#wait i just remembered there's an actual herondale in emma and julian's story YEAH BUT HE DOESN'T GET ENOUGH AIRTIME

[alma-berry]

Timeless Horizons

A sweet little Kitty fic, with a special surprise! This is a collaboration with the amazing @toka-sketch​, who made two beautiful illustrations for this story. 

Here’s a little sneak peek of Dru and Ty! You can see the full illustrations of them and Kit down at the bottom, as they are filled with spoilers!

Enjoy ❤

Dru is hiding.

Yes, it’s practically comical by now. She’d spent far too much time trying to avoid closing herself from her family and be more present, but today… she can’t help herself. The institute is just swamped with people, with preparations, with the shadow of old ghosts. The only ghost she actually wished to see was Livvy, who by all means should have been present for her brother’s engagement party. Instead, she dreads of meeting the more corporal ghosts of her past… plenty of whom was invited.

Hens, the hiding. Dru wasn’t stupid enough to do it inside the institute, where early guests and the battalion of her siblings were probably itching to make her fold napkins or whatever if any of them laid eyes on her. She was hiding outside the sanctuary, running her bare toes over the sandy concrete stairs that lead to a road connecting the highway.

In a mundane scenario, this wouldn’t have been the brightest choice for a hiding spot, but everyone uses portals these days anyway… it’s not like Magnus Bane would make a road trip out of it and drive all the way from New York to Los Angeles. Dru was sure he doesn’t even drive to the grocery store, not that he even needed to when he could just snap his fingers and voila!

Dru sighed in frustration, she would have loved to be able to summon up some Carmel corn right about now… hiding is dull work.

A loud sound of something like crackling grew closer to where she sat.

Dru sprang to her feet, not intending to be caught in a welcoming party of any sort. But when she started to head back into the institute, a single dark figure became visible right in front of her.

It was a man, climbing down off his motorcycle. There was something familiar about the fluid movement of his body that made her stop in her place and stare.

Long, strong thighs wrapped in tight dark gear stretched as they lifted themselves off the massive bike. Dru arched her eyebrows and let her gaze linger over the soft leather of the rider’s jacket with quiet appreciation, and latched onto the strands of fair hair that peaked out of the helmet that still lay on his head.

A ring of recognition went through her, and it wasn’t long before she connected the dots. This was Jace Herondale.

She ran towards him, avoiding the questions that his abrupt appearance brought up - where was Clary? How did he bring his motorcycle from New York? And most importantly, was it the one that could fly?

Before she could call for him, the man lifted his helmet and a curtain of long, golden curls fell on his neck. Dru’s breath caught in her throat as long, elegant fingers pushed back the tangle of hair and made way for two lucid blue eyes.  

This was not Jace Herondale. This, Dru realized with a sharp pang in her chest, was Kit.

“What,” her voice pitched, “the hell are you doing here?”

The shock made her words sharp and shrill. She blushed with sudden guilt, and it was a moment until she remembered she was more than entitled to be upset to see Kit Herondale.

Dru wasn’t supposed to be so surprised to see him. Jem, Tessa, and their cute little peanut, Mina, were already there, but when they said Kit would probably be joining them later, Dru assumed it was just an excuse for Kit to bail on them. Again. She was angry with him, for leaving them, for lying to her. And above all, for leaving Ty.

She cleared her throat and sharpened her gaze on his eye, but the look she found in them silenced her. Kit looked at her like he was afraid she’ll put a blade between his teeth. He also looked like he would have let her. Maybe that look, of a convicted criminal, was what made her soften her expression… and when she did, Kit visibly relaxed, but kept his distance from her all the same.

“I was invited,” Kit said. His voice was husky, hard, but his body was all discomfort. He looked at his boots, his hands twisting down his front like a complicated pretzel.

“I didn’t want to come, I know you probably don’t want to see me,” Dru could feel the acid, eating away the iron of his voice. “But Emma threatened to shave my head while I sleep if I missed this, so… yeah. I didn’t have much choice.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Said Dru.

