METANOIA ... a.lightwood (REWRITE)

chapter one; pouring rain

RAIN, quick falling and thunderous as it hits the pavement, splashes up against the window on the ground floor, loud and overbearing. The warlock asleep in the bed barely stirs. He burrows deeper under the bedcovers he has pulled up to his chin, an extra blanket thrown on top as the storm grew more thunderous during the night and his sister's temperature-controlling magic fell asleep alongside her.

Christopher Loss can sleep through anything, albeit he often does not wish to.

While he smiles away the nightmares that plague him, they come back no matter how hard he tries. He can never get away from his father. From the both of them, the human who raised him for eight years and the Greater Demon who took over when misfortune struck. He tosses and turns in his sleep and yet his mind will never wake him from the darkness.

This is why he drinks – too much, his mother would say – and does drugs – which are terrible for him, according to his little sister – and sleeps with anyone who bats their eyelashes prettily at him. He lets them talk about their problems and then he forgets his own in the touch of their skin.

It is how he has dealt with it for years.

He had just gotten rid of a pretty Nymph with hair the colour of autumn leaves, cut short around her ears, and a shimmering pattern of acorns twining around her eyes. She had been enough to make him forget, at least for a moment. When she had left, sneaking out the window and into the rain, he was alone. And alone is when the memories strike. No matter how loudly his adopted mother snores, it is not enough to keep him from feeling so utterly, entirely alone.

All he has are the memories, and it is hard to find the good ones.

The rain becomes a tremendous cacophony of noise as it continues to fall, heavy as a sheet. Chris burrows further under his covers, whimpering, an old memory he had stowed away slowly unsheathing itself to the forefront of his mind.

And then the scream comes.

He shoots up, heart matching the roaring thunder outside. His head turns, trying to peer through the darkness of his room to find the source. To see blood. To see another person. But he is alone, in the dark, and all he can hear is rain. It must have been his dream. A mixing of memories he could not stretch apart. He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the sweat gathering on the back of his neck.

His sweat chills his skin.

He had not expected it to be warm. Not with the storm happening outside and the heating being broken – their stupid landlord has been meaning to send someone for the past three weeks – but this is colder than he imagined. Every hair on his body stands on edge. His skin prickles with goosebumps. He lies back down, burrowing deeper into what was once the warmth of blankets.

He can almost imagine ice on the walls.

A knock comes at his door. Chris pushes himself out of the bed, bare feet pattering across ice-cold wooden floors. He needs to get a new carpet. His old one had been ruined by too much red wine. He steps quickly, as if to avoid the cold, and wrenches open the door to see his mother standing there. Adopted mother, from a long time ago. Catarina Loss stares back at her son, blue skin such a deep shade she almost blends into the darkness he is still not accustomed to. If it wasn't for the flash of her hair turning white, he would almost not see her.

"Carrie's not in her bed," she tells him. Caroline, whom Catarina had adopted thirty-something years ago now, is the lightest sleeper Chris has ever known. Any time he awakens in the night, he can find her sitting at the kitchen table, drinking hot chocolate and hoping that it eases her to sleep. Chris usually grabs the first alcoholic bottle he can find and sits with her until they both grow tired.

That must be why it is so cold.

Some Warlocks are born with special abilities the rest of them do not possess, most likely passed down by the demon parent. Carrie is one of them. Able to control the temperature at will, Carrie creates warmth wherever she walks. It is why the heating being broken was never that big of an issue.

Now, though, Chris longs for the warmth he has come to recognise as hers. The feel of it enveloping him, spreading into the areas he is usually coldest. His feet. The tips of his fingers. Carrie knows him so well.

He wraps his arms around himself as if to conserve the body heat he cannot feel.

"I found this in her room." Catarina holds up a piece of paper, ripped from Carrie's sketchbook, hastily drawn. A red circle, drawn in crayon.

The Circle have returned.

The Circle who killed more Downworlders than anybody in Shadow-world history. The Circle who had been defeated by fellow Shadowhunters. The Circle who were never meant to come back, whose members had faced limited consequences for their actions.

The Circle whose actions plague him even now.

"There are no Circle members in Oxford." Chris follows Catarina out of his room and down the hallway until they reach the living room. She switches on a light and they are flooded with the sudden brightness. He squeezes his eyes shut at the harshness.

"But Jocelyn Fairchild still lives. If Valentine found out somehow–"

"But Valentine is dead."

"Can we be sure of that?"

Christopher stares at his mother and she stares back, clutching the ripped paper in her hand. They had come to Oxford to get away from the Circle, from the destruction and the blood and the guilt.

"Jocelyn took the Cup, didn't she?"

If Valentine is still alive, he will be looking for his ex-wife. For the daughter she took with her. For the Mortal Cup, that she stole from under his nose and that he needs to create more Shadowhunters. More Shadowhunters to kill more Downworlders.

Even the Accords cannot save them from Valentine.

He sinks into the couch, dropping his head to sit in his palms. All those Downworlders dead all those years ago at the hands of a man who had given up principle to revenge. All those friends murdered by Shadowhunters with savagely drawn red circles in their necks. All those memories plaguing him, the guilt that he lived and they died.

Sometimes, he wishes he had died instead.

"I think you should go to New York. That's where Jocelyn is. That's where Magnus is."

Chris nods, unable to look up from the lines of his hands. The stories they tell. The blood that still runs through the crevices, that he cannot wash away. Magnus Bane, the High Warlock of Brooklyn, and one of Catarina's oldest friends. Magnus Bane will know how to help him look for his sister, will have spell books he can look through.

"Where will you go?"

Catarina stares down at the red circle drawn in crayon.

"The Spiral Labyrinth. I'll ask Tessa to help."

The Spiral Labyrinth, location unknown even to Nephilim, the home of all warlock knowledge and research. If Magnus cannot help, there will be something in the Labyrinth that will find Carrie. Something that will bring Chris' sister back to him. He stands and Catarina's eyes drag to him, shockingly white eyebrows raising. The suddenness of the drop in temperature had made her forget all about the glamours hiding her warlock marks from sight.

"I'll send Magnus a fire message. And pack. I am not wearing his clothes."

And his mother laughs and it is enough to know that he can still make her laugh, even when their hands are shaking and they cannot help but wonder what Valentine intends to do with the warlock who can barely say boo to a goose.

Chris wraps his arms around Catarina.

"We'll find her. I promise."

But Christopher Loss has never been very good at keeping his promises.