"Ignis aurum probat."

Sera peeked over the edge of the chasm that carved its way down to a sluggishly-churning river of lava and watched a few drops of her blood disappear. She hastily stepped back as some of the scrub under her boots crumbled away, and she wiped at the fine sheen of sweat that had beaded on her forehead, not only from the humidity of the late afternoon and the shimmering heat rising from below, but from the anxiety of speaking to the forbidding Iron Sisters. The murder of one of their order at her mother's hands was fresher than ever in her mind as she waited with Clary for the drawbridge to lower and grant them passage across the path of knives.

Murderess, a nagging whisper hissed at her.

Shut up, she growled back, clenching her teeth in annoyance as she let a quick iratze heal the cut across her palm. I didn't have anything to do with that one.

She could almost swear that she heard mocking laughter, and she actually looked around to see if there was anyone else on the volcanic plain, but there was only Clary, waiting patiently. A brilliant flash of blue light followed by the heavy release of gears across the chasm cut off any further argument with her irritating subconscious, and the drawbridge began its slow decent.

Clary turned to give Sera a bright smile in response. "Dexteritas runes on, okay?"

"Yep, no problem." The younger Shadowhunter pressed her right palm to her left forearm and the curving lines of the dexterity rune stood out starkly when she took her hand away. She heard Clary exhale next to her.

"Could you... would you mind...?" Green eyes flashed with excitement and Sera grinned as she held out her hand to oblige her new friend.

Clary stared at the rune emblazoned along her own forearm by Sera's gift and traced the edges lightly with one finger. "Simply incredible," she sighed wonderingly. "You can't feel it at all."

Sera felt a pang as she remembered Marking Rayce for the first time, a mendelin to hide them from Mundane eyes as they had fled from his turn-coat sister, Kylea, through the streets of Toronto. He hadn't even noticed, and she had been able to keep her secret just a little bit longer. The few times that she had runed him up for battle since then, she had seen the relief in his eyes as the Marks had appeared without the accompanying sting of a stele. His half-Faerie blood didn't particularly appreciate the sigils of Heaven, and he felt the bite of the adamas more keenly than regular Shadowhunters. It had almost seemed like a mercy for her to gently lay his marriage runes upon his arm and over his heart during their wedding without the pain that he had become accustomed to while growing up under Zeke's tutelage.

"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" Clary asked, her artist's eye picking out the hints of thought written across Sera's face.

The younger Shadowhunter looked back in surprise. "How did you know?"

"A lot of experience," Clary answered wryly.

"I just... I miss him," Sera admitted sheepishly. "I know I didn't even have him to begin with, and then promptly lost him, but I just..." She touched her heart, just over where her own marriage rune was hidden beneath her black tank top. "It's weird not to have him with me. And we haven't even been gone that long."

Red hair gleamed in the fading, late afternoon sun as the other woman nodded in understanding. "What you did, in that... other place... to bring him back with you – I'm not surprised that you feel his absence so keenly. You're even more connected now than you were before. It'll take some getting used to, I'd imagine." She laughed. "And, you know – you are allowed to just plain miss the love of your life and husband every now and then."

Sera gave her a faint smile in response as the drawbridge settled against the lip of their side of the chasm. "I do."

Once they had crossed through the confusing path of knives and reached the smooth expanse of adamas that marked the inner wall of the Citadel, they waited patiently on the black insignia of a heart pierced through by a blade. An indistinct shadow took shape within the softly-glowing silver-white wall and began to resolve into a woman's form as she drew closer on the other side. When the adamas split and slid aside to allow her to greet her guests, the older Shadowhunter was relieved to find a familiar face waiting for them.

"Sister Cleophas," Clary murmured respectfully. She doubted that she would ever forget the sister who had witnessed the heavenly fire burning through Jace after his encounter with Sebastian during the ill-fated attack on the Adamant Citadel twenty-five years earlier. Cleophas had held Brother Zachariah in her arms while the flames had scorched away the taint of the yin fen lingering in his blood, severing his ties to the Brotherhood in the process. She had been the last one to touch him as a Silent Brother before he had been restored to a mortal life, before he had been reborn as James Carstairs once more.

The Sister's strange, orange-hued eyes passed over each of the Nephilim women before her. "Who calls on the Iron Sisters? Speak your names," she instructed them formally.

Clary dipped her head in response. "My name is Clarissa Fairchild, and I am in good standing with the Clave."

Surprise registered on Sera's face when her friend chose not to give her Herondale surname and used her full first name. She hated using her own. "My name is Seraphina Morgenstern," she hesitated, remembering Alec's conversation with her. And I think I'm on pretty thin ice with the Clave. Guilt nagged at her. Well, they don't need to know that. "And I am in good standing with the Clave."

Liar, her mind teased.

"We do not concern ourselves with the names of husbands or fathers here, child," Cleophas told her gently. "Blood runs true to the child through their mother; a father's identity may be concealed or lost. Your name?"

She paused, thinking about Ithuriel's Shadowhunter identity, a false name to disguise his true nature. 'Ahren Castledown' had been nothing more than a play on the word for 'angel' in many languages, and 'cast down' in English. I guess I can't fault them for calling me out on that one. But giving them her mother's name... she felt a lump of ice build in her stomach.

"Seraphina Chasewell," she mumbled. This is why I just go by Sera.

The Sister's eyes widened in surprise. "Chasewell? Daughter of Meridian?"

Shit.

She turned her gold eyes down in shame. "Yes."

