Sera's eyes narrowed at Zeke. "What plan?"

The Stripped Shadowhunter held up his hands to absolve himself of all responsibility. "I'm not saying anything. Let Cassius explain; this is his brand of crazy, not mine." He sipped from what was left of his spiked tea and then folded his arms, refusing to explain further.

As if saying his name had summoned him from the back room of the book shop, Cassius reappeared with a stack of three progressively thicker tomes. Each book was hand-bound in leather and was roughly two feet square, a strange size that was more reminiscent of a photo album to Sera's curious eyes. She watched as it he set them down carefully on the table and then she waited expectantly to hear The Plan.

The Faerie's dark leather wing rippled slightly as he adjusted it so that he could lean back against the table comfortably. "How much do you know of Fey heritage, lovely Sera?"

Sera blinked in confusion. "What? Just Sera," she corrected reflexively. "And I don't know... not much? Demons and angels..." Her right hand made a suggestive gesture and Zeke snorted into his mug, his shoulders shaking.

Smiling broadly, Cassius nodded appreciatively but did not apologize again for his slip-up. "You are partially correct, and any gap in your understanding of my kind is to be forgiven. Of all the supernatural creatures with whom they share this world, the Nephilim know the least about the Fey, though they work hard to conceal their ignorance by borrowing from myths and legends."

"I thought all the stories were true," Sera challenged him.

"And the truth is a fluid thing in the mouths of Faerie-kind," he finished for her. "Please allow me to expand upon your knowledge of my people."

Sera looked at him doubtfully. "And this is all necessary to explain The Plan?"

With the faintest of sighs, Cassius turned his grey eyes down to the slimmest of the three books that he had brought back with him. "Mortals. It is easy to forget the impatience that drives your kind, so I will make an effort to be as brief as possible. I do, however, believe that it is important for you to understand this. After all, it is also Rayce's heritage."

If Sera could be completely honest with herself, she was more than a little intrigued to hear what Cassius had to say, even if she didn't understand what it had to do with The Plan. She was still recovering from the double-whammy of the fight with the Hellhounds and applying Hunter's Fortitude rune, so maybe a bit of break wasn't such a bad idea.

"Alright, let's hear it," she said, picking up her own mug again and casting an unconscious glance over her shoulder at the heavy curtains that shut out the Rift. Knowing that the magic was unstable made her edgy, but so did knowing what kind of dark creatures were living out there. She didn't think she would ever forget seeing the cages of live virgins for sale on the boulevard.

Cassius bowed his head graciously and spread his hands. "Let us begin with a question that is often overlooked. What is the difference between the Seelie and the Unseelie?"

Sera opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her brain stalled, and she tried to jog her mnemosyne rune into helping her out, but she drew a blank. How have I never thought about this? "Um... well... the Unseelie are... evil. And... the Seelie are... less evil?" Her voice turned up questioningly, and she felt stupid even as she said it.

Cassius laughed out loud, a clear, ringing sound that sweetened the air around her. She couldn't decide whether it was calming because of its tone or annoying because of its context.

"A good understanding, for a Mortal," he chuckled. "It is true that the greatest among us descend directly from the union of angels and demons. The children of these trysts are what we call 'Greater Fey'. The dominance in their blood determines the alliance of a Greater Fey; those who are more strongly angelic join the Seelie Court, while those who are governed more heavily by their demonic half swell the ranks of the Unseelie. Their children follow after them within that alliance thereafter."

Sera lifted an eyebrow at the Faerie. "Sorry, so the Seelie are supposed to be the good Faeries? Because they kind of suck at that, to be honest."

Her host adopted a feigned look of hurt and pressed a hand to his chest in mock distress. "But Sera, I'm Seelie. Am I not a good Faerie?"

It felt like a loaded question, and Sera wasn't entirely convinced she knew the answer. I mean... he seems pretty nice... and helpful... but isn't that the whole problem with Faeries?

Cassius let her off the hook for answering by smiling to dispel the hurt on his face. "Our blood is that of Heaven and Hell mixed together, and all the world's creatures have the capacity for good or evil. From there, it is our choices that define us. Are we born evil, Sera? Are we born good? Or are we simply born, and then shaped by our experiences? Good men can do evil things, and evil men can do good things; the same is true of Faeries."

He flipped open the thinnest of the volumes under his hand and turned to one of the first pages. Written across the top in a bold, flowing script was the name Luchaereon. There were at least fifty smaller names written below in the same hand, all with tiny reference numbers inscribed after them that had no rhyme or reason that she could discern. Sera's eyes naturally went to the first name, and she felt her heart lurch when she read it. Gwyn ap Nudd. Cassius gently touched the name.

"Here is the name of an Unseelie who sacrificed everything for his people, Sera. He was a good man who made a hard choice. And look who his father was." Her golden eyes drifted upward once more to the true name of the Unseelie King at the top of the page, and then she gasped when she deciphered the script below.

