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EPILOGUE:

❝ The Ascent Beckons ❞

Esme sat debating with Simon over if naming the band Pumpkin Squash was a good idea or not. Simon thought it was, she did not. "No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

She kicked him in the shin. "No, it's not."

He looked more offended than hurt and said ceremoniously, "Ow."

They were sitting in Eric's van that idled at the curb of the hospital's main exit, waiting for Clary to come out. And perked up as she did. Jocelyn was still in her self-induced coma, resting soundlessly in the hospital - but for once the days dragged instead of tumbling. The sky arced overhead, the perfect blue of a china bowl, darkening to sapphire over the Hudson River, where the sun was going down. 

Simon leaned over to pop the door for her, and she scrambled up into the seat beside him. "Thanks."

"Where to? Back home?" he asked, pulling the van out into the traffic on First.

Clary sighed. "I don't even know where that is anymore."

Simon glanced at her sideways. "Feeling sorry for yourself, Fray?" His tone was mocking, but gentle. 

If she looked past him, she could still see the dark stains on the backseat where Esme now sat and where Alec had lain, bleeding, across Isabelle's lap. "Yes. No. I don't know." She sighed again, tugging on a wayward curl of copper hair. "Everything's changed. Everything's different. I wish sometimes it could all go back to the way it was before."

"I don't," said Simon, to her surprise. "Where are we going again? Tell uptown or downtown at least."

"To the Institute," said Clary. "Sorry," she added, as he executed a terrifically illegal U-turn. The van, turning on two wheels, screeched in protest. "I should have told you that before."

Esme, rubbing her forehead like she'd just smacked it, said, "Ya think?"

"Huh," said Simon. "You haven't been back yet, right? Not since - "

"No, not since," said Clary. "Jace called me and told me Alec and Isabelle were okay."

"Apparently," Esme added, her tone conversational, "their parents are racing back from Idris, now that someone finally actually told them what's going on. They'll be here in a couple of days."

"Is this from the Nico channel on the radio?" Simon teased, catching her eyes in the rearview mirror. She thought about hitting the back of his head, then restrained because he was driving.

Mumbling, she said, "Maybe." Maybe, maybe, she had pushed him to purchase a fairly good cell phone. And maybe they had been talking almost every night. The first, the night after Renwick's, when she'd gotten home, she'd sat staring at the stars out her bedroom window and had smiled.

It suits you.

Although Esme was perfectly aware of her abilities, she had never really used them. She'd never really had the chance. When she blinked back into reality, she heard Clary say, "Since I found out what? That he's a killer transvestite who molests cats?"

Esme recoiled, "Who does what?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Simon said, not sorry at all. "Did we interrupt your daydream?" She cut him and edged glare before he turned to Clary. "No wonder that cat of his hates everyone."

"Oh, shut up, Simon," Clary said crossly. "I know what you mean, and no, it wasn't weird. Nothing ever happened between us anyway."

"Nothing?" echoed Simon, disbelief plain in his tone.

"Nothing," Clary repeated firmly, glancing out the window so that they wouldn't the tears staining her cheeks. First, it had been impossible to believe, that Clary and Jace were siblings. Then the idea was forced down everyone's throats - a hard pill to swallow. They were passing a row of restaurants, and Esme could see Taki's, brightly lit in the gathering twilight.

They turned the corner just as the sun disappeared behind the rose window of the Institute, flooding the street below with seashell light that only they could see. Simon pulled up in front of the door and killed the engine, jittering the keys in his hand. "Do you want me to go up with you?"

Clary hesitated. "No. I should do this on my own." She saw the look of disappointment flicker across his face, but it vanished quickly. Simon, Esme thought, had grown up a lot in these past two weeks, just as she and Clary had. 

"All right," he said. "Are you going to need a ride later?"

She shook her head. "Luke gave me money for a cab. Want to come over tomorrow, though?" she added, glancing over at Esme. "We could watch some Trigun, pop some corn. I could use some couch time."

Esme said, "Sure."

Simon nodded. "That sounds good." He leaned forward then and brushed a kiss along Clary's cheek. Esme looked away momentarily before looking back. 

"Do you think that it was a coincidence?" Clary asked.

"Do we think what was a coincidence?"

"That we wound up in Pandemonium the same night that Jace and the others just happened to be there, pursuing a demon? The night before Valentine came for my mother?"

Esme shook her head. "I don't believe in coincidences," she said.

Clary gave her a look. It screamed familiality. "Neither do I."

"But I have to admit," Simon added, "coincidence or not, it turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence."

"The Fortuitous Occurrences," said Clary. "Now there's a band name for you."

"It's better than most of the ones we've come up with," Simon admitted.

"You bet." She jumped down out of the van, slamming the door behind her. Simon honked as she ran up the path to the door between the slabs of overgrown grass, and waved without turning around.

Esme slid the back door open. Simon said, "Where are you going?" She leaned back in, a look on her face. "Ah, to see your boyfriend, I see."

She grumbled, "For the fiftieth time, Simon, he's not my boyfriend!"

He shrugged. "Whatever you say." But he was smiling genuinely. She leaned forwards and pressed a chaste yet sloppy kiss to his cheek, causing him to grimace. She grinned and he caught it in the rearview mirror before she exited.

She heard the engine of the van start and heard it leave as she climbed up the steps. She stared down at them almost hauntingly - she'd crawled these steps not too many days ago, tired and bloody. The wound still rested across the back of her shoulder, just below where it curved.

