Archive of Our Own ^beta

The early light of the sun rose over the horizon, glinting off the glass and metal of the skyscrapers. Dru tilted her head for those first rays of sun to warm her face, her legs dangling over the edge of the building. 

School had started back up, and summer was drawing to a close. Chances to do this - walk around the city, sunbathe, sit and think - would run out all too soon. Just yesterday, there had been a test on faire current historical events that Dru would have failed if it hadn't been for her family being present for over half of those events. Thais had been so upset. Last night, she had woken Drusilla from an odd dream, and begged that Dru explain her answers, waving around the test paper that they weren't supposed to have gotten back yet. Dru helped her until Thais fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

What had she been dreaming about?

Dru closed her eyes and remembered… a wilting rhubarb.

Well, no one would dispute that being an odd dream. Dru laughed out loud. 

She felt her phone buzz in her pocket, and she quickly pulled it out. Ever since she had disappeared for three days, returning without memory, she felt guilty over hesitating to answer someone who wanted to check in on her. The caller ID said it was Helen. Right before Drusilla could answer the phone she felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. 

She quickly looked around. No one was there. That meant whatever was making her nervous…

Dru looked back at the phone, took a deep breath and answered it.

Ty flipped through the book he was reading. It had been nearly impossible to translate, having been written in a regional - a small region - latin dialect. He had to transcribe every word onto paper to keep his place, and if the translation was correct, he would most likely end up needing to burn it.

It had started off as a fairy tale that he thought might be interesting, if only because someone had written a warning in the margin to keep the book hidden, and it had been stamped with the word BANNED in large letters. 

But he quickly found a part that had been written in simple English, and while a few of the word choices were archaic, or unrecognisable, Ty had read it through.

Needless to say, Ty had quickly set out at transcribing the story.

It was a fairytale: Demon terrorizes helpless mortals, a knight (who had been nicknamed Rose) uses his weapon (which had been named Rose) to slay the demon.

But some parts were needlessly elaborate, and Ty had been able to see the secrets written between the lines, even when the author had prioritized pretty poetry over sense. The knight was from a family known for their rose sigil. Slaying the demon had brought a metaphorical dawn from the darkness. Or the bloody-red burning-day of the demon had been replaced by the calm night the knight brought. It was hard to tell which. As the knight buried the demon, he had gone through all his memories of what it had taken to create the Rose, then had faded to a husk of himself. Tales of sliding blades, hidden romance, friend's blades clashing as the Thorns sacrificed, the payment the Blacksmith required, and he relished in the warmth of the memories as his rose was plucked and disconnected from his roots. The sacrifice the knight made had been his memories and history -  metaphorical roots. Then the epilogue hinted that it would take more than one knight from the family to properly kill the demon.

Ty wasn't an idiot. 

The story started with a lost Rose (a Rosales) returning from the Land Under the Hill. That Rosales would have the empty core of the Rose (the weapon) with them, and the process could start. If the Rosales took too long to return, and the Rose couldn't be made in time, the demon would be freed. Twice, Rosales had to be rescued in the nick of time so the demon would stay trapped.  

Maybe Cristina would return from Faire one day with the empty orb in her pocket. But the letter from TMR was dated January 1718. The limit was three hundred years, and he couldn't hope for Cristina to be that lucky when there was another Rosales who had been having a much more permanent stay in Faire.

Ty read over his translation, hoping he had committed enough of it to memory. Then he threw it in the fire.

Ty sat on his bed, bag packed and sitting besides him. He had decided to take the book with him, although it was hidden beneath a layer of clothing. It would be too dangerous to leave it in his room, and hiding it in the library, behind the shelf where he found it, could result in anyone finding it and the book's destruction. 

No. Better to take it with him.

A sharp knock sounded on the door. He stood up and made his way over the door, opening it to a faculty member. 

He stood there with a letter that Ty recognised quite easily, having penned it an hour and a half ago.

He adjusted his jacket before speaking, "Mr. Blackthorn, I am quite sorry to say that there has been an emergency at the LA institute, and your brother has requested that you return for a few days to clean it up. Considering how well you have recently been performing, we've decided to allow it. Pack a bag, and be downstairs as soon as you can. We've prepared transportation." 

His speech was littered with pauses, but Ty stayed focused on keeping his gaze from nervously darting around, so he wouldn't appear suspicious.

"Thank you sir. I will be there in five minutes."

He could hear the man chuckling to himself as he shut the door. 

There was no time to dissect that. 

Ty sent a final look at the picture of Livvy and Dru on his nightstand. Taking that with him would be suspicious if he was supposedly about to return home. 

Then he turned to the clock and started counting down four minutes.

A pair of hands with gray gloves picked up a pot of clove and pulled it out, planing it in a pre-dug hole next to some satin flowers. 

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Dru shot up in bed, instinctively reaching over to shut off her alarm. Across the room, Thais' hand shot out from underneath her covers and slammed the snooze button. The tall girl rolled back under her covers and her breathing evened out. Dru shut her eyes, seeing final vestiges of yellow flowers from her dreams before pulling herself up and out of bed. 

She liked to get ready early in the morning, enjoy the crisp air, and have first dibs on the shared bathroom. 

She bumped into Jane Cartwright on her way out of the bathroom, and exchanged a smile with her. Jane was nice, and seemed like the type of person who would have been written to have a petite body in a book, with her shy and unassuming nature. As it was, Jane was burly and tall, a trait she shared with her relatives, if the family photo Dru had once seen was anything to go by. 

"Is it true you snuck out last night?"

Jane had already walked past her, so Dru turned around to meet her eyes. "I wouldn't really call it sneaking out, because I'm pretty sure Luke knew about most of it, but yeah, I went to the city last night."

Jane flushed a little, "Is it true Edward and Mason were there?"

Dru nodded, "Yeah, but they both split from the group pretty quickly, and Edward came back early, so I didn't see much of them."

"Still," Jane smiled, a secretive little thing, and Dru immediately caught on. She was crushing on Edward. Or Mason. Not exactly an unpopular opinion. Suddenly fear overtook Jane's face. "Was Tiffany there? Tiffany Nightshade?"

Dru nodded, "Yeah, but she left early with Edward." 

Jane's face contorted and Dru rushed to clarify, "When I say they left, I mean they came back to the Academy. Not that they were..." She trailed off, figuring Jane's imagination was already doing enough at filling in the blanks.  

Hope filled Jane's face, and Dru thought about what she could say. She could give Jane advice about what she had witnessed last night, and give her some insight into Edward's personality, or she could reveal his closeness with Tiffany and try to spare her from future heartbreak. 

Instead she mumbled a farewell and rushed back to her room. 

Once she was back inside her dorm room, Dru pushed the conversation to the back of her mind and started getting dressed. She pulled on a graphic T-shirt, and some ripped jeans that someone - probably her mother - had passed down to her. 

She was supposed to only have classroom setting classes for today, so it was a good outfit as long as it didn't get too cold inside. Scratch that, her teachers could be merciless when it came to changing the thermostat. She traded her shirt for a grey one with long sleeves. 

Then she woke up Thais who showed the typical amount of appreciation one does when their roommate wakes them up: absolutely none.

Thais made a half-effort to get dressed, but ended up stumbling out of the room in pajama pants. She would slowly wake up throughout the day, and probably eventually make a quick run back to the room for a change of pants, but now, her roommate was more zombie than human. 

Dru lingered a moment behind Thais, then in a decisive moment pulled out her getaway bag. It was a very mundane thing for her. Back in LA, when she was really little, she remembered her mother, or maybe it was Helen, or both making her pack a bag in case they had to leave the Institute because of earthquakes. When she got older the bag remained the same, but some new contents (read: weapons) and a new purpose was assigned. Now it remained in her room, ready for whatever the next disaster would prove itself to be. 

She pulled the box with Jaime's dagger out from her drawer, and quickly transferred it to her getaway bag, trying not to think too hard about why she was doing this.

Then she ran out the door before she could second guess herself. 

Dru came back to her room with a big smile. She didn't know exactly what the first years had done, but there were whispers of one of them having caused giant explosions of puss throughout several classrooms. She pitied Luke. It couldn't be easy. 

Either way, they had decided to just end classes earlier because it was already Friday, and Dru was looking forward to a long weekend when her new phone rang.

New, not being the exactly right word. It had been Julian's, but when he got a new one, she got his old one. She still had her flip phone, but she never used it for much anymore. She answered the phone and held it up to her ear, staying silent. 

A voice spoke up from the other end, "Julian Blackthorn?" 

One of the consequences of having her brother's old phone - he had gotten a new number and she was stuck with the old one. She let out a noncommittal grunt and that had apparently been enough for the person on the other end of the line. 

"We are calling to let you know that your brother has left the Scholomance for the family emergency at the LA institute you mentioned. Do not worry, this call is just to confirm the entire process - we're having some problems with fire messages right now, so we've had to resort to using phone numbers to reach you."

Another grunt. 

"Excellent!"

He hung up. Rude. 

Wait. Julian was in London right now. If there was an emergency at the LA Institute, Helen should have been the one to mention it. Ty had... Ty was doing something weird.

And if he was doing something weird, she had a good idea who his partner-in-crime might be.

She quickly scribbled out a letter for Thais explaining the situation, then launched herself out the window.

There were two places that she might find Ty. Either he was just tired of the Scholomance and had come up with a really weird excuse, or something bad had happened. Two places: LA and Cirenworth.

And if he wasn't in either of them, she would call Julian.

Kit leaned over Jaime's desk. This had been stupidly easy. He had teleported in, wandered the halls for a little while, and finally found his way to the bedrooms. He texted Ty:

I'm by the bedrooms

He pushed open the door that was further down the hall. It made sense, right? Give the first bedroom to the firstborn and then so forth. 

Kit's first though was, Wow, this guy is a narcissist.

Pictures of the Rico-Rosales family lined the walls, with a special focus on Jaime. From his diaper days to adulthood, both formal and candid. There were fewer pictures of Jaime as an older teen, which struck Kit as odd. Then he turned around and saw a Centurion jacket on the back of the chair and realized, I have the wrong room.

And now he was in Jaime's room. It looked like it had been untouched since he went missing, with a layer of dust over everything. Kit moved carefully, knowing how easy it would be to leave evidence that he had been there. He carefully pried every one of the drawers on the desk, and only one of them stayed stuck. The drawer above it felt a little loose, like someone had pulled it out and placed it back in wrong. Jackpot.

He took out the loose drawer and reached into the space beneath it. Sure enough, the book was in there along with some other miscellaneous objects, but Kit left them behind with little resistance, replacing the upper drawer as he did so.

He balanced the weight of the book in his hand. Once a thief, always a thief, huh?

Kit squeezed his eyes shut. It wasn't like that. He was going to give this back to Jaime, and he was using this to help Jaime in the long run. Sure, borrowing. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... 

No. He was going to see this safely returned to Jaime if it killed him. If he had to go into Faerie and drag Jaime out by himself. 

Kit waited for the doubt and guilt to seep back in, but his mind remained blank.

Huh.

He sent another text to Ty:

Got it

Now, he was trying to come up with a plan to make his way into Faerie unnoticed. 

"There are quite a few entrances in LA, so the entrance should be easy, but we have to assume that someone has already tried exactly this, and if we still have this little information, then there must be some sort of magical interference."

Kit didn't want to sound stupid, but it came out that way anyway, "Isn't Faerie full of magic?"

"Not this type of magic... it's some sort of... barrier, I guess for lack of a better word. They surround areas and cause effects on people inside them, like protection from outside sources of magic. So Jaime has either been very purposefully captured and placed somewhere isolated, or he's somehow accidentally stumbled into some sort of eldritch trap or creature that produces a natural protection."

"Oh." Kit's voice cracked, "How likely is that?"

Ty froze for a moment before responding, "Very unlikely for a Rosales to make a mistake like that. For all of his lessons and knowledge about Faerie, it's more likely that he is being purposely hidden."

Kit surmised, "Which makes your job harder."

"Yes," Ty opened the fridge and pulled out a salad. "It's what fae do when they catch Shadowhunters, like my dad."

The last part seemed almost an afterthought. Oh yeah, my dad was captured by fairies. I wonder if there's croutons in this salad. True to form, Ty was carefully picking through his salad with a fork. 

"Your dad?"

Ty didn't look up as he responded, poking his salad. "Yeah. Back when he was at the Academy. The original one, from the 80s before it closed. He was on some mission to Faerie and got enchanted by one of the fae. Someone made a deal that he would only have to stay for a day, but the fae bent time so that one day of our time wasn't equivalent to the passage of time where he was. He was stuck for seven years before he escaped, and he had been aging for all of them."

Ty took a bite of his food. Kit's mind was racing. 

"Seven years? What happened?" 

"Well, the fae that he fell in love with loved him back enough to generally keep him safe. That's how we got Helen and Mark." Well, that's one way to keep a guy safe. Was that a common theme for fae? 

Desperate to change the subject, Kit switched gears. "So why did you need to get the book? Why not just call up Cristina or Diego?"

Ty's face shifted, and Kit realized he was about to be lied to. He couldn't explain what parts of Ty's face had shifted to lead him to this fact, only that his instincts were all too sure about this. "Julian asked me to do this mission for him because he was too busy. In London. Getting the book was just the first part, and it needs to be secretive, so that's why we had to borrow it."

Steal it.

Realizing the original subject might be better at this point, Kit reversed gears. "So the fae didn't hurt your dad, or anything?"

"No. But Uncle Arthur went with him, and he got tortured for those seven years."

Kit flinched back at the reminder of the cruelty of Faerie. "Oh. I'm sorry for mentioning it."

Maybe he should shut up.

Ty was silent, chewing his food. Kit wondered if he should leave, or get something other than a protein bar if this was apparently dinner time. 

Finally Ty spoke up, "It does raise a question about how Jaime is experiencing the passage of time. My father went in, and came out one day later, but had aged seven years. Mark was there for five years of our time, but hasn't aged a day when he was freed. It seems that the longer it is for us, the shorter it is for them, and vice versa. Arguably, Mark might have spent a lot longer inside Faerie, but he didn't really age. So maybe that is also happening to Jaime - not aging."

Ty seemed to keep musing over his salad after that, so Kit opened the fridge. Most of the contents had a label - either someone calling dibs on their food, or a note that this was being saved for dinner. Kit let himself linger on the lasagna before shutting the fridge. Back to protein bars. Yum.

He stepped back towards the pantry, but froze when he heard footsteps - loud and clear, they weren't trying to sneak around. 

But Ty and Kit were. 

Kit turned around, ready to defend Ty, or cause a distraction if necessary. A girl with brown hair and Blackthorn eyes appeared around the corner, wearing a backpack and flushed red. 

"Drusilla."

"Tiberius."

Kit stepped forward, introducing himself to the siblings. "Kit."

Dru raised an eyebrow as she turned to him. On second glance she looked less flushed and panicked than he had first assumed. "Christopher!"

Ty ignored her, looking over her head to stare directly at Kit. "Don't let her come with me."

Kit replied to Ty, trying to not fall apart. "You need me to watch your sister while you go on this mission for Juilan?" 

"Yes."

"Hang on." Dru sounded confused. She lifted herself onto her tip-toes until she was staring into Ty’s eyes. Blue met grey, and Kit was reminded of storm clouds above the sea. "Julian didn't send you on this mission, did he?" 

Tiberius was silent, and Kit watched the smile grow on Dru's face with every passing second. Eventually Ty steadied himself and said, "No, he did."

The smile slid off Dru's face, and she took a step back from Ty, releasing him. "Fine. If you say so." She dramatically raised her hands as if in defeat, "I guess if I'm not coming with you I'll just have to go and bother Julian instead. Maybe I can ask him to tell me more about the missio-"

Ty reached out and grabbed Dru's arm, pulling her close as she cut herself off. He let out a heavy sigh. "You can come with me."  