Cleophas regarded her thoughtfully, her too-long fingers lacing together as she considered. "Then I believe it is the Angel's will that has brought you within reach of the Iron Sisters after all this time, Seraphina."

"Actually," Clary broke in awkwardly, not understanding what was playing out between the other two women, "it's angel's blood that brings us here." Her voice took on a more professional tone. "We are here as official envoys from the Consul to beg the release of the Adamant Citadel's supply."

Astonishment registered on the Sister's face, her strange eyes widening within the complicated, curling tattoo mask that marked her for what she was. "The blood of Heaven is not something lightly given, Clarissa Fairchild. I made the choice to aid the Consul in his exile, yes, but weapons from our armoury may be easily replaced." She looked uneasy for a moment. "What you ask is more than I may grant alone. You must plead your case to our triarchs if you are to have any hope of succeeding." She stepped aside to allow them to pass through the silver-white walls. "Come. I will send ahead to tell them of your coming so that they may convene to hear of the Consul's need."

A long courtyard stretched away on the other side of the adamas wall, divided into two identical halves by a pathway of dark, interlocking stones. When Sera glanced down for a better look, she was stunned to see that the thoroughfare was actually made of carved basalt, painstakingly cut and expertly laid, then edged with glossy obsidian detailing. The effect was beautiful... but severe, not unlike the Sisters themselves. It was clear that they were making good use of their location on a volcanic plain.

The Citadel proper loomed ahead, its shining walls gleaming with pearly iridescence as the daylight faded to give way to the coming night. Columns soared upward, their faces carved with runes that had been inlaid with brilliant semi-precious stones that gleamed in a multitude of orange, red, and yellow hues. Hessonite garnet, fire opal, citrine, rubellite tourmaline, carnelian... the dazzling workmanship took Sera's breath away. She had never really thought the Adamant Citadel could be... beautiful... but it was clear that there was more to it than could be seen from outside the walls.

Cleophas pushed open one of the thick, studded doors that fronted the fortress and ushered the pair inside before closing it behind them. Great brackets were sunk deep into the walls on either side of the entryway, ready to bear the weight of the massive crossbeam that could be dropped to bar the doors in the event of a siege. It was like stepping into another era as they followed the Sister.

She guided them through a corridor that bent to the right of the main entry, its walls glowing with a dull orange colour that pulsed like a living thing as they left daylight behind and plodded forward into the darkened interior of the Citadel. Clear ringing and clanging echoed along its length from the far end, and when they cleared the long, gentle curve of the hallway, it was clear why.

A grand, circular chamber sprawled away into the shadows under a high ceiling that was lost in darkness. The fiery, gaping maws of forges yawned open at regular intervals around the room, like markers on a great clock, their hump-backed bodies sloping down to disappear into the floor. Anvils rang as hammers wielded by long, slim hands pounded away in smooth strokes that spoke of long experience. Quench tanks of water, oil, and brine hissed as varying lengths of metal were plunged in for cooling.

Cleophas took her charges around the left side of the room, staying well-clear of the showers of sparks that shivered off the work of her Sisters. Bellows pumped rhythmically in some of the forges, fanning the fires of the earth and stoking them higher as the skilled women worked with unnatural speed, their tongs flicking in and out of the heat in a blur. Burning runes glowed around the openings, none of them familiar to Sera, and she felt a headache begin to build between her eyes as she tried to look closer at their shape. They were no doubt taken from the parts of the Gray Book that were closed to Nephilim who did not bear the curling, mask-like markings of the Iron Sisters.

More than a few of the strange Nephilim looked up to mark the passing of rare visitors, their burnt-orange eyes glowing in the light of their forges. Disapproval was stamped across many of their faces as outsiders intruded upon their secret world. Those who were not of their order were only ever given the use of one of the outer antechambers, near the main entry, and were never permitted to penetrate so deeply into the fortress. Cleophas was taking a great risk in bringing them to the triarchs.

Further around the edge of the ring of forges, Sera spied several bump-outs where smaller, seemingly more private work areas had been set up. Although they were not currently in use, the shutters over their openings were still thrown wide, and a more muted red glow quietly purred within, patiently awaiting a mistress. If she thought she had been sweating before, she was absolutely drenched now. She had no idea how the Sisters could stand it in their long, white dresses bound with electrum, particularly under the heavy aprons some wore for protection.

If she hadn't already been staring like an awestruck tourist, Sera probably would not have spotted the twisted doors that had been roughly shoved together across the opening of a cold, dark forge in one of the alcoves. Whatever material had been used to craft the shutters looked as though it had melted, its clean lines destroyed by some sort of cataclysm. Anvils slumped around the work area, their horns cracked off jaggedly in places, their faces pitted with scars as if they had been sprayed with acid. Quench tanks that had long-since been emptied still looked slick inside with a black, tarry substance that seemed to ooze with a life of its own. Sera didn't even notice when her feet stopped so that she could gawk at the clear signs of devastation.

"What happened here?"

The nearest Iron Sisters working inside the great ring of forges gave each other dark looks and moved away, shaking their heads and exchanging words that were lost in the din. Cleophas closed her long fingers around Sera's arm and drew her along.

"A grievous error in judgement by one of our own over forty years ago. Although she was dismissed from our order in absentia for her crimes after she fled, we have preserved the ruin she brought down upon this forge as a reminder of why our kind must stand as both sword and shield for this world. We cannot afford to allow the weakness of men to poison what we have created here."

