A young boy stands alone on a creaking ship. Newly orphaned and drawing a coat tightly around his thin shoulders, he braces himself against the wind as the poison seems to burn through his veins. The sun hits his face for the first time in weeks, body aching from being pushed to death's doorstep and yanked back only to be pushed again in a painful cycle. He clings to the weathered strap of his father's violin case and to his mother's language and gods with equal desperation, listening to the babble of English he has only recently learned floating in the air around him.

He winces as the bitter chill of the wind off the sea settles into his bones. The Silent Brothers, gentle monsters wanting only to be scholars and practitioners of old magic, had tried to heal him. When they could not heal him, they experimented to see why nothing worked. Only eleven years old, and already familiar with two rounds of torture. They had told him he could die now, or poison himself to stay alive for perhaps three more years.

At eleven years old, Ke Jian Ming choses to live.

He leaves the bustling city of Shanghai behind him, wind whipping through hair already bleaching silver from the effects of the demonic poison as he heads for London alone. He leaves his childhood self behind, a young boy his mother called Ke Jian Ming instead of James, his English name, a boy with a bright smile and nimble fingers plucking out equally bright melodies as he learned to play the violin. Music and laughter filling his home, a peaceful life with his parents, learning how to protect the world from demons.

This happy child seems to stand at the docks, cheerfully waving goodbye to the tired boy leaning against the side of the ship for support with the melancholy of a much older man in his eyes.

Ke Jian Ming remains in Shanghai, a ghost humming happily in the shell of a deserted and broken home. James carries Ke Jian's violin to London and leaves his first ghost behind.

Time passes. A young boy, thinner than the last, stands in a training room with two other boys, a grown woman supervising their practice spar fondly.

They call him Jem here, a strange English nickname for James, and they function like a proper family. He is twelve now, bones still aching while the demon's poison sings through his veins and in a box on his bedside table. His Mandarin is limited now to his thoughts and the occasional phrase, London in all its English-speaking glory surrounding them. His hair is largely silver now, streaks of his mother's dark hair still stubbornly holding on.

His best friend, Will, one of the other children here, had persuaded him into an oath binding the fabric of their souls, and his smile is less shaky now. Infinitely patient and kind, Jem accepts the last two years of his life as a gift and trains with Will and the other occupants of this strange Institute as best he can. He is kind to Charlotte and Henry who had taken him in, playful with Will and Thomas, and even on vaguely friendly terms with Jessamine (who wants nothing to do with him).

His name brings gentleness and goodness to light, frequently a calm presence even in the midst of chaos. Charlotte seems to mourn him already, pressing a kiss to his head when she thinks he doesn't know what she's up to.

At twelve years old, Jem Carstairs accepts that he is going to die.
He is existing in a fragile state of happiness, reveling in the company of other Shadowhunters instead of the terrible loneliness of the boat. Quick with a retort and gifted with the bow of a violin, Jem slips into English life as though it were a second skin and stubbornly ignores the poison standing over his shoulder.

Jem exists in almost every room of the Institute and in the hearts of almost everyone he knows as a kind and steady presence. He will leave this version of himself behind, to comfort them in their grieving even after he lives three years beyond their predictions.

James hides behind Jem's smile, existing in one heart, for only his William calls him James.

Long years pass, and the year of his predicted death comes and goes quietly. He is seventeen. In the quiet space of a closed room, Jem becomes James. James, with the silver hair and eyes of a ghost, as pale and distant as the moon. James with the frame that is far too thin for a boy his age and lungs that betray him when he tries to live unburdened for too long. He is deathly ill inside this room, and Will sits beside his bed, keeping a watchful eye on the rise and fall of his chest and the fever flush across the delicate bones of his face. He is only James to Will. Visibly sick and getting worse by the day, James is worried about the people he will leave behind and worried about what awaits him on the other side. He is wry and steadfast and kind, underneath his veneer of optimism, and lying ill in his room or alone with Will, he is James Carstairs down to the core of his soul, free of all the ghosts of himself he has had to leave behind.

He is James when Will is beckoning him forward into a dark London night, and when Will bursts through a doorway with a wild glint in his eyes. He is James when it matters, when they are together and alone.

He is James when Will clings to him, terrified of letting him go for fear that he will slip away like smoke.

At seventeen years old, James Carstairs fights to live and runs from Death.

A story that begins in tragedy rarely ends well, and his life is no different. Loss is a constant shadow behind him and Illness trails not far behind. His death, the one thing he had accepted on his own terms, was taken from his control and he was sent back to the Silent City, back to the cold and the aching loneliness he thought he had left behind. His suffering was rewarded with empty eternities and stone walls and a false name.

They call him Zachariah here, and it never feels right.

Yet he remembers his ghosts, the names and lives he'd left behind. He remains steady and true, connected to his mother and his faith and his William.

Ke Jian was orphaned. Jem was scarred. James was constantly in pain. Zachariah is a grieving outcast.

Yet he was kind, always, and remains kind in the cold stone sanctuary he left a life behind in. He is a steady flame, unflickering and always willing to guide a weary traveler home. Ghosts followed his footsteps while he walked along the road of his life, doomed to tragedy with a smile and one hand on the neck of his violin, the other clasped in Will's.

A/N: This is a slightly edited version of a paper I turned in to my English teacher this week when we were doing character studies lol so I hope you enjoyed a look at the different names our boy has used throughout his life.