Dru cheered. 

Then she turned back to Kit, "So how are you, how's Mina?"

Kit let himself smile. Drusilla was also an older sibling - even if only to one - and could probably relate to something he had to say, "The screaming has stopped. But now she’s running around. And found a lot of other ways to make noise."

Dru's eyebrows crinkled in sympathy, and Ty slowly nodded. "Yep, it's always tough. Helen can sleep through practically anything at this point, and nothing can surprise Julian.”

Dru agreed, “We used to draw lots for who would watch Tavvy."

Kit winched at the reminder of the Blackthorn's early orphaned status.

Ty grinned at a memory, "I'm glad I had Livvy helping me for that part."

Dru matched his smile.

Then she turned back to Kit, "If Mina ever needs a babysitter, I have a ton of experience from taking care of Tavvy. It would be nice - I could even bring her some of my old toys."

She looked so eager that Kit couldn't even let himself think about his answer, "Oh course. I'll talk to Jem and Tessa about it."

"Thank you! That would be so much fun!"

Kit smiled at Dru, then turned to Ty and let his smile drop as he asked, "So what’s our plan now?"

Adaon heard a pair of footsteps behind him and frowned. He was busy, and no one in the Court would be interrupting him unless something bad had happened. He let his magic stretch out so he could sense who had stumbled into his area. 

Nephilim. 

A girl's voice rang out, high from either youth or nervousness. Maybe both. "Hello?"

She stopped around the corner, revealing herself. For a second Adaon thought he had made a mistake. The girl wore a long-sleeved grey shirt, jeans, and appeared like any mundane. But he looked closer for signs. A singular fingerless glove was probably hiding a rune on her hand. No weapons exposed. And her eyes stopped him. A gorgeous green-blue that he could recognize from the other Blackthorns he had met. 

He smiled warmly at her. "Hello Shadowhunter."

She waved jerkily. "Hi. I'm Dru. Are you Adaon?"

"Yes. Are you Mark's sister?"

She looked relieved that he had recognised her eyes. "Yes! It's nice to meet you. Um, so I heard that you were throwing this party, and I was wondering if I could come with some friends."

Adaon blinked. This Shadowhunter wanted to come to a revel? Oh. The revel. The one that had excited the Court with whispers of its oddity, and true to form, Adaon had pulled details from mundane festivales into it. It was likely to be lesser when compared to any revel, but it would be a lot safer, and who was he to stifle the girl of a bit of fun? 

He pulled a compass out of his pocket smoothly. It was enchanted to point in the direction of the party, and would serve as an entrance ticket once the guests arrived. 

"How many people do you plan to bring?"

The girl fell silent before saying, "Three. Myself included."

Adaon set the compass to read to allow three people in, then closed his fingers around it. "I don't need to tell you not to start any fights, do I?"

The girl looked surprised, "Me? I'd never." Then she smiled cheekily, "But I'll let the other guys know." 

He laughed at her joke and handed it over to her. "This will point to the door and serve as your ticket in. Keep it safe."

"Of course." She tucked it under her shirt and skipped away. 

He watched her go until she was out of sight. 

Right. Back to work.

Kit watched as Ty flattened his hands on the coffee table that they were all kneeling around. On top of the table was a notebook of Ty's scribbled plans, Jaime's diary, and a golden compass. 

Ty pointed at the notebook, explaining his plan, "We are going to use a new combination consisting mainly of a True North and Tracking rune to find Jaime. So far, we've realized that he is somewhere that has a lot of barriers on the outside of it, and we're hoping that once we get past the first layer of barriers, the runes will be more effective."

He flipped to a new page in his notebook that looked like it was meant to be legible. It was a basic map of Faerie, with a representation of the barriers, and a box just inside of them. In the center of the circle barrier was a little dot labeled Jaime. 

"This isn't the best map, but Faerie can't be mapped, so I did what I could." Ty placed a finger on the page. "We believe that Jamie is somewhere in this area - the Seelie Court. However, we haven't been able to properly search for him, because we aren't allowed to go past this barrier." He traced it with his finger. "Luckily, there is a small ball being hosted in this cave, which is right inside the barrier." He pointed at the box. "So if I go to the ball, and use the runes, I should easily get past the barriers, and have a better idea of where Jaime is."

Ty shut the notebook and Dru raised her hand. Ty pointed at his sister. "Yes?"

"You said I. But if you're the one doing magic, don't you need us running interference?"

Ty frowned, "Interference?"

"You don't want too much of the heat focused on you, do you?" Dru held up her hand in front of her. "Imagine this. Shadowhunter boy walks into a party, with some weird book with runes written all over it, a weird magic spell goes off in the corner, and then the boy mysteriously disappears? Everyone with half a brain would have an eye out for you."

Ty leaned over to Dru. Belatedly, Kit realized that they both had a habit of widening their eyes when trying to seem sympathetic. Dru was wide eyed, trying to gain sympathy so Ty would let her come. Ty was fervently whispering, trying to explain how he didn't want to put her in more trouble. 

Realization struck Kit. If Dru was right, her exclusion didn't just mean Ty would be going without her, it meant he would be going alone. "I think Dru is right."

Both Blackthorns turned to him, eyes returning to normal. "It would be safer if we came up with a plan ahead of time to switch it back and forth. You can still be the one using the runes, but imagine this instead, 'Random Shadowhunter boy walks into the ball, has a good time with some other randos there, then leaves a little before the magic spell goes off.' Doesn't that sound a lot better?"

Ty scooched over to where he had been originally sitting. "Yes. So, what's the plan?"

Dru and Kit exchanged a look. Kit spoke slowly, "I think we need to keep this as simple as possible. One of us enters with it, gives it to you after a good chunk of time has passed, you use it, and the third person leaves with it."

"This is a ball, right? I'll be wearing a dress, so I should go in with it. I can hide it under the skirt part." Dru volunteered.

"Should we stagger our entrance?" Kit questioned.

Ty shook his head, "We only have one invite. We must enter together, but after that we need to split up."

Kit nodded, "So Dru, Ty, me. Hand it to me when you're done with it and..." He noticed Dru cringing and Ty already shaking his head. "What's wrong with that idea?"

"I need to keep a hand on the book the entire time I'm looking for Jaime, so I'll take it with me when I sneak out." Ty said.

"Oh!" Dru interjected, "What if you sneak back and hand it to Kit after you find Jaime? That way you can't be caught with it on your way out of Faerie."

After a pregnant pause Ty nodded, "So it's settled. Dru goes in with it, waits to pass it to me, I use it, sneak it back to Kit before I leave. The two of you should try to leave around the same time, but not too quickly after I hand the book back to you."

Dru nodded, face determined, and Kit copied her. 

Three days ago Ty had woken from a reoccurring nightmare. It was pretty simple.

He would be walking on the beach or some lake shore, when suddenly in the distance he would see a sprawled body, possessing the brown hair and blue eyes that most Blackthorns were known for. Sometimes the body would be bloody, sometimes already burning. 

He has chopped up the bits of his dream and figured out why he was seeing this. His subconscious had taken childhood memories of his sisters being swept around by waves at the beach, and memories of Livvy’s dead body, then combined them with a fear of losing another sibling. Something odd had happened in his most recent dream. He had previously assumed that the body was always female because his brain was limited to what he remembered from Livvy’s death, but when he woke up five days ago he had known with absolute certainty that the long curling brown hair, blue eyes, and bloodless body had belonged to Drusilla. She had somehow died in his dream. 

He never knew who the dead body was besides Livvy. He figured it just represented the overall fear of losing his siblings, but in that moment he wondered just how long he had been dreaming of Dru dying. 

So he wanted to make sure she stayed safe. And knowing her, and his family history, it would be safest if he kept her close so she wouldn’t end up in danger from trying to figure out what he was doing. And if he completely kicked her out, then she might run to Julian, and ruin all his plans. 

There was a saying: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Ty thought that it was missing a final line: And keep your siblings closest.

Ty looked across the room to where Dru was digging through an old box. She had apparently secured an invite with ease, so that probably meant it would be easier to blend in. Unfortunately, they still had to blend in. 

Dru had rummaged through her cosmetics until she found concealer that matched each of their skin tones, but they would still need to dress a little conservatively. 

And since this was a fae revel, they would have to make up for that conservatism in other areas.

Ty had found a bracelet of dark lace that crawled over the back of the hand to connect to the fingers, which would hide the runes on Dru's hand pretty well. Anyone who saw it would probably think it was just part of the design. In return, she had pulled out a pair of old black satin gloves for him, and sacrificed her fingerless gloves to Kit.

Now they were moving onto outfits. He reminded her that they shouldn't wear shoes, and Dru had shrugged before moving on. Unsurprisingly, they didn't have a lot of clothing options in their closet, so they were looking at old things from storage, where there were enough clothing options for them to be picky.

Dru had pulled out some things she thought would fit, and Kit and Ty had been running back and forth to try out the things she picked for them, from three-piece suits to tunics. Kit was doing more running than he was, willing to wear anything but the loincloth that sat behind him. 

Dru spoke up, "Here, Ty, what do you think of this?"

She held out a shining suit and pants, a matching pair. Ty took them from her. The outfit appears to have a yellow tint, but when he looked closer, he could see there was an attached yellow cape, and the rest of it was sheer. He slipped a hand through the neck and could perfectly see the rune on his hand through the fabric. Dru let out a groan of disappointment and Ty set it aside. "I don't think that one will work."

Dru turned back to the box, dismissing a dark red suit that had too many tears in it, a soft sweater, and a too-large suit with swirls of white. Then she found a jerkin in a pretty shade of blue that she threw into Kit's awaiting pile, for when he returned. Another useless thing, then an orange shirt that hurt his eyes joined the discarded clothing, and then she pulled out a formal looking old fashioned pair of pants and a black silk shirt that she handed to him. 

Ty stuck his hand in, and the fabric seemed solid enough. "I'll try this on when Kit gets back from changing." 

Drusilla sat up a little, preening at her discovery, then - having left Kit with a pile of potential items - turned to the box filled with dresses and began unwrapping it.

"What do you think?"

Kit reappeared from behind the curtain they had set up as a nearby changing area so clothing wouldn't get lost.

Ty glanced at the clothing and winched. It was an overly formal suit, and probably would be considered a precious relic for its age if it weren't for the ruffels practically overflowing from the undershirt.

Dru winched, pointing at the undershirt, "Can you take that off?"

Kit sheepishly smiled. "It's sewn together."

Ty turned from their conversation, and went to the curtain Kit had just emerged from behind. He ignored the mirror as he dressed, but looked when he was done.  

The pants reminded him of the ones Mark used to wear when he returned from the Wild Hunt, ones he still saw on fae in and out of the Hunt. So they were probably going to help him blend in. 

The shirt was a little fancier, but the dramatic drape of the fabric made him seem like he was revealing more than he was, so it was also good. 

He stepped out from behind the curtain and called to Dru and Kit, “I think this will work well.”

And when he saw Dru turn around with a potential dress in each hand, he didn’t like the feeling that he felt in his chest.

They were going to get into a lot of trouble. 

Julian was going to flip his lid, which wasn't even fair, considering what he had been doing from ages 12 to 17. Especially 17. 

Dru shuddered at the memory of what had happened to Emma and Julian, how she thought she might lose them. 

Then she forced herself to look down at the clothes. Nothing fit her. Everything was made to fit skinnier bodies than hers.

She pulled out a blue wrap dress that she couldn't fit into, then closed the box and pushed it aside. And the material was probably too synthetic for Faerie anyway. 

She turned to a different box, and cut it open, and pulled off the paper protecting the top dress. It was a long black granny dress that looked like it would be a good disguise while shadowhunting - hide the runes while not appearing too abnormal. But it was definitely too formal. Sighing, she put it aside and dug further into the box. More black clothing, everything nice, everything fit her, but much too formal and conservative. Dru was getting ready to take a pair of scissors to the hem and make one of the dresses fit for Faerie, but halfway through she hit gold. 

First bronze stays that were designed to be a shirt - but that were without matching bottoms. Then a white chiton that had a zoster attached to it. Dru smiled and after quickly checking that Kit and Ty were gone - they were - she stripped and tried it on. Dru skipped over to the mirror and smiled at the way the belt pushed in her stomach and accentuated her curves. But when she looked at her legs she frowned. There would be no way to hide the book under these skirts. 

Frowning, she returned to the box and pulled out the next piece. It was very pretty. It looked like it had been a dress from the Edwardian era - the pigeon-breast, small waist, expand at hip and flow down - that had been torn apart and remodeled with modern values half a century later - most of the fabric around the shoulders had been torn out and the sleeves were a different fabric, lighter and diaphanous. Dru admired the amount of fabric in the skirt, and decided to try it on. Another quick look to check for Kit and Ty, and she changed as fast as she could. In the middle of putting it on, she realized a corset for the outside had been included, marked with same-colored string. She pulled it out of the box and fastened it on over before going to check the mirror. It looked good, and she pulled down the dress from showing over the top of the corset, creating a more clean border. She gave an experimental twirl. Plenty of room beneath the skirt. This would work. 

She paused halfway through a twirl and looked at her body's sideways profile. She could fool herself into calling it curves from the front, but her extra weight was clear from her side. At least the corset helped hide it a bit. 

Fae were typically so delicate that they probably would not even notice that she was heavier than the average human. Good thing she wasn't pretending to be one of them.

With a sigh Dru turned away from the mirror and started to pack up the boxes. She decided she would bring the final box to her room because she did want to try on a lot of the stuff in there. As she stacked the boxes and replaced the lavender around it - she thinks it was to keep away moths - she wondered how Kit and Ty were doing. She had sent Kit away with a pile of clothes to finalize and Ty with his chosen outfit, hoping the close proximity would force them to stop staring longingly. 

Ugh! Them dancing around each other was infuriating. She felt a brief flash of longing for Livvy. Livvy would have known the right ways to push Ty, knew Kit better than she did. Livvy could have dealt with this easily.

Instead they were stuck with Dru, and she was probably going to end up locking them in a closet together or something. She giggled at the thought.

Then she picked up the box of old clothing from dead Blackthorns and carried it to her room.

A shiver went up her spine. He could lie. He could pretend to be friendly, and hurt her. Good thing she caught the hint. She noticed the glass in his hand and couldn't prevent her flinch this time. Was he planning to say that it was harmless then laugh as she fell under his control?

She looked over his shoulder, wondering if Kit, or Ty, or some random fae that he had beef with would show up and give her an excuse to escape. But she couldn't go looking for Ty yet. She needed to buy more time.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and had to swallow her scream.

He was absolutely focused on her, waiting for her to turn her eyes back to him with a patience that reminded her of the way a spider could watch a fly exhaust itself long before taking the first bite. His eyes seemed to bore into her skull, and the beginnings of a smile were forming. She was scared, and she knew the moment she continued the conversation the spider would begin to descend, but all she could do was thrash in the web. Something about his face was familiar - something that went beyond the cold grace of the fae and dug deep into the dark vault of her mind where she kept things that terrified her. This was the feeling she got when staring into a dark alley, knowing that there could be a monster hidden just a little ways in. 

She took a deep breath in and let her Southern California accent roll off her tongue. "Nice party, doncha think?"

Then he smiled and Dru could have sworn that she had screamed at the sight of that very smile. 

Sometime years ago, hidden in the dark vault of her fears.

Kit couldn't keep his eyes off of anything. Whatever he had seen of fae in the Shadow Market paled in comparison to this. 

Everything was shining, either bedazzled, or coated in something shiny. 

Luckily, he didn't have the initial responsibilities of either Dru or Ty, so he had time to gawk a little before he had to pull himself together. Speaking of Ty...

Kit glanced over to the boy, dressed in all black, and still managing to stand out within the crowd. He looked handsome in that shirt - in every shirt really, but that one was more revealing than what Kit had come to expect seeing him in. 

