seveninches | Dated January 10, 2017

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Dated January 10, 2017

It had seemed like a good enough way to kick off the new year. The flying monkey bat things at Kagura on New Years Eve had been fun, had given Isabelle cause to get her whip out again, but it wasn't quite the same. It was a relatively easy fight, nothing like the kind of high she gets when fighting demons. Which is why it hadn't taken long for her to ask Alec to go out, and he had readily agreed. Isabelle knows she can always count on Alec to be behind her in a fight, and she knows that on some level, even he gets restless in this city.

The night starts off normally enough. They both armed themselves, dressed in their gear and headed out. Demons were starting to appear less frequently in Darrow but they still cropped up on the odd occasion, and Isabelle was glad that tonight appears to be one of them. Her necklace hummed at her throat and together they followed it to the edge of the city, their footsteps silent on the street.

The demon, once they found it, was particularly horrible. Every time she sees a new one Isabelle thinks they can't possibly get any grosser, but they always seem to find a way to surpass her expectations. It looked like a giant slug, its body covered in rows upon rows of suckers that Isabelle had no intention of finding out the purpose of. It was faceless, or eyeless at the least, but on both ends was a gaping mouth with rimmed with what looked like shark's teeth. Its back was lined with sharp, dagger-looking wings, more of them than Isabelle could count. Isabelle cast a quick glance towards Alec, but he was stony-faced, an arrow already nocked.

The demon lunged at them quickly, and Isabelle was surprised with the speed at which it moved, considering its lumbering size. She dodged and it missed her narrowly enough that she felt its breath hot and disgusting, saw yellow drool dripping from its mouth. Isabelle flung her whip out but Alec was faster, embedding an arrow in the demon's mouth. It reared back and Alec shot again at the same time as Isabelle brought her whip down, feeling it cut through layers of demon flesh. Demon ichor sprayed out and Isabelle almost gagged at the smell. She'd need a hardcore rune to get the smell and stains out of her gear later, but for now that hardly mattered.

"Alec, move!" she shouted as the demon went for him, obviously in pain but not about to give up yet. Alec backed up a little, arrow after arrow flying from his bow and thudding into the demon's flesh, but it kept moving. Gritting her teeth, Isabelle raced forward and brought her whip down in a flash with all her strength. The demon sliced in half, shuddering and twitching and hissing in pain. Isabelle grimaced and glanced toward Alec to make sure it hadn't touched him. She was only distracted for half a second but the demon writhed and gave one last lunge, sinking sharp teeth into her leg. Isabelle screamed, bringing her whip down hard and forcing it to release her, but she could feel herself collapsing at the same time. She fell back, dimly hearing Alec shout her name but she was already drifting, her breathing coming in sharp bursts, her eyes slipping closed.

And she remembered. There had been a time almost exactly like this, she knew. Not in Darrow but home, in Hell, of all places. She remembers the stink of the air, how hard it was to breathe under the suffocating weight of it. She remembers Alec, heartbroken and so determined to find Magnus. She remembers the desperation in Clary's eyes, the fierceness in Jace's. She remembers them all marching in to Hell to save their friends, knowing that there was a good chance none of them would come back.

Isabelle convulses on the ground and she knows Alec is there, calling to her, but she's stuck, watching flashes of thoughts and memories that she doesn't remember having racing through her mind. She remembers Sebastian, his disguise gone and his hair as silver as Valentine's, his eyes cruel. And she remembers Max, remembers the way he looked at her the last time she saw him, remembers going to his funeral and feeling like a part of her soul had been torn out. She might die here, she thinks idly, but that seems suddenly to matter far less in the shadow of the knowledge that Max died first, that it was her who was supposed to protect him and she failed.