Clary's green eyes were sad when she looked away from the devastated alcove. Memories spilled across the years from a time in her life that she rarely allowed herself to dwell upon. Her brother's face flickered to life in her mind, arrogance etched across his features as the two of them faced a woman with long, thick auburn hair that fell to her waist. Dark runes had been carved high on the Sister's cheekbones to trace down from the corner of her eyes to her lips. Clary heard the echo of her own voice in her mind from a tiny flat in Paris.

"I thought the Iron Sisters never left their fortress-"

"They don't," Sebastian had answered with a smirk. "Unless they are disgraced by having their part in the Uprising discovered. Who do you think armed the Circle?"

Clary bowed her head almost imperceptibly as her memory flashed forward to Jace's shredded shirt, the ugly slash across Lilith's Mark on his chest, the blood on his hands. Not all of it had been his own.

Her voice was little more than a whisper that failed to rise above the clamour from the Makers who worked around the great ring of forges. A name slipped from her lips, steeped in sorrow for the Sister's fate. "Magdalena."

Cleophas did not seem to hear, or if she did, she chose to ignore the traitor's name.

They left the heat and noise of the central chamber behind when they crossed into a corridor that branched off the north side of the room, and Sera threw formality to the wind as she lifted the hem of her black tank top and wiped the sweat from her face. Gross.

Their host guided the way through several more twists and turns before bringing them to a halt in front of a nondescript door. She twisted the knob with her long, spider-like fingers and eased it open, the hinges grating in protest. Whatever Sera and Clary had been expecting to see, it certainly was not what appeared to be something very much like the inside of a safety deposit box repository.

Row upon row of uniform-looking wooden drawers were neatly labelled with names or numbers, their faces antiquated; relics from the past. Cleophas ventured inside the small room and scanned the wall on the left side for a moment before reaching up to grasp a handle and pull. The drawer slid out smoothly, and Sera caught a glimpse of the label just before the Iron Sister removed it from its setting and crumpled the slip in her hand.

P. Chasewell.

"I believe this belongs to you," Cleophas said quietly as she lifted the lid on the box and offered its contents to Sera.

A silver signet ring lay within, and Sera's eyebrows drew together in confusion. She reached out hesitantly to pick it up, and was surprised to see the emblem across its face. Two foxes at play, each one curving back to look at the other. It had been years since she had seen anything with this mark on it, not since she had sold the last of the Chasewell family heirlooms to buy her ticket to Las Vegas after her mother's death. The life she had built for herself since then had all started from that tiny bit of seed money.

She looked up to meet the Sister's odd, orange-hued eyes. "I don't understand."

A touch of pity appeared behind the curling mask across Cleophas' face. "It belonged to your grandmother. When we take our vows, we renounce all ties to our families, and many of our personal effects end up here if they are not bequeathed to heirs." Her voice softened. "Sister Philomena's death was a great sorrow to us all, and the mystery of it haunted us for twenty years. Now we know the truth."

No.

No.

No.

Sera didn't register the pain as her knees hit the hard stone floor of the corridor. Clary gasped at her side, and she caught the younger Shadowhunter's shoulder as Sera sagged sideways, still trying to breathe. The fingers of Sera's right hand had gone white as she clenched the ring in horror.

Sister Philomena. Her heart pounded. My grandmother. Her mnemosyne rune seemed to burn. I never knew. She squeezed her eyes shut as if she could block out the memories she could never be free of. Fire blazed up from a Mundane home again in her mind as she watched her mother drive away with a two-year-old Sera in the backseat. She could still see the words she had written in her dream diary that had tried to capture what she had felt about the connection between her mother and the Iron Sister. 'I could feel something more between them, a relationship that my dream-sense could only hint at, but not pin down.'  And now here was the answer.

Brother Isaiah and Sister Philomena.

The names hissed in her mind like accusations. Her mother had murdered them to conceal Sera's existence after they had performed the protective rites over her as a child.

It was not uncommon to find a Silent Brother outside of the City of Bones, but she had never understood how her mother had managed to find an Iron Sister who would come. Now she knew.

Meridian killed her own mother.

Sera felt sick.

Cleophas waited patiently, an unmoving statue, while Sera struggled to regain her composure. Clary was murmuring something comforting in a low voice, but Sera couldn't hear it over the sound of the blood rushing in her ears. She shook her head slowly as if she could deny the truth, but for all her gifts, she couldn't change the past.

"I..." She swallowed past the lump in her throat and forced herself to get a grip. "I can't take this," she said thickly to Cleophas. She held out her hand and ordered her fingers to open, but the Sister curled her own hands back around Sera's.

"It is yours, Seraphina. A family ring should never be lost." She dropped a sideways glance at Clary. "Something the Herondales would do well to remember."

Sera's hand trembled within the Sister's grasp. "They're not my family," she protested weakly. "I don't know anything about them. I'm just me. Just Sera."

"You cannot wish away your blood," Cleophas answered, her voice taking on a sharper edge as she released Sera's hand. "I can remember the day your grandmother first came to the Citadel, barely a woman and already seven months pregnant with nowhere else to go. She gave birth here in these very halls, but the child could not remain. The babe was sent to be raised in one of the orphanages of Alicante."

Understanding bloomed in Sera's mind. After the Dark War, Meridian had answered the Clave's call for help to care for the children left orphaned by Sebastian Morgenstern's treachery. Of course she did. It had been while working in the orphanage that she had met and fallen in love with Sera's father in his Mortal form. But she never forgave her mother for abandoning her.