Kit snapped his gaze away when Ty started looking in his direction and wandered off, wondering if there was anything edible for him here. Probably not.

Suddenly Kit wondered if anyone here would recognise him - not from the Shadow Market, but as the First Heir. Kit's palms started sweating and he tried to wipe them off on his pants. This was not something he had time to worry about. Anyways, he had a mask, and his face had been what gave him away last time. He would be fine. 

Probably. 

Looking across the room he could see Dru dancing with a tall fae in all black, her red skirt swirling around her. Her brown hair shifted in front of her face, and for a moment, Kit was struck with deja vu. 

Dancing might be a good idea. Blend in. He scanned the room with a talented eye, trying to look for a nervous fae around the edges, but he saw Ty first. 

Just the tail end of him as Ty jumped over one of the roots and out of the area of the party. Dru had been on the opposite end of the room from him, there was no way that he was already going to use the book. Kit immediately abandoned his quest to find a fae to dance with and set off in the same direction as Ty, jumping over a shorted root a little to the right, trying not to appear too suspicious.

Luckily, Kit wasn't hunting for long before he saw Ty. 

Good, they wouldn't seem too suspicious if they were caught here. But they should try to get back to the party. Kit stepped closer, moving around Ty to face him.

Ty already had a glass in his hand and was looking a little dazed. See? This is what happens when you look away. You can't help him. "Ty?" Ty turned around, and Kit could see the glass was partially empty. How long had he spent ogling the decorations?

Ty spoke so softly that Kit wasn't sure if he had imagined the sound.

"What?"

If he had been wearing runes, he probably would have been able to properly hear Ty, and wouldn't need to ask stupid sounding questions. Questions only sound stupid if they are or you are.

Ty nodded. "Dru says hate is a strong word. Is dislike better? Do you dislike me?"

This time Kit couldn't help himself. "What?" He resisted the urge to facepalm and quickly spoke, interrupting whatever synonym Ty would come up with this time. "I mean- Why would you think that?" 

Another urge to slap himself. Three years ago, Ty had raised Livvy's ghost and Kit had begged him to stop, pulling practically everything out of his arsonal. No. Not practically. Everything. Even a pretty little confession that Kit would have taken back if he had known just how well it would work. Longing is always better than heartbreak.

Ty looked down. "You have Mina now. You love her. I thought that you might have a better idea of what it's like to care for, to worry over a sister. To do anything to save them. I thought you might understand."

Kit was silent. Three years ago, Kit had left after the battle without so much as a word, desperate to get away from Ty and his anger. 

Ty raised his head, looking at Kit. "You left. You packed up your bags and went away."

Kit looked away. This was too much. "You left too."

"The Scholomance is my penance, my way to fix things." His voice sharpened. "Are Tessa and Jem your penance? Is Mina?"

Kit swallowed. "No, of course not!"

Ty drew closer, and his voice was louder. Clearer. "Sometimes I think you are mine. My punishment for breaking the laws of life and death." 

"How can I be a burden if I'm gone?"

"You leaving was the punishment. I miss you every day." Kit looked up, suppressed, and Ty's eyes were focused on him. "Livvy always helped me see things more clearly, and so did you, but then you both left and everything was more confusing than ever. I miss you. Even now, I feel like I miss you because there are parts of you that aren't here. Parts that used to like me. The Watson to my Sherlock. I'm sorry. I don't regret bringing Livy back, and I could never apologize for that, but I'm sorry for not listening to you, for not trying harder to get you to stay. And I'm sorry that I want you to stay, because I know how happy you are with Tess, Jem and Mina, but I miss you. And I'm sorry. For everything I've mentioned, and everything I haven't."

Kit melted on the inside. Ty's voice, his eyes, his words, were all so overwhelming, and all Kit wanted to do was embrace him. "Ty... There's nothing to apologise for. And even if there was, I forgive you." 

There was more that Kit wanted to say. An apology of his own. Regret that they had spent so much time apart. He wanted, needed, Ty to know how important and amazing he was, and how sorry Kit was. 

But he didn't. 

Instead, Ty checked his watch and frowned. "I need to get back now. It's been long enough, and I don't want Dru to be too suspicious."

He found Kit's hand and, after a moment's hesitation, gently squeezed it. Kit quickly responded in kind before releasing him, and Ty had rushed off, leaving Kit there, no doubt with a lovestruck look on his face.

Part of him was glad for the interruption, knowing he wouldn't have been able to express his internal thoughts as eloquently as Ty had his. Part of him was regretful that he hadn't been able to say more. Most of him was glad that he had been able to say something, to accept the hand that Ty had put out and respond with honesty.

He softly smiled then headed back to the party. 

He wouldn't have time to talk to Ty now, but he was looking forward to when this was over.

Jaime squinted. 

The colors swirled around him. It was easier to think of them as colors, and not as bits of his life. Red was just a color. it wasn't splatters of- it was just a color. Just a color. 

Not for the first time, he was grateful for his ability to lie. 

The pain hadn't appeared for a while, and he was confused when it did again. 

This memory was not familiar. 

He let himself focus, let the lines around him sharpen.

Huh. Something was definitely wrong. Maybe he was dreaming?

He couldn't recall what had been the event behind this memory of Tiberius Blackthorn. 

But it was good to see a new face, someone who didn't bleed the same petals as him. ...thorns...

So Jaime let the memory carry him forward, wondering which Blackthorn he would see next. Dru's nice.

If he saw Mark, he would ask after Cristina. You never want to leave the people you love. I'll tell her I never wanted to leave her, I'll let her know how much she means to me. I can't leave her not knowing that.

Memory and pain had collided enough that he had no desire of thinking about her face anymore. It would just bring more nightmares. It's all so scary, I hate it. I'm so worried and there's nothing...

Jaime tried to retreat back into the lazy colors and found a lot of green. 

Odd. He would have presumed a darker color. 

He lifted his head and breathed in the cold. The sharp pain that followed was familiar, and Jaime finally let himself go. 

Jaime was worryingly light, but Ty was just grateful it made him easier to carry. A lot had gone in his favor tonight. Typically he had to work hard for everything to play out smoothly.

There were only a few guards who were easily avoided, and after confirming it was Jaime, Ty had dragged him out through a tunnel and set off running with Jamie - who had even managed to drag himself a few steps forward when Ty had gotten them out of that cave and into the open air - on his back.

Ty jolted back when he noticed the bright lights of the party. He had to get the book back to Kit. And Jaime was a big distraction. 

Ty looked around until he found some bushes that were better hidden in shadow, and carefully rolled Jaime off his back into the undergrowth. That would work as a hiding spot, if Ty was quick enough.

Book in hand, he hurried towards the edges of the party, hoisting himself up on one of the large roots that surrounded the area with to look for Kit. Initially he scanned the dance floor, but didn't spot Kit there among the whirling fae. He turned to the outskirts, watching the fae there. Luckily, he didn't spot Kit at the food table. He saw Dru, standing out in a bright pink dress as she warily scanned the crowd as if for threat, standing in shadow. Had she done something with her hair? It looked a little different. He lingered on his sister for a few moments, watching to make sure she was okay.

Finally, he returned to looking for Kit when he heard a gentle knock against the tree he was on. Ty quickly whipped his head around, and upon seeing Kit's eyes, he made himself relax, and dropped down from the tree root, landing in front of Kit, book in hand. 

"Is everything all right in there?" 

Kit smiled brightly before responding. "Yep! You got," his voice fell to a whisper, "you-know-who?"

Ty nodded, struck by Kit's smile. He didn't know exactly why he was so struck. 

"Just pass me the book and we'll meet outside the portal."

He had a really pretty smile. A pretty face really. The clothes he was wearing suited him better than the dark clothing of shadowhunters that Dru and Ty shared a love for. Kit's jerkin was teal, and the pants he wore beneath it were light brown, making him practically shine, even in the dim lighting. He was handsome. 

When Ty handed this book over that would be it. He would return to the Scolomance, and Kit would return home, and he would never see him again.

Ty's grip on the book involuntary.

Jaime's words from earlier - what sounded like a confession of love for Drusilla, and he would have to warn Dru about that later - rang out in Ty's head. 

You never want to leave the people you love. I'll tell her I never wanted to leave her, I'll let her know how much she means to me. I can't leave her not knowing that.

Ty didn't like to act without thinking, but sometimes he did anyway. 

Kit didn't move as Ty stepped forward, invading what could be considered his personal space, then another step, definitely invading it. 

"Kit Herondale." Ty swallowed. "I don't think I ever will stop loving you."

Kit's eyes were wide. He responded with a soft, "oh."

Ty kept silent. He knew Kit had once liked him, but time had passed since then, and they had both changed a lot. 

Kit whispered, as if it was a secret, "Can I touch you?"

That didn't sound like a rejection. "Yes. Please."

Kit reached out for Ty's hands, and he forced himself to stay still. Kit's right hand entwined with his own, and since Ty's left was occupied with the book, Kit gently squeezed the wrist. It was fine. Each second that Kit remained there it was more and more fine.

Kit's hands started moving, up his arm, slowly at first, then faster, and each second, Ty became a little more used to it. Finally Kit's arms were wrapped around Ty's back, and the two boys were in a one-sided hug. Ty didn't mind Kit touching him, but he wasn't sure he wanted to reach out to Kit. He didn't want to change the feeling of arms around him.

So Ty kept his arms by his side. 

Kit whispered again, softer than ever, but with his mouth next to Ty's ear, it felt louder than anything else he had said. "Can I kiss you?"

Ty didn't need to think about it. "Yes, please."

Kit pulled Ty in, and their lips crashed. Kit clearly had more of an idea of what he was doing, and it took him a second to remember Ty didn't. 

It was nice. Not life changing, but Ty felt warm. And even though his skin felt a little uncomfortable, he liked Kit being that close.

They broke apart, and they both stayed silent. But Ty remembered Jaime's words. I can't leave her not knowing that. And now Kit knew. 

Maybe the kiss had been an accident, instinct, an old crush. Maybe Kit had someone else. 

But he knew. And so did Ty.

Ty stepped back, pushing the book into Kit's chest as he did, forcing Kit to let him go in order to keep a hand on the book.

Even now, so confused, Kit still looked so handsome.

Ty didn't know what to say. So he went back to the script. "See you outside the portal."

Then he dashed off to find where he had left Jaime.

Kit muddled through the crowd. He had seen Dru, but she had quickly moved away, as if escaping someone. Maybe she was. Or maybe Kit was just in a daze from how quickly Ty had left. 

After what he said.

Did he regret it? Did he think Kit regretted it?

Kit shook his head. That would need to be a thought for later. 

Right now he needed to find Dru.

He moved through the crowd. At one point he spotted a dancing fae who had a similar outline and color of dress, but the fae's had more cutouts. Kit didn't like the vibes coming from the blond guy who was dancing with her, so he quickly retreated to the back wall where Drusilla was standing, warily watching the crowd. 

"Dru?"

Dru flinched and turned to him - what was it with him and scaring Blackthorns lately? Or, it might just be that multiple members of their family have been kidnapped in Faerie and you were to stupid to be nice to them? Kit tried to soften his voice. "Um, I mean... Dru?"

Dru fixed him a look that told him the voice change was noticed and extremely unappreciated. "Yes?

Kit clapped his hands together, trying to cover his embarrassment. "Let's go!"

He grabbed her hand, and pulled her to the exit. 

Under the eye of the guard, he intensely felt the feel of the book pressing against his back from where it lay under his vest. Luckily the guard didn't say anything to them, seemingly not noticing that they were leaving without someone, or the book Kit was smuggling out. Probably for the best.

When they were finally over a small mound, and out of view of the guard, Kit let himself relax, pulling out the book from under his shirt, and  letting his thoughts drift back to Ty. 

He immediately tripped over his own feet. Dru grabbed his arm, saving him from eating grass. "You good?"

Kit nodded. "Yeah, just a little distracted." His voice went up at the end like he was asking a question, and he cursed himself for being so obvious. Nice going, stupid. 

Dru giggled. "A little? You look like you were hit over the head with a bat."

"Yeah," Kit thought of a distraction, "that party was impressive. But why spend so much time on clothing and magical decorations, if they’re not even gonna wear shoes?”

"I don’t know. Why do I spend half an hour on makeup while wearing a ripped T-shirt? You gotta stick to your aesthetic. Kinda admirable.”

Kit shrugged, trying to project nonchalance. “I guess. Doesn’t every mythical group have an aesthetic?”

Dru raised an eyebrow at his diversion from Ty. Damn, she looked like she was suspicious without even knowing that he was thinking about Ty. "But you'd be over the party by now. So let me rephrase: Who was holding the bat?"

Kit felt himself flush all over as he thought back to kissing Ty. Lifting his head up to try and clear his head, he entirely missed seeing the hole on the ground, keeping himself from falling over by pure luck as he stumbled forward, until his luck ran out and he hit the grass, too far forward for Dru to catch him.

Dru laughed, walking towards him, and then crouching, so they were closer to the same level. “Can I guess?”

Kit propped himself up on his forearms. His pants were definitely stained with grass. And he hadn’t even been fighting. Is this what he reduces you to?

“You can have three guesses,” Dru was already smiling, “and the first two don’t count.”

"Did something happen between you and Ty?"

There was a sing-song lilt to her voice, projecting nothing but cheerful innocence. 

Kit groaned, letting his head drop onto the grass. 

"I'll take that as a yes."

He heard a thump next to him followed by a short breeze, and felt guilty for a moment about Dru getting grass stains on her dress as a result of trying to talk to him. "I kissed him."

There was a hitch in Dru's breath. Then a soft laugh. "Took you long enough."

Kit raised himself back up. "So you're... happy?"

Dru's face beamed. "Very much so."

She stood up, holding out a hand for Kit to grab. He positioned his feet beneath him, but when he took his hand, she pulled him in really close to her face, and despite having just regained the height advantage, Kit felt like he was strangely off-balance. Dru brough their faces close together, and hissed, "Listen. We both know how Ty feels about his personal space, and how he likes privacy. I don't care what you two are doing, if you ever make him feel pressured to do absolutely anything with you, I will kill you and no one will ever find your body."

Dru released him, eyebrow cocked. 

He took a mintet to swallow a potential voice crack. "Got it." 

He didn't look at her as they continued the walk home, feeling a little like he was in confession, staring straight ahead, while right next to the priest who could offer him an attempt at getting closer to salvation. 

"Can I be honest?" 

Dru might have looked at him, but he kept his eyes firmly on the horizon, or at least the top of the hill. "Go ahead."

"I am worried about this. I am worried that I might hurt Ty, or... I don't know, do something massively wrong."

"You know, I've been giving a lot of relationship advice lately for someone who's as single as a pringle. But the best I can tell you is to go for it now. Don't back out because of some fear of a future that might not even happen. Be careful to make sure you don't make mistakes, but at the end of the day, you get to decide what your future is going to look like. Make it a good one. Start slow, trust Ty, listen to him, and everything will be alright."

"Huh. Thank you." 

"You're welcome."

They kept walking. 

"By the way, I wasn't joking about murdering you."

Kit snorted and Dru giggled.

Kit looked at Dru, ready to make a joke, but now that they were alone with no distracting movement and his eyes had finally adjusted to the dark of the night, she looked different. It took him a second to realize what had happened. "Did something happen to your hair?"

Dru frowned as she reached over her shoulder, selecting a strand of hair and pulling it in front of her... and pulling and pulling as her eyes grew wider. Kit was sure his had grown equally large. Finally she had the whole strand over and it easily fell to her waist when she released it. At this length, Kit could see gentle curls that Livvy also sported in her longer hair. 

Dru spun around, revealing that all of her hair had significantly grown. "Is it like that all around?"

"Yeah." Kit nervously swallowed. Surely he would have noticed if his hair had tripled in length. He ran a hand through his hair, and it didn't seem like anything was wrong. 