Slowly she comes to, fuelled back to consciousness by the pain in her leg. It doesn't make any sense but she knows that the memories are real, knows that it's the piece of the puzzle she's been missing this whole time, the piece that Magnus had so carefully kept hidden from them.

ooc: Isabelle has been canon updated to near the end of the TMI series: this comes with the knowledge that her baby brother died, among other things. Trace if you want to play from here I'm down with it, otherwise anyone can feel free to come upon the scene or find her at any time later, where she'll more than likely have locked herself in her room. I'm open to whatever is convenient for your pups, though. Twitter me if any questions <3

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"Oh, Magnus, don't strain yourself on my account, you great, grand warlock who shouldn't trouble himself with Shadowhunters, especially ones that won't pay him? I know, I know." The bravado that he had set aside, at least among his close friends, for the past year and a half came back easily, protecting him, and maybe Isabelle, from the implication in her words. He played as if he didn't understand her meaning, which in part he didn't. Didn't she want to be healed? Or did she not want him to touch her?

"But I myself want to keep you around Isabelle, for my own personal enjoyment. There's no altruism here, just pure selfishness. So lay back and let me work." His brow twitched now, as he spoke, as he narrowed in on the nature of the poison in her veins, how far it had spread, how quickly. Keeping one hand, pulsing with magic, over her wound, he rummaged around in his bag loudly. After a few moments, he located a long phial filled with a clear liquid, tiny flecks of something gold floating through it.

"Can you drink this?" She was prone and might need help sitting up, but he wanted to keep his magic in place fighting the poison.

"I'm not paying you," she says, and she means it to come out a little mocking but her voice just sounds distant even to her, through a haze. There's no pain in her leg but Isabelle knows enough to know that's not necessarily a good sign. Still, Magnus's words protect her like a shield, putting up a block of sarcasm between her and the grief that's threatening to break her down. It's exactly what she needs, and Magnus has always been good at that.

He says he's selfish, and Isabelle remembers with sudden clarity that he came to Darrow from a different point in time, much further in their future. Whatever she's just experienced, Magnus already knows it all, has known it for over a year. She does lay back and let him work, but there's a sharp sting of betrayal at the knowledge that he's kept everything from her, whether for her and Alec's protection or his own.

He hands her some potion and Isabelle nods. Magnus apparently has a habit of breaching her trust lately but she still trusts that he isn't trying to kill her. She shifts herself into a more upright position, wincing a little, and takes the phial off him to drink it.

He merely tsked at her insistence that she wouldn't pay, taking it as a positive sign that she was responding at all, whether jokingly or seriously. So much depended sometimes upon the will and strength of the patient, even more so than the strength of Magnus' own magic; not that he would ever admit to such a thing. Isabelle was strong, stronger than most anyone, but Magnus was still troubled by what Alec had said about her and her memories.

As Isabelle drank the potion, Magnus licked his lips and dug in more with his magic. The glowing liquid in the phial would help numb some pain, as well as fortify her against the poison, but this required a bit of hands on work, too. He wove his magic through her, searching out every trace of the demon's poison and pulling it from her body. It was a stubborn, insistent poison, so while the task itself was straightforward, there was a light sheen of sweat on his brow before Magnus thought he had done enough to warrant stopping.

"How do you feel?"

Isabelle grimaces as he digs in deeper. She swears she can feel the poison being pulled out of her and it's maybe not as painful as being bitten in the first place had been, but it's not pleasant. Still, she's endured worse, so she grits her teeth and lets him work. Whatever he gave her to drink is numbing a good amount of it anyway, and when she looks at him she thinks it might even be affecting Magnus, more.

And then he asks her how she feels. She knows what he means, knows he wants to know whether the poison is gone, whether she'll recover the rest of the way on her own. She thinks she'll be fine, in truth. She'll slap another iratze on to do the rest of the job and she knows she'll be back on her feet quickly enough. Magnus's magic is more powerful than just about anything else she knows, and he's done a good job. He always does.

