Chapter Text
“Two Augusts ago
I told the truth, oh, but you didn't like it”
When Ash Morgenstern had been born, he’d been handed a match and an order to set the world aflame. At 17, he had envisioned its burning enough times that there was a wall of fire constantly raging at the dendrites of his gray matter. Ash was not by any means unaware of the unreality of his dreams, but there were at least two he would see come to fruition if it was the last thing he did, and this was one of them.
But, alas.
Mother Hawthorn made it sound so boring. She was obsessed with the idea of planning and diligence and – who even gave a damn about some descendent of the First Heir? What did awful glory have anything to do with Ash’s urge to turn everything to – well, ashes. He wasn’t an idiot; he knew the First Heir was a direct link to Faerie, including both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and therefore a direct link to him. He just didn’t know why he should care.
Janus cared, though, and when Janus cared about something, Ash was entirely devoted to it. Both his mother and Mother Hawthorn disapproved of the love – borderline worship – Ash had when it came to him, but neither of them split their hearts open for Ash for any reason other than compulsive loyalty. Janus had.
Janus had promised Ash he would serve the world on a silver platter for Ash to do as he saw fit. See? That was love. That was what had Ash wanting to sink his teeth into Janus’ heart until he drew blood, just so the insatiable ache in him that wanted to be satisfied. He would receive the world one day, all he had to do was be a little patient.
And maybe get rid of this First Heir descendant, depending on how much of a problem he caused.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
Kit had been chasing ghosts far longer than most people realized.
The first, of course, had been his mother. Rosemary Herondale was a woman as auspicious as she was alive - which was to say, she had neither a life nor luck, and Kit had labored under the burden of this fact since his birth. She stained the memories of his earliest years with tenor lullabies and gentle touches, a watercolor face stained with dread.
It would take a decade and a half for him to stop searching for her in every individual crevice of his face, in the sharp contours of his cheekbones and the cobalt glare of his irises. Where did you go? a much younger boy would ask the mirror. Why does Papa look so sad?
She would despise what Kit was now
And while Kit could hardly recall the tangible presence of Rosemary, the hole her absence left was undeniable. Which led to Ghost #2: Johnny Rook. Oh, sure, until about three years ago he was flesh and running blood and pulsing veins – perfectly, adequately alive – but that meant nothing when put up against the vacant glaze of his eyes. The window to the soul, or however that bullshit saying went, and something irreparable had happened to Johnny’s. His heart bled red, and Kit had spent so long meticulously gathering every drop of spilled liquid in a vain effort to heal whatever wounds Rosemary’s death had left until he'd realized it would never be enough.
He was –
A secret.
A deadly reminder
A fraudulent son.
But never enough.
Long before Ghost #3 – 4? 9? 27? It was easy to lose track – had inked the eye of a Voyance rune on to Kit’s hand, he'd seen far more than anyone his age had ever even noticed. He'd looked and looked and looked, making note of every minute nuance and shift in expression, a scrupulous analysis of human behavior, a self-studied expert on everything required to make someone tick .
(Sometimes, when it was late at night and Kit’s tired brain was laced with the thin haze of sleepy drunkenness, he wished someone would look at him and see him for every wretched, wondrous thing he was.)
And still, through all of that unrelenting, laborious effort, molding himself to every whim and fancy Johnny could possibly have had, he hadn't been loved. There it was again, the painful pitfall of being Kit Herondale – one of many, for that matter. He was glanced at and ignored and kept in a concrete cage of four walls where the dilapidated basement served as his only place of solace, and even that felt less like protection and more like torture. All he'd ever wanted was for Johnny Rook to want him, and all he'd ever gotten was the wasted remnant of a man who'd let go of his grasp on love.
So, yeah, Kit had experience chasing ghosts. He had experience chasing ideals and the fake personas people emulated when they tried to be something they weren't.
What he did not understand, however, was how this had led to him running after the ghost of Jessamine Lovelace in a rather abandoned London Institute.
“Bloody fucking Hell,” he swore, sprinting up the stairwell. His feet pounded against the linoleum tiles, echoing throughout the almost empty building, as he tried not to lose track of the white frill of Jessamine’s dress. It wasn't bloody fair. Being dead meant things like cardio and its horrid, debilitating effects were insignificant to Jessamine. Kit truly wished to be dead at that moment.