Dru turned back to face him, and raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry, your hair looks the same."

Kit looked around. "Why do you think this happened?"

"Besides general Faerie weirdness? Maybe." Dru gestured at her face. "Do I look any older?" 

Kit squinted at her round face, but didn't see anything different from when she had come in. "Nope."

Dru sighed, "Yeah, I guess accelerated aging would have affected more than me. So I guess we just, like, chalk it down to general Faerie weirdness and make sure I get a haircut before I see anyone else."

They resumed their pace out of Faerie, and Kit kept a close eye on Dru's hair in case it kept growing - and it might have? But they were walking quickly, so he wasn't really sure. Dru pulled her hair over her shoulders and automatically started putting it into two braids, before flipping her half-finished braid over her shoulder as soon as the exit from Faerie became visible.

Dru pointed to it with a smile. "Ladies first. I don't want to get between you and your man."

Kit sent her a grateful smile and started walking through.

Ty hadn't said a word directly to Kit since he had stepped out of the entrance to Faerie in the park. 

Although that might've been due to the struggle of carrying Jaime's limp body.

Luckily, they were almost at the door. The LA Institute loomed in front of him. Kit was ahead, having been too jittery to slow down his long strides. Ty was furthest from the door, slowed down by the extra weight. Dru bridged the gap between them, standing closer to Ty, and looking like she wanted to help but had no idea how, clutching Jaime’s book to her chest. 

Kit couldn’t walk forward without alerting the people inside the Institute that someone was at the door. Time had - thankfully - passed similarly in Faerie, according to his phone, it had only been a few hours, making it late at night in LA. So they were able to sneak closer to the door than they would have been able to get in the daylight. Not wanting to stare at the door for a while, Kit spun around and whispered, not wanting to wake anyone up, “Are we going to ding-dong-ditch him?”

Dru’s eyes flew open as she whipped her head around. She whisper-shouted, “Are you crazy? We can’t just leave him!”

Ty nodded in agreement, speaking through clenched teeth. "Dru's right. We can't leave him alone. But I don't think all of us have to stay."

Dru slowly nodded in agreement, leaving Kit puzzled as to what the siblings were talking about. They understand each other so well. What do they need you for? A distraction?

"Whoever they find Jaime with is going to have to deal with a big investigation." 

"But Helen's in charge of the Institute. She'll go easy on us- maybe it should be us, not Kit."

"Just me. It only needs to be one of us, and I am the best choice."

"Excuse me?" Dru wheeled around, planting her hands on her hips. "You?"

"Yes. Me."

"Why?"

At this, Ty shrugged his shoulders, purposefully jostling Jaime's body. "I think I have been leading us, and if anyone should get in trouble for this it should be me."

Dru interrupted, "Actually, if you've had such a burden, shouldn't I consider it my duty to relieve you, if only a little?"

Ty wrinkled his nose at Dru throwing his logic about leadership and responsibility back at him and switched to a new subject. "I have a few questions to ask Jaime when he wakes. So I would prefer to be by his side."

"Well, I also have some things I want to say to Jaime." 

Kit felt his head swinging back and forth like he was watching a tennis match. 

Ty's jawline stiffened. "And you can't wait?"

"Can't you?"

"No, I'd prefer his memory to be as fresh as possible."

"Okay, I doubt he's going to just be firing on all sixes right away, he needs comfort, not an interrogation."

"I- he- I-I-" Ty stuttered to a stop, but he picked himself back up as his eye caught Kit's. "Kit. Who do you think should stay with Jaime?"

Dru had already started protesting, "Oh my gosh, I can't even believe you, that's so unfair!"

Kit looked at Ty. Right, you can help him here. Ty wanted him to be on his side, and say that he should stay. And then he would make sure Dru left with him to stay out of trouble. Because that's all you can do. You're not even a choice. They know you can't take it. Be a good little babysitter. "I think Ty should stay."

Ty smiled and Dru rolled her eyes. "Fine, just let me put him down."

Jaime had been asleep the entire walk, so Dru lifted Jaime off her brother's back with a small noise, and began dragging him towards the door, leaving just Ty and Kit behind. 

Ty's shirt was extremely rumpled from carrying Jaime, but the way he glowed in the faint moonlight made him appear more ethereal than ever. His eyes were focused on Kit, still avoiding contact with his own, but they were full of emotion, more than Kit was used to seeing on Ty, who had been emotionally guarded for most of this trip. Quest. Whatever. The mission that Julain had definitely not sent them on. He snorted at the thought and Ty jolted a bit, his eyes hardening, locking his emotions in a steel vault.

He's going to leave you, and take everything with him. Don't let him leave. You see what happens to people who let their loved ones leave. Do you want to become your father?

Kit leaned in, cutting the voice off from continuing further. "Can I kiss you?"

Ty's response was feather light, "Please."

Kit didn't wait, desperately pulling Ty in, and bringing their lips together. It was overwhelming, having Ty this close to him. He slowly deepened it, but felt Ty slip further away with every second, and eventually relented, letting go, very confused.

Then he saw how red Ty's face was and remembered that he was new to this.

Well. At least you're good for something other than babysitting.

Kit bit his lip and offered Ty a smile that went unseen because Ty had lowered his head. 

Ty paced over to Dru and the siblings quietly spoke before Ty pulled away and moved towards Jaime. Dru moved closer to Kit and grabbed his hand as she walked past him, pulling him along, further from Ty.

LA could be really quiet at night. Dru entertained him with stories of suburban neighborhoods, and nature walks in the hills, and the empty beach that made him think such peaceful thoughts that he could almost block out the bright lights of advertisements on billboards and stores. After parking far, far down a street, Dru and Kit were able to get out and start walking. 

They were too young to get into most of the clubs - even if Kit privately thought that they might have looked old enough to enter - so they ended up walking outside amidst the cars whooshing by and people stumbling down the sidewalk.

Suddenly Dru spoke up, "So, how are things between you and Ty?"

Kit couldn't hold in his flinch. He hadn't expected the interrogation. "Same as the last time we talked."

A bewildered expression flashed across Dru's face, and was quickly replaced with a singular raised eyebrow. "So you guys just made out? You didn't try to talk to him?"

Looks like someone messed up. "No?"

Dru let out a heavy sigh. "Blackthorns aren't good at relationships. Well- boy Blackthorns aren't. They're unlucky, or nervous, or both. Helen's relationship is going great. The girls," She flipped her still-too-long hair with a little smile, "Are great when it comes to relationships." Her smile fell as their eyes met. "Ty- As far as I know, he hasn't had a relationship like that with anyone. And he likes to understand things fully. I think you need to make sure that you're talking with him, so you know you're both on the same page."

Kit nodded. "Yeah, I get it. I was planning on giving him some space because I don't want him to feel pressure."

Dru shot him a look. "That's literally the opposite of what I just said you should do." Then she shrugged. "But as long as you're actually thinking about it." 

They walked together for a bit longer, then Dru's eyes widened. "I just had a great idea."

Kit returned her smile, happy to move on, "What is it?"

"You should come to New York with me. Not like, permanently, just to visit."

Kit tilted his head back and thought about it. He would be putting himself closer to Jace - which could be nice - and most of the Clave - which could be not nice. But if he left England, left the house, then he would definitely have better odds of seeing Ty again. And he never could resist Ty. 

Kit pulled out his phone. "Let me call home. If they say I can visit, I will."

Dru pumped her fist and whooped as Kit dialed Jem's number. 

It was only late mourning, so his absence would not be too worrisome. Jem picked up on the second ring. "Kit? I was wondering where you were."

Kit let out a fake laugh that he hoped the phone would distort into sounding more real. "Oh I just woke up early and decided to go for a walk."

Jem made a humming sound. "Must have been pretty early."

Kit embarrassedly lowered his head, feeling like Jem was in front of him with a knowing eye. "Yes, it was. Anyways, I just got a fire message from Dru. She's got some time, so she's inviting me to stay with her in New York for a bit."

"And what did you think about that?"

"I thought it might be nice to get out for a bit. I haven't seen her in a while."

There was a pause on the other end. Then: "Sure, why not. Just be home for dinner so you can tell Tessa yourself." 

It wouldn't be too hard to find a warlock to portal him back home. "Of course! See you then!"

Ty looked up from his desk as the door creaked open. Anush poked his head in, confidently striding in further once he saw that Ty was sitting at the desk. Did he expect him to be somewhere else? Ty's jaw tightened. Ever since he had snuck out, every single mishap had someone running upstairs to check that he was still in his room. Maybe it could have inspired pride in someone else - even after he was caught and trapped, they were still worried he would find a way out. 

But to Ty, it was just tiring. He was constantly under suspicion, and no one believed that he was just innocently sitting in his room. At least Anush seemed eager to give him a second chance. He did doubt him - Ty had just seen proof of that - but he never heard Anush voice his doubts. 

Anush spoke first. "What's up?"

Ty held up his book as if to give legitimacy to his words. "I've been reading. Did something happen?"

Anush looked behind him before shutting the door. There was that unspoken doubt, the fear that if Ty were getting in trouble, Ansuh might be blamed by association. Fear, Anush wore with a little smile, the corners of his mouth flicking up as if he were trying to convince himself to be happy with his choice. "Yeah. Someone let wild frogs loose in the kitchen, so we're skipping dinner." With Ty's continued attention, Anush's smile grew, no longer having to force himself to see this as a good idea. Confidence, Anush wore like a large smile, intersecting with what happiness looked like. "Some kids are planning on sneaking in to catch them, and I bet that they'll end up breaking something before they get caught."

Ty returned the smile with an inexpressive look. "And are you here to check my room for frog spawn?"

Anush looked hurt, the line of his mouth flattening out. "No. Maybe I wanted to warn you to hide your frog spawn."

Ty blinked, confused. "Where would I get frog spawn here?"

Anush sighed, "Never mind. Just-"

He looked at Ty's face and Ty automatically dropped his eyes. 

Anush spoke quickly after that. "Bye." 

Footsteps, then the sound of the door shutting. A hasty goodbye. Ty squeezed his eyes in frustration. Anush had been close to Ty, but this latest adventure of his had scared him off, and Ty wasn't... smart enough, smart in the way that Dru was and Livvy had been, where they could pick up on other's emotions. Ty was trying hard to understand Anush, but he was always missing some piece of the puzzle. 

He turned back to his book. It was an old copy of Sherlock Holmes that he read whenever he needed a bit of inspiration from the detective. 

Slowly, he forgot about Anush's visit as he fell into the story.

Suddenly the door slammed open, making Ty jolt at the noise. Ty looked up nervously, then moved to the center of his room, leavin the book abandoned on his desk as his drawers were quickly riffled through. He had to bite down to stop himself from protesting, but the professor at least finished quickly. 

Drusilla's chest slowly rose and fell as she lay in bed. The moonlight shone through the window, giving a clear view of the room and both girls in it. Drusilla's hair messily sprawled across her pillow, shorter than he had left it, but longer than it had been before. 

She slept on her back, having gone to sleep curled up, but found her way here through tossing and turning overnight. In the light the contrast of her dark hair and pale skin was especially noticeable, reminding Ash of the mark soot left on snow. The contrast of black trees against the ground of freshly fallen powder.

He pressed his hand against the window, chilling the area around it so that he wouldn't leave a handprint on the window. Just to be a little closer to her. 

He had seen her face, seen her smile, and now he couldn't help himself from getting closer and closer. 

The more he saw her face, the better he was at imagining it when she wasn't there. The soft curves in her face and her body, her thick eyelashes, the shape of her lips... The contrast of her features might have reminded him of the impending winter, but the light, the brightness that she radiated would be better compared to that of the summer sun.

He smiled softly bringing his head to the glass of the widow, once again making sure that it wouldn't fog up. He had been making plans ever since she last spoke to him. Plans that relied on her making use of the bracelet that sat on her nightstand. Once she did, he would bring her to Faerie and would make sure that she stayed with him forever. 

Suddenly Ash heard the sound of footsteps behind him. Just his luck. There was someone else who wanted to peek through a window, and Ash - unlike this character - couldn't afford to be caught here. With one last wishful look at Drusilla, he cloaked himself in darkness and disappeared. 

Kit unhappily munched on his pizza. He was upset, and not because the pizza was bad- well, the pizza was bad, but that was a problem for another day. 

Coming to New York had seemed like a good idea at the time. And it had been a good idea at the start. Izzy and Simon had been so friendly, especially after Jace, Clary and Alec had hardly been around, trying to run reconnaissance on some Faerie mission. He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing as they explained the dangers of visiting Faerie. He was 100% sure that multiple people had prevented themselves from questioning him on that topic. They had given him a proper tour of New York City, including the best places to eat. But yesterday morning, Simon had set off on a recruitment mission, and Izzy apparently wanted to see that area as well. They had offered to take him with them the night before they left but Kit had declined. He had come to here for this specific location, and while traveling with them would definitely be fun, he wanted to stay.

But that thought did nothing for the pang that went through him when he found the notes and pancakes that the couple had left for him. He couldn't bring himself to throw them out, even after realizing that Izzy had made them, instead wrapping them up.

He scoffed at his sentimentalism and set out on a walk, going to the places that Izzy and Simon had mentioned that he might like. The walk had continued for several day, to the point of him sitting at this lousy pizza place, eating pizza as the sun started to lower. 

But the pizza was not the bad part. Almost a month after leaving Ty in LA, he had learned that Ty had written a letter that the Scholomance had examined - for far too long - then released to the recipient. The letter had contained a message to his siblings - just a quick apology and update according to Dru - and several footnotes addressing other people like Jaime. Nothing for anyone else. Nothing for the boy he had kissed before disappearing. 

Kit had been told by numerous people that the Scholomance was probably just taking awhile to examine the letter before sending it, and that's why he hadn't heard from Ty, but now he had absolute confirmation that Ty had specifically left him out. Not even, Oh tell Kit I said hi! 

It sucked. Maybe he didn't want to risk saying anything, because they hadn't been on exactly good terms before the secret mission, but Kit still missed Ty.

And the absence of Izzy and Simon, the bright couple who had cheerfully shown him the city, just made it worse. It left room for the doubt to creep in.

Kit'd nervousness, his fears, they had all grown so much louder, voices bouncing off the inside of his skull. You aren't good enough to be a Shadowhunter. You know what you really are, what you really deserve, and this isn't it.

Kit let his head hit the table, narrowly missing the pizza. His doubts typically only appeared in stressful moments, but ever since he had been left alone to think about the letter - to think about Ty - he could feel them constantly buzzing in the back of his head. Kit lifted his head- then let it fall back against the table. Then another few times for good measure. Stopping probably meant he would have to do something else, and he didn't know what else to do. He didn't even know what this self-flagellation was for. It wasn't doing him anything good. But was anything doing him any good?

Kit let his head hit the table again.

"You good, dude?" An accented voice spoke up, breaking through the buzz in the back of his head. A voice that Kit recognised. He lifted his head up to face Drusilla Blackthorn. 

Kit smiled at the sight of her, momentarily forgetting the embarrassing situation she had caught him in. "Hi Dru." He pushed out the chair next to him with his foot. "Take a seat."

Dru nervously looked around the pizza place. Aside from the half-asleep employee behind the counter, they were the only ones in the cramped dining area. Then she sat down. "How's the pizza?"

Kit sent the pizza in his hand a look before returning his focus to Dru. "I've had better."

Dru nodded as Kit continued to force the rest of the slice down. Dru thankfully didn't want to talk with him while his mouth was full, so Kit tried to chew as fast as possible. Dru slumped over in the chair while she waited, with her eyes half-shut. If he hadn't been able to see her eyes darting across the room, clearly cataloguing everything, Kit would have guessed she was about to fall asleep. Kit noticed that - like him - Dru was wearing mundane clothes instead of Shadowhunter gear. 

He felt a bit better and worse all at once. 

