I started writing this chapter in January 2019.

I trashed the first draft. The second. The third. I wrote and rewrote until eventually I abandoned this chapter because I couldn't stand it not being perfect. I picked it up again in October, then December, and this time it worked the best it ever had. This chapter isn't perfect. But I've come to realize that writing doesn't always mean perfection, and that's okay.

I have always told you guys that every chapter I give you is the most perfect chapter I can give you. Honestly, this time I don't know if that's true. Maybe if I held onto it for another year, rewrote again, it would be better. But that perfection isn't worth this. I want to be a published author someday, and I never will be if I'm constantly holding myself to some unattainable ideal of perfect.

I will not allow one chapter to hold me back from what's ahead for this story. This chapter still holds my best effort, my heart and soul, and it's longer than usual at a whopping 6000 words so I hope that makes up a little for the wait.

Happy reading...and Happy New Year!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Mortal Instruments or Infernal Devices.

"If I show you all my demons, and we dive into the deep end…would we crash and burn like every time before? I would tell you all my secrets, wrap your arms around my weakness, if the only other option's letting go. I'll stay vulnerable…"

- Vulnerable, Selena Gomez

Chapter Fourteen

It was the summer after he'd turned fifteen that Jace had first met Clarissa Morgenstern.

Really met her.

She'd been in his life for much longer, but as nothing more than an unremarkable presence in the background – from the day he'd bumped into her in middle school.

He hadn't even fully thought about it before the quip about her hair had left his lips, cruel in the intention to hurt, to lash out. He remembered her eyes, startlingly clear in his memory, bright with tears as she'd scrambled to her feet and fled.

He'd felt strangely empty standing there, amongst the laughter and jeers, with those accusing, injured eyes boring into his mind – had wanted, for a fleeting second, to run after her and take back those callous, biting words. It had been hard to care, then, the loss of his mother still cloaking his heart like fog – obscuring anything but numbness.

But the fog had lifted then, just for that one moment in time, that split second their gazes caught – before she fled.

She'd faded from his attention eventually as the years went by. Their paths had remained mostly separate, which Clary made clear that she was perfectly happy about, and when they did cross…well, it usually didn't end happily for anyone involved.

Until that July morning in the Morgensterns' kitchen.

Clary had been away the whole summer at her grandmothers', and he had been half asleep in his coffee the day she'd come back – a result of his (very much regretted) decision to play video games with Jonathan until four in the morning. He'd been slumped over the breakfast bar when he'd heard her voice, condescendingly amused as she teased him.

He'd lifted his head to bite back a sharp retort when he'd caught sight of her, and the words had died in his mouth.

The Clary he'd known had seemed suddenly like a dream; an illusion shattered by the girl standing in front of him. Her hair had caught the sun, vibrant in curls of gold and auburn instead of the unruly fire-engine red mess he'd used to tease her for. She'd grown in more ways than her hair too – her legs were lean and tanned in her denim shorts, and there were curves in places he'd never noticed before.

He had caught her gaze, quizzical and a little wary under his open-mouthed stare, but he hadn't known what to say before Jocelyn had swept into the room and brought Clary into an enthusiastic hug.

Jace had been able to do nothing but stare at her like an idiot.

She had become, suddenly, Clary – not his best friend's little sister, or his annoying junior – but Clary, with thoughts and dreams and feelings of her own. He'd spent the last four years unable to get rid of the strange captivation she held for him, no matter what he tried.

He'd pretended that it was all about the challenge, but Clary had never been just a challenge for him – not even close. He'd only wanted to end the unexplainable fascination that drew him to her like a ship to a lighthouse, to solve the mystery of Clary Morgenstern so that he could get her out of his mind once and for all.

And here, at what seemed like the top of the world, so close to everything he'd ever thought he wanted…he found he didn't want to be done with Clary Morgenstern after all.

Clary shifted against his side, tilting her head back over his arm to look up into his face. She was saying something, but the words wouldn't register – carried away on the wind that whipped her hair into an unruly mess, that made her cheeks flush with cold and pushed her closer to him.

