Chapter 11 : TRUTH IN FRACTIONS
My quarters felt smaller with Jace pacing like a caged animal and Izzy perched on the edge of my desk, arms crossed.
"Start talking," Jace said. "No deflections. No 'I'm fine.' The truth."
The truth would destroy everything. I'm not Alec. I'm someone who died in another world and woke up in your brother's body. I know how your story ends because I watched it on television.
That truth was impossible.
But pieces of it might not be.
"I've been experimenting," I said slowly, choosing each word like stepping stones across a swamp. "With runes. Pushing them past their designed limits."
Jace stopped pacing. "You're stress-testing your marks?"
"More than that." I held out my forearm, where the Voyance rune sat dark and ordinary. "I discovered I can... perceive them differently. See their structure. The way they're woven together."
"That's not a Shadowhunter ability." Izzy's voice was careful. "That's—"
"Heresy. I know." I met her eyes, then Jace's. "The Clave would strip my marks if they found out. Execute me, maybe, depending on who was doing the judging."
The admission hung in the air like smoke.
"Show me," Jace said finally.
I focused on the Voyance rune. Let my eyes unfocus the way I'd practiced, reaching for the lattice-vision that came easier now than it had two weeks ago.
The mark shimmered. Threads of golden light emerged from the ink, weaving through my flesh in patterns that shouldn't be visible to anyone.
Jace inhaled sharply. Through the bond, I felt his shock. His awe. His fear.
"You can see that?" Izzy leaned forward, squinting at my arm. "I don't see anything."
"Because you're not doing it." I let the vision fade. "I don't know why I can. It started... around the time of the sparring accident. The one that disturbed the bond."
Jace's hand found his parabatai rune again. "That's why everything feels different. You're not just changing — you're evolving."
"Yes."
"And the bond with Izzy?"
"I think..." I chose my words carefully. "I think whatever's happening to me is expanding the parabatai framework. Creating secondary connections. Lesser bonds that don't require the ritual."
Silence stretched between us.
This was the dangerous moment. The point where Jace could choose loyalty or law. Stand with his parabatai or report him to the Clave.
"Why didn't you tell me?" His voice was quiet now. Hurt instead of angry.
"Because I didn't understand it myself. I still don't." True, as far as it went. "And because I was afraid you'd look at me exactly the way you're looking at me now."
Jace's expression flickered. The bond between us pulsed with complicated emotions — betrayal fading into reluctant understanding, fear tempering into something that might have been determination.
"We're parabatai," he said finally. "One soul in two bodies. If you're changing..." He stepped forward, clasped my forearm in the warrior's grip. "Then I need to be part of it. Whatever experiments you're doing, whatever evolution you're going through — we do it together."
Relief hit me harder than I expected. The bone-deep terror of losing this connection — this family I'd stolen — loosened its grip.
"Jace—"
"I mean it." His grip tightened. "No more secrets. At least, no more secrets from me. Whatever's happening to your abilities, whatever you're becoming — I want in."
I thought of the demon consumption he didn't know about. The marginalia research he didn't know about. The turned spy he didn't know about.
No more secrets was impossible.
But fewer secrets might be manageable.
"Okay," I said. "Together."
Izzy cleared her throat. "And me? I felt that... connection... too. Whatever secondary bond thing you mentioned."
The new link pulsed between us, thin but real. Through it, I caught flickers of her emotions — confusion, fascination, the particular Lightwood stubbornness that refused to be left out.
"You're part of this now," I admitted. "Whether we meant for it to happen or not."
She smiled, sharp and bright. "Good. I hate being left out of family projects."
Jace made a sound that might have been a laugh in better circumstances. "Family projects that could get us all killed if the Clave finds out."
"Please. Since when has that stopped us?"
The tension in the room shifted. Not gone, but transformed — from confrontation to conspiracy. We were in this together now, bound by secrets that went beyond angelic ritual.
Jace released my arm. "So what's next? More rune experiments?"
"Actually..." I thought about the timeline, the countdown ticking in the back of my mind. "There's something else I want to look into. Pandemonium."
"The club?" Izzy's eyes lit up. "Please tell me you're finally willing to actually go inside instead of just complaining about demon activity."
"I want to scout it. There's been increased activity in that sector, and I have a feeling things are going to escalate soon."
Jace raised an eyebrow. "A feeling?"
A certainty. Because I watched this story play out on a screen.
"Call it instinct."
The bond between us hummed — Jace's skepticism, Izzy's eagerness, the new strange connection that linked all three of us in ways the Clave would call blasphemy.
One week until Clary Fray's birthday.
One week until everything changed.
I stared at my parabatai rune — pulsing with Jace's emotions, colored by Izzy's presence — and wondered what else would change before this was over.
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