Kit’s brows rose alarmingly high, his body closing in on itself. Dru knew animals from years of watching her older brother bringing all sorts of creatures inside the institute, so she had seen her fair share of cornered animals. Kit looked like one, so Dru schooled her face into a soft, neutral expression.

“Listen I’m, I’m sorry about-“ He was panting, fighting so hard to get the words out. From his expression, every syllable was a knife to the chest.

Dru silently took back every bad thought she had about Kit. If even after all of this time he reacted like this to the mere sight of her, he couldn’t have been so cold and indifferent like she convinced herself he must be. She hated the times when she caught herself doing the things she criticized most in others, like twisting the truth into an opinion. Like ignoring facts, knowledge, experience, and boxing them into a mold born of hurt.

Searching Kit’s half-shut eyes, Dru let herself remember the boy who lied to her only to keep her brother’s secret safe. The boy who lied only because he had to, not because he wanted to.  

“I’m sorry I ditched you and-“, Kit’s voice was small and his face was a patchwork of pale and blotchy. Dru couldn’t take it anymore.

“It’s okay, Kit. I know why you left, it’s…” Dru swallowed hard. “I understand.”

“You do?” Kit paled. He looked honestly startled before his face settled into a frozen non-reaction.

“Yeah… I know about Livvy, and how it, umm, didn’t work out.”

Kit’s blank expression didn’t change, it was as empty as the desert’s sky. Something pulled up Dru’s stomach. She opened her mouth, but between one blink of an eye to another, Kit’s stone face washed under by a strange reservation, and he mumbled “Yeah, okay. Umm, thank you.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was scanning the institute behind them so intensely she wondered for a minute if someone was approaching, and then she realized - he must be thinking about Ty.

Kit radiated with coiled-up energy, tense and unforgiving. Dru wasn’t sure if he was afraid, expectant, or both.

“He’s not here.” She said in a small, soothing voice.

Kit stayed still, but Dru detected a slight tightness in his jaw. Was he disappointed? It must be confusing for him, being here after so long, in his hometown, in the first place he learned about being a Shadowhunter. He must be completely overwhelmed. She remembered how pained Kit seemed to be when he tried to apologize to her just a minute ago, and it was just her. He probably would’ve had a fit if it was Ty here in her place.

“He’s still at the Scholomance.” She said into the silence. “They have this super-secret, highly sensitive, just for elected few stupid mission.” Dru let out the exasperated mixture of pride and annoyance her brother’s stories usually made her feel, and although Kit has just nodded once, she was sure his lips had twitched upwards a tiny bit.

“So... a motorcycle, huh?” She smiled at him. “Very Herondale of you.”

Kit let out a full-fledged smirk at her comment, and Dru felt a familiar tap on her heart. This was the Kit she remembered, and the feeling made her push a little more. “I knew they called it Grand Theft Auto for a reason. I can’t wait to hear what else you managed to steal from the head of the New York institute.”

Her taunt was a downright success. Kit barked a laugh so genuine, Dru felt thirteen all over again. She would poke him some more if it made him this cheerful. “It’s not considered theft if it was given you freely... just don’t tell that to anyone. I don’t want people to think I lost my touch.”

Dru felt her eyes widen in surprise. “So it is Jace’s motorcycle? I knew it!”

“Yeah…” Kit rocked on his heels and glanced over at his bike lovingly. ”He gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday.”

That is one legendary gift, Dru concluded. She wouldn’t mind a cousin that gifts sexy automobiles, but the thought of Julian approving to let her near a thing like that was less likely than her becoming the youngest consul in Shadowhunters history.

“So... how did you get it here?” Dru asked. “It’s not exactly a short ride from New York or Devon.”

“Magnus,” Kit answered with a shrug. “He portaled us and then just... did that thing he does where he poofs things out of thin air, like chocolate-chip cookies or... tents. Magic is so...”

“Yeah.” Dru sighed in agreement, thinking about that caramel corn.

“So where were you?” They began to trail back towards the institute. She could feel Kit tensing up with every step. She didn’t know if it was just because it brought up memories, or if it was something else. She still debated herself whether to pry into that subject, while she pried into others.