"Son of Lucifer... What? The Lucifer?" She stared up at Cassius skeptically.

"The same," he confirmed. "Many of the Greater Fey derive part of their name from that of one of their parents; it was a common practice."

Sera was stunned. It seemed obscene to be so casually discussing the literal son of Satan. The Faerie trailed his finger down the page to encompass the other names listed after Gwyn.

"The Unseelie King was obsessed with breeding more strength into his bloodline; it resulted in a rather impressive number of talented children. However, in trying to create powerful offspring, he erred by forgetting that they may one day seek to usurp his throne." Sera unconsciously followed the slim, tanned finger as it ran down past unfamiliar names like Caelus, and her heart jumped again when she saw Kieran at the very bottom of the list. That bastard. Why am I not surprised?

"The children of the Greater Fey became widely-known as the Fey gentry, ostensibly the upper-class in Faerie society. Most are considered beautiful by any standard, and many lack the more unsightly demonic marks of their parents." Cassius reached his right hand across to touch his remaining left wing in acknowledgement. "The gentry delight in playing with Mortals even more so than their parents, who had been fairly content over the years with being worshipped as gods by ancient Mundane civilizations." His voice was mesmerizing, and Sera didn't want him to stop. "From the gentry spring the Lesser Fey, and then the blood becomes too thin to care for the generations that follow, and we simply call them 'Faeries' as a general appellation."

Pausing thoughtfully for a moment, Cassius lifted a finger. "Some of the Nephilim confusion about the origins of Faeries arises from the simple fact that we are not all born from the joining of angels and demons, or their subsequent progeny. Many types of Fey spring from the natural world and are products of their environment, such as nixies, dryads, satyrs, and too many more to list. The magic of our world is complex and ever-changing; so, too, are its natural children."

Sera did a quick check in her mind. "So, Rayce is... gentry?"

"Yes," Cassius said, tilting his head and flipping forward a few pages. "and no." The new page was written in the same script as before, and bore the header Sammaradriel. There were not as many names as there had been on the Unseelie King's page, but Sera still felt a faint twinge of awe that the Seelie Queen had had so many children. Her eyes flashed down the list, catching sight of Baelerithon, Arynessa, Nerissa, Kylea, and Alvariléa among the others before she skipped down impatiently to the bottom and found Rayce Morgenstern.

Seeing his name dropped a stone into her stomach. This tiny piece of him felt so real, and yet at the same time, it felt so strange to see her prince listed here among his brothers and sisters. He was nothing like them, set apart even just by having a family name. Again, there were tiny numbers written next to each child's name, and she wondered at them. "Who wrote all of this, Cassius?"

With half a smile, the Faerie took his hand away from the page and answered simply, "I did."

Sera gaped. "You... keep track of who's banging who in the Courts as... some kind of hobby? No offense, but that's kind of creepy."

"None taken, beautiful Sera. What you find creepy, I find... fascinating." His eyes gleamed in the low light from the lamps and Sera looked down at Rayce's name again, the number next to it, and then the remaining two volumes, getting suspicious.

She poked a finger at him in warning. "Well, you just keep your nose out of Rayce's bedroom. I'll send you a nice card if there are any more Morgensterns on the way."

Cassius laughed mischievously and his eye lashes swept down. "I'm sure you will," he murmured. "But he is quite unique, in so many ways." The Faerie lifted out the medium-sized book and laid it open, flipping through carefully until he reached a page that was divided top from bottom with a line. Each half of the page had its own name, and Sera had far less to read here than she had in the book of Greater Fey. Nerissa dominated the top of the page, and was followed by only two names in smaller writing, Helen Blackthorn and Mark Blackthorn. Both had identical numbers after their names, and Sera had a sneaking suspicion that they represented a page number that would correlate to the third volume if she cared to check. Creepy... but organized, Sera admitted grudgingly. The bottom of the page held the name Arynessa, and Sera was surprised and somewhat saddened to see that it was blank.

The one-winged Faerie spared her the trouble of wondering further by flipping open the third book to the page that Helen and Mark shared. Both halves were blank, and he tapped them thoughtfully. "I confess that I was intrigued to see this line continue, though it stemmed from the gentry into the Lesser ranks." He sighed with faint disappointment, as if denied a treat. "But the boy was tainted by the Hunt, and cannot sire children while half his soul remains tied to the next world, and the girl bore no young in her exile."

"Are you spying on them?" Sera asked, aghast. She jabbed at him again with her hand. "Creep level: Maximum. They're people, Cassius, not..." she searched for the right words, "not... horses."

He ducked his head quickly. "Forgive me, Sera, I should have shown more delicacy. But I must say that, should you free Rayce from the Hunt, I am very eager to see what will become of the Morgenstern line, now more than ever because of you."

