I do not own these characters; they still belong to the tremendous Cassandra Clare.


'Jace, get under the stairs' was the last thing my father ever said to me. He shouted things after that, but never said anything to me. He didn't tell me when to come out from under the stairs, or what to do. It's been a while, and you haven't hear anything, part of me argued. Father told me to stay put, the other side replied, weakly. But, I was getting hungry, and I had been waiting here for almost 24 hours. I think I could come out now. It had been silent for hours.

I crept slowly towards the door and turned the handle. Walking through the door, I almost slipped on…water? I knelt down for a closer look in the faded light of the moon that was streaming in threw the window. It still looked like dark water in the moonlight, so I reached into my pocket and took out my witchlight. As soon as it flared up, I saw what it was and gagged. Then puked. The smell of blood was over whelming. It was covering my shoes and soaking the hem of my pants. I tried to run away, but stumbled, this time hitting the ground. Right in front of me was one of the men I'd seen from the window right before my father had told me to hide. At least, I think it was. I recognized the man, but my mind was in shock. His dead face mesmerized me, as hard as I tried I couldn't tear my gaze away from the lifeless eyes and the tangled limbs. A loud noise startled me, and with a cry, I tripped my eyes from his face. I got up without opening them, but it didn't help; his face was imprinted on the back of my eyelids, everywhere I looked, his broken gaze tormented me. I ran to the front door, hoping to get away from the pool of blood that was now my front hall. I wrenched open the door, and screamed as strong arms embraced me. I tried to run, but they wouldn't let me go. My knife I had in my belt was just out of reach of my pined arms….

'Stop. Kid, stop. STOP!'

A man's voice calmed me down, but only slightly. My screams rose into hysterics, then into wordless gasping. He was still holding me back me fiercely and I hear the other voices of his comrades, as they went slowly into my house.

'What happened here?'

I looked up at him, untangling myself from his grasp. 'Who are you?' My lip trembled.

The man held me out at arm's length, said 'I'm from the Clave', and then walked into my house. The large estate was tucked away beside a hill, almost in the middle of nowhere. I tried to breath in fresh air, but the smell of blood tainted the air. He came back out, and grabbed my shoulder.

'What's your name, son?'

'Jo-Johnathan Wayland. I-is my father okay?' My voice was shaky, and I hated it. 'Michael, my dad, is he okay?'

The man was looking at me carefully, like he was making sure I wasn't the one who had killed that man in there. Like a 9 year old could have done that, even if I had been trained so well, trained to not feel the pain, trained not to care.

'Son, your father is dead.'

The truth hit me like a brick wall. The man, the dead one. He wasn't an attacker, he was the attacked. He was my father? I looked up at the Shadowhunter in confusion, hoping he wouldn't be looking sad enough to prove my thoughts right. But, the older man had tears in his eyes, and his face was looking upset. I swallowed and tried to hold back tears that should have been coming. But nothing came. I didn't care, after all, then? Father had told me, once in anger, I never cared for him, that I didn't care about what he did for me, how much he had given up to be training me to be the best Shadowhunter….I didn't think he was telling the truth. And now, he was gone, just like that. Why didn't I care? His death was like a fly, annoying, but it could be dealt with. I shook my head, and looked back at the man. A look of fear and disgust crossed his face, and then disappeared. I went to open my mouth to ask who I'd be staying with, when I slid down, gasping, against the wall of the house. I slumped forward, and hit my face on the stone steps. I was only conscious for seconds after that.

I woke to the sound of voices, both sounded angry.

'Inquisitor, you can't expect us to take him in too! We already have three children of our own! We don't need or want anymore.'The woman's voice was loud and motherly, like she was use ordering her kids around. The Inquisitor's voice, I guess, by comparison, was rough and commanding. She was the one giving orders, no doubt.

'Maryse. He's Michael's son. Michael Wayland's son. He was Robert's Parabati. You have to do this.' There was no room for compromise in the Inquisitor's voice.

Maryse sighed. She didn't seem to want to do what Inquisitor wanted her to do. 'I can barley care for my own children with the Clave making us diplomats and all; Robert and I will be going to Idiris and staying there more often then we'll be at the Institute. Inquisitor, -'

The Inquisitor cut her off. 'You will do this. Hodge Starckweather will be caring and training your kids, as well as Michael's. This IS happening, so don't try to disagree. '

'Fine.' Maryse spat. 'Any thing else?'

'No, that will be all, thank you.' The Inquisitor spat back, then turned around. She saw I was awake, and nodded.

'Good. Hurry up and get your stuff together. I have some clothes for you, and I washed the clothes you were wearing. You blade is on top.' She nodded again, then promptly left the room, so quickly I didn't even have time to get a good look at her, let alone ask what had just happened. Was I getting….Adopted? I numbly got out of the roughly made bed, a cot with a blanket, and stretched. I felt good, as I always did. My Shadowhunter's sense were working full time right now because I didn't know where I was; they were alert for anything that might try a surprise attack. I walked silently, like Father taught me to, over to my clothes. My kindjal was sitting on top of my generic white shirt and a pair of jeans. Under them seemed to be the clothes that the Inquisitor had gotten for me; another shirt, black this time, for mourning, I suppose and black pants. I put on my white stuff.

After fooling around with my stele for over an hour, the Inquisitor still hadn't come back. I had been drawing words in the air, practicing drawing runes with my right hand; I didn't need to practice with my left as I was perfect at it already. I was getting bored already; there was nothing to do in this room, no books, no interesting things to look at, not even a window. There was, though, a wall covered in mats. I shrugged; if she wasn't coming back anytime soon, might as well train. I started with punches and kicks to the mat, easy stuff I could do in my sleep almost. Next, I picked it up, jumping now and rolling, using other points of my body to stick the wall; elbows, knees, heels. I was sweating by now and took off my shirt as I picked up my kindjal. I used every point on the short sword as possible, too. The hilt, the flat edge of the blade, the guard: Father had told me once there were fifteen ways to maim a man with the weapon I held in my hands with out killing them. He expected me to know them all. I did.

I practiced throwing the knife, as well, I already had a crack shot, but better to know I was perfect then to just think it. I stood as far away from the all as I could, then took aim. It hit the wall square in the center, right where I was aiming. Next, I stood at verying places around the room, hitting the same spot again and again. Sometimes it was off, but Father had said to expect that; 'If you hit it every time when you are training', he told me 'then when you need your throw to be perfect, your skill will fail you'. I even tried with my eyes closed and wasn't too far off my mark. The wall now had hundreds of little nicks in it from my initial punches and what not, with a big hole going all the way through the mat and into the wall from my target practice. I decided to try throwing my stele, knowing I might be in a situation where it was my only weapon. I readied to throw, but froze almost in right before realizing. Some one was in the doorway. I couldn't see them, but I could feel them standing there, I could hear them breathing, smell the leather of their armor. I half turned, and threw the stele into the wall right beside their head instead. It stuck into the wall, flexing a little from the sudden stop, inches from the Inquisitor's face. She hadn't flinched or moved, just stood there, arms crossed, glaring at me. She yanked it out of the wall and stood there looking over it, as if she was looking for something. She handed it back a few seconds later.

'Is everything ready, we're leaving.' She sounded very disinterested, but there was a note to my voice, like she was nervous of me. Good.

I ignored to and put my shirt back on, sliding my stele into the waistband of my jeans. I picked up the other stuff and walked out the door, not saying a word. She watched me leave to room her eyes on me.

'Oh, and Jonathan, if you ever throw anything at me again, you won't know what to do with a stele, let along throw it like that.'