Cleophas watched her carefully as her words sunk in. "Do not so lightly dismiss the lessons of the past, child. Your mother did not learn forgiveness; do not repeat her mistakes. Keep the ring and come to terms with what it represents. Your family lives on through you."

The Iron Sister closed the door on the storage room with a sense of finality and beckoned for them to follow. "Come. The triarchs will have gathered by now. It is unwise to keep them waiting overlong."

Two levels higher up in the keep, and past more hallways of silver-white walls hemming in black basalt floors than Sera cared to count, they reached what Cleophas quietly informed them was called the Hall of Voices. Its doors were thrown open in anticipation of the guests, and Sera felt her breath hitch when they entered.

Shallow, dark stone galleries were set in a ring around the room, offering tiered seating for nearly two hundred if the benches were filled to capacity. Witchlight burned severely in silver sconces affixed to the walls at regular intervals, their shining glow so reminiscent of the demon towers of Alicante that Sera wondered if they were made in the same way, and if they could change colour if needed. Behind a double-level of carved stone, three seemingly ageless women waited in high-backed chairs of the same basalt that was so prevalent throughout the Citadel. A different rune stood out over each of the triarchs, and Sera recognized their shapes easily; Truth, Knowledge, and Power.

"Clarissa Fairchild and Seraphina Chasewell," the woman in the centre greeted them stiffly. Silver and white streaks threaded through the long braid that had been twisted up into a bun at the back of her head under an intricate brace of electrum wire. The tattooed mask around her eyes seemed rife with thorns, and it gave her a much more dangerous look than the curling lines of Sister Cleophas' markings. She bore the same orange cast to her eyes that all Makers adapted over the years of staring into the fires of the earth to work the forges of Heaven. "You stand before the triarchs of the Adamant Citadel under the protection of one of our own. I am Sister Delilah, and I will hear your words."

The triarch to her right brought her fingertips together lightly before her as she leaned forward on her elbows to get a better look at the visitors. Her heart-shaped mouth lifted with a touch of excitement, and the witchlight gleamed off shining black hair that hung in a single braid past her waist. Her smooth, mocha-coloured skin made it impossible to tell if she was twenty or forty, or two-hundred and forty. "I am Sister Adina, and I will hear your words."

The third woman nodded her greeting to the guests who waited below with a single bob of her flaxen-haired head. High cheekbones were marred by the scars of her order where they melded into the delicate pattern that was not unlike a butterfly's wings across her eyes. "I am Sister Miriam, and I will hear your words."

Sera felt the sweat on her palms and surreptitiously wiped her hands on the back of her shirt, no doubt adding to the stains from her face earlier.What the hell is wrong with me? She snarled at herself, at her hormones, and at her general discomfort when presented with figures of authority. I faced down the Unseelie King in his Court and took him down!

Murderess, her mind whispered with a hint of pleasure.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice," Clary began confidently, "and we apologize for any trouble we may have caused by coming to you here like this, but we would not have come if it were not of the utmost importance."

One of Delilah's eyebrows lifted coolly. "You use the same words the Consul used when he came to us for weapons in his exile. How can it be that each visit is of the 'utmost importance' if they all seem to be?"

A faint tinge of red appeared in Clary's cheeks, but she kept her temper in check and continued to make an attempt at civility. Alec was counting on them. He had given her plenty of pretty words for the triarchs, and she struggled to keep them straight. "The world outside your walls changes quickly during these unsettled times. A new threat has emerged out of the ashes of the old and the Nephilim at last have a chance to close the door on an ancient enemy that has been allowed to walk this world for too long, unbeknownst to us. With the world's wards, perhaps, healed permanently, it still remains for us to eliminate the evil within our borders if we wish to see the peace we've fought so hard to win come to pass. Give us what we need to see this done. In Raziel's name, grant us the use of your angel blood."

Adina drummed her fingers along her jaw thoughtfully, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. Sera did not fail to note that the triarch was seated beneath the Knowledge rune when her strange eyes locked on to the younger Shadowhunter. "Angel blood indeed," she murmured. "I suppose it would only be fair to tell you that you were granted this audience not because of our Sister's request, but because of the blood that brought our drawbridge down." Her glance flicked down to Sera's hand, and then back to her golden gaze. "Very interesting."

Miriam shot her Sister a scathing look of reproval. "They were granted this audience because they made a request that was too great for any one Sister to grant alone." She looked back at their visitors. "Tell us why you have come to ask for our most precious resource."

With a deep breath, Clary began laying out the origin story of the Eternal Forest that had been pieced together by Cassius and how it related to what seemed to be a growing evil within the Unseelie Court under its new King. She told them of the connection between the Wild Hunt, the Forest, and the world's magic that kept the wards strong, explaining how the drain on the world caused by the destruction of Alicante had left doors open that they had never known had existed. It was a complex tale to spin, but she did it justice, and the triarchs did not interrupt her once.

Sera waited uncomfortably by her friend's side, particularly when her own involvement came into the spotlight with what had happened on Wrangel Island. Stories were already spreading based on what Alec's projection message had relayed in the aftermath of the world-wide event, but it was hard to hear it like this, first-hand from someone who had witnessed it.

All three of the triarchs exchanged looks of surprise when Clary brought her retelling to a close and implored them one more time to heed to Consul's request for aid. Delilah was the first to recover.