Sera shook her head. "Wow. Just wow. Please tell me that you're really close to explaining what all of this has to do with The Plan, and that you're not going to keep fanboying about... breeding Rayce and I." She shuddered inwardly at the clinical way the Faerie could regard the lives of others, and she wondered if she needed to work out what her answer actually would have been to his earlier question, 'Am I not a good Faerie?'.

"Of course." Cassius' voice shifted away from the cool, lecturing lilt he had used to give her an overview of Fey heritage, and it warmed with a hint of excitement. "I do believe that Mortals have a common saying, 'Know thy enemy', is that correct?"

"Sure, give or take a few centuries," Sera answered breezily. Zeke, nearly forgotten during Cassius' explanation, grinned again in approval.

"Then know this: By using the Earth's magic to betray the Nephilim, Luchareon has overreached himself." The Faerie's eyes glittered with wickedness. "He weakened not only himself, but all of the Unseelie. Your Rayce is unknowingly holding the door open for you to exploit that to your advantage."

She shook her head in confusion. "Come again?"

Cassius smiled obligingly. "As I said earlier, the Unseelie are more predisposed toward their demonic heritage. Demons live to consume worlds, to use them up until they are hollowed-out shells. The primary difference between the two branches of the Fey is that the Unseelie must, to some extent, feed upon this world's energy to survive. The founding of the Hunt to nurture the Eternal Forest and speed the production of ley energy was a genius stroke that allowed the Unseelie to come more strongly into this world than ever before, safe from the looming threat of what they call 'Fading'."

Before Sera could ask, Cassius nodded to himself, his energy sparking contagiously until she could feel her pulse beginning to race to keep up with him. "Without the world's magic to feed them, an Unseelie will Fade progressively until they are little more than a wraith, and then vanish completely from this world. I hesitate to use the word die, but you may understand it that way if you choose."

Memories of Veralysia spun through Sera's mind and she shivered in revulsion, remembering the faint trailers of ley magic that had curled and caressed the spectre's throne deep within the Grand Canyon. Just enough to keep her from Fading entirely.

He continued animatedly, "The evidence is clear from what is happening to the Rift - Rayce is holding out against feeding the Forest and replenshing the King's strength. The Unseelie cannot recover until the Heart of the World does." Again, Sera's mind flickered painfully across the whipping she had been forced to watch Rayce endure, and comprehension dawned on her.

"So the time to strike..." Cassius paused dramatically, "is now."

"Strike..." Sera echoed uncertainly.

"The Hunt was conceived by Luchareon, and later, the cloak that bound his son in service. Whatever answers there are to find lie with him. The cloak carries the power of compulsion, the ability to force those enslaved to the Hunt to obey its master." He tapped his lips earnestly. "I suspect that it is demonically aligned, but even Luchareon would not have been able to anchor its power alone. It binds those who are split between the worlds. He could tether its power in this world, but not in the next." He turned his grey eyes on Sera triumphantly. "I think he called upon his father for help."

"Okay," Sera threw up her hands. "That's right where I have to draw the line."

Zeke raised his mug to her in mock-salute. "You got a lot further than I did, girl."

She shot him a withering glance before turning back to the obviously insane Faerie who was waiting with his breath held like an excited child. "You want us to just waltz into the Unseelie Court and what - torture the information out of the King because he can't really fight back right now? Just casually go toe-to-toe with the son of Lucifer?"

Cassius drew himself up to his full height, and his wing partially curled around his body indignantly. "And what of my father, Sera? Or do you see my missing wing and mistake it for weakness?"

Sera's heart sank as she asked weakly, "Oh, Raziel... do I even want to ask who your father is?" She blinked, reflecting on what she had just learned about Seelie heritage. "If you say it's Raziel, I'm leaving."

"Have you forgotten my lesson so quickly?" Cassius looked down at her regally, and she could feel his presence expanding to fill the front room of the book shop. Awe blossomed in her chest as the power of a Greater Faerie flooded the small space. "I am a son of one of the seven Archangels of Heaven, the only living scion of the Angel of Solitude and Tears. My name was gifted to me by my father, Cassiel, and I fear no living creature in this world, mortal or immortal."

"You're..." she struggled to catch her breath before beginning again. "You don't really come across as... Greater Fey..."

The aura around Cassius faded and he grinned sardonically. "Not all of us crave crowns and thrones, sweet Sera."

Practicality took charge in Sera's mind as she re-evaluated The Plan with her newfound knowledge. There was a gaping hole that needed to be addressed before she could even begin to consider doing what the Faerie was asking. "The Unseelie King is immortal, right?"

Cassius nodded once, and Sera sighed. "So how can you force him to tell you anything? He can just keep on living indefinitely, and you can't kill him if we really do need what he knows. There just isn't enough time," she finished desperately.

Zeke shot a meaningful glance at his partner over the rim of the nearly-empty mug, but continued to remain silent. Cassius turned his grey eyes back to Sera and stepped closer, lifting a strong but gentle hand to cup her cheek softly.