He brought his gaze to her hands, and saw that she was gripping the table like it was the edge of a cliff and she was about to fall off. Worried, he glanced at her face and saw that a somber look had spread across her features. Was she about to tell him something horrible had happened? He instinctively straightened in his chair. "What's up?"

Dru started off slowly. "Kit. I feel like you've been... kinda sad lately." Oh great. He had thought he had been doing a decent job of hiding his melancholy from the people around him, but Dru had apparently clocked it. "And I was thinking that maybe you should try to..." Dru cut herself off, moaning. "I know, I sound like an overbearing dad." Then she straightened up, "But you do need to get out. I get that you're in a slump, but that isn't a good thing."

Kit froze under Dru's concerned gaze. It was true that he hadn't been doing well, but he had been hoping to fly under the radar. There was something happening in Faerie and it kept pulling the attention of the people he knew in New York. Kit shrugged. "What should I do?"

Dru's eyes nervously left his, but before she could offer her suggestion a noise came from the front door. Their heads turned in unison, looking at the door as a young man in a flannel shirt walked in and headed to the counter. He looked like a mundane, but you could never tell. Kit stood up and pushed in the chair behind him, dropping his paper plate into the trash can near the door. Dru followed him, and the two of them remained silent until the door shut behind them.

"So what were you saying?" Kit asked as the two of them breezed down the street. 

"I was just thinking you needed to meet some new people. But meeting mundanse is always hard because, well," she gestured in the direction of the pizza place behind them with a half-smile, "you can't tell them everything."

"Alright. So who should I be meeting?"

They came to a pause at a red light. 

"You could go to the New York Shadow Market. You'll have a clean slate, but it won't be too unfamiliar."

Kit nodded. "I'll think about it."

"Do more than think. Try it out."

Kit smiled at Dru's persistence. Oh, why not? What did he have to lose? "Okay. I will."

Mason sat up from his desk as soon as he heard a knock on the door. He opened it and smiled at the sight of Drusilla. 

She always reminded him of statues and tapestries he had constantly seen in his youth, brave warriors with piercing gazes, depicted in heavy straight lines. That was how she had initially caught his eye. She had stood out among all the new people at the Academy, looking bigger and older than the rest of them. He had been staring at her, trying to figure out if she was an older student who had mistakenly joined the first years when she caught him staring. She had met his eyes and proceeded to stare back. He had quickly looked away after that, ashamed of having been caught.

Even though they didn't make eye contact for the rest of the day, the image of her eyes had been imprinted inside his head, and clearly, it had left a mark.

He smiled welcomingly, and gestured for her to come in. "Come in! Welcome to my humble abode!" 

Drusilla cautiously stepped in, peering around the room, and making him wished he had cleaned it up a bit more. At least he had gotten Johnathan, his roomate, to leave earlier, or he would have had a hard time kicking him out. "Nice place."

Her gaze continued to drift around the room, taking in the posters of famous Shadowhunters and their achievements that hung up on the wall. 

Mason took the opportunity to look at Drusilla. She was wearing a red shirt with some logo on it and a black skirt with studs around the waist. Dark and spooky seemed to be her favorite theme whenever she had a choice of what to wear. The outfit clung to her curves, reminding Mason of the reason he had stayed attracted to her besides her eyes. 

Drusilla spoke up and Mason quickly met her eyes, "So, should I write the message over there?" She pointed to his desk where he had been working on his homework. 

Mason quickly moved over to his desk and piled his homework on the side. "Go ahead! Do you need a pen or paper?"

Drusilla laughed, and it was a nice laugh, releasing some stress from her shoulders. "No I'm good. Thanks for offering."

Then she sat down at the desk and sent him a smile before turning to the paper. "I'll try to keep it short."

Then she was scribbling away. Mason backed up to his bed and sat down on it, watching Drusilla. The only other chair in the room was Johnathan's desk chair, and he had no desire of sitting there. 

As he watched Drusilla write, he admired her form. She suited the darkness that flowed into the room through the window, mysterious and beaconing all at once. Suiting it just right, but standing out among it. He stayed there, admiring her form, until she finished, plunking the pen down and turning around. "Done!"

Mason nodded, "Cool. I'll send it to my aunt after dinner."

Drusilla stood up, approaching the bed. He moved to the side, leaving an empty spot, intended for her. She sat down, asking, "I thought you would send it right away?"

Mason shrugged. "I thought you would come by after dinner. She's pretty punctual, I don't want to call her too early." As if an afterthought, he added, "Can you take off your shoes?"

"Oh." Drusilla kicked off her shoes then pulled her legs up onto the bed until she was sprawled across it. "That better?"

Mason twisted onto his side, lowering his head to be level with hers. "Yep." Then he kissed her. As they kissed, they twisted, bodies entwining until she was laying on top of him.

Suddenly Drusilla broke of the kiss, looking frightened, like she was about to run away. "Wait. When's... your roommate... you know..."

"Jonathan?" Manson supplied, filling in the name of his roommate.

A look of gratefulness flashed across her face. "Right. When's he coming back?"

"Not for a while. We have some time."

Drusilla looked doubtful. "Some time?"

Mason shrugged, offering his most charming smile. "Until the end of dinner."

Then he brought his hands around the back of her head and pulled her in for another kiss. 

Kit wandered through the Shadow Market. This was a nice place - well, he was grinning at the sight of a customer getting scammed by a vampire shop owner, so maybe not nice for everyone - but it was familiar. The noise of deals, the specific silence for the darker ones, the useless trinkets next to valuable jewels was all built precisely to catch the eye and make you think what they wanted to you think. 

Kit had taken to that idea, dressing himself in a way that would make people think a certain idea when they saw him: his all black outfit would have others label him as a shadowhunter immediately, even if it wasn’t the official gear. He had decided it would be better to call himself a shadowhunter off the bat, rather than go in wearing mundane clothing and end up getting called cousin by another fae. Not risking it.

Kit had some weapons on him, but he was desperately hoping that he could get out of here without a fight. Or a random demon attack. 

He noticed a stall that looked like it was selling human food. He gave a warm smile to the scared person manning it. 

“How much for a kebab?” 

The person didn’t even look up. “Five for two. You want duck, chicken, or you wanna look at our specials?”

Kit stuck his hand in his wallet and pulled out a five. “Two chicken please.”

They went to work skewering the chicken pieces. While he waited a mundane looking boy came up behind him, then walked in front of him, shouting into the stand, “Yo, Carla! What have you got today!”

The woman finally looked up, revealing her face was just as scared as her arms. “Nothing for you today Ron.”

Ron gave Kit a look and rolled his eyes, before walking to a different stand. Kit wanted to turn around to track him, but Carla was moving to the counter with his kebabs. He took them both in one hand and handed her the money. 

Then he turned around and Ron was long gone. 

Or was he? Kit moved to the edge of the stalls, hiding in the shadows behind them, taking advantage of the dark clothing. Yep, there Ron was, poorly stealing apples from another vendor. 

Amateurs, everywhere. 

Kit set down another path, admiring the items on display, enjoying the familiarity. But the feeling of content was slowly fading, and Kit felt jittery. The Herondale urge to take risks, he guessed. 

Noticing Ron ahead of him, Kit straightened his spine and decided to take a risk of a simple sort.

Kit fell in step with Ron, who was holding one of the apples from earlier. “Hey.”

Ron stopped walking. “Oh you’re the dude from Carla’s stand! What’s up?”

Kit didn’t miss the way Ron’s eyes dropped to his hands, looking for a rune. Luckily Kit had covered his runes with Dru's fingerless gloves.

"I wanted to know who taught you how to steal apples. Your technique looked horrible." Kit nodded to the one in Ron's hand. "I'm surprised you got that one."

Ron looked embarrassed, but whispered, "He actually caught me with my hand in the pot. I got this one when he threw it at me, trying to scare me off." He tapped his cheek where a bruise was beginning to form. And you know you can do better than that. Prove it. 

Kit raised an eyebrow. "Battle scar. Wear it with pride."

They started to walk - Kit made sure he was the one closer to the stalls, and swiped some berries as they passed by a stall - and Ron crossed his arms. "What do you know about swiping stuff?" So much more than you.

And this was the challenge Kit had awaited. He held out his hand, revealing his haul. He could feel a smug smile appear as Ron's head whipped back to the stall that had those exact berries sitting out. "Dude." Ron held out his hand and Kit easily transferred them to him. "That's so cool."

Ron popped one of the berries into his mouth and Kit winched a little. Stealing food was all well and good unless you didn't know where it came from - then it was dangerous. He used to know a kid who said he would rather eat poison than accidently eat fae food. 

Suddenly Ron came to a stop and pulled a card out of his pocket. "Listen, you might not be into this stuff, but I've got some friends who would love to learn how you did that, so if you ever wanna meet up..."

He trailed off, card in midair. He's offering you the chance to have a little fun, in a way that won't hurt anyone. Aren't you bored of all these stupid shadowhunter rules? Kit took the card, staying silent. 

Ron smiled and nodded. "Can't wait to see you again. Gotta run!"

Then he took off, leaving Kit behind with the card. 

He turned it over. On it was a scribbled location and time. He recognised the location as somewhere in the market that Izzy and Simon had shown him. 

Kit shoved it into his pocket and angrily stomped away. Was he so deprived of friends that he had to show up at a little meeting of strangers?

Ty turned the corner. Law was never a fun class, just lots of memorization of rules and exceptions and exceptions to exceptions. His classmates flooded the hall around him, and Ty quickly found himself cornered by the boy from the class who had been mocking him, who greeted him with a cheerful, "Hey stupid."

Ty turned away, ignoring the jeers of the boy following him. Several peers noticed them and sneered at the blonde boy, stepping in his way. The quiet insults in class had been one thing, but in front of everyone? Consistently? The brunette girl and other boy that had been standing with him had abandoned him as the students started crowding him. One girl was holding her book like she was about to swing it at him. With Ty out of view, everyone around him was now a potential target for the insults and they were not happy about it.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Ty ducked away from the slowly dispersing crowd and hid in a corridor that had a door going to the storage area. The door was locked, so Ty stayed there for a while, watching students go by, not wanting to be caught or pointed out. 

He would have to head to class soon, but this was the sort of isolation Ty craved. Just little breaks for the chance to breathe now and then. 

Ty started walking back to the main hallway, but right as he did a hand landed on his shoulder, yanking him forcefully back. It was the blonde boy, and his cheek was a bright angry shade of red. 

Ty took a step back, hoping to avoid a fight, but the boy's angry eyes said that it wouldn't be that easy. Ty froze, waiting for the boy to make the first move. Attacking him wouldn't go well, and would only cause him to be blamed for starting the fight. Walking away would put him at a disadvantage, especially if he turned his back to do so. So the best option would be to wait to see what the boy did first.

To Ty's surprise, his fists stayed in bunches by his side. "Idiot. Why'd you leave? You got me into some trouble." The boy gestured to the mark on this cheek.

What? It wasn't Ty's fault that the boy had been spewing off insults. It only made sense that someone would eventually try to retaliate against him. But the boy went on before Ty could defend himself.

"That was pretty stupid of you. Just because you can't hold a normal conversation doesn't give you an excuse to run off like that. But I guess you are stupid." Something odd was happening. The boy was getting more and more angry, voice raising, fist tightening. And even though Ty wasn't doing anything, he couldn't help his flinch at the last word. "You're stupid. You're stupid. You are a stupid dumbass." The boy seemed to realize Ty's weakness, spitting the word into his face. "You went into Faerie and thought you could just get away with it, like you were special or something. News flash! You aren't." Here, Dru would have made a joke about ditching Jaime on the doorstep, but all Ty could think was that the boy yelling in his face was right. He had been stupid. There had been too many unaccounted variables in the plan and he had brought half of them. He had endangered Dru and Kit, hadn't even been sure where exactly he would find Jaime, threw an emotional bomb at Kit, and... 

Ty blinked, noticing that the boy was still there. 

They stayed there for a moment, staring at each other, in states of vulnerability. The boy's weakness was literally stamped on his face, and he had been screaming at Ty. His hands were still fists, but at this point all he was doing was stabbing himself with his fingernails. And then Ty knew that aside from looking a little startled, he must have appeared like a statue, unmoving and almost non responding to any insult. But on the inside something had just come crashing down, and he felt strangely hollow. 

Then the moment passed and the boy finally lifted his fists and Ty felt a little relief at having something to distract him from this horrible feeling. 

But before he could swing at him and Ty could dodge or block, the blonde girl from class - probably the boy's sibling, they looked so similar - came running around the corner and crashed into the potential fight. 

She grabbed the boy's shoulder and whispered something in his ear. After a moment the boy looked crestfallen and turned around to leave. The girl started turning towards Ty, but he was in no shape for a conversation. With the promise of a fight gone, there was nothing to distract him from the thought that had finally made its way to the forefront of his mind and wreaked havoc. 

So he turned and ran, escaping to his room, and throwing his books on the desk. 

Irene was stretched out on the floor, and the racket that Ty had brought in with him had her startled, looking up for a threat. 

Another wave of guilt washed over Ty. Not even animals were safe from him. He was a horrible person. He sat down on the floor next to Irene. For a moment he tried to lay next to her, but that felt uncomfortable. 

Irene knocked her head against him, and Ty got an idea. He repositioned himself and started trying to teach her how to shake paws. He had seen people do it with dogs before, and he knew Irene was smart enough to understand him.  

Time passed and slowly Irene caught on to the trick, shaking his hand with her paw. Sometimes she failed, tripping over and Ty mentally berated himself for being such a stupid teacher. A... a... an idiot. Because he was.

When Irene finally got tired and went to sleep Ty turned to the clock and saw that it said 3:49. He had missed dinner. No wonder Irene was so tired. He had kept her up so long to just distract himself because he was a coward.

With no one awound or awake to hear, Ty finally whispered out loud to himself.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid."

"Dude!"

A voice cried out from behind Kit. He was back in the Shadow Market, back in his vaguely-shadowhunter all-black getup. He had been coming here more and more often, enjoying as the feeling of newness began to wear off and it started feeling more familiar, started feeling like he was coming home, only a bit to the right. He stole a little. Not a lot, sometimes he just stole junk, but it kept a little part in the back of his brain happy, kept him on edge, kept him from going back into that slump from earlier. As helpful as Dru tried to be, she would only show up for visits on weekends, and he was mainly alone for the rest of the time. Alone and bored. He deserved to have a little fun. That was it. Maybe more.

Kit turned around to see the boy from last time - Ron was his name - jogging towards him with a smile.

"Dude!" Ron skidded to a stop in front of him, and Kit abandoned his attempt to steal anything from the nearby stalls. Even when Ron lowered his voice for his next words, his entrance had still been too attention grabbing. "Are you also on your way to the meeting?"

Meeting? Oh the meeting Ron had invited him to. An opportunity to show off for some fools who don't matter. Go on. He didn't really have a reason not to go, and it would be good if he could learn a few new faces around here. "Yep. You caught me."

Ron laughed and started walking. Kit followed. "The guys are going to love you. We all wish we could do what you did."

Kit kept his voice light. "You told them about me?"

Ron didn't seem to suspect anything. Idiot. "Some of them. But that's kind of thr reason we hang out. To improve at... our mutual skills."

Ron fell silent after that, and Kit let his thoughts race around his head. He needed to claim indirect Shadowhunter relation - maybe say his parents left the Clave or he was a bastard - but not present himself as a fully fledged Shadowhunter. Lies based around truth would be the best here. He's an expert at forming them at this point. 

Then Ron took a step down into a cramped alley and Kit nervously followed him, prepared to run if this was a trap. But then they reached the end of the alley, where it opened up into a bigger space that probably used to be used for something before the cracks appeared in the walls. Kit turned away from the walls as several people called out in greeting to Ron. 

Ron smiled back, "Hey guys, this is the dude I was telling you about. Super sneaky."

