Ash kicked at a pebble. “I would say that I didn’t understand why,” he said. “I know you know you don’t have real feelings for me. You want to stay and protect me because the Dark Artifices make it so. You have to love me and be loyal to me. But distance makes that feeling fade. I know my mother actually loves me, in her way, because she still missed me when I was gone. But I thought that you—once you started traveling to the human world so often—”

“I didn’t know that,” said Janus, thinking back to Sebastian’s long-ago words about Ash’s power to inspire love. “That distance makes it fade.”

“It does,” Ash said. “So if you want to go now—”

“I don’t,” said Janus, a swell of warmth, like a small tide, lifting his heart. “I never felt any differently about you in the mundane world than I do when you’re right next to me. You’re mine.”

Ash smiled. “Who else’s?”

The Queen’s son and Sebastian’s. Lilith’s blood and Valentine’s and Clary’s. He was well named, Sebastian had said once. He was born to rule over a land turned to ash.

Janus had seen what Sebastian had done to a world. Time to see what Ash did to this one. When Janus’s plans were complete—when the world became chaos and death—Janus and Ash could both belong.

This was a second chance. When the darkness came, Janus could protect Clary. He could keep his family safe. Everybody he loved, starting with Ash.

“If I teach you to be a Shadowhunter, if I teach you to bear runes, it will hurt.”

“That’s okay,” Ash replied. “The old Unseelie King hurt me. My father hurt me. I’m used to it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” murmured Janus.

“I know,” said Ash. “That’s why it’s okay.”

Valentine had taught Janus through discipline that sometimes seemed harsh, and it had been right to teach Janus that way, but Ash was different. He was strong and smart and quick, and he would learn fast. Janus would never have to kill Ash or stand by and watch him be killed. Sebastian was dead, and Janus still breathed. Sebastian was dead, and Janus and Ash were free.

Ash hesitated. “What did you see out there? In the mundane world?”

His voice was fascinated and almost yearning. Ash had been a captive most of his life, a winged thing in a golden cage. Even now he could not go far from their home. There were too many dangers for the son of the Queen, and Ash had such a bright future ahead of him: so bright it was like the sun, impossible to contemplate. Janus shouldn’t have left Ash alone, but he’d make it up to him.