City of Ashes: Jail Break

[strongest_faith]

Alec waits until his parents and the Inquisitor have sequestered themselves in the office and then sneaks into the training room to see Jace. The Inquisitor had whisked Jace away as soon as they'd arrived, and when she'd come back, she'd told them all that the training room was off limits.

When he enters the room, he has to stop and take stock of what he sees. In the middle of the training room, four seraph blades have been embedded in the floor at each of the cardinal directions. Between each of them is a wall of shimmering blue light, making a four-walled cage in the center of the room. He's laying on his back, but when Alec approaches, he sits up.

"Alec?

"It's me." The wall of light ripples between them, and Jace's face wavers as though Alec is seeing him through water. He reaches out to touch the wall. "What in the Angel's name is this stuff?"

"Don't," Jace says, reaching out as well before quickly pulling his hand back. "It'll shock you, maybe kill you if you try to pass through it."

Alec gives a low whistle. "The Inquisitor meant business."

"Of course she did." Jace's tone stings like acid, and Alec flinches from it. "I'm a dangerous criminal. Or hadn't you heard?"

"She didn't call you a criminal exactly…"

"No, I'm just a very naughty boy. I do all sorts of bad things. I kick kittens. I make rude gestures at nuns."

"Don't joke," Alec says, because of course Jace is joking at a time like this. His father has two of the Mortal Instruments, and he's draining blood from Downworlders to change the Instruments' alignment to summon and control demons, and Jace is joking. "What the hell were you thinking, going to see Valentine? I mean, seriously, what was going through your head?"

"I was thinking that he's my father."

Alec has to count backwards from ten to keep from giving in to exasperation. It won't help anything to give Jace a reason to snap at him and shut down. "Jace—"

"What if it was your father? What would you do?"

"My father? My father would never do the things that Valentine—"

"Your father did do those things!" Jace's head snaps up. "He was in the Circle along with my father! Your mother, too! Our parents were all the same. The only difference is that yours got caught and punished, and mine didn't!"

Alec stiffens. "The only difference?" Jace is a brother. The Lightwoods are his family. Robert and Maryse are his parents. After everything Valentine ever did to Jace, how can he say that their family is just the same?

Jace looks down at his hands, saying nothing.

Alec takes a deep breath because losing his patience won't accomplish anything. "I just meant," he says, his voice quiet, "that I don't see how you could want to see him, not after what he's done in general, but after what he did to you."

Jace still says nothing, so Alec goes on. "All those years. He let you think he was dead. Maybe you don't remember what it was like when you were ten years old, but I do." Even then Jace had been impossibly beautiful. Beautiful and broken. Afraid to show any weakness or affection to anything or anyone, stoically mourning a father he believed to be dead. "Nobody who loved you could do—could do anything like that."

Through the wall, Alec sees that Jace's wrists are still bound, a thin trail of blood trickling down his arm. Even now Valentine makes him suffer.

When Jace speaks, it's quiet and earnest, the tone Alec knows means he's being completely sincere, letting his guard down. It's a tone he only ever uses with Alec. "Valentine told me that if I supported him against the Clave, if I did that, he'd make sure no one I cared about was hurt. Not you or Isabelle or Max. Not Clary. Not your parents. He said—"

"No one would be hurt?" Alec says. "You mean he wouldn't hurt them himself. Nice."

"I saw what he can do, Alec." Whatever Luke had said about Jace not knowing the meaning of fear, Alec hears it in his voice. "The kind of demonic force he can summon. If he brings his demon army against the Clave, there will be a war. And people get hurt in wars. They die in wars." He pauses. "If you had the chance to save everyone you loved—"

"But what kind of chance is it? What's Valentine's word even worth?"

"If he swears on the Angel that he'll do something, he'll do it. I know him."

"If you support him against the Clave."

Jace nods.

"He must have been pretty pissed when you said no."

Jace looks up and stares at Alec. "What?"

"I said—"

"I know what you sad. What makes you think I said no?"

"Well, you did. Didn't you?" Whatever's been going on between them, however strained things have been, Alec knows Jace. The other half of his soul.

Jace nods slowly, like he's not sure he wants to admit it.

"I know you," Alec says and stands. "You told the Inquisitor about Valentine's plans, didn't you? And she didn't care?"

"I wouldn't say she didn't care. More like she didn't really believe me. She's got a plan she thinks will take care of Valentine. The only problem is, her plan sucks."

"You can fill me in on that later," Alec says. "First things first: We have to figure out how to get you out of here."

"What?" Jace is so disbelieving that Alec stares at him in astonishment. "I thought you came down right on the side of go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. 'The Law is the Law, Isabelle.' What was all that you were spouting?"

"You can't have thought I meant that. I just wanted the Inquisitor to trust me so she wouldn't be watching me all the time like she's watching Izzy and Max. She knows they're on your side."

"And you? Are you on my side?"