No, he didn't want to get her out of his mind at all – not when she was pressed up against him like this, when the smell of her perfume and the feel of her curls against his cheek was more intoxicating than any drug.

To love is to destroy and to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

His father's voice rang in his head, cruel and mocking, a wall between him and Clary. Clary felt far beyond his reach, her soft warmth leached away, and Jace knew that the shadows had returned.

He shouldn't have brought her here – to this place steeped in memories of his past, pain and anger soaked into every plank and nail like silt settling into mud. He could feel it tugging at him, seeping through the cracks in his armour and urging the words to his mouth.

"Cecily didn't tell you that I'm her half-brother, did she?"

An abrupt hush fell upon the treehouse, the open expanse around them turning suddenly claustrophobic, thick with tension and anxiety and the weight of secrets that had never been told.

"No."

Her voice was carefully even but he could feel her surprise even without looking at her – could imagine the furrow in her brow, the question in her eyes. He knew that the last thing she'd expected was for him to bring this subject up again.

Telling her about his family drama had never been in his plans for tonight. He'd intended to omit the messy, tangled, complicated history weaved into the treehouse, but when they'd stood there on the balcony together – when she'd looked up at him with those honest eyes and her unwavering, open kindness…

The words had left his lips without thinking.

He should have known that this would happen the minute another person set foot here, in the only place he'd been able to call a sanctuary, but like a fool he had brought her here anyway.

He wasn't even sure why – only that it had been impossible to forget the strange vulnerability in her eyes when she'd agreed to this, to this date. He had only ever seen that look in her eyes once, in the middle of a crowded hallway amongst jeers and laughter, and he had let her run then.

He'd known the minute he looked at her in that pouring rain, so close he could see water drip off her long eyelashes, that he wouldn't be able to stand her hatred again. He wouldn't be able to bear her fleeing from him, regretting any show of vulnerability.

Perhaps that was what had driven him to the treehouse.

A piece of him for the piece she'd given up.

"What do you know?" he asked and willed himself to keep his eyes on the stars, even as every inch of his being itched to fall back into those jade-green eyes, to lose himself so easily in the proximity of her body, the light touch of her thigh and hip and torso against his.

"Just that you'd all been sent to live with your grandmother after your parents passed away," Clary said carefully, pulling away slightly so that she was facing him head on. "You moved to town together, so I had no reason to think that, well, you were her stepbrother. Cecy wasn't exactly forthcoming with information either, so we all dropped the topic. We could tell she preferred it that way."

Remarkable, really – that Cecily had managed to break it down, to make it simple and clean when the reality was anything but. He didn't even know where to begin, how to start unravelling the tapestry that was his family.

"My father was a fucking asshole," he said finally, and he could feel Clary's slight jolt of surprise. Might as well get to the point. "I didn't know that when I was younger of course. Worshipped the fucking ground he walked on. So did Will – until he woke up one day to find that dear old dad had left them high and dry. Their mother was an heiress, and I suppose Edmund just couldn't resist the money. Married her, spent years draining her of all she had, and when there was nothing left, he took off."

"He abandoned them?" Clary said softly, and he knew she was thinking of Cecily, Cecily who had been not even seven years old when she'd lost both father and mother. "Just like that?"

"He didn't need them anymore. Not when he had my mother."

There was no sound, not even the whisper of the breeze or the chirping of cicadas, as if the world itself had stopped to listen.

"I told you Will hated me," Jace continued, folding his arms under his head in pseudo-nonchalance. "He had every right to. I was the reminder of Edmund's infidelity, his betrayal. My mother and I tore his family apart. And it destroyed them. All of them."

He stopped there, still remembering the echo of Will's voice in his head, the blank look on his brother's face as he'd told Jace of Linette Herondale and felt suddenly sick. There were things that were Will's alone to know, to share as he felt fit, and he wouldn't break that confidence.

Not even for Clary.

"I suppose that should've told me what kind of man my father was. He could leave Will and Cecily and Ella and Linette – compared to them, what could my mother and I have possibly offered to keep him with us? We were fools to believe that he loved us, that somehow we were enough when we just – weren't."