Most of the people looked awed at that point, including the ones who had stayed in place, choosing not to greet Ron. But one boy in a black hoodie openly snorted. "Sure. We'll see about that." 

Kit eyed the boy. Several people were sitting near him, listening closely. They mainly looked at Kit with suspicion, narrowed eyes and definitely chins, as if challenging him. So this guy was either some sort of leader, or held a lot of sway in this group. You can beat him at his own game. His nose was slightly crooked, and his hair was streaked through with white and... bingo. He was wearing a watch on his left wrist, and had something stuffed into his right pocket. Whatever was in his pocket would be too hard to discreetly take with this many witnesses, but the watch... 

Kit approached the boy holding out his left hand, as if to offer peace. "John."

The boy pushed himself off the can he was sitting against, taking Kit's lack of challenge as some proof that he wasn't trying to undermine him. He stuck out his own hand. "Stacks."

Kit wrapped his hand around John's and unlocked his watch in a complex but quick maneuver, making sure to keep his eyes on Stacks, relying on his ego to keep him staring at Kit's face. "That's what our parents named you?"

"That's what everyone calls me."

Kit released Stack's hand, lifting his own as if in surrender, the stolen watch safely tucked under his sleeve. Good job. "Sorry man, I wasn't trying to insult you."

Stacks looked pacified by the quick apology, but he could hear the mocking tone in Kit's voice as clear as anyone else. He glared at Kit. "You can try, but I don't think that would work out too well for you."

Kit turned his head halfway over his shoulder and yelled to Ron, "Hey Ron, you didn't tell me this was a fight club!"

A couple of kids on the side snickered at his joking tone, but Stack still looked tense. Kit could feel the confidence rising in his chest, knowing that he had played Stacks and he was about to 

Stacks decided to yell in Kit's face. "I don't know who you think you are, but around here, I'm the best thief, so what I say goes."

Kit nearly snorted. But the best way to win was to beat someone at their own game, to break them in the way they wanted to break you. So he ignored the fact that a thief with nothing else made for a horrible leader, half of the people surrounding Stacks had looked ready to ditch him the second he started yelling, and that Kit could probably win this fight without his runes. 

Instead he pulled Stack's watch out of his sleeve with a coy, "Are you sure about that?"

Stack's eyes widened, and he pulled down his sleeve an extreme amount, checking his entire forearm for that watch. Kit grinned. "I'll save you some time: here it is."

Now you have him on the ropes. Now you have the power. He could have taunted Stack for a little longer, but Kit threw the watch back to him. Stack watched him with anticipation. He had an advantage over Stack, and now he was throwing it away like it was nothing. That had to be suspicious. When Stack refused to fill the void between them, Kit spoke again, "What, no thank you? I heard that this was a group of... talented individuals. Figured I might just skip over the initiation." Then directly to Stack, still performing, but now inviting another onto the stage. "What do you say? Am I in?"

All focus was on Stack, and Kit was impressed when he seemed to rise instead of crumpling under the weight of all the stares. Stack smiled widely at Kit. "I think you've got most of us beat, but if you wanna stick around we'd love to have you."

Suddenly Kit was crowded by some of the people who had been curiously watching their interaction, now mobbing him with questions and requests for demonstrations. 

Kit smiled at the attention he was receiving. Sure, he hadn't attracted it in the most moral way, but who did? And this had been relatively harmless. Just a quick reminder of who he was and would always be. A thief, certainly.

But a damn good one. 

Dru looked back and forth down the hallway before sprinting up the stairs, hoping no one caught her on her way back to her room. It would suck if she got in trouble without having even actually snuck out.

Thais had wanted to sneak out to hang out with that boy she had met in the club. And after Dru had convinced her to share her location and text her with any update, it seemed safe enough to go. 

Thais had invited Dru to come and hang out with them, but she hadn't wanted to third-wheel, so she had declined, and was now stuck sneaking back to her room. Once Dru finally reached a hallway in the girls dormitory, she was able to breathe a sigh of relief and slow her pace. She wouldn't be getting caught tonight. 

Dru read the names on the doors as she passed. It was nice, being around so many Shadowhunters in the Academy. On the one hand, groups of students were often where major cults and rebellions started, but on the other, it was nice to have people she didn't have to watch her every word around. It was hard to have mundie friends back in LA, with their curiosity about her rune and fear that she had too many scars. She could make it work, but not being willing to truthfully speak to them always prevented their friendships from developing. They would be arcade buddies or send each other pictures of pretty sunsets, but never anything more. That's why Thais was so great. There were almost no secrets that Dru had to keep from her, and she knew her initial honesty and openness had won her points. 

But some Shadowhunter hadn't adapted as well to the Academy as others had. Dru passed a door that had Tiffany's name on it.

She winched at the thought of Tiffany, Edward and Jane. It was practically a love triangle. Or some sort of feelings triangle. Someone would definitely end up hurt, and out of it, Dru pitied Jane the most. It was clear to anyone with eyes that Edward and Tiffany were sticking together no matter what. Jane's obvious crush reminded Dru of the unattainable crushes she had had when she was younger - and maybe she still had some lingering feelings, but that was another matter. 

At least whatever they had going on couldn't beat Ty and Kit in their worst stages. Ty hadn't been able to write to her often, and with how thoroughly mail was checked, it was unlikely he would contact them for a while, particularly Kit, who's involvement in their mission to Faerie might be discovered if Ty suddenly started paying a lot more attention to him. She was one hundred percent sure that Kit had left some regretful loose ends with Ty - based on his previously seen communication skills. But seriously, he fled the country like he was some sort of criminal. kit took the cake for poor communication skills.

And then Dru came to a stop in front of a door labeled with Jane's name.

She could talk to Jane. She had been able to give Jane some false hope once, she had been in a place like Jane's once. She could try to explain that pining would only make life harder, convince her to confess her feelings and try to move on.

Dru moved to the door, lifting her fist in preparation to knock on the door. 

Then she froze. 

What if Jane wasn't there? What would she say to her roommate?

Even if Jane was there, what if she took Dru's attempts to help the wrong way? What if she mocked her or threw her out?

She liked Jane, she didn't want to push her away by prodding at things Jane would rather not touch.

And had her plan seriously been to talk her out of her crush? That was just so rude! To take the side of Tiffany and Edward, who had been dancing around each other, but never together for as long as she had known them? She was a horrible person, and at best just a big-headed, ignorant douche!

She had to leave. Dru quickly turned on heel and sprinted towards the bathroom on instinct. She could steal a towel, and take a shower. That would be good. No one was in the bathroom at this time. 

She slammed through the door to an emptying, echoing room. Good.

As she walked toward the towels, passing a large mirror, she had seen something out of the corner of her eye. She immediately halted. 

"Livvy?"

Her voice sounded small, echoing through the bathroom's sterile walls. Livvy wasn't there. But she had seen her... 

Drusilla closed her eyes, trying to get a hold of herself. She was fine. 

Images of Livvy's body, bloody and broken flashed behind her eyes. 

Blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood death.

She's dead, dead, dead, she's dead and you can't save her your sister your blood her blood spilling everywhere spilled by your blood the blood is all the same and it's everywhere because she's dead she's dead Livvy's dead.

Dru cracked open her eyes with a stiff cry from her place collapsed on the bathroom floor.

Breath. Just breathe and don't think about the blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood.

She's dead. 

Livvy?

She's dead. And I'll join her.

Dru panted, trying to keep herself from hyperventilating as she once again pulled herself out of the thoughts in her head. Slowly, she pushed herself into a corner, relying on the walls for support. After a few moments like that, extremely conscious of how fast her heart was racing, she tried to stand up again. 

Blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood dead, dead, dead blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead, dead, dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead dead blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood blood blood dead blood blood blood

Ty pulled out a book on the shelf, examining the title. Teaching tricks to Irene was going well, and he had become curious as to methods of training and taming animals that might assist him. Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly what the Scholomance had a lot of. He had found some basic books on animals, but they weren't that helpful. 

Professor Hardcastle had smiled at him and suggested the name of an author she knew that kept lots of animals, saying that he might have written a book on his findings. Ty held his journal in one hand, and was now checking if there were any other books by him. 

He peered at the print on the cover, reading the names of additional authors, sloting it back on the shelf when he didn't see the name he was looking for. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Ragnor standing there, and quickly turned around to him. "Hello Professor."

Ragnor looked a bit sad for Ty, which was an unusual expression for Ty to see directed so openly at him. But Ragnor wore sadness like many others, a regretfully tight mouth and dim eyes, so Ty was sure that was the expression. "Tiberius. We need to talk."

Ragnar paused for a moment, supposedly giving Ty a moment to speak, but Ty wasn't the one who had sought out Ragnor, he had nothing to say. Finally Ragnor sighed and continued. "I know that some of your classmates have been giving you a hard time because you went to Faerie. You can always come to me or another professor if they keep it up. I heard that you had a confrontation that nearly turned physical the other day."

He paused again and this time Ty had a correction for him. "It didn't turn physical though."

Ragnor's mouth tightened in a frown, "That's not the point. I just don't want you to get the wrong impression from this accident. I would have kept you in detention for another month if it had been up to me."

Ty was confused. Was Ragnor also here to insult his stupidity? Ragnor didn't seem to know where he was going with this either, shoving his hands into his pockets with a heavy sigh. 

Then after a while of waiting, Ragnor spoke again. "You need to understand that what you did was incredibly..." he shook his head, unable to find a word, finally settling on, "bad. You might think you timed it out perfectly and managed to outsmart everyone, and maybe you did, or maybe you didn't. But if you keep expecting everything to work out like this, one day - and maybe that day has already happened - you're going to make a mistake and whatever you cleverly evaded will catch up with you. Getting in and out of Faerie? That was not skill. That was luck. You were lucky no one saw you or hurt you. Luck, not smarts. The world happened to align in your favor, don't take that as a sign to keep going."

Oh. Just a reminder to not go running out of the Scholomance and headfirst into danger again. But this reminder felt sharper. Whatever protective coating had existed that protected him, something had been chiping through it, letting Ragnor's words strike hard. He felt the opposite of smart right now.

Ty nodded, head looking at his shoes. Ragnor had nice shoes. They were platforms, giving him a bit of extra height. 

He had thought himself smart, bringing backup, adapting when unexpected obstacles and emotions came into play, but maybe he really was...

He found his voice and spoke to Ragnor, "I know. That was pretty stupid of me."

He knew. He really did know. Ever since he had gotten back, he had started to see a new face in his nightmares, and he refused to allow anyone to get hurt by sticking to him. Not Dru - who he had dreamed of dying so many times that the bitter taste had permanently settled on his tongue - and not…

Kit - who had left a different taste in his mouth, but one that still inspired Ty to keep a distance between them. For his sake. 

Ragnor's arms twitched as if he hadn't been expecting Ty to relinquish so easily. Or maybe it was that the library was drafty. Ragnor's jacket didn't look very snug. Ty offered Rangor a, "Bye," and started heading towards the door. The break in conversation had been long enough to indicate that they were done talking, right? He had mistakenly ended conversations early too many times, leaving the other person confused or angry. But Ragnor didn't come after him so Ty headed straight for his room as a headache formed along the way, pounding at his cranium.

When he reached his room he dropped the book on his desk. He had been excited to read it a few minutes ago, but now he was just tired. He just wanted to crawl under the covers and never come out.

And so he did, huddling under the covers, mind far too active for him to find peace in sleep. After a while he heard a bunch of footsteps passing by his door and realized that it must be dinner time. 

Ty considered standing up and getting dinner. He wouldn't have to do much, he was still wearing his school clothes. He could sit with Anush, or maybe read his new book while eating. He could pretend to be fine and unaffected and maybe even find a distraction in the antics of some of his classmates.

All he had to do was get up.

Ty felt heavy. Heavy and, "Stupid."

He burrowed further under the covers.

Kit walked though the market, new friends flanking him. Initially he was worried that they would get in his way, but they had proven apt at staying out of trouble and were very excited to see him take action. 

He was silly to have worried about standing out. All he really needed was a group of people where he could fit in. It didn't matter if others glared at him when he knew he still had those people to back him up.

After he had shown up Stack in front of everyone, they had swarmed around him, throwing out question after question, and even Stack had reluctantly come around, looking less like he wanted to murder Kit, instead giving him a little nod as he left. Every time since then he had come to the Shadow Market, they had found each other and run around laughing and stealing. Kit hadn't had this kind of fun in a while and he had missed it. These were people that he could let out the hidden and buried part of himself around.

Everyone following each other in a rowdy group made for a lot of fun. Ron nudged Kit in the side, drawing his attention. "Hey John, look at that!"

Kit turned around to see one of Ron's friends trip some random girl in an oversized hoodie. She hissed at the girl who had tripped her, but grabbed her bag and spun off without response, with water now splashed onto the front of her sleeves. Giggles erupted from that area and Kit allowed himself to smile. "Good catch." He spoke to Ron.

Ron was a good person to be close to, because Kit could get a lot past Ron, and Ron was never the wiser, continuing to look up to Kit like some sort of - well, not hero - role model maybe? And Ron told his perspective to everyone else, which rose everyone's opinion of him. So no one gets hurt and there's a happy ending. 

Their little group continued on their way, passing stalls and occupants of the market. 

Eventually one of the girls - that might have been the one who tripped the girl earlier - broke of from the group, running ahead to a stall. The owner was turned around, so she reached over the counter for one of the bracelets he had on display. Kit smirked, watching and waiting for her to get caught. Ron grabbed Kit's shoulder eagerly. "Oh! I think she's gonna get it!"

"Nah. She won't."

Ron turned to Kit with a curious expression. "What do you mean?"

Kit gave what he hoped was a mysterious smile. "Watch and see."

Ron turned back to the situation and he slightly jumped as he saw that the stall owner had turned around, catching the girl red-handed. Or it could have been red-handed if she had managed to actually get her hand on the weapon. Kit could see her lips moving, probably mumbling an excuse about wanting to see the bracelet, as the owner tried to pressure her into buying it as the threat of him catching her mid-robbery attempt hung over her. 

Kit rolled his eyes. "Come on. I'll show you guys how I do it."

The group rounded up and followed him towards a more busy portion of the market. Once again, they dispersed through the stalls, not wanting to look overly suspicious, while keeping their eyes on Kit. Kit meandered over to a stall with jewelry, keeping his hands in his pockets as he leaned over the glass. He let his mind wander, wondering who would like jewelry.

Tessa had plenty of fine pieces that could easily qualify as antiques. Would any of this be able to impress her or Jem?

He could imagine him giving something to Ty. But he couldn't imagine Ty's reaction.

What would Ty like? He moved over to the smaller section of bands with warning labels for being silver and iron. Maybe Ty would like something that was more utilitarian? Remember why you're here.

"Can I help you find something?" The stall owner's face was as sharp as her voice.

Kit looked up, doing his best to portray wide-eyed innocence. "Oh no, I'm just looking. My mom's birthday is coming up and I was trying to figure out a gift."

The shopkeeper looked suspicious, but left him alone. It wasn't like he could have taken anything from here. The even spread of jewelry would have made it too obvious when something went missing. This was just to make him look less suspicious.

He left the stall, wandering around. He passed some potions - too dangerous - and fruit - too easy. He saw a shop selling knives in a pile, with some of the smaller ones scattered around the base. Perfect. He walked like he was going to a stand with perfume, but ducked into the shadows between the stalls instead, reaching out a hand to grasp one of the daggers. 

He didn't walk back to his group right away, instead choosing to drift around in the back to make sure no one was following him before squeezing his way out near one of Ron's friends, a short boy who looked younger than he was. He jumped at the sight of Kit, who pressed his finger to his lips before the boy could speak. If he started exclaiming about Kit stealing while they were this close to the stall, Kit might have to stab him with his new knife.