At last, Jessamine ducked into a spacious, sweeping room with a wooden arched door. Of course it was the fucking library. Everyone who had ever stepped one foot into the London Institute seemed to be gravitated towards this bastard sanctuary for books. To be clear, Kit did not hate the library. In fact, Tessa loved it, and Jem loved it, so that meant, by extension, he loved it. He just really hated how often a woman who had been dead for over a century kept bossing him around in there.
“When I was growing up here,” she started, raising a critical brow at his doubled-over form, “no one got out of breath so easily.”
“Yeah?” Kit shot back, holding back the urge to wheeze. “When you were growing up here, people would regularly take a shit in the Thames and misogyny was everyone's favorite pastime.” When that judgmental eyebrow of hers arched even further, he added, “Plus, you're only jealous because this is the only way guys will still chase after you.”
She exhaled an exasperated breath of air, which Kit found rather uncalled for because he was hilarious and they both ought to know it, but he let it drop. He knew, just as well as she did, that Jessamine was lonely.
The only other people who could call their situation with the London Institute permanent were Evelyn Highsmith and Bridget, both of whom belonged in a psych ward – though, if Jem asked, Kit hadn't said that – and showed little regard for the resident ghost. There were about a couple dozen Shadowhunters that came and went, and with them brought the latest gossip Jessamine would then relay to him, but otherwise this grand, empyrean establishment was a markedly desolate reminder of what once was.
Jessamine was, perhaps, the epitome of once was, drawn up in colors of pearl gray and incandescent white, the lace of her funeral gown and the dainty cupid’s bow of her lips doing nothing to diminish the deadly flint of her russet gaze. Tessa told him that when she was still alive, Jessamine had used a parasol lined with electrum as her primary weapon, and Kit found it to be very fitting that she’d once owned a murder umbrella.
Despite the obvious steel lacing her spine, however, decades of isolation took their toll on a person. Highsmith could say all she wanted about being able to hold a conversation with a spirit, and Jem could offer his well wishes and flash a benevolent smile in Jessamine’s general direction whenever he visited the London Institute, but no one other than Kit could even hear her.
Jem and Tessa were technically the heads of the London Institute, a position bestowed upon them by one Consul Alec Lightwood who had became far too vexed with Highsmith to leave her in charge, considering pigeons who had been hit by a semi-truck were more courageous than she was.
It was by all means a temporary situation, a way for Kit’s parents to pay homage to the place that had raised them until someone better could take their place. But someone better had never come along – or maybe the couple was too protective of the London Institute to let it go – so a year had become two, and Kit was now well acquainted with England’s capital. He was also well acquainted with Jessamine, considering Jem and Tessa were parents of a toddler and thus did all their legal work from Devon, leaving Kit to make the bimonthly trip for status reports and district evaluations.
Each time, he made sure to pay Jessamine a visit as well. But that would only happen twice a month, sometimes three if he had the time.
So, yeah, she was lonely. Fuck, Kit got lonely looking at her. The sight of her lithe silhouette against the gargantuan backdrop of the London Institute picked at a wound he’d let scab over years ago, and if he put a bit more pressure against it, the cut reopened and he was 15, standing to the side as the Blackthorns huddled together after whatever cataclysmic event had plagued them last, golden threads of raw love binding them together. He was 15 and wondering why he wasn’t allowed to have that.
“You’re overworking yourself again,” Jessamine pointed out crossly, preventing Kit from falling down that particular rabbithole, the one that led to memories of knives to throats and delicate butterfly hands. She crossed her arms and gave him a once-over, and Kit figured he’d scored an almost acceptable on her scale of deficient hoodlum to Raziel reincarnate. “You know what your parents would say if they knew.”
“Aha.” Kit stretched his face into a charming grin that, sadly, Jessamine was immune to. “Lucky for us, you can’t tell them and I certainly won’t.” Jessamine gave him another look, one that indicated she knew overworking couldn't begin to encapsulate the sheer depth of his exhaustion and the number of torn tendons he’d attained these past few months.
