have mud on your face?"

Crap.

Rebecca sighed, mentally kicking herself for not checking before she opened the door. She'd had far too many close calls lately, but she'd also perfected lying through her teeth.

"Fine. If I tell you, do you promise not to tell Maryse?"

Isabelle made a show of crossing her heart. "Cross my heart, and hope to die."

"I snuck out to buy a new dress."

"Oh, Bec, really? Why didn't you tell me, I would have-"

"Shh!" Rebecca glanced around quickly, but the hallway was empty except for Isabelle. "I'll show you later, Izzy. And don't worry, I won't be late to the party-"

"You better not be," Isabelle said. "But that's not why I came."

As Rebecca looked at her expectantly, Isabelle said, "The Consul is here. She wants to talk to you."

Rebecca hurried down the stairs, smoothing out her clothes and hair. Her hands were trembling from anticipation, but she still felt a sense of dread that lay curled in her stomach like a snake.

Jia Penhallow was waiting in the entrance hall, wearing a long travelling cloak. Her sharp eyes followed Rebecca as she clattered down the stairs.

"Rebecca," the Consul said. "How are you doing?"

"I'm doing alright, Consul. Isabelle told me you wished to talk to me?"

"I do, yes."

"Would you like to go into the office-"

"No, thank you." She inclined her head. "This will be a short conversation, I hope."

Rebecca tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "Is this about the... test results?"

At that, a little sadness crept into Jia's eyes. "I'm sorry, Rebecca. The Silent Brothers have done everything they can with the blood sample you sent them. But they have found no cure for the demon blood, and there is no way to separate it from your own blood, without serious consequences to you."

Rebecca's heart turned to stone. "Oh."

"Apparently, your body used the demon blood to heal itself after you were injured. To remove it would mean that you would die."

Rebecca said nothing.

"I am deeply sorry. I wanted to meet you in person to tell you this. I don't imagine it is easy to hear this."

"It really isn't," Rebecca said through clenched teeth.

"How is the pain?"

"Gone."

Jia took a deep breath. "That's good to hear." After a few seconds of silence, she continued, "The Silent Brothers speculated that it was Sebastian's life force that was tying you to his blood."

"That makes sense," Rebecca said dully. "I lost a lot of the demon blood when he-he died."

Jia nodded. "I see." She pulled out a folded piece of paper from within her cloak. "There is one more thing-"

The door behind them creaked open, and Isabelle stepped out, looking impatient. "Rebecca, what's taking you so long- oh. Sorry, Consul. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"That's alright," Jia said serenely. She gestured to the room Isabelle had come out of. The faint buzz of voices emanated from it. Rebecca thought she could hear Simon's voice, raised in a question. "Special occasion?"

Isabelle shrugged. "Just a party." She continued to look expectantly at them, until Jia finally said, "I just need Rebecca for a couple more minutes, Isabelle."

Once Isabelle left, Jia turned back to Rebecca. "As I was saying, there is one more thing I wanted to ask you." She cleared her throat. "In light of recent events, the Clave has decided to reopen the Scholomance, for the purpose of training the best Shadowhunters to effectively deal with faerie matters. It is my hope," - she held up the piece of paper - "that you will accept my invitation to be a student at the Scholomance and become one of the first Centurions in over a century."

Rebecca simply stared at the paper, her mind racing. "But... I..."

"You're a good Shadowhunter, Rebecca. Very good, in fact. You have demonstrated strength of character, resilience, an innate sense of compassion, and not to mention, remarkable fighting skills. It is my personal belief that you will make a fine Centurion."

"But my demon blood-"

"Will not be a problem. If anything, it is your advantage. It is who you are."

Mutely, Rebecca took the folded piece of paper.

"The decision is entirely yours, in the end," Jia said. "But I hope you don't forgo this opportunity."

You belong to a line of great warriors, of Consuls and Inquisitors, of Centurions from the Scholomance. Wear it well.

Rebecca swallowed. "I'll think about it."

Jia gave a wry smile. "Very well, then. It seems that that is the best answer I can hope for right now." She chuckled lightly. "Strange isn't it? The way things always turn out in the end?"

"I suppose, yes," Rebecca muttered, a little puzzled.

Jia eyed her shrewdly. "Have you ever thought about how you might be the very result that Valentine was trying to achieve?"

Rebecca looked up, caught off-guard. "What?"

"The perfect blend of angel and demon to create a warrior," Jia said. "Valentine's Arrow. And though Sebastian gave you his blood to save your life, you used it to end his. Strange how fate works out in the end."

Rebecca said nothing. She didn't know what to say.

"I will leave you to enjoy the party," Jia said abruptly. With a swish of her cloak, she turned around and opened the entrance door. Just before she stepped out, she looked back. "Happy birthday, by the way."

And then she was gone.

Rebecca stood there, her official acceptance letter to the Scholomance clutched in her hand. She couldn't believe what had just happened.

"Bec!"

It was Isabelle again, gesturing impatiently for Rebecca to join her. "Come on, everyone's waiting!"

"Coming." Rebecca tucked the letter into her jeans pocket and started to follow Isabelle, towards the sounds of laughter and music. Through the door, she could see them all - Maryse, Robert, Alec, Isabelle, Jace, Simon, Clary. The people she loved. Her family.

She paused and looked back at the entrance door. Though she didn't know it yet, she had already made up her mind. She reached up to gently finger the Trueblood ring around her neck. Its cold touch was strangely reassuring. With one last look at the door, she followed Isabelle back to the party.