But he can't fix what's really wrong, how she feels. She has no intention of going to pieces in front of him but she also knows that they've gone through enough together that he'll know when she's lying. If he knows what's happened it's a stupid question besides, so Isabelle lifts her chin and figures she'll give him a stupid answer.

"Fine," she replies, her voice stiff. She's exhausted and in shock and she could blame it all o that, on what's happened, but the more conscious she becomes, the more she recognises the anger burning low in her stomach.

He was a coward. Magnus had run out here without thinking, intent solely on keeping Isabelle alive, and that made him stupid, too. He hadn't considered how this conversation would go now that Isabelle lay, physically, whole. He hadn't thought on how to proceed, how to even broach the subject of the lie -- the omissions in truth -- that he had committed since Isabelle first arrived in the city.

He had his defense ready and waiting, but how strong of a defense it would be against her ire, he did not know. A braver man might have tested it, might have led with that and dared Isabelle to pick it apart. But he was, frankly, terrified of her ire, her disappointment.

"I'm sorry," he said in a hushed tone. For the dozens of pains of the memories she had just absorbed. For keeping the secret from her. For Max. For all of it.

If she'd felt the first stirrings of anger before, it swells now like a flame through her chest, burning her inside out. It wouldn't be as bad, she thinks, if it were almost anyone else. But Magnus has always walked a thin line between caring about Shadowhunters and wanting nothing to do with them. He might be sorry, but she doesn't know if he means he's sorry it happened or sorry she found out, sorry she knows now that he's lied to her all this time. She remembers waking up in this city, listening to him telling her that they won the war and being so relieved. He could have told her then. He should have told her then.

"Are you?" she shoots back, struggling to push herself up more. She doesn't want to have this argument while she's so clearly at a disadvantage, where she's stuck lying here with her leg under his control. She doesn't think he'd be that petty, but then, she thought she knew a lot of things about Magnus. "You knew the whole time," she says, her voice torn between anguish and anger. There's so much he's always known, so many things being forced on her at once. Max is at the heart of everything, the thing clouding everything else with pain, but there's more, too, like the way he walked away from Alec, leaving him miserable.

Isabelle remembers Alec trudging through Hell, desperate to find Magnus but with no idea how he would be received, and she wants to punch him. She wants to hit him for Max, for Alec, for herself, but she resists. He's still practically her family and she wants so badly for him to have a good excuse, but she has a feeling there isn't going to be one.

Head ducking at the accusation, Magnus busied himself with the last details of healing her wound, knitting the skin together and easing the torn muscle back into working order. She wouldn't thank him for it, but that wasn't the point. He needed to figure out what to say.

Five seconds passed and he considered figuring out the right words to say as a lost cause. His magic faded with a snap, but he found he still couldn't look her in the eye. He knelt in the grass beside her, flexing his fingers, staring at the faint shimmer of the distant streetlights on his rings.

"Alec didn't want to know," he said. "He gets angry every time I slip up and let some small detail of his life back there slip. How was I supposed to tell you something like that and protect him from it?"

He finishes with her leg and she immediately draws it back towards her. It's silly, really, but it's instinct to gather herself, try and pull herself back together. He's not going to hurt her, that would be ridiculous, but she wants to stand on her own two feet if they're going to do this. Metaphorically, at least.

He kneels beside her and she watches his hands, watches the rings shine in the light and tries to swallow down the burn inside her. It won't do either of them any good if she lashes out, but Isabelle doesn't know what else to do. She's forgiven him before but she doesn't know if she can this time, not with Max as collateral. It's almost worse that he looks so upset about it.

She hadn't known that Alec was refusing to hear about home. It makes sense, she guesses. There's no way she can keep this from Alec, no way she ever would have been able to. It doesn't soften the anger, she just wishes she had a better argument beyond her hurt. "You just should have," she retorts, knowing it's weak. She doesn't have an answer for him, doesn't have a way around that predicament, but she doesn't want to let him off that easy, either. "For a year we've thought everyone was okay, and everything is a mess back there, Magnus."