“Umm... I just,” Kit’s fingers roamed through his long curls in a somewhat nervous gesture. “I thought I’d check out my dad’s old place. See if there was anything left.” His sky blue eyes seemed clouded with memories, and from the little she knew or remembered, they weren’t all good. “I didn’t really get a chance last time, after, umm,” Kit cleared his voice. “After he died.”

He sounded stiff, and a bit drained. She almost forgot he was an orphan, like her. Of course, she had Julian, which was an amazing brother-father, and Kit has Jem and Tessa. She didn’t know Johnny Rook at all, but from what she heard, the Carstairs were definitely an improvement.

“And did you find anything?” She asked, carefully.

Kit took a long moment to answer her. They were already at the sanctuary’s doors when he finally answered.

“No. There was nothing left.”

*

Kit’s appearance didn’t make her want to join the herd of party planners all of a sudden, and by the looks of him, Kit wasn’t up to a large reunion yet. So she offered him to go practice in the training room and was pleasantly surprised when he agreed.

Kit wasn’t a regular Shadowhunter, in the way that he didn’t have to endure rigorous training for his entire life the way Dru was. So when she picked up her favorite misericord and gotten into a fighting stance, she felt rather confident that she could give Kit a run for his money, even with all of his bulging muscles and chiseled arms.

She was absolutely, painfully, wrong.

Kit might not have been raised as a Shadowhunter, but whatever it was they were feeding him in Devon, it made him a beast in a fight. Well, maybe not so savage as it sounded, but he whooped her ass in a matter of seconds, flipping her on her back without breaking a sweat.

“Damn it, Herondale.” She gasped. “Aren’t you supposed to be inexperienced? Why are you so good at this?”

Kit’s face lit up like a campfire. “Am I?”

Dru blew out a whine. “Don’t get all modest on me, you’re ruining your brand.”

There was nothing modest in the grin Kit shot her back. He flashed his teeth wide, like a Cheshire cat, and ran up to climb the training room’s pitched roof until he balanced himself lightly on the highest of the rafters. He didn’t pause to look at her and just jumped gracefully, somersaulting in the air like he was a goddamned acrobat.

Right before he straightened up, his black shirt, which had a Deadpool logo, a fact that made her enormously happy, having it being another thing that looked like the Kit she knew, rose up a little and flashed the tip of a black pattern that was inked into his lower back. Dru wondered which rune it was, and who put it on him. It was such a strange location for a rune, not somewhere you can mark yourself. It must have been Jace, but that left the question of which rune Kit needed Jace to mark him with, that he couldn’t do himself?

“Was that sufficiently Herondale?”

She stared at him, completely dumbfounded until she caught herself and shut her gaping mouth. “I’d say so… yeah. You caught in quickly, haven’t you?”

Kit brushed the dust off his gear pants and shrugged.

“Jace. That man is… relentless.” Kit flopped on one of the training mats, making a loud poof when he did. “You know, he almost threw me off a tree once, when I refused to jump? Twisted my ankle three times. He said if I won’t make it, he’d disown me. Still not sure what I was supposed to be disowned off, his rusty collection in the armoire?”

He had a British lilt to his voice. The way he pronounced certain words, round and elongated, was something he didn’t used to do back then. It was charming, Dru thought. He was charming. A bit self-conscious, still, with the way he occasionally tugged down his shirt or bite his lower lip, scrunching it to one side.

Dru always thought that if she ever met Kit again, she’d let him have a piece of her mind. But he was so… Kit. Quiet, sarcastic, familiar. The things about him that felt foreign to her weren’t really foreign, but more of an enhancement of what he used to be. There was something bright about him, almost luminous. He wasn’t particularly happy at the moment, so she couldn’t blame it on his mood. But there was something in his features… they were fine, delicate. He was all muscle, but the way his hair fell on his skin, gold on gold, felt fragile, almost monochromatic.

Kit must have sensed her staring, and his eyes narrowed at her in a silent question.

She put the misericord back on its hanging and placed her hands over her hips.

