Chapter Text
They’re surrounded by werewolves and Clary is terrified. They don’t believe her — they think she’s lying, because as far as they’re concerned she’s a shadowhunter and not to be trusted — and because of that they’re all going to die.
Then Alec steps forward to put his hand in Jace’s. She knows… Alec has done the bare minimum to help her, ever since they met, but this? She doesn’t know what this is. Doesn’t know why Alec thinks it’s a good time to hold hands with Jace.
She hopes that this is some weird parabatai thing she doesn’t know about.
Then Jace laughs. It’s bright and carefree, the sound completely out of place and discordant under the circumstances, in the situation they’re in.
Jace turns in place, and Clary freezes at the expression on his face. His eyes are glowing, a bright, liquid, gold, and then he’s pressing his lips to Alec’s.
No one is attacking them — the wolves seem just as arrested by the sight as Clary is — and after a few moments, Jace pulls back.
There’s blood on his mouth and his eyes are empty.
Clary freezes because… because his eyes are still gold and his eyes are empty and everything about him looks wrong.
Alec’s eyes are gold and empty too, when she looks at his face, and there’s… something. Something happening, something wrong.
There’s darkness crawling up their arms from their joined hands, spreading out from the blood on their mouths.
There’s a horrible sound, then — like flesh ripping and bone cracking — and a flash of light so bright and dark she can’t see for a minute.
The sounds don’t stop.
“Don’t move, Clary,” Izzy says urgently from her side, and Clary couldn’t even if she wanted to.
She’s terrified. More terrified than she was before whatever this is happened, something animal in her brain quavering in fear and keeping her in place.
When she can see again there’s this… thing ripping its way into the corpse of one of the werewolves.
God, she hopes it’s a corpse, because it’s still wolf shaped and she doesn’t know if they’re supposed to turn back human when they die.
Please let it be a corpse.
She can’t look away.
The thing is black like tar, like someone reached into the dark sky and pulled down starless night and shaped it into the approximate form of a human, but different. There are giant feathered wings spread from its back, two, four, more, she doesn’t know, because it’s just this mess of feathers spread around its body where it’s crouched over the werewolf. The fingers on its hands are wrong, turning into wicked talons far sooner than they should.
Would its eyes be gold, if it turned around?
She feels hysterical, breath coming in pants, but still unable to move. Unable to run, the way she wants to, despite Izzy’s warning.
“Don’t, Clary,” Izzy says again, moving slowly into her line of sight. “Don’t move, they’ll kill you.”
They. Not it. They.
It’s Jace and Alec, she realises, the knowledge that her mind had prevented her from realising sending terror spiking through her.
She wants to throw up.
Beside her, Izzy starts reciting something in latin.
They turn their head to look at Izzy when she starts to talk.
Their mouth is dripping blood, a red slash on their face filled with sharp teeth.
Its eyes are gold. Edge to edge, filled with it, liquid light that looks like it will spill down their face at any moment, molten like real gold past it’s melting point.
She can’t distinguish any other features. Just the mouth and the eyes and she doesn’t know which to watch, which part of them is the most dangerous, the part she should look out for.
The part that will kill her.
It, they, she has to remember it’s Jace and Alec, because she already feels half insane and this is what she will cling to, to remember that this is made up of people who have helped her, who have kept her safe.
Even if Alec doesn’t like her. Even if Jace does. Which of them is this? Both? Neither? Something else, something that’s summoned, changed, something not them, even if Izzy says it is?
They were coming closer. Clary’s mind had frozen in panic, gone off on a tangent that wasn’t relevant when they had stood, fluid, like they were made of liquid or smoke instead of flesh and bone, inhuman.
Divine.
They’re great and terrible, and she wonders if this is what Mary felt like.
She’d always thought — Be not afraid, the angel says to Mary, and… Clary had always thought that was silly, because why would you fear an angel?
Now she knows. Now she knows.
Be not afraid, but she is, she’s afraid.
She can’t not be.
But its — they’re — standing there, not attacking, head tilted curiously to the side, and then there are two people standing in its place.
There’s no blood on them, except for the smears of it on their mouths, from before.
“Thank the angel,” Izzy says next to her, voice shaking.
“What—” Clary starts to ask, then stops because bile rises in her throat. She’s shaking, still overcome with fear, even though that thing isn’t with them anymore, even though it’s just Jace and Alec, standing before them.
God. She still remembers the inhuman look in their eyes, before the turned into that. She thinks she should — it should have been more terrifying when they had been that, and looked at her with those eyes, but the inhuman eyes in their faces, before — should be less afraid, now, but she’s more afraid, because.
She doesn’t know why. She just is.
No, she does know. Terrible knowledge spreads in her brain, she can’t turn it off, can’t get away. She does know, because they had done that on purpose, Jace had welcomed it, they’d… known that was going to happen.
She puts her hand over her mouth, doesn’t know what to do with this knowledge. It’s wrong. Everything about this — it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, she can’t —
Izzy jerks her away from them, turns her around so she’s not looking at them anymore, and Clary wants to scream, because now her back is to them and she can’t see them —
“Clary,” Izzy says, urgently. “Clary, listen to me, you need to make a promise.”
She pulls out her stele and presses it into Clary’s hand, and Clary notices Izzy’s hands are shaking, too.
“A promise, Clary. Repeat after me and draw it on your heart, quickly,” Izzy says.
Clary looks blankly at the stele in her hand.
Izzy shakes her, and she accidentally bites her cheek when her teeth clack together. But it snaps Clary out of it.
She presses the point of the stele against her skin and repeats after Izzy.
“I promise to never share the knowledge of the reality of Jace and Alec’s parabatai bond with any being, in life or death,” she forces out, through a throat that’s locked closed, choking on bile with every syllable.
“Good, that’s good, Clary,” Izzy says, taking her stele back and drawing Clary into her arms. Clary buries her face against Izzy’s shoulder with a sob.
“We’re going to go,” Izzy says, voice soft. “We’re going to go, back to the Institute, and we’re never going to speak of this.”
“Okay,” Clary chokes out. “Okay, please, I want to go.”
“I know,” Izzy says, brushing Clary’s hair out of her face. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”
Clary lets herself believe the lie.
She looks back, when they turn to go, Izzy’s hand firm around her wrist, pulling her along.
Jace has Alec pinned to one of the shipping crates, Alec’s arms draped lazily over his shoulders, has his face buried in the junction between Alec’s neck and shoulder. Alec’s got his head tipped back, eyes closed and it’s not… it’s not sexual, not… they look lazy and satiated.
They look wrong. Clary isn’t sure why.
What’s more, Clary feels like she’s intruding. Seeing something not meant for her.
She turns away, tries not to look at the bodies that are scattered around them, in pieces.
Terror has settled in her body and she doesn’t think it’s ever going to leave.