Well, he hadn't thought his excuse was that good of one. Alec hadn't been made at him for keeping the secret, but Isabelle had every right to be. She hadn't asked to be kept in the dark. He should have been more proactive, asked her what she wanted to know. But what would have been the point, really?

He made fists of his hands, something like a low anger, maybe only frustration, helplessness, brewing in the back of his mind. "And what good would it have done?" he challenged. His voice snapped, not with anger but with sadness.

He fought himself to meet her eyes. "There's nothing you can do about it, Isabelle. What good does knowing do you? We're stuck here and there's nothing anyone could have done to save Max then. We tried. Why would I want to tell you something that would do nothing but cause pain to two people I love?"

She doesn't know what good it would have done but that's not what she wants to hear right now. She couldn't help Max back home and she can't help him here and that's what's pulling her apart. It's always been her job to help him. Always. She's supposed to be there for him, keeping him safe, and instead she's here where she can't even mourn him properly.

"I could have tried harder to get home," she argues. She's let herself become accustomed to Darrow, let herself fall into the trap of a life here. She can't remember the last time she tried to find a way out, and maybe if she had she could have gotten home and changed things. Darrow has made her soft, made her lose her edge, and she hates it for that suddenly in a way she never did before.

"I was supposed to save him then, too," she says, staring at the ground. Alec had left her with Max to protect him, and she let him die.

It should have been me. Alec's words echoed in Magnus' head with complete clarity, as he had only heard them not a few minutes ago, in what had been the relative comfort and quiet of their apartment, before this little gift of Darrow's had destroyed that. Magnus heard an echo of that sentiment in Isabelle's voice now. She was not as immediately self-sacrificing as Alec, which was a good thing, but the guilt... They both had lived their young, short lives with such enormous guilt and shame on their shoulders. This was not their fault, but the guilt would fit so easily on their shoulders that it would be comfortable and difficult to dislodge.

"Isabelle, you tried," Magnus insisted. "There was nothing you could do. You were trying to protect him when this happened." His frown deepened, touching on anguish. "It's not your fault, Isabelle. This is all because of Sebastian, and Valentine. And we beat them, didn't we?" Magnus didn't remember that far; all he knew was the despair of Hell, the distant, dwindling hope that somewhere, Alec and the others were coming for them. But Tessa had said that all was well, and Tessa wouldn't lie to him.

"You couldn't save your brother, but you avenged him."

He sounds uncertain, almost. Isabelle doesn't know exactly how much Magnus remembers, but the way he says it makes her wonder if he's asking her rather than telling her. And she doesn't know. She remembers being in Hell, remembers the demon attacking her there, the same as here. She might have died back there without Magnus to help, for all she knows.

"I don't know," she says, searching his face for any indication that he does. "We were in Hell."

That sentence is ridiculous enough, but Isabelle has learned that her life is entirely ridiculous. Every time it seems the stakes can't be raised any higher they do. She's almost glad she doesn't remember any further; it's exhausting remembering even this much.

His mouth tightened into a thin line and his gaze dropped. One of his rings was suddenly very interesting to him; he fiddled with it, turning it around and around.

"That's where I came from," he admitted. He had said as much to Luke when he had first arrived in Darrow, the shock and surprise and confusion too great for him to keep his mouth shut, but Luke hadn't known. He hadn't understood. Isabelle remembered now, the ash and the heat and the deadness of the world, the dread that seemed to pervade the very atmosphere.

"But Tessa said that we won and Tessa wouldn't lie," he continued. "She seemed perfectly happy. And she's a Herondale. She wouldn't have been alright if anything had happened to any of us. Valentine and Sebastian have to be dead. There's no other possibility." He hadn't seen it with his own two eyes, which was a disappointment, and he didn't trust either of them to stay fucking dead, but he trusted Tessa too much to question it.

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Dated January 10, 2017

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