"These things you have told us..." she exhaled quietly, "I have never heard the like in all my years. You spoke truly when you said that the world outside our walls is changing swiftly. These are unsettled times for our kind."

Adina pursed her lips in response. "Unsettled, and dangerous. The Wild Hunt freed from their chains after all these centuries? The Faerie Courts at war with one another? Blights consuming the land behind Fey borders? It has been our charge for a thousand years to carefully safeguard and shape the adamas mined from below Idris in the war against demon-kind – how much more closely must we ration our rarest and most valuable gift?" Disapproval rolled off her as she pinned Cleophas with a fiery gaze. "The only aegis we had was given to the Consul against the better judgement of this council."

A flash of anger went through Sera, and she finally broke her silence. "Hey." She jabbed a finger up at Adina. "That aegis was useful. A damn sight more useful than it would have been sitting here in a box. All of us would be dead right now if Jace hadn't have put that thing through whatever passed for Asmodeus' heart. What good is a weapon if you don't use it?"

The triarch's lips drew back, but she was headed off by Miriam's clear, calm voice. "Even now, a new aegis is already being crafted, and is nearly ready for its final seething. If we release the blood to you, we will be unable to complete its forging. It could be decades before we could try again and once more hold a weapon to ensure that our world is kept proof against its greatest threats." She gave them an almost apologetic smile. "You must understand, this... concoction... that you are suggesting we trust – it was conceived by a Faerie, was it not?" A note of scepticism coloured her tone. "It has never been tried, never been tested. An aegis, on the other hand, has been one of our most powerful weapons for centuries. We know it and we understand it."

Indignation seized a hold of Sera. Why can't they understand? Why can't they see what's happening? She fumed silently.

They never do, a whisper floated across her mind. You have to make them see.

She shook off her rising anger and forced her voice to remain steady. "What if I told you that you might never need another aegis? That this could be the end of Greater Demons on earth forever?" She took a shuddering breath and swallowed once. "I want you to know exactly what happened to me on Wrangel Island."

All the uncertainty she had been feeling dropped away as she told them about Ithuriel's appearance, about what he had shown her high above the world in the shimmering network that had cocooned the Mortal realm. It wasn't something she had shared with the others, not yet, because she wasn't entirely sure that she understood it herself, but she trusted her gut; they had to see as she had seen.

If the triarchs had been surprised by Clary's tale, they were positively stunned by Sera's revelation that her father was the angel Ithuriel, and that she had been given the barest of glimpses through Heaven's eye. It was Clary's turn to remain silent. She knew that Sera had the triarch's attention now.

"My father," Sera continued shakily, "showed me a sliver of how all of this," she waved her hand around once, "works. He showed me that Heaven can only deal in opportunities, that nothing is predetermined because to do so would be to take away our rarest and most valuable gift – free will." She felt her jaw tighten, and she took a step forward, closing her fist to point a finger down at the black stones set down at the base of the dais. "So you can choose to turn us away empty-handed. You can choose to deliberate this decision until the demon towers come crashing down. You can choose to keep the Iron Sisters from contributing to a different kind of weapon, one that is not made of electrum or adamas." She paused to take another deep breath. "Or you can choose to trust in something bigger than yourself, to trust that all of this is part of a larger opportunity to change the world."

The triarchs were held spellbound by her words, and Sera refused to let them go. Not now. Not when she was so close. "Every one of us carries a single piece to contribute, and we're asking you to join your piece to ours so that we can take that and join it to another, and then another still, until we can make that picture of a world without demons become a reality. None of us can do this alone. We have to make the leap together. Help us."

Sera could swear that she saw the tiniest nod of Delilah's head before the woman who sat below the rune for Power spoke. "As you say: None of us can do this alone." She laid her hands flat against the bench on either side of her seat and rose to her feet. "We will call together the members of our order to discuss your request. You are welcome to spend the night within our halls, and we will give you our decision on the morrow."

No! Frustration swelled across Sera's face, but Clary's hand caught her arm and squeezed firmly for emphasis. "Thank you, Sisters. We will patiently await your wisdom." She backed away without letting go of Sera, and after a few steps, she turned them both around and steered them out of the Hall of Voices with Cleophas at their heels.

Their guide left them at the door of a small, dormitory-like room that was not in use by the Sisters. She said little, only ensuring that they would have what they needed before bidding them good night. The rebuke in Sister Adina's voice when she had called down Cleophas for releasing the aegis to Alec without their permission was still fresh in her mind. If the triarchs ruled in favour of parting with their supply of angel blood, it would mean that the Citadel would be unable to replace what she had so freely given, and whatever the consequences of that action would be on her head.

A double row of four, narrow beds lined opposite walls of the austere room, their clean, cream-coloured sheets neatly tucked in at the corners and drawn right up to the iron bars of the head- and foot-boards. Small, white-washed tables with simple witchlight lamps stood between each of the beds. Clary moved to the third bed on the right and brought the fixture to life before flopping down on the coverlet. The dormitory was not unlike the Institute infirmaries with which she had become so familiar in her teenage years, and it was oddly comforting to be back in familiar surroundings after the conflictingly stark opulence of the rest of the Citadel.

Sera took the second bed on the left and perched on the edge awkwardly, one leg tucked under herself. With Cleophas gone and the door shut, it was almost uncomfortably quiet. They were far enough away from the great ring of forges to not hear the noise, if there were even still Sisters at work after receiving the summons from the triarchs. She let her hair down out of its ponytail and combed it out with her fingers distractedly. "So... do we just sit here now?" Waiting had never been a strong point for her.

