My Beautiful One

9. Black as pitch

Large hoods drawn over our heads, Jace and I slunk out of the Institute at exactly midnight.

I had made my decision to join Jace on his sudden quest days before, but we had had to wait a while to make sure suspicions didn't come up. I guess in Jace's mind waking up to find me and Jace gone on the day of the mission he had barred from wasn't so suspicious, somehow.

Oh well. The mind of a Jace works in mysterious ways. I thought as we continued up the street. We passed an alleyway, just one of your typical trashed New York alleyways littered with broken music equipment, and Jace slowed down to look at it wistfully before shaking his head and carrying on. He must have had a memory connected to it, and from his hunched stance I guessed it was to do with Clary.

Clary. Going with Jace had felt like choosing between my two friends, which was hard, but in the end logic had won out. He and I would have a better chance of survival as just the two of us, and if we were to fail, it would only be two people dead instead of seven.

I sighed and pulled my coat closer around me despite the fact that we had just entered the subway. It being midnight, the trains were less crowded that usual, which made the silence that Jace and I had adopted all the more tense. We got off at 81st Street, and before long we stood before the glassy expanse of Turtle Pond.

Finally, it seemed appropriate to use words. "You just have to jump in. I'll go first, then I can allow you entrance as one of the Fair Folk from the other side."

Jace nodded, and I started wading in. What water wasn't covered by ice was freezing, and I gritted my teeth to stop them chattering as I got to the middle.

"See you on the other side." I said, smiling wryly at Jace, who returned a smile that I am sure might have been encouraging if it were not for the Clary-induced sadness evident in his eyes.

I ducked under the water, and for a moment all I could comprehend was how cold it was, but then my thoughts started to spin chaotically; images and memories making concentration impossible. Images of my mother, Valentine, Jace, and Clary all came up, but the most powerful were of Jonathan Morgenstern as I remembered him: the brave little boy with fathomless dark eyes, who in my imagination smiled at me and then rapidly grew up and turned into Valentine.

Get a grip, Amari. I forced my thoughts to clear. The water was a gateway to the faerie kingdom, which meant that you couldn't get through it unless you were faerie or invited by the Court. Confusing thoughts make concentration on getting though the gate much harder, and it must have been sensing my Shadowhunter blood and rebelling against it. I never usually had trouble getting through here, but after so much time with Shadowhunters in the Institute, I supposed it was inevitable.

Let me in! I shouted mentally, directing the thought through the inky water around me. I am one of the Fair Folk: Amari Silverdown, and I demand entrance to-

Suddenly the water cleared and I was looking at a reflection of myself, floating, with my hair drifting around me like pale seaweed. I reached out a hand and touched the reflection, and the moment I did so I was sucked down into the picture and then standing on a cold marble floor, looking up at the rippling mirror that was the bottom of Turtle Pond.

"I, Amari Silverdown, allow Jace Herondale entrance into the Seelie Kingdom." I declared in a clear voice, and as a result, Jace came tumbling out of the ceiling and landed on his feet with catlike grace.

"Would a comment about 'dropping in' make this situation any lighter, by any chance?" Jace asked, raking damp golden hair back from his face.

"I doubt it." I answered shortly. "Come on. My house is only a few streets away, but since the fey are on the Morgenstern side now, you won't want to be seen."