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Kit had thought that the feeling of grief and loss when his father had died would be the most he would ever experience. He’d thought that it was enough for Ty and Livvy to have brought him out of that darkness, to have given him happiness in a dark time of his life, but no. It was not enough.
It would have been enough, but as everyone kept telling him, Shadowhunters died all the time. That was what it was like to be one of the Nephilim: to be born, to fight, to die. Livvy was young, and she was taken so soon, but she was still one of them, and it was still her purpose to die.
“Just accept it and move on,” they told Kit.
Kit couldn’t. He was breaking, because it was too much, and he never got to even tell Livvy that he loved her-
“This trial,” Livvy started, “is not going to be fun.”
She was pressed up against Kit, Ty on her other side, as they sat in the audience. The other Blackthorns were with them, but Kit didn’t care too much right now. Ty and Livvy were the Blackthorns that he cared about the most, after all.
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be fun,” Ty pointed out. “It’s a trial, after all.”
“I know,” Livvy sighed. “It’s strange, how Annabel’s going to be on trial. She’s related to us, but… it almost doesn’t feel like it. She died hundreds of years ago. She’s a Blackthorn from a different time.”
“I don’t think the Cohort’s going to take that well,” Kit muttered.
Livvy rolled her eyes. “Oh, who cares what the Cohort thinks? They’re horrible, and hopefully, they’ll soon be gone.”
“How-” Kit started to ask, but Livvy cut him off before he could finish.
“I don’t know how the Cohort will end,” she admitted. “But I hope they will. You can understand that feeling, right?”
Kit nodded. “Yes,” he murmured. “I can.”
Annabel had killed Livvy, and she never would have been sent into that rage if it were not for the Cohort.
They killed her, Kit thought, shaky breaths coming in and out as he sat up in his bed one night. They killed her, and now she’ll never come back.
Kit knew he shouldn’t have gotten attached, especially after he had witnessed his father being ripped apart, but something about the Blackthorn twins had drawn him in, the way a faerie revel drew in mortals. It was dangerous, falling for Shadowhunters, but Kit had done it anyway, had started to become one of them, despite hating them for his whole life. It had been wild and exhilarating, and Kit had been in love, but…
All good things fall apart.
I can’t love anyone anymore, Kit decided, but knew he could not live with that decision. There was still Ty. Ty, who had lost his twin.
He was still together with Ty, and they both needed the comfort of each other.
Kit had not known when he first met Ty, pressing a knife against Kit’s throat in his basement, that he’d had a twin. Once Kit was kidnapped - sorry, put under protection - and brought to the Los Angeles Institute, he found out rather quickly.
Ty and Livvy were practically attached at the hip, most of their activities keeping them together. Kit had heard of twins before, had even seen them, but none of the ones he knew were as attached as Ty and Livvy were to each other.
Or many they were, Kit conceded, but Kit just didn’t know them well enough to say so. Yet he knew Ty and Livvy, he saw the way those two loved each other, needed each other, and that was something he loved about them.
“Herondales fall in love quickly,” Jace had told him once during his brief visit, and Kit glared daggers at him until he shrugged. “Hey, I’m talking from experience.”
“You’re the only Herondale you know,” Kit pointed out. “Other than me, and I can’t even be used as an example because I haven’t fallen in love yet.”
“I’ve read,” Jace said, affronted. “I’ve read diaries of old timey Herondales who fell in love too quickly. Will, James, Lucie-”
“Okay, stop,” Kit interrupted. “I don’t want to know the love lives of old timey Herondales, thank you very much.”
Jace grinned at Kit with a familiarity that could not be reciprocated.
But Kit knew that what Jace had said was true. Kit fell in love with the Blackthorn twins way too quickly for comfort. He had wanted to avoid them and all the Nephilim in the Institute, but alas, his efforts were unsuccessful. The two had been determined to make friends (or at least be on friendly terms) with Kit, and finally, Kit had groaned, complained, and given in. He supposed that with them, he wasn’t really that resistant, as much as he pretended he was.
He never told them he loved them, though, not even after they had gotten together. That would be a secret he kept close to his heart.
Ty was still on the bed, sheets piled up on top of his legs, when Kit came in.
“Kit,” he said with relief. He still had his phone in his hand, though Kit did not know why. Ty had not told him his reasons. Kit thought it was to preserve the memories of Livvy, but that look in his eyes…
“What is it, Ty?” Kit asked, sitting down next to him.
“I need to tell you this,” Ty said, and there was a strange note of exhilaration in his voice. “Julian, he had taken pictures of the Black Volume of the Dead- and he didn’t know-”
Ty explained. He had the pictures of the Black Volume on his phone, and…
“Livvy won’t stay dead forever,” Ty finished. “We can bring her back, Kit.”
Kit’s heart - or what remained of it - felt torn in two. One side told him to go along with Ty, to bring Livvy back, because he loved them, he loved them both, but the other side said not to do it. Necromancy… there was something so, so wrong with necromancy. Shouldn’t Malcolm and Annabel have proved that?
But Livvy…
I could tell her that I love her. And I could have her with me forever… It’s too early for her to have left.
“I’ll help you,” Kit whispered, even though the words struggled to come out of his mouth, even though his heart was effectively broken and his hands were trembling on the bedsheets. “I’ll help you bring her back.”
Ty smiled at him, but Kit was too broken to smile back.