Clary pushed herself up to elbows and gave Sera a wry smile. "I think we get to sleep at some point." She softened her voice. "You look like you could use a good night's rest."

Huffing a stray bit of hair out her face, Sera felt a tiny spark of fear at the thought of sleeping. Since encountering Baelerithon in the dream world, she didn't feel safe anymore. His threat was still painfully clear, and she had no desire to risk running into him again. The world she had come to know and rely on for so long was closed to her until he could be brought down. That meant staying inside of her own dreams in the meantime, and with little more than a wasted Morgenstern Manor, squalling infants and Rayce's bloody kisses to keep her company, she was just as happy to try to see how long she could stay up.

She shivered despite the natural warmth of the room and tried to arrange her features into a false pout. "I thought I'm supposed to get some kind of glow out of this. Is it not working?"

The bed creaked quietly under Clary as she sat up fully and drew her knees into her chest. "You don't have to pretend with me, Sera," she said gently. "I know you're just holding it all in right now, but trust me, that's the best way to blow up or melt down. I'm really proud of you for telling them what happened with..." she faltered for a moment, and then recovered, "with your father. I... remember how confusing it used to be when I would see images or memories from Ithuriel. I can't even imagine what it was like for you up there."

Sera silently chewed the inside of her bottom lip and found herself unexpectedly wishing for Rayce to be there. He was stuck back at the manor, graciously playing host to their motley assortment of guests while she was on this no-boys-allowed mission. She knew it was good for him to stay busy, to not dwell on what had happened to him with the Hunt, but she still just wanted him here.

Selfish.

Clary felt the hitch in the conversation and changed the topic smoothly with a nod to the Morgenstern ring on Sera's left hand. "If you're going to keep that one, what will you do with the Chasewell ring now?"

The silver band of Rayce's gift to her felt smooth as Sera idly pushed it around her ring finger with her thumb, the pattern of stars on its sides slightly worn down from the decades it had spent on various members of the Morgenstern family. "I don't know," Sera confessed, her eyes fixed on a spot just under the opposite bed. "I've been 'just Sera' for so long that I don't even think I want to try to be Sera Chasewell. I made my choice." She shrugged. "It was always going to be Rayce or nothing for me. I don't want anything to do with my family. We have our own now."

"I know what it's like," Clary said softly, "wishing that you could just not have this... this guilt about who you are, even though it's not your fault." She snorted indelicately. "I mean, for the Angel's sake, look who my father was. And my brother." She unconsciously stroked the thin chain around her neck almost as if she could still remember when she had worn the same Morgenstern ring there that now belonged to Sera. "It's strange, really... Earlier, when we saw that ruined forge... I met the woman who did that. Years ago. Remembering her made me think about my brother, and it's like he was right there again, even after all this time." A shudder ran through her, raising goosebumps along her arms, and she rubbed at them for a moment. "The past never really goes away, Sera, even when you want it to. You just have to decide how you're going to live with it. Don't let it define you. Only you can do that."

But it's not just my mother, Sera wanted to say. I'm worse than she ever was.

Instead, she forced herself to flash a more convincing smile. "That's some pretty heavy food for thought right before bed... but... thanks. I'm really glad you came with me today. I don't know if I could have done this alone."

"Sure you could have," Clary laughed lightly, kicking off her boots. "They would just have one less triarch by now and you would be running for the hills." She clicked off the lamp and missed seeing the pained look that cross Sera's face in response to the unintentionally cruel joke. "Get some sleep! G'night!"

"Good night," Sera answered faintly, pulling off her own boots in the dark and unbuckling her belt and letting it fall to the floor next to her bed.

The pillow may as well have not existed, even after Sera folded it once or twice, and she sighed internally for what was probably going to be an uncomfortable night. Maybe it'll help keep me awake, she grumped.

Almost before she could finish forming the thought, sleep washed over her like an incoming tide, and then she was caught in the undertow as exhaustion dragged her down.

Sparkling fairy lights glittered along the slim boughs of the peach trees of the orchard around her, their twinkling coppery glow illuminating the small dance floor Magnus had created for the guests. Sera sighed happily when she looked down and saw the familiar sweetheart neckline, the intricate beading across the bodice of her pale gold wedding gown.

I guess there are some advantages to being stuck in my own dreams, Sera mused to herself as she spied the deserted dinner table and all of its splendour. It was impossible not to feel happy here.

"Sera."

She snapped her head back around to find the voice, her heart leaping into her throat in a moment of dread as she imagined Baelerithon finding her even here.

Rayce waited for her on the dance floor, his right hand outstretched and awaiting her own. He wore the same gold-runed, black gear that Shadowhunter men wore on their wedding day, the colour contrasting sharply with the shock of white hair above his collar. The shy curve of his lips filled her with an ache as she remembered their stolen dance in the master bedroom of the manor before Jace had interrupted them. 'We could have danced until dawn,' Rayce had lamented. She felt a wave of protectiveness flare up. Well, there's nothing stopping us now.

She glided forward to lay her hand in Rayce's and he drew her in smoothly, his free hand settling gently behind her hip instead of below her shoulder blade. His steps were light as he started to lead them through a lazy waltz, and Sera exhaled contentedly as the tension she had been carrying melted away with the feeling of her dress swishing and swaying around her legs.