The words fell into the space between them, heavy and daunting in the weight of the truth they carried. The dam broke then, the tidal wave he'd been fighting the whole night to keep at bay, because they hadn't been enough for Edmund Herondale, not then, not ever, and he hated it, he hated it, he hated it –

Suddenly, Jace was on his knees on the bright linoleum floor of a kitchen a million miles away, light years and ages away in a home that no longer existed. The wind and the stars and the warmth of Clary's body beside his fell away, replaced by the tang of blood and the sound of screaming – loud, broken, haunted screaming that threatened to drag him under even after all these years –

"Jace?"

Clary's voice – clear and steady. A tether in the dark.

He opened his eyes.

Clary leaned over him, her hair brushing against his face, curling in the hollow of his collarbone. "Are you okay?"

He hadn't let it get this bad in years – hadn't been pulled back to that blood-soaked kitchen since –

No.

No, no, no.

He had finally been getting it under control – sleeping as little as possible to shut down the nightmares, runs every morning and night to tire him into dreamless sleep, practicing the mental blocks Will had taught him.

He slipped them into place now, one at a time the way Will said. The tang of blood, the sound of screaming, the sight of still gleaming metal…filed and organized neatly, one by one, in carefully reinforced cells in the darkest depths of his mind. He'd become an expert at this, at keeping them where they couldn't bother him, and he wouldn't let himself slip.

Not again.

"Jace?" a soft voice asked again, and Jace remembered for the first time that he wasn't alone, that Clary was still kneeling at his side with worry deepening the lovely lines of her face. Her voice had lost that calm edge now, tipping slowly over into the wavering quiver of panic. "Jace, what's wrong?"

"Worrying about me now, short stuff?" Jace teased lightly, letting the cocky veneer snap back into place as he sat up, a shield against Clary Morgenstern and her disturbingly piercing eyes. "Can't a man get a little lost in memory?"

He knew immediately that he hadn't convinced her when she didn't quip back, her eyes still too soft, too kind.

As if he deserved her sympathy, her comfort, her kindness.

"Of course," he said, leaning closer so that his lips could have almost brushed the skin of her neck, "I could also have just been thinking about certain assets of yours and how they look in those tiny shorts – "

Clary smacked him hard on the shoulder, rolling her eyes, but her lips were turned up at the corners and he knew she was fighting back a smile. She wasn't entirely sold, he knew, but it had chased away the tension in her shoulders, the worry in her eyes, and that was enough for him. Caring, thoughtful Clary Morgenstern who deserved more than to be saddled with his fucked up tragic backstory – and yet, selfish asshole that he was, he couldn't stop himself from telling her.

"Anyway," he said lightly, pulling back to look at her. "That's about it. My mother died shortly after my father left, Imogen was my only remaining living relative and she was already housing Will, Cecy and Ella so…here I am, blessing you with my presence."

The words left his mouth in an abrupt rush, but he couldn't afford to give them the space to linger, to sink into his heart like jagged shards that he would never be able to remove.

Clary said nothing, so still and silent he wondered if she'd turned to a statue, and he was just starting to worry when her eyes lifted to meet his. "I'm sorry, Jace."

He almost laughed in her face.

He'd been burdening her with his family issues all night like they were at a therapy session instead of a date, and she was apologizing. Would he ever understand this girl?

"I never understand why people always apologize for things they had nothing to do with," he replied, nearly rolling his eyes. "Or did you put a gun to my father's head and order him to be a fucking asshole?"

"I'm still sorry," Clary said, her voice clear and sure. "Because no one deserves that, Jace. You didn't deserve that. And I'm sorry it happened to you."

He wasn't able to muster up a response to that before she continued, eyes softening now and turning away from him. "And I'm sorry for pushing you, I should never have asked – "

"Don't give yourself too much credit, Morgenstern," he interjected. "I seem to recall I volunteered to spill my tragic life story. Do you really think I would have told you any of that even if you pushed me?"

