-Sebastian Lightwood:
The room felt smaller when we returned from our bedroom. Way smaller than it was when we left it earlier.
Too many people. Too much air thick with fear and incense and something metallic I couldn't name. The bed sat at the center like an altar, the head alpha barely moving beneath layers of blankets, his breathing shallow, uneven. His wife stood on one side, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. Healers murmured under their breath, avoiding everyone's eyes in order not to see the disappointment and fear in them.
And then there was him.
The witch stood apart from all of it, as if death itself had decided not to touch him. Tall. Impossibly composed. Dressed in those out-of-time garments that made him look like he'd stepped out of an empire that never existed. The mask hid half his face, but not the curve of his mouth—too sharp, too knowing. Standing there alone in the most arrogant way I've ever seen.