You’re sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong, one vendor at a Shadow Market had warned him, when he'd lingered near her stall for too long. Reptilian skin crept along her arms and a forked tongue framed her words when she'd hissed, A regular secretkeeper, aren’t you?
“Kit,” said Jessamine now, with the same edge the warlock had spoken to him with then cutting through her voice. “I don’t approve of this.”
He ignored how he could see his wilting frame reflected in her pupils and tried one last-ditch effort to smile. “This is a social call,” he reminded her. “Don’t turn it into a lecture.”
“It’s hard not to, considering what a mess you are.”
When Kit stuck his tongue out at her, Jessamine’s eyes rolled with fond exasperation. She reached her arm out and ran an incorporeal hand through his mess of blond hair, the slight chill of her ghostly touch overrun by the warm rush being cared for always gave him. “Fine, then.” Her easy acquiescence was unexpected and Kit could feel his day brightening until she continued: “How’s your research, then?”
She said research like it was poisonous, wielding her words like a weapon.
“Alright,” he replied, a British twang lining his answer. He wouldn’t tell her about the Faerie restaurant he’d – occupied – two months back or how he’d run into –
(No, he wouldn’t go there.)
– same way he wouldn’t tell her about his rendezvous with Mother Hawthorn and the faint burn of magic that buzzed beneath his skin. For all her prickliness, Jessamine loved him, and Kit was still getting used to that feeling; if hiding information and twisting his words was what he had to do to keep it burrowed beneath his heart, so be it. And if, sometimes, the force with which he wanted to scream everything I know is killing me, and it could kill you, too, one day if I'm not careful left his throat scraped raw, then Kit would just have to get used to the taste of blood.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
When Ty Blackthorn had been born, the world had looked away.
Not out of revulsion or displeasure, but simply because there were better things to fixate one’s gaze on. After all, just five minutes earlier, Livvy Blackthorn had entered the world – and next to her, Ty dimmed in comparison. Sometimes, he wondered if everyone had been able to tell from the get-go that something about Ty was not quite right. That something about him was different and off and – other. Sometimes, he wondered if Livvy was so full – of love, of joy, of easy excitability, of life life life – because Ty was so empty.
Ty stood on one side of a border line; Livvy, his twin, his incandescent other half, thrived on the other.
Then Livvy had died, and she was the one who was far away, who looked at humanity with fogged vision and a dismal touch, too detached to do anything but haunt him.
Ghosts were funny like that: You could close the casket and bury them beneath mounds of dirt, but the shovel you used to do so would never leave your hands.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
It was easy to get lost in London.
It was easy to get lost in Devon, too, of course, but not in the same way – Devon was ancient, built on top of moors and banked with rivers to the North and South. You could trace its origins back to the Stone Age, and despite being a massive tourist trap, the townspeople were the type with old, English blood running through their veins and hooded eyes that stared too long at anyone who didn’t belong. When you took the wrong road in Devon, you found someone’s sheep and asked it for directions. Or you got the balls to ask the owner of the sheep, but Kit had never been that desperate.
When you took the wrong road in London, however, you were somewhere else entirely. Never mind the tube was a maze of crisscrossing tracks, delayed trains, and workers on strike – even walking was a bloody nightmare in London. The city didn’t have the good grace to build itself on a grid back when it was too busy colonizing half the world, and you never knew when you would run into a ghost.
Unfortunately for Kit, he was a regular London boy now. Yeah, him. The boy who had spent the first fifteen years of his life in another bloody country that was halfway across the fucking globe. If Kit was feeling sentimental, he would even call London a second – third? fourth? – home. It was horrible, and Dru never let him hear the end of it.
Shit, Hazel didn’t even let him hear the end of it, so it was a wonder she was managing to exhaust an entirely different topic now, eyebrows drawn together in a mannerism far too emphatic for a hole-in-the-wall cafe at 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.