“So, wanna sneak down to the beach?”

*

The infinite stretch of water in front of her was shining bright like there was a blanket of diamonds spread all across it. The sun was low, and every ray hugged the waves with bright whispers.

They weren’t so sneaky as she hoped. Giving Kit a sideways glance, she hid a smile, remembering how Emma crushed him in a tight embrace.

“You are so big, Kit! I haven’t seen you in a year and you became Godzilla. I do not approve, Jem. He’s not allowed to be stronger than me.”

Kit choked out a bruised laugh. “You don’t have to worry about that, Em. Just… lay off with the hugging, you’ll crack a rib if you won’t let go of me.”

Mina’s answering giggle was more than enough to break the two apart. She reached her arms for Kit and he tugged her to him without a second’s hesitation.

He reminded her of Jules so much, of how he used to hold Tavvy when he was her age, nuzzling his baby hair and murmuring soft words to his ear.

There was something so vulnerable about this Kit, but when he was with his baby sister, she could see how he simply glowed. The love that he felt for that little girl was so evident, so undeniable, it made Dru’s heart play a low, painful beat.

He seemed troubled now, his brows screwed together, as he stared into the sunbathed horizon.

“How is he?”

It was almost a whisper, but Dru heard.

“Alright.” She answered. “Tall. Taller than Julian.”

Kit’s shoulders hunched inwards, and the grip on his arms was so tight, she could see his knuckles whitening.

“But, how is he? With Livvy, and,” he choked on the last word. “With everything.”

Of course he wanted to know about that. She almost forgot he knew at all. Dru was so accustomed to having to keep the slight shifts of Ty’s attention to herself, knowing he must interact with Livvy in a way that was reserved to them alone, even after death.

“He’s okay, she’s… okay.” She said. “Not that I could really say for myself. He doesn’t say much about her. He’s better now, with me.”

Dru loved her brother fiercely. All of her siblings, but Ty… Ty was something else. She didn’t love him more, but she loved him differently. In him, she could sometimes see her Livvy, and wondered whether it’s a twin thing, or was it just her presence, revealed and kept only by him. They were better, now. There were things he only said to Dru, like the story of how they found his Lynx.

“Oh, he has a cat! Well, she’s not really a cat. She’s a Carpathian lynx. Scary as hell, doesn’t like anyone other than Ty.” Dru said with her nose screwed. She liked cats and didn’t appreciate Irene’s snobby attitude, even if she gave her the creeps.

Kit muffled a laugh. “Sounds like Church. That cat gives all other cats bad reputation, devil creature.”

Dru’s hands flew to her mouth. “Church! Awww I miss that furball!”

Kit snorted. “You can have him.”

Dru let herself look at Kit’s eyes. The smirk on his lips didn’t reach them.

“And you? How are you, Kit?”

Kit seemed startled by the question. For a second, the guard he kept up slid off him, and an endless sorrow spilled away from him like ink, staining his face with shadows. It didn’t linger, but it didn’t really keep away.

“I’m okay, Drusilla.” He put a calloused hand on her arm and squeezed. “So are you, it seems. I’m happy to see you again.”

The smile Dru gave him was wide, silently trying to convey that so was she.

She patted his arm and rose to her feet, dusting sand off her black velvet overalls, which were an unfortunate choice for the beach.

“I’ll head up to see if they need some last-minute help. Can’t pull the hostess trick for much longer, I suppose.”

Kit only nodded and fixed his gaze back onto the sinking sun.

*

When Dru was halfway to the institute’s doors, she noticed a tall, dark figure headed her way. Her breath caught in her chest, and she ran towards him, blessing the sand for muffling the sound of her feet.

It wasn’t long until she reached him, her eyes tingling with excitement and apprehension. Ty reached for her shoulder, grabbing hard. He didn’t even look at her, her face set ahead, on the black and gold figure sitting a breath from the water.

“Ty! When did you get here? I thought you weren’t coming, Jules and Em almost called this thing off!” She was jabbering, she knew it, but she wanted to distract Ty so she could wage his mood, see if he could handle Kit’s presence.