Alec thinks that the question should hurt, but Jace sounds so rough that Alec knows he's really asking. He needs the reassurance. "I'm with you, always. Why do you even have to ask? I may respect the Law, but what the Inquisitor has been doing to you has nothing to do with the Law. I don't know exactly what's going on, but the hatred she has for you is personal. It has nothing to do with the Clave."

"I bait her. I can't help it. Vicious bureaucrats get under my skin."

"It's not that either," Alec says. "It's an old hate. I can feel it." Something in the way she looks at Jace…it goes far beyond the past few weeks.

The cathedral bells begin to ring, and the sound echoes loudly so close to the roof. Jace looks up, thoughtful. "Luke said something about the Inquisitor having a son named Stephen. He said she was trying to get even for him. I asked her about him and she freaked out. I think it might have something to do with why she hates me so much."

Quiet settles into the room as the bells stop ringing. "Maybe. I could ask my parents, but I doubt they'd tell me."

"No, don't ask them. Ask Luke."

"Go all the way to Brooklyn, you mean? Looking sneaking out of here is going to be all but impossible—"

"Use Isabelle's phone. Text Clary. Tell her to ask Luke."

"Okay." He pauses, unsure of how things stand between Jace and Clary. "Do you want me to say anything to her for you? To Clary, I mean, not Isabelle."

Jace's expression flattens. "No. I don't have anything to say to her.

**

When Alec tries to talk to Isabelle, to explain things, to ask to borrow her phone, she won't even let him get two words out. She just screams at him and throws things against the door of her room. Some of them land with thuds and thumps that makes Alec suspect there might be things now embedded on the other side.

He almost uses an Opening rune to just barge in on her, but she threatens to jump out the window if he tries, so eventually, he gives up and makes his way back to Jace with a couple detours.

Jace is lying on the floor again.

"What are you doing?" Alec asks because he might be plotting his next move or contemplating cobwebs.

"I thought I'd lie on the floor and writhe in pain for a while. It relaxes me."

"It does? Oh—you're being sarcastic. That's good probably." He's not obsessing, at least. "If you can sit up, you might want to. I'm going to try to slide something through the wall."

Alec pulls an apple from his pocket and rolls it gently toward Jace with both hands.

"Alec, don't—" Jace starts, but the apple rolls smoothly through the wall and bumps into Jace's knee. "An apple. How appropriate."

"I thought you might be hungry."

"I am," Jace says, biting into the apple. "Did you text Clary?

"No. Isabelle won't let me into her room. She just throws things against the door and screams. She said if I came in she'd jump out the window. She'd do it too."

"Probably."

Alec smiles, amused. "I get the feeling she hasn't forgiven me for betraying you as she sees it."

"Good girl."

"I didn't betray you, idiot."

"It's the thought that counts."

"Good, because I brought you something else, too. I don't know if it'll work, but it's worth a try." He pulls a small, silvery disk from his pocket and slides it through the wall as well.

"What's this?"

"I got it off the desk in the library. I've seen my parents use it before to take off restraints. I think it's an Unlocking rune. It's worth trying—"

Jace awkwardly balances the disk between two fingers and touches it to his cuffs. They flicker and vanish. "Thanks," he says, rubbing his wrists. "It's not a file hidden in a birthday cake, but it'll keep my hands from falling off."

Alec watches him, wondering if he should propose what he's about to. "You know, something occurred to me when I was talking to Isabelle earlier. I told her she couldn't jump out he window—and not to try or she'd get herself killed."

"Sound big-brotherly advice," Jace says with a nod.

"But then I started wondering if it was true in your case—I mean, I've seen you do things that were practically flying. I've seen you fall three stories and land like a cat, jump from the ground to a roof—"

"Hearing my achievements recited is certainly gratifying, but I'm not sure what your point is, Alec."

"My point is that there are four walls to this prison, not five."

Jace stares at him like he's a particularly dim child. "So Hodge wasn't lying when he said we'd actually use geometry in our daily lives. You're right, Alec. There are four walls to this cage. Now if the Inquisitor had gone with two, I might—"

"JACE." Alec's patience runs out."I mean, there's no top to the cage. Nothing between you and the ceiling."

Jace leans back to look up at the vaulted ceiling and it's dark rafters, some thirty feet overhead. "You're crazy."

"Maybe. Maybe I just know what you can do." He shrugs "You could try, at least." Clary can create new runes. Valentine's children are extraordinary.

Jace looks at him for a long moment, and Alec wishes he could get a read on Jace's expression through the rippling blue. Jace glances around the room then bends to pick up his half-eaten apple and throws it at the wall. It dissolves into blue flame when it its, and Alec gasps, jumping to his feet.

"Jace, I don't know—"

"Shut up, Alec. And don't watch me. It's not helping."

Alec wants to protest again, but he's the one who put this thought into Jace's head. He'd known Jace would run with it. Taking a step back, he tries not to watch as Jace prepares himself, but he looks back just in time to see Jace jump.




[ooc: All dialogue comes from City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare.]