“ – they’re immortal, Kit,” she was saying. “Jellyfish! Immortal!” Hazel made a wide gesture with her hands, arms sweeping in the universal motion for can you believe it? and fervently shook the marine biology pamphlet she was holding at his face. “Scientists want to use their regenerative capacity to help people live longer. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Oh, Raziel forbid.” At her indignant scowl, Kit screwed his nose up at her and added, “Natural selection is already doing a piss-poor job as it is. If the Chads’ and the Bethanys’ in my A-levels are around any longer, I may just jump into the Thames.”
She glowered at him. “A Nephilim from Los Angeles drowning in an English river? And a Herondale no less? I would pay to see it.”
“With what money?”
“My part of the inheritance. From your will, of course.”
“I’m putting you in my will?”
“If you know what’s good for you, then yes.”
Kit opened his mouth to retort and was cut off by the buzz of his phone. Carefully hiding his wince, he slid the device out from his pocket and suppressed the urge to chuck his phone across the room as he read the text Dru’d sent him. The suspecting look in Hazel’s eyes suggested he hadn't been as good at looking natural as he'd hoped.
“How was your Ouija board, ghost-summoning ritual?” she asked him, wisely side-stepping the flashing lights that probably shone above his head, screaming Emotionally Vulnerable: Do Not Ask.
“Perfectly enriching, complete with the souls of the damned,” Kit informed her. “We made a deal over whether to sell your heart for £1 or £2.”
“You say that like you didn’t fall for it. Multiple times, in fact.”
“Fall is a big word,” protested Kit. “I stumbled a tad. Tripped over my feet and hit my head hard enough to think I fancied you.”
“I do believe that’s the definition of falling,” Hazel said mildly, shooting him a victorious grin and taking a large sip from the tea in her hands.
It was a complicated, funny thing, being friends with your ex. Kit had been 15 the first time he’d looked at Hazel and thought he could find something like love in the warm timbre of her voice. He’d been 15, freshly English born-again, and clung to the first lips that offered him some sort of comfort, burying his face in her mass of curls when his cheeks flushed from the shame that came with his feeble heart screaming this isn’t love. Not the kind you want it to be.
It had been about two months of dating before he’d broken it off the first time. He’d told Dru the reason was how awkward it was not to know whether or not the person he was regularly snogging was half-lupin. Kit told a lot of people a lot of things, though, so it really shouldn’t be surprising a good percentage of them were lies. The real reason lent itself more towards –
(blackhairgrayseyesiloveyoutyiloveyoubutnotifyoudothis)
– Kit wasn’t thinking about that.
It was easy to be enamored by Hazel, though – she was pretty, sweet, wickedly funny, and the type of intelligent that came from an ache to know – and Kit had been properly enamored. When they had gotten back together, it had felt inevitable. She excited him, and Kit couldn’t help but be infatuated by the buzz having someone gave him. Then they had broken up – again – and gotten back together – again – and then finally they had stayed together, and Kit had almost thought it was something permanent until he’d been stopped in his tracks by a stern, but well-meaning, Tessa.
She had stared deeply at him, Mina propped on her left hip, and said, “I will not have you be some Laurie Laurence character and lead this girl on. If you like her, then I'll fully support you, but I know what a Herondale in love looks like, and this is hardly it.”
And Kit had wanted to scream because –
– he was more than just a Herondale, wasn't he? –
– he was in love, wasn't he? –
– because if he wasn't, if he was wrong, that meant he was still that stupid boy who had cried on the shores of Lake Lyn –
– but,shit, 6,000 miles away from LA and he was still exactly where he'd started –
– he wasn't, though, right? rightrightright r i g h t? –
But all Kit had said was, “I saw that movie. He’s a real ass.”
Tessa had given him a pointed look, bitten down a smile, and replied, “He was executed far better in the book – but I'm not doing this with you right now.” She'd softened and added, “Just think about it. Alright, Kit? I don't think you're happy with this back-and-forth thing the two of you have going on, and you deserve to be happy.”
She'd said it like it was a fact. The Earth revolved around the Sun, Harry Styles was one sexy man, and Kit deserved to be happy. It was impossible to be angry at Tessa after that, to fall into typical teenage angst and claim she didn't know anything, when she treated Kit like he was someone worth caring about.