"It was never my intention for me to be the one to extract the truth from Luchareon," he said quietly, regarding her with an intensity that she found almost uncomfortable. "Yours is the weapon against which he cannot stand, and time will no longer be on his side once you bring it to bear."

Sera stirred awake under the dark, silky sheets of Cassius' bed as Zeke came up the stairs to the loft. She wasn't sure how long her nap had lasted, but she felt surprisingly refreshed and alert. She wondered suspiciously if Cassius had anything to do with it.

The Faerie and the Stripped Shadowhunter had been quite adamant about her getting some sleep while they made the final preparations for their assault on the Unseelie Court, even though she had doubted that she would even be able to sleep after Cassius had finished outlining her role. It was terrifying, and the ease with which the strange Faerie spoke of such a forbidden act made her silently question him again.

"It's go time, girl," Zeke said when he saw that she was awake, and he laid a bundle down at the foot of the bed for her. He disappeared back downstairs to give her some privacy.

As much as she had grudgingly appreciated the fresh clothes from Arynessa, it had seemed distinctly impractical not to get some real protection for the raid. Zeke had volunteered to go to the shop that sold Shadowhunter spoils that Sera had seen on her first visit to the Rift. He was on relatively-friendly terms with the owner, as he had provided a steady business through the years while provisioning for Rayce's education.

Rayce. Sera couldn't stop thinking about him. Her dreams had been absent during her nap, affected by being in the Rift, and she felt a twinge of anxiety about the blindness. A coldness spread through her as she remembered seeing him punished by the Unseelie King's order, and it hardened her resolve to carry through with The Plan. He'll pay for it, she swore.

Unceremoniously stripping off the borrowed clothes, Sera brushed her hands down her arms and legs, trailing runes for the fight to come. She could feel the power pulsing into each Mark as it was laid, and she felt the heady rush that came with the language of Heaven upon her flesh. She felt alive.

She squeezed herself into the gear, wincing in a set that was probably a size or two too small. Forcing the zipper up on the jacket stubbornly, a wave of giddy nervousness took hold of her. It's going to be very embarrassing if this zipper pops at the wrong time. But any gear was better than no gear, and she resolved to think skinny thoughts as often as possible. And to breathe shallowly.

Mercifully, the boots were a good fit, and she left the heap of discarded white clothes in the corner. Back in black, baby.

Sera clomped down the stairs and found Zeke shrugging into his own jacket with a mix of emotions on his face. His shattered Marks gave Sera chills, and she wondered at the cruelty of the Clave's sentence.

She shook away the sense of foreboding that came with seeing the evidence of Shadowhunter justice, and tried to mask her fear with a smile as she poked a finger through one of the several gashes in the gear she was wearing.

"Should I be worried about these?" she asked Zeke teasingly.

He turned his head and lifted a dark eyebrow. "Maybe you should just take those as guidelines for where to guard against Faerie strikes. They love to see you bleed before they go in for the kill," he said darkly.

"Good to know," Sera replied. She had kind of been hoping for a lighter response, but the gravity of what they were doing had apparently managed to sober her host as well. "Is it too late to say the gear is a bit tight?"

Grinning faintly, Zeke nodded. "It looks good, though," he said thoughtfully.

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously as she slung her crossbow strap over her shoulder. "Did you do that on purpose?"

He rolled his eyes in response, coming around from the distraction of wherever his memories of wearing gear into battle had taken him. "There's a very limited selection of complete sets of gear. Do you want to wait until the Fey kill someone in your size?" He waved his hand. "Just try to pretend that this is the part of the season where the only thing left on the rack is XXS, okay, princess?"

Scowling, Sera started buckling on her half-full brace of knives only to discover that the empty slots had been filled with a different sort of blade. "I'm not a princess," she muttered under her breath sullenly.

Zeke saw her eyeing the new additions to her arsenal and he reached over to touch the hilts of the throwing knives. "Cold iron," he said quietly. "Try to keep your distance from Cassius; he's on our side."

She looked around for any sign of the Faerie and didn't see him anywhere, but she dropped her voice just in case. "Are you sure?"

"Very," he answered before changing the subject. "Have you... seen Rayce recently? In your dreams?" He couldn't completely disguise the concern in his eyes, and Sera had to remind herself that he had practically raised Rayce. She hesitated to tell him about the whipping. On one hand, it might fuel the fire to succeed today, but on the other hand, it might make him reckless.

"My dreams don't work down here," she said gently, deciding to spare him the pain. It wasn't a lie, not precisely, but she felt uncomfortable with how easy it was to shade the truth. Stay down here long enough and you'll end up lying like a Faerie.

He nodded disappointedly, but accepted her answer. "I believe in you, girl. I know he dreamed about you the night before all of this even started - he's always been out there waiting for you, even if he didn't know it."