She paused, uncertain. "So, why did you?"

He could ask himself the same question.

"I don't know," he said finally. The words left his mouth in a whisper, a secret truth just for the two of them.

Clary's eyes swept his face – searching, seeking. "Do you regret it?"

Did he regret it?

He should. He should regret giving Clary Morgenstern any hint of a chink in his armour, any piece of himself.

"No," he said, and realized as the word left his mouth that he meant it.

There was so much still that she didn't know, so much he'd buried within himself that he didn't know if he could ever drag it up again, but even then…there was something in him that felt a little freer, a little lighter.

Clary was looking at him now in that way he couldn't quite figure out, the way a blind person might look at a sunrise for the first time, a sweep of awe and disbelief and wonder.

She deserved to be looked at that way, he thought, like she was the eighth wonder of the world, an angel in human form, and he wondered if it was painted on his face, if she could see it –

"What was she like?" Clary asked abruptly, bringing his thoughts to a screeching halt.

"Who?"

"Your mother."

No one had ever asked him that. No one had ever even talked about his mother.

How did you answer a question like that?

How could he sum up everything Celine Herondale had been, the good and the bad and the ugly, and wrap it into words?

The night breeze whistled through the silence between them, curling into the gaps and spaces where his voice should've been.

"She was kind," he blurted finally, the words tumbling from his mouth as if the wind was drawing his thoughts out, pulling them into the open air. "One of the kindest people I've ever known. She loved children – she wanted to work as a kindergarten teacher. She always painted, because she said beauty had to be immortalised. She loved watching musicals, and she hated reality tv shows. She used to let me sit with her while she drew, and she always had a Hershey's Kiss for me to eat when I came home from school. Her favourite movie was The Phantom of the Opera, and she made the best chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes. She – she was wonderful."

He stopped, stunned, and wondered for a minute if he was crying, but his eyes were dry and tearless. He hadn't spoken about his mother in six years, hadn't even realized that he'd remembered so much about her that she could almost be alive in his memory, a living ghost never to be exorcised.

"What happened?" Clary breathed, so soft he wasn't sure she'd even intended him to hear it. He could hear the real question beneath, the stark cold reality she'd been unable to bring herself to say.

How did she die?

He laughed bitterly, looking out at the shadows weaving between the trees and the twinkling stars, and the world that would forever be a little less bright, a little less lovely, because Celine Herondale was no longer in it.

"A broken heart."

Tessa was starting to think that maybe Will Herondale enjoyed being a giant contradiction.

She'd always thought she'd known what he was, what he wanted, but then this cockamamie plan had been enacted and, loathe as she was to admit it, she was beginning to have her questions.

Sometimes he acted exactly as she expected him to, flirty and arrogant and uncaring of anyone or anything, and then at others – he seemed to become a different person entirely, someone that made her think and feel in ways she would never have associated with Will Herondale.

She looked across at him now, sprawled on her bed and frowning down at his notebook. She'd expected him to slack off or distract her but instead he'd been strangely cooperative all evening, actually focusing and providing insights that frequently had her turning away to prevent from staring at him in shock. She'd always thought he was smart, but this was more than intelligence – this was a creative, original mind she'd never even imagined he possessed.

Ergo, the contradiction.

Tessa knew she should probably look away but there was something so fascinating about seeing him like this, drawn into his work and entirely unaware of the world around him. His shoulders were relaxed, face softened in thought, hair loose and flopping over his eyes. He looked strangely vulnerable like this, without his usual sharp awareness in the way, the rigid guards he always snapped up around himself.

He was on her bed, she realized suddenly, the bed where she slept at night and she wasn't even in it but there was still something intimate about it – his body in the space where hers usually lay, fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns on the bedcovers that slid over her skin, and she wondered what it would be like to feel those hands on –

"Can you blow my whistle baby, whistle baby, let me know – "

Will's head jerked up, startled, and Tessa nearly jumped out of her skin as her phone started ringing, blaring Flo Rida's baritone voice in the silence of the room, and she remembered in that instant the day Clary had jokingly changed her ringtone and she'd told herself to change it back….and never had.