Rayce's eyes shone with pleasure as he coiled her in toward his chest for a moment before turning her out once more, every movement filled with confidence. She couldn't tell if it was simply a trick of seeing him through the lens of her own dreams or not, but he was even more beautiful than she remembered. The line of his jaw was more fierce than she recalled, and there was a hint of arrogant swagger in the way that he moved that she had never noticed before. The tiny lights that criss-crossed overhead sparkled off the silver ring on her finger where it glittered brightly against the shoulder of his black jacket.

A flicker of unease went through her.

Almost as if he could sense it, Rayce slowed their dance further and reached up to brush an escaped curl away from her face. His voice was barely a whisper. "What's wrong, my beautiful one? I thought this was what you wanted."

"It was," she protested. "Is." Doubt nagged at her.

He lifted the back of her hand and kissed it softly, letting his lips trail up her wrist to her forearm, and she felt two very strong, very opposite reactions. Part of her wanted to melt forward into his arms, and the other part wanted to yank her hand away and run.

What the hell is wrong with me?

"You really need to relax," he murmured quietly. "You worry too much about what everyone else thinks about you. Just be what you are." His green eyes turned up to meet hers for a moment. "Own it, or it will end up owning you."

"What are you talking about?" His kisses were dizzying, and it was harder to fight against the half of herself that wanted to give in as his other hand traced a path up her spine, his arms encircling her. She couldn't seem to help herself as she ran her left hand up his chest and stroked down the side of his face with her right. It wasn't fair that they hadn't had enough time together yet.

"You're letting them get to you, make you feel guilty for who you were born to be," he purred in her ear as he completed the line up her arm. "Look at what you are, Sera." He nuzzled his face down into the hollow of her throat and she felt herself gasp in response. She could almost feel his smile against the soft skin of her neck. "A glorious angel of vengeance with the Morgenstern name at last. All of our strengths; none of our weaknesses."

Warning bells blared through Sera's mind as she unravelled her husband's words. Her memory clicked back to the dream she had had of him in the Unseelie Court, when he had been bound to the quickbeam and lashed for his disobedience. She had seen a second figure clad all in scarlet gear, his face so similar to her prince's that it could only have been one man who had grinned so sardonically at her before shrugging out of his jacket to show the weals across his own back.

Sera's hand flashed up and cracked hard across Rayce's cheek, sending him staggering back with a yell of shock and pain. He went down to one knee, rocked by the force of her blow, and he pressed his hand over where the stinging slap had landed.

"How dare you wear his face," Sera hissed at him. "You bastard!" Fury ripped through her and boiled over into her dreamscape. The lights in the peach trees burst and sent wavering flames through the blossoms overhead, and her dress vanished in the same instant to be replaced by her favourite black leather pants, jacket, and most importantly, her ass-kicking boots. Because there was now an ass that was definitely in need of kicking.

Low laughter met her rage, and Sebastian shed his son's visage as he rose to his feet, though he kept the wedding clothes. The gold-threaded runes along his cuffs felt like an insult to Sera. "You know, between the two of us, you're actually much closer to being a bastard than I am. At least I was born in wedlock."

Heosphoros appeared in Sera's hand and she whipped the blade up until it was level with his neck. "You're a dead bastard as far as I'm concerned," she snarled in response. How long had he been masquerading as Rayce? Was he behind all of the dark dreams she had been having about her husband? Was it his voice that had taunted her in the nursery of Morgenstern Manor? She didn't know whether to pray for it to be true or false. She had been completely duped.

An expression of mock hurt crossed his face, and he lowered his hand to rest over his heart as he angled away from the dance floor toward the gift table, which seemed much closer than it had been at the real wedding. "Speaking ill of the dead and your father-in-law all in one breath, Sera? You're doubly going to Hell now, you know."

She shook her head and gestured with the tip of her sword. "Just stop." She tried to think. "I saw you. In the Unseelie Court. Why are you here? You're supposed to be dead."

A flicker of annoyance crossed his features. "Now don't start with that. It gets very boring, very quickly." He poked at the boxes, flipping over tags to read them curiously. Mercifully, Sera's dream did not include their 'gift' from Baelerithon. "I've finally been able to get out a bit – you can't blame me for wanting to spend time with my family."

Something about what he had said struck a chord with her, and she called to mind the morning after she and Rayce had awoken in each others arms in Idris. It had been the first time she had seen him with the Morgenstern ring. He had claimed that his father had given it to him, but Sera had been quick to chalk it all up as a hallucination brought on by the waters of Lake Lyn. And yet... he had been adamant that something had given him that ring. She looked down at her left hand.

This ring.

Comprehension dawned on her.

"It's this, isn't it?" She lifted her hand, her fingers clenched into a fist with the Morgenstern ring glittering in the light of the tiny fires all around the orchard. "Were you annoying the crap out of Rayce the whole time he had it, too? Did he know about you when he gave me the ring?"

"Nah," Sebastian said reassuringly as he hooked a bottle of champagne off the table and popped the cork. "He may have gotten my stunning good looks, but he got his mother's brains." He took a deep swig and glanced down at the label appreciatively. "Rayce convinced himself that it was all in his head, that I was just the darker side of himself trying to hide in his father's image so that he could keep his hat white."

Sebastian perched on the edge of the gift table. "He became very boring once he decided once and for all to take the high road and go all noble, so I saw no reason to correct him." His black eyes flashed. "You can imagine how thrilled I was when you kept the ring."

"Then I'll be sure to drop it into one of the convenient forges of the Citadel and send your ass screaming back to Hell."