“The mission was over,” Ty answered. “I texted Julian a few hours ago. When did he get here?”

Dru stared at her brother until she realized he was talking about Kit.  “Oh! Umm, a few hours ago? We trained together a bit and then we just… hung out here. I was just heading back, do you…” she hesitated, “do you wanna come with me?”

Ty averted his gaze to his left hand, which was when Dru noticed the agitated movement.

“No.” He said. “Did he, umm,” Dru wasn’t used to seeing her brother so hesitant, one of his hands fluttering, one clutching her shoulder in an iron grip. “How is he?”

His tone, his words, the exact mirror to what Kit had asked her moments ago. Ty didn’t try to mask his feelings, Dru guessed he wasn’t aware enough of her presence to try.

So she weighed her words carefully, before answering. “Sad. I think he’s sad.”

Ty’s breath hitched, and for a moment, she thought it was a reaction to her words. But when she looked into his stormy eyes, she saw that he was looking down at the waters again. At Kit.

Dru turned to see Kit has risen to his feet. He was chucking his jacket away, unbuckling his pants. She’d never seen him swim when he was staying with them, but the salty smell of the ocean and the light breeze was intoxicating enough for her to understand the urge to plunge inside the ocean.

Kit reached for the hem of his shirt and started to lift his shirt up. Dru tensed, suddenly remembering the rune she glimpsed back at the training room. She straightened her back, readying her eyes to catch the mark from the large distance. But when Kit’s shirt rose up over his neck and his fair hair slid sideways, she could hear the air escaping her lungs, echoed in the stunned gasp that came from Ty’s direction.

Kit’s entire back was inked with an intricate pattern, looping from the nape of his neck, down his shoulder blades, and all the way to his lower back. A beautiful arrangement of vines, tracing the dips and ridges of his muscled back, the black, thin shapes draping his skin like skeleton feathers. It wasn’t a rune at all, it was a tattoo.

“Thorns.” She whispered, disbelief marking every syllable.

“Blackthorns.”

She turned back to look at her older brother and was startled to find a fierce smile blazing through his lips.

His hand left her shoulder, and he was walking slowly towards Kit, who had already lost his gear pants and was paddling through shallow waters.

Dru just stood there, her thoughts an incoherent tangle inside her head. She watched Ty making his way towards Kit, and found that her heart understood before her mind did. It was unexpected, to say the least, but it also wasn’t.

Memories washed over Dru as she watched Ty closing the distance between them, three years worth of distance, and felt the past washing over her at once. It was the way it was always supposed to be, the two of them together.

With one last glance towards the strange painting of past and future, Dru turned her back to the sunset and headed back home.

[justafangirlwithideas]

Julian's birthday surprise

This is a quick fic i wrote as a collab with the wonderful and talented @blxckthorns . This takes place between Lady Midnight and Lord of Shadows. Hope you enjoy!!

    It was that time of year. The Blackthorn siblings gathered in the library to plan what had to be the biggest surprise ever. Julian’s birthday present! Julian would step out of their and Emma’s way for their present to be prepared and the family would get out of Jules’ way when it was time for their birthdays. It was a sort of family tradition. They tried so hard to do the things they thought Julian would like because he always tried so hard for them, but they could never reach his level present-giving perfection. Every year needed to be better than the last though; it was an unspoken rule among them.  

Not that that would be hard this year because last year because… well, they had agreed never to speak about the unwelcome (demon) guest ever again.

But it definitely wasn’t an easy task. Whenever one Blackthorn came up with an idea, another shot it down. Nothing was good enough. One year they had decided to just vote on what to do, but Dru had protested that when it became clear that worked only in the twins’ favour.

“Alright, stop moping and get to work! This is not how you come up with the perfect present!” Emma barged into the room, back from sending Jules away with whatever excuse she had come up with this time. Probably something obscure like an escaped elephant from the zoo, but Jules understood they needed the time.