His relationship with Hazel left much to be desired, he knew that. For example, an emotional commitment on Kit’s part. It wasn’t like he was unhappy, though, and he thought he did a fairly good job of making sure she wasn’t, either. The two of them got along, and she was wonderful, probably far better than anything he could deserve. She was passionate, trusted him, and made good on her word. She was also, distinctly, not a fool.
“You’re checked out,” Hazel had told him, one blustery evening, a few calendar marks after his initial talk with Tessa.
“Checked out?” Kit had asked, tugging his denim jacket close enough the woolen collar tickled his ears. It had been late March, his first spring in Devon, and winter had yet to let go of its grasp on the climate.
“Checked out,” she confirmed. “I think we should break up. For real, this time.”
“Break up?” echoed Kit. Gray clouds hung low, casting the ground in dark shadow. They reminded Kit of Ty’s eyes.
“You’re checked out,” Hazel had repeated, as if that were an explanation. And – it probably was. No, it definitely was. “Is there someone else?’
Kit choked. “What.” Ty’s eyes stared back accusingly at him, nestled in the neurons of his brain, painted in the sky above.
“Is there?”
“I – I’m not cheating on you,” he’d insisted, sputtering.
“You don’t have to cheat on me to want someone else,” Hazel had pointed out, not even sounding mad about it. “Just be honest.”
“It – it’s complicated,” he’d settled on.
And that was that. It wasn’t like he could avoid Hazel. They were classmates, and lab partners, and damn good friends all things considered. He hadn’t wanted to, either. So they had stayed friends, all throughout the nearly three years Kit had lived in England, and by now Kit knew a good deal about her: Hazel was, in fact, a werewolf, she wanted to major in marine biology in uni, she had no siblings, and she was a bisexual disaster like he was.
In return, Kit had dabbled in a practice Jem claimed would help him, called trusting other people. He told her he had been raised in the Los Angeles Shadow Market for the first 15 years of his life, sans a few months, and he’d spent the majority of that time either by himself or under the strict eye of his father. He told her Jace Herondale was both his cousin and a terrifying role model to live up to, and that he could speak to ghosts, hence his sporadic visits to Jessamine’s.
Hazel had been particularly interested in the latter point, filled with curious intrigue about spirits and haunted houses and how the dead roamed. She’d asked him question after question about how the deceased would choose where to cling in their ghostly form, what they did, how much of them was left. At the time, he’d answered aloud and scoffed inwardly.
What a naïve assumption it was, to think only the dead became ghosts. After all, here he was - over three years later - haunted by a pair of gray eyes and hair like spilled ink.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
Dru Blackthorn was fairly confident in life. At 15, she had gouged out a place in the world for herself and surpassed the boundaries of what was expected of her with intense pleasure. She wasn’t a fundamental genius like Ty, or exceptionally brave like Julian, but she thrived in the practical setting of the Shadowhunter Academy and had a best friend she adored.
The only problem, at the moment, was that Kit “Stupid” Carstairs-Gray had left her text on read, emotionally constipated bastard that he was. It was a fairly simple text: Ty’s going to London.
Even with the considerable time difference between them, he should’ve answered in a few due hours. But, no, it was nearly a full day after she had sent him what Dru thought was a very considerate . . . warning? Piece of good news? She would die before she understood the nuances of what was Ty Blackthorn and Kit Herondale.
You see, the story went like this. Almost three years ago, an angry, forlorn mess of a twink had found his way to the Los Angeles Institute where he had almost immediately integrated himself with the resident Blackthorn Twins. For almost a month, they were a trio, until the murder of Dru’s older sister. Dru knew Livvy wasn’t technically gone – she was a ghost, the product of a failed necromantical ceremony – very bad, very illegal – as carried out by her brother and Kit, as admitted to her by a – ruined Ty. A Ty that had sunk back into himself and blocked the rest of the world out, yet let her in on his secret.
What Dru didn’t know was how this correlated to Kit fleeing the fucking states and ending up in England without so much as a goodbye, but because she was a good, reasonable friend, she had let both him and Ty skirt around the topic. However, seeing as Ty was a Centurion – and a rather brilliant one, at that – the chance of them being able to skirt around each other, especially with the recent surge of demon activity and Cohort sightings, was negligible to none.