He laughed out loud and slapped his thigh in amusement. "See? That's what I'm talking about! You can be absolutely savage!" He gestured toward her still-flat abdomen with the bottle in a silent toast. "That's the kind of strength I'm counting on for the next generation of Morgensterns."

"You stay the hell away from my kids," Sera threatened. My kids. It was the first time she had ever thought of them like that.

"Sera, Sera..." Sebastian soothed, "I would never dream of harming them. No one is more interested in protecting them than I am, I assure you."

All the connections she had been missing, all the feelings she hadn't been having for her unborn children were snapping into place at last. Her fears shattered, her insecurities faded, and her uncertainty broke when squared face to face against the legendary villain.

"I am," she swore, twisting the tainted Morgenstern ring off her finger and holding it up for him to see. "Give me one good goddamn reason not to melt this sucker down as soon as I wake up."

A trace of genuine fear appeared behind the fathomless depths of Sebastian's eyes. He lost some of his bravado and lowered the bottle to the table. He turned serious. "Because I can help. Have been helping, actually."

She lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. "Oh, really?" Heosphoros continued to hover in the space between them. She doubted it would have any lasting effect on him if she put the blade through his chest in this world, but it would certainly feel good.

"Sure I have," he answered earnestly. "I was the one who kept Rayce strong enough to survive the Hunt, whether you want to give me credit for that or not. They would have torn him apart without me hissing in his ear." Sera couldn't have known about what had happened to Kratus, how Rayce had pressed the rebellious Hunter into one of the trees of the Eternal Forest as an example to the others, but she could hear the truth in Sebastian's voice. He decided to give her a better example, one that hit a bit closer to home.

"When you were coming up with nothing on the Unseelie or the Hunters in your dreams, it was me who led you to Baelerithon so that you could see what he was doing from the relative safety of this world. You chose to follow my little trail of wind, although I must admit that I didn't think he would have quite that much power here." He shrugged. "Sorry about that."

Her cry of 'bullshit' died on her lips. She had been led that night, and hadn't been able to understand why. Once again, she detected no falsehood in his tone. Heosphoros dipped in her grasp, its tip lowering as she saw the fallen Nephilim before her in a new light.

"Why are you here?" She asked again, her voice much softer than it had been. The smouldering patches along the branches of the peach trees cooled, their light dimming until there was little more than starlight illuminating the dance floor.

Sebastian rolled his eyes impatiently. "I told you-"

"No," she cut him off. "Don't give me that bullshit about spending time with family, or finally having a chance to get away from that lake where you somehow managed to give Rayce your ring. Why are you still here at all? Lingering?" She turned the blade in her hand slightly as a reminder. "The stories say that your sister burned the evil out of you when she killed you with this thing in Edom. Why haven't you, you know... gone on?"

"Would you?" He threw back at her quietly, his voice taking on a hint of vulnerability. "Do you think I don't know exactly where I'm going?" His eyes seemed to plead with her to understand. "Can you honestly blame me for staying when I know where all of this ends for me?"

His mood shifted again and he pushed himself away from the table as if he could leave his moment of weakness behind. He traced one graceful finger along the flat of Heosphoros and sneered a bit. "Precious Jonathan punched his ticket to Heaven when this went through my chest. Poor, sweet, Jonathan." He flicked his wrist sharply and the sword went spinning out of Sera's slackened grasp. "But me? Nah..." His chest rose and fell with quickened breaths. "Not me," he whispered.

Against every natural instinct that she had, Sera actually felt a kernel of pity for him, and Sebastian must have seen the look on her face because his smirk snapped back into place, his perpetual armour.

"Feeling sorry for the bad guy, sweetheart?"

Sera glared at him and shook her head defiantly.

"Good," he said. "Don't. You're the one who's always going on about free will. Valentine may have made me what I was, but I chose to do what I did." He tugged on the lapels of Rayce's wedding jacket and grinned smugly. "And I think I had a damn good time doing it, if I do say so myself. After what you two did on Wrangel Island, I think there's actually a case to be made that will show that if it hadn't been for me, the world's wards would never have been healed." His eyes shone with ironic laughter. "I'm the real hero of that story."

Sera snorted. "Oh, get over yourself." She brought Heosphoros back to her side with a thought and let it hang in its sheathe at her waist once more. "If you're actually going to help, I'll think about not smashing your ring flat."

He bowed his head to her. "Much appreciated."

"But," she warned, lifting a finger threateningly, "if you show up as my husband again..." The dream wavered around her to show an image of the Morgenstern ring melting down into silver puddle. "And keep your hissing to yourself. All that taunting about me being a murderess, about being selfish, and about being a liar stops right here. I'll own it, just like you want me to, but I don't need your constant reminders."

Sebastian gave her a very sober nod. "Deal."

She started to pull away from the orchard, severing her ties to her dream so that she could try to get some real sleep without Sebastian creeping on her. The trees began to fade, and the dance floor crumbled back into the grass.

Sebastian blew her a kiss in parting.

"Send my love to my sister when you wake up?"

"You are unbelievable," Sera muttered.

**Author's note: I did a bit of extra work around the great forges to set up part of one of my forthcoming short stories that will chronicle the days and weeks before the Uprising with Valentine. The piece will close the inconsistencies presented by Cassie's two opposing stories on how the Circle was armed, and I'm very much looking forward to working from within Valentine's mind. I think you'll enjoy it, too!

Thanks again to Tara for naming each of the triarchs – you continue to save the Shadow World from me.