This year, there were three new thinkers who followed Emma into the room: Mark, Cristina, and Perfect Diego. Dru immediately straightened at the Centurion’s entrance, and Emma stifled a giggle at the younger girl’s antics.

Shaking her head, Livvy leaned towards Ty and whispered something in his ear, and he quickly stood up to leave the room.

“Livvy what’d you do? We said no more cheating the system,” Emma asked, cracking her knuckles interrogation style.

“Yeah!” Tavvy chimed in, shaking his little fist in the air.

“This year, there will be no cheating, only-”

“I hope we aren’t too late. The invitation did say- Oh no, wait! I wasn’t invited.” The voice sounded bored and hurt at once, a talent the Blackthorns had thought only Emma had.

It was Kit, the devilish grin adorning his face at odds with his words. Behind him Ty shuffled in, a less glamorous, less Herondale, entrance.

“So people, when’s the party starting?”

Cue all the Blackthorns’ exasperated sighs. “Take a seat. Both of you.” Livvy grinned at the two boys as Ty sat down next to her again, and she motioned towards a beanbag for Kit. When he sat a few feat away from the table and the rest of the party planners, she sighed and went over to drag him closer. Kit said nothing, but raised an eyebrow at her feat of strength.

“To answer your question, Kit, right now, we’re thinking of what to make Julian for his birthday.”

“I didn’t ask that. I asked when the party was so I could come back then. Why would I care-”

All of a sudden, Mark stood up, so quickly his chair went flying. “I know! We should bake him a, a- what do you call it?” He looked at Cristina, hoping for her assistance.

“A cake?”

Mark nodded his head. “Yes, that one!”

Emma clapped excitedly, as did Dry, who actually squealed. Cristina just frowned at Mark for a second. “Did they not have cakes in Faerie?”

“In revels sometimes. They probably had them at the Courts. But never for us lowly Hunters.”

Cristina shook her head and reached out a hand towards Mark in sympathy.

“Ahem,” Perfect Diego cleared his throat. Cristina dropped her hand quickly, flushing. “I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but Mark’s idea wouldn’t work. Remember Julian’s reaction last time you used his kitchen?”

Everyone shuddered. They definitely did. Kit perked up as if excited to hear the story.

Emma’s response came quickly though. “Shut up you Debbie Downer. We’ll clean up this time. Julian will love it!!” She threw an arm around Mark, probably trying to make up for the clearly romantic moment between Cristina and Emma’s ‘boyfriend’, though the Blackthorns would never know. “Let’s head down to the kitchen. If YOU don’t want to come, Perfect Diego, you can stay here, and we’ll keep your name out of it. But the rest of us are going.” She left the room before any protests could sound.

Slowly everyone got up - even Perfect Diego, albeit reluctantly - and headed to the kitchen where Emma had gone all out to try and clean proof things. She had taken a whole roll of paper towels and spread them across the counters, just in case things got messy and covered the floor in saran wrap. Livvy whispered something about adding paper towels to the shopping list before Jules noticed they were gone, but even then she joined all the others in looking awed by the effort Emma had put in.

“Okay guys! Who’s ready to bake the most amazing cake in the history of cakes?”

“Maybe we could start with the most amazing cake in the history of cakes in Faerie? You know, seeing as they don’t have any,” Kit suggested, earning a dark look from Emma and Cristina, among others.

“Shut up, Herondale. Okay, down to business. Does anyone know how to bake a cake?”

Apart from a grumbled “I’m a Rook, not a Herondale” it was utterly silent. You could hear crickets chirping in the background, it was so quiet.

Emma gave a shaky laugh. “Okay, it can’t be that hard right? All we should need is sugar, flour, and eggs, right?”

“Right.” The response came from Livvy, who was currently winding her way through the crowd to try to grab the listed ingredients from the refrigerator and cupboards, which were covered in bubble wrap for some reason.

“Emma?”

“Just taking precautions, by the angel! Some people just don’t understand the art of being careful.”

That earned a snort from Dru and a hurried conversation between the twins explaining the saying.