Sera's brow furrowed in confusion. Rayce dreamed about me? How is that even possible?

Her train of thought was cut off as the front door of the book shop pushed open and Cassius slipped through. He was wearing comfortably-worn black leather pants that rose just past his hip bones, but he had apparently still neglected to find a shirt. His feet were bare as well, but Sera's eyes immediately snapped to the twin lengths of what looked like serrated whips coiled on either side of his waist.

Cassius caught her staring at the unfamiliar weapons and he reached down to brush the hilts with hands that were now gloved in a strange combination of leather and something that shimmered faintly in the low light of the store. "Do you admire my torahk-na, beautiful Sera?"

She blinked once, her eyes still tracing the loops of what looked like razor-sharp, supple metal. "They look dangerous," she responded faintly.

He only laughed in response and winked at her, the excitement of the hunt already thrilling through his veins. "Let us hope that they are." He locked the door behind him. "Ready yourself for battle, Lady Shadowhunter."

Zeke did one last check of his weapons and then joined Sera beside the tabletop strewn with books. Cassius stepped close and gathered the two Shadowhunters into his arms before folding his remaining wing around them.

Sera squeezed her eyes shut as the bookshop around them vanished, so she missed seeing the flash of the ley line terminus as they briefly touched down on the platform, allowing the Faerie to take a small step and whisk them into the veins of the world to hurtle toward the Unseelie Court. If they were fortunate, no one would have seen them for the barest instant that they had needed to be there to make the connection.

Under the protection of a Greater Faerie, Sera and Zeke were safe from the burning geas that lay upon the lines, and they emerged moments later into a small, unfamiliar cavern dotted with the cool blue Faerie lights that the Fey seemed to favour. Cassius' arm dropped from around her waist immediately, and then she felt a whoosh of air as his wing whistled past her head when he spun with inhuman speed to whip one of the torahk-na out in a dazzling blur.

The serrated edge slashed across the throat of a dark figure just off the edge of the platform, cutting off any cry for help before Sera could even process the movement. The Unseelie dropped to the stone floor of the cavern in a crumpled heap even as Cassius completed his spin, his left-hand torahk-na taking a second enemy down in identical, brutal fashion in a moment.

Even Zeke hadn't caught up to the sudden assault yet, disoriented from their quick journey from the Rift to the Unseelie Court. He had only just drawn a short sword when Cassius turned back to face them, the bloodied ends of his deadly weapons trailing across the rock.

"Clear," the Faerie breathed quietly. He flicked his wrists in unison and the torahk-na spun back into his waiting hands, where he caught the loops with the strange gloves Sera had seen and hooked the coils back at his sides innocently once more.

Sera watched as if she were trapped in someone else's body while Cassius briefly crouched next to each of the fallen in the faintly-glowing light of the ley line terminus, sweeping his wing down and vanishing for a moment to hide the bodies. She could hear the echo of Zeke's voice in her mind, He's more dangerous than he looks. Part of her felt sick. This isn't battle...

Zeke could see the look in her eyes, and he reached out a comforting hand to grasp her shoulder for a moment. "You knew the cost, girl," he said gently.

Her golden eyes flashed back at him. "That doesn't mean I have to enjoy seeing it."

The older Shadowhunter nodded in silent agreement as Cassius returned to them. The Faerie looked cool and unaffected by the killing. "I do not know precisely how close I can get us to the King before the Court wards stop me, but we will try."

He pulled them close again and they teleported deeper into the realm of the Unseelie, reappearing in a deserted stretch of tunnel. Cassius' brow furrowed in consternation, and Sera felt a shiver of power roll off the Faerie as he tried to take them further, only to be repelled by the ancient magic that protected the Unseelie Court.

"We're close," he whispered, moving forward silently on bare feet to take the lead. Sera followed after him, her Soundless rune working to match his stealth, and Zeke brought up the rear with nothing more than a lifetime of training to pass quietly.

Black stone walls stretched away with low-burning wisps of blue Faerie-light flickering eerily. The air was cold and heavy around Sera as she glided along behind Cassius, and she flexed her hands nervously. Can I really do this?

The trio advanced farther into the Unseelie Court without challenge. Between the disastrous war with the Seelie and the sudden drop in power from the earth's magic, it was clear that many of the Unseelie had chosen to go to ground and wait to see how the tumultuous times would settle.

Cassius stopped just outside a doorway that seemed unremarkable from any of the others they had passed, and he gave the Shadowhunters a significant look. Zeke slipped a pair of iron fetters out from the back of his weapons belt and nodded his readiness. Sera took a deep breath and bobbed her head once. Whatever it takes.

The Faerie flowed through the doorway with a liquid grace that was almost too quick to see, and the twin torahk-na snapped out in deadly arcs that brought them slashing down with surgical precision to carve shallow slashes along the Unseelie King's arms where he was reclining in the broken font of ley magic that he had harnessed for the final blow against Alicante. Zeke surged past Sera in a burst of speed as he launched himself at the King, armoured in his faith that Cassius would be able to disrupt any spell that might be cast in retaliation.