So, yeah, she was doing Kit a – solid? Was that the word? – by telling him his someone was gonna be in the same city as him for whatever investigation the Scholomance had Ty doing now. If only Dru knew why exactly it was such a big deal.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
“You went home”
In a cheerful sunlit corner of Devon, a mansion loomed over the surrounding forest and moor. The mansion was called Cirenworth, and home to a brilliant family of four. Two were warlocks, although their 200-year age difference was rather considerable, one was a proud husband, father, and distinguished gentleman, and the last was Kit.
Kit liked to think he added some much-needed flair to the otherwise quaint and peaceful Carstairs-Gray household.
“Guten Morgen!” he cheered, kicking the front door open to his mom wrangling a screaming Mina. “Oh.”
Tessa shot him a glare that landed somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “It is neither morning nor particularly good around here,” she informed him, fastening her attention downward to a pantless, rather angry toddler. The terrible twos didn’t end on a child’s third birthday, Kit had learned, and they had all been sent reeling by the realization.
“Min-Min,” Kit said easily, holding his arms out to his baby sister. “Are you giving Mommy a hard time?”
“Kish!" the object of his worst nightmares squealed, sliding out of Tessa’s grasp and flinging herself at his legs. He stumbled back a half-step before slinging low and scooping Mina into his arms. "Kish! Look what I drew!"
She proudly held up a crayon sketch of what was presumably their family – Kit was fairly certain the yellow blob with a blue triangle was meant to represent him and Church the demon cat respectively. On the top right-hand corner, she'd determinedly written M-I-N-A with the A flipped upside-down, a true talent, if Kit had ever seen one.
“Wow,” Kit said, rightly impressed. “Did you draw that yourself?”
“No!” she squealed excitedly. Mina was at that phase in her life where yes meant yes, no also meant yes, and the only one allowed to say no with the intended negative was herself, a privilege she abused with great frequency.
“You sure about that, little bite?” he asked her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“No!” agreed Mina, tolerating his affection for a few moments before bumping his forehead with hers, hard.
“I give up,” Tessa said, sounding fond. “You get her to wear pants, I’ll tell Jem you’re free from training this evening.”
“Easy enough,” Kit said. “Where is Jem, anyway?” He brought a hand up to pinch Mina’s cheek, who promptly bit him.
“Meeting with Brother Enoch. He should be back soon.”
“Brother Enoch?” Kit shifted his gaze to match hers. They were gray. He could’ve sworn there was a time such a monochrome shade didn’t possess every breathing molecule of his lungs, but that was resolutely Before. He had gotten better, he thought. He had moved on, and found a home for himself where love wasn’t a delicacy. But then two fucking months ago had happened, Dru had texted him, and in that same phone Ty Blackthorn’s contact existed, a mocking inscription of ten numbers and a caller ID. Two fucking months ago, he’d had Ty’s lips so close to his that Ty’s exhale had become Kit’s inhale.
Two fucking months ago, everything had reached a precipice and nearly fallen apart, disregarding all the unresolved shit that already existed between the two of them.
“I’m sure Jem will tell you when he gets back,” Tessa assured him. “Now, pants? My child? Preferably she wears them.”
“Got you,” Kit said, holding Mina out. She was getting bigger, big enough that Kit had to secure her with both hands. There had been a time all her fingers could curl comfortably around his thumb. Kit remembered when she had been born, a scrunched-up newborn with a cap of black hair and – Jem insisted – Tessa’s chin. Just half an hour later, she had opened her eyes and stared up at him through upside-down crescent moons, the toffee brown of her iris boring into his.
She had curled herself on his shoulder, baby breath fanning against his cheek, and Kit had thought he had never held anything precious that he didn’t eventually break. Kit hadn't been born with the ability to be gentle, or the capacity to love in any way that wasn’t uncomplicated, but for Mina he had learned.
Kit was certain there were worse ways the pair of them could have turned out.
“You ready to put some trousers on, Min-Min?” he asked his baby sister.
“No!” She pumped both her fists into the air, as if punctuating an expletive.
The text saved on his phone, tucked away as if it were something shameful, could wait a little longer it seemed.