Emma, with Cortana, sliced open the five layers of bubble wrap covering the fridge and with Livvy’s help gathered all the ingredients she had listed (and some substitutes). They had run out of sugar, so it was Mark, Cristina, and Dru’s jobs to find sweet stuff to put in instead. They didn’t have flour, so with Tavvy left in charge of that, a few daisies were added to the mix a few minutes later.

Then came the real struggle.

Eggs.

“So, where’s the chicken?” Mark asked.

Quickly, Cristina reassured him they already had eggs, and pressed the box in his hands. But clearly the trouble wasn’t over. Mark opened the box and peered in confusedly. “I’m sorry but there’s no chicken eggs in Faerie and I’m pretty sure we had a cook before… everything.”

“What are you trying to say Mark?” Emma smiled knowingly.

It was silent for a while. Then Mark raised his eyes from the eggs and met hers, awkwardly. “Help?” Emma smiled and nodded, wrapping her arms around Mark from behind, but only Cristina could tell her heart wasn’t into the romance of it all. As she guided Mark’s hand to the edge of the counter and tried to teach him how to crack open an egg (which she wasn’t so great at herself), Tavvy rushed past, knocking into them. Emma managed to regain footing but as she stumbled she squashed the egg, and it splattered onto Mark’s shirt.

Dru giggled behind them. “I don’t think that’s how you do it.” Another giggle followed, this time from Tavvy.

A bit of whispering sounded, surprisingly coming from Kit, who was either silent or criticising someone in front of everyone. A second later Livvy and Ty came up behind Emma, who was desperately trying to rub egg from Mark’s shirt (and only making it worse), each with an egg in hand.

“Hey, Mark! Want to learn how to do this properly?” With that cue from Kit, the twins smashed the eggs on both Mark and Emma’s backs.

Emma’s eyes flashed dangerously as she reached for another egg. “Herondale. Ty. Livvy. You all are dead to me.” Then she threw the egg, nailing Kit in the stomach.

“Not. Herondale. Rook,” was the last thing Kit gasped before falling to his knees, clutching his stomach a little overdramatically. Looking up through long lashes he pumped his fist in the air. “Attack!”

A silent pause. Then: the kitchen burst into action. Mark and Cristina joined Emma in throwing eggs and they landed intentionally really far off from their targets. One of the eggs hit the light fixture above them, blowing out the lights. Perfect Diego seemed to have lost it, screaming: “No, not the lights!” and “Put those eggs down!” at random moments. Dru and Tavvy joined the twins in chucking the candy they had been in the process of crushing as substitute for sugar at Perfect Diego, Emma, Cristina, and Mark.

Kit still lay in the middle on the floor, seemingly trying to make snow angels in the saran wrap. It looked innocent enough but Emma soon spotted what he was doing.

“By the angel, you really do want us all to die! Stop that! You little instigator!”

She kicked at Kit’s hand which was clawing away at the saran wrap on the floor, so the ground underneath was covered in egg and candy dust.

“You wouldn’t tell me what happened last time you ruined his kitchen, so I’m causing a repeat.”

Just then, the door to the kitchen flew open. All of the Blackthorns froze. It was Julian.

“Happy Birthday?” Emma called weakly from the dark as an egg slipped down the wall and landed on Jules’ head.

Everyone was silent. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…” Tavvy sang. The rest of the family joined in as Julian just glared at all off them, covered in candy and egg yolk.

Some called it Herondale bravery, but those in the room at that moment would have called it Herondale stupidity, that which caused Kit to grab behind him at an egg yolk and fling it in Julian’s hair. Silence lapsed yet again.

“Oh Kit. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You refuse to train, and I’ve had 17 years of target practice. I won’t miss.”

Kit looked him straight in the eye, the colour of night sky meeting the colour of the sea. He flashed that trademark devilish from and said: “I’m not afraid of you. This is a food fight. I went to public schools. This is the kind of fight you can’t win.”

Julian smiled, a smile so hard and cold it could cut glass, as he grabbed crushed sugar from the counter and threw it at Kit.

“Catch!”

And so for the second time in just a few minutes Kit shouted “Attack!” and all hell broke loose.