Of course, she'd had to pick this song.

Of course, it had to play right now.

She had just enough time to catch the gleeful look in Will's eyes and know she was going to get hell before she swiped right on the phone and turned away.

"Hello?"

"Tessa, honey!" Her aunt's voice was warm and slightly concerned. "Is everything okay over there? Jonathan and Clary aren't picking up their phones and the house phone goes straight to voicemail."

Tessa silently cursed Jonathan and the EDM currently reverberating through the entire house.

"Everything's fine," she assured her aunt. "Jonathan's blasting music and Clary's…out."

She nearly kicked herself the minute she tripped over the word. Her aunt was like a shark smelling blood when it came to her children, and she was sure Jocelyn would have caught it.

"Out?" Jocelyn asked instantly.

"At Isabelle's," Tessa lied, trying to ignore the guilt that was beginning to settle in her stomach. "Studying for the math test."

"I've never known Clary to be so studious," Jocelyn replied, not attempting to hide the suspicion in her tone, and Tessa winced. "But I have about five minutes before Grandma Adelaide starts asking me to make her ginger tea for the fourth time today, so I'll trust that I've raised my children well enough to make good decisions."

Her voice turned lower. "I'm actually calling about something else, Tessa."

"What is it?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line before her aunt answered. "Tessa, sweetheart…the anniversary is coming up soon."

The words slammed into her with the force of a sledgehammer, a hurricane come to spin her around and sweep the world from beneath her feet.

The anniversary of the car crash.

As if she would ever forget – as if forgetting would ever be an option. The date would be emblazoned in her mind for the rest of her life, clear as glass long after she'd forgotten what they stood for, long after she'd forgotten her own name.

She didn't need a reminder.

Jocelyn was quiet on the other end of the line, likely waiting for her response, but Tessa had no words to give her.

"I was thinking of maybe…doing something to commemorate it this time," Jocelyn said finally, after the silence had grown long and protracted. "Like a memorial service."

No.

Tessa clung to the phone like a lifeline, knuckles white and bloodless, Jocelyn's voice nothing but white noise in her ears. Panic clogged her throat, clawed its way up her spine, paralyzing her where she stood. She had to remember to breathe – inhale, exhale, in, out, that's it Tessa, that's perfect, don't stop –

"Tessa?" Her aunt called. "What do you think?"

"No," she got out through the knot in her throat, barely a whisper of air. In, out, in out, you're doing great –

"Honey, I know it's hard." Her aunt was still talking in that low, soft voice, trying to convince her, and Tessa closed her eyes. In, out, in, out. "But it's been three years now, Tessa. I just think this is the final step in putting this behind us."

She had to fight to relax her grip on the phone.

"Aunt Jocelyn, I just don't think it's very necessary," Tessa forced out. In, out, in, out. "Like you said, it's been three years. We've all moved on. We don't need this…memorial service to do it."

There was an abrupt silence on the other end before Jocelyn spoke.

"Have we?" she asked, and her voice was loud now, shaking. "Have we all moved on, Tessa?"

"What are you talking – "

"Don't lie to me, Tessa!" Jocelyn's voice was angry, hard, and Tessa almost shrank back. "I've never pushed you for anything since the accident. You didn't want to keep going to therapy, so I didn't make you. You didn't want to bring any of their things over, so I didn't make you. You didn't even want a funeral, but I thought you'd been through enough of an ordeal, so I didn't make you. I figured maybe you needed the space to heal in your own time."

Her aunt's voice broke suddenly, dangling off the edge of a precipice. Tessa could hear her choking back sobs on the other end before she spoke again. "But maybe I should have, Tessa. Maybe I should've forced you into all of those things, because it's been three years, and you still haven't moved on."

The anger dropped away suddenly, until Jocelyn's voice was almost pleading. "I see it in your eyes every day. You still haven't healed. And I'm…I'm starting to think you don't want to."