Stunned only for the barest of moments by the stinging pain from the torahk-na, the Unseelie King snarled at the unexpected invasion and tried to bring his magic to bear. But the first syllable had barely hissed from his lips when Zeke slammed into him and Cassius began speaking in a low voice, the language harsh and cutting to Sera's ears. She had no idea what the Faerie was saying, but the stream of words was laced with whisperings of Luchareon, and she didn't doubt for a moment that Cassius was invoking the King's true name to lend additional power to his counterspell.

The King's casting shifted to a shriek as Zeke clapped the cold iron manacles around the Faerie's wrists and pulled them together behind the ancient monarch. The Shadowhunter jammed his knee into the King's back and held on tightly as the Unseelie writhed from the burning in his wrists and the rage at being foiled by Cassius. Magically and physically overpowered by the duo, the King of the Unseelie Court found himself at the mercy of the invaders. He abandoned all attempts at spellcasting and simply shouted for aid. No one appeared in the doorway, and Cassius' lips turned up at the corners into a feral smile.

"This room is warded against eavesdropping - no one will hear you scream."

The King's pure black eyes narrowed dangerously and he locked his gaze on Cassius, beginning a silent contest of wills as he fought for mastery over his opponent. Zeke shook the King, drawing fresh hisses of pain with the iron, but failed to break the Unseelie's concentration.

Cassius swept his hand out, palm up, slashing downward as if cutting an invisible ribbon, and the King's head drooped downward as his final desperate attempt failed. The one-winged Faerie moved in closer and he dared to lift the other's chin with one gloved hand. "Too weak, Luchareon!" Cassius laughed darkly. "You will not best me today. If you wish to save yourself now, you will need to answer to her," he said menacingly, bowing his head to acknowledge Sera.

The young Shadowhunter stepped away from where she had waited in the doorway to avoid presenting another target for the King to attack, and she felt his ancient stare drill into her with the weight of centuries behind it. Dread flared to life in her stomach and began to spread through her like poison until she felt a warmth from Cassius as the Seelie protected and shielded her from whatever power the King could still command.

"Now, Sera. I have him," the Faerie assured her confidently, hands resting easily on the hilts of the torahk-na at his waist while he looked down at the bound King.

Sera was shaking a little as she gathered her courage to approach the King of the Unseelie Court. She had expected him to be more... imposing... but now that he had been temporarily brought low by the combined efforts of Zeke and Cassius, she found herself moving forward as if in a dream.

Thinking of dreams brought back memories of Rayce hanging bound and bleeding in this very room, of Veralysia's crushing sadness after pleading for Gwyn's freedom and being denied. She remembered the smell of smoke and ashes on Seraphine's clothing when the warlock had returned to her condo after braving the fires of Alicante and it gave her the courage to do what she had to do.

She stopped just short of the kneeling King and laid her right hand lightly across his throat, her fingers tightening by just a fraction. She could feel his pulse throbbing just under her index finger, and she was surprised to register that it was racing. He could mask the fear from appearing on his face, but his heart was betraying him. She wondered how long it had been since he had found himself powerless. Centuries? Ever?

"I don't have a lot of time," she said quietly, boldly meeting his black eyes, "but neither will you if you don't give me straight answers."

The King sneered up at her and jerked his head in Cassius' direction. "He does not have the power to compel me to answer any questions of yours, Nephilim whelp."

"He's not the one you need to worry about," Sera answered in a low, hard voice, her conviction finally taking over and banishing her fear.

She lifted her left hand and pushed up the right sleeve of her jacket to bare her forearm right in front of the King's eyes. A Courage rune blazed under her left palm and spread like swirling ink under water to take shape on her exposed skin.

The King's mouth sagged open in disbelief as he saw the Mark flow from her touch without a stele, and his eyes flicked down to where her right hand still rested innoculously on his neck.

Sera crouched down slowly without releasing her grip to bring her face level with his, cocking her head to the left slightly as she asked, "Have you ever seen a Faerie made over into one of the Forsaken?"

The Unseelie King fell absolutely still, and Sera prayed desperately that Cassius had been right about this. Zeke nodded to her encouragingly over their captive's shoulder, still keeping the King firmly braced and in hand.

Time was ticking away, however strangely it ticked in this place, and Sera was wary of the fact that anyone could walk in at any time. Cassius would be able to deal with any surprise visitors, but she would seriously prefer that he kept all of his attention focused on maintaining his hold over the King. She needed to get answers quickly, so she started with the simplest question. "Can you free Rayce from the Hunt?"

The ancient Faerie's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Such a pity, that you would die to ask such a worthless question-" A scream ripped out of the King's throat as an Agony rune burned into his neck under Sera's hand, and he bucked backwards into Zeke as she held her grip. She pulled him back, curling her left hand around the back of his neck.