Kit casually walked away from the stall, with the group reforming around him. When they were finally far away enough from the stall that he had taken it from, he stopped, spun around and revealed the small blade he had acquired. They excitedly clamored over each other, congratulating him and essentially stroking his ego. He smiled back at them.

Mason remembered earlier today when he had been coming out of the bathroom and nearly ran into Paige. He had been ready to apologise, but she quickly showed that she had been waiting for him, pushing him into a wall, and quickly boxing him in.

"Please tell me that the rumors aren’t true.”

Mason smiled up at Paige, her unruly red hair flowing over her shoulders. “Sorry to disappoint-“

Paige cut him off, raising her fist like she was going to punch him in the throat. As a recipient of a throat-punch more than once, Mason quickly reacted. “Woah! Which rumors?”

Paige put her fist down and furiously looked left and right for eavesdroppers before asking, “Are you hooking up with Drusilla Blackthorn?”

Mason smiled at the reminder of kissing Drusilla on his bed. With anyone else he would have danced around the subject and teased at it, but Paige still looked ready to punch him, so he gave her a flat response that said everything but yes. “Why do you want to know?” He grinned and leaned over her. “Jealous?” 

Paige gagged. "Of that bitch? Never." Then her brows furrowed, and she looked almost concerned as she peered at Mason. "You haven't done anything, have you?" She went on without waiting for a response. "You shouldn't. There's something messed up with her family. Don't let her get her hooks in you. You're better than that." 

Mason hadn't had a response for that. He felt strangely insulted, as if by insulting his taste, Paige had insulted him. 

And now here they were, back in his bed. What had felt a little risky the first time she came to his room now felt pretty innocent. All they had done was kiss, and... that was it. Drusilla had easily flopped down on his bed from the start. Had she been expecting to move faster? Was she laughing at him? 

No. Mason pressed his hand against his head as if that would be all it took to shove the nastier thoughts that Paige had planted into the back of his mind. Paige Ashdown was too conceited to be trusted, and Drusilla was right next to him. 

He would never tell Paige she was wrong, because then she would get nasty. She could cart herself around ignorantly for all he cared 99% of the time, but this lime her words had struck something. 

Drusilla was complaining about something - a new rule set up by the Headmaster. It had something to do with the New York Shadow Market, and Mason had ignored everything after that, having never gone there, and never planning to visit. Drusilla was apparently more so involved.

She ended it with a heavy sigh, letting herself flop down onto his bed. "I'm sorry, it's just been a long week for me."

Mason smiled down at her. "It's fine."

She returned the smile, and pushed herself up, leaning towards him. He met her lips, and pulled her into his lap as they made out, bodies pressing against each other. 

Mason's hands were resting on Drusilla's hips, but then he moved them up her shirt, feeling his way up her body, smoothing his hand over the curve of her waist up to her breasts. When he got there, Drusilla suddenly flinched away from him, pulling back and lowering her head in a way that caused her hair to hide herself like it was a curtain. Mason immediately pulled his hands away.

"Are you okay?" Mason asked cautiously.

When Drusilla lifted her head she was wearing a small smile that loosened the knot of tension in his chest. "Yeah." She giggled. "Your hands are just so cold."

Oh. Mason smiled back, "Sorry. But I can think of one way to make it up to you."

Drusilla's smile turned coy. "Oh really?"

Mason reached around her waist and pulled her back to him to resume the previous activity. This time, Drusilla only flinched a little when he reached her chest and they kept going. 

But Mason couldn't seem to shake off the anger he had felt when Paige had confronted him. So this time he pulled back. Drusilla looked confused when he did. "Are you okay?" Then, jokingly, "Are my hands cold?"

"No." An idea sprung to life in Mason's head, and he reached for it, not considering how good of an idea it was, simply focused on his goal. "Actually, it's getting a little hot." 

Then, leaning back from Drusilla, he pulled off his shirt. Drusilla's eyes widened with surprise from the sudden movement. He dropped it on his bed. "Your turn."

Drusilla looked at him, wide-eyed and confused. She looked down at herself, shifting on his bed like she was about to get to her feet. Then she looked up and pulled off her shirt, discarding it with his. "Better?"

Mason let himself admire her body. "Much."

He reached towards her sports bra and tugged on a strap. "But I think we can do better."

Drusilla focused her gaze behind him. "What about your roommate?"

Right. Mason generally timed this for when he would be out, but there was always the security that if he did come back, at least he wouldn't see anything. Mason hopped off the bed, and opened the door. Seeing no one outside, he pulled off his sock and shoved it around the handle before shutting the door and locking it. Hopefully, John would see it and not use his key. 

It was a little hard to see in his comparatively dark room after sticking his head into the lit hallway, so he wasted some time pulling off his other sock before returning to the bed, and by the time he sat down, Drusilla had pulled off her bra. 

Mason didn't pull himself onto the bed fully, instead sitting on the edge to strip off his pants. He could see Drusilla copy him, taking off her skirt. 

It went on until they were both naked. 

He reached out for her, but Drusilla looked at him with concern, slightly leaning back. He took her in, her body appearing to be a marble statue, perfect and smooth. "Hang on. Do you have protection?"  

It took Mason a moment to find the answer. "Yeah, I have some in my drawer. I'll get it."

And he did.

A purple tulip plucked from the stem. Blood spilled from where it had been cut.

Satin flowers and clove growing together. Then the clove was plucked from the pot and deposited on stone, causing it to wilt. Luckily a handful of dirt was deposited nearby, fresh soil stretched in a way that seemed to be offering the nutrients to the clove. The satin flower, left alone, began to wilt, and nothing came to save it.

And most prominently, an ash tree, surrounded by a tornado of dead leaves, slowly pushing in on the tree, knocking purple tulips from the branches, pushing it dangerously close to falling over and dying. The winds grew stronger, and something else appeared in it, among the dead leaves. With the new thing the wind grew even stronger, quickly knocking the rest of the flowers off the tree. Then the winds quieted a bit, the strange force no longer being such a threat. But the dead leaves remained, determined to rip the tree from the ground.

She awoke with a gasp. 

Dru stared at the ceiling for a minute, still experiencing phantom feelings of the harsh wind. Then she rolled over to face a wall and went back to sleep.

"Kit?"

Kit spun around to see Drusilla running towards him. He nearly shifted away at the sight of her Shadowhunter gear before he caught himself. You're a Shadowhunter, don't be afraid, he mentally scolded himself. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he let himself fall into a casual slouch against the wall. "What's up?" 

Dru clasped her hands in front of her, looking to the side. "Oh, not much. You know how school is. It's... busy."

Her voice fell off at the end, and she was avoiding looking directly at him. "Everything okay?"

Her head twisted forward in a second. Her face was red, like she had been crying or was about to cry. "Of course. Just, distracted I guess." Her chin dropped.

Kit looked both ways, trying to see if someone was watching them, and Dru was pranking him, or if Dru actually had something that was wrong. When she didn't see anything, he turned back to her. "I bet the Academy is tough." 

Dru looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah, we have to do a lot of training exercises. I'm pretty decent at most of the textbook stuff because I've been learning that my whole life. The Academy wasn't really, like, an option for me when I was younger, so I did a lot of learning on my own."

Kit looked up. "Book stuff. You like reading, right?"

"I like stories. So, yeah, I guess. Just learning straight facts and memorizing them is so boring, but we do less of that now. More histories and explanations."

"And you're good at that?" Kit guessed.

"I get good grades." There was a lighter tone to Dru's voice.

Kit looked back down at her, and she met his eyes. There was still some red in her face, but it had disappeared for the most part. Grades weren't really something he wanted to talk about. "That's good. You made any friends?"

Dru twisted her hands. "Yeah, some." Her face twisted to the side and back again. "Thais is my best friend. She's my roommate." Then after a pause, "We were supposed to hang out today, but her boyfriend showed up, and I didn't want to hold her back or third wheel, so I found," she cut herself off, raising her hands in a single finger gun to point at Kit. 

Kit laughed. "Maybe you need to get a boyfriend of your own."

Dru flinched and quickly looked down.

Kit stared at her a moment, before speaking, unable to keep his trepidation out of his voice. "I'm sorry, did I say-"

Dru looked up, "No, no, you didn't do anything. I'm fine. There's nothing going on."

"Okay." Kit felt too nervous to speak as Drusilla's face grew more flushed and she took deep breaths.

Eventually she spoke, voice a little raspy, like there was something stuck in her throat. "What about you? How are things going for you at the Institute?"

Kit shrugged, turning his head up to the air condition unit that hung above him, stattered on the wall of the building. "Okay."

He didn't want Dru to see his face, in case his guilt gave himself away. 

"Have you been helping them on patrols?"

"No, they've been pretty busy. Something in Faerie." He brought his head down to meet Dru's eyes, and saw understanding in her gaze. Seperated from Ty, who's punishment had been harsh, they hadn't been brave or secure enough to talk about what happened in Faerie. "I don't think it had anything to do with..."

He trailed off. Even after looking both ways, he was still nervous that they might get caught, that saying it aloud might dam them. 

Dru understood, giving him a small smile. "Good." Then she changed the subject understandably quickly. "So what have you been doing?"

Kit shrugged. "Not much." Stealing, that's what. And doing a damn good job at it. Not that he could say that. But he was used to it.

Dru snapped her fingers. "Did you go to the Shadow Market?" 

Does she know something? Is your cover about to be blown? "What?"

"The Shadow Market?" Her eyebrows furrowed and her face was wide open with a question. "Like I suggested?"

"Oh." Kit turned away, looking up to hide the expression of guilt that clearly covered his face. "Yeah. I went."

A long pause. "And how was it?" Dru sounded exasperated. "What did you do?"

Kit couldn't think of a lie. "Just browsed."

"Did you see anything you liked? Anything funny happen?"

Kit thought back to the time he had laughed at someone tripping a random passerby. "No." His voice cracked on that single syllable, sealing his guilt.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Kit looked at Dru. Her stance was firm, and she looked like she was about to say something accusatory, so Kit interrupted before she could. 

"Nothing happened in the Shadowmarket, and nothing happened with your boyfriend." Kit hissed at Dru.

They both froze after that. Kit was shocked by himself. He had just pretty much admitted that something happened at the Shadow Market, and dared her to start something.

Before he could take it back or laugh it off, or do something, anything, Dru leaned forward, jaw clenched as she shot back, words venomous. "I do not have a boyfriend." The force she put into every word wasn't hope, it wasn't her trying to convince anyone, be it him or herself, it was a painful truth that she was passing onto him. Then the venom disappeared with her next words, but they were no less forceful or truthful. "But you went to the Shadow Market."

Kit looked away. 

"Kit." Dru's vice was pleading. "I'm not stupid. You go to the Shadow Market and you come back acting so... smug! And arrogant!"

Kit looked back at her and quickly turned away. She looked more sad than angry, red eyes and slumped shoulders. Angry would have been better, would have been something he could stand against. Sad chipped away at his walls. "No I don't,"

The excuse was weak. Kit could feel it before it even finished leaving his tongue.

"Kit. Please. I don't like it when you act like this. If you were just being a little arrogant, that's fine, I'd just tell you off for being a jerk, which is f-fine, I guess. But you aren't just acting a little funny. And you're hiding it, so you know that it isn't good. I don't like this, and you don't like it, and I think we both know that what you're doing isn't good for anyone. Not you... and not the people you've hurt. Because that's what you've.... done. and you can't undo that..." Dru took a deep breath, and Kit turned back to her. Her eyes were still teary, but now her shoulders had pulled back and her chin was firm. "But you can stop doing it. And you really should." 

"Damn." Kit folded his hands around his head. Was he... he was hurting people. He knew it was bad, why else had he been hiding it for so long? It is what you really are, you know that. "Damn!" His fingers curled into his hair and he could feel his back start to drag down against the wall. You can't escape your true self forever. He had to stop, he had to- he couldn't- "Damn it!" But go ahead and try.

He could feel Dru's fingers gripped at his wrists, not too tight, not pulling him back, just waiting for him to stop. "Kit!"

He pulled his hands away from his head, and Dru dropped his arms. His wrists suddenly felt hollow and cold. "Jeez." He was aware of what he was admitting, but he couldn't help it. Dru knew, and he needed to tell someone. "I told them my name was John Rook."

A pause. Then Dru broke through it, "You couldn't think of any other chess-related names?"

Kit shrugged, now more aware that they were sitting on the dirty sidewalk. "John King?"

Dru hummed. "I was thinking more like... John Pawn."

Kit laughed. "John Pawn?"

Dru stiffened, faking indignancy. "What's wrong with that? It kind of rhymes! Awn and On."

Kit shook his head. "Aside from calling myself a literal pawn?"

Dru raised her hands above her head, as if she were portraying words on a billboard. "John... Knight! That sounds badass."

Still, she couldn't help herself from giggling, which did nothing to convince him. "No. Just no," he chuckled.

But Dru pushed on. "John Queen!"

Kit snorted and reached out as if to stop Dru. "End this madness!" Then more quizzically, "Are there even any pieces left?"

"Yes!" Dru leaned forward, "Well, no. But some pieces have different names, like, I've heard the queen be called a lady!"

"John Lady?"

They both burst out laughing at that, but then Dru shook his arm, trying to turn his attention away. "There are other names for the Rook, if you want to stick with that! Like... John Tower! Or John Elephant."

This time, Dru made no effort to halt their collective laughter as it ran out.

Finally, it died down, and they both slumped into each other, stomachs aching. If anyone had come across them, they probably would've thought they were crazy. 

Dru pulled herself up so they were facing each other. Her face was flushed with happiness, and her smile was genuine. "Kit. Can you please stop doing whatever you're getting up to at the Shadow Market? It isn't worth the trouble you could get into or the trouble you're causing. Please, can you stop?"

Suddenly solom, but still feeling slightly high from leftover joy, Kit nodded. 

"I promise."

Ty hadn't gone back to class yet. 

He felt bad about it every time that Anush showed up. At first Anush had been gentle to pull him out of bed, but one time after Ty had declined, Anush had slammed the door, and Ty had heard heavy footsteps. Of course he had been stupid enough to not notice how much he was annoying Anush. 

Anush had been doing so much, coming by each day to pull Ty out of bed, and drop off books or supplies from various classes.

Ty had managed to push himself into doing some of the work while under Anush's worried eye, but he hadn't been able to hold himself together after Anush left, falling back into his bed.

Ty was really guilty about upsetting Anush, but every apology had gone badly, with Anush refusing to look at him and mumbling something about it being fine. 

It was not fine. People said things were fine, but they lied. A good day led to smiles and a story about something positive that had happened. An easy day led to relaxation and smooth sleep. A bad day led to stomping feet, slamming doors, and "I'm fine"s. 

Anush was clearly not fine. And Ty knew the cause. Everyday, Anush came in happy and helpful, chattering with the occasional pause for Ty to offer his input. Everyday, Anush left with downcast eyes and heavy feet. Ty had done the math, and he knew exactly what was happening. If every day Anush came in happy and left angry, then everyday, there had to be something that ruined his mood.

And Ty wasn't too stupid as to not recognise the common denominator. But just stupid enough to take this long to figure it out. 

He was the problem. 

Ty rolled out of bed and started putting on his shoes. According to the clock, school had just ended, and Anush would be coming by soon enough to pull Ty up and out. Maybe if Ty looked like he hadn't been in bed all day, Anush might not get his day ruined. He pulled on hand-me-downs. Faded and reliable were his favorite type of clothing. He could remember Dru ranting about how shoddily some things were made these days when they were looking for clothes to sneak into Faerie in. 

That felt like it had been a million years away. 

Ty raised his head to look at the nightstand. There had formerly been a photo of Dru and Livvy there, but he had turned it face down and hidden their beaming faces. He couldn't stand the guilt. He hadn't been able to save Livvy, too stupid to do the spell properly, and he hadn't been smart enough to keep Dru firmly out of danger. 