Something tightened in her chest, a corset drawing her ribs tighter together, squeezing her heart in a vice.

Air – she needed air –

"We're doing this, Tessa, and that's final. I need it and I think you need it too. And when I get back, we're going to talk about therapy again." Jocelyn sounded close to full-out weeping, but Tessa could find no comfort in herself to give her aunt. "Because I can't sit by and watch you go on like this. I'm sorry."

The click of the phone hanging up sounded in her ears.

She lowered it from her ear numbly, hand moving on autopilot to the desk. She set it down carefully, gently, as if it were made of broken glass – glued back together shoddily, ready to fall apart at the slightest touch.

"Tess?"

Will was calling her, she recognized in some dim part of her brain, but the rest of her couldn't move a muscle, couldn't turn to meet his eyes. Her mouth was dry, words turned to ashes on her tongue.

The grip on her chest squeezed harder, compressing the space within her, the space around her. No, she thought wildly, desperately. Not now – not again –

"Ignoring me now, are we? You know that's not going to get you out of answering for that ringtone, Tess."

Will's voice rang strangely in her ears, like she was underwater, suspended somewhere away from time and reality. She had fought to keep her head above the waves for the last three years and now they closed over her head at last, dragging her below to where the depths could do with her as they willed, drawing the oxygen from her lungs in gasping breaths –

"Tessa!"

She had a brief second to recognize that the heaving, sucking sound was her before a hand landed on her shoulder and spun her around.

Her body followed the motion of Will's hand mindlessly, a collection of detached limbs untethered from her mind. She was a broken marionette, twisted metal welded together wrong, and Will only just managed to catch her as she collapsed forward like a puppet cut from its strings.

They dropped together to the carpet; the gasping sounds of her hyperventilation obscured by the pulsing music that vibrated the floor. Will's hands were frantic on hers, sweeping from her fingers to shoulders, come undone with panic like she'd never seen him before.

"I'll get Jonathan, Tessa, I'll get him right now, just stay here – "

"No," she choked out between gasps, clinging to his wrist as he made to rise. "No Jonathan. It's just – a panic attack –"

Because Jonathan would tell Jocelyn and she couldn't give her aunt anymore reasons to think she wasn't perfectly fine.

"Tessa," Will said, and his voice was calm now, free of panic or terror. "Tess, you're okay. You're okay."

His hand gripped hers tightly, the cool of his skin comforting against her own hot, clammy fingers. She vaguely noticed him lifting their joined hands from the floor, pulling her gently in his direction.

He maneuvered his fingers around hers, pressing her hand onto something soft and warm. There was rock beneath the softness, something that felt hard and steady and comforting.

"Tess? Tess listen to me. Focus on this, okay?"

He pressed his hand over her own, her palm splayed flat against the surface. Something thudded beneath her fingertips, in-out, gentle and repetitive and soothing.

The beat of his heart.

"Breathe with me, Tess. Just focus on me."

His voice was slow and soft, repeating her name like a prayer, like the gentle roll of waves onto sand.

Roll. Not a riptide dragging her under.

Will's heart was a steady beat beneath her palm, a familiar rhythm, in-out, in-out, and she clung to it like a lifeline, let it pull her through the depths and guide her to the surface.

She broke through the waves, still choking and gasping, but there was air here, oxygen and relief and the solid thrum of Will's pulse beneath her fingertips, an anchor to her reality. She let it orient her, one shaky breath after another, in-out until her chest loosened and the ground settled under her again.

The world recalibrated into quiet.

She hadn't been here in two years, hair matted to her scalp with sweat and tears drying on her cheeks, the familiar taste of salt on her tongue. She had vowed she would never be back here – and yet she was, and she had dragged Will Herondale along with her.

She had given him exactly what she had never wanted to – her weakness. Her vulnerability. She had given him the map to the crumbling bits of her fortress.

She was so stupid, so weak, so –

"I have nightmares."

Tessa's racing mind stilled.

"I have nightmares," Will said again. His voice didn't waver, steady and calm as if he was still working her through the panic attack. "I've had them ever since my mother died. I can never make them go away. Ten years, and there are still days I wake up gasping for air."