"Straight answers, remember?" Sera dropped her hand lower to press it over his sternum where his dark robes were folded shut. "Tell me how to free Rayce from the Hunt." The Agony rune was smoking faintly, and the edges of the Mark veined outwards ominously in a dark green network of lines that marred its curving beauty.

The King gritted his teeth against the pain and snarled at her, "You are wasting your time, girl. He's lost to you."

Anger boiled over inside Sera. He's not lost! A red Mourning rune flared sharply across the Faerie's chest and his shrieks rang off the stone ceiling for nearly a minute as he lost himself in the pain. Zeke held on grimly as the King shook and jerked his head back and forth, and the Stripped Shadowhunter was forcibly reminded of the touch of black adamas decades ago.

"Answer me!" Sera screamed at the King with all the frustration that had built up since losing Rayce to the Hunt. Every dead-end, every trail gone cold, every pity-filled look from the people she had encountered along the way finally made her snap inside, and she slammed both of her hands into the King's chest, searing identical Angelic Power runes into his flesh. Her natural strength was augmented by the Marks she had laid before leaving the Rift, and the Faerie was thrown from Zeke's grasp to crash into the far wall just below a map of Alicante.

She dove after him, skidding to her knees in front of his dazed body as he slumped sideways, insensate, against the stone.

"Sera!" Cassius called in warning, but she had already lifted the King's face, cupping it in her palms threateningly, ready to make him hurt the way she was hurting inside.

The Unseelie's eyes rolled back into his head, and his entire body began to convulse uncontrollably. Four powerful runes stood out like ugly brands against his pale white skin. The colour of the Marks was bleeding out, spreading farther along the matrix of sickly lines as his body rejected the runes. Alarmed, Sera pulled her hands away when he fell heavily to the floor and continued to shake violently.

"At Hell's maw and Heaven's gate," the King moaned through the fit, "Gamble all to undo fate."

Sera pushed herself away from the Faerie hurriedly, scrambling backwards to put some distance between them. His now-white eyes were no longer focused in this world, but somewhere much darker. He rolled onto his side, wrists still locked behind him, and fixed his sightless gaze on Sera.

"Trade away one final breath," he gasped, "close bitter eyes and embrace death." Bloody froth bubbled up between his lips and he choked, spattering the dark stone as he coughed once. Sera was horrified by what she had done to him.

"Chain death to life and heart to soul." His back arched and a keening wail escaped his lips as he curled up in agony, eyes clenched shut. The King's voice swelled to a piercing howl as he finished, "Entwined as one to be made whole!"

He collapsed as shock overwhelmed his system and the runes reacted violently with the demonic side of his heritage. His mouth gaped open in silent horror as he began to Turn, the curse of the Forsaken creeping across his features with deadly promise.

Sera felt Zeke's arms under her own and then she was being dragged out of the way. He twisted to the left and pushed her down, averting her eyes away from what was happening to the King, and she didn't have to wait long to find out why.

Cassius whipped out one of the torahk-na toward the Forsaken Faerie Lord to put an end to him. Sera heard, rather than saw, the swift strike that killed the Unseelie King, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief as the Faerie went still. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest until she felt the adrenaline fade away, and then she started shaking in the protection of Zeke's arms. Raziel, what have I done? Tears came unbidden and regret washed through her.

Zeke lifted himself carefully off her and gave her some space to regather her composure, but it just wouldn't come. She sniffed and found herself stupidly wishing for a tissue until she thought about trying to stuff anything else into the too-tight gear. A single laugh escaped her, and after that she couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying.

It was Cassius who knelt down at her side and wrapped his arms around her tenderly, stripping off his gloves to stroke her hair patiently as she laugh-cried it out on his shoulder. All the stress and tension of the previous days poured out of her to make room for the incoming guilt, but the Faerie lifted her chin gently before it could get a good hold on her, as if he could sense her shame.

"Do not take any of the blame for what was done here, lovely Sera," he said soothingly. "Let this death rest on my shoulders; if you must speak of today, let it be said that I was solely responsible for the suffering and ultimate demise of the Unseelie King." His warm, grey eyes were kind when he brushed away a tear as it rolled down her cheek. "This should not be your burden to bear."

She could feel him siphoning away her misery, replacing it with his quiet strength instead, and she clung to him for one more long moment before pulling back and wiping her nose with the back of her hand self-consciously.

"I think I'm going to be okay," she said gratefully, rising to her feet with a helping hand from Zeke.

"Then we must hasten away," Cassius advised, casting a backward glance over his shoulder at the doorway. "We will find no more answers here."

