His blood painted dark patterns on Isabelle's golden wedding dress, and all she could think was that she had been right all along. Loving someone brought nothing but pain. She had been right to close her heart to men and boys, right to reduce her romantic activity to short flirts before going to bed with her various boyfriends. No love left no room for broken hearts.

She had been so sure. So sure that Simon, kind, open, trusting Simon would never let her down and give her love away. She had trusted him with her most valuable possession, had put her heart into his hands, certain that he would keep it as carefully as his own.

And he had. Of course he had.

He had clung to her heart with everything he had left, all the strength that remained in his feeble fingers while the blood spurted out of the wound in his chest. Even as he lay there dying Simon refused to let go, refused to let Isabelle take her heart and surround it with the high walls that had always protected it from pain and injury.

But even as she sat there Isabelle knew that no wall she could build, no shield she could raise would be strong enough to keep her heart from shattering once she felt the true impact of the pain she was waiting for.

Nothing could ever diminish the pain of Simon's death.

People crowded around her, and Isabelle screamed for them all to go away, to leave her alone with her pain. If she had to feel it, she wanted to do so properly. Because Simon deserved it.

In his life he had always been outshone and overshadowed, by Clary, by Jace, by everyone, he'd always been the loyal best friend toddling along in the background. Now, in death at least, he deserved to be given full attention, deserved to be mourned with everything she had, as opposed to the suppressed grief and hidden tears that were all she could risk in front of the entire wedding party.

She screamed and screamed until they went away, all of them, all of them but two. Alec had his arms wrapped around her, and though she struggled and scratched and kicked at him he refused to let go. And Magnus was still bending over the body, moving his hands over the place where the knife had pierced Simon's heart.

Isabelle knew it was no use. She felt her husband's death in every fibre of her body. She knew Magnus knew this too, and yet he stayed. He stayed because it hurt him to see Alec in pain, and it hurt Alec to see her in pain. That was love. Pain.

As she watched the two men exchange a long, desperate look, as she watched Magnus get up slowly and put his hand on Alec's shoulder, as she watched her brother nestle his wet cheek to his boyfriend's hand, she let out one long, high-pitched cry and collapsed in Alec's arms.