She still hadn't opened her eyes. It was easier this way, to see nothing but darkness behind her eyelids.

Easier to listen.

Easier to speak.

"My aunt wants to hold a memorial service," Tessa said finally. She didn't know how else to say it, how to explain the terrible truth of that news. "For my family. It'll be the third anniversary of their death in a month."

She stopped there, not knowing how to continue further. How did she explain the yawning horror that the thought of that opened up in her?

"But you don't want to," Will finished for her, softly. "Because if you don't have a memorial service, it's easier not to think about the fact that they're dead. It's easier not to think about them."

"I'm terrified all the time," Tessa whispered. "I'm terrified of forgetting them, what they looked like, the things they said, the way their voices sounded, but I'm terrified of remembering too. It feels easier to forget. Sometimes…sometimes I wish I could. Does that make me a bad person?"

It must, surely, she told herself in her darkest moments. What kind of person was evil enough to wish she could forget her family, to let them die and not even hold a funeral to remember them?

"No, Tess," his voice rang out, low and sure, and suddenly she felt his hand tighten around hers. "It doesn't."

Tessa opened her eyes for the first time since she'd crashed to the floor.

She saw their hands first, pressed to his chest, squeezed together over the thudding of his heart. She could feel it still through his shirt, steadying her, grounding her.

What a strange picture they must make, two teenagers kneeling on the floor, swapping secrets like children making blood oaths.

She lifted her eyes to his.

"I don't think it makes you a bad person at all," Will repeated again, and that was aching pain in his eyes, so piercing that Tessa wondered if they were still talking about her. "I think it makes you human."

They were still kneeling, hands bound, so close that Tessa could see the shades of Will's eyes, the ring of darker violet around his iris, and yet she didn't think it was the physical proximity that suddenly and inexplicably tied them together, stretched a fragile, shaking thread between them. No, this was something else entirely, something both familiar and alien, uncomfortable and soothing.

She wasn't sure she could get rid of it even if she tried.

Will's chest rose and fell unevenly underneath her palm, and she wondered if he was feeling it too, whatever it was that had just settled on them, blanketed them like freshly fallen snow. His fingers twisted around hers, twined into the spaces between them like two perfect jigsaw pieces fitting together at last, and she knew she should pull away – but there was no part of her that wanted to.

That should have scared her.

She'd thought Will Herondale was a contradiction, but she knew now, hands clasped on her bedroom floor, trading the weights of their hearts, that she hadn't even been close.

Will Herondale was an enigma, the kind of mystery that you could never solve – and yet that didn't stop her from wanting to try anyway.

Perhaps that should have scared her most of all.

This piece of writing, of all the writing I have ever done, hits home the hardest.

In 2018, I lost my grandmother.

I refused to go to her funeral. It was easier to believe she was there if I didn't go. It was easier to believe I didn't lose her if I stayed at home, if I didn't visit the childhood home that had only ever been childhood because of her.

I went, eventually. I went screaming and raging at my parents for forcing me to go, and then I came home, and I wept. I wrote this chapter more than a year after her death – long enough, I thought, that the grief was gone. But in writing this, I found myself writing into Tessa my denial. I found myself writing into Jace the pain that never really leaves. This chapter was about a grieving son and daughter, but there is a little of a grieving granddaughter in it too.

This story has always been an exploration of death and grief and what that leaves behind, but this chapter is perhaps the most intensely personal one, and maybe that is why it took so long to get right and why I still don't find it perfect – because grief never is. It is messy and painful, and it doesn't make sense, and so maybe it is perfect that this chapter isn't.

As for Tessa's panic attack in this chapter: I am not an expert on them. I do not claim to know how to help someone having them, professionally. I based this entirely on my terrifying experiences with panic attacks and how I dealt with them. I do not claim that it will work for everyone. Panic attacks are horrifying and terrible and if you are struggling with them, I send you all the love. You will get through them.

As always, let me know your thoughts. I appreciate you all.

Till next time.