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CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

❝ Mea Culpa ❞

The double doors were open, and through them, she could see Alec's still figure, motionless on one of the white beds. Outside, Clary had stopped by Jace who leaned against the wall. Giving them their privacy, she soundlessly slipped inside the infirmary. 

Hodge was bent over Alec; Isabelle, beside the older man, held a silver tray in her hands. Nico knelt on the opposite side, clutching his brother's hand with his own bloody knuckled ones in a delicate yet deathly grip. He'd abandoned his jacket and his wound looked alive.

Somber, she drifted and perched herself on one of the beds beside. Hodge straightened. His neat suit was stained with patches of rust. He nodded to Isabelle who kept the silver tray in her hands down and screwed her face in pain, anguish. Esme realized she was trying not to cry. Nico was up on his feet lunging for his leaving tutor with his lips parted, no doubt something vile ready to roll off his tongue but Isabelle stopped him, pushing him back. Hodge exited, leaving to tell Jace.

Alec was sedated. Though not in pain, this was something Hodge couldn't heal. He had to contact the Silent Brothers.

"He's going to die," Nico said not lightly and Isabelle, even Esme, flinched. Isabelle gave her brother a murderous look before settling down at the feet of Alec's bed and taking his other hand in hers.

Esme knew she shouldn't have, yet she said, "You're bleeding." They seemed to just now realize she was in the room. Isabelle gave her a surprised glance but it was quickly eclipsed by sorrow. When Nico turned to look at her, he was unable to look away. The front of her periwinkle blue shirt was stained with blood - Alec's - and her damp bedraggled hair stuck to her skin, wounding around curves and valleys like a snake. With her nervous blue eyes, she gestured to his right upper arm where he could still feel the sting of the claws of Abbadon. Fortunately, he wasn't poisoned. Unfortunately, the gash ran pretty deep.

Isabelle sniffled and stood. "Draw an iratze," she told her conscious brother, then looked at her unconscious one. "I'm going to get some water for him." She left.

Nico fetched his stele and looked at it unsettlingly. He examined the instrument as if he were asking it a question: Am I worthy of a healing rune if I let my brother die?

Esme said, "Do you need help?" She knew he was right-hand, or assumed at least.

"No," he said with conviction, decidedly not looking at her. She sat and watched as he struggled to twist and draw the Mark on his skin. His hand kept wobbling or he kept touching the wound and hissing when it stung. She swung her legs back and forth, staring. He made an annoyed grumble and held out the stele for Esme without looking at her. She rolled her eyes.

Standing up, she took the stele from his hand. Putting her hands on her shoulder, she pushed him down to sit at the foot of Alec's bed. Her eyes ran over the open flesh with aversion but she swallowed the bile that rose up. Her hand ached around where she held the stele. She put it against his skin. Nothing happened, of course, mundanes couldn't use a stele. He put his hand over hers, bringing the stele and her skin to life. She felt something alive touching her, she could almost feel his pulse against her skin. She studied the iratze that Hodge had drawn on Alec's skin and tried to copy the movements - the bending lines and crossing patterns - as Nico's angel blood kept the stele pulsing in her hand, leaving a dark trail under where it touched. The stele danced over his skin, housed in both their hands and she gave a soundless gasp as the wound began to close. As it was completed, she thought she heard him sigh.

She stood, still looking at where his wound had been, now barely a scar to mark its existence. This time, he really sighed. It was a terrible kind of sigh, a sigh filled with insurmountable pain. Despite herself, she reached and put her fingers under his chin, tilting his head up. He looked as confused and surprised at this action as she felt. Her eyebrows raised in an unspoken question. Although at first, he said nothing, just glanced down at her palm - other movements of his head were restricted by her holding his face up. Then finally, "I know - I knew - Alec wasn't acting like himself. I knew something was wrong. I knew." 

Something tightened in the hollow of her chest like a noose. She saw it in his eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible helplessness that clawed inside him. "Nico," the word honeyed in her mouth, all the sharp edges filed down. She let her hand fall from under his chin. Now he was looking at her because he wanted to, and he wanted to. Timidly she reached and pushed his oil spill of hair - hanging down his forehead, almost hiding his eyes - back with a delicate brush of her hands. His eyes closed, lashes shining. 

He wanted to scream, he wanted his brother to wake up and mess his hair. He wanted his brother to wake up. "I only learned how to fight," he told her like it was a secret. She was fed up with secrets, but she'd gladly forget the secrets of all others just so she could make room for his. "But what I wanted," he looked at his sleeping brother, "what I wanted was to learn how to heal. Repair, mend, aid, cure - heal."

