Heline: Helen and Aline After City of Heavenly Fire

Epilogue

I bang on the hard, cold steel walls of my room. "Helen?!" I shout, frantic for a response. "Helen?! Are you all right?!"

I hear another loud slam from the room across from me, someone crying
out. /Helen/. I pound harder on the steel, desperate to get to her, panicked that she may be hurt. A few more bangs erupt from the room, and then the struggle seems to stop. I hear a painful groan from the room. "Helen?!" I scream. "Are you alright?! Did they hurt you?!"

She coughs, a hacking cough that coils my blood. I hear her take a deep, shaky breath. "I guess so." Her voice breaks.

"Helen," I say, softly, full of concern. "What did they do to you?"

She takes another shaky breath. "It's fine, Aline." She says, trying to be light but I know she's fighting back tears.

"Why?" I breathe.

"Because," Helen says, remorse and anger heavy in her voice. "I'm part faerie. That's all that they see when they look at me. Never mind that I am part Shadowhunter, or that I stayed loyal to them against Sebastion. I am part faerie, and that makes me a potential threat."

I am struck by her words. I've heard them plenty in the past few days, at the court, seen various strangers look towards her with disgust for her faerie blood. But hearing them come from Helen herself... "The narrow-minded bastards... If I have a chance to speak to some of these jerks, I'll knock some sense into them. They're blind..."

Helen chuckles softly. "I know, baby. Thank you."

I smile, my love for her swelling up as it does whenever she's happy. "My pleasure, my love."

We slowly drift off to sleep, backs aligned across the cage that keeps us apart, the Blackthorn family ring around my finger sparkling in the dim light from the door's electronic lock.