The interior of the cathedral was cool and dark and smelled of rain and damp paper. Her footsteps echoed loudly on the stone floor, and she thought of her mother. She'd been less quiet, these days. A little more . . . involved. That day, she'd gone home and told her mother that she loved her. That she loved her with everything and she had thanked her for trying and being so strong. Told her that she knew that even if it was hard for her, she loved Esme enough. Her mother had cried. Then she had cried. Then she had curled beside her mother in bed as she stroked her hair and sung her to sleep. The Van Dyne women had only known love as teeth in a wound.

In the elevator, she stole a look at herself in the mirror as the door clanged shut behind her. Her champagne blonde hair was tied up in a knot on her head. She coincidently was wearing the grey sweater - his grey sweater - and black jeans. She rarely ever donned darker colors because they washed her out and made her look even paler but today, she really hadn't cared. She looked like she had put on the first things she saw when she had rolled out of bed - which she had.

She heard the loud meows before the elevator door even opened. "Hey, Church," she said, kneeling down by the wriggling gray ball on the floor. "Where is everyone? Where's Nico?" Church, who clearly wanted his stomach rubbed, muttered ominously. With a sigh, she gave in. "Lucky bastard," she said. Church yowled and flopped, then slid from under her hand and led her down the long corridor. "You wanna watch Star Wars?" she asked him.

Church answered with an inquisitive meow. Esme shrugged dutifully, "I guess." Church coughed. "Or don't." He'd stopped because they'd arrived at their destination and Esme looked forward in the kitchen where Nico was teaching Isabelle.

"Well, I do do that!" she protested indignantly.

"No, you don't," he told her. "You don't put raw fish in soup, Isabelle. You don't put raw fish in anything."

"Except sometimes in sushi," Esme announced her arrival. Isabelle indicated towards her with a flail of her arms as if gesturing to her brother: see! Nico glared. He dropped the ladle back in the pot and came around the counter. She raised her eyebrows and muttered, "You sure you wanna leave her alone with food? Might as well give everyone a pill for upset stomachs in advance."

He glanced over his shoulder as Isabelle looking at the soup experimentally and said, "Nah." The end of his mouths turned up. "Nobody's going to eat that anyway." As they stepped out of the kitchen, he said, "Hey, it might not have any hallucinogenic effects, you might even experience some euphoria."

Esme said, "Nothing I have ever ate or drank here has ever made me experience anything close to euphoria."

They retreated to Nico's room where Esme had forgotten her laptop three days ago and never had the chance to retrieve it. Nico was protesting against watching Star Wars and Esme was trying to convince him that it would be good. "It's a wholesome workplace entertainment with mild violence and occasional beheading or limb-severing," she reasoned. "It's like, almost the story of your life."

He grumbled something like, "It's so not." But flopped down beside her regardless as she hit play. "Who's that?"

"Luke Skywalker."

"Skywalker?

"Um-hm."

"That sounds like a Shadowhunter name."

"It does not!"

And then slowly, the movie was long forgotten. As Luke and Han traversed across the space to save their Princess, Esme asked, "Where's Alec?"

Nico shrugged. "Who knows, maybe tending to his broken leg."

"Hey," she said, mildly scolding his bluntness.

"I still can't believe Hodge left, just like that," he digressed. "I would have thought he'd have stayed to say goodbye."

Esme smiled nervously. This was what she meant with secrets. She kept it a secret that she could see these half-angels from her mother, she kept a secret that Luke was a werewolf from her bandmates, she kept it a secret that Hodge had not just left from the Lightwoods. Clary had told her, told her everything because she had to tell someone everything before she sobbed in her arms. And Esme had eaten it all - all these secrets warm in her chest - no, her stomach, always expanding as more were added. All Jace had told the Lightwoods that Hodge had gotten the curse taken off him and had left. He hadn't told them that Hodge had betrayed them, Esme was not sure how she felt about that. Then again, if Jace was trying to spare Nico confusion and disappointment, maybe she shouldn't interfere.

"Well, hey, maybe you'll see him someday and you can ask why," she suggested awkwardly.

He cocked his head to the side as if he were imagining how it would go. "Well, I know how much he missed Idris, so . . . . "

Esme's eyebrows knitted. "... Idris? Isn't that a mountain in Wales, whatsit? - Cadair Idris."

"It's the Shadowhunter home country - you won't find it on mundane maps, it's between Germany and France."

"But there's nothing between Germany and Frace, except, oh, maybe Switzerland."

He smiled, it was a true and amiable smile, but it stretched lazily across his face like a cat. "Exactly," he said.

She made an offended face and threw a pillow at him. She didn't hear him laugh, but she saw it, vibrating through his rib cage and into her arm as he shoved her away. Her knotted hair came spilling in a waterfall down her shoulder. Her stomach hurt as she doubled over in laughter seeing the child-like grin on his face. Quietly she noted and corrected in her mind, his eyes were not black. Up close, close that she could feel the warmth from his smile, she saw the setting sun rays from the window lighten his brown eyes considerably. His pupils were dilated from joy, fighting against the light shining in his eyes that was trying to shrink them. He didn't let it.

He didn't let his eyes close. The setting sun behind Esme lit her up in a warm glow, casting orange-pink shadows over her skin. The color of her champagne blonde hair had darkened, and her blue eyes were the color of bottle glass. But nothing was brighter than her smile, her blindingly brilliant smile, and he kept his eyes open so that he could see it all.