"You only wanted to care," she said simply. He nodded. She handed him the stele. His hand brushed hers as he took it, and he felt her thrumming veins light on fire. "I take great care of myself by shutting myself away. It's not good, but it keeps me sane."

He looked at her. Though he had looked at her before, this time there was something different in his eyes. She touched the cut over his eyebrows - it had healed but was still wet with blood. When she pulled her thumb back, it was stained red. "I was rude," he said, "I'm sorry." And he was not just apologizing for sending her home, but also for wounding her with his knife the first time he'd seen her. "You saved us."

"No, I didn't." She said nicely, shaking her head. "Simon did. The knife I threw made no difference." And she pulled away, pulled back and he saw her again weaving a mask over her face, and stood up before she could finish doing so.

"It saved Jace from the poison," Nico said, "it made enough difference."

The half-sewn-on mask crumbled. Her almond eyes were shining. She thought of her mother trying for her sake. It made enough difference. Her heart ached. Do I have to forgive in order to love? Or do I have to love for forgiveness to even be possible? "Here," she said.

He looked down. In her hands rested the dagger he thought he'd lost. When he had searched the weapons bag earlier, before going in, he had not found it. He found it now, his sapphire birthstone pulsing under her thumb like a disembodied heart.

"You keep it," he said, taking in the way her fingers curled and uncurled around the hilt. The way it was the perfect size in her palm. The blue stone winked at him as if there was a secret it held inside it now, as if being held by her made it come alive. "It suits you." She blinked, surprised and the ends of her lips twisted in that secret smile. She looked down and stared at it - at the pattern of leaping fire inscribed in the medal. "It's the Lightwood dagger, passed down," he said, noticing where her gaze was fixed. "Every family has an emblem. Ours is fire."

She said, "It suits you." And smiled.

"Nico!" It was Isabelle, coming barrelling in the infirmary, looking frantic and scared. Nico looked up and immediately put his hands out, stopping her from crashing into him. He put them on her shoulder and asked patiently.

"What happened?"

"He's gone," she said, her eyes shining. "He's gone!"

The aisle of the library was evidence that the tragedy had happened. Dozens of paper lay on the floor as if a strong gust of wind had blown them over. Nail scratches were clawed on the floor and a pool of blood, not yet dried, marked a footprint. Esme's heart jumped to her throat as the realization came. Jace was gone. And so was Clary. And Hodge was nowhere in sight. They returned back to the infirmary, worrying - well, Esme and Isabelle were. Nico was trying to maintain his calm, older brother façade that looked like it may break any moment. When they entered back in the infirmary and found Alec, still sleeping soundly, he exhaled a sigh.

"What are we going to do?" Isabelle asked, desperation seeping from her bones into her voice. "We don't even know where they are? Where they went? What if they're hurt - or worse - what if - "

"Izzy," Nico said, surprisingly sternly. He turned to face his sister and said, "They're okay. They're not hurt." But it sounded more like a plea rather than an assurance. He brushed her nose with the back of his index finger as light as a feather and Isabelle closed her eyes.

Esme frowned. But her eyebrows raised a thought hit her. She was reaching for her phone before she could think. It rang once, and Simon answered instantly. "Hello?"

"Did Clary call you?" Hearing her voice the Lightwoods turned and looked at her.

"Yeah. I'm so confused. Did something happen? Is there something wrong? Is it Alec?"

"No," she said, not wanting to lie and say Alec was fine when he wasn't. "It's not Alec." She turned and caught the siblings' eyes. An exhale, then, "Look, jus - What did she say, Clary, when she called you?"

"She was asking about this place - Renwick's."

"Okay," she said slowly, tasting the word, "where is it?"

"Roosevelt Island. But that's the thing, it isn't really a place. It was a hospital in the 1800s but it's abandoned now." He sighed in annoyance and she could hear his mother's tabby yowling in irritation with him. "Can you tell me now what happened?"

"Well," she sighed through her nose feeling a little pressured under the flaming Lightwood gazes but continued on nonetheless. "Jace, Clary, and Hodge are missing. Though, if she called you then she probably followed them alone like the dumbass she is. Don't go after her." She hung up, not waiting to hear his protests or questions. As her hand fell down from her ear, phone still cradled, her eyes asked the question: What now?

Nico didn't seem to know. He was overwhelmed. He needed to call the Silent Brothers for his brother. He needed to call the Clave for his friends. But all of that seemed to escape him now, only white panic gripped him.

Isabelle wiped under her eyes. "I know what to do." She whipped out her phone like it was a weapon and jammed the numbers in. Putting it to her ear, she said a moment later, "Hello? Magnus?"