Zeke scooped up the fallen King without a word, the body seemingly smaller in death, and Cassius made the blood on the stone floor vanish as Sera watched. The Faerie had insisted that they try to keep the King's death a mystery for as long as possible, and he had already planned for the disposal of the evidence, promising darkly that it would be a fitting and ironic end to the Unseelie that would leave no trace to be found.

The trio and their grim load slipped away as soundlessly as they had come, Cassius in the lead with his gloves back in place and his hands never far from the handles of the torahk-na. Sera followed with a heart full of misgivings, no matter what the Faerie had said about accepting responsibility for what she had done. The King's strange words echoed in her mind, but she was too distracted to begin to try to make sense of them. A heaviness had lain across the dark verse as the King had struggled against the transformation in his final moments, locked in a trance between states, but Sera allowed a tiny kernel of hope to take root inside her. Faeries can't lie.

Governed by his own sense of the magic of the Unseelie Court, Cassius swerved into a side tunnel suddenly.

"We are beyond the wards, beautiful Sera, and now we must part ways. I will see to Ezekiel's safety, but then I must walk a much more difficult path to finish this. Luchaereon will never be found."

Sera nodded in understanding and shivered. She wanted to trust the mercurial Faerie... but he was just so different. The way he saw the world was so far removed from her own perspective that she couldn't grasp it.

Shrugging regretfully with his arms full, Zeke sighed theatrically. "I'd give you a farewell hug, but... maybe next time?"

"You'll definitely owe me one," she agreed. She was going to miss the unusual pair, but she had a very strong feeling that this wouldn't be the last that she would see of them. Unconsciously, she reached for a flash of future-sight to confirm her hopes, but then remembered that she was still blinded by being within the Faerie realm.

"I will work to unravel Luchareon's final words," Cassius promised solemnly. "I will come to you if I find the meaning in them."

Casting aside her doubts for a moment, Sera threw her arms around the Faerie, the warmth of his bare chest comforting in the darkness of the Unseelie tunnels. "Thank you," she whispered fiercely.

"Go," he urged softly, and she broke away reluctantly.

Sera laid her palm against the black stone wall and called the image of her Las Vegas home to mind, opening a Portal to take her away from the Courts for what she fervently hoped would be the last time.

The cool air of the Faerie passages vanished behind her as the Portal closed, replaced by the Nevada heat, and she inhaled deeply at the familiarity. It felt like coming home at the end of a very long day, and the first thing she did was yank down the zipper of her ill-fitting jacket with a relieved sigh. Made it.

She dropped her crossbow on the bed and unbuckled the brace of mixed throwing knives, stripping away not only her weapons, but the stress of everything that had happened since she had left to find the field of Hellhounds.

Sera pulled a white tank top over her head as she left her bedroom and crossed into the kitchen, intent on finding her phone. She had been away too long, and it was time to find out what had been happening in her absence. After that, she thought, a nice, long, hot shower. She smiled blissfully to herself.

Hitting the shortcut to call Seraphine's cell, she found herself sincerely hoping that Clary and Tessa had taken her advice to call the diminuitive warlock for help with the ritual site.

The ringing cut off and then the Shadowhunter heard a delighted shriek on the other end. "SERA!" Static crackled along the connection, but hearing Seraphine's voice sent a rush of happiness through her. She had missed her friend more than she had realized. "Where... - you been?"

"I don't think you'd believe me if I told you," Sera replied, wondering how much of what she said would get through. "Where are you?"

White noise hissed in her ear for a moment, then, "-ngel Island. ... site is amazing, these girls are-" A buzzing droned in her ear, and Sera held the phone out reflexively for a moment before bringing it back. "...the implications of-... unbelievable!"

Cursing the general incompatibility of technology and magic, she crossed her arms impatiently, drumming her fingers along the white-gold bangle idly. She could still remember Rayce bending it shut to fit her smaller arm after escaping from Alicante, and as always, remembering him shot a pang of emotion through her. I'm coming, Rayce.

"Seraphine, I don't know if you can hear me, but I have to-" the connection dropped completely and Sera glared at the screen of her phone as it informed her that the call had ended. Fine.

Her mind raced ahead, already planning what she would need to make another trip to Wrangel Island. Everything was swirling together in her head as she tried to keep Rayce separate from Seraphine, and she stubbornly shoved the two problems apart.

She cranked the shower on in the bathroom and let the water run. A quick shower, she sighed internally, dreading the icy cold of the island. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and stared, wondering if everything she had been through would show on her face somehow.

A shrill ring from her landline phone sounded over the rush of water from the shower, breaking her concentration. Seraphine! She darted out of the bathroom and prayed that the connection would be better.

As she rounded the corner, she caught the flash of a baton as it swung toward her with sickening force. Pain exploded through her head and she lost consciousness, dropping to the floor helplessly.

Everett Whitelock slowly knelt down next to her and reached out to gently brush a tangle of gold and platinum waves away from her face. His voice was barely a whisper as he breathed shallowly in triumph.

"Welcome home, Sera."