a struck link // christopher lightwood {3}

interlude // opportunity

She curled by the fireplace to nurse her wounds. She had done her work, she hoped.

She remembered when she was new-formed, many years ago, stumbling unsteady on feet so different from those she had walked on before. Her new sisters had taught her to craft vivid illusions from scraps of fog or a little rain or the oils on her skin: complex magic so solid and yet so ephemeral you forgot to drop it at the end of the day.

They would not look for her now. They would look for someone taller. Someone fairer haired. They would leave her in peace to take advantage of the deaths already at play, to mask her own tracks.

She remembered the first taste of blood in her mouth. Faerie. Like hibiscus flowers. Mundane was sweeter. Shadowhunters sweeter than that. She knew one who lived here that would be sweeter yet, the one who had drawn her to London in the first place, hoping for even the smallest taste, but she had followed once, and she had sensed something watching over, like the sign of the cross on a cardinal's raiment: this one is untouchable. It was a sign that smelled of petrichor and river water and the grave-dirt scent of death.

In those moments she had realized she had come for a feast and instead found a threat: a threat she would need to dispatch if she hoped to stay in the city. A threat she could not kill. She had made one more attempt to keep things tied up another way and failed. Better then to have them looking for a faceless face that did not exist. She hadn't the faintest clue why she hadn't thought of it earlier.

She had known from the outset that she was going into a battle with someone who was going to walk out of it alive. That was intentional. She didn't want it to seem like she was pulling her punches.

In broad daylight, she had not expected the blade. But she knew how to throw up a good shield and she'd been prepared to roll with it.

What she hadn't been prepared for was that blade betraying its owner. She had seen the look of dismay on Cordelia's face and she had felt, for a moment, a brief flash of sympathy. She could only imagine she would feel the same if one of her charms or illusions failed.

She shook the feeling roughly away. Her kind did not feel sympathy for anyone but their own. They were hunters and that was all they were.