Livvy hadn't been around for a while, disappearing a little before he left. She had warned him that she was trying something new, and he had caught her floating around here and there, but her absence had been felt. He wondered that if she were here, he would be doing a better job of getting him out of bed.

Probably not. Anush had to physically pick him up once or twice at the start of their new routine, and Livvy wasn't able to do that. 

A knock sounded on the door, shaking Ty out of his thoughts. Anush burst in, without waiting for any response, a smile shining on his face. "Ty! You're up?"

Ty nodded. "Yes." He wasn't really sure what else to say.

Luckily, Anush was willing to talk. "That's great, okay, you'll never guess what happened in class today."

Ty could presume it had something to do with paint, judging by the light purple color on Anush's fingertips, but he didn't have the energy to put it all together. "What happened?"

Anush leaned back, holding open the door with his body, holding out a hand, "I think it might be better if I show you."

Ty followed Anush down the halls and stairs, as Anush delivered a quick report of what he had missed in their shared classes. 

Eventually the mainly one-sided conversation slowed, and Anush switched to a different subject. "Do you remember when we overheard the teachers talking about the crime in New York?"

"Yes." 

"You've got family there, right?"

Ty flinched at the mention of his family. "Yes."

"Do you think you might want to take a look at some of the notes? You're smart, maybe you could help them solve the case quickly."

Another abrupt switch.

Ty really did want to take a look at it. He wanted more than to take a look at it, he wanted to solve it. He wanted to read all the files, see all the pieces laid out, and find the clue, the perfect puzzle piece that would put it all together. But he couldn't. This was a serious case, and involvement wouldn't be an accident or forgiven. Any investigation by him would be very deliberate, and when he made a mistake, everything would come crashing down.

He was too stupid to risk it, to risk the wellbeing of anyone he might hurt.

He was too stupid.

And even if Anush thought he could do it, then he was overestimating Ty's capabilities. Ty didn't want to let Anush think he could do something, could solve a fascinating mystery and save people, when he couldn't. False hope makes the inevitable fall worse. "No. I can't."

Anush's voice was softer than before as he came to a stop in the hallway. "You could try."

Ty shook his head. "No I can't."

Anush sighed and pushed open the classroom door. "Okay, just think about it though."

Ty was not planning on thinking about it. But any response was forgotten as he pushed open the classroom door. Everything was purple. Floors, walls, furniture. It was like someone had doused the room in purple paint.

"Impressive." Then a question popped into his mind. "Where did they get that much paint?"

Anush shrugged from where he stood at the door. Anush had to stand there, holding it open, or the paint would have gotten on his hand when he opened the door from the inside. "Teachers are worried that it might happen in their classroom, so everyone's checking places where the paint might be hidden."

Ty nodded and left the room. 

Anush looked down at himself, probably checking for paint. While Ty waited for his friend, a familiar voice called out from the classroom across the hallway, “Mr. Blackthorn?”

Ty looked up. Being called by his last name had been a shock when he first came here. Back home, calling for a Blackthorn was made simple by calling their specific name. But he was used to it, and reflexively answered, “Yes?”

Across the hall, Professor Hardcastle was halfway out of her classroom, beaming at the sight of him. “I haven’t seen you in a while. I was wondering if you could come into my class? I have something I think you might like to see.”

“Sure.” Why not? 

Ty padded across the hall and saw Anush start to walk off. Maybe he had something better to do with his time, now that a teacher was watching Ty. 

Professor Hardcastle shut the door behind him, and instead of moving to her desk to pull out whatever she wanted to show him, as he expected, she instead reached into her jacket.

After a moment of groping through her pocket, she pulled out a folded piece of paper. “My nephew goes to the Academy, and he told me that your sister had been missing you, so he got me to give you this letter she wrote.” The paper was unceremoniously dropped into Ty’s hands. In the back of his mind, he questioned whether this broke the prohibition on him, and he might get into deeper trouble. As if reading his mind, Professor Hardcastle explained. “I don’t think I am supposed to let you have it, but my nephew really didn’t want to let your sister down, and I would rather not intervene in young love.” She smiled knowingly and winked at Ty.

That was confusing. But Ty nodded back at her, which seemed to make her think they were on the same page. “Good. Now if you don’t mind leaving, I need to examine my room.”

The door slammed shut behind Ty as he leaned on the nearby wall, wasting no time on waiting to read the contents on the letter

Dear Ty,

I’m so sorry that you can’t write to us. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help. We’re all worried about you, and we all miss you a lot. (Kit included.)

I wanted to tell you that you are one of the bravest, smartest people I know. You might regret what happened, but you did it. And you succeeded.

You set your mind to something and you saw it through, just like you always do.

I’m proud to call you my brother, smartie-pants.

Dru

Ty looked up. He would have to burn the letter. Dru had been careful enough to safely get it to him and not directly mention what happened or who had been there, but there were still enough hints that he should be careful.

Dru was proud of him. He closed his eyes and imagined her face, the picture on the nightstand, another letter she had sent to him. Dru knew he had succeeded, that he hadn’t made a mistake, that he had kept her and Kit safe. He thought of Dru in that pink dress, following his instructions, safely driving away from the Institute. Dru had called him smart.

Not stupid, smart.

Ty knew what he  had to do. 

He stuffed the letter into his pocket as he ran in the direction Anush had gone. Luckily, he hadn’t gotten that far.

“Anush!”

He turned around, eyes wide as he watched Ty catch up to him. “What happened?”

Ty frowned. “I don’t think I can tell you.” 

He really didn’t want to get anyone else in trouble - and so far, his record on keeping others safe had been clean.

“Oh.” Anush shoved his hands into his pockets. “What’s up?”

“Remember that mystery we heard about rising crime in the New York Shadow Market?”

“Of course.”

“Do you still want to solve it with me?”

Ty smiled, hoping it would convince Anush to agree to this idea.

A much wider smile spread across Anush’s face. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Jaime could feel the heat of the sun baking him as he reclined on a stone parapet. His easy days of gathering for the Rose were over, and were about to turn into a full on search, because he didn’t know what he had to get next. 

The petals hadn’t been easy, but he had been able to figure out what that was pretty quickly. 

The stem was negotiated, and he would pay for it - no, he really would - once it was done. 

But next up were the mysterious core, thorns and pollen. Ty had left him with an old letter from someone who had witnessed the last Rose be constructed. So Jaime’s current plan was to go home, and pull out a family tree to track this girl down and hopefully learn more about her life. She had been a Rosales, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find her birth records. 

And maybe that would be where he figured out the mysterious final lines of code she left for - well, him. 

7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, black, white, gold, red. Chingado! It made no sense! Numbers and colors, as if he ever wanted to think about the color red again!

But until the stem was done and attached, and Jaime could set off getting home, he was resting here. 

Jaime let his mind drift, something he had always been good at, but had become much easier, ever since his unfortunate… let’s call it stay, in Faerie.

He imagined his home, and everything he missed, everyone he missed, and every single innocent happy memory. 

That was nice. It had really been nice.

It could have stayed nice if it weren’t for Morgensterns and their wars. Or the Cohort. 

Damn the Cohort!

That thought shook Jamie out of his daze, and he sat up. He suddenly became aware of the cool air biting his face. The sun had set as he drifted, and the sky was now dark.

He started pushing himself up, planning on finding his room before he checked on the smith in the morning.

The morning would be the beginning of the end for him. Before it, he had been able to cloud his mind, unaware of the future and (willfully) ignorant of the potentially deadly end. Now he would have to clear that mist, and the end would be in sight.

He didn’t want it to be in sight. 

After all, ignorance was bliss. 

Unfortunately, after spending so long running away from a dangerous end, now he would have to run right at it. 

Fun. 

Paige stormed over to Mason's door, determined to talk some sense into him. He should know better than to act like this, with Drusilla Blackthorn! He was better than that, and, yes, if she was being honest, she probably would include herself in that "better" category, but that so wasn't the point!

Kit was back in the Market, gnawing on an apple he had stolen from a barrel. Take more. Just a normal apple. Take something better. It wouldn't be missed. Seriously? Hopefully. Ever since he had taken that bracelet with him, he hadn't really felt any more guilt. Why bother repeating something you already know? Just the guilt already there.

Kit squeezed his eyes shut, taking a second too long to blink. 

When he opened them, something seemed to be a little different. A presence. Tracking him. Like the one he had missed last time, thanks to the guilt and pressure echoing in his head. But this time he missed it.

Maybe he could just leave the Market now, and skip out on whatever this guy - or girl - was going to try to get from him.

But that would only be delaying the issue for when he finally did come back. Best to face it now. Kit started eating the apple as fast as he could, wanting to be empty handed - or rather have both hands free when it came time to face whatever he would be facing.

He headed away from the dark tunnel that the figure seemed to be hearing him to, not wanting to repeat history in that tunnel. Kit made his way to an abandoned part of the Shadow Market that had apparently been damaged by a recent flood, or hurricane. Dark, muddy puddles were hidden trapps on the floor - who knew how deep your foot would fall if you stepped in one? Kit did his best to keep to the stone, looking ahead, while wondering which side his mysterious stalker would reveal himself from.

Kit finished the apple and launched it onto a deceptively shallow looking puddle, where it disappeared. 

And then he saw it. The person who had been following him, on the other side of the tunnel.

He waved as he walked closer. Act casual. "Hey! You finally going to tell me what's up with this whole cloak-and-dagger thing?"

True to form, the person was wearing a cloak, but threw back the hood at his words, revealing pink skin. Warlock pink, not sunburn pink. "John Rook. I've heard about you."

Kit felt his heart speed up. "All good things?"

The warlock crossed her arms. "Yes, actually."

Her accent sounded fairly modern, and there was no trace of oldness - formality - in her diction. So she was probably relatively young. 

She fell silent after speaking, trying to push him to say something. Kit spoke. It was his turn, after all. "And you want me to steal something for you?"

"Yes, actually."

What. "What?" After a moment of shock, Kit drew back. "Sorry, I'm retired. Long, crazy story." As in, you'll think I'm crazy if I tell you it.

"Oh." She seemed taken aback. "That's why you disappeared so suddenly." She looked him in the eye. "You're a hard man to find."

Memories flashed through his mind as he smiled. "That's how I like it." 

"But you need to help me. Me and my friends. We've got our eyes on something valuable, and none of us are that talented at thievery." 

See, they know your skills! Why can't you also recognize them?

Kit frowned. The problem wasn't that he didn't want to do it - it's that if he did it, it would just be going against his promise. Promises he made to himself and others. It was one thing to end up snatching a few things, but another to plan ahead. Planning ahead was intent. It wasn't a moment of weakness, it was blatant carelessness and ignorance. 

"I don't think you heard me: I can't steal anything." He hoped that she hadn't noticed him stealing the apple. "Especially not something as attention grabbing as whatever you're going after."

The girl smiled. "You don't need to take anything. Just teach me and my friends how to."

Kit had a flash of deja vu back to the werewolves, so eager to learn from him. Then to one particular werewolf who was too guilty to even talk about thievery without stutters and flushing. But she doesn't want them, she wants you!

Do it! "I..." Do it!

"We can make it worth your while if you agree." Her smile faded. "And make sure you regret it if you don't."

Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it. "Fine. I'll do it." Yes! "But I don't want anything."

The girl shrugged. "Fine by me. Meet here tomorrow after sunset."

Then she raised her hood and stalked off in a swirl of fabric.

Kit watched her go with a rising sense of horror. What had he agreed to? Helping someone else with something he was extremely good at. That's what he had agreed to.

Helping a wannabee thief steal something. It's what you're good at.

It's all he's good for.

Thais pushed open the door with a smile. 

She had been planning to go out all day - to the Shadow Market to find a gift for her mother, then get some dinner and come back to the Shadowhunter Academy. But then she heard that there was some official ban on the Shadow Market for Academy students. Not wanting to risk getting caught there before the curfew had passed, she had left and headed back to the Academy, deciding that it would be better to go shopping another day, or in another place. Perhaps she could ask Dru if there was a place that sold good jewelry. Or maybe they could go shopping together!

Either way, she had managed to get a snow cone before leaving the city, so she was in a good mood. The weather was getting colder every day as the winter solstice approached. Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Black Friday, then a myriad of religion-based ones in December, including Christmas. 

Halloween was soon. Dru had been pretty cheerful last Halloween, dressing up and quoting Dracula, but this year it had been the decorations in shops that had given it away. 

Drusilla had been acting oddly for a while, but Thais had not expected to find her kneeling on the floor when she returned to their dorm room. 

She immediately rushed to where Dru was, letting the door slam shut behind her. "Dru!" 

Thankfully, Dru looked up, and a weight dropped from Thais' chest. She wasn't bloody, or hurt, and it looked like she was able to move. But a new worry seized her at the sight of Dru's red-rimmed eyes, and the tears dripping down her cheeks. 

"What's wrong?" Thais asked.

Dru opened her mouth, but was interrupted by stuttering breaths before she could start talking. 

Thais slowly knelt and enveloped Drusilla in a hug, gently rubbing her back in a slow circle. Was something wrong? Had someone said something- had Dru just received bad news about her family?

When the pseudo-hiccups finally came to a halt Thais pulled back, looking Dru in the eye. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, well," Dru rubbed at her eye with her wrist, "it's nothing really."

Lies. Drusilla might have been a fairly decent liar - Thais hadn't caught her in one - but sprawled out on the floor, she was too emotional to be thinking straight, to have a logical plan, and her falsehoods weren't believable.

Thais let her doubt show in her voice. "Nothing? Dru," Thais tilted her head down to meet Dru's gaze with her own as she attempted to duck her head, "Dru, I'm your friend. If there's something wrong, I can help you."

Drusilla raised her head, biting her lip as if to prevent more sobbs from spilling out. Carefully keeping eye contact with Thais, she shook her head. Her eyes looked like storm clouds, big and wet, blue-er than ever. 

Thais responded to Drusilla's head shaking, "I can, I promise I will. Can you please just tell me what's wrong?"

Dru swallowed again, eyes darting around the room for a moment before settling somewhere directly behind Thais' head. If Drusilla hadn't been looking her in the eye a few moments ago, Thais would have thought that they were making eye contact, but as it was, she could see that her irises had drifted a little apart, and she didn't feel fixed to the spot with the same intensity. 

And so Thais was ready for a lie, even before Drusilla started taking between sniffles. "It's just my sister. I just - I just saw something that really reminded me of her, and I really miss her, I'm never going to see her again, she's-she's gone!"

Thais let Dru sob into her shoulder, wondering what she had pulled out the 'dead sister' card to hide.

There actually had been something that might be it - a rumor she had heard about Dru. About her and Mason. Something that Thais had tried to ignore. She hadn't come to the Academy to giggle over every rumor she heard. She was here to prove herself, to grow into a proper adult, to mature. 

But the girls were giggling loudly. They had been talking about how Drusilla and Mason had been sleeping in his room. And thinking back on it, Dru had been returning to their room later and later if at all. Thais had to admit, she had been a little distracted by her new boyfriend, and therefore relatively thankful that she had the space.

But knowing that Dru needed someone? Now, all she could feel was guilt for having left that empty space.

With Dru’s head still shaking as she sobbed into Thais’ shoulder, Thais knew there was little she could say to help. Any comforting words in line with what Dru had claimed were upsetting her, wouldn’t actually do anything to calm her. And if Thais tried to address the actual root of Dru’s problems, Dru would probably start panicking even more. She sadly rubbed circles into Dru’s back, wondering if there was anything she could do. Not able to bring herself to go along with Dru’s claim of missing her sister, Thais mumered generic platitudes. “Don’t worry. It’ll all be okay.”

But kind words rarely did anything. And here they would do nothing. As long as Dru hid her true pain, even as the two girls hugged each other like the last lifeboat off the Titanic, close as they could be, Thais could do nothing.

So she hugged Dru close, offering the only true comfort she could.